Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 07-08/2024
Rai: We Are Living a ‘Crisis of Truth’ in Lebanon
Audi to MPs: If You Are Unable to Elect a President, Make Way for Others
Hezbollah targets Israeli mountain base in ‘largest’ air attack
Hezbollah hits deep in north Israel after strike kills key member near Baalbek
Hezbollah Launches Drone Attack on Mount Hermon in Israeli-Occupied Syrian Golan Heights
Nasrallah congratulates Iran's Pezeshkian on vote win
Nasrallah: Whoever ignores what is happening in Gaza is dead in mind, heart and soul
Israel shouldn't attack Hezbollah until after US elections - opinion
IDF kills senior Hezbollah air defense official Meitham Mustafa Altaar deep in Lebanon

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 07-08/2024
Netanyahu: Gaza Deal Must Let Israel Resume Fighting until War Goals Met
Hamas says senior government official in Gaza killed in airstrike
Israel says its operation in Rafah is ‘limited’. Fighting there has left parts of it unrecognizable
Press group blasts Israel for draconian ‘blackout’
Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?
France's far right 'sad and disappointed' over election result
New British prime minister seeks to improve on 'botched' trade deal with European Union
Rafah is a dusty, rubble-strewn ghost town 2 months after Israel invaded to root out Hamas
Hamas clears way for possible truce in Gaza after dropping key demand
Israel launches deadly strikes on Gaza as war enters tenth month

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on July 07-08/2024
This is why Hamas won't surrender - opinion/COOKIE SCHWAEBER-ISSAN/Jerusalem Post/July 07/2024
Muslim IDF commander: 'The Bedouin will fight until the last drop of blood' - interview/AMIR BOHBOT//Jerusalem Post/July 07/2024
France: The Perils of an Election/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 7, 2024
Where Are the Weapons? Israel is Defending Freedom against Tyranny for All of Us; It Needs the Weapons Promised It/Nils A. Haug/Gatestone Institute/July 7, 2024
Netanyahu’s Congress speech may determine Biden’s fate/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/July 07, 2024
Reform, not the ballot box, is the cure for Tunisia’s woes/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/July 07, 2024
Age may not be such an issue in future elections/Arnab Neil Sengupta/Arab News/July 07, 2024
Democratic Party at a crossroads amid Biden dilemma/Dalia Al-Aqidi/Arab News/July 07, 2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on July 07-08/2024
Rai: We Are Living a ‘Crisis of Truth’ in Lebanon
This Is Beirut/July 07, 2024
The Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai indicated that “we are living a crisis of truth in Lebanon, to which we must return so that the Parliament elects a President of the Republic in accordance with the clear and explicit terms of the constitution.”Rai warned that “we cannot remain outside the framework of truth, living in deception with one another, while our nation with its constitutional institutions disintegrates before our eyes.”In his Sunday Mass sermon, the Maronite Patriarch pointed out that “truth is not separate from our daily lives and our temporal affairs.” He considered it to be “a culture that must be acquired.” “We cannot live isolated from the truth in all its sectors and dimensions,” he said, explaining that existence itself is a truth that provides a framework, requirements, rights and duties. “This applies to the human person, the family, society, the church, and the state, as well as to the economy and society.”

Audi to MPs: If You Are Unable to Elect a President, Make Way for Others
This Is Beirut/July 07, 2024
The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Beirut, Elias Audi, stressed that the country cannot be led without a head and that if MPs are not able to fulfill their duty in electing a president of the republic, they should make way for others. “Electing a president is the first essential step. If they (MPs) are unable to perform their role or have reached a dead end, doesn’t national and moral responsibility require them to be honest with those who elected and entrusted them with the responsibility of representation?” “Shouldn’t they acknowledge that this current Parliament, in its present composition, is incapable of electing a president, and therefore, must make way for others through democratic means as dictated by the constitution?” he asked. During his Sunday sermon at St. George’s Cathedral, Audi pointed out that if “we closely examine the state of this country, we see that we, as Lebanese, are all called to work to save our country,” wondering if “anyone hears and responds.” The Greek Orthodox Metropolitan also placed part of the responsibility on the citizens, whom he said “are called to hold their representatives accountable and object to any lapse or shortcoming they observe in their performance.”He further accused the leaders, stating that they are “also responsible and are called to abandon their stubbornness and interests, putting the country’s supreme interest above all else.”“Look around you. Do you see any country without a president to lead, represent, and speak for it? Or a parliament that fails to elect a president for its country in the specified time and with the necessary urgency? Doesn’t what is happening in Iran, Britain, and France invite us to reflect and act? National interest calls on everyone—will anyone heed the call before it’s too late?” he asked.

Hezbollah targets Israeli mountain base in ‘largest’ air attack
AFP/July 07, 2024
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement said on Sunday it launched its “largest” air operation, sending explosive drones at a mountaintop Israeli military intelligence base in the annexed Golan Heights. It is the latest incident among escalating cross-border exchanges of fire that have triggered global alarm. Hezbollah, an Iran-backed Hamas ally, has traded almost daily fire with Israeli forces since the Palestinian militant group’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel triggered war in the Gaza Strip.Announcing “the largest operation” carried out by its aerial forces, Hezbollah said in a statement that its fighters sent “multiple, successive squadrons of drones to target the reconnaissance center” on Mount Hermon. The Israeli military said an explosive drone “fell in an open area in the Mount Hermon area” but there were “no injuries.” Attacks as well as rhetoric have escalated in recent weeks, spurring fears of an all-out conflict between Israel and Hezbollah which last went to war in 2006. The Lebanese movement said the drone attack was part of its “response” to the killing of an operative in a strike Saturday deep into east Lebanon around 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the border. The Mount Hermon attack targeted intelligence systems, “destroying them and starting a major fire,” Hezbollah said. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited troops on Mount Hermon earlier on Sunday, his office said. In two additional statements, the military said its air defenses “successfully intercepted” several “aerial targets” that crossed from Lebanon after sirens sounded in the Golan Heights area. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and later annexed it in a move largely unrecognized by the international community. The Israeli strike on Saturday killed “a key operative in Hezbollah’s Aerial Defense Unit,” the military has said.Throughout Sunday, Hezbollah announced four more attacks on Israeli military sites across the border with barrages of rockets as well as some guided missiles. Israeli authorities reported four wounded. Gallant, in a video from Mount Hermon, said that “even if there is a ceasefire” in Gaza, “we will continue fighting and doing everything necessary to bring about the desired result” in the campaign against Hezbollah. The cross-border violence has killed at least 497 people in Lebanon, mostly fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally. On the Israeli side, at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed, according to the authorities.Tens of thousands of residents have been displaced from the border areas in both southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

Hezbollah hits deep in north Israel after strike kills key member near Baalbek
Agence France Presse/July 07, 2024
Hezbollah on Sunday fired rockets at an area deep in north Israel after an Israeli airstrike Saturday killed one of its operatives near the eastern city of Baalbek. In a statement, the group said it launched dozens of Katyusha rockets at the Nimra military base west of Tiberias in response to the assassination near Baalbek. It described Nimra as "one of the main bases in the northern region" of Israel. In an earlier statement, the group said it destroyed espionage equipment at the al-Raheb Israeli post with the "appropriate weapons."Shortly after the Nimra attack, Israeli airstrikes hit a house in the Tyre district town of Maaroub and several border towns. The Israeli army said Saturday that the slain Hezbollah operative was part of the group's air defense unit. Hezbollah has traded near daily fire with the Israeli army across Lebanon's southern border since its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza. "A local Hezbollah official" was killed in an "Israeli drone" strike on a vehicle near the eastern city of Baalbek, a source close to the group told AFP on Saturday. Lebanon's official National News Agency (NNA) reported one person was killed when an "enemy drone" targeted a vehicle in the Shaat area, around 15 kilometers (nine miles) north of Baalbek. The area is around 100 kilometers from Lebanon's southern border with Israel. The Israeli military said in a statement that the air force "operated in the area of Baalbek to strike and eliminate... a key operative in Hezbollah's Aerial Defense Unit." The Hezbollah operative "took part in the planning and carrying out of numerous terror attacks" against Israel and helped build up the group's "arsenal of Iranian weapons," the statement added. Hezbollah announced that a fighter from the area had been killed, identifying him as Maitham al-Attar. Recent Israeli strikes in south Lebanon have killed two senior Hezbollah commanders -- one of them this week -- with the group raining rockets on northern Israel in response. The cross-border exchanges of fire have largely been restricted to border areas, although Israel has repeatedly struck deep inside eastern Lebanon. Hezbollah on Saturday claimed several attacks on Israeli positions near the southern border, including one with "explosive drones" that it said came in response to "Israeli enemy attacks" on south Lebanon villages. Lebanon's NNA reported several Israeli strikes on areas in south Lebanon later Saturday. Hezbollah says it is acting in support of Gazans and Hamas with its attacks, which began on October 8. The escalating violence has raised fears of all-out war between Israel and Hezbollah, which last went to war in 2006. The cross-border exchanges have killed at least 497 people in Lebanon, most of them fighters but also including 95 civilians, according to an AFP tally. Israeli authorities say at least 16 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on their side of the border.

Hezbollah Launches Drone Attack on Mount Hermon in Israeli-Occupied Syrian Golan Heights
News Agencies/July 07/2024
The Iranian-backed Hezbollah militant group said on Sunday it launched a drone attack on Mount Hermon in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights where Israel has a key surveillance center. It said this was its first such bombing since it began trading fire with Israel on Oct. 8, a day after its Palestinian ally Hamas attacked southern Israel, sparking the Gaza war. Hezbollah says it would halt operations only when the war ends. Although it had hit other areas in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights repeatedly, Hezbollah said it was the first time to hit the military target that is at the highest elevation in the Israeli-controlled territory. Israel has key surveillance, espionage and air defense installations on Mount Hermon where it overlooks the Syrian capital and serves to monitor Syria, Iraq and Jordan since the 1973 Oct. Arab-Israeli war. The conflict between the Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides say they wish to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent it. Hezbollah has ratcheted up its attacks, sending larger numbers of explosive drones, using a new type of rocket, and declaring that it has targeted Israeli warplanes for the first time, according to sources familiar with Hezbollah's arsenal. The escalation has tested unwritten rules that have largely confined the conflict to areas at the border or near it since October, keeping Lebanese and Israeli cities out of the firing line. Israel blames Iranian-backed Hezbollah for the increase in violence and has repeated its vows to restore security to the border. The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the latest Hezbollah strike.

Nasrallah congratulates Iran's Pezeshkian on vote win
Agence France Presse/July 07/2024
Hezbollah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has congratulated Iranian president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian on his victory, emphasizing Tehran's role as a "strong" supporter of regional "resistance" groups. In a letter circulated on the Iran-backed group's social media channels, Nasrallah congratulated Pezeshkian on his "blessed election" by the Iranian people. "We in Hezbollah and in all the resistance groups in the region... always look to the Islamic republic of Iran as a strong, stable and permanent support," the letter read.Tehran provides financial and military support to Hezbollah, which was created at the initiative of Iran's Revolutionary Guards after arch-foe Israel overran Beirut in 1982 during Lebanon's civil war.Hezbollah is a key part of the so-called Axis of Resistance -- an alliance of pro-Iran armed movements that oppose Israel and the United States. The alliance also includes Palestinian militant group Hamas, Yemen's Houthi rebels and fighters in Iraq. Reformist candidate Pezeshkian, who advocates improved ties with the West, won a runoff presidential election against ultraconservative Saeed Jalili, the Iranian interior ministry said Saturday. The election came against a backdrop of heightened regional tensions because of the Gaza war, a dispute with the West over Iran's nuclear program, and domestic discontent over the state of Iran's sanctions-hit economy. The death of ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash necessitated the election, which had not been due until 2025. Hezbollah has been trading regular cross-border fire with the Israeli army in support of ally Hamas since the day after the Palestinian militant group's October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the Gaza war. Hezbollah is the only Lebanese faction to have retained its heavy weapons after the country's 1975-1990 civil conflict. Its members have long fought in Syria's war in support of President Bashar al-Assad, who on Saturday also sent his congratulations to Iran's president-elect.

Nasrallah: Whoever ignores what is happening in Gaza is dead in mind, heart and soul
NNA/Sunday, July 7, 2024
The Secretary-General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, confirmed that “Ashura comes this year in a different atmosphere from previous years. We are in the heart of the flood of Al-Aqsa in Gaza and on the southern front in Lebanon with martyrs and wounded on an almost daily basis,” noting that “the atmosphere of battle The repercussions that are open to all possibilities make our revival different on the spiritual, psychological and mental levels, as we are at the heart of the Karbala’i event.” He said at the Central Ashura Council in the Sayyid al-Shuhada Complex in the southern suburb of Beirut: “We will proceed with the commemoration ten nights from today in order to preserve and ensure the unity of the commemoration on the tenth day in Lebanon, as happened in past years,” adding: “The atmosphere of the battle will cast a shadow over the south in terms of the timing of the councils and their locations.” Establishing it and on the Ashura processions, and this matter is left to the days.”
He continued: “Today, we commemorate Karbala while we are in Karbala, and we talk about the martyrs, we present the martyrs, we talk about Abu Al-Fadl Al-Abbas, and we present the wounded,” explaining that “the Ashura commemoration this year leaves psychological and moral effects.” He stated that "last year the Ashura commemoration was very great at the level of councils and attendance, and I said at the end of last year that perhaps it was the most powerful, present and effective in the history of Lebanon," considering that "the great attendance last year was thanks to God who guided the hearts of those who loved this march as if we were preparing For this level of position and decision that we took in Lebanon, which was to open the front with the enemy in support of Gaza, our confidence was solid and our presence strong.” He stressed that "between Israel and its aggression against the region and the oppression of the Palestinian people, there is no need for discussion. There is a clear and clear right called Palestine according to the standards of international law, rights, humanity, morals and religions, and there is a falsehood called Israel." He believed that “the horror of the massacres in the Gaza Strip has awakened the human nature of American university students and their minds,” considering that “whoever ignores what is happening in Gaza and the injustices being done to Palestine and the support fronts is dead in mind, heart, and soul, and every human being must do what he can do, because on the Day of Resurrection we will be asked about Palestine and we must prepare the answer for the afterlife.” He stressed that "our responsibility is to support the truth, and when we go to support the truth, we will hear noise, clamor, despair, and belittlement. This will have political repercussions, and dear martyrs will fall for us and our homes will be demolished. We say to all of this, are we not on the right? So we do not care or back down for a single moment at all." He pointed out that "in the past few years, the phenomenon of hostels has increased, and despite the living conditions, people are feeding on the love of Hussein, and this phenomenon must continue and grow," calling on hostel owners to "respond to the procedures and measures that are related to municipalities and emphasize the necessity of cleanliness." The food should be appropriate to the occasion of grief, and attention should be given to health conditions and not to extravagance or extravagance.”He considered that "whoever ignores what is happening in Gaza and the injustices being done to Palestine and the support fronts is dead in mind, heart and soul, and every human being must do what he can do because on the Day of Resurrection we will be asked about Palestine and we must prepare the answer for the afterlife," noting that "the horror of the massacres in the Gaza Strip "Awaken the human nature of American university students and their minds." Nasrallah concluded: “Between Israel and its aggression against the region and the oppression of the Palestinian people, there is no need for discussion. There is a clear and clear right called Palestine according to the standards of international law, rights, humanity, morals and religions, and there is a falsehood called Israel.”
 

Israel shouldn't attack Hezbollah until after US elections - opinion
Israel faces escalating Hezbollah attacks but must delay major military action due to multiple fronts and US distractions, focusing instead on countering Iran's nuclear threat until January 2025.
FARHAD REZAEI//Jerusalem Post/July 07/2024
Hezbollah’s escalating conflict against Israel through continuous rocket attacks demands a decisive military response. However, initiating a full-scale conflict now would be perilous. With Israel embroiled in conflict on multiple fronts and the US distracted by elections, Iran could exploit the chaos to advance its nuclear ambitions and potentially develop a nuclear weapon.
Israel should hold off any major military action against Hezbollah until January 2025, when the new US president takes office. In the meantime, the focus should be on countering Iran’s nuclear threat. After January, if necessary, Israel can then respond to Hezbollah with overwhelming force.
Since the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack, Hezbollah has launched over 5,000 rockets, anti-tank missiles, and suicide drones into Israel, resulting in more than 20 casualties, displacing 80,000 people, and igniting wildfires that have burned 9,000 acres. In a brazen move, Hezbollah also released a nine-minute drone footage of the Israeli port city of Haifa, showing civilian and military areas and threatening to attack them. This prompted Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to respond strongly on X, calling out Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah for boasting about filming the ports of Haifa. Katz wrote, “We are very close to the moment of decision to change the rules against Hezbollah and Lebanon. In an all-out war, Hezbollah will be destroyed, and Lebanon will be severely hit.”
The IDF’s Northern Command also announced that it had approved operational plans for an attack on Lebanon. Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi told the political leadership that the military is ready for war. Hezbollah’s aggressive actions leave Israel with limited options to resolve the conflict in the North. The Jewish state has pushed for a diplomatic solution based on the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. This resolution, adopted to end the Second Lebanon War in 2006, calls for a demilitarized zone from the Blue Line to the Litani River, approximately 18 miles to the North. However, Hezbollah has consistently rejected diplomatic efforts, maintaining its hostile stance and escalating tensions further.
Timing is everything
THOUGH IT might seem inevitable, a full-scale war against Hezbollah now could be counterproductive. This would put the Jewish state in another war of attrition with a group much larger and stronger than Hamas. Kamal Kharrazi, foreign affairs adviser to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said if Israel launches an all-out offensive against Hezbollah, it will risk triggering a regional war in which Tehran and the “axis of resistance” would support the Lebanese -based terrorist group with “all means.” Although it is unlikely for Iran to directly enter a full-scale war with Israel, it is possible for the regime to mobilize its network of sponsored terrorist groups across the region, such as the Houthis in Yemen, and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria. Iraqi Shia militia groups and Yemeni Houthis have made it clear they will join the fray if Israel strikes Hezbollah.
The Houthis have already posed a significant economic challenge to Israel by attacking vessels in the Red Sea that they believe are connected to the Jewish state. If Israel attacks Hezbollah, these groups could intensify their attacks on maritime traffic in the Red Sea to cause further disruption. Additionally, a land invasion could result in Shia fighters pouring into Lebanese territory.
Such a war will be difficult for Israel to end rapidly without military assistance from the United States. There are indications that the US may not be able to provide significant support, similar to their past support during Iranian missile attacks, due to domestic political distractions.
WITH ISRAEL embroiled in conflict on all fronts, and the US distracted by domestic political issues, a bigger threat looms: Iran could view this as the perfect opportunity to break out with nuclear bombs.
It is important to note that Iran has already made significant progress towards obtaining nuclear weapons. The regime has advanced in two essential components of building one: enriching uranium to a weapons-grade level and developing the delivery vehicle (missile).
According to the latest assessment by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran now possesses enough weapons-grade uranium to produce several nuclear weapons within a month. An Iranian bomb could trigger a nuclear race in the Middle East and hasten a US withdrawal from the region, a strategic disadvantage for Israel. Iran’s nuclear advancements should give Israel a compelling reason to prioritize countering the greater threat it poses over striking Hezbollah at this moment.That Israel must respond to Hezbollah’s aggressive approach to restore security in the North is essential. Israel can continue with diplomatic efforts along with low-scale counterattacks against the terror group and its decapitation campaign targeting Hezbollah senior commanders. But Jerusalem must carefully consider the timing of any large-scale military action against Hezbollah, possibly waiting until after the American elections to ensure more robust support from the United States, its strategic ally. Although some Israeli politicians emphasize that Israel must prepare for the possibility of engaging Iran and Hezbollah without relying on US assistance, this would likely worsen the security situation for the Jewish state given Hezbollah’s substantial military capabilities and Iran’s regional influence.
With Israel embroiled in conflict and the US preoccupied with domestic political issues, Iran might seize this perfect opportunity to advance its nuclear ambitions. Consequently, this situation makes it challenging for Israel to address these threats alone, underscoring the need for strong support from the United States. Instead, Israel should focus all its energy on countering the regime’s nuclear activities until the end of the US presidential election.
Looking ahead, if Donald Trump is re-elected, Israel will likely receive strong political backing and robust military assistance from his administration in any potential conflict against Hezbollah and other proxies of the Iranian regime.
*The writer is a senior fellow at the Philos Project.

IDF kills senior Hezbollah air defense official Meitham Mustafa Altaar deep in Lebanon
Jerusalem Post/July 07/2024
The IDF conducted a strike against Altaar using an Israel Air Force aircraft in the Baalbek area in Lebanon.  Hezbollah terrorist Meitham Mustafa Altaar, who had significant knowledge of the terror group's air defense system, was eliminated on Saturday by the IDF, the military announced. The IDF conducted a strike against Altaar using an Israel Air Force aircraft in the Baalbek area in Lebanon. Altaar also took part in the planning and executing of a variety of terrorist acts against Israel, the IDF said, adding that he acquired his knowledge through his visits to Iran and assisted in strengthening Hezbollah with Iranian weapons. Hezbollah terrorist Meitham Mustafa Altaar, who had significant knowledge of the terror group's air defense system, was eliminated on Saturday by the IDF, the military announced. The IDF conducted a strike against Altaar using an Israel Air Force aircraft in the Baalbek area in Lebanon. Altaar also took part in the planning and executing of a variety of terrorist acts against Israel, the IDF said, adding that he acquired his knowledge through his visits to Iran and assisted in strengthening Hezbollah with Iranian weapons. Baalbek is located in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, situated some 100km from the Israeli-Lebanese border . Later on Saturday, the military stated it had struck a Hezbollah terror infrastructure and observation post in the Houla area of southern Lebanon. An additional observation post was attacked in the area of Odaisseh in southern Lebanon. The military also affirmed IDF artillery forces had fired at the Yaroun, Maroun El Ras, and Blida areas of southern Lebanon to remove a threat. IDF strikes additional senior Hezbollah commander. Last week, an IDF strike outside Tyre killed a senior Hezbollah commander of the Aziz Unit, Muhammad Neamah Naser. The unit was responsible for launches that had been carried out towards Israeli territory from south-western Lebanon. Following Naser's elimination last week, Hezbollah fired some 200 rockets and 20 drones at northern Israel, including at cities such as Acre and Nahariya. This was one of the most widespread attacks carried out by the terror group since the beginning of the war.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 07-08/2024
Netanyahu: Gaza Deal Must Let Israel Resume Fighting until War Goals Met
News Agencies/July 07/2024
Any Gaza ceasefire deal must allow Israel to resume fighting until its objectives are met, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday, as talks over a US plan aimed at ending the nine-month-old war were expected to restart. Five days after Hamas accepted a key part of the plan, two officials from the Palestinian group said the group was awaiting Israel's response to its latest proposal. Netanyahu was scheduled to hold consultations late on Sunday on the next steps in negotiating the three-phase plan that was presented in May by US President Joe Biden and is being mediated by Qatar and Egypt. It aims to end the war and free around 120 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.
Hamas has dropped a key demand that Israel first commit to a permanent ceasefire before it would sign an agreement. Instead, it said it would allow negotiations to achieve that throughout the six-week first phase, a Hamas source told Reuters on Saturday on condition of anonymity. But Netanyahu said he insisted the deal must not prevent Israel from resuming fighting until its war objectives are met. Those goals were defined at the start of the war as dismantling Hamas' military and governing capabilities, as well as returning the hostages. "The plan that has been agreed to by Israel and which has been welcomed by President Biden will allow Israel to return hostages without infringing on the other objectives of the war," Netanyahu said.
The deal, he said, must also prohibit weapons smuggling to Hamas via the Gaza-Egypt border and should not allow for thousands of armed militants to return to northern Gaza.
US Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns is to meet with the Qatari prime minister and the Israeli and Egyptian intelligence chiefs on Wednesday in Doha, said a source familiar with the issue who asked not to be further identified. Burns is also expected to visit Cairo this week, along with an Israeli delegation, Egypt's Al Qahera News TV reported on Sunday, citing a high-ranking source. There was no letup in fighting inside Gaza, where late on Sunday the Israeli military renewed orders for residents and displaced families in several districts in Gaza City to leave their homes. Some residents said they were surprised by the sounds of tank shells and gunfire from Israeli drones, as some managed to flee and others were trapped at home.
"This is the sixth time we have been displaced, we don’t know where we should go. To be honest, I don’t know. I have a three-storey building and now it was hit, I just got the news," a displaced woman who asked not to be identified told Reuters in Gaza City.
"My husband is an amputee and he is stuck in Shejaiya. We have heard no news about him," she said. Palestinian health officials later said an Israeli air strike on a house in Jabalia on the northern edge of the Gaza Strip had killed at least 10 people, with many wounded and others still missing. The new talks follow months of failed attempts to reach a ceasefire in stop-start negotiations that several times led nowhere after Washington said a deal was close. A Palestinian official close to the talks said the proposal could lead to a framework agreement if embraced by Israel and would end the war. "We have left our response with the mediators and are waiting to hear the occupation's response," one of the two Hamas officials told Reuters, asking not to be identified. Another Palestinian official with knowledge of the ceasefire deliberations said Israel was in talks with the Qataris and that a response was expected within days.
PROTESTS IN ISRAEL
In Israel, protesters took to the streets across the country to press the government to agree to the Gaza ceasefire deal, which would bring back hostages still being held in Gaza. They blocked rush-hour traffic at major intersections across the country, picketed politicians' houses and briefly set fire to tires on the main Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway before police cleared the way. In Gaza, Palestinian health officials said at least 15 people were killed in Israeli strikes. Among them were Ehab Al-Ghussein, the Hamas-appointed deputy minister of labor whose wife and children were killed in May, and three other people killed in a strike at a church-run school in western Gaza City sheltering families, Hamas media and the Civil Emergency Service said. The Israeli military said that after it took steps to minimize the risk of civilians being harmed there, it struck militants hiding in the school and a nearby weapon-making facility. In central and northern areas of Rafah, on the southern Gaza border with Egypt, Israeli tanks deepened their raids. Health officials there said they had recovered three bodies of Palestinians killed by Israeli fire. The Israeli military said its forces had killed 30 Palestinian gunmen in Rafah in the past day, and that one of its soldiers was killed in combat. In Shejaia, an eastern suburb of Gaza City, the military said its forces had killed several gunmen and located weapons and explosives. It published a drone video showing gunmen, some appearing to be wounded or dead, in a house.
Reuters could not immediately verify the video. The conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when fighters led by Hamas, which controlled Gaza, attacked southern Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages, according to Israeli figures.
More than 38,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military onslaught, according to Gaza health officials, and the coastal enclave has largely been reduced to rubble.

Hamas says senior government official in Gaza killed in airstrike
Ibrahim Dahman and Eyad Kourdi, CNN/July 7, 2024
An Israeli airstrike in Gaza City killed a senior official in the Hamas-run government Sunday, according to the organization. Hamas said that Ehab al-Ghussein, the Deputy Minister of Labor, was among four people killed by an Israeli airstrike on the Holy Family School in Gaza City. “Civil Defense crews in Gaza Governorate were able to retrieve four martyrs and a number of injured individuals after Israeli occupation aircraft targeted the ‘Holy Family’ school, which houses a large number of displaced persons west of Gaza City,” the Civil Defense Directorate said. Al-Ghussein was 45 and had been the Deputy Minister of Labor in Gaza since 2020, as well as the Head of the Emergency Committee for the Civil Service of the Northern Gaza Strip. In May, his sister Muna Jamal and wife Amani Sakeek were killed in an Israeli airstrike, according to reports at the time. The Israeli military has said it carried out strikes in the area, saying it targeted “a complex inside of which terrorists were operating and hiding in the area of a school building in Gaza City.” It’s not clear whether the strikes were those in which a senior Hamas official was killed. It added that “numerous steps were taken in order to mitigate the risk of harming civilians, including the use of precise aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”This comes as another Israeli attack on a school in Gaza has killed at least 16 Palestinians and injured 50 others, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. CNN cannot independently verify the ministry’s numbers.
The strike took place at UNRWA’s Al-Jaouni school in al-Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Saturday. The school was sheltering displaced people, according to the health ministry. The Israeli military said in a statement on Saturday militants were operating in structures located in the school area. CNN cannot independently verify the Israeli military’s claim.

Israel says its operation in Rafah is ‘limited’. Fighting there has left parts of it unrecognizable
Jeremy Diamond, CNN/July 7, 2024
Thick clouds of dirt and sand fill the air as our convoy of Humvees arrives in Rafah, the first time international reporters have been allowed in since the Israeli military launched its ground assault on this city two months ago. As the dust settles, the scale of destruction is startling. But it is also all-too familiar. This part of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city which became the last refuge for more than a million Palestinians earlier in the war, is now unrecognizable. Israel has repeatedly described its ground operation in Rafah as “limited.” But in this neighborhood in southern Rafah, the destruction looks almost identical to what I’ve seen in northern Gaza, in central Gaza and in Khan Younis through the limited prism of trips into Gaza with the Israeli military. Some homes are flattened and other buildings bombed out. “This is where the main destruction is because it was booby-trapped and because the tunnels were booby trapped,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF’s top spokesman, tells me when I press him on how this represents a “limited” operation.
“And when you see destruction, it’s because either the houses were booby trapped, either when we demolished a tunnel the houses fell apart, or that Hamas fired from those houses and risked our forces and we had no other method but to make sure that our forces were safe,” Hagari added.
Other parts of Rafah are not nearly as devastated, he says. But CNN cannot independently verify his claims: Israel has barred foreign journalists from entering Gaza independently and our only access is via embeds with the Israeli military. And this devastated section of Rafah is where they have brought us. The Israeli military has brought us here not to see the destruction, but to talk about why they launched an offensive here in the first place, what they say they’ve uncovered and what they’ve accomplished. Before arriving into Rafah, we drive along Gaza-Egypt border: through what’s known as the Philadelphi corridor. The area was seized by the Israeli military, which says it has uncovered dozens of tunnel shafts as well as rocket launchers used to fire rockets into Israel. Hagari showed us one tunnel shaft, which he said stretched about 90 feet (28 meters) underground. The Israeli military says Hamas has used the Philadelphi corridor to smuggle weapons in from Egypt and then deeper into the rest of the Gaza Strip. Hagari says some of the tunnels stretch toward Egypt, but he cannot yet definitively say whether those tunnels were functional and were used to smuggle weapons into Gaza. Egypt has denied that there are any tunnels stretching into its territory from Gaza. “We are researching those tunnels carefully and making sure which ones were functional and which are not functional anymore because maybe they were – from the Egyptian side – stopped,” Hagari says. He won’t say exactly how long Israeli forces will need to occupy this corridor, but says it could be weeks or months. Hagari also says Israeli forces killed more than 900 Hamas fighters in Rafah and are close to defeating Hamas’s Rafah brigade. But how many militants have melted away and are likely to regroup once Israeli forces leave this area is less clear – and absent a long-term strategy or an alternative to Hamas governance in Gaza, Hamas has already begun to do just that in other areas where Israeli forces had previously withdrawn. As for the Rafah ground operation, Hagari cannot say whether it will be the last in Gaza.“I won’t say that because what you will see is when we’ll have intelligence that maybe there are hostages in one of the points in Gaza, we will operate and do a raid. If we’ll get intelligence in one of those areas that Hamas terrorists are preparing a terror attack against Israelis or our forces, we will do a raid and attack,” Hagari says. “This is what you’ll see.”

Press group blasts Israel for draconian ‘blackout’
Adam Schrader/July 7 (UPI)/July 7, 2024
A journalist screams after being wounded during clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers along the Israel-Gaza border, east of Khan Yunis town in the southern Gaza Strip on September 15, 2023. File Photo by Abd Rahim Al-Khatib/ UPI
The Foreign Press Association, a nonprofit organization representing journalists working in Israel and Palestine, has blasted Israeli authorities for what it called an "information blackout.""Never before has Israel enforced such a long and strict information blackout," the FPA said in its statement Sunday. "It has repeatedly rejected our appeals for access, fought us in court to uphold its draconian ban and offered just a handful of highly controlled 'embed' opportunities for a small number of our members."The group added that Palestinian journalists in Gaza continue to face "unprecedented threats" from Israeli soldiers who monitor and restrict their movement."It raises questions about what Israel doesn't want international journalists to see," the nonprofit said in its statement. Meanwhile, Israeli journalist Nir Hasson and Palestinian journalist Saif Kwasmi were harassed and assaulted by Israelis during the annual Jerusalem Day Flag March last week, earning condemnation from the U.S.-based Committee for the Protection of Journalists. "An Israeli police officer started hitting me and took me to a side street to arrest me," Kwasmi told the nonprofit group. "I told him that I am a journalist and produced my card. They escorted the journalists outside of the Old City and to a place for journalists."The annual march commemorates the June 5 capture of East Jerusalem by Israeli forces in the 1967 war. Palestinians have been banned from organizing protest marches for half a century and regularly censor media reporting on Israeli occupation.
In fact, Israel detained journalists simply on the suspicion they were working for Al Jazeera in May after outright banning the news broadcaster from reporting within Israel.
At least 48 journalists have been arrested by Israeli authorities since Oct. 7, the CPJ reported. Of those, 36 remain detained by Israel. Palestinian authorities have arrested just three journalists. So far, 108 journalists covering the war have been killed and 32 reported injured. The circumstances of their deaths have been tracked by the nonprofit.

Frankly Speaking: Is the health situation in Gaza beyond saving?
ARAB NEWS/July 07, 2024
DUBAI: The devastation of Gaza’s health system and the magnitude and complexity of the trauma endured by the Palestinian people are difficult for aid workers to wrap their heads around, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, has said. Appearing on the Arab News current affairs program “Frankly Speaking,” the Saudi-born WHO official described the reality facing Palestinians and aid workers operating under Israeli bombardment in the embattled enclave. “It is difficult for me to interact with and listen to those devastating stories, let alone … the photos and the videos that we see every day on TV,” Balkhy said.
“I was at the Rafah border crossing from the Egypt side. I was able to visit the patients that were hosted in the hospitals in Al-Arish … The stories that I’ve heard and the types of trauma that I have seen are quite significant.”
Balkhy, who took up her appointment as regional director in February this year and is the first woman to hold the position, described witnessing “maimed children and women” and “young adults with lost limbs.”She said: “The devastation that we’re seeing, and the magnitude and complexity of trauma, is something that we will need to wrap our heads around and be able to find very creative ways to work with partners, the member states who have been very thankfully supporting us. But none of this is enough.”
Since the war in Gaza began on Oct. 7 last year following the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel, the Palestinian enclave on the Mediterranean coast has endured heavy Israeli bombardment and a fierce ground offensive, which has displaced much of the population.
The bombing raids, the collapse of civilian infrastructure including sanitation services, and chronic shortages of food, drinking water and medications have brought Gaza’s health system to its knees.Just 33 percent of Gaza’s 36 hospitals and 30 percent of its primary healthcare centers are functional in some capacity. Asked whether the health situation in Gaza is beyond saving, Balkhy said the WHO would continue to do its best to serve patients and those injured. “The situation in Gaza has been quite devastating for all of us, especially the partners working on the ground,” she told “Frankly Speaking” host Katie Jensen. “But WHO continues to work with its partners and with whoever’s on the ground at the moment in delivering fuel, medical supplies, and other aid.”
In particular, Balkhy highlighted the important role played by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
The agency came under significant financial pressure earlier this year after major Western donors suspended their funding in response to Israeli allegations that 12 UNRWA staff members had participated in the Oct. 7 attack.
Balkhy said UNRWA “is very important as we work with them to try to sustain what is left of the primary healthcare (system) and restore what has been significantly damaged, but also to work together with the partners to evacuate the necessary patients.”
Despite the challenges faced by the aid community, Balkhy said: “We stay, we serve, and we continue to do our best to serve the patients and the injured in Gaza.”
Compounding the health crisis in Gaza are the chronic shortages of food reaching civilians via the limited number of border crossings from Israel and from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. Since the conflict began, Israel has limited the flow of aid permitted to enter the territory, claiming it was being commandeered by Hamas. As a result of these delays at the border, a significant proportion of the population is facing catastrophic hunger and famine-like conditions. To add insult to injury, Balkhy said truckloads of urgently needed foodstuffs provided by aid agencies and donor nations were going rotten while awaiting clearance to enter Gaza. “The catastrophic situation is in the numbers if you look at them,” said Balkhy. “So, 96 percent of the population of Gaza is facing acute food insecurity on a regular basis, and more than half of that population does not have any food to eat in their house, and 20 percent go for entire days and nights without any eating. “I actually have been at the Rafah crossing, and I visited the hospitals in Al-Arish on the soil of Egypt and I’ve seen the tens or hundreds of trucks lined up to try to cross and provide the necessary aid, including food.
“Now, facing the summer months right now, it’s going to be even more difficult. Already we have information that the extreme waiting at the border and the delays (are) allowing for this food and some of this sensitive aid to go rotten or go bad, and that is really very difficult for us to manage.
“So, the situation is dire, the food catastrophe is significant. On top of (that is), of course, the lack of our ability to deliver as much health aid as we would wish.”
Efforts to secure a ceasefire have been repeatedly thwarted in recent months, first by US vetoes at the UN Security Council, and later by the unwillingness of the warring parties to reach a compromise. Although the UN Security Council has since passed a resolution calling on Israel and Hamas to agree to a ceasefire, coupled with the Biden administration’s own peace plan, a pause in the fighting to allow an exchange of prisoners and the delivery of more aid has proved elusive.
Asked what difference a ceasefire would make to Gaza’s health crisis, Balkhy said it would allow the WHO and other aid agencies to move freely within the enclave to reach those most in need and to restore its shattered infrastructure.
“We very much welcome the Security Council resolution. Peace is the only way for us to move forward with helping the people in Gaza,” she said.
“The significant impact that has been taking place on the healthcare settings, on the health workforce, the complexities of the trauma that are taking place, requires that we are capable to freely move within Gaza, accessing the very difficult areas, even in the north, the middle and the south, to be able to have the people move back into their homes, to be able to have access to healthcare for not just the traumas.
“Remember, there are people who have chronic diseases. People are not having access to their hypertension medications, for example, their dialysis treatment, people who require a treatment for their cancers. All of these things … have been jeopardized to a very big degree.
“The benefit of a ceasefire today and a permanent peace agreement will allow us to go back and build with all of the partners on the ground and with the staff from Gaza themselves.”International humanitarian law prohibits attacks on medical workers and infrastructure, and yet, from Ukraine to Syria and more recently in Sudan, such infrastructure has been damaged and destroyed by warring parties, drawing accusations of war crimes. Asked whether similar destruction of health infrastructure in Gaza amounted to a war crime, Balkhy said the level of protection required under international law appears to have been lacking. “Healthcare facilities and health workforces are protected under international humanitarian law. And, unfortunately, that has not been the case so far,” she said. “When we talk about the amount of people that have been injured and killed during the past few months, and large numbers of them are women and children, then that question definitely comes up quite strongly.”
Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, there have been regular claims from Israeli authorities that Hamas has been using a network of tunnels, command centers and weapons caches hidden under hospitals, thereby using patients and medical staff as human shields. Asked whether WHO staff had seen any evidence to support or debunk the Israeli claims, Balkhy said: “I have not been aware of any evidence that supports that the hospitals have been used for such reasons.
“Of course, we are not the entity that has the role or the mandate to investigate this. So, the evidence, even if it existed, does not come to us and we have not seen anything that supports those claims.”
A major concern among regional governments and the wider international community is the potential for the war in Gaza to spill over into a broader conflict, dragging in vulnerable neighbors, Iran and its regional proxies, and even the US.
Lebanon is especially vulnerable, with months of cross-border fire between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia threatening to escalate into a full-blown war. Balkhy said an escalation would be “catastrophic” for Lebanon. “We do hope and pray that this escalation does not take place because the health systems within Lebanon and within many of the countries bordering the Occupied Palestinian Territories are already overwhelmed with what is happening,” she said. “And at any rate, none of us would wish for further war, further destruction. It’s really not what any human being … would want to see. So, we do hope that diplomacy plays its role and the region can calm down and that this escalation does not happen. “If it does happen, then I can tell you it will be extremely catastrophic for the fragile health systems.”Indeed, since Lebanon plunged into a grave economic crisis in late 2019, medical workers have been leaving the country in droves in search of better opportunities. Likewise in Syria, following more than a decade of civil war, sanctions and isolation, compounded by the catastrophic twin earthquakes of February 2023, medical staff have been abandoning the country.
Asked what could be done to convince medical workers to remain and serve their compatriots, Balkhy said it was a matter of economics, security and dignity.
“It’s very important to understand that every individual, and this is coming from my personal perspective, every individual seeks to live a dignified, healthy life,” she said.
“So, if you have been trained as a healthcare provider and you’re not able to perform and to practice the medicine that you have learned, then it’s very difficult.
“It’s not about convincing. It’s about the economy. It’s about the lifestyle. It’s about the security and the safety for them to be able to feel that they can practice and do what they want to do when it comes to the healthcare provision.
“And that has not been secured at the moment because of the lack of the equipment, the lack of the medications and the lack of opportunities to progress in their career as healthcare providers.” She added: “I come from the region, so I know quite well that they would love nothing more than to stay in their country. They would love nothing more than to serve their own people. “And that applies by the way to several other countries in the region. In Lebanon, it’s the same thing. And Palestine, it’s the same thing. The people do not want to leave their countries and their lands, but the situation that they’re in pushes them to seek a better life elsewhere.”

France's far right 'sad and disappointed' over election result
Mark Lowen - BBC News/July 7, 2024
The champagne was on ice, the jazz was on low: the scene was set at the pavilion in Paris’s Bois de Vincennes forest where the National Rally (RN) was staging what it hoped would be its victory rally. Hundreds of journalists had come from across the world, the sniffer dogs in place to protect a party that was, we all thought, at the gates of power; the first time the far right would enter government in France since World War Two. But as time ticked towards the exit poll at 8pm, the mood began to turn. Party apparatchiks talked in hushed tones of indications they had fallen short. Nervous glances were exchanged, the glasses looked more half-empty than half-full. And then the screens told the story: of the National Rally beaten into third place by the left and by President Macron’s centrists. There was stunned silence – and then a smattering of applause by party supporters to try to keep spirits up.
“We are sad, disappointed, struck down by this result,” said Rosa Gave, as she clutched a French flag. “We are victims of a dishonest alliance led by Macron to block us from power.”
man preparing champagne
National Rally had champagne on ice, but the result was not one many observers predicted [BBC]
That "alliance" was more of a pact, struck in the last week by opponents of the National Rally - that in many of the three-way races where the RN was in the lead, the third candidate would withdraw, urging voters to rally behind the figure best-placed to stop the far-right. And it worked. It’s a common electoral tactic here – but has still drawn the ire of the RN. As Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old president – and the man who had hoped to become France’s prime minister – arrived, there were cheers from the dwindling crowd inside. “Depriving millions of French people of the possibility of seeing their ideas brought to power will never be a viable destiny for France”, he said. He denounced President Emmanuel Macron for, in his words, pushing France towards instability – and into the arms of what he called the “extreme left”: a reference to France Unbowed, the party leading the victorious left-wing coalition.
And then came Marine Le Pen, the National Rally’s leader, whose dream of national power has once again been thwarted at the eleventh hour. She was thronged by journalists, as her supporters chanted “Marine, Présidente!” A couple of reporters were pushed over in the melee. “The tide is rising – our victory has only been delayed,” she said, calling President Macron’s position “untenable”. Marine Le Pen addresses journalists after the second round of voting. National Rally’s leader, Marine Le Pen, says victory is just delayed. [EPA]. The president who came to power promising to revive the centre ground, to bridge right and left, has done anything but – pushing the French to the extremes. And while many in the National Rally will feel bitterly disappointed that their victory in the first round of this election did not lead them to power after the second, they will be cheering a significant increase in the number of their MPs since the last parliamentary election, confident that one day their time will come. “France has chosen the coalition of the worst,” said Matteo Giammaresi, a National Rally supporter, holding his champagne glass on a rapidly emptying dancefloor.
“What we say now is giving France hope for the future.”The party will now wait this government out, believing that division and disunity will play into Marine Le Pen’s hands. And then, at the 2027 presidential election, she would be able to say - this is what happens when we are blocked from power.
What government now emerges is still deeply unclear. A hung parliament awaits – and potential paralysis. France has been plunged into the political unknown – just not in the way pollsters predicted.

New British prime minister seeks to improve on 'botched' trade deal with European Union
The Associated Press/July 07/2024
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is seeking to reset relations at home and abroad.During a visit Sunday to Edinburgh, that he billed as an “immediate reset” with the regional governments of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, Starmer said he would also seek to improve the U.K.'s “botched” trade deal with the European Union. "I do think that we can get a much better deal than the botched deal that (former Prime Minister) Boris Johnson saddled the U.K. with,” he said in reference to the pact negotiated after Brexit. Starmer said there were many discussions ahead to strengthen trading, research and defense ties with the EU. But he said those talks had begun as his top diplomat made his first visit abroad to Germany, Poland and Sweden. With two of Starmer's ministers in Europe ahead of a NATO meeting next week, the premier made a point of visiting the leaders of the regional governments in the U.K. following his party’s landslide victory last week. Starmer, who said he has a “mandate to do politics differently,” met with Scottish First Minister John Swinney in an effort to “turn disagreement into cooperation.”“We will serve every single person in Scotland,” Starmer told a group of enthusiastic supporters. “Performance, self-interest: they’re the politics of the past. The politics of this Labour government of 2024 is about public service, restoring standards of making sure that we always, always have in our mind’s eye the people who elected us into government.”While each of the devolved nations in the U.K. elects members to the House of Commons in London, they also have their own regional parliaments.
Starmer’s Labour Party trounced Swinney’s Scottish National Party for seats in Parliament. But the SNP, which has pushed for Scottish independence, still holds a majority at Holyrood, the Scottish parliament.
Swinney said after meeting the prime minister that he believed there's an opportunity to work together to make a difference for the Scottish people.
The trip to build better working relations across the U.K. comes as Starmer's government faces a mountain of problems. The Labour government inherited a wobbly economy that left Britons struggling to pay bills after global economic woes and fiscal missteps. It also faces a public disenchanted after 14 years of chaotic Conservative rule and fiscal austerity that hollowed out public services, including the revered National Health Service, which Starmer has declared broken. Starmer said he wants to transfer power from the bureaucratic halls of government in London to leaders who know what’s best for their communities.
After his two-day tour, he'll return to England, where he plans to meet with regional mayors, saying he would engage with politicians regardless of their party.
“There’s no monopoly on good ideas,” he said “I’m not a tribal political.”
Starmer continued to speak with other world leaders, having separate calls with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
He spoke with both about his priorities for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, the return of hostages to Israel, and an increase in humanitarian aid, a spokesperson said.
He told Abbas that the recognition of a Palestinian state as part of a peace process was the “undeniable right of Palestinians” and told Netanyahu it was important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution, including ensuring financial means for Abbas' Palestinian Authority to operate effectively.
Labour's initial refusal to call for a ceasefire last year is blamed for costing it support and some seats in Thursday's election. In advance of Starmer's attendance Tuesday at a NATO meeting in Washington, Foreign Secretary David Lammy reiterated an “unshakeable” commitment to the alliance during his first trip abroad. Lammy said that the U.K. government would tighten relations with the European Union and remains “ironclad” in its support for Ukraine.
“European security will be this government’s foreign and defense priority," Lammy said in Poland. “Russia’s barbaric invasion has made clear the need for us to do more to strengthen our own defenses.”However, Lammy reiterated Starmer's pledge not to rejoin the EU single market after British voters in 2016 voted to break from the political and economic union.
“Let us put the Brexit years behind us," Lammy told The Observer. “We are not going to rejoin the single market and the customs union but there is much that we can do together.” Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said Sunday on Sky News that the U.K. should look for ways to improve trade with the EU and that removing some trade barriers was sensible. But he said the Labour government was not open to the free movement of people that was required as a member of the union. Meanwhile, Defense Secretary John Healey met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Odessa and said the U.K. would provide a new package of support to Ukraine, including more artillery guns and nearly 100 Brimstone missiles.
Healey also said he would make sure the remaining military commitments to Ukraine by the previous government would be delivered within 100 days.
Brian Melley, The Associated Press

Rafah is a dusty, rubble-strewn ghost town 2 months after Israel invaded to root out Hamas
RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP)/July 07/2024
Two months ago, before Israeli troops invaded Rafah, the city sheltered most of Gaza's more than 2 million people. Today it is a dust-covered ghost town. Abandoned, bullet-ridden apartment buildings have blasted out walls and shattered windows. Bedrooms and kitchens are visible from roads dotted with rubble piles that tower over the Israeli military vehicles passing by. Very few civilians remain.Israel says it has nearly defeated Hamas forces in Rafah — an area identified earlier this year as the militant group's' last stronghold in Gaza. The Israeli military invited reporters into Rafah on Wednesday, the first time international media visited Gaza's southernmost city since it was invaded May 6. Israel has barred international journalists from entering Gaza independently since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 that sparked the war. Before invading Rafah, Israel said Hamas' four remaining battalions had retreated there, an area of about 25 square miles (65 square kilometers) that borders Egypt. Israel says hundreds of militants have been killed in its Rafah offensive. Scores of women and children have also died from Israeli airstrikes and ground operations. The military says it has been necessary to operate with such intensity because Hamas turned civilian areas into treacherous traps. Eight soldiers were killed last month by a single blast. “Some of these tunnels are booby-trapped,” the military's chief spokesman, Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, said during Wednesday's tour as he stood over a shaft that led underground. “Hamas built everything in a civilian neighborhood among houses, among mosques, among the population, in order to create its terror ecosystem.” An estimated 1.4 million Palestinians crammed into Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in Gaza. The U.N. estimates that around 50,000 remain in Rafah, which had a pre-war population of about 275,000. Most have moved to a nearby Israel-declared “humanitarian area” where conditions are grave. Many are clustering in squalid tent camps along the beach with scant access to clean water, food, bathrooms and medical care. Efforts to bring aid into southern Gaza have stalled. Israel's incursion into Rafah closed down one of two major crossings into the south of Gaza. The U.N. says little aid can enter from the other main crossing — Kerem Shalom — because the route is too dangerous and convoys are vulnerable to attacks by armed groups searching for smuggled-in cigarettes. On Wednesday, a line of trucks on the Gaza side of Kerem Shalom was visible, but the trucks were hardly moving — a sign of how Israel's pledge to keep the route safe in order to facilitate the delivery of aid inside Gaza has fallen flat. U.N. officials say some commercial trucks have braved the route into Rafah, but not without hired armed guards riding atop their convoys. Israel says it is close to dismantling the group as an organized military force in Rafah. In a reflection of that confidence, soldiers brought journalists in open-air military vehicles down the road that leads into the heart of the city.
Along the way, debris lying by the side of the road made clear the perils of aid delivery: carcasses of trucks lying baking in the hot sun; dashboards covered in fencing meant to protect drivers; aid pallets lying empty. The longer the aid delivery is frozen, humanitarian groups say, the closer Gaza comes to running out of fuel, which is needed for hospitals, water desalination plants and vehicles. “The hospitals are once again short on fuel, risking disruption of critical services,” said Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the World Health Organization’s regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean. "Injured people are dying because the ambulance services are facing delays due to fuel shortages.”As the humanitarian situation worsens, Israel is pushing ahead with its offensive. Combat in Rafah is ongoing. After journalists heard nearby gunshots on Wednesday, the soldiers told the group they would not be visiting the beach, as had been planned. The group departed the city soon after, with clouds of dust kicked up by vehicles temporarily obscuring the mass of destruction behind them.

Hamas clears way for possible truce in Gaza after dropping key demand
 Naharnet Newsdesk 19 hours ago
Hamas has given its initial approval of a U.S.-backed proposal for a phased cease-fire deal in Gaza, dropping a key demand that Israel commit up front to a complete end to the war, a Hamas official and an Egyptian official said Saturday.
The apparent compromise by the militant group, which controlled Gaza before triggering the war with an Oct. 7 attack on Israel, could deliver the first pause in fighting since November and set the stage for further talks on ending a devastating nine months of fighting. But all sides cautioned that a deal is still not guaranteed. Inside Gaza, the Health Ministry said an Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter killed at least 16 people and wounded at least 50 others in the Nuseirat refugee camp. Children were among the dead and wounded. Israel's military said it struck several "terrorists" operating in the area of the school and had tried to lessen the risk to civilians. The two officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ongoing negotiations, said Washington's phased deal would start with a "full and complete" six-week cease-fire during which older, sick and female hostages would be released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. During those 42 days, Israeli forces would withdraw from densely populated areas of Gaza and allow the return of displaced people to their homes in northern Gaza, the officials said.
A senior Hamas official, also speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss negotiations, later told The Associated Press that female soldiers would be among those released in the first phase.
Over that period, Hamas, Israel and mediators would negotiate the terms of the second phase that could see the release of the remaining male hostages, both civilians and soldiers, the first two officials said. In return, Israel would free additional Palestinian prisoners and detainees. The third phase would include the return of any remaining hostages, including bodies of the dead, and the start of a yearslong reconstruction project. Hamas still wants written guarantees from mediators that Israel will continue to negotiate a permanent cease-fire deal once the first phase goes into effect, the two officials said.
The first Hamas official told the AP the group's approval came after it received "verbal commitments and guarantees" from the mediators that the war won't be resumed and that negotiations will continue until a permanent cease-fire is reached.
"Now we want these guarantees on paper," that official said. Months of on-again off-again cease-fire talks have stumbled over Hamas' demand that any deal include a complete end to the war. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has offered to pause the fighting but not end it until Israel reaches its goals of destroying Hamas' military and governing capabilities and returning all hostages held by the militant group. Hamas has expressed concern that Israel will restart the war after the hostages are released. Israeli officials have said they are worried Hamas will draw out the talks and the initial cease-fire indefinitely without releasing all the hostages. Netanyahu's office did not respond to requests for comment, and there was no immediate comment from Washington. On Friday, the Israeli prime minister confirmed that the Mossad spy agency's chief had paid a lightning visit to Qatar, a key mediator, but his office said "gaps between the parties" remained.
"For the first time in many months, we feel hopeful," a statement by many families of hostages said. "Netanyahu, we have seen how you repeatedly thwart deals in real time. Don't you dare break our hearts again." Anti-government protesters gathered again Saturday night. Israel launched the war in Gaza after Hamas' October attack in which militants stormed into southern Israel, allegedly killed some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and abducted about 250. Israel says Hamas is still holding about 120 hostages — about a third of them now thought to be dead.
Since then, the Israeli air and ground offensive has killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the territory's Health Ministry. The offensive has caused widespread devastation and a humanitarian crisis that has left hundreds of thousands of people on the brink of famine, according to international officials.
The cease-fire deal would see around 600 trucks of humanitarian aid entering Gaza daily, with half of them bound for the enclave's hard-hit north, the two officials said. Since Israel's assault on the southernmost city of Rafah, aid supplies entering Gaza have been reduced to a trickle. "We want to eat, but from where we can eat? The country is exhausted. The country is destitute. It is not suitable for living," said Walid Hegazi, a resident of the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza. "We're sorry for the donkeys because we ate their wheat and barley."Also Saturday, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry said four police officers were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Rafah. The ministry, which oversees civilian police, said the officers were killed during foot patrols. It said eight other officers were wounded. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions.

Israel launches deadly strikes on Gaza as war enters tenth month
NEWS WIRES/France 24/July 7, 2024
Israel conducted deadly air strikes in the Gaza Strip as the war entered its tenth month on Sunday, with intense fighting continuing across the Palestinian enclave. Amid the violence, new diplomatic efforts are underway to achieve a ceasefire, although significant differences remain between Israel and Hamas regarding the terms of a truce and hostage release. Israel carried out deadly air strikes in the Gaza Strip as the war entered its tenth month on Sunday, with fighting raging across the Palestinian territory and fresh diplomatic efforts under way to halt the violence. Israel has said it will send a delegation in the coming days to continue truce talks with Qatari mediators that began recently in Doha. But Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman said "gaps" remained with Hamas on how to secure a ceasefire and hostage release deal. "It was agreed that next week Israeli negotiators will travel to Doha to continue the talks. There are still gaps between the parties," the spokesman said in a statement on Friday. Paramedics also said Sunday that six people had been killed in an Israeli strike on a house in a northern area of Gaza City. "Now the ball is in the Israeli court."

Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on July 07-08/2024
This is why Hamas won't surrender - opinion
COOKIE SCHWAEBER-ISSAN/Jerusalem Post/July 07/2024
Sinwar is basking in the residual effect of Israel’s self-defense since October 7, delighting in the fruit of the labors of those who may not necessarily want to be counted as his helpers.
Eli Podeh, teacher of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem asks why Hamas, a relatively insignificant organization in contrast to powerful countries, refuses to bend to pressure from the United States, Eqypt, and Qatar. What could Hamas mastermind Yahya Sinwar be thinking? Is it just that he is a delusional psychopath, devoid of rational thinking?
Probably not. Sure, he’s the devil incarnate, but he is not altogether insane.
Sinwar, who clearly still has a pipeline to the outside world, is doubtless aware of the many young people, along with progressives and the usual assortment of antisemites, have turned viciously on Israel, and by extension on all Jews. He doubtless knows that mainstream media and global agencies blame Israel for all the Gazans’ suffering – from being displaced to experiencing alleged starvation and the unjustified murder of their people.
It’s fair to say that the Jewish homeland has not experienced this type of collective condemnation, outrage, and castigation in its 76-year history, causing many to wonder whether the Israelis are, in fact, the monsters they are made out to be. At a time when Israel is accused of committing “genocide” by international courts and sovereign countries, such as South Africa: Why would Sinwar even lift a finger to do anything? After all, if things are imploding, just take a front-row seat and watch it happen.
The strategy of doing nothing is often successful. Most recently, it was utilized by former US president Donald Trump, prior to the recent presidential debate with US President Joe Biden. Many political advisers told Trump to simply let Biden speak uninterruptedly, in the knowledge that, in such a situation, the president would become responsible for his own political demise. Exactly what happened.
There is no question that Sinwar has placed his bets on the protesting students, the biased media, the Jew-haters, Palestinian advocates, the progressive wing of the Democratic party, and many others, all of whom constitute a growing shift against Israel and its people, whether in the country or only ethnically related.
This new current of blame and unsubstantiated accusations is a useful weapon in Hamas’s arsenal, allowing them the luxury of the “do nothing” strategy while others pile on the guilt, in the hope of casting the Jews as the true evildoers.
Sinwar is basking in the residual effect of Israel’s self-defense since October 7, delighting in the fruit of the labors of those who, may not necessarily want to be counted as his helpers, doing his bidding – along with his terrorist minions whose goal is to eradicate those who do not adhere to their radical beliefs.
It is plausible to conclude that Hamas’s intransigence in refusing to release the remaining 120 hostages is a direct result of the fury being released against Israel in many varied arenas, with that free support enabling the terrorist organization not to capitulate in any way.
And still, it is not only the perks from all that Jew-hatred that shores up and encourages Hamas as its leaders are hailed as the real “heroes” in the battle of good vs evil. We must also ask: “Just how intense is the pressure [on Hamas] from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar whose efforts are supposedly being rebuffed?”
Flimsy friendship
Only a few weeks after October 7, the very warm support and sympathy of the US, allegedly Israel’s greatest and most loyal ally, turned into tepid, shaky, and hesitant backing, weakening with the passing of time. Calls for a two-state solution followed, offered as the only way forward, despite a clear void regarding a reputable and reliable leader for the Gazans.
Of course, calls for two states in no way take into consideration that the Palestinians are not at all interested in sharing the land with the Jews but are rather fixated on the whole pie.
Regarding Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the State Department, the Pentagon, and other major players who think they know what’s best for the Middle East, their total lack of unwavering support and resolve toward the eradication of the terrorist menace in our part of the world has only served to embolden the likes of Hamas and their leadership – who sense a spirit of appeasement along with a missing backbone.
Then there is Egypt, the country that facilitated the smuggling of weapons through the tunnel network, which was incorporated into its territory as early as 2007 according to some reports. Although Egypt had constructed an underground barrier in 2009, for the express purpose of deterring new tunnels, the country was said to have relaxed restrictions in 2011 at its border with the Gaza Strip, allowing Palestinians to freely cross. Although Egypt’s military officially destroyed most of the 1,200 smuggling tunnels between 2013-14, they clearly preserved a few, providing a critical artery for weapons supply.
Thus, virtually messaging Hamas: “You can smuggle weapons, but we don’t want to appear to be facilitating your effort.” Nonetheless, they did, so why should any pressure from them be taken seriously at this point?
Lastly, there is Qatar, the home turf of the top Hamas leadership, which has reaped the benefit of the billions of dollars that have flowed into their country by way of the treasure troves amassed by those who have significantly enriched the 4,500 sq. mile [11655 sq. km.] peninsula which borders Saudi Arabia.
Given these uberwealthy terrorist/financiers who are being hosted with impunity and, undoubtedly, calling the shots, what kind of pressure is Qatar exercising on Sinwar and Hamas?
Although the Qataris are viewed as good-will negotiators: How far are they willing to go in their endeavor to release the hostages, and what kind of incentive does Hamas have when Qatar has “been a key financial supporter to them, transferring more than $1.8 billion to Hamas over the years”?
Is it still not clear why Hamas won’t surrender?
*The writer is a former Jerusalem elementary and middle school principal. She is also the author of Mistake-Proof Parenting, available on Amazon, based on the time-tested wisdom found in the Book of Proverbs.

Muslim IDF commander: 'The Bedouin will fight until the last drop of blood' - interview
AMIR BOHBOT//Jerusalem Post/July 07/2024
The 39-year-old Ayadat is married and a father of two. He is a member of the Bedouin community from Beit Zarzir.
On October 7, Muslim Bedouin IDF soldier Lt.-Col. Nader Eyadat was at home when reports of the rocket launches began. He decided to go to the Tze’elim Ground Forces training base in the Negev to ready himself to defend the South.
While he was driving, the phone rang. On the other end was Col. Tal Ashur, who had just been appointed acting commander of the Southern Brigade after the late Col. Asaf Hamami was killed battling terrorists.
"It was a short conversation," Tal said, "'Hamami was killed. I’m taking his place. The battalion commander of the reconnaissance battalion was seriously wounded, take command'." The 39-year-old Eyadat is married and a father of two, and is a member of the Bedouin community from Beit Zarzir. He enlisted to the IDF in 2005 and has since been deployed as a fighter in the Desert Reconnaissance Battalion which operates in the area of ​​the southern division around Gaza.
He has since risen through the ranks. He was the first Bedouin to who finished the squad commander course. He commanded the reconnaissance battalion when violent disturbances on the border of the Gaza Strip threatened the Israeli home front. After that, he went to school and got a position at the army training center in Tze’elim. Many of the division's soldiers and commanders of the desert patrol battalion were on weekend leave on October 7, and some of them were training missions for several weeks, so their place in the southern division was filled by Nahal Brigade soldiers.
"We organized very quickly as an initial force," Lt.-Col. Eyadat said. "We had for mission to retake control of part of Route 232 and clear it of terrorists... Suddenly you see damaged tanks and armored personnel carriers on the roads. Wounded civilians and corpses of Nukhba terrorists. I understood what was going when I saw the body of a civilian at an intersection with a bullet in the head." "Until then, I was very focused on organizing the mission. I couldn't believe that this was happening," Eyadat recalled. "Then, we had an encounter with terrorists at the Gama junction (located between Kisufim and Be’eri). My fighters and I know the sector like the back of our hands, we trained on scenarios, one, two, three terrorist infiltrations. Who would have thought that thousands of terrorists would infiltrate?”
The fighters began taking over the central axes to allow the entrance of additional units from north to south and to enable the evacuation of civilians. "Some of the forces remained at the junctions and some moved towards the kibbutzim. At Kibbutz Holit we helped evacuate the wounded. We heard on that there was a shooting at the Sufa outpost. I arrived at the place and met a Caracal Battalion commander at the entrance while Shayetet 13 fighters were fighting inside," Eyadat said.
"At a distance of 100 meters I saw a white van standing still. I sent forces to scan and heard gunshots. After a few minutes, one of the commanders came and reported to me that there was an encounter with two terrorists and that a fighter was wounded.
The unit was tasked with clearing the roads leading to their base, with rescuing civilians, and with locating Thai-speaking foreign workers in the area who were hiding in greenhouses. "The Bedouin warriors are brave. No need to tell us where to go. We know the area very well," said Eyadat, adding that since October 7th, members of the battalion have participated in a large number of additional operations to uncover and neutralize terrorist infrastructure near the the buffer zone within Gaza.
On June 6, 2024, suspicious movements were detected, and a group of reconnaissance battalion soldiers was sent to scan the border area. At the very beginning, the commander decided to lead the operations under the cover of the fog. The force under his command identified terrorists trying to infiltrate into Israel, at which point an exchange of fire took place. In the battle, the battalion tracker, a relative of Lt.-Col. Eyadat, was killed. The reconnaissance battalion fighters managed to kill three terrorists. "It's good that it was the 585th Battalion that was sent to the scene. They foiled the first major attack deep into Israel for the first time since October 7. The Defense Minister and the Chief of Staff who arrived at the area praised them," said a senior officer in the Southern Command.
According to Eyadat, there is a clear connection between the reconnaissance battalion and the IDF. First of all, we fight for the land. We have been shoulder to shoulder in the IDF since 1948. We have 30 fallen soldiers in the unit who were not killed in vain. Then everyone saw what happened here on October 7. Hamas did not differentiate between anyone. It killed Bedouin and Jews all the same," said Eyadat. "This is a terrorist organization that wants the destruction of the country. The veteran fighters of the reconnaissance battalion came here without anyone asking them and rushed here from anywhere in the country without questions. They told me that it is impossible to sit at home when such events take place."
The intense connection and motivation also led to the establishment of the first reserve company of the Bedouin reconnaissance battalion. Abd Allah El Abid, a fighter in the reserves, married and a father to three daughters, came from his home in the Tel Sheba area of ​​the Negev on his own accord and has been in the service ever since. "As a Muslim I say that it is not written in the Quran to kill civilians, burn babies, rape women. In what religion does it say that? But they did it. I will insult animals if I say they are animals. Everything they did is against Islam.”
Lt.-Col. Eyadat pointed to the area where they identified a terrorist ambush on the first day. "There is a video where you see a Bedouin father begging for his life and he is holding a small child. They tell him: 'You are a traitor' and killed him in front of his son. This is a very difficult video. You see the hate in the videos. Also of the citizens of Gaza. They hide behind religion and educate to hate. They murdered and kidnapped Bedouin. El Abid explained: "The Bedouin will fight until the last drop of blood. All Bedouin think the same. Hamas killed Arabs, Bedouin, and Jews. No difference. I am proud of my military service. I volunteered for regular service and here I am. I will be here as long as they ask me to be."
When you’re not on uniform, do you receive the same attitude?
"I have never felt racism in my life. I walk around with a uniform and a weapon with great respect and pride. I call on others to volunteer as well," Eyadat said.
"The reconnaissance battalion is a family," Eyadat explained. "There are Jews and Bedouin here. They're all together. There are stigmas about Bedouin, but when you get to know them, that disappears... The bond between all the soldiers is forever. I am proud to serve in the IDF."

France: The Perils of an Election
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/July 7, 2024
[Jean-Marie Le Pen] learned from General Boulanger's strategy of merging the monarchist right with the radical revolutionary left by working on two key constituencies: the urban working class increasingly disillusioned with Stalinist and social democratic parties, and the dwindling farming communities that felt threatened by free trade and globalization. The Le Pen-ist movement turned the fight against immigration into the launching pad in its quest for power.
The tactic proved especially profitable in terms of getting votes in parts of France that had almost no or few immigrant communities. However, that wasn't enough either. Thus, National Rally cast the European Union as "the other" in the "them-and-us" discourse, to the point of calling for leaving the Schengen Agreement and the Euro-zone in 2017.
The [National Rally] party's program for government reads like the inventory of a candy store, full of goodies but not clear where and when they might be served.
What is certain is that NR is now the France's largest political party, backed by about 40 percent of voters. Even if it does not win a majority in the new parliament, it would be the key player in French politics for the foreseeable future.
Some pundits see it as a threat to French democracy. Maybe. But demonizing it is an even bigger threat. Barring a surprise, which is still possible, today France may have its first elected ultra-right government led by Marine Le Pen's National Rally (formerly National Front). The only other time that that brand of politics emerged as government in France was in the 1940s under Marshal Petain during the German occupation.
At a broader level, this would be the second time since the general election in the Weimar Republic in Germany in 1932 that an ultra-right party wins a straight parliamentary majority in a major European democracy.
Should we rush to join those on the ultra-left who are crying wolf about "fascism" seizing control of France?
I think not.
To be sure, the National Rally does share a number of attributes with ur-fascism, e.g. a narrow understanding of nationhood, a xenophobic tone, and a cult of the leader. However, the National Rally is heir to a political tradition with deep roots in modern French history.
This special brand of rightist politics was shaped in competition with two other brands: the Bonapartist with its empire-building dreams and cult of the savior, and the Orleanist depending on the urban middle class and promises of prosperity.
It found its first expression in the Chouan uprising against the Great Revolution of 1879, which gave the nascent movement an anti-left character from the start.
While the Chouan revolt took place as a crude version of guerrilla warfare, or jacquerie in French, the evolving ultra-right movement gradually acquired an urban base through what is known as the petite bourgeoisie, who feared violence from the expanding proletariat as industrialization intensified, and worried about loss of national, principally Christian, identity.
Divided between radical right and radical left, French politics did not succeed in building perennial democratic institutions and practices. Political parties were formed around charismatic figures but, unlike in Great Britain or the United States, seldom survived the disappearance of that figure.
France's ultra-right has always fed on three resentments.
The first was the loss of monarchy as a result of a revolution that ultra-right thinkers presented as a conspiracy by foreign forces against France, which was the world's only superpower at the time.
The second was the loss of empire and French blood as a result of what Robert Brasilliach, one of France's top radical right prophets, called Napoleon Bonaparte's "mad ambitions." In his "Child of the Night", Brasillach laments the re-drawing of the European map with French blood and its mixing with alien blood.
Later, Brasiliach's ideas formed the ideological backbone of the proto-terrorist group Action Française.
The third was what some writers saw as the de-francization of France in the wake of the 1870 defeat by Prussian-led Germany. Here the finger was specially pointed at Jews and led to the Dreyfus Affair, in which a Jewish army officer was unjustly accused of spying for Germany. Lucien Rebate's masterpiece "The Two Standards" was inspired by the claim that France is divided into two hostile camps under two flags.
In one camp are those who wish to preserve France's "francité" (French-ness) while advocates of the Great Revolution's "universal values" try to dissolve French identity in an amorphous human fraternity in the name of liberty and equality.
Charles Maurras, perhaps the finest ultra-right French writer in literary terms, sees the Great Revolution as a politico-historic version of the biblical original sin. In his "Order and Disorder," he identifies Western liberals and Marxists as the arch-enemies of the nation. Those resentments have been renewed by other instances of what in his book "On Humiliation," Olivier Abel describes as painful for a whole society.
The Dien Bien Phu disaster for the French army in Indochina in 1954 and the loss of French Algeria in 1962 are two examples.
In fact, the National Front that now knocks on the door of power in Paris as the National Rally was inspired by a number of personalities, including the politician Jacques Soustelle and the lawyer Tixier-Vingancour, who vocalized pains of "national humiliations".
Some men who had fought in Vietnam or Algeria became foot soldiers for the revanchist Algérie française movement and its OAS (organization of the secret army) that pushed France under General Charles De Gaulle to the edge of civil war.
Jean-Marie Le Pen and a dozen associates translated that resentment into political action by forming the National Front. Le Pen realized that if limited to nostalgia, resentment and the concerns of the lower middle classes, his party would have little chance of winning power via the ballot box.
He learned from General Boulanger's strategy of merging the monarchist right with the radical revolutionary left by working on two key constituencies: the urban working class increasingly disillusioned with Stalinist and social democratic parties, and the dwindling farming communities that felt threatened by free trade and globalization.
An earlier version of Le Pen-ism, known as Poujadism in the 1950s, had failed because it made no inroads into those major constituencies.
All ultra-right movements use "us-and-them" as a template for their discourse.
The Le Pen-ist movement turned the fight against immigration into the launching pad in its quest for power. The tactic proved especially profitable in terms of getting votes in parts of France that had almost no or few immigrant communities. However, that wasn't enough either. Thus, National Rally cast the European Union as "the other" in the "them-and-us" discourse, to the point of calling for leaving the Schengen Agreement and the Euro-zone in 2017. Le Pen-ism also borrowed a faintly anti-American accent from Gaullism, another French political movement built around a charismatic leader.
Having said all that, the fact remains that all we have from the NR is an impressionistic sketch that depicts NR as xenophobic, anti-Islamic, anti-Semitic and Euro-sceptic.
That, however, is an impression. The party's program for government reads like the inventory of a candy store, full of goodies but not clear where and when they might be served. As a prime minister, Jordan Bardella, the youthful sidekick to Marine Le Pen, could turn out to be a trouser-wearing version of Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni , who has surprised even political foes with her pragmatism.
What is certain is that NR is now the France's largest political party, backed by about 40 percent of voters. Even if it does not win a majority in the new parliament, it would be the key player in French politics for the foreseeable future.
Some pundits see it as a threat to French democracy. Maybe. But demonizing it is an even bigger threat.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987. He is the Chairman of Gatestone Europe. This article originally appeared in Asharq Al-Awsat and is reprinted with some changes by kind permission of the author.
© 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.

Where Are the Weapons? Israel is Defending Freedom against Tyranny for All of Us; It Needs the Weapons Promised It
Nils A. Haug/Gatestone Institute/July 7, 2024
[I]t clearly looks as if the Biden administration just wants to please its terrorist-sponsoring adversaries, Iran and Qatar, by allowing their prized client, Hamas, to win the war.
Regrettably, Iran does not seem to be guided by the same humanitarian, ethical, or "natural law principles" embraced by Israel and the West.
A jihadist in Iran's premier militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)... probably sees the job of the IRGC as driving the US out of the Middle East so that Iran can continue to "Export the Revolution" without interference.
It is with good reason that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complains that the US is withholding, or "slow-walking," military supplies. In Ukraine, for instance, badly needed arms are always "being delivered" but somehow never manage to arrive until long after they might actually have helped.
Although Israel's leaders are well aware of the immense danger presented by Iran, the US and other Western allies evidently cannot be relied upon to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear weapons program. The US appears to like talking, and talking about talking, diplomacy backed up by talking, verbal "understandings" so long as they have no teeth, then paying what looks like bribe money for adversaries not to "make waves," presumably at least not before the America's upcoming November election.
The Biden administration, it seems, would rather deal with threatening situations via... worthless promises from Iran, Russia, China, the Taliban, the Palestinians or whoever else will offer appeasements.
The critical point is that Israel is fighting to safeguard not just its own nation, but the West and the Free World as well. The battle at the moment seems between preserving freedom or having it extinguished by the forces of barbarism, autocracies and theocrats, but most of all by the passivity of the West.... Silky, stealth aggressors include Qatar -- the consigliere of all Islamic terror groups -- which uses money and its media network Al-Jazeera, not military aggression, as its means of persuasion.
Sadly, the Biden administration appears to view Israel not as a sovereign nation but a US satrapy. It is hardly a secret that the US has been trying to oust Israel's elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and replace him presumably with a subordinate. That US puppet would supposedly be delighted to have a terrorist Palestinian state next door administered by the terrorist godfather, Qatar, and be delighted to see Iran have as many nuclear weapons as it likes.
If Obama ostensibly conceived of this arrangement [the 2015 "nuclear deal"] to "balance the influence" of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, the plan has failed colossally. Saudi Arabia, for all its faults, has not tried to enlarge its territory....
At present, both the Biden administration in the US and opposition in Israel to its current government seem to be trying to muscle Netanyahu out. US Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who happens to be Jewish, declared in mid-March that Netanyahu had "lost his way" and called for "new elections" -- not in the Senator's own country, the US, but in that of a sovereign ally, Israel. Would he have called for "new elections" in England, Germany, Italy or France? Biden, unsurprisingly, quickly "embraced Schumer's speech."
Many, including some who might be looking longingly at Netanyahu's job, have advocated that "Hamas cannot be defeated." Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been doing exactly that.
The US and others have tried to claim that before defeating an adversary, one must know what will happen after the fighting stops, and that destroying Hamas's military capability will just create another whole generation of Gazans who hate Israelis and Jews. Before defeating Hitler, however, no one had suggested that it was important to know what would happen "after the fighting stopped"; the same holds true for Imperial Japan....at present, both Germany and Japan are solid allies of the US and the West. There are probably still Nazis in Germany, but they no longer have the "means, capability or opportunity" to disrupt Europe.
The US appears to be doing the bidding of its terrorist-supporting collaborators, Iran and Qatar, and their supporters -- potential voters in America's heartland -- and those who want Hamas to survive to "attack, time and again, until Israel is annihilated."
All that is required is to make sure that Israel has the ammunition and weapons it needs to fight on our behalf, to make sure they are delivered immediately, and then get out of the way.
It is with good reason that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complains that the US is withholding, or "slow-walking," military supplies.
If the primary obligation of any elected government is to protect the nation from threats foreign and domestic, it is even more necessary for a nation, such as Israel, which has been facing annihilation by avowed and well-armed adversaries since its independence in 1948.At present, Iran, backed by released funding from the Biden administration and with support from the Chinese Communist Party are -- along with "enabler of terrorism and dishonest broker" Qatar -- the primary state actors currently seeking Israel's obliteration.
The Biden administration, as well, while previously having been extremely helpful, unfortunately, as of late, has been massively unhelpful. Initially off to a great start after the October 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis and others by Iran's proxy, Hamas, the Biden administration seems since to have collapsed into a foreign policy paralysis, as it has in Ukraine. The consequent obstructions, enormously costly for Israel in life and treasure, involve what weapons Congress promised to deliver; trying to remove Israel's duly elected prime minister, seemingly to put in a US puppet; pretending to know how to micromanage another sovereign nation's urban warfare when it could not even manage its own in Afghanistan, and fabricating other unnecessary obstacles, such as needing to know the plan for the "day after" when it clearly looks as if the Biden administration just wants to please its terrorist-sponsoring adversaries, Iran and Qatar, by allowing their prized client, Hamas, to win the war.
Israel, a country smaller than New Jersey and only slightly larger than Nauru, was referred to by former Iranian President Rafsanjani as a one-bomb country: "[T]he use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality."
The larger war that Iran, using another of its proxies, Hizballah, is now trying to escalate on Israel's northern border, even without nuclear weapons, can be understood as having a genocidal intent -- "Death to Israel" -- in line with what Iran has been calling for since its Islamic Revolution in 1979.
It is unclear whether or not Iran already possesses nuclear capabilities to unleash on Israel, but its intent to do so is clear. For instance, Iran played a significant role in planning the October 7, 2023 attack, while the Biden administration funded it. Iran repeats "Death to Israel" to this day. Iran itself fired a barrage of more than 300 missiles and attack drones at Israel on April 13, 2024, and Iran's 'Doomsday Clock' in Tehran's Palestine Square counts down toward the hour of Israel's extinction.
"It is the mission of the Islamic republic of Iran," Iran's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has been recorded as saying, "to erase Israel from the map of the region." He adds, "Israel is a hideous entity in the middle east which will undoubtedly be annihilated."
"They told us in all of their statements," said the CEO of tech-giant Oracle, Safra Catz, "that their charter is to destroy Israel and exterminate the Jews. Other countries have said the same thing. It's in Iran's direct messaging. I think that when they tell you they want to kill you, you should believe that. I think that's the lesson."
It seems as if much of Iran's bellicosity against Israel and the Jewish people is founded on religious, political, military, expansionist and nationalistic grounds. A jihadist in Iran's premier militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), might not care not about the life or death of his country's citizens. He probably sees the job of the IRGC as driving the US out of the Middle East so that Iran can continue to "Export the Revolution" without interference. Iran, threatening Israel, controls four Middle Eastern capitals in addition to its own -- Sana'a, Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut, as well as Gaza and, reportedly, Washington DC -- while trying to make still deeper inroads inside Israel, on the disputed territory of West Bank.
Also influencing Iran's aggression could be the Qur'an "And fight them [the disbelievers] until there be no more sedition, and religion will be Allah's alone." Quran (Sura 2, verse 193)
"We love death more than you love life," said Mohammed Deif, head of Hamas's military wing.
The Covenant of Hamas, is likewise dedicated to the elimination of Israel:
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it." (Introduction)
"There is no solution for the Palestinian question expect through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals, and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavours" (Article 13)
Regrettably, Iran does not seem to be guided by the same humanitarian, ethical, or "natural law principles" embraced by Israel and the West. Regrettably as well, Israel has been somewhat dependent upon the largesse of US President Joe Biden for supplying some of its munitions, a situation that Israel will hopefully correct.
It is with good reason that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu complains that the US is withholding, or "slow-walking," military supplies. In Ukraine, for instance, badly needed arms are always "being delivered" but somehow never manage to arrive until long after they might actually have helped. Specific munitions urgently required by Israel include both 500- and 2,000-pound bombs, which could be immensely helpful in deterring Iran and its proxy, Hezbollah, from continuing their attacks on Israel from Lebanon. On July 4, a barrage of Hezbollah drones and rockets pounded northern Israel. "We launched more than 20 drones at many Israeli positions in the Galilee and more than 200 rockets of various types," Hezbollah boasted .
Also required are specialized KC-46 military aerial refueling tankers, manufactured in the US. These are only scheduled for delivery in 2025 or later, despite Israel requesting earlier delivery as a matter of priority.
Although Israel's leaders are well aware of the immense danger presented by Iran, the US and other Western allies evidently cannot be relied upon to prevent Iran from completing its nuclear weapons program. The US appears to like talking, and talking about talking, diplomacy backed up by talking, verbal "understandings" so long as they have no teeth, then paying what looks like bribe money for adversaries not to "make waves," presumably at least not before the America's upcoming November election.
The Biden administration, it seems, would rather deal with threatening situations via written contracts, memoranda of understanding, or apparently worthless promises from Iran, Russia, China, the Taliban, the Palestinians or whoever else will offer appeasements. Global leaders might be excused for thinking that the US is not just a paper tiger but a hologram of one.
"An Iranian bomb," writes the journalist Farhad Rezaei, could with the help of China Russia and North Korea, "trigger a nuclear race in the Middle East and hasten US withdrawal from the region – a strategic advantage for China. Standing up to Iran and blocking the combined influence of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea is difficult but the alternative could spell disaster for the Middle East and beyond."
Assuming that the US will not act to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout, Israel will need to protect itself from Iranian-launched nuclear weapons. So, as throughout much of history, Israel is once again left to fight the enemies of the West on its own. "The truth, notes social commentator Konstantin Kisin, "is that we have indulged in magical thinking for too long, choosing comforting myths over harsh realities. About terrorism and a host of other issues."
The critical point is that Israel is fighting to safeguard not just its own nation, but the West and the Free World as well. The battle at the moment seems between preserving freedom or having it extinguished by the forces of barbarism, autocracies and theocrats, but most of all by the passivity of the West. The current axis averse to freedom for its citizens, consists of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran. Silky, stealth aggressors include Qatar -- the consigliere of all Islamic terror groups -- which uses money and its media network Al-Jazeera, not military aggression, as its means of persuasion.
The Israelis are not asking others to risk their lives to protect them; they are shouldering the immense sacrifices themselves. They do, however, need ammunition and the other weapons they have requested and they need them now -- not delayed.
The Biden administration does not seem to want to support its sole democratic ally in the Middle East, it seems to want only to control it. Sadly, the Biden administration appears to view Israel not as a sovereign nation but a US satrapy. It is hardly a secret that the US has been trying to oust Israel's elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and replace him presumably with a subordinate. That US puppet would supposedly be delighted to have a terrorist Palestinian state next door administered by the terrorist godfather, Qatar, and be delighted to see Iran have as many nuclear weapons as it likes.
The unlawful 2015 "nuclear deal" for Iran, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan for Action (JCPOA) was dreamed up by then US President Barack Obama. Educated in an Indonesian madrassah, he sidelined Egypt's secular President Hosni Mubarak and apparently remained friendly with the radical Muslim Brotherhood, whose motto is: "Allah is our objective; the Prophet is our leader; the Quran is our law; Jihad is our way; dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope."
In its "sunset clauses," Obama's "nuclear deal" enshrines that after a few years, Iran may have an unlimited number of nuclear weapons . If Obama ostensibly conceived of this arrangement to "balance the influence" of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, the plan has failed colossally. Saudi Arabia, for all its faults, has not tried to enlarge its territory; Iran, for its part, took the billions Obama gave it "to come in from the cold" and presumably used at least a portion of it to strengthen its militias and proxies and to accelerate the nuclear weapons program that it denies it has. Obama's only caveat seemed to be that Iran's nuclear breakout should not be "on my watch" -- instead, a decade or so later, according to the "sunset causes," perhaps not be so visible as the person who had orchestrated the plan.
At present, both the Biden administration in the US and opposition in Israel to its current government seem to be trying to muscle Netanyahu out. US Senator Chuck Schumer, a Democrat who happens to be Jewish, declared in mid-March that Netanyahu had "lost his way" and called for "new elections" -- not in the Senator's own country, the US, but in that of a sovereign ally, Israel. Would he have called for "new elections" in England, Germany, Italy or France? Biden, unsurprisingly, quickly "embraced Schumer's speech."
Many, including some who might be looking longingly at Netanyahu's job, have advocated that "Hamas cannot be defeated." Meanwhile, Netanyahu has been doing exactly that.
The US and others have tried to claim that before defeating an adversary, one must know what will happen after the fighting stops, and that destroying Hamas's military capability will just create another whole generation of Gazans who hate Israelis and Jews. Before defeating Hitler, however, no one had suggested that it was important to know what would happen "after the fighting stopped"; the same holds true for Imperial Japan. In Germany, it turned out, just five years after the end of the war, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was elected, and at present, both Germany and Japan are solid allies of the US and the West. There are probably still Nazis in Germany, but they no longer have the "means, capability or opportunity" to disrupt Europe.
"One of the war goals," Netanyahu said, is "the destruction of Hamas's military and governance capabilities." Israel, at the same time, has been doing its utmost to protect the lives of Gaza's civilians, including evacuating nearly a million from one humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip to another – all the while it is Hamas that has been placing rocket launchers in the humanitarian zones.
"Don't listen to the doubters," wrote Heisam Hassanein, an adjunct fellow with the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
"[H]istory shows Hamas can be defeated.... Gazans took to the streets in July protesting the poor quality of life under Hamas, chanting, 'We want to live.' Two weeks ago, Bahrain's crown prince and prime minister, Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, condemned Hamas 'unequivocally.' In the long run, a decisive defeat for Hamas is what's best for Palestinians and the region as a whole, not just Israel."
"The IDF does not need to kill every one of the 40,000-plus card-carrying Hamas members to succeed," noted military expert John Spencer, chair of urban warfare studies with the Modern War Institute at West Point. "It has to break its organized military formations, remove its capabilities, and destroy its leadership." In an interview with CNN, he continued:
Wars create people who aren't happy if their side loses, and that can actually radicalize them. But in the present when you face an existential threat or a world war, it isn't a consideration. You have to destroy the other military who's currently trying to hurt you in real time. Because this really gets into, I should just let that enemy force on my border keep attacking me because its population won't agree with me destroying it.
A good comparison is Nazism. The US couldn't worry about further radicalizing Germans during World War II. It had to prioritize defeating them. Afterward it could work to deradicalize them. Of course, the ideology of Nazism still lives on, because ideologies can't be eradicated. But it has been defanged. That was only possible because first there was a military victory over the Nazi regime.
CNN: So, you think this is a winnable war for the IDF?
Spencer: One hundred percent. Had there been social media during World War II, we might not be living in the world we currently live in. The Japanese and Germans might have won if their democratic adversaries believed the cost of resisting them was too high to be worth it.
The US appears to be doing the bidding of its terrorist-supporting collaborators, Iran and Qatar, and their supporters -- potential voters in America's heartland -- and those who want Hamas to survive to "attack, time and again, until Israel is annihilated." Israel is achieving its goals in Gaza -- not just for itself , but for the West, so that freedom will win out over tyranny and barbarism. If these predators are not defeated, what message will that send to the rest of the predators?
All that is required is to make sure that Israel has the ammunition and weapons it needs to fight on our behalf, to make sure they are delivered immediately, and then get out of the way.
Nils A. Haug is an author and columnist. A Lawyer by profession, he is member of the International Bar Association, the National Association of Scholars, a faculty member at Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters. Retired from law, his particular field of interest is political theory interconnected with current events. He holds a Ph.D. in Apologetical Theology. Dr. Haug is author of 'Politics, Law, and Disorder in the Garden of Eden – the Quest for Identity'; and 'Enemies of the Innocent – Life, Truth, and Meaning in a Dark Age.' His work has been published by First Things Journal, The American Mind, Quadrant, Gatestone Institute, National Association of Scholars, Anglican Mainstream, and Document Danmark, among others.
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Netanyahu’s Congress speech may determine Biden’s fate
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/July 07, 2024
US President Joe Biden is facing unprecedented challenges. After a disastrous debate night, many are calling for him to end his reelection bid. His wife and son, however, are urging him to stay in the game and to fire his staff. Biden was cowed by Donald Trump in last month’s presidential debate. Despite the numerous calls for him to drop out of the race, he has decided to stay on, saying he will not squander three and a half years of good work because of one bad night. However, to win the race, he needs to prove he is capable. Hence, he cannot afford to be cowed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will address Congress on July 24.
Although Trump did not provide any clear and convincing answers to any of the questions asked by the presenters, he managed to intimidate Biden. Trump knew very well how to take advantage of Biden, who stumbled several times during the debate. He even mocked him by saying he did not understand what he was saying. Trump said that Biden is like a “Palestinian,” using the word like a slur. He added that Biden was a “weak” Palestinian.
Both candidates are old. However, one came out from the debate as old and strong and the other as old and weak. Following the debate, media pressure started building on Biden to quit the race. However, it is late in the game. Historian Allan Lichtman, who has correctly predicted the winner of nine of the last 10 US presidential elections, said the debate will not be a deciding factor. He used the example of 1984, when Ronald Reagan was relatively old and performed terribly in the presidential debates, yet still won the election. On the other hand, Hillary Clinton, who did well in all her debates, lost to Trump in 2016. A New York Times/Siena poll was conducted after the debate. It found that 74 percent of voters perceived Biden as too old for the job. In order to mitigate the effects of the debate, Biden needs to prove he is effective and capable. He cannot afford to be cowed.
Netanyahu’s address to Congress will be risky for Biden. One has to remember how the Israeli PM insulted Barack Obama in 2015 and received a standing ovation in Congress. Biden cannot afford such a humiliation.
Biden will need to be better prepared for Netanyahu’s speech than he was for the debate with Trump. No one really knows what Netanyahu will say. However, an informed observer can guess. He wants to continue the war on Gaza as it is the only way to ensure his political survival. He also wants to expand Israel’s attacks on Lebanon.
Netanyahu has been very critical of Biden. He has said that it is “inconceivable” for the US to withhold weapons from Israel. Is he going to whine and complain about Biden in front of Congress and get the standing ovation he got for insulting Obama in 2015? This would be a fatal blow to Biden and the Democrats. If Biden wants a second term, he needs to make sure this does not happen.
Biden should stand firm and not allow a foreign leader to humiliate him on his own turf.
etanyahu’s visit has been approved — Biden cannot do anything about it. The only thing Biden can do is fend off its possible repercussions. To start with, he should stand firm and not allow a foreign leader to humiliate him on his own turf. The second thing he and his team should do is to start probing members of Congress to make sure Netanyahu will not get any support for continuing the war or for striking Lebanon. The Biden administration should detail to lawmakers the futility of the Netanyahu policy, which has been unable to clear and hold any area in Gaza. The staggering civilian toll should be highlighted.
Additionally, it should be explained to the members of Congress that a strike on Lebanon might mean a regional war. According to my contacts, Netanyahu is promising a “limited strike.” However, he does not know how his foe will reply. Will its response be limited? We surely do not know. Is there a guarantee that Iran will not become involved? If the Biden team clarifies these issues to Congress, he can at least garner the required support in order to not get humiliated by Netanyahu. Biden needs to make sure Congress will not side with Netanyahu against him.
The time prior to the visit is crucial for Biden. If Netanyahu manages to convince Congress that Biden does not know what he is doing, then he is finished as president. If Netanyahu succeeds in cowing Biden, then Trump will be president again.
Biden has to remember that people are judging him for what is happening in Gaza, they are not judging Trump. This is an advantage for the Republican candidate. Hence, Biden needs to show assertiveness. Already, most Democrats think the US is providing too much military aid to Israel, with 56 percent saying they would be less likely to vote for a president that supports continuing providing Tel Aviv with weapons. Biden can capitalize on this and take a firm stand. He also has a UN Security Council resolution he can bank on.Biden has always positioned himself as a president who respects alliances and international institutions and agreements, contrary to his opponent. This is the time for Biden to prove that to the American public. Gaza has been a disadvantage for the Biden administration in the election season so far. However, this disadvantage could turn into an advantage if Biden plays it properly. This might be his chance to regain his prestige and perhaps get reelected.
• 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.

Reform, not the ballot box, is the cure for Tunisia’s woes
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/July 07, 2024
As Tunisia heads for a monumental election, planned for October this year, the next few months are filled with profound implications — and not just for the trajectory of the North African country’s quixotic “democracy.” Also at stake is whether the lived realities of Tunisians — after three tumultuous years under President Kais Saied’s hyper-presidency — will deliver a deafening indictment on their stolen aspirations or a whimpering capitulation to the status quo.
Tunisians tuning out of politics and the subsequent embrace of Saied’s approach of consolidating power in the presidency can be traced back through a series of chaotic, even puerile, legislative embarrassments that completely eroded faith in democratic processes. From 2019 to 2021, the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, rather than being a beacon of nascent democracy, morphed into an arena of constant turmoil owing to the actions of two entities, the Free Destourian Party and the Dignity Coalition. These parties, wielding a combined force of 38 seats in a 217-member assembly, prioritized spectacle over substance, engaging in verbal and physical altercations, thus coining the phase “bordelization” — i.e., making a big mess.
This theatrical brawling, publicly broadcast and widely discussed, was not just a visual metaphor for dysfunction but also became a lived experience of political failure for many Tunisians. With brawls initiated by representatives and physical assaults at Bardo Palace — dramatic incidents hardly congruent with principled leadership — public trust dwindled.
Saied’s ascendance, against this backdrop, was more than assured. His campaign, predicated on anti-corruption, anti-system rhetoric, appealed directly to a populace exhausted by its observation of a parliament that seemed more a circus than a sanctuary of democratic practice. His early actions once in office — notably, the suspension of parliament in July 2021 — were met first with relief and celebration, not trepidation.
However, interventions that were initially perceived as temporary measures against disorder began ossifying into permanence. This pivot did not occur in isolation — it was facilitated by an absence of viable alternatives offering both the promise of stability and a genuine commitment to tackling Tunisia’s economic and social crises systematically.
As a result, political disengagement in Tunisia at least partly stems from a recognition of a barren political field, in which leaders capable of addressing problems such as economic instability, public health and corruption seem mythological rather than credible electoral choices. This pervasive disillusionment has consequently become embedded in the country’s political DNA, shaping expectations and conceptions of governance amid the ruins of what was once a hopeful democracy.
Aspirational ideals for political pluralism must energize the initiation and implementation of genuine reforms. What now lies at the heart of Tunisia’s electoral malaise is a deep-seated belief among the citizenry that, regardless of who resides in Carthage Palace or what promises are made by aspiring populists, no one can deliver the changes so desperately needed in Tunisia. For many, the aspirations of the Jasmine Revolution now feel like distant memories, supplanted by the reality of economic stagnation and warped political discourse.
However, the more insidious and perhaps more enduring challenge to Tunisia’s democratic experiment is the creeping sense of temporary apathy turning into a more permanent disengagement among citizens. It is not simply a symptom of political fatigue; it is a rational response to a system perceived as fundamentally unresponsive to the needs and aspirations of a people so hungry for change. Thus, the official narratives that want to frame electoral participation as the hallmark of democratic legitimacy, ring hollow to people who have seen little material improvement in their day-to-day lives since 2011.
Considering these dynamics, the call to Western democracies is clear: The emphasis on the ballot box as the panacea for Tunisia’s woes is misplaced. While free and fair elections are a cornerstone of any democracy, they cannot in themselves rectify the deep-seated issues facing Tunisian society. The focus of international support should pivot toward encouraging and enabling the more arduous, but essential, process of real systemic reform and not subvert it by bankrolling economic malpractice or turning a blind eye to increasing repression.
Crucial areas ripe for reform include judicial independence, ensuring that the rule of law prevails over political expediency or interference. Strengthening courts would not only safeguard human rights but also bolster investor confidence, a key component for economic revival. Moreover, enhancing the transparency and accountability of public institutions can reconstruct the eroded trust between the state and its citizens. By supporting initiatives aimed at fostering good governance practices, Western allies can contribute to cultivating a political climate that values transparency over opacity.
Likewise, economic policies should pivot from austerity measures to sustainable development strategies that prioritize youth employment, technological innovation and renewables, thereby addressing the country’s immediate needs and laying the foundations for its long-term prosperity. For Tunisia, aspirational ideals for political pluralism must also energize the initiation and implementation of genuine reforms to help the country steer clear of short-term fixes in favor of lasting stability and growth. Promoting overdue reforms will fare much better than relying on dubious electoral processes in a repressive environment that prefers the status quo.
After all, true progress lies not in the vain hope of disparate electoral outcomes within a flawed system, but in the vigorous pursuit of reforms designed to tackle the core challenges facing Tunisian society today.
Hafed Al-Ghwell is a senior fellow and executive director of the North Africa Initiative at the Foreign Policy Institute of the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC. X: @HafedAlGhwell

Age may not be such an issue in future elections
Arnab Neil Sengupta/Arab News/July 07, 2024
When The Beatles sang “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four” way back in 1967, global average life expectancy at birth stood at 57, so 64 did sound like a ripe old age. But today, with life expectancy worldwide having crossed the 72 mark and rising every year, nobody would begrudge surviving ex-Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr the right to release an updated version of the hit song, with the word “sixty-four” replaced by “eighty-four,” perhaps.
In an ideal world, everybody would age like Sir Paul and Sir Ringo, 82 and 83 years old respectively — still touring, holding sold-out concerts and writing books. But in the real world, as the much talked about June 28 US presidential debate demonstrated, not all octogenarians are equal when it comes to mental fitness and cognitive abilities. And, for all the political hoopla, President Joe Biden is hardly the only 81-year-old who is publicly experiencing memory lapses or tripping and falling at graduation ceremonies.
Whatever the reasons behind the different rates of biological aging and chronological aging, the good news is that humanity is not content with just extending life expectancy. Billions of dollars are being poured into the science of longevity, with the goal of helping people across the world to live healthier for longer. The fruits of these investments may not materialize quickly enough for Biden or his 78-year-old rival Donald Trump to benefit, but both candidates’ grandchildren have a much better chance of enjoying good health and mobility well into their 80s.
The longevity industry is witnessing an influx of funding from various sources, including private investors, academic institutions and governments, as a growing number of companies and research initiatives aim to address the root causes of aging and extend healthy human lifespans.
Investments in longevity science have grown significantly over the past decade. In 2021, the sector saw a peak investment of $6.2 billion, largely driven by venture capital and private equity funding. Although 2022 experienced a slight dip to $5.2 billion, it remained significantly higher compared with previous years. Major investments have been directed toward cellular rejuvenation, longevity discovery platforms and regenerative medicine. The funding landscape in 2023 showed continued interest, especially in late-stage venture capital deals.
For its part, Saudi Arabia has allocated SR1.5 billion ($400 million) to an organization called the Hevolution Foundation to develop new treatments for aging. This effort, in the form of research grants and early-stage biotech investments, “could dramatically expand the available global funding for research on longevity biology, which now comes mainly from the US National Institute on Aging,” The Wall Street Journal reported in August last year. The article quoted Hevolution Chief Executive Dr. Mehmood Khan as saying: “Initially, more of that money will go to research, but eventually the goal is for a roughly even split with investments into anti-aging startups.”
A graying population can enhance societal resilience and enrich communities through the contributions of its older members. Established in 2018 by royal order, Hevolution is headquartered in Riyadh, with a North American hub in Boston, and it plans to expand to other locations worldwide. The organization says that, while the average lifespan in Saudi Arabia is about 74 years, the average health span is 64 — indicating a decade-long gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy — and many are living the final years of their lives in poor health.
Hevolution is doing its bit by aiming to increase the number of safe and effective treatments entering the market, compress the timeline of drug development using the latest tools and technologies, and increase accessibility to health span therapeutics for all. The UAE also envisions itself as being at the regional forefront of longevity and anti-aging preventive care, with specialist centers opening to focus on healthy aging, notably the Sharjah Research Technology and Innovation Park and Deep Knowledge Analytics’ joint venture in mapping the UAE’s longevity industry.
To be sure, the main motivation for the influx of funding into longevity science worldwide is not philanthropy but the growing healthcare needs of graying nations. Most regions of the world are experiencing some degree of population aging, though with important differences resulting from the varied pace and timing of the demographic transition.
On the one hand, lower fertility rates are reducing the proportion of younger people available to support the aging populations of most countries. On the other hand, medical advancements and improved living conditions are extending lifespans.
The Office of National Statistics in Britain predicts that a third of babies born in 2013 will reach the age of 100, while the US Census Bureau says the number of people aged over 85 will triple by 2060. At current rates, citizens aged over 50 in the Gulf Cooperation Council bloc will comprise 18.5 percent of the population by 2025, up from 14.2 percent in 2020. Population aging in advanced countries is, of course, a profound demographic change with wide-ranging implications, requiring comprehensive strategies to address economic, healthcare and social challenges.
But populations are also aging in many countries before they have achieved the desired level of wealth. For instance, both China and India are experiencing a shift in their populations toward older ages, although population aging is unfolding more gradually in India than in China and at a varied pace across states.
The disadvantages of a graying population are too numerous to enumerate in an oped. Also, an increasingly frequent criticism of older citizens in Western democracies is that they are typically more active in political processes, leading to policies that reflect their needs and interests, potentially resulting in more costly healthcare and social security systems.
On the upside, an elderly population is a valuable asset to society, and not just because of its insights, political maturity and historical perspectives that younger generations may lack. Older individuals often possess a wealth of experience and knowledge, which can be invaluable in the workforce and community settings. They can mentor younger employees, providing guidance and expertise.
Retirees also often have more time to engage in volunteer work and civic activities. This can lead to increased community involvement and support for local organizations and causes.
The elderly represent a growing consumer market with specific needs and preferences, driving the development of products and services tailored to their demographic, such as healthcare, leisure and technology solutions. Older populations tend to contribute to social stability. Areas with higher proportions of elderly individuals often experience lower crime rates and greater community cohesion. Moreover, as the number of multigenerational households increases, there are more opportunities for intergenerational learning and bonding, fostering stronger family ties and cultural continuity.
Dr. Haya bint Khaled, vice president of research at the Hevolution Foundation, was right on the money when she said: “Saudi Arabia is at a perfect moment in time to outpace future demographic challenges by investing in healthy longevity now, and to lead the world in addressing age-related diseases for the benefit of all humanity.”
There are, in fact, strong reasons for every country to get the most out of their senior citizens, while in turn offering them a chance to live longer, healthier lives.
When The Beatles recorded “When I’m Sixty-Four,” it was interpreted as a charming take on aging and enduring love. Five-seven years on, people are still mortal and an 81-year-old American president can still be considered too frail to be re-elected. But on the bright side, 64 is now simply an age when men and women wonder what they will do with the rest of their lives.
*Arnab Neil Sengupta is a senior editor at Arab News. X: @arnabnsg

Democratic Party at a crossroads amid Biden dilemma
Dalia Al-Aqidi/Arab News/July 07, 2024
President Joe Biden’s performance in last month’s first televised presidential debate has ignited a firestorm of concern among Democrats about his capability to continue his reelection bid. In an interview with ABC, Biden dismissed the idea of stepping aside, labeling his debate performance as a “bad night” rather than an indicator of a deeper issue. “It was a bad episode, no indication of any serious condition,” the American president asserted, emphasizing exhaustion and a failure to follow his instincts in preparation as the culprits. Despite the rising anxiety among some Democratic lawmakers and other prominent figures, Biden remains resolute in his determination to stay in the race.
Sen. Mark Warner’s actions underscore the urgency of these concerns. Warner represents a growing faction within the party that is worried about Biden’s mental and physical stamina. The Virginia lawmaker plans to convene Democratic senators to discuss the future of Biden’s campaign. This anxiety is reflected in a Reuters/Ipsos poll taken after the debate, which revealed that one in three Democrats believe Biden should end his reelection bid.
Biden’s age and mental fitness were central topics in the televised interview. When pressed about taking a cognitive exam, he deflected, suggesting that his demanding schedule and daily workload were proof enough of his capability. “I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test, everything I do,” Biden said. He insisted that his reelection bid is driven by a belief that he understands what needs to be done to take the nation to a new level.
Despite the president’s assurances, skepticism among Democrats continues to grow. Prominent figures have openly called for Biden to step aside, arguing that doing so would preserve his legacy and prevent potential catastrophe for the party.
But the concerns are not limited to party insiders. The president’s debate performance has also been scrutinized by the public, with polls showing a mixed reaction. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll conducted after the debate found that Biden trails Trump by 2 percent in key battleground states, though the gap is the smallest since October. This poll contrasts with national surveys that depict a more challenging picture for Biden, highlighting the volatile nature of the electorate’s perception.
In a bid to shift the narrative, Biden has focused on his accomplishments and criticized former President Donald Trump. During a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, he emphasized his achievements, such as canceling some student loan debt, nominating Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court, approving gun safety policies and working with Congress on a sweeping climate change law. He also highlighted Trump’s past gaffes and what he described as “lies.”
With the election drawing closer, Democrats face critical decisions that will shape the future of the party and the nation.
For his part, Trump has taken a sarcastic stance, advising Biden to ignore his critics and continue his campaign. On his Truth Social platform, Trump mockingly suggested that Biden should proceed with “alacrity and strength,” listing Biden’s policies as examples of his alleged failures.
The possibility of Vice President Kamala Harris stepping in as the Democratic nominee has also been a topic of discussion. While Harris appears to be the most obvious and viable option due to the immediate support she would receive from Biden’s campaign infrastructure, her potential candidacy is not without controversy. A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found that only 42 percent of voters would support Harris for president, while a Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that Trump leads Harris by 1 percentage point in a hypothetical matchup.
As the debate over Biden’s candidacy intensifies, the clock is ticking for the Democratic Party. The concerns about Biden are not just limited to internal discussions, but are becoming a prominent issue in public discourse. With the election drawing closer, Democrats face critical decisions that will shape the future of the party and the nation. The time for decisive action is now and the party must navigate these turbulent waters with care and urgency.
The Democratic Party is at a crossroads. The decision on whether to support Biden’s reelection bid or seek an alternative candidate is not just about the immediate future, but also the long-term direction of the party.
One of the critical issues that Democratic leaders must consider is the impact of Biden’s candidacy on down-ballot races. The presidential candidate’s performance often influences the outcomes of congressional and state-level elections. If Biden remains the nominee and struggles in the general election, it could negatively affect Democratic candidates across the country. Conversely, a strong and dynamic candidate at the top of the ticket could boost Democratic fortunes in closely contested races.
The potential candidacy of Harris is a significant factor in this equation. Harris has been a loyal and visible vice president and her elevation to the top of the ticket would represent a historic milestone. However, her poll numbers indicate a divided electorate, with significant opposition within the party and among the general public.
The current situation underscores the importance of solid leadership and strategic decision-making within the Democratic Party. Party leaders must proactively address concerns about Biden’s candidacy and explore all viable options.
In the coming weeks, the Democratic Party must also focus on articulating a clear and compelling vision for the future, which currently does not look bright or clear. The choices made now will shape the party’s agenda and impact on the country for years to come.
• Dalia Al-Aqidi is executive director at the American Center for Counter Extremism.