Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 24-25/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video: Commemorating the Annual Brutal Damour Massacre
Elias Bejjani/Video and Text: Commemorating the Annual Brutal Damour Massacre
Lebanese MPs row as draft budget debated in parliament
Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Tensions flare as MPs convene to discuss state budget
Southern issues, presidential vacuum, and currency woes: MPs steer 2024 budget session
Tensions erupt in the Parliament during budget session
White House: Preliminary reports indicate that US strikes on Houthi targets were effective
Sixteen International Human Rights organizations call for halt in arms shipments to Israel and Palestinian factions
Hezbollah delegation briefs Bkirki on situations in Gaza, South
Israel says announcing date for settlers return would benefit Hezbollah
Jumblat 'doesn't mind' Franjieh's election, says Netanyahu, Israelis are 'crazy'
War of words between Kataeb, SSNP after Gemayel's Shartouni slur
Libyan delegation visits Beirut for talks on al-Sadr and Gadhafi's detained son
Qatar envoy visits Lebanon as push to end presidential vacuum continues
A Libyan delegation reopens talks in Lebanon on a missing cleric and on Gadhafi's detained son
Reports: Hezbollah remains open to US diplomatic efforts
Hamas fires rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel
Report: Berri re-focuses on presidential vote to protect country
Bou Habib: War on Lebanon would not be easy for Israel
Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Lebanon still has a chance as Qatar advances to Asian Cup knockout stages
How much influence does Iran have over its proxy ‘Axis of Resistance’ − Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis?

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 24-25/2024
Video link for an English political panel from the Washington Institute (with translation to Arabic)Under the title "The War Between Hamas and Israel: End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End?" The participants in the episode are Hanin Ghaddar and Asaf Orion, and Matthew Levitt. Robert Satloff is hosting and moerating the panel
Attacks by Iran's militia allies are placing the Biden administration in a bind
The Houthis are still trying to attack ships, but most of the time, they can't get their missiles in the air before the US blows them up
US asks China to urge Iran to curb Red Sea attacks by Houthis -FT
Exclusive-US, Iraq to initiate talks on end of US-led military coalition
Israeli bombing of Gaza kills 125 amid Cairo truce talks
Cameron tells Israeli PM Netanyahu of need for two-state solution
UN court to issue ruling Friday on South Africa's request for order to halt Israel's Gaza offensive
'Much higher' likelihood of war in Israel's north in coming months, army chief says
Irish government under further pressure to join Gaza genocide case
New US envoy to Egypt lauds Cairo’s role in fighting for Middle East peace
Egypt’s El-Sisi accuses Israel of impeding aid deliveries to Gaza
NATO kicks off largest military exercise in decades
Activists decry ‘glaring injustice’ of Iran protester’s execution
Russia accuses Ukraine of shooting down plane carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on January 24-25/2024
A Hundred Days after Gaza's October 7/Part I: Double Helix over Gaza/Gwythian Prins/Gatestone Institute./January 24, 2024
'We Have to Kill Those Who Preach Christianity': The Persecution of Christians, December 2023 (Christmas Edition)/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/January 21, 2024
Iran’s rulers fear low turnout in March elections/Maria Maalouf /Arab News/January 24, 2024
Trump very likely to be the Republican nominee for president/Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/January 24, 2024
AI tools must not be exploited at humans’ expense/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/January 24, 2024
The time is right for Israel to negotiate/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/January 24, 2024
Why Oil Prices Aren’t Spiking/Simon Henderson/Washington Institute/January 24/2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on January 24-25/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video: Commemorating the Annual Brutal Damour Massacre
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKGYNVyj_Os&t=31s
Elias Bejjani/January 21, 2024

Elias Bejjani/Video and Text: Commemorating the Annual Brutal Damour Massacre
Elias Bejjani/January 21, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/126200/126200/
The memory of the Damour Massacre, perpetrated by the Syrian Assad regime, Palestinian terrorism, leftist and Arab nationalist groups, and jihadists on January 20, 1976, remains etched in the Lebanese, Christian, moral, national, and faith-based consciousness. It serves as a painful reminder of a brutal chapter in Lebanon's history and the resilient struggle of its free Christian community.
This anniversary reflects a dark period where internal traitors and mercenaries aligned with Palestinian, Arab, leftist, and jihadist terrorism executed brutal and barbaric massacres against the peaceful inhabitants of the Damour Town, and the Christian residents along the Shouf region coast. This period culminated in the siege of President Camille Chamoun in the town of Saadiyat.
The Damour Massacre anniversary symbolizes a bloody chapter in the ongoing evil attempts to uproot Christians from Lebanon, dismantle Lebanon's entity, disrupt coexistence, undermine its role, erode identity, and attack its civilization. Enemies of Lebanon, civilization, and humanity destroyed homes and churches in Damour and its neighboring coastal towns, burning fields and displacing the Christian population.
The innocent victims of the Damour Massacre, estimated at 684 individuals, including children, women, elders, and fighters, will not be forgotten.
planners and executors of this atrocity, along with their demonic objectives to uproot and displace Christians from Lebanon, remain ingrained in our collective memory.
These sinister schemes persist today, targeting not only Christians, but various Lebanese sovereign and independent groups through local, regional, and international entities, each with its distinct identity, yet united under hostile, sectarian, and terrorist concepts.
In the present time, the Iranian Mullahs' regime, through its terrorist proxy Hezbollah, the criminal Assad regime, and numerous local mercenaries from leftists, jihadists, and resistance traders, continue the chapters of the Damour Massacre.
The occupation faced by Lebanon goes beyond Damour to encompass the entire country and its social community fabrics. The Mullahs' regime seeks, through force and terrorism, not only to uproot Christians from Lebanon, but also to destroy its entity, overthrow its coexistence and civilized system, aiming to replace it with an Islamic Republic annexed to Tehran's rulers. This serves as a base to overthrow all Arab regimes and establish the Persian Empire.
On this painful anniversary, all Lebanese sovereign, independent, and peaceful social and denominational groups, led by the Christians, will not forget the heroism of our noble, honorable, and brave people who stood against invaders and mercenaries, sacrificing themselves for their sacred homeland.
No, we will not forget our Lebanese righteous Damour martyrs, and we will not forget their sacrifices. On this somber day, we raise prayers, humbly asking for their souls to rest in peace in God's eternal heavenly mansions.

Lebanese MPs row as draft budget debated in parliament
NAJIA HOUSSARIArab News/January 24, 2024
BEIRUT: A parliamentary debate on Lebanon’s 2024 draft budget broke out into a row on Wednesday, with MPs accusing the government of “starving citizens” and promoting corruption. The parliament’s General Assembly began discussion on the budget after the government’s initial version was radically amended by the Finance and Budget Committee. The opening of the session — which was broadcast live and attended by members of the caretaker government headed by Prime Minister Najib Mikati — was marked by heated argument. About 40 out of 128 MPs requested to speak, revealing deep parliamentary divisions. An argument broke out between reformist MP Melhem Khalaf and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Khalaf objected to the passing of legislation in the absence of a president — which has affected Lebanon for more than 15 months — demanding that the session be turned into a presidential election debate. The MP stormed out of the hall, warning: “I will not violate the constitution.” Another row also took place between MP Ali Hassan Khalil (Amal Movement) and reformist MP Firas Hamdan. Khalil described Hamdan as “insignificant” and labeled the reformist MP bloc a “mafia group.”
In response, reformist MP Paula Yacoubian accused Khalil of hypocrisy, saying: “You are wanted for justice in the port explosion case, and you talk about mafias.”
Chairman of the Finance and Budget Committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, said that the draft budget “lacks economic and social vision, has insufficient allocations for capital expenditures, and is characterized by randomness in introducing taxes and fees, as well as in some allocations.” He added: “The finance committee has rejected articles related to tax amendments and the introduction of new taxes and fees, citing constitutional violations.”Kanaan said: “The lack of vision coincides with the absence of unity of standards in the proposed amendments to existing fees. “Some fees were raised tenfold, such as traffic fees, while others saw an increase by 40 times, such as fiscal stamp fees, and others were raised by 180 times, such as fees on locally produced alcoholic beverages. “The Finance Committee removed Article 10, which allowed covering the interest of development loans after it became clear the extent of the favoritism in the loan allocation process. The governor of the Bank of Lebanon was the only person to report on it. There is a lack of knowledge regarding the recipients and details of the subsidized loans.”Lebanon’s deputy speaker of parliament, Elias Bou Saab, said: “If we had not discussed this budget, we would have returned to the 2022 budget.”
A financial source told Arab News: “The draft budget drawn up by the caretaker government was based on taxes, and revenues were hidden in the project, and this allows for waste and corruption.”The source added: “The state’s expenses amount to $2 billion a year, most of which are salaries for state employees, military agencies and public services. This is because Lebanon has stopped paying its foreign debts and limited its expenses to basic supplies. Therefore, the revenues of its facilities, especially the port, for example, can cover these expenses.”Chairman of the Parliamentary Administration and Justice Committee, MP George Adwan, warned during the debate that the draft budget would fail to “settle the bills,” and that “accounts were not completed within the specified deadline.”Adwan highlighted “the crises of the lack of accountability, the burden posed by Syrian asylum in Lebanon, the non-independence of the judiciary, and the failure to see any judge being questioned in the file of the former governor of the Bank of Lebanon, Riad Salameh.”He warned that the draft document would result in “67 percent of taxes affecting the general public and only a small percentage for the wealthy.”
MP Jamil Al-Sayyed said: “This budget seeks to take the money from the citizen’s pocket, while we are a corpse on the side of the road and the state is a corpse on the road to disintegration.”Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah used the debate to turn attention to the violence on Lebanon’s southern border.
He said: “Israel was preparing a preemptive strike on Lebanon before the Al-Aqsa Flood. Hezbollah is committed to the right of self-defense and the right of the Lebanese to resist the occupation, according to the ministerial statement of successive governments.”Opposition MP Michel Moawad described the budget as a project to “starve the citizen and strike the legitimate private sector in favor of smuggling champions.” He said the document was a “budget of beating public sector employees and state institutions in favor of clientelism.”In response to Fadlallah’s statement on the south, Moawad said: “The war can turn into a comprehensive war at any moment. That will destroy all of Lebanon, and the Lebanese are left unable to determine their fate.” In September, the caretaker government approved the 2024 draft budget. Prime Minister Najib Mikati said at the time that it was “the first draft budget to be approved on time as per the constitution since 2002.” Since 2019, Lebanon has witnessed an economic collapse that the World Bank has classified as “among the worst in the world,” with the local currency losing about 95 percent of its value.

Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Associated Press/January 24, 2024
After more than three months of near-daily clashes, Israel in recent weeks appears to have moved to a strategy of targeted killings as daily shelling and strikes on Lebanon's south and Hezbollah's daily attacks on Israeli posts continued. On Wednesday, the Israeli army bombed several southern border towns, including with white phosphorus bombs. Shells hit the outskirts of Naqoura, Kfarkila, al-Labbouneh, Alma al-Shaab and Tayr Harfa, while Hezbollah targeted the Bayyad Blida post in northern Israel. Hezbollah had launched on Tuesday missiles at a significant Israeli air base on Mount Meron for the second time in a month. The group said the barrage was in response to “recent assassinations in Lebanon and Syria, and the repeated attacks on civilians and homes” in southern Lebanon. In some cases, civilians have been killed along with the apparent intended targets. In other cases, Israel seems to have targeted journalists and civilians. Since the start of the daily clashes between Hezbollah and Israel, Israeli fire has killed at least 26 civilians, including three journalists and two rescuers in addition to a Lebanese soldier. Many investigations into strikes in southern Lebanon that killed journalists indicate they were deliberate and targeted attacks.

Tensions flare as MPs convene to discuss state budget
Naharnet/January 24, 2024
Parliament convened Wednesday to discuss the 2024 state budget in a heated session during which MPs loudly exchanged accusations. Change MP Melhem Khalaf left the session after an argument with Speaker Nabih Berri who did not allow Khalaf to speak as the latter criticized holding a session when "the parliament's priority should be to elect a president." Crisis-hit Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October last year, with neither of the two main blocs -- Hezbollah and its opponents -- having the majority required to elect one.
Khalaf said the session was unconstitutional as he left "like a hero". Amal MP Ali Hassan Khalil accused the Change MPs of "childishness", describing them as Mafias, to which Change MP Paula Yacoubian responded that Khalil, who is charged in connection with the 2020 Beirut port blast, has no right to talk about mafias. Free Patriotic Movement MP Ibrahim Kanaan criticized the budget draft law, considering it a violation to the constitution, and described the government as "dishonourable", while MP George Adwan of the Lebanese Forces bloc said that “there is no benefit from any state budgets, reforms or decisions” if “the war and peace decisions” are not “in the state’s hands.”Addressing caretaker PM Najib Mikati, Adwan added: “Do not bring to parliament any recovery plan that involves writing off the deposits.”“We hope the plan will be based on improving the finances and customs,” Adwan added. Deputy Speaker Elias Bou Saab also lashed out at Mikati, accusing him of “pouring oil on fire in the dispute between the defense minister and the army commander.”“If (Amal MP and former minister) Ghazi Zoaiter was the defense minister, would you have dealt with him the same way you dealt with Minister Maurice Slim?” Bou Saab asked Mikati.

'Aging Nation': Analyzing Lebanon's demographic crisis - 2023 vs. 2038
LBCI/January 24, 2024
"Welcome to Rafic Hariri International Airport;" In recent years, especially since 2019, at the onset of the economic crisis, Lebanese have heard this call frequently. According to a study prepared by the Secretary-General of "Citizens in a State," former Minister Charbel Nahas, Lebanon is home to around five and a half million people in 2023. In 2018, the number was approximately 5.8 million. Out of the 5.5 million, around 3.5 million are Lebanese, and the majority of the rest are Syrians, including residents and refugees, according to the study. If the economic situation remains challenging, coupled with increasing immigration numbers, Lebanon is heading towards a decrease in the resident population, becoming around 4.8 million in 2038. The number of Lebanese among them will decrease from 3.5 million to 2.5 million. This means that Lebanese will constitute around 50 percent of Lebanon's population, with the remaining being of other nationalities, mainly Syrians. The majority of Lebanese will be in the age group above 64 years, as most below this age will be immigrants. Additionally, the dependency ratio, i.e., the responsibility of one person for the support of others, will also increase because those who remain in Lebanon are either not working or are elderly. The percentage of "dependents" will be 61 percent in 2038, up from 53 percent in 2023. In conclusion, according to the numbers in this study, Lebanon faces a bleak demographic future. Will anyone heed these figures and take action?

Southern issues, presidential vacuum, and currency woes: MPs steer 2024 budget session
LBCI/January 24, 2024
No positive outcome was voiced about the 2024 budget project, to the extent that a number of deputies agreed to describe it as an "operating budget" at best, considering that the Finance and Budget Committee shifted it from bad to worse.The budget constituted a minor portion in the first part of the session. MPs' interventions veered towards the southern situation, the presidential vacuum, the fate of deposits, and the US dollar exchange rate. As for the actual discussion of the budget was limited to the fact that it comes without "cutting off accounts." Meanwhile, the government seeks to generate revenues through taxes imposed on citizens despite the Finance and Budget Committee's attempts to mitigate them. There is also a laxity in collecting customs duties, VAT, marine property violations, and a reluctance to confront the "black economy" and tax evaders.
Criticism of the budget also came from MPs, highlighting that it lacked a reform plan years after the financial and economic collapse, with the foundation of this plan being the protection of deposits. During the session, the issue of withdrawing billions of dollars from Lebanon after October 17, 2019, was raised. Criticism focused on how the exchange rate for salaries and wage increases was calculated at LBP 10,000, while the "tax-collected" dollar reached LBP 69,000. Deputy Speaker of the Parliament Elias Bou Saab overshadowed his speech in the budget session in defense of Minister Maurice Sleem. His remarks on the budget were limited to one sentence related to rumors about a zero deficit. Hezbollah dominated its speech with a focus on confronting Israeli occupation, the importance of this confrontation against the backdrop of the Gaza war, and how the resistance put Lebanon on the "regional arena" map, emphasizing the country's current circumstances. Regarding Hezbollah's decision to go to war, MP Michel Moawad responded, considering that the decision of war and peace should be in the hands of the government and not entrusted to anyone. Some spoke about the budget shortage, especially in the Ministry of Public Works budget. Notably, MP Georges Adwan praised the current Minister, Ali Hamie, for increasing the revenues of this ministry.

Tensions erupt in the Parliament during budget session
LBCI/January 24, 2024
A verbal exchange occurred between MP Melhem Khalaf and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri as the parliamentary session began to discuss and approve the draft of the 2024 general budget. The exchange started when MP Khalaf requested to speak, and Speaker Berri interrupted him, saying, "During the discussion time, I will give you the floor; please rest." Khalaf insisted on speaking, stating, "When the presidential seat is vacant, there is no priority for electing a president."Speaker Berri responded, "I will not turn you into a hero and get you out of the hall."The exchange escalated into verbal altercations among several MPs, debating whether this session was "executive" or "legislative" in nature.

White House: Preliminary reports indicate that US strikes on Houthi targets were effective
Reuters/January 24, 2024 
White House spokesperson John Kirby said on Wednesday that preliminary reports suggest the US strikes on Houthi targets have been effective. The US military stated in a press release that it carried out additional strikes in Yemen earlier, destroying two anti-ship ballistic missiles that the Houthis intended to launch towards the Red Sea.

Sixteen International Human Rights organizations call for halt in arms shipments to Israel and Palestinian factions
LBCI/January 24, 2024
Sixteen international human rights organizations urged on Wednesday a cessation of arms shipments to both Israel and armed Palestinian factions in an attempt to bring an end to the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip. In their joint statement, these organizations implored UN member states to halt arms deliveries and cease ammunition supplies, aiming to "put an end to the crisis in Gaza and avoid further humanitarian disasters and civilian casualties."The statement added, "Israeli airstrikes and the siege deprive civilians of the essentials for survival, rendering Gaza uninhabitable.""Civilians in Gaza are facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in terms of severity and scale," it continued. The statement also noted that following the attack launched by Hamas on Israel on October 7, "armed groups in Gaza continued to launch rockets at civilian centers in Israel indiscriminately."

Hezbollah delegation briefs Bkirki on situations in Gaza, South
Naharnet/January 24, 2024
A Hezbollah delegation comprising the official in charge of relations with Christian authorities, Mohammad Saeed al-Khansa, and Mustafa al-Hajj Ali has met at MP Farid Haykal al-Khazen’s residence with Walid Ghayyad, the adviser of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, al-Jadeed TV said. “The meeting tackled the situation in Gaza and the plight of the Palestinian people,” al-Jadeed added. “The delegation also put Bkirki in the picture of what is happening in the South and the circumstances that the resistance is going through in the face of the enemy, explaining the situations of the battle that is aimed at protecting the South in the face of all the Israeli intentions,” the TV network added. The number of people killed by Israeli fire into south Lebanon since the start of the war in Gaza has risen to more than 200, according to an AFP tally. Since the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel on October 7, the Lebanese-Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Hezbollah. More than 83,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes since hostilities began, according to the International Organization for Migration. On the Israeli side, 15 people have been killed in the northern border area, including nine soldiers and six civilians, according to the Israeli army.

Israel says announcing date for settlers return would benefit Hezbollah
Naharnet/January 24, 2024
In a meeting between Israel’s war cabinet and the heads of local authorities in northern Israel, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has warned that announcing a date for the return of settlers to the north would play into the hands of Hezbollah, pointing out that it is more advisable to leave that unclear, Israeli media reported. According to Israel’s Channel 11, Gallant cautioned during the meeting against ending the war in Gaza before "completely dismantling Hamas," warning that failing to do so would strengthen Hezbollah against Israel. The war cabinet for its part refrained from specifying a "final date" for a political solution in the north, while informed sources mentioned that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Gallant requested that ambiguity be adopted in this regard. Netanyahu meanwhile promised to authorize $930 million in financial assistance to regional authorities in northern Israel, committing himself to passing a government decision for the development of the north dealing with economic and security issues in the coming days. Fleeing the ongoing fighting with Hezbollah, an estimated 80,000 residents have been displaced from northern Israel, some evacuating due to government orders and others voluntarily. Since October 8, one day after the unprecedented Hamas attack in southern Israel, Hezbollah has engaged in cross-border clashes with Israel on a near-daily basis. There is also increasing concern that the conflict could spiral out of control. Last Thursday, Gallant cautioned that Israel must “take into account the possibility of the situation deteriorating in the north.”He said that Israel is committed to returning the displaced residents to their homes in the north, but “if this scenario does not happen… through diplomatic means, we will reach a situation where we need to create the security conditions that allow their return.”The likelihood that Israel will be drawn into a war in Lebanon is growing, Israeli army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said a day earlier during a visit to the north to see troops drilling for a simulated offensive inside Lebanon. “We are keeping an eye on everything that is happening in the north. Hezbollah continues to provoke us, I have now conducted a special situation assessment on this matter,” Gallant said on Tuesday. “We are prepared, we do not want war, but we are ready for any situation that may develop in the north. Therefore, we have one hand reaching to the south and a watchful eye towards the north,” he added.

Jumblat 'doesn't mind' Franjieh's election, says Netanyahu, Israelis are 'crazy'
Naharnet/January 24, 2024
Former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat is growing impatient as Lebanon remains without a president after more than a year of vacuum and political bickering. "We've been waiting for the Christians to reach an agreement for two years with no progress," Jumblat told al-Akhbar, in remarks published Wednesday.  The former PSP leader said he would accept any candidate to avoid the vacancy. "I don't mind electing anyone including Marada leader Suleiman Franjieh," he said, adding that this is his personal stance and not necessarily the democratic gathering bloc's stance. Concerning the daily border clashes in south Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, Jumblat said Hezbollah and Iran do not want war, accusing some Israelis of insanity. "There are crazy people in Israel," Jumblat charged. "A crazy Prime Minister and crazy generals," he added. Israeli border has witnessed a near-daily exchange of fire between Israel's army and Hezbollah. 202 people have been killed in south Lebanon, 147 of them belonging to Hezbollah. At least 26 civilians have also been killed, including three journalists and two rescuers in addition to a Lebanese soldier. More than 83,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes since hostilities began, according to the International Organization for Migration. On the Israeli side, 15 people have been killed in the northern border area, including nine soldiers and six civilians, according to the Israeli army.

War of words between Kataeb, SSNP after Gemayel's Shartouni slur
Naharnet/January 24, 2024
A war of words flared Wednesday between the Kataeb Party and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party after Kataeb chief Sami Gemayel derogated Habib Shartouni, a fugitive SSNP member convicted of the 1982 assassination of president-elect Bashir Gemayel. “Habib Shartouni is at the same level of the outsoles of your shoes,” Gemayel said in a speech to Kataeb cadres on Tuesday. The SSNP hit back in a statement on Wednesday, saying it understands “the miserable psychological state that MP Sami Gemayel has reached due to his inability to implement the various demands of his handlers, in addition to his unfitness to contend with his competitors within the same camp.”The party also called on its members and supporters “not to be dragged into such a rhetoric.”Kataeb snapped back, noting that Gemayel did not mention the SSNP in his remarks on Tuesday, accusing the party of “continuing the campaign that Hezbollah had started against Gemayel.”“The endorsement of Shartouni requires the immediate dissolution of this party and its remnants without any delay,” Kataeb added, while ridiculing the SSNP for failing to win any seat in the latest parliamentary elections.

Libyan delegation visits Beirut for talks on al-Sadr and Gadhafi's detained son
Associated Press/January 24, 2024
A Libyan delegation visited Beirut this week seeking to reopen talks with Lebanese officials on the fate of a prominent Lebanese cleric who has been missing in Libya for decades, and the release of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi's son who has been held in Lebanon for years, officials said. The talks were aimed at reactivating a long-dormant agreement between Lebanon and Libya, struck in 2014, for cooperation in the probe of the 1978 disappearance of Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr, judicial and security officials said. The fate of the cleric has been a long-standing sore point in Lebanon. The cleric's family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, though most Lebanese presume al-Sadr, who would be 94 now, is dead. The late Libyan ruler's son Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015, after he was kidnapped from neighboring Syria where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of al-Sadr. Lebanese authorities freed him from the kidnappers, but then detained him, accusing him of concealing information about al-Sadr's disappearance. A legal official familiar with the case said the delegation left Beirut after spending several days in Lebanon, where they met with the minister of justice and a judge heading a committee investigating al-Sadr's disappearance. The official described the talks as "positive" but did not elaborate or say if they achieved any results. The delegation is expected to return next week, he said and added that Lebanese and Libyan authorities are treating the two cases as separate. He said "there is no deal" so far for Gadhafi's release. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. The Libyan delegation's visit was not publicly announced by either Lebanon or Libya. Libyan justice officials and an attorney for Seif al-Islam Gadhafi, Hannibal's brother, did not respond to a request for comment. Al-Sadr was the founder of the Amal group, a Shiite militia that fought in Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war and later became a political party, currently headed by the country's powerful Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Many of al-Sadr's followers are convinced that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias, although Libya has maintained that the cleric, along with two traveling companions, left Tripoli in 1978 on a flight to Rome. Last August, Libya's judicial authorities formally asked Lebanon to release Hannibal Gadhafi because of his deteriorating health after he went on a hunger strike in early June and was hospitalized several times. Human Rights Watch earlier this month issued a statement calling for Gadhafi's release. The rights group noted that Gadhafi was only two years old at the time of al-Sadr's disappearance and held no senior position in Libya as an adult. Gadhafi's "apparent arbitrary detention on spurious charges after spending eight years in pretrial detention makes a mockery of Lebanon's already strained judicial system," Hanan Salah, HRW's associate Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement. "It's understandable that people want to know what happened," Salah said. "But it is unlawful to hold someone in pretrial detention for many years merely for their possible association with the person responsible for wrongdoing."

Qatar envoy visits Lebanon as push to end presidential vacuum continues
Sheikh Mohammed bin Jassim Al Thani's visit comes as Lebanon approaches 15 months without a president
Jamie Prentis/The National/January 24, 2024
Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani has been in Lebanon on an unannounced visit as part of an international effort to end the country's 15-month presidential vacuum. The exact dates of the visit were not clear.
No public mention of the trip was made by the two countries, nor were there any statements by Lebanese politicians. However, a political source played down the significance of the visit being unannounced, noting that not all trips by international envoys are made public.
Qatar is part of a powerful five-country group – the others being the US, France, Saudi Arabia and Egypt – that has explored efforts to end the impasse that has existed since Michel Aoun departed the presidential palace in Baabda at the end of October 2022.
And while many Lebanese political figures have expressed their gratitude for the initiative and the regular visits by the various envoys – whether announced or unannounced – a limited sense of optimism remains among those The National spoke to. Some also argue that a solution must come from within the country, rather than from outside it. Despite 12 sessions, the deeply divided 128-seat parliament, where no faction holds a majority, has failed to come closer to electing Mr Aoun's successor. In Lebanon's unique confessional system, the position of president is reserved for a Maronite Christian, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim, and the speaker of parliament a Shiite Muslim. At a meeting last summer in Doha, the five countries said they had discussed “concrete options with respect to implementing measures against those who are blocking progress”.
When the war on Gaza broke out on October 7, last year and spread to Lebanon's southern border, talk of the Lebanese presidential vacuum no longer made local headlines. Later in December, when French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian visited Beirut, the impetus appeared to be renewed even as the cross-border conflict between Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and Israel – which has largely been contained to south Lebanon – has continued to expand in its intensity.
Mr Le Drian, a former French foreign minister who was appointed as President Emmanuel Macron's envoy last summer, is expected to visit Lebanon again in early February. During his November visit he for the first time floated the idea of finding a new candidate who had not received significant backing in previous polls.. Powerful Shiite group Hezbollah and its ally the Amal Movement have refused to budge from backing Suleiman Frangieh, the scion of a powerful Maronite family from north Lebanon and a close friend of Syria's Bashar Al Assad.
A bloc of MPs, comprised of about a third of parliament, backed MP Michel Moawad in the first 11 sessions, before supporting International Monetary Fund official Jihad Azour when the last poll was held last summer. It is widely accepted that neither man now has a chance to succeed Mr Aoun.
One name that continues to come up is the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, Gen Joseph Aoun, who is not related to the former president. However, some influential opposition to him remains, particularly from the Free Patriotic Movement – the party founded by Mr Aoun, the former president.
In the event of a presidential vacuum, the Council of Ministers takes on the powers of head of state. But the cabinet is in a caretaker status and its powers are therefore severely curtailed.

A Libyan delegation reopens talks in Lebanon on a missing cleric and on Gadhafi's detained son
BEIRUT (AP)/January 24, 2024
A Libyan delegation visited Beirut this week to reopen talks with Lebanese officials on the fate of a prominent Lebanese cleric who has been missing in Libya for decades, and on the release of late dictator Moammar Gadhafi’s son who has been held in Lebanon for years, officials said.
The talks were aimed at reactivating a dormant agreement between Lebanon and Libya, struck in 2014, for cooperation in the probe of the 1978 disappearance of Shiite cleric Moussa al-Sadr, judicial and security officials said.
The fate of the cleric has been a long-standing sore point in Lebanon. His family believes he may still be alive in a Libyan prison, though most Lebanese presume al-Sadr, who would be 94 now, is dead.
The late Libyan ruler's son Hannibal Gadhafi has been held in Lebanon since 2015 after he was kidnapped from neighboring Syria, where he had been living as a political refugee. He was abducted by Lebanese militants demanding information about the fate of al-Sadr.
Lebanese authorities freed him but then detained him, accusing him of concealing information about al-Sadr’s disappearance. A legal official familiar with the case said the Libyan delegation left Beirut after spending several days in Lebanon, where they met with the minister of justice and a judge heading a committee investigating al-Sadr’s disappearance.The official described the talks as “positive” but did not elaborate or say if they achieved any results. The delegation is expected to return next week, he said, and added that Lebanese and Libyan authorities are treating the two cases as separate.
He said “there is no deal” so far for Gadhafi’s release. All the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to reporters. The Libyan delegation's visit was not publicly announced by either Lebanon or Libya. Libya’s internationally recognized government, seated in Tripoli, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Al-Sadr was the founder of the Amal group, a Shiite militia that fought in Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war and later became a political party, currently headed by the country's powerful Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. Many of al-Sadr’s followers are convinced that Moammar Gadhafi ordered al-Sadr killed in a dispute over Libyan payments to Lebanese militias. Libya has maintained that the cleric, along with two traveling companions, left Tripoli in 1978 on a flight to Rome. Last August, Libya’s judicial authorities formally asked Lebanon to release Hannibal Gadhafi because of his deteriorating health after he went on a hunger strike in June and was hospitalized several times. Human Rights Watch this month issued a statement calling for Gadhafi’s release. The rights group noted that Gadhafi was only 2 years old at the time of al-Sadr’s disappearance and held no senior position in Libya as an adult.Gadhafi’s “apparent arbitrary detention on spurious charges after spending eight years in pretrial detention makes a mockery of Lebanon’s already strained judicial system,” Hanan Salah, the group's associate Middle East and North Africa director, said in a statement. “It’s understandable that people want to know what happened,” Salah said. “But it is unlawful to hold someone in pretrial detention for many years merely for their possible association with the person responsible for wrongdoing.”

Reports: Hezbollah remains open to US diplomatic efforts
Naharnet/January 24, 2024 
Hezbollah has rebuffed U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein’s ideas for ending the border skirmishes with Israel but remains open to U.S. diplomatic efforts to avoid a ruinous war, a media report said, quoting Lebanese officials. "Hezbollah is ready to listen," a senior Lebanese official familiar with the group's thinking said, while emphasizing that the group saw the ideas presented by veteran negotiator Hochstein on a visit to Beirut last week as unrealistic. One suggestion floated last week was that border hostilities be scaled back in tandem with Israeli moves towards lower intensity operations in Gaza, the reports quoted three Lebanese sources and a U.S. official as saying.

Hamas fires rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel
Associated Press/January 24, 2024 
Hamas said it has fired 20 missiles from Lebanon toward a military barracks near Israel's northern coast. Wednesday's attack was the first rocket attack from Lebanon by the Palestinian militant group since late December and came a day after at least 25 rockets were fired from Gaza into southern Israel in one of the strongest bombardments in more than a week. A statement from Hamas said Wednesday’s attack was partly a response to the presumed Israeli airstrike that killed top Hamas official Saleh Arouri on Jan. 2 in the Beirut suburbs. It was not immediately clear if there were damage or casualties in Israel. The Israeli military said its warplanes and artillery struck launch sites in southern Lebanon. Hamas later announced that one of its fighters, from the Mieh Mieh Palestinian refugee camp near the city of Sidon, had been killed in an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon. In recent days, the intensity of cross-border fighting between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has escalated. Regarding the prospects for another cease-fire agreement in Gaza and a release of hostages, Hamas political official Osama Hamdan told reporters in Beirut that the group had “presented a vision” to Egypt in Qatar in response to proposals put forward by those two countries, but accused Israel of “stalling” in its response. The Hamas official also criticized the international community for its concern about getting medication to the dozens of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, when more than 2 million Palestinians there have been living for months in dire conditions without access to health care.

Report: Berri re-focuses on presidential vote to protect country
Naharnet//January 24, 2024 
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has reportedly urged all parties to elect a president. "Berri has directly called all the parties concerned with the presidential file to seize the opportunity to protect the country by electing a president," Ain el-Tineh sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper, in remarks published Thursday. The source added that Berri is "always ready" for any effort that would break the presidential impasse and is discussing the presidential file in all his meetings with envoys and ambassadors. The Speaker has encouraged the Qataris to resume their presidential efforts, the source said. An earlier report in al-Liwaa newspaper claimed that senior Lebanese officials had contacted the Qatari leadership, including during caretaker PM Najib Mikati’s meetings in Davos, asking it to send Qatari envoy Jassem bin Fahad Al-Thani to Lebanon as soon as possible in order to revive the presidential election file. Doha and the five-nation group for Lebanon -- which also comprises the U.S., France, KSA, and Egypt -- have sought to facilitate the presidential election file in Lebanon but Qatar's efforts stopped with the eruption of the Gaza war. Crisis-hit Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October last year, with neither of the two main blocs -- Hezbollah and its opponents -- having the majority required to elect one. France has warned Lebanon that the presidential vacancy is weighing on the country's ability to overcome its crises and to prevent a security deterioration amid risks of escalation of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.

Bou Habib: War on Lebanon would not be easy for Israel
Naharnet/January 24, 2024  
Caretaker Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib has warned Israel that a war on Lebanon would not be “easy” for it and that “rockets will fall on it from all sides.”“The Houthis are playing an international role and what they are doing is related to Gaza. Our stance is in harmony with the Arab stance and we don’t want an expansion of the war,” Bou Habib said in a TV interview. “An internal war would ruin the country and if we were asked to choose between a regional war and a civil war we would pick the regional, because it would have an end, contrary to civil war,” Bou Habib added. “There is a de facto situation in the South and Hezbollah is a Lebanese group that understands the country’s interest,” the minister went on to say, noting that the Lebanese government is “opposed to the launching of rockets by some non-Lebanese groups.”Over 190 people have been killed in Lebanon during more than three months of cross-border clashes, including over 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, among them three journalists. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of Lebanese and Israeli residents on both sides of the border and Israel says it is keen on returning its residents to their homes even if that required a military campaign.

Israel-Hezbollah border skirmishes: Latest developments
Naharnet/January 24, 2024 
Israeli drones carried out airstrikes Thursday morning on a house in Kawkaba, a village in the Hasbaya District as artillery shelled the southern border towns of Aitaroun, Blida, Mays el-Jabal and the Marjaayoun valley. Later in the day, Israeli warplanes struck the outskirts of Rab Tlatine, al-Taybe, and al-Odaisseh. Hezbollah for its part targeted Berkat Risha and a group of soldiers in the Israeli Adamit post. On Wednesday Hezbollah targeted five Israeli posts in northern Israel and Hamas fired 20 missiles toward a military barracks near Israel's northern coast, the first rocket attack from Lebanon by the Palestinian militant group since late December. In recent days, the intensity of cross-border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah has escalated. Israel on Tuesday launched its most intense attacks on a single location in Lebanon's south, targeting a border valley with air strikes and artillery. Over 190 people have been killed in Lebanon during more than three months of violence, including more than 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, among them three journalists, according to an AFP tally. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Lebanon still has a chance as Qatar advances to Asian Cup knockout stages
Associated Press/January 24/2024
Host and defending champion Qatar became the first team to advance to the knockout stage of the Asian Cup tournament on Wednesday after a 1-0 win against Tajikistan. Akram Afif scored his third goal in two games to secure victory at Al Bayt Stadium and ensure Qatar goes through as Group A winner.
It is all a far cry from the World Cup when, as host, Qatar exited the competition at the group stage after three straight losses. After back-to-back draws, China likely needs at least a point against Qatar to have a chance of advancing to the knockout stage. A 0-0 draw with Lebanon left both nations' hopes of reaching the round of 16 in the balance. China was a quarterfinalist in each of the last two Asian Cups and is second in Group A on two points. But it has the daunting task of facing Qatar in its final game and is at risk of being overtaken by Lebanon or Tajikistan. "We know that we depend on ourselves and that is something that every team would like to be in that position before the last game," China coach Aleksandar Jankovic said. "No matter (if) we play against a host country ... Qatar with their World Cup experience, we still depend on ourselves and I always like to be in this kind of situation." Lebanon hit the woodwork twice and China saw an effort cleared off the line at Al Thumama Stadium. Lebanon lost 3-0 to Qatar in its opening game and is bottom of the group with one point, but still has a chance to progress. Lebanon, China and Tajikistan could still advance as runner-up or one of the best third-place teams.. "It's a very important point for us especially after a tough defeat against Qatar," Lebanon coach Miodrag Radulovic said. "We hit two posts, but unfortunately we didn't score again. I'm satisfied with this point because we are still in the game to the end for the next round."Hassan Maatouk and Hasan Srour hit the bar for Lebanon either side of halftime. Wu Lei thought he'd broken the deadlock for China in the 65th minute, but his close-range range shot was hooked off the line. China came close to scoring in the first half when Lebanon goalkeeper Mostafa Matar twice denied Zhang Yuning in one threatening attack. Substitute Lin Liangming should have been more clinical late in the match, but headed wide when unmarked right in front of goal.

How much influence does Iran have over its proxy ‘Axis of Resistance’ − Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis?
The Conversation/January 24/2024
From attacks by rebels in the Red Sea to raids in northern Israel and the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas, Western analysts have pointed a finger of blame toward Iran.Regardless of how involved Tehran is directly in the planning and carrying out of such incidents, the accusations get at a broader truth: In Middle Eastern geopolitics, Iran’s strategy of aligning with violent nonstate actors – notably Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen – influences the regional balance of power. As experts in Iran’s relationship with its network of proxies, we understand that Iran’s connection with each group is distinct yet interlinked, revealing Tehran’s regional objectives. From southern Lebanon to Gaza to Yemen, these alliances shape the political landscape and highlight the nature of influence and control in proxy warfare. It serves as a counterweight to Iran’s relatively limited conventional military capabilities, forming a key part of its foreign policy.
Iran’s ‘Axis of Resistance’
Managed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s paramilitary security service that answers only to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, these regional groups form what Tehran has labeled the Axis of Resistance. The relationship between the groups and Tehran is designed to serve as a balance against both U.S. influence in the region and that of Washington’s regional allies, including Israel and Saudi Arabia. But to characterize the Axis of Resistance as straight proxies is slightly off. Rather, Iran’s approach – spanning Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and the Palestinian territories – is to extend its influence through strategic partnerships. While based on shared objectives and ideologies, these alliances allow varying degrees of autonomy. Iran provides resources and coordination, but each group maintains its own agenda and local support base, functioning more as partners than proxies. And the relationship between Iran and each member of this Axis of Resistance is unique.
Hezbollah: Iran’s pivotal partner
Established in the early 1980s, Hezbollah – a Shiite militant organization – emerged with direct assistance from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, primarily as a response to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Aiming to establish an Iranian-influenced base on Israel’s border, Tehran provided training, financial support and weaponry, bolstering Hezbollah’s growth and capabilities. This collaboration has led to Hezbollah developing a sophisticated arsenal, including advanced drone technology, chemical weapons and expanded rocket capabilities. As a result of its involvement in the Syrian civil war and ongoing hostilities with Israel, Hezbollah has professionalized its military. By deploying troops to support the Syrian government in line with Iran’s support for the regime, Hezbollah has transitioned from guerrilla tactics to more conventional warfare. Additionally, its ongoing conflict with Israel has sharpened its military strategy and capabilities. This helped elevate Hezbollah to a notable political and military role within Lebanon’s government, which has frequently aligned with Iran’s geopolitical interests. This evolution has also enabled Hezbollah to become a mentor and supporter for other Iran-backed groups. Hezbollah has imparted its expertise in drone operations to organizations such as Fatemiyoun in Afghanistan, Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah and Houthi fighters. The relationship between Tehran and Hezbollah has deepened over the years, evolving from mere assistance to a robust strategic alliance. The entities share goals, strategies and materials. The close relationship between Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s Khamenei further cements this alliance. Despite Iran’s considerable influence, particularly in regional conflicts, Hezbollah retains autonomy in domestic Lebanese politics and its social services. This Hezbollah-Iran alliance is arguably more significant than Iran’s relationship with other proxies and is instrumental in Tehran’s regional strategy. It not only extends Iran’s influence in the Middle East but also serves as a counterbalance to its adversaries, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia.
Hamas: United against Israel
Emerging in the first intifada, or Palestinian uprising, of 1987, Hamas forged ties with Iran in the early 1990s. Despite the ideological differences – Hamas is predominantly Sunni Islamist, while Iran is a hard-line Shiite regime – they found common ground in their opposition to Israel and a shared vision for Palestinian liberation. Iran’s backing of Hamas includes financial aid, military training and, crucially, the supply of rocket technology. This funding has escalated Hamas’ operational capabilities, enabling the development of a more sophisticated and far-reaching rocket arsenal. Iran’s support has shifted the balance in Hamas’ conflict with Israel, demonstrating Iran’s influential role in regional power dynamics. The alignment between Iran and Hamas, however, has fluctuated. In 2012, differences over the Syrian civil war introduced a rift in their relationship. Hamas’ tacit support for Sunni rebels in Syria was at odds with Iran’s allegiance to the Assad regime, leading to a temporary withdrawal of Iranian support. However, this strain was not permanent. In subsequent years, the Iran-Hamas relationship was realigned and reinforced, evidenced by Iran’s resumption of substantial military aid. The sophisticated planning and execution of the Oct. 7 attack showed how Hamas has been able to improve its military capacity with a helping hand from Iran. Nonetheless, the group maintains a degree of political and strategic independence, primarily focusing on Palestinian interests.
This dynamic reflects Iran’s broader regional strategy: to empower allied groups in extending its reach, while granting them autonomy to pursue specific agendas.
Houthis: Strategic ally against Saudi Arabia
Emerging in the 1990s in Yemen as a Zaidi Shia Islamist group, the Houthi movement initially focused on religious and cultural revivalism before progressively becoming engaged in Yemen’s political and military arenas. Fueled by grievances against the central government and foreign interference in Yemen, the group shifted to an armed rebellion. This evolution was marked by growing confrontations with the Yemeni government and involvement in a wider regional conflict against a coalition led by Iran’s regional rival, Saudi Arabia. This set the stage for their alliance with Tehran. The Houthis’ alignment with Iran was spurred by shared religious beliefs as well as opposition to both Saudi Arabia and the U.S. The collaboration with Iran gained momentum following the Houthis’ capture of Yemen’s capital Sanaa in 2014 – a move that is believed to have triggered an escalation in Iranian support. Support from Tehran came in the shape of sophisticated weaponry, military training and financial aid, and it has substantially enhanced the Houthis’ missile and drone capabilities. The Houthis have utilized this growing capability to challenge Saudi Arabia and, more recently, Israel. Empowered by Iranian support, the Houthis have expanded their operations to include assaults on U.S. and other international vessels in the Red Sea. Despite the depth of Iranian support, the Houthis retain a level of autonomy, specifically in local Yemeni politics. While Iran’s influence is notable, it does not translate into outright control. Instead, the Houthis are positioned more as strategic allies within Iran’s regional agenda rather than mere proxies.
Iran’s expanding influence
Iran’s proxy network, which extends to groups in Iraq, Syria and beyond, is a key part of Tehran’s strategy to expand its influence and confront that of Washington and its allies. These partnerships, though seldom involving absolute control, also demonstrate Iran’s adeptness in navigating geopolitical landscapes. The Axis of Resistance allows Iran to adapt its strategy to shifting regional dynamics. For example, positioning Hamas under the Revolutionary Guard’s guidance fits a strategy to confront Israel as regional dynamics shift toward normalization between Israel and Arab states. Such partnerships also pose a challenge to Iran’s adversaries. Deterring these proxy groups requires navigating a complex web of relationships, interests and ongoing conflicts. And this complexity, coupled with Iran’s pivotal role, has reshaped the Middle East’s geopolitical landscape, signaling a period of heightened tensions with broad international implications.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 24-25/2024
Video link for an English political panel from the Washington Institute (with translation to Arabic)Under the title "The War Between Hamas and Israel: End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End?" The participants in the episode are Hanin Ghaddar and Asaf Orion, and Matthew Levitt. Robert Satloff is hosting and moerating the panel
January 24, 2024.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/126371/126371/
"The War Between Hamas and Israel: End of the Beginning or Beginning of the End?"
With the expiration of the humanitarian truce for hostage/prisoner exchange and the outbreak of widespread fighting, especially in the southern Gaza Strip, it appears that the war between Hamas and Israel has entered a decisive phase. To discuss the situation on the battlefield and its implications for Israeli security, Palestinian humanitarian concerns, and U.S. policy, the Washington Institute is pleased to announce a virtual political forum featuring Asaf Orion, Hanin Ghaddar, and Matthew Levitt, moderated by Robert Satloff, the Institute's Executive Director.
*Asaf Orion is a retired Israeli brigadier general in the Israel Defense Forces and a fellow at the Washington Institute's "Reuven International" program. Orion held a leadership position in the Planning Directorate, overseeing coordination with the Lebanese army and representing the IDF during talks with the Palestinian Authority.
*Hanin Ghaddar is a senior fellow at the "Friedman" Fellowship at the Washington Institute. She participated in creating an interactive map tracking conflicts along the Israel-Lebanon border and contributed to a study titled "Iran's Precision Missile Project Moves to Lebanon."
**Matthew Levitt is a fellow at the "Fromer Wexler" program at the Washington Institute and the director of the Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. He is also the host of the podcast series "Breaking Hezbollah's Golden Rule." Levitt is the author of the historical book "Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad."
Date: January 24, 2024
Washington Institute Event

Attacks by Iran's militia allies are placing the Biden administration in a bind
Paul Iddon/Business Insider/January 24, 2024
The US is seeking to deter Iran and its proxies with retaliatory strikes.But attacks continue against US troops across the region.The US is attempting to strike back effectively without igniting a wider war.
The Iran-backed militias of its so-called "axis of resistance" are threatening more than three thousand American troops deployed to Iraq and Syria with increasingly dangerous attacks, putting the US administration in a bind: Strike back too hard and ignite a wider war or do too little and look weak in an election year. "The big contradiction to the Biden administration's approach to the current crisis in the Middle East is that it is an election year in the United States," Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, told Business Insider. "And the Biden administration is trying to simultaneously demonstrate to the American public that it is tough on Iran but that it is not dragging the US into another war in the Middle East."Attacks against US forces continue despite US warnings and military retaliations in Iraq and Syria. In Syria, the US military targeted facilities used by these militias and Iran's hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, IRGC, paramilitary. In Iraq, it upped the ante on Jan. 4 by assassinating a leader of the Iran-backed Harakat al-Nujaba group in Baghdad.
Still, according to one tally, as of Tuesday, the militias have targeted US forces 18 times in Syria and ten times in Iraq since Jan. 4, as part of Iran's response to Israel's war in Gaza begun after the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by its ally, Hamas.
In their single largest attack to date, the militias launched ten rockets and seven short-range ballistic missiles at US troops stationed in Iraq's western Al-Asad airbase on Jan. 20. Even though at least 15 Patriot interceptor missiles were fired at the incoming projectiles, at least two hit the base. Four U.S. personnel suffered traumatic brain injuries from that attack.
The U.S. responded on Tuesday by targeting three militia "headquarters, storage, and training locations for rocket, missile, and one-way attack UAV capabilities" in Iraq, according to a U.S. Central Command statement.
Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, said the US "would rather strike Iraqi militia targets and leaders rather than the IRGC itself out of concern of escalation with the Iranians," referring to the Iranian paramilitaries who arm and train militants. "At least this is the case within Iraq.""The U.S. has shown a willingness to strike sites associated with the IRGC in Syria," Bohl said. "But all of that would be designed to respond proportionally to these intermittent harassment of U.S. forces."
In Yemen, the Iran-allied Ansarallah movement, more commonly known as the Houthis, have carried out an estimated 30 attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea since mid-November. The U.S. initially took a defensive posture, shooting down Israel-bound Houthi missiles and drones and establishing a multinational naval task force in December to keep shipping lanes open.
But as attacks on shipping continued, the U.S. and Britain targeted Houthi positions and weaponry inside Yemen with repeated airstrikes in January.
The latest strike, early Wednesday local time, destroyed two anti-ship missiles deemed an "imminent threat to merchant vessels and the U.S. Navy ships in the region," according to CENTCOM. The preceding round of strikes, on Monday, were the eighth in a mere two-week period. According to The New York Times, they were "bigger and broader" than the previous seven, signaling Washington's intent to "wage a sustained and, at least for now, open-ended campaign" against the Yemen-based group. With this new front open, Bohl doubts Washington is eager to "intentionally climb the escalation ladder." It's more likely to focus on "surgical degradation of militia capabilities" in response to provocations while avoiding "moving up that escalation ladder" by risking direct confrontation with Iran.
In an official statement after Tuesday's strikes, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin affirmed the U.S. does not want to "escalate conflict in the region" and called on these militias to cease their attacks.
"In 2024, it is highly likely American forces will be forced to engage in multiple military campaigns throughout the Middle East because of increasing pressure from Iran and Iran-aligned organizations," said Heras, the New Lines Institute analyst.
"Iran has carefully developed a strategy that applies pressure on the U.S. and Israel from multiple directions, as evidenced by the expansion of the Gaza conflict into Yemen and the ongoing Iranian-backed campaign against U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria," Heras said.
In Heras' view, President Joe Biden has shown he is "personally committed" to supporting Israel against Hamas while simultaneously seeking to "intimidate Iran and Iran-backed groups" to prevent them from undermining Israel's war effort by opening other regional fronts. The U.S. presently has 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria. Bohl doubts the U.S. will significantly alter present regional deployments in the near term unless there is a major escalation between Israel and Iran or Israel and Hezbollah. "For now, the current force disposition seems capable of responding to attacks while denying Iran and its proxies a more target-rich environment should they deploy more forces there," Bohl said. Heras doubts there will be any withdrawal of U.S. troops in the near future. "Senior Biden administration officials are not likely to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq and Syria, even with escalating attacks from Iranian-backed groups, because to withdraw U.S. forces would be seen as an American capitulation to Iran at a time when Israel is at war," Heras said.But keeping U.S. forces in place is also fraught with danger. "There is a big risk for the Biden team that its muddle-through approach to the war in Gaza and the widening conflict in the Middle East will lead to a quagmire for the Americans in the region," Heras added.

The Houthis are still trying to attack ships, but most of the time, they can't get their missiles in the air before the US blows them up
Jake Epstein/Business Insider/Wed, January 24, 2024
The Houthis on Wednesday launched their first attack in nearly a week on commercial shipping. US forces have been carrying out a handful of preemptive strikes against the rebels lately.The strikes have hit multiple anti-ship missiles that were prepared to launch and posed a threat.
The US military has changed tactics in how it deals with Houthi attacks on commercial shipping, now conducting preemptive strikes against the Iran-backed rebels regularly, and it appears to be having an effect.
A US Navy warship on Wednesday shot down two anti-ship ballistic missiles fired by the Houthis at the M/V Maersk Detroit, a container ship that's flagged, owned, and operated by the US, while a third missile landed in the water, according to a statement from US Central Command, or CENTCOM.
This marked the Houthis' first confirmed missile launch in nearly a week, although it's not for a lack of trying. US forces have been consistently blowing up their missiles before the rebels even have a chance to launch them. The tactic shift happened last week. On Jan. 18, the Houthi rebels fired two anti-ship ballistic missiles at a US-owned and Greek-operated tanker. CENTCOM said this marked their third attack on commercial ships in as many days. Since then, the US has carried out at least four rounds of preemptive strikes against Houthi anti-ship missiles that were aimed at either the southern Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden, two key routes for global shipping. In each instance — on Jan. 19, 20, 22, and 24 — the Pentagon said its forces hit the missiles while they were "prepared to launch" and presented an immediate "threat" to merchant vessels and US Navy ships in the region. The military asserted in all four cases that it destroyed the Houthi missiles in "self-defense" and its actions make international waters off the coast of Yemen safer to transit. The US military's preemptive — and unilateral — strikes on the Houthi missiles represent a notable shift in tactics since Washington first opted to strike the rebels on Jan. 11 alongside British forces. Prior to that escalated response, Western militaries had spent months shooting down Houthi threats without taking any retaliatory kinetic action inside Yemen. After intercepting threats ultimately proved insufficient, Washington and its allies then issued warnings that the rebels would face serious consequences if they didn't stop their attacks on international shipping. They weren't deterred, and military action eventually followed. The Houthi rebels are, however, still trying to launch attacks.
Amid the US military's multiple preemptive strikes, American and British forces on Monday carried out another round of joint strikes, targeting Houthi sites and facilities across Yemen. The US assesses it has "destroyed or degraded" more than 25 missile launch and deployment facilities, over 20 missiles, and also hit drone, radar, weapons storage, and air surveillance capabilities "with good effects" since the initial round of strikes earlier this month, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said during a Tuesday briefing. Ryder noted that the US has conducted several "self-defense strikes" over the past week when facing "an imminent threat or an anticipated launch," which he indicated will remain a focus for the Pentagon. He acknowledged, however, that the Houthis — who boast a formidable arsenal of Iranian-provided weaponry — do still retain "some" of their capabilities. How much, exactly, is unclear, although Pentagon officials estimate the rebels maintain a majority of their ability to launch missiles and drones at ships, per The New York Times. "It's not out of the question that there could be additional strikes," Ryder explained at the recent briefing. "But again, our goal here is to ensure that the Red Sea is safe and secure for international shipping and mariners. That is our only goal."

US asks China to urge Iran to curb Red Sea attacks by Houthis -FT
(Reuters)/January 24, 2024
The United States has asked China to urge Tehran to rein in the Iranian-aligned Houthi rebels attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea but has seen little sign of help from Beijing, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, citing U.S. officials.
The U.S. has repeatedly raised the matter with top Chinese officials in the past three months, the report said. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan and his deputy, Jon Finer, discussed the issue in meetings this month in Washington with Liu Jianchao, head of the International Liaison Department of China's Communist Party, the newspaper said. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also raised the issue with his Chinese counterpart, the report said, adding U.S. officials believe there was little evidence that China had put any pressure on Iran to restrain the Houthis beyond a mild statement Beijing issued last week. Earlier on Wednesday, the U.S. military carried out strikes in Yemen, destroying two Houthi anti-ship missiles that were aimed at the Red Sea and were preparing to launch. On Monday, U.S. and British forces carried out a round of strikes in Yemen, targeting a Houthi underground storage site as well as missile and surveillance capabilities used by the Iran-aligned group against Red Sea shipping.The Houthi attacks have disrupted global shipping and stoked fears of global inflation. They have also deepened concern that fallout from the Israel-Hamas war could destabilize the Middle East.

Exclusive-US, Iraq to initiate talks on end of US-led military coalition
BAGHDAD (Reuters)/January 24, 2024
The United States and Iraq are set to initiate talks on the end of a U.S.-led international military coalition in Iraq and how to replace it with bilateral relations, four sources said, a step forward in a process that was stalled by the Gaza war.
The U.S. conveyed the message in a letter handed over by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Alina Romanowski to Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein on Wednesday, three sources said. In doing so, the U.S. had dropped preconditions that attacks against it by Iran-backed Iraqi militant groups in Iraq first stop, three sources said. Iraq's foreign ministry said that an "important" letter had been handed over and the prime minister would study it carefully, without elaborating. The talks are expected to take several months, if not longer, with the outcome unclear and no U.S. troop withdrawal imminent. The United States has 2,500 troops in Iraq, advising and assisting local forces to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State, which in 2014 seized large parts of Iraq and Syria before being defeated. Hundreds of troops from other mostly European countries are also in Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition that was set up to fight Islamic State. That mission's presence in Iraq has come under increasing pressure. Iraq, a rare ally of both Tehran and Washington, has witnessed escalating tit-for-tat attacks between militias and U.S. forces since the Gaza war began, with the militias seeking to pressure the U.S. over its support for Israel.
U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria have been attacked about 150 times by Iran-aligned militants based in Iraq, and the U.S. has conducted a series of retaliatory strikes, the latest on Tuesday. The escalating violence has led Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to call for the quick exit of U.S.-led coalition forces via negotiations, a process that was beginning to be initiated last year but stalled when the Gaza war began.Washington had been unwilling to negotiate a potential withdrawal while under fire, concerned it would make any change to the mission seem coerced, thereby emboldening regional rivals, including Iran. But the calculus changed amid a realization that the attacks would likely not stop and that the status quo was leading to steady escalation, two of the sources said. "The U.S. and Iraq are close to agreement on starting the Higher Military Commission dialogue that was announced back in August," a U.S. official said. They said the commission would allow for joint evaluation of the Iraqi security forces' capacity to fight Islamic State and "shape the nature of the bilateral security relationship.""We have been discussing this for months. The timing is not related to recent attacks. The U.S. will maintain full right of self-defense during the talks," the official said. The attacks have been led by powerful hardline Iraqi militias with close links to Iran, most of which do not have representation in parliament or government but still influence decision-making. Iraqi and U.S. officials hope that formally initiating the talks could have the effect of lowering political pressure on Sudani's government and potentially decrease attacks on U.S. forces.

Israeli bombing of Gaza kills 125 amid Cairo truce talks
Agence France Presse/January 24, 2024
Heavy Israeli bombardment of Gaza overnight killed at least 125 people, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said Wednesday, against the backdrop of talks in Cairo aimed at reaching a truce. As the fighting raged, the U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said Israeli forces had issued fresh evacuation orders for a section of Khan Younis housing an estimated half a million residents and displaced people. The orders came as the World Food Programme warned Gazans were facing "catastrophic food insecurity", and as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took Israel to task over its rejection of a two-state solution -- seen by ally the United States as the only path to a durable peace. The heaviest fighting was taking place in Khan Younis, the birthplace of Hamas's Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, accused of being the mastermind of the October 7 attacks that sparked the war. The Israeli military says it has "encircled" the southern city and that its troops were intensifying operations "in the area of the Khan Younis (refugee) camp".Gaza hospitals had received the bodies of 125 people killed overnight, the health ministry said. The Hamas government said more than 200 people were killed, without specifying a timeframe. It accused the Israeli army of forcibly displacing "tens of thousands" of people from Khan Younis to Rafah, the city in south Gaza that abuts the Egyptian frontier. The Palestinian Red Crescent said three displaced people were killed and three wounded when Israeli forces targeted its headquarters in the southern city.
'Buffer zone'
The Gaza war began with Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attacks, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. In response, Israel has carried out a relentless military offensive that has killed at least 25,490 people in Gaza, about 70 percent of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory. The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come under mounting pressure from the Israeli public to end the war. That pressure has mounted after 24 soldiers were killed Monday in the army's deadliest single day since it launched ground operations in Gaza. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said 21 of them were reservists killed "when a squad of terrorists surprised the force" with rocket-propelled grenade fire. Citing Israeli officials, The New York Times said they died during an Israeli operation to demolish part of a Palestinian neighborhood as part of a plan to create a "buffer zone" inside Gaza along the Israeli border. The World Food Programme warned conditions in the territory were worsening. "More than half a million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic food insecurity levels and the risk of famine increases each day," said the WFP's senior Middle East spokeswoman, Abeer Etefa. U.N. chief Guterres, meanwhile, decried Israeli officials' repeated rejection of calls for the creation of a Palestinian state as "unacceptable", saying it "would indefinitely prolong" the conflict.
'Nothing to eat'
In Gaza City, people displaced by the war said they were stuck in a new conflict zone without provisions. "They besieged us in the camp and brought us here, and even here, the shelling continued," Umm Dahud al-Kafarna, originally from Beit Hanoun, told AFPTV. "They have besieged us for six days, leaving us with nothing to eat or drink while bombing us from the air, sea and tanks." U.S. President Joe Biden's Middle East envoy Brett McGurk is in the region for talks aimed at brokering a new deal to free the remaining captives in exchange for a pause in fighting. "Certainly one of the things he's in the region talking about is the potential for another hostage deal, which would require a humanitarian pause of some length," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. "The conversations are very sober and serious about trying to get another hostage deal." A Palestinian source familiar with the talks told AFP a Hamas delegation had arrived in Cairo on Tuesday to meet Egypt's intelligence chief and discuss new ceasefire proposals. A source close to Hamas told AFP that the talks in the Egyptian capital were continuing on Wednesday.
Wider escalation
The Gaza war has spurred fears of a wider escalation, with a surge in violence involving Iran-backed Hamas allies across the Middle East. The U.S. military said it carried out strikes on Iran-backed groups in both Iraq and Yemen overnight. A spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani sharply criticised the United States over the strikes. "This unacceptable act" was contributing to "a reckless escalation... at a time when the region is already grappling with the danger of an expanding conflict," said Yehia Rasool, the Iraqi leader's spokesman for military affairs. In Yemen, the U.S. military said it destroyed two anti-ship missiles of the Iran-backed Houthi movement overnight, which had posed an "imminent threat". It was the latest in a series of strikes by the United States and Britain aimed at reducing the Houthis' ability to target shipping, which they have done since November in support of Palestinians in Gaza. In Lebanon, the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said Tuesday it struck the Israeli air control base of Meron for a second time in recent weeks, in response to Israeli "assassinations" and attacks on civilians. Israel's military said it struck several locations in Lebanon on Tuesday, including a "military asset" used by Hezbollah and "operated by Iranian forces". The army also said reservists killed a "terrorist" who opened fire on them in the occupied West Bank.

Cameron tells Israeli PM Netanyahu of need for two-state solution
Media: UK NewsSam Blewett, PA Deputy Political Edito/January 24, 2024
Lord David Cameron told Benjamin Netanyahu of the need for a two-state solution after the Israeli prime minister rejected allies’ demands for Palestinian statehood. The Foreign Secretary reiterated his call for an “immediate humanitarian pause” as they held a meeting at Mr Netanyahu’s office in Jerusalem on Wednesday. The Tory peer urged Israel to open more crossing points into Gaza to allow crucial humanitarian aid into the besieged strip. He also called for the protection of medics and hospitals after their destruction in the war in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s wave of bloodshed in Israel on October 7. Lord Cameron also met with Palestine Authority president Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, in the West Bank, during his diplomatic mission to the Middle East. Mr Netanyahu has maintained his objection to Palestinian statehood despite calls from the US to work towards the two-state solution after the conflict. The leader of a far-right government, he said last week that the idea would “endanger the state of Israel” as he criticised the “attempt to coerce us”.On Thursday, the Foreign Office said Lord Cameron reiterated the UK’s support for Israel’s attempts to secure the release of the remaining hostages, believed to number about 130, still being held by Hamas. But he also underlined to Mr Netanyahu that Britain believes long-term peace must be based on achieving a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

UN court to issue ruling Friday on South Africa's request for order to halt Israel's Gaza offensive
THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP)/January 24, 2024 
The United Nations’ top court will issue a decision Friday on South Africa’s request for interim orders in a genocide case against Israel, including that Israel halt its offensive in Gaza. The decision is a preliminary stage of a case filed by South Africa at the International Court of Justice alleging that Israel’s military action in its war with Hamas in Gaza amounts to genocide. Israel strongly rejects the accusation and has asked the court to throw out the case. The court announced the timing of the interim ruling on Wednesday. Israel launched its massive air and ground assault on Gaza soon after Hamas militants stormed through Israeli communities on Oct. 7 and killed some 1,200 people, mainly civilians. Israel often boycotts international tribunals and U.N. investigations, saying they are unfair and biased. But the country’s leaders sent a high-level legal team to two days of hearings earlier this month — a sign of how seriously they regard the case and and an indication of likely concerns that any court order to halt operations would be a major blow to the country’s international standing. If the court grants some or all of South Africa’s eight requests for so-called provisional measures, it is unclear if Israel will comply.

'Much higher' likelihood of war in Israel's north in coming months, army chief says
Agence France Presse/January 24, 2024
Israel's army chief has said the likelihood of war breaking out on the country's northern border with Lebanon has become "much higher". "I don't know when the war in the north is, I can tell you that the likelihood of it happening in the coming months is much higher than it was in the past," Israeli army chief Herzi Halevi said in a statement during a visit to northern Israel. The Lebanese-Israeli border has seen near daily exchanges of fire between Israel's army and Hezbollah. Hamas's armed wing said Wednesday it had fired 20 rockets from southern Lebanon towards Israel in response to the "massacres" in Gaza and the killing of the group's deputy leader in Beirut earlier this month. The Israeli army said Wednesday it had carried out air strikes in southern Lebanon, including on "terrorist infrastructure sites and a number of active launchers". Israel on Tuesday launched its most intense attacks on a single location in Lebanon's south, targeting a border valley with air strikes and artillery. Over 190 people have been killed in Lebanon during more than three months of violence, including more than 140 Hezbollah fighters and over 20 civilians, among them three journalists, according to an AFP tally. In northern Israel, nine soldiers and six civilians have been killed, according to Israeli authorities.

Irish government under further pressure to join Gaza genocide case
Media: UK News/January 24, 2024
The Irish government has faced further pressure to join South Africa in a genocide case against Israel, as opposition parties criticised its decision to await the preliminary findings from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Taoiseach has said the government will wait until South Africa files its main case against Israel before deciding whether to submit an intervention. South Africa has brought a case against Israel’s action in Gaza, which has killed 25,000 people since October, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. On Wednesday, the Social Democrats tabled a motion in the Dail calling on the Irish government to support South Africa’s case. Social Democrats leader Holly Cairns said that the question of Ireland supporting the case at the ICJ has been “firmly kicked to touch”.“We are told you will strongly consider an intervention in the South African case but only after the preliminary ruling has been made and after South Africa files its substantive case,” Ms Cairns said. “That could take months… We do not need to wait for preliminary judgments and subsequent assessments to indicate our support. I’m sure the government knows that.” Ms Cairns also accused the government of refusing to use the word genocide in reference to Israel’s actions in Gaza. “This is despite the enormous death toll, the tens of thousands who have been maimed, the collapse of the healthcare system, the breakout of famine and the fact that the UN is now warning Gaza has been rendered uninhabitable,” the West Cork TD said.“Clearly, genocide isn’t a word the government wants to use in relation to Israel, at least not until the preliminary ruling from the ICJ gets it some cover.”Later on Wednesday evening, hundreds of protesters gathered outside Leinster House in support of the motion. Demonstrators waved Palestinian flags and carried placards which called on the Taoiseach to boycott the traditional annual trip to the White House for St Patrick’s Day over US support of Israel.
Under the night sky, protesters installed a large illuminated sign spelling out “Gaza” across the road from the gates of Leinster House. Delivering a speech at the protest, People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the US and leading European Union states are “up to their necks in Palestinian blood and complicity with Israel’s crimes”. He added: “It is beyond shameful that the Irish Government still this week is refusing to commit to support South Africa’s brave, courageous decision to take Israel to the ICJ for the crime of genocide against the people of Gaza.”Social Democrats TD Gary Gannon accused the Government of being “cowardly” in its position, adding: “We can’t stand back and be meek.”Labour leader Ivana Bacik said Israel was practising apartheid. Israel-Hamas conflictShe said: “Today we stand in solidarity with the people of Gaza as they endure horrific bombardment.”Independent senator Frances Black said: “Three-and-a-half months into this nightmare, the Government continues to sit on the fence.“After all this time, all the death, the destruction, horror – Government still refuses to take meaningful action. It has to make you wonder – if not now, when? “What does Israel have to do for Ireland to impose sanctions? Is empty rhetoric the only thing we can offer our Palestinian brothers and sisters when they look for practical assistance in their darkest hour.”
During the Dail debate, Social Democrats TD Catherine Murphy said Israel is engaging in a “land grab”. “This is about wiping out the Palestinian people or removing them from the homeland,” Ms Murphy said. “That’s what this is about. It’s about a genocide. It’s about ethnic cleansing.”
Israel-Hamas conflict. Minister for agriculture Charlie McConalogue said the government is taking the South Africa’s case “very seriously”.“Any decision we take about an intervention will be based on detailed and rigorous legal analysis,” he added. “The government’s position has been clear and consistent across all forums in its bilateral engagement. We need a humanitarian ceasefire. This is a message we conveyed to the United Nations yesterday and remains central to the Tanaiste’s approach to the Foreign Affairs Council earlier this week.”Sinn Fein’s Matt Carthy said more than 25,000 people, including 10,000 children, have been killed in the last 100 days. He said that the Israeli military has attacked every hospital in Gaza and demolished education buildings. “If that isn’t genocide, well then I really do not know what genocide will ever mean again because what would we apply that term to?” Mr Carthy added.
“If we can’t apply it to what is being done by Israel on the Palestinian people of Gaza, well then, essentially, the term of genocide becomes a unicorn. Something that doesn’t happen. “But it does happen because it is happening in Gaza right now.”

New US envoy to Egypt lauds Cairo’s role in fighting for Middle East peace
GOBRAN MOHAMED/Arab News/January 24, 2024
CAIRO: America’s new ambassador to Egypt has praised the decades of “courage” shown by Cairo in fighting for peace and stability in the Middle East. And Iraq-born Herro Mustafa Garg pledged the US’ ongoing support for Egyptian efforts to bring about an end to regional conflict and broker a two-state solution for the people of Palestine and Israel. In a video posted on the US Embassy’s social media page, the envoy highlighted “the courage and conviction shown by Egypt’s leaders 45 years ago (signing the Egypt-Israel peace treaty) in giving priority to peace over conflict, elevating common understanding over violence, and investing in prosperity over strife.”She said: “It can and should serve as a source of inspiration for us and our shared mission of restoring peace and stability in the region.”Garg noted that as the new US ambassador, she was looking forward to working in Cairo and building a partnership with the Egyptian government and people. Born in Iraq, she moved to the US with her family at an early age and pointed out that she had recently become “the first American ambassador to Egypt from the region.”She added that during her career at the US State Department and the White House, she had focused on joint work between the US, the Middle East, Europe, and India. Garg said: “I can think of no place I would rather be right now than in Egypt, the beating heart of the Arab world.”The American diplomat noted that the current conflict in the Gaza Strip once again demonstrated the extent of Egypt’s leadership capabilities and its key role in contributing to efforts to achieve stability, peace, and prosperity in the Middle East. She added that her priorities were to strengthen the economic, security, and diplomatic partnership between the peoples of Egypt and the US. “Expanding our strong partnership is essential to respond to the current regional conflict. It also will ensure that we, together, address our broader shared challenges, including the effects of climate change and the global food insecurity crisis, (while) holding ourselves up to the highest standards of human rights accountability and achieving inclusive and sustainable economic growth for Egypt that harnesses the full potential of all segments of society, particularly women and youth. “I look forward to discovering the rich culture, history, and traditions of Umm El-Dunya (mother of the world). “I can’t wait to start working together to chart a prosperous and hopeful path forward for our two nations,” Garg said.

Egypt’s El-Sisi accuses Israel of impeding aid deliveries to Gaza
REUTERS/January 24, 2024
DUBAI: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi accused Israel on Wednesday of holding up aid deliveries for Gaza at the Rafah border crossing. “This is a form of pressure on the Gaza Strip and its people over the conflict and the release of hostages. They are using this as a pressure tool on the people of the Strip,” El-Sisi told a gathering of military officers and state officials. “We used to send Gaza 600 trucks a day. But for the past two to three days, we are not delivering more than 200 to 220 trucks (of aid) per day. How are these people (in Gaza) living?” he said. “Egypt’s Rafah crossing is open 24/7 every day of the month. But the procedures taking place on the Israeli side for us to send in the aid without it being blocked by anyone, they are the reason (for holdups).” Israel’s air and ground war in Gaza following a surprise cross-border assault by Hamas militants has caused a severe humanitarian crisis, with most of Gaza’s 2.3 million people left homeless and acutely short of food, water, medicine and fuel. Israel has previously denied holding up aid to Gaza via the Rafah crossing.

NATO kicks off largest military exercise in decades
AFP/January 24, 2024
BRUSSELS: NATO on Wednesday began its biggest military exercise since the Cold War with a US warship leaving the United States for transit across the Atlantic to alliance territory in Europe. The Western military alliance has said some 90,000 troops will take part in the months-long Steadfast Defender 24 exercise designed to test its defenses in the face of Russia’s war on Ukraine. “The alliance will demonstrate its ability to reinforce the Euro-Atlantic area via trans-Atlantic movement of forces from North America,” said General Christopher Cavoli, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe. “Steadfast Defender 2024 will be a clear demonstration of our unity, strength, and determination to protect each other, our values and the rules-based international order.”The exercise is designed to simulate the 31-nation alliance’s response to an attack from a rival like Russia. It will be composed of a series of smaller individual drills and will span from North America to NATO’s eastern flank, close to the Russian border. Some 50 naval vessels, 80 aircraft and over 1,100 combat vehicles will take part. The exercise — the biggest since the 1988 Reforger drill during the Cold War — comes as NATO has overhauled its defenses since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The alliance has dispatched thousands of troops to its eastern flank and drawn up its most extensive plans since the collapse of the Soviet Union to protect itself from a Russian attack.

Activists decry ‘glaring injustice’ of Iran protester’s execution
AFP/January 24, 2024
PARIS: The execution of the ninth man to be hanged over protests that swept Iran in 2022 marks a new stage in Tehran’s rampant use of the death penalty, rights groups say. The groups argue that Mohammad Ghobadlou had mental health issues and that his original death sentence had been overturned. Ghobadlou, 23, was put to death early Tuesday in Ghezel Hesar prison in the city of Karaj outside Tehran. He had been convicted over the death of a police officer who the authorities say was run over by a car during the protests in September 2022.
“The killing of Mohammad Ghobadlou in Iran, who struggled with mental illness, stands as a glaring injustice, a murder carried out under the guise of a judicial process that lacks any semblance of fairness,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. The Instagram account of 2023 Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who is in Tehran’s Evin prison, said 61 women political prisoners there would go on hunger strike on Thursday to protest against executions in Iran. Ghobadlou’s hanging took place “under circumstances where even a final verdict for execution did not exist,” the post said. It was not immediately clear how long the hunger strike would last. There has been a surge in executions in Iran in recent months, which activists say is aimed at instilling fear in the population. According to the Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) group, 51 people have been executed in the first weeks of 2024 alone. IHR and other groups say Ghobadlou was the ninth man to be executed over the demonstrations. The protests erupted in September 2022 following the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly flouting the strict dress code for women, and were seen as one of the biggest challenges to the clerical leadership in decades. Rights groups expressed particular shock at the hanging given that the death sentence for Ghobadlou had been essentially overturned in February 2023, when the Supreme Court granted a stay of execution and later referred his case to a new jurisdiction to deal with issues relating to his mental health. “Mohammad Ghobadlou’s execution is an extrajudicial killing according to international law and the Islamic Republic’s own laws,” said the executive director of IHR, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.
It said his lawyers had only been notified after office hours on Monday that the execution would take place on Tuesday morning. Harrowing footage posted on social media showed his family wailing with grief at the gates of the prison when his execution was confirmed, and hours later lying prostrate on his grave.
“The arbitrary execution of Mohammad Ghobadlou dumbfounded his loved ones and lawyer, who were awaiting his retrial” said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Amnesty said documents published by Iranian media show judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei had personally intervened to annul the order for a retrial and allow the execution to go ahead. According to Amnesty, Ghobadlou had been under the supervision of a psychiatric hospital for bipolar disorder since the age of 15, and had stopped taking his medication ahead of the incident. Before Ghobadlou’s hanging Iran had already executed eight men in cases related to the protests, with rights groups accusing Tehran of using capital punishment as a way to instil fear into the people.
Also executed at the same prison on Wednesday was Kurdish-Iranian Farhad Salimi, one of seven men sentenced to death and held in prison for one-and-a-half decades in a case linked to a Muslim cleric’s killing in 2008. Salimi is the fourth of the men to be hanged in the case in recent months, with rights groups warning that the lives of the other three are now at imminent risk. The executions of Ghobadlou and Salimi “after egregiously unfair trials mark a harrowing descent into new realms of cruelty,” Amnesty said. UN human rights chief Volker Turk said he was “alarmed by the sharp spike in the use of the death penalty in Iran.”“This practice must be stopped immediately,” he said.

Russia accuses Ukraine of shooting down plane carrying 65 Ukrainian POWs
Associated Press./January 24, 2024
Russia's Defense Ministry on Wednesday accused Ukrainian forces of shooting down a military transport plane, killing all 74 people aboard, including 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war being swapped. Ukrainian officials did not immediately confirm or deny Russia's claims about the crash in Russia's Belgorod border region, although they said they were looking into them. The Associated Press could not confirm who was aboard or other details on what brought the plane down. Throughout the 700-day war, Russia and Ukraine have traded conflicting accusations, and establishing the facts has often been difficult, both because of the constraints of a war zone and because each side tightly controls information. Video of the crash posted on social media showed a plane falling from the sky in a snowy, rural area, and a massive ball of fire erupting where it apparently hit the ground.
In addition to the 65 POWs, the Il-76 transport carried a crew of six and three other passengers, the Russian military said. According to the statement, Russian radar registered the launch of two missiles from Ukraine's Kharkiv region that borders the Belgorod region. The ministry did not provide evidence for its claim. Firefighters, ambulances and police rushed to the site in the Korochansky district of Belgorod, state news agency Tass reported, citing a local emergency services official. The Russian military said the POWs were being flown to the region for a prisoner swap when the plane was downed at 11:15 a.m. local time (0815 GMT, 3:15 a.m. EST). The Ukrainian military intelligence spokesman, Andrii Yusov, confirmed to media that a prisoner swap was to happen Wednesday but was not going ahead. He said the agency is checking whether Ukrainian POWs were on the plane.
The plane was headed to the Belgorod region from the Chkalovsky air field in the Moscow region, and the POW swap was scheduled to take place at the Kolotilovka crossing on the Russian-Ukrainian border, the statement read. The crossing is about 135 kilometers (85 miles) west of the village of Yablonovo, near where the plane fell. Ukraine's Kharkiv region and Russia's Belgorod region have long been a focus of the fighting, especially involving airstrikes with missiles and drones.
Russia has largely ensured its air dominance during the war against Ukraine's fleet of Soviet-era warplanes. But Russia has suffered a series of crashes that some observers have attributed to a higher number of flights amid the fighting in Ukraine.
At the same time, Kyiv has boasted of shooting down two Russian command and control planes, which would be a major feat for Ukraine if true. Cross-border attacks on Russia's Belgorod region also have increased, with the deadliest one killing 25 people in December. Shortly before the crash, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said on his Telegram channel that a "missile alert" had been triggered in the region and urged residents to take shelter. Ukraine's Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War said it was looking into the crash but did not immediately provide any information. Instead, it cautioned against sharing "unverified information.""We emphasize that the enemy is actively conducting information special operations against Ukraine aimed at destabilizing Ukrainian society," it said in a statement on Telegram.
The Russian Defense Ministry said a special military commission was headed to the crash site. President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on his call with reporters that he could not comment on the crash because he did not have enough information about it. The Il-76 is designed to carry up to 225 troops, cargo, military equipment and weapons, according to Russia's military export agency.
The war's 1,500-kilometer (930-mile) front line has been largely static amid a second winter of fighting. As both sides seek to replenish their weapons stockpiles, the war recently has focused on long-range strikes. Earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a major Russian missile attack on Tuesday had killed 18 people and injured 130. The barrage, employing more than 40 ballistic, cruise, anti-aircraft and guided missiles hit 130 residential buildings in three Ukrainian cities, "all ordinary houses," Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter. Russia's onslaught, which included targets in Kyiv and the second-largest city of Kharkiv, was the heaviest in weeks and lent weight to Zelenskyy's appeals for Western allies to provide more military aid. "This year, the main priority is to strengthen air defense to protect our cities and towns, as well as defend front-line positions," Zelenskyy posted Tuesday. Analysts say Russia has stockpiled missiles to pursue a winter of aerial bombardment, while Ukraine has sought to strike inside Russia with new types of drones. Russia may have employed decoy missiles in Tuesday's attack in an effort to open up holes in Ukraine's air defenses, a U.S. think tank said.
The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said Moscow is likely trying to acquire more ballistic missiles from foreign countries, including Iran and North Korea, because they may be more effective in some circumstances.
A further barrage of Russian S-300 missiles struck residential districts of Kharkiv late Tuesday, injuring nine people and damaging residential buildings, regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Russia denies its forces strike civilian areas, although there is substantial evidence to the contrary.
Also on Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down four Ukrainian drones in the Oryol region of western Russia. Oryol Mayor Yuri Parakhin said that several drones were downed over the city with no casualties.
Another Ukrainian drone was downed early Wednesday over the Belgorod border region, according to Gladkov. He said there were no casualties or damage. Ukraine's allies have promised more military aid even though their resources are stretched. Help from the United States, by far Ukraine's single biggest provider, has also hit political snags. The German Defense Ministry said Wednesday it plans to send six Sea King Mk41 helicopters to Ukraine.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 24-25/2024
A Hundred Days after Gaza's October 7
Part I: Double Helix over Gaza
Gwythian Prins/Gatestone Institute./January 24, 2024
History has the form of a double helix: history is indeed the DNA of living memory. There is what actually happened and there is what people believe happened. They are not the same but they are inseparable....
Hamas had told Israel that it intended to focus on helping its people in Gaza and that it did not want war. Israel, to show good faith, had even provided work permits for thousands of Palestinians to enter Israel every day for better wages than in Gaza. What Israel did not know was that many of them were spies who would tell Hamas exactly where in the villages to attack.
An elated youth called Mahmoud called home to his father and mother in Gaza using a murdered Israeli woman's phone to boast about how he had just killed ten Jews with his own hands ("oh my son God bless you"... "Mom, your son is a hero"). Part of the recording was played to the judges of the ICJ as part of the State of Israel's must-see rebuttal of South Africa's accusations.
Jeffrey Gettleman, in The New York Times on 28th December, published details of the unimaginable mass depravity committed by Gazan men on Israeli women....
Many of the first responses to these events, as with the Holocaust, were denials that such savageries had ever taken place.
Almost four months to the day, and not in a good way, the world has turned upside down.
In a risibly threadbare case, the victim of a depraved genocidal attack was accused at the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague of committing genocide. Lacking evidence of mens rea (criminal intention) that is prerequisite, or indeed any vestige of substantive evidence, South Africa sought to invert the object and purpose of the Genocide Convention of December 1948, which is specific to the "crime of crimes". The accused is not just any victim, but the Jewish state, whose re-establishment in the May of the same year that the Convention was brought into effect was no coincidence.
Raphael Lemkin's coinage of the concept of "genocide" was occasioned by the need to find words to describe the systematic killing of six million Jews by the Nazis. South Africa's case, rather than putting Israel on trial, instead parrots, in places, the genocidal views of Hamas and other fundamentalist splinters of the Muslim Brotherhood, and surely must be an embarrassment to some of the distinguished jurists who lent themselves to that litigation. Unintentionally no doubt, it also puts the credibility of the court itself in the dock.
At the end of the week in which the ICJ heard this shoddy case, and within the massed ranks marching "for Gaza" (meaning against Israel for the seventh time on the streets of London), a new poster could be spotted. It explained that in fact the USA and Israel itself were together responsible for the pogrom of 7th October 2023. Why did they do it? Our race-baiting poster-writer – whom the Met Police failed to arrest – opined that it was to steal Iran's oil, just as they stole Libya's and Iraq's. So, in the poster's world-view, the Jews inflicted genocide on themselves because of their schemes of world domination, starting by incriminating the "true" victims – Hamas – who were the actual perpetrators. In this moral inversion, Hamas may have wielded the instruments of rape, torture and murder but they did so blamelessly.
All that was lacking was one of the visual cues to complete the full repertoire of anti-Semitic tropes, re-framed as "Israelophobia" – no more and no less than the old blood libels revived in new form.
From the Black Hundreds to the Nazis to Hamas and its supporters on the streets of London in 2024. Never Again? It is happening before our eyes. How? Why? Where did all this dark energy come from?
Now that more than one hundred days have passed since the pogrom of 7/10 and with Israel still fully engaged in what has become its longest and most technically difficult war since its War of Independence in 1948, there are three aspects to an adequate answer to those questions, aspects which hitherto have not been prominently interlinked in one place. One facet is historical, a second is ethical, a third is legal; together, they might help to form a view of what might -- and what should -- come next?
Why have so many Western journalists and university people been culpably blind and biased in their reporting? What are the ethics and laws of armed conflict which actually pertain in such warfare? That is the structure of what follows.
History has the form of a double helix: history is indeed the DNA of living memory. There is what actually happened and there is what people believe happened. They are not the same but they are inseparable; and both are the proper study of historians. The bitter joke told in the days of the USSR was that the future was certain; only the past kept changing. Now this joke has become the bitter reality of the morally gutted universities of the English-speaking world where the long march of wokeness through all our institutions first quickened its step. Nowhere is the entwining of history's double helix more weaponised and deadly than in the modern Middle East.
In the intelligence communities, where countless warnings appear every day, it is often difficult to know what to believe and what is just clutter. In the US, warnings of the 9/11/2001 attacks were not heeded, as were warnings of the 7/7/2005 transit attacks in the UK. It is still not clear if Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was even told that documents warning of the possibility of the October attacks existed.
We do not know, and possibly never will, whether the failure in Israel on 7/10 was comprehensive: whether it was an epic intelligence failure based upon too great a reliance on technology and not enough attention paid to human intelligence, or whether it was a political failure to accept intelligence warnings as well.
What is clear is that Hamas seemed to have persuaded many in Israel at the time that it was not seeking war. There is evidence that a Hamas psyops deception strategy, well prepared for weeks with the fingerprints of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps all over it, "played" many Israelis. Hamas had told Israel that it intended to focus on helping its people in Gaza and that it did not want war. Israel, to show good faith, had even provided work permits for thousands of Palestinians to enter Israel every day for better wages than in Gaza. What Israel did not know was that many of them were spies who would tell Hamas exactly where in the villages to attack.
Meanwhile, on the other side of Israel, near Jordan, before the 7 October attack, terrorism had been on the rise in the West Bank, so Israel's attention and many IDF forces were concentrated there. For some weeks, there had been discounted reports from female IDF border surveillance soldiers warning of 'red flags' in suspicious activities in Gaza, and there is some indication that early on that fatal morning, tactical intelligence from a Gaza border watchtower, which was analysed a female soldier, was passed through before she was killed, but was not acted on in time. Agonised telephone calls came from the kibbutzim near Gaza, many members of which were peace-activists. Despite the pleading telephone calls, disastrously, the IDF could not get there in time.
There was, then, nothing to prevent the dawn invasion, which began with a barrage of rockets, motorized hang-gliders, bulldozers, and nearly 3,000 Hamas operatives and their followers who stormed 22 towns and villages. On hearing the news, it was left to individual IDF personnel, Israel Police and first responders to drop everything and rush south, spontaneously, tragically too late.
That day, more Jews were killed than on any day since the Holocaust. Nor were they simply killed. The conduct of the Hamas men fell short of standards set by the most educated of the commanding officers of one of the four Nazi SS Einsatzgruppen A-D (paramilitary genocide units.
On trial for his life at Nuremberg, Otto Ohlendorf, was commander of the southernmost Einsatzgruppe, responsible for murdering 91,000 Jews, Gypsies and Communists.
During his examination-in-chief, Ohlendorf said that genocide should be carried out "...as humanely as conditions would permit for the unfortunate victims, and to prevent brutal excesses by any of the [SS] men..." Executions were to be conducted by firing squads on command in a military manner: no maltreatment, no undressing, no belated on-the-scene confiscation of personal possessions, and no outsiders present. Any man evincing pleasure in this task was barred from future assignment. No-one could volunteer. Ohlendorf's affidavit statement reads like veterinary instruction for conscientious conduct of an abattoir.
Copious photographic evidence and testimony from all areas A-D produced at Nuremberg showed naked or semi-naked victims before execution. Such orders, if given, were simply not followed; and under cross-examination, Ohlendorf conceded that in fact outer clothing was removed just before execution but not any earlier in order to minimise distress. Yet Ohlendorf plainly sensed that it might help his defence at Nuremberg if he said that these orders should have been followed. He told the Court that these "humane" orders were his alone.
We have seen none of Ohlendorf's Nuremberg scruples in his successors. On 7th October, the attitude of Hamas's pathological murderers was that the Jews deserved what was coming to them, so the terrorists' blood-lust was unconstrained. Their own body camera evidence shows that there were no moral or command-ordained restraints whatsoever on what they might do. Those, especially military men whose minds are inured to horror and who have viewed this footage, told this author that the glee and joy of the rapists, torturers and murderers as they perpetrated these crimes was their strongest abiding shock.
An elated youth called Mahmoud called home to his father and mother in Gaza using a murdered Israeli woman's phone to boast about how he had just killed ten Jews with his own hands ("oh my son God bless you"... "Mom, your son is a hero"). Part of the recording was played to the judges of the ICJ as part of the State of Israel's must-see rebuttal of South Africa's accusations. Victims ranged from tiny babies decapitated or burned alive, to actual Holocaust survivors. By the terrorists' evident choice, young women were tortured, raped, brutalised, sometimes all at once, and then murdered, their corpses further mutilated in appallingly sadistic ways.
*Jeffrey Gettleman, in The New York Times on 28th December, published details of the unimaginable mass depravity committed by Gazan men on Israeli women, mainly at the Supernova music festival. The nearly naked body of murdered, free-spirited Shani Louk was taken back and contemptuously paraded through Gaza in the back of a pick-up truck and spat upon. Others in great number, including her boyfriend Orion Hernandez Radoux, were abducted as hostages and, at this writing, remain captive. According to the report, others endured even worse atrocities.
Many of the first responses to these events, as with the Holocaust, were denials that such savageries had ever taken place.
*Gwythian Prins is Research Professor Emeritus at the London School of Economics and a past member of the British Chief of the Defence Staff's Strategy Advisory Panel.
© 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.

'We Have to Kill Those Who Preach Christianity': The Persecution of Christians, December 2023/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/January 21, 2024
ريمون إبراهيم/ معهد جاتستون/قائمة بأحداث اضطهاد المسيحيين في العديد من الدول خلال شهر كانون الأول لعام 2013...علينا أن نقتل أولئك الذين يبشرون بالمسيحية":
ريمون إبراهيم/ معهد جاتستون/ 21 كانون الثاني/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/126379/126379/
"About 37 [Christian] individuals, primarily women, children and the disabled, were burned to death in their homes.... " — christianpost.com, December 30, 2023, Nigeria.

'We Have to Kill Those Who Preach Christianity': The Persecution of Christians, December 2023 (Christmas Edition)
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/January 21, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/126379/126379/
"About 37 [Christian] individuals, primarily women, children and the disabled, were burned to death in their homes.... " — christianpost.com, December 30, 2023, Nigeria.
"Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in the Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians' lands and impose Islam...." — morningstarnews.org, December 26, 2023, Nigeria.
"[I]t is also the existence of disbelief itself that is a 'grievance'," — Aymenn Jawad al Tamimi, December , 2023, Philippines.
[I]n Austria, on Dec. 9, Heiligenkreuz Abbey received a bomb threat by phone. Police later confirmed that it had an "Islamist overtone". The caller had said "Convert to Islam, or I'll bomb you away!".... Father John Paul commented: "[I]t encourages us even more to pray and work for peace, healing and reconciliation." — puls24.at, December 11, 2023.
"Reports include statements like, 'We have to kill those who preach Christianity, and these Christians have no place in Mauritania.'" — persecution.org, December 13, 2023.
Two Christian evangelists, Joseph and Isaac, after Muslims beat them for quoting the Koran, spent Christmas Day in jail for "blasphemy." The report does not indicate which verses were deemed so objectionable, or why. — morningstarnews.org, December 22, 2023, Uganda.
According to a January 2 report: "Three migrants who allegedly planned an attack on Cologne Cathedral are free again. A judge let them go after just one night in custody." Pictured: Police conduct security checks on visitors at Cologne Cathedral on December 24, 2023 in Cologne, Germany, after indications of an Islamist terror threat. (Photo by Andreas Rentz/Getty Images)
The following are among the abuses and murders inflicted on Christians by Muslims throughout the month of December 2023.
Christmas Slaughters
Nigeria: Beginning on Christmas Eve and into Christmas Day, Muslim terrorists massacred nearly 200 Christians. Well-armed Muslim Fulani tribesmen hacked, stabbed, riddled with bullets and burned alive Christians, many of whom were in the process of celebrating Christmas. According to one report:
"At least 25 communities across three Local Government Areas [in Plateau State] were targeted. Survivors recounted militia men attacking in large numbers, indiscriminately killing and destroying homes, vehicles, farmlands and other properties. About 37 individuals, primarily women, children and the disabled, were burned to death in their homes. Eight churches and parsonages were also destroyed..."
More than 300 Christians were left seriously wounded; 29,350 people displaced, and countless homes and churches—in just one village, 221 homes—torched during the jihadist raids. "My house was burnt," said Naomi, a local whose four family members were murdered, "and I mourned on Christmas day."
Several Christian leaders were also killed, including one pastor, his wife, and five children, said Dawzino Mallau, another local: "These terrorists who attacked these Christian communities were in the hundreds," he added, "and they carried out the attacks as the hapless Christians were preparing for Christmas programs lined up by their pastors." Another report stated:
"Most of the Christians killed were women, children and the elderly unable to escape..... Christian leaders in Nigeria have said they believe herdsmen attacks on Christian communities in the Middle Belt are inspired by their desire to forcefully take over Christians' lands and impose Islam... Nigeria led the world in Christians killed for their faith in 2022, with 5,014, according to Open Doors' 2023 World Watch List (WWL) report. It also led the world in Christians abducted (4,726), sexually assaulted or harassed, forcibly married or physically or mentally abused, and it had the most homes and businesses attacked for faith-based reasons. As in the previous year, Nigeria had the second most church attacks and internally displaced people."
Philippines: On Sunday, Dec. 3, Muslim terrorists bombed a Catholic mass being held in the gymnasium of Mindanao State University, Marawi. Four Christians—three women and one man—were killed, and more than 50 injured. "The explosion caused panic among dozens of worshippers and left the victims bloodied and sprawled on the ground," said the campus security chief. "At least two of the wounded were fighting for their lives." Based on camera footage, the terrorists arrived on motorcycle and left a bag full of explosives in the gymnasium before riding away.
Mass was being held in the gymnasium because there is no chapel on the university's grounds. Reminiscent of the Jolo Cathedral bombings of Jan. 27, 2019, when 20 Christians were killed and more than a 100 wounded, the explosion created a crater in the gym floor.
In Rome, Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims and appealed to "Christ the prince of peace (to) grant to all the strength to turn from violence and overcome every evil with good." The Islamic State later claimed the attack, and published an article, "The Philippines Are a Field of Jihad," where, according to analyst Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi,
"The Philippines is presented as a place where disbelievers (in this case, the Christians) oppress Muslims and are at war with them, and as part of this war the Christians have also managed to enlist 'apostate' [lapsed Muslim] allies from deviant groups that had espoused the idea of independence or autonomous rule for Muslims, contrasting with the Islamic State's purist stance of fighting for belief against disbelief and for God's law against man-made law. The Christians face a three-way choice: conversion, subjugation as dhimmis who pay jizya (poll-tax) in accordance with the dictates of Qur'an 9:29, or death.
"Thus, while part of the Islamic State's 'grievances' entail supposed oppression of Muslims, it is also the existence of disbelief itself that is a 'grievance', entailing subjugation and never-ending war to realise a global vision of conquest..."
Uganda: During a Christmas Day jihadist raid, Muslims of the Allied Democratic Forces, a terrorist front, slaughtered three Christians—a 75-year-old grandmother and her two grandchildren, aged five and 13. According to the slain woman's son Wilson Byaruhanga:
"The attackers were shouting the Muslim slogan, 'Allah Akbar' [God is greatest] and saying, 'We have to teach these infidels a lesson during this Christmas celebration.'"
After hiding his sick wife, and,
"on coming back to pick up my mother and the children, I found the Muslim terrorists were already at my mother's house, and there was a loud bang [from gunshot] and sound from the iron sheet roof, which was so frightening...I found out that the Muslim terrorists had killed my mother and the two children."
Six days earlier, the same Islamic terror group had slaughtered ten other Christians in another village.
Also in Uganda, a Muslim man killed his mother for becoming Christian. Before dying from her wounds, Sawuba Naigaga, 46, described what happened to a friend, who related that, on Dec. 15, Sawuba's son, 25, a graduate from an Islamic university, had returned home after spending four years in Saudi Arabia. That day, he heard his mother mentioning the name of Jesus while praying. According to her friend, before Sawuba died, she said:
"As I was praying with my eyes closed, my son called me, saying 'Mum, Mum—you are becoming a disgrace to the family and the religion of Allah.' I kept quiet, and he pushed me hard to the wall, then I fell down. He then took a blunt object and hit me at the head. Since then, I lost all my consciousness, only to find myself in the hospital bed."
Her friend added:
"One thing which I know is that she kept her faith silent from her family members, including her son.... I ran to Sawuba's home after hearing wailing from her house and an alarm from neighbors. I dashed quickly to the scene, and I found her in a pool of blood but in an unconscious state. We rushed her to a nearby hospital, but she breathed her last breath after two days on Dec. 17 due to internal bleeding."
Austria and Germany: Several terror plots were uncovered. In Germany, authorities arrested a Muslim man suspected of plotting a terror attack on the Christmas market of Hanover. The 20-year-old asylum seeker, originally from Iraq, allegedly planned on stabbing Christmas shoppers randomly with a knife. Although the "Lower Saxony State Criminal Police Office is currently not providing any further background information," according to the Dec. 1 report, the man "is said to be an Islamist who allegedly agreed to carry out such an attack in support of the terrorist militia 'Islamic State' (IS)."
Special Forces also managed to arrested several Islamic terrorists who planned on bombing churches and other targets during Christmas. According to a Dec. 24 report,
"After a specific terror warning, there was a major operation at Cologne Cathedral on Saturday [Dec. 23] evening. Security authorities in Austria, Germany and Spain have received indications that an Islamist terrorist cell may want to carry out several attacks in Europe on New Year's Eve or Christmas."
Vienna police confirmed that an increase in terrorist activities always occurs during the Christian season: "there is generally an increased risk in Austria during the Christmas holidays." The remainder of the report makes clear just how dangerous, and onerous, the Christmas season has become in Germany and Austria in recent years:
"Since terrorist actors across Europe are calling for attacks on Christian events—especially around December 24th—the security authorities have increased the corresponding protective measures in public spaces in Vienna and the federal states....
"In Cologne, the Cologne Cathedral was searched in the evening. The police operations management wanted to make sure that dangerous objects had not already been deposited in the church. That's why explosives detection dogs were used; they searched the cathedral for explosives for hours. The first all-clear was given on Sunday morning: no explosives were discovered.... [T]he cathedral is searched with sniffer dogs after the evening mass and then locked. Tomorrow all visitors will be screened before entering the church. The police and the cathedral chapter recommended avoiding bags on Christmas Eve and coming to mass early.
"In Vienna, St. Stephen's Cathedral is said to be particularly at risk. The Vienna police even announced access controls with submachine guns....
"There will be increased police precautions over the Christmas holidays. Civilian and uniformed emergency services with special equipment and long weapons are deployed. Police attention is focused primarily on churches and religious events, especially church services and Christmas markets. The measures are taken as necessary and can also include access controls if necessary. Visitors to events and church services are asked to bring a photo ID and to allow more time than usual."
Despite all of the above, according to a later report from Jan. 2, "Three migrants who allegedly planned an attack on Cologne Cathedral are free again. A judge let them go after just one night in custody."
Muslim Attacks on Christmas and Churches
Germany: On Sunday evening, Dec. 17, several life-sized nativity figures standing in front of a church were beheaded in Rüsselsheim, a migrant stronghold (images available here). Baby Jesus, Joseph, Mary, the Three Wise Men—even a donkey—were decapitated. According to one report, "the nativity scene, which was part of a Christmas marked, looked like a battlefield and the figure of Jesus in the manger was found beneath the rubble."
"The Rüsselsheim trade association that funded the nativity scene said the incident should be approached with humour, but was later criticised for downplaying the attack. 'This situation should be approached with humor and the Christmas story should be used as an analogy for solidarity and cohesion,' the association wrote on Facebook. 'Similar to the Holy Night, which was marked by unexpected twists and challenges, we see this 'Headless Night' as an opportunity to stand together and bring light into the darkness together.'"
Few locals saw it this way: "A joke is when you can laugh about it," said one resident of Rüsselsheim. "What's funny about beheading Mary and Joseph?"
Another said, "It's a barbaric act! Criminal offences must not be trivialised." Similar statue beheadings occurred during the two previous Christmases in Rüsselsheim. Police were last reported as investigating it as a "religiously motivated" crime.
Belgium: On Friday, Dec. 15, another Nativity scene was, according to a report, "lynched" in Malle: Mary and Joseph were beheaded, and the animals damaged or stolen. "Who does something like that?" was the mayor's response. Sanne Van Looy added:
"I deeply regret this a week before Christmas. A nativity scene offers so much coziness. Maria and Joseph are temporarily at the technical service, but are damaged beyond repair. It is not certain whether we will have new images by Christmas. It's going to be tight, but we'll do our best.... We invest so much in a clean and pleasant municipality. Next year then plexiglass? Less beautiful, but safer. A report has been filed with the Voorkempen police. The police will ask traders to make camera images available. Hopefully we find the perpetrators. We already have a suggestion for a community service order: temporarily playing the role of living Christmas statues."
France: On Dec. 6, a Muslim woman was arrested for breaking a bench inside a church in Nice while screaming "Allahu akbar." Described as "visibly not in her normal state"—that is, acting crazy—she was automatically hospitalized. With a significant Muslim population, Nice has witnessed many Islamic terror attacks in recent years. On Oct. 29, 2020, for example, another "Allahu akbar"-screaming Muslim man stormed the Notre-Dame Basilica of Nice, where he slaughtered two Christian women—one by beheading—and a man. In 2016, another Muslim man murdered 84 people in Nice.
Austria: A church was set on fire in Vienna, which has a large Muslim population. "Attacks on churches are not only an attack on our culture, but above all on our peaceful coexistence. Something like this cannot be tolerated under any circumstances and must have no place in our city," said Laura Sachslehner, a member of the Vienna City Council. According to the Dec 27 report:
"This is not the first worrying incident in the Ottakring district of Vienna: three suspected terrorists were arrested at the refugee centre before Christmas. As a result, increased security measures were taken by the police."
Also in Austria, on Dec. 9, Heiligenkreuz Abbey received a bomb threat by phone. Police later confirmed that it had an "Islamist overtone": the caller had said "Convert to Islam, or I'll bomb you away!"
"It makes us very sad that we have become victims of a cowardly, Islamist threat," commented Father John Paul. "But it encourages us even more to pray and work for peace, healing and reconciliation."
Italy: A man of "North African origin" set fire to a nativity scene inside a church in Parabiago. Before long, an inferno consumed much of the church. It took some time, but the fire brigade managed to quench the flames. Damage was extensive, including the destruction of a 17th- century organ.
Separately, and a few days after entering a church and demanding monetary aid from a priest, a man, who had introduced himself only as "Ali," desecrated and stole sacred objects from the church.
Sweden: On Dec. 20, St. Mary's Armenian Apostolic Church in Södertälje, was broken into and vandalized. Several valuable items of "great sentimental value for the church" were robbed. "We didn't expect this," said Alexander Sharoyan, a church representative. "It's sad now, like this, before Christmas. We are facing an empty altar with many sad members." Södertälje has a large Muslim migrant population. Several other churches were also attacked and crime is endemic.
United States: According to a Dec. 10 report, "Pro-Palestinian Radicals Target Symbols of Christianity":
"Radical pro-Palestinian demonstrations appear to have developed a new tactic: they are targeting Christmas tree lightings across the country, and other Christian symbols, in addition to symbols of Israel and Jewish institutions.
"The latest example was Friday's [Dec. 7] protest in Los Angeles, where pro-Palestinian radicals marched from a fundraiser for President Joe Biden to an area where there are several synagogues. They sprayed anti-Israel graffiti on the walls opposite the synagogues, and also vandalized a local church. Prior to that, pro-Palestinian activists disrupted the Christmas tree lighting at Rockefeller Center in New York City, clashing with police. Governor Gavin Newsom was forced to move California's Christmas tree lighting indoors due to the threat of protests. And in Michigan, pro-Palestinian protesters tried to drown out a children's choir at a Christmas tree lighting in Ypsilanti last month."
The report posits that one of the reasons pro-Palestinian activities have become anti-Christian "is that pro-Palestinian protests have become increasingly Islamic":
"At Friday's protest in Los Angeles, for example, Muslim participants held prayers during the demonstration outside the Biden fundraiser. Christians have faced persecution from Muslims in areas run by the Palestinian Authority, such as Bethlehem, and may have been marginalized within the movement. Many evangelical Christians are seen as pro-Israel, so that may also make churches targets of hatred, alongside synagogues."
Lebanon: Public Christmas trees were torched in two separate incidents. According to the Dec. 30 report:
"A Christmas tree was burned Saturday morning [Dec. 30] with gasoline in front of the Saint George Church... Those responsible have not yet been identified. On Christmas Eve, several people set fire to a tree in Tripoli, capital of North Lebanon, using a Molotov cocktail and attempted to burn a second one, before being arrested. The motivations behind these actions have not been disclosed."
Egypt: A group of Muslims rose in violence against the Christians of the village of 'Azib, burning homes and killing cattle, on learning that the Christians were building a church. For many years prior, the 3,000 Christian villagers did not have a church to pray in, and had to travel great distances to worship in the churches of other regions. After many years of applying for a church permit, authorities finally approved it. However, on Dec. 16, when the Christians began to dig the church's foundation, Muslims began to abuse them—to the point of torching the home, and some of the cattle, of one of the Christians involved in the digging. Security forces were sent to resume calm, and church building was temporarily halted. Two days later, on Dec. 18, the Christians were, according to an eyewitness,
"shocked by the emergence of dozens of extremists, despite the presence of security. They attacked Coptic homes to takbirat [cries of "Allahu akbar"] and chants rejecting the construction of the church—'Long and wide, we will bring the church to the ground' [which rhymes in Arabic]. They hurled rocks at some Coptic homes and set fire to others."
The report closed by saying:
"[T]he Copts are now living in a state of panic. All of them are [hiding] inside their homes following these attacks, which have created great chaos, even as police forces chase the extremists, with some of the recruits getting injured as a result of the stones hurled at them."
Indonesia: After Muslims, led by the Islamic Defenders Front, an Islamic extremist group banned since 2020, protested, officials halted the construction of a Christian school, even though it had already met all legal requirements. According to one report:
"The district council in Parepare in South Sulawesi province promised protesters that approval would be withdrawn from Gamaliel Christian School Foundation. This action came even though the foundation had met all requirements and had been granted permission to build a school.... The district council agreed to withdraw permission for construction in order to avoid possible friction..."
Muslim Persecution of Apostates, Blasphemers, and Evangelists
United States: A Muslim family in Nashville, Tenn., thrashed their son because he converted to Christianity. According to the Dec. 12 report:
"A mother, dad and son were arrested after officers responded to a welfare check to find a juvenile who appeared to be 'cut haphazardly' with lumps on his face... [T]he victim told police his family attacked him for recently becoming a Christian. The family are [sic] Muslims... The victim told officers his mother, brother and father repeatedly punched him and spat in his face. Arrest records show his mother then took a knife and scratched the back of his right hand with it. His family demanded he take back his Christianity belief and say he was a Muslim during the attacks, the arrest record adds. The victim said the abuse continued until law enforcement arrived at the home. When officers saw the victim, he was 'trembling and wide eyed' with 'disheveled' hair. The boy was transported to a local hospital for treatment, arrest records state."
Mauritania: Authorities arrested 15 Christian leaders and their families (a large number considering that there are only about 1,000 Christians in the entire nation). According to a Dec. 13 report:
"Mauritania's current penal code, specifically Article 306, imposes the death penalty for apostasy, with the provision for a lesser penalty if the accused repents. The arrests were reportedly triggered by posting a video showcasing a baptism ceremony in Mauritania. The video, believed to be leaked by an insider seeking monetary gain, quickly went viral. The aftermath of the video's dissemination led to disturbing incitements, with some calling for violence against Christians. Reports include statements like, 'We have to kill those who preach Christianity, and these Christians have no place in Mauritania.' Tragically, this hostility has extended beyond the arrested individuals, affecting their families who are now facing harassment from their neighbors."
According to another report:
"The charges against the Christians were unclear; there is no law against evangelism in Mauritania, but officials nevertheless forbid non-Muslims from 'proselytizing' and ban any public expression of faith except Islam... Apostasy, or leaving Islam, is punishable by death in the northwest African country, where the population is 98 percent Sunni Muslim, 1 percent Shia Muslim and the constitution designates Islam as the sole religion of the citizenry and state."
The Christians, according to a later report, were released without charge. "They have been asked to go home and believe what they want, but in private and discreetly," a Christian leader said. "It seems that our brothers have more to fear from the Islamists than from their government. Thank God for this happy ending."
Uganda: After Muslims beat them for quoting the Koran, two Christian evangelists, Joseph and Isaac, spent Christmas Day in jail for "blasphemy." The report does not indicate which verses were deemed so objectionable, or why. The two men had been preaching on a street corner when they were surprised to see "a multitude of Muslims," said Pastor Robert, who was there but managed to escape.
"We thought that maybe they had come to listen to the word of God, but to our surprise, they just grabbed my colleagues and started beating them, and shortly police came and arrested them."
The two Christians were subsequently charged under Section 122 of Uganda's penal code for allegedly "wounding the religious feelings" of Muslims, and sent to jail to await trial. Muslims were particularly outraged that the evangelists quoted from the Koran during their missionizing efforts. As one Muslim leader told authorities:
"We as Muslims have worked hand in hand to get these kafir [infidels] after warning them to stop using our Koran and other Islamic literature, but they refused. They were quoting the Koran while speaking to our Muslims on the streets of Soroti—this is unacceptable in our faith."
During their Dec. 20 hearing, both Christians appeared in very bad shape; one was limping, though it was unclear if his injury was sustained from the Muslim mob or during his time in custody. "We are concerned about the deteriorating physical appearance of our two evangelists, and we are calling for the court to handle the case with justice," said another pastor on condition of anonymity:
"When the two evangelists appeared in court yesterday [Dec. 20], they had lost a lot of weight and were in a very sad mood; possibly they may have been subjected to some kind of torture."
Although Uganda is a Christian-majority nation, with Muslims making up less than 12% of the population, the anonymous pastor continued by saying that the nation's "religious sensitivity" law is being used disproportionately in favor of Muslims:
"We have been seeing Muslims in their open-air crusades using our Bibles. Even the Muslims do use the Bible, but the church has never accused them in any court of law in Uganda."
France: On Dec. 12, two Muslim girls, aged 11, followed, harassed, and assaulted one of their classmates, a French boy, also 11, as he walked home after school. One of the girls verbally assaulted him before pulling out and threatening the boy with a pair of scissors. After she struck him on the head and he fell, the other girl held her friend back, even as the assaulter continued to howl abuses:
"You dirty Christian! You're all the same, you dog! Is it good to be a dog? Tomorrow I'll nab you at school."
On learning of this attack, the boy's father accompanied his son to the local police station and filed a complaint for "violence and public insult based on race, religion or origin." The girl—who has a history of attacking other students—later confessed to school authorities.
**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.
About this Series
While not all, or even most, Muslims are involved, persecution of Christians by extremists is growing. The report posits that such persecution is not random but rather systematic, and takes place irrespective of language, ethnicity, or location. It includes incidents that take place during, or are reported on, any given month.
© 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/20322/persecution-of-christians-december

Iran’s rulers fear low turnout in March elections
Maria Maalouf /Arab News/January 24, 2024
Iran is scheduled to hold parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections on March 1. These will be a crucial test for the political regime that has been governing Tehran for 45 years. It is a vote on the unpopularity of the abusive system of the ayatollahs.
One of the roles of the Assembly of Experts is to name a new supreme leader to succeed Ali Khamenei after he dies or becomes incapable of carrying out his duties. The 84-year-old Khamenei and other Iranian leaders have expressed deep concerns that a low turnout of voters could be testimony to the Iranian people’s delegitimization of the Islamic Republic and its regime. It could also mean that the influence of the clerics is weakening. It could portend more serious troubles in the near future for the incumbent Iranian government.
Most political observers expect a low turnout. Polls have revealed that Iranians are less likely to vote this year than in the parliamentary elections of 2020 and the presidential election in 2021. One assessment predicts that a maximum of 10 percent of those registered to vote could actually go to the polls. This is a catastrophic sign for the Iranian regime, which is losing its hold on power. The turnout in 2020 was about 42 percent — the lowest since the 1979 revolution. The prospects for a higher turnout in 2024 are not strong.
A low turnout could portend more serious troubles in the near future for the incumbent Iranian government
There are voices emerging from within the inner circles of the Iranian regime conveying serious worries that the March parliamentary elections could be a real disaster. For example, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who was interior minister and justice minister in two different administrations, last year told Javan newspaper: “People themselves should be interested in participating in the elections, and this depends on the level of their satisfaction … We must analyze the situation realistically. Popular satisfaction has declined today, and many government entities are responsible.”
Pourmohammadi’s statement must be taken seriously. He knows the centers of power in the Iranian state and society. Therefore, what he is saying could be the real feelings of those in the highest echelons of authority in Iran. They are all afraid of what is termed “low satisfaction” among the Iranian people, as it could indicate “voter apathy.”
In the interview, Pourmohammadi added: “The young generation has distanced itself from us. Low turnout is a defeat for all of us.” However, he did not attack the foundations of the system of government in Iran. He only directed his attack against the current government of President Ebrahim Raisi.
Certainly, there are genuine reasons why the Iranian electorate is so agitated against the country’s political establishment. Iran has been suffering a serious economic downturn for more than five years. Poverty is increasing. Iran was in turmoil from September 2022 until early 2023 due to serious anti-government demonstrations. They were ultimately defeated by the regime’s political repression. Among the Iranian people, there is a tremendous sense of anger directed against the government, coupled with an extensive feeling of discontent.
There are genuine reasons why the Iranian electorate is so agitated against the country’s political establishment
It is estimated that more than 500 civilians were murdered by the security forces during the protests. Hundreds were seriously injured. Many young people lost one or both of their eyes when forces loyal to the Iranian government fired rubber bullets or metal pellets at them. It is estimated that more than 20,000 people were arrested. Many were severely tortured while being interrogated. The brutal repression of the protests demonstrated to the Iranian population the lack of tolerance on the part of the regime.
Meanwhile, the Iranian government is trying to mobilize its core constituency to show up and vote. It hopes that this could motivate others to vote. Iran’s leaders are trying to create supporters of the regime using various means. One example is the fact that state media is now broadcasting television shows that allow for very limited and controlled debates on several political topics. The idea is to show that the Iranian government welcomes the views of people from all different political backgrounds. This also permits a little criticism of the performance of the regime.
But the movement to boycott the elections is growing. This includes the reformers inside Iran who have called on the Iranian people to stay away. Faezeh Hashemi Rafsanjani is a former lawmaker and the daughter of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. She is serving a five-year prison sentence for “propaganda against the regime” and participating in anti-government protests. In July last year, she wrote a letter from Evin Prison saying: “If we break our spell and don’t participate in elections, we can make the rulers’ path difficult by spreading the truth and force them to change policies … and finally take back the power we have given them.”
Countering such calls urging Iranians not to vote on March 1 is what the reformist Entekhab News reported this month. It quoted Col. Majid Bazrafkan, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ cultural and social deputy, as saying: “The Basij is totally committed to increasing popular participation … and fighting the enemies.” He added that Iran’s “model of resistance was manifested for the entire world to see in the victory of the Islamic revolution and, through popular participation in the elections, we must serve as role models to others.”
Predictably, the appeal for ordinary Iranians to participate in the parliamentary elections will be dim. Yet, the agony of the Iranian people is that they are confused, as they witness struggles among the holders of power inside Iran. The country’s rulers are attempting to confront a growing opposition that denounces their corruption and failure to govern effectively.
*Maria Maalouf is a Lebanese journalist, broadcaster, publisher, and writer. X: @bilarakib

Trump very likely to be the Republican nominee for president
Kerry Boyd Anderson/Arab News/January 24, 2024
Technically, the process of voting to choose the candidate who will represent the Republican Party in the presidential election has only just started. However, after Donald Trump’s huge lead in last week’s caucus in Iowa and his win in Tuesday’s New Hampshire primary, many Americans are wondering if the race is effectively over already.
This year’s Republican contest for selecting a presidential candidate is highly unusual, because a former president who is not the current incumbent is campaigning for the job. Typically, when a political party has an incumbent in the White House who is eligible to run for a second term, there is little competition within that party. This year, President Joe Biden is a Democratic incumbent running for reelection; while he technically faces a couple opponents, he is extremely likely to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for president. Similarly, in 2020, when Trump was the Republican incumbent running for reelection, his nomination was a foregone conclusion.
Now, Trump is campaigning to be the Republican Party’s presidential nominee again. Since he only served one term in office, he is eligible to run again, but it is very unusual for a former president who lost the previous election to seek the office again. Add in Trump’s unique qualities as a politician and major shifts within the Republican Party and its electorate and the race for the Republican nominee is unusual. However, that does not mean that it is unpredictable.
The race for the Republican nominee is unusual. However, that does not mean that it is unpredictable
In 2023, multiple candidates declared their candidacy for the Republican nomination, but the race is now down to two serious candidates: Trump and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and ambassador to the UN. In the Iowa caucus — the first official voting for the nominee — Trump won by a historic margin, with 51 percent of votes, which led Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to end his campaign.
DeSantis came in second in Iowa, with 21 percent of votes. It was a major blow to his candidacy. The Iowa electorate has the type of qualities that DeSantis thought would buoy him — politically and culturally conservative and deeply religious. His campaign poured funds into the state and DeSantis spent huge amounts of time there, all in the hope of finishing first or at least a very close second. His failure to achieve either outcome did not bode well for his campaign. DeSantis’ attempts to market himself as “Trump lite” failed; many Trump supporters like DeSantis but would not choose him over Trump. While dropping out of the race, DeSantis endorsed Trump.
Haley’s performance in Iowa was also disappointing but less so. She finished in third place, with 19 percent, not far behind DeSantis. Haley hoped to do much better in the New Hampshire primary. The state’s more moderate and independent voter base is well suited to her image as a more traditional, moderate Republican. New Hampshire is quickly followed by the South Carolina primary and Haley expects to perform well in her home state.
In New Hampshire, Haley did well among “undeclared” — or independent — voters but Trump easily won among Republicans, leading to his victory in the state. Despite her loss, Haley pledged to continue on to the South Carolina primary, saying, “we are just getting started.”
Haley might be hoping that, if she is in the No. 2 spot, then Trump’s campaign will stumble at some point
The future of Haley’s campaign now depends heavily on her performance in South Carolina. She is trying to walk a very fine line between appealing to Republicans who prefer a candidate other than Trump, while not alienating the many Republicans who like him. This may be an impossible task, but Haley hopes that a one-on-one race featuring her versus Trump will give her a viable shot at the nomination.
Fundamentally, most Republicans like Trump and he is very likely to win the nomination. The FiveThirtyEight polling average finds that 77.5 percent of Republicans have a favorable view of Trump and he is far ahead in polling of Republican voters. If Haley fails to win over large numbers of moderate Republicans, then it is very hard to see how any Republican could defeat Trump. Even in South Carolina, Haley’s home turf, Trump is polling far ahead.
Haley might be hoping that, if she is in the No. 2 spot, then Trump’s campaign will stumble at some point, allowing her to rise up to the nomination. However, it is extremely difficult to imagine what could derail Trump’s popularity with Republicans. Perhaps multiple criminal charges? He already faces those, which appear to have boosted his popularity among Republicans. Highly controversial or offensive statements? That has never hurt him before. Accusations of undermining democracy and fomenting insurrection? Apparently not a problem. If none of these things have hurt Trump within the Republican Party, then what could still happen that would force large numbers of Republican voters to turn to another candidate?
Most likely, by Super Tuesday in March, when multiple states will hold primaries or caucuses, Trump will be the clear winner. Polls suggest that a majority of Americans are unhappy about a prospective Biden-Trump rematch, but that is the most likely scenario when voting for president begins later this year. Haley is now the last opportunity for Republicans to choose someone else to take on Biden, but it appears that most Republicans still prefer Trump.
*Kerry Boyd Anderson is a professional analyst of international security issues and Middle East political and business risk. X: @KBAresearch

AI tools must not be exploited at humans’ expense
Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/January 24, 2024
An online artificial intelligence-powered chat system for customer service was last week manipulated into composing a poem about how bad that company’s customer service is. I am sure many of us have experienced being stuck trying to solve a problem with a banking app or track a delivery that has gone wrong, only to be driven to despair while trying to communicate the problem to an automated virtual customer assistant. This British customer’s ability to trick the AI function in a parcel delivery company’s online chat system led the company to disable the service. Its chatbot wrote a poem saying that it is “useless at offering help,” adding that the company in question is a “waste of time” and a “customer’s worst nightmare.” The poem ended with the chatbot rejoicing at the company shutting the service down and claiming that, finally, customers “could get the help they needed, from a real person who knew what they were doing.”This light-hearted exchange between chatbot and consumer could only temporarily mask the serious problems people face every day when trying to get a service, some support or simply some help to solve an urgent problem. After pressing the help button, customers are usually only able to ask a limited number of questions related to their inquiry. If they persevere, they might be given a telephone number, but then their call is answered by an interactive voice response system that greets them with endless prompts and automated menus. The whole experience leaves the user feeling powerless and perhaps even close to a nervous breakdown.
The whole experience leaves the user feeling powerless and perhaps even close to a nervous breakdown
And this, we are told, is likely to get worse. Apparently, our world is to witness even greater reliance on digital tools that are being built quickly and tested lightly, without the human experience aspect in mind. Neither do they have the accountability framework to protect their human users from harm or abuse by a glitch in the coding or a bias by the person designing the codes in the first place. Our world is sleepwalking into yet another crisis that is likely to hit us at some point further down the line, as everyone is racing to embrace the mantra of “saving costs at any cost” and replacing employees with AI-powered chatbots. Based on previous experience, many believe that, if you thought Big Tech was bad, big AI firms are likely to be even worse.
Research published last year by the Pew Research Center reported on more than 300 experts trying to forecast the potential harms and threats societies face as a result of the constant, rapid evolution of our digital life. Some 37 percent said they were more concerned than excited about what today’s trends say about where digital developments are headed. Meanwhile, 42 percent said they were equally concerned and excited. Only 18 percent were more excited than concerned. The research also asked these experts to detail some impacts and adversities. Their findings make for a chilling read, since the development of digital systems continues to be driven by profit incentives in economic terms and power incentives in political terms. This will result in tools being used to control the public, such as through surveillance and data harvesting, rather than empowering them to have a smooth experience, act freely, share ideas and protest injuries or injustices. For these experts, surveillance advances, sophisticated bots embedded in civic spaces, the spread of deepfakes, disinformation and facial recognition are all likely to impact human rights. Above all, increasingly sophisticated AI applications are likely to lead to job losses, causing a rise in poverty and the diminishment of human dignity.
Their development continues to be driven by profit incentives in economic terms and power incentives in political terms
What the experts fear most is the loss of the best knowledge in a sea of misinformation and disinformation, as the institutions previously entrusted with informing the public will be further decimated and facts will likely be lost amid rampant bare-faced lies and targeted manipulation. They even argue that “reality itself will be under siege,” as emerging digital tools will be able to convincingly create deceptive alternate realities.
Some of the experts also warned about the toll these digital systems are taking on people’s health and well-being, as high levels of anxiety and depression are recorded as technology further embeds itself into every aspect of our lives. This increases alienation, loneliness and the potential for a belief in altered realities that could trigger the displacement of jobs and civil strife and endanger social cohesiveness.
Experts in the Pew study concerned with governance and human connections fear that norms, standards and regulations will not evolve quickly enough to shield the social and political interactions of citizens. The pace of change could even shake individuals’ compass and their trust in each other and in the institutions and modes of governance. Already, we are seeing signs of extreme polarization, cognitive dissonance and fragmentation eroding the fabric of society as we knew it. Surely there will be a few people with the wit and knowhow to give a chatbot or some other digital tool a taste of its own medicine by ridiculing the service company and its tools when they fall below the expected level. Unfortunately, the conclusions of the Pew Research Center point to difficult and tumultuous times ahead. Unless, that is, states and regulators sharpen their skill sets to contest Big Tech and big AI companies and make sure they are accountable to the consumers they claim these AI-powered tools were initially built to serve. The digital realm, despite its commercial raison d’etre, should remain a tool that is used to serve human beings and facilitate the execution of their many chores. It should not leave them in limbo, in despair and riddled with anxiety as a result of a lack of accountability and transparency in business models that have been turbocharged by Big Tech and big AI, regulation-free.
*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.

The time is right for Israel to negotiate
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/January 24, 2024
On Monday, 24 Israeli soldiers were killed in Gaza in one day, including 21 in a single ambush. Obviously, Hamas is not weakened and the Israeli bombing campaign that has killed more than 25,000 people in the Strip, two-thirds of them women and children, has not affected Hamas’ capacity to inflict casualties on its enemy’s ranks. It is very clear that the Israeli army has failed to destroy Hamas. So, is it now time for Israel to realize that its policy is not working? Is it not time to salvage what it can and negotiate?
The more time that passes and the more war crimes Israel commits — from killing women and children to bombarding schools and hospitals and targeting journalists — the more it loses. So far, 76 Palestinian journalists have been killed since Oct. 7. Of course, Israel does not want anyone to uncover the atrocities it is committing in Gaza. This is a sign of weakness, not a sign of strength. In fact, as time passes, Israel is showing more and more that it is weak.
The mighty Israeli army, which at one point in time was touted as the strongest in the Middle East, cannot even handle an armed militia that has supposedly been under siege for 17 years. As every day passes and the civilian death toll grows, the more worldwide opinion turns against Israel. The EU’s Josep Borrell this week bluntly criticized Israel, saying that its plan is not working and that it is “seeding hate” for generations to come.
Israel has still not laid out its plan for Gaza, except the Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich plan to push the Gazans to leave their land. But Palestinians have learned from the Nakba. If they left, they would never be able to go back. If they left, their existence as Palestinian people would be finished. There are few who are as tenacious as the Palestinian people. Bombs will not pacify them. Israel will have to admit that reducing the population of Gaza to 100,000 to 200,000, as Smotrich has suggested, will not happen.
As every day passes and the civilian death toll grows, the more worldwide opinion turns against Israel
Israel does not seem to have any plan. It is simply bombing and bombing. It is behaving like a gambler who keeps losing but keeps on doubling down, hoping they will win it all back at some point in time. Israel keeps on losing. It is losing its soldiers. It is losing social cohesion, as the hostages’ families are angry that the government is prioritizing its own survival over getting their loved ones back home. It is losing its international standing. All Israelis will suffer from their country’s negative image. This will affect them when they travel, when they do business and when they send their children abroad.
However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doubling down on his position. He stated on Saturday that he wants to keep Israeli control of all territories from the river to the sea and that there will be no Palestinian state. He has gone publicly and directly against US President Joe Biden.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, clearly said in an interview that Netanyahu had failed to abide by a US request to reduce civilian casualties and that the humanitarian catastrophe was going from “terrible to worse.” He directly criticized the Israeli PM, saying that he was putting his own skin above rescuing the hostages. He also said it was time for a ceasefire and that Biden needed to go “big and bold” and put forward the vision of a two-state solution.
When everything seems to be going against Israel, is it not time to listen? Is it not time to be realistic? Israel is self-destructing, while the Palestinian side is showing resilience. Still Israel is holding on to its maximalist and unrealistic objectives and refusing a reasonable solution.
Still Israel is holding on to its maximalist and unrealistic objectives and refusing a reasonable solution
The head of the CIA has, along with Qatar and Egypt, put together a very reasonable plan. Its points include that Israel should withdraw from the Strip, a prisoner exchange should take place, a multinational force should take control of Gaza and a government of technocrats should be responsible for the Strip’s civilian administration. If a force that is viewed as legitimate takes control of Gaza and if basic services are provided, then this will help dry out the social incubator that is fueling Hamas. If people are given hope, then they will not hold on to Hamas. This would also allow for the return of hostages.
Unfortunately, Netanyahu is still delusional. He thinks he has room to maneuver. But he does not. Now is the time to negotiate. He knows very well that the end of the war means his exit. The war might delay his exit, but the longer he waits the more difficult this exit will be. He knows that, sooner or later, he will have to leave, but if he clinches a deal that returns the hostages, at least he would have a token that would weigh in his favor. So far, at least 25 hostages have died in captivity, probably due to Israeli bombing. The Israeli army has only been able to free one hostage. It is very difficult to go door to door looking for hostages. And Hamas will not surrender.
Borrell said that the only way forward is a two-state solution, whether Israel likes it or not. He wondered: “What are the other solutions they have in mind? Make all the Palestinians leave? Kill all of them?” What does Borrell mean by this harsh criticism? Is it a veiled threat of sanctions if Israel fails to comply? Sanctions would kill Israel, as the country is very integrated with the global economy, especially Europe.
The International Court of Justice is set to deliver its interim verdict on South Africa’s genocide case against Israel in the coming days. This will create immense pressure on Israel. Still, this government is more concerned with showing it is strong than being realistic and putting forward an executable solution. Now is the time to negotiate. British Foreign Minister Lord Cameron is this week back in the Middle East, hoping to convince the Israelis of the need for a sustained pause in the fighting, after which a return to hostilities would be difficult, and the need to accept a two-state solution — but will Netanyahu listen?
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese nongovernmental organization focused on Track II.

Why Oil Prices Aren’t Spiking
Simon Henderson/Washington Institute/January 24/2024
Prices are set by multiple factors in today’s oil markets, so predicting shocks based on Middle East crises is not a sure bet.
Historically, Middle East wars have been associated with global oil crises. When Israeli, British, and French forces took action against Egypt in 1956 and the Suez Canal was blocked as a result, both London and Paris had to impose gasoline rationing at home. During the 1973 war, an Arab boycott caused oil prices to more than double. Iran’s 1979 revolution doubled global prices again; they also briefly peaked when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The current Gaza crisis seemed to follow suit at first: after Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, prices soared from around $70 per barrel to more than $90. Yet by the week of October 19, the main U.S. crude oil, West Texas Intermediate, had fallen back under $74 per barrel, while the internationally traded Brent crude fell back under $80.
Even the escalation to broader regional hostilities—including Red Sea shipping attacks and direct U.S.-Iranian exchanges—has had little upward effect. Following multiple rounds of coalition operations against Houthi targets in Yemen, a Financial Times headline on January 17 read, “US-led strikes on Islamist rebels rekindle fears of oil price surge and jump in inflation.” Yet the story itself noted that war-driven price hikes were not inevitable.
Indeed, the more likely answer about the market’s direction lies in the oft-repeated economic law about prices settling wherever supply and demand are in balance. Put simply: the war has not caused any reduction in the world’s overall supply of oil so far, and demand remains constrained by uncertainty in the global economic outlook.
Consumption, Supply, and Demand
Current global oil consumption is about 100 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United States, and certain other countries produce more than they consume and therefore export the surplus; their total surplus represents about half of global consumption. Some countries (most prominently Japan) are almost totally reliant on these imports; others (like China) produce some oil but still rely heavily on imports.
At present, there is no shortage in worldwide supply, and plenty of spare production, as the leaders of the OPEC+ cartel can attest. Russia’s exports have been reduced by sanctions stemming from its invasion of Ukraine, while Saudi Arabia has been cutting back production in the largely forlorn hope of increasing prices and revenues.
The resulting spare capacity has reduced any “risk premium,” which in the past could have bumped up prices in times of sudden bad news. In addition, non-OPEC supplies—especially from the United States—have been growing and now almost exceed OPEC’s supplies in terms of internationally traded oil.
As for the winter factor, seasonal energy demand in the northern hemisphere has already been met on the supply side, removing another potential price driver. In the United States, many areas are experiencing a colder winter than normal this year, but their electricity needs are increasingly generated by natural gas, with coal in second place and nuclear in third.
The transport market is rapidly changing as well. Cars and other vehicles have become more efficient, and many are using alternative fuels.
The China Factor
Another major factor affecting oil demand is the state of the Chinese economy. A January 18 New York Times story noted that the country’s economic growth was 5.2 percent in 2023, but “high debt, a housing crisis that has undermined confidence, and a shrinking and aging workforce are weighing on output.”
More broadly, the Wall Street Journal reported on January 19 that “global oil-demand growth slowed significantly at the end of last year and is expected to weaken further.” Quoting the Paris-based International Energy Agency—originally established as the Western world’s answer to OPEC—the story noted that “global economic growth is expected to slow this year, despite anticipated interest rate cuts...as business activity and consumer spending suffers the impact of rate hikes in 2022 and 2023.” Meanwhile, OPEC has reportedly “left its expectations for this year’s oil-demand growth unchanged at 2.2 million barrels a day, and said it expects demand to grow by 1.8 million barrels a day in 2025, a level still considered elevated by market watchers.”
The difference in the IEA and OPEC forecasts is a reminder of the difficulties inherent in trying to anticipate oil demand and pricing in today’s complex markets. Both near-term forecasts and caveats about these forecasts can be wrong. So far, the Gaza crisis and its regional repercussions have spurred little if any lasting movement on price, despite widespread fears to the contrary.
*Simon Henderson is the Baker Fellow and director of the Bernstein Program on Gulf and Energy Policy at The Washington Institute.