English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For January 18/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus Chooses 4 of his Disciples, Peter & Andrew his brother, & James Son Of Zebedee & His Bother, John
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 04/18-25: “As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him. Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all the sick, those who were afflicted with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cured them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee, the Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and from beyond the Jordan.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 17-18/2023
Lebanon Will Name New Prosecutor in Salameh Case Soon, Judge Says
Relatives of Beirut blast victims become targets as probe hits roadblock
Presidential void may last till 2024; Berri still betting on consensus
Bassil warns cabinet session to 'undermine balances, understandings'
Jumblat opposes govt. spending on 'corrupt' power sector
Jumblat says 'not the right time' for 'reconsidering state structure'
French inquiry into Beirut port blast begins as Lebanon grapples with economic, political crises
Patriarch Rahi receives Wronecka, MP Khalaf
Berri broaches situation with Bou Habib, meets GLC Head and Free Professions Syndicates’ delegation, calls for presidential election session on...
Seagulls at Beirut airport a symptom of Lebanon's crisis
S. Nasrallah to US Allies in Lebanon: We’re Masters in the Eyes of Supreme Leader, You?

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 17-18/2023
UK Vows More Action Against Iran after Execution
EU's Von der Leyen Backs Listing Iran’s Guards as Terrorist Group
Iran Arrests German for Allegedly Taking Oilfield Photos
UK Vows More Action Against Iran after Execution
UN Security Council to discuss situation in Palestine
Israeli prime minister confirms citizen captured by Hamas in Gaza is alive
Israel deports Italian activist arrested in West Bank raid
Jordan protests to Israel after envoy blocked from holy site
Palestinian attacker 'neutralized' by Israeli soldiers, army says
Davos 2023: Saudi FM says Riyadh trying to find path to dialogue with Iran
Iran's 'death committee' president unyielding in defence of clerical rule
Intel Reveals Putin’s First Order for a Big War Rebound This Year
Japan to roll out plans to back Ukraine at 'appropriate time', U.S. official says
Russia presses Azerbaijan to unblock road into enclave, Baku unmoved
Dutch Premier Pledges to Send Patriot Defense System to Ukraine
State media reports Russia has built its first batch of Poseidon doomsday torpedoes, one of Putin's 'super weapons'
Poseidon torpedoes are considered to be one of Russia's six experimental "super weapons."
Yemen rebels, Saudis in back-channel talks to maintain truce

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 17-18/2023
The Iranian People Are Victims of Misappropriated Political Weaponry/Daoud Al-Farhan/Asharq Al Awsat/January 17/2023
The Cases for and Against Trump/Kellyanne Conway//The New York Times/January,17/2023
The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession/Daniel Bessner/The New York Times/January,17/2023
Why Israelis Voted for Right-Wing Parties/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/January 17, 2023
Turkey Closing Second-Largest Opposition Party?/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/January 17, 2023

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 17-18/2023
Lebanon Will Name New Prosecutor in Salameh Case Soon, Judge Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Lebanon will soon appoint a new prosecutor in a stalled corruption probe into the central bank governor, a move that could delay responses to cooperation requests by European investigators conducting their own inquiry, a senior judge said. Ghassan Oueidat, Lebanon's top prosecutor, told Reuters on Tuesday the new prosecutor would be named "in the coming days" and would be tasked with filing charges against governor Riad Salameh before referring the case to an investigative judge. Confirming comments he made to Asharq Al-Awsat, Oueidat said the judge could then request a delay in responding to judicial cooperation requests by European judges pending the Lebanese judge's own investigations. Salameh faces investigations in Lebanon and at least five other countries for alleged embezzlement and money laundering of more than $300 million at the central bank by him and his brother Raja. Both Salameh and his brother have denied any wrongdoing. Lawyer Nizar Saghieh of watchdog NGO Legal Agenda said the presence of French, German and Luxembourg investigators in Beirut this week could have piled pressure on the Lebanese judiciary to demonstrate progress. The European investigators are questioning commercial bankers, central bank employees and others to move forward a cross-border corruption probe into Salameh. Salameh, central bank governor since 1993, still enjoys backing from powerful Lebanese leaders. Many judges largely owe their appointments to politicians. In November, Lebanon's most senior judge said political meddling in judicial work had led to a chaotic situation that required a "revolution in approaches" to resolve. Several senior judges have resigned over the past year citing living conditions and demoralization over the obstruction of high-profile cases, including the probe into the August 2020 Beirut port blast that left more than 215 people dead. A Lebanese judge concluded an 18-month preliminary probe into Salameh last summer but the investigation stalled when the prosecutor recused himself and was later removed from the case following a complaint from Salameh.

Relatives of Beirut blast victims become targets as probe hits roadblock
The Arab Weekly/January 17/2023
Relatives of those killed in the 2020 Beirut port blast say they themselves have become targets of the judiciary, instead of senior officials who have still not been held to account for the huge explosion that devastated Lebanon’s capital and killed 220 people. A dozen people were summoned for questioning on Monday after protests last week at the justice palace, where relatives often gather to demand accountability. Friday’s detention of an activist drew condemnation from the head of the Maronite church. But hopes for justice are fast fading. A political elite that has dominated Lebanon’s fractured sectarian system for decades has paralysed the work of an investigating judge who tried and failed to question top officials. Only minor functionaries have so far been brought in by the authorities. “It’s absurd and disgusting that we’re the ones being brought in for questioning,” said William Noun, who was detained overnight on Friday after a protest last week seeking justice for his brother who was killed in the August 4, 2020 blast. “There’s a deliberate attempt to drain the families,” said Noun, a prominent figure in the campaign, who was also among those called for questioning on Monday on what he said were accusations of rioting at the justice palace.
Maronite cleric’s rebuke
Noun’s detention drew crowds to the police station until his release on Saturday and prompted a stern rebuke from Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai, Lebanon’s most senior Christian cleric. “Aren’t they ashamed of themselves after they requested the arrest of William Noun, the search of his house and his imprisonment, not caring for his tragedies and the tragedies of his family?” Rai said, calling the judiciary “a tool for vengeance, malice and hatred.”A judicial source said Noun was detained over “threats to the judiciary.” In last week’s protests, a witness said rocks were thrown at the justice palace and windows were broken. Lebanese media broadcast footage of Noun at the protest saying protesters had prepared “men, rioters, dynamite and rocks” if the judiciary appointed an additional investigator to the probe, a move families fear was designed to hobble it further.
‘Not afraid’
With investigating Judge Tarek Bitar hamstrung, judicial sources say the additional judge would have the power to release detainees, which could include the port’s former customs chief, one of the functionaries detained. Families say politically-affiliated detainees could also be released and those behind the blast would continue to roam free. “They think we will forget, or we’ll get bored, or they’ll pressure us so much that we will get scared and drop it,” said Mariana Fadoulian, whose sister was killed in the blast and who joined the protest demanding Noun be released. “We’re not afraid of anything. We’re asking for our rights, and the rights of all Lebanese,” she said.For many Lebanese, the failure of the probe into the blast reflects impunity of the elite that has overseen decades of corrupt rule that led to financial collapse in 2019 and the worst crisis since a 1975-1990 civil war. The explosion was caused by hundreds of tonnes of chemicals kept in poor conditions for years at the port.
Bitar, the probe’s second investigating judge after the first was removed, sought to interrogate top figures in the Shia Amal Movement, an ally of the Iran-backed and heavily-armed Hezbollah movement. He had also sought to question the then Sunni prime minister.
But senior officials who were called resisted being questioned, saying they had immunity or said Bitar lacked authority to prosecute them. They denied any wrongdoing. The probe has been paralysed since judges in a court that must rule on complaints against Bitar retired. The issue is unresolved. A Hezbollah official told Bitar the group would remove him from the probe, sources said, while Hezbollah’s leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said Bitar was biased and should be replaced. The court of cassation removed Bitar’s predecessor, Judge Fadi Sawan, in 2021 following high-level political pressure. Two former ministers he charged, Ali Hassan Khalil and Ghazi Zeaiter of Amal, had demanded he be removed from the case.

Presidential void may last till 2024; Berri still betting on consensus
Naharnet/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
The ongoing presidential vacuum might last for more than a year due to the political deadlock, a senior official told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Tuesday. Credible sources meanwhile told the daily that Speaker Nabih Berri has not given up on consensus despite the complications. “Although he will not launch any initiative at the moment, he has not surrendered to the stalemate, seeing as the efforts are ongoing and the contacts have not stopped,” the sources said.
“The parliament speaker is keeping the door open to the launch of a serious drive in this regard at any given moment,” the sources added.

Bassil warns cabinet session to 'undermine balances, understandings'
Naharnet/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Tuesday warned that a caretaker cabinet session scheduled for Wednesday will “violate the constitution and the Pact,” deepen the national rift and undermine balances and understandings.”He added, in a video posted online, that a “constitutional” solution for passing decrees needed to purchase fuel for electricity would be through so-called “roaming decrees” signed by all ministers. The electricity file will top the agenda of Wednesday’s session and Hezbollah has voiced readiness to attend a session exclusively dedicated to electricity. The FPM had boycotted a December 5 session and has repeatedly warned against convening the caretaker cabinet amid an ongoing presidential vacuum. Mikati, Hezbollah and the other government components have meanwhile argued that some cabinet sessions are necessary to address urgent matters.

Jumblat opposes govt. spending on 'corrupt' power sector
Naharnet/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat is in favor of a caretaker cabinet session that would tackle vital matters like education instead of electricity. Jumblat considered, in remarks published Tuesday in al-Joumhouria newspaper, that the electricity problem is hard to be solved, urging for reforming the sector before spending on it. "It is better to spend money on promoting education instead of paying fines to fake companies and brokers in the electricity sector," the PSP leader said, as he opposed a request from the caretaker energy minister for a treasury advance to cover the price of fuel imports and generate more hours of electricity per day. Jumblat said that there is corruption, squandering and an attempt to avoid making the required reforms in the sector. Cabinet will convene on Wednesday to discuss the electricity file, as four ships loaded with gas oil and fuel oil are stuck in Beirut’s port, subjecting Lebanon to daily penalties. Public school teachers are also on strike, demanding an adjustment of their LBP salaries as the Lebanese pound has lost more than 95% of its value.

Jumblat says 'not the right time' for 'reconsidering state structure'
Naharnet/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat criticized Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea's call for reconsidering the state's structure. "What does he mean by reconsidering the Lebanese structure," Jumblat asked, in remarks published Tuesday in al-Joumhouria newspaper. "Is this the right time to discuss modifying the structure," he added, stressing that "the country is collapsing."Geagea had said that the entire Lebanese structure must be reevaluated, should Hezbollah manage to secure the election of a president in the way it wants. "We must complete the implementation of the Taif Agreement first before Geagea or anyone else calls for something like this," Jumblat said.

French inquiry into Beirut port blast begins as Lebanon grapples with economic, political crises
Najia Houssari/Arab News/January 17, 2023
The French authorities had requested legal assistance from the Lebanese judiciary, but this has not yet been forthcoming
BEIRUT: Lebanese people took to the streets on Tuesday to protest against the deteriorating economic and social conditions in different regions of the country. The protests coincided with the presence of European judges in the Justice Palace in Beirut investigating the central bank and Riad Salameh, its governor, over alleged corruption, money laundering, tax evasion, and use of forged documents. A French judicial delegation is also in Lebanon to investigate the Beirut port explosion. The delegation met on Tuesday with Judge Ghassan Oueidat, Lebanon’s prosecutor general, in the presence of Judge Sabouh Sleiman, the assistant prosecutor general. The French authorities had requested legal assistance from the Lebanese judiciary, but this has not yet been forthcoming.
Arab News has learned that the French investigators will meet with Judge Tarek Bitar. Two French nationals — Jean-Marc Bonfils and Therese Khoury — died in the port explosion in 2020 which claimed more than 200 deaths. Meanwhile, hundreds of employees at the Ministry of Communications and the state-run internet provider Ogero have gone on strike, demanding salaries that have gone unpaid for three months. Escalatory measures have been threatened as the Ministry of Finance has struggled with payments.
Ibrahim Al-Nahhal, a member of the governing body of the Public Administration Employees Association, said: “There’s no job without a salary. We understand the inability of the employees of the Finance Ministry to attend the ministry regularly and finalize the paperwork, but some of our colleagues haven’t received their salaries yet. This requires a solution.”Bassel Al-Ayoubi, general director at the Ministry of Telecommunications, said: “Coordination is taking place with the Ministry of Finance to pay an allowance for two months of social assistance during the next two days.”Drivers of taxis and tuk-tuks also carried out protests, during which they blocked main roads, especially in the Akkar region in northern Lebanon, due to the high exchange rate of the dollar on the black market, and the rise in fuel prices.
Many car dealers and showroom owners blocked the highway that leads to the Port of Beirut, in protest at the failure to amend customs fees. An amendment of customs fees requires the signature of the Cabinet, which has not been able to meet as ministers from the Free Patriotic Movement refuse to attend. It believes the government “has no legitimacy and is a caretaker government.”
Walid Francis, head of the Syndicate of Owners of Used Car Showrooms, said: “There is political distress regarding our economic demand.”
Elie Al-Qazi, the head of the Syndicate of Used Car Importers, criticized the “unconsidered decisions and the lack of responsibility for anyone.”He added: “It is not permissible to destroy our sector.”
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati will hold a meeting of his Cabinet on Wednesday to approve a request for a financial advance from the Ministry of Energy to purchase fuel and gas to operate energy production plants. Energy Minister Walid Fayyad will not attend the session.

Patriarch Rahi receives Wronecka, MP Khalaf
NNA/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023 
Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rahi met in Bkerki on Tuesday with the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Joanna Wronecka, over the latest developments on the local scene. He later received MP Melhem Khalaf with whom he discussed an array of local affairs, including the latest judicial developments and the presidential vacuum.

Berri broaches situation with Bou Habib, meets GLC Head and Free Professions Syndicates’ delegation, calls for presidential election session on...
NNA/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Tuesday welcomed at the Second Presidency in Ain-el-Tineh, Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Abdallah Bou Habib, with whom he discussed the current general situation and the latest political developments.
Speaker Berri later met with Grand Jaafari Mufti, Sheikh Ahmad Kabalan. This afternoon, Berri received President of the General Labor Confederation (GLC), Beshara Al-Asmar, on top of a delegation representing the Free Profession Syndicates, that included Head of private schools' teachers syndicate, Nehme Mahfoud, Pharmacists' Syndicate Head, Joe Salloum, and Dean of the Association of Certified Public Accountants in Lebanon, Afif Sharara. Discussions reportedly touched on the recommendations of the conference held by the Free Professions’ Syndicates in Lebanon, as well as on trade union affairs and demands. On the other hand, Berri called for a presidential election session on Thursday, January 19, 2023 at 11 a.m. Berri also received a cable of condolence from Head of the "National State Forces Alliance" in Iraq, Ammar al-Hakim, on the passing of former Parliament Speaker, Hussein al-Husseini.

Seagulls at Beirut airport a symptom of Lebanon's crisis
Jamie Prentis/January 17/2023
Birds attracted to rotting waste at nearby landfill site pose a safety threat to aircraft
A long-running saga involving seagulls, Beirut International Airport and Middle East Airlines (MEA) has threatened to rear its head again in Lebanon. The country’s only international airport sits near the Costa Brava landfill site — described by one observer as an "open dump", a symptom of its repeated waste crises. The rotting waste has been blamed for attracting a host of scavenging seagulls, which pose a danger to aircraft landing and taking off at Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport. In 2017, after an incoming plane had a near miss with a large flock of the birds, Lebanon's national airline came up with a radical plan to cull them. Then-transport minister Youssef Fenianos had warned of an “emergency … posed to civil aviation movement by the birds”.Current MEA chairman Mohamad El Hout is now repeating threats of a cull. This month, in an interview with local channel Al Jadeed, he demanded action, urging the Interior Ministry and security forces to intervene “or permit the MEA to bring in hunters”.But to do so would be an "international environmental crime", said Paul Abi Rached, president of the Lebanon Eco Movement. “We can find many other ways to push them away from the airport … you should use all the ways you have but you cannot kill them," he told The National. In 2017, MEA contracted 125 hunters who killed more than 10,000 seagulls. Mr El Hout defended the move at the time, arguing that passenger safety must be the priority. But it has not turned out to be a long-term solution. Rights groups have for years been warning that Lebanon's repeated short-term measures to remedy its waste management system were simply a stopgap that failed to tackle the heart of the issue. Costa Brava was opened in 2016 supposedly as a temporary site to provide an interim solution after the closure of the main landfill receiving waste from Beirut. Mr Abi Rached said it was a “government mistake” to choose this location. “The landfill is the problem, not the seagulls," he said. He pointed out that the birds' annual winter migration from Europe to Lebanon was part of their natural life cycle. Environment Minister Nasser Yassin, who did not respond to requests for comment, recently said his ministry had proposed noise machines at the airport to scare off the seagulls — but had not received a response from the interior department. Environmental groups have pointed out that Lebanon is a signatory to international treaties that protect birds such as seagulls, and they are say the focus should be on what attracts the seagulls — the Lebanese rubbish crisis and the Costa Brava landfill site. “The right solution would be to eradicate the causes attracting the birds and the closure of the Costa Brava landfill,” the Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon said in 2017. Some unfortunate events have taken place at Beirut’s airport, including celebratory gunfire in nearby areas on December 31 hitting two stationary aircraft. Lebanon is embroiled in a political crisis, with no president since the end of October and a caretaker government severely stripped of power.

S. Nasrallah to US Allies in Lebanon: We’re Masters in the Eyes of Supreme Leader, You?
Marwa Haidar/Al-Manar English Website/January 17, 2023
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah said on Tuesday that Tehran’s fuel offer to Beirut is still existing, stressing that the United States is preventing Lebanese Government from accepting the Iranian grant. Addressing the Qassem Suleimani International Award ceremony which was held in Beirut, Sayyed Nasrallah called on US allies in Lebanon to obtain sanctions waiver from the US Embassy in Beirut. “I’ve said it before: We (Hezbollah) are regarded as masters by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution in Iran Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei, but you? Go and utilize from your friendship and alliance with the US and obtain a sanctions waiver from the US Embassy in Beirut.”Sayyed Nasrallah appearing via a screen at the Qassem Suleimani International Award ceremony in Beirut.
Martyr Qassem Suleimani
Sayyed Nasrallah started the speech by pointing to the great status martyrs have earned throughout history. “Nations have honored martyrs throughout history, especially in Islam,” Sayyed Nasrallah addressed the attendees of the Qassem Suleimani International Award ceremony via video link. “Martyrs have secured all achievements of Axis of Resistance in Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Yemen,” his eminence said. Affirming that the martyred commanders had a special status among martyrs, Sayyed Nasrallah pointed to General Qassem Suleimani as “the transnational martyr who knew no boundaries between the countries of the Axis of Resistance.”
“Martyr Suleimani scares enemies more than General Suleimani has did as the martyrdom of this great leader has been inspiring for the people of the region.”In this context, Sayyed Nasrallah underlined importance of commemorating martyrdom anniversary and remembering of martyr Suleimani along with all other martyrs.
Lebanon Power Vacuum, Electricity Crisis
Tackling the Lebanese local affairs, Sayyed Nasrallah warned against sectarian incitement regarding the presidential vacuum in the country.
“We understand pressure by some religious figures in a bid to elect new president but we have to avoid sectarian incitement.”
His eminence then stressed that “no political bloc in Lebanon is deliberately extending the vacuum in the first Maronite post in the Lebanese State,” referring to the presidential post which is run by a Maronite figure.
On the electricity crisis, the Hezbollah S.G. said all fields in Lebanon have been badly affected by power outage in the country.
Sayyed Nasrallah noted that Hezbollah was requested to talk with Iranian officials in a bid to offer fuel to Lebanon, saying that Tehran, led by Imam Khamenei, approved the offer to Lebanon months ago and that the issue is waiting for the official approval by Beirut.
“Iran’s fuel offer is still existing, but the US has been preventing Lebanon from accepting it.”In this context, Sayyed Nasrallah called on the US allies in Lebanon to utilize from their friendship with Washington and obtain sanctions waiver like the one obtained by Iraq.
“Go and utilize from your alliance with the US. As I said before: We are masters in the eyes of the Supreme Leader. We obtained the Iranian approval, what about you?”Elsewhere in his speech, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that Thursday’s ministerial session is a must in a bid to meet urgent demands of the Lebanese people, especially the electricity issue. “Hezbollah’s decision to attend Thursday’s governmental session is not defying any political side in Lebanon.”His eminence affirmed, meanwhile, that Hezbollah “is keen to respect Lebanese constitution and partnership with all political powers.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 17-18/2023
UK Vows More Action Against Iran after Execution
Asharq A-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Britain on Monday vowed more reprisals against what it said was Tehran's "weakened and isolated regime" after it executed a UK-Iranian dual national. Following the killing of Alireza Akbari on Saturday, the UK summoned Iran's most senior diplomat and recalled its own ambassador. But despite slapping sanctions on Iran's prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri it stopped short of opposition demands to ban the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Faced with more such demands in parliament, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he could not comment on future proscriptions. He however said: "We do not limit ourselves to the steps that I have already announced." Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman told reporters: "We are reviewing further action with our international partners." British MPs voted last week in favor of adding the IRGC to a list of banned terrorist organizations in the UK. But the government is wrestling with the fate of other dual nationals held by the Iranian regime, and with the strategic aim of restoring an international nuclear pact with Iran. Cleverly was outspoken in denouncing Iran's leadership after Akbari, 61, was hanged allegedly for spying on Britain's behalf, AFP reported. He told MPs that "we are witnessing the vengeful actions of a weakened and isolated regime, obsessed with suppressing its own people, debilitated by its own fear of losing power and wrecking its international reputation.""Our message to that regime is clear: the world is watching you and you will be held to account, particularly by the brave Iranian people, so many of whom you are oppressing and killing."British MP James Slaughter said he had "extensive contact for the past few difficult days" with Akbari's family. "Earlier today I spoke to Mr. Akbari's daughter in the UK, and she asked me to raise a further distressing matter with the Foreign Secretary. The regime refuses to release Mr. Akbari's body or to allow burial in the place chosen by him, and have made threats to destroy his body unless the family co-operates with their instructions," he said. Cleverly replied to Slaughter, saying: "The points that he just raised, I am sure, fill us all with revulsion. "We will continue to support the family whatever way we can, and he is absolutely right to call upon the regime to treat Mr. Akbari in death with the deference and respect that is legitimate."

