Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 04-05/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video & Text: The Terrorist, jihadist and Iranian Hezbollah was the one that targeted The UNIFIL Patrol with an explosive device last Saturday in the outskirts of the town of Rmeish/Elias Bejjani/April 04/2024
Iran is nothing but a terrorist state ready to fight until the last Lebanese or the last Palestinian or the last Yemeni/Roger Bejjani/Face Book/April 04/2024
Lebanon Begins Probe into Landmine that Wounded UN Observers
Six months of Hezbollah fire keeps uprooted Israelis in limbo
Tenenti: Situation in Southern Lebanon Has Become “Very Worrying and Dangerous”
Gallant says Israel still wants 'agreement' with Lebanon
Israeli Defense Minister: Northern borders conflict poses 'threat' to Hezbollah and Lebanon
Israel-Hezbollah border clashes: Latest developments
Nasrallah slams those focusing on losses, turning blind eye to resistance wins
Lebanon urges donors to increase support for southern region
Bou Habib advocates for UN resolution 1701 implementation, calls for UNRWA funding and Palestinian justice
Mikati: Lebanon's friends pressing Israel to halt its aggression
Mikati defends 'integrity' after French money laundering complaint
A blend of Lebanese creativity and Brazilian inspiration at Tripoli's Fair
Two Dead in Massive Fire in West Bekaa
Berri – FPM Meetings, a Prelude to a Rapprochement?/Joanne Naoum/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
Lebanese-Cypriot Relations Strained Over Illegal Migration/Bassam Abou Zeid/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
Military Justice Prosecutes State Security Chief over Al-Rachid Case/Youssef Diab/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
A Delegation From Makassed Visits the Vatican for the First Time/Fady Noun/This is Beirut/April 04/2024

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 04-05/2024
Hamas official says no progress in ceasefire talks, despite the movement’s flexibility
Israel Boosts Defenses After Iran Revenge Threat
Netanyahu says Israel acting against Iran, will defend itself
Biden tells Israel's Netanyahu future US support for war depends on new steps to protect civilians
US recently authorized more bombs for Israel
MSF dismisses Israeli claim of 'regrettable incident' in strike against aid workers in Gaza
Airstrikes on aid workers don't 'just happen,' Trudeau says of Netanyahu's reaction
Spike in executions shows Iran’s prisons are ‘killing fields’, says Amnesty International
Death Toll in Strike on Iranian Consulate in Damascus Rises to 16
Twenty-seven die in militant attacks on Iran security forces, say media
US issues fresh Iran-related sanctions targeting vessel owner
U.S. sanctions hamper Russian efforts to repair refineries, sources say
Kremlin says Russia and NATO are now in "direct confrontation"
US Says It Destroyed Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile, Two Drones Launched by Houthis
Iraq Rejects Violation of Jordan’s Sovereignty in Wake of Kataib Hezbollah Threats

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on April 04-05/2024
Iran Is Winning the War ...Right now things look good for Israel. But the Islamic Republic is playing the long game. And its advantages, alas, are many./Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh/The Free Press/April 04/2024
Tehran’s weapons of mass distraction ...They conceal Tehran’s development of weapons of mass destruction/Clifford D. May/ The Washington Times/April 04/2024
The Israeli-Palestinian 'Two State Solution'/Michel Calvo/Gatestone Institute/April 04, 2024
“Conservative Alliance” in Iran: Zahedi the main planner and executor of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack/The bodies of the Revolutionary Guard members killed in the consulate attack in Syria arrived in Tehran/Adel Al-Salmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 04, 2024
Challenging The Dominant Radical Narrative Preached In Mosques Across The U.S. Regarding The Israel-Hamas War/Mansour Al-Hadj/MEMRI/April 04/2024
NYC Dept. of Ed. Disarming Children Against Jihad/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/April 04/2024
Detonating Borders and the Interior: A Burden on Gaza Under the Guise of Supporting it/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 04/2024
Concerns over Jordan’s stability — the view from Riyadh/Dr. Abdulaziz Sager/Arab News/April 04, 2024
Is the Syrian regime starting to stand up to Iran?/Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/April 04, 2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 04-05/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video & Text: The Terrorist, jihadist and Iranian Hezbollah was the one that targeted The UNIFIL Patrol with an explosive device last Saturday in the outskirts of the town of Rmeish
Elias Bejjani/April 04/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/128473/128473/
Last Saturday, the town of Rmeish fell victim to an explosive device planted by the terrorist, jihadist, and Iranian-backed Hezbollah. This cowardly act targeted innocent civilians, demonstrating Hezbollah's disregard for human life.
It is regrettable that Abdullah Bouhabib, the foreign minister of occupied Lebanon, along with other officials in the Al-Mikati government, choose to serve as mere mouthpieces for Hezbollah. Their attempts to cover up Hezbollah's crimes and hastily blame Israel are baseless and irresponsible.
In the aftermath of the incident, there were erroneous accusations against Israel by certain elements within the government and so-called "resistance" groups. However, investigations conducted by UNIFIL and the Lebanese army have revealed the truth. It was not an attack from Israel but rather an explosive device planted by Hezbollah that caused the injuries to the UNIFIL patrol.
Israel, rightfully, pointed fingers at Hezbollah for this cowardly act. Avichay Adraee, spokesman for the Israeli army, stated that the explosion in Rmeish was caused by an explosive device planted by Hezbollah. UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti reiterated the importance of peacekeeping efforts in the region and affirmed UNIFIL's commitment to reducing tensions.
It is imperative that the international community condemns Hezbollah's actions and holds them accountable for their terrorist activities. The people of Rmeish deserve justice, and Hezbollah must be brought to justice for their heinous crimes against humanity.

Iran is nothing but a terrorist state ready to fight until the last Lebanese or the last Palestinian or the last Yemeni.
Roger Bejjani/Face Book/April 04/2024
You need to be seriously ill Informed or simply an ignorant or an idiot or the 3 together, to think that Iran has any serious military capability that can make a difference geopolitically. Iran’s military capabilities are a joke when compared to the western world’s or Israel’s. The only threat they can leverage with is the disruptive activities of their 3 H (Hezbollah, Houthis and Hamas). Now that Hamas has been eliminated on Israel’s border, the Houthis are being contained by the US and UK navies while Hezbollah is being seriously eroded daily. Iran does not dare exposing its ridiculous armement and that is why they abstain from retaliating to numerous Israeli strikes against its military leadership and bases in Syria, by sending any missile against Israe, since they don’t have an Air Force. If they do so and in case those missiles are intercepted by the Arrow antimissiles missile, the same way the Houthis missiles were and are over the Red Sea, their leverage and strategic position will be seriously further hindered.  Iran is nothing but a terrorist state ready to fight until the last Lebanese or the last Palestinian or the last Yemeni.

Lebanon Begins Probe into Landmine that Wounded UN Observers
Asharq Al Awsat/April 04/2024
Ongoing investigations into an incident at the weekend in which three UN observers and their translator were wounded said a landmine planted close to Lebanon’s border with Israel wounded them, without specifying the side responsible for planting it. The four members of the UN's technical observation mission in southern Lebanon were wounded as they were carrying out a foot patrol in south Lebanon on Saturday, where armed group Hezbollah has been trading fire with the Israeli military across the border. Two security sources said the observers were wounded in an Israeli strike outside the border town of Rmeish. The Israeli military denied involvement in the incident, implicating Hezbollah instead. A judicial source told Asharq Al-Awsat that a joint investigation by the army and UNIFIL said that a landmine planted in the area set off the blast. It still has yet to determine who planted the mine, noting three mines were in the area, "one of which exploded". Andrea Tenenti, spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping mission UNIFIL, said its "preliminary investigation showed that the incident was not caused by direct or indirect fire onto the group of UNTSO observers and their translator. "The investigation to determine the exact cause of the blast is ongoing”. The observers were from Chile, Australia and Norway while the translator was Lebanese. Israel's military said Wednesday it had obtained information that indicated a Hezbollah explosive charge had caused the blast. A source close to Hezbollah told AFP the Iran-backed group would "certainly not respond to the Israeli accusations", adding that the matter was in the hands of UNIFIL and the army. Lebanon's state-run National News Agency had reported Saturday that an "enemy (Israeli) drone" raided the Rmeish area where the blasts struck.The Israeli army had told AFP: "We did not strike in the area".Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since Palestinian group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza.The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 349 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 68 civilians, according to an AFP tally. The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed. The UN Truce Supervision Organization was set up after the 1948 war that accompanied Israel's creation to monitor armistice agreements reached with its Arab neighbors. It also assists other UN peacekeeping operations in the region, including UNIFIL, which was established after Israel's 1978 invasion of south Lebanon and expanded following a 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Six months of Hezbollah fire keeps uprooted Israelis in limbo
Reuters/Maayan Lubell and Dan Williams/April 4, 2024 at 2:00
*Exchanges of fire could escalate into war
*Hezbollah bigger threat than Hamas, official says
*Netanyahu says prefers diplomacy to force
*Tens of thousands uprooted on both sides of border
NAHARIYA, Israel, April 4 (Reuters) - From a temporary seaside abode in northern Israel, Shay and Reut Hanegbi can hear the explosions when missiles are fired from Lebanon towards their hometown on the border, only four miles (6 km) away. They are among around 60,000 Israelis still uprooted from the small frontline communities since October, when the powerful militia Hezbollah began attacking from Lebanese hilltop villages and forest hideouts. One rocket fell in their backyard, said Reut, 38, holding their newborn girl Alex in the flat they are renting. It is their fourth dwelling since October. Alex's 11-year-old sister has moved school three times in that period. Iranian-backed Hezbollah started firing at northern Israel a day after Palestinian group Hamas' Oct. 7 shock attack in the south of the country. Communities 2 miles away from the Lebanese border were hastily evacuated. The Hanegbis expected their evacuation to last a few weeks at most. But as Israel presses its offensive against Hamas in Gaza, it has been trading fire with Hezbollah almost daily. "It has ended up going on and on. You don't see the end," Shay said. Many homes and farms have been destroyed by guided anti-tank missiles launched from within Lebanon. The airstrikes, shelling and rockets have marked the worst fighting on the Israel-Lebanese front in almost two decades. Although it has not amounted to a war, it risks becoming one, fast. Just on Monday, an Israeli strike in Damascus killed two Iranian generals and five military advisers, including at least one Hezbollah member, according to two Lebanese sources, in a high-stakes attack that has drawn an Iranian vow of revenge. All the while, Israeli ground forces have been preparing for a potential invasion of Lebanon, the military top brass say, warning that devastation from the accompanying air barrage would dwarf that suffered by the neighbouring country in the 2006 war. Such rhetoric may be aimed at energising U.S.-mediated de-escalation talks that have limped along, with several deadlines floated for a diplomatic resolution passing unmet. For the displaced, this means uncertainty about education and employment and no clarity on when they can go back home. "We feel adrift, left half in, half out," said Shay.
"WE WERE NEXT"
The problem with returning home is not just the missiles that have so far killed at least 18 people, soldiers and civilians. It is the danger of Hezbollah carrying out a similar attack to that of Hamas, whose gunmen burst into Israel, killed 1,200 people in their homes, on army bases, along roads and at an outdoor rave, and seized 253 hostages, including children. "I felt like we were next," said Natalie Levy, 29, displaced with her husband and two young children from Liman, 2 miles from Lebanon. Frozen with fear, she said, it took a day to get a grip and leave. Hezbollah had been signalling it was preparing such an assault for years, said a senior Israeli official who requested anonymity due to security sensitivities. "What we saw in the south on October 7 was basically Hamas 'stealing the thunder' from Hezbollah," said the official. "If anything, Hezbollah is more of a border threat than Hamas was," the official said, because its attack plan has twice as many elite fighters penetrating far deeper into Israel. It is a danger Israel says it cannot accept. Its leaders are intent on pushing Hezbollah back from the border. The question is how. On Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that force was not his first choice.
"I prefer to do this diplomatically, if possible. But if not, then we will do it by other means. I'd rather not share operational or scheduling details with our enemies," Netanyahu said, promising eventual safe return for the displaced. But though she misses her home in Kibbutz Matsuva, Sarit Oved said sadly that she will not go back as long as she feels her children would be unsafe. "I don't want any more loss of life, on either side," she said. Across the border, in southern Lebanon, around 90,000 people have also been displaced. Israel's shelling has killed around 270 Hezbollah fighters and around 50 civilians. In Gaza, most the 2.3 million population has been uprooted with much of the enclave laid to waste and around 33,000 people dead. "The people of Gaza that are not involved in terror are going through a very hard time. And my heart is with them," said Levy. "But my heart is also with the people of Israel who are also going through a hard time."

Tenenti: Situation in Southern Lebanon Has Become “Very Worrying and Dangerous”
This Is Beirut/April 04/2024
UNIFIL’s spokesman in Lebanon, Andrea Tenenti, said on Wednesday that “the situation in southern Lebanon has become very worrying and dangerous,” adding that the circle of fighting has widened since Hezbollah opened a front in southern Lebanon on October 8 in support of Hamas in its war against Israel in Gaza.“The exchanges of fire that began several months ago within a radius of five to six kilometers near the Blue Line have spread to areas inside Lebanon, with some targets reaching Baalbek and Hermel in the northeast of the country, 130 kilometers from the Blue Line,” he said in an interview with the Independent Arabiya media. Regarding the development of the bombardments and the possibility of them taking a more dangerous turn, Tenenti insisted that “no one can predict the dangers of these targets or the future of this front, as any miscalculation could trigger a wider conflict.”“We have been working with the parties concerned to try to calm the situation for several months and, above all, to prevent the front from sliding into a dangerous war,” he asserted, stressing that UNIFIL is the only body capable of communicating with both sides of these two long-warring countries, namely Lebanon and Israel.
“Current events have reinforced the conviction and understanding of both parties as to the importance of implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1701 as a means of regaining stability,” explained Tenenti, stressing that “the full implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701 can be the solution to this conflict and lead to new opportunities for all parties.”In his view, this should be done “in partnership with the Lebanese Army, but also through the intermediary of the international community, to strengthen the Army’s role. In this respect, he stressed the need to support the Army to have the necessary capabilities and means to control southern Lebanon, particularly in terms of manpower. Indeed, Resolution 1701 calls for the deployment of some 15,000 Lebanese Army troops in the south. He also pointed out that “the work of monitoring the situation remains in place despite the challenges,” as does collaboration with the Lebanese Army, which is “our strategic partner.”In this context, Tenenti revealed that “UNIFIL has held more than 150 direct meetings between the Lebanese and Israeli armies since 2006, which has made it possible to avoid numerous conflicts and to work towards clarifying the Blue Line,” deeming this “a great success.” However, these meetings have come to a halt since last October, when the war in Gaza began. Tenenti also noted that there needs to be communication between UNIFIL and Hezbollah. The latter “only communicates with the Lebanese authorities and the local authorities,” he pointed out.

Gallant says Israel still wants 'agreement' with Lebanon
Naharnet/April 04/2024 
At the end of a home front exercise in the Haifa region, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that an Israeli war against Lebanon would be disastrous not only for Hezbollah but also for Lebanon. The minister said Israel was preparing for various scenarios and threats against near and distant enemies. "We are increasing our preparedness, and at the same time, we are also expanding our action against Hezbollah, against other entities that threaten us; we are striking our enemies all over the Middle East,” Gallant said. Gallant added that a war with Hezbollah would “be a difficult challenge for the State of Israel, but it would be a catastrophe for Hezbollah and Lebanon.”The Israeli minister also said that one of the main issues that Israel is facing now is how to let some 80,000 displaced Israelis return to their homes in northern Israel amid daily attacks by Hezbollah.“We prefer … an agreement that will result in the removal of the threat, but we have to prepare for the possibility of (using) force in Lebanon,” Gallant added.

Israeli Defense Minister: Northern borders conflict poses 'threat' to Hezbollah and Lebanon
LBCI/April 04/2024
On Wednesday, the Israeli Defense Minister said that the war on the northern borders will pose a "difficult challenge" for them, but it will be "catastrophic for Hezbollah and Lebanon."

Israel-Hezbollah border clashes: Latest developments
Naharnet/April 04/2024 
Hezbollah targeted Thursday a command center in Liman as Israeli warplanes struck the southern border towns of Yaroun and Ainata. Hezbollah later attacked groups of soldiers near the Jal al-Alam post. Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged near-daily fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas carried out an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7, triggering war in Gaza. The cross-border hostilities have killed at least 349 people in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters, but also at least 68 civilians, according to an AFP tally. The fighting has displaced tens of thousands of people in southern Lebanon and in northern Israel, where the military says 10 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed.

Nasrallah slams those focusing on losses, turning blind eye to resistance wins
Naharnet/April 04/2024 
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has praised the resistance of Hamas and the Palestinians in a recorded televised speech during an early celebration of Quds day. Nasrallah said that some are focusing on the losses and ignoring the resistance's achievements."We are working to win this war and to defeat our enemy," Nasrallah said after recorded comments from Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. Nasrallah praised the "resistance fronts" in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq, the "supportive Iranian fronts", and the protesters supporting Gaza around the world. Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza nearly six months ago, Hezbollah has stepped up attacks, leading to near daily cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah, which has a powerful arsenal of rockets and missiles, says its attacks on Israel are in support of the embattled residents in Gaza and Hamas. Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels have also repeatedly targeted international shipping and U.S. forces in the Red Sea in recent months in what they portray as a blockade of Israel in response to the war in Gaza.

Lebanon urges donors to increase support for southern region
LBCI/April 04/2024
Lebanon's caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Minister of Environment Nasser Yassin, and relevant officials met with ambassadors to discuss the southern region's needs, which will be complemented by bilateral meetings to extend assistance to the south. Yassin said after the meeting: "There are many high burdens in terms of securing humanitarian needs for our people in the south and a response plan for the displaced individuals." He added that the meeting with donor countries and ambassadors is to "encourage them to increase this support, but we have not yet received answers."

Bou Habib advocates for UN resolution 1701 implementation, calls for UNRWA funding and Palestinian justice
LBCI/April 04/2024
The caretaker Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Minister, Abdallah Bou Habib, said, "The importance of stability and calm in southern Lebanon through the full and comprehensive implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which dispels the specter of war and explosion because Lebanon does not want war and does not seek it." Bou Habib's remarks came during a phone call from Japanese Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa, who thanked Lebanon for "hosting refugees and the burdens it bears" and informed him that "Japan has decided to resume its contributions to UNRWA."Bou Habib stressed "the importance of funding UNRWA as a common interest to ensure an opportunity for a better future and to keep hope for a just solution to the Palestinian issue."Bou Habib and Kamikawa agreed on "the importance and necessity of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the implementation of the two-state solution, and the danger of the attack on Rafah and the resulting consequences and humanitarian disaster."On the other hand, Bou Habib received a delegation from the German Embassy headed by the German Ambassador Kurt Georg Stöckl-Stillfried, and an agreement was signed to establish a local office for the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and a local office for the KfW Development Bank in Lebanon. Bouhabib also met with the Chinese Ambassador, Qian Minjian, who invited him to participate in the 10th Ministerial Meeting of the China-Arab States Cooperation Forum, which will be held in Beijing on May 30, 2024.

Mikati: Lebanon's friends pressing Israel to halt its aggression
Naharnet/April 04/2024 
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Thursday stressed that Lebanon is seeking “real peace” and “the peace of humanitarian justice.”“We raise our voice to the international community, condemning the (Israeli) attacks and demanding that the enemy be deterred, war be stopped and peace be brought,” Mikati said at the beginning of a Cabinet session at the Grand Serail. “I would like to emphasize through Cabinet that Lebanon has friends in all world countries who are honestly working to press the Israeli enemy to halt its aggression against Lebanon,” Mikati added. Separately, the premier said there are “signs of a diplomatic crisis with Cyprus.”“Some Cypriot newspapers have attacked Lebanon over the file of the refugees who are reaching Cyprus illegally through Lebanon’s territorial waters,” Mikati said. “I have conducted the necessary contacts with the Cypriot authorities, underscoring keenness on the best relations with Cyprus and that we don’t accept to export the refugee crisis to it,” he added. As for the banking sector file, Mikati denied that the file of restructuring the country’s banks has been shelved, describing reports in this regard as baseless. “The file is being calmly studied, and when its elements get completed, we will call for a ministerial meeting before raising the issue in Cabinet according to a clear organizational vision endorsed by everyone,” Mikati said.

Mikati defends 'integrity' after French money laundering complaint
Agence France Presse/April 04/2024
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has defended his "integrity" and "transparent" assets, following a complaint filed in France accusing him of money laundering and other offences. Two associations filed a complaint against Mikati with France's financial prosecutor's office, accusing him of fraudulently building up assets in France and other countries, a source close to the case told AFP on Wednesday. The complains said that the Lebanese public consider Mikati, his brother Taha and their entourage as "the embodiment... of the clientelism and conflict of interest that have led Lebanon to its downfall".
In a statement sent to AFP and other media, Mikati said: "We strongly reaffirm that the source of our family wealth is entirely transparent, legitimate, and in full compliance with the law."The complaint lodged by the CVPFCL financial crimes victim's collective of Lebanon, and the Sherpa anti-corruption association, accuses Mikati of money laundering, concealment or complicity, and criminal conspiracy as part of an organised gang. Mikati made his fortune in telecoms and in June 2022 became prime minister of Lebanon for the third time. The two associations accuse him and his brother of having likely "acquired various properties in France and abroad, via multiple structures and through extremely large financial transfers". Those include properties in Monaco and Saint Jean-Cap-Ferrat, on France's Mediterranean coast; a 79-meter yacht "acquired for 100 million dollars"; and two Falcon jets, valued at around 95 million dollars. Taha Mikati also reportedly owns a yacht worth $125 million. According to Forbes magazine, the two brothers are worth $2.8 billion, making them amongst the richest people in Lebanon. In his statement, Mikati insisted that no family member nor business "has been found guilty by any court, whether in Lebanon or anywhere else in the world". The statement added that "attempts to discredit" the family were "unfounded and often politically-motivated". It said that a Beirut judge in February 2022 and a Monaco court in August 2023 had dismissed charges against the family.
But the plaintiffs claimed that "since the mid-1990s, corruption has been intimately linked to the functioning of the state", which the brothers have benefitted from. "Mikati's systemic use of offshore accounts and tax havens" and the "culture of corruption and conflicts of interest" that he embodies, make him and his family "widely suspected of large scale laundering (and) tax fraud over many years", added the plaintiffs' lawyers William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth. Several of the Mikati brothers' children are suspected of receiving some of the allegedly laundered money. Sherpa previously lodged a complaint against Riad Salameh, the former governor of Lebanon's central bank, who has faced a French international arrest warrant since May 2023.

A blend of Lebanese creativity and Brazilian inspiration at Tripoli's Fair
Naharnet/April 04/2024 
In the context of the designation of Tripoli as the Arab Capital of Culture in 2024, and the enlisting of the Tripoli Fair as World Heritage in Danger by UNESCO in 2023, the Embassy of Brazil in Beirut, Instituto Guimarães Rosa Beirut and Marsah invite you to the opening of the exhibition "Tripoli Fair: The Way I See It" Art Prize - Selected Works on April 12 from 6 to 9 pm at the Marsah space located behind the Municipality of El Mina in Tripoli.The exhibition brings the 20 best artworks selected by the "Tripoli Fair: The Way I See It" Art Prize, promoted by the Embassy of Brazil in 2023 to raise awareness about the importance of conserving and thinking about the future of the fair, one of the most important modernist projects in the Arab World, designed by renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. The exhibition will be on view until April 27, 2024 (Monday to Friday 12-8pm; Sat, 12-6pm; Closed on Sunday). Believing in the power of art to foster critical thinking and intercultural dialogue, the Embassy of Brazil launched the “Tripoli Fair: The Way I See It” Art Prize in 2023. More than 180 entries were received from Lebanese and people living in Lebanon aged 18 to 35 years old. The 20 selected artworks displayed in the exhibition show a range of opinions, conceptual approaches, and artistic techniques – an amazing blend of Lebanese creativity and Brazilian Modernist inspiration. Three winning artists received a USD 1000 prize each: Ieva Saudargaite Douaihi, Mariam Maaliki and Mohamad Alamin Younis. The other artists whose works were selected and will be part of the exhibition are Anass Joudaydeh, Bachira El Aref, Carl Bilen, Diego Castro Alvarez, Lara Abi Saber, Leila Charafeddine, Malek Halwany, Mohamad Beirouty, Mohamad Tartoussi, Najib Sakr, Nizar Maaliki, Nour Maaliki, Pietro Bassil, Reem Rafei, Sara Rafihi, Stephanie Tager and Tharaa Captan. An expert jury was invited to choose the winners, composed of artists, experts and representatives of relevant institutions in the fields of art, architecture and photography: Dr. Elsa Ghossoub; Dr. Farès Dahdah; Mr. Firas El Hallak; Ms. Joyce Jouma; Ms. Karina El Helou; and Dr. Wassim Naghi. The criteria for evaluation of artworks were creativity, technical quality, and adherence to the theme. This is not the only cultural project sponsored by the Embassy of Brazil in Beirut promoting the Brazilian modern architecture heritage in Lebanon. Last year, for the first time, guided visits to the official residence of the Ambassador of Brazil focused on the architecture heritage were offered to a selected group of 80 students and professionals in the fields of architecture, arts and design. The residence was designed by Brazilian modernist architect Olavo Redig de Campos and built in the 1960s. The guided visits will be offered again this year, in Arabic and English, open to general public and free of charge.
The Fair -
Considered one of the most important Modernist projects in the Arab World, the International Fair Rachid Karami was designed by renowned Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, also responsible for the Brazilian capital Brasília. Heavily damaged during the Lebanese civil war, the Fair now faces severe degradation and does not serve its original purpose. The Fair occupies a 70-hectare site located between the historic center of Tripoli and the Al Mina port. The main building consists of a huge, covered hall in the shape of a boomerang of 750 meters by 70 meters, a flexible space for countries to install exhibitions. The Fair was the flagship project of Lebanon's modernization policy in the 1960s. According to UNESCO, the close collaboration between Oscar Niemeyer, the architect of the project, and Lebanese engineers gave rise to a remarkable example of exchange between different continents.
"In the context of the enlisting of the Tripoli Fair as World Heritage in Danger by UNESCO in 2023, and the celebrations of Tripoli as the Arab Capital of Culture in 2024, we hope these artworks raise awareness about the need to conserve the Fair and to make it part of the future that people want to build for Lebanon," the Embassy of Brazil in Beirut said in a statement.

Two Dead in Massive Fire in West Bekaa
This is Beirut/April 04/2024
Two people were killed and seven others injured in a huge fire that broke out in rose flower warehouses owned by Nazih Harb in the town of al-Marj, in West Bekaa. While the Civil Defense worked to extinguish the fire and transport the wounded to hospitals, al-Marj mayor Munawwar al-Jarrah said that the fire in the Beit al-Ward warehouses had been put under control after diligent efforts which required the demolition of walls. Four of the wounded were transported to Bekaa and Taanayel hospitals, and three were treated by the Red Cross on site.

Berri – FPM Meetings, a Prelude to a Rapprochement?
Joanne Naoum/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) led by Gebran Bassil is reportedly seeking to improve relations with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, but the question of a rapprochement between the two adversaries was utterly denied by the Speaker’s circle. Nonetheless, a new dynamic in relations between the FPM and Berri’s Amal Movement was ushered in through MP Ghassan Atallah, a member of the FPM’s Strong Lebanon Bloc whose repeated discussions with Berri were lately aimed at finding common ground in crucial dossiers in need of national consensus.
Tensions and mutual denigration have long marked relations between the two parties. The affront was exacerbated by the leak of a video in which Bassil described Berri as a “thug.” This led to several incidents, the most serious being an organized “raid” by Amal partisans on the neighborhood of al-Hadath, then a stronghold of the Aounist movement.
The FPM’s rapprochement efforts towards Berri coincided with its waning relations with Hezbollah, Amal’s political partner and a former ally of the FPM with whom it had signed the so-called “historic” Mar Mikhail understanding in 2006. Relations between Hezbollah and the FPM were seriously strained over the presidential election and the party’s military activities in South Lebanon in so-called “support” of Gaza, reaching the point of “separation” but not a “final divorce,” according to the FPM. Sources close to Berri were “surprised” by allegations of a rapprochement with the FPM, triggered by MP Atallah’s recurring visits. “As a parliamentarian and member of a bloc, MP Atallah has matters to discuss with the Speaker like any other legislator. It’s normal for the Speaker to receive him,” the sources told This Is Beirut. They denied that the discussions with Atallah were meant to pave the way for a rapprochement with the FPM, stressing that “this is not the case at all.”
For his part, Atallah pointed out that the FPM is seeking to defuse tensions, fearing that “if things escalate further, polarization and division will become even deeper, and we won’t be able to shield the country from significant problems.”
He said the FPM requires clarifications about the “consultations or dialogue sessions” that were proposed by Berri to facilitate the presidential election.
“We need to understand the format of this meeting (dialogue), its location, duration, type of attendance and what will happen should it have a positive or negative outcome,” he added. The FPM MP pointed out that the “consultation or dialogue” is between the parliamentary blocs that are concerned in electing a president and “has nothing to do with the defense strategy or creating a new system.”
On a more positive note, Atallah described the discussions as “80% positive,” stressing, however, that “we haven’t reached the end yet and we are still debating.”
“The goal post-dialogue is to proceed to sessions to actually elect a president, and there are (good) intentions on both sides,” he added, denying that the name of a potential third presidential candidate was raised.

Lebanese-Cypriot Relations Strained Over Illegal Migration
Bassam Abou Zeid/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
Cyprus has called on the European Union to help it curb the tide of people traveling by boat, mainly Syrian migrants, arriving on its shores from Lebanon. The country insists that any European aid to Lebanon should be contingent upon stopping this influx. Cypriot Interior Minister Constantinos Evano declared that “the situation is worsening” and that “in recent days, we have seen a surge in refugees risking their lives on makeshift boats.”
As reported by Reuters, over 600 migrants have reached Cyprus within the last few days. The stable weather conditions are encouraging refugees to undertake this approximately 10-hour sea journey from Lebanon or Syria to Cyprus.
Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides raised the issue with the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, stressing that Lebanon should not be allowed to export the problematic of migrants.
Some 2,004 migrants arrived in Cyprus by sea in the first three months of 2024, compared to a mere 78 during the same period last year, according to official Cypriot data.
Lebanese official sources have refuted Cypriot claims alleging that Lebanese authorities facilitate the illegal migration of Syrians. They revealed that Lebanese security forces have recently foiled attempts by dozens of Syrians to set sail for Cyprus aboard five boats. One of these boats was intercepted by the Lebanese navy a few meters from its departing point near a beach close to the northern city of Tripoli. The sources stressed that Lebanese authorities are exerting all possible efforts, using whatever resources available, to curb illegal migration. However, the Lebanese navy refrains from intercepting migrant boats deep at sea, fearing accidents that may result in the tragic loss of lives of men, women and children. Dozens of people perished in a sinking incident in August 2022 when the navy tried to intercept them.
Official sources argue that favorable weather conditions have contributed to an increase in illegal migration by sea, a matter that is likely to escalate. They stress that the problem is not with Lebanon but rather with the European Union, which prohibits Cyprus from repatriating illegal migrants to Syria, citing unsafe conditions and potential risks to their lives. Meanwhile, Lebanon refuses to take back illegal migrants who depart from its shores. The migrant issue has further strained Lebanese-Cypriot relations which have soured because of Lebanon’s procrastination in finalizing the demarcation of its maritime borders with Cyprus while concluding a maritime delineation agreement with Israel on October 31, 2022.
During a visit to Lebanon, a Cypriot delegation received guarantees from Lebanese officials that the demarcation process would be completed within days after the Israeli agreement, but the Lebanese promises have yet to materialize.

Military Justice Prosecutes State Security Chief over Al-Rachid Case
Youssef Diab/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
The military tribunal has begun the prosecution of State Security Director General, General Tony Saliba, over his suspected responsibility in the escape of convict Dani al-Rachid from a State Security prison last week. The prosecution in question has laid the foundations for a new methodology that the justice system would adopt vis-à-vis the State Security apparatus and other security services in cases of incompetence or shortcomings.
The Government Commissioner to the Military Tribunal, Judge Fadi Akiki, has started proceedings linked to Dani al-Rachid’s escape. In addition to Saliba, the prosecution targeted General Pierre Barrak and five others, including prison guards. The lawsuit was transferred to first military investigation judge, Fadi Sawan, who was requested to question the suspects and issue the necessary judicial warrants. According to a judicial source interviewed by This is Beirut, “different crimes were committed, ranging from complicity, to facilitation and negligence leading to the escape.” The proceedings started following the conclusion of the primary investigation initiated by judge Akiki over five days, under the direct supervision of the Court of Cassation General Prosecutor, Jamal al-Hajjar, who concluded that al-Rachid “was a prisoner in name only, and was not treated the way other inmates were.” Sources monitoring the case confirmed to This is Beirut that “after thorough searches, it turned out that al-Rachid occupied none of the prison cells,” adding that “al-Rachid, who is the director of the office of former Minister Salim Jreissati, and Saliba’s special advisor, was kept in a fully-equipped studio apartment with all the amenities needed, including a cell phone, a television, and a personal WIFI connection. Furthermore, al-Rachid was hosting guests around the clock and was allowed to roam around the garden freely.”
In the past hours, investigators sought to unravel the mystery of Dani al-Rachid and understand the reasons behind his VIP treatment. The same sources indicated that al-Rachid “had privileges” even before his arrest, such as no State Security officer has ever enjoyed. The State Security gave him access to a military vehicle and a four-digit phone number (usually given only to high-ranking officers) and even assigned bodyguards for his personal safety.
“After his arrest, and during his questioning, al-Rachid’s family was taken to the Palace of Justice in Zahle in vehicles provided by the State Security, and with private protection,” the sources said, adding, “Exposing corruption within the State Security service could open the door for investigating similar practices in other services where some individuals receive favorable treatment too.”
The primary investigation also shed light on the importance of determining the identity of the individuals who helped al-Rachid escape from prison and transported him to the Syrian border, as well as the people who facilitated his illegal crossing into Syria. According to the sources, “camera surveillance showed that al-Rachid was walking in the garden a few hours prior to his escape, presumably to avoid being transferred to Roumieh prison, as instructed by Court of Cassation General Prosecutor, Judge Jamal al-Hajjar.”

A Delegation From Makassed Visits the Vatican for the First Time
Fady Noun/This is Beirut/April 04/2024
A delegation from the Makassed Islamic Association, led by Mohammed Sammak and the association’s president Faisal Sinno, discreetly visited the Vatican on March 28, without any media frenzy. This marked the delegation’s first visit to the Holy See in its 138-year history. The delegation’s members were warmly received by the Secretary of State, Pietro Parolin, with whom they discussed their wish to further develop a cooperation agreement established last year between their 24 educational institutions and the General Secretariat of Catholic Schools in Lebanon.
Founded in 1876, the Makassed Islamic Association is the oldest and most prestigious association within the Sunni community in Lebanon. Affiliated with Dar el-Fatwa, the Sunni community’s leading authority, it provides services in three main sectors: education, social services and healthcare. It operates 24 schools across Lebanon, a university, mosques, hospitals and clinics, a scout group and cultural institutions. The association, which encompasses a staff of 10,000 people, is mostly self-sufficient, but does get support from Saudi Arabia for specific services, including mainly the dialysis unit at Makassed Hospital in Beirut. Nevertheless, Mohammed Sammak voiced concern over the loss of all downtown properties to real estate ventures spearheaded by the Solidere company.
The Vatican visit aimed to strengthen collaboration between the Makassed school network—serving nearly 6,000 students—and the Catholic schools network in Lebanon, which provides education for roughly one-third of the country’s students (approximately 200,000 children). Discussions centered on student exchanges, teacher engagement and curriculum coordination. “We are fully dedicated to promoting our cooperation agreement, which is celebrating its first anniversary,” the president of Makassed stated.
“The Makassed delegation’s meeting with Cardinal Parolin lasted 50 minutes. The Vatican Secretary of State, who showed great enthusiasm for the project, promptly instructed his secretary to contact Father Youssef Nasr, President of the General Secretariat of Catholic Schools, to encourage him in this direction, believing it can contribute to fostering coexistence and a culture of dialogue,” Faisal Sinno said.
A coordination meeting with Father Nasr, set to take place after the end of the holy month of Ramadan, was decided on the spot. The teacher and administrator fondly recalls “a time when students didn’t even consider their classmates’ different religious backgrounds. Hatred and mistrust have no place in our vocabulary,” he asserts. “We had an open conversation with Cardinal Parolin,” added the president of Makassed, who admitted to being “surprised” by his interlocutor’s thorough understanding of the Lebanese reality.
‘Stubbornness’ and ‘Selfishness’
In this context, Sinno stated, “In response to our persistent queries, the Vatican’s Secretary of State expressed ‘sadness’ about the ongoing presidential deadlock, occasionally blaming different leaders for their ‘stubbornness and selfishness’ while also acknowledging the current geopolitical complexities.”
On the other hand, the president of Makassed sincerely praised “the exceptional qualities of faith and kindness” expressed by his counterpart and the overall mood prevailing in the Vatican.
On his part, Father Youssef Nasr confirmed—via a phone call—his secretariat’s dedication “to strengthening the common grounds of values between the two associations,” citing the Vatican’s endorsement of this venture. “That’s Lebanon. A space for openness, coexistence and dialogue,” as per his words.
At the Forefront of Religious Struggle
The Makassed Islamic Association transcends the realms of education, healthcare and social services. Since 2015, following the “Beirut Declaration on Religious Freedoms,” whose themes and call for citizenship were echoed in the Abu Dhabi Declaration on Human Fraternity (2019), the institution has been at the forefront of the religious fight against Muslim extremism. “The enemy is now among us. Extremist ideologies have infiltrated our society,” warns Sammak. “We once believed that our open and liberal society, given its multicultural makeup, was immune to this phenomenon. We are shocked and surprised by its intensity, especially among today’s youth.”
“We must fight extremism from within Islam,” emphasizes Mohammed Sammak. We cannot just say ‘This is not Islam.’ We must convince Muslims with arguments rooted in Islamic faith, from the Quran.”
Regarding the ongoing conflict in Gaza, it’s relevant to recall Mohammed Sammak’s statement from September 14, 2020, in his op-ed titled “Enough is Enough.” He claimed, “The Hamas movement, entrenched within the Gaza Strip, has established a mini-state within the broader Palestinian state project, just like Hezbollah, which has created a mini-state within Lebanon. However, no good can come from these two dismissals of the official state, even if they are justified by the most sacred and noble cause: resistance.”

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 04-05/2024
Hamas official says no progress in ceasefire talks, despite the movement’s flexibility
REUTERS/April 04, 2024
DUBAI: Hamas official Osama Hamdan said on Thursday there has been no progress in Gaza ceasefire talks despite the Palestinian group showing flexibility. Hamdan said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was placing obstacles hindering both parties from reaching an agreement, and that he is “not interested” in releasing Israeli hostages. “The occupation government is still evading, and negotiations are stuck in a vicious circle,” Hamdan said at a press conference held in Beirut. Egyptian and Qatari efforts, backed by the United States, have so far failed to achieve a ceasefire. While Hamas wants any ceasefire agreement to secure an end to the Israeli military offensive, Israel prefers a prisoners-for-hostage release deal, refusing to commit to ending its military campaign. In Gaza, Israeli bombardment continued to target areas across the Palestinian enclave, killing 62 people in the past 24 hours, the territory’s health ministry said. The Israeli military released 101 Palestinians who had been detained by forces during the ground offensive in the past weeks and months. The detainees, many of whom complained of ill-treatment in Israeli jails, were freed through the Israeli Kerem Shalom crossing into the southern Gaza Strip. More than 33,037 Palestinians have been killed and 75,668 have been injured in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since Oct.7, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Thursday. Israel’s bombardment and invasion of Gaza followed the Hamas-led attack which killed some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners, with more than 250 abducted into Gaza as hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel Boosts Defenses After Iran Revenge Threat
Asharq Al Awsat/April 04/2024
The Israeli military halted leave for all combat units on Thursday amid concerns of a possible escalation in violence after the killing of Iranian generals in Damascus this week drew threats of retaliation. "In accordance with the situational assessment, it has been decided that leave will be temporarily paused for all IDF (Israel Defense Forces) combat units," the military said in a statement. "The IDF is at war and the deployment of forces is under continuous assessment according to requirements," it said.  On Wednesday, the military said it had drafted reservists to boost aerial defenses. Reuters journalists and Tel Aviv residents said on Thursday that GPS services had been disrupted, an apparent measure meant to ward off guided missiles. Iran has vowed revenge for the killing of two of its generals along with five military advisers in an airstrike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday. It was widely believed to be an Israeli attack, one of the most significant yet on Iranian interests in Syria, which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied and which carries the risk of further inflaming the region. Israel has been pressing its war on Hamas for six months, after the Palestinian group led an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, and has also been trading fire almost daily with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Until now, Iran has avoided directly entering the fray, while supporting allies' attacks on Israeli and US targets. Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli intelligence chief, said Iran may choose this Friday - the last in the Holy Muslim month of Ramadan and Iranian Quds (Jerusalem) Day - to respond to the Damascus strike, either directly or through a proxy. "I will not be surprised if Iran will act tomorrow. Don't panic. Don't run to the shelters," said Yadlin, a Senior Fellow at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center at Harvard University, citing Israel's aerial defense systems. "Be tuned for tomorrow and then, depending on the consequences of the attack, it may escalate," Yadlin said.

Netanyahu says Israel acting against Iran, will defend itself
JERUSALEM (Reuters)/April 4, 2024
Israel braced on Thursday for the possibility of a retaliatory attack after its suspected killing of Iranian generals in Damascus this week, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the country would harm "whoever harms us or plans to harm us."His comments came after Israel's armed forces - stretched by nearly six months of war in the Gaza Strip and on the Lebanese front - announced they were suspending leave for all combat units, a day after they said they were mobilising more troops for air defence units. The possibility of Iran retaliating for Monday's presumed Israeli air strike on Iran's embassy compound in Damascus has raised the spectre of a wider war, though two Iranian sources said Tehran's response would be calibrated to avoid escalation. "For years, Iran has been acting against us both directly and via its proxies; therefore, Israel is acting against Iran and its proxies, defensively and offensively," Netanyahu said at the start of a security cabinet meeting late on Thursday. "We will know how to defend ourselves and we will act according to the simple principle of whoever harms us or plans to harm us, we will harm them," he said. The White House said U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Netanyahu and they discussed Iran's threats. Biden made clear that the United States strongly supports Israel in the face of that threat, Washington said. Reuters journalists and residents of Israel's commercial hub Tel Aviv said GPS services had been disrupted, an apparent measure to help ward off guided missiles. Iran, Israel's arch-enemy, has sworn revenge for the killing of two of its generals along with five military advisers in an air strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in the Syrian capital on Monday. Israel is believed to have carried out the strike, among the most significant yet on Iranian interests in Tehran's close ally Syria. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement. Netanyahu made no mention of the attack. Israel has been pressing its war on Hamas in Gaza since the Palestinian Islamists led a cross-border killing and kidnapping spree on Oct. 7, and has also been trading fire almost daily with Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yemen's Houthi rebels, which are aligned with Tehran, have launched occasional long-range rockets at Israel's Eilat port.
CAUTIOUS IRAN?
Until now, Iran has avoided directly entering the fray, while supporting allies' attacks on Israeli and U.S. targets. The Islamic Republic has several options. It could unleash its heavily armed proxies in Syria and Iraq on U.S. forces, use Hezbollah to hit Israel directly or ramp up its uranium enrichment program. That would raise concern among the United States and its allies about Tehran's potential to make a nuclear bomb, which the West has long sought to curb. But many diplomats and analysts say Iran's clerical elite does not want an all-out war with Israel or the U.S. that might endanger its grip on power, and would prefer to keep using proxies to carry out selective tactical attacks on its foes. Such proxy strikes on U.S. forces in the region ceased in February after Washington retaliated for the killing of three U.S. soldiers in Jordan with dozens of air strikes on targets in Syria and Iraq linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps and militias it supports. U.S. officials said at midweek they had not yet picked up intelligence suggesting Iran-backed groups were looking to target U.S. troops following Monday's attack. While mindful that Israeli strikes on regional adversaries can put U.S. soldiers at risk of retaliation, U.S. officials are sympathetic to Israel's desire to restore deterrence after Oct. 7 and to stop flows of arms and fighters that may threaten it. One U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was a growing concern Iran would make good on its threats to retaliate, raising the risk of volatile, regional escalation. Iranian leaders have publicly indicated that Iran, which has deep-seated economic problems wrought in part by U.S. sanctions and took months to put down recent popular unrest, does not want a big war that could destabilise the country. Amos Yadlin, a former Israeli intelligence chief, said Iran might choose Friday - the last in the Holy Muslim month of Ramadan and Iranian Quds (Jerusalem) Day - to respond to the Damascus strike, either directly or through a proxy. "I will not be surprised if Iran will act tomorrow. Don't panic. Don't run to the shelters," said Yadlin, now at the Kennedy School's Belfer Center at Harvard University, citing Israel's aerial defence systems. "Be tuned for tomorrow and then, depending on the consequences of the attack, it may escalate."

Biden tells Israel's Netanyahu future US support for war depends on new steps to protect civilians
WASHINGTON (AP)/April 4, 2024
President Joe Biden issued a stark warning to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that future U.S. support for Israel's Gaza war depends on the swift implementation of new steps to protect civilians and aid workers. Biden and Netanyahu 's roughly 30-minute call just days after Israeli airstrikes killed seven food aid workers in Gaza added a new layer of complication to the leaders’ increasingly strained relationship. Biden’s message marks a sharp change in his administration’s steadfast support for Israel's war efforts, with the U.S. leader for the first time threatening to rethink his backing if Israel doesn’t change its tactics and allow much more humanitarian aid into Gaza. The White House would not specify what could change about U.S. policy, but it could include altering military sales to Israel and America's diplomatic backup on the world stage. Administration officials said they expected the Israelis to make announcements on next steps within hours or days and that the U.S. would then assess whether the Israeli moves go far enough. Biden "made clear the need for Israel to announce and implement a series of specific, concrete, and measurable steps to address civilian harm, humanitarian suffering, and the safety of aid workers,” the White House said in a statement following the leaders' call. “He made clear that U.S. policy with respect to Gaza will be determined by our assessment of Israel’s immediate action on these steps.”
Biden also told Netanyahu that an “immediate cease-fire is essential” and urged Israel to reach such an accord "without delay," according to the White House. The leaders' conversation comes as the World Central Kitchen, founded by restauranteur José Andrés to provide immediate food relief to disaster-stricken areas, called for an independent investigation into the Israeli strikes that killed the group’s staff members, including an American citizen. The White House has said the U.S. has no plans to conduct its own investigation even as it called on Israel to do more to prevent the harming of innocent civilians and aid workers as it carries out its operations in Gaza. Separately, Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Brussels that U.S. support would be curtailed if Israel doesn’t make significant adjustments to how it's carrying out the war. “If we don’t see the changes that we need to see, there will be changes in our policy,” he said. White House national security spokesman John Kirby echoed the call for “tangible” and “concrete” changes to be taken by the Israelis beyond reiterating long stated calls for allowing additional aid to get into Gaza. “If there’s no changes to their policy in their approaches, then there’s going to have to be changes to ours,” Kirby said. “There are things that need to be done. There are too many civilians being killed.” The demands for Israel to bring the conflict to a swift close were increasing across the political spectrum, with former President Donald Trump, the Republicans’ presumptive nominee to face Biden this fall, saying Thursday that Israel was “absolutely losing the PR war” and calling for a resolution to the bloodshed.
“Get it over with and let’s get back to peace and stop killing people. And that’s a very simple statement,” Trump told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “They have to get it done. Get it over with and get it over with fast because we have to -- you have to get back to normalcy and peace.”Biden also renewed his concerns about Netanyahu’s plan to carry out an operation in the southern city of Rafah, where about 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering, as Israel looks to eliminate Hamas following the militant group’s deadly Oct. 7 attack. Vice President Kamala Harris also joined the call. Still, the Biden administration has proceeded apace with arms transfers and deliveries to Israel, many of which were approved years ago but had only been partially or not at all fulfilled. Just this week, on Monday, the Democratic administration’s “Daily List” of munitions transfers included the sale to Israel of more than 1,000 500-pound (225-kilograms) bombs and more than 1,000 1,000-pound (450-kilogram) bombs.
Officials said those transfers had been approved before the publication of the list on Monday — the day Israeli airstrikes hit a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza, killing seven of the group’s employees — and that they fell below the threshold for new congressional notification. Also, they noted that the bombs are not for delivery to Israel until 2025. Israel has acknowledged responsibility for the strikes but said the convoy was not targeted and the workers’ deaths were not intentional. The country continues to investigate the circumstances surrounding the killings. Andrés harshly criticized the Israeli military for the strike, and his organization has paused its work in Gaza. “The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon,” he wrote on X. “No more innocent lives lost.”The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage. The Israeli military campaign in Gaza, experts say, is among the deadliest and most destructive in recent history. Within two months, researchers say, the offensive already has wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II. It has killed more civilians than the U.S.-led coalition did in its three-year campaign against the Islamic State group.

US recently authorized more bombs for Israel
CNN/April 4, 2024
The Biden administration recently authorized the transfer of over 1,000 500-pound bombs and over 1,000 small-diameter bombs to Israel, according to three people familiar with the matter, adding to its arsenal despite US concerns over the country’s conduct in the war in Gaza. The transfer authorization of the MK82 bombs and small-diameter bombs, more than 2,000 munitions in total, occurred on Monday, according to two of the people familiar. It was authorized before an Israeli strike on a humanitarian convoy in Gaza that evening that killed seven employees of the aid organization World Central Kitchen, a State Department spokesperson said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged on Tuesday that the aid workers had been “unintentionally” targeted. News of the approval comes as Israel is facing fresh international condemnation over the strike and amid growing calls by some Democratic lawmakers and critics of Biden’s support for Israel to begin restricting or conditioning military aid to the country. While the approval came before the WCK strike, it came after more than 190 aid workers in Gaza and the West Bank had already been killed in the nearly 6-month war, CNN has reported. Josh Paul, who worked in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs for over a decade before resigning in October over the US’ ongoing arms transfers to Israel, told CNN that the “State Department has the ability to suspend any approval even after the fact, which, given the circumstances, you’d think they’d at least consider.” Last week, the US authorized the transfer of similar weaponry, including nearly 2,000 2,000-pound bombs known as the MK84, the people familiar with the matter said. CNN has previously linked the MK84 bombs to mass casualty events in Gaza, including Israeli strikes on refugee camps there last year.
None of these transfers had to be newly notified to or approved by Congress, since they were already greenlit by lawmakers in 2012 and 2015, according to arms sales notifications by the Pentagon available on the Federal Register. The contracts are just now being fulfilled because the munitions had to be produced, which can take several years. The Biden administration has indicated that it does not plan to restrict or condition military aid to Israel, despite US officials, including President Joe Biden, saying publicly that Israel has not done enough to protect civilians throughout the course of the six-month war. Biden said earlier this week that he was “outraged” over the strike that killed the aid workers and is set to speak with Netanyahu on Thursday. More than 32,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October, according to the enclave’s ministry of health. Israel declared war on Hamas in response to the militant group’s terror attack on October 7 that killed over 1,200 Israelis. “We have a longstanding commitment to Israel’s security and to helping ensure its ability to defend itself,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters in Paris on Tuesday when asked about the arms transfers. He added that the weapons and systems that Israel has sought from the US in some cases date back “many years,” and that they “go to self defense, deterrence,” and replenishment of Israel’s stocks. The US is also engaging in new arms sales with the Israelis, however, including an $18 billion sale of F-15 fighter jets that the administration is preparing to approve, CNN reported on Monday.

MSF dismisses Israeli claim of 'regrettable incident' in strike against aid workers in Gaza
GENEVA (Reuters)/ April 4, 2024
The Doctors Without Borders medical charity (MSF) said on Thursday it rejected Israel's position that an airstrike which killed seven aid workers was a "regrettable incident", saying many humanitarian personnel have been attacked previously. Seven workers from World Central Kitchen, which provides food relief in crisis and conflict zones, were killed when their convoy was hit on Monday night shortly after they oversaw the unloading of 100 tons of food brought to the Palestinian enclave by sea. "We do not accept the narrative of regrettable incidents," Christopher Lockyear, Secretary General of MSF International, said at a press conference in Geneva. "We do not accept it because what has happened to World Central Kitchen and MSF's convoys and shelters is part of the same pattern of deliberate attacks on humanitarians, health workers, journalists, U.N. personnel, schools and homes."
He added: "We have been saying it for weeks now: this pattern of attacks is either intentional or indicative of reckless incompetence." Israel has described the deadly incident as an operational accident and is invesigating it. It has consistently denied deliberately targeting civilians in its war with Hamas militants.
Lockyear said MSF remained present in Gaza in the wake of the killings but was assessing the risk to its teams on a daily basis. He said the killings of the World Central Kitchen workers showed that measures to ease the conflict were futile "in a war fought with no rules". "That these attacks on humanitarian workers are allowed to happen is a political choice," he said. "Our movements and locations are shared, coordinated and identified already. This is about impunity, a total disregard for the laws of war. And now it must become about accountability." Lockyear said MSF had urged Israel to investigate a deadly attack on an MSF convoy in November and probe other incidents involving the organisation, including an Israeli attack on an MSF shelter in Al-Mawasi in February. "I have received no explanation for any of the incidents," Lockyear said.

Airstrikes on aid workers don't 'just happen,' Trudeau says of Netanyahu's reaction
The Canadian Press/Thu, April 4, 2024
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he "takes issue" with Israel's assertion that the airstrikes that killed seven aid workers in central Gaza on Monday were just part of the cost of war. Thirty-three year old Canadian army veteran Jacob Flickinger was among those killed while delivering food aid for World Central Kitchen. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week the blasts were a tragic accident — but also a consequence of armed conflict. Trudeau fired back this morning, saying attacks on aid workers "don't just happen" and never should. World Central Kitchen is demanding an independent investigation on the strikes, which the group says were no accident since Israel was well aware of the aid workers' location. Trudeau says he also wants a fully open, transparent, independent and "rapid" investigation to explain exactly how the tragedy occurred.

Spike in executions shows Iran’s prisons are ‘killing fields’, says Amnesty International
France 24 France 24/Thu, April 4, 2024
Iran has turned its prisons into sites of mass killing with at least 853 people executed in the Islamic republic in 2023, over half of them on drug-related charges, Amnesty International said on Thursday. The London-based group said in a report that stronger international action was needed to halt the rise in executions, otherwise "thousands" risked being hanged in the coming years. The Iranian authorities have "persisted with their state-sanctioned killing spree which has turned prisons into killing fields", Amnesty said. The figure for 2023 was up 48 percent on the previous year and 56 percent of executions involved drug-related charges, Amnesty said. Two other NGOs, Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Together Against the Death Penalty (ECPM), published a report last month giving the slightly lower figure of 834 people executed in 2023. The surge in executions came after Iran was convulsed by protests that erupted in September 2022. Nine people have been put to death in cases related to the protests.

Death Toll in Strike on Iranian Consulate in Damascus Rises to 16
Asharq Al Awsat/April 04/2024
The death toll in the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus rose to 16, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Wednesday. Director of the rights monitor told AFP that dead include eight Iranians, five Syrians and one member of the Lebanese Hezbollah group, as well as two civilians.
Iranian leaders on Wednesday renewed their promise to hit back after the strike that destroyed Iran's consulate in Syria.Two elite Iranian generals were also killed. Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said Wednesday the attack “will not remain without answer.”The US is concerned the deadly strike could trigger new attacks on American troops by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria, said Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the top US Air Force commander for the Middle East. Iran and its allies — including Hezbollah and other armed groups in Syria, Iraq and Yemen — have repeatedly traded fire with Israel and the US since the start of Israel's war in Gaza. By attacking an Iranian diplomatic station, Israel's apparent escalation has raised fears that the devastating six-month war against Hamas could spill over into the entire Mideast region and beyond. Israel faces growing isolation as international criticism mounts over its killing of six foreign aid workers this week who were helping deliver desperately needed food in Gaza. The United Nations says much of the population in northern Gaza is on the brink of starvation. Israel's war in Gaza has killed nearly 33,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the territory's Health Ministry says. The war began on Oct. 7, when Hamas-led gunmen stormed into southern Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking around 250 people hostage.

Twenty-seven die in militant attacks on Iran security forces, say media
DUBAI (Reuters)/April 4, 2024
Suspected Sunni Muslim militants killed at least 11 Iranian security force members and suffered 16 fatalities in attacks on Iran's Revolutionary Guards headquarters in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan, state media said on Thursday. The overnight clashes between the Jaish al-Adl group and security forces took place in the towns of Chabahar and Rask, state TV said. "The terrorists failed to succeed achieving their goal of seizing the Guards headquarters in Chabahar and Rask," deputy Interior Minister Majid Mirahmadi told state TV. State TV said 10 other security officers were also injured in the fighting in the impoverished region, which has a predominantly Sunni Muslim population. Jaish al-Adl says it seeks greater rights and better living conditions for ethnic minority Baluchis in Shi'ite-dominated Iran. It has claimed responsibility for several attacks in recent years on Iranian security forces in Sistan-Baluchestan. The area, which borders Afghanistan and Pakistan, has long been the site of frequent clashes between Iranian security forces and Sunni militants as well as drug traffickers. Iran is a key transit route for narcotics smuggled from Afghanistan to the West and elsewhere. In December, the militant group attacked a police station in the town of Rask, killing 11 security personnel. In January, Iran targeted two bases of the militant group in Pakistan with missiles, prompting a rapid military riposte from Islamabad targeting what it said were separatist militants in Iran.

US issues fresh Iran-related sanctions targeting vessel owner
WASHINGTON (Reuters)/April 4, 2024
The United States on Thursday imposed new Iran-related counterterrorism sanctions against Oceanlink Maritime DMCC and its vessels, citing its role in shipping commodities on behalf of the Iranian military.
WHY IT IS IMPORTANT
The United States is using financial sanctions to isolate Iran and disrupt its ability to fund its proxy groups and support Russia's war in Ukraine, the Treasury Department said. The United Arab Emirates-based Oceanlink operates a fleet of more than a dozen vessels deeply involved in shipping Iranian commodities, Treasury said.
BY THE NUMBERS
The U.S. Treasury Department said the Oceanlink Maritime DMCC-managed vessel HECATE recently loaded Iranian commodities valued at over $100 million dollars via a ship-to-ship transfer from another sanctioned tanker.
CONTEXT
A series of U.S. and Western sanctions have targeted Iran's "destabilizing activities in the region and around the world," Treasury said in a statement. Iran has a network of proxies in the Middle East including in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

U.S. sanctions hamper Russian efforts to repair refineries, sources say
MOSCOW/LONDON (Reuters)/April 4, 2024
When engineers at Russian oil firm Lukoil discovered a turbine had broken at their largest refinery on January 4, they quickly realised the problem was far from trivial.
There was only one company that knew how to repair the gasoline-producing unit at the NORSI refinery, located on the Volga River, some 430 km (270 miles) east of Moscow. The problem was that the company is American, according to five sources familiar with the incident. The firm, petroleum engineering multinational UOP, had withdrawn from Russia after the country invaded Ukraine in February 2022. "They (the engineers) rushed around to find spare parts and they couldn't find anything," said a source close to Lukoil, who asked not to be named because he is not allowed to speak to the media. "Then the whole unit just stopped." Four other sources said the unit - a catalytic cracker used to convert heavier hydrocarbons into gasoline - has been out of production since January and it was not clear when it could be repaired due to a lack of expertise inside Russia. The KK-1 unit is one of only two catalytic crackers at the plant. As a result, the NORSI refinery - the fourth-biggest in Russia - has cut gasoline production by 40%, according to two of the sources. Lukoil did not respond to requests for comment for this story. The Lukoil refinery is an example of wider problems in Russia's energy sector where some oil firms are struggling in the face of Western sanctions to repair their refineries, built with the help of U.S. and European engineering firms, according to at least 10 Russian industry sources. The difficulties have been exacerbated by Ukrainian drone attacks that have struck at least a dozen Russian refineries this year, the industry sources said. The attacks forced Russian refineries to shut in some 14% of capacity in the first quarter, according to Reuters calculations. "If the stream of drones continues at this rate and Russian air defences don't improve, Ukraine will be able to cut Russian refining runs quicker than Russian firms will be able to repair them," said Sergey Vakulenko, an expert on Russia's energy industry and non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an international affairs think tank.
Russia's top energy official, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, said last week that the damaged NORSI facilities should resume operations within a month or two, as Russian firms were working to produce the spare parts needed. He also said other Russian refineries have boosted production after the drone attacks and there was no shortage on the local fuel market. Russia's energy ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Minister Nikolai Shulginov said on Wednesday all refineries would be fixed by June, without providing further details. The NORSI refinery, near the city of Nizhny Novgorod, has a capacity of 405,000 metric tons a month of gasoline or 11% of Russia's total. The current outage would cost Lukoil nearly $100 million in lost revenues a month, based on an average Russian gasoline price of $587 per metric ton, according to Reuters' calculations. Honeywell International Inc, the parent company for UOP, said in a statement to Reuters it had not provided any equipment, parts, products or services to the refinery at Nizhny Novgorod since February 2022, nor to the independently-managed Slavyansk ECO refinery. The Slavyansk refinery was hit by a Ukrainian drone attack on March 18 and caught fire briefly. "We are actively working to identify and interrupt any possible diversion of our products into Russia via third parties," Honeywell told Reuters by email. The company said it complies with all applicable export license requirements, sanctions laws and regulations. The United States and its allies have imposed sanctions on thousands of Russian targets since the invasion of Ukraine and around 1,000 companies have announced their departure from the country. Russia's export-focused $2.2-trillion economy has proved more resilient to two years of the unprecedented sanctions than either Moscow or the West anticipated.
WAR OF ATTRITION
Western companies such as UOP and Swiss engineering group ABB have supplied technology and software to all the 40 biggest refineries in Russia over the last two decades, according to more than 10 Russian industry sources. Each refinery has a combination of Russian and foreign equipment. ABB confirmed to Reuters it stopped taking new orders in Russia once the war broke out in February 2022, and has no plans to return to Russia once it has fulfilled its existing contractual obligations, a spokesperson said. The company did not provide details of those obligations.
None of the five sources suggested the turbine failure in January at NORSI was a result of drone attacks. But the sources said the problems at the plant only became worse after NORSI was hit for the first time by Ukrainian drones in February when other pieces of equipment were damaged, putting additional strain on the entire refinery. As in the United States, the price of gasoline is a politically sensitive subject in Russia and authorities try to limit price rises. Recent measures included imposing a ban on gasoline exports for 6 months in February. Ukraine says it attacks Russian refineries because it wants to undermine the Kremlin's war machine by reducing state revenues and cutting fuel to the army. "Drones are tens, if not hundreds of times cheaper than the cost of repairs, which is important in a war of attrition," said Vakulenko, who was a former head of strategy at Russian energy major Gazprom Neft. He left the firm and Russia days after the start of the Ukraine war.Russia is the world's second-largest oil exporter. It has rerouted most of its crude and products exports to Asia and Africa since Western nations imposed sanctions on Moscow. Should Moscow face a steep decline in refinery output, it would be forced to cut fuel exports in favour of crude, according to more than 10 Russian oil traders. Russia supplies crude to just a few large buyers, such as China, India and Turkey, but its portfolio of fuels buyers is comparatively broader as it can ship to smaller consumers without large refining systems in Africa and South America.
Russia's refining industry dates back to the 1940s, when the United States provided equipment under the lend-lease program during World War Two. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russian oil firms invested tens of billions of dollars in upgrades with the help of firms such as UOP and ABB. UOP helped upgrade Norsi and Slavyansk ECO refineries. It did not specify which other Russian refineries it has serviced, in response to Reuters' questions. The United States has imposed sanctions on companies around the world, including in Turkey, to prevent the transfer of technology to Russia. Countries under Western sanctions such as Russia and Iran have long managed to find loopholes to obtain spare parts for Western-made equipment such as planes or cars. But refining equipment is much rarer and more specialized; Western firms have tightened checks to prevent Russia from importing spare parts via third countries, one of the five sources said. Two of the sources said Lukoil had asked Chinese companies to repair the KK-1 unit at Norsi. The sources didn't name the Chinese companies. Lukoil declined to comment when asked if it had approached China. "China has got the technology. But very often it would mean a full costly replacement of the unit rather than a normal, cheap, regular repair," one of the sources said.

Kremlin says Russia and NATO are now in "direct confrontation"
MOSCOW (Reuters)/ April 4, 2024
Russia and NATO are now in "direct confrontation", the Kremlin said as the U.S.-led alliance marked its 75th anniversary on Thursday. NATO's successive waves of eastern enlargement are a fixation of President Vladimir Putin, who went to war in Ukraine two years ago with the stated aim of preventing the alliance from coming closer to Russia's borders. Instead, the war has galvanised NATO, which has expanded again with the entry of Finland and Sweden. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "In fact, relations have now slipped to the level of direct confrontation."NATO was "already involved in the conflict surrounding Ukraine (and) continues to move towards our borders and expand its military infrastructure towards our borders", he said. Putin has repeatedly said that Russia was cheated by the West in the aftermath of the Cold War as Moscow's Warsaw Pact alliance was disbanded but NATO moved eastwards by taking in former pact members and the three Baltic states that had been part of the Soviet Union. The West rejects that version, saying NATO is a defensive alliance and joining it was a democratic choice by countries that had shaken off decades of Communist rule. NATO says it is helping Ukraine fight for its survival in the face of Russian aggression, and has provided Kyiv with advanced weapons, training and intelligence. Russia says that makes NATO de facto a party to the conflict. Putin said in February that a direct conflict between Russia and NATO would mean the planet was one step away from World War Three.

US Says It Destroyed Anti-Ship Ballistic Missile, Two Drones Launched by Houthis
Asharq Al Awsat/April 04/2024
The US military said on Wednesday that it destroyed one inbound anti-ship ballistic missile and two drones launched by the Iranian-backed Houthis militias from Yemen toward the Red Sea. US Central Command said no injuries or damage was reported. "Additionally, during this timeframe CENTCOM forces destroyed a mobile surface-to-air missile system in Houthi controlled territory," it said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Iraq Rejects Violation of Jordan’s Sovereignty in Wake of Kataib Hezbollah Threats
Asharq Al Awsat/April 04/2024
The pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah faction in Iraq “vowed to supply Jordanian fighters with weapons” to defend “our brothers in Palestine.” A security official from the faction known as Abu Ali al-Askari said: “The ‘Islamic Resistance in Iraq’ is ready to meet the needs of 12,000 fighters ... so that we can stand united in defending our brothers in Palestine.”He said the group could provide the fighters with “light and medium weapons, tactical rockets, millions of rounds of ammunition and tons of explosives.”His announcement coincided with the return of protests in condemnation of the Israeli war on Gaza in front of the Israeli embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman. More and more protesters have been gathering in front of the mission. They appear to be better organized and have made more demands in spite of Jordan’s intense diplomatic efforts to reach an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and deliver aid to the people. The demonstrators have also been demanding that the “land bridge” that provides Israel with goods and vegetables be halted. Al-Askari said the fighters would be ready to stop the bridge. The government has said it remains open given contractual obligations between Jordanian businesses and Israel. Amman has continued its diplomatic efforts to end the war. On Monday, King Abdullah II received Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. The leaders underlined the need for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
No sign of threat
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry did not comment on the escalation by the Kataib Hezbollah.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is meanwhile, preparing to carry out a major visit to the United States where he will meet with President Joe Biden. An Iraqi security official dismissed Kataib Hezbollah’s announcement. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, he said: “The situation in Iraq doesn’t allow for the armament of groups outside the country for the purpose of carrying out ‘suspicious’ activity.” “Iraq will not allow the violation of the sovereignty of a brotherly neighbor,” he added on condition of anonymity. Moreover, he said there were “no indications on the ground” that arms could be delivered to fighters in Jordan. Furthermore, he stated there was no intelligence information to that end, whether from Iraq or regional and international powers. Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein also cast doubt on the statements of the armed groups about attacking targets in Israel.
During a recent visit to Washington, he said the use of weapons requires an order from the commander of the armed forces. “No one can take a unilateral decision to wage war on any side,” he added. The decision to go to war is taken strictly by the parliament, he stressed.
Media theatrics
In Jordan, security agencies dismissed Kataib Hezbollah’s announcement as “media theatrics solely aimed at stoking tensions in the region.”
A Jordanian government source told Asharq Al-Awsat that the country has thwarted in recent months “several attempts and plots by armed groups that are active along the border with Iraq.”The Jordanian army has bolstered its defense capabilities in recent years “to confront the threats posed by Iraq’s proxies along the northern border with Syria and eastern one with Iraq.”It revealed that since October 7, pro-Iran Iraqi militias have sought to infiltrate the Jordanian border with the aim of marching towards the Palestinian territories. The Jordanian army has thwarted several of these attempts.
Amman accuses Tehran of seeking to threaten Jordan’s security through its proxies in neighboring countries. Local security sources have said that the protests in front of the Israeli embassy in Amman are sponsored by Iran, managed by Hamas and carried out by its wings in the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Violation of sovereignty
Head of the Center for Political Thinking in Iraq Ihssan Shmary told Asharq Al-Awsat that Kataib Hezbollah’s announcement is part of a campaign to pressure US allies in the region. The armed groups are “directly interfering in the affairs of an independent neighboring country,” he continued, noting that the announcement was made as Jordan is already dealing with the protests, which may mean these two developments may be tied to attempts to “unify arenas claimed by the resistance.”He dismissed the possibility of Kataib Hezbollah delivering weapons to Jordan, saying such a move would be a violation of international laws and may affect relations between it and Iraq. He predicted that the threats would only encourage Jordan and Iraq to tighten security along their border.
Eilat attack
Meanwhile, the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq” claimed on Tuesday responsibility for a drone attack on Israel’s Eilat naval base on the Red Sea. In a statement, it vowed to continue its attacks against Israel in retaliation to its assault on the Palestinian people in Gaza. A “suspicious aerial target” fell within Jordanian territory close to the border with Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli military said after local media reported the crash of a drone in an open area. The port has come under repeated drone and missile attacks by Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi militias during the almost six-month-old Gaza war.
On Monday, the military said a building in an Eilat naval base had been struck by an object launched from the east of Israel - suggesting that the provenance was Iraq.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 04-05/2024
Iran Is Winning the War ...Right now things look good for Israel. But the Islamic Republic is playing the long game. And its advantages, alas, are many.
Reuel Marc Gerecht and Ray Takeyh/The Free Press/April 04/2024
Is there an ending to the Gaza war and all its complementary confrontations in which Iran and its proxies lose and Israel and the United States win?
On the surface, things look good for Israel. The Israeli Defense Forces appear to be demolishing Hamas—the most important Sunni member of Iran’s mostly Shiite axis of resistance. Crushing Hamas in Gaza would be a significant accomplishment even if, as one retired Israeli general put it, the group survives and the victory gives the Jewish state only “three to eight years” of peace.
But “mowing the lawn”—Israel’s periodic pummeling of its enemies in Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, and the West Bank—doesn’t eliminate the Jewish state’s foes. (Indeed, the IDF’s reliance on that tactic may have contributed to the hubris that made Israel’s vast intelligence failure of October 7 possible.) Still, Israel’s aggressive counteroffensive in Gaza has introduced more concern in Tehran and Beirut about a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah and the possibility that Jerusalem just might finally strike Iran’s nuclear program.
Moreover, Israel’s determination to continue the war, despite the Biden administration’s increasingly aggressive pressure campaign to stop it, makes Israeli deterrence in the Middle East more credible even though the devastation in Gaza is a public-relations disaster. The recent unintentional death of seven World Central Kitchen aid workers highlights how war in the Strip, where Hamas makes it excruciatingly difficult to separate combatants from civilians and even the best targeting intelligence perishes rapidly, will always play against Israel. Urban warfare produces ghastly mistakes.
But these short-term tactical victories don’t fundamentally alter the Islamic Republic’s advantages. And those advantages, alas, are many.
Israel Getting Bogged Down in Gaza: Advantage Iran
Separating tactics from strategy is nearly impossible in the Middle East. For Israelis, who live in a violent neighborhood with shifting alliances and no regional allies, accumulating tactical victories is a strategy. In other words, the country hasn’t really developed a grand strategy toward its primary foe: Iran. Instead, it has hoped that accumulating tactical victories, combined with the still-enduring expectation that America will finally intervene militarily against the Islamic Republic, would save the day before the clerical regime went nuclear.
Under the leadership of Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic has pursued a grand strategy to achieve regional dominance. It revolves around the development of aggressive Islamist proxies, a wide array of ever-improving missiles, and nuclear weapons.
For Iran, the Gaza war is a bonanza of possibilities: if tens of thousands of IDF soldiers get tied down in the Strip, since no alternative to occupation may work, that’s a very good deal for Tehran. Armed resistance may continue for years, especially if the IDF fails to destroy Hamas’s weapons stockpiles and tunnels. The fact that Israel just had to purge al-Shifa Hospital of Hamas terrorists after it had cleared the hospital earlier in the war is not a good sign of Israel’s long-term plan.
There are further benefits to an ongoing war in the Strip from Iran’s perspective. One of them is that the lasting Palestinian trauma in Gaza could roil the West Bank and oblige a large IDF presence there. This could greatly complicate an Israeli invasion of Lebanon, which is essential if Jerusalem intends to resecure its northern borderlands. Right now almost 100,000 Israelis from northern towns and communities have been forced to flee indefinitely thanks to Hezbollah rocket attacks.
The Death of Israeli-Sunni Normalization: Advantage Iran
Despite the still-fervent hopes of many in Jerusalem, Congress, and the White House, Israeli-Saudi normalization is probably dead. The Abraham Accords, which many Israelis and Americans thought beckoned Zion’s acceptance among Muslims, don’t look so epochal at the moment. In a single day—October 7—Sunni and Shiite Islamists unraveled an emerging Sunni-Israeli alliance. It turns out Hamas and Tehran had a far better grasp of “the Arab street” than did their enemies.
The Israeli approach to the Middle East has always been top-down—an understandable disposition. But even before the Arab Spring traumatized rulers throughout the region, Arab military juntas and monarchs were always wary of openly straying too far from popular opinion on sensitive subjects, and Israel has always been a live wire. But the Gaza war has forced a significant reset, a recalibration of risk versus gain. For the United Arab Emirates, a small concatenation of sheikdoms that happily trade with Zionists and Iranians, the profit from Israeli commerce is meaningful; for Saudi Arabia, a large country inextricably attached to its Islamic identity, the benefits of an Israeli relationship are less clear.
The Resilience of the Axis of Resistance: Advantage Iran
Iran’s “axis of resistance” has proven impressively resilient. The last devastating Israeli intrusion into Lebanon in 2006 may have reduced the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, to a mea culpa, but it did minimal long-term damage to the organization, which in the interregnum has seized control of Lebanon, in part by reducing the country to an ungovernable mess. Ditto Israel’s assassination campaign against senior Iranian officials in the Levant. Taking out Iran’s Revolutionary Guard general, Mohammad Reza Zahedi, and several of his associates in the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus is appropriate punishment; it’s likely only to dent the clerical regime’s strategy in the region.
Today, Hezbollah’s missile stockpiles are larger and more lethal than in 2006. Its tunnel system and conventional capacity against the Israeli army are more extensive. Its stockpile of short- and medium-range missiles (some estimate 150,000 projectiles) may already be too much for Israel to handle. If a full-scale war broke out, Hezbollah might be able to pincushion Tel Aviv before the Israeli Air Force could suppress the launch sites. Add on bigger, longer-range missiles in Syria—the transport of which will become easier if a reelected Donald Trump removes U.S. forces along a major Syrian-Iraqi thoroughfare—and Israel’s defenses could be overwhelmed.
In other words: a conventionally armed Iran and its proxies may already be deterring a nuclear-armed Israel. And Tehran’s promises of another “forever war,” if the United States were to be so audacious as to attack the Islamic Republic, certainly has had a deterring effect in war-weary Washington.
Weakness in Washington: Advantage Iran
Do Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin signal fearsome intent when they fire missiles at Iranian proxies while telling Tehran the United States has no desire to escalate? When Secretary of State Tony Blinken says to Iran, “we would like to see them tell the Houthis to stop,” do you think Iran feels the heat?
The questions answer themselves.
Amazingly, some senior Biden administration officials give the impression that the supreme leader’s supposed fatwa banning nukes just might be real—despite the history of Ali Khamenei driving the country’s once-clandestine nuclear-weapons project. Nothing about the Islamic Republic’s “peaceful” nuclear research since 2002, when the weapons program was first publicly revealed, makes sense unless one assumes the supreme leader’s original objective remains.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the regime currently has enough 60 percent enriched uranium for three nuclear weapons, which could rapidly be spun up to 90 percent, the ideal bomb-grade. The stockpile of 20 percent uranium would allow for several more. As it stands now, according to the Institute for Science and International Security, which closely monitors the Iranian nuclear program, Tehran could produce bomb-grade uranium for one weapon in seven days; one month would give enough for six bombs; five months would allow for 12 weapons.
Washington went through a similar experience with North Korea. There, U.S. officials wanted to believe that there was a chance that Pyongyang could be bought off short of a nuclear test, and if it couldn’t, then nuclearization was better than risking war on the peninsula.
Barring some monumental miscalculation by Tehran, Biden surely will be no more bold against the Islamic Republic than George W. Bush was against North Korea. The president’s recent decision to release $10 billion held in escrow for Iraq’s electricity payments to Iran, combined with the not-so-secret indirect talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Oman, strongly suggest that the White House is trying hard to appease Tehran. Washington wants the clerical regime to halt its proxy attacks on U.S. forces and its atomic advance short of a fissile test—at least before the November election.
So What Can Be Done?
Americans and Israelis have for decades shied away from militarily punishing the mullahs for their malevolence. This hesitancy—an unwillingness to escalate—has fed an Islamist appetite for violence. But diplomacy and its euphemisms, sanctions, and whack-a-mole retaliatory strikes have run their course. And what Jerusalem is doing right now—beating back Iran’s proxies—will become a lot dicier once Tehran goes nuclear. Jerusalem might be obliged to accept as permanent a low-level, bloody duel with Iranian proxies. An insoluble Palestinian problem will gnaw at Israel from the West Bank, Gaza, and possibly from within Israel itself. Khamenei’s vision for destroying the “Zionist colonial settler-state”—an approach that will surely survive his death—is to erode Israeli happiness and foreign investment, not a catastrophic nuclear confrontation. Iranian nuclear weapons, the ultimate check on Israel and the United States, are a means to that end.
We are way past time pretending that any other avenue than military action against Iran has a chance of checking an Islamist nuclear-threshold state that is close to dominating the Middle East. The Biden administration’s preferred path—encouraging regime change in Israel, pining for a two-state solution, and importuning the Saudi crown prince to recognize Israel (while granting more sanctions relief to Iran and quietly sending emissaries to Oman)—is guaranteed to make a bad situation worse. As everyone in the Middle East knows, and as the Israelis momentarily forgot before October 7, hard power is the only coin of the realm.
**Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA, is a resident scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Tehran’s weapons of mass distraction ...They conceal Tehran’s development of weapons of mass destruction
Clifford D. May/ The Washington Times/April 04/2024
In 1993, a massive truck bomb exploded at the World Trade Center, the first major international terrorist attack on American soil.
Five years later, two massive truck bombs struck two American embassies in East Africa. That was not long after Osama Bin Laden, in an interview in southern Afghanistan with reporter John Miller, vowed to continue waging jihad against the United States.
Two years after that a boat packed with explosives struck the USS Cole off the coast of Yemen.
Despite all this and more, it came as a terrible shock when, on September 11, 2001, al Qaeda operatives hijacked passenger jets and used them to murder nearly 3,000 Americans on American soil.
“This country simply was not on a war footing,” then-White House National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice later told the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
This brings me to the recently issued “Annual Threat Assessment” of the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
In it, the ODNI acknowledges that the Islamic Republic of Iran “has greatly expanded its nuclear program, reduced IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] monitoring, and undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
But the assessment adds: “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”
Are you sure, guys?
Because my FDD colleagues, Andrea Stricker, a nonproliferation expert, and Behnam Ben Taleblu, an Iran expert, are dubious.
Last week, the Institute for Science and International Security (known as “the good ISIS”) revealed that at Natanz, south of Tehran, the regime is constructing deep tunnels and underground rooms in which it could produce weapons-grade uranium.
“If Tehran is allowed to complete this facility and move its enrichment infrastructure inside, we will enter a new and potentially irreversible era of the Iranian nuclear threat,” said Richard Goldberg, who served as the Director for Countering Iranian Weapons of Mass Destruction for the National Security Council and is now a senior advisor at FDD.
He added: “Completion of this facility must be added to the list of red lines for the United States and its allies.”
Iran’s rulers seem unconcerned. Ali Akbar Salehi, the former chief of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, recently boasted that Tehran has surpassed “all thresholds of nuclear science and technology. Imagine what a car needs. It needs a chassis, an engine, a steering wheel, a gearbox. You’re asking if we’ve made the gearbox. I say yes. Have we made the engine? Yes.”
The good ISIS calculates that Tehran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for seven nuclear weapons in about a month.
Should that happen, it would represent a significant failure of diplomacy, policy, and strategy over many years by both Democratic and Republican administrations.
The only significant pause in Tehran’s nuclear weapons program came in 2003, in the wake of America’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iran’s rulers then agreed to suspend uranium enrichment, declare their other nuclear activities, and grant the IAEA broader access to their nuclear facilities. But as soon as they perceived that American guns weren’t aiming at them, they violated these agreements.
In 2015, President Obama concluded the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, under which Iran effectively got paid to temporarily limit its uranium enrichment while advancing other aspects of its nuclear-weapons program.
In 2018, President Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and, over the two years that followed, exerted significant pressure on the Iranian economy. In 2020, he ordered the killing of Tehran’s terrorist mastermind, Qassem Soleimani, and suggested he might target the regime’s nuclear program, too.
President Biden began lifting pressure on Iran’s rulers in 2021. Since then, he’s delivered tens of billions of dollars of Iranian frozen assets and waived other sanctions. Unsurprisingly, Iran’s expansion of highly enriched uranium production has occurred entirely on Mr. Biden’s watch, not Mr. Trump’s.
At the same time, Mr. Biden’s envoys have been attempting to persuade Iran’s rulers to agree to a watered-down version of the JCPOA.
Last Friday, Rafael Grossi, director general of the IAEA, suggested that would be useless. “The spectrum of that agreement is clearly superseded at this point,” he said. “The Iran of 2015 is not the Iran of 2024.”
My FDD colleague Mark Dubowitz worries that the wars now being waged against Israel by Tehran’s proxies and clients in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen are “weapons of mass distraction” – impeding a competent assessment by both Israelis and Americans of the threat that would emerge should Iran’s rulers obtain atomic weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, some Israelis perceive only too well that they are wrestling with the multiple tentacles of an octopus while the beast’s head rests comfortably in Tehran. But, at the moment, they don’t appear to be acting on that perception.
And is anyone in Washington giving serious thought to what it will mean for America’s national security if the Islamic Republic becomes nuclear armed right now, as it strengthens its alliances with the anti-American rulers of China, Russia, and North Korea?
Is anyone imagining the possibility that these regimes might – sooner or later – demand the U.S. end its support for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and South Korea, and perhaps also acquiesce to Houthi control of the Red Sea, Iranian sovereignty over the Strait of Hormuz, and Beijing’s dominance in the South China Sea?
The alternative, they’d imply, might be nuclear war.
No doubt, some voices on the right would then call for “restraint,” while some voices on the left would insist on a “diplomatic solution” – both euphemisms for American surrender, defeat, and decline.
Osama Bin Laden would get that. And he would be pleased.
*Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.

The Israeli-Palestinian 'Two State Solution'
Michel Calvo/Gatestone Institute/April 04, 2024
Curiously, like President Joe Biden and his top national security officials, the ambassador [Martin Indyk] ignores a crucial element: radical Islam does not tolerate the existence of a sovereign non-Islamic entity (such as Israel) on land that once was conquered by Muslims (dar al-Islam, "abode of Islam"). As most Palestinians have been creditably straightforward about, there is no place for an Israeli state.
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism." — Zuheir Mohsen, PLO official, Trouw, March 31, 1977.
Tangible land for intangible peace and billions of dollars will not change them -- just buy them bigger weapons. Only re-education can hope to do that, if it would work...
"What is a 'technocratic government'? It's a front for the terrorists and composed of nonprofit executives, academics, economists and others... and extracting foreign aid from them. Hamas will not officially be part of the puppet regime, but will control the puppets.... [B]ut while Qatar is helping assemble a new 'technocratic' front for the terrorists, the Moscow summit made it clear that the real agenda of the new government would be terror against Israel and the U.S." — Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute, March 13, 2024.
"The 'technocratic government' will provide the Biden administration and other governments with the plausible deniability needed to go on funding terrorists. The Moscow summit revealed that a technocratic government will not end terrorism; it will disguise it, and it will not end the conflict, it will escalate it." — Daniel Greenfield, Gatestone Institute, March 13, 2024.
How can Israeli Jews believe that the recognition of a Palestinian state by the United States and other countries... will bring peace? These countries have no means of enforcing any commitments undertaken by "Palestine" in a potential peace treaty, and even less will to do so.
Recognition of "Palestine" as a state, even if it were supposedly "demilitarized," would enable it to enter into military alliances and "defense agreements" with whomever they chose -- China, Russia, Iran, all of them? Why would such a state not be used as a base, as in the PLO's 1974 "Ten Point Plan" of phases, from which to try to take "the rest"?
Equally alarmingly, the US has reportedly asked Qatar, Hamas's main patron since 2007, to operate a supposedly temporary pier in Gaza, currently being planned, to deliver supposedly "humanitarian aid"... one has to ask: What else will come in with the humanitarian aid? With Qatar in charge, "demilitarization" will likely last less than a week.
Those who want to recognize or impose a Palestinian state, knowingly or unconsciously, aim at Israel's destruction.
Peace will come when the Jews, the Americans and the Europeans support those fighting to preserve civilization, not to preserve terrorism.
Can the US and European states recognize "Palestine" as a peace-loving "state" while its government, the Palestinian Authority, continues to finance terrorism? Land for peace, and billions of dollars, will not change Islam. Tangible land for intangible peace and billions of dollars will not change Palestinians -- just buy them bigger weapons. Only re-education can hope to do that, if it would work. Those who want to recognize or impose a Palestinian state, knowingly or unconsciously, aim at Israel's destruction. (Image source: iStock/Getty Images)
Just in time for Easter, another resurrection was recently proposed by Martin Indyk, twice US ambassador to Israel, in the journal Foreign Affairs:
"[The] allegedly dead two-state solution...resurrected by U.S. President Joe Biden and his top national security officials...is the only way to create lasting peace among the Israelis, the Palestinians, and the Arab countries of the Middle East".
"And how an unimaginable war could bring about the only imaginable peace".
Curiously, like President Joe Biden and his top national security officials, the ambassador ignores a crucial element: radical Islam does not tolerate the existence of a sovereign non-Islamic entity (such as Israel) on land that once was conquered by Muslims (dar al-Islam, "abode of Islam"). As most Palestinians have been creditably straightforward about, there is no place for an Israeli state.
Palestinian Islamists and the Islamic Republic of Iran are engaged in a jihadist-religious-nationalist-military-territorial-diplomatic conflict with Israel's Jews, however much the West may refuse to see it.
They fight against the Jews to prove that the Koran's "divine promise" to the Jews is still unborn, and that Jews should leave Israel and return from where they came.
"O my people, enter the Holy Land which God has prescribed for you, and turn not back in your traces, to turn about losers." (Quran 5:21)
"And We bequeathed upon the people that were abased all the east and the west of the land We had blessed; and perfectly was fulfilled the most fair word of thy Lord upon the Children of Israel, for that they endured patiently; and We destroyed utterly the works of Pharaoh and his people, and what they had been building." (Quran 7:137).
"And We said to the Children of Israel after him, 'Dwell in the land; and when the promise of the world to come comes to pass, We shall bring you a rabble.'" (Quran 17:104).
Land for peace, and billions of dollars, will not change Islam.
The fight against the Jews starts with verses such as:
"Fight those who believe not in God and the Last Day... -- those who have been given the Book -- until they pay the tribute out of hand and have been humbled." (Quran 9: 29).
Jews, especially those who live in Israel, do not pay the jizya tribute and are not humbled.
On September 28, 2011, the UN Security Council examined the application of "Palestine". One of the criteria is that only "peace loving states, willing to accept obligations of the Charter, who are able and willing to carry out these obligations", can be admitted. Today, this criterion is still not fulfilled, to say the least.
Unfortunately, "Palestine" has not exactly shown itself to be a "peace-loving nation", and the Palestinians are not a "people". As PLO executive committee member Zuheir Mohsen stated in a 1977 interview with the Dutch newspaper Trouw:
"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct 'Palestinian people' to oppose Zionism.
"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."
The Palestinians are Arabs. Their leaders seek to destroy the Jewish State. They would have hard time renouncing their aim of displacing Israel, of changing an education of hatred, and accepting the obligations contained in the Charter of the United Nations. They would be called traitors, and that is a death sentence as it was for Egyptian President Anwar Sadat who, in 1979, signed a peace agreement with Israel
Can the US and European states recognize "Palestine" as a peace-loving "state" while its government, the Palestinian Authority, continues to finance terrorism by paying salaries to imprisoned terrorists and their families, with US funds in violation of the Taylor Force Act, which in the US, became the "law of the land"?
"Palestine" is not able to be a "peace loving" entity. The stated desire to amend the PLO Charter has proven nothing but a charade. The "new" charter, never ratified, continues to mandate the "liberation of all of Palestine".
According to the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs:
"There are those who would have you believe that the Charter was amended in April 1996 (when it was actually referred to a committee from which it never reemerged) and again in 1998 when Arafat wrote to President Clinton that the Executive Committee had excised the offending articles. But if the Charter had actually been amended in 1996, why was Arafat writing to the President in 1998?"
The original charter, still dispositive in the original Arabic, states:
"Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit." (Article 2).
"The Palestinian Arab people possess the legal right to their homeland...after achieving the liberation of their country... entirely..." (Article 3).
"Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine." (Article 9)
"Commando action constitutes the nucleus of the Palestinian popular liberation war." (Article 10).
How does this show that the Palestinian Authority is capable of living in peace with the Jewish State?
Since the Oslo Accord of 1993, which supposedly disavowed terrorism, until now, terrorist attacks, officially promoted, have been taking place in Israel on an almost daily basis. On Palestinian Authority TV, on February 14, 2005, PA President Mahmoud Abbas called for the release of all Palestinian prisoners. He stated that they did what "we, the Palestinian Authority, ordered them to do.... He [the prisoner] will tell me that I ordered him to do what he did and I am responsible for him".
On Al-Arabiya television, then Fatah and PA official Mohammed Dahlan stated on June 16, 2007:
"Forty percent of the Martyrs in this Intifada belonged to the Palestinian Security Forces... and Hamas destroyed the Palestinian Authority which served to defend half of the Hamas leaders and its military wing...".
To "revitalize" the Palestinian Authority, US President Joe Biden and his advisers are expected to force the Fatah, the PLO and officials of the Palestinian Authority to relinquish their power and be replaced by so-called "technocrats." Palestinian "technocrats," however, have also been educated to hate and fight Jews. Tangible land for intangible peace and billions of dollars will not change them -- just buy them bigger weapons. Only re-education can hope to do that, if it would work, as it did with denazification and in post-World War II Japan. Dollars will not buy the hearts of those who follow the Islamist way.
What might work is if Palestinians feel that the world around them is rushing ahead, but that they, instead, have mistakenly insisted on being left behind: now, the train is pulling out of the station, they had better jump aboard fast.
Unfortunately, no Biden "revitalization" through "technocrats" can work. As the journalist Daniel Greenfield explains:
"What is a 'technocratic government'? It's a front for the terrorists and composed of nonprofit executives, academics, economists and others who have experience dealing with the international community and extracting foreign aid from them.
"Hamas will not officially be part of the puppet regime, but will control the puppets....
"That's what the Biden administration and the EU want to hear, but while Qatar is helping assemble a new 'technocratic' front for the terrorists, the Moscow summit made it clear that the real agenda of the new government would be terror against Israel and the U.S....
"The Palestinian Authority is trying to make it work by providing two sets of mutually contradictory assurances. Western diplomats are being told that the PA can unify the 'Palestinian' people around a state and an end to the conflict. Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other fellow terror groups are being assured that the PA remains absolutely committed to waging a war to destroy Israel.
"The 'technocratic government' will provide the Biden administration and other governments with the plausible deniability needed to go on funding terrorists.
"The Moscow summit revealed that a technocratic government will not end terrorism; it will disguise it, and it will not end the conflict, it will escalate it."
How can Israeli Jews trust Palestinian leaders who have blood on their hands, who pay people to murder Jews -- "Pay for Slay" is essentially a jobs program -- and a population of men, women, children, and even "technocrats," who have been educated for years to murder Israelis, to die as martyrs, and bring their families to Paradise?
How can Israelis believe again that some "peace agreement" will bring peace?
Muslim jurists doctrinally consider it uncomplicated to conclude a peace treaty with the enemy:
"By their very nature, treaties must be of a temporary duration, for in Muslim legal theory the normal relations between Muslim and non-Muslim territories are war and not peace... The holy war cannot possibly be suspended for more than ten years". If this was unfeasible, the truce could be renewed for another ten years." (Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, John Hopkins Press, Baltimore, 1955, p. 220).
In 1994, then Palestinian President Yasser Arafat referred to the Islamic Prophet Muhammad and to the Treaty of Hudaybiyya, signed in 628 CE between Muhammad and the ruling Quraish tribe of Mecca. The treaty was to be in force for a period of ten years. Less than two years later, after the balance of power in the area changed, Mohammad gathered an army, attacked the Quraish, and conquered Mecca.
Arafat, stated on April 18, 1998, on the Egyptian television station Orbit:
"I suggest we maintain quiet. We respect the agreements the way that Muhammad... respected the agreements which he signed..."
How can Israeli Jews believe that the recognition of a Palestinian state by the United States and other countries, such as France, Spain, Ireland, Slovenia, Great Britain and so on, will bring peace? These countries have no means of enforcing any commitments undertaken by "Palestine" in a potential peace treaty, and even less will to do so.
How can anyone believe that giving more power, even short of sovereignty, to a "revitalized" Palestinian Authority, will not lead to more war? Israel will still have to protect its security, both during and after any transition, so the cries of "occupation" will persist. Let us remember that these cries of "occupation" came into even wider use after Israel completely withdrew from the Gaza Strip in 2005, with not one Jew left in sight.
Recognition of "Palestine" as a state, even if it were supposedly "demilitarized," would enable it to enter into military alliances and "defense agreements" with whomever they chose -- China, Russia, Iran, all of them? Why would such a state not be used as a base, as in the PLO's 1974 "Ten Point Plan" of phases, from which to try to take "the rest"? Why would such a state not open the gates of its undefined territory to all the so-called diaspora of 14 million "Palestinians," Muslims and others who would like to join the fight against Israel?
Equally alarmingly, the US has reportedly asked Qatar, Hamas's main patron since 2007, to operate a supposedly temporary pier in Gaza, currently being planned, to deliver supposedly "humanitarian aid." Apart from evidence that Hamas is stealing the humanitarian aid, and either hoarding (here and here) it or selling it to Gazans on the black market at prices few can afford, one has to ask: What else will come in with the humanitarian aid? With Qatar in charge, "demilitarization" will likely last less than a week.
Those who want to recognize or impose a Palestinian state, knowingly or unconsciously, aim at Israel's destruction.
Peace will come when the Jews, the Americans and the Europeans support those fighting to preserve civilization, not to preserve terrorism.
*Michel Calvo was born in Tunis, Tunisia. An expert in international law, he was a member of the International Court of Arbitration representing Israel. He is the author of The Middle East and World War III: Why No Peace? with a preface by Col. Richard Kemp, CBE.
© 2024 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.

“Conservative Alliance” in Iran: Zahedi the main planner and executor of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack/The bodies of the Revolutionary Guard members killed in the consulate attack in Syria arrived in Tehran
London: Adel Al-Salmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 04, 2024
(Google translation to English)
“Alliance of Revolutionary Forces,” he said; The largest extremist group in Iran said that General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the leader who was killed in an air strike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus, was the “main planner and executor” of the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack on October 7 last year.
The “Alliance of Revolutionary Forces” issued; The coordination framework of the conservative parties, a close ally of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, issued a statement highlighting Zahedi’s roles, with the arrival of the bodies of Revolutionary Guard officers in Tehran.
The “Coalition” statement, which was reported by Iranian websites, praises Zahedi’s role in establishing the “Axis of Resistance” and designing the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operations.
The statement said, “Zahedi’s strategic role in forming and strengthening the (Resistance Front), as well as designing and implementing (Al-Aqsa Flood), are among the great glories of the silent efforts of this great and immortal leader in the history of resistance to the occupation.”
The statement added, "The bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus is evidence of the failure and impotence of the leaders of the Zionist entity." He added: “Those who support Tel Aviv should know that a difficult response from the Islamic Republic is on the way, and it will certainly affect the region’s equations.”
The publication of the statement coincided with the arrival of the dead bodies of the Iranian consulate at Mehrabad Airport in Tehran at dawn on Thursday, and a video clip was broadcast showing coffins being transported in a vehicle, according to what the French Press Agency reported from the Iranian official media. The Revolutionary Guards media distributed pictures showing the effects of the bombings on the faces of the dead Guards, on the eve of their funeral in Tehran.
Official media reported that the funeral ceremony would be held on Friday, coinciding with “Jerusalem Day,” during which, as every year, a demonstration in solidarity with the Palestinians and against Israel is held.
During the past months, Iran denied its role in the “Al-Aqsa Flood” attack, which was launched by the Hamas movement against Israel on October 7, and ignited the crisis and war that has been raging for 6 months. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian protested on several occasions against describing armed groups as “Tehran’s agents,” repeating that they do not receive orders from Iran.
In mid-November, Reuters quoted Iranian and regional officials as saying that Iranian Guide Ali Khamenei told the head of the Hamas movement, Ismail Haniyeh, who visited Tehran in early November, that “Hamas... Iran was not informed of the (October 7) attack on Israel, and therefore Iran will not enter the war on its behalf.”
The report stated; The Hamas movement later denied that Khamenei asked Haniyeh to silence those calling for the intervention of Iran and Hezbollah.
Last October 8, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said: “We have not yet seen evidence that Iran is behind this attack.”
On October 10, Khamenei denied his country’s involvement in the Hamas attack on Israel, and described the accusations against Iran as “rumors from supporters of the Zionist entity” and a “miscalculation.”
Hours before Khamenei's speech, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs denied a report published by the Wall Street Journal, which stated that senior officers in the Revolutionary Guard had participated in planning the Hamas attack since last August. Tehran described the report as “politically motivated.”
It quoted sources in Hamas and Hezbollah that Iranian officials gave the green light to attack Israel in a meeting held days before the attack. She referred to weekly meetings held by the commander of the Quds Force, Ismail Qaani, with leaders of armed groups loyal to Iran.
On December 27, the spokesman for the Revolutionary Guards, Ramadan Sharif, said that the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation was part of the retaliatory operations taken by the axis of resistance against Israel for the killing of Qassem Soleimani, the former commander of the Quds Force, the foreign arm of the Guards. “The Revolutionary” who was killed by an American strike in early 2020.
Hamas was quick to distance itself from the Guard spokesman’s account. She said in a statement: “We have repeatedly emphasized the motives and reasons for Operation (Al-Aqsa Flood), foremost among which are the dangers threatening Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
Later, the Revolutionary Guards media distributed a brief statement indicating a partial amendment to the speaker’s statements. The statement quoted him as saying, “The results of (Al-Aqsa Flood) are part of revenge for the assassination of General Soleimani.”
The Guards spokesman was commenting in a press conference on the killing of the Revolutionary Guards supply official in Syria, Radhi Mousavi, who was killed in an air strike on his home in the Sayyida Zeinab area. Iranian Member of Parliament, MP Mojtaba Twanger, said at the time, “Mousavi played an important role in strengthening the infrastructure of the resistance front in Syria... We can say with confidence that he was one of the initiators of the Al-Aqsa Flood attack on October 7th last year.”
Later, the commander of the Quds Force, Ismail Qaani, tried to distance himself from the account of the Guard spokesman. He said on December 30 that “the resistance factions in the region have an independent structure that suits each of them (...) and today all of them have decisions and opinions.”
In the same context, he continued, “The Palestinian resistance began its planned move, developed its own programme, and for the first time made its decision and carried out all its actions according to its program and planning.”
Zahedi is considered the greatest loss of the Revolutionary Guards during the last decade after Qassem Soleimani, and the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards forces in Syria, Hussein Hamedani, in Aleppo in October 2015.

Challenging The Dominant Radical Narrative Preached In Mosques Across The U.S. Regarding The Israel-Hamas War
Mansour Al-Hadj/MEMRI/April 04/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/128513/128513/
In the aftermath of Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and hundreds were abducted, I have reviewed and analyzed hundreds of Friday sermons delivered by imams and preachers in mosques and Islamic institutions across the United States. By doing so, I was hoping to understand how these religious leaders framed the attack, Israel's response, and the subsequent U.S. reaction. I also sought to understand the narratives they have adopted, promoted and amplified, along with their proposals for resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Interestingly, almost all the sermons seemed to share similar themes in their framing of the attack, amplifying a single narrative which justifies[1] Hamas's attack[2] as a legitimate[3] act[4] that is based on the command of Allah and the teachings of the prophet Muhammad. Therefore, they did not condemn or hold Hamas responsible for killing and abducting civilians, including children and the elderly, and sexually assaulting several women.[5]
They did not condemn[6] Hamas for starting a war, miscalculating[7] Israel's response, using the Gazans as human shields, or causing the death of thousands of Palestinians and the destruction of large areas of Gaza. Instead, in their sermons, these preachers and imams focused on highlighting the similarities between Hamas' attack and the wars[8] fought by the prophet and his companions, demonizing Israel, narrating historical antisemitic stories attributed to the prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, such as the hadith about the stones and the Gharqad Tree, and citing verses from the Quran that characterized Jews as corrupt,[9] treacherous, untrustworthy, and the killers of prophets.[10]
Moreover, they presented the conflict as part of an eternal[11] religious enmity[12] between Muslims and Jews that will ultimately end with the humiliating defeat of the Jews by Muslims and the liberation of Jerusalem and Palestine "from the river to the sea." Regarding U.S. support for Israel's right to defend itself and the sending of two aircraft carriers to the Middle East, some imams attributed the move to the antisemitic[13] conspiracy theory[14] that sees U.S. politicians and decision-makers as under the control of the Jews and the Zionist lobby.
I strongly disagree with their framing of the conflict and the promoted narrative for three reasons. Firstly, it is the declared narrative of the Muslim Brotherhood and of Hamas and their supporters that downplays and justifies Hamas's violations of Islamic concepts and principles in order to concentrate all efforts on attaining the ultimate goal of defeating Israel.
Secondly, these imams and preachers have disregarded, either due to their ideological bias or lack of knowledge, multiple interpretations of Quranic verses that offer different and opposing perspectives to their promoted framing and narrative.
Thirdly, the promoted narrative is the same old radical narrative, recycled for decades, that presents the Palestinians as victims, portrays the Jews as evil, insists on an all-or-nothing approach, lacks self-reflection, endorses the vicious circle of violence,[15] and rejects[16] peace and coexistence with Israel.
By challenging this narrative from within the Islamic perspective, I aim to demonstrate that this dominant narrative is a radical version promoted by Islamist groups, regimes, and organizations. I also hope that peace-loving, open-minded, and tolerant Muslims in the U.S. and around the world will question imams and preachers who portray Islam as a religion opposed to peace and coexistence, and who insist that it promotes hate, intolerance, and violence.
By profession, I am not an imam, but I could have pursued that career path with a Bachelor of Arts in Shari'a and Islamic Studies, along with attending a Quran memorization school for several years. During this time, I memorized dozens of chapters and Hadiths and learned how to lead prayers and deliver sermons. Drawing upon my background, expertise, and knowledge, I can confidently assert that Hamas's October 7 attack violated Quran 2:195, which states, "And spend in the way of Allah and do not throw [yourselves] with your [own] hands into destruction [by refraining]. And do good; indeed, Allah loves the doers of good."
Attacking civilians who are citizens of a country with superior military capabilities is a reckless act that disregards and endangers the precious lives of the people of Gaza. In shari'a classes, I learned that Prophet Muhammad prohibited the killing of children, women, and the elderly in wars. These commands are mentioned in multiple authentic Hadiths, in some of which the prophet even prohibited the destruction of trees.
Furthermore, another fundamental aspect of shari'a that all students of it learn is the importance of protecting and preserving human life, which is considered one of the five objectives of Sharia – a responsibility that Hamas has clearly failed to uphold. In fact, Hamas does not believe that protecting the lives of the people of Gaza is part of its responsibility. In an interview aired on Russia Today TV on October 27, 2023, Mousa Abu Marzouk, a member of the Hamas Political Bureau, stated that the tunnels in Gaza were built to protect Hamas fighters from airstrikes, not Palestinian civilians.[17]
The Quran instructs its readers to contemplate and engage in self-reflection during times of calamity, disasters, and adversity, possibly resulting from their wrongdoing, incompetence, or miscalculation, with the hope that these trials serve as a reminder to alter their course. Muslim imams and preachers worldwide consistently urge afflicted Muslims in war zones and in the aftermath of natural disasters to repent and amend their actions, referencing verses such as Quran 42:30, "And whatever strikes you of disaster – it is for what your hands have earned; but He pardons much." However, when it comes to the current war, these imams and preachers have not considered applying this verse to Hamas or the Gazans for resorting to violence, where they could have employed non-violent means, as if the divine wisdom does not apply to them.
Why would they not consider Quran 24:11: "Consider it not a bad thing for you. Nay, it is good for you," to suggest that perhaps the divine wisdom and the hard-learned lesson from the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and the destruction of Gaza is for them to abandon violence once and for all and give peace a chance?
Often and rightly so, these religious figures express their frustration with the injustices occurring worldwide, particularly against innocent Palestinian women and children who have been unjustly killed. I fully agree that oppression, injustice, and cruelty, whether against humans or animals, must be condemned universally. However, these figures often exhibit selectivity and bias by overlooking and downplaying heinous crimes committed by Muslims against Christians, Jews, and minorities, such as the enslavement of thousands of Yazidi women and children. In fact, they have not even acknowledged, let alone consoled, the families of the 1,200 individuals killed by Hamas or the relatives of those kidnapped, despite the Quran's clear injunction (4:104): "If you should be suffering – so are they suffering as you are suffering, but you expect from Allah that which they expect not. And Allah is ever Knowing and Wise."
Ironically, while claiming to advocate for justice, their proposed model of justice is problematic, particularly when it involves Jews. Regrettably, many of these U.S.-based Muslim imams consider the mass killing of all the Jewish men of the tribe of Banu Qurayza, the enslavement of their women, and the confiscation of their property by Prophet Muhammad and his companions as a just punishment.
They do not even dare to question why all the men, women, and children are punished for the alleged crime of betraying a tribal alliance forged with Prophet Muhammad, a decision likely made by the head of the tribe. Another flawed model of justice they often proudly cite is Prophet Muhammad's deployment of his army and the expulsion of the entire Jewish tribe of Banu Qaynuqa' after a few men allegedly assaulted a Muslim woman and killed a Muslim man.
I do understand that many of these imams and preachers feel helpless and saddened by the death and destruction unfolding in Gaza, and some genuinely seek ways to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinian people. In my view, this cannot be achieved by demonizing[18] Jews,[19] inciting further violence, or echoing the same rhetoric that has perpetuated this conflict. Instead, as Quran 5:8 states: "Oh you who have believed, be persistently standing firm for Allah, witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah; indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do," they should champion justice, peace, non-violence, and coexistence. Both Palestinians and Israelis are destined to coexist in that land, and advocating for these principles is essential for a sustainable solution.
I would also like to emphasize that rather than amplifying Muslim Brotherhood propaganda by demonizing Arab regimes that have chosen peace and normalized relations with Israel, or continually calling for divine intervention[20] to annihilate the Jews, or reiterating baseless prophecies of an inevitable holy war between Muslims and Jews, it would be more beneficial to spend time preaching about the beauty of diversity, multiculturalism, and coexistence. People from all over the world, with different beliefs, histories, and cultures, are living in harmony in the United States – an example from which the Palestinians can learn a great deal.
A fundamental aspect of the responsibility of religious leaders is to provide hope, guidance, and solutions to those who are suffering, rather than endorsing practices and actions that perpetuate harm. Therefore, when Hamas leaders advocate[21] on television channels from luxurious hotel rooms in Qatar or Europe for following the examples of resistance in Algeria and Vietnam, where millions have perished, it is incumbent upon wise religious leaders to offer alternative examples of nations and communities that have achieved similar objectives with fewer casualties. Examples such as South Africa, India, and the struggle of African Americans in the U.S. have utilized non-violent means to achieve their goals, serving as more constructive models for achieving change.
Certainly, people who dare to challenge this radical narrative, whether they be imams, preachers, or other open-minded Muslims, will inevitably face marginalization. They may be labeled as traitors, unbelievers, or even Zionists by the Muslim Brotherhood and their ideological allies for daring to expose their attempted monopoly of Islam – a characteristic shared by all intolerant, violence-loving radical Islamist groups.
Scholars from the four schools of Islamic Jurisprudence once taught their respective jurisprudence inside the Grand Mosque in Makkah, each surrounded by their students in different parts of the mosque. This historical practice serves as a clear reference to the diversity inherent within Islam. This example should serve as an inspiration and reminder for Imams and preachers in the U.S., who, unlike their counterparts in other parts of the world, enjoy the freedom of expression. They should feel empowered to challenge the prevailing radical narrative from an Islamic perspective and advocate for a peaceful, tolerant, and humanistic interpretation of Islam.
The Quran and Sunnah offer comprehensive guidance for peace-loving, courageous, and sincere religious leaders to advocate for peace. This is exemplified by the significance of "Salam," meaning peace in Arabic, as both an attribute of Allah (Al-Salam) and the root of the word Islam. Promoting peace not only aligns with the true essence of Islam but also represents a noble pursuit aimed at securing stability and a brighter future for the Palestinians. This stands in stark contrast to the efforts of those who propagate hate, endorse violence, and empower pro-violence groups, actions that only serve to prolong the suffering and anguish of the Palestinian people.
*Mansour Al-Hadj is the Director of the Reform in the Arab and Muslim World Project at MEMRI.
[1] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10983, CAIR-LA Director Hussam Ayloush At November 2023 Islamic Society Of Orange County Event: Israel Should Be Attacked And Does Not Have The Right To Defend Itself; Islamic Scholar Zaid Shakir: Trump Is Crazy Enough To Create A Palestinian State If We Tell Him His Face Will Be On Mount Rushmore, November 12, 2023, And See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10962, California Islamic Scholar And Adjunct Professor At UC Irvine Osman Umarji: Many Muslims Ask Whether October 7 Was Worth It; A Few Months Ago, No One Imagined Israel Could Fall – Now It Seems Imminent; Since 9/11, American Muslims Have Been Scared To Speak About The 'Fighting Aspects' Of Islam – We Lost The Knowledge That Prophet Muhammad Was A Warrior, December 22, 2023, And See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10730, Rancho Cucamonga, California Banker And Community Leader Dr. Yahya Abdul-Rahman: Today We Can Manufacture Rockets, Destroy Merkava Tanks; Gaza Is Teaching The World That Planning And Determination Will Get You Far; Gaza Defeated The Occupiers On October 7, December 8, 2023, And See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10728, Miami Imam Dr. Fadi Kablawi: We Cannot Go Back To Pre-October 7 And Trust The Jews; Establishing Shari'a Law Is Freedom For Mankind, Humanity; Oh Allah, Shake The Ground Beneath The Feet Of The Plundering Jews, November 24, 2023.
[2] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10783, Kansas City, Missouri Friday Sermons By Rockhurst University Professor Mohamed Kohia: The October 7 Hamas Attack Was 'Amazing', 'A Miracle', And 'A Drill' For What Will Come Next'; 'Oh Allah, Annihilate The Crusaders', October 20, 2023, And Saudi-American Islamic Scholar Hasib Noor In See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10629, Washington State Friday Sermon: Videos From Gaza Show That The Scent Of Musk Emanates From The Bodies Of The Martyrs, Angels Attend Their Funerals; They Were Occupied In This World, Now They Are In Paradise, November 3, 2023.
[3] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10799, Madison, Wisconsin Friday Sermon By Imam Alhajie Jallow Following October 7 Attack: Our Brothers In Gaza Are Heroes; Only Jihad Can Bring Glory And Victory To The Muslims; The Jews Will Be Killed, Executed By The Muslims, October 13, 2023.
[4] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10586, Maryland Imam Mahmoud Abdel-Hady: The Muslims And The Oppressed Will Eventually Be In Control Of Things, Considering The Birth Rate Of Muslims; October 7 Was A 'Great Victory,' Like The Viet Cong's Tet Offensive, October 21, 2023.
[5] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10904, Florida Friday Sermon By Husam Kablawi Following October 7: Don't Let The Zionists Convince You That You're The Bad Guy; Do Palestinians Have Nothing Better To Do Than To Rape The Women Of The Jews? Muslims Can Marry Up To Four Women, We Don't Need Anyone Else, October 13, 2023.
[6] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10522, American Imam Tom Facchine: We Support The Palestinian Resistance – No Ifs, No Ands, No Buts, No Apologies, No Condemnation – You Don't Criticize The Table Manners Of A Starving Man, October 10, 2023.
[7] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10906, Senior Hamas Official Mousa Abu Marzouk: Nobody Could Have Anticipated The Consequences Of October 7; We Did Not Expect A Barbaric World War against Us, In Violation Of International Law, February 22, 2024.
[8] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10975, North Carolina Imam Abdallh Khadra At March In Support Of Gaza: Muslims In Michigan And North Carolina Have Shown We Can Vote This Administration Out; Ramadan Is The Month Of Victories And Conquests, March 15, 2024.
[9] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10840, Dearborn, Michigan Friday Sermon By Sheikh Mostafa Tolba: The Quran Says That The Israelites Will Spread Corruption On Earth; Allah Will Take Care Of Them, They Will Be Disgraced, Everyone Will Curse Them, January 12, 2024.
[10] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10948, San Francisco Bay Area Islamic Scholar Dr. Yousef Al-Shehabi: October 7 Attack Was A 'Big Lie'; Allah Punished The Jews For Killing Prophets, Trying To Kill Jesus, Prophet Muhammad, February 19, 2024, And See MEMRI TV Clip No.10860, Philadelphia Friday Sermon By Imam Hanif Fouse: The Jews Are Those Allah Is Angry With, They Killed Prophets; The Christians Insult Allah By Saying He Has A Son, December 8, 2023, And See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10828, Friday Sermon At Brooklyn Islamic Center: The Jews Have Incurred The Wrath of Allah, They Killed The Prophets, So Killing Innocent People Is Meaningless To Them; The Christians Who Are Complicit With The Jews Insult Allah, January 12, 2024.
[11] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10957, Michigan Friday Sermon By Imam Abdou Zindani: One Day The Muslims Will Slaughter The Jews Like Sheep; Oh Allah, Make Us Soldiers for You, Make Us Die The Way You Want Us To Die, January 05, 2024, And See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10943, Friday Sermon By Florida Imam Dr. Fadi Kablawi: Oh Allah, Make This Ramadan A Blessed Month Of Victory; By Allah, We Will Seize, Enjoy, Live In The Jewish Settlements; We Will Inherit The Land, Homes, Property Of The Jews, March 8, 2024.
[12] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10701, Colorado Imam Karim Abu Zaid: Allah Decreed That Only Muslims Can Live In Palestine, That The Jews Will Leave Jerusalem And Never Come Back; When The Caliphate Is Established We Will Liberate Palestine And Expel These Guys, November 25, 2023.
[13] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10776, Friday Sermon At Islamic Center Of Frisco, Texas, By Ghaith Arodaki: This Did Not Start On October 7 — The Jews Are Cursed By Allah; They Control The Media, Financial, Political, Social Systems, Spread Corruption, Fornication, Murder, December 29, 2023.
[14] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10977, Friday Sermon By Ohio Attorney Shayan Parsai: The Pier Biden Is Building Is Not For Delivering Aid To Gaza, But To Extract Natural Gas From The Sea – We Won't Vote For Him, March 15, 2024.
[15] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10771, Torrance, California Imam Mohammad S. Ahmed During Friday Sermon: The Children Of Israel Have A Long History Of Wickedness, Murder, And Occupation; Bursts Into Tears: What Have We Done Wrong To Make Allah Not Choose Us To Be Martyrs Like The Palestinians?, December 23, 2023.
[16] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10952, Michigan Islamic Scholar Ahmad Musa Jibril: There Can Be No Permanent Peace Treaty With Jews, Infidels Because It Cancels Out Jihad; When Muslims Get Stronger, The Treaty Is Over, March 11, 2024.
[17] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10585, "Hamas Official Mousa Abu Marzouk: The Tunnels In Gaza Were Built To Protect Hamas Fighters, Not Civilians; Protecting Gaza Civilians Is The Responsibility Of The U.N. And Israel," October 27, 2023.
[18] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10931, Mufti Muhammad Ibn Muneer In Queens, NY Friday Sermon: You Have The Nerve To Use The 'Supposed' Star Of David, But Have Nothing To Do With King David, Solomon, Or Moses; You Are Evil, You Lust For Blood, Murder; You Are Good At Lies, Bribery, And Playing The Victim; ‘Oh Allah, Support Those Who Wage Jihad For Your Sake, Guide Their Shooting', March 1, 2024, And see MEMRI TV Clip No. 10924, And Fort Lauderdale, Florida Mosque Lecture: The Talmud Is Worse Than Hitler's Mein Kampf, Instructs Jews To Kill All Non-Jewish Children; The Jews Worship Lucifer, Have No Hearts, February 19, 2024, And see MEMRI TV Clip No. 10628, San Francisco Bay Area Islamic Scholar Dr. Khalid Siddiqi: The Jews Make Up Only 1% Of The Universe, Yet Probably Cause 99% Of The Problems In The World, November 4, 2023.
[19] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10860, Philadelphia Friday Sermon By Imam Hanif Fouse: The Jews Are Those Allah Is Angry With, They Killed Prophets; The Christians Insult Allah By Saying He Has A Son, December 8, 2023.
[20] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10739, Bayonne, New Jersey Friday Sermon: The People Of Gaza Are Guarding The Dignity Of The Muslim Nation; Oh Allah, Let Us Inherit The Homes, Lands Of The Infields, May Their Wealth, Children, Their Lives Become Booty For The Muslims, December 15, 2023.
[21] See MEMRI TV Clip No. 10547, Hamas Leader Abroad Khaled Mashal Rejects Accusations Of Transgressions Against Civilians On October 7 Attack: We Have Nothing To Apologize For; Hamas Only Fights Soldiers, But Sometimes There Are Civilian Victims In War; Hizbullah, Arab Countries Should Do More To Help Us, October 19, 2023.
https://www.memri.org/reports/challenging-dominant-radical-narrative-preached-mosques-across-us-regarding-israel-hamas-war?fbclid=IwAR2XigNRll0vJCXQOIzJmjgGI-sYeazjJuSi4yT4XK_s5RR4C6QeOi9nDjI_aem_

NYC Dept. of Ed. Disarming Children Against Jihad
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/April 04/2024
One of the oldest apologias for Islam is making the rounds again. According to a Feb. 27, 2024 report,
New York City teachers were told that “jihad” means simply “struggle” — not holy war — in training sessions against “anti-Muslim bias” run by the Department of Education. Educators were even given the example that it could simply mean “my jihad to get fit” … ignoring its history of being used to justify violence, including terrorism by groups such as Hamas, al Qaeda and ISIS … “The literal meaning of Jihad is ‘struggle’ or ‘great effort’. Jihad is the Muslim concept of striving in the path of God,” the host said. Examples she gave included, “My jihad to never settle short”; “My jihad to not judge people”; “My jihad to build friendships”; and “My jihad is to stay fit despite my busy schedule.”
Some teachers naturally took umbrage with these claims:
One teacher said the webinar host ignored them when they messaged to say that the Encyclopedia Britannica definition of jihad included war. Another compared the way it redefined language as “straight from the Joseph Goebbels handbook,” while a third said it was a brazen attempt to use semantics to avoid discussing Islamic extremism.
While all of these criticisms are accurate, truth be told, the claim that jihad literally means “struggle” — not “holy war” — is absolutely correct.
However, this only leads to an even more problematic irony: those who insist on translating jihad only as “struggle” do so thinking they are exonerating this notorious Arabic word from the extremism surrounding it. In reality, it is only when one understands that jihad literally means struggle that one truly comes to appreciate just how dangerous, multifaceted, and subversive it truly is.
Inherently Radical
Let us start with its etymology. Here is how the authoritative Hans-Wehr’s Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic translates the root j-h-d (whence the word jihad is derived):
to strive, endeavor, labor, take pains, and exhaust on behalf or for the sake of something [namely Islam].
Published in 1961—that is, before the current age of political correctness — the academically rigorous dictionary also makes it a point to place under the j-h-d entry the word “jihad,” which is translated as “fight, battle; jihad, holy war against the infidels, as a religious duty.”
There is a very good reason for this subcategorized entry. Historically, jihad always manifested itself as a “holy war against infidels.” It revolved around expanding and (occasionally) defending the borders of Islam.
Century after century, the only way for Muslim empires to expand into non-Muslim territory was through offensive warfare. Because pre-modern Europeans were still zealous over their faith and culture, and thus not about to submit to Islam without a struggle, force — Islamic invasion and conquest — was the only way to effectively practice jihad.
Massaging the Language
Times have changed. With the modern, meteoric rise of the West, a lax if not gullible attitude has come to prevail, allowing some Muslims to exercise the root meaning of jihad. If they can no longer subjugate the infidel through conventional war, they can at least, to quote from the aforementioned dictionary, “strive, endeavor, labor, take pains, and exhaust on behalf or for the sake of something” — namely, empowering Muslims over (and in) the West.
This striving (jihad) takes many forms. One of the most obvious is known in Arabic as jihad al-lissan — literally, “jihad of the tongue, or propaganda. This jihad takes the form of apologetics for Islam and polemics against the West — many of which consist of out-and-out lies. It emanates from Muslim academics, activists, journalists, politicians, and others.
Even the Islamic State, which embodies the concept of jihad as “holy war” more than any other organization in the modern era, regularly reminds its followers not to neglect the jihad of the tongue. According to a 2022 report,
The Islamist terrorist group Islamic State-Khorasan Province (ISKP) has urged its supporters and recruits to emphasize media warfare in addition to military combat. “Fighting with the tongue is as important as fighting physically,” ISKP stated in a new issue of their magazine.
Breed Them Out
Another form of striving, recommended both in the Koran and Hadith, is known as jihad al-mal — the “money jihad.” Instead of physically participating in jihad, a Muslim supports it financially or materially.
This used to be the caliphate’s responsibility. Nowadays and in its absence, everyday Muslims — including those living in the West —finance the jihad with their zakat, or “alms.” For example, in 2001, the U.S. government designated the Holy Land Foundation (once the largest Islamic charity group in the United States) as a terrorist front dedicated to financing Hamas’s jihad/terrorism against Israel.
Yet another is the demographic jihad — the “baby-jihad” (jihad al-wilada). Muslim men “strive” to breed with as many women as possible in order to increase the ranks of Islam vis-à-vis increasingly sterile infidels. This is not just a lusty rationalization for illicit sex. Islamic clerics laud this “endeavor” as a legitimate jihad. Its success can be seen in Western Europe, where some of the capitals — including Amsterdam, Brussels, and Oslo — now have more newborn babies named “Muhammad” than traditional, European names. Muhammad is the most popular name in the UK.
Dumbed Down and Dangerous
In short, the word “jihad” does not simply indicate waging traditional “holy war” to empower Islam over infidels. It means any “endeavor,” any kind of “striving” or “labor” — in a word, any struggle — that empowers Islam over infidels. Citing this fact, as the apologists often do, should not create less but more apprehension concerning the jihad.
Yet here is the New York Department of Education doing everything to give jihad a Western — that is, soft and secular — veneer, so that its targets, including young and impressionable minds, let their guards down. As one Jewish teacher who attended the NYC training session put it,
They are trying to normalize jihad but we have to address the elephant in the room: that for many radical Muslims it means violence. It’s a form of subliminal messaging and brainwashing. By changing the terminology it becomes easier to say and repeat, especially for children. It’s like “genocide” doesn’t mean genocide anymore, and “terrorist” means “freedom fighter.” When someone hears a word like jihad, they now associate it with a struggle to go to the gym rather than violence. How will they be able to spot dangerous and violent ideologies? The Department of Education is promoting this twisting of terminology.

Detonating Borders and the Interior: A Burden on Gaza Under the Guise of Supporting it
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 04/2024
There is a story (that is not universally accepted) of a cheeky exchange between Gamal Abdel Nasser and the Prime Minister of China, Zhou Enlai, during the Bandung Conference in 1955 in which the "Non-Aligned Movement" was founded.
The latter, who was the most sensible diplomatic figure of the regime that had been established six years prior, posed a question to the Egyptian leader: “You Arabs number in the tens of millions, while Israel has a population of less than two million; so why don't you all march towards it, on foot, carrying whatever weapons and equipment you have at your disposal, and wipe it out without giving a thought to the number of casualties you incur? Indeed, your numerical superiority makes it impossible for Israel to kill you all and ensures that millions of you manage to liberate Palestine."
Those who tell this story might be nodding to the significance of numerical superiority in the consciousness of Chinese communists, or the strength of the impression left by "Long March" and the vast distances traversed in it according to the state’s narrative of the Chinese revolution.
Regardless of whether this incident actually happened and Nasser's response if it did, this kind of rhetoric was not alien to the 1950s and 1960s. It was commonplace for political speeches, poems, and caricatures in magazines to flirt with this idea: mighty masses attacking and "sweeping" a handful of "pariahs."
However, this rhetoric began to recede after 1967, and it then faded away, becoming limited to extremely narrow Islamist circles. Nonetheless, we have recently begun hearing something of this sort in a discourse that presents the actions of societies as though they were irrepressible natural events, with the former depicted as storming, shaking, and exploding like volcanoes...
Mohammed Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, addressed "our people in Jordan and Lebanon, in Egypt, Algeria, and the Maghreb, in Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia" along these lines in a recent audio recording. He called on them to "start marching now, not tomorrow, toward Palestine, and do not let borders, regimes, and restrictions deprive you of the honor of waging jihad and taking part in the liberation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
At the same time, Hamas political bureau member Khaled Meshaal addressed the people of Jordan, calling on them to support his movement so that their "blood blends with the blood of the Palestinian people." If, as Haniyeh put it, blending blood is the reward for those marching to liberate Al-Aqsa, as per Deif, many of the faithful prefer to pray in liberated mosques closer to their homes.
Beyond this, as Israel's genocide continues, with its killing, expulsion, and starvation on display for all to see, the response proposed by Deif and Haniyeh seems totally unrelated to the challenge imposed by the Israelis. Transnational armed retaliation ("rise as one man") is a recipe for civil war in every Arab country, and we have seen disconcerting indications to this effect in Jordan, where calls for direct engagement in the conflict are growing louder.
Growing concern for Jordan is mirrored by similar concerns for Lebanon, as Israeli political and military officials announce that "a strike is imminent" on a near-daily basis.
What are we to expect then, if Iran, following the latest slap in the face it received on foreign soil, in its Syrian "farm," decided to retaliate from foreign soil, from its Lebanese "farm"? It is not a question of regimes being "spineless" or "regressive," but of already fragmented societies being pushed from differing to total civil war.
The fact is that this essentially sums up the recent history of the Levant: amid the climate of Nasserist incitement that emerged after 1956, Syria splintered and a broad segment of Syrian society (the People's Party, Syrian nationalists, minorities, etc.) was suppressed, there was a coup in Iraq, a civil war erupted in Lebanon, and Jordan was threatened with a military coup and civil war.
Amid the climate of Palestinian incitement, a small-scale civil war shook Jordan and a large-scale civil war devastated Lebanon. Today, amid the environment of Khomeinist incitement, the countries of the Levant, as well as others outside it, are swinging between overt and latent civil conflict.
Neither this nor that is retaliation against Israel. Rather, it is retaliation against our wicked selves, in which the unleashing of sharpening kinship loyalties combines with the equally comprehensive vigor with which expressing these loyalties is repressed. With this release and suppression, we find ourselves oscillating between a state of fear-induced paralysis that prevents us from taking any initiative for fear that it could blow everything up, and taking initiatives that blow everything up and become paralyzed, paralyzing us with them.
This state of affairs allows us to say that our societies have no interior, that our interior is dysfunctional, or at best, pending. That is now becoming obvious, and nothing speaks to this state of affairs more eloquently than the astonishing silence of initiatives. There is no one to tell us what to do based on the existing balance of power, nor have we heard anything from Hamas to indicate that it will take any decision other than waiting for a ceasefire to be imposed on Israel so that the movement can then say: we have achieved victory.
We have similarly not heard anything from Hezbollah to suggest that it will take any decision other than tying the fate of South Lebanon to that of Gaza, which, in turn, is tied to the decision Israel takes.
Meanwhile, if voices are heard crying out in opposition to the war, from under the rubble in Gaza or the South, they are met with demands for restraint in an illusory resilient interior.
This immense misery encourages nothing as much as it does myths and anticipation for a savior. Victory emerges from the mouth of magic, accompanied by the burdens of our fragmented and conflict-ridden societies; we place these burdens on the shoulders of Gaza, which has enough of its own, while shouting: We are a single united nation.

Concerns over Jordan’s stability — the view from Riyadh
Dr. Abdulaziz Sager/Arab News/April 04, 2024
Since last week, tens of thousands of people have protested at the Israeli Embassy in the Rabieh neighborhood of Amman in Jordan. Tensions have mounted as demonstrations have continued to rock the capital over the past 10 days, with authorities expressing growing concerns over a potential Hamas influence in encouraging people’s participation in these protests, after the former leader of the group’s political wing, Khaled Meshaal, incited discord among Jordanian and Palestinian citizens in Jordan.
The protests in Jordan feature slogans supporting Hamas and its Al-Qassam Brigades military wing, with speeches from their leaders urging the people of Jordan to take action being played. This is despite the Jordanian leadership making increased diplomatic efforts for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the delivery of humanitarian aid. Saudi Arabia has been following these developments closely.
There is a unique geographical and deeply human connection between Palestine and Jordan, making the latter’s security and stability essential for maintaining security in the Occupied Territories. However, external communications and calls have provoked the public into spreading chaos and contributing to disorder in the countries surrounding Palestine, including Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Some extremist Palestinian leaders, including some from Hamas, have unfortunately incited instability in Jordan, driven by misguided, dangerous and short-sighted calculations.
External calls have provoked the public into spreading chaos and contributing to disorder in the countries surrounding Palestine
Jordan is particularly sensitive because it represents, according to Israeli extremist calculations, an “alternative homeland” that the forces of Israeli extremism hope to target in facilitating the goal of the displacement of Palestinians and the seizure of their land. Furthermore, Israel has an interest in a destabilized Jordan as the current Jordanian position stands firmly against its plans.
Saudi Arabia is concerned about Jordan’s security first and foremost due to its geographical location on the northern border of the Kingdom — volatility in Jordan would pose a direct threat to Saudi Arabia’s own national security. Secondly, the Kingdom wishes to maintain Jordan’s independence and integrity, while avoiding any change or shift in the leadership in Amman that may provide an opportunity for any Islamist movement to take over. Overall, there are two main threats to stability in Jordan: Israel’s ambitions encompassing its territory and the mobilization of Islamist movements such as Hamas.
Saudi Arabia supports all measures already taken and to be taken by Jordan, particularly those aimed at preserving its security and territorial sovereignty from anyone attempting to seize the state, exert pressure or influence its decisions. The Kingdom’s stance is clear: any harm to Jordanian stability or threat to its security is a red line. Riyadh will not tolerate any attempt to turn Jordan into an arena for exporting tensions or fostering chaos and instability in the Arab world under the pretext of supporting resistance in Gaza.
The Kingdom’s stance is clear: any harm to Jordanian stability or threat to its security is a red line
Saudi Arabia, as a religious, political and ethical authority exerting substantial influence over the Arab world, is dedicated to maintaining Arab national security, including in Jordan. This is not a new development. In the past, Saudi Arabia has backed Jordan and supported any steps taken to uphold its security and stability. Notably, King Salman organized a summit in 2018 that extended an economic aid package to Jordan amounting to $2.5 billion. This support highlighted Saudi Arabia’s commitment to assisting Jordan in times of crisis. King Abdullah of Jordan has repeatedly expressed gratitude for the Kingdom’s support and acknowledged its role in addressing various challenges, including those that could potentially destabilize Jordan.
In conclusion, the Kingdom’s concern for the security of Jordan amid the rise of extremist movements stems from its recognition of the intricate interplay between regional dynamics and national security. As a neighboring country, Jordan’s stability is not only vital for its citizens but also holds significant implications for the broader regional security landscape. Saudi Arabia’s proactive approach to addressing these challenges underscores its commitment to fostering peace and stability within the region.
By engaging in strategic partnerships and diplomatic initiatives and implementing robust security measures, the Kingdom endeavors to both safeguard its own interests and contribute to the collective security of the region. Saudi Arabia remains poised to navigate the complex security environment and mitigate potential threats to Jordan’s sovereignty and stability through continued vigilance, cooperation and a steadfast commitment to upholding shared values.

Is the Syrian regime starting to stand up to Iran?
Khaled Abou Zahr/Arab News/April 04, 2024
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei this week asserted that Israel would face consequences for its attack on the Iranian Embassy compound in Damascus that claimed the lives of two senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps generals. President Ebrahim Raisi also vowed that Iran would retaliate and “punish” Israel. This was followed by the IRGC and its proxies across the region, which promised more deadly strikes against Israel.
Monday’s attack, coupled with the heightened rhetoric and the situation in Gaza, has sparked fears within the international media and diplomatic community of a broader conflict in the region. But is this really about to happen?
Despite the promises of Iranian officials, I doubt the Iranian response will be so vehement as to rock the rules of engagement between the two countries. Even if this was the first time Israel has hit the Iranian Embassy in Syria, these targeted assassinations appear to fall within the agreed playbook between the two regional powers. The target of the attack was Brig. Gen. Mohammed Reza Zahedi, who was a commander in the IRGC’s Quds Force responsible for its role in Syria and Lebanon.
Yet, this strike should also raise two questions. What is the IRGC preparing in Syria and has it changed its objectives since the war in Gaza started? And maybe more importantly, how did Israel know when to hit its target, especially as it was known that Zahedi traveled in secret? Just two months ago, the IRGC reduced its deployment of senior officers in Syria due to Israel’s deadly airstrikes and instead relied more heavily on its allied militias. This claimed shift came after a spate of attacks by Israel that killed several IRGC members, including high-ranking commanders.
The Syrian regime knows it will not regain its legitimacy while staying under the thumb of Tehran
Call me a conspiracy theorist, but when such strikes take place, one has to wonder where the information came from. It has always been the case — whether it was the 2008 killing of Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s international operations chief, or Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, in 2020 — that the information comes from within. Mughniyeh was killed by a bomb planted in a spare tire on an SUV in Damascus. The bomb was apparently triggered remotely by Mossad agents, instantly killing the target. Media reports indicated that a team of CIA spotters was tracking his movements in Damascus but they could not intervene in the operation executed by Mossad. This took place amid accusations of links between Hezbollah and the Syrian regime over the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Today, the Syrian regime is in the middle of an ambiguous situation and it knows it will not regain its legitimacy while staying under the thumb of the Iranian regime. Worse, it cannot accept having a proliferation of militias that undermine its authority. Hence, the increase in assassinations could mean that either the Syrian regime is looking to tame the Iranian plans indirectly or, at a less strategic level, the Syrian security services are leaking information for financial or other benefits. For Tehran, in the short term, the result is the same.
There is also clarity and a strategic position in the fact that Iran has stood silent in the face of numerous Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon. It has, for decades, worked with great focus on developing a military infrastructure and logistics that extend to Syria and Lebanon through Iraq. This Israeli strike, like the previous ones, will not create a different outcome and will not lead to an escalation or broadening of the war for these reasons. We can call it the rules of engagement between these countries, but it is starting to look like a Tehran-Tel Aviv tango in the land of the Levant.
There is clarity in the fact that Iran has stood silent in the face of numerous Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon
Despite the war in Ukraine — and only two days after the Israeli attack on the Iranian Embassy compound — Russia’s Defense Ministry this week deployed more forces to the Syrian-controlled areas of the Golan Heights. These soldiers, from Russia’s military police, aim to reduce tensions and monitor the ceasefire in Syrian provinces like Quneitra and Deraa. Russian observation posts are positioned above Syrian military posts to oversee potential provocations.
However, as we now all know, despite their interests being aligned with the Assad regime, Russia and Iran are also in competition for influence and leverage on Syrian soil. This Iranian retrenchment is a tactical win for Russia, as well as the Assad regime, which could not agree with Iran’s deployment of militias like in Lebanon, Iraq and elsewhere.
One striking difference from 2008 and the targeting of Mughniyeh is the US position. Judging by the current administration’s response of profuse and obsequious justifications to Tehran that it was not involved, something has indeed changed. Moreover, current and former US officials have expressed concerns over Israel’s airstrike, fearing that it could escalate tensions in the region and lead to retaliatory strikes. This is the first time that, despite the IRGC being designated as a foreign terrorist organization, the US has not granted Israel the gift of silence. If we read between the lines, it is perhaps even going so far as condemning this action.
There is no doubt that Iran is not only suffering on the ground in Syria, but it is also suffering from a huge deficit in terms of image and status since the Gaza war started. Despite the visit of leaders of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad to Iran last week, many consider Tehran to be standing on the sidelines and leaving its proxy militias to focus on wreaking havoc, rather than getting involved in a direct war with Israel, as its raison d’etre claims. Yet, this time, the biggest challenge might not be Israel but a less docile regime in Syria.
*Khaled Abou Zahr is the founder of SpaceQuest Ventures, a space-focused investment platform. He is the chief executive of EurabiaMedia and editor of Al-Watan Al-Arabi.