Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 24-25/2024
You are invited to watch a film about the life of Blessed Brother Estephan Nehme, the Lebanese Maronite monk, on April 24, 25, 27
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Heartfelt greetings to the Armenian people on the anniversary of their genocide by the Ottoman Sultanate.
Gallant claims half of Hezbollah's commanders in south eliminated
Southern Front: Washington Warns of High Risk of Escalation
Israel Carrying Out ‘Offensive Action’ at the Southern Border
Israel hits Lebanese border towns with 14 missiles
Israeli Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon as Cross-Border Fire Escalates
Hezbollah repeatedly attacks Israel in response to Hanin strike
French FM to visit Beirut in bid to 'separate' Lebanon from Gaza
UK Deputy Chief of Defense Staff affirms UK support to Lebanese Army
Hezbollah replaces Iranian forces as Tehran cuts Syria presence
Berri says quintet ambassadors didn't ask him to set electoral session
Geagea says border clashes not real support but 'show' with political goals
Berri-Mikati Meeting: Three Issues Discussed at Ain Al-Tineh
Municipal Elections: A Constitutional Right
‘Renewal’ Bloc Will Not Attend Tomorrow’s Parliamentary Session
Bukhari Hopes Quintet Efforts Will Lead to Swift Solutions
Bassil urges consensus on 'reformist, sovereign and patriotic president'
French Foreign Minister Expected in Beirut on Saturday
The Editorial—Pluralism and Lebanity

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 24-25/2024
Israel Says It Is Poised to Move on Rafah
Israel ‘Stuck’ in War After 200 Days
After 200 Days of War, Where Have the Gaza Ceasefire Negotiations Reached?
Relatives of Israeli prisoners demonstrate in Tel Aviv to demand that the )
Argentina seeks arrest of Iran minister over 1994 Jewish center bombing
Israel says US military aid sends 'strong message' to enemies
Tehran, Tel Aviv Exchange Displays of Power During Gaza Conflict
Biden Signs Ukraine Aid, TikTok Ban Bills after Republican Battle
Iran, Pakistan Urge Security Council to Take Action Against Israel
Iran Threatens to Annihilate Israel Should it Launch Major Attack
Turkey accuses U.S. of double standards over Gaza in rights report
U.S. to name former UN official as new Gaza aid envoy, say sources
Pakistan and Iran vow to enhance efforts at a 'united front' against Afghanistan-based militants
Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by US to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
The US quietly shipped long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine
Italy says to sign deal to rebuild Ukraine's Odesa and its cathedral
Russian Orthodox Church suspends priest who prayed at Navalny's grave
‘Big Scandal’ Behind Russian Deputy Defense Minister’s Arrest

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on April 24-25/2024
Qatar, 'Leading Sponsor of Terrorism in the World, More than Iran,' Is Not an Impartial Mediator/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./April 24, 2024
Christians Continue to be Purged: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/April 24, 2023
‘Civil War’ and Its Terrifying Premonition of American Collapse/Michelle Goldberg/The New York Times/April 24/2024
And the Militias/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
America - Israel: A Few Signs of Our Times/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 24-25/2024
You are invited to watch a film about the life of Blessed Brother Estephan Nehme, the Lebanese Maronite monk, on April 24, 25, 27
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/128930/128930/
لشراء بطاقات الدخول اتصل بشربل باسيل على الرقم التالي 399-7931 (416

Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Heartfelt greetings to the Armenian people on the anniversary of their genocide by the Ottoman Sultanate.
Elias Bejjani/April 24, 2024
The Annual Remembrance Day of the Ottoman massacres against the Armenians, Maronites, Syriacs, and Chaldeans between the years 1914-1915.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/129151/129151/
In the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is a document dating back to the year 1916, which quotes the Minister of War of the Ottoman Empire at that time, Enver Pasha, as saying: “The empire must be cleansed of the Armenians and the Christians of Mount Lebanon. We eliminated the Armenians by the sword, and we will eliminate the Lebanese by famine.”
Sefo (killing by the sword): massacres targeting Assyrian Syrians and Iraqis, instigated by the Turkish army and carried out by Kurdish tribes. It began in 1914 and continued for several years, killing 400,000 Syriacs. The Turkish state denies its occurrence. Between 1914 and 2023, the proportions of Christians in the Near East declined to the point of extinction, something that only happened with the Mamluks.
Today, we also sadly remember the two hundred thousand Maronite martyrs of Mount Lebanon, who died in famine at the hands of the Ottomans from 1915-1918, in addition to the Sefo massacres, against the Chaldean Syriacs, Assyrians
Every April 24, we reiterate: Recognizing the massacres and genocide inflicted upon the Armenian, Syriac, Assyrian, and Chaldean peoples is a historical necessity for the path of honesty and truth.
Greetings to the resilient peoples who have preserved their collective memory, thrived, and excelled across all times and places. #Armenian_genocide #Sifo_massacres
The anniversary of the #ArmenianGenocide teaches us that justice is a cause that transcends generations and cannot be erased by the passage of years or even decades. Salutations to all  activists who have struggled and continue to struggle for the official recognition of this genocide, endeavoring to transform this solemn anniversary into a national day dedicated to purifying memory and delivering justice to the victims and their families.
From the depths of our hearts and with resounding voices, we extend our sincere salutations and reverence to the Armenian people for their unwavering commitment in defending their faith, beliefs, nationalism, existence, and civilization. Each year on April 24, the Armenian people renew their sacred vows and commitments to preserve and safeguard their faith, existence, and cause.
One hundred and nine years following the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Sultanate against the Armenian people based on religious, ethnic, racial, barbaric, and instinctual grounds, this resilient people, dispersed throughout the world, continues to hold steadfast to their faith in their Lord and their inherent right to a dignified life and just cause. One and a half million Armenian civilians, including children, the elderly, men, and women, were ruthlessly slaughtered with premeditation and design at the hands of the criminal Ottoman forces. Those who survived the atrocities were subjected to abuse, forced emigration, and homelessness.
Heartfelt greetings and commendations to this steadfast and faithful people, who were the first in the world to adopt Christianity as their official religion. They are a people who have faced adversity with faith, piety, and patience, giving rise to numerous saints and righteous individuals, and continue to produce martyrs even today.
As a Lebanese Maronite Christian, I not only empathize with the Armenian people, share in their pain, support their just cause, and uphold their faith in Christ the Redeemer and all Christian values, including love, forgiveness, and redemption, but I also take pride in the active Armenian community in my homeland, Lebanon, which has contributed and continues to contribute to its preservation and defense.
In the twenty-first century, silence is no longer acceptable under any pretext concerning the Ottoman genocidal campaigns against the Armenian, Syriac, Aramaic, Chaldean, Maronite, and Greek peoples.
Today, it is imperative for all the peoples of the world, international human rights and humanitarian organizations, and religious institutions to acknowledge the genocide inflicted upon the Armenian people and to pressure the Turkish government to recognize this genocide, followed by the implementation of all necessary humanitarian and legal measures.
Heartfelt greetings to the Armenian people on the centenary of the Ottoman genocide they endured.
It remains certain that whoever evades earthly judgment and justice will not escape the accountability, justice, and fair reckoning of the Lord on the Day of Final Judgment.

Gallant claims half of Hezbollah's commanders in south eliminated
Naharnet/April 24/2024
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Wednesday claimed that half of Hezbollah's commanders in southern Lebanon have been killed by the Israeli military. The remarks were made following a visit to the Israeli army’s Northern Command in Safad, where Gallant held an assessment with the chief of the command, Maj. Gen. Ori Gordin, and other top officers. "Many forces are deployed on the border and IDF (Israeli army) forces are carrying out offensive action currently throughout southern Lebanon," Gallant said in a video statement. "Half of the Hezbollah commanders in south Lebanon have been eliminated... and half of them are in hiding and abandoning south Lebanon to IDF (Israeli army) operations," Gallant alleged. He says Israel's main goal in its north is to return the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis to their homes, amid Hezbollah's daily attacks. "We are dealing with a number of alternatives in order to establish this matter, and the coming period will be decisive in this regard," Gallant said.

Southern Front: Washington Warns of High Risk of Escalation
This Is Beirut/April 24/2024
United States Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Barbara Leaf warned Wednesday of “high degree of volatility” on the border between Lebanon and Israel, commenting that “the potential for escalation is acute”. “We have of course cautioned Israel regarding its response to the attacks that Hezbollah initiated in the initial hours, as the attacks were unfolding,” she said. “We have certainly used a number of (communication) channels and have been aided by other partners in using their channels, both direct and indirect, to Hezbollah, to warn against widening the conflict.”Barbara Leaf’s warnings came as the southern front flared up on Wednesday, with the Israeli army announcing an “offensive action” in the south of the country. It claimed that its air force and artillery had hit 40 Hezbollah targets and killed half of its commanders in the area. “Troops are deployed in large numbers on the border, and the armed forces are currently carrying out offensive actions throughout southern Lebanon,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement. “Half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated, while the other half are in hiding, leaving the way clear for Israeli military operations,” he continued.A spokesman for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) told AFP that it had “not detected any land crossings” of the border on Wednesday. “Around half of Hezbollah’s field commanders in southern Lebanon have been liquidated, and the coming period will be decisive,” said Gallant during a visit to the Northern Command headquarters. “Our main objective is to bring the people of northern Israel home,” he added. These comments were denied by a senior Hezbollah official, who described them as “futile” and aimed at “boosting Israeli morale”. On the ground, the Israeli army announced that “its fighter jets and artillery struck around 40 Hezbollah terrorist targets” around Aita al-Shaab, including weapons storage sites. The army also carried out around thirteen strikes near this locality. The villages of Ramya, Jabal Blat and Khallet Warda were also bombed. Raids also targeted Jabal al-Rihan and Alma el-Chaab. Incendiary shells were also fired at the forest between Dhayra and Yarin, as well as flares at border villages adjacent to the Blue Line in the western and central sectors. For its part, Hezbollah announced that it had fired a salvo of rockets at northern Israel in retaliation for Tuesday’s raid on a house in Hanin, in the Bint Jbeil caza, in which two people were killed and six wounded. Hezbollah also claimed responsibility for attacks on the settlements of Shomera and Avivim. It also targeted Raheb and Rweissat al-Alam positions, as well as gatherings of Israeli soldiers in the north of the country.

Israel Carrying Out ‘Offensive Action’ at the Southern Border
This Is Beirut/April 24/2024
Israeli forces are carrying out an “offensive action” across southern Lebanon, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday, without specifying whether ground troops had crossed the border. “Many forces are deployed on the border,” and the army is “carrying out offensive action currently throughout southern Lebanon,” Gallant said in a video statement. He also claimed that “half of Hezbollah’s commanders in southern Lebanon have been eliminated” in more than six months of violence, while “the other half are in hiding and abandoning the field to (Israeli army) operations,” he added without giving a specific number. In addition, and according to the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera channel, “the Israeli army raised its alert level, closing streets and roads adjacent to the border with Lebanon.” Earlier, the Israeli army stated that it had struck 40 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon as near-daily exchanges of fire on the border have been taking place since October 8, 2023. The army said in a statement that its “fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets” around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry. Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said that Israel had carried out more than 13 strikes near Aita al-Shaab and surrounding villages. The strikes came after Hezbollah said that it fired a fresh barrage of rockets across the border on Wednesday after a strike blamed on Israel killed two civilians.
With AFP

Israel hits Lebanese border towns with 14 missiles
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/April 24, 2024
BEIRUT: Clashes between Hezbollah and Israeli forces escalated sharply on Wednesday, the 200th day of conflict in southern Lebanon’s border area. Israeli airstrikes created a ring of fire around Lebanese border towns, with at least 14 missiles hitting the area. In the past two days, military activity in the border region has increased, with Hezbollah targeting areas in northern Acre for the first time in the conflict. On Wednesday, Israeli strikes hit the outskirts of Aita Al-Shaab, Ramya, Jabal Balat, and Khallet Warda. The Israeli military said it had destroyed a missile launching pad in Tair Harfa, and targeted Hezbollah infrastructure in Marqaba and Aita Al-Shaab. Israeli artillery also struck areas of Kafar Shuba and Shehin “to eliminate a potential threat.”Hezbollah also stepped up its operations, saying this was in retaliation for the “horrific massacre committed by the Israeli enemy in the town of Hanin, causing casualties and injuries among innocent civilians.” A woman in her 50s and a 12-year-old girl, both members of the same family, were killed in the Israeli airstrike. Six other people were injured. Hezbollah said it attacked the Shomera settlement with dozens of Katyusha rockets. The group said it also targeted Israeli troops in Horsh Natawa, and struck the Al-Raheb site with artillery. It also claimed to have killed and wounded Israeli soldiers in an attack on the Avivim settlement. Israeli news outlets said that a rocket-propelled grenade hit a house in the settlement, setting the dwelling ablaze. Hezbollah’s military media said that in the past 200 days of fighting with Israel, 1,998 operations had been carried out from Lebanon, Yemen and Iraq, including 1,637 staged by Hezbollah.

Israeli Strikes Hit Southern Lebanon as Cross-Border Fire Escalates
Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
The Israeli military said artillery and fighter jet strikes had hit around 40 targets in southern Lebanon on Wednesday as the intense fighting of recent days continued to escalate, with Hezbollah firing dozens of rockets at an Israeli border village. The Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel have been waging their worst hostilities in nearly two decades since war erupted in Gaza last October, stirring concern about the risk of a wider and more destructive conflict between the heavily armed foes. The Israeli military said the strikes in the area of Ayta al-Shaab, about 3 km (1.6 miles) inside the Lebanese border, had hit infrastructure including storage facilities and weapons in an area it said was used extensively by Hezbollah forces. "There is continuous offensive action by IDF forces in all of southern Lebanon as well as in other parts of Lebanon. The operational results are very impressive," Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a statement following an operational meeting at the military's Northern Command. He said half of Hezbollah's commanders in southern Lebanon had been killed by Israeli forces. A Hezbollah official dismissed the assertion as "completely worthless" and aimed only to boost Israeli morale. He said the group regularly published pictures and biographical details of fighters killed in the fighting. On Wednesday, the movement held a funeral for a senior commander, Hussein Azkoul, killed earlier this week by Israel. Speaking at the funeral, senior Hezbollah politician Hassan Fadlallah indicated that Azkoul had played a role in developing Hezbollah's drone and missile capabilities, taking the battle with Israel into "a new phase". The Israeli strikes came a day after Hezbollah launched a drone attack on Israeli military bases north of the Israeli coastal city of Acre, its deepest strike yet in the hostilities that have flared in parallel to the Gaza war. The attack appeared to be one of the most complicated announced by Hezbollah during the last six months, using drones designed to keep Israeli air defenses busy while others laden with explosives were flown at the Israeli targets. On Wednesday, Hezbollah fired Katyusha rockets on the community of Shomera in response to Israeli strikes on Lebanese villages including one the day before on Hanin, which killed at least two people including an 11-year-old girl. Though the latest hostilities have been the worst in years, the violence has largely been confined to areas at or near the Israeli-Lebanese border, with Israel occasionally striking deeper into the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon's east. Israeli strikes have killed some 250 Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon since Oct. 7, in addition to a further 30 killed in Israeli strikes in neighboring Syria. Overall, this exceeds Hezbollah's losses in the 2006 war with Israel. More than 70 civilians have been killed in Lebanon. In Israel, 18 people - including soldiers and civilians - have been killed.

Hezbollah repeatedly attacks Israel in response to Hanin strike
Agence France Presse/April 24/2024
Hezbollah said it fired fresh barrages of rockets across the border on Wednesday after an Israeli strike killed two civilians. The Israeli army meanwhile said it struck 40 Hezbollah targets in south Lebanon as Israeli warplanes carried out 14 airstrikes on the outskirts of Aita al-Shaab and Ramia. "A short while ago, IDF fighter jets and artillery struck approximately 40 Hezbollah terror targets" around Aita al-Shaab in southern Lebanon, including storage facilities and weaponry, the army said in a statement. Hezbollah had already fired rockets at northern Israel late on Tuesday "in response" to the deaths of the two civilians, a woman and her niece, in south Lebanon. The group has exchanged near-daily fire with the Israeli army since the start of the war on Gaza and has stepped up its rocket fire on Israeli military bases in recent days. Hezbollah fighters fired "dozens of Katyusha rockets" at Shomera and targeted soldiers in Avivim and Netu'a in northern Israel "as part of the response to the Israeli enemy's attacks on... civilian homes, especially in Hanin " the group said in a statement. On Tuesday, rescue teams said an Israeli strike on a house in the southern village of Hanin killed a woman in her fifties and a girl from the same family. Hezbollah also targeted Wednesday the al-Raheb post in northern Israel as Israeli artillery and tanks shelled the outskirts of Ramia, Beit Leef and Alma al-Shaab in south Lebanon. Israeli warplanes had struck overnight the southern towns of Houla and Rab Tlatine. Since October 7, at least 380 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also 72 civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israel says 11 soldiers and eight civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

French FM to visit Beirut in bid to 'separate' Lebanon from Gaza
Naharnet/April 24/2024
French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné will visit Beirut on Sunday to “follow up on the file of support for the Lebanese Army,” al-Joumhouria newspaper reported. Séjourné will meet with Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker PM Najib Mikati, caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib and possibly Army chief General Joseph Aoun, ahead of traveling to Saudi Arabia and from there to Tel Aviv, the daily said. An informed political source meanwhile told the newspaper that the surprise visit is “part of the French endeavor that is trying to separate the arenas and disconnect the escalation in the south from the Gaza war, in a step that is coordinated with the Americans, especially after it turned out that the war in Gaza will drag on.”

UK Deputy Chief of Defense Staff affirms UK support to Lebanese Army
Naharnet/April 24/2024
The UK Deputy Chief of Defense Staff, Air Marshal Harvey Smyth, has completed a two-day visit to Lebanon. This was his first visit, to discuss UK efforts for de-escalation in the region, the British Embassy in Beirut said in a statement Wednesday.Air Marshall Smyth met with Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Speaker Nabih Berri, General Joseph Aoun, Chief of Defense for the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdallah Bou Habib. In his messages he reiterated UK’s support to the strengthening of LAF and for the people of Lebanon. He emphasised UK’s ongoing commitment to support LAF as it delivers stability and security across Lebanon despite the country’s challenges, In north Lebanon, he saw how the hard-working officers and soldiers of the 1st Land Border Regiment continue to professionally secure Lebanon's sovereignty and to combat smuggling and terrorist activities along more than 100km of the border with Syria, the British Embassy said. Air Marshall Harvey Smyth said Tuesday at the end of his visit: “I have seen first-hand the excellent partnership between the British and Lebanese Armed Forces on the Syrian border, and during my meetings I reiterated the UK’s position that Lebanon must not be dragged into a regional conflict. The UK is working closely alongside our Lebanese partners to de-escalate tensions in the region and ongoing hostilities along the Blue Line, whilst calling for an end to the fighting in Gaza.”British Ambassador to Lebanon, Hamish Cowell said: “Now, more than ever, it is important that we work together to avoid further escalation in South Lebanon and the region. The UK remains committed to supporting the Lebanese Armed Forces during these challenging times, and will work with international partners towards peace and long-term stability.”

Hezbollah replaces Iranian forces as Tehran cuts Syria presence
Agence France Presse/April 24/2024
Iran has reduced its military footprint in Syria after a succession of strikes blamed on Israel, a source close to Iran-backed Hezbollah and a war monitor said Wednesday. Iran has provided military support to Syrian government forces through more than a decade of civil war but a series of strikes targeting its commanders in recent months has prompted a reshaping of its presence, the sources said. "Iran withdrew its forces from southern Syria," including both Quneitra and Daraa provinces, which abut the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights, the source close to Hezbollah said. But it still maintains a presence in other parts of the country, the source added. Recent months have seen a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria, widely blamed on Israel, culminating in an April 1 strike that levelled the Iranian consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals. That strike prompted Iran to launch a first-ever direct missile and drone attack against Israel on April 13-14 that sent regional tensions spiralling. But Iran had already begun drawing down its forces after a January 20 strike that killed five Revolutionary Guards in Damascus, including their Syria intelligence chief and his deputy, the source close to Hezbollah said.Britain-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said Iranian forces had withdrawn from Damascus and southern Syria. Iran-backed Lebanese and Iraqi fighters had taken their place, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. Iran has said repeatedly that it has no combat troops in Syria, only officers to provide military advice and training. But the Observatory says as many as 3,000 Iranian military personnel are present in Syria, supported by tens of thousands of Iran-trained fighters from countries including Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan. Abdel Rahman said that many of Iran's advisers had left Syria over the past six months, although some remained in Aleppo province in the north and in Deir Ezzor province in the east.

Berri says quintet ambassadors didn't ask him to set electoral session
Naharnet/April 24/2024
Commenting on his meeting Tuesday with the ambassadors of the five-nation group of Lebanon, Speaker Nabih Berri has said that the circumstances have not “matured” yet regarding the presidential vote. “There is slow progress, but things have not matured enough yet,” Berri said, in remarks published Wednesday in al-Akhbar newspaper. Revealing that the ambassadors did not ask him to schedule an electoral session, Berri noted that the meeting was limited to discussing the issue of calling for a presidential dialogue. Pointing out that the ambassadors supported the principle of dialogue, Berri said that he offered them “clarifications” and that “they did not raise new ideas.”

Geagea says border clashes not real support but 'show' with political goals
Naharnet/April 24/2024
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea said Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah acted defensive even though no one has accused him or Hezbollah of killing the LF local coordinator in Jbeil, Pascal Sleiman. Geagea said in an interview Tuesday with Sky News Arabia that the LF had called for restraint and did not accuse Hezbollah of what he called a political assassination. "Hezbollah is the strongest militarily but not the strongest politically," Geagea added, citing that Hezbollah has failed to elect his presidential candidate while the LF's candidate Jihad Azour could have won hadn't the Axis of Defiance obstructed the second round of vote. Geagea also criticized Hezbollah for exchanging near-daily fire with the Israeli army since the start of the war on Gaza. "They call it a unity of arenas, but their real goal is to reserve a seat in the Middle East settlement," Geagea said. "This is not real unity but a show."Geagea also dubbed the resistance as "an armed movement only aiming to alter the domestic balance of power and to strengthen Iran's position in the region."

Berri-Mikati Meeting: Three Issues Discussed at Ain Al-Tineh
This is beirut/April 24/2024
A meeting took place today, Wednesday, at Ain al-Tineh between Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati. The discussion revolved around the municipal elections, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, in light of Mikati’s visit to Paris, and the issue of Syrian migrants.

Municipal Elections: A Constitutional Right
Marguerita Sejaan/This Is Beirut
The Parliament is scheduled to convene on Thursday for a legislative session, widely anticipated to extend the mandates of municipal councils and mukhtars into their third year. These speculations arise following prolonged disputes among political parties. The Lebanese Forces (LF) and Kataeb advocate for municipal elections, whereas the Axis of Resistance seeks their postponement, citing the ongoing conflict in South Lebanon as justification. Both legal and political experts have raised concerns about the perils of delaying local elections and its implications for democratic processes. “In the Constitution, municipal elections are deemed administrative rather than political,” stated attorney Rizk Zgheib. “They must adhere to the constitutional obligation of periodicity that applies to all elections.”“Extending mandates and deferring elections are unconstitutional,” Zgheib emphasized. Despite their administrative categorization in the Constitution, the motivations behind calls for their cancellation are undeniably political, according to former MP Fares Souhaid. Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri asserts that administrative hurdles resulting from the conflict preclude holding elections, but some argue that this rationale masks other concerns within the Axis of Resistance. Contrary to claims of logistical impossibility, historical precedent demonstrates that elections can be conducted even amidst conflict. Miled Alam, head of the Municipality of Rmeish, recalls instances during the Civil War and Israeli invasion when citizens in the South traveled to designated polling stations in Tebnin or Bint Jbeil. “With roads accessible and inter-town travel feasible, why assert it’s unattainable now?” Alam questioned. “The South has endured conflict for over six months; why is this obstacle raised only at this juncture?”Fares Souhaid suggests that the ostensible rationale conceals deeper political motives. Amidst ongoing conflict, the Shiite duo Hezbollah-Amal seeks to foster unity and solidarity. “They cannot afford to display divisions between towns,” Souhaid asserted. “If Amal prevails in one town, Hezbollah in another, and Christian parties elsewhere, how can the duo promote the notion of a unified populace?”Debunking claims of logistical barriers, the push to postpone elections for another year is deemed unconstitutional, encroaching upon citizens’ democratic rights. “Elections are both a duty and a right,” Alam concluded. “As municipalities of the South, we unequivocally advocate for them.”

‘Renewal’ Bloc Will Not Attend Tomorrow’s Parliamentary Session
This is beirut/April 24/2024
The “Renewal” bloc declared its boycott of the parliamentary session scheduled for Thursday, April 25, following a meeting at its headquarters in Sin el-Fil. The decision was announced in rejection of the extension of municipal council mandates, as the municipal elections are deemed a constitutional entitlement that should not be tampered with in terms of timing and principle of conduct under any circumstances or pretext. The bloc condemned the hasty actions of the parliamentary presidency in extending the municipalities’ mandate. It considered the collusion between certain factions of the system to undermine municipal entitlements and violate the Constitution, a new chapter in the ongoing conspiracy against constitutional principles and institutions. According to the statement, “The political forces involved in the extension crime are hiding behind excuses and pretexts.” The bloc suggested solutions, such as postponing elections in areas where holding them is currently impractical, until conditions allow for their proper conduct. Furthermore, the bloc viewed the political collusion aimed at delaying municipal and optional elections as “another aspect of the continuous context we are currently witnessing,” which includes obstructing presidential elections and other entitlements like government formation and parliamentary proceedings. The statement emphasized that such destructive behavior has pushed the state into a phase of dissolution and disintegration. The bloc pledged to confront it through coordination among opposition components and all sovereign and reformist forces. It stressed that all deputies and blocs participating in the extension session for municipal entitlements bear responsibility for breaching the Constitution and urged them to refrain from betraying the trust of the voters. Finally, the bloc reiterated its warning about the dangers of extension, foreseeing near-complete paralysis in the work of the extended municipal councils. This paralysis, it argued, would further burden citizens due to the absence of local authorities fulfilling their developmental and service roles.

Bukhari Hopes Quintet Efforts Will Lead to Swift Solutions
This is beirut/April 24/2024
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon Walid Bukhari stressed on Wednesday the importance of the efforts and initiatives undertaken by the Quintet Committee to assist Lebanon, in hopes that these efforts might lead to swift solutions through the dialogue conducted with everyone. He emphasized during his meeting with the Grand Mufti of Lebanon, Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, his country’s keenness on the stability of Lebanon and its support for enhancing unity and convergence among the Lebanese. Derian also highlighted the cooperation with the Quintet Committee, which he claimed has offered many constructive proposals and ideas to reach solutions. He called on political forces to respond to their efforts. “Any initiative proposed is supported by them as they are keen on Lebanon and the Lebanese,” he said, adding that “reform begins with the election of a president and the formation of a strong government. Otherwise, Lebanon will remain in chaos.”

Bassil urges consensus on 'reformist, sovereign and patriotic president'
Naharnet/April 24/2024
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil told a delegation from the National Moderation bloc that there is a need for “consensus on a reformist, sovereign and patriotic president.” “If that is not possible, democratic competition through voting remains much better than vacuum,” Bassil added. “There should be guarantees that the electoral session will take place through the commitment of the participating parties via a written paper that clarified all the agreed points, while the priority should be for the participants’ consensus on a single candidate during a specific period of three days for example. Should that not be possible, there should be successive electoral sessions and rounds for three days during a given week,” Bassil went on to say. “If any candidate fails to garner 65 votes during these rounds, we have given ideas to guarantee that that would happen during the subsequent week,” the FPM chief added.

French Foreign Minister Expected in Beirut on Saturday
This Is Beirut/April 24/2024
French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne is expected to arrive in Beirut on Saturday, at the start of a Middle East tour during which he will discuss the instability in southern Lebanon and the situation in Gaza, sources in his entourage said on Wednesday. This will be Sejourne’s second visit to the region, after the one he made in early February, shortly after taking office. He is due to meet on Sunday the Head of Parliament, Nabih Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, and the Commander-in-Chief of the Army, General Joseph Aoun. Discussions will focus on the French proposals that Sejourne put forward in February to defuse the conflict on the Lebanese-Israeli border. Beirut has taken note of the French proposals, however, without endorsing them. From Beirut, Sejourne will travel to Saudi Arabia. This will be his first visit to the oil-rich kingdom, focusing on economic, energy, environmental and defense issues.
The head of French diplomacy will be in Israel on April 30, before visiting the occupied Palestinian territories the following day. France intends to play an active role “in efforts to find a political solution” to the war in Gaza, with a twofold aim, “to secure the release of the hostages” still being held by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and to obtain “a lasting ceasefire,” according to the minister’s entourage.

The Editorial—Pluralism and Lebanity
Michel Touma/This is beirut/April 24/2024
The members of Lebanon’s Armenian community observe this April 24, as they do each year, the commemoration of the genocide perpetrated against their ancestors in the early 20th century, in steadfast adherence to their collective memory which stands firm against the passage of time.
These atrocities perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire began in 1915 and persisted until 1918, claiming the lives of no less than 1.5 million Armenians alongside 750,000 Assyrian-Chaldeans and Syriacs and over 350,000 Greeks.
This multi-faceted genocide precipitated the formation of a significant Armenian community in Lebanon which swiftly integrated into society while concurrently becoming a vital component of Lebanese pluralism.
Alongside the Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs—constituting a minority with scant resources—Armenians managed to preserve their distinct identity, leveraging the diverse fabric of local society and the communal political system deeply entrenched in the nation’s reality since the 19th century.
Like others, the Armenian community safeguarded and managed its social, economic, cultural, educational, academic, sports and media institutions, along with its political entities, without compromising its allegiance to Lebanon or loyalty to the central state.
Remarkably, and more so than in any other Arab nation, the Armenian community preserved its language, profound religious traditions and social customs, playing a significant role in the development of vital economic sectors in the country.
Notably, all these contributions were made within the framework of a pluralistic “Lebanity,” historically defining the uniqueness of Lebanon in the region. In this context, the Armenian “case” study represents a distinctive adaptation, harmoniously reconciling pluralism with integration into local political and public life. Regrettably, this pluralism faces severe threats today from centrifugal projects linked to regional hegemonic ambitions which disregard Lebanese realities and specificities. These realities, rooted in liberalism, private initiative, global openness, respect for humanistic values, public and individual freedoms and imperfect yet existing democratic practices, offer opportunities for expression to the population.
As we commemorate the 109th anniversary of the Armenian genocide, it is crucial to underscore once again that Lebanon’s true essence—its indispensable social-community and cultural pluralism—is under attack by a malevolent deconstruction strategy. The latter aims to satisfy the insatiable appetites of those seeking to impose, manu militari, a regressive, obscurantist lifestyle rooted in outdated values and social criteria. The Armenian community’s experience, alongside others, in navigating Lebanese pluralism serves as a case study. Here, the challenge lies in reconciling Lebanity with preserving the socio-cultural specificities of Lebanon’s diverse communal components, provided regional actors cease turning Lebanon into a theater of sterile and destructive maneuvers and confrontations bared by its population.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 24-25/2024
Israel Says It Is Poised to Move on Rafah
Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Israel's military is poised to evacuate Palestinian civilians from Rafah and assault Hamas hold-outs in the southern Gaza Strip city, a senior Israeli defense official said on Wednesday, despite international warnings of humanitarian catastrophe. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government said Israel was "moving ahead" with a ground operation, but gave no timeline. The defense official said Israel's Defense Ministry had bought 40,000 tents, each with the capacity for 10 to 12 people, to house Palestinians relocated from Rafah in advance of an assault. Video circulating online appeared to show rows of square white tents going up in Khan Younis, a city some 5 km (3 miles) from Rafah. Reuters could not verify the video but reviewed images from satellite company Maxar Technologies which showed tent camps on Khan Younis land that had been vacant weeks ago. An Israeli government source said Netanyahu's war cabinet planned to meet in the coming two weeks to authorize civilian evacuations, expected to take around a month. The defense official, who requested anonymity, told Reuters that the military could go into action immediately but was awaiting a green light from Netanyahu. Rafah, which abuts the Egyptian border, is sheltering more than a million Palestinians who fled the half-year-old Israeli offensive through the rest of Gaza, and say the prospect of fleeing yet again is terrifying. "I have to make a decision whether to leave Rafah because my mother and I are afraid an invasion could happen suddenly and we won't get time to escape," said Aya, 30, who has been living temporarily in the city with her family in a school. She said that some families recently moved to a refugee camp in coastal Al-Mawasi, but their tents caught fire when tank shells landed nearby. "Where do we go?"
HITTING HARD
Israel, which launched its war to annihilate Hamas after the group's Oct. 7 attacks on Israeli towns, says Rafah is home to four Hamas combat battalions reinforced by thousands of retreating fighters, and it must defeat them to achieve victory. "Hamas was hit hard in the northern sector. It was also hit hard in the center of the Strip. And soon it will be hit hard in Rafah, too," Brigadier-General Itzik Cohen, commander of Israel's 162nd Division operating in Gaza, told Kan public TV. But Israel's closest ally Washington has called on it to set aside plans for an assault, and says Israel can combat Hamas fighters there by other means. "We could not support a Rafah ground operation without an appropriate, credible, executable humanitarian plan precisely because of the complications for delivery of assistance," David Satterfield, US special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issued, told reporters on Tuesday. "We continue discussions with Israel on what we believe are alternate ways of addressing a challenge which we recognize, which is Hamas military present in Rafah." Egypt says it will not allow Gazans to be pushed across the border onto its territory. Cairo had warned Israel against moving on Rafah, which "would lead to massive human massacres, losses (and) widespread destruction", its State Information Service said. Israel has withdrawn most of its ground troops from southern Gaza this month but kept up air strikes and conducted raids into areas its troops abandoned. Efforts by the United States, Egypt and Qatar to broker an extended ceasefire in time to head off an assault on Rafah have so far failed. Gaza medical officials say than 34,000 people have been killed in Israel's military campaign, with thousands more bodies feared buried under rubble. Hamas killed 1,200 people and abducted 253 on Oct 7, according to Israeli tallies. Of those hostages, 129 remain in Gaza, Israeli officials say. More than 260 Israeli troops have been killed in ground fighting since Oct 20, the military says. H. A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow in international security studies at the Royal United Services Institute, said he expected the assault on Rafah "sooner rather than later" because Netanyahu is under pressure to meet his stated objectives of rescuing hostages and killing all the Hamas leaders. "The invasion of Rafah is unavoidable because of the way he has framed all of this," he said. But it will not be possible for everyone to leave the city, so "if he sends the military into Rafah, there are going to be a lot of casualties".

Israel ‘Stuck’ in War After 200 Days
Tel Aviv: Nazir Magally/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Despite 200 days passing since Israel’s war on Gaza, few in Israel, except Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, claim a clear victory. Even the usually boastful army now speaks more modestly. Expectations have shifted from “destroying Hamas” to “weakening its rule” and from “forcefully freeing captives” to “negotiating their release.” While Netanyahu insists on the narrative of overwhelming victory, top experts are warning of significant failure, with some even suggesting defeat. Ron Ben-Yishai, a security expert at the “Yedioth Ahronoth” newspaper, cautioned that Israel was at a strategic deadlock. He noted that regarding prisoners, Israel has lost its leverage over Hamas. Regarding the invasion of Rafah, Netanyahu is still in talks with Washington about the scope of Israel’s actions, with no American approval yet. Concerning the “day after,” Israel is still uncertain, with its proposals seen as impractical. Although Hamas has lost much of its military power, it still controls many areas. Tensions are also rising on the Lebanese front, but there’s no clear path to war or a political deal, with everyone waiting for Gaza’s fighting to end. As for Iran, Israel struggles to form a regional alliance due to its lack of progress on the Palestinian issue, which is seen as crucial for resolving other problems. Ben-Yishai affirmed that Israel must soften its stance on Palestine and heed calls from Washington. Without strategic cooperation with the Biden administration, not only will Israel remain stuck but also face defeat in the war, he warned. In a recent piece for Israeli daily “Haaretz,” Israeli thinker Yuval Noah Harari emphasizes that war is a tool to achieve political goals. Harari argues that the success of war should be measured by whether these goals are met. He pointed out that after the Oct. 7 tragedy, Israel aimed to free captives and disarm Hamas, but it also needed to strengthen alliances and establish regional stability. However, he criticizes Netanyahu’s government for focusing on revenge rather than these broader objectives, failing to release all captives or eliminate Hamas.

After 200 Days of War, Where Have the Gaza Ceasefire Negotiations Reached?
Relatives of Israeli prisoners demonstrate in Tel Aviv to demand that the )
Cairo: Fathiya al-Dakhakhni/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Two hundred days since the eruption of war in the Gaza Strip, ceasefire efforts are still ongoing even though it remains to be seen whether mediators in Egypt, Qatar, and the United States will be able to resolve the crisis. Since its start on Oct. 7, the war has only stopped for one week, following an Egyptian Qatari-mediated agreement in November during which Hamas released more than 100 of its hostages and Israel freed about three times this number of Palestinian prisoners. Since that “lone truce,” the mediators have been pushing for another “broader and more comprehensive” agreement, but their efforts have not borne fruit so far. Expert in Israeli affairs at Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies Dr. Saeed Okasha attributed this failure to “miscalculations on the part of both sides of the conflict.”“Tel Aviv accepted the first truce, believing that it would help in relieving pressure, and then quickly decide the battle in its favor. For its part, Hamas hoped it would be able to build an international drive to end the war, believing that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s accepting of the deal would weaken his position and damage his image before the international community because he views the movement as terrorist,” Okasha told Asharq Al-Awsat. During the past months, the hope of achieving a “truce” rose at times and faded at others, as the mediators’ efforts stumbled at continued “Israeli intransigence” and “conditions” that Hamas was not willing to abandon. At the end of January, hope was pinned on the “framework of a three-stage truce agreement, each lasting 40 days.” The framework was agreed upon at a meeting in Paris that was attended by the intelligence chiefs of Egypt, the United States, and Israel, in addition to the Qatari prime minister. They expected that the proposal would ultimately lead to talks over ending the war completely. But this framework, which was described as "constructive" by officials in Israel and the US, did not translate into reality after six rounds of indirect negotiations, which moved from Paris to Cairo to Doha and then back to Paris. Towards the end of the month of Ramadan, Cairo hosted a new round of negotiations during which the Director of the CIA, William Burns, presented to Hamas a proposal to restore calm. It called for a six-week truce during which Hamas would release 40 Israeli hostages in exchange for the release of 800 to 900 Palestinians arrested by Israel, the entry of 400 to 500 trucks of food aid daily, and the return of the displaced from northern Gaza to their homes. However, the mediators were unable to convince both parties to accept the deal, so the negotiations reached a “dead end.” Here, Okasha said: “Neither party wants to make concessions, because that means losing the battle.” He noted that Tel Aviv is seeking to achieve a military victory by invading the city of Rafah, while Hamas is heading toward “political suicide.” Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry confirmed in an interview with CNN last week that the talks “were continuing and have never been interrupted” even though “an agreement has not been reached yet.”

Argentina seeks arrest of Iran minister over 1994 Jewish center bombing
Agence France Presse/April 24/2024
Argentina has asked Interpol to arrest Iran's interior minister over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, the foreign ministry said. That minister, Ahmad Vahidi, is part of an Iranian delegation currently visiting Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and Interpol has issued a red alert seeking his arrest at the request of Argentina, the ministry said in a statement. Argentina has also asked those two governments to arrest Vahidi, it added. On April 12 a court in Argentina placed blame on Iran for the 1994 attack against the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and for a bombing two years earlier against the Israeli embassy, which killed 29 people. The 1994 assault has never been claimed or solved, but Argentina and Israel have long suspected that Hezbollah carried it out at Iran's request. Prosecutors have charged top Iranian officials with ordering the attack, though Tehran has denied any involvement. The court also implicated Hezbollah and called the attack against the AMIA -- the deadliest in Argentina's history -- a "crime against humanity." Tuesday's statement from the foreign ministry said: "Argentina seeks the international arrest of those responsible for the AMIA attack of 1994, which killed 85 people, and who remain in their positions with total impunity." "One of them is Ahmad Vahidi, sought by Argentine justice as one of those responsible for the attack against AMIA," said the statement, which was co-signed by the security ministry. Argentina has the largest Jewish community in Latin America, with some 300,000 members. It is also home to immigrant communities from the Middle East -- from Syria and Lebanon in particular.

Israel says US military aid sends 'strong message' to enemies
Agence France Presse/April 24/2024
Israel said Wednesday the U.S. Senate approval of $13 billion in military aid sent a "strong message" to its enemies, with strikes pummelling Gaza. Fears are rising that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will soon follow through on repeated threats to send troops into the southern Gazan city of Rafah, where 1.5 million people are sheltering, many in makeshift encampments. Israel says Rafah is the "last" major Hamas stronghold, but aid groups warn any invasion would create an "apocalyptic situation". Early Wednesday, hospital and security sources in Gaza reported Israeli air strikes in Rafah, as well as the central Nuseirat refugee camp. "Everybody seems to be on a countdown to war across the largest displacement camp on Earth, which is Rafah," Norwegian Refugee Council chief Jan Egeland told AFP. Israel's foreign minister on Wednesday thanked the U.S. Senate for approving the military aid package hot on the heels of the House of Representatives. "The Israel aid package that now passed both houses of Congress is a clear testament to the strength of our alliance and sends a strong message to all our enemies," Israel Katz posted on social media site X.
US campus protests
The aid comes against a backdrop of growing protests against Israel's conduct of its war against Hamas, which has turned vast areas of Gaza to rubble and sparked fears of famine.Hundreds of students have been arrested in recent days at pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the campuses of leading universities in the United States, Israel's top ally and military supplier. The United Nations says "multiple obstacles" continue to impede the delivery of urgently needed aid to civilians desperate for food, water, shelter and medicine. But Netanyahu has vowed to press on with a planned offensive on Rafah, on the besieged territory's border with Egypt. Citing Egyptian officials briefed on the Israeli plans, the Wall Street Journal said Israel was planning to move civilians from Rafah to nearby Khan Younis over a period of two to three weeks. Satellite images shared by Maxar Technologies showed tent camps that had recently been set up in that area. The Journal reported that Israel would then send troops into Rafah gradually, targeting areas where Hamas leaders are thought to be hiding in a military operation expected to last six weeks.
'Trapped in the sands'
Public pressure has mounted on Netanyahu's government to strike a truce deal that would secure the release of the remaining hostages. Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas's armed wing, said that "the enemy remains trapped in the sands of Gaza" and the hostages would "most likely" not return home soon. On Tuesday, the United Nations rights office said it was "horrified" at reports of mass graves found at the Gaza Strip's two biggest hospitals after Israeli sieges and raids. Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals during the war, accusing Hamas of using them as command centres and to hold hostages abducted on October 7. Hamas denies the accusations. Gaza's Civil Defense agency said nearly 340 bodies were uncovered of people killed and buried by Israeli forces at the Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis. The Israeli army said claims it had buried Palestinian bodies were "baseless", without directly addressing allegations that Israeli troops were behind the killings. The army said that "corpses buried by Palestinians" had been examined by Israeli troops searching for hostages and then "returned to their place". U.N. human rights chief Volker Turk called for an "independent" probe into the deaths at the Nasser Hospital and Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, noting the "special protection" awarded to medical facilities under international law. AFP images from the scene showed numerous bodies under white shrouds in front of the bombed-out Nasser Hospital. U.N. human rights office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said some of the bodies found at the Nasser Hospital were allegedly "found with their hands tied and stripped of their clothes", adding that efforts were underway to corroborate the reports. The White House said it would discuss the matter with Israel. "Obviously scenes of mass graves in general are deeply concerning but I don't have anything that can confirm the veracity of those," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
Call to renew UN agency funding
The European Union's humanitarian chief Janez Lenarcic called on donor governments to fund the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, which has been central to aid operations in Gaza. His comment came after a much-awaited independent report found that "Israel has yet to provide supporting evidence" for its claim that UNRWA employs "terrorists".The report did find "neutrality-related issues", such as agency staff sharing biased posts on social media. After the report was released, UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini called for an investigation into the "blatant disregard" for U.N. operations in Gaza, adding that 180 of the agency's staff have been killed since the war began. While some governments have renewed funding for the agency, the United States and Britain are among the holdouts. The White House would "have to see real progress" before it restores funding, Kirby said. The Gaza war has triggered violence across the region, with deadly cross-border exchanges on Tuesday between the Israeli army and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hezbollah movement, a Hamas ally.

Tehran, Tel Aviv Exchange Displays of Power During Gaza Conflict
London: Adil Al-Salmi/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Since the start of the Gaza conflict following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, Iran has been visibly involved in the regional crisis. This involvement spans its support for allied militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, as well as political, diplomatic and military actions under President Ebrahim Raisi.
Two hundred days into the war on Gaza, tensions between Tel Aviv and Tehran have intensified. This escalation signals a shift from years of a shadow Iranian-Israeli conflict towards a potentially direct confrontation, primarily driven by Iran. In the early days of the war, Iranian officials hinted at their ability to escalate the conflict and confront Israel by unifying fronts if Gaza continued to be targeted. This was seen as a political maneuver. While Iran implied involvement in the confrontation, Western reports, especially American ones, differed on Iran’s role in Hamas’ Oct. 7 Al-Aqsa Flood Operation that sparked the war. In the blame game and attempts to involve international parties, based on Israeli sources, some Western newspapers accused Iran of orchestrating the attack. On the other hand, media outlets and agencies turned to Iranian sources to challenge the Israeli narrative. As Iran tried to leverage Israel’s surprise over the Al-Aqsa Flood, Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders sent a strong message. They mentioned Iran’s motives for the attack, including revenge for Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani’s killing in a US strike in early 2020. Yet, Iran swiftly denied any direct link to Hamas’ attack to avoid upsetting the delicate balances it has achieved in the region.
Diplomatic moves
Iran has been quick to amp up its regional diplomacy under Raisi, aiming to improve ties with neighboring countries and counter its international isolation, especially after the Ukraine conflict complicated efforts to revive its nuclear deal with Western powers. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian’s recent statement at Tehran University, suggesting that Iran must be consulted for any Palestine agreement, has meanwhile raised eyebrows. Abdollahian’s visits to Jeddah, Geneva, and New York for Palestine-related conferences have sparked questions in Iranian media about the authorities’ delayed actions on pressing domestic issues, including nuclear negotiations to lift US sanctions. However, the aftermath of the war has somewhat eased Western pressure on Iran’s nuclear program, with Western powers avoiding turning to the UN Security Council or issuing condemnations of Iran because they don’t want to deepen the crisis with Tehran amid the Gaza conflict. Iran has highlighted its ties to powers around Israel while pursuing diplomacy. It continues to support Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, with top Iranian officials, like the foreign minister, visiting Doha, Beirut, and Damascus to coordinate with the two groups. Iran also backs armed groups linked to Tehran, such as Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi militias in Yemen and Iraqi armed factions. The Iranians see the Gaza war as the greatest evidence of coordination between diplomacy and field activities by the Revolutionary Guard and allied groups. However, Tehran officially denies direct involvement in decisions or operations of these groups, though it still supports their actions.
Maritime developments
In early November, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for disrupting Israel’s key supply routes by blocking maritime access for energy, food and trade. Following his statement, the Houthi militias in Yemen began attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea. These attacks sparked renewed tensions at sea. The US and UK responded with strikes on Houthi positions to deter further assaults. Meanwhile, Western and regional powers formed maritime alliances to safeguard navigation routes. The Revolutionary Guard further heightened tensions by announcing Iranian naval escorts to the Red Sea and threatening to block key waterways like the Bab el-Mandeb and the Strait of Gibraltar, as well as disrupting navigation in the Mediterranean. They also formed a “Naval Basij” unit comprising maritime units of groups loyal to Iran.
Israel strikes back
As tensions rose in the Red Sea and Iran-aligned factions targeted US forces, Israel launched two precise airstrikes in December. The first, in Damascus on December 2 killed two Revolutionary Guard officers: Brigadier Generals Panah Taghizadeh and Mohammad-Ali Ataie Shourcheh. They were reportedly killed during “advisory operations” at a military base in the Sayyida Zainab area. On December 25, Razi Mousavi, the logistics chief for the Revolutionary Guard in Syria and Lebanon, was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in the Sayyida Zainab area. The strike came shortly after he left his office at the Iranian embassy compound. The third strike occurred in the Mazzeh area on January 20, killing Brig. Gen. Hojjatollah Amidwar, the Revolutionary Guard’s intelligence chief in Syria, and four other Iranian officers. Later, the Revolutionary Guard reported the deaths of three more officers in separate operations in Damascus, Homs and Deir Ezzor between February and March.
Losses and heightened tensions
As tensions rose, Damascus saw the deadliest blow to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in the ongoing power struggle between Tehran and Tel Aviv. The Iranian consulate in Mazzeh was struck, killing Brig. Gen. Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the Revolutionary Guard forces in Syria and Lebanon, along with Hezbollah’s advisory council member and five other senior Guard officers. Iran promised retaliation, sparking intense speculation, and Khamenei declared the consulate Iranian soil and pledged a response. Israel remained quiet after all the attacks, while Iran launched over 300 missiles and drones two weeks later. Israel claimed to have intercepted most. Khamenei stated Iran aimed to show its power.In response, Israel threatened retaliation deep in Iranian territory. Western powers tried to discourage Israel, but it struck a military airport near Isfahan. Satellite images showed damage to the S-300 radar system protecting nuclear facilities. The exchange continues, with its lessons likely to keep tensions high between Israel and Iran, even after the dust settles in the Gaza conflict.

Biden Signs Ukraine Aid, TikTok Ban Bills after Republican Battle
Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
President Joe Biden signed a hard-fought bill into law on Wednesday that provides billions of dollars of new US aid to Ukraine for its war with Russia, notching a rare bipartisan victory for the president as he seeks reelection and ending months of wrangling with Republicans in Congress. "It gives vital support to America 's partners so they can defend themselves from threats to their sovereignty," Biden said, adding that the flow of weapons to Ukraine would start in the next few hours. The bill includes $61 billion in aid to Ukraine and $26 billion for Israel, as well as $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Gaza and $8 billion to counter China's military might. Biden, a Democrat who is expected to face Republican former President Donald Trump in the November election, has pressed lawmakers for six months to approve more funding for Ukraine, which has been fighting a full-scale Russian invasion for more than two years. Trump objected to the Ukraine aid, and some Republicans in Congress refused to back it, questioning whether Ukraine could ever prevail. "They’re a fighting force with the will and the skill to win," Biden said of Ukraine’s military, as he blamed "MAGA Republicans" loyal to Trump for blocking aid, referring to Trump's Make America Great Again slogan. Biden also signed a separate bill tied to the aid legislation that bans TikTok in the United States if its owner, the Chinese tech firm ByteDance, fails to divest the popular short video app over the next nine months to a year.
The social media platform is particularly popular with left-leaning young Americans, a group crucial to Biden's victory in November. Congress's stalemate on the Ukraine aid bill ended when the Republican-controlled House of Representatives abruptly changed course and approved four bills that included funding for Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan and other US partners in the Indo-Pacific on Saturday. Biden and House Speaker Mike Johnson held intense talks about Ukraine in February and the president has both pleaded with Republicans to back the package and scolded them for not doing so. Johnson, who faces calls by some right-leaning Republicans to oust him for his turnaround on aid, met with Trump in Florida earlier this month; the former president said Johnson was "doing a really good job."
The US Senate followed the House on Tuesday evening, passing a sweeping bill that provides $61 billion in aid to the country, which has suffered setbacks in the war that supporters blame on the delay in getting the additional US funding. "Congress has passed my legislation to strengthen our national security and send a message to the world about the power of American leadership: We stand resolutely for democracy and freedom, and against tyranny and oppression," Biden said in a statement after the Senate vote on Tuesday. He said he would sign the bill on Wednesday. Heather Conley, an expert on European affairs, said the victory for US allies and for Biden was tempered by effects that the delay has had for Kiev on the battlefield. "This is a strong message of American leadership at a time of enormous instability, but the delay created cracks in that credibility," said Conley, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. "As we start rolling into the election, that credibility will continue to be under close scrutiny." Biden has argued that he helped restore US credibility on the world stage after Trump's tumultuous four-year tenure, in part by strengthening the NATO alliance and providing a united front against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump has argued for an "America First" policy and has threatened to let NATO allies fend for themselves if they do not increase their defense spending. Biden's administration is already preparing a $1 billion military aid package for Ukraine, the first to be sourced from the bill, two US officials told Reuters. Republicans who backed the aid package said it was not a vote for Biden but a reflection of their party’s values. “Peace through strength. That's our tradition," Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, said in a Senate speech. "To my Republican colleagues and friends in the Senate, our tradition is much more serious. It's prouder. And I will tell you this: It's much more supported by the American people. Peace through strength, not American retreat."

Iran, Pakistan Urge Security Council to Take Action Against Israel
Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Iran and Pakistan called on the United Nations Security Council in a joint statement issued on Wednesday to take action against Israel, saying it had "illegally" targeted neighboring countries and foreign diplomatic facilities. The joint statement, released by Pakistan's foreign ministry, followed a three-day visit to the country by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi at a time of heightened tensions in the Middle East. Explosions were heard last Friday over the Iranian city of Isfahan in what sources said was an Israeli attack. However, Tehran played down the incident and said it had no plans for retaliation. "Recognizing that the irresponsible act of the Israeli regime forces was a major escalation in an already volatile region, both sides called on the UN Security Council to prevent the Israeli regime from its adventurism in the region and its illegal acts attacking its neighbors...," Iran and Pakistan said in their joint statement, according to Reuters. Iran and Pakistan are seeking to mend ties after unprecedented tit-for-tat military strikes this year. Raisi, who wrapped up his visit and flew on to Sri Lanka on Wednesday, vowed to boost trade between Iran and Pakistan to $10 billion a year. During his visit to Pakistan, Raisi was quoted by Iran's official IRNA news agency as saying any further Israeli attack on Iranian territory could radically change the dynamics and result in there being nothing left of the "Zionist regime". On April 13, Tehran launched a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel in what it said was retaliation for Israel's suspected deadly strike on the Iranian embassy compound in Damascus on April 1, but almost all were shot down. Pakistan has previously called for de-escalation by "all parties". Iran and Pakistan vowed during Raisi's visit to boost trade and energy cooperation, including on a major gas pipeline deal that has faced delays due to geopolitical issues and international sanctions.

Iran Threatens to Annihilate Israel Should it Launch Major Attack
Islamabad/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has vowed to annihilate Israel should it launch a major attack on Iran. Raisi’s threats came Tuesday on the same day Tehran protested the European Union decision to expand sanctions and restrictive measures on Iran’s weapons. The Iranian President said an Israeli attack on Iranian territory could radically change dynamics and result in there being nothing left of the “Zionist regime,” according to Reuters. Raisi began a three-day visit to Pakistan on Monday and has vowed to boost trade between the neighboring nations to $10 billion a year. The two neighbors are seeking to mend ties after unprecedented tit-for-tat military strikes this year. On Tuesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian posted on X, “It is regrettable to see the EU deciding quickly to apply more unlawful restrictions against Iran just because Iran exercised its right to self-defense in the face of Israel’s reckless aggression.”“The EU should not follow Washington’s advice to satisfy the criminal Israeli regime,” he added, according to AFP. This comes one day after EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell declared that the bloc has agreed in principle to expand sanctions on Iran by agreeing to extend restrictive measures on Tehran's weapons exports of any drone or missile to Iranian proxies and Russia. The new EU sanctions came nearly 10 days after Iran launched its first-ever direct attack on Israel, involving hundreds of drones and missiles, though almost all were shot down by Israel and its allies. The Iranian barrage was in response to a deadly April 1 airstrike, widely blamed on Israel, that levelled Iran's consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards members, including Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a top commander in Syria and Lebanon. Amid fears of a major Israeli retaliation to that attack, which could itself provoke another Iranian response, Israel instead chose a much more limited option in the face of US pressure. Israel, in line with its usual policy, has not confirmed or denied carrying out the strike on Iran or the April 1 attack in Syria. Its apparent strike was deliberately limited in scope but sent a clear warning to Iran’s leadership about Israeli abilities to strike at sensitive targets. On Monday, The New York Times, which cited Israeli and Iranian sources, said the target was the radar system of a Russian-supplied S-300 missile defense system at an airbase in the central province of Isfahan, the region that hosts the Natanz uranium enrichment plant. The origin of the strike is not entirely clear, but it included at least one missile fired from a warplane outside Iran and small attack drones known as quadcopters that could have been launched from inside Iran itself and were aimed at confusing air defenses, the reports said. For decades the two countries have waged a shadow war marked by covert Israeli operations inside Iran, and Iranian backing for anti-Israel militant groups including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Iranian officials have been at pains to almost laugh off the Israeli strike, with Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian telling NBC News the weapons used were at the “level of toys.”But Alexander Grinberg, expert on Iran at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said Israel's choice and designation of target was in itself indicative of the presence Mossad has inside Iran. “Israel's message is 'We can strike anywhere in Iran' given that Isfahan is in the centre of Iran, relatively far away, and Israel knows exactly where it can strike,” he said. Grinberg said it was logical that Iran has not confirmed that the air base was hit: “From the moment you recognise the true scale of damage, you admit the power of the enemy.”While the current escalation phase appears to be over, Israel could yet launch more retaliation against Iran, and tensions may also surge again if Israel launches its long-threatened offensive on Rafah in Gaza.

Turkey accuses U.S. of double standards over Gaza in rights report
Reuters/April 24, 2024
Turkey on Wednesday accused the United States of having a policy of double standards on human rights, saying Washington's annual rights report failed to reflect Israel's assaults in Gaza. Turkey's foreign ministry said in a statement it was deeply concerned that the U.S. report did not "duly reflect the ongoing inhumane attacks in Gaza".The report was prepared with "political motives, far from impartiality and objectivity", it said, calling on Washington to cease its "double-standard policy on human rights". It also cited U.S. ties with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia which Ankara deems a terrorist organisation. Israeli forces have killed more than 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to health authorities there, many of them civilians and children. The enclave has been reduced to a wasteland and extreme food shortages have prompted fears of famine. Israel launched its assault in response to an attack by the Hamas militant group on Oct. 7 in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed. It denies allegations of deliberately causing humanitarian suffering and targeting civilians. Turkey has denounced Israel for its campaign in Gaza and called for a ceasefire. It has also criticised Western countries for what it calls their unconditional support of Israel. In its report, the U.S. State Department said Israel's war against Hamas had a "significant negative impact" on the human rights situation in Israel. On Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected suggestions that Washington might have double standards over Israel's record.

U.S. to name former UN official as new Gaza aid envoy, say sources
Reuters/April 24, 2024
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Gaza aid envoy David Satterfield is set to step down shortly and will be replaced by former senior United Nations official Lise Grande, two sources familiar with the issue told Reuters on Wednesday. Satterfield was appointed six months ago as the U.S. special envoy for Middle East humanitarian issues with a specific focus on leading the U.S. response to the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Grande is currently head of the independent U.S. Institute of Peace. She previously worked for the United Nations for more than 25 years, a career that included running aid operations in Yemen, Iraq and South Sudan. The United Nations has long complained of obstacles to getting aid in and distributing it throughout Gaza in the six months since Israel began an aerial and ground offensive against Gaza's ruling Islamist militant group Hamas. Israel's military campaign has reduced much of the territory of 2.3 million people to a wasteland with an unfolding humanitarian disaster since October, when Hamas ignited war by storming into southern Israel. Satterfield said on Tuesday that Israel has taken significant steps in recent weeks on allowing aid into Gaza, but considerable work remained to be done as the risk of famine in the enclave is very high. A U.N.-backed report published in March said that famine was imminent and likely to occur by May in northern Gaza and could spread across the enclave by July.

Pakistan and Iran vow to enhance efforts at a 'united front' against Afghanistan-based militants
MUNIR AHMED/Wed, April 24, 2024
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Neighbors Pakistan and Iran on Wednesday pledged to enhance efforts at a “united front” against Afghanistan-based militants, saying their presence poses a serious threat to regional and global security. The countries, which share a long and porous border, made the commitment in a joint statement issued after a three-day visit by Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi to Islamabad. The visit was aimed at mending ties that were strained in January when each carried out strikes in the other’s territory, targeting militants accused of attacking security forces. The Iranian president met with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other officials, including powerful army chief Gen. Asim Munir. The joint statement said the two sides “reaffirmed their willingness to enhance cooperation on counter-terrorism and security and to develop a united front against terrorism.”Pakistan has witnessed a surge in militant violence in recent months, mostly blamed on Afghanistan-based Pakistani Taliban and insurgents who also target security forces in Iran. Pakistan often says Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks since 2021 when the Afghan Taliban came to power. The Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, is a separate group but allied with the Afghan Taliban. However, Afghanistan’s Taliban government insists it does not allow the Pakistani Taliban — or any other militant group — to use Afghanistan’s soil to launch attacks against any other country. In March, the Pakistan Air Force targeted multiple suspected hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban inside Afghanistan. The Afghan Taliban said the attacks killed eight people and prompted return fire from their forces. Tehran has also blamed an Afghanistan-based Islamic State affiliate for recent attacks in Iran. The affiliate is also active in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan bordering Iran. In recent years, Pakistan has urged Tehran to take stern action against Pakistani insurgents living inside Iran near the border. They often target security forces in Baluchistan, the scene of low-level insurgency by separatists for more than two decades.
Pakistan and Iran also agreed that their common border should be the “border of peace and friendship,” and reiterated the importance of regular cooperation between political, military and security officials to combat other threats such as narcotics smuggling, human trafficking, hostage-taking and money-laundering.
The countries also agreed to expand trade and economic cooperation, pledging to set up new border markets, new border crossings and economic free trade zones. The two sides also condemned the suspected Israeli strike on April 1 targeting a consular building next to the Iranian Embassy in Syria which killed two Guard generals and others. Iran responded with unprecedented direct strikes on Israel. Authorities also said Pakistan and Iran also discussed how to go ahead with their gas pipeline project, which has been on hold mainly because of fears of U.S. sanctions. The project — opposed by Washington as a violation of sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear program — launched in 2013 to supply Iranian natural gas to energy-starved Pakistan.

Ukraine uses long-range missiles secretly provided by US to hit Russian-held areas, officials say
LOLITA C. BALDOR and TARA COPP/Associated Press/ April 24, 2024
WASHINGTON (AP) — Ukraine for the first time has begun using long-range ballistic missiles provided secretly by the United States, bombing a Russian military airfield in Crimea last week and Russian forces in another occupied area overnight, American officials said Wednesday. Long sought by Ukrainian leaders, the new missiles give Ukraine nearly double the striking distance — up to 300 kilometers (190 miles) — that it had with the mid-range version of the weapon that it received from the U.S. last October. One of the officials said the U.S. is providing more of these missiles in a new military aid package signed by President Joe Biden on Wednesday. Biden approved delivery of the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, known as ATACMS, in early March, and the U.S. included a “significant” number of them in a $300 million aid package announced at the time, one official said. The two U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the delivery before it became public, would not provide the exact number of missiles given last month or in the latest aid package, which totals about $1 billion. Ukraine has been forced to ration its weapons and is facing increasing Russian attacks. Ukraine had been begging for the long-range system because the missiles provide a critical ability to strike Russian targets that are farther away, allowing Ukrainian forces to stay safely out of range. Information about the delivery was kept so quiet that lawmakers and others in recent days have been demanding that the U.S. send the weapons — not knowing they were already in Ukraine. For months, the U.S. resisted sending Ukraine the long-range missiles out of concern that Kyiv could use them to hit deep into Russian territory, enraging Moscow and escalating the conflict. That was a key reason the administration sent the mid-range version, with a range of about 160 kilometers (roughly 100 miles), in October instead. A senior U.S. military official said Wednesday that the White House and military planners looked carefully at the risks of providing long-range fires to Ukraine and determined that the time was right to provide them now.
Adm. Christopher Grady, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told The Associated Press in an interview that long-range weapons will help Ukraine take out Russian logistics nodes and troop concentrations that are not on the front lines. He declined to identify what specific weapons were being provided but said they will be “very disruptive if used properly, and I’m confident they will be.” Like many of the other sophisticated weapons systems provided to Ukraine, the administration weighed whether their use would risk further escalating the conflict. “I think the time is right, and the boss (Biden) made the decision the time is right to provide these based on where the fight is right now,” Grady said Wednesday. “I think it was a very well considered decision, and we really wrung it out — but again, any time you introduce a new system, any change — into a battlefield, you have to think through the escalatory nature of it.”
Ukrainian officials haven’t publicly acknowledged the receipt or use of long-range ATACMS. But in thanking Congress for passing the new aid bill Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted on the social platform X that “Ukraine’s long-range capabilities, artillery and air defense are extremely important tools for the quick restoration of a just peace.” One of the U.S. officials said the Biden administration warned Russia last year that if Moscow acquired and used long-range ballistic missiles in Ukraine, Washington would provide the same capability to Kyiv. Russia got some of those weapons from North Korea and has used them on the battlefield in Ukraine, said the official, prompting the Biden administration to greenlight the new long-range missiles. The U.S. had refused to confirm that the long-range missiles were given to Ukraine until they were actually used on the battlefield and Kyiv leaders approved the public release. One official said the weapons were used early last week to strike the airfield in Dzhankoi, a city in Crimea, a peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014. They were used again overnight east of the occupied city of Berdyansk.
Videos on social media last week showed the explosions at the military airfield, but officials at the time would not confirm it was the ATACMS. Ukraine’s first use of the weapon came as political gridlock in Congress had delayed approval of a $95 billion foreign aid package for months, including funding for Ukraine, Israel and other allies. Facing acute shortages of artillery and air defense systems, Ukraine has been rationing its munitions as U.S. funding was delayed.
With the war now in its third year, Russia used the delay in U.S. weapons deliveries and its own edge in firepower and personnel to step up attacks across eastern Ukraine. It has increasingly used satellite-guided gliding bombs — dropped from planes from a safe distance — to pummel Ukrainian forces beset by a shortage of troops and ammunition. The mid-range missiles provided last year, and some of the long-range ones sent more recently, carry cluster munitions that open in the air when fired, releasing hundreds of bomblets rather than a single warhead. Others sent recently have a single warhead. One critical factor in the March decision to send the weapons was the U.S. Army’s ability to begin replacing the older ATACMS. The Army is now buying the Precision Strike Missile, so is more comfortable taking ATACMS off the shelves to provide to Ukraine, the official said.

The US quietly shipped long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine
Steve Holland and Idrees Ali/Reuters/April 24, 2024
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States in recent weeks secretly shipped long-range missiles to Ukraine for use in its battle to fight off Russian invaders, and Ukraine last week used them for the first time, a U.S. official said on Wednesday.
The missiles were contained in a $300 million military aid package for Ukraine that U.S. President Joe Biden approved on March 12, said the U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official would not say how many of the missiles were sent. The missiles were used for the first time in the early hours of April 17, launched against a Russian airfield in Crimea that was about 165 km (103 miles) from the Ukrainian front lines, the official said. Whether to send the Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) with a range up to 300 km was a subject of debate within the Biden administration for months. Mid-range ATACMS were supplied last September. The Pentagon initially opposed the long-range missile deployment, fearing the loss of the missiles from the American stockpile would hurt U.S. military readiness. There were also concerns that Ukraine would use them to attack targets deep inside Russia. Russia's use of North Korean-supplied long-range ballistic missiles against Ukraine in December and January, despite U.S. public and private warnings not to do so, led to a change in heart, the U.S. official said. Also a factor in U.S. decision-making was Russia's targeting of Ukraine's critical infrastructure, the official said. "We warned Russia about those things," the official said. "They renewed their targeting." In late January the U.S. military found a way to satisfy their concerns about military readiness, which enabled the administration to move forward. They began acquiring new missiles coming off the Lockheed-Martin production line. Biden met with his national security team in mid-February and agreed to accept the unanimous recommendation of his advisers to send the missiles to Ukraine. Involved in the discussion were national security adviser Jake Sullivan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman C.Q. Brown. The challenge at that point was to figure out how to pay for the missiles. The United States had exhausted all of its funding options and congressional gridlock stymied further aid. An opportunity arose in March, when several Pentagon contracts came in under bid. Biden was able to use the difference to send $300 million in assistance to Ukraine. Biden told his team to include the long-range ATACMS in this funding package, but to do so secretly in order to maintain operational security and the element of surprise for Ukraine, the official said.

Italy says to sign deal to rebuild Ukraine's Odesa and its cathedral
ROME (Reuters)/Wed, April 24, 2024
Italy will sign an agreement with Ukraine and the United Nations' cultural agency UNESCO to rebuild the city of Odesa and its cathedral which was badly damaged by a Russian attack, Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said on Wednesday. Ukraine said the Orthodox cathedral was damaged when it was hit during a Russian missile attack on the country's southern port city in July last year. Russia denied responsibility. "On May 15 we will sign off on a deal with Kyiv and UNESCO here in Rome for the reconstruction of Odesa and its cathedral," Tajani told a question time session in the lower house of parliament. In February, Italy and UNESCO had already signed an agreement in Kyiv to provide 500 million euros ($534.45 million) towards the restoration of the roof of Odesa's Spaso-Preobrazhenskyi, or Transfiguration Cathedral. "As the G7 presidency, we continue to work for a just peace," Tajani told lawmakers, adding that supporting Ukraine's energy system was also a priority for Italy. Rome holds the rotating presidency of the Group of Seven (G7) wealthy nations until the end of this year.
($1 = 0.9355 euros)

Russian Orthodox Church suspends priest who prayed at Navalny's grave
Mark Trevelyan/Reuters/ April 24, 2024
A Russian Orthodox priest who led a memorial service last month at the grave of late opposition leader Alexei Navalny has been suspended from clerical duties and ordered to serve three years of "penance". Dmitry Safronov has prayed several times at the Moscow grave of Navalny and conducted a service there on March 26 to mark 40 days since Navalny's death in an Arctic penal colony. His suspension was announced by the Moscow Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church, which said he would be demoted to the role of psalm-reader. No reason was stated for the punishment, the latest in a series that the Church has imposed on priests deemed sympathetic to the opposition or not sufficiently supportive of Russia's war in Ukraine. "At the end of the period of penance, based on feedback from the place of obedience, a decision will be made on the possibility of his further priestly service," the diocese said. Reuters was unable to reach Safronov. A man who answered the phone at his Moscow church said all questions should be directed to the office of Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The March 1 funeral of Navalny, the best known domestic critic of President Vladimir Putin, brought tens of thousands of people on to the streets - a rare event in Russia, where nearly 20,000 people have been detained in the past two years for protesting against the war. The Kremlin denied accusations by Navalny's supporters that it had had him killed. His death certificate said he died of natural causes. Speaking at the grave, which was piled high with flowers, on March 9, Safronov said that Navalny had urged Russians not to give up. "Evil can be defeated only by one thing, by good. If we try to defeat evil with evil, then we multiply evil. So we will indeed remember Alexei, remember his testament to us and we will pray for him and hope he will pray for us at the throne of the Lord," he said.
'CLEAR MESSAGE'
Ksenia Luchenko, an expert who writes a blog on the Russian Orthodox Church and is critical of its leadership, said Safronov was "a real hero" for performing his priestly duties at the grave despite the risks of associating himself with Navalny. She said the Church hierarchy was sending a clear message by suspending him. "They just need the priests to be obedient and to support publicly the point of view of the Patriarch on this war and to support the Russian state, to support Putin. And if somebody refuses, he will be punished." She said the likely formal reason for the priest's suspension was his refusal to read a prayer asking God to lead Russia to victory in Ukraine, which Patriarch Kirill introduced in 2022 and has made compulsory at church services. Dozens of other priests have been punished for defying the Church's line on the war - for example, by reading out prayers for peace instead of victory. The most prominent was Aleksiy Uminsky, who was expelled from the Church in January and has now left Russia.

‘Big Scandal’ Behind Russian Deputy Defense Minister’s Arrest
Allison Quinn/Reuters/April 24, 2024
Russia’s deputy defense minister was arrested Wednesday just hours after attending a meeting of top military brass, according to federal investigators. Timur Ivanov is officially charged with accepting a massive bribe—but some sources say that’s just for show. “The bribe–that’s for the public. So far they don’t want to talk publicly about treason, it’s a big scandal. After all, it’s the deputy minister of defense,” one unnamed source close to the Federal Security Service told the independent Russian news outlet iStories. “No one would have detained him for corruption. Everyone there [in the Kremlin] knew about that for a long time. Putin gave the command after it became clear that this was precisely a matter of treason,” another source was quoted as saying. Details on the charges against Ivanov were not immediately clear. But the deputy defense minister was reportedly involved in a whole string of shady dealings, including enriching himself off the war against Ukraine through building contracts in the ravaged port city of Mariupol, according to a report by the investigative outlet Dossier. Ivanov was also reportedly one of many clamoring to scoop up assets left behind by Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin after the warlord suffered a violent, fiery death in a plane crash last year. Prigozhin had reportedly feuded openly with Ivanov, even in the presence of Vladimir Putin, calling him an “embezzler.” It is perhaps no surprise then that Ivanov is widely seen as a close ally of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, who quite literally had a target on his back as the Wagner Group gained power in the war against Ukraine. One unnamed source quoted by the well-connected VChK-OGPU Telegram channel said Ivanov’s arrest is a “catastrophic blow to Shoigu.” Another source was quoted as telling the channel that the identity of the bribe-giver in Ivanov’s case would make everything clear.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 24-25/2024
Qatar, 'Leading Sponsor of Terrorism in the World, More than Iran,' Is Not an Impartial Mediator
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./April 24, 2024
The idea that Qatar has been acting as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas is nothing short of laughable. Qatar has actually long been staunchly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot.
The Muslim Brotherhood -- according to a hearing at the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security on July 11, 2018 -- is a militant Islamist organization with affiliates in over 70 countries, including groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US.
""Qatar has huge influence over the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian affiliate, Hamas.... For too long, Doha has danced between its Islamist allies and its Western and Arab partners." — Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, The Atlantic, October 20, 2023
Qatar has a long history of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its radical terrorist offshoots.... Qatar has also provided political and financial support to Hamas. In 2008, Doha reportedly pledged $250 million to Hamas, one year after the terror group violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. In 2012, Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani became the first head of state to visit Gaza, pledging $400 million to Hamas. Since then, the Qatari government has continued to send money to Hamas.
Qatar's goal is to keep Hamas in power. Qatar has no reason to care if thousands of Palestinians die in the Gaza Strip, so long as Hamas is permitted to continue ruling the coastal enclave.
The idea that Qatar has been acting as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas is nothing short of laughable. Qatar has actually long been staunchly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot.
Recently, the rulers of Qatar demonstrated that they not only serve as gracious hosts to the leaders of the Palestinian Hamas terror group, but that they also have a sense of humor.
The Gulf state's Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani announced during a press conference in Doha that his country is reassessing its role as a mediator between Israel and Hamas after facing criticism.
"Qatar is in the process of a complete re-evaluation of its role," al-Thani said. "There is exploitation and abuse of the Qatari role," he said, adding that Qatar had been the victim of "point-scoring" by "politicians who are trying to conduct election campaigns by slighting the State of Qatar."
Earlier, al-Thani said negotiations to secure the release of more than 130 remaining Israeli hostages, abducted by Hamas to the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, had stalled.
"We are going through a sensitive stage with some stalling, and we are trying as much as possible to address this stalling," the Qatari premier said.
Oh really.
The idea that Qatar has been acting as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas is nothing short of laughable. Qatar has actually long been staunchly aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood organization, of which Hamas is an offshoot.
The Muslim Brotherhood's motto is: "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
The Muslim Brotherhood -- according to a hearing at the U.S. House Subcommittee on National Security on July 11, 2018 -- is a militant Islamist organization with affiliates in over 70 countries, including groups designated as terrorist organizations by the US.
After the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi was elected president of Egypt in 2012, 22 million Egyptians could not wait to get rid of him. In a year and a few days, he was gone.
"Qatar has huge influence over the Muslim Brotherhood's Palestinian affiliate, Hamas," said Hussein Ibish, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
"Qatar's dalliance with Islamist groups has long been the primary means for Doha to project influence in the Arab world, particularly through state support for Al-Jazeera Arabic. For too long, Doha has danced between its Islamist allies and its Western and Arab partners."
Qatar has a long history of supporting the Muslim Brotherhood and its radical terrorist offshoots. During the Brotherhood's year in power in Egypt, Qatar loaned Morsi's regime approximately $7.5 billion. Qatar also reportedly aided Morsi's regime with grants and "energy supplies." During Morsi's presidency, "payments ranging from $250,000 to $850,000 to top Morsi associates from the former Prime Minister of Qatar," Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.
Qatar has also provided political and financial support to Hamas. In 2008, Doha reportedly pledged $250 million to Hamas, one year after the terror group violently seized control of the Gaza Strip. In 2012, Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani became the first head of state to visit Gaza, pledging $400 million to Hamas. Since then, the Qatari government has continued to send money to Hamas. In July 2016, Qatar announced a payment of $30 million to Hamas-hired workers in Gaza.
Qatar, in addition, has long hosted Hamas leaders and allowed the terrorist group to set up an office in Doha. Khaled Mashaal -- the former leader of Hamas, whose wealth is estimated above $5 billion "while more than half of his own citizens in Gaza live under the poverty line" -- has held press conferences on behalf of the terrorist group at internationally owned businesses in Qatar, including at the Four Seasons Hotel and the Sheraton Doha (owned by Marriott). Mashaal has previously resided "in the most luxurious hotel in the most beautiful district [in Qatar]," according to one Egyptian television host. Mashaal is also reported to own four towers and a commercial center on a seven-acre plot in Qatar, developed by a domestic real estate agency. Qatar has repeatedly denied rumors that Mashaal was evicted from Qatar, and in 2015 called him a "dear guest of Qatar."
The Muslim Brotherhood has been militant from its very beginning. Its founder, Hassan al-Banna, who founded the group in 1928, said that "Jihad (holy war) is an obligation from Allah and every Muslim and cannot be ignored nor evaded." In a book titled The Way of Jihad, he wrote:
"Jihad means the fighting of the unbelievers and involves all possible efforts that are necessary to dismantle the power of the enemies of Islam, including beating them, plundering their wealth, destroying their places of worship, and smashing their idols."
In 2005, a former Kuwaiti minister of information, Dr. Ahmad al-Rabi', wrote in the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat newspaper:
"The beginnings of all the religious terrorism that we are witnessing today were in the Muslim Brotherhood's ideology...all those who worked with bin Laden and al-Qaeda went out under the mandate of the Muslim Brotherhood."
This jihadist ideology continues to fuel the Muslim Brotherhood today. The Brotherhood mourned the death of Osama bin Laden, and its leaders developed teachings justifying revolutionary violence under sharia law. The Brotherhood has preached hatred towards Jews, denied the Holocaust, and called for Israel's destruction. The Brotherhood incited violence against Coptic Christians in Egypt amidst a wave of church bombings and other attacks by terrorist groups, including ISIS.
One of the leading members of the Muslim Brotherhood was Haj Amin al-Husseini, known to many as the father of Arab terrorism, who was Grand Mufti of Jerusalem from 1921-1937. According to Middle East expert Tony Duheaume:
"Through his leadership of the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Husseini's infamous exploits aided in the creation of one that blended Muslim beliefs with all of the vile ideologies created by the Nazis, spawning many groups that followed the same cause.
"With al-Husseini having lived in Palestine during the start of the First World War, he had sworn his allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, and had become an officer in the Ottoman Turkish army.
"It was during this time, he had found himself assigned to the Forty-Seventh Brigade, which was stationed in the city of Smyrma, and whilst serving there, he had become a willing participant in the Armenian genocide, during which one-and-a-half million Christians were reportedly slaughtered by Turkish troops.
"This event had twisted al-Husseini's mindset, turning him into a leading advocate of creating an Islamic Caliphate, which was envisaged by all of his followers, and which they believed could only come about through the annihilation of all Jews and Christians living in the Middle East."
For many years, Qatar hosted Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of the spiritual leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, who was famous for shaping the concept of violet jihad and who promoted terrorism, including suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, US forces in Iraq, and some of the Arab regimes. "I supported martyrdom operations, and I am not the only one," al-Qaradawi told the BBC in 2004. Because of that, he was banned from entering Western countries and some Arab states.
Al-Qaradawi also issued fatwas authorizing attacks on all Jews. On Al Jazeera Arabic in January 2009, he said:
"Oh God, take Your enemies, the enemies of Islam... Oh God, take the treacherous Jewish aggressors... Oh God, count their numbers, slay them one by one and spare none."
Qatar's close relations with Hamas should clearly disqualify it from brokering the release of the Israeli hostages. It is said, "Qatar is Hamas and Hamas is Qatar."
Qatar's threat to quit the role of mediator is unfortunately nothing but a sick joke. Qatar has always been on the side of Hamas, whose other billionaire leaders continue to enjoy a comfortable life far from Gaza in foreign villas and five-star hotels.
If the Qataris had wanted to end the war in the Gaza Strip, they could have summoned the leaders of Hamas and issued an ultimatum to them to release the hostages or face deportation from the country. The Qataris are not doing so because they do not seem to be facing any pressure from the US administration. If the US administration really wanted to exert pressure on Qatar, it could threaten to withdraw fro Al-Udeid Air Base, located in the desert southwest of Doha. Al-Udeid is the biggest US military installation in the Middle East and is the main reason why Qatar enjoys security and stability.
Qatar's goal is to keep Hamas in power. Qatar has no reason to care if thousands of Palestinians die in the Gaza Strip, so long as Hamas is permitted to continue ruling the coastal enclave.
"Qatar is the leading sponsor of terrorism in the world, more than Iran," said Dr. Udi Levy, a former senior official of Israel's Mossad spy agency who dealt with economic warfare against terrorist organizations. Commenting on the double game of the Qataris, who fund Hamas and at the same time pretend they are assisting in a hostage deal, Levy said:
"Qatar has been playing a dual role since the beginning of the Gaza war. On the one hand, it is a well-known supporter of Hamas, and even finances it with a lot of money, and on the other hand, it is trying to help in the deal for the release of the Israeli hostages. So what is the real face of the Qataris? The Qataris are the No. 1 country in the world that finances terrorism, more than Iran."
**Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East.
© 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.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20598/qatar-mediator

Christians Continue to be Purged: Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/April 24, 2023
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/129170/129170/
The evidence is overwhelming.
"Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross, spikes through her feet and hands..." — Aurora Mardiganian, Ravished Armenia.
Often overlooked... is that this was less a genocide of Armenians and more a genocide of Christians. Thus the opening sentence of U.S. House Resolution 296, which passed on the hundredth anniversary of the genocide (2019), correctly mentions "the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians."
Christianity is what all of those otherwise diverse peoples had in common, and therefore it — not nationality, ethnicity, territory, or grievances — was the ultimate determining factor concerning who the Turks would and would not "purge."
"Christians were considered infidels (kafir). The call to Jihad... was part of the plan." — Joseph Yacoub, author of Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide
An eyewitness recalled that... "outrages" [were] committed against "even children"....
"The opportunity [World War I] presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race." — Winston Churchill.
"Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.... The question is settled. There are no more Armenians." — Talaat Pasha, the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire during the genocide, June 1915.
Turkey, in 2020, sent sharia-enforcing "jihadist groups," from Syria and Libya.... These Muslim groups committed numerous atrocities. These included raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts. — Greek City Times, September 25, 2020.
Not only has it gone unpunished; NATO ally Turkey has resumed the genocide against the very descendants of those whom the Turks nearly exterminated over a century ago — namely Armenians and Assyrians.
More recently, in late 2022, Turkey launched thousands of attacks — air, mortar, drone, artillery, etc.—several miles deep into Syria's northern border. This is, of course, where most of the religious minorities live — Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds, who a few years earlier experienced a genocide at the hands of the Islamic State ("ISIS").
"These military attacks by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime are part of a wider Turkish policy of annihilation of the Kurdish and Assyrian [Christian] people in northern Syria and Iraq. Turkey has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, shelling, abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings. The attacks are part of Turkey's genocidal policies towards Kurds, Christians, and Ezidis." — Genocide Watch, December 7, 2022.
"This genocide is a pattern we see, and it's certainly nothing new.... For those who say 'Not on our watch!' or 'Never again!'— here it is, happening again!" — Charmaine Hedding, president of the US-based Shai Fund, webinar on Turkey's genocidal assault on Christians in Syria, rumble.com, December 15, 2022.
Not only has the Armenian genocide gone unpunished; NATO ally Turkey has resumed the genocide against the very descendants of those whom the Turks nearly exterminated over a century ago — Armenians and Assyrians. Pictured: Ottoman soldiers force-march Armenian civilians through Harput to a prison in nearby Mezireh (present-day Elazig), April 1915. (Image source: American Red Cross/Wikimedia Commons)
Today, April 24, is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. The Genocide Education Project offers a summary of that tragic event which transpired during World War I (1914-1918):
"More than one million Armenians perished as the result of execution, starvation, disease, the harsh environment, and physical abuse. A people who lived in eastern Turkey for nearly 3,000 years [and two thousand years before the invading Turks arrived] lost its homeland and was profoundly decimated in the first large-scale genocide of the twentieth century. At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.
"Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present."
The evidence is overwhelming. As far back as 1920, a report to the U.S. Senate by the of the American Military Mission to Armenia stated that "[m]utilation, violation, torture, and death have left their haunting memories in a hundred beautiful Armenian valleys, and the traveler in that region is seldom free from the evidence of this most colossal crime of all the ages."
In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described how she was raped and thrown into a harem (consistent with Islam's rules of war). Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: "Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross," Mardiganian wrote, "spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies." (Such scenes were portrayed in the 1919 documentary film Auction of Souls.)
Often overlooked, however, is that this was less a genocide of Armenians and more a genocide of Christians. Thus the opening sentence of U.S. House Resolution 296, which passed on the hundredth anniversary of the genocide (2019), correctly mentions "the campaign of genocide against Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians."
That last word — Christians — is key to understanding this tragic chapter of history: Christianity is what all of those otherwise diverse peoples had in common, and therefore it — not nationality, ethnicity, territory, or grievances — was the ultimate determining factor concerning who the Turks would and would not "purge."
As one Armenian studies professor asked:
"If it [the Armenian Genocide] was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?"
According to another professor, Joseph Yacoub, author of Year of the Sword: The Assyrian Christian Genocide,:
"This suicidal policy of ethnic cleansing was stirred up by pan-Islamism and religious fanaticism. Christians were considered infidels (kafir). The call to Jihad... was part of the plan."
According to Yacoub (p.19), several key documents including a Syriac one from 1920, confirm that "there was an Ottoman plan to exterminate Turkey's Christians."
Yacoub recounts many "atrocities carried out by Turks and Kurds from town to town and from village to village without exception." In one instance, Turks, Kurds, and other "Sunnis," selected "eighteen of the most beautiful young girls" and hauled them into a local church, "where they were stripped naked and violated in turn on top of the Holy Gospel." An eyewitness recalled that the "outrages" committed against "even children" were "so horrible that one recoils; it makes the flesh creep."
The genocide is often conflated with the Armenians because many more of them than other Christians were killed—causing them to be the face of the genocide. According to reports, the Turks massacred 1.5 million Armenians, 750,000 Greeks, and 300,000 Assyrians. Relative their numbers, more Assyrians — half of their total population of 600,000 — were massacred.
Because all of these genocidal atrocities occurred during WWI, some, especially Turkey, argue that they were, ultimately, a reflection of just that — war, in all its death-dealing destruction. In reality, war was a factor, but only because it offered the Turks the necessary cover to do what they had apparently long wanted to do.
After describing the massacres as an "administrative holocaust," Winston Churchill observed that "The opportunity [World War I] presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race." Or, in the unequivocal words of Talaat Pasha, the de facto leader of the Ottoman Empire during the genocide:
"Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.... The question is settled. There are no more Armenians."
Henry Morgenthau, the U.S. Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and personal witness of the atrocities, attested that "I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this." He added that what the Turks were doing was "a carefully planned scheme to thoroughly extinguish the Armenian race." In 1918, Morgenthau wrote:
"Will the outrageous terrorizing, the cruel torturing, the driving of women into the harems, the debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at eighty cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to, and starvation in, the deserts of other hundreds of thousands, the destruction of hundreds of villages and cities, will the willful execution of this whole devilish scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian [or Assyrian] Christians of Turkey—will all this go unpunished?"
Not only has it gone unpunished; NATO ally Turkey has resumed the genocide against the very descendants of those whom the Turks nearly exterminated over a century ago — namely Armenians and Assyrians.
In late 2020, Muslim Azerbaijan initiated hostilities against Christian Armenian in a continuation of the 35-year-old landlocked, mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh land dispute. Turkey quickly joined its Azerbaijani co-religionists and arguably even spearheaded the war against Armenia, although the dispute clearly did not concern it. As Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan rhetorically asked, "Why has Turkey returned to the South Caucasus 100 years [after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire]?" His answer: "To continue the Armenian Genocide."
Turkey, in 2020, sent sharia-enforcing "jihadist groups," from Syria and Libya, including the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Hamza Division—which kept naked women chained and imprisoned — to terrorize and slaughter the Armenians. These Muslim groups committed numerous atrocities (here, and here). These included raping an Armenian female soldier and mother of three, before hacking off all four of her limbs, gouging her eyes, and sticking one of her severed fingers inside her private parts.
More recently, in late 2022, Turkey launched thousands of attacks—air, mortar, drone, artillery, etc.—several miles deep into Syria's northern border. This is, of course, where most of the religious minorities live —Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds, who a few years earlier experienced a genocide at the hands of the Islamic State ("ISIS"). Dozens more were killed, and buildings and infrastructure destroyed. In response, Genocide Watch issued a Genocide Emergency Alert on December 7, 2022:
"These military attacks by Recep Tayyip Erdogan's regime are part of a wider Turkish policy of annihilation of the Kurdish and Assyrian [Christian] people in northern Syria and Iraq. Turkey has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including bombing, shelling, abduction, torture, and extrajudicial killings. The attacks are part of Turkey's genocidal policies towards Kurds, Christians, and Ezidis."
A later webinar (summarized here) featured several experts who determined that Turkey's conduct had been genocidal. Charmaine Hedding, president of the Shai Fund, a humanitarian organization, said that Turkey's ground forces consisted of former ISIS, al-Qaeda, and Tahrir al-Shams jihadists who "are committing massive human rights abuses and have an agenda to create a caliphate, and they will eradicate the religious minorities in this area." Gregory Stanton, president of Genocide Watch, concluded by saying:
"Turkey is a genocidal society... Turkey has conducted so many genocides in history... Going back many centuries, it [Turkey] has been anti-Christian, and has tried to slaughter as many Christians as possible."
In the end, what Turkey has done and is doing to Christians must be seen in the broader context of what Muslims have done and continue to do to Christians. An estimated 360 million Christians are currently being persecuted, mostly in the Muslim world.
Four centuries before the Turks invaded and conquered formerly-Christian Asia Minor, Arabs conquered and Islamized all of North Africa and the Middle East. Centuries of persecution and outright jihads (holy wars) saw Christians go from an overwhelming majority to a tiny minority. In some areas there is the extinction (for instance, in Algeria, home of Saint Augustine), or near-extinction, of Christians, especially in the oldest Christian regions, such as Iraq and Syria, where Christians still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus.
In Nigeria, which seemingly, apart from Islam, has little in common with Turkey, at least one Christian is massacred for his/her faith every two hours, even as the world adamantly ignores that genocide.
Today, therefore, on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, it is crucial to remember the true background and significance of that tragic event — Muslim hate for Christians — and to know that it is still ongoing. As Charmaine Hedding said during the webinar on Turkey's genocidal assault on Christians in Syria:
"This genocide is a pattern we see, and it's certainly nothing new.... For those who say 'Not on our watch!' or 'Never again!' — here it is, happening again!"
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Defenders of the West, Sword and Scimitar, Crucified Again, and The Al Qaeda Reader, is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2023 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19593/armenian-genocide-remembranceHeartfelt greetings to the Armenian people on the anniversary of their genocide by the Ottoman Sultanate.
Elias Bejjani/April 24, 2024
The Annual Remembrance Day of the Ottoman massacres against the Armenians, Maronites, Syriacs, and Chaldeans between the years 1914-1915.
In the archives of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, there is a document dating back to the year 1916, which quotes the Minister of War of the Ottoman Empire at that time, Enver Pasha, as saying: “The empire must be cleansed of the Armenians and the Christians of Mount Lebanon. We eliminated the Armenians by the sword, and we will eliminate the Lebanese by famine.”
Sefo (killing by the sword): massacres targeting Assyrian Syrians and Iraqis, instigated by the Turkish army and carried out by Kurdish tribes. It began in 1914 and continued for several years, killing 400,000 Syriacs. The Turkish state denies its occurrence. Between 1914 and 2023, the proportions of Christians in the Near East declined to the point of extinction, something that only happened with the Mamluks.
Today, we also sadly remember the two hundred thousand Maronite martyrs of Mount Lebanon, who died in famine at the hands of the Ottomans from 1915-1918, in addition to the Sefo massacres, against the Chaldean Syriacs, Assyrians
Every April 24, we reiterate: Recognizing the massacres and genocide inflicted upon the Armenian, Syriac, Assyrian, and Chaldean peoples is a historical necessity for the path of honesty and truth.
Greetings to the resilient peoples who have preserved their collective memory, thrived, and excelled across all times and places. #Armenian_genocide #Sifo_massacres
The anniversary of the #ArmenianGenocide teaches us that justice is a cause that transcends generations and cannot be erased by the passage of years or even decades. Salutations to all  activists who have struggled and continue to struggle for the official recognition of this genocide, endeavoring to transform this solemn anniversary into a national day dedicated to purifying memory and delivering justice to the victims and their families.
From the depths of our hearts and with resounding voices, we extend our sincere salutations and reverence to the Armenian people for their unwavering commitment in defending their faith, beliefs, nationalism, existence, and civilization. Each year on April 24, the Armenian people renew their sacred vows and commitments to preserve and safeguard their faith, existence, and cause.
One hundred and nine years following the genocide perpetrated by the Ottoman Sultanate against the Armenian people based on religious, ethnic, racial, barbaric, and instinctual grounds, this resilient people, dispersed throughout the world, continues to hold steadfast to their faith in their Lord and their inherent right to a dignified life and just cause. One and a half million Armenian civilians, including children, the elderly, men, and women, were ruthlessly slaughtered with premeditation and design at the hands of the criminal Ottoman forces. Those who survived the atrocities were subjected to abuse, forced emigration, and homelessness.
Heartfelt greetings and commendations to this steadfast and faithful people, who were the first in the world to adopt Christianity as their official religion. They are a people who have faced adversity with faith, piety, and patience, giving rise to numerous saints and righteous individuals, and continue to produce martyrs even today.
As a Lebanese Maronite Christian, I not only empathize with the Armenian people, share in their pain, support their just cause, and uphold their faith in Christ the Redeemer and all Christian values, including love, forgiveness, and redemption, but I also take pride in the active Armenian community in my homeland, Lebanon, which has contributed and continues to contribute to its preservation and defense.
In the twenty-first century, silence is no longer acceptable under any pretext concerning the Ottoman genocidal campaigns against the Armenian, Syriac, Aramaic, Chaldean, Maronite, and Greek peoples.
Today, it is imperative for all the peoples of the world, international human rights and humanitarian organizations, and religious institutions to acknowledge the genocide inflicted upon the Armenian people and to pressure the Turkish government to recognize this genocide, followed by the implementation of all necessary humanitarian and legal measures.
Heartfelt greetings to the Armenian people on the centenary of the Ottoman genocide they endured.
It remains certain that whoever evades earthly judgment and justice will not escape the accountability, justice, and fair reckoning of the Lord on the Day of Final Judgment.

‘Civil War’ and Its Terrifying Premonition of American Collapse
Michelle Goldberg/The New York Times/April 24/2024
Going into Alex Garland’s astonishing new film, “Civil War,” I expected to be irritated by the implausibility of its premise. I’m not talking about the idea that America could devolve into vicious internecine armed conflict. That seems possible, if not probable.
In one 2022 poll, 43 percent of Americans said they thought a civil war within the next decade was at least somewhat likely. I wouldn’t go that far, but I won’t be surprised if political violence spikes after the upcoming election and eventually spirals out of control. I’m pretty confident, however, that if the sort of war Garland depicts ever actually broke out in this beleaguered nation, California and Texas wouldn’t be on the same side. “Civil War” has received plenty of adulatory reviews, but Garland has also been widely criticized for eliding the ideological forces driving America’s fracturing. He’s repeatedly spoken about the dangers of polarization, a bit of a cop-out, given that only one American political party has leaders who lionize violent insurrection.
This month A24, the powerhouse indie production company behind “Civil War,” released a map of the film’s fictional divisions on social media, under the hokey caption “Pledge your allegiance.” It showed an America split among the Loyalist States, stretching from the East Coast through the center of the country; the southern Florida Alliance; the secessionist Western Forces of California and Texas; and the New People’s Army of the northwest, which sounds vaguely Maoist. This suggested a fictional universe in which far-right militias and antifa groups pose comparable threats, an impression strengthened by some of Garland’s comments at South by Southwest, the Austin, Texas, cultural festival where “Civil War” debuted. “I have a political position, and I have good friends on the other side of that political divide,” he said. “Honestly, I’m not trying to be cute. What’s so hard about that?”
The obvious answer is that friendly disagreement between left and right is possible on some issues but not others; there’s no fruitful debate to be had about, for example, whether migrants are “poisoning the blood” of our country. Garland’s No Labels-style denunciation of extremism in general — as opposed to the particular kind of extremism behind America’s most deadly recent political violence — seemed to me a little glib and cynical, as if he wanted to make a hugely provocative movie but not risk offending potential audiences. If you’re going to dramatize many of our worst fears about the trajectory of American politics, I thought you should take the substance of those politics seriously.
But now that I’ve seen “Civil War,” which is neither glib nor cynical, Garland’s decision to keep the film’s politics a little ambiguous seems like a source of its power. The emphasis here should be on “a little” because, contrary to some of what I’d read, its values aren’t inscrutable, just lightly worn. Yes, there is a reference, early on, to “Portland Maoists.” We learn that the film’s heroine, a valiant, traumatized combat photographer named Lee, is famous for shooting the “antifa massacre,” but we never find out if antifa members were the perpetrators or victims. Still, it’s not a stretch to interpret the film as a premonition of how a seething, entropic country could collapse under the weight of Donald Trump’s return. As “Civil War” opens, America’s third-term president — a man who will later be compared to Benito Mussolini, Nicolae Ceausescu and Moammar al-Gaddafi — is practicing a blustering speech. “We are now closer than we have ever been to victory,” he says, falsely, adding, “Some are already calling it the greatest victory in the history of mankind.” Nick Offerman, who plays the president, doesn’t imitate Trump’s mannerisms, but the phrasing — the absurd, mendacious hyperbole attributed to nameless third parties — is extremely familiar. Soon after this scene, a journalist imagines asking him if, in retrospect, disbanding the FBI was a mistake.
The action in “Civil War” is driven by Lee and her colleagues’ quest to make it from New York to Washington, DC, to capture the president’s overthrow by rapidly advancing rebel forces. (The front line, in a resonant note, is in Charlottesville, Va.) In the film’s most gutting scene, a paramilitary soldier filling a mass grave asks each of the journalists where they’re from. Lee is from Colorado, and a younger reporter whom she’s reluctantly taken on as a protégée is from Missouri. To the soldier, these women, who are, like him, both white, are the right kind of American. Others in their party don’t qualify.
Given this setup, the ideological indeterminacy of the rebels helps the movie avoid seeming schematic or didactic. “Civil War” is an antiwar war movie; you’re not supposed to root for anyone except the journalists witnessing it. Part of what makes it so searing, though, is that aside from its unlikely California-Texas alliance, its story doesn’t require too much explanation to make sense.
Garland has said that the dynamics depicted in “Civil War” aren’t specific to America, but had he attempted a similar movie about his native England, a lot more narrative scaffolding would have been required to show how citizens turned fratricidal, not to mention where all the heavy weapons came from. In America, you need less signposting on the route from our uneasy present to an imagined implosion. The movie’s refugee camps don’t look all that different from the tent encampments in many American cities. The paramilitary guy, in his fatigues and goofy red sunglasses, could easily be a Boogaloo Boi or an Oath Keeper. The culminating battle in the capital is a more intense version of scenes we witnessed on Jan. 6, 2021. Early in the movie Lee says, “Every time I survived a war zone and got the photo, I thought I was sending a warning home: Don’t do this.” “Civil War” works as a similar sort of warning. It’s close enough to where America is right now that we don’t need Garland to fill in all the blanks.

And the Militias!
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
The European Union is discussing the imposition of additional sanctions on Iran following its direct attack on Israel via drones and missiles. The debate is around sanctions on Iran’s production of drones and missiles, as well as industries that make parts for these weapons and assemble them. But is that enough? Certainly not. Moderate Arab states should agree on a shared narrative of rejecting the Iranian militias in our region and their presence on the borders of our countries. I know that this would not be easy, but the alternative is the destruction of Arab states and the notion of statehood in the Arab world.
The truth is that the United States and the West have not taken action now to impose regional stability, but to prevent a repeat of recent developments and convince Israel to hold off on broader retaliation against Iran. The goal is to defuse tensions, not to create sustainable solutions.
That is not equivalent to supporting stability in the region or deterring Iranian expansion. These actions are merely intended to assuage Israeli security concerns, and that is dangerous. Indeed, the priority is safeguarding our moderate countries, as well as what remains of the Arab countries that have been drained, staggered, or paralyzed by Iranian militias. Some are failed states, like Syria, where we find American, Russian, and Turkish forces, as well as Iranian occupation through militias like the Fatimiyoun Brigade, the Zainabiyoun Brigade, and Hezbollah. Just a few days ago, our newspaper published an article about how the Syrian-Lebanese border is controlled "by gangs and clans."
We also have Lebanon, where Hezbollah has gained hegemony through its arsenal, paralyzing the state, crippling the presidency, banks, and judiciary, and turning Lebanon into a mafia state. We see kidnappings, and physical and moral assassinations, with fellow journalists persecuted for flimsy reasons.
And there's Yemen, where the Houthis’ futile recklessness has disrupted shipping and drawn Yemen into a crisis it has nothing to do with in order to serve Iranian interests. Their actions are pushing the country to the brink of an economic, nutritional, and security collapse. Sudan is in an equally dire position.
The situation in Sudan is a crime against the people and what remains of the state. The pretexts are extremely tenuous, and their rebuttals never go beyond blaming everyone and accusing them of being traitors. However, everyone who has taken up arms and waved foreign cards is actually to blame.
Iraq is another case. The threat of Iranian militias, with the Popular Mobilization Forces at the forefront, becoming dominant is growing. At the same time, Iraq genuinely has the potential to grow, and Baghdad does not need financial support or anything of the sort.
All Baghdad needs is the will, political reform, and to place all arms under the control of the central state; the international community and moderate Arab countries could help them do that. This would ensure that decisions of war and peace are made by the Iraqi state, not militias that take orders from Iran and terrorize rational voices in Iraq. Of course, there is also Libya, where Turkish and Russian forces, among others, have been deployed, and where the Muslim Brotherhood has played a pivotal role. What is dangerous about what is happening in Libya is that it has implications that go beyond the Arab world. It is impacting European security, especially with the refugee crisis, to say nothing about its repercussions for the notion of statehood. This is where we find ourselves today. We must develop an Arab stance, and Arab-American-European plan, to deal with all of this. The threat of militias must be our primary concern in every forum. There is no moderate Arab state that does not have Iranian militias on its borders, and that is dangerous. It should be a red line.

America - Israel: A Few Signs of Our Times
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/April 24/2024
Many major developments that are not necessarily totally harmonious come together to form “the history of American-Israeli relations.” From the very start, in May 1948, Secretary of State George Marshall opposed recognizing the nascent Jewish state, and there was a lot of talk about a split within the Harry Truman administration at that time. Indeed, the Secretary of State whose name was associated with the famous plan to rebuild Europe after World War II, strongly favored the British view of placing Palestine under the stewardship of the United Nations to avert a major war there and across the Middle East.
Then, in 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower sided with Egypt over Britain, France, and Israel during the Suez Crisis, prioritizing the interests of the United States with its traditional allies in the Arab and Muslim worlds over its support for the state of Israel. Thus, Eisenhower forced Israel to withdraw from the territories it had occupied and brandished a serious threat to the British, warning them that their invasion risked punitive measures that would undermine the value of the British pound.
As for 1967, it marked the qualitative shift towards a fully-fledged alliance and partnership between Washington and Tel Aviv. The prevailing impression in the West had been that Gamal Abdel Nasser, a Soviet ally at the time, sought to annihilate Israel once and for all. His decision to expel the United Nations Emergency Forces from Gaza and Sinai, and then to shut the maritime straits, were seen as confirmation of their worst suspicions regarding his intentions.
When the Six-Day War erupted, the Lyndon Johnson administration became convinced that Israel was its only Cold War ally in the Middle East; not only was it on the same side, it had also achieved a stunning victory, in six days, that created a major shift in the strategic balances of power.
Thus, in 1973, what came to be known as the American air bridge between the US and Israel was established just four days after the war broke out on October 6. This air bridge supplied the Israelis with weapons and ammunition that allowed them to recapture territory that they had been driven out of by the Egyptian and Syrian armies, and then to occupy new territory that they had not taken in 1967.
We know that, in turn, the 1982 invasion of Lebanon sparked serious disputes that were reflected in the fraught relationship between Philip Habib, Ronald Reagan's representative, and his Secretary of State, Alexander Haig, who soon resigned. These disputes also reflected on the manner in which fighters from the Palestine Liberation Organization were expelled from Beirut, then in the competition between the two countries over the paternity of Bashir Gemayel, and then their significant divergences regarding the subsequent negotiations that led to the Israeli-Lebanese agreement of May 17, 1983...
Naturally, caution against interpreting the present through the lens of the past is always justified. This bilateral history, some of whose major junctures have been mentioned here, was significantly impacted by circumstances in the two concerned parties and the broader global context. Other factors include the implications of which party had held power in the two countries, their economic conditions, and whether either of the two was in election mode, as is currently the case.
Given all of these variables, not every development is a reiteration of a previous event. Nonetheless, some of the seeds of current developments can be identified in historical events. Indeed, this past could inspire the future, just as the future could consult the past after a process of adoption to facilitate this task.
In this sense, we find elements of all those events in how the Gaza war is shaping their relationship, though that does not imply that this war can be equated to those events. We see parallels with the events of 1956, in which Israel was the invading party, in the current emphasis on protecting civilians and the pressure being exerted to avoid broader conflicts, be it an assault on Rafah, a war on Lebanon, or an open confrontation with Iran. We can also include the punitive measures taken against Jewish settlers, even if they are part of the armed forces.
From the events of 1967 and 1973, we have the conviction that Israel is a rival that creates a counterbalance with Iran. Although the US and Israel disagree on how to handle this issue, and these disputes are clear, US reliance on Israel to avoid the worst in the event that the situation deteriorates remains a key consideration. The genocidal intent reflected by the October 7 operation, along with the participation of Arab factions in the fight against a "besieged" Israel, allowed for complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, as well as pushing the Americans and the West in general to portray the of Israeli war as one of self-defense. Accordingly, they provided openhand military and non-military support, which was crowned by the recent aid package of over 26 billion dollars that was passed a few days ago and the idiocy of vetoing the resolution to recognize the state of Palestine at the United Nations.
Two conclusions can be drawn with certainty here: first, outcomes diverge according to US assessments of Israel’s action. If Israel seems like the aggressor, as it did in 1956 and 1982, the US is stringent with the Jewish state; if Israel appears to be the victim, as it did in 1967, 1973, and October 7, the US endorses actions that are difficult to endorse.
As for the second conclusion, it is that boiling the US-Israeli alliance down to a single, definitive, and unchanging formula, is an oversimplification that closes the door to politics and kills the prospect of influencing events outside this closed equation. In any case, the days ahead are likely to provide us with more lessons and insights as things develop in theaters stretching from Rafah to Tehran to include South Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and the Red Sea.