EU's Von der Leyen Backs Listing Iran’s Guards as Terrorist Group
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday she backed listing Iran's Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) as a terrorist organization to respond to the "trampling" of "fundamental human rights" in the country. Ties between the EU member states and Tehran have deteriorated in recent months as efforts to revive nuclear talks have stalled. Tehran has detained several European nationals and the bloc has become increasingly critical of a continuing violent crackdown on protesters, including executions. "The reaction of Iran regime is atrocious and horrible and they are trampling over fundamental human rights," she told reporters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss ski resort of Davos. The European Union is discussing a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran over the crackdown and Iran's supply of weapons to Russia. Diplomatic sources have said members of the IRGC will be added to the sanctions list next week. But some member states have called for the bloc to go further and classify the IRGC as a terrorist organization. Britain is expected to make the decision in the coming weeks. "We are looking indeed at a new round of sanctions and I would support also listing the Revolutionary Guards. I have heard several ministers asking for that and I think they are right," Von der Leyen said. Widespread anti-government demonstrations erupted in Iran in September after the death of young Kurdish Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by morality police for allegedly flouting the strict dress code imposed on women. Iranian leaders vowed tough action against protesters they have described as rioters, accusing enemies including the United States of fomenting the unrest. Designating the IRGC as a terrorist group would mean that it would become a criminal offence to belong to the group, attend its meetings, and carry its logo in public. Set up after Iran’s 1979 revolution to protect the clerical ruling system, the Guards have great sway in Iran, controlling swathes of the economy and armed forces and put in charge of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs. Speaking in an interview with Reuters, Finland's Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto said the "appalling" capital punishment, stalling of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) and supply of drones and weapons from Iran to Russia needed a firm reaction. "All these components: human rights, delivering arms to Russia and blocking the final agreement on JCPOA have been negative factors and I think the EU is more and more reacting. It's important we react strongly," he said, adding that there was still debate among EU members on sanctions and the listing of the IRGC. Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, cautioned that the IRGC was already listed on the tougher human rights sanctions regime, but that the debate was open among EU states. "It's a tougher regime. I understand the word terror raises a lot of emotions but from a legal point of view the other sanctions regime which has entities and individuals being sanctioned is tougher," he told Reuters in an interview.

Iran Arrests German for Allegedly Taking Oilfield Photos
Asharq A-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Iran has detained a German national for taking photos of "sensitive oil centers" in the country's southern province of Khuzestan, Iranian daily Jam-e Jam reported on Tuesday. "The German national was detained while taking photos of Aghajari oilfield in Khuzestan province," the report said, without elaborating. Iran has been at odds with Western powers including Germany over what it calls their interference in its internal matters during months of anti-government protests sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman in September.

UK Vows More Action Against Iran after Execution
Asharq A-Awsat/Tuesday, 17 January, 2023
Britain on Monday vowed more reprisals against what it said was Tehran's "weakened and isolated regime" after it executed a UK-Iranian dual national. Following the killing of Alireza Akbari on Saturday, the UK summoned Iran's most senior diplomat and recalled its own ambassador. But despite slapping sanctions on Iran's prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri it stopped short of opposition demands to ban the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Faced with more such demands in parliament, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said he could not comment on future proscriptions.
He however said: "We do not limit ourselves to the steps that I have already announced." Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's spokesman told reporters: "We are reviewing further action with our international partners." British MPs voted last week in favor of adding the IRGC to a list of banned terrorist organizations in the UK. But the government is wrestling with the fate of other dual nationals held by the Iranian regime, and with the strategic aim of restoring an international nuclear pact with Iran. Cleverly was outspoken in denouncing Iran's leadership after Akbari, 61, was hanged allegedly for spying on Britain's behalf, AFP reported. He told MPs that "we are witnessing the vengeful actions of a weakened and isolated regime, obsessed with suppressing its own people, debilitated by its own fear of losing power and wrecking its international reputation.""Our message to that regime is clear: the world is watching you and you will be held to account, particularly by the brave Iranian people, so many of whom you are oppressing and killing."British MP James Slaughter said he had "extensive contact for the past few difficult days" with Akbari's family. "Earlier today I spoke to Mr. Akbari's daughter in the UK, and she asked me to raise a further distressing matter with the Foreign Secretary. The regime refuses to release Mr. Akbari's body or to allow burial in the place chosen by him, and have made threats to destroy his body unless the family co-operates with their instructions," he said. Cleverly replied to Slaughter, saying: "The points that he just raised, I am sure, fill us all with revulsion. "We will continue to support the family whatever way we can, and he is absolutely right to call upon the regime to treat Mr. Akbari in death with the deference and respect that is legitimate."

UN Security Council to discuss situation in Palestine
Arab News/January 18, 2023
RIYADH: Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s permanent observer to the UN, has announced the Security Council will hold an open discussion on Wednesday to review the situation in the Middle East and particularly in Palestine, the Saudi Press Agency has reported. Mansour has stressed the importance of maintaining international pressure on Israel to end its illegal actions against Palestinians. More than 90 countries expressed their “deep concern” on Monday regarding Israel’s punitive measures, following a UN request for an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice.

Israeli prime minister confirms citizen captured by Hamas in Gaza is alive
JERUSALEM (Reuters)Tue, January 17, 2023
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Tuesday that an Israeli citizen held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip was alive, a day after the Palestinian Islamist militant group released a video showing the man appealing for help. On Monday Hamas released footage showing Avera Mengistu, an Israeli said by his family to be suffering from mental health problems and who has been held by Hamas since he crossed into Gaza in 2014. "Yesterday we received confirmation of what we knew this whole time, that Avera is alive," Netanyahu said on Tuesday. "This is a young man, not in good health and the responsibility of his fate lies entirely on Hamas."The video, showing Mengistu seated in front of a blank wall and appealing to Israel for help, was the first image shown of him since his capture but there was no immediate official confirmation from Israel that the footage was genuine. However his brother Ilan said the family believed it was. "My mother is on the verge of tears. She hasn't stopped watching the video," he told Reuters on Monday. "Her hope, her great happiness will be seeing him home safe and sound."

Israel deports Italian activist arrested in West Bank raid
ISABEL DEBRE/JERUSALEM (AP)/January 17, 2023
Israel deported an Italian activist to Italy after security forces detained her during a raid in the occupied West Bank, Israeli authorities said Tuesday, accusing her of having links to a Palestinian militant group. The Israeli military arrested Stefania Costantin during a pre-dawn incursion Monday into the the Dheisha refugee camp in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem. Footage shared on social media shows an Israeli soldier picking up Costantini and flipping her over his shoulders as she shrieks. A group of soldiers drag her out of the camp and shove her into a military vehicle, videos show. Israeli forces fatally shot a 14-year-old boy in the head during the same raid as they opened fire on Palestinians throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails. Italian media described Costantini as an advocate for Palestinian rights. Israel's Shin Bet security service said Costantini was arrested on suspicion of belonging to, and transferring funds to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. The militant group, known as the PFLP, was involved in hijacking passenger planes in the 1960s and 1970s and later claimed responsibility for suicide attacks during the Second Intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the early 2000s. It is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. The Shin Bet said Costantini arrived in Israel on May 2 last year on a tourist visa and was summoned for interrogation last September about her alleged involvement with the PFLP. Costantini did not report to authorities “and even continued her activities" for the militant group, the security agency said. Israel deported her on Monday afternoon, the Interior Ministry said. The COBAS leftist labor union in Pisa, Italy, to which Costantini belongs, expressed “consternation” at the news of her arrest and deportation. The union said it was concerned for Costantini's “health and safety.”The group described Costantini as a specialist working with students with disabilities who has long sought to defend "those whose rights are denied.” Several months ago, the group said, Costantini left her life in Italy and moved to a Palestinian refugee camp. It made no mention of the Israeli security agency's allegations. The Italian consulate in Jerusalem did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Israeli and Italian foreign ministries also did not comment. But on Monday, the day of Costantini's deportation, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen wrote on Twitter that he held a phone conversation with his Italian counterpart. The readout of the call focused on the countries' joint efforts to “fight terrorism” and boost their “political cooperation." It made no mention of Costantini’s case. Israel has stepped up its fight in recent years against Palestinian activists and rights groups. Last summer, the Israeli military raided and shuttered the offices of Palestinian human rights organizations that it designated as terrorist groups over their alleged links to the PFLP. Nine European countries rejected Israel's charges against the rights groups, citing a lack of evidence.

Jordan protests to Israel after envoy blocked from holy site
ISABEL DEBRE/JERUSALEM (AP)/January 17, 2023
Jordan summoned the Israeli ambassador to Amman on Tuesday to protest a move by Israeli police to block the Jordanian envoy from entering a volatile holy site in Jerusalem. The incident quickly escalated tensions between the neighbors and reflected the heightened sensitivity around the sacred compound under Israel’s new ultranationalist government. Jordan's Foreign Ministry said its ambassador to Israel, Ghassan Majali, was blocked from entering the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, the third-holiest site in Islam. The site, sitting on a sprawling plateau also home to the iconic golden Dome of the Rock, is revered by Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and by Jews as the Temple Mount.The compound is administered by Jordanian religious authorities as part of an unofficial agreement after Israel won control of east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war. Israel is in charge of security at the site.
The Israeli police said that Majali arrived at the holy site “without any prior coordination with police officials,” prompting an officer at the compound entrance who didn't recognize the diplomat to notify his commander about the unexpected visit. While awaiting instructions, officers held up Majali, along with Azzam al-Khatib, the director of the Jerusalem Waqf. The ambassador refused to wait and decided to leave, Israeli police said. Some two hours later, Jordanian state-run media reported that Majali finally entered the compound without showing any kind of permission and held talks with al-Khatib, who “briefed him about the Israeli violations in Al-Aqsa.”
Footage widely shared online shows Majali, among other Muslim worshippers, at the limestone Lion’s Gate entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the Old City. An Israeli police officer blocks his path and yells at Majali in Arabic to go back, according to the video. Al-Khatib gets on the phone as the visitors argue with the officers amid the crackle of the policeman's walkie-talkie.“Had the ambassador briefly waited a few more minutes for the officer to be updated, the group would have entered,” the police said, stressing that “coordination” with Israeli police was routine ahead of such visits. But Jordan described the move as an unusual provocation. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry said the Israeli ambassador had received a “strongly worded letter of protest to be conveyed immediately to his government.” It said Jordanian officials do not need permission to enter the site because of the country's role as the official custodian and cautioned Israel against taking “any actions that would prejudice the sanctity of the holy places.”There was no immediate comment from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. Tuesday marked the second time that Jordan has summoned the Israeli ambassador to Amman since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's new right-wing and religiously conservative government took power. Earlier this month, Israel’s minister of national security, the ultranationalist Itamar Ben-Gvir, visited the Jerusalem holy site despite threats from the Hamas militant group and a cascade of condemnations from across the Arab world. Jordan, along with the Palestinians and many Muslims, views Israeli visits to the compound as an attempt to alter the status of the site and give Jewish worshipers more rights there. Ben-Gvir and other far-right ministers who vow a hard-line stance against the Palestinians have threatened to test Israel's ties with Arab states — including Jordan and Egypt that have maintained decades-long peace treaties with Israel. On Tuesday, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi hosted Jordanian and Palestinian leaders for talks on the state of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In a joint statement, el-Sissi, King Abdullah II of Jordan and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called for Israel to halt “all illegitimate, unilateral measures” that undermine the creation of an independent Palestinian state and to maintain the status quo at the Noble Sanctuary. The smallest change at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound — one of the region’s most contested sites — could become a major new flashpoint between Israel and the Muslim world. Past Israeli actions there have triggered violent protests and wider conflicts.

Palestinian attacker 'neutralized' by Israeli soldiers, army says
RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters)/January 17, 2023
Israeli soldiers on Tuesday shot and "neutralized" a Palestinian who opened fire on them in the occupied West Bank, the Israeli army said. It would not say if the attacker was killed. The Palestinian Health Ministry said the man died of his wounds and that his body was being held by the Israeli military. Palestinian officials told Reuters the man was a Palestinian security officer in the West Bank. A spokesman for the Palestinian Authority security services wasn't immediately available for comment. The West Bank, among areas where Palestinians seek statehood, has seen a surge in violence since Israel stepped up military sweeps in response to a spate of street attacks in its cities last year. "The assailant fired at the soldiers, who responded with live fire and neutralized him," the Israeli military said, adding that no soldiers were wounded. Before Tuesday's incident, 13 Palestinians had been killed in raids since the start of this year, including four teenagers, according to Palestinian officials. No Israeli soldiers have been killed in the operations. A Palestinian who stabbed a Jewish settler in the West Bank was shot dead in the same period.

Davos 2023: Saudi FM says Riyadh trying to find path to dialogue with Iran
DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters)/January 17, 2023
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud said the kingdom was trying to find a path to dialogue with Iran as the best way to resolve differences. He said a decision by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states to focus on their economies and development was a "strong signal to Iran and others in the region that there is a pathway beyond traditional arguments and disputes towards joint prosperity". The Middle East's leading Sunni Muslim and Shi'ite powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran have for years vied for influence in a rivalry that has played out across the region in events such as the conflicts in Yemen and Syria and in Lebanon. Riyadh and Tehran cut ties in 2016 but officials from the two countries have held five rounds of direct talks hosted by Iraq since last year, the last of which was in April, without achieving any diplomatic breakthroughs. Gulf Arab states are concerned about Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and network of regional proxies, but want to contain tensions as they focus on economic priorities. The Saudi foreign minister, speaking at a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, also said there was a need to find a route to ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, otherwise global uncertainty would continue. "This is complex question, but we will have to talk about how we find a pathway to ending the conflict," he said. Prince Faisal said attention on the Middle East was also needed, citing Syria as well as regional concerns over "provocative policies" by Israel's new government headed by Benjamin Netanyahu in an alliance with ultra-nationalists. Netanyahu has pledged to pursue formal Israeli ties with Riyadh to build on normalisation pacts signed with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain in 2020 under his leadership. Gulf powerhouse Saudi Arabia blessed the U.S.-brokered pacts but stopped short of formally recognising Israel in the absence of a resolution to Palestinian statehood goals.

Iran's 'death committee' president unyielding in defence of clerical rule
Parisa Hafezi/DUBAI (Reuters)/January 17, 2023
As a young prosecutor in Tehran, Ebrahim Raisi sat on a "death committee" overseeing the execution of hundreds of political prisoners in the Iranian capital, rights groups say.
Now president three decades later, and seen by many as Iran's potential next Supreme Leader, Raisi is presiding over an uncompromising response to domestic and international challenges which have seen Iranian courts pass dozens of death sentences. Four people have been hanged after being convicted on charges related to popular unrest that erupted in September over the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman. On Saturday, Iranian media said former Defence Ministry aide Alireza Akbari was executed for spying. The executions triggered condemnation from Europe and the United States, but Raisi has insisted that "identification, trial and punishment" of all those who authorities believe were involved in violence will continue. "The executions are aimed at creating a republic of fear in which the people don't dare to protest and the officials don't dare to defect," said Ali Vaez, the International Crisis Group think-tank's Iran Project Director. Akbari, who had acquired British nationality and was living abroad, was "lured back" and arrested three years ago, Britain's foreign minister James Cleverly said this week. Raisi is overseeing an unyielding crackdown on the unrest, in which campaigners say more than 500 protesters and dozens of security force personnel have been killed, echoes his role in a purge of political prisoners in 1988. Then, in a few weeks following the July ceasefire which ended eight years of war with Iraq, Iranian authorities conducted secret mass executions of thousands of imprisoned dissidents and opponents of the Islamic Republic. Inquisitions, known as "death committees", were set up across Iran comprising religious judges, prosecutors and intelligence ministry officials to decide the fate of thousands of detainees in arbitrary trials which lasted just a few minutes, according to a report by Amnesty International. While the number of people killed across the country was never confirmed, Amnesty said minimum estimates put it at 5,000. Raisi, then deputy prosecutor general for Tehran, was a member of the capital's death committee, according to Amnesty. Human Rights Watch, in a report published last year, quoted a prisoner saying he saw Raisi at a prison outside Tehran and that Raisi would go to the execution site to ensure the process was carried out correctly. Asked in 2021 about allegations he was involved in the killings, Raisi said: "If a judge, a prosecutor has defended the security of the people, he should be praised ... I am proud to have defended human rights in every position I have held."The presidential office did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this article. Iranian officials acknowledged the executions but played down the scale. In February 1989, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that "less than 1,000 were executed". In 2016, another member of the Tehran "death committee" said, "We are proud to have carried out God's order,” state media reported. "Raisi has been brought up as president for a few reasons, including his brutality, loyalty, and lack of conscience. He showed these characteristics in 1988," said Saeid Golgar of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga."He is entirely on board with political repression."
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Raisi was born in 1960 to a religious family in Iran's northeastern Shi'ite Muslim city of Mashhad. He lost his father at the age of five, but followed his footsteps to become a cleric. As a young student at a religious seminary in the central holy city of Qom, he joined protests against the Western-backed Shah in the 1979 revolution. Later his contacts with religious leaders in Qom made him a trusted figure in the judiciary. Raisi served as deputy head of the judiciary for 10 years, before being appointed prosecutor-general in 2014. Five years later, the United States imposed sanctions on him for human rights violations, including the 1980s executions. Seeking the presidency, Raisi lost to pragmatic incumbent Hassan Rouhani in a 2017 election. His failure was widely attributed to a then 28-year-old audio tape that surfaced in 2016 and purportedly highlighted his role in the executions. In the recording, the late Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, then deputy supreme leader, spoke of the killings. Montazeri’s son was arrested and jailed for releasing the tape. Raisi's 2021 presidential campaign ended in a victory which brought all branches of power in the country under the control of hardliners loyal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for the first time in years. His election win appeared to burnish Raisi's chances of one day succeeding the 83-year-old Khamenei, but some analysts and insiders believe that his failure to boost an ailing economy and his foreign policy difficulties have damaged his prospects. Khamenei, not the president, has the final say on all major policy under Iran's dual political system split between the Shi'ite clerical establishment and the government. Raisi "is not driving the repression. He's an instrument of it," ICG's Vaez said. But his hardline stance, closely aligned with Khamenei, helped guide policy abroad as well as at home. Since his election, Iran has played hardball in negotiations to salvage its tattered nuclear deal with world powers, betting it has the leverage to win wide sanctions relief in return for curbs on its increasingly advanced uranium enrichment technology. Khamenei threw his weight behind the original 2015 deal negotiated by the government of pragmatist Rouhani, winning a temporary lifting of Iran's economic and political isolation. But in 2018 then-President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the pact and reimposed sanctions, saying the deal - reached before he took office - was too lenient on Tehran. (Writing by Dominic Evans/Michael Georgy; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Intel Reveals Putin’s First Order for a Big War Rebound This Year
Shannon Vavra/The Daily Beast/January 17, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin is ordering Russian forces to seize the Donbas in eastern Ukraine by March, according to Andrei Yusov, a representative of Ukraine’s Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense. “Still, we can talk about the priority direction for the Rashists—this is the Donbas,” Yusov said Tuesday. “This is the goal of capturing Donbas and the formation of a certain security zone there, already before March.”The alleged orders come just days after Putin called on Gen. Valery Gerasimov, who previously led Russia’s forces in Ukraine in the early days of the war last year, and promoted him to command Russia’s troops once again. The decision has raised questions about whether Putin is interested in standing up a new offensive operation. Ukrainian intelligence, however, is not confident that Russia will be successful in seizing the Donbas by March, given that the Kremlin’s armed forces have failed to complete what was supposed to be a quick takeover campaign last February. “These are not the first dates. Each time these deadlines were postponed. It has been a year since the beginning of a full-scale invasion, and a year since they ‘take Kyiv for three days,’” Yusov said. “Nothing will work this time.”
Putin: I Could Never Have Foreseen 2022’s ‘Unexpected’ Crises That I Created The Kremlin has dodged questions about the Donbas orders in recent days. When asked to comment on the reports of the new aims, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov demurred.
“No, I cannot [comment on it] and have zero intention of doing it,” Peskov said, according to TASS. Ukrainian authorities, including Ukrainian President Zelensky himself, have been suggesting that Moscow may be willing to launch a new assault in the new year to try to seize any initiative it can after a series of routs on the battlefield. Following months of logistics and morale problems among Russian forces, Ukraine launched numerous counteroffensives last year, forcing Russia out of territories in south and northeast Ukraine, including in Kherson.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization has begun recognizing that the war may be about to enter a new phase. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the war was entering a decisive time, urging NATO Allies to send more weaponry to Ukraine to help secure a victory against Russia. “We are in a crucial phase of the war,” Stoltenberg told German outlet Handelsblatt. “It is therefore important that we provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs to win.” In the intervening days, Russia has continued its attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, according to a Tuesday briefing from Ukraine’s military. Just this weekend, Russian attacks rained down on an apartment complex in Dnipro, killing 44 people, according to the Mayor of Dnipro, Borys Filatov. “Having no significant achievements in the battlefield, the opponent strikes peaceful settlements,” Spokesman of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Andriy Kovalev said. “The Russian aggressor continues to destroy infrastructure and civilian homes.” Russia has recently claimed that it is making gains in Soledar, where fierce fighting has taken hold. But despite moments of apparent success, Russia’s war effort has been riddled with infighting; Russia’s military claimed victory in Soledar, only to be contradicted by fighters from the mercenary group the Wagner Group, which has accused Russia’s government of taking credit for Wagner’s work in Soledar. And although Russia has already staked its claim on Soledar, reports indicate Ukrainians are still fighting, RFE/RL reported.

Japan to roll out plans to back Ukraine at 'appropriate time', U.S. official says
Kanishka Singh/WASHINGTON (Reuters)/January 17, 2023
- Japan is engaged deeply on issues in Ukraine and is expected to roll out plans at the "appropriate time" to support Kyiv against Russia's invasion, White House Indo-Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell said on Tuesday. "Prime Minister Kishida has a game plan and is already engaged deeply on issues in Ukraine," Campbell told a Center for Strategic and International Studies event. U.S. President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met last week when Kishida was in Washington on the last stop in a tour of the G7 industrial powers. "I fully expect that at appropriate time Japan will be rolling out specific plans to support Ukraine in a variety of ways. They are active in many of the contact group discussions about support for Ukraine and they are just a key member," Campbell said, adding that Japan was "stepping up".Kishida last week stressed the importance of standing up to Russia's invasion, saying that if a unilateral change to the status quo went unchallenged, the same would happen elsewhere, including in Asia - an apparent reference to China's vow to reunite with self-ruled Taiwan, by force if necessary. The Japanese premier also said the G7 summit in Hiroshima in May should demonstrate a strong will to uphold international order and rule of law after Russia's invasion. Earlier in January, Kishida said he had told Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskiy in a phone call that he would consider an invitation to visit Kyiv depending on "various circumstances", but nothing had yet been decided. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions driven from their homes since Russia launched in February last year what it calls a "special military operation" to eliminate security threats in Ukraine. Kyiv and its Western backers call Russia's actions an unprovoked land grab.

Russia presses Azerbaijan to unblock road into enclave, Baku unmoved
(Reuters)/January 17, 2023
Russia told Azerbaijan on Tuesday that a key road leading into the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh must be quickly cleared of protesters but Baku remained unmoved, according to differing accounts from the two sides. Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but home to a mainly Armenian population. The issue is becoming a major irritant for Russia, which wants to maintain good relations with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, two small former Soviet states in the Caucasus region. For the past month, Azeris claiming to be environmental activists have blocked transport along the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, in what Yerevan has called a government-endorsed blockade. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke to Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov and "stressed the need for a swift and complete unblocking of traffic through the Lachin Corridor", the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement. Bayramov dismissed what he called allegations of a roadblock and a humanitarian crisis in the enclave, saying dozens of cars and ambulances used the corridor every day, according to an Azeri statement cited by Russia's Interfax news agency. Baku says the protesters have legitimate concerns over illegal Armenian mining in the area. "In this context, the need to fulfill the just demand of the protesters was noted," said the Azeri statement. Officials in Yerevan have grown increasingly angry at Russia - formally an ally through a mutual self defence treaty - for not doing more to end the blockade, especially since Russian peacekeepers are deployed in the corridor. Russia blamed Armenia last week for a breakdown in bilateral peace talks with Azerbaijan.

Dutch Premier Pledges to Send Patriot Defense System to Ukraine
Natalia Drozdiak, Diederik Baazil and Daryna Krasnolutska/(Bloomberg)/January 17, 2023
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Netherlands plans to send a Patriot system to Ukraine, joining the US and Germany in bolstering the Ukrainian military arsenal with crucial air defense to fight Russia’s invasion. The Netherlands has “the intention” to follow the US and Germany in sending the missile defense system, Rutte said in joint remarks with US President Joe Biden in Washington. “I think that it’s important we join that and I discussed it also this morning with Olaf Scholz of Germany,” he said. The US and Germany in recent weeks each pledged to send the Patriots, which are highly prized because they can shoot down missiles but also have high-tech sensors that help in identifying what’s in the air. The Kremlin in response said it would target the Patriot air-defense system that the US has pledged. Ukraine’s partners are under pressure to deliver more air defense systems after a Russian missile hit an apartment block in the eastern city of Dnipro on Saturday, killing at least 45 people, including six children. Russia has been targeting critical infrastructure since mid-September, leaving millions of citizens without electricity, water and heating amid freezing temperatures. Ukraine was unable to shoot down the Russian missile which hit the Dnipro apartment block because it does not have the necessary equipment, according to Ukrainian air defense forces. Patriots would have been able to, they added. It could still take several months before the Patriots are actually deployed in Ukraine, especially in light of the need to train Ukrainian forces to operate them. The US will start training in the missile system for Ukrainian soldiers at Fort Sill, Oklahoma this week. Top defense officials from the US, UK, Germany and other allies will meet in Ramstein, Germany on Friday to discuss weapons deliveries to Ukraine. Germany is expected to announce a decision on whether to send Ukraine advanced battle tanks ahead of the meeting. The Dutch military started operating the Patriot system, which stands for “phased array tracking radar to intercept on target,” in 1987. The surface-to-air guided missile systems can neutralize fixed-wing aircraft, helicopters and ballistic and cruise missiles up to an altitude of 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) and a range of 60 kilometers. Dutch air defense personnel work closely with their German counterparts in operating the Patriot systems. In Europe, only Germany, Spain and the Netherlands operate the Patriots.
The Dutch Patriots were previously deployed during the Gulf Wars and in southern Turkey to protect the country against ballistic missiles from Syria. Last year, the Netherlands and Germany jointly deployed Patriots to Slovakia at the request of NATO to protect the eastern flank of the military alliance against incoming missiles. --With assistance from Cagan Koc and Jennifer Jacobs.

State media reports Russia has built its first batch of Poseidon doomsday torpedoes, one of Putin's 'super weapons'
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/January 17, 2023
The first batch of Russia's Poseidon torpedoes has been produced, state media reported. The Poseidon is an an intercontinental nuclear-capable torpedo that was first announced in 2018. It is considered to be one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's so-called "super weapons."Russia has produced its first batch of Poseidon doomsday torpedoes, state media reported this week. The Poseidon is one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's six so-called "super weapons."An unnamed source close to the Russian military told state-run news agency TASS that the Poseidon has completed a series of trials, including the testing of its nuclear power unit, and that the first batch of these torpedoes, sometimes called drones, has been produced. The report noted that Russia's defense ministry has yet to confirm the developments."The first batch of Poseidon ammunition has been manufactured and will be soon delivered to special-purpose nuclear-powered submarine Belgorod," the source told TASS. Russia has characterized the Project 09852 submarine Belgorod as a research vessel, despite its planned payload. Images of the Poseidon, an intercontinental autonomous nuclear torpedo, first leaked in 2015, but the project was not officially announced until Putin did so in a March 2018 speech, touting its development alongside other super weapons in the works. A year later, Russia released a video that purportedly showed a test of the system. A few months prior to Putin's speech, the US military appeared to reveal the existence of the Poseidon project in its 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, writing that Russia is developing a "nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered, undersea autonomous torpedo," but Russian leadership provided more detail. The weapon — which Russia claims has an unlimited range and can travel at speeds as fast as 125 mph — can carry nuclear and conventional warheads and is designed to attack aircraft carrier strike groups and coastal facilities. Some observers have referred to the Poseidon as a "doomsday" system because it's been argued its massive payload could potentially trigger a radioactive tsunami, which could lead to significant devastation. There is no guarantee it even works though.

Poseidon torpedoes are considered to be one of Russia's six experimental "super weapons."
"The Poseidon may be capable of performing several functions beyond assuring a nuclear second-strike capability," Chatham House wrote in a 2021 analysis of the weapon, noting that it could also serve as a testing ground for nuclear-powered unmanned underwater vehicles. Other "super weapons" include the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle, the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, the Kinzhal air-launched ballistic missile, and the Zircon anti-ship hypersonic missile. Some of these systems, while active, have turned out to be overblown, while others are still in testing, which at times has not gone well and at others even been fatal. One suspected test of the Burevestnik resulted in a deadly explosion that killed multiple people working on the project. It is unclear how work on the Poseidon has progressed. TASS reported on Sunday that the Poseidon torpedoes are made for the Russian nuclear-power submarine Belgorod, which was launched in April 2019. These submarines were initially slated to be sent to the Russian navy in 2020, but this was ultimately delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Three of the vessels are expected to be delivered to the country's navy in the coming years.

Yemen rebels, Saudis in back-channel talks to maintain truce
Associated Press/January 17/2023
Amid Yemen's longest-ever pause in fighting — more than nine months — Saudi Arabia and its rival, the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels, have revived back-channel talks, hoping to strengthen the informal cease-fire and lay out a path for a negotiated end to the long civil war, according to Yemeni, Saudi and U.N. officials.The quiet is fragile, with no formal cease-fire in place since a U.N.-brokered truce ended in October. It has been shaken by Houthi attacks on oil facilities and fiery rhetoric from Yemen's internationally recognized government, allied with Saudi Arabia, which complains it has so far been left out of the talks. Lack of progress could lead to a breakdown and a renewal of all-out fighting. But all sides appear to be looking for a solution after eight years of a war that has killed more than 150,000 people, fragmented Yemen and driven the Arab world's poorest country into collapse and near starvation in one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Saudi Arabia restarted indirect exchanges with the Houthis in September, when it became clear the U.N.-brokered truce wouldn't be renewed. Oman has been acting as intermediary.
"It's an opportunity to end the war," a U.N. official said, "if they negotiate in good faith and the talks include other Yemeni actors." Like other officials, the U.N. official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the fragility of the talks.
A Saudi diplomat said his country has asked China and Russia to exert pressure on Iran and the Houthis to avoid escalations. Iran, which has been regularly briefed on the talks by the Houthis and the Omanis, has so far supported the undeclared truce, the diplomat said.
Yemen's war began when the Houthis descended from their strongholds in northern Yemen and seized the capital of Sanaa in 2014, forcing the internationally recognized government to flee to the south then into exile in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia entered the war in 2015, heading a military collation with the United Arab Emirates and other Arab nations. The coalition, which was supported by the United States, carried out a destructive bombardment campaign and backs government forces and militias in the south. The conflict became a proxy war between regional foes Saudi Arabia and Iran.
Neither side has made territorial gains for years. The Houthis maintain their grip over the north, Sanaa, and much of the heavily populated west. The government and militias hold the south and east, including the key central areas with most of Yemen's oil reserves.
The war has bled beyond Yemen's borders, with the Houthis attacking Saudi Arabia and the UAE with ballistic missiles and explosive-laden drones. The rebels also attacked vessels in the Red Sea. They used weapons from the stockpiles they seized in Sanaa and weapons supplied by Iran, according to independent and U.N. experts and Western nations. Saudi Arabia and the Houthis have held indirect negotiations in the past, mainly for prisoner swaps or sporadic cease-fires. The most ambitious talks, in 2019, helped stop a government's advance on the Houthi-held port of Hodeida on the Red Sea. But Saudi officials accused the rebels of using an undeclared truce to make territorial gains and advance on the prized, government-held city of Marib. A monthslong battle for Marib ensued, in which the Houthis suffered huge casualties and were eventually repelled in late 2021.
The U.N. brokered a more formal truce that began in April 2022 and was extended twice. It ran out in October. Houthi attacks on oil facilities in government-controlled areas have been the most significant disruption in recent months — but so far, the warring sides have not resumed full-fledged fighting.
"An escalation would be costly on all fronts," a Yemeni government official said. Still, "all are building up for the next round (of war) if U.N. efforts and the Saudi-Houthi talks collapse."
One problem is that past attempts at resolution have been hampered by the conflicting interests of the powers involved in the war — Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Iran, said Abdel-Bari Taher, a Yemeni commentator and former Journalists' Union head.
"These talks won't lead to concrete conclusions if they don't include all Yemeni parties in the process," Taher said. The Houthis' chief negotiator, Mohammed Abdul-Salam, said visits to Sanaa by Omani officials show the Houthis' seriousness. The most recent visit ended Sunday. "There is give and take with other parties," he said, in an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom has developed a phased roadmap for a settlement, which has been backed by the U.S. and the United Nations, said the U.N. official. In it, the coalition makes a number of key promises, including to further reopen the airport in Sanaa and ease a blockade on Hodeida, the official said. The Houthis demand the coalition pay salaries of all state employees — including the military — from oil and gas revenues, as well as open all airports and ports under Houthi control. A Houthi official involved in the deliberations said the Saudis had promised to pay the salaries. The Saudi diplomat, however, said paying military salaries is conditioned on the Houthis accepting security guarantees, including a buffer zone with Houthi-held areas along the Yemeni-Saudi border. The Houthis also should lift their blockade on Taiz, Yemen's third largest city, he said. The Saudis also want the Houthis to commit to joining official talks with other Yemeni stakeholders, the diplomat said. The Houthi official said his side has not accepted parts of the Saudi proposal, particularly the security guarantees, and refuses the resumption of oil exports from government-held areas without paying the salaries. The Houthis proposed a distribution of oil revenues according to a pre-war budget, the official said. That means Houthi-held areas receive up to 80% of the revenues since they are the most populated, according to the official. The Saudi diplomat said both sides were working with Omani officials to develop the proposal to be "more satisfactory for all sides," including other Yemeni parties. All of this has left the internationally recognized government without a voice, a Yemeni government official said. He said the government's presidential council worries Saudi Arabia "might give unacceptable concessions" to reach a deal. But the Yemen anti-Houthi alliance remains riven with internal divisions so there is little room to maneuver."We have no option but to wait and see the conclusion of these negotiations," the official said.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 17-18/2023
The Iranian People Are Victims of Misappropriated Political Weaponry
Daoud Al-Farhan/Asharq Al Awsat/January 17/2023
Like a cup reader, Khomeini predicted, during a 1978 interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel, that “in the future, Iranian society will be magical and free of any form of repression, brutality, and force.”
And an “Islamic” revolution against the Shah broke out in 1979. Since then, Iran has been in political and social turmoil. It has witnessed every form of repression, brutality, and force. It slipped into a bloody eight-year war with Iraq that ended in a crushing defeat for Khomeini, who himself admitted to “swallowing the chalice of poison.” With this brief phrase, the “people of Iran’s weariness with the theocratic regime” began. The Supreme Leader at the time, Khomeini, raised its banner, and he was succeeded after his death by the current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Iran has not been free of repression, brutality and force since that day. Indeed, the “Islamic” Iranian regime has always carried the banners of repression, brutality and force. Everyone now knows that the regime was not satisfied with raising these terrorist banners inside the country. Khomeini’s successor, Khamenei, exported them to Iraq, after the US occupation of 2003, and then to Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen.
Before his death, Khomeini tried to promote his interpretation of political Islam, which argues that religious scholars should have “divine” authority to rule, speak for the people and society, and have the final say on ethical, political and religious questions.
Eight Presidents of the Republic have ruled Iran since the fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. First came Abu al-Hasan Bani Sadr (1980-1981), and he was followed by Mohammad Ali Rajai in August 1981, whose term abruptly ended after a bomb targeting the prime minister’s office killed him and the prime minister. Then came Ali Khamenei (1981-1989), who was followed by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997) and then Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). Next came Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), Hassan Rouhani (2013-2021), and finally, the current President, Ebrahim Raisi, who has been in power since 2021.
With every transfer of power, the Supreme Leader would announce that the new president exercised “divine rule.” In doing so, he uses a misappropriated political weapon called “divine positions” that has no place in international political systems. Nonetheless, most of the Iranian people were not convinced by this sneaky slogan that tries to misappropriate the greatness of God almighty through claims that the Iranian regime is a “religious regime!”Religious clerics, monks, or religious rulers have established regimes on this round earth since the dawn of history. This type of regime is referred to as a “theocracy,” a term derived from Greek. All modern researchers agree that the existence of a state religion does not suffice to consider a regime a theocracy in the narrow meaning of the world. Theocratic regimes claim that they exercise divine authority, and this applies to only a few places in the modern world.
Meanwhile, the more widespread use of the term state religion applies to that mentioned in the preamble of countries’ constitutions. These regimes recognize their particular annual calendars, such as the Islamic Hijri year and the Christian Gregorian Calander.
Others have narrower and more limited annual calendars, like that of ancient Sumer in Iraq, which was headed by a high priest with the help of a council of wise men and women. The same is true for Ancient Egypt, as the regime of the Pharaohs was associated with Horus or Osiris, and the Pharaoh was believed to be responsible for mediating between the gods and the people.
In Japan, the emperor was considered the descendant of the sun gods and the supreme leader of the Japanese people historically. However, this view changed after World War II, after which the emperor was no longer a living god but the head of a democratic political system.
Other names, like the emperors of ancient Rome and the Buddhist regime in Tibet, have almost gone extinct, as did the Khanate (from the title Khan) regime in Mongolia, which had been a Buddhist theocracy before it ceased to exist in the early 19th century. In China, rulers were referred to as “sons of heaven” like the Roman emperors, and this title was not used outside of celebratory ceremonies.
Going back to the point I was making in the beginning, Khomeini and then Khamenei claim that the current regime in Iran is a divine regime, not a regular religious regime. Iran’s constitution is founded on the conviction that the country is run by an ideal global empire that has the right to rule its people however it likes and to export its image, which is supposedly perfect per this fantastical view of the world, to all the peoples of the world. Khomeini and his successor Khamenei deluded themselves into believing that the idealism of this theory demands punishing any violation of the “ten commandments” with execution, regardless of the age, nationality or gender of the perpetrator. In the 16th century, Geneva, Switzerland, was a democracy. The separation of church and state was advocated because the clergy had been extremely unjust and wanton in its daily exploitation of its political power. The local governor was replaced by a federal governor from outside the region, the leaders of the church were pursued tirelessly and prosecuted, and a final solution to the disputes around polygamous marriage was found.
Today, we find ourselves in Tehran, not Geneva. The statesman and the religious cleric are the same person, who is also the man who upholds, sends citizens to the gallows, and stands behind the atomic bomb. Another different and famous example is before: the Dalai Lama, who was the ultimate ruler of the Buddhists in Tibet from his childhood in 1935 to 1959. A polite monk with a sense of humor, he had been his people’s spiritual and worldly leader until he was exiled by the late founder and president of China, Mao Zedong. The latter had attained military victory over former Chinese president Chiang Kai-shek who, withdrew to the island of Taiwan and established the Republic of China, which China is currently demanding be returned. The surprising twist here is that the majority of the families who had been residing in Tibet are Eastern Catholic Christians, Armenians, and Russians, and their descendants have remained there. Khamenei gave us “theocratic” rule. Every time an Iranian religious court hands lists of Iranian men and women protesting the death penalty for protesting against assassinations, executions, and poor public conditions, it claims to be upholding “divine judgment.”Human Rights Watch has confirmed that “Iranian authorities have used excessive and lethal force in their clampdown on nationwide protests.” A few days ago, Iranian writer and film director Mohsen Makhmalbaf asked Khamenei: “Oh, Khamenei! Whose example taught you all this cruelty in willingness to shed blood?”

The Cases for and Against Trump
Kellyanne Conway//The New York Times/January,17/2023
Donald J. Trump shocked the world in 2016 by winning the White House and becoming the first president in US history with no prior military or government experience. He upended the fiction of electability pushed by pundits, the news media and many political consultants, which arrogantly projects who will or will not win long before votes are cast. He focused instead on capturing a majority in the Electoral College, which is how a candidate does or does not win.
Not unlike Barack Obama eight years earlier, Mr. Trump exposed the limits of Hillary Clinton’s political inevitability and personal likability, connected directly with people, ran an outsider’s campaign taking on the establishment, and tapped into the frustrations and aspirations of millions of Americans. Some people have never gotten over it. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. There is no vaccine and no booster for it. Cosseted in their social media bubbles and comforted within self-selected communities suffering from sameness, the afflicted disguise their hatred for Mr. Trump as a righteous call for justice or a solemn love of democracy and country. The obsession with Mr. Trump generates all types of wishful thinking and projection about the next election from both his critics (“He will be indicted!”) and his supporters (“Is he still electable?”). None of that is provable, but this much is true: Shrugging off Mr. Trump’s 2024 candidacy or writing his political obituary is a fool’s errand — he endures persecution and eludes prosecution like no other public figure. That could change, of course, though that cat has nine lives.
At the same time, it would also be foolish to assume that Mr. Trump’s path to another presidency would be smooth and secure. This is not 2016, when he and his team had the hunger, swagger and scrappiness of an insurgent’s campaign and the “history be damned” happy warrior resolve of an underestimated, understaffed, under-resourced effort. It’s tough to be new twice.
Unless what’s old can be new again. Mr. Trump’s track record reminds Republican primary voters of better days not that long ago: accomplishments on the economy, energy, national security, trade deals and peace deals, the drug crisis and the southern border.
He can also make a case — one that will resonate with Republicans — about the unfairness and hypocrisy of social media censorship and alleged big tech collusion, as recent and ongoing revelations show.
Mr. Trump, as a former president, can also be persuasive with Republican primary voters and some independents in making a frontal attack on the Biden administration’s feckless management of the economy, reckless spending and lack of urgency and competence on border control and crime.
Accomplishing this will not be easy. Mr. Trump has both political assets to carry him forward and political baggage holding him back. For Mr. Trump to succeed, it means fewer insults and more insights; a campaign that centers on the future, not the past, and that channels the people’s grievances and not his own; and a reclamation of the forgotten Americans who ushered him into the White House the first time and who are suffering economically under Mr. Biden.
A popular sentiment these days is, “I want the Trump policies without the Trump personality.” It is true that limiting the name-calling frees up time and space for persuasion and solutions. Still, it may not be possible to have one without the other.
Mr. Trump would remind people that it was a combination of his personality and policies that forced Mexico to help secure our border; structured new trade agreements and renewed manufacturing, mining and energy economies; pushed to get Covid vaccines at warp speed; engaged Kim Jong-un; played hardball with China; routed ISIS and removed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander; forced NATO countries to increase their defense spending and stared down Mr. Putin before he felt free to invade Ukraine. When it comes to Donald J. Trump, people see what they wish to see. What some perceive as an abrasive, scornful man bent on despotism, others see as a candid, resolute leader unflinchingly committed to America’s interests.
The case against Trump 2024 rests in some combination of fatigue with self-inflicted sabotage, fear that he cannot outrun the mountain of legal woes, the call to move on, a feeling that he is to blame for underwhelming Republican candidates in 2022 and the perception that other Republicans are less to blame for 2022 and have more recent records as conservative reformers.
He also won’t have the Republican primary field — or the debate stage — to himself. If one person challenges Mr. Trump, it is likely five or six will jump into the race and try to test him, too.
Possible primary challengers to Mr. Trump include governors with impressive records and huge re-election victories like Ron DeSantis of Florida, Kim Reynolds of Iowa and Greg Abbott of Texas; those who wish to take on Mr. Trump frontally and try to move the party past him, like Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia and former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey.
There are those who can lay legitimate claim to helping realize Trump-era accomplishments like former Vice President Mike Pence and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo; and others who wish to expand the party’s recent down-ballot gains in racial diversity to the presidential level, like former Gov. Nikki Haley and Senator Tim Scott, both of South Carolina. Whether the 2024 presidential election is a cage match rematch of Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump or a combination of other candidates remains to be seen. Each of them has defied the odds and beat more than a dozen intraparty rivals to win their respective primaries. Each of them now faces calls for change, questions about the handling of classified documents and questions about age. For voters, vision matters. Winning the presidency is hard. Only 45 men (one twice) have been president. Hundreds have tried, many of them being told, “You can win!” even as they lost. Success lies in having advisers who tell you what you need to know, not just what you want to hear. And in listening to the people, who have the final say.

The Dangerous Decline of the Historical Profession
Daniel Bessner/The New York Times/January,17/2023
When I received my Ph.D. in history in 2013, I didn’t expect that within a decade fights over history — and historiography, even if few people use that word — would become front-page news. But over the last few years that is precisely what has happened: Just look at the recent debates over America’s legacy of slavery, what can be taught in public schools about the nation’s founders and even the definition of what constitutes fascism. The interpretation of the American past has not in recent memory been as public or as contentious as it is now.
Maybe it started with The New York Times Magazine’s 1619 Project, which sought to “reframe the country’s history by placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of our national narrative” and which accompanied a national reckoning around race. That provoked, perhaps inevitably, a right-wing backlash in the form of “The 1776 Report,” a triumphalist, Donald Trump-directed effort. Then came a raft of laws in conservative-governed states across the country aiming to restrict and control how history is taught in public schools.
History, as the historian Matthew Karp has written, has become “a new kind of political priority” for people across the political spectrum, a means to fight over what it is to be an American: which values we should emphasize, which groups we should honor, which injustices we should redress.
The historical profession has likewise been roiled by controversy. Last August, James H. Sweet, the president of the American Historical Association, published an essay in which he argued that present-focused narratives of African slavery often represent “historical erasures and narrow politics.” The piece engendered a firestorm of reproach, with scholars variously accusing Dr. Sweet of attempting to delegitimize new research on topics including race and gender; some even accused Dr. Sweet of outright racism.
Yet as Americans fight over their history, the historical profession itself is in rapid — maybe even terminal — decline. Twelve days after Dr. Sweet published his column, the A.H.A. released a “Jobs Report” that makes for grim reading: The average number of available new “tenure track” university jobs, which are secure jobs that provide living wages, benefits and stability, between 2020 and 2022 was 16 percent lower than it was for the four years before the pandemic.
The report further notes that only 27 percent of those who received a Ph.D. in history in 2017 were employed as tenure track professors four years later. The work of historians has been “de-professionalized,” and people like myself, who have tenure track jobs, will be increasingly rare in coming years. This is true for all academic fields, not just history. As Adrianna Kezar, Tom DePaola and Daniel T. Scott note in their book “The Gig Academy,” about 70 percent of all college professors work off the tenure track. The majority of these professors make less than $3,500 per course, according to a 2020 report by the American Federation of Teachers. Jobs that used to allow professors to live middle-class lives now barely enable them to keep their heads above water.
What is to blame? In the past generation the American university has undergone a drastic transformation. To reduce costs, university administrators have dramatically reduced tenure. And as the protections of tenure have withered away, nonteaching university staff sizes have exploded. From 1976 to 2018, “full-time administrators and other professionals employed by those institutions increased by 164 percent and 452 percent,” according to a 2021 paper on the topic. Professors have been sacrificed on the altar of vice deans.
At the same time, in an effort to fund research that might redound to their financial benefit and to demonstrate their pragmatic value to politicians and to the public, universities have emphasized science, technology, engineering and math at the expense of the humanities. As the American Academy of Arts and Sciences reported, citing data from 2019, “spending for humanities research equaled 0.7 percent of the amount dedicated to STEM R. and D.”
The humanities, including history, are often considered more an object of ridicule than a legitimate lane of study. Look no further than statements from politicians: Rick Scott, the former governor of Florida, assembled a task force in 2012 that recommended that people who major in history and other humanities fields be charged higher tuition at state universities. In 2016, Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky said that “French literature majors” should not receive state funding for their degrees. Even more recently, in 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida mocked people who go into debt to “end up with degrees in things like zombie studies.” And it’s not just Republicans: President Barack Obama remarked in 2014 that “folks can make a lot more, potentially, with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree,” implying that if a degree didn’t make money it wasn’t worth it. (Mr. Obama later apologized to a University of Texas art historian for his remarks, clarifying that he did believe art history was a valuable subject.)
These material and ideological assaults have engendered a steep decline in undergraduate humanities majors. In the 2018-19 academic year, only 23,923 graduating undergraduates received degrees in history and related fields, which, the A.H.A. notes, is “down more than a third from 2012 and the smallest number awarded since the late 1980s.”
Private groups, which traditionally provided significant financial support to budding humanities scholars, have taken the hint and increasingly stopped supporting the humanities and soft social sciences. The Social Science Research Council recently ended its International Dissertation Research Fellowship program, which in the last 25 years funded over 1,600 scholars exploring “non-US cultures” and “US Indigenous communities,” declaring that the program “accomplished many of the goals it had set for itself.” The Ford Foundation has similarly decided to conclude its long-running National Academies fellowship program for historically marginalized scholars in order, the foundation’s president declared, “to invest more deeply in movement-building work.”
It’s the end of history. And the consequences will be significant.

Why Israelis Voted for Right-Wing Parties
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/January 17, 2023
The main reason behind the rise to power of the far-right parties in the recent general election in Israel is that many Israelis believe that Israel has no partner for peace on the Palestinian side. This, in addition to the growing sense of dismay among Israelis as a result of Palestinian violence and terrorism, which saw a significant upsurge in 2022.
The widespread belief in Israel that the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, are not partners for peace is not baseless. Moreover, the dismay is justified.
Instead of welcoming the Israeli move [complete withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005, while asking nothing in return] the Palestinians responded with more terrorism against Israel. "The Israelis totally withdrew because they were being shot at?" went Palestinian thinking; "Great! Let's keep shooting at them!"
The Oslo Accords (Article XV) state that the Palestinians are supposed to "take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities." Instead, Palestinian cities such as Nablus and Jenin, which are fully controlled by Abbas's security forces, have in the past year against become hubs for terrorism.
In the past year, Abbas has demonstrated to the Israeli public that the Palestinians are determined to pursue the war against Israel on two fronts: on the ground, through terrorism, and in the international arena, through the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and other international forums.
Both the Palestinian terrorism and the diplomatic warfare constitute a violation of the commitments made by the Palestinians in the "peace process."
In a September 1993 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat stated that "all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations," rather than unilateral actions.
When Israelis see Abbas paying the families of terrorists who murder or wound Jews, why should it be a surprise that many Israelis vote for "hardline" candidates? And when Israelis see Abbas and his associates inciting violence against them or vilifying Israel and prosecuting its leaders as "war criminals" at international tribunals, why should anyone be astonished that many Israelis are going to vote for a government they hope will protect them?
If the Palestinians want to regain the confidence of the Israeli public, they might start by demonstrating that they are serious about making peace with Israel. They could stop violating the agreements they signed and begin acting like peace partners, not war partners. They could cease their incessant unilateral measures and efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international arena.
When Israelis see Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas paying the families of terrorists who murder or wound Jews, why should it be a surprise that many Israelis vote for "hardline" candidates? And when Israelis see Abbas and his associates inciting violence against them, why should anyone be astonished that many Israelis are going to vote for a government they hope will protect them? Pictured: Polling station attendants prepare ballots for Israel's general election on November 1, 2022, in Kiryat Arba. (Photo by Gil Cohen-Magen/AFP via Getty Images)
The main reason behind the rise to power of the far-right parties in the recent general election in Israel is that many Israelis believe that Israel has no partner for peace on the Palestinian side. This, in addition to the growing sense of dismay among Israelis as a result of Palestinian violence and terrorism, which saw a significant upsurge in 2022.
The widespread belief in Israel that the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, are not partners for peace is not baseless. Moreover, the dismay is justified.
The 87-year-old Abbas has publicly admitted that he turned down a chance for a two-state deal with Israel in 2008. The deal, made by then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, would have given Abbas nearly all the land the Palestinians wanted in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.
Abbas's predecessor, Yasser Arafat, had also rejected a generous offer he received in 2000 from another Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak. The Israeli proposal included the establishment of a demilitarized Palestinian state on some 92% of the West Bank and 100% of the Gaza Strip, as well as turning east Jerusalem into the capital of a Palestinian state.
"He [Arafat] did not negotiate in good faith; indeed, he did not negotiate at all," Barak was later quoted as saying.
A few months after Arafat turned down the offer at the Camp David summit, held under the auspices of then US President Bill Clinton, the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada, which included a wave of suicide bombings and other terror attacks in which more than a thousand Israelis were murdered, and many more wounded. The Palestinian war marked the beginning of a trend that saw Israelis lose faith in the Palestinians' living up to their signed commitments. Many Israelis then began shifting to the right.
The trend grew after the full Israeli withdrawal – with no reciprocal action at all asked of the Palestinians -- from the Gaza Strip in 2005. Instead of welcoming the Israeli move, the Palestinians responded with more terrorism against Israel. "The Israelis totally withdrew because they were being shot at?" went Palestinian thinking; "Great! Let's keep shooting at them!"
The Gaza Strip, home to some two million Palestinians, has since been turned into a large base for Iranian-backed terror groups such as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Israeli hopes that the "disengagement" from the Gaza Strip would bring peace and security were quickly dashed.
Abbas, meanwhile, has done little to regain the confidence of the Israeli public. In fact, he has done almost everything to confirm the doubts of the Israelis: that the Palestinians are not interested in making peace with Israel.
Abbas's ongoing glorification of terrorists, his "pay-for-slay" program generously rewarding the families of imprisoned and dead terrorists, his vicious incitement and efforts to isolate Israel in the international arena, as well as his failure to crack down on terrorism in areas under his control, have all reinforced the Israeli public's belief that the Palestinians are more interested in murdering Jews than in making peace with them.
Abbas's actions (and inaction) are in direct violation of the 1993 Oslo Accords "peace process" between Israel and the PLO.
In the past year, Abbas has failed to disarm or arrest hundreds of terrorists freely operating in areas of the West Bank under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Consequently, the terrorists stepped up their attacks against Israeli soldiers and civilians.
Murdering Jews is a serious and dangerous breach of the "peace process." The Oslo Accords (Article XV) state that the Palestinians are supposed to "take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities." Instead, Palestinian cities such as Nablus and Jenin, which are fully controlled by Abbas's security forces, have in the past year against become hubs for terrorism.
Several terror groups operating in these areas -- including those affiliated with Abbas's own Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the Lions' Den -- have been carrying out almost daily attacks on Israeli soldiers and civilians. The terror groups feel so safe under Abbas's rule that they often hold paramilitary rallies in the two cities, as well as refugee camps and villages in the West Bank, where Abbas's security services are supposed to enforce law and order to prevent terrorism and hostilities.
So far, Abbas has not ordered his security forces even to constrain the terrorists roaming the streets of Palestinian towns and cities. Either he lacks the will to do so or fears that he would be targeted by his own people as a traitor or "Zionist agent." As long as the terrorists do not pose a direct threat to the Palestinian Authority leadership, Abbas will not take any measure against them. If the terrorists target only Jews, Abbas seems happy to look the other way.
Abbas has repeatedly proven over the years that he orders his security forces to use force only when Palestinians criticize him for corruption or protest against the Palestinian Authority's repressive policies, especially the recent crackdown on political opponents, journalists and human rights activists.
On January 11, Abbas again showed that his top priority remains to suppress any form of opposition from home rather than to stop a terrorist from murdering Jews. The incident took place during a peaceful protest in Nablus by hundreds of Palestinians demanding an end to the Palestinian Authority's policy of detention-without-trial of Palestinian activists. Abbas's security officers dispersed the protesters with tear gas and stun grenades. The Palestinian Authority also physically attacked a number of journalists and threatened them not to report on the actions of the security officers.
Abbas could have used the same security forces to stop armed terrorists a few hundred meters away in the Old City of Nablus and the Balata refugee camp. On January 11, the terrorists carried out a number of shooting attacks against Israeli soldiers and military installations in the Nablus area. Abbas's security forces still have done nothing to detain the terrorists.
In the past year, Abbas has demonstrated to the Israeli public that the Palestinians are determined to pursue the war against Israel on two fronts: on the ground, through terrorism, and in the international arena, through the United Nations and the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice and other international forums.
Both the Palestinian terrorism and the diplomatic warfare constitute a violation of the commitments made by the Palestinians in the "peace process."
In a September 1993 letter to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat stated that "all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations," rather than unilateral actions.
According Alan Baker, a former Israeli ambassador to Canada who participated in the negotiation and drafting of the Oslo Accords:
"By petitioning the UN, the International Criminal Court, and international organizations to recognize them and accept them as a full member state, and by their unification with the Hamas terror organization, the Palestinians have knowingly and deliberately bypassed their contractual obligations pursuant to the Oslo Accords in an attempt to prejudge the main negotiating issues outside the negotiation."
When Israelis see Abbas paying the families of terrorists who murder or wound Jews, why should it be a surprise that many Israelis vote for "hardline" candidates? And when Israelis see Abbas and his associates inciting violence against them or vilifying Israel and prosecuting its leaders as "war criminals" at international tribunals, why should anyone be astonished that many Israelis are going to vote for a government they hope will protect them?
Why would any Israeli trust Abbas when they see all the gunmen and terrorists running wild in the areas he controls? If the Palestinians want to regain the confidence of the Israeli public, they might start by demonstrating that they are serious about making peace with Israel. They could stop violating the agreements they signed and begin acting like peace partners, not war partners. They could cease their incessant unilateral measures and efforts to delegitimize Israel in the international arena.
Until all of that happens, disillusioned Israelis will continue to vote for those who have lost confidence in the Palestinians, as well as any hope that they might honor their commitments.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
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Turkey Closing Second-Largest Opposition Party?
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/January 17, 2023
Turkey's Constitutional Court is currently in the process of deciding whether to close the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which has 56 Members of Parliament, many of whom are already incarcerated. If closed, the HDP will be the eighth pro-Kurdish party in Turkey to be removed from the legislative process.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton strongly recommends that if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his AKP Party corrupt the electoral process in the upcoming elections -- on the heels of other malign actions -- Turkey should be removed from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Since 2015, HDP members and activists have been constantly subjected to detention and arrest.... Democratically elected Kurdish mayors, deputy mayors, municipal council- and staff-members of the HDP and its sister party, DBP (Democratic Regions Party), have also been suspended, dismissed or arrested for alleged terrorism-related offenses. They were then replaced by government-appointed trustees.
"Key to the government's strategy is Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713, which is used to fully restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders. The excessively vague and broad definition of terrorism in the law allows to label peaceful human rights defenders as 'terrorist offenders'." — The World Organisation Against Torture, 2022.
According to a report authored by the Council of Europe and the University of Lausanne, Turkey has the largest population of inmates convicted for terrorism-related offenses. The report, updated in April 2021, shows that at the time there were a total of 30,524 inmates in COE member states who were sentenced for terrorism; of those, 29,827 were in Turkish prisons.
"Vague formulation of the criminal provisions on the security of the state and terrorism and their overly broad interpretation by Turkish judges and prosecutors make all critics, particularly lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, and rival politicians, a potential victim of judicial harassment. This indistinct area under the Turkish Penal code is actively used by the Turkish government to investigate, prosecute and convict opponents." — Arrested Lawyers Initiative report, 2021.
In Turkey, "the rule of law has been virtually destroyed." — Turkish Human Rights Association, December 12, 2022.
"Banning the HDP will further disenfranchise the millions of Kurds in Turkey who demand equal civil, political and cultural rights for their community.... Erdogan has already deprived millions of HDP voters of the democratically elected representation to which they are entitled under domestic and international law... [S]hutting Kurds out of politics at this crucial time may fuel conflict, as they will be deprived of peaceful avenues through which to demand their rights." — Meghan Bodette, Director of Research of the Kurdish Peace Institute, January 2023. Through the closure of the HDP, Erdogan's state authorities show that they are once again willing and able to overturn election results. An election that bans the HDP from participation will be an illegitimate one and will be a death declaration of whatever crumbs are left of the so-called Turkish "democracy."
Turkey's Constitutional Court is currently in the process of deciding whether to close the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which has 56 Members of Parliament, many of whom are already incarcerated. Pictured: Mithat Sancar, HDP co-leader, speaks at a party meeting at the Grand National Assembly in Ankara on January 10, 2023. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
Turkey's Constitutional Court is currently in the process of deciding whether to close the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), which has 56 Members of Parliament, many of whom are already incarcerated. If closed, the HDP will be the eighth pro-Kurdish party in Turkey to be removed from the legislative process.
Former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton strongly recommends that if President Recep Tayyip Erdogan or his AKP Party corrupt the electoral process in the upcoming elections -- on the heels of other malign actions -- Turkey should be removed from North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), based on "the international law principle of rebus sic stantibus – 'as things now stand'...", because "Mr. Erdogan hasn't been behaving like an ally."
On January 5, Turkey's Constitutional Court signaled the upcoming closure of the party. The court temporarily blocked the transfer of aid money from the Treasury's that due for the HDP. The prosecutor had submitted the request and alleged that the HDP's "organic ties" with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) had continued during the closure case of the HDP, filed in 2021. This verdict came just days before the funds were due to be wired to the party's bank account.
Turkey's national elections are scheduled for June 18, 2023. The HDP's co-spokespersons for foreign affairs issued a statement, calling blocking of the party's funds "unlawful":
"We have been facing a closure case since June 2021, and this will most probably be finalized in the coming months, before the elections... "It is obvious that the Constitutional Court's decision to block our party funds is political. The MHP, President Erdoğan's ultranationalist ally, has been aiming at this for a long time. It seems that the court has surrendered to political pressure and has become a tool for directing politics in the run-up to the elections.
"This court decision is another black mark in Turkey's history of democracy. It doesn't have any legitimacy and is null and void in the conscience of our millions of supporters as we prepare for our decisive political battle with Erdoğan's authoritarian regime."
The Kurdish political movement in Turkey has for years been under severe governmental pressure. Since 2015, HDP members and activists have been constantly subjected to detention and arrest. Many HDP Members of Parliament, including the Party's co-heads Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ, were jailed after their immunity was lifted. Democratically elected Kurdish mayors, deputy mayors, municipal council- and staff-members of the HDP and its sister party, DBP (Democratic Regions Party), have also been suspended, dismissed or arrested for alleged terrorism-related offenses. They were then replaced by government-appointed trustees.
The Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD) documented that in 2016, trustees were appointed to 94 municipalities governed by the DBP, and 93 Kurdish co-mayors were arrested.
According to the IHD, the number of arrested Kurdish politicians and staff of both the HDP and DBP are estimated at more than 10,000.
The arbitrary arrest of Kurds in Turkey has been the norm for decades, but after the failed coup attempt in 2016, the Turkish government declared a state of emergency and started legislating through emergency decrees. The duration of the emergency was extended four times and the government drastically accelerated its arrest operations -- often targeting Kurds and other dissidents. The dismissals and arrests of Kurds are based on Turkey's Anti-Terror Law, not on accusations of involvement in the attempted coup.
In 2020, members of the HDP's Central Executive Committee were detained. In February 2021, a lawsuit was filed by the Chief Prosecutor's Office of the Supreme Court of Appeals, seeking to close the HDP. The Constitutional Court did not accept the first indictment, after which a lawsuit was filed, along with a second indictment in June 2021. In the local elections of March 2019, the HDP won 65 municipalities. However, trustees were appointed to almost all of them by the ruling government (except for a couple of small towns).
In 2016, a report by the European Commission for Democracy Through Law ("The Venice Commission"), an advisory body of the Council of Europe, concluded:
"... the Government interpreted its extraordinary powers too extensively and took measures that went beyond what is permitted by the Turkish Constitution and by international law."
Turkey is a party to the European Charter of Local Self-Government (ECLSG). In the 2017 report from the Venice Commission, the trustee practice was once again criticized, and Turkey was called on to comply with international obligations, particularly in the framework of the ECLSG. The government of Turkey has, nonetheless, maintained its unelected trustees in charge of majority-Kurdish cities.
The Congress of Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe (CLRACE) in 2017 carried out a fact-finding mission with local elected Turkish representatives. In their report, they wrote:
"The Congress... observes that most of the arrests of local elected representatives have been made on the basis of accusations of terrorism, the definition of which has been criticized by Council of Europe bodies, the European Union and other international organizations, and is not in conformity with the practice of most Council of Europe member States;
"... notes that the use of the Turkish Anti-Terror Law No. 3713 of 12 April 1991, principally with regard to declarations and opinions expressed, is having a negative impact on political pluralism and the practical exercise of local democracy in Turkey."
The extremely sweeping and vague terrorism-related articles in the Turkish Anti-Terror Law and the Turkish Penal Code have long been criticized by international human rights organizations.
The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) stated in a briefing on June 13, 2022:
"Turkey has been employing counter-terrorism and national security legislation to restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders... In the last three months of 2021 alone, no less than 1,220 human rights defenders suffered judicial harassment or reprisals....
"Since 2016, Turkey has been governed by a State of Emergency regime. Although officially abolished on 19 July 2018, this regime was in fact made permanent via a raft of regulations. Key to the government's strategy is Anti-Terrorism Law No. 3713, which is used to fully restrict rights and freedoms and silence the voices of human rights defenders. The excessively vague and broad definition of terrorism in the law allows to label peaceful human rights defenders as 'terrorist offenders'.
"This has resulted in increasing numbers of investigations and prosecutions. Official data show that in 2020, 6551 people were prosecuted under the anti-terrorism law, while a staggering 208,833 were investigated for 'membership in an armed organization', including thousands of human rights defenders."
According to a report authored by the Council of Europe and the University of Lausanne, Turkey has the largest population of inmates convicted for terrorism-related offenses. The report, updated in April 2021, shows that at the time there were a total of 30,524 inmates in COE member states who were sentenced for terrorism; of those, 29,827 were in Turkish prisons.
According to a 2021 report by the Arrested Lawyers Initiative, entitled "Abuse of the Anti-Terrorism Provision by Turkey is steadily increasing (2013-2020)":
"The problem is that the Turkish Penal Code contains neither the definition of what constitutes armed organizations and armed groups nor the offense of membership. The lack of legal definitions and criteria of what constitutes an armed terrorist organization and the offense of membership in the armed terrorist organization makes these articles prone to arbitrary application and abuse. Vague formulation of the criminal provisions on the security of the state and terrorism and their overly broad interpretation by Turkish judges and prosecutors make all critics, particularly lawyers, human rights defenders, journalists, and rival politicians, a potential victim of judicial harassment. This indistinct area under the Turkish Penal code is actively used by the Turkish government to investigate, prosecute and convict opponents."
The IHD (Turkish Human Rights Association) also noted that there are serious violations of rights in Turkey's prisons. Turkey, however, has not followed the recommendations of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), the decisions of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) or the recommendations of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.
In Turkey, "the rule of law has been virtually destroyed," the IHD concludes.
Meghan Bodette, Director of Research at the Kurdish Peace Institute, told Gatestone:
"Banning the HDP will further disenfranchise the millions of Kurds in Turkey who demand equal civil, political and cultural rights for their community. Since abandoning peace talks with the Kurdish movement in 2015, Erdogan has already deprived millions of HDP voters of the democratically elected representation to which they are entitled under domestic and international law by removing and imprisoning elected mayors and MPs and seizing control of municipalities. Although the pro-Kurdish political movement and its supporters have a strong tradition of regrouping and recovering from bans, mass arrests, and other policies of political persecution, shutting Kurds out of politics at this crucial time may fuel conflict, as they will be deprived of peaceful avenues through which to demand their rights."
Through the closure of the HDP, Erdogan's state authorities show that they are once again willing and able to overturn election results. In a 2022 report, the Kurdish Peace Institute documented how since 2015, Erdogan's government has ended electoral democracy in majority-Kurdish regions, leaving more than 75% of voters who supported pro-Kurdish mayors without their elected representatives.
The Kurdish political movement, however, is no stranger to persecution. Journalist Mahmut Bozarslan notes that "From 1990 to 2009, Turkish courts closed seven pro-Kurdish political parties; two other Kurdish parties dissolved themselves."
The HDP is a legal political party with millions of supporters in Turkey, and is dedicated to a peaceful, non-violent resolution of the Kurdish issue. An election that bans the HDP from participation will be an illegitimate one and will be a declaration of death for whatever crumbs are left of so-called Turkish "democracy."
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute. She is also a research fellow for the Philos Project.
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