Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 21-22/2023
Greetings to the patriotic journalist Simon Abu Fadil, who was subjected to a blatant physical assault today by Hezbollah’s Mouthpiece, Mr. Wiam Wahhab
Elias Bejjani/July 20/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/120325/120325/
Well known Arabic Poem: “And the people, if they hit the shoe with their heads .. the shoe shouts for what sin I was hit”
Greetings from the heart to journalist, Simon Abu Fadil, the publisher of Al-Kalima Online website, the sovereign and independent voice who bravely witnesses for the truth.
Sadly he was exposed today during the “Marcel Khanim talk show”, on the MTV, for a blatant, shameless and terrorist physical assault by Mr. Wiam Wahhab, who is a vulgar Hezbollah mouthpiece.
This condemned assault is practically greater than a crime because it targeted the sacred principle of opinion freedom.
All the words of denunciation and condemnation actually are not enough to express this horrible reality, because unfortunately the aggressor, Mr., Wahhab, is a pioneer in what is known as the “shoe culture and education”, (Al-Sarami), and he has become accustomed without deterrence, and for years to brag about this barbaric culture and style, because his atrocities falls under the Hezbollah occupation umbrella protection.
What Abu Fadil, the descent, patriotic and free opinion journalist , was subjected to today is just one of the symptoms of the cancerous disease that is decimating Lebanon and its people, namely, the Iranian mullahs’ proxy, notorious occupation and hegemony… Therefore, there is no salvation for Lebanon from its current tragic situation before the defeat of this occupier, the terrorist Hezbollah, and the restoration of sovereignty, independence and the rule of law.
*Picture enclosed/Journalist Simon Abu Fadil pointing the assault trauma on his face

Wronecka emphasizes importance of Resolution 1701 to region's stability
Naharnet/July 20/2023
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix have briefed the Security Council on the latest report of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006). The report covers the period from 21 February to 20 June 2023. Discussions at the Security Council covered the recent tensions along the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel and the need for both parties to prevent and avoid any actions that have the potential for rapid escalation. Special Coordinator Wronecka echoed the appeals of the Secretary-General “to all parties to fully implement resolution 1701, to cease (the) violations, and to respect the cessation of hostilities.”The Special Coordinator emphasized the critical importance of resolution 1701 to the security and stability of Lebanon, Israel and the region and of moving forward on outstanding commitments that remain for both parties. “We should move towards resolution 1701, not away from it. The full implementation of resolution 1701 remains our primary raison d’être,” she said. Overviewing the situation in Lebanon, the Special Coordinator reiterated the need for Lebanon’s political leaders to expedite the election of a president as a starting point towards reactivating state institutions and kickstarting the recovery process. The nearly nine month-long vacuum “is undermining Lebanon’s ability to address the country’s multifaceted crisis by exacerbating the erosion of state institutions, while also prolonging Lebanon’s return to recovery,” she said. The Special Coordinator also noted the protracted socio-economic and financial crisis in Lebanon and its harmful impact on the Lebanese people. She said progress was needed to implement comprehensive and equitable reforms in line with the requirements of the International Monetary Fund. Despite the political stalemate and the deteriorating socio-economic conditions, the Special Coordinator voiced reassurances that the security situation in Lebanon largely remained under control and commended the role of the Lebanese Armed Forces and Internal Security Forces in that regard. Two weeks prior to the third anniversary of the deadly Beirut Port explosion, the Special Coordinator reiterated the U.N.’s calls for the Lebanese authorities to follow through on an impartial, thorough, and transparent investigation. She underlined the importance of an independent and efficient judiciary as a backbone for the prevalence of the rule of law, justice, and accountability. In conclusion, the Special Coordinator underlined the commitment of the United Nations to continue supporting Lebanon and the Lebanese people.

Report: 5-nation group to use carrot-and-stick tactic to push for Aoun's election
Naharnet/July 20/2023
The five-nation group on Lebanon met in Doha on Monday to “discuss a single matter: moving to the choice of the third candidate – Army Commander General Joseph Aoun,” informed sources said. The group discussed “means to convince the Shiite Duo, specifically Hezbollah, with this nomination, studying a list of pressures that can be exerted in the coming period to achieve this objective, which included a lot of ideas, among them barring tourists from visiting Lebanon to undermine the touristic season,” the sources told al-Akhbar newspaper in remarks published Friday. The conferees tackled “the needed pressure to push Hezbollah not only to back down from its support for Suleiman Franjieh, but also to what’s a lot further than the presidency,” the sources added, noting that “the coming days will be rife with political, economic, financial and even security pressures.”Accordingly, “the Qataris are expected to begin a new round of meetings with the political forces, this time under a clear objective: promoting Joseph Aoun,” the sources said. “The new round has already kicked off and communication has started with the various political forces to convince them of the Joseph Aoun choice,” the sources added, noting that “there are incentivization efforts not limited to politics, seeing as huge budgets have been earmarked based on the size and influence of each bloc in parliament.”

Hezbollah relieved over FPM's lifting of Franjieh veto
Naharnet/July 20/2023
Hezbollah is relieved over the resumption of dialogue with Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil without having to give up its nomination of Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency, a Shiite Duo source said. “The reason behind Bassil’s return (to dialogue) might be the partial flexibility that the Duo has shown towards Army chief General Joseph Aoun,” the source told MTV. Shiite Duo sources meanwhile told al-Jadeed television that “the presidential course is not clear, because none of the foreign parties wants to fight the battle of a certain party in Lebanon.” “The French initiative is dying and there is no new initiative other than the Qatari drive that is taking place in coordination with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and will be continued through talks with the various Lebanese parties,” the sources added.

EU stands firm with Lebanon: Extends targeted sanctions framework for another year
LBCI/July 21, 2023
In a decision made on Thursday, the European Council has opted to prolong the framework for imposing targeted restrictive measures to tackle the ongoing crisis in Lebanon for an additional year, until July 31, 2024. Originally adopted on July 30, 2021, this framework empowers the European Union to impose sanctions on individuals and entities found responsible for undermining democracy or the rule of law in Lebanon through various actions. The targeted restrictive measures encompass the following actions:
- Obstructing or undermining the democratic political process by persistently hindering government formation or impeding elections.
- Obstructing or undermining the implementation of plans endorsed by Lebanese authorities and supported by relevant international actors, including the European Union.
- Engaging in serious financial misconduct concerning public funds, as covered by the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and unauthorized export of capital.
The sanctions under this framework involve a travel ban to the European Union, and asset freezes for individuals and entities. Moreover, EU persons and entities are prohibited from providing financial support to those listed under the sanctions.
The European Union has reiterated its commitment to employ all available policy instruments to support Lebanon in finding a sustainable solution to the current crisis. It stands prepared to respond to any further decline in democracy, the rule of law, and the country's economic, social, and humanitarian situation.
"It is of the utmost importance for the Lebanese leadership to put aside their differences, work together to form a government, and enact the measures required to steer the country towards a sustainable recovery-including an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. Swift presidential elections, government formation, and municipal elections are more essential than ever," said a press release issued by the Council of the EU. It added: "The stability and prosperity of Lebanon are of crucial importance for the whole region and for Europe. The EU stands by the people of Lebanon in this hour of need."

Electricity bill dilemma: The complex reality of Beddawi Camp's power consumption
LBCI/July 21, 2023
Electricity bill dilemma: The complex reality of Beddawi Camp's power consumption Thousands of housing units in Beddawi Camp, home to Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese residents, have not been paying electricity bills for a considerable period. However, a closer look reveals a more complex reality. While some residents benefit from free electricity, others dutifully pay their bills to Lebanon's Electricité du Liban (EDL). Walking through the camp's streets, one encounters both beneficiaries and paying customers. Residents who benefit from the free electricity have no electricity meters installed in their homes or shops. Why do thousands of units lack meters and benefit from state-provided electricity without payment? The units with meters and regular bill payments are the older houses in the camp, which fall under planned urbanization. On the other hand, the thousands of additional units without meters are newly developed structures resulting from unplanned, unregulated expansion built on top of the older houses. Practically, a significant portion of the camp relies on tapping into a limited electricity supply provided by EDL without payment. Earlier, EDL had proposed to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) that a private company coordinating with factions should handle the collection process. UNRWA requested four weeks to respond to the proposal. Similar phenomena of non-payment persist in larger Palestinian refugee camps, Syrian displaced camps, and several Lebanese neighborhoods. This situation indicates various factors contributing to the dire state of the electricity sector in Lebanon.

Fueling progress: Lebanon and Iraq sign agreements to boost electricity sector
LBCI/July 21, 2023
Lebanon and Iraq recently signed Memorandums of Understanding (MoU), amounting to a maximum of $1.8 billion, to facilitate the supply of crude and fuel oil to Lebanon's struggling electricity sector. The agreements were signed during a meeting between Lebanese Energy Minister Walid Fayyad and Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdul Ghani in Baghdad. The expected quantities of crude oil and fuel oil are set at 3 million tons and 500,000 tons, respectively, and will be allocated for the benefit of Electricité du Liban (EDL). The first MoU pertains to extending an existing fuel oil supply agreement, which was set at 1 million tons annually but has now been increased to 1.5 million tons per year. Lebanon will cover the cost of this quantity through services, goods, and other means. The second MoU outlines a new agreement under which Iraq will supply Lebanon with 2 million tons of crude oil annually, amounting to a financial value of $1.2 billion. These MoUs are expected to transition into formal contracts in the upcoming weeks. Lebanon hopes that this increased fuel supply will contribute to raising the daily electricity supply to 10 hours, alleviating the current severe power shortages in the country. However, a significant challenge for the Energy Ministry remains the payment method for this fuel, especially considering the new contract's value in dollars. Despite Lebanon's ongoing financial and liquidity crisis, Iraq continues to work on providing the country with essential fuel for its electricity sector. The evidence suggests that Iraq is willing to offer further support, provided Lebanon demonstrates genuine commitment to reforming its electricity sector and financial situation, ensuring timely fulfillment of its financial obligations.

Strengthening energy partnerships: Lebanon and Iraq sign two key memoranda
LBCI/July 21, 2023
Lebanon's Caretaker Energy Minister Walid Fayad and Iraqi Oil Minister Hayan Abdel-Ghani have signed two memoranda of understanding to strengthen their energy cooperation. The first memorandum focuses on renewing the existing contract that supplies Lebanon with fuel oil, which will be increased to 1.5 million tons. Additionally, the second memorandum outlines a fresh commitment to supply Lebanon with two million tons of crude oil at an annual cost of about one billion and 200 million dollars.

Will BDL vice governors resign after yesterday's 'discouraging' meeting?
Naharnet/July 20/2023
The Central Bank’s four vice governors – Wassim Mansouri, Bashir Yakzan, Salim Chahine and Alexander Mouradian – might resign, a central Bank vice governor said. The vice governor told al-Akhbar newspaper, in remarks published Friday, that the vice governors' meeting with the Parliament's Administration and Justice Committee was not "encouraging."The vice governors had met on Tuesday and Thursday with the Administration and Justice Committee. They presented Thursday to the MPs a preliminary comprehensive financial plan. "If we don't see a serious approach towards our proposals, our resignation would be the response," the vice governor told al-Akhbar. The plan had "crippling" conditions according to some MPs, media reports said, adding that MPs are now leaning toward the appointment of a new governor or the extension of outgoing governor Riad Salameh's term, as they considered that the vice governors' plan needs legislations and described it as "unclear." Lebanon since last year has been governed by a caretaker cabinet with limited powers and without a president, and naming a high official could take months of political horse-trading. According to the constitution, Parliament cannot legislate before a president is elected, and opposition MPs have been boycotting all legislative sessions. One of the vice governors' conditions is to stop the Sayrafa exchange platform and replace it with a "managed" floating exchange rate platform set up through international providers. The central bank governor is named by cabinet decree for a six-year mandate that can be renewed multiple times, based on the finance minister's recommendation. If the position is vacant, the law stipulates that the first vice-governor take over. The vice governors had warned in early July that they would resign, but later backed down from the idea, saying the threat was intended to "alarm the political class and the people". After Thursday's meeting, Mansouri said that no result was reached during the session and that next week, when the MPs will give their feedback, the vice governors will act accordingly.

BDL vice governors submit comprehensive financial plan to MPs
Naharnet/July 20/2023
The Central Bank vice governors sent Thursday a preliminary comprehensive plan to the Parliament's Administration and Justice Committee. The plan "enables the correction of the monetary policy, and starts the recovery process. Its major objective is to float the exchange rate in a managed manner on an internationally recognized exchange platform, so that it reflects the real value of the Lebanese Pound," Wassim Manssouri, Bachir Yakzan, Salim Chahine, and Alexander Mouradian said. The four vice governors added that the expected timeline of the plan is over six months. The term of embattled three-decade chief Riad Salameh ends this month with no successor in sight. The central bank governor in Lebanon is named by cabinet decree for a six-year mandate that can be renewed multiple times, based on the finance minister's recommendation. If the position is vacant, the law stipulates that the first vice-governor take over. "The government and the Parliament shall commit to approving laws to rebuild trust and secure additional revenues from its budgetary framework to repay the newly outstanding loan, through the following three steps:
Budget Review
-Enactment of Capital Control Law, Bank Restructuring and Resolution Law, and Gap Resolution Law, with a protection of customers' deposits.-A coordination between BDL, the Parliament, and the Government to improve the depth of the Foreign Exchange Market " the vice governors said. They added that BDL will intervene in the market during the coming few months to stabilize as much as possible a "unified exchange rate" on Sayrafa and will provide its best effort to secure a smooth transition to a "Managed" Floating Exchange Rate Platform.

Nature's embrace: Youth hostels in Lebanon invite travelers to uncover pristine beauty
LBCI/July 21, 2023
A global trend encouraging young adventurers to explore the world on a budget has found its way back to Lebanon. Youth hostels, once a thriving concept worldwide, have made a remarkable comeback in the country, attracting young travelers from every corner of the globe. Nestled in the heart of nature, these budget-friendly lodgings extend a warm welcome to young men and women, inviting them to uncover Lebanon's pristine beauty and partake in various activities. The initiative operates in collaboration with the International Youth Hostel Federation and the Lebanese Youth Hostels Federation, playing a pivotal role in the success of Beirut, the Capital of Arab Youth 2023. From Ramliyeh in the Aley District to Taanayel in the Zahle District, the experience in these havens is nothing short of enchanting, with the villages showcasing the simplicity and charm reminiscent of days gone by. These youth hostels are spread across various districts and provinces, from Hermel to Keserwan, the South to the Chouf, and beyond; visitors can get to know the sweet face of Lebanon, whom many love and miss a lot.

Rahi discusses latest developments with Lebanese Forces delegation, meets Youmna Gemayel, Arab Volunteer Union President
NNAt/July 21, 2023
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi, on Friday received a delegation of the Lebanese Forces (LF), at the summer patriarchal residence in Diman. Discussions reportedly touched on the overall developments on the local arena, especially the issue of the presidential elections. The delegation extended to Patriarch Rahi an invitation to sponsor the annual mass service in commemoration of the Lebanese Forces’ martyrs, which will be held on September 3rd. On the other hand, Patriarch Rahi received in Diman, the head of the Arab Volunteer Union, Sheikh Hassan Mohammed Bu Hazaa. Rahi later received the Coordinator of the "National Front for the Return of the Displaced Syrians" Youmna Bashir Gemayel, with a delegation from the committee. Discussions touched on the Syrian displacement issue.

Geagea meets Qatari Ambassador on farewell visit, broaches latest developments
NNAt/July 21, 2023
Lebanese Forces Party leader, Samir Geagea, on Friday met at the party's headquarters in Maarab, Qatari Ambassador to Lebanon, Ibrahim Abdulaziz Al Sahlawi, who paid him a farewell visit marking the end of his diplomatic mission in Lebanon. The meeting took place in the presence of LF Foreign Relations Head and former minister, Richard Kouyoumjian. Discussions reportedly touched on the latest political developments in the country.

Frangieh meets Qatari Ambassador on farewell visit, discusses overall developments
NNAt/July 21, 2023
Marada Movement Leader, Sleiman Frangieh, received, at his Bnachei residence on Friday, Qatari Ambassador to Lebanon, Ibrahim Abdulaziz Al Sahlawi, who paid him a farewell visit marking the end of his diplomatic mission in Lebanon.
The meeting took place in the presence of Antoine Merheb. Discussions reportedly touched on the overall developments on the local arena, and the means to bolster the bilateral relations between the two countries.

Sayyed Nasrallah Calls on Lebanese Gov’t to Expel Swedish Ambassador in Protest of Holy Quran Desecration
NNAt/July 21, 2023
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah tackled the renewed crime of disrespecting the Holiest Islamic Book in Sweden, saying: “We are saddened by the new heinous act of desecrating Holy Quran."
Delivering a speech during the commemoration of the third night of Ashura ceremonies in the southern suburb of Beirut on Thursday, Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that selecting an Iraqi Christian to burn Holy Quran is deliberate.
All Muslims, not just the Shia, are concerned with condemning the desecration of Holy Quran, Sayyed Nasrallah said in a comment about disrespecting the photos of Iraqi and Iranian religious figures in Sweden. Hezbollah Leader indicated that the Israeli Mossad insists on stirring sedition among Muslims and Christians in Iraq. To face the blatant violation, Sayyed Nasrallah called on all worshippers to hold protest after the Friday prayers off all the mosques across Lebanon and demand that the Lebanese authorities expel the Swedish ambassador and withdraw the Lebanese ambassadors from Sweden. He also urged Ashura ceremonies attendees to hold a copy of the Holy Book on Friday in order to show commitment to Quran and collectively read a number of verses. Politically, Sayyed Nasrallah said that over 50 Arab and Muslim states must withdraw ambassadors from Sweden and expel Swedish diplomats on order to threaten the Swedish interests, calling for public demands in this context.--agencies

Wahhab-Abou Fadel verbal clash escalates into on-air brawl
Naharnet/July 21, 2023
A verbal clash between ex-minister Wiam Wahhab and the journalist Simon Abou Fadel escalated into a fistfight during an on-air episode of MTV’s popular talk show Sar el-Wa2et (It’s About Time). The fistfight immediately turned into a mass brawl and chaos on the show’s set, with supporters of Wahhab seen beating up Abou Fadel and MTV security scrambling to contain the situation. Wahhab and Abou Fadel exchanged insults before the former minister threw a glass of water at the journalist and a brief fistfight ensued between the two. The two guests were discussing the issue of possible foreign sanctions on the obstructors of Lebanon’s presidential election. The brawl continued outside MTV’s building amid an intervention of army troops. The show continued later and both Wahhab and Abou Fadel returned to the set to make comments – albeit separately. In his comments, Wahhab apologized to MTV chairman Michel Murr, Sar el-Wa2et host Marcel Ghanem and the audience, as well as to Abou Fadel, describing him as an old friend. Abou Fadel for his part said that his bruised face reflects his “conscience.”“I talk for the sake of the people and the people’s children, not to please a certain party,” Abou Fadel added.
“What happened with me is easy compared to what (Lebanese Forces chief) Samir Geagea suffered in his prison,” the journalist went on to say, noting that what Wahhab and his supporters did reflected “the image of the political camp that wants to rule” the country. Abou Fadel also reminded of the 1994 bombing of the Our Lady of Salvation church and the assassinations of Ramzi Irani, Elie Hobeika, Rafik Hariri, Pierre Gemayel and other March 14 figures. “I am nothing before their sacrifices and I wish I could be one of them,” he added.

Peaceful protestors denounce Quran desecration across Lebanon
Naharnet/July 21, 2023
Protesters took to the streets across Lebanon Friday to denounce Sweden's permission for a protest that desecrated the Quran. In the southern suburbs of Beirut, thousands gathered at the protest, brandishing copies of the holy book and chanting “with our blood, we protect the Quran.” Some burned Swedish flags.People also gathered in the South and in Baalbek outside mosques after Friday prayers. Hezbollah had called for a demonstration Friday afternoon, and its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah invited in a video address Thursday night "brothers and sisters in all neighborhoods and villages to attend all mosques, carrying their Qurans," as he called on the state to take a stance toward Sweden. On Friday “the whole world must see how we embrace our Quran, and the whole world must see how we protect our Quran with our blood,” he said. Army troops were deployed near Sweden's embassy in Beirut Friday, but only few protested there. Protesters also took to the streets of the Iraqi and Iranian capitals Friday. The rallies came amid heightened tensions between Sweden and Iraq over a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee who last month burnt pages of the Quran outside Stockholm's main mosque, then again on Thursday stepped on the Quran without burning it. Iraq expelled its ambassador and regional powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran announced in separate statements late Thursday they had summoned Swedish diplomats to protest the permission Stockholm had granted to Momika's actions on free speech grounds. Nasrallah also called on Thursday for the expulsion of the Swedish envoy and the recall of Lebanon's ambassador to Sweden. "It's the minimum required," he said. The Lebanese Foreign Ministry condemned the desecration of the Quran. In a statement Friday, it called on the Swedish authorities to put an end to any act that would incite violence, offend religions and deepen feelings of hatred, Islamophobia, and racism.

Grandfather accused in rape-death of 6-year-old girl in Lebanon
Arab News/July 21, 2023
The child’s father, who lives in Akkar, took custody of his daughter after he and the child’s mother, Waad Bou Khalil, divorced several months ago
BEIRUT: The death of a 6-year-old girl believed to have been the victim of a brutal rape has sparked outrage in Lebanon, with her grandfather accused of carrying out the attack. It is alleged the victim, Lynn Taleb, suffered internal bleeding leading to her death eight days after she stayed with her mother at her grandfather’s house in Al-Minieh, north Lebanon. North Lebanon Prosecutor Mathilda Touma filed a complaint against Taleb’s grandfather on suspicion that he raped his granddaughter, and against her mother for covering up the attack. The case has shocked the Lebanese public and sparked widespread anger. The child’s father, who lives in Akkar, took custody of his daughter after he and the child’s mother, Waad Bou Khalil, divorced several months ago. The daughter was staying with her mother during the Eid Al-Adha holiday when the attack is alleged to have taken place. She died on July 1. Her mother said that a doctor examined the girl and prescribed drugs as she was suffering from a high temperature. However, the doctor did not examine the victim’s whole body. The mother refused to keep her daughter at the medical center and took her home. She died the same night. The girl’s mother published pictures of her daughter on social media, with her face showing extreme terror and fear. On further examination, it appeared that the girl had been repeatedly raped. The mother’s family tried to accuse the girl’s father and his family. They issued a statement denying the accusation. According to a judicial source, judge Touma queried the mother’s conflicting statements and detained her for questioning. Samples were collected from the detainees, including the victim’s father and family members, for DNA testing. The victim’s father was later released. Investigators who went through the mother’s phone believed she was in dispute with her father, Fawaz Abou Khalil. After being questioned, Khalil was arrested and the case referred to North Lebanon First Investigating Judge Samaranda Nassar. There are no official figures on rape in Lebanon as most incidents still go unreported. The 6-year-old girl’s death comes amid a rise in violence against children in recent weeks. A baby was found abandoned in a trash bag being carried by a stray dog, and a day later two newborns were discovered in a box under the Nahr Ibrahim bridge in north Lebanon. Domestic violence directed against women in front of their children has also been on the rise. Sociologist Mamoun Tarabay told Arab News: “The increase in violence in general and turning vulnerable children into scapegoats due to the circumstances of adults show that we are facing severe crises that are translated into violence.”Tarabay said he believed the victim’s mother was in a “difficult situation,” but should have “chosen to protect her daughter instead of remaining silent.”Child protection laws in Lebanon are “good and refined, similar to those in Western countries,” Tarabay said. “But the problem lies in the application of these laws and the punishment.” He blamed “the collapse of informal norms and rules” for much of the problem, adding: “Prostitution has become a kind of business, and drug trafficking is now seen as a sign of cunningness and a source of income.”Quoting sociologist Maurice Cusson’s book “Why We Punish,” Tarabay said: “As long as we don’t punish people, there won’t be any justice and safety in Lebanon.”

Fire engulfs Syrian refugee camp in Lebanon as plight grows
Al-Monitor Staff/July 21, 2023
BEIRUT — A massive fire broke out at a Syrian refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Friday in the latest tragedy to hit refugees who already face a growing crackdown in the country. The blaze quickly spread throughout the camp amid an extreme heatwave. Several tents burned down, but no human casualties were reported. The Lebanese Civil Defense quickly arrived at the scene and managed to extinguish the flames. A Civil Defense official told the US-funded, Arabic-language Al-Hurra news site that the fire was likely caused by an electrical short circuit and quickly engulfed the camp due to the high temperatures. On Thursday, firefighters put out a blaze at another refugee camp in Sidon in the south. The Civil Defense said in a tweet that a number of people were injured and moved to a nearby hospital. Lebanon is currently enduring a heatwave with unusually high temperatures reaching 41 degrees Celsius (105.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas. Syrian refugees in Lebanon, who already live in difficult conditions and face growing anti-Syrian sentiment, are more vulnerable to the repercussions of the extreme heat. Millions who live in informal camps across the country do not have access to clean water and cooling systems. Adding to their woes, Syrians also face a deportation campaign coupled with growing discrimination and abuse by the local population. Lebanon, a small country of a little more than 5 million people, hosts more than 2 million Syrians, according to local polling center Statistics Lebanon, making it the country hosting the largest number of refugees per capita. Politicians and officials have repeatedly called on the international community to facilitate their return to safe areas in Syria. Many in Lebanon blame the presence of Syrians for the debilitating economic crisis in the country.
The Internal Security Forces (ISF) on Thursday announced the arrest of seven Syrian and Lebanese nationals who are members of a human smuggling network. According to an ISF statement, the individuals were arrested on the Aabdeh-Mahmra road in the north as they were driving five vans carrying 79 Syrians who entered the country illegally — 13 of whom were planning to go to Europe via sea. Hundreds of Syrians in the country have been arbitrarily arrested while security forces have carried out dozens of raids in several camps in the past months. Many others were forcibly deported to their homeland where they face torture and other forms of persecution at the hands of the Syrian regime, rights organizations have warned. In a report issued earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said the Lebanese army forcibly deported thousands of Syrians, including unaccompanied children, back to Syria between April and May 2023.“Accounts of torture of returnees and their forced military conscription into a bloody war that has killed and displaced hundreds of thousands show that Syria is not safe for returns,” HRW quoted its Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss as saying in the report. Last week, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on Lebanon to refrain from forcibly deporting Syrian refugees, citing their vulnerability. “Conditions are not met for the voluntary, dignified return of refugees in conflict-prone areas in Syria,” one of the articles in the resolution read. The European move sparked outrage in Lebanon, with many politicians considering the resolution to encourage Syrians to remain in the country. Lebanese Minister of the Displaced Issam Charafeddine and Economy and Trade Minister Amin Salam condemned the decision as “unfair” and a blatant interference in the country’s internal affairs, according to the official National News Agency. For his part, Charafeddine said in a statement that the European Parliament decision is “arbitrary and unacceptable.”

Swedish embassy in Beirut: Precautions amid Quran desecration protests
LBCI/July 21, 2023
Following the burning of its embassy in Baghdad in protest against the desecration of the Quran by an Iraqi refugee in Stockholm, the Swedish Embassy in Beirut has taken precautions in response to Hezbollah's call for action in front of mosques. Unusually, the embassy closed its offices on Friday, while the vicinity was heavily guarded by Lebanese security forces and the army, with the deployment of the infantry and intervention units. Military and security forces established a security cordon around the embassy and extended it to the ambassador's residence in the area. However, the movement was limited to a group of peaceful youths. Hezbollah was precise in directing the compass towards mosques to prevent street unrest. The party limited its actions to prayers, collective Quran recitations, and slogans defending the Quran from Beirut to the South. Nevertheless, Hezbollah's official stance was unwavering, as their foreign relations official reiterated the call for the expulsion of Swedish ambassadors by all Arab governments. Additionally, they demanded that the Lebanese government recall its ambassador from Sweden and expel the Swedish ambassador in Beirut. Some Friday sermons in Sunni mosques focused on the same topic, criticizing the lack of condemnation from other sects. Notably, the calls for protests were confined to Hezbollah.

LIC Applauds the Joint Statement on Lebanon by Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United States
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Washington, DC - July 21, 2023
The Lebanese Information Center (LIC) commends the powerful joint statement on Lebanon released on July 17 by the governments of Egypt, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United States. The LIC strongly supports the document's call for Lebanese leadership to promptly elect a president and implement necessary reforms to uphold integrity. The joint statement acknowledged the severity of Lebanon's economic and political situation and emphasized the potential for multilateral sanctions if certain political leaders obstruct the process further. The LIC backs the calls to action in the communique and urges Members of Parliament, especially the Speaker, to fulfill their constitutional responsibility and proceed with an open electoral session to elect a president of character and integrity. Such a leader could break the cycle of corruption and political inaction and unite the country while prioritizing the people's needs and implementing crucial economic reforms to avert collapse. The LIC stresses the importance of judicial reforms that guarantee the independence of courts and uphold the rule of law. Additionally, the LIC advocates for an impartial, independent, and international investigation into the 2020 port explosion. Furthermore, Lebanon must adhere to its responsibilities under UN resolutions and the Taef Agreement, including disarming militias, notably Hezbollah.The LIC appreciates the urgency conveyed in the statement and the acknowledgment of tangible consequences for political leaders if the deadlock persists. The unity among the supporting nations is encouraging and demonstrates consensus on the need for meaningful action. The LIC urges Lebanon's leaders to heed this call and act in the best interest of the nation and its people. We express gratitude to the five member states for their continuous support and implore them to utilize their influence to ensure a timely and transparent election of a new president, recognizing the gravity of the situation and the necessity for concerted efforts to address Lebanon's challenges.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 21-22/2023
Pentagon sends US Marines to deter Iran tanker seizures in Persian Gulf
Al-Monitor Staff/July 21, 2023
WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is deploying an expeditionary unit of United States Marines to the Persian Gulf, ratcheting up its military presence in a bid to deter Iran from seizing any more commercial oil tankers following a spate of such incidents in recent months. A Marine Expeditionary Unit and accompanying Amphibious Ready Group marks the latest addition to the US military’s presence in the Gulf in response to Iran’s recent seizures. Deployments of Air Force F-16 and F-35 fighter jets were announced over the past week as a US Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer headed to the Gulf via the Suez Canal. Iranian naval forces have seized at least three commercial tankers since April in retaliation for recent moves by the United States to confiscate shipments of sanctioned Iranian oil to East Asia. The United States and its maritime coalition allies have ramped up the pace of patrols in waterways around the Strait of Hormuz in response to the seizures. Earlier this month, a US destroyer thwarted attempts by Iran’s navy to seize two commercial tankers roughly three hours apart in the Gulf of Oman. In one incident, the crew of the pursuing Iranian navy vessel fired upon the Bahamas-flagged tanker Richmond Voyager, which refused the Iranian crew's orders to stop. US A-10 aircraft, and more recently F-16 fighter jets, have begun flying regular patrols around the strait in recent weeks in a bid to deter further actions by Iran. The latest deployment will bring "additional aviation, maritime assets and US Marines, providing even greater flexibility and maritime capability to the region,” US Central Command said in a press release. Earlier this month, Colin Kahl, the Pentagon's former top policy official, said prior to his departure from his role that Iran's tanker seizures have "the highest attention of the department" and that the most recent incidents were unlikely to be the last. "US Central Command is committed to defending freedom of navigation within our area of responsibility which includes some of the most important waterways in the world," CENTCOM commander, US Army Gen. Michael "Erik" Kurilla said in a statement on Thursday. Kurilla noted that the addition of Marines adds "unique capabilities, which alongside our partner nations in the region, further safeguard the free flow of international commerce and uphold the rules-based international order, and deter Iranian destabilizing activities in the region."

US responds to Iran's actions in the Strait of Hormuz: Ensures free flow of commerce with naval deployment
LBCI/July 21, 2023
In light of recent attempts by Iran to disrupt the free flow of commerce in the Strait of Hormuz and its surrounding waters, the Secretary of Defense decided to deploy a portion of the BATAAN Amphibious Readiness Group/Marine Expeditionary Unit (ARG/MEU) to the US Central Command (CENTCOM) area of responsibility (AOR). According to the US Department of Defense statement, this deployment will include the USS Bataan, USS Carter Hall, and their associated personnel and equipment. Additionally, it will complement the recently approved forces comprising F-35s, F-16s, and the guided-missile destroyer, USS Thomas Hudner (DDG-116). By deploying these forces, the United States aims to demonstrate its unwavering commitment to safeguarding freedom of navigation and deterring any destabilizing activities by Iran. In a statement, the US Department of Defense emphasized that the United States will work closely with like-minded allies and partners committed to the free flow of commerce. Together, they will take coordinated actions to counter any threats that undermine this fundamental principle of the rules-based international order.

US seeking release of fourth American held in Iran
Al Monitor/July 21, 2023
WASHINGTON — A fourth US citizen has been detained in Iran, several sources confirmed to Al-Monitor on Friday, potentially complicating the Biden administration’s pursuit of a prisoner exchange with Tehran.
More than two years after the United States and Iran began indirect talks over a prisoner swap, Tehran was known to be holding three Iranian-Americans — Siamak Namazi, Emad Shargi and Morad Tahbaz — on charges US officials say are baseless. Also held in Iran’s notorious Evin Prison is Shahab Dalili, a legal permanent US resident. On Friday, five sources with knowledge of the situation told Al-Monitor that the United States was seeking the release of a fourth individual detained by Tehran. Multiple sources said the detainee is a male dual US-Iranian national, with one source saying he was arrested in late 2022. Experts speculated that actors within Iran’s system had tried to sabotage the prisoner talks by arresting an additional American. It’s also possible that Iran’s negotiators sought another US citizen to restore balance to the negotiations after releasing a fourth American, Baquer Namazi, on humanitarian grounds in October 2022. In late June, Middle East Eye reported that US officials had added a fourth name to the list of Americans they were seeking from Iran. Semafor also reported on the detention of a fourth American. Asked to confirm the reports, a spokesperson for the National Security Council referred Al-Monitor to national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s interview with CBS’s "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "We have tried very hard to secure the release of the four unjustly detained Americans in Iran; we have done so since the day that President Biden took office,” Sullivan said. Last month, Washington and Tehran appeared to be on the verge of an agreement that would bring home the American prisoners in exchange for Iran gaining limited access to billions of dollars in assets frozen abroad. Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi, whose country has helped facilitate the prisoner talks, told Al-Monitor in a June 14 interview that the two sides were close to a deal. Albusaidi met with his Iranian counterpart, Hussein Amir-Abdollahian, in Tehran earlier this week. The Biden administration has previously said it would not accept a “partial deal” with Iran that leaves Americans behind, as occurred in 2016. Siamak Namazi, a businessman detained in 2015, was the only American not returned home as part of a prisoner exchange that occurred the same day the Iranian nuclear deal took effect. Namazi, now the longest-held American prisoner in Iran, was also left out of two subsequent prisoner releases under the Trump administration. A State Department spokesperson urged Iran to release all wrongfully detained Americans “without delay,” describing their imprisonment as “outrageous.” “We will not discuss the details of any efforts to secure the release of US citizens wrongfully detained by Iran, including any numbers of US citizens currently in Iran,” the spokesperson added. “Such discussions would be sensitive and highly consequential to those individuals and their families.”A spokesperson for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations declined to comment. Rights groups say that a feature of Iran’s foreign policy dating back to the 1979 revolution is to jail foreigners and dual citizens as leverage in negotiations for frozen assets, sanctions relief and other concessions. In late May, Belgium and Iran exchanged prisoners in an Omani-mediated deal. A week later, Tehran released three detainees from Denmark and Austria.

Israel says Saudi Arabia to allow it to attend Riyadh UNESCO event
Rina Bassist/July 21, 2023
Saudi Arabia has agreed to host all the signatory countries on the World Heritage Convention, including Israel, at a UNESCO conference set to take place in Riyadh in September, an Israeli diplomatic source told Al-Monitor. The issue came up at a meeting on Wednesday in Paris between UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay and Israel’s Foreign Minister Eli Cohen. On Tuesday, Saudi Arabia signed an agreement with UNESCO over hosting the 45th session of the World Heritage Committee. The agreement includes, as always in such cases, a commitment by the hosting country to welcome all stakeholders, and in particular all delegations from the states that are parties to the World Heritage Convention, a UNESCO diplomat told Al-Monitor. If Saudi Arabia follows up on its commitment, it will be the first time official Israeli representatives will publicly participate in an event in Riyadh.
Until last Tuesday, the Saudis gave no sign they were willing to offer representatives of the Israeli Foreign Ministry entry visas for the UNESCO event and even ignored some discreet Israeli inquiries on the issue. Israel left UNESCO six years ago, following the withdrawal of the United States from the organization. At the time, the Trump administration said it had decided to quit UNESCO over an alleged bias against Israel. While leaving the organization, Israel did not withdraw from its 1999 membership of the World Heritage Convention. Thus, it maintains contact and cooperates with UNESCO, even if it is no longer a member of the organization. The UNESCO diplomat also said that the meeting between Azoulay and Cohen took place at the request of the Israeli side. Cohen, it was said, expressed his gratitude for the work undertaken by Azoulay for battling antisemitism. He also brought up the issue of Israel’s return to the organization. The United States and Israel had announced their decision to withdraw shortly before the appointment of Azoulay as director general. Since her appointment in November 2017, she had labored relentlessly to de-politicize UNESCO.  For instance, before her appointment, the organization used to adopt annual decisions recognizing Muslim and Palestinian affiliations to heritage sites, especially in Jerusalem, but not Jewish affiliation. Azoulay managed to convince the parties to agree on less-politicized resolutions, to be accepted by consensus. Before Azoulay, and especially since Palestine was accepted as member state in 2011, resolutions critical of Israel would be adopted at least once a year. Azoulay convinced the Jordanians, Palestinians and other parties to negotiate the wording of such texts. While Israel was no longer member, Azoulay included Israeli representatives in these negotiations to ensure the texts would not be perceived as anti-Israeli. The efforts by Azoulay were recognized by the United States, which announced earlier this month its intention to rejoin the organization. First Lady Jill Biden is set to meet with Azoulay in Paris on July 25 and participate in the ceremony marking the return of the United States to UNESCO. That being said, Israel’s government has not taken any decision yet on whether or not it will return to UNESCO. The meeting of Cohen with Azoulay and the fact that the issue of return was discussed is the first sign that such a move is being considered by Israel's government. At the meeting, Cohen also brought up the issue of protecting Jewish heritage sites in the West Bank, following a recent decision by the Israeli government to do so. Far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition have expressed on more than one occasion their rejection of UNESCO, which they still consider as biased against Israel. Cohen could now plead for a return to the organization, citing the protection of West Bank Jewish heritage sites as motivation for such a move.

Israeli army faces internal fissures over judicial overhaul as Iran watches
Ben Caspit/Al Monitor/July 21, 2023
TEL AVIV — Israel is experiencing one of its most dramatic internal crises since its establishment 75 years ago, where even the army is torn over the judicial overhaul plan advanced by the Netanyahu government. Over 500 reserve Israel Air Force pilots, a significant number of its operational force, are planning to refuse to show up for duty to protest the government’s neutering of the Supreme Court’s authority. The pilots are gathering the last of the 513 signatures on a letter to be handed to Air Force Commander Maj. Gen. Tomer Bar. The dramatic move, first reported Friday by Channel 12 News, is the latest in a wave of pro-democracy protests among army reservists, including pilots, drone operators, special forces, intelligence experts and others. The government and some top military commanders are slamming the refusals as insubordination endangering the country’s security, while the reservists argue that the government’s weakening of the judiciary is turning Israel into a dictatorship that they can no longer serve. Clearly, the unprecedented penetration of the deep societal and political rift into the ranks of the military’s regular and reserve forces is undermining the final Israeli bastion of consensus — the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). Still, this undermining affects not only Israel’s society; security tops are warning it could affect Israel’s security as well. "All that is left for Hezbollah and Iran to do now is to rub their hands with glee,” a senior Israeli political source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “They do not need to do anything. The Jews are defeating themselves." The magnitude of the internal fissures is best demonstrated by the growing vilification of Israel’s vaunted air force pilots, a brand that always enjoyed broad public admiration as "the insurance policy of the Jewish people" against destruction by their enemies. On Thursday, right-wing activists posted a staged video clip showing pilots allegedly refusing to provide air cover for infantry fighters during battle because they suspected them of supporting the government’s judicial overhaul. Minister of Culture and Sports Miki Zohar posted the clip but quickly deleted it in response to the public storm it generated, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir continues to distribute it despite strong condemnations from air force commander Bar, IDF spokesperson Brig. Gen. Danniel Hagari and Defense Minister Yoav Galant. Even organized Likud party groups on social media — as well as supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including well-known journalists — continue to disseminate the fabricated video slaughtering Israel’s last remaining sacred cow — its air force.
The Knesset coalition rushed through this week the various approval stages required for the approval of the "Reasonableness law" — neutering of the Supreme Court’s authority. Ahead of the bill’s expected final approval early next week, the widespread public protests also intensified, including a march to Jerusalem that has drawn over 10,000 participants despite the scorching heat.
Hezbollah at close range
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who met this week with President Joe Biden at the White House and addressed a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, said senior American officials had expressed concern that Hezbollah and the Iranians were observing the internal dispute in Israel and might try to exploit this opportunity.Indeed, a few days earlier, Hezbollah issued dramatic photos clearly showing IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, head of the Northern Command Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin and others during a recent tour of the border with Lebanon.  "The publication of the photos makes it clear that Hezbollah had this entire group in its sight at close range," a former senior Israeli military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. “This time they used a camera lens,” he said, warning that in the future Hezbollah could focus on the top brass through a sniper’s scope.
The military was unperturbed. The fact that IDF tops have no fear of going everywhere within Israeli sovereignty and Hezbollah makes do with photography shows that Israeli deterrence is alive and well, one officer said. But as many among the top brass know, this assessment is no longer accurate. Hezbollah, backed by Iran, is closely monitoring the disintegration of Israeli society and its influence on the IDF.These developments are unprecedented. The IDF relies heavily on its reserves. Reservists of elite units are called up often and therefore considered volunteers. "Pilots must train all the time, even routinely, in order to maintain readiness," one former air force commander told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity. "As soon as the reservists stop coming, the countdown begins and the force quickly loses its competence."The problem is particularly severe in the air force that relies on its highly experienced reservists for reconnaissance and combat missions, but it has spread also to other branches of the IDF.  Meanwhile, the streets of Israel are burning, literally. On Thursday night and the early hours of Friday morning, many roads and intersections were blocked by thousands of demonstrators lighting bonfires. The Ayalon highway, Tel Aviv's beltway, was blocked for a large part of the evening while many bonfires burned on the asphalt. Police violence appears to be increasing as political pressure grows on it to crack down on protesters even as understaffing hobbles its performance.
The unrest is engulfing every sphere of life in Israel. The Israel Medical Association has declared a labor dispute and the universities are considering a general strike. A forum of leading business leaders and representatives of major corporations convened in Jerusalem on Thursday and called on the government to immediately stop the legislation. Defense and security veterans echoed these calls. Former Shin Bet security agency chief Nadav Argaman justified those who decline to show up for reserve duty. "We need to stop this legislation by any means," he said. Former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo said, "In a few days Israel will no longer be democratic. I hope Netanyahu will be held accountable in court one day." Former Shin Bet chief Yoram Cohen also called on Netanyahu to stop before disaster strikes. A few days ago, most former air force commanders were summoned to a meeting with the current commander to discuss the repercussions of the protest on the air force and ways to contain the refusals to serve. Halevi and Galant presented Netanyahu this week with an assessment of the damage to the armed forces. Biden also weighed in, urging Netanyahu in a phone call this week to seek broad consensus for the drastic changes he is leading. Biden followed up the call with an unusual New York Times interview in which he underscored his comments to Netanyahu, apparently to ensure the prime minister does not deny or dismiss them. Netanyahu, however, is charging ahead. The question many ask themselves is whether the Israeli premier can pump the brakes at this point, before next week’s crucial vote. Starting on the evening of July 26, Israelis will mark the fast of the ninth day of the Hebrew month of Av, lamenting the calamity that befell the Jewish people with the destruction of their ancient temples by external enemies made possible by bitter internal dissent. Israel is now as close to that ancient civil strife as it has ever been.

Thousands march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem to protest judicial overhaul plan
Associated Press/July 21, 2023
Thousands of Israelis joined a march from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem on Friday in the latest protest of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's vow to push through a controversial overhaul of the judiciary system. Hundreds of protesters became thousands as Israelis joined the 70-kilometer march throughout the day in a demonstration against one of Israel's most far-right governments in history. The demonstrators planned to camp overnight at Shoresh, about 18 kilometers from Jerusalem, before making their way to Israel's parliament on Saturday, the Jewish holy day of Shabbat.
The march comes a day after Netanyahu vowed to press ahead with the plan, defying demonstrators, growing defections by military reservists and appeals from U.S. President Joe Biden to put the plan on hold. Ronen Rosenblatt, 58, a high-tech worker who'd joined the march following months of frustration with Netanyahu's government, described the event as jovial, with people united behind a common objective of "stopping this stupidity, this dictatorship."Protesters carried Israelis flags and political signs in a line four kilometers (2.5 miles) long that wound through olive orchards and farmland. They'd left seaside Tel Aviv on Thursday, camping overnight roughly halfway to Jerusalem near the Latrun Monastery. Rising on Friday to shared meals and coffee, the protesters dismantled their tents as others prayed with their arms wrapped in tefillin before they all began marching again towards Jerusalem and the Knesset, Israel's parliament. Lawmakers are expected to vote Monday on a bill that would curtail the Supreme Court's oversight powers by limiting its ability to strike down decisions it deems "unreasonable." The standard is meant as a safeguard to protect against corruption and improper appointments of unqualified people. The bill is one of several keystone pieces of the Netanyahu government's judicial overhaul plan. Netanyahu and his allies — a collection of ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox parties — say the plan is needed to curb what they consider excessive powers of unelected judges. Critics say the legislation will concentrate power in the hands of Netanyahu and his far-right allies and undermine the country's system of checks and balance. They also say Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, has a conflict of interest. The proposal has bitterly divided the Israeli public and drawn appeals from Biden for Netanyahu to forge a broad national consensus before passing any legislation. The judicial overhaul plan was announced shortly after Netanyahu took office as prime minister following November's parliamentary elections. It was Israel's fifth election in under four years, with all of the votes serving as a referendum on his leadership. Presidents of major Israeli universities said they would hold a strike Sunday to protest the bill, local media reported. Doctors held a two-hour "warning strike" Wednesday to protest the overhaul, which they said would wreak havoc on the healthcare system by granting politicians greater control over public health.
They vowed more severe measures if the bill is voted through.

After decades of struggle, dozens of African Hebrew Israelites face deportation
Associated Press/July 21/2023
For two years, Toveet Israel and dozens of other residents of the Village of Peace have lived in fear.
Dimona, a city on the edge of the nation of Israel's Negev Desert, has been her home for 24 years. Her eight children were born here and know no other country. Now, she and 130 other undocumented members of the African Hebrew Israelites of Jerusalem face deportation. Receiving the order to leave two years ago was a "moment of disbelief" for Israel, 53. "I feel like the government has been merciless to me and my children," she said. The Hebrew Israelites, as the spiritual community's members are commonly known, first made their way to Israel from the United States in the 1960s. While members do not consider themselves Jewish, they claim an ancestral connection to Israel. Around 3,000 Hebrew Israelites live in remote, hardscrabble towns in southern Israel. The Village of Peace, a cluster of low-slung buildings surrounded by vegetable patches and immaculate gardens in Dimona, is the community's epicenter. Over decades, the Hebrew Israelites have made gradual inroads into Israeli society. After years of bureaucratic wrangling, about 500 members hold Israeli citizenship, and most of the rest have permanent residency. But about 130 have no formal status and now face deportation. Some don't have foreign passports and say they have spent their entire adult lives in Israel and have nowhere to go. The community's long fight to secure its status shines a light on Israel's strict immigration policy, which grants people it considers Jewish automatic citizenship but limits entry to others who don't fall under its definition.
The African Hebrew Israelites are one of a constellation of Black religious groups in the U.S. that emerged in the late 19th and 20th centuries and encompass a wide spectrum of Christian and Jewish-inspired beliefs. Some fringe Black Hebrew groups in the U.S. hold extremist or antisemitic views, according to the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center. The community in Dimona does not espouse such beliefs. André Brooks-Key, an African and African American studies professor at Claflin University in South Carolina, said these various religious communities share a belief that certain African peoples are descendants of the biblical Israelites and that the transatlantic slave trade was prophesied in the Bible. "Regardless of how they understand Jesus or how they dress or any of these other aspects, that underlying theological point is what binds them together," Brooks-Key said. The Hebrew Israelites believe they are descendants of the biblical tribes of Israel who, after the Roman conquest in 70 A.D., fled down the Nile and west into the African interior and were ultimately taken as slaves to North America centuries later. They observe an interpretation of biblical laws formulated by their late founder that includes strict veganism, abstention from tobacco and hard alcohol, fasting on the Sabbath, polygamy, and a ban on wearing synthetic fabrics.
Ben Ammi Ben-Israel, the group's Chicago-born spiritual leader, said he had a vision in 1966 from the angel Gabriel that Black descendants of the Israelites should "return to the Promised Land and establish the Kingdom of God," according to the community's website. After a brief stint in Liberia, Ben-Israel and several dozen families of followers arrived in Israel in 1968. Ben-Israel died in 2014 at age 75 and is revered as a messianic figure, Ahmadiel Ben Yehudah, a community elder and spokesperson. "We're Judeans by our tribal affiliation," he said. "There's a long tradition and continuity of cultural connections that root us here in this land. We didn't just fall out of the sky."Shortly after their arrival, the Hebrew Israelites' legal problems began. Israel initially granted them citizenship, but subsequently revoked it after changes in its Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to Jews.
They remained illegal aliens, some of them stateless after renouncing their American citizenship, until the early 1990s, when they began receiving temporary Israeli residency. A turning point came in 2002, after a Palestinian gunman killed six people at a bat mitzvah party, including a 32-year-old Hebrew Israelite singer who had been performing. In response, Israel started granting the community members permanent residency. In 2015, about 130 of them without documentation submitted requests for residency rights, claiming that authorities had reneged on earlier promises to legalize their status. The Interior Ministry rejected the requests in 2021 and issued deportation orders to 49 people. Four left the country, while the remaining 45 appealed. The rest remain in legal limbo. The ministry's Population and Immigration Authority said the individuals subject to deportation had never appeared on lists submitted by Hebrew Israelite leaders and that some had entered Israel recently.
"It's not clear why their first requests (for residency) were only submitted in 2015," the authority said, or why the community didn't submit requests on behalf of those individuals. The community's deepened integration into Israeli society over the years has made the idea of deportation especially painful. Dozens of young Hebrew Israelites serve in the Israeli military, and many work for Teva Deli, a vegan food manufacturer. The community runs a school where its students learn Hebrew and Black history as part of their educations. The majority of Village of Peace residents, particularly members of the younger generation that grew up in Israel, speak Hebrew fluently. On June 1, the community celebrated New World Passover, a holiday marking the exodus from the United States of the Hebrew Israelites who came to Israel in the 1960s. Families dressed in vibrant patterned outfits gathered in a public park adjacent to the Village of Peace for live music and a vegan soul food cookout. Afterward, the community assembled around a stage for a dance performance and a march celebrating Hebrew Israelite soldiers serving in the Israeli military to chants of "We are soldiers of our God."Months have dragged on without a decision from the Israeli authorities, leaving the undocumented Hebrew Israelites suspended between their homes in the Holy Land and what they see as exile. Ben Israel, 55, who grew up in Bermuda and moved to Israel from the U.S. in 1991, is slated to be deported with four of his five children. "I won't walk out of here," he said. "We come to serve the god of Israel, the god of our forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We are Hebrew Israelites. So why not arm-in-arm?"

Turkey's Fidan says no solution without Russia to grain deal impasse
Al Monitor/July 21/2023
ANKARA — Turkey’s top diplomat Hakan Fidan dismissed on Friday Kyiv’s offers to ship Ukrainian grain without an agreement with Russia, saying any option that excludes Moscow would "likely endanger security." Speaking at a joint presser with his Venezuelan counterpart Yvan Gil, Fidan also said Turkey and the United Nations are on the same page on the issue. “There are efforts on the Ukrainian side to bring alternative solutions. As Turkey, we frankly believe that Russia should be brought back to the table again. We believe any solutions other than that will be far fetched and will highly likely endanger security,” Fidan said. His remarks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy tabled on Monday an alternative solution to ship foodstuff from his country to world markets via Romanian, Bulgarian and Turkish waters in the Black Sea. Following the offer, Moscow designated northwest and southeast of the Black Sea as “temporarily dangerous” for shipping. Turkey's Fidan said UN Secretary General António Guterres is in agreement with Ankara's approach. “During our conversation with UN Secretary General Guterres [on Tuesday], we agreed on this point.”The deal which allowed Ukrainian grain to reach global markets expired on Monday, after Moscow announced that it would not extend the accord until the conditions it tabled are met. Russia is seeking the loosening of banking sanctions and the ability to ship its fertilizer before returning to the deal. Fidan said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explained in detail their reasons for withdrawing from the deal during the duo’s phone conversation on Wednesday. “Along with the UN, we are working on what can be done to bring Russia back to the table and to meet its demands,” he said.  More than 35 countries rely on Ukraine, which is known as the world's breadbasket, according to the World Food Programme (WFP). Global grain prices are on the rise after the Russian move to withdraw from the deal, with the international community warning against potential famine in impoverished communities that already face hunger. WFP is among the top buyers of grain as part of its food-assistance program for impoverished communities across the world, particularly in Africa. Fidan also warned that the ramifications of a potential failure could be disastrous. “Global food security will be in great danger. Fluctuations in food prices will seriously affect the economies. Famine will become even more serious, particularly in nations that are already suffering from malnutrition,” Fidan said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussed ways to resume the deal with his Ukrainian counterpart Zelenskyy on Friday, the Turkish presidency said. In a tweet, Zelenskyy said the two leaders discussed coordinated efforts to restore the agreement. “Due to Russia’s actions, the world is once again on the brink of a food crisis. A total of 400 million people in many countries of Africa and Asia are at risk of starvation. Together, we must avert a global food crisis,” he tweeted.

UN expert decries 'mass arbitrary detention' of children in Syria
GENEVA (Reuters)/Fri, July 21, 2023
A United Nations expert voiced concern on Friday that tens of thousands of children were being detained arbitrarily in northeastern Syria based on their alleged ties to Islamic State and in violation of international law. Fionnuala Ni Aolain, a U.N. Special Rapporteur, said a day after returning from the region that she was also concerned about the "snatching" of hundreds of boys from camps. Thousands of internal refugees and families of suspected IS fighters including Syrians, Iraqis and other nationals are housed in detention camps across the region after fleeing from jihadist-held areas during the Syria conflict. "The thing I will say that concerned me the most and my team the most as we visited northeast Syria was the mass indefinite and arbitrary detention of children, particularly boys in various types of facilities," she said. Their detention in camps, prisons and centres was "premised on the alleged threat that they pose to security based on their or their parents' alleged prior links with Daesh," she added, using a synonym for IS. Ni Aolain was speaking the day after what she says was the first visit to the region by a U.N. human rights expert. Among the places she visited was the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds around 55,000 people including 31,000 children. It also contains third-party nationals from Western countries despite U.N. pressure to take them back. The northeast of Syria including al-Hol falls under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed group. An official from the SDF-affiliated authorities that run the region did not immediately respond to a request for comment. SDF officials regularly call on foreign countries to repatriate families of Islamic State militants in the camps. Ni Aolain described conditions at al-Hol as "dire and extreme," saying the temperature was 50 Celsius during her visit. The term "camp" is inappropriate, she said, since people are not free to come and go. "There appears to be no understanding that it is in absolute contravention of international law, to detain children in what appears to be an unending cycle of cradle-to-grave detention," she said. She also raised concerns about the separation of hundreds of adolescent boys from their mothers in camps based on the alleged security risk they posed. She did not say where they went but has previously said they went to unknown locations. "Every single woman I spoke to made clear that it was the snatching of children that provided the most anxiety, the most suffering, the most psychological harm," she said. "The rationale for taking these boys simply does not stand up to scrutiny."In February, U.N. rights experts expressed grave concern about reports that at least 10 boys were taken away from another camp, Roj, by the authorities in northeastern Syria. They said there was a pattern of forcibly removing boys who reach the ages of 10 or 12 from the camps and separating them from their mothers and taking them to unknown locations, calling this completely unlawful. The SDF-affiliated autonomous administration said in a statement at the time the report was "far from the truth."It said the camps' administration from time to time removed adolescents because they were at the age at which they were at the highest risk of being influenced by extremism, saying they were put in "rehabilitation centres".

Putin is again warning that Ukraine could be invaded and occupied by Poland
Charles R. Davis/Business Insider/July 21, 2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed Friday that Poland wants to seize Western Ukraine.
"The possibility is obvious," he said in remarks to his Security Council.
Russia has often deflected from its own invasion by claiming Poland has its own imperial ambitions.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who last year ordered a full-scale invasion of Ukraine following the earlier occupation and illegal annexation of Crimea, on Friday warned that Ukraine could be invaded and occupied — by Poland.
In a video address to his national security council, the Russian leader claimed the increased military cooperation between Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania since the Russian invasion could provide an opportunity for Warsaw to settle historical disputes and stake its own claim to Ukrainian territory. Under the guise of a friendly "military union," and citing the threat posed by Russia, Poland could send troops to Western Ukraine and, "if we're being blunt," remain there for good, Putin argued, according to a translation of his remarks shared by Kevin Rothrock, an editor at the independent Russian media outlet Meduza. "The possibility is obvious," Putin said. "If Polish troops enter, for example, Lviv or other Ukrainian territories, they will stay there, and they will stay there forever." Russia's attempt to sow discord among allies is nothing new. In May 2022, Sputnik, a Russian government media platform, broadcast the claim — citing Russian intelligence — that Warsaw would seek to annex parts of western Ukraine, part of what the European Union's disinformation-monitoring service described at the time as a "[r]ecurring narrative presenting Poland as a state which has imperial ambitions."The charge was repeated this past April by Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia's Security Council. "Emboldened by the current circumstances, Poland has decided that the chance to absorb the remnants of Ukraine is to be taken now, or never," he wrote on Twitter. The claim was repeated again this month by a spokesperson for Russia's foreign ministry. Speaking Friday, Putin — who launched the 2022 invasion with the hope of overthrowing Kyiv's government — claimed he would not "interfere" in internal Ukrainian affairs. But he accused Poland of also desiring parts of Belarus, a close Russian ally. That would trigger war, he said. "We'll respond to that by every means," Putin said. Representatives for the Polish and Ukrainian governments did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Have a news tip?

Russia targets Ukraine's farm storage sites
Associated Press/July 21, 2023
Russian cruise missiles destroyed farm storage buildings in the Odesa region early Friday, Ukrainian officials said, as the Kremlin's forces expanded their targets following three days of bombardment of the region's Black Sea port infrastructure.
Other Russian missiles damaged what officials described only as an "important infrastructure facility" southwest of the port city of Odesa, in what appeared to be part of an ongoing effort to cripple Ukraine's food exports. Attacks in recent days have put Odesa in Russia's crosshairs after Moscow abandoned a wartime deal that allowed Ukraine to send grain through the key Black Sea port. In the attack on the storage site, two of the low-flying cruise missiles hit initially and started a blaze, and then another struck during firefighting efforts, regional Gov. Oleh Kiper said. The barrage injured two people, damaged equipment and destroyed 100 metric tons of peas and 20 metric tons of barley, Kiper said. Russia targeted Ukrainian critical grain export infrastructure after vowing to retaliate for an attack that damaged a crucial bridge between Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula. "The enemy is continuing terror, and it's undoubtedly related to the grain deal," said Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military's Operational Command South. Both Russia and Ukraine have announced that they will treat ships traveling to each other's Black Sea ports as potential military targets. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said the recent strikes against port and grain infrastructure and threats of escalation at sea "are likely a part of a Kremlin effort to leverage Russia's exit from the Black Sea Grain Initiative and exact extensive concessions from the West." In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Western countries should address Russia's demands in order to restore the Black Sea grain corridor. "Russia has some expectations. If these are overcome, Russia is in favor of the active work of this grain corridor," said Erdogan, who helped negotiate the deal. "We know that (Putin) has some expectations from Western countries. Western countries need to take action on this issue."He reiterated he would talk to Putin by phone and hoped to meet him in Turkey next month. In comments reported by state-run news agency Anadolu and other media, Erdogan warned that end of the grain initiative would raise global food prices, increase famine and unleash new waves of migration. The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, said the navy conducted drills that simulated action to seal off a section of the Black Sea. In the maneuvers, a missile boat fired anti-ship cruise missiles at a mock target. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meantime, repeated his claim that Ukraine's much-anticipated counteroffensive is failing, although he offered no evidence. Putin, whose authority was shaken last month by a short-lived rebellion from a Russian mercenary force, told a meeting of his Security Council that the Ukrainian military has suffered massive losses and the West is struggling to maintain supplies of weapons and ammunition. Putin also spoke provocatively about Poland, alleging that Warsaw has formed a special military unit to ensure security in western Ukraine and has plans to meddle in Kyiv's affairs. In other developments, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the resignation of the country's culture minister, suggesting the ministry's spending was misguided during wartime. "Paving stones, city decorations, and fountains can wait till after the victory," he said. The move follows recent scandals involving local authorities, such as the repair of a cobblestone road in central Kyiv and renovation of a fountain in a city in western Ukraine city. Zelensky also fired the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Kingdom, Vadym Prystaiko, who was also ambassador to the International Maritime Organization. He gave no reason, but Prystaiko had publicly criticized the president on occasions.

