English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 06/2023
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
Jesus said to the Jews: “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. herefore I said to you that you will die in your sins
John08/21-27Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and will die in your sin. Where I go you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself, because He says, ‘Where I go you cannot come’?” And He said to them, “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. herefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for if you do not believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” Then they said to Him, “Who are You?”And Jesus said to them, “Just what I have been saying to you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true; and I speak to the world those things which I heard from Him.”They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 05-06/2023
The Bleeding Women’s Miracle: Faith & Hope/Elias Bejjani
Al-Rahi: The election of the president falters because the dispute revolves around his affiliation
Archbishop Aoudi: How does our country get out of its impasse when the ruling figures are the same ones that put it into it?
Qaouq: Latest developments boosted consensus chances
Army patrol forces enemy patrol to retreat following its 'Blue Line' breach
Justice Minister meets with his Saudi counterpart in Riyadh
Environment Minister attends 5th UN Conference on Least Developed Countries
MP Mark Daou: Berri did not embarrass anyone but himself

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 05-06/2023
Grossi Says Iran Pledges More Access for Inspectors
Crisis over Suspected Iran Schoolgirl Poisonings Escalates
Netanyahu Rebuffs IAEA Chief’s Remarks against Possible Attack on Iran
Six European States Call on Israel to Stop Settlement Expansion
Dozens of Israeli Reserve Pilots Ditch Drill to Protest Judicial Overhaul
Israel minister walks back call for Palestinian town to be 'wiped out'
This time, the state of Israel is under attack from within | Opinion
US Demands Clarifications from Israel over Aqaba Statements
Russia’s Top Military Brass Brief Defense Minister on Current Situation, Plans
Russian minister inspects troops, US puts up new Ukraine aid
Five dead in new Azerbaijan-Armenia clash over Karabakh

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 05-06/2023
The Dwindling Status of Russia and Iran in Europe and the G-20/Raghida Dergham/ March 05/2023
Iranian Poison/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
Laws that Regulate not Obstruct/Najib Saab/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
Israel Under Attack: Biden's Coup to Get Iran the Bomb/Guy Millière/ Gatestone Institute./March 5, 2023
Iran’s economic disparity a threat to the regime/Dr. Majid RafizadehArab News/March 05, 2023

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 05-06/2023
The Bleeding Women’s Miracle: Faith & Hope
Elias Bejjani
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/36973/elias-bejjani-the-bleeding-women-faith-hope/
(John 6:68): “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life”
Whenever we are in real trouble encountering devastating and harsh conditions either physically or materially, we unconsciously react with sadness, anger, confusion, helplessness and feel abandoned. When in a big mess, we expect our family members and friends to automatically run to our rescue. But in the majority of such difficult situations, we discover with great disappointment that in reality our heartfelt expectations do not unfold as we wish.
What is frustrating and shocking is that very few of our family members and friends would stand beside us during hardships and endeavour to genuinely offer the needed help. Those who have already walked through these rocky life paths and adversities definitely know very well the bitter taste of disappointment. They know exactly the real meaning of the well-know saying, “a friend in need is a friend indeed”.
Sadly our weak human nature is driven by inborn instincts that often make us side with the rich, powerful, healthy and strong over the poor, weak, needy and sick. Those who have no faith in Almighty God find it very difficult to cope in a real mess.
Meanwhile, those whose faith is solid stand up with courage, refuse to give up hope, and call on their Almighty Father for help through praying and worshiping. They know for sure that our Great Father is loving and passionate. He will not abandon any one of us when calling on Him for mercy and help because He said and promised so. Matthew 11/28-30: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
One might ask, ‘Why should I pray?’ And, ‘Do I have to ask God for help, can’t He help me without praying to Him?’ The answer is ‘no’. We need to pray and when we do so with faith and confidence God listens and responds (Mark 11/:24): “Therefore I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them”
Yes, we have to make the effort and be adamant and persistent. We have to ask and knock in a bid to show our mere submission to Him and He with no doubt shall provide. (Matthew 7/7 & 8): “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened”.
On this second Sunday of Lent in our Catholic Church’s Eastern Maronite rite, we cite and recall the miraculous cure of the bleeding woman in Matthew 9/20-22, Mark 5/25-34, and Luke 8/43-48. As we learn from the Holy Gospel, the bleeding woman’s great faith made her believe without a shred of doubt that her twelve years of chronic bleeding would stop immediately if she touched Jesus’ garment. She knew deeply in her heart that Jesus would cure her even without asking him. Her faith cured the bleeding and made her well. Her prayers were heard and responded to.
Luke 8/:43-49: “A woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her living on physicians, and could not be healed by any, came behind him (Jesus), and touched the fringe of his cloak, and immediately the flow of her blood stopped. Jesus said, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the multitudes press and jostle you, and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 8:46 But Jesus said, “Someone did touch me, for I perceived that power has gone out of me.” When the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared to him in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. He said to her, “Daughter, cheer up. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
The woman’s faith cured her chronic bleeding and put her back in the society as a normal and acceptable citizen. During that era women with uterus bleeding were looked upon as sinners, defiled and totally banned from entering synagogues for praying. Meanwhile, because of her sickness she was physically unable to be a mother and bear children. Sadly she was socially and religiously abandoned, humiliated and alienated. But her faith and hope empowered her with the needed strength and perseverance and enabled her to cope successfully against all odds.
Hallelujah! Faith can do miracles. Yes indeed. (Luke17/5 & 6): ” The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you would tell this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you”. How badly do we today need to have a faith like that of this women?
Let us all on this second Lent Sunday pray with solid faith.
Let us ask Almighty God who cured the bleeding women, and who was crucified on the cross to absolve our original sin, that He would endow His Holy graces of peace, tranquility, and love all over the world. And that He would strengthen the faith, patience and hope of all those persecuted, imprisoned, and deprived for courageously witnessing the Gospel’s message and truth.

 Al-Rahi: The election of the president falters because the dispute revolves around his affiliation
NNA/March 05/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/116309/%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a8%d8%b7-%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%88-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%82%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b0%d9%8a-%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%a3%d8%b3%d9%87-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a3/
Maronite Patriarch, Mar Beshara Boutros Al-Rahi, affirmed that "the country finds itself in front of a political group devoid of any responsibility that practices politics according to its interests in the absence of statesmen, and the proof is that no one presents any serious project to revive Lebanon from its complete collapse," pointing out that the country is bleeding in all its institutions, as well as in manipulating the prices of food and medicines.Al-Rahi said during his Sunday sermon in Bkerke that "when parliament ceases to have the power to legislate, and the caretaker government stops issuing executive decisions and making appointments in public administrations, then the influencers begin to control it, and politicians allow interference in administration and the judiciary and practice oppression and tyranny." He stressed that "with the faltering of the election of the president, the dispute revolves around his affiliation to the category of resistance or the category of sovereignty, and the only solution is to get out of this equation and work to elect a national president free from all attachment, bias, class and axis," considering that this is the president that Lebanon needs to gain people's trust internally and externally and lead the necessary reforms to obtain international aid. Finally, he stressed that seeking to extend the presidential vacancy is a perseverance in enlarging the scale of crime by demolishing state institutions, persecuting citizens by impoverishing them, displacing them, and depriving them of self-realization.

Archbishop Aoudi: How does our country get out of its impasse when the ruling figures are the same ones that put it into it?
NNA/LCCC/March 05/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/116309/%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a8%d8%b7-%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%88-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%82%d8%af%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b0%d9%8a-%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%a3%d8%b3%d9%87-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%88%d9%85-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a3/
In his sermon today Archbishop Aoudi said: “On this blessed day, we call on all officials, being human beings created in the image and likeness of God, not to bother stumbling their brothers who are equal to them in creation and dignity. We live in a democratic country, governed by a clear constitution, and the rule is the transfer of power, but what we are witnessing in reality is a struggle for power, and when someone reaches a position it becomes difficult to exclude him from it, as if it has become an acquired right. It devolves to his successor, one of his sons, relatives, or his chosen ones, even at the expense of the constitution, laws, and the opinion of the people. How do you want our country to develop and get out of its impasse, when the ruling figures are the same ones that put it in the impasse? What is left of people's money and lives. It is unfortunate that they exchange accusations, so that everyone becomes accused and everyone is innocent. Who brought the country to what it is? Who is responsible for the dissolution of the state and this deadly economic decline? Who obstructs reform? Who prevents accountability for the corrupt? Has the citizen become an enemy of officials? what j What is the use of the futility of their policies in front of the scene of the suicide of a citizen who despaired of a life of humiliation and oppression?
And he asked: "Who wasted people's money? Who prevented light from them and aborted every reform plan? Who blew up Beirut, its port and its inhabitants? Who disrupted the work of the judiciary and prevented the truth from emerging? Who disrupted Lebanon's diplomatic, cultural, educational, hospital and financial role, and at whose expense? Who caused people to be displaced, starved and robbed of hope?" Who obstructs the election of a president for the country? Who obstructs the formation of governments, and when does their work consist, because the ministers do not form a homogeneous work team, but rather follow their references and implement programs from their highness? Are the officials aware of the result of their actions and their impact on society? Each of them thinks about himself and his interests. What about Instead of reforming, violence in all its manifestations is destructive, verbal and behavioral violence destroys like a weapon, so why doesn't every official return to himself and learn from the lessons of the past, and instead of focusing on what differentiates, why don't they search for what Enough with the intransigence and insult to the icons of God that have been spilled with humankind, against which a new devastating war is being waged instead of preserving them with splendor and dignity. And he concluded his return: "Our prayer today is that the Lord will qualify us to be true believers in Him, living icons that reach everyone to Him, because He is the only Savior.

Qaouq: Latest developments boosted consensus chances
Naharnet/March 05/2023 
Hezbollah central council member Sheikh Nabil Qaouq on Sunday said that the “latest developments” have increased the chances for “consensus” over the presidential file. “Our priority lies in electing a president to halt the collapse and rescue the country, but the priority of the challenge and confrontation camp is taking the country to a new adventure in order to overturn the domestic political balances," Qaouq said. "They want to seize control of the country to change its identity, position and regional role and to make it part of the normalization (with Israel) process," Qaouq added. Referring to the rival political camp, the Hezbollah official said: "The challenge and confrontation group want to elect a president who would be a launchpad for pouncing on the national principles and settling political scores, but Hezbollah's stance is clear: we are not in a weak position and we are not in 1982 so that a president comes on the back of a tank or through the pressure of hunger and the economic-social crisis."Noting that "there are international voices and MPs, parties and forces in Lebanon that have changed their stance in favor of the consensus scheme, because they have realized that the only exit for the crisis is dialogue," Qaouq said this has "infuriated" the rival camp and made it "scream" and "insult the resistance and its people."

Army patrol forces enemy patrol to retreat following its 'Blue Line' breach
NNA/March 05/2023
Lebanese Army Command - Orientation Directorate issued the following statement on Sunday: "On March 5, 2023, between 11:55 a.m & 12:00 p.m., an Israeli enemy patrol violated the Blue Line near point BP 13 (1) - Aita al-Shaab, at a distance of approximately one meter. Instantly, a Lebanese army patrol intervened and forced the enemy patrol to retreat beyond the Blue Line towards the occupied Palestinian territories."The communique added that a UNIFIL patrol also arrived at the scene to verify the breach, which is currently being followed up by the Army & UNIFIL.

PSP's Information Commission: Jumblatt did not make any statement to the Kuwaiti "Al-Jarida"
NNA/March 05/2023 
In an issued statement this afternoon, the Progressive Socialist Party's information commission denied the circulated news by some websites regarding a statement attributed to PSP Chief Walid Jumblatt to the Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Jarida. The Party categorically denied such news, indicating that Jumblatt did not make any statement today to the aforementioned newspaper or to any other website.

Justice Minister meets with his Saudi counterpart in Riyadh
NNA/March 05/2023
Caretaker Minister of Justice Henry Al-Khoury met today with his Saudi counterpart, Dr. Walid bin Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Samaani, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Riyadh on the sidelines of the "International Judicial Conference" currently taking place in the Saudi capital. Both men tackled the importance of the step taken by the Saudi Kingdom in the field of judicial digital transformation on the eve of the "Future of the Judiciary in light of Digital Transformation Conference”.Talks also touched on the Saudi-Lebanese affairs on the judicial and justice levels.

Environment Minister attends 5th UN Conference on Least Developed Countries
NNA/March 05/2023 
Caretaker Environment Minister Nasser Yassin and Lebanese Ambassador to Qatar Farah Berri participated in the opening of the Fifth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, which is being organized in its current session in Doha, under the chairmanship of the Emir of the State of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres. The conference will discuss the economic, social and environmental challenges faced by the least developed countries, especially the effects of the Corona epidemic, climate change and the energy crisis on these countries. Participants propose new ideas to obtain pledges from the industrialized countries and international financing institutions to support the least developed countries in facing their development challenges. During his sideline meetings, Yassin stressed "the necessity of solidarity with Lebanon and supporting it in facing its multiple crises and taking on a joint international responsibility for hosting the largest number of refugees in proportion to its population in the world who live in areas subject to great economic, social and environmental pressures, similar to the reality of the least developed countries."

MP Mark Daou: Berri did not embarrass anyone but himself
NNA//March 05/2023
MP Marc Daou ruled out holding the parliament session to elect a president before Ramadan, and considered, in an interview with “Voice of All Lebanon 93.3” Radio Channel this morning, that “Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri did not embarrass anyone but himself by imposing the candidacy of Sleiman Franjieh.”
"The Speaker raises the ceiling and sets the conditions, while he does not have the 65 votes to nominate his candidate, and his words about Franjieh's candidacy are nothing but a threat," Daou added. He pointed out that it is clear that "Speaker Berri cannot control the changes taking place, and he turned against himself after he was calling for dialogue and convergence among all." Daou considered that "Speaker Berri's high-pitched speech aims at pushing towards negotiation between the parties, knowing that Sleiman Franjieh cannot reach the presidency according to all numbers and calculations," adding that "had the Speaker been confident of Franjieh's reaching presidency, he would have called for an election session."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 05-06/2023
Grossi Says Iran Pledges More Access for Inspectors
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 5 March, 2023
The head of the UN's nuclear agency said Saturday that Iran pledged to restore cameras and other monitoring equipment at its nuclear sites and to allow more inspections at a facility where particles of uranium enriched to near weapons-grade were recently detected.
But a joint statement issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran's nuclear body only gave vague assurances that Tehran would address longstanding complaints about the access it gives the watchdog's inspectors to its disputed nuclear program.
IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and other top officials in Tehran earlier Saturday. “Over the past few months, there was a reduction in some of the monitoring activities" related to cameras and other equipment “which were not operating,” Grossi told reporters upon his return to Vienna. “We have agreed that those will be operating again.”He did not provide details about which equipment would be restored or how soon it would happen, but appeared to be referring to Iran's removal of surveillance cameras from its nuclear sites in June 2022, during an earlier standoff with the IAEA. “These are not words. This is very concrete," Grossi said of the assurances he received in Tehran. His first visit to Iran in a year came days after the IAEA reported that uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% — just short of weapons-grade — were found in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site. The confidential quarterly report by the nuclear watchdog, which was distributed to member nations Tuesday, came as tensions were already high amid months of anti-government protests in Iran and Western anger at its export of attack drones to Russian forces fighting in Ukraine. The IAEA report said inspectors in January found that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at Fordo were configured in a way “substantially different” to what Iran had previously declared. That raised concerns that Iran was speeding up its enrichment.
Grossi said the Iranians had agreed to boost inspections at the facility by 50%. He also confirmed the agency's findings that there has not been any “production or accumulation” of uranium at the higher enrichment level, “which is a very high level.”Iran has sought to portray any highly enriched uranium particles as a minor byproduct of enriching uranium to 60% purity, which it has been doing openly for some time. The chief of Iran’s nuclear program, Mohammad Eslami, acknowledged the findings of the IAEA report at a news conference with Grossi in Tehran but said their “ambiguity” had been resolved.

Crisis over Suspected Iran Schoolgirl Poisonings Escalates
Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
A crisis over suspected poisonings targeting Iranian schoolgirls escalated Sunday as authorities acknowledged over 50 schools were struck in a wave of possible cases. The poisonings have spread further fear among parents as Iran has faced months of unrest.
It remains unclear who or what is responsible since the alleged poisonings began in November in the city of Qom. Reports now suggest schools across 21 of Iran's 30 provinces have seen suspected cases, with girls' schools the site of nearly all the incidents.
The attacks have raised fears that other girls could be poisoned, apparently just for going to school. Education for girls has never been challenged in the more than 40 years since the 1979 revolution. Iran has been calling on the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan to allow girls and women return to school and universities. Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi on Saturday said, without elaborating, that investigators recovered “suspicious samples” in the course of their investigations into the incidents, according to the state-run IRNA news agency. He called for calm among the public, while also accusing the “enemy’s media terrorism” of inciting more panic over the alleged poisonings. However, it wasn't until the poisonings received international media attention that hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi announced an investigation into the incidents on Wednesday. Vahidi said at least 52 schools had been affected by suspected poisonings. Iranian media reports have put the number of schools at over 60. At least one boy's school reportedly has been affected. Videos of upset parents and schoolgirls in emergency rooms with IVs in their arms have flooded social media. Making sense of the crisis remains challenging, given that nearly 100 journalists have been detained by Iran since the start of protests in September over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She had been detained by the country's morality police and later died. The security force crackdown on those protests has seen at least 530 people killed and 19,700 others detained, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran. The children affected in the poisonings reportedly complained of headaches, heart palpitations, feeling lethargic or otherwise unable to move. Some described smelling tangerines, chlorine or cleaning agents.
Social media posts said about a hundred were briefly hospitalized since the outbreak in November. Vahidi, the interior minister, said in his statement two remain in hospital because of underlying chronic conditions. As more attacks were reported Sunday, videos were posted on social media showing children complaining about pain in the legs, abdomen and dizziness. State media have mainly referred to these as “hysteric reactions.”Since the outbreak, no one was reported in critical condition and there have been no reports of fatalities. Attacks on women have happened in the past in Iran, most recently with a wave of acid attacks in 2014 around the city of Isfahan, at the time believed to have been carried out by hard-liners targeting women for how they dressed. Speculation in Iran's tightly controlled state media has focused on the possibility of exile groups or foreign powers being behind the poisonings. That was also repeatedly alleged during the recent protests without evidence. In recent days, Germany's foreign minister, a White House official and others have called on Iran to do more to protect schoolgirls — a concern Iran's Foreign Ministry has dismissed as “crocodile tears.”
However, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that Iran has “continued to tolerate attacks against women and girls for months” amid the recent protests.
"These poisonings are occurring in an environment where Iranian officials have impunity for the harassment, assault, rape, torture and execution of women peacefully asserting their freedom of religion or belief,” Sharon Kleinbaum of the commission said in a statement. Suspicion in Iran has fallen on possible hard-liners for carrying out the suspected poisonings. Iranian journalists, including Jamileh Kadivar, a prominent former reformist lawmaker at Tehran’s Ettelaat newspaper, have cited a supposed communique from a group calling itself Fidayeen Velayat that purportedly said that girls' education “is considered forbidden” and threatened to “spread the poisoning of girls throughout Iran” if girls’ schools remain open. Iranian officials have not acknowledged any group called Fidayeen Velayat, which roughly translates to English as “Devotees of the Guardianship.” However, Kadivar’s mention of the threat in print comes as she remains influential within Iranian politics and has ties to its theocratic ruling class. The head of the Ettelaat newspaper also is appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Kadivar wrote Saturday that another possibility is “mass hysteria." There have been previous cases of this over the last decades, most recently in Afghanistan from 2009 through 2012. Then, the World Health Organization wrote about so-called “mass psychogenic illnesses” affecting hundreds of girls in schools across the country. "Reports of stench smells preceding the appearance of symptoms have given credit to the theory of mass poisoning,” WHO wrote at the time. “However, investigations into the causes of these outbreaks have yielded no such evidence so far.”
Iran has not acknowledged asking the world health body for assistance in its investigation. WHO did not immediately respond to a request for comment Sunday. However, Kadivar also noted that hard-liners in Iranian governments in the past carried out so-called “chain murders" of activists and others in the 1990s. She also referenced the killings by religious vigilantes in 2002 in the city of Kerman, when one victim was stoned to death and others were tied up and thrown into a swimming pool, where they drowned. She described those vigilantes as being members of the Basij, an all-volunteer force in Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. “The common denominator of all of them is their extreme thinking, intellectual stagnation and rigid religious view that allowed them to have committed such violent actions,” Kadivar wrote.

Netanyahu Rebuffs IAEA Chief’s Remarks against Possible Attack on Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 5 March, 2023
Israel rebuffed as "unworthy" on Sunday comments by the UN nuclear watchdog chief that any Israeli or US attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would be illegal. Having visited Tehran in a bid to loosen deadlocked talks on renewing its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, International Atomic Energy Agency chairman Raphael Grossi on Saturday said "any military attack on nuclear facilities is outlawed". He was responding to a reporter's question about threats by Israel and the United States to attack Iran's nuclear facilities if they deem diplomacy meant to deny it the bomb to be at a dead end. Tehran says its nuclear program is peaceful. "Rafael Grossi is a worthy person who made an unworthy remark," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his cabinet in televised remarks on Sunday. "Outside what law? Is it permissible for Iran, which openly calls for our destruction, to organize the tools of slaughter for our destruction? Are we forbidden from defending ourselves? We are obviously permitted to do this."The IAEA said on Saturday Grossi had received sweeping assurances from Iran that it will assist a long-stalled investigation into uranium particles found at undeclared sites and re-install removed monitoring equipment.

Six European States Call on Israel to Stop Settlement Expansion
Ramallah - Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 5 March, 2023
Six European countries called Saturday on Israel to stop the expansion of settlements, while also condemning the settler attack against the town of Huwara, south Nablus, and other villages in the West Bank last week. In a joint statement, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, and the UK said: “We urge the Israeli government to reverse its recent decision to advance the construction of more than 7,000 settlement building units across the occupied West Bank and to legalize settlement outposts.” They expressed their “grave concern” over indiscriminate violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians, including the destruction of homes and properties and demanded that those responsible must face full accountability and legal prosecution. They condemned recent attacks that killed Israeli citizens, referring to the Sunday night settler attack against Huwara. The statement follows the escalation of violence in the Palestinian territories, particularly in the West Bank, which Israel occupied in 1967. “We call on all parties to make good on the commitments they made in the Aqaba meeting by de-escalating in words and deeds and to restore calm, in order for those efforts to blossom and to make the next meeting in Egypt a success,” the six nations said. The statement came hours after a report said Hungary would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem next month.
The Times of Israel said on Friday that the move would take place in an act of support by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. It would make Hungary the first European Union country to open an embassy in Jerusalem. Senior Foreign Ministry officials told Zman Yisrael, the Times of Israel’s Hebrew language sister site, on Friday said the two sides reached an agreement on the matter in recent days, with the details hashed out during intensive talks between Foreign Minister Eli Cohen and Hungary’s top diplomat Peter Szijjarto. However, Hungarian President Katalin Novak said on Friday no decision had yet been made on whether Budapest would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem next month. “I also read news in the press,” Novak said during a news conference while visiting Prague. “In Hungary, a decision so far has not been made on moving our embassy in Israel.”
The Israeli parliament passed a law in 1980 declaring the “complete and united” city of Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. The United Nations regards East Jerusalem as occupied, and the city's status as disputed until resolved by negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, who want East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.
Under former US President Donald Trump, the United States moved its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem in 2018 but only a handful of other countries have done the same. Meanwhile, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) warned Saturday of the dangers of Israel reactivating the “most dangerous settlement project” on the future of Jerusalem and the West Bank. The PLO-affiliated National Bureau for defending land and resisting settlements said in a press statement that a governmental committee operating under the Israeli Civil Administration will meet on March 27 to discuss two settlement plans that are part of the (E1) project, which aims to link Jerusalem with a number of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The statement said the two plans include the construction of 3,412 housing units on more than 2,100 dunams of land located in a strategic location between East Jerusalem and the Ma'ale Adumim settlement. “This would divide the West Bank and separate it from East Jerusalem, dealing a fatal blow to the so-called two-state solution, which is supported internationally to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” the National Bureau said. The E1 project had been strongly opposed by successive American administrations and the international community, but the new far-right Israeli government has been pushing hard to implement it.

Dozens of Israeli Reserve Pilots Ditch Drill to Protest Judicial Overhaul
Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
Dozens of Israeli air force reservists said on Sunday they would not turn up for a training day in protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's judicial reforms, a jolt for a country whose melting-pot military is meant to be apolitical. As Israel's strategic arm, the air force has traditionally relied on reservists in wartime and requires crews who have been discharged to train regularly in order to maintain readiness. But in a letter circulated in local media, 37 pilots and navigators from an F-15 squadron said they would skip drills scheduled for Wednesday and instead "devote our time to dialogue and reflection for the sake of democracy and national unity". The religious-nationalist government seeks changes that include curbs on the Supreme Court, which it accuses of over-reach. Critics worry that Netanyahu - who is on trial on graft charges he denies - wants excessive power over the judiciary.
Weekly and increasingly raucous demonstrations have swept the country, with some protest leaders - among them former military chiefs - saying that a non-democratic turn in government would warrant mass-disobedience within the ranks.
The 37 air force reservists said they would suspend their one-day protest if required to carry out actual operations. A military spokesperson declined to comment on their letter but said top commander Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevy "is aware of the public discourse and division but will not allow any harm to the IDF's (Israel Defense Forces) ability to carry out its most important mission - defend(ing) Israel's security". Officers had been instructed to speak with subordinates on the issue, said the statement, which also reiterated the "importance of maintaining the IDF’s impartiality". Israel does not publish military personnel figures, making it hard to judge to impact of the air force reservists' protest, or of similar pledges by some reservists from other branches. "These irresponsible Israeli media are playing up any reservist who makes some kind of statement," Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told Channel 12 TV. "There are tens and hundreds of thousands who will continue to enlist for the military and serve in the reserves and understand that we are brothers and bear responsibility for the great miracle that is the Zionist enterprise." Netanyahu, a former officer in Israel's most prestigious commando unit, tweeted a photograph of himself at conscription age with the caption: "When called up for reserve duty, we always turn up. We are one nation."

Israel minister walks back call for Palestinian town to be 'wiped out'
Agence France Presse/March 05/2023
Israel's finance minister has said that he had chosen his words poorly when he called for a Palestinian town to be "wiped out" after two Israeli settlers were killed there. The two young settlers were shot dead on February 26 in their car in Huwara, a northern town in the West Bank, sparking attacks by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian town. "I think the village of Huwara needs to be wiped out," Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionism party and a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition, had said on Wednesday. "It is possible that the word was wrong," Smotrich told local television on Saturday. "I did not mean harm to innocents when I said that Huwara should be wiped out," he tweeted Saturday. Smotrich's comments had drawn international condemnation, with the U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk denouncing them as "an unfathomable statement of incitement to violence and hostility".
Washington, a staunch ally of Israel, was even more blunt in its response to Smotrich's comments. "They were irresponsible, they were repugnant, they were disgusting," US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters. Representatives from 19 countries -- including France, Germany, Japan and the UK -- visited Huwara on Saturday.They "condemn in the strongest terms the heinous and violent acts committed by settlers," a joint statement said. The fatal shooting came days after Israeli forces launched their deadliest West Bank raid in nearly 20 years, which left 11 Palestinians dead in the northern city of Nablus.

This time, the state of Israel is under attack from within | Opinion
Uri Dromi/Miami Herald/Sun, March 5, 2023
The recent turbulence in Israel evokes a strong feeling of déjà vu. As one of the Yom Kippur War generation, I remember vividly those dark days in October 1973, when Israel faced the joint onslaught of the Syrian and Egyptian armies.
At my airbase, when we were meeting gloomily with our fellow airmen who had just returned from the bloody battlefronts, we learned who had been killed, who had been taken POW, who was missing. Still, our spirit was strong and our resolve unshaken. We believed that standing together, we would win the war, and we did. Today, 50 years later, we are attacked again, and we feel the same sense of urgency, of a serious danger to the state of Israel. Except that this time, the attack comes not from the outside, but from within.
Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud Party won the elections in November, formed a coalition with partners whose vision of Israel is alarming: Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) parties, that want women to sit in the back of the bus, away from men, and don’t want children to learn math and English, dooming them to sure poverty. The Religious Zionist Party calls for annexing the West Bank, thus creating one state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, where millions of Palestinians might become second-rate citizens. In reaction to the pogrom Israeli settlers had carried out in the Palestinian village of Hawara, in revenge for the murder of two Israeli settlers, party leader Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, said: “Hawara should have been wiped out.”As if this were not enough, there is our minister of home security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) and a disciple of the racist Rabbi Meir Kahane, a convicted hoodlum and the man who, in the summer of 1995, held the emblem of the Cadillac of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and proudly boasted that, “We got the emblem of Rabin’s car; next time we can get him.”
These are Netanyahu’s bedfellows, and each and every one of them holds him hostage, because, with the slim majority he has in the Knesset, they can easily topple his government any moment.
The main problem, or threat, however, comes from Netanyahu’s own party, Likud. His minister of justice, Yariv Levin, has just launched what he calls “a judicial reform,” but in essence it is a constitutional revolution that, if passed, will dramatically weaken Israel’s stature as a democracy.
To start with, Israel is one of the rare countries that doesn’t have a constitution. Therefore, the Knesset can pass any law by any majority. The implication for the vulnerable segments of society — women LGBT, Arabs — is obvious. The enacting of “Basic Laws” in 1990 made this a bit more difficult, because the Israeli Supreme Court can determine that, if a regular law contradicts a Basic Law, it cannot pass. That won’t be the case if Levin has his way. He’s pushing a law that will let the Knesset overrule a Supreme Court decision.
This is only one of the steps Levin and his allies are taking to weaken the Supreme Court — an institution revered around the world — and will shatter the balance between the three branches of power.
It’s no secret that this blitz on our system is meant to serve Netanyahu, being tried on three serious charges of corruption. With an omnipotent government, servile Knesset and castrated Supreme Court, he believes he can elude justice. That Israel, in the process, will not be a democracy anymore, is the least of his concerns.This is why we, the veterans of the Yom Kippur War, feel the same sense of danger, threatened, this time, from within. And at our advanced age, we will take to the streets, with the Israeli flag in our hands, to defend our country.
We learned the lessons of Hungary and Poland, where people didn’t stand up against authoritarianism in time. Every week, more people join our ranks in protest, left and right, Jews and Arabs, young and old. In every poll, almost two out of every three Israelis oppose this attack on our democracy. We will continue to protest, until Israel is saved again.
*Uri Dromi was the spokesman of the Rabin and Peres governments, from 1992-1996.

US Demands Clarifications from Israel over Aqaba Statements
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 5 March, 2023
Washington has demanded clarifications from the Israeli government after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some of his ministers reneged on the agreements reached at last month’s Aqaba meeting. Official broadcaster Kan said on Saturday that the US administration requested clarifications after Netanyahu, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Betzalel Smotrich signaled that they would not commit to the pledges made in Aqaba. Ben-Gvir and Smotrich had described the pledges as meaningless, prompting Washington’s disappointment, especially since it had arranged the summit itself with help from Jordan and Egypt. A senior security official added that the ministers’ remarks had "embarrassed" Washington. Washington wants to make sure that Israel is committed to the pledges ahead of a follow-up meeting that will be held in Sharm el-Sheikh.
The Palestinian Authority had called on the American administration to "rectify the path" after Israel immediately violated the Aqaba understandings. The PA warned that it may not take part in the Sharm el-Sheikh talks if the Israeli government is unwilling to respect agreements and is weaking the Authority and continuing its violations in the Palestinian territories. Israel committed to stop authorization of any settler outposts in the occupied West Bank for six months during a meeting with Palestinian officials in Jordan’s Aqaba. Both sides pledged to prevent more violence. Host nation Jordan, along with Egypt and the United States, considered "these understandings as major progress towards re-establishing and deepening relations between the two sides." Israel and the Palestinian Authority "confirmed their joint readiness and commitment to immediately work to end unilateral measures for a period of 3-6 months.""This includes an Israeli commitment to stop discussion of any new settlement units for four months and to stop authorization of any outposts for six months," read a statement after the talks. However, Netanyahu this week tweeted that "the building and authorization in Judea and Samaria will continue according to the original planning and building schedule, with no change," using the biblical term for the West Bank. Echoing the PM’s positions, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich both said there would not be any freezing of settlement construction for even a day and that what happened in Jordan will remain in Jordan. Washington now wants to learn whether Israel is committed to the Aqaba understandings before meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh. Tensions between Washington and Tel Aviv grew further after Smotrich's call this week to wipe out the Palestinian town of Huwara. Earlier this week, Israeli settlers rampaged in Huwara, killing a Palestinian and torching dozens of houses, shops and cars. The actions prompted international alarm and condemnation. Washington strongly condemned Smotrich's remarks and asked Netanyahu for an apology. Israeli media noted that the tensions have spiked at a very sensitive time when the US and Israel are gearing up to hold strategic dialogue in Washington next week with the aim to discuss Iran.

Russia’s Top Military Brass Brief Defense Minister on Current Situation, Plans
Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
Top commanders of what Russia calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine have briefed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu on the current situation and action plans, his ministry said on Sunday. Shoigu paid a rare visit to Russia's forces deployed in Ukraine, awarding medals to military personnel and meeting senior commanders during the trip, according to a statement and videos issued by the Defense Ministry on Saturday. The minister held a meeting with commanders of the operation, the ministry said in a statement in its Telegram social media app on Sunday. It did not specify if the meeting took place during the trip. "Sergei Shoigu paid special attention to the set-up of all the necessary conditions for the safe deployment of personnel in the field, the organization of comprehensive support for the troops, especially the work of medical and rear units." Russia's top military chiefs have visited the front lines in Ukraine only occasionally since Moscow sent tens of thousands of Russian troops into the neighboring country just over a year ago.

Russian minister inspects troops, US puts up new Ukraine aid
Agence France Presse/March 05/2023
Russia's defense minister has inspected troops in frontline regions in eastern Ukraine, after the United States offered more support to Kyiv whose forces are struggling in Bakhmut. Sergei Shoigu inspected an advance command post in the direction of the south of the Donetsk region, the defence ministry said, without specifying exactly where or when. It put out a rare video of the Russian defense minister traveling in a helicopter and talking to a soldier in front of damaged buildings. Shoigu handed state awards to servicemen and held a meeting with his deputies "on organising the uninterrupted provision of troops with armaments, military hardware and ordnance", his ministry later said. The visit came with fierce fighting ongoing around Bakhmut, the longest battle of the conflict, which has further exposed rivalries between the conventional army and the Wagner paramilitary group. Wagner chef Yevgeny Prigozhin said Friday his fighters had "practically encircled" Bakhmut. Well-versed in social media, Prigozhin has for weeks been publicising the advances of his men towards the eastern city, whose symbolic importance outstrips any military significance. Prigozhin regularly posts videos of himself alongside mercenaries, on the ground or even in a fighter jet, in contrast with Russian generals criticised for shirking the frontline. In his latest video Friday, Prigozhin directly called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to abandon Bakhmut, which Russia is determined to seize as part of the wider aim of capturing the entire Donetsk region.
Allies support -
Zelensky has pledged to defend "fortress Bakhmut" for as long as possible, calling on allies to intensify their support to help his men do so. On Saturday the president of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola visited Ukraine, where she met Zelensky and called for the country to be allowed to begin its EU membership negotiations this year. "The task is to actively prepare everything for our country's EU membership, increase the supply of weapons to Ukraine, and strengthen sanctions against Russia," Zelensky said in his daily address after the meeting.US President Joe Biden on Friday hosted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz for his first visit since the offensive, a display of partnership after friction over supplying tanks to Ukraine. Ahead of the meeting, the Kremlin warned that Western weapon deliveries to Kyiv would only "prolong the conflict and have sad consequences for the Ukrainian people". The United States responded by offering another $400 million in security assistance. The new security package features ammunition -- including for the HIMARS precision rocket system that Ukrainian forces have used to devastating effect against Russian troops and supply dumps. Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov praised the package as "a solid investment in the future success of the Ukrainian army on the battlefield", where Western military aid has been key to Kyiv's ability to hold out and to even regain ground.
'Intense fighting' -
In the east however, Zelensky and several Ukrainian officials recognised an increasingly difficult situation around Bakhmut this week.
Sergiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces, said the situation was "difficult but under control" in the city he described as a "priority target for the enemy."Ukraine's general staff update said on Saturday evening that its forces had repelled Russian troops "unsuccessfully trying to encircle the town of Bakhmut. The British defence ministry's intelligence update on Saturday however said Ukraine was "under increasingly severe pressure, with intense fighting taking place in and around the city." It added that "Ukrainian-held resupply routes out of the town are increasingly limited" and Wagner's troops and the Russian military had advanced in the northern suburbs of the city, which was now "vulnerable to Russian attacks on three sides." The intelligence update also said that two key bridges in the town had been destroyed, including a vital bridge connecting the city to the last main supply route from Bakhmut to the city of Chasiv Yar. While the epicentre of the fighting is in the east of Ukraine, the death toll from a strike this week on an apartment block in southern Zaporizhzhia has now risen to 11. Moscow says its regions bordering Ukraine are routinely shelled by Ukrainian forces, but on Thursday it reported a rare instance of fighting inside Russia. Russian security services said a group of Ukrainian combatants had crossed into the southern Bryansk region and opened fire on a car, killing two civilians and wounding a child. Kyiv dismissed the claims as a "deliberate provocation."

Five dead in new Azerbaijan-Armenia clash over Karabakh
Reuters/Sun, March 5, 2023
Azerbaijani troops and ethnic Armenians exchanged gunfire on Sunday in Azerbaijan's contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh, killing at least five people, according to reports from Azerbaijan and Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh was the focal point of two wars that have pitted Azerbaijan against Azerbaijan in the more than 30 years since both ex-Soviet states have achieved attendance. Azerbaijan's defence ministry said two servicemen were killed in an exchange of fire after Azerbaijani troops stopped a convoy it suspected of carrying weapons from the region's main town to outlying areas. It said the convoy had used an unauthorised road. Armenia's foreign ministry said three officials from the Karabakh interior ministry were killed. It said the convoy had been carrying documents and a service pistol and dismissed as "absurd" Azerbaijani allegations that weapons were being carried. Nagorno-Karabakh has long been recognised internationally as part of Azerbaijan, though its population is made up predominantly of ethnic Armenians. Armenian forces took control of Karabakh in a war that gripped the region as Soviet rule was collapsing in the early 1990s. Azerbaijan recaptured large swathes of territory in a six-week conflict in 2020 that ended with a truce and the dispatch of Russian peacekeepers, who remain in the region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan have met several times as part of efforts to resolve the conflict, but periodic violence has hurt peace efforts. For the past three months, Azeri environmentalists have been blockading the Lachin corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, saying they oppose mining operations in the region. Armenia says the protesters are political activists acting at the behest of Azerbaijan's authorities. The World Court ordered Azerbaijan last month on Wednesday to ensure free movement through the Lachin corridor.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 05-06/2023
The Dwindling Status of Russia and Iran in Europe and the G-20
Raghida Dergham/ March 05/2023
A deep rift has emerged in the G20, which includes the governments and central bank governors of the world’s top 20 economies and the European Union. The G20 is meant to develop policies to promote international financial stability among the major industrialised economies and emerging nations that together represent two thirds of the world’s population and nearly half of the world’s landmass. The broad title of this rift is the Russian war in Ukraine. Its practical translation is the dangerous unravelling of the G20 coupled with the ascendancy of the G7, the grouping of Western advanced economies that had accepted Russia into its fold in 1997 to become the G8, before suspending its membership following the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. This matters because the implications for the world economy and the international system are momentous, not just in terms of the further erosion of Russia’s international status, but also because it shakes the very foundations of international relations and decision-making mechanisms.
The G7 was created in 1975, and is comprised of the United States, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, and Canada. These seven nations are the world’s wealthiest liberal democracies, controlling 60 percent of global wealth despite having only 10 percent of the world’s population. Most members of this group are global powers and are linked by close economic, diplomatic, and military ties.
The G20 was established in 1999 at the initiative of the G7 to bring in other major economies in response to a series of debt crises that ravaged emerging markets, and their growing need for adaptation to globalization, competitiveness, and economic development. The countries invited to the G20 were selected on a geographic basis, not just their economies: China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Japan from Asia. South Africa from the African continent. Argentina and Brazil from South America. Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and the European Union from Europe in addition to Russia and Turkey. The United States, Canada, and Mexico from North America. And Australia from the Australian continent.
This week, a G20 ministerial meeting in India concluded with differences that prevented agreement on a joint statement, after Russia and China rejected any condemnation of the war in Ukraine. India, the current president of the G20, said that most member states denounced the war and issued a G20 Chair's Summary and Outcome Document that contained the same language used in a statement issued earlier by meeting of G20 ministers of finance and central bank governors.
First, this points to the fragmentation of the G20, now unable to issue international decisions, unlike the G7, which remains united and able to make collective resolutions. Not long ago, these two groupings were the only serious blocs of their kind on the international arena –unlike the BRICS grouping that emerged as a rival club of countries that include Russia, India, China, Brazil, and South Africa. This development will have both economic and security impacts and will shape the process of constructing the coming international system.
Secondly, Russia has lost a crucial platform because of this rift in the G20. President Vladimir Putin was hoping to attend the G20 summit hosted by India in September. Now, both India and Russia, who were looking forward to a successful summit, face disappointment, while Russia has lost a major pulpit on which it had placed a lot of hope.
The worst thing for Russia is that the optics of New Delhi reflected an alarming shift in the stances of many countries on the war in Ukraine that disfavour Moscow. Saudi Arabia for example, just before the meeting in India, had dispatched its Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Ukraine, where he signed agreements worth $400 million. The visit was the first of its kind for a Saudi and Arab official and opened a new page between the two countries. The Saudi message to Russia is that while it is keen to join efforts to find a political solution to the crisis between Russia and Ukraine, the kingdom does not want to be seen as backing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Moscow had hoped for Riyadh to adopt ‘neutrality’ in the Russian definition, but Riyadh has sent important messages to Moscow, in New York, Kyiv, and New Delhi.
A vote on a a UN resolution in New York saw 141 countries – including Serbia – stand against Russia on the war. With that and with what happened in New Delhi, a new phase of international isolation for Russia and loss of role in international decision making has begun. The Western powers are determined to deprive Russia of its international status and remove it from international decision-making mechanisms. In truth, what happened in New Delhi had begun at the Munich Security Conference, with a remarkable stance by the German foreign minister.
Yet it is the developments on the battlefield that have brought the most alarming news for Moscow. On Tuesday, an unknown group carried out drone attacks inside Russian territory, meters away from a natural gas pumping station in Kolomna, 110 km away from central Moscow. The station is owned by Russian energy giant Gazprom. On Wednesday, attacks using drones were launched elsewhere in Russia and Crimea. And on Thursday, an armed attack was carried out in the Russian oblast of Bryansk near the Ukraine border.
The news prompted Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, to angrily accuse the West of backing “Nazis” and the leaders of the United States, Britain, and EU countries of being direct accomplices of “terrorists”. The US Department of Defense has denied giving Ukraine intelligence to carry out attacks inside Russian territory.
These are all indications of new dynamics emerging in the Ukraine war ahead of the decisive month of March, when many anticipate the start of major operations including a Ukrainian offensive. But the situation remains unpredictable. It will be a month of the kind of surprises that worry all players.
Europe is politically and militarily primed and ready, with a weapons supplies streaming into Ukraine. For Europe, the war is fateful. The powers of the continent understand – and are anxious – that their geography, not that of the United States, is the arena where the war and its fallout could ultimately expand into. They are in no mood for leniency with the allies of Russia in its war, which has led to a European stance even tougher than that of the United States when it comes to punishing Iran’s actions.
Iran’s alliance with Russia in the Ukraine war has antagonized even those countries that were historically for Russia the most lenient vis-à-vis the Islamic Republic, such as Germany. Indeed, Berlin was at the forefront of Iran’s apologists, to the point of taking an adversarial position against anyone who had opposed and criticized Iran’s regional behaviour. And Berlin was at the forefront of those who had refused to listen to those who would warn against Tehran’s pernicious nuclear, regional, and domestic policies.
But today, Germany has left the flock of European appeasers of Iran. It is leading the European camp that is now ready to sanction Iran for its alliance with Russia in the Ukraine war. Not long ago, Germany had believed it could keep Iran under control. But today, with the collapse of the Vienna talks and Iran’s direct involvement in the war, there is no more a barrier deterring Iran’s surprises. Thus Europe is changing course, becoming even firmer than the US administration.
There is a disagreement between the United States and the European powers on how to respond to Iran’s enrichment of uranium to the level that allows it to produce nuclear weapons. Iran seems to have crossed a new threshold, with the IAEA announcing it had detected uranium enriched at more than 80 percent purity. Iran claimed it was an unintended accumulation because of technical difficulties in its centrifuges, according to a letter to the IAEA denying any intention to develop nuclear weapons.
The IAEA will convene next week. The Wall Street Journal quoting informed sources said that the Biden administration was hesitant to publicly censure Iran, while Germany, Britain, and France want to blame Iran officially at the meeting. This is truly remarkable, even if the European powers do not end up pushing for a decision without Washington’s support.
This is all because of the war in Ukraine. A rift has appeared also in Russian-Israeli relations that the Kremlin had hoped to avoid with the return to power of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in light of the strong personal relationship Putin enjoys with him. Instead, Israel is now entering the Ukrainian fray alongside the West and against Russia, in part because of the alliance between Iran and Russia. This could result in regional ripples that may not exclude a war between Iran and Israel triggered by nuclear developments and the war in Ukraine.
Iran’s recent military exercises sought to highlight its huge capabilities in the air and underground. Iran is priming itself and is in a belligerent mood ready to take pre-emptive action. The same goes for Moscow, and its absolute refusal to suffer defeat. Both are ready for surprises.

Iranian Poison
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
When Ayatollah Khomeini announced his decision to end the war with Iraq in 1988, he likened the step to “drinking a chalice of poison.” Today, Iranian schoolgirls are actually being poisoned in Iran as part of the effort to end the ongoing protests there.
Nearly 900 Iranian schoolgirls have been subjected to respiratory poisoning in several schools in cities across Iran, and three narratives about these mass poisonings have emerged.
Some Iranian officials and media outlets affiliated with the regime claim the attacks may have been perpetrated by “religious extremists” seeking to shut down girls’ schools, especially after several incidents were seen in Qom, where the first of these attacks had been perpetrated.
It is said that others believe that some want to close all schools, especially girls’ schools. In the second scenario, the opposition is allegedly behind the attacks, which it is perpetrating in order to fuel discontent and galvanize protests. In the third scenario, “foreign enemies” are behind attacks.
Iranian propaganda is operating as usual, then. The rhetoric around “religious extremists” is meant to signal to the West that Iran also suffers from extremism. The rhetoric around the “opposition” addresses those who have remained silent amid these demonstrations. The rhetoric around “foreign enemies” addresses and galvanizes the social base of the mullahs.
Going back to these mass poisonings, they point to dangerous threats that deserve our attention. Indeed, the regime in Tehran is now trying to push a narrative of “religious extremists,” replicating its narrative of “extremists” and “moderates” - the most notorious lie it has told since the Iranian revolution.
Here, this is not a question of the difference between the mullah regime and the regime of the Taliban, which has forbidden girls from receiving an education in Afghanistan. Instead, it is a question of how the mullah regime differs from these “religious extremists” being accused of poisoning Iranian schoolgirls. In my view, there is no difference; they are both part of the system.
The other threat, here, arises when we contemplate the damage that these “religious extremists” who have poisoned defenseless Iranian girls could do to the region if Iran had had nuclear weapons.
It suffices to ponder what these “religious extremists” whom Iran had mobilized into militias have done to the people of Syria - chemical weapons were deployed against defenseless Syrians around 38 times during the war.
Thus, the mass poisoning of young Iranian girls is tangible evidence of the lengths that the mullah regime is willing to go to defend its power. These atrocities are being perpetrated against the Iranian people, so we can only imagine what the regime would do with nuclear weapons.
Over the past four decades, the regime has never hesitated to use illegitimate means to realize its ends. It has done so to consolidate its power and expand its influence throughout the region, from Yemen to Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria.
All of this tells us the Iranian regime’s day of reckoning must come. It is long overdue, and the time has come for the international community to take a stand against the mullahs, who have been committing crimes that defy reason for too long. The drones it sent for use against Ukrainians and poisoning Iranian girls are the latest examples.

Laws that Regulate not Obstruct
Najib Saab/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 05/2023
Protecting the environment begins with the rational management of natural resources. Outside this framework, treatments are circumstantial and target symptoms only, without addressing the root of the problem. Water management begins with enhancing efficiency, putting an end to waste and preventing pollution at the source. Protecting marine resources begins with proper zoning and regulating construction and activities along coastal lines, defining the quality of activities on beaches, and preventing industrial and household waste from reaching the seas. Preserving the soil begins with the adoption of sound agricultural practices, which ensure greater production without pollution and depletion. Clean air begins by proper planning of transportation networks, the distribution of housing, business and industrial sites, and the adoption of clean energy sources, before placing restrictions on emissions or dealing with the ensuing damage.
These and other requirements for preserving the environmental balance necessitate the existence of clear laws that regulate all human activities, and precise mechanisms to monitor implementation, with deterrent penalties for violators. However, diagnosing the path to a solution is only the beginning, as enacting inappropriate laws, coupled with weak or corrupt monitoring agencies, in addition to selective enforcement, are all factors that create new problems, which may be greater than those they were designed to solve.
The first condition for the success of environmental laws is defining their objectives, while examining available alternatives to choose the most appropriate one, as this is not a mathematical process that has only one right answer. Each measure has its social and economic repercussions, and it may be necessary to accept minor environmental damage in the short term, if this proves to be inevitable for maintaining social and economic stability, leading to, after a transitional period, a comprehensive solution that compensates for the temporary damage. For example, if people have no alternative, they cannot be prevented from cutting down trees to use as firewood, leaving them to die of the cold; rather what is required is to preserve special forest trees at a set minimum limit, while encouraging the planting of fast-growing trees suitable to harness for the timber industry, in the framework of continuous reforestation programs. The insistence of some officials to limit the target to forbidding cutting any trees conceals their failure to launch serious afforestation programs, including those dedicated to harnessing wood.
The success of environmental laws in achieving the desired goals requires, first, that they be clear and uncomplicated without being open to conflicting interpretations. Second, implementation needs specialized monitoring bodies that operate transparently and according to strict standards.
Ambiguity in laws gives way to obstruction, delay, and selectivity, especially if those in charge of granting licenses, approvals and monitoring are incompetent. The most dangerous thing is when this is accompanied by widespread corruption and bribery, so licenses and operating permits are granted according to a set price-bribe, based on benefits and different interpretations of the laws.
It is true that some environment ministries and agencies are highly competent and committed to the public interest, and have a passion for the environment. In fact, the budgets allocated to most Arab ministries of environment are meager, which leads them to rely on grants, aid, and conditional donations from external parties. However, this type of funding allows for the selective benefiting from jobs and the implementation of programs outside the actual control of the ministry, and the distribution of benefits according to personal interests and political loyalties.
On the other hand, it is not true that the meager local budgets of the ministries do not leave room for the extortion of illegal funds. Vague and stretchy laws, and the absence of monitoring, tempt some, at all levels, to collect bribes from stakeholders who need permissions and licenses, with a price tag attached to each signature. This applies to a small workshop, as well as to large construction projects, rock quarries and sand extraction, alongside industrial factories for cement, paper, iron and other activities. These are all sources of wealth for the corrupt in poor ministries, because money can turn toxic emissions into fragrant nectar in the reports of licensors and supervisors, in partnership with their bosses. Is it surprising then that an employee, director, or minister emerges rich while leaving behind a poor ministry, having the right to sign licenses for projects and factories and monitor their work?
The beginning of the solution lies in setting clear and explicit regulating laws, in addition to imposing strict monitoring. However, the correct application also requires that these laws be fair and ensure proper functioning instead of obstructing production.
In the reports of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development (AFED), we always called for setting clear action plans for environment ministries, and directing their programs and projects to achieve the set goals. We also stressed the need for all international and bilateral programs to be compatible with national plans, and not the other way around, where the ministry becomes at the service of international programs. However, this does not mean at all that international and bilateral programs should be unreasonably obstructed or banned, whether they are financing projects or capacity building.
A proposed planning law in Jordan attempts to address this dilemma, as it prohibits any official or private body or non-profit association from accepting any international financial, technical or in-kind assistance, and prohibits the implementation of any development project with international funding, except after the approval of the Council of Ministers. These principles seem to respond to legitimate demands to organize international programs in line with the plans of the relevant ministries, rather than creating parallel alternative programs. However, what is required first is that these ministries have clear policies, plans and objectives, with appropriate mechanisms run by competent people to organize cooperation. It is necessary to point out that the partnership between the government and civil society requires speedy action, leading to approval or rejection, according to explicit, transparent and non-discretionary criteria, in order to prevent disruption and obstruction.
It is also necessary, with regard to financing projects, that the law distinguishes between public projects, such as waste treatment, water, sewage and electricity networks, and reconstruction, and on the other hand, projects implemented by civil associations, such as awareness programs and training, including small pilot projects. While it is normal for NGOs to be required to declare their sources of income, whether external or internal, the fear is that the requirement to approve funding and projects, even those not related to the government, will turn into a tool to obstruct civil work and monitor it in a discretionary manner, and prevent NGOs from performing one of their main duties, which is to monitor public sector performance.
Laws which govern processes related to environment and development are indispensable. However, they must be clear and not open to interpretation, and be accompanied by an explicit implementation mechanism- for a bad implementation mechanism can damage any law, no matter how good it is.
*Najib Saab is Secretary General of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development- AFED and Editor-in-Chief of Environment & Development magazine.

Israel Under Attack: Biden's Coup to Get Iran the Bomb
Guy Millière/ Gatestone Institute./March 5, 2023
"U.S. support for demonstrations in Tel Aviv isn't about the future of Israel's judiciary. It's about handcuffing Israel while Iran gets the bomb." — Lee Smith, Tablet Magazine, March 2, 2023.
In reality, Iran's mullahs will most likely blackmail the Biden Administration for billions of dollars not to use their new bombs "on my watch", as then President Barack Obama put it in 2015. With a new administration, there can be a new blackmail.
The Palestinian Authority's "pay-for-slay" jobs-program, paid for by "over $200 million" fungible U.S. taxpayer dollars in funding reinstated by President Joe Biden, incentivizes and rewards the murder of Jews.
Abbas' Fatah faction boasted of carrying out 7,200 terror attacks in 2022 against Israel, while criticizing Hamas for not attacking Israel.
Many Israelis have no illusions anymore. They see that the Palestinian Authority incites Jew-hate, whips up terrorism and tells Arab children and adults that to be a martyr for Islam allows them direct access not only to paradise, but also to generous funds for the terrorists and their families.
Israelis can also see that the Biden Administration has continually made decisions hostile to Israel, including once again funding the Palestinian Authority without even requiring that it renounce terrorism. The Administration also brought back the goal of a "two-state solution": if a Palestinian state were to emerge, it could -- and most likely would -- be used as a launching pad from which to attack Israel, as promoted in the Palestinian "Phased Plan": Get whatever land you can, then use that to get the rest.
Mainly, Israelis saw that the Biden administration never gave up trying to enable to enable the mullahs' regime in Iran to have unlimited nuclear weapons -- all while the mullahs have made the genocidal destruction of Israel their overriding goal.
Accordingly, on November 1, 2022, millions of Israelis elected Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's Prime Minister, heading a broad coalition government. The coalition also pledged to restore the balance between the Knesset and the Supreme Court.
In the United Kingdom, Parliament has the final say -- not the High Court. For the last 30 years, this has not been the situation in Israel.
In the 1990s, Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, declaring that "everything is justiciable," executed a "judicial revolution," through which the Court has arrogated virtually all political power, including the ability to override laws and even operational decisions by the Ministry of Defense and the IDF.
The government's proposed reforms would simply restore the checks and balances and the separation of powers that Israel had before Barak's "revolution."
Since Barak's tenure, Israel's Supreme Court and the Attorney General have become a self-selecting group, unelected by the public or their representatives. Their decisions, lacking a constitution, were increasingly based not on law but on their invented doctrine of "reasonableness" -- often resulting in "whatever I think is reasonable".
At present, Israel's Supreme Court, among other freewheeling entitlements, may overrule a quasi-constitutional Basic Law based on 'reasonableness"; accept petitions from anyone regardless of standing (even if the petitioner would not be directly affected by the outcome -- a provision that has resulted in a firehose of lawsuits by "concerned" non-governmental-organizations); and veto political appointments.
For years, many Israelis had gotten used to turning to the Supreme Court for favorable "final say" decisions that they were not able to obtain through the elected parliament, the Knesset. Overnight, they now find themselves losing their perch.
The new Israeli government has not violated any of the rules of Israeli democracy. In a democratic country that held a free and fair election, the one thing that does not seem democratic is to demand that the decision of the voters be overthrown.
Demonstrations continue, but even if 100,000 protestors turn out, it is still only a small number compared to the 2.4 million citizens who voted for Israel's new government.
Behind this subversion, it turns out, is none other than the U.S. State Department, which for years has reportedly been channeling funding to a "far left", "anti-Netanyahu" non-profit organization, the Movement for Quality Government (MQG) .
"Never mind that the justices have a conflict of interest since it is their powers the government's proposed reforms would check. Never mind that in a bid to prevent politicized judges and prosecutors from overturning the will of the voters, the law explicitly permits prime ministers to serve not only while standing trial, but even if convicted. And never mind that the charges against Netanyahu have fallen apart in Jerusalem District Court.... Since MQG's primary activity is subverting democracy in Israel by waging lawfare and sowing chaos in a bid to block democratically elected right-wing governments from fulfilling their pledges to voters, it's fairly clear that when MQG refers to 'democracy education,' it doesn't mean majority rule". — Caroline Glick, JNS, January 17, 2023.
Ironically, in Washington D.C., a "January 6th Committee", without due process -- no cross examination, no independent selection of members, no right to counsel, no exculpatory evidence -- pretended to "investigate" as criminal the very same activity that the Biden Administration is backing in Israel: trying to change the outcome of a free and fair election.
Israel is and will remain a very much a democracy – just as it was before Justice Aharon Barak arrogated virtually unlimited powers to its Supreme Court. Calls for uprisings and civil disobedience, combined with false accusations of "fascism" -- and the whole focus-group supermarket of pejoratives -- appear to be just sore-loser propaganda.
The demonstrations -- despite what the Biden Administration might wish -- are just the loud last gasp of upper-class "elites" who have been entrenched in powerful unelected positions for decades.
That all this undemocratic disruption being done in the name of "defending democracy" just makes matters worse. The reality, sadly, is quite the opposite.
At a time when terrorism has struck and with a U.S. administration unfriendly to Israel, it is revealing that professed friends of Israel can talk in such an irresponsible way. They speak of a threat to Israeli democracy? They are a threat to Israeli democracy.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Israel at the time of two of the Jerusalem terror attacks, rather than condemn them clearly and unambiguously, spoke mushily of a "horrifying surge in violence... we will be encouraging the parties to take steps to calm things down", as if Israel had been the one promoting violence.... He was giving a lesson in democracy to Prime Minister Netanyahu -- not Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who openly calls for Palestinians to murder Israelis. How thoughtful.
The Israeli government is trying to restore the democratic institutions that it used to have, of which it has been stripped.
The Israeli government is trying to prevent the murder of innocent Jews and to stop terrorist attacks. Those, however, do not appear to be the goals that everyone has.
What endangers the State of Israel or any nation is not a government dedicated to the safety of its citizens, but people who seem blind to the real dangers: whether from the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iranian regime, the Chinese Communist Party.
The greatest danger comes from those who cling to the illusion that diplomacy without the credible threat of military consequences will have any effect. These irresponsible individuals seem to prefer avoiding conversation about such dangers, or else try to downplay them. It is much less frightening to talk about gender pronouns than China's preparations for war.
Iran must not be allowed to get the bomb -- "or maybe just a few".
"U.S. support for demonstrations in Tel Aviv isn't about the future of Israel's judiciary. It's about handcuffing Israel while Iran gets the bomb," writes Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.
The world has learned a lot watching America's Middle East freedom agenda.... The first of these lessons is that when U.S. policymakers selectively deploy the rhetoric of democracy and human rights against target governments, their words are typically accompanied by practical measures to destabilize those governments, including U.S. allies....
"In reality, the maritime agreement was just the latest in a series of initiatives to realign U.S. interests with those of the terror regime in Tehran while alternately sweet-talking and threatening traditional U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia to fall into line...
"Netanyahu, however, is a problem for an administration still determined to reenter the nuclear deal from which Donald Trump withdrew... But there's no guarantee the famously cautious Netanyahu wouldn't launch an attack now, especially with a right-wing government at his back and the U.S. seemingly preparing to accept Iran as a member of the nuclear club, so long as the terror regime's capacity is limited to just one bomb, or maybe just a few."
"Maybe just a few"? As if Iran's regime would honor a commitment like that any more than they have honored their other commitments? (sampling: here, here , here, here, here and here)
In reality, Iran's mullahs will most likely blackmail the Biden Administration for billions of dollars not to use their new bombs "on my watch", as then President Barack Obama put it in 2015. With a new administration, there can be a new blackmail.
The United States, under the Biden Administration, is has been trying to "thwart the will" of Israel's voters -- again (here and here).
Begin with Friday night, January 27 in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. Jews are at a synagogue to pray. An Arab terrorist starts a murder rampage, shooting seven people dead and seriously wounding three others. Scenes of joy erupt in the Arab towns of the West Bank, ruled by the Palestinian Authority, and in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Sweets are given out and fireworks are set off to celebrate the murder of Jews.
The next morning, a 13-year-old Arab boy shoots two Jews in Jerusalem near the Old City, seriously wounding them.
On February 10, an Arab terrorist rammed his car into a crowd of Jews at a Jerusalem bus stop, killing three people, including two children. The Neve Yaakov terrorist and the 13-year-old Arab boy were residents of Jerusalem; the bus stop terrorist was an Israeli citizen. Arab children who knew the boy were interviewed on television. They described him as a hero and said that if they had a gun, they would have done the same thing.
The Palestinian Authority's "pay-for-slay" jobs-program, paid for by "over $200 million" fungible U.S. taxpayer dollars in funding reinstated by President Joe Biden, incentivizes and rewards the murder of Jews.
"[I]f we had one single penny left, we would spend it on the families of martyrs and prisoners," Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said.
Abbas' Fatah faction boasted of carrying out 7,200 terror attacks in 2022 against Israel, while criticizing Hamas for not attacking Israel.
Many Israelis have no illusions anymore. They see that the Palestinian Authority incites Jew-hate, whips up terrorism and tells Arab children and adults that to be a martyr for Islam allows them direct access not only to paradise, but also to generous funds for the terrorists and their families.
The Palestinian Authority payments amount to $300 million annually. Not bad for a Middle East jobs program, funded by the US and the European Union (here, here, here, here, here and here).
Meanwhile, Europe is involved in efforts to block accountability of how their NGO funds are used. No reports on payments to the families of murderers; no reports on terror tunnels or other military infrastructure being built; no reports on how Europe is funding massive land theft by Palestinians of areas that officially belong to Israel. How convenient.
Israelis can see that a growing number of Muslim Arabs residing in Jerusalem have been incited by hate propaganda by the Palestinian Authority, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad; that the number of deadly terrorist attacks have been on the rise, and that Israel's former Bennett-Lapid government was unable to stand its ground in the face of the Biden Administration.
Israelis can also see that the Biden Administration has continually made decisions hostile to Israel, including once again funding the Palestinian Authority without even requiring that it renounce terrorism. The Administration also brought back the goal of a "two-state solution": if a Palestinian state were to emerge, it could -- and most likely would -- be used as a launching pad from which to attack Israel, as promoted in the Palestinian "Phased Plan": Get whatever land you can, then use that to get the rest.
Mainly, Israelis saw that the Biden administration never gave up trying to enable to enable the mullahs' regime in Iran to have unlimited nuclear weapons -- all while the mullahs have made the genocidal destruction of Israel their overriding goal.
Accordingly, on November 1, 2022, millions of Israelis elected Benjamin Netanyahu as Israel's Prime Minister, heading a broad coalition government. As in any democracy, they stand ready to respond to the expectations of the majority who brought them to power. These expectations include fighting firmly against terrorism and other threats, and, as is the first obligation of any government, ensuring the security of the country. The coalition also pledged to restore the balance between the Knesset and the Supreme Court.
In the United Kingdom, Parliament has the final say -- not the High Court. For the last 30 years, this has not been the situation in Israel.
In the 1990s, Israeli Supreme Court President Aharon Barak, declaring that "everything is justiciable," executed a "judicial revolution," through which the Court has arrogated virtually all political power, including the ability to override laws and even operational decisions by the Ministry of Defense and the IDF.
The government's proposed reforms would simply restore the checks and balances and the separation of powers that Israel had before Barak's "revolution."
Since Barak's tenure, Israel's Supreme Court and the Attorney General have become a self-selecting group, unelected by the public or their representatives. Their decisions, lacking a constitution, were increasingly based not on law but on their invented doctrine of "reasonableness" -- often resulting in "whatever I think is reasonable".
At present, Israel's Supreme Court, among other freewheeling entitlements, may overrule a quasi-constitutional Basic Law based on 'reasonableness"; accept petitions from anyone regardless of standing (even if the petitioner would not be directly affected by the outcome -- a provision that has resulted in a firehose of lawsuits by "concerned" non-governmental-organizations); and veto political appointments. According to the columnist Ron Jager:
"The Israeli Supreme Court has over the past three decades created in Israel a judicial reality in which there are literally no limits to its authority, and it recognizes no limits or restrictions to intervene and exercise judicial review by governmental action and/or legislation... The judicial reforms are not out to destroy Israel's democracy but to save and restore it."
Former US Attorney General Michael Mukasey pointed out:
"[I]n view of the court's sweeping self-imposed authority, it is difficult at times to describe the current condition as the rule of law..... Real reform would recognize the distinction between legal issues that can be decided in court and policy issues relegated to the political arena. It would also permit cases to be brought only by parties with a direct and personal interest."
The new Netanyahu government immediately faced radical hostility from both from its political opponents and much of the Israeli media, starting even before it was sworn in.
For years, many Israelis had gotten used to turning to the Supreme Court for favorable "final say" decisions that they were not able to obtain through the elected parliament, the Knesset. Overnight, they now find themselves losing their perch.
The new Israeli government has not violated any of the rules of Israeli democracy. In a democratic country that held a free and fair election, the one thing that does not seem democratic is to demand that the decision of the voters be overthrown.
Nevertheless, on December 1, outgoing interim Prime Minister Yair Lapid declared of the oncoming Netanyahu cabinet: "This is the government that was elected democratically, but wants to destroy democracy". Former Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon last month called for a general strike and -- entirely innocent of the of the irony -- alleged that the new Israeli government wanted to make Israel "a fascist, racist, messianic and corrupt state". On January 15, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak said:
"[T]his government is legal but clearly illegitimate because of its plan to crush Israeli democracy... This is an assassination of the Declaration of Independence, and democracy must defend itself..."
On February 13, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai threatened:
"[I]f a country becomes a dictatorship via the democratic process, it will only be restored as a democracy via bloodshed."
Demonstrations continue, but even if 100,000 protestors turn out, it is still only a small number compared to the 2.4 million citizens who voted for Israel's new government.
Behind this subversion, it turns out, is none other than the U.S. State Department, which for years has reportedly been channeling funding to a "far left", "anti-Netanyahu" non-profit organization, the Movement for Quality Government (MQG) .
The journalist Caroline Glick notes:
"MQG began its current campaign of delegitimization, subversion and demonization immediately after the Netanyahu government was sworn into office on Dec. 29. The next day, MQG petitioned the Supreme Court to prevent Shas leader Aryeh Deri from serving as a minister in the government.
There was no legal basis for the petition. But that didn't bother the lawyers at MQG....
"Never mind that the justices have a conflict of interest since it is their powers the government's proposed reforms would check. Never mind that in a bid to prevent politicized judges and prosecutors from overturning the will of the voters, the law explicitly permits prime ministers to serve not only while standing trial, but even if convicted. And never mind that the charges against Netanyahu have fallen apart in Jerusalem District Court.
"Justice Minister Yariv Levin described MQG as 'a gang of lawyers who do not respect the outcome of the election, working to carry out a coup and remove the prime minister from office.... This effort to oust the prime minister in contravention of the law, while trampling on the democratic election, is no different from a coup that is carried out with tanks. The goal is the same...'
"Since MQG's primary activity is subverting democracy in Israel by waging lawfare and sowing chaos in a bid to block democratically elected right-wing governments from fulfilling their pledges to voters, it's fairly clear that when MQG refers to 'democracy education,' it doesn't mean majority rule.
Israel's Supreme Court, by excessive overreach, apparently doomed itself.
Ironically, in Washington D.C., a "January 6th Committee", without due process -- no cross examination, no independent selection of members, no right to counsel, no exculpatory evidence -- pretended to "investigate" as criminal the very same activity that the Biden Administration is backing in Israel: trying to change the outcome of a free and fair election.
On January 6, 2021, Americans had the audacity to enter their own government buildings while police held the doors open for them. For these "crimes", the "January 6th Committee" proceeded as a kangaroo court (here, here and here), with a result called "predetermined."
Israel is and will remain a very much a democracy – just as it was before Justice Aharon Barak arrogated virtually unlimited powers to its Supreme Court. Calls for uprisings and civil disobedience, combined with false accusations of "fascism" -- and the whole focus-group supermarket of pejoratives -- appear to be just sore-loser propaganda.
The Israeli government is trying to restore the democratic institutions that it used to have, of which it has been stripped.
The demonstrations -- despite what the Biden Administration might wish -- are just the loud last gasp of upper-class "elites" who have been entrenched in powerful unelected positions for decades.
That all this undemocratic disruption being done in the name of "defending democracy" just makes matters worse. The reality, sadly, is quite the opposite.
The situation has, of course, created an ideal opportunity for Israel's enemies to vilify and demonize the country even further.
The European media, which generally does not hide its antipathy towards Israel, has published virulent diatribes against the new Israeli government. They say that Israel is ruled by an "extreme right", and speak of Israel's decline and fall. They present the recent terrorist attacks as consequences of a "dangerous government" coming to power in Israel. It was, in fact, terrorist attacks that partly led to the "sweeping victory": most Israelis evidently thought that the new government would do a better job of protecting them.
The French newspaper Le Monde dyspeptically predicted that the "colonization" of the "occupied Palestinian territories" will accelerate and that "Jewish supremacists" will rule Israel unchecked.
The Guardian in the UK wrote that a "full-blown Palestinian uprising" is to be expected, and presented the recent Palestinian terrorist attacks on civilians as responses to an IDF arrest raid in Jenin in which "nine Palestinians" were killed. The article omitted to say that the Palestinian terrorists whom the IDF came to arrest opened fire on the soldiers and were killed in the exchange of fire.
The American mainstream media have also been taking harsher anti-Israeli positions. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, anti-Israel for years, wrote that "The Israel we know is gone". "[M]any ministers" in the new Israeli government", he threw in, "are hostile to American values".
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Daniel Kurtzer and former Middle East peace envoy Aaron David Miller published an column in the Washington Post saying that the new Israeli government possesses "anti-democratic values unfriendly to U.S. interests," and recommended that the Biden administration impose a partial arms embargo on Israel and punish Morocco, Bahrain, the UAE and Sudan for signing normalization agreements with Israel.
At a time when terrorism has struck and with a U.S. administration unfriendly to Israel, it is revealing that professed friends of Israel can talk in such an irresponsible way. They speak of a threat to Israeli democracy? They are a threat to Israeli democracy.
The Biden Administration can barely conceal its contempt for the new Israeli government. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Israel at the time of two of the Jerusalem terror attacks, rather than condemn them clearly and unambiguously, spoke mushily of a "horrifying surge in violence... we will be encouraging the parties to take steps to calm things down", as if Israel had been the one promoting violence.
Blinken insidiously added that the relationship between the United States and Israel is rooted "in shared values that includes our support for core democratic principles and institutions, including respect for human rights, the equal administration of justice for all, the equal rights of minority groups, the rule of law, free press, a robust civil society." He was giving a lesson in democracy to Prime Minister Netanyahu -- not Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who openly calls for Palestinians to murder Israelis. How thoughtful.
"[T]he vibrancy of Israel's civil society has been on full display of late," Blinken concluded -- meaning that calls for revolt and civil disobedience are in his eyes signs of the "vibrancy" of a civil society -- unless perhaps one is referring to January 6, 2021. During Netanyahu's recent visit to Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron delivered a similar homily.
Many left-wing American Jewish organizations have made clear their rejection of Israel's new government. More than 300 American rabbis from the Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist movements signed an open letter saying they would not allow "extreme ministers" from the Israeli government to address their congregations. Rabbi Rick Jacobs, president of the Union for Reform Judaism said, "the current Israeli government is really pushing away the majority of Jews in North America and the diaspora."
On February 1, more than a hundred prominent American Jews, including former leaders of major mainstream Jewish organizations, published a text accusing the Israeli government of "endangering the very existence of the State of Israel and the Israeli nation." They added, "Israel can be likened to a ship sailing the high seas. The current government is taking out the keel, consciously dismantling the state's institutions."
The Israeli government is trying to prevent the murder of innocent Jews and to stop terrorist attacks. Those, however, do not appear to be the goals that everyone has.
What endangers the State of Israel or any nation is not a government dedicated to the safety of its citizens, but people who seem blind to the real dangers: whether from the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Iranian regime, the Chinese Communist Party.
The greatest danger comes from those who cling to the illusion that diplomacy without the credible threat of military consequences will have any effect. These irresponsible individuals seem to prefer avoiding conversation about such dangers, or else try to downplay them. It is much less frightening to talk about gender pronouns than China's preparations for war.
The organizers of the anti-government protests in Israel, backed by the Biden Administration, are apparently trying to "create anarchy" to force another election.
"I call on the leaders of the opposition: stop this," said Netanyahu. "Stop deliberately plunging the country into anarchy. Come to your senses and show responsibility and leadership".
"There is a new reality in Israel," writes Rabbi Joseph Gabbay, "and the left is incapable of coming to terms with this new reality."
"The demography and ideology of the nation has moved to the right, aspiring to a society based on traditional Jewish heritage and moral values. This is an irrefutable reality. The left which has run the country for decades with the help of an autocratic Supreme Court and which believed without an iota of a doubt that the country belonged to them, and only to them, cannot swallow the idea that the party is over... It is time to calm down and respect the voice of the majority."
According to Lee Smith:
"The anti-Bibi coup looks and feels like the anti-Trump operation because it's run by the same people—the Obama operatives who hunted Trump and now run the Biden White House. It was Obama's spy chiefs who fabricated Russiagate, the politically funded smear campaign designed to destabilize the Trump presidency. And it's Obama's State Department that created the machinery to take down Netanyahu nearly a decade ago by funding anti-Bibi election campaigns with U.S. taxpayer dollars."
Iran must not be allowed to get the bomb -- or even "maybe just a few".
*Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Iran’s economic disparity a threat to the regime
Dr. Majid RafizadehArab News/March 05, 2023
As long as the Iranian leaders continue to disregard their people’s dissatisfaction with the economy, widespread protests are destined to erupt across the nation once again.
When it comes to the economic situation, there is a stark distinction between the privileged few at the top and the ordinary people. As long as revenues from the export of oil and other natural resources are coming into the treasury of the regime, the worsening domestic economy is not fundamentally impacting the living standards of the regime’s officials or those connected to them.
But the increasing gap between ordinary people and the authorities is a major threat to the survival of the theocratic establishment. According to figures recently released by the regime’s own Interior Ministry, nearly 70 percent of the population are living below the poverty line.
Ebrahim Razzaghi, a former professor of economics at Tehran University, told Iranian newspaper Aftab News: “In the past, the absolute poverty line was around 10 million tomans, which has increased up to 12 million tomans due to recent high prices and lack of salary increase. For this reason, the question is, how do those who make promises to the people want to break this poverty line and fulfill their promises?”
He added: “Other official statistics show that between 20 and 30 million people in the country are below the absolute poverty line. Undoubtedly, if this situation continues and economic policies do not change, these statistics will increase day by day and will become uncontrollable in the future.”
Ebrahim Neko, a representative of the Islamic Council of Iran, said: “90 percent of Iranian people have experienced poverty in some fashion in their lives. Even if some earn more than 12 million, they still have tasted poverty in some ways.”
Now, compare the situation of the overwhelming majority of the ordinary people with government officials. For example, the unelected leader of the regime, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has a financial empire worth about $200 billion. Also, the children of the elite — the “aghazadeh,” or “noble-born” — appear on Instagram channels such as “Rich Kids of Tehran,” which show images of the elite flaunting their wealth and enjoying lavish lifestyles at home and abroad.
One of the problems ordinary people face is that the value of Iran’s currency continues to plummet. Last week it dropped to 600,000 rials to the dollar for the first time in the history of the regime. This is happening while the unemployment rate and inflation are at record highs. According to a Feb. 26 report by Fox Business: “Iranians’ purchasing power has been decimated by inflation, which reached an annual rate of 53.4 percent in January — up from 41.4 percent two years (ago) according to the country’s statistics center. The dire economic circumstances have wiped out the life savings of many and caused Iranians to form long lines at currency exchange offices in recent days in an effort to acquire increasingly scarce dollars.”
Corruption is ingrained in Iran’s political and financial institutions, which are the country’s backbone.
Another underlying issue is that corruption is ingrained in Iran’s political and financial institutions, which are the country’s backbone. Embezzlement and money laundering within the banking system are prime examples of corruption. Politicians across the political spectrum, including members of the president’s office, have been known to engage in corrupt practices for their own political and financial benefit.
Prominent cases have included influential people such as Hamid Baghaei, a former vice president and confidant of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hossein Fereydoun, the brother of former President Hassan Rouhani and a member of the Moderation and Development Party, who was formerly in charge of the supreme leader’s security. Corruption also often takes place by granting loans, financial benefits and fellowships to relatives of senior officials or those who show loyalty.
Furthermore, the hemorrhaging of the nation’s wealth on militias, terror groups and proxies across the region is a major factor contributing to the crisis. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliates, the Office of the Supreme Leader and the regime’s cronies are the ones largely in control, as they have power over considerable parts of the country’s economy and financial systems.
Finally, nepotism, economic mismanagement, a lack of government transparency and a state-controlled economy that blocks the poor from socioeconomic growth and joining the middle class are also among the core reasons for the inequality in Iran.
In summary, Iran’s dire economic situation is not impacting the living standards of those in positions of power or their loyalists, but it is negatively affecting the ordinary people of the country. The leadership is enjoying revenues from exports such as oil and gas, while the overwhelming majority of the population are suffering economically. This increasing economic disparity is one of the regime’s major challenges and it could endanger the hold on power of the theocratic establishment if immediate and appropriate measures are not taken.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist.
Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh