English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 22/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on
the lccc Site
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/aaaanewsfor2024/english.february22.24.htm
News Bulletin Achieves
Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since
2006
Click On The Below Link To Join Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group so you get
the LCCC Daily A/E Bulletins every day
https://chat.whatsapp.com/FPF0N7lE5S484LNaSm0MjW
ÇÖÛØ
Úáì ÇáÑÇÈØ Ýí
ÃÚáì ááÅäÖãÇã
áßÑæÈ
Eliasbejjaninews whatsapp group
æÐáß
áÅÓÊáÇã äÔÑÇÊí
ÇáÚÑÈíÉ æÇáÅäßáíÒíÉ ÇáíæãíÉ
ÈÇäÊÙÇã
Elias Bejjani/Click
on the below link to subscribe to my youtube channel
ÇáíÇÓ
ÈÌÇäí/ÇÖÛØ
Úáì ÇáÑÇÈØ Ýí
ÃÓÝá ááÅÔÊÑÇß
Ýí ãæÞÚí Ú
ÇáíæÊíæÈ
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAOOSioLh1GE3C1hp63Camw
Bible Quotations For
today
The sower Parable/The seed that fell in good soil,
tare the ones who, when they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and
good heart, and bear fruit with patient endurance
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke
08/01-15/:"Jesus went on through cities and villages, proclaiming and
bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. The twelve were with him, as
well as some women who had been cured of evil spirits and infirmities: Mary,
called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, and Joanna, the wife
of Herod’s steward Chuza, and Susanna, and many others, who provided for
them out of their resources. When a great crowd gathered and people from
town after town came to him, he said in a parable: ‘A sower went out to sow
his seed; and as he sowed, some fell on the path and was trampled on, and
the birds of the air ate it up. Some fell on the rock; and as it grew up, it
withered for lack of moisture. Some fell among thorns, and the thorns grew
with it and choked it. Some fell into good soil, and when it grew, it
produced a hundredfold.’ As he said this, he called out, ‘Let anyone with
ears to hear listen!’Then his disciples asked him what this parable meant.
He said, ‘To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of
God; but to others I speak in parables, so that "looking they may not
perceive, and listening they may not understand."‘Now the parable is this:
The seed is the word of God. The ones on the path are those who have heard;
then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they
may not believe and be saved. The ones on the rock are those who, when they
hear the word, receive it with joy. But these have no root; they believe
only for a while and in a time of testing fall away. As for what fell among
the thorns, these are the ones who hear; but as they go on their way, they
are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit
does not mature. The seed that fell in good soil, tare the ones who, when
they hear the word, hold it fast in an honest and good heart, and bear fruit
with patient endurance."
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese
Related News & Editorials published on February 21-22/2024
Gallant: Hezbollah equations collapsed when we attacked Damascus, Beirut,
Sidon and Nabatiyeh
Mother and 5-year-old daughter killed in Israeli attack on southern Lebanon
Woman, girl killed in Israeli strike on Majdal Zoun
Berri, Bassil exchange 'positive' messages on dialogue
All-out war with Hezbollah could cause power outages across Israel, minister
says
Israel-Hezbollah border clashes: Latest developments
Aoun Continues to Break from Hezbollah: We Are Not Bound to Gaza by Defense
Treaty
Qassem: Our presence in the confrontation is what deters the enemy
Bassil says 'open' to presidential dialogue with strict deadline
Hezbollah shells Israel's Matzuva in response to killing of civilians
Hezbollah Tunnel Network ‘More Advanced’ Than Hamas: Report
US senators urge Hezbollah-Israel war to de-escalate soon
Lebanon challenges Israel's actions: A response to threats and violations of
Resolution 1701
MP Michel Moawad to LBCI: Hezbollah 'hijacked' state's decision; Gaza conflict
'concerns us all'
Rising costs: An in-depth look at fee hikes in Vehicle Registration Center
(Nefaa) services
Elegance and tradition: Miss Lebanon dazzles in Nicolas Jebran's creation at
Miss World
Critical reforms in focus: BDL Acting Governor meets FCDO officials in London
The Lebanese-American Coordinating Committee (LACC) Meeting with the US
Administration and Congress in Washington DC and the UN Security Council in NY
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on February 21-22/2024
Syria Says an Israeli Strike Has Hit a Damascus
Residential Area
Israeli strike hits Damascus residential area, killing at least 2
Israeli war cabinet member Gantz says ‘promising early signs’ on new hostage
deal
Gantz says 'promising early signs of progress' on Gaza truce deal
Israeli Knesset overwhelmingly opposes recognition of a Palestinian state
Gaza death toll rises to 29,313, Rafah residents killed in strike
Hunger grips war-torn Gaza as truce talks resume in Cairo
US urges UN court not to order Israel out of Palestinian lands
UK and Jordan air drop aid to hospital in northern Gaza
Israeli strikes across Gaza kill 67 Palestinians overnight
Israel troops kill 3 militants in West Bank raid
Gaza, Ukraine loom large as G20 foreign ministers meet
UK’s top bishop cancels meeting with Bethlehem pastor to avoid angering British
Jews: Report
World leaders in business, finance and technology gather in Miami for city’s 2nd
FII Priority Summit
Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
Hezbollah Tunnel Network ‘More Advanced’ Than Hamas:
Report
Elliot Nazar/The ForeignDesk/February 21/2024
It appears that Hezbollah, an Iranian-supported Shiite militant group, possesses
a covert tunnel system believed to be more advanced than that of Hamas in the
Gaza Strip, according Tal Be’eri, who heads the research department at the Alma
Center, an Israel-based think tank focused on studying security challenges in
the Middle East.
The report notes that Hezbollah possesses an extensive subterranean network
spanning hundreds of kilometers, extending into Israeli territory, with
potential extensions into Syria.
“Our assumption is that everything we see in Gaza in the past few months – all
this and more is happening in Lebanon,” Be’eri said in an interview with Radio
North 104.5FM.
“Hezbollah started building in the 1980s, with the help of Iran and North Korea,
who brought the professional know-how. The result is a large system of tunnels
under Lebanon.”
“Reports in the Middle East have indicated that Iran and Hezbollah militia have
been able, over the past many months and even years, to establish what I call a
‘jihad line’ crossing Mount Lebanon from the Beqaa to the Mediterranean Sea,”
said Walid Phares, a Newsmax TV Foreign Policy Analyst.
“This strategy by Hezbollah and Iran was actually developed over the past 20
years patiently with Iranian money,” Phares told The Foreign Desk.
Phares explained that this zone was “equipped with launching pads and a
blockhouse that would allow Hezbollah to establish capabilities for long-range
missiles (ICBMS) and drones and anti-aircraft long-range missiles, all provided
by Iran and deployed in the center of Lebanon, which will make it very difficult
for the Israelis to respond far from south Lebanon in a mountainous area where a
majority of the population is Christian.”
Be’eri added that the tunnels are “divided into different types.”
“The types we are familiar with are the attack tunnels, whose purpose is to
cross the fence and invade the Galilee area, but here we are also talking about
strategic tunnels that allow people to move from place to place, spread over
many kilometers. Unlike the attack tunnels, they allow for the movement of
vehicles and even medium-sized trucks,” he added,” Be’eri told Radio North
104.5FM.
Be’eri estimated that the tunnel network is “hundreds upon hundreds of
kilometers” but did not provide an exact number.
“We [Alma Center] follow what is happening in Lebanon, and we see that civilian
companies, companies owned by Shi’ites, build different infrastructural
projects, especially water transfer projects. You see the ability and the
know-how, and to an outside observer, it is clear to everyone that this can
result in a tunnel that can be used militarily,” he explained to Radio North
104.5FM.
According to Phares, Hezbollah and its local allies “have been able to establish
a zone of control in the Middle of the Christian population in Mount Lebanon in
the area of Jebeil, also known as Byblos. This is the heartland of the
Marionettes, and Hezbollah has been able to connect with some Shia villages from
the highest peak all the way down to the coast of Lebanon, slicing the whole of
Mount Lebanon, a free area in the past, into two zones and cutting the
continuity of Christian zones in Lebanon,” he added.
The report notes that the tunnels span hundreds of kilometers collectively, with
one of the largest stretching to 45 km. Some of the tunnels are designed to be
narrow, facilitating the infiltration of terrorists into Israel, while others
boast wider dimensions, intended to accommodate Iranian Fateh-110 ballistic
missile batteries.John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War
Institute, explained that Hezbollah doesn’t have a “secret tunnel network but a
“well-known vast network of hundreds of kilometers of tunnels varying in
complexity and depth.”
“The true extent of Hezbollah tunnels may be secret or unknown for sure, but the
presence of a vast network of complex tunnels in varying complexity, depth, and
purpose from defensive to offensive is very well known,” Spencer told The
Foreign Desk.
According to Phares, the first question to be asked is why the Lebanese Army,
which is equipped and trained by the United States, was unable to “detect this
Maginot Line of Hezbollah.”
“The answer being that the Lebanese Army is under the control of the Ministry of
Defense of the Lebanese government, which is controlled by Hezbollah,” he told
The Foreign Desk.
“The second point is how come U.S. intelligence did not discover this line of
fortifications that can threaten not just Israel but eventually the U.S., as we
saw over the past few months in Syria and Iraq? There are no answers, though the
Pentagon has already developed an embassy in Lebanon where their resources could
have detected these fortifications, and the U.S. has a presence in the North of
Lebanon. There is an airbase used by the U.S. Armed Forces called Hamat,” he
added.
Phares noted that the current situation is “very dangerous” for the
anti-Hezbollah coalition in Lebanon, which includes Christians, Sunni, and
Druze, because “if Hezbollah launches their barrage of missiles against Israel,
it is expected that Israelis would respond and by responding they will cause
damage to areas in Mount Lebanon that are supposed to be sympathizers fo the
West and Israel.”
“How the U.S. government deals with this matter is unknown because it has not
been actually raised by the administration despite the fact that most likely
they had that information,” he added.
Since 1982, Hezbollah’s military power in Lebanon has strengthened thanks to the
billions of dollars of military and financial support from the Islamic Republic
of Iran. Following the Oct. 7 massacre by Hamas, Hezbollah has launched sporadic
attacks against Israel’s northern border, launching rockets and deploying
Hezbollah fighters to try and infiltrate the Jewish state.
“We expect now that a stronger opposition by civil society in Lebanon to
Hezbollah is going to rise. The problem is that Hezbollah has the military means
to eliminate its enemies. We will wait until the next months to see if the Biden
administration will start supporting Lebanese civil society against Hezbollah or
if it is going to be a policy to be considered by the next administration,”
Phares told The Foreign Desk.
US senators urge Hezbollah-Israel war to de-escalate
soon
Reuters/February 21, 2024
The Israeli military and Hezbollah have a window to de-escalate tensions along
Lebanon's southern border before a possible Israeli military offensive against
the Lebanese armed group, two Democratic US senators told Reuters on Wednesday.
Senators Chris Coons and Richard Blumenthal met Lebanese officials on a
tour of the region, which has been gripped by conflict following Hamas's Oct. 7
attack on Israel, which responded with a heavy air, land, and sea assault on
Gaza. In Lebanon, Israeli shelling has killed nearly
190 Hezbollah fighters and 50 civilians. A dozen Israeli troops and five Israeli
civilians have been killed in northern Israel, and tens of thousands have been
displaced on each side of the border. "The next few
weeks are a real hinge point - for Gaza, for Israel, for Lebanon, for the Red
Sea, for Iraq," said Coons, adding that a ceasefire deal on Gaza could have
"positive consequences" for Lebanon. "It could create that window of 45 days,
quite likely during Ramadan as well, when the next steps can be taken to begin
to build the confidence that could lead to a full implementation of (United
Nations Security Council resolution) 1701," he said. That 2006 resolution ended
the last major conflict between Hezbollah and Israel and says no armed factions
should be present in a swathe of south Lebanon except the Lebanese army. "I
think there's an urgency for both sides in taking this opportunity to
de-escalate and to withdraw," Coons said.Foreign ministers and top envoys from
various Western countries have visited Lebanon in recent weeks to urge a
diplomatic resolution to the fighting in the south.France submitted a written
proposal to Lebanon earlier this month. US envoy Amos Hochstein has also been
working on a plan, which Coons said he hoped was "making steady progress"
without sharing further details.
Lebanon challenges Israel's actions: A response to threats
and violations of Resolution 1701
LBCI/February 21, 2024
Following the guidance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in response to
the threats made by the Israeli representative at the UN stating Israel's plan
to forcefully enforce Resolution 1701 in the upcoming weeks, the Permanent
Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations in New York emphasized that it is
Israel that violates the Resolution. Israel's land, sea, and air violations have
been documented by the Security Council since 2006, exceeding 30,000 breaches.
This is in addition to the daily attacks on southern Lebanese villages,
resulting in the death and displacement of dozens of civilians and forcing them
to evacuate their homes due to concentrated shelling, daily strikes, the use of
drones, and internationally prohibited white phosphorus shells that have
destroyed over a hundred thousand olive trees. The Lebanese Mission to the
United Nations said in a statement: "Lebanon has repeatedly affirmed through its
senior officials that it has never desired war, and it does not seek it today or
in the future. "Lebanon has expressed its full commitment to negotiation and the
pursuit of peaceful solutions that preserve its legitimate rights through the
comprehensive and balanced application of the provisions of Resolution 1701."
In contrast, the statement highlighted that Israeli threats continue from senior
officials, advocating for death, destruction, and war, as demonstrated by the
Israeli representative at the United Nations, revealing its hidden intentions to
expand the war and search for a pretext to launch attacks against Lebanon.
"Lebanon questions whether it is time for Israel to reconsider its approach,
opting for reason, logic, and peace instead of persisting in the policies of
force, occupation, threats, killing, and war," it said. "Lebanon calls on
relevant UN agencies, particularly the Security Council, to compel Israel to
cease its attacks and violations of Lebanon's sovereignty, initiate negotiations
through the United Nations to fully commit to Resolution 1701, and withdraw from
the occupied Lebanese territories, seeking the desired political solution and
preserving regional peace and security," it concluded.
MP Michel Moawad to LBCI: Hezbollah 'hijacked' state's
decision; Gaza conflict 'concerns us all'
LBCI/February 21, 2024
MP Michel Moawad stated that what is happening in Gaza "concerns us all because
the Palestinian issue is a matter of justice. It is the right of the Palestinian
people to have a state and to decide their destiny."In an interview with LBCI's
"Hiwar Al Marhala" talk show, he said that the caretaker government is
relinquishing its role and agreeing to link Lebanon's fate with Gaza's, which is
"considered a crime against Lebanon." "Hezbollah has 'hijacked' the state's
decision, and it is time for it to learn that the surplus of power does not
last," he affirmed. MP Michel Moawad highlighted that the only sustainable
solution that ensures stability is the effective implementation of Resolution
1701. "We must seriously deal with [former] President
Aoun's position on the South because it could be a turning point in the
relationship with Hezbollah. We should strive, along with the Free Patriotic
Movement, to find common ground to restore the state," he stated. He added: "We
will not allow Hezbollah to impose its will on us, and we will not elect any
president. Whether we win or lose, our heads will remain held high."He declared
that Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri is trying to "distract" the Lebanese
people, saying: "This Parliament is not 'his father's property,' and what is
needed is the implementation of the constitution."
Rising costs: An in-depth look at fee hikes in Vehicle
Registration Center (Nefaa) services
LBCI/February 21, 2024
The increases in fees approved within the new budget will impact the beneficial
services provided by the Vehicle Registration Center (Nefaa). The cost of these
services will increase between 5 percent and 12 percent. How will the prices be?
Let us start with driving licenses. If you want to obtain a driving license, you
now need to pay two million Lebanese lira instead of LBP 42,000.
However, after completing this process, you still need to undergo an
examination. The fee is now set at LBP 300,000 instead of LBP 30,000.
The cost of a driving license was previously LBP 72,000, but now it is two
million and 300,000 Lebanese lira. As for the international license, its price
has increased from LBP 125,000 to one million and 150,000 Lebanese lira.
If you want to renew your driving license or get a replacement for a lost one,
you have to pay LBP 250,000 instead of LBP 42,000.
But what about the Mechanic? The mechanic fees have increased tenfold and vary
based on the age of the car and its horsepower.
The fee for replacing license plates has also changed, now costing LBP 750,000
instead of LBP 30,000.
However, be aware that the fee for installing new plates has not changed in the
new budget; it is still set at LBP 15,000 per plate. This fee adjustment is
still pending a decision from the Ministries of Finance and Interior and
Municipalities.
Now, if you have a "special" number plate, what fees will you incur? These fees
have increased 12 times more and vary depending on the classification and
category of the number. If you violate traffic laws, the fine will be multiplied
by ten. If you delay registering your car, the fine has become one million
Lebanese lira per week instead of LBP 100,000. All these documents will incur an
additional cash stamp fee, which was previously LBP 10,000 and is now LBP
100,000, directly deposited at the Vehicle Registration Center. Some documents
also require an adhesive stamp, which was supposed to be replaced with an
electronic alternative obtained through money transfer companies.
However, this stamp alternative is currently
unavailable at these companies due to its changed value, and a new mechanism for
its issuance is being discussed between the Ministry of Finance and these
companies.
On the one hand, the numbers show that the new cost is less expensive in
parallel to the US dollar. For example, a driving license that used to cost
around 48 US dollars now costs approximately 25 US dollars. However, it is
illogical for employees to pay these fees while their salaries have lost value
in parallel to the US dollar, especially government and military personnel.
Elegance and tradition: Miss Lebanon dazzles in Nicolas
Jebran's creation at Miss World
LBCI/February 21, 2024
Showcasing the Lebanese heritage, Miss Lebanon 2022, Yasmina Zaytoun stepped on
the Miss World stage wearing the national costume the international Lebanese
designer Nicolas Jebran created, embodying tradition and elegance.
Representing Lebanon and the Middle East, Miss Lebanon 2022 spread "a message of
peace through the purity of white, while honoring my homeland with olive tree
branches. Drawing inspiration from the historic Lebanese Tantour," she said in
an Instagram caption. Sharing her journey in India during her participation in
the 71st edition of the Miss World competition, Miss Lebanon said in a video
clip: "I'm proudly representing the country that gave the world the alphabet,
the most resilient country, Lebanon!"
Critical reforms in focus: BDL Acting Governor meets FCDO
officials in London
LBCI/February 21, 2024
At the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), Lebanon's Acting
Banque du Liban (BDL) Governor, Wassim Mansouri, met with the FCDO Deputy Chief
Economist Tom Strachan, in the presence of the British Embassy's Political
Advisor, Olivia Campbell. He also met the Export Finance Managers in the United
Kingdom, Jeremy Smith and Sam Crosland. During these meetings, discussions
focused on the economic situation in Lebanon and ways to enhance economic
cooperation between the two countries. Additionally, those who met with Mansouri
praised the steps taken by the Central Bank of Lebanon, particularly regarding
the cessation of state financing and the unification of the exchange rate. They
emphasized the importance of implementing significant reforms in the Lebanese
state and across various sectors.
The Lebanese-American Coordinating Committee (LACC)
Meeting with the US Administration and Congress in Washington DC and the UN
Security Council in NY
Lebanese-American Coordinating Committee
4201 Cathedral Ave NW, # 815 E. Washington, DC 20016
Washington, February 16,2024
Lebanon's Neutrality, Implementing Resolution 1701, Abiding by the Constitution
and Restoring Public Institutions by Electing a President.
Within the framework of the Lebanese diaspora efforts in the United States, and
following its launch in 2021, the Lebanese-American Coordinating Committee
(LACC) organized visits to Lebanon and two intensive tours in Washington
(2022/2023), with two strategic retreats to examine the role of the Lebanese
diaspora in preserving Lebanon's identity, freedom, democracy, diversity, and
building a free, sovereign, fair, and independent citizenship state. The
committee also engaged with the national and diplomatic dynamics of Lebanon's
brothers within the Arab world and its allies in the free world.
As part of its efforts in the United States and after its retreat for
evaluations and foresights, the Lebanese-American Coordinating Committee (LACC)
recently conducted visits in Washington and at the United Nations in New York
(Feb. 5- 10/2024) meeting with officials from the Department of State, the
Senate, the Congress and the White House as well as with the Arab League
Ambassador in Washington. The committee then traveled to New York, where they
met with the Assistant Secretary-General for Middle East Affairs at the United
Nations and several Permanent Missions to the United Nations. Additionally, the
committee extended condolences to the Irish Permanent Mission to the United
Nations for the UNIFIL soldier Pte Seán Rooney who was assassinated in December
2022 in South Lebanon. The delegation further affirmed its appreciation for
UNIFIL's role and cooperation with the Lebanese Army to bolster Resolution 1701
and condemned all attacks against UNIFIL forces by local actors, as well as the
recent Israeli attacks.
During its tour, the delegation conveyed clear messages in its meetings, which
were consolidated and presented cohesively in a policy paper outlining the
following points:
1. Reaffirming Lebanon’s neutrality amidst the ongoing conflict between Israel
and Hamas is essential for avoiding catastrophic risks to its people, preserving
its historic identity, and fostering opportunities to end the war in the Middle
East.
2. Empowering the Lebanese Army (LAF) and maintaining support for its border
protection efforts, thereby reaffirming its sole military legitimacy in
safeguarding the Lebanese borders while ensuring the enforcement of Resolution
1701, in collaboration with UNIFIL.
3. Recognizing that the current presidential vacancy poses a threat to Lebanese
identity. Specifically, rejecting any pathway that does not prioritize the role
of Lebanese constitutional institutions, particularly the presidency, in future
negotiations and arrangements along all Lebanese borders, as stipulated by the
Lebanese constitution and supported by Arab and international resolutions.
Following the meeting in Washington, the committee delegation traveled to New
York, where they engaged in comprehensive discussions with various permanent
missions to the Security Council and the Deputy Office of the United Nations
Secretary-General for Middle East Affairs. After exchanging views on Lebanon's
situation and its challenges, the following conclusions were reached:
1. There is a growing international concern over the escalation of the conflict
in Gaza, which poses significant risks to Lebanon. Consequently, there is an
urgent call for concerted diplomatic efforts to deter Israeli aggression, urging
all parties to adhere to Resolution 1701 and uphold the exclusive sovereignty of
the Lebanese army over Lebanese territory.
2. The urgency to elect a president for the republic lies in prioritizing the
interests and national security of the Lebanese people within Lebanon’s
constitutional framework, while ensuring that no compromises are made at the
expense of Lebanon’s sovereignty and Long-term stability.
There is a notable emphasis on sustaining support for the Lebanese army and
maintaining confidence in its capabilities to fulfil its role without engaging
in partnerships with illegitimate non-state actors. UN Security Council members,
in turn, affirmed their commitment to halt the destabilization of the Middle
East and to eradicating all forms of extremism and exclusion while upholding the
principles of democracy, justice, and liberal values highlighting the positive
and critical role that Lebanon can contribute to this endeavor.
The Lebanese-American Coordinating Committee (LACC) represents the following
organizations: The American Lebanese Policy Institute - Political Action
Committee (ALPI-PAC), Assembly for Lebanon (AFL), Lebanese American Renaissance
Partnership (LARP), Lebanese for Lebanon Foundation (LFLF), Lebanese Information
Center (LIC), Our New Lebanon (ONL), Shields of United Lebanon (SOUL), and World
Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU), as well as the Civic Influence Hub (CIH) that
serves as the Lebanese Advisory Organization.
LACC Member Organizations
The American Lebanese Policy Institute - Political Action
Committee (ALPI-PAC)
Assembly for Lebanon (AFL) Lebanese American Renaissance Partnership (LARP)
Lebanese For Lebanon Foundation (LFLF)
Lebanese Information Center (LIC) Our New Lebanon (ONL)
Shields of United Lebanon (SOUL) World Lebanese Cultural Union (WLCU)
Lebanese Advisory Organization Civic Influence Hub (CIH)
Advisory Baord
Thomas Abraham
Abbas Dahouk, Col. (Ret.) US Army General Khalil Helou
Hanin Ghaddar
Wajih Kanso, Ph.D
Philip Salem, M.D.
Stephen Stanton, Barrister
Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from
miscellaneous sources published Populism Has No Cure for Inflation
Ross Douthat/The New York Times/February 21/2024
The flare of inflation reported this week, the unwelcome guest still hanging
around when everyone was hoping he’d been shown the door, is a useful reminder
of one way to understand the Biden era’s frustrations. The administration’s
defenders often argue that it has been more successful at legislating and
policymaking than it’s given credit for, and there’s some truth to that
contention. The trouble is that the White House has mostly been successful at
implementing an economic agenda addressed to the discontents of the mid-2010s —
even as the problems of the 2020s, inflation above all, have made those issues
less relevant to voters’ immediate concerns.
Think of the 2010s as the era of reasonable disillusionment with neoliberalism.
The right’s populism and the left’s socialism were hardly models of rigor and
consistency, but behind both Donald Trump’s ascent and Bernie Sanders’s
popularity lay an array of concerns about problems the existing elite consensus
didn’t seem well equipped to deal with — the downsides of free trade and
China-America intertwinement, the painfully slow recovery from the Great
Recession, the rising costs of healthcare and education.
Much of the Biden administration’s economic agenda has been designed with this
constellation of issues in mind. The full-employment stimulus, the big
infrastructure spending deal, the experiments with industrial policy, the
attempt at student-loan forgiveness, the push for family-friendly tax policy,
the trade brinkmanship with China: As much as or more than Trump’s White House,
this has been a post-neoliberal administration.
The Sanders left, of course, would say that President Biden’s agenda hasn’t gone
far enough. (Where’s single payer? Where’s free college?) The populist right
would say his agenda has been undermined by a disastrous border policy and also
tilted too much toward the boutique priorities of the liberal upper middle
class. But politically, the debate about whether Biden has gotten the post-neoliberal
mixture just right clearly matters less than the fact that a post-neoliberal
agenda has no clear answer to inflation.
Instead, all of the ideas that came out of the mid-2010s reckoning with
neoliberalism’s limits assume a certain degree of fiscal capacity. Which, in
those years, is exactly what we had: more room than the fiscal scolds and
deficit hawks assumed for spending and for tax cuts, more room to run the
economy hot, more room to debate whether a Green New Deal or a big beautiful
infrastructure bill or a pro-family tax code should be the most important
populist priority. But once you lose that space, once inflation makes a
comeback, those priorities may still matter — I certainly still want pro-family
economic policy and a government that can build big public projects! — but they
are no longer responsive to the biggest problem facing voters: prices that keep
climbing or just feel stubbornly high, a cost of living increase that doesn’t
just affect positional goods like college but hits you at the grocery store, gas
station and everywhere else besides. That kind of problem raises a very
different kind of question from the ones raised by socialists and populists in
the middle of the 2010s. It’s no longer “What priority are we overlooking that
needs policy attention?” Now it has to be “What priority can we live without,
what tax could be raised, or what program could be reasonably cut?”
And here it’s yesterday’s men, the old neoliberal shills with their bipartisan
commissions and high-minded deficit reduction plans, who turn out to have
something to offer, while the post-neoliberal politics of both the right and the
left do not. Or not so far, at least: Instead, the populist way is either to
blame predatory companies for everything (see Biden’s peculiar spot, posted on
Super Bowl Sunday, attacking “shrinkflation” by snack companies) or to make
vague promises to cut waste, fraud and abuse (the current Republican position),
all the while relying on Jerome Powell’s Federal Reserve to make the hard
choices, stepping in where the elected officials of both parties fear to tread.
The hope, for Biden’s fortunes especially, has been that the Fed really can do
it all by itself, that post-neoliberal fiscal policy can avoid hard choices as
long as monetary policy comes through.
Things may yet work out that way, but this week’s inflation number is a reminder
that they quite possibly may not. Instead we may head into the Biden-Trump clash
with inflation still a major policy concern, indeed perhaps the policy concern
for the voters who will decide the election.
Is any sort of American populism, be it Bidenomics or Trumpism, capable of
offering a responsible program under those kinds of circumstances?
I suppose one should say something constructive here, but the answer is pretty
obviously no. Instead, if post-neoliberal policymaking is to continue, in either
Biden’s second term or Trump’s, it will do so only because of the careful
ministrations of the most credentialed, antidemocratic, antipopulist institution
in America. Only the Federal Reserve can protect post-neoliberalism from its own
limitations. Only elites can keep populism alive.
Why Did Putin Praise Biden?
Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 21/2024
Breaking with the rhetoric we are accustomed to hearing from him, Russian
President Vladimir Putin surprisingly said that he prefers US President Joe
Biden over former President Donald Trump. He said that his American counterpart
is more predictable than Trump, and that Biden follows an old-school approach to
international politics. Of course, it would be easy to argue that Putin, through
his endorsement of Biden, who is facing the toughest reelection battle in White
House history, is planting a "kiss of death" on the US president’s forehead.
Nothing could sow more doubts about Biden's campaign and distort it more than
Putin giving the impression that he is the Kremlin's preferred candidate!
Given the historically contentious relationship between the United States and
Russia, one could argue that Putin's statements were intended to sow division
within the US. Indeed, Trump wasted no time in jumping on Putin's remarks to
create skepticism around whether Biden was tough on Russia and to raise fears of
unjustified Russian influence or that Russia had been working to ensure an
electoral outcome that serves its objectives. Putin's comments could also be
read as seeking to give the Biden administration a false sense of security and
make it complacent, a push to get the administration to downplay the risks posed
by Russia’s geopolitical intentions that grants Moscow greater room for maneuver,
allowing it to pursue its interests without the US creating serious obstacles.
On the other hand, Putin's remarks could be read as a "backhanded compliment."
Indeed, this world leader who is more keen on maintaining ambiguity in his
behavior and speech, calling someone “predictable” and “old school” could, in
fact, have been intended to slander and disparage the latter.
Such interpretations, which read heavily between the lines of political and
diplomatic statements, and delve deep into the implicit intentions of the
officials making them, are not very far-fetched as far as speculation of Putin's
motives go. It seems, however, that this presidential battle is so acrimonious
that statements from the Russian president have no bearing on the United States’
sharp divisions, and that they do nothing to shake the confidence of either
candidate’s solid base. As for swing voters, Putin's preferences are the last
thing that will sway them one way or the other.
If we could set questions of intentions to one side, the Russian president’s
remarks praised the US president’s qualities. They highlight the complex
considerations shaping Russian diplomacy and demand a deeper look at the
background of Putin's strategic position regarding the upcoming US elections.
By expressing his preference for Biden, Putin probably sought to distance
himself from suspicions of favoring Trump and pour cold water, for purely
Russian reasons, on accusations of meddling in these US elections after they had
been raised in both 2016 and 2020. By publicly distancing his country from US
voter preferences and showing that he would accept whatever decision Americans
make for themselves, he is calling on others, both within the Russian entity and
beyond, to accept the decision Russians will make for themselves.
Putin also has a strategic interest in maintaining the facade of adhering to
international norms and respecting state sovereignty, and he is pushing against
his stereoptical depiction as the leader of a rogue state. He is aware that, in
light of the Russian-Ukrainian war, he needs to recalibrate his country's image
on the global stage and give it back its reputation as a rational, principled
actor with strategic flexibility that engages in sensible diplomacy.
Moreover, by welcoming the election of an American president with whom he has
had a poor and tense relationship, and saying that he prefers it to the election
of another with whom he seemed to get along with, seeks to portray Russia as a
confident global power that does not feel the ebbs and flows of US politics. He
is also keen on dispelling the idea that he seeks the protection of any American
president. Putin's statements are intended to present Russia as a balanced actor
on the global stage that aligns itself purely on the basis of its national
security interests.
In this sense, Putin is deliberately taking a posture aimed at presenting Russia
as a player capable of dealing with any US administration; his statements may
also be intended to suggest that Russia, like any other principled player on the
international stage, is ready to build less volatile diplomatic ties with the
US.
Furthermore, Putin crafted his comments with precision, ensuring that they
resonated not only with the international community but also with his domestic
audience.
These kinds of statements enhance his domestic image, reinforcing his image as a
capable statesman adept at dealing with the complexities of international
politics, one who seeks to safeguard Russia's sovereignty and boost its
international standing. Putin has made a habit of offering assessments and
evaluations of the American presidents he has encountered - a gimmick meant to
enhance Russia’s standing and project Russian influence.
Putin, and the Russian public at large, certainly haven't forgotten that Biden
had dubbed him a "killer." Thus, his praise of the US president also shines a
light on his precise pragmatism, demonstrating a remarkable capacity for
separating his personal sentiments from the strategic interests of his country
and its people.By praising Biden despite the insults he has directed at Putin,
the latter aims to show that his country is confident, affirming that Russia is
not easily moved or insulted by personal attacks. He is keen to show that Russia
has the strength and flexibility needed to focus on strategic objectives and
long-term interests rather than ephemeral political rhetoric. Regardless of what
Putin hoped to achieve by praising Biden, he reaffirmed that he profoundly
understands the power of the media and building narrative. He thus constantly
seeks to hone his skills in using propaganda to shape public opinion and bolster
his regime's interests. With one sentence, he can preoccupy political analysts
around the world and unsettle the globe’s most powerful officials, at a
political moment in which we need clarity more than ever.
How Trump Turns His Courtroom Losses Into Wins
Andrea Bernstein/The New York Times/February 21/2024
In New York on Friday, a State Supreme Court judge, Arthur Engoron, ordered
Donald Trump and his company to pay the staggering sum of $355 million for
lying, over and over, with stunning audacity about the value of his assets. The
ruling comes just weeks after a jury, in a defamation case brought by the writer
E. Jean Carroll, ordered Trump to pay $83.3 million — also for lying. That’s on
top of two previous jury findings: Trump’s company was found guilty of 17
felonies, including fraud, and an earlier Carroll civil jury ordered him to pay
$5 million for sexual assault and another act of defamation. Trump is appealing
all the verdicts.That a candidate nearly certain to win the Republican
presidential nomination carries the stain of having been found by judge and jury
to lie fluently is stunning enough. But even more so is the continuity between
how, in the past months, Trump has practiced exactly what he’s on trial for
right in front of us, in the courtrooms, in a way that once again has benefited
his brand. Even after Trump had begun to lose and face real financial and
business consequences, he was working out a way to benefit, or at least try to
benefit, from the verdicts and from the entire process of being placed on trial.
Shortly after Engoron’s ruling hit the docket, one of Trump’s lawyers, Alina
Habba, said he would appeal. “This verdict is a manifest injustice — plain and
simple,” she said. “It is the culmination of a multiyear, politically fueled
witch hunt that was designed to ‘take down Donald Trump.’” She added, “Countless
hours of testimony proved that there was no wrongdoing, no crime and no victim.”
I’ve now watched two cases where Trump sat at the defense table, day after day,
through testimony that was excruciatingly boring, in the business fraud trial,
and just plain excruciating, in the Carroll case.
In the mornings before Trump’s business fraud trial, journalists lined up for
hours outside the civil courthouse. A sizable number stopped at the courtroom
hallway, creating a crowded press scrum, to catch a few minutes of Trump’s time
on the way in or out. For these press opportunities, the erstwhile TV star set
up his shot. He usually stood behind a barricade — conjuring up prison bars —
outside the door of the courtroom and spoke to supporters, saying some version
of “I should be right now in Iowa and New Hampshire, in South Carolina. I
shouldn’t be sitting in a courthouse.”
He had no obligation to be there, and the barricades were for his protection.
But the picture of Trump behind the barricades ran repeatedly, on news sites all
over the world. His fund-raising emails mentioned the court appearances; he
talked about them on the campaign trail.
In 2016, when he first ran for president, Trump described his campaign as
self-funded. When I spoke to voters in states like Iowa and Ohio that year, this
was among the top reasons they thought they could trust him: He wasn’t being
bought. But that self-funding, it recently emerged in the civil fraud trial, was
also a misdirection: He had actually freed up the cash for this 2016 campaign by
lying about his assets to get artificially low interest rates from Deutsche
Bank, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said.
Trump’s success as a developer, as a television star and in his first campaign
for president was largely based on getting people to believe he was far richer
than he was. “I mean, I became president because of the brand, OK? I think it’s
the hottest brand in the world.”
Trump has continued to raise money from his lies: The House Jan. 6 select
committee found that after lying about the 2020 election results, he and the
Republican Party had raised huge sums for his political action committees, which
were recently reported to have spent roughly $50 million in 2023 on his legal
defenses. Disseminating his mug shot from the Fulton County Jail raised millions
for the Trump campaign.
During the second Carroll trial, her lawyers played a video Trump made after the
first trial, the one that found him liable for sexual abuse. In the video he
again called her a liar and a fraud, the very words a judge and three juries
have connected to him and his company. “That’s the truth,” I could hear Trump
saying from the defense table as he approvingly viewed the clip. He used that
video, too, to raise money for his presidential campaign.
Trump repeatedly broke the fourth wall in his trials, taunting the judges,
telling Justice Engoron he was part of a partisan agenda and, when Judge Lewis
Kaplan of US District Court in Manhattan admonished him after his audible
outbursts in front of the jury that Trump “can’t control” himself, Trump shot
back, “Neither can you.”Other defendants would most likely not get away with
this, but when Trump leaves the courtroom to call the system “rigged” and judges
“Trump hating,” he reinforces doubt in a portion of the population about one of
the few remaining institutions in our democracy with any semblance of public
trust. The results in the Republican primary race and the reluctance of other
Republicans to talk about the court verdicts reinforce that doubt.
In the final hours of Trump’s second trial for defaming Carroll, her lawyers
played a videotaped pretrial deposition from the business fraud trial that
featured Trump talking about the value of his assets. He could get $1.5 billion
for Mar-a-Lago, he said, and $2.5 billion for his golf club in Doral, Fla. “I
believe we have substantially in excess of $400 million in cash, which is a lot
for a developer,” he added. “Developers usually don’t have cash. They have
assets, not cash.” Trump then described the cash as “400 plus and going up very
substantially every month.” Justice Engoron’s ruling calls all that into doubt,
but the jury knew none of that. “He doesn’t care about the law or truth but does
care about money, and your decision on punitive damages is the only hope that he
stops,” Carroll’s lawyer, Roberta Kaplan, said in her closing argument, adding
that he should pay “lots and lots of money.”
It’s true, Trump does care about money. Obviously. Being ordered to pay hundreds
of millions of dollars means something. And though he doesn’t have as much money
as he’d like you to believe, he certainly has assets he can use to pay off the
legal judgments. But that’s almost beside the point. In his ruling, Justice
Engoron wrote that the defendant’s “complete lack of contrition and remorse
borders on pathological.” In others, this verdict might induce shame. In Donald
Trump, we can watch how he uses it to build his money, power and influence.
Act as if Netanyahu Didn’t Exist
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/February 21/2024
For years, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been reiterating that
Israel has no Palestinian partner it can make a deal with, and Western leaders,
media institutions, and think-tanks found his claim compelling.
Today, after an international movement was precipitated by Saudi Arabia’s firm
support for peace in the region, the United States, Britain, France, and the
European Union are discussing the need to recognize a Palestinian state; the
equation has changed.
Here is one example. Netanyahu claimed that "Israel absolutely rejects
international diktats regarding the permanent arrangement with the Palestinians.
Such an arrangement will be achieved only by direct negotiations between the
parties, without preconditions. Israel will continue to oppose unilateral
recognition of a Palestinian state."In response, Canadian Foreign Minister
Mélanie Joly hit back saying that Western countries have concluded that they did
not have "a good dancing partner," in Israel.
The question, now, is: Would unilateral international recognition of the
Palestinian state, even with Netanyahu's acquiescence, be beneficial or harmful?
Opinions, of course, vary.
For instance, on "X," Aaron David Miller from Carnegie wrote: "The US will
embrace Palestinian statehood freeing Netanyahu from the need to do so. And
Netanyahu will agree to negotiate without preconditions. If these two things
hold and the Administration buys off on it, we will truly have a key to an empty
room."The question then becomes: Where is the building, or the ground, in which
"this empty room" is located? Ismail Haniyeh now says that Hamas would not
accept any truce or ceasefire that does not include a complete halt to the war
and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
This means that the maps have been switched. Hamas is not more keen on regaining
the territory it had controlled and governed, Gaza, than it is on creating a
Palestinian state. We have been warned of this since the war began, and some
disdainfully scoffed at our caution. The truth is that we have now moved beyond
Habib Bourguiba’s "Take and negotiate." The Palestinians are now in the phase of
"prepare, and negotiate to take." This is the bind that Hamas has placed the
Palestinians and the Palestinian cause in following its so-called "flood."
Thus, the Palestinians should act as if Netanyahu did not exist. Indeed, it is
clear that his political career will inevitably soon end; his political life
will end with the war in Gaza, and Israel’s divisions regarding his leadership
and political future are real.
Today, Palestinians need to operate rationally and maintain cool heads if they
are to strengthen the Canadian Foreign Minister’s assertion that Western
countries "do not have a good dancing partner" in Israel and shorten Netanyahu's
political lifespan. Whether Biden or Trump wins the presidential election, the
US and the West are now poised to recognize the Palestinian state. As they
always have, they know they can rely on a strong Arab partner in resolving the
Palestinian question, Saudi Arabia. The question now, the million-dollar
question: Is the goal to save Hamas and sacrifice Gaza, to save Gaza and its
people, or to watch on like spectators without taking a decisive stance, thereby
saving Netanyahu politically and squandering Gaza and this opportunity to build
a Palestinian state?
My advice: Act as if Netanyahu did not exist... prepare, take, and negotiate.
France's Skyrocketing Threat
Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/February 21, 2024
January 30, 2024. The French weekly, Le Journal du Dimanche, publishes the most
comprehensive and detailed survey on what French Muslims think. Not
surprisingly, the results are disturbing.
Every year, Muslims of France [the main French Muslim organization, and the
French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood] organizes a conference that attracts
hundreds of thousands of Muslims from all over Europe. The group also invites
radical imams who speak to the crowd.
The survey further showed that 49% of French Muslims want Catholics to convert
to Islam, and that 36% percent want churches to be transformed into mosques...
The survey also discloses that 25% of French Muslims said that the word "France"
is a word they reject.
France is a country where more than 70% of prison inmates are Muslim. According
to reports, the crime rate among the Muslim population is high.... There are
also more than two hundred rapes every day in France, most perpetrated by Muslim
men who entered France illegally. Only 7% of illegal immigrants ordered to leave
France are ever actually deported
A similar situation to that of France can be found in other Western European
countries, where the Muslim population may be smaller but is quickly growing.
If Europeans wish to avoid such a future and keep their culture, they need to
start making that outcome unmistakably clear to everyone, not just by words but
by actions. If not, what we are seeing could well mean the end of the European
civilization as we know it.
According to a new comprehensive survey, 49% of French Muslims want Catholics to
convert to Islam, 36% percent want churches to be transformed into mosques, and
25% of French Muslims said that the word "France" is a word they reject.
January 30, 2024. The French weekly, Le Journal du Dimanche, publishes the most
comprehensive and detailed survey on what French Muslims think. Not
surprisingly, the results are disturbing.
The first question in the survey was about Jews. 17% of French Muslims admit
that they hate Jews. 39% say they have a bad, or very bad, opinion of Judaism.
France is the only country in 21st-century Europe where Jews regularly have been
murdered simply because they are Jews. Since the kidnapping, torture and murder
of Ilan Halimi in January 2006, all Jews murdered in France have been killed by
Muslims. Sammy Ghozlan, the president of the National Office for Vigilance
against Anti-Semitism (BNVCA), which lists anti-Semitic acts and helps their
victims, has emphasized year after year, for more than twenty years, that almost
all violent anti-Semitic acts committed in France are committed by Muslims.
When it comes to Israel, the results are even more disturbing. Feelings go
beyond hatred. 45% of French Muslims say they want the total destruction of
Israel. An equivalent number of French Muslims define the massacre rape,
torture, beheadings and burning alive of Jews by Hamas terrorists in Israel on
October 7, 2023, as an "act of resistance".
So, almost half of a religious community in a Western democracy openly wants the
destruction of a group of people who were just massacred in another country, and
in the greatest number since the end of the Holocaust.
19% of French Muslims say they have sympathy for Hamas. That so many French
Muslims have sympathy for an organization whose leaders say that they will
repeat the October 7 attack time and again until Israel is annihilated, and
unabashedly state that they want the genocidal destruction of the only Jewish
state, should sound an alarm that French Jews, and French non-Jews, are in an
extremely perilous situation.
Other figures showed that 42% of French Muslims place respect for Islamic Sharia
law above respect for the laws of the French republic (the percentage rises to
57% among young Muslims aged 18 to 25).
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2003 that Sharia law is incompatible
with the values of democracy. Sharia law stipulates that Allah has dictated all
the rules that human beings must obey, and that all rules contrary to Sharia law
must be rejected. 37% of French Muslims say they support the Muslim Brotherhood
-- also not surprising: the main French Muslim organization, Musulmans de France
("Muslims of France") is the French branch of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Every year, Muslims of France organizes a conference that attracts hundreds of
thousands of Muslims from all over Europe. The group also invites radical imams
who speak to the crowd.
The survey further showed that 49% of French Muslims want Catholics to convert
to Islam, and that 36% percent want churches to be transformed into mosques.
Some churches already have been transformed. The survey also discloses that 25%
of French Muslims said that the word "France" is a word they reject.
These figures are best seen and understood in conjunction with other facts.
France is one of the only countries in the Western world where men have been
beheaded by radicalized Muslims. (The other is the United Kingdom, where two
Muslims tried to behead British Soldier Lee Rigby in 2013.) Samuel Paty, a
schoolteacher, was beheaded on October 16, 2020. Herve Cornara, a small business
entrepreneur, was beheaded on June 26, 2015 in Romans-sur-Isère, a small town in
the southeast of France. And Father Jacques Hamel had his throat slit and was
beheaded on July 26, 2016 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Normandy, while saying
mass in an almost empty church.
France also happens to be the country in Europe with the largest number of
"no-go zones". There are at least 751 designated Zones Urbaines Sensibles
("sensitive urban zones"), where Muslim gangs and radical imams are in charge.
Non-Muslims can still live there, on the condition that they accept the status
of dhimmi (tolerated second-class citizen), bow their heads, and admit that they
live in a territory ruled by Islam. Members of Muslim gangs no longer respect
the police. If an incident between a police officer and a member of a gang
breaks out, riots follow, and the police receive orders that if the situation
risks escalation, they are not to arrest anyone.
France is a country where more than 70% of prison inmates are Muslim. According
to reports, the crime rate among the Muslim population is high.
Three decades ago, Seine-Saint-Denis, a French district in the Paris suburbs,
had a large Jewish community. Almost the entire Jewish population of the
district, after being subjected to incessant threats, moved away to live
elsewhere. The few Jews who remain hide that they are Jews.
Throughout France, Jewish men conceal their skullcaps under a hat. Jewish women
tuck their Star of David necklaces inside their clothing. Many Jewish families
no longer place mezuzahs at the entrance to their homes.
For more than 20 years, it has been impossible to talk about the Holocaust in
French schools. When Georges Bensoussan, in 2004, published The Lost Territories
of the Republic, a book denouncing the Muslim anti-Semitism widespread in
educational establishments, Jewish students were already experiencing harassment
and discrimination. Today, most Jewish families in France, out of caution, have
abandoned the public education system and have enrolled their children in
private schools. For years, when a Jewish student is bullied in a public school,
the authorities take no disciplinary action against the bullies; instead, they
might ask the Jewish child's parents to place him in another school.
French Christians visibly wearing a cross on the street receive insults. Every
year, dozens of French churches are desecrated and ransacked.
More than 120 knife attacks take place in France every day and can happen
anytime, anywhere. Most of these attacks are committed are by Muslim men who
then tell the police that they did it because they hate infidels and hate
France. Only the knife attacks that result in death appear in the newspapers;
the others are passed over in silence. In the main French cities, muggings and
beatings have become commonplace. There are also more than two hundred rapes
every day in France, most perpetrated by Muslim men who entered France
illegally. Only 7% of illegal immigrants ordered to leave France are ever
actually deported.
The poll in Le Journal du Dimanche received little comment.
Only one French political leader, former journalist Éric Zemmour, has dared to
say that the situation is increasingly alarming and that a growing Islamic
danger is threatening France. His comments have led to his being sentenced to
pay heavy fines several times for "provoking discrimination and hatred towards
the Muslim community". In the May 2022 presidential elections, he received only
7% of the vote; his message was apparently either not widely heard or not widely
accepted.
The president of the National Rally party, Marine Le Pen, has limited herself to
denouncing the presence in France of an "Islamist ideology totally distinct from
Islam", and insists on saying that only a tiny minority of Muslims adhere to
this ideology. She adds, perhaps wishfully, that Islam is "fully compatible"
with the French institutions.
La France Insoumise ("France Unsubmitted"), the main left-wing political party
in France, is violently anti-Israel. Its leader, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, calls Hamas
a "resistance" movement. He received 21.9% of the vote in 2022, but 69% of the
Muslim vote.
Several members of the French National Assembly have denounced the positions of
La France Insoumise and Mélenchon, but only one, Meyer Habib, has spoken out
about the leftist and Muslim anti-Semitism, as well as the increasingly serious
threats weighing on French Jews and on France itself. As a result, he has
received death threats by the hundreds and his family and he now live under
'round-the-clock police protection.
French President Emmanuel Macron said, in October 2020, that he wanted to fight
what he called "Islamic separatism", but seemed not to want to see that Muslims
tempted by Islamism do not want to "separate" themselves from the rest of the
population, but to conquer others and have them submit. "Islam," Macron added is
"in crisis". His statement provoked vehement protests from all of the French
Muslim organizations, and demonstrations in several countries of the Muslim
world. Since then, he has avoided talking about Islam altogether.
No Islamic organization appears to have called anyone to come to the
demonstration against anti-Semitism that took place in Paris on November 12,
2023. The only reaction from the imam of the Great Mosque of Paris, Chems-Eddine
Hafiz, to Hamas's massacre on October 7 was, "With all these bombs, these
deaths, and this frustration generated over the years there, what are we
creating? Hate of the other" – which was not exactly a ringing condemnation of
the massacre. He then accused Israel of attacking the civilian population of
Gaza: "Islam totally condemns the attack on civilians in an armed conflict."
French Muslim online magazines were more virulent. Evidently basing what they
publish on Hamas propaganda, they accuse Israel of committing "genocide" in the
Gaza Strip. They never say that Hamas uses Palestinian Arabs as human shields or
that the Israel Defense Forces do their best to avoid killing civilians while
often putting their own lives at great risk.
The French journalist Ivan Rioufol, in his book The Coming Civil War, published
in 2016, wrote:
"The question of the Muslim presence in France must be posed without
artifice.... the rise of strict Islam in France would imply emergency decisions.
If decisions are not taken very quickly, and if the almost generalized voluntary
blindness of the country's leaders does not cease, the future of France will be
tragic and violent."
France is the country in Europe with the largest number of Muslims: around 10%
of a population of 67.75 million. By 2050, the figure is expected to increase to
17%, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center.
A similar situation to that of France can be found in other Western European
countries, where the Muslim population may be smaller but is quickly growing.
In Londonistan, a book by the British journalist Melanie Phillips published in
2006, she noted the existence of Sharia-controlled zones in London, and that
"sixty percent of British Muslims would like sharia law to be established in
Great Britain". In 2019, she wrote in the UK's Jewish Chronicle: "A
frighteningly high number of British Muslims subscribe to extremist or
anti-Semitic views".
In Germany, Sharia-controlled zones have begun to appear. They have also been
emerging in Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands. The recent victory of Geert
Wilders in the Dutch elections could be the sign of a turning point and an
awakening in Europe. It is too early to draw conclusions, and almost three
months after his victory, Wilders has still not succeeded in forming a
government.
In 2015, the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, in the novel 2084: The End of the
World, described a totalitarian future in which Muslim extremists establish an
oppressive caliphate where freedom of thought and action is abolished. When a
television journalist asked him what, in his opinion, France will be in 2084,
his immediate response was: "France will be Islamist". "Europe too," he added.
The former head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office
for the Protection of the Constitution, Hans-Georg Maaßen, said in a recent
interview that "Europeans will succumb to Islam".
If Europeans wish to avoid such a future and keep their culture, they need to
start making that outcome unmistakably clear to everyone, not just by words but
by actions. If not, what we are seeing could well mean the end of the European
civilization as we know it.
*Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27
books on France and Europe.
Dracula Is Turning in His Coffin: Wokeism Mars Another
Potentially Good Film
Raymond Ibrahim/February 21, 2024
Recently, while traveling by plane, I decided to pass the time by watching one
of the movies offered. I settled on “The Last Voyage of the Demeter,” which is
based on a chapter of Dracula (1897), by Bram Stoker. Having read that novel a
couple of decades ago and, moreover, having an interest in the actual Vlad III
Dracula, I figured why not?
Before long, I was reminded why I despise modern movies. All of the “woke”
elements were there, undermining an otherwise potentially good film. Background:
the movie is primarily set aboard the ship Demeter, which is traveling from
Eastern Europe to England. Unbeknownst to its crew, Dracula has been brought
aboard in a crate. Before long, he emerges and begins to terrorize and feed on
the crew during the long passage. Considering the story’s historic setting
(nineteenth century Europe) the sailors consist entirely of burly white men —
with the exception of one black man, a doctor who cannot find gainful employment
due to entrenched racism, and a captive woman that Dracula surreptitiously
brought aboard to feed on.
Care to guess who the heroes will be? Let’s begin with the black man, Dr.
Clemens. The main problem here is that I’m historically conscious, and as such
cannot begin to believe that such a character could ever exist in 19th-century
Europe, which was immensely homogenous (this being about a century before the
Great Replacement began). As such, every time I saw Clemens — and every time he
opened his mouth and made some wildly anachronistic but “progressive” remark — I
was reminded that I was not watching a movie dedicated to giving you a realistic
feel, but pure propaganda.
To underscore my point, imagine the same thing in reverse: imagine you are
watching a movie set in premodern Africa and, as you might expect, every actor
is black — expect for the hero, who just so happens to be white. As to how he
got there, or what his origin story is — don’t ask: he’s just another Zimbabwean
and to question that bizarre fact is racist.
Wouldn’t such a movie strike you as ridiculous? So it is for me when I see a
character of one race implanted into the realm of characters of another race,
and at a time when no heterogeneity had begun — as when I see “Black Vikings.”
Needless to say, such criticism is not motivated by racism — I am entirely of
Egyptian stock — but by a desperate need for realism.
If Clemens gave the movie a totally unrealistic feel, it was the other, arguably
real, hero — the only woman — who really got those eyes rolling. Anna is a young
woman that Dracula brings on board to feed on. Once this peasant Romanian girl
(who nonetheless speaks perfect English) escapes, she takes complete charge of
the operation against the vampire. Whereas the rest of the crew — minus Clemens
— panic and cannot for the life of them figure out what to do against Dracula,
this calm and collective woman (pictured above during one of her heroic
exploits) puts it all together.
Not only that — she’s the one who carries the big gun and even manages to take a
successful shot at Dracula (while the otherwise burly and bearded men hide and
scream hysterically). Even the captain, a grim old man who seemed to epitomize
wisdom and stoicism, quickly falls apart and descends into panic and hysteria —
that is until cool-headed Anna orders him to get a grip of himself. Best of all
is the intersection between black Clemens and woman Anna: they understand one
another and know how difficult it is for minorities and women to make it in a
world dominated by the white patriarchy. When she is first discovered
unconscious on the ship, the callous crew calls for throwing her over; only the
noble and selfless Clemens insists on saving her life. Nay more — he happily
gives her his own blood and food rations, while the rest of the crew balk.
Needless to say, the movie also managed to take the customary swipes against
Christianity. If Bram Stoker’s Dracula feared crosses — and “Demeter” is based
on Stoker’s novel — this Dracula merely smirks and smacks it away. And the one
avowedly Christian crew member, who always wears a cross, reads the Bible, and
prays, is of course the only crew member to break faith and jump ship.
The movie ends with Clemens and Anna nearly defeating Dracula — the useless crew
is all dead by now — including by, in an act of self-sacrifice, sinking the
Demeter. Because her blood is still infected, rather than try to find a cure,
the dignified Anna stoically drifts away to her death (no crass hysteria as with
the crew). As for the ever-virtuous Clemens, despite all the suffering he’s gone
through, his noble sense of altruism compels him to follow Dracula into England
in an effort to destroy him and save those (otherwise racist and undeserving)
Englishmen.
An otherwise potentially good film marred through and through.
World powers must start working together on space security
Dr. Amal Mudallali/Arab News/February 21, 2024
A statement by the head of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Mike Turner,
set Washington on fire last week. He disclosed that his committee had
information about a “serious national security threat,” without specifying what
it was. Turner requested US President Joe Biden to “declassify all the
information related to the threat.”The statement was so ominous that “all hell
broke loose,” as Rep. Jim Himes said. He revealed that he was “getting phone
calls about whether people needed to head for the hills of West Virginia.” The
hills of West Virginia is a reference to a Cold War hideout for the US
government in case of a nuclear war. The press was
fast in reporting that the threat was a “Russian anti-satellite nuclear weapon.”
It brought the issue of destructive anti-satellite tests to the forefront of the
debate on space security in the age of strategic instability.
The reporting on the story was mired in confusion, with some claiming American
officials’ fear of a “nuclear weapon” that Russia might put in space, while
others said that Moscow was “still far from completing the project” or that the
launch of such a weapon “does not appear imminent.”
As panic was setting in, the White House was quick to dial down the threat.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby confirmed that the US has
information that Russia has the “troubling” capability of an anti-satellite
weapon, but it has not been deployed yet and it does not pose an “immediate
threat to anyone’s safety” or “cause physical destruction here on Earth.”
Congress and Washington’s tendency to turn everything into a political fight
overshadowed the real issue at hand. There was no
mention of a nuclear weapon in this statement. House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson
also downplayed the threat, as did Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said
“this is not an active capability.” But a few days later, he thought the threat
was real enough to raise the issue with the foreign ministers of China and India
at the Munich Security Conference. Russia described the American warning about a
new nuclear capability in space “a malicious fabrication.”
Turner’s Republican colleagues called his release of the information “reckless”
and questioned his motives. Rep. Andy Ogles accused Turner of having an ulterior
motive and said that Turner’s move was to ensure funding for Ukraine. He also
accused him of trying to guarantee passage of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act’s Section 702, whose renewal is facing opposition in Congress.
Congress and Washington’s tendency to turn everything into a political
fight overshadowed the real issue at hand: space security. Satellites and their
growing number and advanced technology are raising concerns about future wars in
space, with the US signaling in recent months that both Russia and China are
seeking to turn space into a “warfighting domain,” as Space.com reported.
The US is concerned about the safety of its satellites and is taking measures to
protect and update its satellite capability. In what was referred to as a
coincidence, the US Space Force launched six satellites that can “detect and
track missile launches” the same day the report about Russia’s new “weapon” in
space came out, according to the Space.com report.
The New York Times reported that the US is moving to a new system to “put
constellations of smaller and cheaper satellites into orbit to counter
space-based threats of the sort developed by China and Russia.” The new system
relies on “blanketing” low Earth orbit with small, cheaper satellites, such as
the Starlink internet communications system, the report added.
Anti-satellite weapons are being developed by different powers in a more
contested space, with some having already been deployed, including by Russia.
Russia’s anti-satellite weapons test capability is known. Its last one was in
2021, when it destroyed one of its old satellites while it was in orbit. This
test produced more than 1,500 pieces of trackable space debris in low Earth
orbit, endangering the International Space Station. This debris will continue to
pose a threat to other satellites and spacecraft for years to come.
The US, China and India have also conducted destructive anti-satellite tests,
producing thousands of pieces of space debris and adding to the threat to the
safety and sustainability of space.
Recently, the US has become very active in trying to stop anti-satellite tests
to preserve the security of space and stop debris generation and its lethal
effect on space objects.
In December 2022, the US successfully persuaded the UN General Assembly to
overwhelmingly pass a resolution calling for a moratorium on anti-satellite
missile tests. More than 150 countries voted in favor, with only nine opposing
it, including China, Iran and Russia, while India was among the nine countries
abstaining. The White House has also committed to a
unilateral moratorium vowing “not to conduct destructive, direct-ascent
anti-satellite missile testing.”
The claim that Russia might be putting a nuclear weapon in space, if true, takes
the threat to a new level.
Both the US and Russia, after testing nuclear weapons in space in the 1960s, sat
down together and hammered out the Outer Space Treaty of 1968, which prohibits
the placement of nuclear weapons, or any other kind of weapons of mass
destruction, in space.
The claim comes at a time when “strategic stability” talks between the US and
Russia are on hold and are hostage to the situation in Ukraine. The Russian
rejection of resuming these talks is unfortunate because, even during the height
of the Cold War, the US and Russia were able to compartmentalize their
differences and agree on an arms control regime. This rejection came after
Russia “rescinded” its ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty because
of the “US failure to ratify the treaty,” as the Kremlin said.
But despite the concerns about Russia’s intentions, experts doubt that Moscow
will explode a nuclear weapon in space. Brian Weeden, of the Secure World
Foundation, told Reuters that Russia “would undermine its credibility if it
detonated a nuclear weapon in space.”
Both Russia and China argued, when they voted against the US resolution on
anti-satellite tests at the UN, that their main concern and the main threat to
space security was the placing of weapons in space. Moreover, both Moscow and
Beijing presented in 2008 and updated in 2014 a draft treaty on the Prevention
of the Placement of Weapons in Outer Space. But the US rejected the treaty as
“fundamentally flawed.”
The UN and its multilateral processes could offer a forum to engage in a serious
process on space security and preventing war in space. But if last year’s First
Committee (Disarmament and International Security) meeting was any indication,
there is little hope even at the UN. During the annual meeting of the committee
in October, there were two opposing draft resolutions: one sponsored by the UK
and supported by the US and their allies talking about the norms and principles
of responsible behavior in space; and one by Russia supported by China and their
allies with the goal of agreeing on a legally binding international instrument
to prevent an arms race in space. Each side proposed a different working group.
This fragmentation on the multilateral level and last week’s “panic” in
Washington offer an urgent lesson about the importance of starting to
compartmentalize space security and deal with space as a separate domain not
linked to conflicts on Earth. It is also time to move from norms and voluntary
rules in space to legally binding and enforceable instruments.
**Dr. Amal Mudallali is a consultant on global issues. She is a former Lebanese
ambassador to the UN.
Ukraine threatened by democracy’s enemy within
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/February 21, 2024
These are difficult days for Ukraine, and for the West as a whole. As Ukraine is
about to start the third year of the Russian-imposed war against its people and
territories, the fight for its survival as a nation — threatened by a larger,
more superior and relentless neighbor — hangs in the balance.
Will the democratic world, which claimed in February 2022 that Ukraine was
defending freedom and its core values, such as adherence to the international
rule of law, abandon Ukraine to its fate? Will it let all the efforts unravel
due to those same values of freedom and democracy being employed by policymakers
in the US and some EU countries to block the continued flow of crucial weapons
and funding for Ukraine?
Well, the calls from the likes of US President Joe Biden, Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky and UK Foreign Minister David Cameron demanding the quick
release of funds to keep the efforts to stop Russia on track should be heeded
immediately, if the Western world is to prevent its imminent slide into
isolationism and fragmentation, which would be quickly capitalized on by its few
but very capable enemies.
I am minded not to be inclined to believe that the Gaza war and its distracting
dynamics of potential escalations has anything to do with the Western world
teetering on the brink. It is surely a question of domestic democratic processes
and problems that are at play in the US and some EU countries in an
election-charged year. Many national players are maximizing their brinkmanship
in an effort to win power, even if this comes at the expense of their nations
fulfilling their obligations, causes damage to their geostrategic postures and
loses them face on the world stage as they renege on their promises.
The Ukrainian army is increasingly on the defensive against the more numerous
and better-armed Russian forces
And it all hangs on the whims, desires and calculations of the likes of
Republican US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who continues to
prevent the chamber from voting on the Ukraine assistance package. He seems to
be playing into ex-President Donald Trump’s partisan hand to corner the White
House and at least hurt Biden’s chances of reelection later this year. That is
if we do not believe those who say that this is happening because Trump is a
Russian appeaser.
On the ground, the Ukrainian army is increasingly on the defensive against the
more numerous and better-armed Russian forces, two years on from the start of
the Russian invasion. After last year’s failed counteroffensive, Zelensky has
named a new army chief, claiming that 2024 could be successful if Kyiv makes
effective changes in its approach to its defense.
But the second full winter of war is heralding semi-static front lines, with
soldiers’ morale taking a hit, especially when they feel short of consistent
ammunition supplies, as well as fighting personnel, but above all due to their
inability to see any light at the end of the tunnel.
Today looks so different from the end of 2022, when the supply of arms and men
saw morale riding high, yielding successful offensives that returned Kharkiv in
the northeast and Kherson in the south.
Last year produced a series of disappointments and, after the fall of Bakhmut in
May, the Russian noose started to slowly but surely tighten, leading to the fall
of Avdiivka in the last few days. The only good news for Ukrainians in recent
months has come from the Black Sea, where Kyiv has succeeded in pushing back
Russian naval forces to carve out a vital maritime corridor for cereal exports.
Ukraine’s withdrawal from the city of Avdiivka has no doubt handed Vladimir
Putin a major symbolic victory ahead of Russia’s presidential election next
month. It has also further exposed Kyiv’s critical shortages of weapons and
soldiers.
A Trumpian speaker — ironically, through an expression of his democratic right —
is stalling the approval of US aid
Avdiivka was even tougher than the battle for Bakhmut, according to the
Ukrainian military, which pointed to Russia’s massive deployment of heavy
equipment and air power, with Soviet-era combat vehicles supported by drones and
planes.
The scale of Ukraine’s losses — in terms of both territory and troops, with an
estimated 70,000 killed and 120,000 injured — is not the major downside, despite
its gravity and unsustainability. The problem is the wavering support, mainly
from the US and some countries in the EU.
In terms of arms, the situation is uncertain because of friction in Washington
over continuing aid against the backdrop of the forthcoming presidential
election. The EU has unblocked its latest aid package of €50 billion ($54
billion), but not without difficulties, while it remains way behind on pledges
of ammunition deliveries. Without assistance and with its own defense industry
badly depleted, Ukraine will not be able to confront Russia, which has mobilized
its economy for war. The losses have also been heavy on the Russian side. But
unlike Kyiv, Moscow appears to be able to fill its ranks with a mix of patriotic
propaganda, coercion and financial incentives, on top of having a bigger
population. The cost of its invasion is estimated at $1.3 trillion in previously
anticipated economic growth to 2026, while about 315,000 Russian troops have
either been killed or injured so far, according to US officials.
The onus is clearly on the US and the EU to deliver on their promises to
Ukraine. But how to do that with an increasingly polarized population and
diminished outlook on shared values such as democracy, which the Russian
invasion of Ukraine had an objective to undermine? History is never fair and,
even though the Ukrainians have paid in land and blood to hold on to the
democratic ethos through which they wish to ensure the future of their
hard-earned independence, a Trumpian speaker in the US House of Representatives
— ironically, through an expression of his democratic right — is stalling the
approval of the US aid package. The democratic world
could seem to be losing not only its moral compass and its national security
interests, but also squandering Eastern Ukraine in a way that shows that the
lessons from the Second World War about the price of appeasement have not been
learned. Two years on, it seems that Ukraine is at the mercy of the democratic
enemy within.
**Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years’
experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He
is also a media consultant and trainer.