Saudi, Iran summon Swedish diplomats over Quran protests
Agence France Presse/July 21, 2023
Middle East powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran have summoned Swedish diplomats to denounce Stockholm's permission for protests that desecrate the Quran on free speech grounds. The separate moves by both majority-Muslim countries, announced in statements late Thursday, came amid heightened tensions between Sweden and Iraq over a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee who last month burnt pages of the Muslim religious text outside Stockholm's main mosque. In the latest such incident on Thursday, the refugee, Salwan Momika, stepped on the Quran but did not burn it, triggering renewed condemnations and calls for protest across the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, said it would hand the Swedish charge d'affaires "a protest note that includes the kingdom's request to the Swedish authorities to take all immediate and necessary measures to stop these disgraceful acts", according to a foreign ministry statement. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Sweden's ambassador to Tehran had been called in to censure the permit granted to Momika's protest and to warn Stockholm of the consequences of such actions. "We strongly condemn the repeated desecration of the holy Quran and Islamic sanctities in Sweden and hold the Swedish government fully responsible for the consequences of inciting the feelings of Muslims around the world," Kanani said. News that Swedish authorities would permit the latest demonstration to go ahead had led hundreds of Iraqis to storm and torch Sweden's Baghdad embassy in a chaotic pre-dawn attack. Iraq's government condemned the attack. It also retaliated against the protest in Sweden by expelling its ambassador, vowing to sever ties and suspending the operating licence of Swedish telecom giant Ericsson.
'Provocative'
On Thursday, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation denounced the Stockholm protest as "another provocative attack" that could not be justified under the right to freedom of expression. Turkey's foreign ministry called on Sweden to take "dissuasive measures to prevent hate crimes against Islam and its billions of followers". In Lebanon, leader of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called for expulsion of the Swedish envoy there and the recall of Lebanon's ambassador to Sweden. "It's the minimum required," he said. Iranian authorities have called for nationwide demonstrations to be held after Friday prayers to denounce the "desecration of the holy Quran," according to the state broadcaster. Tehran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian in a letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres asked him "to immediately condemn this action and take the necessary measures as soon as possible in order to prevent the recurrence of such insulting and provocative action," the foreign ministry said. Spokesman Kanani condemned "any insult to religious sanctities and holy books anywhere and by anyone", arguing "freedom of speech used to attack dignity, morals and religious sanctities... has no value."The June Quran burning, during the Eid al-Adha holiday, had sparked indignation and diplomatic protests across the Muslim world. Saudi Arabia at the time called for Sweden "to stop all actions that directly contradict international efforts seeking to spread the values of tolerance, moderation and rejection of extremism, and undermine the necessary mutual respect for relations between peoples and states".

Why does Sweden allow Quran burnings?
Associated Press/July 21/2023
A recent string of public desecrations of the Quran by a handful of anti-Islam activists in Sweden has sparked an angry reaction in Muslim countries and raised questions – including in Sweden – about why such acts are allowed. In the latest such incident, an Iraqi living in Sweden on Thursday stomped on and kicked Islam's holy book in a two-man rally outside the Iraqi Embassy in Stockholm. The protest was authorized by Swedish police, who kept a handful of agitated counterdemonstrators at a safe distance. The same Iraqi man burned a Quran outside a Stockholm mosque last month in a similar protest that was approved by police. And at the start of the year, a far-right activist from Denmark carried out a similar stunt outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm. Here's a look at how Swedish authorities have been dealing with these acts.
IS DESECRATING THE QURAN ALLOWED IN SWEDEN?
There is no law in Sweden specifically prohibiting the burning or desecration of the Quran or other religious texts. Like many Western countries, Sweden doesn't have any blasphemy laws. It wasn't always that way. As late as the 19th century, blasphemy was considered a serious crime in Sweden, punishable by death. But blasphemy laws were gradually relaxed as Sweden became increasingly secularized. The last such law was taken off the books in 1970.
CAN SWEDISH AUTHORITIES STOP SUCH ACTS?
Many Muslim countries have called on the Swedish government to stop protesters from burning the Quran. But in Sweden it is up to police, not the government, to decide whether to authorize demonstrations or public gatherings. The freedom of speech is protected under the Swedish constitution. Police need to cite specific grounds to deny a permit for a demonstration or public gathering, such as risks to public safety. Stockholm police did just that in February when they denied two applications for Quran-burning protests, citing assessments from the Swedish Security Service that such acts could increase the risk of terror attacks against Sweden. But a court later overturned those decisions, saying police need to cite more concrete threats to ban a public gathering.
CAN QURAN-BURNING BE CONSIDERED HATE SPEECH?
Sweden's hate speech law prohibits incitement against groups of people based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or gender identity.
Some say burning the Quran constitutes incitement against Muslims and should therefore be considered as hate speech. Others say such acts are targeting the religion of Islam rather than practitioners of the faith, and that criticism of religion must be covered by freedom of speech, even when some consider it offensive.
Seeking guidance from the justice system, Swedish police have filed preliminary hate crime charges against the man who burned the Quran outside a mosque in Stockholm in June and desecrated Islam's holy book again on Thursday. It's now up to prosecutors to decide whether to formally indict him.
ARE SWEDISH AUTHORITIES SINGLING OUT MUSLIMS AND THE QURAN?
Some Muslims in Sweden who were deeply hurt by recent Quran burnings questioned whether Swedish police would allow the desecration of holy books from other religions. One Muslim man apparently decided to put that to the test and applied for permission to stage a protest last Saturday outside the Israeli Embassy in which he said he intended to burn the Torah and the Bible.
Though Israeli government officials and Jewish groups condemned the planned act and called on Swedish authorities to stop it, police approved the man's request. However, once at the scene the man backed away from his plans, saying that as a Muslim he was against the burning of all religious books.
HOW IS BLASPHEMY VIEWED IN OTHER PARTS OF THE WORLD?
Blasphemy is criminalized in many countries. A Pew Research Center analysis found that 79 countries and territories out of the 198 studied had laws or policies on the books in 2019 that banned blasphemy, defined as "speech or actions considered to be contemptuous of God or of people or objects considered sacred." In at least seven countries - Afghanistan, Brunei, Iran, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia - it carried a potential death sentence.
In the Middle East and North Africa, 18 of the 20 countries studied had laws criminalizing blasphemy, although not in most cases punishable by death. In Iraq, publicly insulting a symbol or a person that is held sacred, revered, or respected by a religious sect is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. Likewise in religiously diverse Lebanon, where sectarian divisions helped fuel a brutal 15-year civil war from 1975 to 1990, any act "intended to or resulting in" provoking "sectarian strife" is a crime punishable by up to three years in prison. In the United States, under the freedom of speech protections in the First Amendment of the Constitution, it's not illegal to burn copies of the Quran or other holy books. For example, authorities were appalled by Florida pastor Terry Jones' threat in 2010 to burn a copy of the Quran on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, but were unable to take legal action. Jones didn't go through with that plan, but he led a Quran-burning in Florida the next year.

Iraqis, Iranians rally as Swedish diplomats leave Baghdad in Quran row
Associated Press/July 21/2023
Protesters took to the streets of the Iraqi and Iranian capitals Friday to denounce Sweden's permission for protests that desecrate the Quran, as Stockholm withdrew staff from its Baghdad embassy. Hundreds of people gathered in Baghdad's Sadr City after Friday prayers, chanting "Yes, yes to Islam, yes, yes to the Quran", an AFP correspondent said. In Tehran, hundreds of protesters, waving Iranian flags and carrying copies of Islam's holy book, chanted "Down with the United States, Britain, Israel and Sweden" as some set the blue-and-yellow Swedish flag ablaze. The rallies came amid heightened tensions between Sweden and Iraq over a Sweden-based Iraqi refugee who last month burnt pages of the Quran outside Stockholm's main mosque. In the latest such incident on Thursday, the refugee, Salwan Momika, stepped on the Quran but did not burn it, triggering renewed condemnation and calls for protest across the Muslim world. Sweden on Friday cited security concerns in a decision to relocate embassy staff and operations from Baghdad to Stockholm, after protesters stormed the embassy compound in a pre-dawn raid this week. "The embassy's operations and its expatriate staff have been temporarily relocated to Stockholm for security reasons," the Swedish foreign ministry said. The Iraqi government condemned the attack on the embassy. It also retaliated against the protest in Sweden by expelling its ambassador, vowing to sever ties and suspending the operating licence of Swedish telecom giant Ericsson. "The expulsion of the ambassador is too little, we want more," said protester Sabbah al-Tai, 45, in Sadr City, a working-class district of Baghdad. The crowd gathered there at the order of influential Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, whose followers were behind the embassy raid late Wednesday. Carrying parasols to shield from the baking summer heat, some protesters set fire to rainbow flags, an action Sadr says highlights the "double standard" of Western governments in defending LGBTQ rights while allowing the desecration of religious texts. "Through this demonstration, we want to send a message to the United Nations," said Amer Shemal, a Sadr City municipality official, calling on member states to "penalise any desecration of holy books -- those of Islam, of Christianity, of Judaism"."These are all holy books," said Shemal.
'Disgraceful' -
Regional powerhouses Saudi Arabia and Iran announced in separate statements late Thursday they had summoned Swedish diplomats to protest the permission Stockholm had granted to Momika's actions on free speech grounds.
Saudi Arabia, home to Islam's holiest sites, said it would urge "the Swedish authorities to take all immediate and necessary measures to stop these disgraceful acts", according to a foreign ministry statement. Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani said Tehran holds "the Swedish government fully responsible for the consequences of inciting the feelings of Muslims around the world". Kanani condemned "any insult to religious sanctities and holy books anywhere and by anyone", arguing "freedom of speech used to attack dignity, morals and religious sanctities... has no value." Protesters in Tehran as well as other major Iranian cities, including Mashhad in the northeast, Tabriz in the northwest and Isfahan in the centre, heeded a call from authorities for nationwide demonstrations after Friday prayers. The June Quran burning, during the Eid al-Adha holiday, had sparked indignation and diplomatic protests across the Muslim world. On Thursday, the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation denounced the latest Stockholm protest as "another provocative attack" that could not be justified under the right to freedom of expression. Turkey's foreign ministry called on Sweden to take "dissuasive measures to prevent hate crimes against Islam and its billions of followers".

Armenia's Pashinyan says war with Azerbaijan 'likely' unless peace treaty signed -
TBILISI (Reuters)/July 21/2023
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with the French AFP news agency published on Friday that a new war with Azerbaijan was "very likely" if the two countries were unable to agree a peace treaty. "So long as a peace treaty has not been signed and such a treaty has not been ratified by the parliaments of the two countries, of course, a (new) war (with Azerbaijan) is very likely," Pashinyan was quoted as saying. Pashinyan presided over an Armenian defeat in 2020 in a war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, during which Armenian-backed separatists lost large amounts of territory in and around the enclave. Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but inhabited primarily by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan's control during an extended conflict in the 1990s. Armenia and Azerbaijan have engaged in a flurry of diplomacyaimed at a lasting peace deal in recent months, but there have also been sporadic border clashes, and the talks have not yet yielded a major breakthrough. Both Armenia and separatist authorities in Karabakh have said that Azerbaijan has blockaded the territory since December, placing a border post on the only road connecting the region to Armenia and blocking most traffic.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 21-22/2023
Forced Migration, Murder, and More: A Week in the Life of Egypt’s Copts
Patrick George/Daraj site/July 21/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/120342/%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%aa%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%83-%d8%ac%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%ac-%d8%aa%d9%87%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%88%d9%82%d8%aa%d9%84-%d9%88%d8%aa%d8%b6%d9%8a%d9%8a%d9%82-%d8%ad%d8%b5%d9%8a%d9%84%d8%a9-%d8%a3%d8%b3/
On July 9, 2019, Daraj published this “look into a week in the life of Egypt’s Christians,” for which author Patrick George was sentenced to prison for three years. He was behind bars for 22 months. This week he was ordered to go back to prison, before being pardoned.
Not a month goes by without Egypt’s Christians experiencing 8 to 10 tragedies ranging from forcible migration and kidnapping to the closure of one church, the bombing of another, and even murder of a Christian, who is then said to have been “disturbed or mentally deranged.”
This article provides a simple look into one week in the life of Egypt’s Christians. One week is enough to portray the magnitude of the ordeal that they are faced with.
During the first days of Eid al-Fitr, Egypt witnessed a massive terrorist attack which resulted in 14 state security casualties holding various ranks in both police and army. Not one Christian name was mentioned, which caused many to be surprised when a military funeral was held for Abanoub Marzouk, a Christian officer who hails from the village of Bani Qara, part of the town of El-Quseyya in the Assiut Governorate.
I published a blog post in which I asked about the reasons behind the media blackout regarding Abanoub. As a result, I was attacked by social media users, as well as Egyptian reporters, who told me blackouts were the norm, as the armed forces do not disclose the names of martyrs who died in terrorist attacks in Sinai for security reasons and to keep up morale of the forces stationed there.
The pressure led me to delete the blog. “Maybe I thought negatively too quickly,” I told myself. “Maybe this is not necessarily discriminatory.” I apologized to my colleagues as well.
A few hours later, news began circulating about clashes between village dwellers and the armed forces in Abanoub Marzouk’s hometown, after the latter had decided to name a village school after Marzouk, which the former vehemently refused as Marzouk was Christian.
The media did not shed much light on the case, but a number of journalists and Christian activists made sure their objections were heard.
Nader Chukri, a reporter on Christian affairs in Egypt, wrote: “The governor’s secretary told Abanoub’s brother Najeh ‘If I go to a wedding, and give away ten pounds as a gift, you cannot ask me to pay a hundred’ in response to Abanoub’s brother’s refusal to name an insignificant bridge after his brother.’”
“The person who refused to name the school after Abanoub is not from the Islamic Brotherhood, nor a Salafi, nor a militant extremist,” Ishac Ibrahim, a researcher at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights commented on Facebook.
“Do not be a coward,” he continued. “Say that he is a state official who holds discriminatory convictions. Any talk of accusing religious groups is a diffusion of responsibility. When criticized for deciding not to put Abanoub’s name on the school, the Assiut authorities proceeded to put his name on a small bridge over one of the canals in the village, despite the opposition of the family of the deceased!”
“It is clear the governorate wanted to satisfy all parties – and they did so by formally putting his name somewhere, while moving away from the trouble of putting his name on the school. It is noteworthy that the names of bridges and streets in the villages are of no importance whatsoever. They are not even formalized and often not known by the general public.”
In another post, Ibrahim pointed at the absence of the state and state officials condoning systemic discrimination by the village residents.Accordng to him, they crumbled under pressure and ended up not naming the school after the fallen soldier.
The Egyptian government dealt with the situation in a wrong and rather negative way, not taking any conclusive measures. Instead, the governor had to intervene.
When I tried to understand how the governor solved the problem, it turned out that he had named one of the bridges currently under construction at the entrance of the village after Marzouk. Thus the problem was solved. All the problems of Christians in Egypt are solved through a “bridge.”
When looking at the ways in which Abanoub’s fellow soldiers, who fell victim to the same or other terrorist attacks, were honored, one finds that the government has named a good number of streets, schools, and popular squares after those who were killed in attacks since the beginning of 2013 until today. This prompts one to wonder why the government dealt with the case of Marzouk in this peculiar way.
Men have the same share as women, even when Christian!
“We do not have such words in the Egyptian judiciary – ‘for the man has the same share as two women,’” said the judge in a recent report issued by the court regarding the inheritance case of human rights lawyer Hoda Nasrallah.
After Hoda’s father passed away, she decided to fight her own battle, not just for her sake, but for the sake of every Christian woman. She sought to obtain the same share of the inheritance as her two brothers after agreeing with them to divide the inheritance equally.
Article 3 of the 2014 constitution states that: The principles of the laws of Egyptian Christians and Jews are the main source of laws regulating their personal status, religious affairs, and selection of spiritual leaders.”
Article 245 of the Coptic Orthodox Regulations (1938) on inheritance states that “the descendants of the inheritor take precedence over other relatives in the inheritance. As such, they must take all the estate or what is left of it after fulfilling the share of the husband or wife of the deceased. If there were many branches of relatives of the same degree, the estate is to be divided among them in equal shares, with no difference between males and females.”
Hoda rejected her brothers’ initial proposal to go through the usual procedures of the judicial authorities, instead aiming for the inheritance to be divided among her and her brothers equally.
Hoda had a goal that reached beyond her personal cause, namely, to derail the laws that further contribute to the injustice faced by Christian women in the Egyptian Personal Status Law on a variety of issues ranging from separation to inheritance.
Many Christian men take advantage of the Egyptian judiciary’s lack of recognition of Christianity in national inheritance legislation to take more than what they are entitled to. Thus, Egyptian law has become an obstacle for especially Christian women to obtain their rights.
This exhibits only one form of oppression to which Christian women are subjected under Islamic law. Although these laws do not exist in Christianity, the patriarchy in Egypt thrives, as it is supported and justified by the law.
“We will not accept your testimony because you are Christian!”
A few weeks ago, a Facebook post with the title above went viral. It detailed what happened to Mr. Estephanos in a courtroom.
Mr. Estephanos is an engineer who worked in a government institution for over 35 years. He went to court to testify in a case that involved one of his colleagues, only for the judge to reject his testimony on the ground that he is Christian: “And there is no guardianship of a Copt over a Muslim.”
Mr. Estephanos and his son, Dr. Mark Estephanos, felt very distressed. As a result, the latter published a post on the matter, indicating that such events make him think of leaving Egypt, as he does not enjoy the same rights as others do.
The issue was raised for the first time in 2008 when Ahmed Shafiq, a Muslim citizen, requested the testimony of his Christian neighbor, Sami Farag, in the “Inheritance Media Case 1824.”
The court rejected Farag’s testimony on the pretext that his testimony is not legally permissible. The court then forced Shafiq to find a Muslim witness.
Going back to the constitution …
We find there is a clear contradiction regarding the right to testify and its supposed limitations. Article 2 of the Constitution states that “Islam is the religion of the state and Arabic is its official language. The principles of Islamic Sharia are the principle source of legislation.”
Article 53 states that: “Citizens are equal before the law, possess equal rights and public duties, and may not be discriminated against on the basis of religion, belief, sex, origin, race, color, language, disability, social class, political or geographical affiliation, or for any other reason. Discrimination and incitement to hate are crimes punishable by law. The state shall take all necessary measures to eliminate all forms of discrimination, and the law shall regulate the establishment of an independent commission for this purpose.”
Yet, according to several texts, Islamic law does not accept the testimony of a non-Muslim.
“There is nothing in the Law of Evidence between Christians and Muslims that prevents the testimony of any citizen from being accepted,” said Reda Bakir, a lawyer at Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.
Referring to the Law of Evidence, it is clear that there is no legal ground that prevents the testimony of a non-Muslim.
“I tend to lean towards Islamic law in matters related to religious constants that are not disputed,” said former human rights lawyer and legal researcher Mohammad Hassan. “It is not a matter of legality, because there is no legal guardianship by a dhimmi over a Muslim. Historically, a person living in a region overrun by Muslims, who was given a protected status and allowed to retain his or her original faith. The state is in the home of Muslims, given that Egypt is the home of Islam, and the dhimmi pays a tax to facilitate his affairs.”
The above was a simple observation of what the Christian community in Egypt can experience in just one week.
https://daraj.media/en/110114/?fbclid=IwAR28jyyYhKPcTsRyIIwXsud6CD0IEpj7yH5gG5O61_bZWcQkwMlY1ukcNBg

Erdoğan's Most Eminent Men: Turkey's New Spymasters
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute./July 21, 2023
Turkey's two key appointments are new foreign minister and former intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan; and the newly-appointed intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalın, also an Erdoğan confidant.
Both men have interesting and impressive careers. How both of them have become the only two people who make policy and share power with Erdoğan is illuminating, especially where their careers intersected under the president.
During that meeting, Fidan told the others that if they decided to go to war with Syria he could easily arrange a false flag operation: "Easy for me. I can send four men into Syria, they send eight missiles [into Turkish soil], and there you go."
The appointments mark formalizing executive cabinet jobs for two most important men in Erdoğan's most inner circle.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's two key appointments are new foreign minister and former intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan; and the newly-appointed intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalın, also an Erdoğan confidant. Pictured: Erdoğan (R) with Fidan (L) at Cankaya Palace on June 3, 2023. (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)
As Turkey's post-election dust is settling down, the international community has turned its attention to two key appointments announced by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who on May 28 won his 17th election victory in 21 years, and entered his third decade in power.
Turkey's two key appointments are new foreign minister and former intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan; and the newly-appointed intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalın, also an Erdoğan confidant.
Both men have interesting and impressive careers. How both of them have become the only two people who make policy and share power with Erdoğan is illuminating, especially where their careers intersected under the president.
The enigmatic Hakan Fidan
Fidan, born in Ankara in 1968, served the Turkish Army's Land Forces Command as a non-commissioned officer. He worked at NATO's Rapid Reaction Force in Germany. His thesis was titled, "A Comparison of the UK, US and Turkish Intelligence Agencies." After he abruptly quit his army career in 2001, he worked at the Australian Embassy in Ankara as a political and economic analyst -- a curious entry in his bio. It is not usual in Turkey, however, that a non-commissioned officer joins an embassy with almost no political and military ties with Turkey.
Fidan's first fully political appointment came in 2007, when he was named as deputy undersecretary to then Prime Minister Erdoğan. Three years later, he became the deputy director of Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT). Just a month after that, Erdoğan appointed him as director of MIT. At the time, Fidan was 42, the youngest ever Turkish official occupying this office.
Before he took over MIT, the agency operated without a division between foreign and domestic intelligence operations. His first task was to separate those departments, a revolutionary move for the agency. In the entire history of the MIT agency, its task was to fight enemies abroad and within. There was no differentiation between espionage work in, say, Germany or Istanbul. MIT officers were expected to be intelligence experts, knowing, for instance, both Afghanistan and southeastern Turkey. Fidan's move drew a line between foreign and domestic operations.
Fidan, a shadowy character with minimal public appearances, has never ceased to be at the center of domestic and foreign policy controversies. In 2010, Israel's then Defense Minister Ehud Barak called him "a man who supports Iran." Barak said he feared that under Fidan, MIT would share with Iran sensitive intelligence regarding Israel. In 2020, the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon wrote that "Fidan was a twin of [Iranian terrorist] Qasim Soleimani, and a conspiracy theorist."
In 2009, Fidan was part of a Turkish delegation that held rounds of peace talks, brokered by Norway, with the Kurdish separatist PKK. Audio recordings of these talks were leaked to the media in 2011.
In 2015, Fidan resigned as MIT chief to run for parliament on Erdoğan's AKP party list. Erdogan did not endorse the move and said he was offended by Fidan, who then tendered his resignation from MIT and returned to his seat.
In 2013 his name once again appeared in headlines. First when an audio recording was leaked to the media, allegedly by followers of the exiled Islamic preacher Fethullah Gülen, with full minutae of a meeting between Turkey's foreign ministry undersecretary, Fidan, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu and military chief General Yaşar Güler – the latter having been appointed as defense minister in Erdoğan's new cabinet. During that meeting, Fidan told the others that if they decided to go to war with Syria he could easily arrange a false flag operation: "Easy for me. I can send four men into Syria, they send eight missiles [into Turkish soil], and there you go."
Later in the same year, prosecutors (allegedly followers of Gülen) mobilized Gendarmerie forces to stop and search trucks on their way to Syria. The trucks belonged to or were commissioned by MIT. Their cargo contained loads of arms, ammunition, explosives and medical supplies. The trucks were destined to deliver their cargo to jihadists fighting in Syria.
The Erdoğan government immediately put a media ban on related news and sacked the prosecutors and Gendarmerie officers involved in the scandal on the usual charges that they were Gülen followers.
In his first public speech as foreign minister, Fidan said his mission will be to pursue an independent and national foreign policy. As a matter of fact ,Turkey's foreign policy calculus had invariably been devised and recalibrated by three men: Erdoğan, Fidan and Kalın, with the previous foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, merely following orders and working like a secretariat officer.
Fidan's appointment as foreign minister formalized a de facto situation. Fidan will probably have greater independence in foreign policy formulation. He will probably pursue a less explosive rhetoric than his predecessors.
Kalın: An Islamist Intellectual at the Helm of MIT
Kalın, like Fidan, has been Erdoğan's close confidant, especially in matters of foreign policy. During his university studies, Kalın often appeared in pro-Islamist student demonstrations. According to Wikileaks, he worked for Stratfor under the code name TR-306. Stratfor's G. Friedman would later describe him as "this man is a great source."
Between 2002 and 2005 he studied at the College of Holy Cross where he focused on philosophy, Islamic thought and international relations. Back in Ankara he formed the pro-Erdoğan think tank SETA. In 2007, he released his book, Islam and the West. SETA has since become a fertile ground for most prominent Erdoğan confidantes, Kalın, the president's communications director Fahrettin Altun, and Burhanettin Duran, a member of Erdogan's Security and Foreign Policy Board.
Kalın has piled up quite a rich volume of intelligence experience. In his recent professional years, he passed literally hundreds of hours with former spymaster Fidan and Erdoğan. The appointments mark formalizing executive cabinet jobs for two most important men in Erdoğan's most inner circle.
*Burak Bekdil, one of Turkey's leading journalists, was recently fired from the country's most noted newspaper after 29 years, for writing in Gatestone what is taking place in Turkey. He is a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Question: “If I am saved and all of my sins are forgiven, why not continue to sin?”
GotQuestions.org/July 21, 2023
Answer: The apostle Paul answered a very similar question in Romans 6:1-2, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” The idea that a person could “trust in Jesus Christ” for salvation and then go on living just as he/she lived before, is absolutely foreign to the Bible. Believers in Christ are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Holy Spirit changes us from producing the acts of the flesh (Galatians 5:19-21) to producing the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). The Christian life is a changed life because the Christian is changed.
What differentiates Christianity from every other religion is that Christianity is based on what God has done for us through Jesus Christ—divine accomplishment. Every other world religion is based on what we must do to earn God’s favor and forgiveness—human achievement. Every other religion teaches that we must do certain things and stop doing certain other things in order to earn God’s love and mercy. Christianity, faith in Christ, teaches that we do certain things and stop doing certain things because of what Christ has done for us.
How could anyone, having been delivered from sin’s penalty, eternity in hell, go back to living the same life that had him on the path to hell in the first place? How could anyone, having been cleansed from the defilement of sin, desire to go back to the same cesspool of depravity? How could anyone, knowing what Jesus Christ did on our behalf, go on living as if He were not important? How could anyone, realizing how much Christ suffered for our sins, continue sinning as if those sufferings were meaningless?
Romans 6:11-15 declares, “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!”
For the truly converted, then, continuing to live sinfully is not an option. Because our conversion resulted in a completely new nature, our desire is to no longer live in sin. Yes, we still sin, but instead of wallowing in it as we once did, we now hate it and wish to be delivered from it. The idea of “taking advantage” of Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf by continuing to live sinfully is unthinkable. Christians who have no desire to live for Christ, but instead find themselves living lives indistinguishable from those of unbelievers, should examine whether they have ever genuinely received Christ as Savior. “Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you—unless, of course, you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

After a failed mutiny, what next for the Wagner mercenaries?
Maria Maalouf/Arab News/July 21, 2023
Military analysts in the West are carefully studying the remarks by Russia's mutinous mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin last week as he welcomed Wagner Group mercenaries to Belarus.
He told them to be respectful to their hosts, to train the Belarusian armed forces, and to be ready for new missions and a “new journey to Africa.”
The main issue with the Wagner Group is how they will operate after their failed June 23-24 mutiny: a march on Moscow that suddenly stopped after Vladimir Putin struck a deal with Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko to have the Wagner troops stationed in the former Soviet republic.
The mutiny made Putin look weak and threatened. Therefore, the destiny of the Wagner Group and its 25,000 fighters will be determined by the Russian president, because he does not want to appear before the world as weak or threatened.
There are a number of strategic factors that Putin will employ to keep the Wagner Group under his authority, and a few strategic realities that could determine its future. For sure, Putin will deny the Wagner chief’s allegations. First, Prigozhin said his mutiny was not targeting Putin and that he was not trying to remove the president from power. Instead, he was aiming to settle scores with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and military chief Valery Gerasimov.
Putin is supporting the two most senior military officials in his cabinet against Prigozhin and his allegations. This will deprive the Wagner leader of much his group’s legitimacy and legal status. If Prigozhin continues to harbor animosity toward the defense ministry, the Russian leadership will curtail much of his militia’s activity outside Russia — because it would not be clear whether any military action by Wagner would be for its own advantage, or in the interests of Russian national security.
The destiny of the Wagner Group and its 25,000 fighters will be determined by the Russian president, because he does not want to appear before the world as weak or threatened.
Wagner has previously served Russian foreign policy. Its forces fought with the Russian regular army in annexing Crimea in 2014. It fought Daesh in Syria, it took part in missions in the Central African Republic and Mali, and recently it captured the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.
However, Putin will not allow Wagner to take any further part in the fighting in Ukraine. He wants to win the war against the West and Kyiv using only the armed forces of Russia. The military situation for Putin is not totally desperate, since this summer’s Ukrainian counter-offensive has so far largely failed to dislodge Russian troops from the positions they have occupied since the invasion began in February last year. Putin will impose as many limitations as possible to hinder and impede any military assignments for the Wagner Group, in Ukraine or elsewhere. Wagner’s presence in Belarus could be a long-term commitment to avoid their involvement in future wars in Africa and in the Middle East. As their registration with the defense ministry continues, the Russian government will be able to know exactly how many Wagner Group fighters are engaged in wars in places such as Syria and Libya.
Wagner may in fact transfer most if not all of its troops from Syria to Belarus. While they were deployed in Syria as early as 2015, the trend has been one of moving Wagner military personnel from Syria to Ukraine. This did not leave the Russian forces in Syria in any way weak or vulnerable. This is why Wagner may be forced to pull all of its military units from Syria without much strategic loss for Moscow.
Moreover, it is not clear what the future lies for the Wagner Group in Libya. They have been there since 2014. They are siding with the government of the eastern part of the country commanded by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar. They supported him in his attack on Tripoli in 2019. However, Wagner’s numbers there are not that large, perhaps no more than 2,000 fighters. Putin will seek a political and military freeze in Libya to be able to control all the forces loyal to Wagner and not require any help from them in Libya. Wagner Group could pull out, or be militarily inactive.
The most difficult situation for Putin and the Wagner Group is in Sudan, and the conflict between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
However, the most difficult situation for Putin and the Wagner Group is in Sudan, and the conflict between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. A shadowy Russian company called M-Invest— based in St. Petersburg, Prigozhin’s home city — has an office in Khartoum, and an agreement with the Sudanese government to mine for gold. In fact, the company is a front for the Wagner Group, and was employed by the former dictator Omar Bashir to suppress protests in late 2018.
It is not clear whether Putin will allow Wagner to continue to operate in Sudan. He may order it to be inactive. He may also change the nature of its missions to one of intelligence gathering. But the situation is so unstable in Sudan that no foreign government, including Russia, will make any long-term commitment.
The Russian government has a great deal of strategic ambiguity when it comes to the Wagner Group and its operations in the Middle East. Antipathy in the Kremlin suggests that Wagner’s future in the Middle East will not exceed the scope of the missions assigned to it in the past. Russia will probably gradually phase the militia out in Syria, Libya, and Sudan. Whether they are replaced with other troops loyal to Moscow will depend on the progress of the conflicts in those countries. But Russia will strive not to lose wars there — it may institute a series of military doctrines to allow Moscow to exercise power in Syria, Libya, and Sudan without any reliance on mercenary troops.
• Maria Maalouf is a Lebanese journalist, broadcaster, publisher, and writer. Twitter: @bilarakib

Russia’s war against Ukraine and global food security
Anatolii Petrenko/Arab News/July 21, 2023
A sovereign and independent Ukraine has always been a reliable partner in the field of food security. Ukraine is one of the world’s top five agricultural exporters. My country is blessed to possess a qualified agricultural industry, a favorable climate, fertile soil and hardworking people. Having such invaluable assets, we feel great responsibility lying on our shoulders.
Tragically, all of the above has been disrupted by the full-scale war of the Russian Federation against Ukraine. In addition to the suffering of the Ukrainian people and the significant impact on our economy, this war has launched a wave of hunger that is breaking over every corner of the world. But even under the shadow of these conditions, Ukraine showcases solidarity with those countries currently experiencing precarious situations.
Facing these difficult considerations, Ukraine, together with its partners, launched the Black Sea Grain Initiative and the Grain from Ukraine humanitarian initiative, which contributed to global food security, price predictability and guarantees of social stability to 45 countries, primarily in Africa and Asia.
Under the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Ukraine exported more than 33 million tons of grain and other foodstuffs. More than half of the global supply distributed by the UN World Food Programme is Ukrainian grain. At the same time, grain from Ukraine effectively delivered 170,000 tons of wheat to Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen and Kenya free of charge, mitigating those countries’ acute food supply needs.
These volumes could have been much higher if Russia did not constantly obstruct the corridor’s operation by blocking Ukrainian sea ports and delaying the inspections of inbound and outbound vessels, thus undermining the effectiveness of these two initiatives.
Further, Russia continues to demonstrate its irresponsibility and negligence to everything that does not relate to its politics. The aggressor state exploits the woes of vulnerable countries, using them as leverage to advance its political and economic interests. By resorting to grain blackmail, Russia seeks the lifting of sanctions that have nothing to do with food exports.
Through the termination of its participation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Russia endangers stability and the socioeconomic situations of countries in the Middle East, North Africa and Asia, while literally jeopardizing the lives of millions of people. The Russian political leadership wants to be the one that decides what people will have on their tables. That is totally unacceptable.
After exiting the Black Sea Grain Initiative, Russia started intensively shelling the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, striving to destroy the port and the grain infrastructure (reservoirs, storage facilities, terminals, etc.) that helped secure the operation of the grain corridor, thus showing its true attitude toward global food security. While terrorizing peaceful Ukrainian civilians, Russia also threatens innocent people residing in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia with hunger.
We must put an end to blackmail and Russia’s reckless efforts to weaponize food. Its neglectful behavior toward people in need should not be tolerated. Every time we allow Russia to use the situation for its benefit, we set a dangerous precedent that has far-reaching negative consequences on a global scale.
Food security is one of the essential pillars of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s peace formula, which aims to restore peace and security in Ukraine and all over the globe. That is another reason for the world’s leading actors, including Saudi Arabia, to participate in its implementation.
Ukraine urges the international community, especially those that are immediately concerned, to denounce and condemn Russia’s destructive actions in the strongest possible terms. This is a case where our joint pressure and unshakable resolve could possibly turn the tide. Ukraine is ready to continue being a determined food security guarantor for many countries around the world. Our sole request remains unchanged: Provide Ukraine with all the security guarantees needed and the positive effects will not keep you waiting.
• Anatolii Petrenko is Ukraine’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Twitter: @AmbUkraineKSA

Biden’s mixed results hurting his reelection chances
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/July 21, 2023
US President Joe Biden has now been in office for two and a half years, which gives us enough time to examine his progress on major domestic and foreign policy issues. Biden has already announced that he will be running for reelection in 2024. The success or failure of his administration’s domestic and foreign policies will play a crucial role in his bid for reelection.
Biden’s approval rating this month dipped to one of its lowest points so far. In general, a majority of Americans disapprove of the job he is doing as president, according to the Reuters/Ipsos poll. Biden’s approval rating lingered at 40 percent in early July, which is slightly lower than the previous month’s approval rating and is lower than the approval ratings of many of his predecessors, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush, at this point in their respective presidencies.
On the domestic level, the key issues for the American public include employment, inflation, immigration, the healthcare system and the crime rate. But the single most important concern for the American people is most likely related to the economy.
The rising cost of living, along with the cost of basic needs and commodities, high interest rates, supply chain issues, a dwindling workforce and high inflation are putting a lot of pressure on the working class and on small businesses. It was reported in December last year that the average American family had lost about $7,100 in purchasing power due to inflation and higher interest rates during Biden’s presidency. For example, Ashley Bachman, a mother of three and restaurant owner from West Virginia, stated: “Unfortunately, after COVID we have been hit with another crisis. The crisis of rising costs of everything … Our little restaurant has been bleeding money due to all the increased costs and I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to continue with the prices the way they are.” And Chuck Mills, the owner and operator of his family’s manufacturing company in Oklahoma, said: “The lack of workforce and supply chain issues, combined with inflationary pressures, have made this economy the most difficult economy I have dealt with in over four decades.”
Another key issue is the national debt, which increased by almost $4 trillion in the first two years of the Biden administration. Some people also disapprove of the White House’s approach to immigration, as there have been about 6 million illegal border crossings since Biden assumed office. There has also been an increase in the number of drug trafficking and human trafficking offenses.
On the other hand, the president’s most noticeable domestic accomplishments include passing the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, aka the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Biden signed this $1 trillion infrastructure bill into law. According to the White House, it will rebuild “America’s roads, bridges and rails, expand access to clean drinking water, ensure every American has access to high-speed internet, tackle the climate crisis, advance environmental justice, and invest in communities that have too often been left behind.”
The Biden administration also launched a historic $20 billion program in grant competitions for investment in clean energy. In addition, the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act provides $369 billion for climate-related investments and offers tax breaks.
When it comes to Biden’s foreign policy, a majority of Americans disapprove of the way the president is handling America’s affairs. This is most likely due to the administration’s approach to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. His approval rating for the way he handled Russia in the buildup to its invasion last year was just 36 percent, according to a Gallup poll. Although some people believe that the president’s cautious foreign policy has kept the US from being dragged into a full-fledged war with Moscow, many believe the administration has failed to adequately handle the situation.
This is likely because the Biden administration does not appear to have an articulate and clear agenda or an endgame for resolving the conflict. In other words, the administration’s policy seems to be anchored in only providing weapons, ammunition and financial assistance to Ukraine. For example, Biden in February announced nearly half a billion dollars of additional assistance for Kyiv, including “the delivery of artillery ammunition, anti-armor systems, and air surveillance radars to help protect the Ukrainian people from aerial bombardments.” However, National Public Radio reported: “After Congress appropriated more than $112 billion in military and economic support in the space of a single year — and with no signs of an end to the conflict — polls show a growing number of Americans feel the United States is giving Ukraine too much.”
Another foreign policy issue affecting Biden’s approval rating is the August 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, which many people viewed as being poorly planned.
His approval rating for the way he handled Russia in the buildup to its invasion last year was just 36 percent.
On the other hand, the Biden administration has fulfilled the president’s promise of repairing the damaged ties between the US and its European allies. Under Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, relations between the transatlantic partners appeared to have been undermined beyond simple disagreements. The Biden administration has pursued a more conventional foreign policy with the EU by reaffirming American support for NATO. This has allowed Biden to restore normality in transatlantic ties. Nevertheless, challenges remain when it comes to trade and subsidy concerns.
In a nutshell, Biden’s overall approval rating is low due to his administration’s handling of key issues, including the economy and foreign affairs. In order to increase his odds of winning the 2024 presidential election, the president needs to gain more support and improve his popularity by employing more informed domestic and foreign policies.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh