Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 13-14/2023
Bachir: Is Lebanon’s Eternal glowing torch of pride.
Elias Bejjani/September 14/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/3461/elias-bejjanibachir-is-lebanons-eternal-glowing-torch-of-pride/
Because ultimately we are all going to die, those of us who die for Lebanon’s holy cause, are in a better position then those who keep waiting for the death to come (Dr. Charles Malek)
Oh Bachir, the son of our beloved Lebanon, the land of holiness and saints.
Oh Bachir, you our life’s dream, the one that renews its strength with each and every beat of our hearts.
Oh Bachir, you are the eternal glowing torch of our pride. This torch will stay lit as long as one Lebanese on the surface of this earth remains clinging to your ideals and platform. As long as he keeps hanging to your awakening dream and following your footsteps in martyrdom, courage, caring and devotion.
Oh Bachir, You are the conscience of our eternal Lebanese nation.
Oh Bachir, how could you not be great great and you the descent of Ahiram, Hiram, Hannibal, Cadmous, Zaynoun, Patriarchs Hajola and Hadchiti, Fakereddine, Grand Bachir, Al Bustani, Gobran and Malek.
Oh Bachir, you are Lebanon’s 10,452 Km2 martyr, the one united Lebanon that is crowned with independence, sovereignty, freedoms and dignity.
Oh Bachir, you have carried with heroic pride Lebanon’s distinguishable, identifying emblem. You made it as tall as our holy Cedars and made it as high as the stars in the vast sky. You openly and proudly advocated for our 7,000 years’ deeply rooted history embodied in Lebanon’s holy soil. The soil that is watered throughout time with our grandfathers’ immaculate hard work, sweat, the blood of our martyrs and the prayers of our Saints.
Oh Bachir, you are the son of our steadfast mountain that has been an impervious forte in the face of the grudges of barbarians, the descendants of Timorlank and those intruding on our beloved Lebanon. Those whose only aim is to eradicate our culture, destroy our identity, abolish our civilization, attack our balanced demography and spread among our loving peaceful people their plaques of terrorism, radicalism, savageness, hatred and intolerance.
Oh Bachir, your dream is not dead as the venomous and malevolent people deluded themselves that is was. Nor as those who fear your faith, stubbornness, and perseverance that are personified in the mind, conscience and struggle of Lebanon’s youth. Those who are revolting against injustice, subservience and slavery. Lebanon’s youth who are calling loudly and courageously day and night for Lebanon’s liberation from the Syrian occupier’s abomination (squalor) and the infidelity (atheism) of its local puppets and servants.
Oh Bachir, twenty-one years have passed since you unwillingly left us. But your appealing voice is still ringing in our ears, the voice that triggered the nationally comprehensive, united call for the withdrawal of all foreign armies and the reclaiming of Lebanon’s independence and its free decision making process. Your voice will never leave us as long as we can breathe and the blood circulates in our veins and arteries. Meanwhile your heroic role model in facing hardships will remain our adopted means in dealing with difficulties and setbacks.
Oh Bachir, the criminals who assassinated you have succeeded in taking only your body away from us. Your dream in a free strong, sovereign and united Lebanon lives day and night with us. Yes, they killed your mortal earthy body but failed to defile your ideals, principles, spirit and dream that remain alive in our minds and hearts.
Oh Bachir, after twenty-one years you are still our companion in our joys as well as in our sadness, in our victories and in our retreats. We still share with you our laughs as well as our tears. No one can kill your presence in our hearts.
Oh Bachir, our headstrong people love dreams of rebellion because Almighty God has endowed them graciously with grants of generosity, love, ambition, hope, faith, self-confidence and creativity. Our people are not touched by dreams of the weak, only dreams of the strong appeal to them and for this fact they cling strongly to your dream. The Pharisees and the tax collectors as well as the temple merchants were deluded by their sick minds that by killing your deadly body they could kill your dream. They failed, and were defeated.
Your dream is still as vivid and as strong as it was on day one. Their conspiracy of killing you did not achieve any of its treacherous and criminal objectives.
Oh Bachir, all your enemies have became a forgotten shameful history while your dream is still alive in the hearts of your people who strive for a future that will witness its fulfillment.
Long Live Free Lebanon. May Almighty God bless the souls of Lebanon’s martyrs. We are Bachir, and the dream will not die.

Video link of the Divine Mass held today, September 14, 2023, in Saint Michael Church – Bikfaya, on the 41st anniversary of the martyrdom of President Bashir Gemayel/Bishop Al-Andari’s Sermon’s text
Mass in Bikfaya on the 41st anniversary of the martyrdom of President Bashir Gemayel and his comrades Al-Andari: He fought to restore the homeland’s sovereignty and the state’s prestige
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122289/122289/
NNA-LCCC/Matn/September 14, 2023
The Bashir Gemayel Foundation and Al Gemayel family commemorated the 41st anniversary of the martyrdom of President Bashir Gemayel and his companions in a divine mass presided over by Bishop Nabil Antoun Al-Andari in the parish church of Saint Michael in Bikfaya. He was assisted by a group of priests and served by the Our Lady of Louaize Choir, led by Father Khalil Rahma. The mass was attended by President Amin Gemayel and his wife, Mrs. Joyce, the head of the Lebanese Phalange Party, MP Sami Gemayel and his wife, Ms. Karen, Mrs. Solange Gemayel, MP Nadim Gemayel, Youmna Gemayel and her family, MPs: Michel Moawad, Elias Hankash, Ghassan Hasbani, George Okais, Adeeb Abdel Masih, Razi. Al-Hajj, Jihad Pakradouni, Hagop Terzian, head of the Maronite League, Khalil Karam, head of the “Change Movement” Elie Mahfoud, members of the Phalange Political Bureau, political figures, activists, and a crowd of Phalangeists, supporters, and friends.
Bishop Al-Andari’s Sermon
After reciting the Holy Bible, Bishop Al-Andari delivered a sermon in which he said: “Forty-one years have passed since the martyrdom of President Sheikh Bashir Gemayel and his companions on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and on this anniversary we celebrate the divine sacrifice for the repose of himself and the souls of his 23 companions who fell as martyrs with him on the altar of the homeland.” He stressed that “restoring the memory is an incentive for us to consolidate faith in this country and its components, which remains the country of faith in God, responsible freedom, and human and spiritual values. It is recovering from its depression and crises on the basis of the great ambitions that the martyr president dreamed of, which is to work to save the tortured country through respect for humanity, truth, and society.” “For a homeland that is immune to the flag’s flag, shaken off the dust of corruption and possessing the right to self-determination.” He added: “The young president struggled to restore the land’s unity, the homeland its sovereignty, the human being its freedom and dignity, the state its prestige, and the institutions their effectiveness when he said: We want to live with our heads held high, and what must be changed is the mentality and the renewal of the human being to renew Lebanon.”
He continued: “The 10,452nd martyr sensed the law of truth in things and events, and he never closed his eyes to its light or denied its reality. Truth was the basis for the preparations he filled his short life with, in which the citizen felt that he was the citizen’s brother, even if their trends and beliefs varied. And in his opposition to the double-minded and vulgar Lebanese discourse, he said: I came to ask you to tell the truth, no matter how difficult it is, and as it is, in order for us to seek change, correct situations, and avoid mistakes. But when we learn the truth, we fall into temptations. He said this truth to himself before he told it to people, and aren’t these sayings an evangelical repetition of the values that the Methodist guidance calls for? In order to return to the sources of the Gospel and renew people? He said: “His faith in his country and his outlook on society were expressed in the approach he intended to take in pursuit of social justice when he based his statement on five starting points: freedom, planning, production, equal opportunities, and participation.” He considered that “what reinforces this trend is what Pope Saint John Paul II said about respect for society and social service, when he called on all Lebanese to pursue actual acts of solidarity and sharing and to activate them in all areas of social life, thus confirming the indispensable interdependence between the citizens of one country and the principle.” “It is said that the earth’s bounties are intended for everyone because the consequences of the war are weighing heavily on Lebanese society and generating a socio-economic crisis that affects individuals and families.” He said: “If these dreams are the dreams of an authentic president, the magic of eyes and hearts, and the dreams of a people who want a decent life, then we hope that God will provide someone to embody them by rising from the weight of the suffering we are suffering, and when the hearts of the loyal Lebanese keep pace with those who seek to achieve them, and we pray for Lebanon and its tortured people to reach the ship.” Homeland to the shore of wellness, stability, justice and peace.” He concluded: “We pray for the peace of mind of President Bashir and his companions, and we ask God to keep them alive in their thoughts and consciences and protect Lebanon from the dangers facing it.”
After the Mass, the family received condolences in the church courtyard and then went with the attendees to the shrine of the martyr president, where wreaths were laid and a prayer of offering incense was held. (Google translation)

Bachir Gemayel Academy/Bachir Gemayel Today marks 41 years since your martyrdom, Lebanon is longing for you more than ever
Agencies/14 September 2023
“The minute we start to think that our cause might fail, it will become our first defeat… People like us will never die, will never lose, and will never be defeated.” -Bachir Gemayel Today marks 41 years since your martyrdom, Lebanon is longing for you more than ever. Till this day your patriotism inspires our youth to fight and stay in Lebanon. You planted the belief in us that we can build a Lebanon worth dying for. As Bachir Gemayel Academy family, we will do our best to follow in your footsteps, to abide your ethics and to always revive your memory.September 14/2023

US diverting military aid from Egypt to Lebanon: Official
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/14 September 2023
The US is diverting $30 million in allocated military aid for Egypt to Lebanon, a US official told Al Arabiya English on Wednesday. “This demonstrates the [Biden] administration’s unwavering commitment to supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF),” the official said. Wednesday’s move comes after the Biden administration informed Congress that it was redirecting $85 million in military funds for Egypt due to human rights violations. About $55 million is expected to be sent to Taiwan. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the decision. Support for the LAF has mostly been a bipartisan effort in recent years. “Support to the LAF is vital to maintaining stability in the country, more so than ever with the paralysis of the government,” the US official said. On Monday, the top US military general for the Middle East, Gen. Erik Kurilla, visited Beirut. The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said this was to further training cooperation and counter regional threats. Gen. Kurilla met with LAF Gen. Joseph Aoun and visited the “highly trained soldiers of the 4th Intervention Regt.”Lebanon has received billions of dollars from the US in humanitarian, education and military aid since 2006. This support has traditionally been delivered with little pushback from senators and members of Congress. US officials have said that support for the LAF is also crucial for US national security interests, strengthening Lebanon’s state institutions and pushing back against Hezbollah. Last month, the LAF confiscated a Hezbollah truck filled with ammunition after it flipped on a main highway and subsequently led to deadly clashes. Critics have said the LAF needs to do more to push back on Iran-backed Hezbollah, which continues to exert influence over most aspects of the government and, along with Palestinian factions, is the only other group with weapons outside the state’s control. Nevertheless, the LAF has been a critical partner in the fight against ISIS. US and Lebanese officials also say the army has successfully intercepted almost 90 percent of Captagon and other narcotics smuggling efforts along the border with Syria.
The Biden administration adopted a Republican-led effort to combat drug trafficking by proposing a strategy outlined in the Captagon Act.

Le Drian’s Mission in Lebanon Stumbles at Reservations over Dialogue
AFP/14 September 2023
France’s special presidential envoy to Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian continued his third tour of the country, attempting to persuade political powers of the need to join dialogue to help them overcome the impasse over the presidential elections. He stressed during his meetings with Lebanese officials on Wednesday that dialogue was the only way to end the crisis. Not everyone was on board with his plan, with opposition MPs sticking to their demand for parliament to hold successive elections until a president is elected. On Wednesday, Le Drian met with head of the Loyalty to the Resistance (Hezbollah) bloc MP Mohammed Raad to discuss the “French initiative aimed at holding dialogue between the Lebanese parties over the presidency.” Le Drian said parliament Speaker Nabih Berri’s call for dialogue is in line with the initiative, according to a statement from Hezbollah’s media relations office. For his part, Raad underlined the importance of dialogue and communication between the Lebanese because it is the only way to end the crisis over the presidency. Le Drian met in Beirut with former MP Walid Jumblatt and his son, head of the Progressive Socialist Party and MP Taymur Jumblatt. After the talks, Walid voiced his support for Berri and Le Drian’s calls for dialogue. Asked by reporters if he had discussed with the French official potential presidential candidates, he replied: “We did not delve into names. Don’t make me get involved in this.” At the French ambassador’s Snoubar residence, Le Drian welcomed a delegation of Change MPs. MP Yassine Yassine told Asharq Al-Awsat that “there is no clarity to the envoy’s dialogue plan.”“We have our reservations and fears over the dialogue because it is unclear what it will be based upon, what will be discussed, who will be invited to take part and who will lead the talks,” he added, while also raising questions about the legality of the dialogue. “We want to know what we will be talking about: the name of the president? The crises that have led to the erosion of the state? Does the other team want to build the state?”“We want the election of a president who can carry out reforms and handle the crises. We want the constitution to be implemented,” he urged.
“We don’t want the election of a president who is part of the political system that was in power after the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon,” Yassine said, noting that one such prominent candidate is under American sanctions. “We want a president who can steer the transitional period that was created after the October 17, 2019, protests,” he continued, revealing that Le Drian “agreed with our position, but he is trying to bridge the divide between parties to help end the presidential vacuum.”Le Drian later met with Renewal bloc MPs Michel Mouawad and Fuad Makhzoumi. He then met with Kataeb party leader MP Sami Gemayel, who said: “We informed him of our position on the crisis. Our main message is that we believe that the state institutions and democratic system are being held hostage by [Hezbollah’s] force of arms.”Elections and other state affairs will continue to be undermined as long as this situation persists, he warned. Hezbollah, he said, continues to use its weapons to make threats, intimidate others and turn against state institutions, the country and democracy. “This is why we are appealing to friendly countries to realize this situation and help Lebanon free itself,” he urged, while saying the victim and the executioner should not be lumped together. “Surrendering to Hezbollah must not be the price to pay for the election of a president. This will never happen, not now, not tomorrow and never in a hundred years,” he declared. Le Drian had kicked off his latest tour in Lebanon on Tuesday by meeting Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Gebran Bassil, Marada Movement leader and presidential candidate MP Suleiman Franjieh and army commander Joseph Aoun. The envoy will conclude his visit on Friday, said spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs Anne-Claire Legendre. “We hope the Lebanese leaders realize that it has become urgent for them to take action,” she stressed, revealing that Le Drian was “coordinating” with partners in the region.

Maronite Patriarch al-Rahi's message: Presidential election is vital for Lebanon's stability
LBCI/14 September 2023
France’s special presidential envoy to L
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi reiterated his publicly stated positions regarding his commitment to democracy and the constitution as a fundamental and natural mechanism for a solution. He emphasized that "electing a president is the exclusive gateway to the regular functioning of constitutional institutions and the return of political life to its natural course." The Patriarch's remarks came during his meeting with French Special Envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who briefed him on the outcomes of his contacts and meetings during his current visit to Lebanon. Le Drian listened to the Patriarch's views on the mechanisms for advancing the stagnant residential file. Afterward, the Patriarch met with the US Ambassador, Dorothy Shea, who affirmed that her country "will spare no effort to support Lebanon and contribute to expediting the election of a president," considering that the continuation of the current situation will further complicate matters and pose risks at all levels.

Le Drian meets al-Rahi on third day of presidential talks
Naharnet/14 September 2023
French Special Presidential Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian resumed Thursday his meetings with Lebanese key players for the third day, by meeting Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi in Bkerki. Le Drian will later meet with the majority of the Sunni lawmakers -- except some MPs including Hezbollah's -- and Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari in Yarze.Le Drian is visiting Lebanon for the third time to resume "his good offices mission, initiated last July, in coordination with the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt," the French Embassy in Beirut said. He will once again meet with all the political players in charge of electing a president to discuss "the priority projects to be addressed by the next President, in order to facilitate the emergence of a consensual solution that will end the institutional crisis." He had met on Tuesday and Wednesday with caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Free Patriotic Movement Jebran Bassil, Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh, Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun, Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel, and independent and Change MPs. After his meeting with Le Drian, Geagea mentioned a new development in the presidential file, but said it is too early to talk about it. "We're waiting for it to crystallize in the coming days and weeks." According to local media reports, Le Drian has tacitly proposed Army chief Gen. Joseph Aoun's name for presidency, and has promised a continuous quorum for the presidential election sessions that will follow a seven-day dialogue proposed by Berri.

Le Drian's meeting with MP Pakradounian: Electing a consensus president is a fundamental step forward
LBCI/14 September 2023
The Secretary-General of the Tashnag Party and the head of the Armenian MPs' bloc, MP Hagop Pakradounian, met with the French envoy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, on Thursday. The discussion revolved around the outcomes of Le Drian's talks with political parties regarding the presidential election. However, the discussion was productive and positive, emphasizing the need to continue communications and discussions with Lebanese parties. It was stressed that conditions and high-level speeches should be avoided to elect a consensus president as a fundamental step toward addressing the current crisis in the country.

Report: Backed by 5-nation group, Le Drian tries to sway MPs to attend Berri's dialogue
Naharnet/14 September 2023
The 5-nation group on Lebanon -- which comprises the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt-- supports a dialogue proposed by Speaker Nabih Berri to end the presidential impasse, Annahar newspaper said. Berri had called on the Lebanese parties to engage in seven days of dialogue in parliament followed by open-ended electoral sessions to choose a new president. "Berri asked (French Special Presidential Envoy Jean-Yves) Le Drian if his stance regarding the dialogue is supported by the 5-nation group, and Le Drian confirmed that it is," Ain el-Tineh sources said in remarks published Wednesday in Annahar. Berri's initiative was rejected by the Lebanese Forces and the Kataeb party. It was also criticized by Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil, who had hailed it at first. French Special Presidential Envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian agreed Tuesday with Berri that there is no other way but dialogue to end the presidential crisis, Berri said. Le Drian had proposed on his last visit to Lebanon to invite all those taking part in the process of electing a president to a meeting in September to achieve a consensus on the challenges and on the priority projects the future president will have to carry out, and consequently the qualities necessary for tackling them. "I hope that Berri's initiative will pave the way for a solution," Le Drian said Tuesday as he met Mikati. Ain el-Tineh sources said that Berri is relieved by the outcome of his meeting with Le Drian, who told him that he will work on convincing the opposers to engage in the seven-day dialogue. Le Drian is visiting Lebanon for the third time to resume "his good offices mission, initiated last July, in coordination with the United States, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt," the French Embassy in Beirut said. He will once again meet with all the political players in charge of electing a president to discuss "the priority projects to be addressed by the next President, in order to facilitate the emergence of a consensual solution that will end the institutional crisis."

Berri says 'won't wait forever' as Geagea, Gemayel blast dialogue
Naharnet/14 September 2023
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who had called for a seven-day dialogue, following which open presidential election sessions would be held, said those who rejected his call don't have any convincing reasons or justifications. "The only explanation is that they don't want to elect a president," Berri said in remarks published Thursday in Tehran-based al-Wifaq Newspaper. "I am waiting for an awakening of their conscience, but I will not wait forever," Berri said, claiming that parliament is divided and cannot elect a president without dialogue and consensus. Crisis-hit Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October last year, with neither of the two main blocs -- Hezbollah and its opponents -- having the majority required to elect one in a first round of voting where the winner needs two-thirds majority, or 86 votes from the 128 members of parliament. The blocs opposed to Hezbollah and its allies have refused to take part in talks to agree on a head of state before proceeding with a vote, preferring to rely on the democratic process. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Wednesday that the "Axis of Defiance" has been obstructing the vote in all the previous sessions, by leaving before the second round of voting -- where the winner only requires 65 ballots. Geagea revealed that he had indirectly held a dialogue with Berri last year to reach a consensual candidate, but that the dialogue led to nowhere. "They pretend that neither camp has the majority required to elect a president. If that's true why were they leaving after the first round of voting in every single session?" Geagea asked, accusing Hezbollah and its allies of trying to impose a candidate. Kataeb leader Sami Gemayel also accused Hezbollah of trying to impose a candidate and to control political decision-making in Lebanon. "We can not sit with those who threaten and kill," Gemayel said after meeting French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian who is visiting Lebanon to discuss the presidential impasse with Lebanese leaders.

Reports: Le Drian tacitly proposes Gen. Aoun, promises continuous quorum
Naharnet/ /14 September 2023
French Special Presidential Envoy for Lebanon Jean-Yves Le Drian has tacitly proposed the election as president of Army chief General Joseph Aoun in his latest meetings with Lebanese officials, media reports said. “Several parties who met with Le Drian said that they understood from his remarks that he was proposing Army Commander General Joseph Aoun, albeit without mentioning him by name,” MTV reported. The TV network added that Le Drian might replace inter-Lebanese dialogue with a meeting with Lebanese political officials to brief them on the outcome of his visit. Asked by an MP whether there are guarantees that the quorum of electoral sessions would not be lost, Le Drian said -- according to al-Liwaa newspaper -- that Speaker Nabih Berri has stressed to him that he does not intend to block quorum and that his bloc will not walk out of parliament. “Following dialogue there will be successive sessions and open electoral rounds,” Le Drian was quoted as saying. He also hinted that “any of the proposed candidates, Suleiman Franjieh and Jihad Azour, will not be elected,” a Change MP said, according to remarks published by al-Liwaa. “There is broad international consensus over this initiative,” Le Drian reportedly told a Change bloc delegation. Al-Jadeed television meanwhile quoted Le Drian as saying that “the presidential election session will resemble the election of the pope in the Vatican.”

3 dead in Israeli strikes on 'Hezbollah depots' in Syria
Agence France Presse/14 September 2023
Israeli airstrikes have killed two Syrian soldiers and wounded six others on Syria's west coast, state media said, quoting a military source. "At exactly 17:22 (1422 GMT) this (Wednesday) afternoon, the Israeli enemy carried out strikes... from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea targeting some of our air defense sites in Tartus," the official news agency SANA quoted the source as saying. "The aggression led to the death of two soldiers, and wounded six others," it added. During more than a decade of war in Syria, neighboring Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Wednesday's strikes also targeted a weapons depot belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah.
The British-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria confirmed the death of the two soldiers, adding that a fighter whose nationality was unknown was also killed "in attacks believed to be Israeli missile fire." Since the start of the war in Syria, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Syrian territory, mainly targeting forces backed by Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel, as well as the Syrian army. Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on targets in Syria, but it has repeatedly said it would not allow its archfoe Iran, which supports Damascus, to expand its footprint there. When questioned by AFP on Wednesday, an Israeli army spokesman said he didn't comment on "foreign media reports." Later in the evening, Israeli aircraft again struck Syria, targeting the scientific research center in the mountains of the village of Taqsis, in the province of Hama, where explosions were heard, the Syrian Observatory said, reporting no casualties. Syria's war has killed more than half a million people since it broke out in 2011, sparked by the repression of pro-democracy protests. It quickly escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and jihadist insurgents.

Maronite Patriarch al-Rahi's message: Presidential election is vital for Lebanon's stability
LBCI/14 September 2023
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros al-Rahi reiterated his publicly stated positions regarding his commitment to democracy and the constitution as a fundamental and natural mechanism for a solution. He emphasized that "electing a president is the exclusive gateway to the regular functioning of constitutional institutions and the return of political life to its natural course."The Patriarch's remarks came during his meeting with French Special Envoy to Lebanon, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who briefed him on the outcomes of his contacts and meetings during his current visit to Lebanon. Le Drian listened to the Patriarch's views on the mechanisms for advancing the stagnant presidential file. Afterward, the Patriarch met with the US Ambassador, Dorothy Shea, who affirmed that her country "will spare no effort to support Lebanon and contribute to expediting the election of a president," considering that the continuation of the current situation will further complicate matters and pose risks at all levels.

The mystery of Lebanon's 'sacred deposits': IMF vs. Lebanese officials
LBCI/14 September 2023
Has Lebanon's agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ended? This is what is becoming apparent from the delegation's visit to Lebanon.  According to sources closely following the meetings, the IMF delegation expressed disappointment with the statements and positions of some officials, whose main concern appears to be populism and elections, without taking any steps toward reform. The main point of contention is the deposits that Lebanese officials refuse to acknowledge as nonexistent. They use slogans like "sacred deposits," which the IMF considers a denial of reality. By the numbers: Out of approximately $92 billion in deposits in banks, all that remains in cash in Lebanon's central bank is about $8 billion.  Even with this $8 billion, the IMF has warned officials about their uncertain fate, given political pressures and the state's inability.
Another issue for the IMF delegation is that some officials are marketing the idea of "having the state bear the majority of losses," protecting banks and some major depositors. According to sources, the IMF has informed the Lebanese that the state is bankrupt and unable to bear the losses. If it uses its assets to cover the losses, it will be unable to repay its debts, further hindering its situation. The IMF delegation warned officials that the initial agreement is already in place and they should not attempt to make changes to its terms because it's too late. Despite all the obstacles, the IMF delegation reaffirmed its willingness to assist Lebanon on the condition of embarking on the path of reforms.  It hinted that if there is intent and the implementation of reforms has begun, there may be flexibility in the approach, and it informed the Lebanese parties that they should return in April. So, will anything change?

Gen. Aoun inspects troops in Sidon as Saad's son escapes bullets
Naharnet /14 September 2023
Army Commander General Joseph Aoun on Thursday inspected troops at the Mohammed Zgheib Barracks in Sidon amid the ongoing deadly clashes in the Ain el-Helweh Palestinian refugee camp on the city’s outskirts. Aoun “met with the officers and soldiers and was briefed on the missions that they are performing amid the clashes that are taking place in the Ain el-Helweh camp,” an army statement said. The commander lauded “the military personnel’s resilience, professionalism and sacrifices in the performance in their duties, especially during the current extraordinary circumstances,” the statement added.
Several soldiers have been wounded as gunfire and shells from the clashes hit army posts around the camp. Seven people were killed in the camp on Wednesday alone, raising the death toll from six days of clashes to 16. Around 100 have also been wounded.Bullets and shells have been falling on different parts of Sidon and dozens of Palestinian families have fled the camp. On Thursday, the son of MP Osama Saad, Maarouf, narrowly escaped unharmed as stray bullets hit the room he was in inside his home in Sidon, the National News Agency said. Stray bullets and shell shrapnel also struck the offices of the Sidon Trade Chamber, a school, residential buildings and a number of businesses in the city. The fighting in the camp is pitting the mainstream Fatah Movement against two hardline Islamist groups.

Ceasefire set to begin in Ain al-Hilweh following Speaker Berri's mediation
LBCI/14 September 2023
The efforts made by the Speaker of Parliament, Nabih Berri, throughout the day to stop the clashes in the Ain al-Hilweh camp have succeeded. It culminated in an agreement to cease fire in the Ain al-Hilweh camp starting at 6:00 PM on Thursday.

Seven dead as clashes resume in Ain el-Helweh
Agence France Presse/14 September 2023
Seven people were killed in clashes as a ceasefire fell apart on Wednesday evening in Lebanon's largest Palestinian camp, the Palestinian Red Crescent's Lebanon branch said. The Ain el-Helweh refugee camp, on the outskirts of the southern city of Sidon, has been rocked by violence since last week. The clashes have pitted members of the Fatah movement, which controls the camp, against hardline Islamist militants, excluding Hamas. The renewed fighting on Wednesday killed seven people and wounded 16, Imad Hallak from the Palestinian Red Crescent's Lebanon branch told AFP over the phone.
The latest deaths bring to at least 16 the number of people killed in the fighting since it broke out on Thursday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said. Around 100 have also been wounded, it said. Senior Palestinian officials, including Fatah's Azzam al-Ahmad and Hamas's Mussa Abu Marzuk, met late Tuesday at the Palestinian embassy in Beirut, a joint statement said. They had expressed their "full commitment to consolidating the ceasefire" and agreed to "work to facilitate the return of those forced from their homes".But the ceasefire collapsed on Wednesday, with an AFP correspondent in Sidon reporting violent clashes in the evening. Bullets and shells fell on different parts of Sidon, he said, adding that he saw dozens of Palestinian families fleeing the camp.
- Hundreds displaced -
The camp, Lebanon's largest, was created for Palestinians who were driven out or fled during the war that accompanied the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948. By longstanding convention, the Lebanese army stays out of the Palestinian camps and leaves the factions to handle security. Fatah's Ahmad also discussed the situation with Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and other officials on Wednesday. Ain el-Helweh is home to more than 54,000 registered refugees and thousands of Palestinians who joined them in recent years from neighbouring Syria, fleeing the civil war there. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has said the fighting has displaced hundreds of families. On Monday evening, a ceasefire was announced by Lebanon's General Security agency after a meeting between its director and Palestinian security officials, but Tuesday saw brief clashes.
Five days of fighting in Ain el-Helweh that began in late July killed 13 people and wounded dozens, in the deadliest outbreak of violence in the camp in years. That fighting erupted after the death of an Islamist militant, followed by an ambush that killed five Fatah members, including a military leader. Rivals Fatah and Hamas are the most prominent Palestinian factions. Fatah dominates the Palestinian Authority, based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, while Hamas controls the Gaza Strip.

Boukhari meets with Le Drian and Mufti Derian
LBCI/14 September 2023
A meeting was held at the residence of the Saudi Arabian Ambassador, Walid Al-Boukhari, in Yarzeh. The attendees included Grand Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Abdel Latif Derian, French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian, and French Ambassador.
The meeting lasted for half an hour, after which they moved to the main hall where Sunni MPs were waiting for them. Notably absent from the meeting were MPs Ibrahim Mneimneh, Osama Saad, Jihad al-Samad, Yanal al-Soleh, Melhem al-Hojeiri, and Halima Al-Qaqaour.

Ain al-Helweh Ceasefires: A Cycle of Escalation and Trust Erosion
LBCI/14 September 2023
When each ceasefire agreement in the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp collapses, the subsequent rounds of battles are fiercer than their predecessors. Tuesday night saw intense clashes in the camp that lasted for hours, during which extremist forces fired more than 30 mortar shells at the Burj al-Barajneh area, a stronghold of Fatah.  For the first time, they launched a 107 rocket with a range of up to 8 kilometers, threatening Sidon and its surroundings if it did not hit its target. The clashes even reached the Sidon highway, causing a new wave of displacement.
Security in Sidon and its surroundings prompted intervention from the Speaker of the Parliament, Nabih Berri, who led negotiations that resulted in a ceasefire starting from 6 p.m. on Wednesday. Lebanese security sources spoke of a trust crisis between the warring parties on the ground, and every ceasefire fails, compounded by the Palestinian leadership's failure to bridge the differences between the two sides. One aspect of the previous agreement's failure was killing the military commander of Al-Linnou and his nephew, Khaled Abou Nahaaj, and another individual, Mohammed Bilal Ouweid. Eyewitnesses say the killers were members of Fatah who attempted to advance but were prevented due to the exclusion of the Safouri area, belonging to Al-Linnou, from the clashes. Fatah, in turn, accuses Muslim youth of this. However, despite this, accusations and counter-accusations persist. Observers say that Fatah initiates the attacks each time to maintain the battlefield balance. At the same time, Fatah accuses the extremist groups of violating the agreements with the support of Hamas at all levels. Hamas, for its part, acknowledges the existence of lawless elements that must be handed over, but its criticism of Fatah lies in how it deals with this matter, which has led and continues to lead to the camp's explosions.

Heat, drought, fires threaten Lebanon's northern forests
Agence France Presse/14 September 2023
Heatwaves, low rainfall and the threat of wildfires are compounding the woes of people in the forested north of Lebanon, a country where economic pain has long taken prominence over environmental concerns. After a blistering and dry summer, residents of the mountainous Akkar region near the Syrian border are voicing fears about climate change and water scarcity. Farmer Abdullah Hammud, 60, has spent his life in the green hills of Akkar, growing everything from tomatoes to figs, but says environmental problems are now hurting his livelihood. "I've never seen it this hot," Hammud said, looking at a field where he was planning to grow cabbage. "We lost part of the crops."With Lebanon's mains water supply unreliable at best, he depends on a nearby spring for irrigation, but worries that the supply is falling. Because trucking in water for his house and farm is not an option, he said, "if the water ran out, we would have to leave". Rainfall has been below average this year in Lebanon, Mohamad Kanj from the meteorological department told AFP. A 13-day heatwave last month was "the most severe recorded in terms of the number of days, the area affected and the exceptional temperatures". Akkar was already one of Lebanon's most disadvantaged regions before the national economy imploded in late 2019, plunging much of the population into poverty. A report from the American University of Beirut last year found the region also has only low-to-moderate resilience to climate change. Devastating forest fires raged two years ago near the town of Kobayat, where houses are nestled among the trees in surrounding hills. A 15-year-old died while helping to battle the flames. "The fires affected us a lot," said Najla Chahine, 58, a former teacher. "We feared for our lives."
Green activism -
Since those fires, "there's more awareness", said Chahine, noting however that the local community needs to work harder to face environmental threats because "the state is absent". She and her son Sami were on a hike as part of a recent local festival. Several dozen people clambered up and down tree-covered slopes carpeted with dry pine needles and cones. Sami Chahine, 13, said he has tried to "raise awareness as much as possible" about environmental issues among his friends. He expressed worry about fires, but also other ecological threats such as pollution, in a country where people often burn trash at informal dump sites and recycling is sporadic. The hike passed several local springs, one reduced to just a trickle, another totally dry. Antoine Daher, head of the local non-governmental Council of Environment -- Kobayat, blamed the water shortages on both a lack of rain and rising demand, urging people to reduce consumption. Daher said his association set up Lebanon's first fire watchtower some 25 years ago and had sought to educate people on ecological topics. Despite Lebanon's devastating economic crisis, he said, "we mustn't see the environment as a luxury".
Peak fire season -
Fires remain a major threat, and Khaled Taleb from the Akkar Trail association was training a group on how to prevent and fight them. "We are currently at the peak of the fire season," he said, warning that the risk only abates in late October. His association, which now counts 15 volunteers, turned to firefighting in 2020 after major blazes hit the Akkar region. The area is covered with 200 square kilometres (77 square miles) of forest and home to 73 out of Lebanon's 76 tree species, he said. The fires near Kobayat in 2021 alone "destroyed more than 1,800 hectares (4,450 acres)", he said, recalling that water access was a major problem for his team. In October 2019, the Beirut government's failure to contain devastating wildfires was among the triggers of an unprecedented, nationwide anti-government protest movement. Lebanon "doesn't have the logistical capabilities to deal with a huge fire", said Taleb, whose group works alongside the civil defence and other first responders. However, he expressed optimism at the local community's willingness to pitch in. "We weren't born firefighters," he said, adding that until three years ago, "we didn't know anything about firefighting". "But our main priority now is to protect the forest from all threats."

Heritage preservation and identity building: AlUla's timeless role
LBCI/14 September 2023
Here, in the Khaybar region, for nearly 6,000 years BC, offerings were made to the gods of those times. These stone formations, along with stone traps for animals, have remained to tell the stories of the peoples who inhabited this land, once fertile and green.
Over 200 kilometers away, the Nabataeans settled in the 1st century BC in this area is AlUla, known as Al-Hijr, leaving behind tombs that have become a destination for history and archaeology enthusiasts. In 2008, it became the first site in Saudi Arabia to be listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thousands of stories are told by the distinctive relics of the AlUla region, which have witnessed the passage of various civilizations. Here, the discussion is highly technical for specialists, but the artifacts that play a role in tourism and culture have their roles in building identity. This is the first edition of a summit held in a region that served as a passage and "headquarters" for different civilizations that played their part in the development of human history in a way that respects nature and the environment. So, could the exploration of its history be a gateway to finding solutions to some of our current problems?

The mystery of Lebanon's 'sacred deposits': IMF vs. Lebanese officials
LBCI/14 September 2023
Has Lebanon's agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) ended? This is what is becoming apparent from the delegation's visit to Lebanon. According to sources closely following the meetings, the IMF delegation expressed disappointment with the statements and positions of some officials, whose main concern appears to be populism and elections, without taking any steps toward reform. The main point of contention is the deposits that Lebanese officials refuse to acknowledge as nonexistent. They use slogans like "sacred deposits," which the IMF considers a denial of reality. By the numbers: Out of approximately $92 billion in deposits in banks, all that remains in cash in Lebanon's central bank is about $8 billion. Even with this $8 billion, the IMF has warned officials about their uncertain fate, given political pressures and the state's inability. Another issue for the IMF delegation is that some officials are marketing the idea of "having the state bear the majority of losses," protecting banks and some major depositors.  According to sources, the IMF has informed the Lebanese that the state is bankrupt and unable to bear the losses. If it uses its assets to cover the losses, it will be unable to repay its debts, further hindering its situation. The IMF delegation warned officials that the initial agreement is already in place and they should not attempt to make changes to its terms because it's too late. Despite all the obstacles, the IMF delegation reaffirmed its willingness to assist Lebanon on the condition of embarking on the path of reforms. It hinted that if there is intent and the implementation of reforms has begun, there may be flexibility in the approach, and it informed the Lebanese parties that they should return in April. So, will anything change?

Lebanon's presidency used to be a point of pride for Maronites - now it's a curse
Michael Young/The National/September 14/2023
The country's Christians ought to ask themselves whether sectarian power-sharing is really still worth it.
Aquestion that Lebanon’s Maronite Christian community must seriously ask itself today is whether the country’s presidency, which is reserved for Maronites in the Lebanese system of sectarian power-sharing, is an advantage or has become a liability. It has been almost a year since there has been a vacancy in the presidency, and parliament (which elects presidents) remains deeply divided over a successor. Every presidential election in the past 15 years has pushed Lebanon to a major crisis point. In 2007, disagreement over who would succeed Emile Lahoud led to a six-month vacuum and a short military confrontation in Beirut and the mountains, followed by a conference in Doha, at which Michel Suleiman was approved as president. In 2014, when Mr Suleiman’s term ended, divergences over a successor resulted in a two-year hiatus, until a consensus emerged to elect Michel Aoun. With Mr Aoun gone, again the country finds itself incapable of agreeing on who should come after him.
In other words, the presidency, the office that is supposed to highlight the uniqueness of Lebanon as an Arab country where Christians can be elected as head of state, now mainly underlines the community’s weakness because of all the parties that seek to manipulate the elections in their interests.
Every day that goes by without a president shows how vulnerable the office is to political dissension in the country. And every day that Lebanon continues to function more or less normally without a president in office, shows that a president is really not indispensable. Neither conclusion is good for Christians, many of whom are now openly calling for a new political structure in Lebanon that would separate the sects.
But Christians do retain some leverage. The major Christian parties – the Lebanese Forces, the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), and the smaller Kataeb Party – have all opposed Hezbollah’s choice of Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency. If Mr Franjieh cannot secure backing from the Lebanese Forces or FPM in particular, he would lack Christian legitimacy, and could probably not be elected. This has forced Hezbollah to find a way to divide the Christians and secure backing from one of the blocs.
The problem, however, is elsewhere. For many Maronites, Hezbollah’s choosing a president, and then manoeuvring one of the major Christian parties to endorse the decision, denies Maronites the right to make that choice themselves. Just as the Shiite community has always imposed a Shiite speaker of parliament without consulting other communities, Maronites feel that this should hold for their choice of president.
There is logic in the argument, even if it underlines the extent to which Lebanon has become a federation of sects rather than a unified, if pluralistic, country in which sects coexist. The president and speaker are national figures, elected by a sectarian cross-section of parliament, so giving their communities a primary choice in their selection is a constitutional perversion. However, the constitution has been fully undermined under the current system and Hezbollah has used sectarian logic to impose Nabih Berri as speaker since 1992. So, it makes no sense for the party to deny Maronites the same latitude.
More damagingly for Maronites, just as the presidency has come to reflect the community’s declining power in Lebanon, it has become an illusory life raft for their relevance. Under the post-Taif constitution, the presidency lost much of its power in favour of the prime minister and speaker of parliament. In these circumstances, it would be preferable for the major communities to rotate posts, so that there is turnover in senior offices of the state and all the leading sects can benefit from the advantages of each.
In this way, Maronites would still have access to the presidency, a key component of communal self-confidence, but would also hold other offices in the state, sometimes more influential ones. Nothing prevents Lebanon’s political class from introducing such an innovation in its constitution, without requiring major changes in other senior posts.
MORE FROM MICHAEL YOUNG
Palestinian members of Health and Medical Workers transfer a wounded Palestinian injured during clashes between supporters of the Fatah movement and rival groups, in Sidon, Lebanon, 31 July 2023. At least six people were killed, including a commander at Fatah movement, and 36 injured in clashes that erupted on 29 July at Ain al-Hilweh camp which is home to more than 60,000 registered Palestinian refugees, according to Fatah movement announcement and head of Al Hamshari Hospital in Sidon statement. EPA / WAEL HAMZEH
The clashes at Lebanon's Ain Al Hilweh refugee camp had a regional dimension. This is just one of the steps that could be taken to break out of the self-destructive Maronite attachment to a presidency that has become more a source of Maronite debility than potency. The worst option is for Maronite leaders to say that, because their community is losing power nationally, communal separation is the best outcome.
Indeed, in negotiations between the FPM and Hezbollah over the price FPM leader Gebran Bassil would demand in exchange for endorsing Mr Franjieh, Mr Bassil floated a quid pro quo. He demanded administrative and financial decentralisation for Christian-majority areas, in exchange for backing Hezbollah’s candidate. What this effectively meant was that Mr Bassil gave Hezbollah the power to choose the president it wanted, in return for which Maronites would reduce their ties to the central state. Many Maronites would welcome this, but the risks are enormous. It would mean the community creates a precedent of giving Hezbollah the choice of a head of state, therefore the power to define Lebanon’s future as a commonwealth, for which Maronites would only receive a precarious autonomy that the central government could dial up and down at will.
Panic usually generates bad choices, and that is what we are seeing today within the Maronite community, which is marked by disarray. The reason for this is its desire to retain the presidency at all costs, the source of its internal quarrels. It’s time for the community to think outside the box and preserve what remains of its most valuable weapon: communal unity.
*Michael Young is a Lebanon affairs columnist for The National

Beirut Will Always Have Paris
Michael Young/Carnegie/September 14/2023
French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian is wondering why some Lebanese parties reject a dialogue over a new president; fear may be a reason.
Jean-Yves Le Drian is in Beirut and one issue puzzling him is why there is such hostility to an inter-Lebanese dialogue over the presidency from opposition parliamentary blocs, above all the Lebanese Forces. Opposition groups reacted strongly to Le Drian’s recent request that they describe the kind of candidate they were looking for. Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea followed this up with a refusal to engage in discussions with Hezbollah, saying he saw no benefit in “wasting additional time on a dialogue that will not lead anywhere.”
Since August 2020, France has been so heavily implicated in Lebanese affairs that critics have said President Emmanuel Macron has lost much of his credibility in the process. Macron traveled to Beirut soon after the explosion at Beirut port in August 2020 and tried to kickstart economic reform by helping to put in place what he called “a mission-focused government.” He returned in September and met with the country’s major political forces, who reportedly all assured him at a dinner at the French ambassador’s residence that they too embraced such an outcome.
Soon things fell apart, however, when the man chosen to form a government, Mustapha Adib, threw in the towel. Paris blamed the United States, pointing out that during the government-formation process the Americans sanctioned two former ministers, Ali Hassan al-Khalil and Yusif Fenianos, which brought everything to a halt. For the French, this was a deliberate effort by Washington to torpedo their initiative. Khalil is a leading aide to the parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Fenianos was the first Christian to be sanctioned by the United States. In other words, Washington seemed to be widening the scope of its villains.I have some doubts about the accuracy of the French interpretation. Shortly before the sanctions came down, me and two other people met with the then U.S. assistance secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, David Schenker, whom we all knew as a friend before his posting. Schenker hinted at the imminent imposition of new sanctions, saying these would cover a category of individuals not sanctioned previously. He did not name names, however, and in response to my question about how this would affect the French initiative, Schenker didn’t really seem to draw a connection between the American and French moves. He did state, however, that Washington wasn’t trying to undermine France’s efforts.
It could be that the Americans really did not see what impact the sanctions would have, nor how they would be seized upon by a Lebanese political class that was unenthusiastic with the French initiative. If that’s the case, and the interpretation may be a charitable one, they were at the very least guilty of deeply misreading the situation in Lebanon. Perhaps French officials themselves should also have been better prepared for the sanctions that blindsided them, insofar as Schenker was in regular touch with his French counterparts. Then again, it would also be naïve to ignore that the Americans were not overly keen to see Paris succeed in an initiative that, more than anything else, sought to secure Hezbollah’s approval.
That was not enough to calm French ardor. Since then, Macron has continued to play a central role in regional and international endeavors to place Lebanon on a path to reform, and more recently to elect a president to succeed Michel Aoun. Familiarity breeds contempt, evidently, which is why the Lebanese have gradually become more skeptical, and critical, of the French president’s efforts. But that doesn’t change the reality that Lebanon gains tremendously from having a major Western leader expend his political capital on behalf of a dysfunctional country that offers very little in exchange.
Certainly, the French erred in their early proposal that a quid pro quo be worked out, whereby Suleiman Franjieh would be elected president in exchange for Nawaf Salam being appointed prime minister. What made this doubly unacceptable to the Maronite parties was that such an equation left them out of the discussion over the presidency, despite the fact that the office is reserved for Maronites! The initial proposal for an exchange was effectively floated by Hezbollah itself, through the journalist Ibrahim Amin in an article in Al-Akhbar in November 2022. The Salam proposal was designed to appeal to Saudi Arabia. So, effectively, what the Maronites saw was that France had embraced a Hezbollah idea, in which the president would be chosen by the party and the prime minister by the Saudis. No one, it seemed, cared the least about what Maronite political representatives wanted.
However, facing a unified rejection of Franjieh by the Maronite parties and their support for Jihad Azour as an alternative, the French appear to have abandoned the Franjieh proposal. Hezbollah also must have realized that it could not impose Franjieh on a resentful Maronite community. This should have been a sound basis for talks between the Maronite parties and Hezbollah. It’s not surprising, then, that Le Drian proposed a national dialogue on the presidency, before shifting tack and calling for consultations. Yet somehow this idea was transformed by the opposition into the equivalent of an unconditional surrender (though at least one party is reported to have changed its mind since). Rather than interpreting Hezbollah’s willingness to talk as a sign that the party might be open to abandoning Franjieh, opposition groups have insisted that its acceptance of dialogue is merely a ploy to impose Franjieh. Their argument? That Hezbollah has not abandoned Franjieh yet, showing ill will. This view is absurd. Hezbollah will hold onto Franjieh until it receives an enticing counter-offer. That’s negotiations 101.
Which takes us back to Le Drian’s puzzlement. The opposition parties were among those that managed to block the election of Suleiman Franjieh, so they must have known that the next step would be negotiations over a compromise candidate. Which leads us to wonder why Geagea hesitates to enter into such discussions now. There are three possibilities. The first is that he prefers to negotiate through third parties, such as Walid Joumblatt, in order to retain a margin of tactical maneuver for himself. The second is that Geagea knows that Franjieh’s foes are divided, so that talks might allow Hezbollah to exploit their rifts and make major gains. And the third is that Geagea realizes he’s isolated, so that he gains by maintaining a vacuum in the presidency and railing against Hezbollah, which permits him to garner Maronite approval and compensate for his lack of allies.
Each of these reasons may be correct on its own, just as all of them might be. Or perhaps none is. But don’t blame Jean-Yves Le Drian or the French in general for failing to pick up on their Lebanese interlocutors’ inconsistencies. Dialogue is not defeat, especially when Hezbollah’s opponents won the first round and blocked Franjieh. Nothing is achieved in Lebanon without a dialogue, and if the French are offering to provide a framework, then it makes no sense to condemn them for taking time on a country that literally grinds down the time of others.
*Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

Saudi Arabia and Lebanon: A Love-Hate Relationship
Hanin Ghaddar/The Washington Institute/September 14/2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/122298/122298/
Riyadh won’t lend a helping hand in Lebanon unless Washington takes action on fully implementing the Taif Accord, curbing Captagon smugglers, and reversing Iran and Hezbollah’s takeover of the state.
The story of the relationship between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon has been marked by cycles of friendship and hostility, sometimes simultaneously—a love-hate relationship that eventually kept Saudi Arabia at bay, but not completely absent. The main reason for Saudi’s disenchantment with Lebanon is the power of Hezbollah and its Iranian patron. However, the kingdom has also been harboring a different kind of resentment—one that stems from the deceitfulness of its closest Lebanese allies.
Today, Saudi Arabia no longer sees Lebanon as a priority—Yemen, Gulf security, and its own economic and social policies take precedence—but it still cannot abandon Lebanon completely. The kingdom is walking a thin line between its unease with regard to Iran’s expanding control of the Lebanese state and its desire to help a fragile country, which retains at least tangential importance for the international community.
A Brief History of Disillusionment
The Taif Accord that ended the civil war in Lebanon in 1990 was the beginning of Saudi involvement, sending billions of U.S. dollars to reconstruct the country and to counteract the mounting influence of the Iranian regime. Former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri—whom the kingdom considered a loyal citizen of both countries—managed to fulfill Saudi’s plan in Lebanon, which was focused on reconstruction, investments, and development of the financial sector—with little attention to the war’s collective history, sectarian politics, or the growing Syrian hegemony in Lebanon.
When Hariri finally recognized the difficulty of balancing the Syrian-Iranian political agenda in Lebanon with his own economic and development plans, Hezbollah assassinated him in 2005, leading to mass protests and the formation of the March 14 coalition. This political coalition was heavily supported—financially and politically—by Saudi Arabia, which hoped that the son, Saad Hariri, would continue his father’s work. Yet these hopes were soon shattered when Hariri decided to compromise with Hezbollah.
Meanwhile, March 14 leadership was hit with assassinations, threats, and compromises, as Saudi Arabia grew more troubled by Iran’s growing influence and military power in the Gulf and in Yemen. Lebanon became a disappointment, and moved to the bottom of Saudi Arabia’s priorities in the region. Hariri lost Saudi support, but the kingdom was no longer interested in finding a replacement or empowering what was left of the March 14 coalition.
As Saudi Arabia disengaged, Iran quickly filled the power gap. In 2016, Michel Aoun became the president of Lebanon and Iran’s puppet. and Hezbollah and its allies won the parliamentary elections in 2018, taking over most of the security, financial, and political decisions in Lebanon, which led the country to a historic breakdown and financial collapse. The gap within the Sunni community was also tempting, and Hezbollah has succeeded in infiltrating the most vulnerable parts of that community.
Despite the Saudi decision to retreat from Lebanon’s political scene, Hezbollah continued to challenge Saudi Arabia with fiery statements, accusing it of supporting the Islamic State in Syria. The group then bombarded the kingdom and other Gulf states with multiple shipments of Captagon, smuggled inside Lebanese agricultural products. After a number of diplomatic skirmishes, banning Lebanese imports and the withdrawal of GCC ambassadors, Saudi Arabia finds itself at a crossroads: continue its limited political and humanitarian assistance to Lebanon, or disregard this troublesome country and let the Lebanese reap the consequences of Iranian hegemony over their country.
Long-Term Perspective
Last month, Saudi Arabia and a number of Gulf countries reiterated their call for their citizens to leave Lebanon. Although this warning came right after a heavy round of clashes that erupted in the Ein El Helwe refugee camp in Sidon, it should be seen in the context of a broader Saudi perspective on Lebanon—that is, continued political pressure on Lebanon’s political elite.
This seems to be part of the current Saudi policy in Lebanon: tough love, or uncompromised political pressure on Lebanese political leaders, despite the recent China-backed agreement between Saudi Arabia and Iran. For the Saudi leadership, Lebanon did not—and probably will not—benefit from any regional settlement unless it implements reform and reaches an understanding with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Lebanon needs to choose between subordination to Iran and its Arab identity. This has been the principle that governed Saudi’s involvement in the recent international efforts to pressure Lebanon to elect a president and end the institutional void.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, the U.S., and France have recently agreed to engage in Lebanon’s presidential selection process, after France’s failed and alarming endeavor that temporarily advanced Hezbollah’s presidential candidate, Soleiman Franjieh. None of these countries is supporting a specific candidate, but it is clear that the new president cannot be a Hezbollah ally and must be able to form a government that implements reform. For Saudi Arabia, it is also imperative to implement the Taif Accord after years of delaying and hesitating.
The urgency to implement the agreement stems from the valid fear of Hezbollah’s plans to change the constitution, restructure power-sharing in Lebanon, and impose a three-way division of parliament whereby the Shia get a third—instead of a quarter—of the seats. With Hezbollah’s arms and its hegemony over the Shia community, gaining more seats in parliament means greater Iranian control over the state institutions.
Such changes would affect the establishment of any new government, including political and security appointments, leaving no room to resist Iran’s hegemony. Implementing the Taif Accord could be a way of hindering Hezbollah’s plans to restructure power-sharing in Lebanon; that is, stop Iran from influencing Lebanon’s identity and political dynamics.
There are a number of crucial clauses in the Accord that have not been implemented, and if they were, they could empower state institutions and eliminate sectarian political divisions, in addition to weakening Hezbollah and its allies. For Saudi Arabia, this is an existential confrontation that goes well beyond the presidency, but could start with it.
In any case, Saudi Arabia will certainly never go back to the “open checkbook” policy in Lebanon—pouring billions into that country without conditions or immediate results. Those days are over, and if Saudi Arabia decided to endorse Lebanon again, it will demand results: a drastic decline in Iran’s influence in Lebanon, the implementation of Taif, the implementation of international resolutions, mainly UNSCR 1701, and serious reforms through an IMF program. Saudi Arabia will no longer support Lebanon unconditionally; it might, however, invest in Lebanon—that is, invest in a country that does not knuckle under to threats and terrorism, but acts with loyalty toward its political and economic alliance. Any progress will be contingent on implementing the Taif Accord.
The U.S. Role and Policy Implications
Implementing reforms and weakening Hezbollah in Lebanon should also be U.S. priorities. Whether or not a U.S.-brokered Saudi-Israeli agreement sees the light soon, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the U.S. will still see Hezbollah in Lebanon as a threat to their interests. Saudi agreements with Israel, Iran, China, or Russia will not influence its Lebanon policy, but one factor would—a more robust U.S. role in Lebanon.
The U.S. is the largest donor to Lebanon today. Since 2010, U.S. assistance to Lebanon has exceeded $4 billion, but there has not been a clear policy towards Lebanon beyond security and humanitarian assistance, in addition to a number of specific sanctions. Most of the push for change in Lebanon’s leadership has been delegated to France, represented today by its special envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian.
Saudi Arabia might decide to boost its efforts in Lebanon if there were a clear U.S. policy and a more hands-on approach, especially if this U.S. policy includes pushing back against Iranian interests. Such a policy could include, for example, more sanctions against Hezbollah’s political allies and its business community and exposing Hezbollah’s links to the Houthis or certain Iran-linked groups in the Gulf. In addition, the U.S. could work to curb Captagon smuggling as well as Hezbollah’s recent recruitment of Sunni fighters in Lebanon and Palestinian camps.
There are no doubt flaws in the Taif Accord. For example, it affirmed that the disarmament of all militias took place, but Hezbollah was given an exception, treated as a “resistance force” rather than a militia, for fighting Israeli occupation in the south. In addition, the Accord recognized the eradication of political sectarianism as a national priority, but it provided no timeframe for achieving this goal, while at the same time certifying a sectarian division of power in the parliament. The agreement also treated the Syrian regime as the postwar power broker in Lebanon, a role the regime abused and extended until 2005.
Despite such flaws, the Accord does have certain elements that the U.S. can highlight and find common ground on with Saudi Arabia. For example, it includes terms that aimed at reforms, judicial independence, administrative decentralization, a new non-sectarian electoral law, and the formation of a senate. Updating and modernizing the Taif Accord is vital, but the beginning could be further implementation of its existing provisions. Such reforms might facilitate a return of Saudi support. Otherwise, Lebanon will continue to be dragged into Iran’s orbit, with the primacy of political Shiism and the establishment of Hezbollah hegemony.
*Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Senior Fellow at The Washington Institute and author of its 2022 study Hezbollahland: Mapping Dahiya and Lebanon’s Shia Community. This article was originally published on the Hoover Institution website.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 13-14/2023
Libyan city buries thousands in mass graves after flood as mayor says death toll could triple
DERNA, Libya (AP)/September 14, 2023
The Libyan city of Derna has buried thousands of people in mass graves, officials said Thursday, as search teams scoured ruins left by devastating floods and the city’s mayor said the death toll could triple. The flooding, fed by two breached dams, swept away entire families on Sunday night and exposed vulnerabilities in the oil-rich country that has been mired in conflict since a 2011 uprising that toppled long-ruling dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Health officials have confirmed 5,500 deaths and say 9,000 people are still missing.
Here's a look at the latest developments.
WHAT HAPPENED IN LIBYA?
Daniel, an unusually strong Mediterranean storm, caused deadly flooding in towns across eastern Libya, but the worst-hit was Derna. As the storm pounded the coast Sunday night, residents said they heard loud explosions when two dams outside the city collapsed. Floodwaters gushed down Wadi Derna, a valley that cuts through the city, crashing through buildings and washing people out to sea. A U.N. official said Thursday that most casualties could have been avoided. “If there would have been a normal operating meteorological service, they could have issued the warnings," World Meteorological Organization head Petteri Taalas told reporters in Geneva. "The emergency management authorities would have been able to carry out the evacuation.”The WMO said earlier this week that the National Meteorological Center had issued warnings 72 hours before the flooding, notifying all governmental authorities by email and through media. Officials in eastern Libya warned the public about the coming storm and on Saturday had ordered residents to evacuate areas along the coast, fearing a surge from the sea. But there was no warning about the dams collapsing.
HOW DOES CONFLICT IN LIBYA AFFECT THE DISASTER?
The startling devastation reflected the storm’s intensity, but also Libya’s vulnerability. Oil-rich Libya has been divided between rival governments for most of the past decade — one in the east, the other in the capital, Tripoli — and one result has been widespread neglect of infrastructure. The two dams that collapsed outside Derna were built in the 1970s. A report by a state-run audit agency in 2021 said the dams had not been maintained despite the allocation of more than 2 million euros for that purpose in 2012 and 2013.
Libya's Tripoli-based Prime Minister Abdul-Hamid Dbeibah acknowledged the maintenance issues in a Cabinet meeting Thursday and called on the Public Prosecutor to open an urgent investigation into the dams' collapse. The disaster brought a rare moment of unity, as government agencies across the country rushed to help the affected areas. While the Tobruk-based government of east Libya is leading relief efforts, the Tripoli-based western government allocated the equivalent of $412 million for reconstruction in Derna and other eastern towns, and an armed group in Tripoli sent a convoy with humanitarian aid.
WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY?
Derna has begun burying its dead, mostly in mass graves, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel. More than 3,000 bodies were buried by Thursday morning, the minister said, while another 2,000 were still being processed. He said most of the dead were buried in mass graves outside Derna, while others were transferred to nearby towns and cities. Abduljaleel said rescue teams were still searching wrecked buildings in the city center, and divers were combing the sea off Derna. Untold numbers could be buried under drifts of mud and debris, including overturned cars and chunks of concrete, that rise up to four meters (13 feet) high. Rescuers have struggled to bring in heavy equipment as the floods washed out or blocked roads leading to the area.
HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED?
Health authorities have put the death toll in Derna at 5,500 as of Thursday morning. The number of deaths is likely to climb as searches continue, and at least 9,000 people are still missing, said Ossama Ali, a spokesperson for an ambulance center in eastern Libya.
“Some bodies may not be found, especially those who were swept out to sea,” he said. Local officials suggested that the death toll could be much higher than announced. In comments to the Saudi-owned Al Arabia television station, Derna Mayor Abdel-Moneim al-Ghaithi said the tally could climb to 20,000 given the number of neighborhoods that were washed out. An official with the U.N.’s World Health Organization in Libya said the fatalities could reach 7,000 because of the number of people who were still missing. The official was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity. The storm also killed around 170 people in other parts of eastern Libya, including the towns of Bayda, Susa, Um Razaz and Marj, the health minister said. The dead in eastern Libya included at least 84 Egyptians, who were transferred to their home country on Wednesday. More than 70 came from one village in the southern province of Beni Suef. Libyan media also said dozens of Sudanese migrants were killed in the disaster.
IS HELP REACHING SURVIVORS?
The floods have also displaced at least 30,000 people in Derna, according to the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, and several thousand others were forced to leave their homes in other eastern towns, it said. The floods damaged or destroyed many access roads to Derna, hampering the arrival of international rescue teams and humanitarian assistance. Local authorities were able to clear some routes, and over the past 48 hours humanitarian convoys have been able to enter the city. The U.N. humanitarian office issued an emergency appeal for $71.4 million to respond to urgent needs of 250,000 Libyans most affected. The humanitarian office, known as OCHA, estimated that approximately 884,000 people in five provinces live in areas directly affected by the rain and flooding. The International Committee of the Red Cross said Thursday it has provided 6,000 body bags to local authorities, as well as medical, food and other supplies distributed to hard-hit communities. International aid started to arrive earlier this week in Benghazi, 250 kilometers (150 miles) west of Derna. Several countries have sent aid and rescue teams, including neighboring Egypt, Algeria and Tunisia. Italy dispatched a naval vessel on Thursday carrying humanitarian aid and two navy helicopters to be used for search and rescue operations. President Joe Biden said the United States would send money to relief organizations and coordinate with Libyan authorities and the United Nations to provide additional support.

Derna's catastrophe: A tale of political turmoil and tragic neglect in Libya
LBCI/14 September 2023
Years of political conflicts, divisions, corruption, and neglect have erupted in the face of the people of the Libyan city of Derna. More than five thousand people have lost their lives, while over ten thousand remain missing. In the scene, some areas have become almost unrecognizable. While it is indeed a natural disaster, it was possible to avoid most of the victims resulting from these floods, according to the United Nations, which concluded after the disaster in Derna that it was possible to issue warnings, after which emergency management bodies could evacuate the population.
What happened is nothing but a kind of chaos that has been prevailing in the country for years, concludes the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas. Since 2011, the country has been living under a political division that has generated two governments, one supported by parliament in the east and the other in the west, and the ensuing collapse at all levels. This is not the "sole catastrophe" that Libyans will have to face, warns the Financial Times. Since the fall of Gaddafi's regime, all the money has been going into the pockets of politicians who vie for this ministry or that. Tim Eaton, a Libya expert, tells the British newspaper, "Spending on infrastructure or development has really been non-existent."Faced with the magnitude of this disaster, and after the neglect mentioned regarding the maintenance of the city's dams, which exploded, causing a torrent toward the sea, and despite warnings that the region was at risk of flooding, some reports were not taken seriously in the dispute between the two governments, officials are now tossing the blame around. Ironically, the political divisions, corruption, and the shifting of responsibilities that ravaged parts of Derna are the same factors that devastated parts of Beirut in 2020 in the port explosion and before that, in multiple instances, notably the Lebanese civil war. Lebanon may face more than one test, as it did with Storm Daniel. Greece protected itself through state institutions, while Libya crumbled.
If anyone is relying on oil in Lebanon to reassure the Lebanese about the future, Libya is a model: its vast oil reserves did not help as long as the "non-state mentality" prevailed.

Libya Buries Thousands After Deadly Floods That Killed at Least 5,100
AEPA/14 September 2023
The Libyan city of Derna buried thousands of people in mass graves as search teams scoured the area after devastating floods that killed at least 5,100 people, a health official said Thursday. Mediterranean storm Daniel caused deadly flooding in many eastern towns, but the worst-hit was Derna. As the storm pounded the coast Sunday night, Derna residents said they heard loud explosions when the dams outside the city collapsed. Floodwaters washed down Wadi Derna, a valley that cuts through the city, crumbling buildings and washing people out to sea. Health authorities have put the death toll in Derna at 5,100 as of Wednesday. The number of deaths was likely to climb as there are least 9,000 people still missing, said Ossama Ali, a spokesman for an ambulance center in eastern Libya. The floods have displaced at least 30,000 people in Derna, according to the UN’s International Organization for Migration, and several thousand others were forced to leave their homes in other eastern towns, the UN agency said. The floods damaged or destroyed many access roads to Derna, hampering the arrival of international rescue teams and humanitarian assistance. The startling devastation reflected the storm’s intensity, but also Libya’s vulnerability. The country is divided by rival governments — one in the east, the other in the west — and one result has been widespread neglect of infrastructure. The dams that collapsed outside Derna were built in the 1970s and have not been maintained for years, local media reported. More than 3,000 bodies were buried by Thursday morning, said eastern Libya’s health minister, Othman Abduljaleel, while another 2,000 were still being processed. He said most of the dead were buried in mass graves outside Derna, while others were transferred to nearby towns and cities. He said rescue teams were still searching wrecked buildings in the city center, and divers combing seawater off Derna. The storm hit other areas in eastern Libya, including the towns of Bayda, Susa, Um Razaz and Marj, leaving around 170 dead, the health minister said. The dead in eastern Libya included at least 84 Egyptians, who were transferred to their home country on Wednesday. More than 70 came from one village in the southern province of Beni Suef. Libyan media also said dozens of Sudanese migrants were killed in the disaster.

Iran-US prisoner swap for billions reveals familiar limits of diplomacy between nations
Associated Press/September 14/2023
American captives could be exchanged for billions of dollars of frozen Iranian assets, even as critics back in Washington warn against dealing with Tehran. That's the way it was in 1981 and the way it likely will be in the coming days.
The upcoming prisoner swap between Iran and the United States follows the same contours that the countries have been tracing since the resolution of the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover and hostage crisis. The limits of this diplomacy remain largely the same as they have been for over the four decades since, with officials in both countries even using similar language to discuss the deals now. However, Iran faces a new challenge from within as the one-year anniversary of the nationwide protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody approaches this Saturday. And the West faces a nuclear program within the Islamic Republic now enriching uranium closer than ever to weapons-grade levels and with enough material to build "several" atomic bombs if it chose to do so. Any easing of the overall tensions between the two nations seems just as distant now.
The one through line in the exchanges is the money. Today, Iran faces Western sanctions after the collapse of its 2015 nuclear deal. While it has been able to increasingly sell smuggled crude oil abroad, the Islamic Republic's economy has cratered in the meantime along with the savings of its 80 million people.
The current exchange would see some $6 billion in Iranian assets once held by South Korea in its won currency exchanged for euros and kept in accounts in Qatar, a U.S. ally on the Arabian Peninsula and home to a major American military installation. Those funds would be allowed for so-called humanitarian spending, like on food and medicine, already allowed under the sanctions, the U.S. says. Critics of the arrangement liken it to paying a ransom. They argue money not being spent by Iran on essentials could go instead to supporting Iranian-aligned militias in the Mideast, or its nuclear program.
Similar ransom analogies surrounded the Carter administration's deal through the Algier Accords to free those taken in the 1979 Embassy seizure.
"We are not paying a dime of American money for the return of these hostages," then-Vice President Walter Mondale argued at the time.
Now cut to Tuesday at a U.S. State Department news conference.
"No one has given Iran a dollar here," State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. "These are Iran's funds. These are Iranian money."
From the Iranian side, claiming victory has been as important as freeing the cash. In 1981, Iranian negotiator Behzad Nabavi described the deal freeing the Americans held as rubbing "in the dirt the nose of the world's biggest oppressor and superpower, thus forcing it to submit to the demands."
In an interview with NBC News aired Tuesday, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi similarly tried to project Iran as being in control.
"This money belongs to the Islamic Republic of Iran," Raisi said through a government translator about the swap. "And naturally, we will decide — the Islamic Republic of Iran will decide — to spend it wherever we need it." Iran has separately named five prisoners it wants to see freed from U.S. custody in exchange for the five Iranian-Americans held. However, those prisoners face lesser sentences — or simply still charges — as compared to the Iranian-Americans. That suggests the focus for Tehran remains on the money. A United Nations panel years earlier warned of "an emerging pattern involving the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of dual nationals" in Iran, those then used in negotiations with Western powers over frozen assets abroad. In 1981, Iran faced the start of a grinding, yearslong war with Iraq, as well as incoming President Ronald Reagan, who had been signaling taking a tougher stance internationally than Carter. Today, Iran finds itself largely surrounded by nations dealing with it diplomatically after years of ship seizures and attacks attributed to Tehran. But tensions have grown between Iran and the U.S.
A major deployment of U.S. sailors and Marines, alongside F-35s, F-16s and other military aircraft, is underway in the region. The Pentagon is considering a plan to put U.S. troops on board commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of all oil shipments flow out of the Persian Gulf. American concern about the waterway continues. On Wednesday, the Freedom-class littoral combat ship USS Indianapolis accompanied a Panamanian-flagged vessel in the strait after seeing "unusual small boat activity" around it, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Rick Chernitzer told The Associated Press. Iran also supplies Russia with the bomb-carrying drones Moscow uses to target sites during its war in Ukraine. On the nuclear front, however, Iran has slowed its production of 60%-enriched uranium, which is a small, technical step from weapons-grade levels of 90%. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian suggested resuming negotiations over a roadmap that could see Tehran return to aspects of the nuclear deal, which the Islamic Republic walked away from last year. But a full return to the deal is unlikely, particularly as some restrictions it faced already have ended and others soon will. U.N. restrictions on Iran's ballistic missile program are scheduled to lift on Oct. 18. Those restrictions call on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons." The U.S. also has warned that Iran could supply Russia with ballistic missiles for the war in Ukraine. Iran meanwhile faces simmering anger over its economic woes, as well as in the wake of Amini's death after her arrest by the country's morality police allegedly over improperly wearing her mandatory headscarf. Some women in Tehran and elsewhere have stopped wearing the hijab altogether in an open challenge to the government, despite authorities targeting those who do. A crackdown last year saw over 500 people killed and more than 22,000 arrested — and Raisi has signaled Iran is ready to target demonstrators again. "Those who intend to abuse Mahsa Amini's name, under this pretext to be an agent of foreigners, to create this instability in the country, we know what will happen to them," he warned.

Iran Revolutionary Guards Chief Targeted in French Criminal Complaint
EPA/14 September 2023
The commander-in-chief of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, is one of three senior officials targeted in a rare criminal complaint filed with Paris prosecutors Thursday. Along with Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib and Al-Quds force chief Esmail Qaani, Salami is accused of "death threats and justifying terrorism," a lawyer for the six Iranian and Franco-Iranian plaintiffs said. Their case refers to public threats issued by the three men between December 2022 and January 2023 against people backing the nationwide protests in Iran over the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested for violating Iran's female dress code.
Khatib said on December 13 last year that "anyone playing a role in the riots will be punished, wherever they are in the world". The declaration was spread widely in the press and on social media, according to the text of the criminal complaint seen by AFP.
Meanwhile, Salami himself said on January 10 that "the French people and the managers of (satirical anti-clerical magazine) Charlie Hebo" should not "concern themselves with the fate of Salman Rushdie".The British author has long been subject to a fatwa calling for his killing issued by Iran's late leader Khomeini and was gravely wounded in an August 2022 knife attack. Charlie Hebdo staff were massacred by extremist gunmen in 2015 after publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed. "These threats are in fact just so many disguised fatwas" -- an Islamic legal decree -- against Iranian opposition activists around the world, said Chirinne Ardakani, a French-Iranian lawyer from the Iran Justice Collective. "The regime of Iran and its agents are keeping up a long tradition of threatening Iranian opposition figures in exile with death, hunting and murdering them on French and European soil," the 22-page legal complaint read. Some living in France since the 1980s and others recently exiled, the six plaintiffs include a filmmaker, a journalist, a writer and a rights activist, all of whom have made public stands against Tehran. Their largely symbolic complaint marks the first anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022 -- which triggered the "Woman. Life. Freedom" movement across Iran. "It's about showing the Iranian regime, which wants to suffocate opposition, that wherever Iranians are in the world, they will continue to make themselves heard," Ardakani said. "We're sending up balloons, we're using every avenue offered by French law, but the final aim is to have the perpetrators of atrocities prosecuted and brought to justice in France," she added. The France-based Iran Justice Collective has been documenting abuses and repression against demonstrators over the past year, which the group says have resulted in hundreds of deaths and thousands of arrests.

US, Europeans Again Threaten Iran with IAEA Resolution but Leave Timing Open
IAEA/14 September 2023
The US and three European allies have threatened Iran with another resolution at the UN nuclear watchdog's board demanding action on issues such as explaining uranium traces found at undeclared sites, but left open whether or when they might follow through.
The warning delivered by Britain, France and Germany - the so-called E3 - and the US to a quarterly International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors meeting published on Thursday comes as the West's standoff with Iran has been complicated by secret US-Iran talks. A November resolution ordered Tehran to cooperate urgently with the IAEA's investigation into the presence of uranium particles at three undeclared sites, since narrowed down to two. Western powers have recently condemned Iran for stonewalling the IAEA on that and other issues like the re-installation surveillance cameras removed last year, and for enriching uranium to up to 60% purity, close to weapons grade. But in parallel diplomats say the United States has held secret "de-escalation" talks with Iran, potentially muddying the waters. Those de-escalation talks, which Washington does not acknowledge, cover issues such as Iran's recent slowdown of enrichment to 60% purity, frozen Iranian funds abroad, and a prisoner swap, diplomats say. "If Iran fails to implement the essential and urgent actions contained in the November 2022 Resolution and the 4th March Joint Statement in full, the Board will have to be prepared to take further action in support of the (IAEA) Secretariat to hold Iran accountable in the future, including the possibility of a resolution," the four Western powers said in a statement to the 35-nation IAEA board. Iran tends to bristle at resolutions against it and respond by expanding or accelerating its nuclear activities. Iran says its nuclear program is strictly for peaceful uses. Western powers say there is no credible civilian explanation for it. The joint statement addressed the re-installation of monitoring equipment such as cameras but only a fraction of the cameras the IAEA wants to put in place have been set up. Rather than seek another binding resolution against Tehran for the lack of progress on these issues at this week's IAEA board meeting, however, the Western powers issued a non-binding joint statement with 59 other countries calling on Iran to "act immediately" on issues including explaining the uranium traces. A total of 22 countries of the 35 on the board backed the statement, fewer than the 26 that supported the resolution in November.

Iran lashes out at Israel after Mossad threatens to hit 'top echelon' in Tehran
Al-Montor/September 14, 2023
TEHRAN — Iran's Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanani said his country will not hesitate to respond to "foolish" moves by the Israeli government, as the war of words between the two enemies is escalating. Addressing reporters in Tehran on Monday, Kanani was reacting to a recent warning from David Barnea, director of Israel's foreign intelligence agency, Mossad. Barnea has accused Iran of intensifying its worldwide "terror" campaign against Israeli citizens and Jewish targets. He warned that should Iran harm Israeli citizens, his country will hit the "highest echelon … in the heart of Tehran." "Such an overt announcement of plots to assassinate the officials of a country is only indicative of the nature of this terrorist regime," Kanani declared, arguing that Israel has a proven record of "resorting to terrorist moves to achieve its illegitimate objectives." The Islamic Republic and the Jewish state have been exchanging accusations about the targeting of their citizens, both on their respective soil and abroad. Most notably, Iran blames Israel for a chain of killings of its nuclear and missile experts since 2010. Most of the attacks occurred in or around the capital, Tehran, with Israel neither denying nor confirming involvement. Yet the latest rhetoric did not end there, as Iran expressed unease with signs of piecemeal Israeli rapprochement with Saudi Arabia. The participation of an Israeli delegation at a meeting of UNESCO's World Heritage Committee in Riyadh was brought to the attention of the Iranian spokesman at his Tehran presser. "The presence of the Zionist regime in regional bodies is disruptive to the stated goals in multilateral cooperation in the region," he said. Normalization pacts between Israel and several Arab states since 2020 have been met with condemnation in Tehran. Iran's hard-line cleric and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has even denounced such reconciliation moves as acts of "treason" against the Islamic community. "In our bilateral and multilateral meetings with the officials of the Islamic and Arab countries, we have declared our stance on the Zionist regime's nature and the menace its presence in regional bodies poses."
Kanani said the Islamic Republic had communicated "clearly our opinion to Saudi officials both in Tehran and in Riyadh." He did not specify if or how those authorities had addressed the Iranian concern. Join hundreds of Middle East professionals with Al-Monitor PRO. Business and policy professionals use PRO to monitor the regional economy and improve their reports, memos and presentations. Try it for free and cancel anytime.

30 years after Oslo, Israel rejects international dictates on Palestinian issue
Associated Press/September 14/2023
Israel's foreign minister has said that Israel would not cave in to foreign dictates on its treatment of the Palestinians — in comments that came in a meeting with his Norwegian counterpart coinciding with the 30th anniversary of the Oslo peace accords.
The remarks by Foreign Minister Eli Cohen underscored the deterioration of Mideast peace efforts since the historic interim peace deal. Substantive negotiations have not taken place in years, and Israel is led by a far-right government opposed to Palestinian statehood. "Israel will not submit to external dictates on the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," Cohen said in the meeting with Norwegian Foreign Minister, Anniken Huitfeldt, according to a statement from his office. Cohen told Huitfeldt that Israel will continue to work toward normalizing relations with other countries in the Middle East. Israel reached diplomatic accords with four Arab countries under the U.S.-brokered Abraham Accords in 2020 and is now hoping to establish official ties with Saudi Arabia. But in an apparent reference to the Palestinians, who have criticized the Abraham Accords, Cohen said "states and actors that don't participate in expanding and deepening the circle of peace and normalization will simply be left behind and become irrelevant." Huitfeldt described her meeting with Cohen as "interesting." According to her office, she expressed her concern to Cohen over Israeli settlements in the West Bank. The two also discussed the possibility of renewing Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, she said. Cohen's rejection of international input on the conflict came exactly three decades after Israel and the Palestinians signed an interim peace deal on the White House lawn.
The Oslo accords, negotiated secretly in Norway, were meant to pave the way to a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians. "The notion that Israel is not going to accept any externally imposed settlement on the Palestinian issue was essentially the opposite of what the Oslo process reflected," said Aaron David Miller, an American diplomat who helped negotiate the agreement. Miller is now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. A handshake between Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, conducted under the beaming gaze of U.S. President Bill Clinton, marked the signing of the agreement, which created the Palestinian Authority and set up self-rule areas in the Palestinian territories. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip — areas captured by Israel in 1967 — for a future state. Several rounds of peace talks over the years all ended in failure, and 30 years later, peace seems more distant than ever. Under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's far-right government, Israel has stepped up settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, with government ministers openly vowing complete annexation of the territory. The West Bank is in the midst of the most violent stretch of Israel-Palestinian violence in nearly 20 years, while the Palestinian Authority is weak and unpopular. Meanwhile, the Hamas militant group, which opposes Israel's existence, has controlled Gaza since taking control of the area from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. Given the current conflict, any peacemaking efforts by the two sides aren't "anywhere near being ready for prime time," Miller said.

Israel says it found 16 tons of rocket-making substance headed from Turkey to Gaza
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/September 14, 2023
Israel's customs authority said on Thursday it found 16 tons of material used for rocket production during an inspection of a shipment from Turkey headed to Gaza, which the ruling Hamas group dismissed as a fabrication. The customs authority said it had stopped for inspection in July two containers carrying 54 tons of what were supposed to be bags of plaster. A lab test confirmed some of the bags contained ammonium chloride, the authority added, which it said was used by groups in Gaza "to produce rockets that are eventually launched towards Israel".In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem described the report as "lies". "The occupation is forging lies as a pretext to tighten the blockade on Gaza," Qassem told Reuters. Gaza is home to some 2.3 million Palestinians who live in one of the world's most densely populated areas. Since the Islamist movement took over Gaza in 2007, Israel, together with Egypt, has maintained a blockade that has devastated the coastal enclave's economy. Israel and Hamas have fought several wars since 2008, with thousands of rockets fired from Gaza and Israel launching air strikes on the enclave. With uncertainty growing over who will succeed 87-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Hamas has stepped up efforts to attract support in the occupied West Bank, a geographically separate territory which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state. Earlier this month, Israel froze the export of commercial goods from Gaza for several days due to what it said was an attempt to smuggle explosives. Palestinians said the brief ban hit thousands of families.

Syrian Army Says Israel Hits Targets Along Coast and Hama Region
AFP/14 September 2023
Two Syrian soldiers were killed and six others wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Mediterranean port city of Tartous near the ancestral home region of President Bashar al-Assad, Syrian state media reported on Wednesday. It gave no details of the specific locations that were hit. Later the Syrian army said Israeli missiles struck the outskirts of Hama and caused only some material damage. It gave no other details. An opposition source said the latest strike also targeted alongside a military base in southern Hama, the Shuairat military airport, southeast of central Homs province.
The base is one of the country's main military air bases that Russia, a principal ally of Assad, has fortified and used to conduct raids against opposition groups. Israel has staged hundreds of strikes against alleged Iranian targets in Syria in recent years, but has mostly avoided hitting the coastal provinces where Russia's military assets are concentrated. Israeli officials were not immediately available for comment. The strikes are part of an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict whose goal is to slow down Iran's growing entrenchment in Syria, Israeli and regional military experts say.
The strikes were close to the Russian navy's only Mediterranean base in the port of Tartous where Russian warships are docked, while Russia's Hmeimim air base is also in nearby Latakia province. Russia's intervention alongside Iran helped turn the tide in favor of Assad in the country's over decade-old conflict.

Thirty years after Oslo, bleak outlook for Israel Palestinian peace
JERUSALEM, Sept 13 (Reuters)/September 14, 2023
Across the occupied West Bank, concrete checkpoints, separation walls and soldiers are reminders of the failure to build peace between Israelis and Palestinians since the historic Oslo Accords were signed 30 years ago this week. The accord, intended as a temporary measure to build confidence and create space for a permanent peace agreement, has long since frozen into a system for managing a conflict with no apparent end in sight. With the West Bank in turmoil, a nationalist government in Israel that dismisses any prospect of Palestinian statehood, and the Islamist movement Hamas flexing its muscles outside its home in Gaza, prospects for peace appear as distant as they ever have been. Once the 87-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas departs, a void will be left that may bring the crisis to a head. "We are at the end of an era both in Palestine and Israel and probably in the region as a whole," said Hanan Ashrawi, a civil activist and former spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation to the peace process in the 1990s. "That whole generation - that era of talking about mutual recognition, two states, negotiated settlement, peaceful resolution - that's coming to an end in Palestine," she said.
Few on either side believe there is any realistic prospect of a two-state solution, with an independent Palestine existing side by side with Israel. The idea is now just a "convenient fiction" Ashrawi said. With barriers keeping the two sides apart in the West Bank, largely under Israeli military control, young Israelis and Palestinians have grown up knowing little of each other since the first agreement was signed on Sept. 13, 1993. "Oslo and I were born the same year," said Mohannad Qafesha, a legal activist in the southern city of Hebron. "To me, I was born and there were checkpoints around me, around our house, if I leave home and go to the city to visit my friends, I would have to cross a checkpoint." According to United Nations figures some 700,000 Jewish settlers are now established across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the core of any future Palestinian state, and settlement building is moving ahead rapidly. An estimated 3.2 million Palestinians live in the West Bank and 2.2 million in Gaza. Violence over the past 18 months has seen dozens of Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, killed in attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and Israel, and brazen attacks by Jewish settlers on Palestinian towns and villages.
Near daily raids by Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinian fighters and numerous civilians, while an array of new militant groups has emerged in towns like Jenin and Nablus with little connection to the older generation of Palestinian leaders. "I have never seen the West Bank as it is at the moment ever, I have been in and out of here for almost 30 years and I haven't seen it worse," U.N. Special Coordinator Tor Wennesland said at a conference this week. The structures created by the Oslo Accords nonetheless remain in place as the main framework for relations between Israelis and Palestinians in the absence of anything better. The Palestinian Authority remains Israel's favoured, if often mistrusted, partner, though it lost control of Gaza when Hamas broke away in 2007. But dependent on foreign funds, with no electoral mandate and unpopular among its own people, it is caught between its roles as representative of the Palestinians and interlocutor with Israel. "It's very weak, it's very poor but this agreement still exists," said Michael Milshtein, a former official for COGAT, the Israeli military body set up after Oslo to coordinate between Israel and the newly created PA.
TEMPORARY
The accords' signing brought in a brief period of optimism, symbolised by the image of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, watched over by U.S. President Bill Clinton, shaking hands on the White House lawn. Rabin was assassinated by a right-wing Israeli in 1995, while Arafat died in 2004. For Yossi Beilin, a former justice minister and Israeli negotiator, the accords' failure to bring peace came about because successive Israeli governments preferred to turn what was originally a temporary truce into a permanent status quo. With Israeli society riven by the dispute over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's bid to curb the power of the Supreme Court, prospects of any concerted peace effort appear remote. "The current government in Israel doesn't show any signs of willingness to go for a permanent agreement. So, those who speak about a permanent agreement will have to speak about future governments," said Beilin, a former Labour Party politician. Israeli officials fear that once Abbas goes, the door will be open either to a push by Hamas into the West Bank, where it is increasingly active, or to anarchy as rivals for the leadership fight it out. But while several on the Israeli government side have spoken openly about annexing the West Bank entirely, the practical difficulties of such a move have proved prohibitive. Already Palestinians, and a number of international human rights organizations, accuse Israel of operating an apartheid system in the West Bank. Israel and its allies including the United States reject that charge but annexation would force it to find a way between giving Palestinians a status equivalent to Israelis that would alter Israel's character as a Jewish state or assigning them a separate status incompatible with a democracy. "We're both here and we are both here to stay," said 29 year-old Rotem Oreg, of the liberal think tank the Israeli Democratic Alliance. "So we need to figure out a way, one, to stay in the same land, two, without killing each other, and three, while maintaining a Jewish democratic state." (Additional reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah, Rami Amichay in Tel Aviv; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Israel's finance minister now governs the West Bank. Critics see steps toward permanent control
ASA'EL, West Bank (AP)/September 14, 2023
— With attention focused on its contentious judicial overhaul, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has quietly taken unprecedented steps toward cementing Israel’s control over the occupied West Bank — perhaps permanently. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a leader of the settlement movement, assumed new powers over the occupied territory in his coalition agreement with Netanyahu. Smotrich moved swiftly to approve thousands of new settlement homes, legalize previously unauthorized wildcat outposts and make it more difficult for Palestinians to build homes and move about. As the first government minister to oversee civilian life in the West Bank, his role amounts to a recognition that Israel’s 56-year military occupation is not temporary but permanent, observers say. “If Smotrich keeps this position for four years we will be at a point of no return,” said Ilan Paz, former head of Israel’s Civil Administration, a military body overseeing civilian affairs in the West Bank. Hoping to return to power while facing a corruption trial, Netanyahu offered sweeping concessions to pro-settler lawmakers like Smotrich to form his governing coalition last year. The coalition agreement created a new Israeli settler agency, led by Smotrich, within the Defense Ministry to manage Jewish and Palestinian construction in the 60% of the West Bank over which Israel has control. “It’s a sort of revolution, transferring powers from the military, with its legal obligation to consider the well-being of occupied people, to those only committed to Israeli interests,” said human rights lawyer Michael Sfard. Smotrich has said he seeks to double the settler population, build up roads and neighborhoods and erase any remaining differences between life for Israelis in the West Bank and within Israel proper. Along the way, he hopes to destroy any Palestinian hopes of independence. As finance minister, Smotrich can funnel taxpayer funds to West Bank infrastructure projects. Israel’s 2024 budget earmarks an all-time high of $960 million — a quarter of all Transportation Ministry funds — for a highway network better connecting Israel to the West Bank. The settlers are just over 5% of Israel's population. Israel considers the West Bank the biblical heartland of the Jewish people. Smotrich and his supporters envision a single state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea in which Palestinians can live quietly with second-class status or leave. “We felt like the state never prioritized us because of where we lived. Smotrich is changing that,” said Smotrich’s spokesperson Eitan Fuld. While Smotrich’s new settler agency now handles the territory’s land-use issues, COGAT, the military body that oversees the Civil Administration, retains specific responsibilities over more than 2 million Palestinians. Rights groups and others have compared the division along ethnic lines to “ apartheid.” Some half-million settlers live in the West Bank, which Israel captured along with east Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 Mideast war. The international community overwhelmingly considers the settlements illegal. Experts and officials say Smotrich's policies already have compounded Palestinian misery, emboldened violent settlers and unleashed turmoil within Israel’s military establishment. Recent settlement expansion has also strained the Netanyahu government's ties with the White House.
Smotrich declined interview requests.
“Smotrich took over the Civil Administration, the only tool that Israel has to calm things down," said former West Bank military commander Gadi Shamni. “The West Bank will explode.”Monthly settler attacks have surged by over 30% this year, compared to 2022, U.N. figures show. The government has approved 13,000 settlement housing units and legalized 20 outposts built without authorization, said anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now, the highest levels since the group started counting in 2012. Under Smotrich, Israeli authorities have pressed on with the demolition of Palestinian construction built without permits. COGAT acknowledged in July that it rejects over 95% of Palestinian permit requests. This year's demolitions are up slightly from last year, which saw the most demolitions since at least 2006, according to Israeli rights group B'Tselem. Meanwhile Israeli authorities have scaled back efforts to evacuate unauthorized Jewish outposts, settlers say. “This is the best government we’ve ever had,” said 32-year-old Shulamit Ben Yashar from the outpost of Asa'el in the arid hills south of Hebron. The outpost — home to 90 families, including Smotrich’s brother Tuvia — received legal approval on Sept. 6. Renovation fever ran high at the Asa’el playground as mothers gushed about their plans to swap ramshackle caravans and wheezing generators for concrete and Israel’s national electricity grid. Their Palestinian neighbors — herders across dusty slopes known as Masafer Yatta — face expulsion by Israeli authorities and increased attacks by settlers. Residents in the rural area, which the Israeli military plans to seize, say Smotrich and his allies are squeezing the life from their communities. “We can barely breathe,” said 38-year-old Sameer Hammdeh, whose two camels were killed last month after stumbling over trip wires he said were placed by settlers. Residents say settler provocations — damaging Palestinian cars and hurting livestock — reflect a sense of impunity instilled by the government. Smotrich and his allies have also vowed to hasten the pace of settlement construction. In July, the government slashed six stages of approval required for settlement advancement down to two: Smotrich and a planning committee. “This makes it possible to build much more,” said Zvi Yedidia Sukkot, lawmaker in Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party.
The party has proposed allocating $180 million to renovate settlement housing and build new hospitals and schools. Authorities are paving two new multimillion-dollar bypass roads to whisk Israeli settlers around Palestinian towns. One of the roads goes around Hawara, a flashpoint town where settlers burned dozens of houses and cars in a rampage early this year following the deadly shooting of two settlers. At the time, Smotrich said the town should be “erased.” “Our government has finally figured out that withdrawing from land is a prize for terror,” said Rabbi Menachem Ben Shachar, a teacher at a newly built yeshiva seminary at Homesh, one of four outposts that Israel evacuated in 2005. Lawmakers repealed the legislation this year that had barred settlers from visiting the site. Over 50 students were rocking in prayer at the yeshiva on a recent visit. Such decisions have unsettled Israel’s defense establishment. Settlers said that Israeli forces in May tried to stop them from hauling heavy construction equipment to build a new yeshiva. But when Smotrich pressed, the government abruptly ordered troops to allow settlers to build. “The political echelon ordered the military echelon not to obey the law,” said Nitzan Alon, a retired general who once commanded the West Bank region. The military and COGAT declined to comment on that incident. But a security official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter, said Smotrich's intervention has halted several planned demolitions in unauthorized outposts.Last month, the tug-of-war between Smotrich stalwarts and security-minded military men burst into the open when Israeli authorities were filmed pumping cement into wells south of Hebron, permanently sealing Palestinian water sources in the heat of summer. Palestinians had drilled the wells without permits that Israel rarely provides. The footage spread on social media, and COGAT was caught off-guard, said the security official. The agency promised any future demolitions of water cisterns “would be examined based on their merits.” Smotrich’s men are “crossing all the lines,” said Paz, the former general. “They don’t care.”

Gaza Palestinian factions hold drills amid infighting in Lebanon’s refugee camp
Beatrice Farhat//Al-Montor/September 14, 2023
BEIRUT — Palestinian armed factions on Tuesday conducted large-scale military maneuvers in the Gaza Strip, coinciding with the 18th anniversary of the Israeli withdrawal from the coastal enclave. The maneuvers, dubbed Hard Corner 4, were held for the fourth year in a row by the so-called Joint Operations Room of the Palestinian Resistance Factions, which includes the armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad as well as 10 other factions in the Gaza Strip. The Islamic Jihad’s Al-Quds Brigade said on its website that the drills aim to showcase the readiness and ongoing preparations of the armed factions to confront Israel. The brigade published photos of the military exercises, showing masked fighters using heavy weapons and simulating ground attacks. The Joint Operations Room also released a video of the drills, which included the launching of long-range rockets toward the Mediterranean Sea. The video also showed fighters in scuba gear conducting drills off Gaza’s coast. The military exercise comes as tensions continue to escalate in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Palestinians have come under increased settler attacks, coupled with almost daily Israeli raids into West Bank cities and towns. More than 200 Palestinians have been killed in clashes, attacks and other incidents this year, UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland said last month. Most recently, a Palestinian teenager was shot dead by Israeli forces near the city of Hebron over the weekend.
The situation has led to the emergence of armed groups across the West Bank amid the rising popularity of Hamas. Palestinians have blamed the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its security coordination with Israel for the deteriorating security conditions in the territory.
Palestinians have also carried out attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and inside Israel. On Tuesday, two Israelis were injured in a shooting attack in the village of Huwarra near Nablus. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the Hamas movement, which controls Gaza, said the military exercise proves the factions’ steadfastness to confront any Israeli aggression, including in the West Bank. “The occupation's escalating aggression in the city of Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank will not give it an inch of its alleged legitimacy, and its crimes will not succeed in changing the facts of history and the reality on the ground," the statement said. Mohammed al-Deif, commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’ military wing, said the “armed resistance” is the only option for Palestinians to establish their own independent state. "We will force Israel to evacuate the West Bank and all the occupied Palestinian territories,” he added during a televised speech on the sidelines of the military maneuvers. In another development, infighting in Lebanon's largest Palestinian refugee camp continues unabated despite cease-fires announced this week. Members of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement have been engaged in sporadic battles with rival Islamist groups in Ain al-Hilweh in the southern city of Sidon since the assassination of a senior Fatah official in the camp in late July. On Tuesday, the deputy head of Hamas' political bureau, Mousa Abu Marzouk, arrived in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, for talks on the situation in Ain al-Hilweh. Abu Marzouk will meet with Lebanese officials and representatives of Palestinian factions to push for a cease-fire, according to a Hamas statement. At least six people have been killed and more than 50 others injured in the renewed fighting that erupted last Thursday. Hundreds of the camp’s residents were forced to flee, while the road linking Sidon to Beirut has been closed off.

Explainer: Why Iraq's Kirkuk has reached brink of conflict
Fehim Tastekin/Al-Montor/September 14, 2023
Plagued by the oil curse and long disputed between its ethnic communities, the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk is once again teetering on the edge of civil war, with local elections just three months away. The crisis began when Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani decided in late August that the Iraqi military’s Joint Operations Command should evacuate its headquarters in Kirkuk and return the building to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the ruling party of Iraqi Kurdistan. The decision, intended as a gesture of goodwill to the KDP, ignited ethnic sensitivities and fears in the historically disputed, oil-rich city, which central government forces reclaimed from Kurdish control just six years ago. With Kirkuk heading to provincial council elections on Dec. 18, a rising KDP profile in the city irritated other groups, including the KDP’s main Kurdish rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).
Deeper divisions
The row is linked also to Iraq’s complex political dynamics, which required Kurdish support to form a government in Baghdad in 2022. According to Iraqi media, returning the disputed headquarters to the KDP was part of the deal, along with other concessions to Kurds. Sudani’s order triggered a protest by members of Sunni Arab tribes, Turkmen groups and Asaib Ahl al-Haq, a Shiite militia within the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). On Sept. 2, Kurdish counter-protesters attempted to approach them, leading security forces to intervene. The ensuing violence claimed four lives, and a curfew was put in place.
In a bid to defuse the tensions, Sudani met with parliament members from Kirkuk and officials from the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) the following day, while Iraq’s top court suspended the premier’s handover order. KRG Prime Minister Masrour Barzani slammed the court’s suspension ruling as a “farce,” while KDP leader Masoud Barzani warned of a “heavy price” for the bloodshed.
The building was important to the KDP for several reasons: It facilitated the control of oil wells, could be reinforced quickly from Erbil and enjoyed natural protection due to Kurdish settlement to the north. But soon after Kurdistan’s independence referendum in September 2017, the Iraqi military moved into Kirkuk, forcing Kurdish forces to withdraw. The city’s Kurdish governor was removed and replaced by his Arab deputy. A Joint Operations Command was later established, incorporating members of the PMU, Kurdish peshmerga forces, the Kurdish intelligence units known as Asayish and PUK-affiliated anti-terror forces, along with members of the Iraqi army and security and intelligence bodies. Al-Monitor has learned that the KDP’s Asayish was allocated two rooms in the disputed building. Members of the PUK’s anti-terror forces were also stationed there. Yet none of the Kurdish forces have been involved in controlling the city.  Sudani’s decision to hand the building over to the KDP sparked fears among other groups that the peshmerga will be returning to Kirkuk in force ahead of the elections.
History of Arabization
The Kurds strongly remember Baghdad’s Arabization policy in the 1970s and 1980s, which saw Kurds driven out and replaced with Arab settlers. The Iraqi Constitution’s Article 140 also calls for reversing the effects of the Arabization campaign before holding a census and a referendum on the city’s status. Article 140 stipulated a 2007 deadline for the referendum, but a vote was never held. In 1957, Kurds made up 48% of Kirkuk’s population, followed by Arabs with 28% and Turkmens with 21%. While Kurdish populations dipped under Saddam Hussein's Arabization policies, based on recent electoral registers, the Kurds today are said to have grown back into a majority almost equaling the one in 1957. In the 2021 general elections, PUK candidates won three of Kirkuk’s 12 parliamentary seats, while the KDP won two.  Though the Turkmens too have been victims of the Arabization campaign, they are opposed to Kirkuk becoming part of Kurdistan and maintain that the city is a Turkmen homeland. While the Kurds aim to incorporate Kirkuk into Kurdistan via a referendum, the Turkmens say the city should be given a “special” or “federate” status, with Arabs, Kurds and Turkmens getting equal shares in the administration and the governor’s post rotating between the three communities. Similarly, the Arabs believe Article 140 is no longer applicable. Chief among the disputes is the ownership of croplands. Arab farmers resettled in Kirkuk have been winning court cases against returning Kurds thanks to the title deeds they hold. Sudani’s ties with the Kurds may sour, but he appears unlikely to move in their favor. Amid the unrest over the headquarters, Baghdad unblocked 500 billion dinars (about $380 million) for public salaries in Kurdistan — about half of the sum the KRG says is needed. Public anger over unpaid salaries and the bloodshed in Kirkuk triggered demonstrations in Dohuk this week. Arab groups remain adamant that federal control of Kirkuk cannot be reversed.
Turkey, Iran vie for influence
Ersad Salihi, head of the Turkmen Front, meanwhile claimed that members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist organization in Turkey, and “terrorists coming from Iran” fueled the unrest in Kirkuk. In the same vein, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed “to not allow the calm and integrity of this region to be broken.”Ankara and Tehran may converge on this issue, but they have become rivals for influence in Kirkuk. Tehran’s leverage in Kirkuk seems to have outstripped that of Turkey. The Turkmen card is now in Iranian hands thanks to factors such as the fight against the Islamic State and Tehran’s ties with the PMU and the Shiite section of the Turkmen community. As the provincial elections approach, Arabs and Turkmens want a review of electoral registers, which remain a major point of contention amid claims that fake documents have been used to register Kurds brought in from the north. Meanwhile, the KDP and the PUK plan to contest the elections on separate tickets, complicating Kurdish calculations to clinch the governor’s post. Erbil-based political analyst Siddik Hasan Sukru told Al-Monitor that KDP-PUK collaboration appears impossible, not least because of Turkey’s potential role. According to Sukru, Ankara might push the KDP, with which it enjoys close ties, to join forces with Sunni Arabs and Turkmens, and the KDP might back a Turkmen governor rather than one from the PUK. Iran, however, is unlikely to sit with folded arms and could seek to hamper Turkey’s calculations, Sukru said.

New US sanctions target workarounds that let Russia get Western tech for war
The Associated Press/September 14, 2023
The United States said Thursday that it was sanctioning more than 150 businesses and people from Russia to Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Georgia to try to crack down on evasion and deny the Kremlin access to technology, money and financial channels that fuel President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. The sanctions package is one of the biggest by the State and Treasury departments and is the latest to target people and companies in countries, notably in NATO member Turkey, that sell Western technology to Russia that could be used to bolster its war effort. The package also aims to hobble the development of Russia’s energy sector and future sources of cash, including Arctic natural gas projects, as well as mining and factories producing and repairing Russian weapons. “The purpose of the action is to restrict Russia’s defense production capacity and to reduce the liquidity it has to pay for its war,” James O’Brien, head of the State Department’s Office of Sanctions Coordination, told The Associated Press. The U.S. is sanctioning a newly established UAE company, which provides engineering and technology to Russia’s Arctic liquefied natural gas project, as well as multiple Russian companies involved in its development. Putin wants the Arctic LNG 2 project to produce more liquefied natural gas and make Russia a bigger player in the energy market. In July, Putin visited the LNG site in Russia’s far north and said it would have a positive impact on “the entire economy.” The U.S. package includes sanctions on several Turkish, Finnish and Russian companies that the State Department and Treasury say help Moscow source U.S. and European electronic components — such as computer chips and processors — which the U.S. says ended up in weapons used by Russia.
Treasury sanctioned what it called “a Finland-based network” that sent a wide range of electronics into Russia, including cameras for drones and lithium batteries. Finland is a European Union member that supports sanctions on Russia and the most recent to join NATO. The State Department also is targeting Turkish companies that have provided ship repair services to a company affiliated with Russia’s Ministry of Defense.
Before the war, O’Brien said, Russia imported up to 90% of its electronics from countries that are part of the Group of 7 wealthy democracies, but sanctions have dropped that figure closer to 30%. Sanctions, he said, “are effective” and “put a ceiling on Russia’s wartime production capacity.” “Russia is trying to run a full production wartime economy, and it is extremely difficult to do that with secretive episodic purchases of small batches of equipment from different places around the world,” O’Brien said. However, analysts say Russia still has significant financial reserves available and it's possible for Russia to import the technology it seeks in tiny batches to maintain defense production.
“Russia could probably fill a large suitcase with enough electronic components to last for cruise missile production for a year,” said Richard Connolly, a specialist on Russia’s defense sector and economy at the risk analysis firm Oxford Analytica. Russia also gets a lot of electronic components from Belarus, “so even if we whack all the moles, Belarus will still provide the equipment for as long as (President Alexander) Lukashenko is in power,” Connolly said. Both Turkey and the UAE have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but have not joined Western sanctions and sought to maintain ties with Russia.
Russian Industry and Trade Minister Denis Manturov said this year that trade between Russia and the UAE grew by 68% to $9 billion in 2022, according to Russian state news agency Tass. Still, the State Department believes sanctions are working, O’Brien said, noting that “the way to measure success is on the battlefield.”“Ukraine can shoot down most of what the Russians are firing, and that tells us that there’s a gap,” he said. “The battlefield debris shows us Russia is using less capable electronics or sometimes no electronics at all.”
Nonetheless, Russia has been pummeling Ukraine with frequent missile attacks, including two over the past week that killed at least 23 people. This is partly because Russia is “still getting hold of these electronic components and they are largely functioning as they did before,” said Connolly, the Russia analyst. The latest sanctions package targets Russian companies that repair, develop and manufacture weapons, including the Kalibr cruise missile. But to really turn the screws, analysts say Western companies need to think twice before selling crucial technology to countries known to have a healthy resale market with Russia. “We need to work much harder with companies in our own countries to ensure that they are not feeding the re-export market,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
“Many of them may be celebrating a rise in sales to the UAE or Turkey and not realizing, or not choosing to realize, that the rise is being driven by re-export business as opposed to genuine business happening in the UAE and Turkey,” he said. The United Arab Emirates has insisted it follows international laws on money laundering and sanctions. However, a global body that fights money laundering has placed the UAE on its “gray list” over concerns that the global trade hub isn’t doing enough to stop criminals and militants from hiding wealth there. Turkey, meanwhile, has tried to balance its close ties with both Russia and Ukraine, positioning itself as a mediator. Turkey depends heavily on Russian energy and tourism. Last year, however, Turkey’s state banks suspended transactions through Russia’s payment system, Mir, over U.S. sanctions threats.
The U.S. sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrei Bokarev, who reportedly has personal ties to Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, and his business partner, Iskander Makhmudov. Treasury also sanctioned Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexei Krivoruchko and people associated with the Wagner mercenary group, including for facilitating weapons shipments from North Korea to Russia. Otar Partskhaladze, a Georgian-Russian businessman and former prosecutor general of Georgia, also was targeted. Russia’s Federal Security Service worked with Partskhaladze to influence Georgian society and politics for Russia’s benefit, the State Department said. Including the latest sanctions, the U.S. has targeted almost 3,000 businesses and people since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, according to State.
“We will stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

US Sanctions Five Türkiye-Based Firms in Broad Russia Action on over 100 Targets
AP/14 September 2023
The Biden administration on Thursday imposed sanctions on five Turkish companies and a Turkish national, accusing them of helping Russia evade sanctions and supporting Moscow in its war against Ukraine. The designations, first reported by Reuters, target shipping and trade companies accused of helping repair sanctioned vessels tied to Russia's defense ministry and helping the transfer of "dual-use goods". The move is part of a bigger package of measures hitting Russia with sanctions on about 150 targets, including the country's largest carmaker. The action comes at a delicate moment for US-Türkiye relations, with Washington hoping Ankara will ratify NATO membership for Sweden when the Turkish parliament reconvenes in early October. The United States and its allies imposed extensive sanctions on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine, but supply channels from Black Sea neighbor Türkiye and other trading hubs have remained open, prompting Washington to issue repeated warnings about the export of chemicals, microchips and other products that can be used in Moscow's war effort. Multiple senior US officials, including Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, have traveled to Türkiye since Russia's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as part of a pressure campaign to prevent any Turkish companies from helping Russia circumvent US curbs. "For the past 18 months, we've shared our concerns with the Turkish government and private sector and informed them of the significant risks of doing business with those we've sanctioned who are tied to Russia's war," a senior Treasury official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "These designations reflect our ongoing commitment to target individuals and entities who provide material support to sanctioned entities," the official added.
Blocking dual-use goods
The US Treasury Department in a statement said it imposed sanctions on Margiana Insaat Dis Ticaret and Demirci Bilisim Ticaret Sanayi, saying the Türkiye-based companies were among those that Russia relied on for importing "much-needed dual-use goods to enable its unprovoked war of aggression on Ukraine."It said the former has made hundreds of shipments to sanctioned Russian entities that are part of the supply chain for producing military drones used in the Ukraine war, while the latter has sent sensors and measuring tools into Russia. Reuters could not immediately reach the companies for comment.
The US State Department imposed sanctions on Denkar Ship Construction for providing ship repair services to previously designated vessels of a company connected to the Russian Defense Ministry. Denkar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The State Department also targeted Türkiye-based shipyard agency ID Ship Agency and its owner Ilker Dogruyol as well as CTL Limited, which the State Department said was an intermediary that ships electronic components of US- and European-origin to companies in Russia. The firms and Dogruyol had no immediate comment. The broader sanctions package targets Russia's industrial base, maritime sector and technology suppliers, as well as facilities producing and repairing Russian weapons systems. Among those targeted was Russia's largest carmaker, Avtovaz, while Gaz Group - another automotive manufacturer - was hit with a new round of sanctions. Avtovaz did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The US also imposed sanctions on a major local copper producer - Russian Copper Company. A Finland-based network that specializes in shipping foreign electronics to Russia-based end-users was also targeted in the action as Washington cracks down on sanctions evasion. The Treasury slapped sanctions on Finland-based logistics firms Siberica Oy and Luminor Oy, accusing them of sending a wide variety of electronics into Russia. Russia's construction sector, revenue streams from extractive industries and Russia-based banks, wealth management consulting, auditing and investment firms were also hit in the action.
NATO membership
NATO member Türkiye has sought to maintain good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv amid the war. It opposes the sanctions on principle but has said they will not be circumvented in Türkiye and that no shipped products can be used by Russia's military.
Ties with the US have been strained over Türkiye’s reluctance to support the bids of Sweden and Finland to join NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine. While Finnish membership was sealed in April, Sweden's application remains held up by Türkiye and Hungary.Ankara has accused Sweden of harboring militants hostile to the Turkish state, mainly members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), deemed a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the European Union and United States. After months of objections, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed at a NATO summit in July to forward Sweden's NATO bid to the Turkish parliament for ratification, but the exact timing of the approval remains unclear. The United States has repeatedly said Sweden has done enough to alleviate Türkiye’s concerns and that its membership should be approved now.

Blast kills 5 Palestinians in Gaza, Israel says mishandled bomb caused it
Associated Press/September 14/2023
At least five Palestinians have been killed and over 20 others wounded in an explosion next to the separation fence along the Israeli frontier with Gaza, Palestinian health officials said.
The cause of the blast was not immediately known. The explosion took place during a demonstration along the border marking the anniversary of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. The event on Gaza's eastern border was organized by Hamas, the Islamic militant group that has governed the coastal territory since 2007. The Israeli army, which has fought four wars with Hamas, denied involvement. It said demonstrators were trying to throw a bomb over the fence when the device detonated prematurely. It released aerial footage showing a blast along the fence. Debris flew into the air, and several people could be seen running away. Protesters brandishing flags had been burning tires along the separation fence to celebrate the anniversary of Israel's withdrawal. Suhail al-Hindi, a Hamas leader, praised the end of what he described as the "cruel Israeli occupation." The demonstration turned violent before the deadly blast. The army said demonstrators threw grenades and other explosives across the border, while soldiers responded with tear gas. Several of the 25 people wounded remain in serious condition.
Hamas seized control of Gaza from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority in 2007, a year after winning parliamentary elections. Israel and Egypt have maintained a crippling blockade on the territory since the Hamas takeover, in a measure that Israel says is needed to keep Hamas from arming. The blockade, which restricts movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza, has ravaged the local economy.

Egypt presidential challenger alleges campaign harassment
Agence France Presse/September 14/2023
Egypt's only candidate campaigning so far for a presidential election next year, Ahmed al-Tantawi, has denounced harassment by the security forces against his teams and supporters. President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi -- the former army chief elected in 2014, a year after he led the military ouster of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi -- is widely expected to run for re-election. Tantawi, the first declared candidate for the ballot expected next spring, took to social media to accuse the security forces of targeting his campaign team and supporters. "In recent days the pace and severity of the illegal and immoral actions undertaken by the security forces against my campaign have intensified," Tantawi wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday. "Recently, they arrested, detained and disappeared many of my supporters, and six of them were remanded in custody by the emergency justice system on typical charges," he alleged. On Tuesday, the Egyptian Front for Human Rights said emergency courts had extended the detention of a Tantawi supporter. Detained since August 30, Amr Ali Atiya was accused of "terrorism" and spreading "false information", as were two members of Tantawi's campaign who have been held since September 4, EFHR said. On Wednesday night, the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights said it was withdrawing from a national dialogue, launched with great fanfare months ago, after the arrest of one of its participants, Mohammed Zahran. Sisi won the presidency with nearly 97 percent of the vote in 2014 and was re-elected in March 2018 by a similar margin, his only official electoral opponent an ardent political supporter. Analysts universally expect Sisi to announce his candidacy for next year's election, though he has not yet done so. The 12-party Civil Democratic Movement, one of the few opposition organisations left, warned on Monday that delaying a political change in Egypt will lead it "to the brink of an explosion". Late last month, supporters of opposition activist Hisham Kassem said he had begun a hunger strike after the opening of his trial, which they denounced as "political".Kassem's Free Current coalition, formed in June by opposition parties, advocates economic liberalisation and calls for an end to the army's stranglehold on the Egyptian economy.

Serbia, Kosovo leaders hold talks as EU seeks to dial down tensions
Associated Press/September 14/2023
The leaders of Serbia and Kosovo held a long-awaited face-to-face meeting on Thursday in talks aimed aimed at improving their strained relations as calls mount for a change in the Western diplomatic approach toward them amid concern that their tensions could spiral out of control. Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić and Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti are in Brussels for talks under the so-called Belgrade-Pristina dialogue process, supervised by European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell. The last round of the dialogue in June ended without producing any obvious results. Vučić and Kurti refused to meet in person, and Borrell, who held talks separately with both men, conceded that they have "different interpretations of the causes and also the facts, consequences and solutions." In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Borrell wrote that it was time to begin applying the agreement on the path toward normalization "in earnest. Today, we will see if they are ready to take responsibility." He also posted a picture of the two men in the same room with him. Serbia and its former province of Kosovo have been at odds for decades. Their 1998-99 war left more than 10,000 people dead, mostly Kosovo Albanians. Kosovo unilaterally declared independence in 2008 but Belgrade has refused to recognize the move. In May, in a dispute over the validity of local elections in the Serbian part of northern Kosovo, Serbs clashed with security forces, including NATO-led KFOR peacekeepers working there, injuring 93 troops.
Last week, KFOR commander Maj. Gen. Angelo Michele Ristuccia warned that his forces "are living a time frame of constant crisis management." He said that tensions between Belgrade and Pristina are so high that even "the most insignificant event can create a situation." In August, senior lawmakers from the United States — the other diplomatic power in the process — warned that negotiators aren't putting enough pressure on Vučić. They said that the West's current approach shows a "lack of evenhandedness."Vučić, a former ultranationalist who now claims to want to take Serbia into the EU, has maintained close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin and has refused to impose sanctions on Russia over its war on Ukraine. There are widespread fears in the West that Moscow could use Belgrade to reignite ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, which experienced a series of bloody conflicts in the 1990s during the breakup of Yugoslavia, to draw world attention away from the war.But at the same time, Kurti — a long-time Kosovo independence activist who spent time in prisons in both Serbia and Kosovo — has frustrated the Europeans and proven difficult for negotiators to work with since he became prime minister in 2021.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 13-14/2023|
Saudi Arabia and Israel: Three Angles
Eyal Hulata/Yediot Ahronot/September 14/ 2023
*This article was originally published in Hebrew
Full normalization with Saudi Arabia at this time is farther than it appears– and Israel must be careful that in trying to reach normalization, it does not yield on essential security interests.
The Israeli angle. Normalization with Saudi Arabia is rightfully considered the Holy Grail in cementing Israel’s position in the Middle East. The economic potential with Saudi Arabia and the opening of a political horizon with the rest of the Sunni Muslim world would be unprecedented, and these incentives have led to a years-long effort at clandestine dialogue.
For a long time, the main reason for the delay in progress towards normalization was the lack of parallel progress with the Palestinians. The Saudis, who launched the Arab Peace Initiative in 2002, for years made its progress a condition for normalization with Israel. In recent years however, the Arab world has come to understand that open relations with Israel can serve important security and economic interests that stand on their own. Deep Arab disappointment with the behavior of the Palestinian leadership and a changing of the guard of the Arab political leadership contributed to this. This is how the Abraham Accords were signed after ceding a substantial demand in the Palestinian arena (Israel agreed not to annex parts of the West Bank), after which there were also initial signs of a re-warming of relationships with Egypt and Jordan.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defined normalization with Saudi Arabia as one of the central goals of his government, and this is in the light of the understanding that there is a convergence of interests between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United States.
What do the Saudis want? First of all, they want to improve their position with the United States, which weakened following a dispute over the policy of exporting oil and cooperation with China, not to mention the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Saudi Arabia is interested in advanced weaponry and a defense pact with the United States to defend it from Iran, and Riyadh also aims to develop a civilian nuclear program with a complete fuel cycle that includes mining uranium, conversion, enrichment, and activating reactors. Saudi Arabia claims, and rightfully from its standpoint, that after the nuclear deal of 2015 gave Iran the right to a fuel cycle, it also entitled to a fuel cycle. The Saudis warn that if they don’t receive this from the United States, it will receive it from China.
If Saudi Arabia, God forbid, were to receive a complete fuel cycle, this means it would potentially be able to build a clandestine program and develop a nuclear weapon. Moreover, many other countries would likely demand to follow in its footsteps – leading to a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.
Israel cannot confuse its priorities. Normalization with Saudi Arabia cannot come at the expense of preventing the nuclearization of countries in the region. Netanyahu’s need for a political achievement, not to mention his desire to visit the White House (after being frozen out by the Biden Administration for more than a half a year), cannot come at the expense of Israel’s long-term strategic interests.
The American angle: Why is it urgent for the United States to promote normalization with Saudi Arabia? It depends on who you ask. Many members of Congress, from both parties, will say it is not urgent at all, and that Saudi Arabia is not worthy of advanced weaponry and nuclear technology. The rivalry with China, and the anger that Saudi Arabia is playing both powers against each other, will make it difficult when the time comes to support a deal.
At the same time, the Biden administration is interested in slowing the trend of Chinese penetration into the Middle East and to prevent Saudi Arabia from drifting. Israel’s security is also a priority, not to mention the monumental diplomatic achievement that would arise from forging peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Still, Democrats will not look favorably upon a normalization agreement without meaningful concessions to the Palestinians, which the current coalition in Israel does not want and will not provide. Accordingly, it is difficult to know whether the United States can line up all the necessary components in the short time before the November 2024 election cycle begins. From a personal angle: As someone involved for years with forging closer ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia, I would be thrilled to see the realization of the normalization process. At the same time, we cannot allow independent enrichment in the hands of a single country in our region. It is necessary to stick to solutions that prevent the proliferation of sensitive nuclear technology.
Finally, it’s hard to see how a deal with Saudi Arabia can be realized without a substantial package for the Palestinians. The Americans and Saudis are both likely to demand one. Therefore, the chances of reaching an agreement appear rather low. This suggests the possibility that we are marching towards missing a historic opportunity for normalization and conceding essential security interests on the nuclear file while doing so. The worst outcome from all these nuclear concessions would be Israel’s opening position in any future negotiation.
*Dr. Eyal Hulata is Israel’s former National Security Advisor and head of the National Security Council. He is currently a senior international fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.

How will Iran spend its Biden billions?
Michael Rubin/ Washington Examinar/September 13, 2023
President Joe Biden approved the release of $6 billion to Iran as part of a hostage ransom and prisoner swap. It follows a similar $1.5 billion hostage deal his same aides arranged during the Obama administration.
Five illegally detained Americans will come home, though it appears that Biden has agreed to leave behind Jamshid “Jimmy” Sharmahd , much as Obama agreed to abandon Bob Levinson , whom the regime eventually murdered.
MCCARTHY ANNOUNCES IMPEACHMENT INQUIRY INTO PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN
How will Iran spend its windfall? In 2016, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps took the money for itself as a return on the investment of the operations to seize Americans in the first place. Money is fungible, and the ransom increased the guards’ off-book operations, potentially supporting everything from efforts to finance the Houthi rebellion in Yemen to Iranian-backed militias in Iraq to advancing Tehran’s drone program to expanding the missile program that then-Secretary of State John Kerry had legalized in order to win Iran’s acquiescence to temporary enrichment restrictions .
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has already declared the regime will spend the funds however it sees fit. Certain items are high on the Iranian agenda. First, the regime will buy an off-the-shelf air force . While Iran’s military capabilities are advanced, especially with regard to drones and missiles, its air power has long been its Achilles' heel. Most of Iran’s jet fighters predate the 1979 Islamic Revolution; some of its planes are models that flew in the Korean War. The jet fighters at Iran’s disposal dwindle due to natural attrition and crashes.
Iran has long sought high-end Russian-built Sukhoi-35s. An Iranian drone for the Russian jet-fighter trade is not even, but if Iran throws in a few billion dollars, the purchase becomes more possible. Biden and negotiator Brett McGurk may celebrate a photo-op with returning hostages, many of whom were in the Islamic Republic to make money before they ran afoul of the Revolutionary Guards’ own business interests, but the question they should answer is what the Iranian leadership might do with an arsenal of advanced jet fighters.
A more dangerous prospect is that the Iranian regime, which, according to the State Department, is still the world’s greatest state-sponsor of terrorism, might fund various terrorist proxy groups. The numbers involved should weigh on the White House's conscience. Forensic analysis shows that Hamas’ Hebrew University cafeteria bombing that killed five Americans cost the group $50,000 to plan and execute. An ordinary suicide bomb belt, meanwhile, only costs $1,500. Six billion dollars flowing into Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps coffers, therefore, is enough to finance 120,000 restaurant bombings or four million suicide bomber belts.
Those numbers may seem high. There are, after all, only 40,000 McDonald's locations in the world, but the simple fact only highlights how extreme the ransom is. Biden’s partisans argue the money is Iran’s anyway, and so does not represent a ransom. Meanwhile, the provision of such funds to Iran’s security and intelligence apparatus saturates the forces with so much cash that they can undertake any operation they desire and have money left over for new ballistic missiles or suicide speedboats.
Or, perhaps, the Iranian government might take inspiration from the Sept. 11 closing of the deal to divert the cash to the al Qaeda camps Iran now hosts.
Spin cannot erase the damage Biden has done. Americans will come home in body bags, their murders financed by the bankers Biden empowered. Those kidnapped, not only in Iran (or, like Sharmahd, in the United Arab Emirates) but also by terrorist groups and criminal cartels the world over, now face multi-billion ransoms. No group is going to ask for $20,000 when they see Biden, McGurk, and national security adviser Jake Sullivan signing off on amounts three or four orders of magnitude higher. It is now open season on Americans.
*Michael Rubin ( @mrubin1971 ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Biden has a secret, illegal deal with Iran that gives mullahs everything they want
Richard Goldberg/New York Post/September 14/2023
In the latest phase of an unacknowledged and unlawful nuclear deal between the United States and Iran, President Joe Biden this week formally approved giving the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism another $6 billion — ostensibly for the release of five Americans held hostage in Tehran.
But in bypassing Congress to avoid a political fight he knows he’d lose, Biden is not only guaranteeing more hostage-taking of American citizens, he’s also subsidizing Iran’s terrorism, military support for Russia, nuclear-weapons capabilities and repression of Iranian women. In May, a top White House official visited Oman to pass a message to Tehran: Washington wants to broker a nuclear deal in secret. Biden would lift sanctions restrictions on Iranian funds held outside its borders, and in exchange Iran would slow its steady march toward a nuclear-weapons threshold.
Iran would be free to continue hunting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Special Envoy for Iran Brian Hook and other Americans. Tehran could keep directing attacks against Israel through its Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror proxies.
The mullahs could keep providing armed drones to Vladimir Putin for use against the Ukrainian people. The regime could even keep producing high-enriched uranium just a stone’s throw from weapons-grade, manufacturing advanced centrifuges, developing longer-range missiles, denying access to international nuclear inspectors and constructing a new underground facility that could prove invulnerable to military action.
Biden’s only demands: Don’t move across the nuclear threshold by producing weapons-grade uranium and release five American citizens held hostage in Iran. For Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the deal was a dream come true.
On the nuclear front, Iran gives up nothing. The United Nation’s nuclear watchdog last week reported that Iran is still expanding its stockpile of high-enriched uranium, just at a slower rate. As for the five American hostages — at a cost of $1.2 billion a person — Khamenei will merely restock his collection of American hostages for a future extortion racket. Meanwhile, Iran gets to use billions of dollars in budget support to subsidize a wide range of illicit activities.
In June and July, the Biden administration unfroze more than $10 billion of Iranian assets held in Iraq, allowing Baghdad to move payments for Iranian electricity into accounts in Oman established for Tehran’s use — payments that will continue on a rolling basis.
Now comes $6 billion more transferred to accounts in Qatar, providing the regime additional budget support. Multiple reports also suggest Washington is allowing Tehran to trade $7 billion in International Monetary Fund special drawing rights for fiat currency.
At the same time, US officials now admit they’re allowing Iranian oil exports to China to skyrocket with estimates ranging from 1.4 to 2.2 million barrels per day flowing in August — their highest levels since President Donald Trump ended America’s participation in the old Iran nuclear deal.
Conservative estimates put this sanctions relief at $25 billion in annual revenue. Iran is now eyeing the transfer of another $3 billion from Japan.
All told, this is at least a $50 billion protection racket — not just a $6 billion hostage payment. How can this occur without Congress holding one hearing or one vote? Because the deal was negotiated in secret and the White House insists there is no deal.
To acknowledge an agreement would trigger a 2015 law, the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, that prohibits sanctions relief for Iran tied to its nuclear activities until Congress has been afforded 30 days to review and potentially reject the deal.
Given Iran’s assassination plots targeting US officials, arm transfers to Russia and crackdowns on women, the White House knows that a vote on a deal that pays Iran to expand rather than curtail its nuclear-weapons capabilities would be rejected on a bipartisan basis in the House and Senate.
And with job-approval numbers sagging on the eve of his reelection year, waging a political battle over a dangerous nuclear deal is a distraction his aides want to avoid.
Congress shouldn’t stand for this flagrant abuse of power and evasion of the law. Oversight committees should demand all documents related to the secret nuclear negotiations. The House should also pass a joint resolution of disapproval rejecting the new deal and putting pressure on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to hold a vote as well. New legislation to prevent the executive from releasing more money should also be considered.  President Biden is mortgaging our national security to rent a false sense of nuclear quiet in Tehran until next November. Congress must not let him get away with it.
*Richard Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a former National Security Council official and senior US Senate aide. Follow him on X @rich_goldberg. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Biden’s Iran hostage deal imperils Israel and the rest of the world
Jonathan Schanzer and Enia Krivine/Washington Examiner/September 14/2023
Senior Director, Israel Program & Senior Director, National Security Network
This week’s U.S.-brokered hostage exchange with Iran has Jerusalem on edge. The United States is providing Israel’s greatest adversary with billions in sanction relief while making major nuclear concessions that will only empower the regime in Tehran and put Israel, and the rest of the world, in peril.
The administration notified Congress on Monday that it intends to release $6 billion in frozen funds in exchange for five American hostages being held by Iran. The deal amounts to a ransom payment that will fund the terror-sponsoring regime’s malign activities across the Middle East while doing nothing to curb Iran’s progress toward a nuclear weapon. Israel’s leaders are more than justified in their concern. First and foremost, Jerusalem is questioning the Biden administration’s commitment to preventing a nuclear Iran. The deal will do nothing to punish the regime for enriching uranium at 60%, which represents the vast majority of the effort to enrich to weapons-grade uranium. In essence, Washington is enabling the Iranian regime to remain on the cusp of weapons-grade nuclear enrichment — an estimated 1-2 weeks from breakout. This may explain why Ron Dermer, Israel’s minister of strategic affairs and close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, traveled to Washington last month to consult with Biden national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the potential for a U.S.-Israel defense pact.
The sanctions relief also poses a grave kinetic threat. Only days after completing the hostage deal, Tehran unveiled a new drone that it claims can reach the Jewish state. The regime continues to prioritize investment in its arms industry to advance its warfighting capabilities in a future clash with Israel. Billions of dollars, despite American claims that the funds will be limited to humanitarian allocations, are almost sure to be invested in these lethal weapons of war. The day after the administration’s announcement, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi declared that Iran would decide how to spend the money.
But the concerns don’t end there. Iran funds no less than 19 terror organizations on Israel’s borders and has invested heavily in encircling the Jewish state. A former Israeli national security official estimates that Iran spends over a billion dollars a year funding the three most active terror groups whose raison d’etre is to destroy Israel: Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad. Recently, these proxies have demonstrated a new willingness to assume risk and test Israel’s resolve.
Since 2022, an emboldened Hezbollah has regularly violated the border with Israel with drones, mortars, encampments, and even operatives penetrating Israel to murder Israelis. Iranian proxies in Gaza have stepped up their efforts to export and activate terror cells in the West Bank, where terrorists have unprecedented access to sophisticated U.S.-made firearms and are developing weapons such as IEDs and rockets, all bearing the fingerprints of the Iranian regime.
Some connect the uptick in terror activity to the domestic upheaval in Israel. In truth, the trend of escalation began long before the Netanyahu government’s controversial judicial reform legislation was on the table. Nevertheless, terror leaders across the region have delighted at the spectacle of unrest in Israel. Amid reports of reservists refusing to serve, Netanyahu may be reticent to order a major operation to neutralize these recent threats.
Of course, Israel is not alone in its concerns over the deal. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is also watching with trepidation, prompting the government to make some new requests of the U.S. and its partners in the region. The asks include the delivery of more sophisticated weapons, signing a defense treaty, and a green light to enrich uranium. And while the Israelis are tempted to acquiesce to these demands to pave the way for a U.S.-brokered normalization deal, the fears of a nuclear cascade, a flood of other Arab states acquiring nuclear capabilities of their own, could threaten Israel’s existence.
The Israeli government must also pause to assess whether the U.S. bowing to Iran’s demands might make Saudi Arabia less inclined to make any deal with Washington. After all, the deal unquestionably strengthens Saudi Arabia’s most dangerous and determined foe.
As with previous nuclear agreements between the U.S. and Iran, Jerusalem fears the new arrangement will put the regime closer to a nuclear bomb with more money in the bank. These fears could provoke a long-anticipated Israeli strike on facilities supporting the Iranian nuclear program. Such a decision would not be taken lightly. An Israeli attack could very likely ignite a regional war, with Israel facing attacks from Iranian proxies on multiple fronts that inflict a heavy cost on the Israeli homeland.
Then again, as Israeli hawks see it, failing to address those threats now will also be self-defeating. As long as America keeps filling Iran’s coffers, these actors are only set to gain power.
*Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy. Enia Krivine is senior director of FDD’s Israel Program and National Security Network. Follow them on X: @JSchanzer and @EKrivine.

Mahmoud Abbas’ Jewish problem...Why the Palestinian leader can’t make peace with Israelis
Clifford D. May/ The Washington Times/September 14/2023
Once upon a time, Mahmoud Abbas inspired hope.
Elected president of the Palestinian Authority after Yasser Arafat’s death in 2004, he wore a tie and jacket, not battle fatigues. He was a nationalist, not a jihadist. He denounced terrorism “by any party and in all its shapes and forms.” A year earlier, Ariel Sharon, then Israel’s prime minister, had called him “a responsible man.”
Turns out, it was a fairy tale.
Addressing the Revolutionary Council of Fatah last month, Mr. Abbas asserted: “They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews, and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. Not true.”
The hatred that led to genocide, he contended, was not based on race or religion. Rather, Europeans “fought against these people because of their role in society, which had to do with usury, money dealings, and so on. Even Hitler said he fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money.”
Mr. Abbas further claimed that David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, “forced” Jews to flee from Arab countries (where they had lived for centuries) to Israel “by means of pressure, coercion, and murder.”
As for European Jews, they “are not Semites,” he said, citing the discredited theory that Ashkenazi Jews are descended not from ancient Israelites but from Khazars, a medieval Turkic kingdom.
The state of Israel, he told his audience, was “invented” by “Britain and America – not just Britain. … I am saying this so that we know who we should accuse of being our enemy.”
Among the questions few in the media will ask: Has Mr. Abbas always seen “these people” in the same light as did “even Hitler”? Or have his views changed over the 18 years since his first election – which has turned out to be his only election?
Perhaps the image so many world leaders have had of him was based on wishful thinking. After all, the only serious alternative to Mr. Abbas has been Hamas, which rules Gaza, having forced out the Palestinian Authority after Israel’s withdrawal from that territory in 2005.
Hamas, a designated terrorist organization backed by the Islamic Republic of Iran, doesn’t equivocate. “There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad,” declares Article Thirteen of the Hamas Covenant.
So, Mr. Abbas has been the only game in town. And one could hope that with American help – including more per-capita aid than Europe received under the Marshall Plan – the quality of life for the average Palestinian would improve, which would lead Mr. Abbas to conclude that coming to terms with Israel was in the Palestinian interest, not to mention his own.
That hope did not pan out as should have become obvious in 2008. Then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert proposed the establishment of a Palestinian state on 100 percent of Gaza and 94 percent of the West Bank. Both the Jewish state and the Palestinian state would have their capitals in Jerusalem.
Mr. Abbas flatly rejected the offer. Israeli and American leaders were mystified.
Were they unaware of Mr. Abbas’ ideological roots? In 1982, after a period of study in Moscow, he was awarded a doctorate for a dissertation titled: “The Relationship Between Zionists and Nazis, 1933-1945.”
In it, he accused Zionists of aiding and abetting “the annihilation of the Jewish population in European countries occupied by Nazi Germany to implement the Zionist ideal of mass colonization of Palestine and create a Jewish state on its territory.”
He contended that Zionists remain “shrewd and dangerous enemies of socialism and the national liberation movements,” as well as “storm troopers of world imperialist reaction” led by the United States.
He later published a paper building on his dissertation, casting doubt on whether gas chambers were used to exterminate Jews and claiming that the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust might be “even less than a million.”
His explanation for the alleged deception: The Zionists would achieve “greater gains” when it came time to “distribute the spoils.”
In Tablet magazine earlier this year, Izabella Tabarovsky, a writer who grew up in the Soviet Union, explained that Mr. Abbas was echoing the Soviet Communist Party line which equated Zionism with Nazism, and portrayed Israel as “irreparable and irredeemable.”
If you take that view, it follows that no form of “resistance” is unjustifiable. And if the result should be a second genocide of Jews in less than a century? Well, once again the Zionists would be to blame, wouldn’t they?
Mr. Abbas is 87 years old. What I suspect most concerns him now is his legacy – that his portrait should hang alongside that of Mr. Arafat, two leaders of the “resistance,” the long war against Zionists, Israelis, Jews and “their role in society.”
It has long been convenient to support the “Palestinian cause” without defining that phrase. We know that to Tehran and its clients it means replacing the Jewish state – that illegitimate, apartheid, racist Zionist entity! – with a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.
Or as Israel’s enemies like to chant: “From the River to the Sea Palestine Will Be Free!” Free of Jews, that is. The word the Nazis used was judenrein.
If Mr. Abbas holds such views, no end to the conflict is possible so long as he’s in office no matter what concessions Israelis and others offer.
Will this fact now be acknowledged by the many U.N. officials who spend their days (and Americans’ dollars) defaming and de-legitimizing Israel, by the blame-Israel-first caucus in the U.S. Congress, and by those within the Biden administration intent on thawing relations with Mr. Abbas and chilling relations with Israel?
I think not. But I don’t believe in fairy tales.
*Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. Follow him on X @CliffordDMay. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Beginning Of The Endgame In Sudan?
Amb. Alberto M. Fernandez/Sudan | MEMRI Daily Brief No. 522/September 14, 2023
There is a long-suffering people in Sudan, they live on a rugged mountain in the middle of Darfur. Theirs is a primitive life but they are relatively free, they have their guns to protect themselves and their orange trees to sustain them. They seem to have been forgotten in today's war in Sudan, no longer being bombed as they were for years, and one hopes that they are flourishing.
Sudanese Army leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan during a September 13 visit to Ankara.[1]
Outside Jebel Marra, the situation is dire indeed in Sudan. The bloody war between two armed factions – the Sudanese Army or SAF and the Rapid Support Forces or RSF – has completed its fifth month. More than five million Sudanese have had to flee their homes. Eighty percent of the country's hospitals are out of service. More than 20 million people face acute food insecurity. The country's capital and largest city has been looted, bombed, and devastated. And this is a country that was already poor and suffering, and affected by decades of war, even before this current conflict began on April 15, 2023.
A bloody stalemate has existed for a while, with SAF holding the north and east of the country while the RSF maintained a tenuous, often chaotic hold on most of Khartoum and most of the country's West in Darfur and Kordofan where much of the RSF's fighters are drawn. Both sides have foreign sources of support and both have the intention of continuing to fight – despite talk of negotiations. Neither is near defeat quite yet.
But recent steps by SAF leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan seem to show a possible way forward for SAF to win. Some observers (I was one of them) have expected a SAF win, or SAF clearly gaining the upper hand, months ago and that has not happened.[2] Both sides still have options but SAF's most recent way forward seems likelier and better defined. And in such a scenario we are not talking about a better or worthier side winning as both armed factions, longtime partners and rivals in Sudan's long misery, have committed war crimes and abuses, not just in the past few months but for decades. Talking about anyone "winning" in Sudan, what does that even mean, seems problematic.[3] Sudan's numerous wars have never ended with outright victory.
Al-Burhan's departure from the encircled SAF General Command base in Khartoum in late August, while not in and of itself decisive, could garner important benefits that may tilt the conflict decisively in the army's favor. The SAF General and acting head of state not only has used his newfound freedom to assert himself among his own fighters and supporters inside Sudan but has made visits to Egypt, South Sudan, Qatar, Eritrea, and Turkey. Al-Burhan seeks to shore up diplomatic but also military and financial support for the SAF regime. Accompanying him on these trips have not only been Sudan's acting foreign minister, but also his head of military intelligence and the Director General of Sudan's Defense Industries System, Lieutenant Mirghani Idris Suleiman.[4] While much of Sudan's industry, and military industry facilities in Khartoum, have been wrecked, SAF has a long history of making its own weapons and ammunition.[5]
Aside from Qatar, none of these countries have much money to spare but they can provide military support in kind, guided by the insight of Sudanese intelligence and military procurement chiefs. Particularly important is the maintenance of SAF's air supremacy which it has used to bomb RSF relentlessly (while also killing many Sudanese civilians in indiscriminate air strikes). None of these countries is likely or able to offer Al-Burhan unlimited support, several may not even muster much enthusiasm for Sudan's Generals but maybe Al-Burhan can secure just enough to make a difference.
Al-Burhan's freedom of movement also gives him the opportunity to meet with uncommitted players from Sudan that could provide fresh fighters for the war effort. While the army seeks to mobilize new recruits in the areas it controls (traditionally many of Sudan's enlisted men came from those areas controlled by RSF), it also seeks to encourage fighters under the command of former Darfur rebel Minni Minawi and South Kordofan SPLM-N commander Abdel Aziz al-Hilu to join the fight against RSF. Minawi's forces are actually in Darfur, in territory dominated by RSF but have so far maintained a shaky neutrality, seeking only to protect their territories and populations. Al-Hilu has taken advantage of the war to slowly expand his territory at the expense of SAF. SPLM-N has waged decades of war against SAF defending its territories against various regimes from Khartoum.
Both Minawi and Al-Hilu are hardened veterans of Sudan's political-military kaleidoscope and are under no illusions about the bloody history of the Sudanese Armed Forces and its generals against people from the peripheries. Al-Hilu especially has been insistent on the need for Sudan to have a secular, unified and professional army, very different from what SAF has been for decades.[6] Some news reports said that Al-Burhan met with Al-Hilu in South Sudan and in Eritrea (Minawi was also said to have been in Eritrea for the meeting).[7] That Al-Hilu met Al-Burhan in Asmara was subsequently denied officially by SPLM-N.[8] But attempting to meet makes sense for SAF.
Getting one or both of these forces to commit to actively fighting RSF would be significant because they could challenge Hemedti's Janjaweed on their own turf in the West. RSF's control over its own territories often seems to be much more loosely ruled, if one can even use that word, than SAF's dominions. RSF have been effective fighters to some degree but more often than not, they function more as chaos agents than rulers.
Minawi is already governor of the Darfur Region, a title that surely comes with benefits to him and to his forces even though it seems to have been completely inconsequential to the sufferings of the people of Darfur in recent years. Both he and Al-Hilu would want to maximize whatever gains they can get while avoiding falling into a trap of fighting and dying for the army only to have it turn against them once a bloody "victory" is secured.
What could the SAF regime offer the wily Abdel Aziz al-Hilu? There were peace proposals on the table with former Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok (who was overthrown by Al-Burhan two years ago) but those are mere words on paper.[9] Traditionally, relations by Khartoum with the largely ethnic Nuba SPLM-N were tempered by the need to placate the Arab tribes of Kordofan who were allies of the army and rivals of the Nuba, but today many of these tribes, such as sections of the important Misseriyya, are with their Darfur Arab cousins in the RSF. This could give the SAF regime a freedom to maneuver it never had. In addition to assurances about the post-war status quo, al-Burhan could cede South Kordofan state to the SPLM-N (a reversal from 2011 when Khartoum supported Darfur war criminal Ahmed Haroun as governor in rigged elections against Al-Hilu). There are also gold mines in Kordofan to offer that had been part of the RSF economic empire.
Interestingly enough, there was a propaganda campaign in the summer of 2023 by pro-SAF media accounts to say that the "Misseriyya and Hawazmeh" had decided to abandon the ranks of the RSF.[10] But this does not seem to have actually happened, at least not to the extent that army partisans wished it to be true.
Whether or not any of these initiatives by Al-Burhan bear real fruit remains to be seen. SAF supporters have spun rosier scenarios before. But the combination of increased weapons from foreign sources, a levy of fresh cannon fodder for the army from areas it controls, and even the possibility of veteran Minawi and SPLM-N fighters raising havoc in the RSF-dominated West give SAF a logical path forward to, if not total victory, clear dominance. Right now, this is a possible, not assured, outcome.
And while RSF still has considerable resources and foreign patrons, and has shown strength and mobility on the battlefield, it clearly has leadership problems. Hemedti and his brother, who was recently sanctioned by the US,[11] either because of injury, illness, or by design, are rarely seen. They neither seem to lead from the front as Idris Deby once did nor have the ability or the diplomatic openings to conspire in foreign capitals as Al-Burhan is now doing. Beyond their relatively small core constituency of some key Darfur Arab tribes, they need real work to hope to expand or to hold their fractious forces together and that seems to be increasingly missing. This kind of stealth leadership by the Dagalo brothers can work for a while, serving as a type of last-ditch survival tactic, but it is not a way to win.
*Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.
[1] Dailysabah.com/politics/diplomacy/erdogan-receives-sudans-army-chief-in-ankara, September 13, 2023.
[2] Jstribune.com/fernandez-sudans-forever-warm, June 2023.
[3] Sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2023/08/24/making-sense-of-sudans-war-four-months-on, August 24, 2023.
[4] Ahlmasrnews.com/news/egypt-news/13177240/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%B3%D9%8A-%D8%B2%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%B1%D9%87%D8%A7%D9%86, August 29, 2023.
[5] Defenceweb.co.za/featured/sudans-military-industry-corporation-pushes-sales-to-africa, February 8, 2023.
[6] Skynewsarabia.com/middle-east/1445538-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%A7%D9%94%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%B2-%D9%86%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%B7-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AE%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%81-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%88-%D9%88%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%94%D9%83%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D9%88%D8%AD%D8%AF%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AC%D9%8A%D8%B4, June 19, 2021.
[7] Sudantribune.net/article277122, September 11, 2023.
[8] Sudanile.com/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%83%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D8%B9%D8%A8%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D9%84%D8%AA%D8%AD%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86-%D8%B4%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D8%AA%D9%86-2, September 13, 2023.
[9] See MEMRI Daily Brief No. 268, A Long-Elusive Peace For The Nuba Appears Closer Than Ever, March 30, 2021.
[10] Twitter.com/krisha_tokar/status/1670473125572517889, June 18, 2023.
[11] Aljazeera.net/news/2023/9/7/%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%B3%D9%88%D9%85-%D8%A8%D8%AD%D9%84-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%B9%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%B9-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86, September 7, 2023.

How the Biden Administration Is Trying to Bribe the Palestinians
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./September 14, 2023
Palestinian officials... have assured the US that they will not oppose Saudi-Israeli efforts at normalization, in the hope of receiving security, financial and political incentives from the Biden administration.
The Palestinian list of demands for not opposing a Saudi-Israeli deal includes, among other things: Resuming Saudi financial support to the Palestinian Authority, which slowed from 2016 and stopped completely three years ago, to the tune of around $200 million per year, and transferring parts of the West Bank currently under full Israeli control to the governance of the Palestinian Authority. The talk is about land in the West Bank's Area C, which, according to the Oslo Accords, is exclusively controlled by Israel.
It appears, then, that Saudi Arabia and the Biden Administration are offering a bribe to the Palestinians in return for their silence over a Saudi-Israeli deal. The Biden administration seems desperate to achieve some kind of deal ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, presumably in the hope that it would boost President Joe Biden's chances of being re-elected.
The Palestinian list of demands for refraining from condemning a Saudi-Israeli peace accord can be seen as tantamount to blackmail. The Palestinian leadership is telling the Saudis and Americans that if they want to avoid Palestinian condemnation, they must pay the price -- with money and territory.
The Saudis are being asked to pay $200 million per year and the Americans, it appears, are expected to pressure -- or blackmail -- Israel into ceding control of more territory in the West Bank to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, in exchange for promises. [T]he Americans, it appears, are expected to pressure -- or blackmail -- Israel into ceding control of more territory in the West Bank to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, in exchange for promises.
The Palestinian leaders will happily accept any additional land in the West Bank, but, as experience has shown, they will do nothing to prevent these areas from becoming terror hubs.
Given the ongoing state of financial and administrative corruption in the PA, there is every reason to doubt that the Saudi funds would be used to boost the Palestinian economy or improve the living conditions of the Palestinians.
"The corruption began from the first moment that the Palestinian Authority began to gather the Palestinian people's money and aid and pour it into the [ruling] Fatah [faction] budget, even though this money was given to the Palestinian people, not the Palestinian Authority or its officials who have divided it amongst themselves.... The many scandals of such officials and those close to Abbas have been exposed and seen as symbols of financial and political corruption, nepotism, bribery, smuggling and theft." — Middle East Monitor, "Corruption in the Palestinian Authority," December 2013.
Several militias and armed gangs are currently operating in the northern parts of the West Bank, while the PA is doing nothing to rein in the terrorists or prevent them from attacking Israeli civilians and soldiers.
The PA, which has spectacularly failed to enforce law and order in areas under its control, is demanding that Israel now allow it to gain control over even more territory in the West Bank?
Any land that will be handed over to the Palestinian Authority will end up in the hands of militiamen and armed gangsters. All one has to do is look at the situation in the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Jenin.... The terrorists there are carrying out attacks against Israelis on a daily basis, and the PA is not lifting a hand to stop them.
Handing over more land to the Palestinian Authority only means allowing Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to expand their control to still other parts of the West Bank. The Biden administration and the Saudis, in fact, would probably be quite happy if the entire West Bank fell into the hands of Iran's proxies.
Worse, the starry-eyed American assumption that the Palestinians, once they receive financial aid, will not turn around and trash a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, is completely baseless. Palestinian leaders may keep quiet about a deal, but they cannot stop the Palestinian people from condemning Saudi Arabia.
As with the Oslo Accords, the Israelis would be expected to trade tangible land for intangible promises. That arrangement did not work before, and there is no reason to think it will work this time.
If the Biden administration does give the Palestinian leadership money to avoid Palestinian criticism of the Biden administration, the Palestinian people will condemn both the US and their own leadership as traitors for slipping more money than they will ever see into the corrupt leaders' Swiss bank accounts.
Abbas and his aides will take the money, but they will never be able to sell their own people a peace agreement with Israel. Palestinian leaders have been allowed by the international community -- which never demanded anything in return for the billions of dollars they showered on the Palestinian Authority -- to radicalize their own people to a point where any peaceful solution with Israel can longer be put forth without the Palestinian leadership being called traitors and immediately condemned, or put, to death.
The Americans, it appears, are expected to pressure -- or blackmail -- Israel into ceding control of more territory in the West Bank to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, in exchange for promises. The Palestinian leaders will happily accept any additional land in the West Bank, but, as experience has shown, they will do nothing to prevent these areas from becoming terror hubs. Pictured: Palestinian terrorists march in Jenin on July 5, 2023. (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinian leaders owe an apology to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain, the two Arab countries that signed peace treaties with Israel three years ago. Then, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership strongly condemned the UAE and Bahrain and accused them of "betraying" the Palestinian people. The Palestinians even recalled their ambassadors to the two countries and held a series of demonstrations to protest the peace accords.
Now, however, Palestinian leaders seem to have a different view on a possible normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
According to some reports, Palestinian officials in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, have assured the US that they will not oppose Saudi-Israeli efforts at normalization, in the hope of receiving security, financial and political incentives from the Biden administration. The Media Line revealed on September 4:
"US diplomats have obtained assurances from Palestinian officials that they will neither publicly reject nor undermine the White House-promoted normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
"A diplomat from the US State Department told The Media Line that the Palestinian Authority has pledged not to publicly criticize any potential normalization deal with Israel, to avoid embarrassing Saudi Arabia."
According to other reports, Saudi Arabia, at the behest of the Biden administration, is offering to resume financial support to the Palestinian Authority as part of an attempt to win Palestinian backing for a "normalization agreement" with Israel. The idea to resume aid was first introduced by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in an April meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Officials from the Palestinian Authority held talks on September 6 in Riyadh with Saudi counterparts on the proposed financial aid to the Palestinians, estimated at hundreds of millions of dollars. The Palestinian officials also reportedly presented a list of demands to representatives of the Biden Administration who arrived in Riyadh at the same time to discuss ways of promoting normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel.
The Palestinian list of demands for not opposing a Saudi-Israeli deal includes, among other things: Resuming Saudi financial support to the PA, which slowed from 2016 and stopped completely three years ago, to the tune of around $200 million per year, and transferring parts of the West Bank currently under full Israeli control to the governance of the Palestinian Authority. The talk is about land in the West Bank's Area C, which, according to the Oslo Accords, is exclusively controlled by Israel.
It appears, then, that Saudi Arabia and the Biden Administration are offering a bribe to the Palestinians in return for their silence over a Saudi-Israeli deal. The Biden administration seems desperate to achieve some kind of deal ahead of the 2024 US presidential election, presumably in the hope that it would boost President Joe Biden's chances of being re-elected.
The Saudis, for their part, are apparently worried that they will look bad in the eyes of many Arabs if the Palestinians denounce them for signing a peace treaty with Israel, as they, the Saudis, did when they berated UAE and Bahrain. The last thing Mohammed bin Salman wants is to be accused of "betraying" the Palestinian cause. Undoubtedly, he would also not be happy to see his photos set on fire urging "anti-normalization" demonstrations on the streets of Palestinian cities.
The Palestinian list of demands for refraining from condemning a Saudi-Israeli peace accord can be seen as tantamount to blackmail. The Palestinian leadership is telling the Saudis and Americans that if they want to avoid Palestinian condemnation, they must pay the price -- with money and territory.
The Saudis are being asked to pay $200 million per year and the Americans, it appears, are expected to pressure -- or blackmail -- Israel into ceding control of more territory in the West Bank to Mahmoud Abbas's Palestinian Authority, in exchange for promises.
The Palestinian leaders will happily accept any additional land in the West Bank, but, as experience has shown, they will do nothing to prevent these areas from becoming terror hubs.
Given the ongoing state of financial and administrative corruption in the PA, there is every reason to doubt that the Saudi funds would be used to boost the Palestinian economy or improve the living conditions of the Palestinians.
According to a report published in 2013 by Middle East Monitor, a non-profit policy research institute that provides research, information and analyses of primarily the Palestinian-Israeli conflict:
"The corruption began from the first moment that the Palestinian Authority began to gather the Palestinian people's money and aid and pour it into the [ruling] Fatah [faction] budget, even though this money was given to the Palestinian people, not the Palestinian Authority or its officials who have divided it amongst themselves. The money that was meant for the establishment of a state quickly turned into balances in Swiss bank accounts, personal projects in neighboring countries and partnerships with Israeli companies...
"The circle involved in systematic corruption was made up of senior leaders in the Palestinian Authority and Fatah. The many scandals of such officials and those close to Abbas have been exposed and seen as symbols of financial and political corruption, nepotism, bribery, smuggling and theft."
The Palestinian demand to expand their control to still more areas of the West Bank oddly comes amid an increase in the terrorist attacks against Israel. Most of these attacks originate from areas in the West Bank that are formally under the control of the Palestinian Authority and its security forces. Several militias and armed gangs are currently operating in the northern parts of the West Bank, while the PA is doing nothing to rein in the terrorists or prevent them from attacking Israeli civilians and soldiers.
The PA, which has spectacularly failed to enforce law and order in areas under its control, is demanding that Israel now allow it to gain control over even more territory in the West Bank?
Any land that will be handed over to the Palestinian Authority will end up in the hands of militiamen and armed gangsters. All one has to do is look at the situation in the Palestinian cities of Nablus and Jenin. Although the two cities are controlled by the PA, many armed groups and terrorists continue to operate there freely and without fear. The terrorists there are carrying out attacks against Israelis on a daily basis, and the PA is not lifting a hand to stop them.
It is worth noting that the last time Israel handed over land to Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority was in 2005. Then, Israel fully withdrew from the Gaza Strip after evacuating more than 9,000 Jews who were living there. A few months later, Hamas, the Iran-backed terror group, expelled the PA and seized control of the Gaza Strip.
Can the Biden Administration or Saudi Arabia's Mohammed bin Salman guarantee that land that is given to the PA in the West Bank would not fall into the hands of Hamas and other Iran-backed terror groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad? Can the Biden Administration and the Saudis guarantee that the hundreds of millions of dollars that the Palestinians are demanding will not be pocketed by PA leaders? The answer to both questions: No.
In the past two years, Israel has been facing a wave of terror attacks: shootings, stabbings, car-rammings and even attempts to fire rockets into Israeli towns from the West Bank. What did the Palestinian Authority do to stop the attacks? Nothing. The sole entities engaged in combatting the terrorists living and operating under the Palestinian Authority are Israel's security forces.
Handing over more land to the Palestinian Authority only means allowing Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to expand their control to still other parts of the West Bank. The Biden administration and the Saudis, in fact, would probably be quite happy if the entire West Bank fell into the hands of Iran's proxies.
Worse, the starry-eyed American assumption that the Palestinians, once they receive financial aid, will not turn around and trash a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, is completely baseless. Palestinian leaders may keep quiet about a deal, but they cannot stop the Palestinian people from condemning Saudi Arabia. Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 18th year of his four-year term, is already not seen as a legitimate leader by most of his people. Public opinion polls published over the past few years show that nearly 80% of Palestinians want him to resign.
Abbas cannot (and does not want to) prevent Palestinians from carrying out terror attacks against Israel. It is naïve to believe that he would order his security forces to stop Palestinians from taking to the streets to protest against Saudi Arabia. He cannot prevent other Palestinian factions from condemning Saudi Arabia. On September 6, Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued a statement denouncing the US-led efforts to strike a deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Once a deal is announced, more Palestinian factions are expected to follow suit. Abbas, of course, will be entirely unable to shut them down.
By demanding money in return for keeping silent about a Saudi-Israeli deal, the Palestinian leadership are making promises they cannot and will not keep in order to direct hundreds of millions of dollars straight to Abbas and his top aides. As with the Oslo Accords, the Israelis would be expected to trade tangible land for intangible promises. That arrangement did not work before, and there is no reason to think it will work this time.
If the Biden administration does give the Palestinian leadership money to avoid Palestinian criticism of the Biden administration, the Palestinian people will condemn both the US and their own leadership as traitors for slipping more money than they will ever see into the corrupt leaders' Swiss bank accounts.
Now that Palestinian leaders claim to be willing to accept a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, for the money, it is time for the Americans and others to realize that bribes will not change the fact that most Arabs and Muslims have still not come to terms with the fact that Israel actually has a right to exist.
Abbas and his aides will take the money, but they will never be able to sell their own people a peace agreement with Israel. Palestinian leaders have been allowed by the international community -- which never demanded anything in return for the billions of dollars they showered on the Palestinian Authority -- to radicalize their own people to a point where any peaceful solution with Israel can longer be put forth without the Palestinian leadership being called traitors and immediately condemned, or put, to death.
*Bassam Tawil is an Arab Muslim based in the Middle East.
© 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.

Muslim Rage at Soccer Players’ Crosses
Raymond Ibrahim/September 14/2023
Hardly a few days seem to go by without Muslims getting angry over, attacking or breaking the Christian cross (even as the Western ecumenicists continue to insist that Muslims “love Jesus too”).
The latest:
On August 18, 2023, Brazilian soccer star Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior arrived in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, following the signing of a lucrative two-year contract with Al-Hilal Saudi Football Club. As he stepped off the plane, Neymar was greeted by club officials amid the presence of a throng of reporters, all capturing the historic moment of this globally renowned player’s arrival. However, the spotlight unexpectedly shifted from his arrival to the Saudi club to the diamond-studded cross pendant necklace he was wearing. This seemingly innocuous accessory stirred a wave of reactions on social media and among Muslim clerics worldwide, who perceived it as a potentially offensive and disrespectful gesture toward the birthplace of Islam.
Many of the better known Muslim clerics who criticized Neymar did indeed focus on the fact that he dared wear a cross on Saudi land, that is, Islam’s most sacred land, home to the Ka‘ba, Mecca, Medina, etc. In reality, however, Muslim animosity for the Christian cross is ubiquitous, expressing itself wherever Muslims come across the hated symbol.
A similar case that was unreported in the West occurred last year in neighboring Egypt. There, after much criticism that Egypt was discriminating against Christian soccer players, one Coptic Christian, Wa’il Farhan, was hired as a referee.
Immediately, problems began. First, people (Muslim viewers) began to notice that he had a large cross tattoo on one of his forearms. Officials responded by ordering him to wear a long sleeve shirt (in the Egyptian heat) to cover the cross. But when he started to make the sign of the cross following successful plays, they suspended him.
Wa’il Farhan, sporting a cross on his forearm
A couple of years before that, in Istanbul, Turkey, police removed the flags and banners of soccer fans because they had the symbol of a cross, which is part of the logo of the German team they were playing against (a coat of arms with a black cross on a yellow background). The German team and its fans also reported general harassment from the Muslim authorities for carrying their customary Christian symbols during their stay in Turkey. As these two stories make clear, hate for the cross is not limited to its visibility in the “holy land” of Islam, Saudi Arabia, but rather manifests itself whenever Muslims encounter the crucifix—which, naturally, includes the West.
As one example, and remaining with the soccer theme, in 2004, “Spanish football giant Real Madrid has reportedly dropped the Christian cross affixed at the top of its official crest after signing a sponsorship deal with the National Bank of Abu Dhabi.”
Unlike the plucky Brazilian and Coptic players, clearly big bucks are all that matter for Real Madrid. Incidentally, this article has focused exclusively on crosses in the context of soccer. For countless examples of modern day Muslims going into paroxysms of rage at the mere sight of crosses, as well as destroying crosses—and sometimes murdering their wearer—