English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 07/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 16/25-28:”‘I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures, but will tell you plainly of the Father. On that day you will ask in my name. I do not say to you that I will ask the Father on your behalf; for the Father himself loves you, because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. I came from the Father and have come into the world; again, I am leaving the world and am going to the Father.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 06-07/2024
ISIS (Daech) and Hezbollah are two òsides of the mullahs-Assad axis coin, and they are most likely behind the attack on the American embassy in Lebanon/Elias Bejjani/June 05, 2024
Gantz tells Israelis in north to 'be ready for tougher days'
Israel Sends Mixed Signals Over War on Southern Lebanon
Israel announces soldier’s death after Hezbollah cross-border attack
UNIFIL: Expanded conflict ‘will be disastrous not only for Lebanon but for the entire region’
Israel Ups War Rhetoric as Hezbollah’s Attacks Raise Alarm
At least 11 people wounded by Hezbollah attack near Hurfeish, Upper Galilee
Does the IDF have the upper hand against Hezbollah's attacks?
'Escalation' in Lebanon would risk Israeli security, US warns
Hezbollah 'dealing seriously' with Israeli threats, mobilizes fighters
Israeli Drone Strike on Aitaroun Causes Casualties
Security implications of Syrian refugees: Lone attacker behind US Embassy incident
Judge Hajjar: Probe into US Embassy Attack Underway, No Final Results Yet
Syrian attacked US embassy in Beirut 'in support of Gaza'
Sources to LBCI: Perpetrator of US Embassy attack acted alone
Qatar condemns US Embassy attack in Beirut, calls for protection of diplomatic missions
Wael Abou Faour Discusses Roadmap for Lebanese Presidential Election Consultations
Halabi: Official Exams to Be Held on Schedule
ISF Announces Arrest of Three Human Traffickers in Tripoli
Hasbani Links ‘Sudden’ Emergence of Islamic State Group to Hezbollah
Poor Lebanon/Salam Zaatari/This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
How can the Sovereign Movement Succeed Better?/Elie Aoun/June 06/2024
Lebanon's sectarian social contract that united the country for ages is being undermined/Michael Young/The National/June 06, 2024

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 06-07/2024
Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at a Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas
Hamas says Biden Gaza ceasefire plan ‘just words’
No reply yet from Hamas on ceasefire deal, Qatari Foreign Ministry says
Egypt gets ‘positive signs’ from Hamas on Gaza truce: report
Biden, key European and Latin American leaders, urge Hamas to accept deal
Israeli military alarmed by standoff over West Bank funds, report says
US imposes sanctions on Palestinian group Lions' Den over West Bank violence
Israeli military alarmed by standoff over West Bank funds, report says
Families of US hostages in Gaza plead with Americans: Don't forget your fellow citizens
MPs calling out hate while disparaging Israel criticism 'duplicitous': Muslim groups
Spain has requested to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel's actions in Gaza
Houthi leader claims first Iraqi-Houthi strike on Israel
Yemen's Houthi rebels unveil solid-fuel 'Palestine' missile that resembles Iranian hypersonic
Europeans detail Iran's nuclear violations in diplomatic gambit
Putin Rages As Reporter Asks About Attacking Nato: 'Are You As Dumb As This Table?'
Macron says France will provide Ukraine with its Mirage combat aircraft to fend off Russian attacks

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on January 13-14/2024
Why Is there no Palestinian State?/Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Hoover Institution's Caravan/June 06/2024
Silence! Why Radical Muslims and Triggered Leftists Are the Conjoined Twins of Offense/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/June 06/2024
Israel Is Helping Palestinians More Than Those Who Condemn Israel/Alan M. Dershowitz and Andrew Stein/Gatestone Institute/June 06/2024
Palestinian Libels Against Jews: No Difference Between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./June 6, 2024
Bringing Iran 'To Its Senses'/Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/June 6, 2024
Western-led world order under threat 80 years on from D-Day/Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/june 06/2024
Will Israel move toward 2030, or stay stuck in 1967?/Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/june 06/2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on June 06-07/2024
ISIS (Daech) and Hezbollah are two òsides of the mullahs-Assad axis coin, and they are most likely behind the attack on the American embassy in Lebanon
Elias Bejjani/June 05, 2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/130443/130443/

There is no doubt that the terrorist attack on the American embassy in Awkar (Lebanon) that took place today is a diabolical act that is condemned and denounced. In this realm, it is necessary to identify and prosecute the aggressors, those behind them, and those who armed and facilitated their arrival at the Awkar embassy locations with weapons. Presumably, Hezbollah and ISIS are most likely the ones who carried out the attack on the American embassy in Awkar today.
In reality, ISIS is an intelligence construct devised by the Iranian and Syrian rulers (the axis of resistance), tailored to their needs of terrorism, and as a terrorist tool for the Iranian expansion schemes. Furthermore, there is no independent organization called ISIS; it is an Assad-Mullah tool, much like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Based on previous and similar terrorist attacks, the Iranian-Syrian axis of evil could be the one who orchestrated today’s attack on the American embassy.
It is crucial to highlight that the US administration (Biden-Obama) bears responsibility for this incident because it protects, cajoles, finances, and advocates for the mullahs’ regime, and at the same time flatters Hezbollah, and condones its occupation of Lebanon.
The author, Elias Bejjani, is a Lebanese expatriate activist
Author’s Email: Phoenicia@hotmail.com
Author’s Website: http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com

Gantz tells Israelis in north to 'be ready for tougher days'
Naharnet/June 06, 2024
Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has traveled to northern Israel after an intensification of Hezbollah attacks there, warning of “tougher days” ahead, Israel’s Channel 12 has reported. Gantz met with the mayors of several northern towns close to the frontier and told them: “Don’t complain about the present, because the future could be more problematic.” “Get ready for tougher fights, get ready for tougher days here, it can get us to war,” Gantz added. "I believe that the Lebanese government and also Hezbollah do not want the eruption of a large-scale war, but it is necessary to pressure it (Hezbollah) at the current time before everyone goes to a broader war," he want on to say.

Israel Sends Mixed Signals Over War on Southern Lebanon
This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
Israel is sending mixed signals, alternating between its threats of a widening conflict with Hezbollah and its rejection of war with Lebanon. According to Israeli media, former Israeli Defense Minister and chief of the National Unity Party Benny Gantz called on Thursday morning for “the mayors of the North to prepare for the difficult days that could lead to war with Hezbollah.”For his part, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant noted that the Lebanese government was “opposed to a full-scale war and should exert pressure on Hezbollah,” while reaffirming that his country was “prepared for a large-scale war but prefers not to engage in it.”Meanwhile, diplomatic efforts to avert a full-scale war are gathering pace. At the moment, efforts are focused on establishing a truce in Gaza which would extend to the southern border, especially as an upsurge in the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah could have catastrophic consequences on the entire region. Israeli media said on Wednesday that the war cabinet was due to meet again on Thursday to discuss, among other issues, a possible response to Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel and the hostage agreement. According to the Al-Hadath news channel, the meeting was called off.

Israel announces soldier’s death after Hezbollah cross-border attack
AFP/June 06, 2024
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said Thursday that a soldier had been killed in the north where troops are engaged in near-daily border clashes with Lebanon’s Hezbollah. The soldier “fell fighting in the north” on Wednesday, the military said in a statement, after two explosive drones were launched from Lebanon against the Israeli town of Hurfeish. The army did not specify the exact location of the death of the soldier, whom it identified on its website as Staff Sergeant Refael Kauders, aged 39. The military correspondent of the Times of Israel newspaper reported that the soldier was killed in a drone attack which also left nine other troops wounded, one of the seriously. Wednesday’s fatality takes the toll to at least 15 soldiers and 11 civilians killed on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, according to the military, since clashes with Hezbollah began after the war with Hamas broke out in Gaza on October 7. In Lebanon, the violence has killed at least 455 people, mostly fighters but including 88 civilians, according to an AFP tally. Since the Gaza war broke out the Israeli military has lost 645 soldiers, including 294 in its campaign against Hamas in the Palestinian territory. The war in Gaza began after Hamas launched an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures. The militants also abducted 251 people, Israelis and foreigners, 120 of whom are still held captive in Gaza, including 41 the military says are dead. Israel has vowed to eliminate Hamas and its bombardment and ground offensive in Gaza have so far killed at least 36,586 people, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s health ministry.

UNIFIL: Expanded conflict ‘will be disastrous not only for Lebanon but for the entire region
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/June 06, 2024
UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti said potential remained for increased tension in the border area.
Tenenti said that the organization was maintaining communication channels with the Lebanese authorities and the Israeli army to avoid any extension of the conflict. But he warned that “an expanded conflict would be a disaster not only for Lebanon but for the entire region.”UNIFIL’s statement came as an Israeli military drone strike killed a motorcyclist — a member of the Iran-backed Hezbollah — in the square of the Lebanese border village of Aitaroun. The attack came amid escalating hostilities between the Israeli army and Hezbollah, with Israeli warplanes breaking the sound barrier at low altitude over the southern border villages, reaching areas north of the Litani River. Fatima, who lives near Nabatieh, said the explosions caused by the sonic booms “could make our veins explode due to their psychological impact.” She added: “They happen daily, day and night, and scare my kids. We cannot leave our house as my husband’s work is here, and if he stops working we could die of hunger.“If we flee, we cannot receive any of the aid provided since we do not live in a border village.” Mohammed, who lives with his wife and two little girls in a village near Adloun, used to go to Beirut every day for work.He said he moved to the village two years ago because the economic crisis impacted his job.He is now thinking about moving his family to Beirut’s southern suburbs and is looking for a school for his children after an Israeli raid killed a physics teacher while on his way home and damaged a school bus that was transporting students.
He added: “My children were at that same school.” Mohammed said he was looking for a school in Beirut to admit his children next year, but added that the schools are full as many families decided to travel from the south to Beirut following the end of the academic year. The Israeli army resumed its attacks on Thursday afternoon, carrying out raids on Aitaroun for the second time and firing an air-to-surface missile on a targeted area. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has announced the death of Hussein Nehme Al-Hourani, 46, from Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon.
Israeli warplanes also bombed Wadi Jilou in Tyre on Thursday, targeting and demolishing a two-story building. The attack set several houses and a warehouse on fire, causing extensive damage to dozens of homes and infrastructure, including water and electricity. The warehouse stored cleaning supplies and oils. Video footage captured by residents showed the extent of the destruction in Aitaroun and the targeted areas. The residents said that the owner of one of the buildings, a member of the Jaber family, had received a text in Arabic on his phone from someone called Ibrahim prior to the raid. The message read: “Evacuate the house immediately because the two-story location near the pharmacy in Wadi Jilou will be targeted shortly, and you must ensure everyone evacuates immediately. “You are responsible for the lives of everyone. Evacuate as quickly as possible and move somewhere far away from the site as it is about to be blown up.”
It appeared that the sender used a non-Lebanese phone number. A resident of a nearby building said: “This Israeli method of warning via cellphone or landline has been used multiple times to warn homeowners in the towns of Kfour and Beit Yahoun, among others, before destructive raids on buildings were carried out. “The attack began with two missiles falling in the vicinity of the building, injuring civilians in their homes, before targeting the Jaber building and destroying it with terrifying missiles. Civil Defense members worked to extinguish the fires.”
Hezbollah said that the headquarters of Israel’s 91st Division in the Pranit Barracks and the soldiers’ positions around it were targeted with Falaq-1 rockets in retaliation for the Aitaroun attack. Hezbollah claimed it hit the target directly, causing partial destruction and casualties. Israeli attacks also targeted homes in the towns of Siddikine and Odaisseh. Wednesday witnessed an escalation in the intensity of exchanged shelling and fires were caused by the use of incendiary bombs. The Israeli attacks caused large fires to break out in the towns of Aitaroun and Maroun Al-Ras. The Israeli army said a soldier was killed and 11 people wounded in a Hezbollah drone attack on Wednesday evening on a military site near Hurfeish in Western Galilee. According to Hezbollah, the bombing, which used a squadron of assault drones, targeted positions and bases of Israeli officers and soldiers and did not trigger warning sirens. The Israeli military used incendiary bombs to set fire to forests near the Blue Line, specifically targeting Naqoura and Alma Al-Shaab. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel was ready “for an extreme action on the northern front.” The Israeli army said the death toll had reached 25, a total of 15 soldiers and 10 civilians, since the start of hostilities in southern Lebanon on Oct. 8.

Israel Ups War Rhetoric as Hezbollah’s Attacks Raise Alarm

Bloomberg News/June 6, 2024
Israel is escalating warnings against Hezbollah in Lebanon by threatening it could be forced into a war with the Iran-backed group, following increasingly deadly attacks. Hezbollah’s rockets and drones have caused significant damage in the past few days, prompting Israeli officials to reiterate warnings to the militants and Lebanon that war is an option. A drone strike on a facility on Wednesday wounded 10 Israelis and killed one soldier. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited the northern town of Kiryat Shmona, where Hezbollah’s Katyusha rockets caused an unusually massive blaze in a forested area.
“Whoever thinks he can hurt us while we respond by sitting on our hands is making a big mistake,” said Netanyahu. “One way or another, we will restore security to the north.”His comments indicate an increasing risk that the near-daily trading of fire between Israel and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border could escalate, adding a second war front for the Jewish State to the conflict against Hamas in Gaza. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are backed by Iran and designated as terrorists by the US. Lebanon is holding talks with Arab and international partners to prevent an all-out war and is taking Netanyahu’s and other comments seriously, according to a person within the crisis-hit country’s caretaker government. Yet much of the Israeli rhetoric is directed at a domestic audience to lift morale, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive subjects.
Lebanon expects the US to step in and help prevent war if needed, but there’s no guarantees Netanyahu would listen, according to the person. The US said Wednesday it’s pursuing a peaceful solution between Lebanon and Israel to prevent a full-scale conflict. Matt Miller, spokesman for the State Department, played down the Israeli rhetoric though said the country may be prepared for a hostile option. Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said this week the country is approaching the point where a decision would have to be made on how to manage its northern front with Lebanon and that “the IDF is prepared and ready to move to an offensive.”How Iran Extends Its Power Via Allied Militant Groups: QuickTake. Israel’s military said Sunday it had completed an exercise to increase readiness in areas bordering Lebanon and Syria, which included “scenarios simulating an expanded war in the northern arena, as well as multi-arena warfare.”War cabinet member Benny Gantz, who’s been demanding that security be restored in the region by Sept. 1, said Wednesday that Israel “can’t lose another year in the north.” Gantz has given Netanyahu an ultimatum — which expires on Saturday — over the situation and called on the prime minister to present a plan for postwar Gaza.
‘No Choice’
“The world needs to wake up and realize that Israel has no choice but to protect its citizens and it should come as no surprise when it does so — strongly and ever more resolutely,” President Isaac Herzog said late Wednesday. “Do not be up in arms when the situation becomes out of control,” he said. While the exchange of fire has been broadly limited to south Lebanon and Israel’s northern region, the attacks in recent days have caused alarm that the situation could escalate. Over the past four months, there’s been a more than 12-fold jump in the number of drone attacks by Hezbollah, which are more accurate and lethal and much harder to detect, trace and intercept. Strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles more than doubled to 85 in May from April, with a comparable increase seen in the number of anti-tank missiles fired on Israeli territory, according to data from the Alma Research and Education Center. In total, attacks in May went up to 325 from 238 in the previous month. Israel’s airstrikes on south Lebanon have caused extensive damage, leaving some villages almost entirely under the rubble and turning many others into ghost towns. Some 60,000 Israeli residents of settlements adjacent to the border were evacuated from their homes by the government since Oct. 7 and some 90,000 civilians have fled south Lebanon.
Little Progress
Diplomatic efforts have so far failed to reach a compromise on ceasing the hostilities. While Israel is demanding Hezbollah withdraw about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away from the border, the group has publicly said that it wouldn’t negotiate any terms without a cease-fire in Gaza. The Biden administration has tried to mediate a resolution by sending US envoy Amos Hochstein on visits both to Beirut and Tel Aviv several times since the war in Gaza began. Hochstein led negotiations in 2022 and resolved a maritime dispute between the two, in what was a rare diplomatic success. French envoy Jean-Yves Le Drian was in Beirut last week for talks with officials including Hezbollah lawmakers. The French diplomat tried to bring the various Lebanese parties together to elect a new president and end nearly two years of deadlock. Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary general, told Al-Jazeera in an interview this week that if Israel “wants to go for an expanded war, we are ready for it.”“We don’t want it but we are ready for it,” he said.

At least 11 people wounded by Hezbollah attack near Hurfeish, Upper Galilee
Jerusalem Post/June 06/2024
"A short while ago, a number of launches that were identified from Lebanon fell in the area of Hurfeish in northern Israel. No sirens were sounded, the incident is under review," the IDF said. At least 11 people were wounded by a direct hit near the Druze town of Hurfeish in the Upper Galilee on Wednesday. Initial reports said the attack was carried out by Hezbollah drones, which have posed Israeli air defenses far more trouble than rockets. Reports said the impact was in a soccer field and at least one person was critically wounded. Shortly after the initial reports, the IDF said, “A number of launches that were identified from Lebanon fell in the area of Hurfeish in northern Israel. No sirens were sounded. The incident is under review.” A spokesperson for the Ziv Medical Center later provided the following statement: “At around 6:45 p.m., two lightly wounded people were brought to the Ziv Medical Center as a result of the barrage on Hurfeish. The two wounded (reserve soldiers) arrived with injuries in the lower limbs but were conscious and in stable condition. The families have been updated. In addition, another soldier was brought to the medical center in the last hour, who was slightly injured while running to the protected area.”
Hezbollah claims responsibility
Later, Hezbollah told Lebanese Hezbollah-affiliated news outlet Al-Mayadeen that “the Islamic Resistance fighters targeted, at 5:53 p.m. on Wednesday, June 6, 2024, a deployment of Israeli enemy soldiers in the Baram Forest with rocket weapons and hit them directly.”
The IDF did not fully address the statement by press time.Hezbollah also launched a variety of other attacks on Israel on Wednesday, though those caused less damage. Reports indicated that the IDF was retaliating robustly at press time, but details were still scarce. Late Wednesday night, the IDF provided a follow-up statement, saying," Following the previous announcement regarding the reported attack against Hurfeish in northern Israel, the IDF has determined that two explosive UAVs launched from Lebanon hit the area of Hurfeish. The incident is currently under review.
Throughout the day, IAF fighter jets targeted Hezbollah terror sites in Lebanon. The strikes included terrorist infrastructure in Naqoura and Matmoura, Hezbollah military structures in Ayta ash Shab, and a Hezbollah observation post in Khiam. Additionally, IDF artillery fired to eliminate threats in Halta, Hamoul, Houla, Jibbain, and Marwahin in southern Lebanon."

Does the IDF have the upper hand against Hezbollah's attacks?
Jerusalem Post/June 06/2024
"The IDF is causing massive damage to Hezbollah," IDF reserve units that have been located on the Lebanon border said.
After senior IDF officers assessed the current situation in southern Lebanon, they concluded that despite the complexity in Israel's North, the IDF has caused massive damage to Hezbollah and is successfully managing defensive and offensive efforts against the terrorist organization.
After speaking with reserve units that are located on the Lebanon border over the past week, IDF officials revealed that despite senior officials' estimations of Hezbollah's capabilities, it would not be easy for the group to surprise Israel. Senior IDF officials believed Hezbollah had the capability to launch a large-scale attack on Israel's border, but military intelligence has found the contrary. However, according to military assessments, Hezbollah does have the ability to carry out a focused attack. The discussions with the IDF officers also indicated that despite Israel's extensive attacks across Lebanon, Hezbollah's strategic missile array has still not been significantly damaged. "In all honesty, Hezbollah's strategic arrays, such as missiles of various ranges, have not been damaged, but that doesn't mean the IDF cannot destroy at a very large scale and cause great damage to Hezbollah," one IDF officer said.
Hezbollah fears Israeli assault
The IDF officers emphasized that Hezbollah forces get worn down due to consistent IDF attacks and the need for constant alertness as they anticipate a sudden Israeli assault.  Furthermore, the officers said that the IDF had already thwarted one of Hezbollah's plans for a surprise attack on Israel. This was partly achieved by destroying infrastructure at close and distant ranges from the border. It was also done by eliminating over 320 operatives, including senior figures such as the commander of the Radwan Force, a special operation forces unit of Hezbollah. "Hezbollah operatives fear to move freely in southern Lebanon because they are being effectively hunted by IDF aerial and intelligence efforts," one officer explained.  The officers also added that while Hassan Nasrallah, secretary-general of Hezbollah, will be increasing the rate of fire towards Israel, the organization simultaneously must deal with internal challenges. In the past month, hundreds of Hezbollah reservists refused to enlist, marking the beginning of a blow to the organization. "The IDF is causing massive damage to Hezbollah," the IDF officers said. This is against the backdrop of challenges from the Houthis in Yemen, Iran, Iraq, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, and Syria, along with potential infiltrations from the Jordan and Egypt borders.

'Escalation' in Lebanon would risk Israeli security, US warns
Agence France Presse/June 06/2024
The United States has warned against an "escalation" in Lebanon after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned of an operation, saying conflict would only harm Israeli security. "We don't want to see that escalation of the conflict which would just lead to further loss of life from both Israelis and the Lebanese people and would greatly harm Israel's overall security and stability in the region," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters Wednesday.Netanyahu, visiting the northern border area after eight months of war with Hamas that has devastated Gaza, warned Israel was "prepared for a very intense operation" along the border.The trip comes after nearly daily fire with fighters in Lebanon from Hezbollah, like Hamas an ally of Iran's clerical state. Miller, however, played down suggestions that war was imminent with Lebanon. "The statements from the Israeli government saying that they are ready for military operation, if necessary, (are) different than saying that they have made a decision to conduct a military operation," Miller said. "We are still in a place where we believe they prefer a diplomatic solution," he said. Miller said the United States understood the "untenable situation for Israel" on its northern border. "There are tens of thousands of Israeli citizens who cannot return to their homes in the north of Israel because it's not safe to do so because of the... constant Hezbollah shelling and drone attacks in the area," Miller said.

Hezbollah 'dealing seriously' with Israeli threats, mobilizes fighters
Naharnet/June 06/2024
Hezbollah is “dealing seriously with the threats that are being launched by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war team,” a prominent Shiite Duo source said. Hezbollah “will not stand idly by and has declared general mobilization among its fighters, who are now fully prepared to confront the Israeli threats, although it does not want war and is not seeking it,” the source told Asharq al-Awsat newspaper. The source also noted that “Hezbollah’s strikes deep in Israel come in response to Tel Aviv’s targeting of areas in the depth of northern and western Bekaa.” “This what Hezbollah has said to top Lebanese state officials and the UNIFIL forces,” the source added.

Israeli Drone Strike on Aitaroun Causes Casualties
This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
An Israeli drone strike targeted a motorcyclist in Aitaroun on Thursday morning, killing one person and injuring another. The victim was reportedly a Hezbollah fighter, as the pro-Iranian group later announced the death of one of its fighters, Hussein Nehme Hourani, also known as Badr. For its part, the Israeli military announced that it had targeted two Hezbollah members in Aitaroun and struck the group’s infrastructure there. Artillery exchanges between Hezbollah and the Israeli military continued throughout Thursday along the Lebanon-Israel border, following a particularly violent night. An Israeli raid at dawn on Thursday targeted an uninhabited house in Wadi Jilo (Tyr district), causing significant damage and fires in neighboring homes. According to information circulating on social media, the property owner was warned via WhatsApp of an imminent Israeli attack on his house. The message’s source is unspecified, but the phone number displayed a Danish country code. Later in the day, a second raid targeted a Rapid-type car on the Aitaroun road. No casualties were reported. In Aitaroun, a raid was also conducted in the Jabal Kahil area. Incendiary bombs launched in the vicinity of Rmeish triggered a fire near a Lebanese Army position. Fires were also reported in the Markaba forest, where Israel launched phosphorus bombs. A warehouse storing household tools and oils in Wadi Jilo was also targeted, causing damage to infrastructure, particularly water and electricity supply networks. In Odaisseh, Israeli raids ignited a fire in a fuel tank near an Alfa mobile phone operator transmission tower. The Israeli military also bombed areas around Seddiqine, destroying a house, as well as Aita al-Shaab and Tal Ismail (Dhayra). Israeli reconnaissance planes flew at low altitude over several regions in southern Lebanon in the afternoon. Meanwhile, Hezbollah announced it had destroyed Israeli surveillance equipment at the Raheb position and fired surface-to-air missiles at Israeli reconnaissance planes. In retaliation for the Aitaroun attack, the pro-Iranian group claimed attacks on the 91st Division at the Branit barracks. Hezbollah also launched a salvo of rockets at the Zebdine barracks. From Wednesday night to Thursday morning, the Israeli military used automatic weapons to sweep the Maysat area on the outskirts of Wazzani. Flares were also launched, particularly in the eastern sector.

Security implications of Syrian refugees: Lone attacker behind US Embassy incident

LBCI/June 06/2024
Investigations have revealed that Qais Al-Faraj, who attacked the US Embassy in Awkar, acted alone and was not affiliated with any terrorist entity. Al-Faraj reportedly bought the weapon and ammunition using funds he had saved from his job as a tiler.
Authorities disclosed that Al-Faraj had never visited the area around the US Embassy before the attack. Instead, he conducted his reconnaissance using images and videos available on Google. Traveling from the Bekaa Valley to Beirut alone, he rented a van for approximately $50 and asked for directions to the US Embassy at various stops along the way. Al-Faraj entered Lebanon legally with his family in 2013 and settled in Majdal Anjar. However, a month later, his brother Qusai left for Syria, where he joined an armed group in Daraa and was killed in 2015. Sources indicate that Al-Faraj began showing signs of radicalization about four years ago, accessing websites promoting extremist ideologies and describing himself as a lone wolf loyal to ISIS. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army Intelligence continues to raid and detain individuals connected to Al-Faraj, who remains in critical condition at a hospital. Reports suggest that another cleric has been detained for questioning. This incident has reignited concerns over the security implications of the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) holds crucial data on the refugees' reasons for fleeing Syria, which include political and security-related issues. However, the UNHCR's reluctance to share such information with Lebanese security agencies due to fears of it being leaked to parties hostile to refugees remains a significant barrier to improving the security situation.

Judge Hajjar: Probe into US Embassy Attack Underway, No Final Results Yet

This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
Acting Public Prosecutor Judge Jamal Hajjar has assigned Army Intelligence, the Information Division of the Internal Security Forces and State Security to conduct the investigation and collect data about the shooting that targeted the US embassy in Awkar on Wednesday. As the probe is underway, information is still unclear regarding how the assailant acquired the weapons and could reach the embassy’s vicinity and carry out the operation without being detected. The attacker’s father, brothers and friends are being questioned and investigated to find out whether he was connected to an underground security cell, Hajjar told our sister company, Houna Loubnan. The Acting Public Prosecutor, who took over the investigation into the incident, stressed that there is still no definite or clear outcome of the probe. Nonetheless, Lebanese media reports suggested that “the perpetrator of the American embassy operation is a lone wolf, and did not operate as part of a cell.” They claimed that “he bought weapons and ammunition with his own money and surveyed the American embassy through Google.”According to Houna Loubnan, Judge Hajjar requested the collection of all surveillance cameras installed on the embassy walls and on buildings in its vicinity to try to identify the direction from which the perpetrator arrived on the scene. Multiple accounts circulated about the presumed number of gunmen who carried out the gunfire attack. They were all denied by a security source who insisted that the perpetrator is a Syrian national named Qais Farraj, residing in the Beqaa region.“All information and camera images show that the perpetrator of the operation was one person. He resides with his family in the town of al-Suwairi in the Beqaa, and had travelled to Beirut in a public bus,” the source told Houna Louban.
“The assailant was then transported by taxi to Awkar. He got out of the car a few hundred meters from the embassy, went on foot into the woods, where he took out the machine gun and quiver, then approached the embassy fence and began shooting,” the source added. The shooting went on for 15 minutes before the assailant was gunned down by the Lebanese Army. He was wounded and taken to the hospital. “He was able to hit the embassy wall, the visitors’ entrance, and the gate designated for cars, with dozens of bullets,” the source pointed out. Following the attack, the army raided the town of al-Suwairi, arresting Farraj’s brother for interrogation, and a cleric, Sheikh Malik Juha, the imam of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque in Majdal Anjar, who gave Farraj religious teachings.

Syrian attacked US embassy in Beirut 'in support of Gaza'

Agence France Presse/June 06/2024
The Syrian man who was arrested after a shooting near the U.S. embassy in Beirut on Wednesday has carried out the attack "in support of Gaza", a judicial official said. A Lebanese national working for the embassy suffered light injuries to his eye after the assailant opened fire. The gunman, who lived in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, carried out the attack "alone", said the official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The Lebanese army later said in a statement that it had arrested five suspects in the case in the Bekaa region, including three relatives of the alleged shooter. U.S. State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said it was aware the person arrested appeared to be wearing "ISIS insignia", referring to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group. The United States, he said, was "conducting a full investigation with the Lebanese authorities into the actual motivations".
Investigation underway  Images said to be of the bloodied attacker wearing a waistcoat that read "the caliphate" spread on social media. AFP was unable to immediately verify their authenticity.The self-declared IS caliphate, established in 2014, spanned large parts of Syria and Iraq. The jihadist group was defeated in 2019 by international and Kurdish forces. An AFP photographer said access to the area around the diplomatic mission was blocked off, with soldiers deployed heavily nearby. Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati spoke with army and security service officials who assured him "the situation is under control", a statement from his office said. "An investigation is underway to determine the circumstances of the incident and arrest all those involved," the statement said, adding that U.S. ambassador Lisa Johnson was currently outside Lebanon. The U.S. embassy said it would remain closed to the public for the rest of the day "but plans to be open for general business as usual" on Thursday. In September last year, a gunman opened fire at the US embassy without causing any casualties. Lebanese police alleged the shooter was a delivery driver seeking revenge for his perceived humiliation by security personnel.
That shooting coincided with the anniversary of a deadly 1984 car bombing outside the U.S. embassy annexe in Beirut, which the United States blamed on Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah. U.S. diplomatic and military missions in Lebanon were attacked on a number of occasions during the 1975-1990 civil war, when hardline Islamists also took several US hostages.The embassy relocated to Awkar after it was hit by an April 1983 suicide bombing that killed 63 people.

Sources to LBCI: Perpetrator of US Embassy attack acted alone
LBCI/June 06/2024
LBCI sources confirmed that the individual responsible for the recent attack on the US embassy acted independently and was not part of any organized cell. The attacker reportedly financed the purchase of the weapon and ammunition using his own funds.
Additionally, it has been revealed that he used Google to scout the US embassy before the attack.

Qatar condemns US Embassy attack in Beirut, calls for protection of diplomatic missions
LBCI/June 06/2024
On Thursday, Qatar condemned the recent shooting attack that targeted the US Embassy in Beirut. In a statement, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its "firm position on rejecting violence, terrorism, and criminal acts, regardless of the motives and reasons."
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reiterated the need to provide "the necessary protection to all diplomatic missions and their staff as they are among the pillars of the international system."In the details, a gunman opened fire near the US Embassy in the Awkar area on Wednesday morning, before being shot and arrested. After the incident, LBCI sources confirmed that the gunman and one of the embassy guards were injured. Later on Wednesday, the Lebanese army announced in a statement that a patrol from the Intelligence Directorate and an army unit raided several houses, arresting a Syrian national, identified as A.J., and a Lebanese citizen, identified as A.Z., on suspicion of their connection to Qais Al-Faraj, the shooter, and three of his family members. It also revealed that the army continues its raids while pursuing the investigations under the supervision of the competent judiciary. On Thursday, LBCI sources also confirmed that the individual responsible for the US Embassy attack acted independently, reportedly financing the purchase of the weapon and ammunition using his funds.

Wael Abou Faour Discusses Roadmap for Lebanese Presidential Election Consultations
LBCI/June 06/2024
Member of the Democratic Gathering, MP Wael Abou Faour, confirmed that the gathering is not launching a new initiative and that there are no political elements to it. He noted that what they are doing is an effort to find a roadmap that can be followed and a formula agreed upon by everyone to proceed with consultations and then elect a president. Abou Faour pointed out in an intervention on the "Neharkom Said" TV show on LBCI that there is no objection to the idea of consultations in principle and that more than one proposal has been presented. However, no proposal has been accepted by everyone so far, indicating that "we might reach a window of opportunity and there might be consensus on consultations."Abou Faour revealed that the Lebanese Forces have strict conditions regarding the consultations, and these conditions are not acceptable to other parties. Abou Faour said, "When the French envoy visited Speaker Berri in the last meeting, they agreed on the principle of consultations but did not agree on a clear mechanism, leaving many ambiguous issues."He added, "There will be a vision of where we have reached, and we will inform the Lebanese public about all the positions we have encountered."

Halabi: Official Exams to Be Held on Schedule
This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
Caretaker Minister of Education Abbas Halabi assured on Thursday that the official exams will be held on schedule and that preparations “are in full swing.” He was responding to reports in some media outlets that the official exams would be canceled.
In a statement to An-Nahar, he stressed that students in southern Lebanon would not be excluded, despite the war between Hezbollah and Israel that has been ongoing since October 8, 2023. He added that a meeting would be held on Friday to determine the schools where the exams would be conducted.

ISF Announces Arrest of Three Human Traffickers in Tripoli
This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
The General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces (ISF) announced Thursday that it had arrested three Lebanese smugglers involved in trafficking illegal migrants on “death boats.”The traffickers were caught in the act on the beach of al-Arida in Tripoli on May 15, as they were preparing to smuggle 20 Syrian nationals by sea, the ISF said in a press release. The intelligence division successfully identified the smugglers, all Lebanese nationals: A.G. (born in 1996), who had three arrest warrants for human trafficking, along with M.T. (born in 1998) and B.G. (born in 2003). “The detainees were referred to the appropriate judicial authorities per legal instructions,” added the statement.

Hasbani Links ‘Sudden’ Emergence of Islamic State Group to Hezbollah
This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
Former Deputy Prime Minister, MP Ghassan Hasbani, underlined the suspicious “coincidence” of the “sudden” reappearance of the Islamic State at a time Amal and Hezbollah face pressure. In comments made to LBCI television on Wednesday evening, Hasbani argued that there seems to be a correlation between the emergence of the Islamic State in Lebanon whenever the “Shiite duo” comes under pressure.
He was referring to Wednesday’s attack on the US embassy in Awkar, carried out by a Syrian national believed to be associated with the Islamic State group. The MP hinted at the possibility of Hezbollah’s involvement in the attack.
The anti-Hezbollah opposition had already expressed this speculation on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the Army was actively investigating fifteen individuals arrested in the Bekaa region following the attack, including the assailant’s brother.
Hasbani stressed that “the incident at the US embassy highlights the consequences of Lebanon’s porous borders (with Syria) and the widespread proliferation of illegal weapons.”“Whoever orchestrated the attack likely intended to send a message beyond Lebanon’s borders,” added the MP. Additionally, Hasbani emphasized that the assailant’s nationality wasn’t surprising. “We haven’t forgotten the murder of Pascal Sleiman, but we must not label all Syrians as terrorists,” said the MP, reaffirming the necessity of repatriating Syrian migrants to safe areas in their country or relocating them to other countries. Sleiman, an official in the Lebanese Forces, was kidnapped in North Lebanon early April and his body was dumped inside Syrian territory.

Poor Lebanon
Salam Zaatari/This Is Beirut/June 06/2024
Between 2012 and 2023, poverty in Lebanon tripled, according to a report released last month by the World Bank entitled “The Width of Poverty and Inequality in Lebanon.” Poverty rates rose from 12% to 44% of all residents, one in three residents in Lebanon was hit by poverty and one in two is vulnerable to falling below the poverty line. These percentages include all residents, that is, Lebanese and non-Lebanese, but in the details, it appears that 81% of Syrians residing in Lebanon are described as “poor” compared to 33% of the Lebanese residents. The World Bank found that there is something “very worrying” regarding the so-called “poverty gap,” as “poverty has deepened and intensified to much lower levels of the poverty line.”
We don’t need the “worry” from the World Bank to realize the dangers of poverty in our society. The consequences are felt and lived in our daily lives; the rise of crime, rise of corruption and moral decadence, even affecting us culturally.
Aristotle said, “Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime.” The philosopher in ancient Greece observed that when people are deprived of necessities and opportunities for advancement, they may become desperate and turn to drastic measures to improve their situations. The connection between socio-economic conditions and the potential for instability and unlawful behavior within a community has long been discovered, but Lebanon has always been an exception to any rule, unlawful behavior is rewarded.
While we often judge other nations from afar, few expect that we will become an example to the world.This article delves into the multifaceted dangers of poverty, illustrating its far-reaching impact on individuals and communities.
Examining countries that have experienced economic collapse provides clear examples of how poverty leads to societal decadence. In Greece, the financial crisis of 2009 resulted in severe austerity measures, skyrocketing unemployment rates and widespread poverty. The social fabric of the country was torn apart. Drug abuse, homelessness, suicide and prostitution. Similarly, the collapse of the Lebanese economy led to a surge in crime, drug addiction and alcoholism, family breakdowns and the rise of sexual crimes as well as prostitution rings.
That’s only normal because when individuals lack access to necessities, desperation often drives them to criminal activities. With a lack of policing power, crime thrives and slowly becomes organized.
In summary, here are the perils of poverty.Economically, poverty hinders national growth and development. A population grappling with poverty cannot contribute effectively to the economy, resulting in reduced productivity and stagnation. This economic downfall has plunged hundreds of thousands into poverty, dismantling the middle class and leaving the nation struggling to recover.
With the middle class dropping from 35% to 13%, culture will automatically drop or change. The culture of the mass will change. The balance of art and culture will be lost.
Poverty also reduces access to quality education, which is essential for economic mobility and innovation. Without proper education, individuals are less likely to acquire the skills needed for high-paying jobs, perpetuating the cycle of poverty. The middle class in Lebanon struggles to educate their children nowadays. Diplomas were the only weapon they could provide their kids with, in order to rise in society and succeed in life. Yet, many people pulled their kids from private to public schools because of the insane tuitions that these schools demand. Imagine the ones who cannot even afford public schools.
This lack of education and opportunity stifles economic growth, as a significant portion of the population remains unproductive.
Poverty affects physical health and has profound impacts on mental development and behavior. Research indicates that the stress associated with living in poverty can impair cognitive functions, including memory, attention and decision-making. A landmark study by Princeton University found that the cognitive load imposed by financial worries can reduce the IQ by up to 13 points, equivalent to losing a night’s sleep.
Poverty can influence mentality in various ways, often leading to what is sometimes termed a “poverty mentality.” The poverty of mind is the greatest poverty of all; it stifles imagination, hinders progress and imprisons potential within the confines of limited thinking, constantly struggling to make ends meet, which can lead to a scarcity mindset. Individuals may develop a preoccupation with scarcity, always worrying about not having enough resources or opportunities. This leads to high levels of Cortisol, “the stress hormone” that can affect the immune system, metabolism and high blood pressure, which also leads to many health issues. Limited access to healthcare services exacerbates these conditions, leading to higher morbidity and mortality rates. People in poverty may have limited access to education, employment options and social networks, which can narrow their perspectives and aspirations. It can erode self-esteem and self-worth. This can affect their confidence, motivation and sense of agency, making it difficult to pursue goals or take actions that could lead to improvement. That situation necessitates a focus on immediate survival rather than long-term planning or personal development. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why we saw a generation of young people dependent on TikTok revenues and cheap social media content in order to make ends meet, even at the cost of a bad reputation, because living in poverty can subject individuals to social comparison and stigma. Comparing oneself to others who are more financially stable can exacerbate feelings of inadequacy and inferiority. Poverty is changing the texture of our communities and culture. It is a major problem that needs to be addressed before it’s too late; it traps individuals and societies in a cycle of deprivation, limiting opportunities for growth and development. Addressing poverty requires comprehensive strategies that encompass economic reforms, social support systems and access to quality education and healthcare. By tackling the root causes of poverty, societies can break the cycle and pave the way for a more prosperous and equitable future. So far, we are not seeing any plans to build a better future, neither by the ruling elites nor by the will of the people, and this is very worrying for the future of the republic.

How can the Sovereign Movement Succeed Better?
Elie Aoun/June 06/2024
 https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/130462/130462/
Three elements have to be clarified: (1) the goal; (2) the purpose; and (3) the process.
Even if we have the correct goal and the correct purpose, it is possible to fail if we use the wrong process. But if we follow the correct process (even without any goal or purpose), we can still achieve positive results.
As an example, the goal is: “achieving independence/sovereignty for Lebanon.” The purpose is: “ensuring all Lebanese citizens live in freedom, peace and prosperity under a system of government that protects their liberties.”
So what has been the process used so far?
Firstly, a large percentage of the terminology being used by the “opposition” is wrong, and has to be corrected.
The fundamental principle is that: Whatever we focus on comes true. Therefore, we have to think in terms of what we want, not in terms of what we oppose.
From the first page of the Bible, the response to darkness was “let there be light.” It was not an “opposition” or “resistance to darkness.”
You define yourselves as “The Opposition.” That is not the correct label. You have to describe yourselves in the context of where you wish to be – not simply where you are now.
Utilize a label that reflects yourselves already where you want to be. We are more important than simply being an “opposition” to this entity or to this or that regime.
We must speak in terms of what we want, not what we “oppose.”
If someone calls for “opposition to corruption”, corruption will tend to increase (as had been the case) because the focus is on “corruption.” Instead, by calling for “more honesty in government”, the focus will be on “honesty” – and that leads to better outcomes in the long term. We pursue “more honesty” since honesty already exists among certain government employees, and we seek an increase of that.
Secondly, there has to be an honest evaluation about the strategy of relying on certain developments beyond our control, and waiting for “total independence” before participation in any aspects of government.
For example, the boycott of the 1992 Parliamentary election was one of the most detrimental decisions after post-war Lebanon. There was no justification for those who fight “Syria’s occupation” with bullets to refuse to face it with votes. The self-alienation concept continues to prevail today among many “pro-sovereignty” individuals – and thus undermining all aspects of saving the nation.
If changing things from within the institutions have not succeeded yet, that is not because changing things from within does not work. It may be the individuals and the processes being used are not the correct tools for the change required.
Whatever you abandon, your opponents will take it and strengthen themselves against you. Are you willing to keep allowing them to do so? Even if you think certain posts are not important or do not make any difference, take them anyway. Why do you think your opponents consider them important?
Finally, the so-called Lebanese “opposition” has focused on the goal and purpose while in many areas neglected the process (or utilized the wrong process). Instead of being an “opposition,” let us focus on making achievements.
Instead of presenting existing politicians with proposals on what to do, we should act based on what we can do ourselves (regardless how minimal it may be). Whatever proposal we present to the existing political class, they will only use aspects of the proposal that will benefit them personally (not the people).
Instead of blaming others (even if they are to blame), let us assume responsibility (regardless of whose fault it might be) and do what we can.
It is not true that one person does not make a difference. Every person and political position can make a difference.
Certain successes have already been achieved. Let us achieve more and better.

Lebanon's sectarian social contract that united the country for ages is being undermined
Michael Young/The National/June 06, 2024
The behaviour of some Lebanese senior leaders is destroying what remains of the Taif Accord
On his most recent trip to Beirut, France’s presidential envoy, Jean-Yves Le Drian, who has been trying to resolve Lebanon’s nearly two-year presidential vacuum, declared that if the country did not elect a president by November, he had fears for its continued political existence.
Mr Le Drian is right to be worried, but his anxieties come late. For all intents and purposes, the sectarian social contract that has kept Lebanon together for about a century no longer has meaning for many communities. The country is operating on auto-pilot, as the political class continues to rule over sectarian outposts, with no interest in resolving Lebanon’s problems, let alone reimbursing the hundreds of thousands of people who lost life savings in the financial collapse of 2019. The fact that Lebanon’s parliament and politicians cannot agree on a president is more a sign of a breakdown that has already occurred than an omen of a situation that may take place in the future. A primary reason for this is that the Lebanese state is co-existing uneasily with a sectarian armed militia, Hezbollah, that is more cohesive than the weak central government and whose primary loyalty is to an outside power.
As Hezbollah has imposed its priorities on Lebanon’s other communities, it has provoked widespread doubts about the continuation of the sectarian social contract. In 2019, the party protected the political class that had plundered the country, fearing that if the population succeeded in overthrowing the sectarian leaders, this would undermine Hezbollah’s instruments of control over the political order.
Hezbollah also derailed an investigation into what was probably the worst crime in Lebanon’s history, when ammonium nitrate exploded in Beirut’s port in August 2020, destroying a significant portion of the capital. When the investigation got too close to the party and its partners, Hezbollah and the allied Amal movement showed they were willing to provoke a sectarian civil war if the inquiry went ahead. In October, a day after Hamas attacked Israeli towns and bases near Gaza, Hezbollah opened a front against Israel from south Lebanon. This has led to widespread destruction in southern Lebanese villages, but almost no one has challenged the party for dragging Lebanon into a war it should have avoided. And finally, and most revealingly, Hezbollah and its allies have refused to allow the election of a Maronite president other than the candidate they endorse, Suleiman Frangieh, who has little support within his own community. In other words, a Shiite party now has arrogated the right to impose a Maronite whom most Maronites reject. In a sectarian system, such arrogance is potentially very risky. It’s little surprise, then, that most Maronites today no longer seem to identify with the state. Talk of introducing a new political system in Lebanon is rife among Maronites, with some advocating for administrative decentralisation, others for federalism and yet others openly calling for partition. Few seem to have any attachment to the largely dysfunctional unitary state that is barely surviving.
However, at the heart of this discontent is another problem. Lebanon’s Second Republic was established after the so-called Taif Accord, which introduced constitutional amendments that served as the basis of a new constitution after August 1990. These gave considerable power to the Sunni prime minister and Shiite speaker of parliament at the expense of the Maronite president, whose authority was curtailed. While this was necessary in light of Lebanon’s demographic shifts, many Maronites perceived Taif as a defeat for their community. Since the departure of the last president, Michel Aoun, Taif has been used and abused in such a way that it may no longer serve as a foundation upon which to rebuild the state. The Speaker and caretaker Prime Minister have made the situation worse. The Speaker, Nabih Berri, a noted Hezbollah ally who supports Mr Frangieh, has ignored clear constitutional provisions forcing him to keep Parliament in session until a president is elected. Instead, he has proposed a national dialogue over the presidency, which he would lead, to set up a parliamentary vote for a pre-agreed candidate. There is no basis in the constitution for this undemocratic innovation. Similarly, the caretaker Prime Minister, Najib Mikati, has continued to run the government in the absence of a president. While the government can only function in a caretaker capacity in the absence of an elected president, Mr Mikati has interpreted his margin of manoeuvre widely. He is managing the country in such a way that he has implied that filling the presidential vacuum is not absolutely necessary.
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Both Mr Berri’s and Mr Mikati’s behaviour has alienated many Christians. More dangerously, by so radically, and unjustifiably, reinterpreting the Taif constitution, which maintains the president as an axial player in the system, both men are undermining the bases of what remains of a consensual political order. Mr Berri may have no problem with this, as Shiite parties would certainly like to rework the constitution to their advantage. But Mr Mikati, a Sunni, certainly should. With the erosion of Taif, a text that has given the Sunni prime minister major power in the system is being undermined.
If Taif no longer serves as an acceptable underpinning to revive the moribund Lebanese state, Lebanon will fragment even more, with violence increasingly a possibility.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 06-07/2024
Israeli strike kills at least 33 people at a Gaza school the military claims was being used by Hamas
Wafaa Shurafa And Samy Magdy/DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP)/June 6, 2024
An Israeli strike early Thursday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians in central Gaza killed more than 30 people, including 23 women and children, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said that Hamas militants were operating from within the school. It was the latest instance of mass casualties among Palestinians trying to find refuge as Israel expands its offensive. A day earlier, the military announced a new ground and air assault in central Gaza, pursuing Hamas militants it says have regrouped there. Troops repeatedly have swept back into parts of the Gaza Strip they have previously invaded, underscoring the resilience of the militant group despite Israel's nearly eight-month onslaught. Witnesses and hospital officials said the predawn strike hit the al-Sardi School, run by the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees known by the acronym UNRWA. The school was filled with Palestinians who had fled Israeli operations and bombardment in northern Gaza, they said. Ayman Rashed, a man displaced from Gaza City who was sheltering at the school, said the missiles hit classrooms on the second and third floor where families were sheltering. He said he helped carry out five dead, including an old man and two children, one with his head shattered open. “It was dark, with no electricity, and we struggled to get out the victims,” Rashed said. Casualties from the school strike arrived at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in nearby Deir al-Balah, which had already been overwhelmed by a stream of constant ambulances since the central Gaza incursion began 24 hours earlier, said Omar al-Derawi, a photographer working for the hospital. Videos circulating online appeared to show several wounded people being treated on the floor of the hospital, a common scene in Gaza’s overwhelmed medical wards. Electricity in much of the hospital is out because staff are rationing fuel supplies for the generator. “You can't walk in the hospital — there’s so many people. Women from the victims’ families are massed in the hallways, crying,” he said. Hospital records and an Associated Press reporter at the hospital recorded at least 33 dead from the strike, including 14 children and nine women. Another strike on a house overnight killed six people, according to the records. Both strikes occurred in Nuseirat, one of several built-up refugee camps in Gaza dating to the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what became the new state. Footage showed bodies wrapped in blankets or plastic bags being laid out in lines in the courtyard of the hospital. Mohammed al-Kareem, a displaced Palestinian sheltering near the hospital, said he saw people searching for their loved ones among bodies, and that one woman kept asking medical workers to open the wraps on the bodies to see if her son was inside.
"The situation is tragic," he said.
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, said in a post on X that 6,000 people were sheltering in the school when it was hit without prior warning. He said UNRWA was unable to verify claims that armed groups were inside. An Israeli military spokesman, Lt. Col. Peter Lerner, said that the army wasn't aware of any civilian casualties in the strike. He said that intelligence indicated that militants had used the school compound to orchestrate some of the attacks on Oct. 7 and that at least 20 militants there were using it currently as a “staging realm” to launch attacks on Israeli soldiers. The military gave no evidence for its claims and released a photo of the school, pointing to classrooms on the second and third floor where it claimed militants were located. The military said it took steps before the strike "to reduce the risk of harming uninvolved civilians ... including conducting aerial surveillance, and additional intelligence information.”UNRWA schools across Gaza have functioned as shelters since the start of the war, which has driven most of the territory's population of 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes. Last week, Israeli strikes hit near an UNRWA facility in the southern city of Rafah, saying they were targeting Hamas militants. An inferno ripped through tents nearby housing displaced families , killing at least 45 people. The deaths triggered international outrage, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the fire was the result of a “tragic mishap.” The military said the fire may have been caused by secondary explosions. The cause of the explosions has not been determined. Israel sent troops into Rafah in early May in what it said was a limited incursion, but those forces are now operating in central parts of the city. More than 1 million people have fled Rafah since the start of the operation, scattering across southern and central Gaza into new tent camps or crowding into schools and homes. Israel launched its campaign in Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack into Israel, in which militants killed some 1,200 people and took another 250 hostage. Israel's offensive has killed at least 36,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians in its figures. Israel blames civilian deaths on Hamas because it positions fighters, tunnels and rocket launchers in residential areas. The United States has thrown its weight behind a phased cease-fire and hostage release outlined by President Joe Biden last week. But Israel says it won’t end the war without destroying Hamas, while the militant group is demanding a lasting cease-fire and the full withdrawal of Israeli forces. Far-right members of Netanyahu's government have threatened to bring down the coalition if he signs onto a cease-fire deal. Israel has routinely launched airstrikes in all parts of Gaza since the start of the war and has carried out massive ground operations in the territory’s two largest cities, Gaza City and Khan Younis, that left much of them in ruins. The military waged an offensive earlier this year for several weeks in Bureij and several other nearby refugee camps in central Gaza. Troops pulled out of the Jabaliya camp in northern Gaza last Friday after weeks of fighting caused widespread destruction. First responders have recovered the bodies of 360 people, mostly women and children, killed during the battles.

Hamas says Biden Gaza ceasefire plan ‘just words’
AFP/June 06, 2024
RAFAH, Palestinian Territories: A senior Hamas official said Thursday that US President Joe Biden’s proposed Gaza ceasefire deal was “just words” and the Palestinian militant group had not received any written commitments related to a truce.
Biden presented last week what he labelled an Israeli three-phase plan that would end the conflict, free all hostages and lead to the reconstruction of the devastated Palestinian territory without Hamas in power. But Osama Hamdan, a Hamas official based in Beirut, told AFP: “There is no proposal — they are just words said by Biden in a speech.” “So far, the Americans have not presented anything documented or written that commits them to what Biden said in his speech,” he said from the Lebanese capital. Hamdan said Biden “tried to cover up the Israeli rejection” of another deal offered earlier in May, which had been approved by Hamas. He said Hamas was willing to accept any deal that met his movement’s core demands of a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the complete withdrawal of Israeli troops from the territory. Shortly after Biden unveiled the plan, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the roadmap was only “partial.”The United States, along with Qatar and Egypt, have been engaged in months of negotiations over details for a ceasefire in Gaza. But except for a seven-day pause beginning in November, which led to the release of more than 100 hostages, there has been no break in the fighting. The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead. Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has since killed at least 36,654 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

No reply yet from Hamas on ceasefire deal, Qatari Foreign Ministry says
LBCI/June 06, 2024
In a post shared late on Thursday, Majed Al Ansari, the official spokesperson for the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs, stated that mediators have not yet received a response from Hamas regarding the latest proposal for a ceasefire and hostage exchange deal. He clarified that the movement has indicated it is still studying the proposal. The spokesperson confirmed in a statement to the Qatar News Agency that the mediation efforts of Qatar, in collaboration with Egypt and the United States, are ongoing. He urged the public not to pay attention to inaccurate media reports and to rely on official and credible sources, especially given the sensitive nature of the current negotiations.

Egypt gets ‘positive signs’ from Hamas on Gaza truce: report
AFP/June 06, 2024
CAIRO: Egypt has received encouraging signals from Hamas over a potential Gaza truce and hostage-prisoner swap with Israel, state-linked Al-Qahera News said on Thursday, citing a high-level source. Cairo has been engaged along with fellow mediators Doha and Washington in months of negotiations for a ceasefire aimed at ending the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.“Hamas leaders have informed us that they are studying the truce proposal seriously and positively,” Al-Qahera quoted the source as saying.The source, who was not named, said the Palestinian militant group was expected to respond to the proposal in the coming days. Egypt, which invited Hamas leaders to negotiations in Cairo, had “received positive signs from the Palestinian movement signalling its aspiration for a ceasefire,” the source added.The comments came a day after Hamas representatives met in Doha with Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Egypt’s intelligence chief Abbas Kamel. Apart from a seven-day ceasefire in November, during which more than 100 hostages were released in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, mediation efforts have failed to stop the conflict. Last week US President Joe Biden unveiled a “roadmap to an enduring ceasefire” that would see Israel withdraw from Gaza’s population centers and Hamas release hostages. On Thursday, Biden and 16 other world leaders urged Hamas to accept the proposal. The Gaza war was sparked by Hamas’s October 7 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,194 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Militants also took 251 hostages, 120 of whom remain in Gaza, including 41 the army says are dead. Israel’s military offensive on Gaza has since killed at least 36,654 people, also mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Biden, key European and Latin American leaders, urge Hamas to accept deal
AFP/June 06, 2024
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden and 16 other world leaders including key European and Latin American players on Thursday jointly urged Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal and for Israel to accept compromises. “There is no time to lose. We call on Hamas to close this agreement,” said the statement issued by the White House. The statement was signed by the leaders of key European powers Britain, France and Germany as well as by Spain, which has infuriated Israel by recognizing a Palestinian state. More unusually, the statement brought together the ideologically divergent leaders of South America’s most populous nations — Brazil and Colombia, whose left-wing presidents have stridently denounced Israel, and Argentina, whose new libertarian leader backs Israel. The United States has repeatedly said the onus is on Hamas to accept the deal, but the statement also called for flexibility from Israel. “At this decisive moment, we call on the leaders of Israel as well as Hamas to make whatever final compromises are necessary to close this deal and bring relief to the families of our hostages, as well as those on both sides of this terrible conflict, including the civilian populations,” it said. “It is time for the war to end and this deal is the necessary starting point.”Biden last week publicly announced a new plan in which Israel would withdraw from Gaza population centers and Hamas would free hostages for an initial six weeks, with the ceasefire extended as negotiators seek a permanent end to hostilities. He billed the plan as an Israeli offer, although it has drawn criticism from some right-wing Israeli politicians critical to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government. Mediator Qatar has submitted the plan to Hamas for review. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has also been pushing the plan through phone calls with Arab foreign ministers. Thursday’s statement was also signed by Thailand, which has a large force of workers in Israel and saw around 30 of its citizens taken hostage of around the 250 people seized by gunmen on October 7. Other countries signing the statement were Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Portugal, Romania and Serbia. Israel’s military offensive has killed at least 36,654 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.

Israeli military alarmed by standoff over West Bank funds, report says
REUTERS/June 06, 2024
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military has warned the government its policy of cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority could push the occupied West Bank into a third “intifada,” public broadcaster Kan Radio reported on Thursday. The warning, as the war in Gaza approaches the start of its ninth month, underlined the increasingly dire state of the West Bank economy where hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs in Israel and public servants have been unpaid or on partial pay for months. The West Bank, home to 2.8 million Palestinians and 670,000 Israeli settlers, is under Israeli military occupation with the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority exercising limited self rule. Israel has blocked Palestinian workers from entering from the West Bank since the Hamas militant group that controls the Gaza Strip attacked Israeli territory on Oct. 7 precipitating the war in Gaza. According to estimates from the Palestinian finance ministry, Israel has been holding back a total of around 6 billion shekels ($1.61 billion) in tax revenues, adding to a broad financial squeeze that has resulted in growing hardship as donor funds have dried up. Nasr Abdul Karim, an economist from the Arab American University in Ramallah, said the Palestinian Authority had been able to make up some of the shortfall by taking out private loans, but that was unlikely to be possible in the long term. “This month that was an option, will it be an option next month, or the one after?” he said. Even before the Gaza war, rising violence had drawn fears of a third intifada, the name given to the uprisings that shook Israel and the West Bank in the 1980s and early 2000s.
The tensions caused by the financial clampdown risked turning the West Bank from a secondary theater in the war into a core theater, Kan Radio quoted a memorandum from the military as saying. The army has become increasingly alarmed as economic hardship has fed into violence that has surged across the West Bank, with hundreds of Palestinians, including armed fighters as well as stone-throwing youths and uninvolved civilians, killed in clashes with security forces. Violent raids on Palestinian villages by groups of Israeli settlers have become commonplace, and more than a dozen Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Asked about the report, the military referred Reuters to the Shin Bet security service, which declined to comment. A Defense Ministry spokesperson said she had no knowledge of the document. But an Israeli official who requested anonymity confirmed the existence of the memorandum, saying it was circulated among various government ministries, military and security agencies “more than a week ago.” The Palestinian Authority, the body set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords, has been engaged in a bitter standoff for months with Israel’s hard-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has refused to release tax revenues, accusing the PA of supporting Israel’s enemy Hamas. Badeea Al-Dwaik, an employee at the Ministry of Labour, said public sector workers were already receiving no more than 70-80 percent of their pay even before the Oct. 7 attacks. “After Oct 7, they started giving us 50 percent,” he said. “It is hard to make ends meet with such a salary, there are a lot of employees who have debts.”Kan Radio cited the memorandum, prepared by officials from the military and Shin Bet, as saying the squeeze on incomes was likely to push many Palestinians toward armed militant groups backed by cash from Iran. It recommended a series of measures, including opening up more crossing points between Israel and the West Bank to allow Palestinian citizens of Israel easier weekend access to go shopping, and testing supervised entry to Israel for a limited number of Palestinian laborers. Palestinian Government spokesperson Mohammad Abu Al-Rub said tax revenue which Israel has withheld from the Palestinian Authority accounted for 70 percent of general budget revenues, describing it as part of a general campaign against Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza. “There is a heavy financial siege that Israel is imposing on the Palestinians and its leadership, just as is the case with the war on Gaza,” he said.

US imposes sanctions on Palestinian group Lions' Den over West Bank violence
Simon Lewis/WASHINGTON (Reuters)/ June 6, 2024
The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on Palestinian militant group Lions' Den, the State Department said, in the latest move aimed at those Washington says threaten peace and stability in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The group is the first Palestinian target of sanctions under an executive order on West Bank violence issued by President Joe Biden in February, which had previously been used to impose financial restrictions on Jewish settlers involved in attacks on Palestinians. In a statement announcing the action, department spokesperson Matthew Miller cited attacks by Lions' Den on Israelis as well as Palestinians in the West Bank since 2022. "The United States condemns any and all acts of violence committed in the West Bank, whoever the perpetrators, and we will use the tools at our disposal to expose and hold accountable those who threaten peace and stability there," Miller said. The move freezes any assets the group holds under U.S. jurisdiction and bars Americans from dealing with the group, although it was unclear if Lions' Den held any such assets or connections. Other Palestinian armed groups, including Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, have been designated under more stringent U.S. counterterrorism authorities, but Thursday's move falls short of taking that step for Lion's Den. The group emerged in recent years in the Old City of Nablus in the West Bank and has engaged in firefights with Israeli forces and attacks on Jewish settlements. Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, which Palestinians want as the core of an independent state. It has built settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes this and cites historical and Biblical ties to the land.

Israeli military alarmed by standoff over West Bank funds, report says

JERUSALEM (Reuters)/June 6, 2024
- The Israeli military has warned the government its policy of cutting off funds to the Palestinian Authority could push the occupied West Bank into a third "intifada", public broadcaster Kan Radio reported on Thursday. The warning, as the war in Gaza approaches the start of its ninth month, underlined the increasingly dire state of the West Bank economy where hundreds of thousands of workers have lost their jobs in Israel and public servants have been unpaid or on partial pay for months. The West Bank, home to 2.8 million Palestinians and 670,000 Israeli settlers, is under Israeli military occupation with the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority exercising limited self rule. Israel has blocked Palestinian workers from entering from the West Bank since the Hamas militant group that controls the Gaza Strip attacked Israeli territory on Oct. 7 precipitating the war in Gaza. According to estimates from the Palestinian finance ministry, Israel has been holding back a total of around 6 billion shekels ($1.61 billion) in tax revenues, adding to a broad financial squeeze that has resulted in growing hardship as donor funds have dried up. Nasr Abdul Karim, an economist from the Arab American University in Ramallah, said the Palestinian Authority had been able to make up some of the shortfall by taking out private loans, but that was unlikely to be possible in the long term. "This month that was an option, will it be an option next month, or the one after?" he said. Even before the Gaza war, rising violence had drawn fears of a third intifada, the name given to the uprisings that shook Israel and the West Bank in the 1980s and early 2000s. The tensions caused by the financial clampdown risked turning the West Bank from a secondary theatre in the war into a core theatre, Kan Radio quoted a memorandum from the military as saying. The army has become increasingly alarmed as economic hardship has fed into violence that has surged across the West Bank, with hundreds of Palestinians, including armed fighters as well as stone-throwing youths and uninvolved civilians, killed in clashes with security forces. Violent raids on Palestinian villages by groups of Israeli settlers have become commonplace, and more than a dozen Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Asked about the report, the military referred Reuters to the Shin Bet security service, which declined to comment. A Defence Ministry spokesperson said she had no knowledge of the document. But an Israeli official who requested anonymity confirmed the existence of the memorandum, saying it was circulated among various government ministries, military and security agencies "more than a week ago".
The Palestinian Authority, the body set up three decades ago under the Oslo interim peace accords, has been engaged in a bitter standoff for months with Israel's hard-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has refused to release tax revenues, accusing the PA of supporting Israel's enemy Hamas. Badeea Al-Dwaik, an employee at the Ministry of Labour, said public sector workers were already receiving no more than 70-80% of their pay even before the Oct. 7 attacks. "After Oct 7, they started giving us 50%," he said. "It is hard to make ends meet with such a salary, there are a lot of employees who have debts." Kan Radio cited the memorandum, prepared by officials from the military and Shin Bet, as saying the squeeze on incomes was likely to push many Palestinians towards armed militant groups backed by cash from Iran. It recommended a series of measures, including opening up more crossing points between Israel and the West Bank to allow Palestinian citizens of Israel easier weekend access to go shopping, and testing supervised entry to Israel for a limited number of Palestinian labourers. Palestinian Government spokesperson Mohammad Abu Al-Rub said tax revenue which Israel has withheld from the Palestinian Authority accounted for 70% of general budget revenues, describing it as part of a general campaign against Palestinians in both the West Bank and Gaza.
"There is a heavy financial siege that Israel is imposing on the Palestinians and its leadership, just as is the case with the war on Gaza," he said.

Families of US hostages in Gaza plead with Americans: Don't forget your fellow citizens
Eric Tucker/WASHINGTON (AP)/June 6, 2024
Jonathan Dekel-Chen dreams of the moment when his abducted 35-year-old son, Sagui, is reunited with his wife and three young children, including a daughter born two months after the devastating attack on Israel that initiated the war. Ruby Chen longs to recover the remains of his 19-year-old son, Itay — a soldier who Israeli intelligence says was killed in the Oct. 7 attack — so that he can be buried and his “soul” finally given “a place to rest” in accordance with Jewish practices. For many Americans, the Israeli-Hamas war is seen through the daily reports of Israeli ground incursions and airstrikes in Gaza and warnings of a looming famine. There are college campuses riven by protests and great uncertainty over cease-fire prospects. But the families of the Americans taken hostage are laser-focused on one thing: their loved ones. They fear that with all the tumult of the war, Americans often forget about their fellow citizens who remain missing. They’re doing whatever they can to make sure they aren’t forgotten and to keep pushing to get them -- or their remains -- back home. “For most of us, we are doers. So we wake up in the morning and we say, what are we doing today? What’s on the agenda?” said Ronen Neutra, whose son, Omer, a soldier, was among those taken. “What can I do to make sure that my son will come back home today? The families were in Washington this week for meetings with U.S. government officials, including national security adviser Jake Sullivan and Attorney General Merrick Garland, whose Justice Department is investigating the deaths and kidnapping of Americans at the hands of Hamas. The meetings came at a sensitive time as the Biden administration endeavors to get Israel and Hamas to commit to a cease-fire deal to end the eight-month-old war. Speaking as a group Wednesday to The Associated Press, the families recounted their shared sadness, angst and uncertainty but also their hopes for a resolution that would result in the release of scores of hostages, including their loved ones. Eight Americans are believed to be held by Hamas, including three who were killed.
The three-part proposal announced on May 31 by President Joe Biden calls for a “full and complete cease-fire,” a withdrawal of Israeli forces from densely populated areas of Gaza and the release of hostages — first, women, the elderly and the wounded and later, all remaining captives, including male soldiers like Neutra, who was ambushed and pulled from a tank on Oct. 7.
“The only way they are going to emerge alive from these tunnels is through some sort of negotiated agreement with the devil, which is Hamas,” said Dekel-Chen, whose son was kidnapped while protecting his kibbutz, Nir Oz, which endured a disproportionate toll of murders and hostage-taking by Hamas. “Hamas clearly has to be forced to or coerced to enter negotiations and complete them,” he said, and must decide whether it's about “perpetual warfare and perpetual suffering of its own people” or about “some better future.” The Israeli government, for its part, must “stay the course” and “put aside any kind of narrow political interests” for the good of the country, he said. That won't necessarily be easy, given the possibility that a cease-fire deal would shatter Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition and make him more vulnerable to a conviction in his corruption trial. Netanyahu says he is committed to bringing the hostages home, but also says he won't end the war without destroying Hamas. He and hard-liners in his coalition fear a full Israeli withdrawal before reaching this goal could allow Hamas to claim victory and reconstitute itself. The meetings with American officials were the latest in a series of sit-downs that began last fall, shortly after the Hamas attack in which militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted around 250 hostages.
So much has changed since then.
The resulting Israeli assault on Gaza has displaced most of the territory's population and killed over 36,000 Palestinians, according to the Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians. Israel has drawn global criticism, with a U.N. court ordering Israel to halt its offensive in the southern city of Rafah, while American universities from Columbia to Stanford have been convulsed by protests. In Israel, thousands have protested the government, criticizing Netanyahu over his approach to the war and demanding he do more to bring back the roughly 80 hostages believed to be alive, along with the remains of 43 pronounced dead. Many hostage families have been at the forefront of the protest movement. The American hostage families were measured in discussing the Israeli government's approach, placing the onus more on Hamas. And they say the warm embrace they have received from U.S. officials exposes a disconnect with the general American public, which they consider to be more apathetic to their plight and ignorant of the fact that so many hostages remain in captivity. “I think there’s also a lack of knowledge,” Chen said. “I think the majority of the U.S people are not aware that on October 7th, this was also attack on the United States." Compounding the sadness eight months into the war is a steady drip of somber Israeli government announcements of additional hostage fatalities — most recently on Monday, when the military declared four hostages who'd been kidnapped on Oct. 7 as now dead. Adding to the pain, the four men had been seen alive in videos released by Hamas, meaning they died in captivity, possibly from Israeli fire. Chen spent months hoping his son, an NBA-loving soldier in the Israel Defense Forces, was alive only to learn earlier this year that he had been killed. “He was taken hostage even though he was killed. Who does that? Savages. Who takes dead people as bargaining chips?" he said. Andrea Weinstein received similar news after the Israeli government in late December disclosed the deaths of her sister, Judy — previously thought to be among the living hostages — and her husband, Gad Haggai. Weinstein, a teacher with a creative spirit who used puppets to help students find their voices, was on a morning walk with her husband when the attack unfolded, her sister said.
Their bodies remain in Gaza.Optimistic feelings come in cycles for Omer Neutra's mother, Orna, who said she could not have imagined eight months ago that the family would still be in the same position. She is hopeful but also guarded. “October 6, it was a different life,” she said. “Nothing is the same for us.”

MPs calling out hate while disparaging Israel criticism 'duplicitous': Muslim groups
The Canadian Press/OTTAWA /June 6, 2024
Muslim groups say all political parties need to work harder to stamp out Islamophobia in Canada, and allow more space for people to criticize Israel without being painted as antisemitic. The CEO of the National Council of Canadian Muslims says he feels MPs have been "duplicitous" in calling out discrimination while vilifying people for attending peaceful pro-Palestinian protests. Stephen Brown testified today as part of a parliamentary study into Islamophobia and antisemitism in Canada. His group is calling on MPs to pass a motion to denounce anti-Palestinian racism and urge that civil liberties be protected, "including the ability to critique foreign governments." Police have reported an increase in crimes targeting Jews and Muslims across Canada since the Israel-Hamas war started last October. The Council of Agencies Serving South Asians says politicians have mischaracterized or smeared people who oppose Israel's military campaign in the Gaza Strip. A representative of the group also says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should have spoken out after Ontario Premier Doug Ford suggested last week that immigrants were behind shots being fired at a Jewish girls' elementary school in Toronto.

Spain has requested to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel's actions in Gaza
MADRID (Reuters)/June 6, 2024
Spain has requested to intervene in South Africa's genocide case against Israel's actions in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said on Thursday. Spain joins a small number of other countries that have said they wish to intervene including Ireland, which along with Spain and Norway officially recognised a Palestinian state last week. Albares said Madrid wanted to support the ICJ in its implementation of measures including an order to Israel to cease its military operation in Rafah in southern Gaza, but gave few details of what its requested intervention would entail. "We are doing it (requesting to intervene) because of our commitment to international law, in our desire to support the court in its work and strengthen the United Nations, supporting the role of the court as the maximum legal entity in the system," he told a press conference in Madrid. "We want to support the court in the implementation of the precautionary measures, in particular the cessation of military operations in Rafah in order to restore peace, the cessation of obstacles to the entry of humanitarian aid and the cessation of the destruction of civilian infrastructure." The ICJ is the highest United Nations legal body, established in 1945 to deal with disputes between states. The ICJ judges' order to Israel last month to immediately halt its military assault on Rafah was a landmark emergency ruling following South Africa's decision to bring a case against Israel accusing it of genocide. Israel has repeatedly dismissed the case's accusations of genocide as baseless, arguing in court that its operations in Gaza are self-defence and targeted at Hamas militants who attacked Israel on Oct. 7. It says it is trying to root out Hamas fighters in Rafah.

Houthi leader claims first Iraqi-Houthi strike on Israel

SAEED AL-BATATI/Arab News/June 06, 2024
AL-MUKALLA, Yemen: The leader of Yemen’s Houthi militia, Abdul Malik Al-Houthi, said his troops launched on Thursday morning their first attack on Israel with the assistance of the Iraqi Islamic Resistance in retaliation to Israel’s offensive in the Palestinian Gaza Strip. “Today at daybreak, our military forces commenced coordinated operations with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq by carrying out an important operation towards the port of Haifa,” Al-Houthi said in a televised address. He added that they fired 91 ballistic missiles and drones in 38 operations against ships in the Red Sea, Arabian Sea, Indian Ocean, and Mediterranean during the past 30 days. Al-Houthi claimed that his troops had developed a long-range ballistic missile capable of evading radar and reaching as far as Israel and that they fired seven ballistic missiles and four drones at the US Eisenhower aircraft carrier, causing it to reposition itself to the north of the Red Sea to avoid further attacks. The Houthi leader’s speech came shortly after the militia’s military spokesperson, Yahya Sarea, announced that their forces, along with the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, had launched two drone attacks on ships at the Israeli port of Haifa in response to Israeli military operations in Rafah, in southern Gaza. “The Yemeni Armed Forces conducted two coordinated military operations with the Iraqi Islamic Resistance. The first targeted two ships carrying military equipment in Haifa’s harbor,” Sarea said, adding that the second strike targeted a ship that had broken their restriction on traveling to the same Israeli port. During their campaign against ships on international shipping routes, which began in November, the Houthis have seized one commercial ship, sunk another, and claimed to have fired hundreds of drones and ballistic missiles at over 130 ships in the Red Sea, Bab Al-Mandab Strait, Gulf of Aden, Indian Ocean, and Mediterranean. The Houthis claim that their operations are limited to targeting ships affiliated with or sailing to Israel to force the latter to end its war in Gaza. On Wednesday, Sarea claimed to have targeted three ships in the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea but did not specify when the strikes occurred. He said that their missile and drone forces struck Roza and Vantage Dream in the Red Sea for breaching their embargo on traveling to the Israeli port, as well as Maersk Seletar in the Arabian Sea, which he claims is owned by the US. Ship tracking app Marine Traffic identified the Roza ship as a Liberian-flagged bulk carrier traveling from India to the Suez Canal and arriving on Thursday. The Vantage Dream ship is another Liberian-flagged bulk carrier that was sailing from India to the Suez Canal while the Maersk Seletar ship is a container ship sailing under the US flag that departed the Omani Salalah on Wednesday to an unidentified location, according to the same ship tracking app. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Minister of Information Moammar Al-Eryani has issued an urgent plea to the international community to pressure the Houthis to allow an injured Yemeni journalist to seek medical treatment. According to the Yemeni minister, Mohammed Shubaita, secretary-general of the Yemeni Journalists’ Syndicate, who was shot by the Houthis early last month, is being held in a hospital in Sanaa. His health has deteriorated, the Houthis have denied him proper medication, and only a few people have been allowed to visit him, the minister said. “He is in a poor situation because of complications from the injuries and intestinal ruptures. He also has a terrible psychological position as a consequence of continuing to deny him visits and only allowing a small number of people to see him,” the minister said on X.

Yemen's Houthi rebels unveil solid-fuel 'Palestine' missile that resembles Iranian hypersonic

Jon Gambrell/DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP)/June 6, 2024
Yemen's Houthi rebels have unveiled a new, solid-fuel missile in their arsenal that resembles aspects of one earlier displayed by Iran that Tehran described as flying at hypersonic speeds. The rebels fired its new “Palestine” missile, complete with a warhead painted like a Palestinian keffiyeh checkered scarf, at the southern Gulf of Aqaba port of Eilat in Israel on Monday. The attack set off air raid sirens but caused no reported damage or injuries. Footage released by the Houthis late Wednesday showed the Palestine being raised on what appeared to be a mobile launcher and rising quickly into the air with plumes of white smoke coming from its engine. White smoke is common with solid-fuel missiles. Solid-fuel missiles can be set up and fired faster than those containing liquid fuel. That's a key concern for the Houthis as their missile launch sites have been repeatedly targeted by U.S. and allied forces in recent months over the rebels' attacks on shipping through the Red Sea corridor. One such strike hit the Houthis even before they were able to launch their missile. For their part, the Houthis described the Palestine as a “locally made” missile. However, the Houthis are not known to possess the ability to manufacture complicated missile and guidance systems locally in Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, which been gripped by war since the rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, nearly a decade ago. The Houthis have, however, been repeatedly armed by Iran during the war despite a United Nations arms embargo. While Iran claims it doesn't arm the Houthis, ships seized by the U.S. and its allies have found Iranian weaponry, missile fuel and components on board. Iranian media reported the launch of the Palestine and described it as locally manufactured, citing the Houthis. However, design elements on the missile resemble other missiles developed by Iran's paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. That includes one called the Fattah, or “Conqueror” in Farsi.
Iran unveiled the missile last year and claimed it could reach Mach 15 — or 15 times the speed of sound. It also described the missile's range as up to 1,400 kilometers (870 miles). That's a little short of Eilat from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, but missile can be reconfigured to boost their range. In March, Russia's state-run RIA Novosti news agency quoted an anonymous source claiming the Houthis had a hypersonic missile. “While we cannot say for sure what exact version the ‘Palestine’ corresponds to, we can say with high certainty that is is an advanced and precision-guided (Guard)-developed solid propellant missile provided by Iran,” wrote Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Asked about the similarity between the Palestine and its missiles, Iran's mission to the United Nations told The Associated Press that Tehran “has not engaged in any activities in contravention” of U.N. resolutions. "Yemen’s military power has grown since the war began ... — a fact rooted in the internal capacity and prowess of Ansar Allah,” the mission said, using another name for the Houthis. Hypersonic weapons, which fly at speeds higher than Mach 5, could pose crucial challenges to missile defense systems because of their speed and maneuverability. Ballistic missiles fly on a trajectory in which anti-missile systems like the U.S.-made Patriot can anticipate their path and intercept them. The more irregular the missile’s flight path, such as a hypersonic missile with the ability to change directions, the more difficult it becomes to intercept. China is believed to be pursuing the weapons, as is America. Russia claims it has already used them.It remains unclear how well the Palestine maneuvers and at what speed it travels.

Europeans detail Iran's nuclear violations in diplomatic gambit
Michelle Nichols, Arshad Mohammed and John Irish/UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) /June 6, 2024
Three European powers have written to the U.N. Security Council detailing Iran's violations of its 2015 nuclear deal, a step diplomats said on Thursday aimed to pressure Tehran to resolve the issue diplomatically and to avoid reimposing U.N. sanctions. The British, French and German letter did not explicitly threaten to "snap back" United Nations sanctions but it noted that U.N. Security Council Resolution 2231, which enshrined the nuclear deal and provided that power, expires on Oct. 18, 2025.In its own letter, Iran rejected the European stance, noting then-U.S. President Donald Trump reneged on the nuclear deal in 2018 and re-imposed U.S. economic sanctions on Iran, arguing they were within their rights to expand their nuclear work. The effort by Britain, France and Germany, known informally as the E3, to ramp up pressure was also visible this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency, where they successfully pushed a resolution critical of Iran despite U.S. reservations. The E3 letter, which was dated June 3, referred to a report by the U.N. nuclear watchdog last month that cited Iran's nuclear advances violating the 2015 deal, including by expanding its stockpile and production rates of high enriched uranium. That deal, struck with the E3, China, Russia and the United States, limited Iran's ability to enrich uranium, a process that can yield fissile material for nuclear weapons. In return, the U.S., U.N. and European Union eased sanctions on Iran.
Tensions with Iran have increased since the Iranian-backed Hamas militant group attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, other Iranian proxies have attacked U.S., Israeli and other Western targets, and Tehran has accelerated its nuclear program while limiting the U.N. nuclear watchdog's ability to monitor it. "Iran's nuclear escalation has hollowed out the JCPOA, reducing its nonproliferation value," said the E3 letter seen by Reuters, referring to the 2015 deal formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. "Iran's decision to take remedial measures was in full accordance with its inherent right ... in reaction to the United States' unlawful unilateral withdrawal," Iran's U.N. ambassador said a June 5 letter seen by Reuters. Western diplomats and other sources familiar with the E3 letter said its purpose was to try to raise pressure on Iran within the Security Council and to buy time for a diplomatic solution before next year's expiry of their "snap back" power to reimpose U.N. sanctions on Iran. The aim is to "take stock of Iran's nuclear advances, which have become unacceptable and are getting worse, and to increase pressure within the Security Council," said a source familiar with the letter. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres reports twice a year to the Council - traditionally in June and December - on the implementation of the 2015 resolution. The Security Council is due to discuss his next report on June 24. Daryl Kimball, executive director of the nonprofit Arms Control Association, said the letter may be a way to lay the groundwork for an eventual "snap back" of U.N. sanctions, though he stressed that a diplomatic solution is still possible. "The E3 reference to the October 2025 date, when the option to snap back U.N. sanctions expires, and their communication to the Security Council suggest they are simply trying to establish the legal basis for possibly snapping back sanctions on Iran at a later point," said Kimball. "However, such an option, especially in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, would likely not move Iran to cooperate but lead it to escalate, perhaps even by withdrawing from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty," he said.

Putin Rages As Reporter Asks About Attacking Nato: 'Are You As Dumb As This Table?'
Kate Nicholson/HuffPost UK/June 6, 2024
Vladimir Putin appeared to lose his temper when a reporter asked him if Russia was planning to attack Nato last night. The Russian president has been openly opposed to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation for years, and has even claimed Nato’s eastern expansion is what supposedly pushed him into invading Ukraine. Nato’s military might overshadows Russia’s by some margin, but both sides have made it clear they want to avoid direct conflict. At a meeting with international news agencies on Wednesday, Putin said: “There is this fanciful stuff that Russia wants to attack Nato.
“Are you out of your mind? Are you as dumb as this table?
“Who made that up?! It’s nonsense, do you understand?
“It’s a bunch of gibberish!”
According to the Russian state news agency, TASS, he also downplayed questions about Russia’s nuclear threats, which Moscow has been making ever since invading Ukraine in 2022. He said: “You know, they keep trying to accuse us of brandishing some nuclear sabre.” Addressing the Reuters reporter who asked when Russia might consider using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, he continued: “But was it me who just raised the question about the possibility of using nuclear weapons? You did. “You are suggesting this subject to me and afterward you will say that I was brandishing the nuclear sabre,” he said.
However, at the same press briefing, he said: “For some reason, the West believes that Russia will never use it. But we have our nuclear doctrine. “Take a look at what it says. If someone’s actions threaten our sovereignty and territorial integrity, we believe that it is possible to use all means at our disposal. This should not be treated lightly; this should be treated with professionalism.”Then, the Russian president seemed to change his mind again, and said: “Let us all prevent not just the use of [nuclear], but also threats of using it.”During the very same briefing, Putin also managed to shoehorn in a reminder that Russia’s nuclear powers exceeds those used against Japan in World War 2. “This is a very serious topic. The United States is the only country that used nuclear weapons during World War Two. [The explosive yield of bombs used] in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was 20 kilotons. Our tactical nuclear weapons [have the explosive yield of] 70-75 kilotons,”

Macron says France will provide Ukraine with its Mirage combat aircraft to fend off Russian attacks

KHARKIV, Ukraine (AP) /June 6, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that France will provide Ukraine with its Mirage combat aircraft to be able to defend their country against Russian aggression. Macron told French public broadcaster he will announce on Friday “a new cooperation with Ukraine and the sale of Mirage 2005, the French-made combat aircraft which will “allow Ukraine to protect its soil, its airspace” against Russian attacks. France will also start training Ukrainian pilots, Macron said and reiterated that Ukraine should be allowed to use weapons provided by its Western allies to target Russian military targets and “neutralize the points from which (the country) is being attacked.”Macron spoke after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy joined world leaders in France on Thursday to commemorate the D-Day invasion and seek more Western help even as his forces battled to stave off a Russian onslaught near the eastern city of Kharkiv in Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II.
Zelenskyy and his wife, Olena, attended the 80th anniversary events in Normandy with U.S. President Joe Biden and European leaders who have supported Kyiv’s efforts in the war, now in its third year. He will meet with French officials in Paris on Friday.Ukraine is fighting to hold back a recent Russian push in eastern areas, including the border regions of Kharkiv and Donetsk. The offensive seeks to exploit Kyiv’s shortages of ammunition and troops along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line. Ukraine has framed the conflict as a clash between Western democratic freedom and Russian tyranny. Russia says it is defending itself against a menacing eastward expansion of the NATO military alliance. Overnight, Ukrainian drones struck an oil refinery and a fuel depot in Russian border regions, officials in the targeted areas said Thursday, in Kyiv’s ongoing effort to disrupt the Kremlin’s war machine.
As part of that effort, NATO allies said they would allow Ukraine to use weapons they deliver to Kyiv to carry out limited attacks inside Russia. The decision could potentially impede Moscow’s ability to open a new front in the northeastern regions. Ukrainian officials feared a fresh assault was imminent after the May 10 offensive against Kharkiv, in which Moscow’s troops exploited weaknesses and successfully diverted Ukrainian forces. Ukraine has Washington's permission to use U.S.-supplied weapons to shoot at targets inside Russia, with limitations.
Ukrainian lawmaker Yehor Cherniev told The Associated Press that they can be used only in Russian border regions east of Ukraine where the Kremlin’s forces assemble and launch attacks, but they cannot hit airfields or aircraft that fire missiles at Ukraine, including at civilian areas. He said Ukraine has “stopped” the momentum of the northeast offensive in the Kharkiv region. Although Russian forces might still try to advance, "now we can destroy their troops on the territory of Russia near the border of Kharkiv. We also already destroyed some of their air defense systems, which they used against us,” added Cherniev, deputy chairman of parliament's National Security, Defense and Intelligence Committee. White House national security spokesman John Kirby noted there has never been a restriction on Ukrainian forces shooting down hostile aircraft, “even if those aircraft are not necessarily in Ukrainian airspace. ... They can shoot down Russian airplanes that pose an impending threat. And they have. They have since the beginning of the war."
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that Russia could provide long-range weapons to other countries so that they could strike Western targets. Biden countered by noting the limits that Washington imposed.
“We’re not talking about giving (Ukraine) weapons to strike Moscow, to strike the Kremlin,” Biden told ABC News. Ukraine has received authorization to use the weapons “just across the border where they’re receiving significant fire from conventional weapons used by the Russians to go into Ukraine to kill Ukrainians,” Biden said.
Biden said he was “concerned” by Putin's behavior and called him “a dictator.”He also pledged that “we will not walk away” from the defense of Ukraine and allow Russia to threaten more of Europe. Moscow officials were unconvinced by Western arguments. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said Putin's comments amounted to “a quite significant shift in our foreign policy."“Let the U.S. and its allies feel the impact of direct use of Russian weapons by others,” Medvedev wrote on his messaging app channel. Putin deliberately didn’t identify who would receive Russian weapons, Medvedev said, adding that they could go to anyone who considers the U.S. and its allies their enemies. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the use of Western weapons against Russia “can’t be left without consequences, and those consequences will certainly follow.”Putin claimed that using some Western-supplied weapons involves military personnel of those countries controlling the missiles and selecting targets, and therefore he said that Moscow could take “asymmetrical” steps elsewhere in the world. The U.S. military said that it doesn't control the missiles it provides to Ukraine or the targets, and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg emphasized the alliance has no plans to deploy forces to Ukraine. “We are focusing on how we can establish a stronger framework for our support, with an institutionalized framework for the support to Ukraine and how to establish an agreed long-term financial commitment to ensure that we stand by Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Stoltenberg said in Finland. An overnight drone attack hit the Novoshakhtinsk refinery in Russia’s Rostov region and started a fire, Rostov Gov. Vasily Golubev said. Firefighters had to pull out briefly because of a second attack, he said. The extent of the damage to the facility wasn't immediately clear. Golubev said that there were no casualties. In Belgorod, another border region, a drone hit an oil depot overnight, Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. It caused an explosion and a fire in one of the oil reservoirs. The blaze was quickly extinguished and there were no casualties, Gladkov said. It wasn't immediately possible to verify the reports. Refineries, fuel depots and oil terminals have been targets of increasingly sophisticated Ukrainian drone attacks that have reached deep into Russia. The attacks deny Moscow revenue, and Western sanctions have added to the pressure on Russia’s energy sector. Russia, meanwhile, has been attacking Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and causing widespread power outages. The apparent goal is to sap public morale and affect military manufacturing plants.

Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on January 13-14/2024
Why Is there no Palestinian State?

Hussain Abdul-Hussain/Hoover Institution's Caravan/June 06/2024
The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is intractable. One binational state is impossible, given that the two sides – Jews and Arabs -- have irreconcilable national projects. The two-state scenario has also proven elusive with Palestinians refusing to recognize Jewish nationhood. Even if they did, Palestinians have not shown any capability of constructing and governing a state of their own – whether a democracy or an autocracy. As long as the prerequisites for peace remain unfulfilled, the status quo will persist: A Palestinian hodgepodge autonomy meshed with Israeli policing and occasional flare-ups of war.
The one-state solution, popularized among Arab-Americans by late Columbia professor Edward Said and endorsed today by protesters on U.S. college campuses, was tried as far back as 1920 when Britain assembled three Ottoman provinces into a state it called Palestine and designed it as a binational homeland for both Arabs and Jews.
But multiethnic nations in the Middle East — Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon — have proven to be utter failures. Palestine is no exception. Even when America threw its weight behind building a federal Shia-Sunni-Kurdish Iraq, the Shia enlisted Iranian muscle to crush federalism. In Lebanon, the once thriving Christian and Druze majority has been shrinking over the past half century and has now become an irrelevant minority. It did not take long before the world discovered the impossibility of a binational Arab-Jewish state in Palestine. As early as 1937, the British presented the first partition plan — the Peel Commission Report. At the 1939 London Conference, the Arabs demanded the declaration of “Palestine as a sovereign Arab state” in which the Jews live as a minority. The “Arabs of Palestine” rejected the binational Arab-Jewish state model. Partition became inevitable. In 1947, the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 181, which endorsed the two-state solution. Arab states at the UN voted against it. The following year, when Israel declared its independence, seven Arab armies invaded the nascent state but lost the war. Jordan kept the West Bank. Egypt took the Gaza Strip. The Arabs called their 1948 military defeat Nakba, Arabic for disaster. The 1948 War included Arab displacement of Jews from the West Bank and East Jerusalem and, in the years that followed, from Arab countries. Israel understood the move as a population swap similar to the 1923 Turkish-Greek swap of two million and the 1947 Indian-Pakistani exchange of 17 million. Israel thus absorbed 750,000 Jewish immigrants to replace the 750,000 Arabs, who became permanent refugees, passing on this UN status to their descendants.
It was in 1948 that the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 194 that called for the return to Israel of those Arabs who wanted to, thus contradicting Resolution 181, which had partitioned the land into two states, one Jewish and the other Arab.
At its 2002 Beirut Summit, the Arab League endorsed the Arab Peace Initiative, an official acceptance of UNGA 181 and partition, but with a caveat. The initiative also demanded the return of Arabs to Israel, along the lines of UNGA 194, thus ignoring the Jewishness of Israel.
Israel has since found itself standing before two Arab camps: The moderates, who recognized Israel but demanded the return of Arabs to the Jewish state, and the radicals, who rejected the very existence of Israel and called for an Arab Palestine from the River to the Sea, reminiscent of the 1939 Arab demand in London. The moderate Arabs have since been astounded as to why Israel would not take the Arab Peace Initiative, oblivious to the fact that the plan was tantamount to Israel committing suicide.
Israel tried to play ball. Starting in 1993, Israel hoped that the Arab moderates, including Palestinian strongman Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), could deliver on the two-state solution. For considering two states, the radicals – including Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Hamas, and most Palestinian-Americans – bashed Arafat. Thus, while Arafat talked peace to Israel, Islamist Hamas launched a suicide bombing campaign that killed dozens of non-combatant Israelis. Reminiscing, in March 2024, Arafat’s top aid Yasser Abdrabbo said that the PLO chief encouraged Hamas’s violence believing that he could use it as leverage to force more concessions on Israel.
The Israeli military engaged in a three-year-long campaign that eventually subdued Palestinian violence, known as the Second Intifada. Israel’s bet on Arafat to deliver peace thus came to an end, but the Jewish state was not yet done with the two-state solution. Buoyed by President Bush’s agenda to spread democracy, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon stirred the Palestinians toward an election that saw Mahmud Abbas succeed Arafat. In 2005, Sharon handed over the Gaza Strip to Abbas and his government and conceded more areas in the West Bank, allowing Palestinians to govern up to 40 percent of the 1967 territory, the land slated to become Palestine under a two-state solution. Abbas proved to be as autocratic, corrupt, and incapable as Arafat. In 2007, Abbas lost the Gaza Strip to Hamas in a civil war that saw Hamas kill 350 PLO staff and security. The two Palestinian blocs, each commanding the following of around one-third of Palestinians today, have not spoken since or held an election, both blaming “the occupation” for their own failure to produce a state, even if a non-sovereign one. In 2008, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised to concede all of the 1967 territory to Palestinians. The only thing Israel asked was for Palestinians to forgo what they call the “right of return.” But unwilling or unable to rally Palestinian support behind such an Israeli demand, Abbas never responded to Olmert’s offer. In 2009, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated the same demand: Declare Israel as a Jewish state. Abbas refused.
In 2012, President Obama asked Palestinians to recognize the Jewishness of Israel. This time, Abbas experimented with Israel’s demand and said that, when there will be two states, he did not expect to return to his birthplace, Safed, inside Israel. Hamas bashed Abbas for his statement and he promptly walked it back, voicing ever since his wish to return, calling himself a “refugee.” Palestinian leaders clearly had no mechanism to debate peace or to deliver on whatever they promise Israel.
The model of Palestinian leadership compares to neighboring Arab countries Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. Since independence, these countries have lived in one of two states: Autocracy or civil war. Since the rise of Islamism in the 1980s, civil wars have been won by Islamist militias, all of them backed and bank-rolled by the Islamist regime of Iran, which uses them as tools in its bid to dominate the region.
When dealing with these Arabs, including Palestinians, Israel has had to deal with enemy dictators like Egypt’s Gamal Abdul-Nasser, Iraq’s Saddam Hussain, and Syria’s Assad dynasty, or friendly autocrats like Jordan’s Hashemite monarchs and the Egyptian presidents since Anwar Sadat.
With militias, Israel has not been as lucky as with friendly autocrats. Militias are Islamists whose ideology — as outlined by Sunni Egyptian Sayyid Qutb and endorsed by Shia Iranian Ruhollah Khomeini — considers the conflict with Israel not as one over national interests but as a zero-sum game that started with the rise of Islam, over 1400 years ago. In 1993, Israel hoped that Arafat — then PLO chief since 1968 — would be the friendly Palestine dictator who could guarantee peace, like his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts. Arafat proved unable or unwilling to do so. Like him, Abbas, 89, has been weak, corrupt and deflects blame for his failure unto Israel. Among Palestinians today, Marwan Barghouti commands majority support. Barghouti is a former Arafat lieutenant who is serving a life sentence in an Israeli prison for his role in the death of Israelis during the Second Intifada.
So far, Barghouti’s allure has been his animosity toward Israel. Should he sue for peace if released, he would likely lose his popularity.
With the impossibility of a liberal Palestinian democracy, and with no apparent strongman, the chances of creating a Palestinian state are next to nil. And since one of the two states in the two-state solution should be the Palestinian state, and since such a state is nowhere to be found, the two-state solution will remain elusive. Israel, for its part, would almost certainly concede 1967 territory to a friendly Arab sovereign, Palestinian or otherwise. It could, therefore, hand the West Bank over to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt. But it is most likely that, judging by their 1948-1967 experience, neither Amman nor Cairo would want to take back the territory of rowdy and violent Palestinian militias, whose attention might then turn away from Israel and unto their new governments, causing instability, as they did in Jordan in 1970.
As it stands, the Palestinians are unable to stand up a state required for peace with Israel. No Arab country wants to take them or rule their territories. After October 7, Israel will never repeat its 2005 unilateral withdrawal experiment that, instead of leading to a Palestinian state, turned Gaza into an enemy military camp. For Israel and the Palestinians, the only possible solution in the foreseeable future is more of the same: A makeshift arrangement of Palestinian self-governance meshed with Israeli policing and periodic flareups.
Unless America is willing to go back to state-building and spreading democracy, it will have to wait until Palestinians figure out how to build a state that Israel can make peace with. Israel cannot build a Palestinian state for them. Only Palestinians can, but first, they must listen and learn how.
*Hussain Abdul-Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD

Silence! Why Radical Muslims and Triggered Leftists Are the Conjoined Twins of Offense

Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/June 06/2024
Despite their many outward differences, Islamic authoritarianism and leftist liberalism are very similar.
Take how radical Muslims and triggered liberals brook no dissent—that is, brook no “blasphemy” against their sacred things and ideas.
In his discussion of Koran 5:33, which calls for the crucifixion and/or mutilation of “those who wage war against Allah and his messenger [Muhammad] and spread mischief upon the land,” the highly revered Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) —the “Sheikh of Islam”— once wrote:
Muharaba [waging war] is of two types: physical and verbal. Waging war verbally against Islam may be worse than waging war physically — hence the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) used to kill those who waged war against Islam verbally, while letting off some of those who waged war against Islam physically. This ruling is to be applied more strictly after the death of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Mischief may be caused by physical action or by words, but the damage caused by words is many times greater than that caused by physical action…. It is proven that waging war against Allah and His Messenger (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) verbally is worse and the efforts on earth to undermine religion by verbal means is more effective [Crucified Again, p. 100; emphasis added].
This authoritative Muslim cleric is making a seemingly startling claim: criticism—mere words—is more detrimental to Islam than war itself. Why? Because of all the world’s major religions, Islam is by far the easiest to dismantle through critical thinking (hence why Christian/Muslim debates often end with frustrated Muslims beating and even slaughtering their opponents).
Built atop an easily collapsed pack of cards—namely, the very self-serving and opportunistic words and deeds of its founder—silencing any criticism against Muhammad has long been essential to Islam’s survival. Left unchecked, this “verbal war” will have a snowball effect: other Muslims, exposed to such critical thinking, will also start thinking critically, ultimately rebelling against and overthrowing the Islamic order. Now consider how this applies to the so-called “Left.” Every day, from virtually every official institution and channel—academia, media, government, etc.—we are bombarded with very obvious and ludicrous lies, for example, that women can become men, that men can become pregnant, and so on and so forth. Does that mean that most Americans believe this? No. But getting you to believe what is unbelievable has never really been the goal.
Rather, the ultimate goal is to condition you never to publicly challenge the official narrative—that you never openly blaspheme against the official cult, thereby encouraging others to blaspheme and apostatize—the dreaded snowball effect which every regime fears.
The Left cares little if in the quiet of your own mind you refuse to play along. All that matters is that you formally go along—that you formally acquiesce—even if through silent though implicit consent.
In short, the Left wants you to dread the consequences of openly defying its narrative, one which, like Islam, is also built atop an easily collapsed pack of cards.
This is what many miss. They tell themselves, “Well, I won’t openly say anything against these nonsensical claims about gender, pronouns, etc.—after all, I don’t need to be canceled or lose my job. That said, I certainly know better and am not falling for this foolishness.”
That may well be true, but wherever these new dogmas are not openly and fiercely opposed—including through that potent tool, ridicule—the Left establishes a monopoly on the narrative, which is all that matters.
Returning to Islam, we see that, because it has been and continues to be swift in silencing any public dissent—sharia calls for the execution of blasphemers—it has persevered, fourteen centuries now and counting. Nor does it matter that many Muslims (known in modern parlance as “moderates”) have serious reservations in the quiet of their mind if not downright apostasy in their hearts. So long as they cannot outwardly express their criticism or doubts, so long does Islam hold sway over their societies.
How long before such sharia-like laws—I don’t mean being “canceled,” but being imprisoned and possibly executed for openly challenging the Left’s narrative—are promulgated in the West?
Think that can’t happen here? Think again. Former generations of Americans could never in their wildest dreams have imagined a day would come when people would get fired or arrested for refusing to disavow reality and say a man is a woman, or for using the correct pronoun—but that day is here.
If the current trajectory continues unchallenged, where will the West be a few years from now, and what will the punishments meted out to dissenters be? Such is the plight of the slowly boiling frog.

Israel Is Helping Palestinians More Than Those Who Condemn Israel
Alan M. Dershowitz and Andrew Stein/Gatestone Institute/June 06/2024
Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it.
Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain might extend invitations to the Palestinians to become residents there?
On April 13, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Hamburg, Germany and demanded that the country become a Caliphate, with Shariah law.
The only reason that Ireland, Norway and Spain can safely recognize a Palestinian state is that they do not have to live with the consequences.
Many [Arab and Muslim states]... might feel obligated officially to support the Palestinians and a "two-state solution," but behind closed doors will admit that a Palestinian state is the last thing they want....
The truth is that few outside of Israel really care about the plight of the Palestinian people. The demonstrations on college campuses which purport to be "pro-Palestine" are far more about condemning Israel than about helping the Palestinians.
Those who claim to support the Palestinians... ought to be urging Arab and Muslim nations to help the Palestinians in material ways. These would include....
Until that is done, all the Palestinian people will get are hollow demonstrations on university campuses, empty recognitions from anti-Israel governments, irrelevant United Nations resolutions and bigoted demonization of Israel. None of this helps the Palestinian people. It only encourages more hatred, more terrorism and more war.
Pictured: A truck carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip crosses the Kerem Shalom border crossing between Israel and Gaza, on May 30, 2024. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Israel has long been the primary supporter of the Palestinian people, both on the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip. Israelis have opened their borders to Palestinian workers, to whom they pay high wages. They have accepted Palestinian patients, including even terrorists, into their excellent hospitals. Some of the Israeli kibbutz residents who helped Gazans were murdered by them on October 7. Even during the current Gaza war, Israel has provided more food, medicine and humanitarian aid to Palestinians than any country has ever done during wartime.
What have other countries done? Very little. Norway, Ireland and Spain, on May 28, "formally recognized a Palestinian state." How does that help the Palestinian people? It doesn't. Indeed, it hurts them by raising unrealistic expectations. The only way a Palestinian state will exist is through hard compromises and the difficult direct negotiations to which the Palestinians agreed in the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords.
Consider the fact that no Arab or Muslim nation has been willing to accept Palestinian refugees from Gaza. Perhaps these nations recall that anyone who has tried to help the Palestinians has lived to regret it. When Jordan took them in, the Palestinians tried to overthrow the government of King Hussein in 1970. The attempted coup, known as Black September, ended with the Palestinians being expelled to Lebanon. Once there, a civil war erupted between the Muslims, backed by the PLO, and the Christians, resulting in the PLO being expelled once again, this time to Tunisia in 1982. After Kuwait offered roughly 400,000 Palestinians visas and jobs, and Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990,the PLO sided with Iraq. After the liberation of Kuwait, an estimated 200,000 were expelled and another 200,000 were not allowed back.
After Israel forced its own people out of Gaza in 2005 to allow a Palestinian "Singapore on the Mediterranean," instead, in 2006, the Palestinians elected Hamas, which built more than 350 miles of terror tunnels, a "city under a city."
No wonder their neighbors prefer not to take Gazans in.
Perhaps Ireland, Norway and Spain might extend invitations to the Palestinians to become residents there?
On April 13, more than 1,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Hamburg, Germany and demanded that the country become a Caliphate, with Shariah law.
The only reason that Ireland, Norway and Spain can safely recognize a Palestinian state is that they do not have to live with the consequences.
Egypt, which has its own history of terrorism in the Sinai, has closed its borders to Palestinians. Lebanon has kept much of its Palestinian population in refugee camps for decades. Jordan killed Palestinians who were building a state within a state, during Black September. Saudi Arabia has shut its doors. Qatar has taken a few Gazans in need of medical care but has refused to accept large numbers of refugees.
The preening hypocrisy of the international community and the real thoughts of Arab and Muslim governments -- many of which might feel obligated officially to support the Palestinians and a "two-state solution," but behind closed doors will admit that a Palestinian state is the last thing they want (here and here) -- are apparent for all to see. It seems the world prefers to close its eyes.
The civilians who currently live in Rafah could easily be temporarily transported to the safety of Egypt while Israel achieves its legitimate military goal of destroying Hamas, but Egypt, understandably, has refused to cooperate.
The truth is that few outside of Israel really care about the plight of the Palestinian people. The demonstrations on college campuses which purport to be "pro-Palestine" are far more about condemning Israel than about helping the Palestinians. We never see signs calling for a two-state solution, probably because most of these demonstrators do not want Israel to exist. "From the river to the sea" means no Israel and no Jews. If a Palestinian state were to be substituted for Israel in that area, it would be a tyrannical regime. The conflict would be between those who want to see it more like Iran, a theocracy that murders dissidents, or more like China, a communist tyranny that also murders dissidents. As long as Hamas remains a viable military and political force, there is no prospect for a democratic Palestine or a two-state solution.
Those who really want to help Palestinians should be supporting Israel's efforts to have Hamas stop terrorizing is neighbor and return the hostages. That would end the bloodshed in Gaza and would start a process which might ultimately culminate in a disarmed Palestinian state that recognized Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
So let us stop all the virtue-signaling about Palestine and Palestinians and urge the international community, and especially the Arab and Muslim world, to do something to help Palestinian families. That help can come in the form of education, healthcare, employment opportunities, acceptance of refugees and other humanitarian actions. It is not the responsibility of Israel to make life better for the Palestinians. Israel withdrew all its soldiers and expelled all its civilians from Gaza in 2005, and it was up to the Gazans to make life better for themselves. But instead they chose Hamas, which turned Gaza into a military base with an underground tunnel system and above-ground rocket launchers. In 2000, 2001 and again in 2007, Israel offered the Palestinians the West Bank and to move toward the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state, but the Palestinian leadership rejected these opportunities, without even a counter-offer. As an Israeli scholar once put it, "Palestinian leadership does not know how to take yes for an answer."
Those who claim to support the Palestinians ought to put up or shut up. Instead of constantly attacking Israel for its imperfections, they ought to be urging Arab and Muslim nations to help the Palestinians in material ways. These would include demanding the end of incitement to violence and the end of the Palestinians' murder-for-hire "pay-for-slay" program, which incentivizes terrorism by paying the terrorists' families for life if they murder Jews.
Those who really want to help the Palestinians need to place strict conditions on their funding, and demand accountability on how their money is spent -- actually enforced. Those who claim to support the Palestinians should insist on revising their textbooks, as Saudi Arabia is now doing, and should establish institutions of democracy, as laid out by Natan Sharansky in 2006 in The Case for Democracy.
First, before a Palestinian state is "recognized," it is crucial to guide the Palestinians out of a society of fear and into a society of freedom, a government that would include freedom of speech and of the press, equal justice under law, property rights, human rights and, above all, preparing the Palestinians for peace.
Until that is done, all the Palestinian people will get are hollow demonstrations on university campuses, empty recognitions from anti-Israel governments, irrelevant United Nations resolutions and bigoted demonization of Israel. None of this helps the Palestinian people. It only encourages more hatred, more terrorism and more war. Alan Dershowitz is a professor emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of "War Against the Jews: How to End Hamas Barbarism." Andrew Stein, a Democrat, served as New York City Council president, 1986-1994.
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Palestinian Libels Against Jews: No Difference Between Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute./June 6, 2024
The only problem is: the claim [that Jews are trying to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque] is not true. Of course, there are no such plans. These plans only exist in the deranged imaginations of the Palestinian leaders fabricating the accusations against the Jews. In fact, it was Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who gave control over the Temple Mount to the Islamic Wakf authorities in 1967.
In reality, Arafat had agreed that non-Muslims may, at certain times, tour the exterior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- the gardens and patios -- as long as they do not go inside and pray there.
Abbas and his media nevertheless continue to portray the peaceful visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as violent incursions. On June 5, 2024, Abbas's official news agency Wafa reported: "Hundreds of Israeli colonists today broke into the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque...[they] raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba Gate and took provocative tours in its compounds."
Needless to say, Abbas is again lying: no Jew had "raided" or "broken into" the mosque.
The Biden administration and some European countries that want to give the Palestinians a state fail to recognize that, when it comes to rejecting Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people and denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there is no real difference between Abbas and Hamas. If anyone is desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Palestinians who are using it to justify murder -- of Jews.
"The Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher are ours. They are all ours, and they [Jews] have no right to defile them with their filthy feet. We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah." — Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. (Image source: MEMRI)
The Iran-backed Palestinian terrorist group Hamas has claimed that its October 7 attack on Israel was a "necessary step and a natural reaction against Israel's plan... to establish complete control over Al-Aqsa Mosque [in Jerusalem]." That is why Hamas called the assault, which claimed the lives of 1,200 Israelis, "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood."
The only problem is: the claim is not true. Of course, there are no such plans. These plans only exist in the deranged imaginations of the Palestinian leaders fabricating the accusations against the Jews. In fact, it was Israel's Defense Minister Moshe Dayan who gave control over the Temple Mount to the Islamic Wakf authorities in 1967. The Temple Mount Compound, on which the Al-Aqsa Mosque sits, is on a site holy to Arabs Christians and Jews.
This was not the first time that Hamas and other Palestinians had utilized the Al-Aqsa Mosque as a justification for attacking Israel and slaughtering Jews. The Palestinian are still propagating the lie that the Jews intend to demolish the mosque.
According to Nadav Shragai, an Israeli journalist specializing in Jerusalem affairs:
"Palestinians often hear from their leaders that a Muslim holy site in Jerusalem, al-Aksa mosque, is in danger of collapse – and the Jews are to blame. Whether printed in cartoons, preached in mosques or taught in schools, the lie is accepted as common knowledge across the Arab world. Millions of Muslims accept it as truth. The message is clear: Jews seek to expel the Arabs from Jerusalem.
"This lie is nothing new. For the past century, Palestinian leaders have told the 'Al-Aksa is in danger' lie in order to incite their people to attack Jews. It is important to expose and counter this fabrication because it remains a spark that can lead to bloodshed."
Shragai pointed out that "[t]he birthfather of the 'Al-Aksa is in danger' libel, the first in the new era to claim that the Jews were scheming to destroy the Al-Aksa Mosque and build the Third Temple in its place, was Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini," Adolf Hitler's friend and ally.
"Husseini exploited the Jews' struggle for their right to pray at the Western Wall... to whip up animosity against them and accuse them of much more ambitious aims: the destruction of the [Al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock] mosques and the building of the Third Temple in their stead."
Al-Husseini was known for his alliance with Hitler, whom he hoped would export his "final solution to the Jewish question" to the Middle East. "Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights," Husseini is reported to have said. "Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."[1]
During a meeting between the two, held in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin, Hitler confirmed that the "struggle against a Jewish homeland in Palestine" would be part of the struggle against the Jews. Hitler stated that he would "continue the struggle until the complete destruction of Jewish-Communist European empire." When the German army looked as if it might approach the Middle East – it chose Russia instead -- Germany would issue "an assurance to the Arab world" that "the hour of liberation was at hand." It would then be al-Husseini's "responsibility to unleash the Arab action [against the Jews] that he has secretly prepared.""All the explanations of the Jewish side that it had no intentions to take over the Muslim holy places were to no avail," Shragai added. In November 1928, the National Committee of the Jews of the Land of Israel published an open letter to the Arabs that stated, among other things:
"We hereby announce, honestly and sincerely, that no one from Israel has any intention of infringing the rights of Muslims to the places that are holy to them. However, our Arab brothers must also recognize the rights that Israel has in this land, to our own places.... Any attempt to describe the desire of the Jews to pray at this holy place, the Western Wall plaza, in peace, with respect and without restriction, as the creation of a strategic base for an attack on the mosques of the Muslims, is nothing but the fruit of a fevered imagination or a malicious libel. The aim of this libel is to sow tumult and confusion in hearts and arouse animosity and conflict between different peoples."
According to Shragai:
"Not only did this announcement not work, but al-Husseini and his Muslim Council further upped the ante. They forged an opening in the southern part of the Western Wall plaza so as to change the Jews' place of prayer into a passageway for both man and beast, and used various stratagems to further disrupt the Jews' worship. This campaign was orchestrated by the mufti Haj Amin. Some of the restrooms of homes alongside the prayer plaza were actually adjacent to the wall, and from time to time the Muslims would dump feces and garbage in the narrow plaza. In the spring of 1929, the Muslims in those residences abutting the plaza began conducting noisy ceremonies that included shouts, dances, and songs to the sounds of cymbals and drums...
"At the beginning of August 1929, Arabs attacked and injured Jews who had come to pray at the Western Wall. On August 15, the night of the Jewish holiday of Tisha B'Av [to commemorate the destruction of The Second Temple, destroyed in 67 CE, and all that remains of which is that retaining wall], the Betar movement and the Jewish community in the country brought tens of thousands in an impressive march to the Western Wall. The Arab protest, however, rose to a new pitch, with ceaseless harassment of the Jewish worshippers at the spot and an incitement campaign against the Jews' supposed aim to take over the Temple Mount and its mosques. This ongoing incitement, in which al-Husseini played a central role, eventually erupted in large-scale pogroms against Jews, which came to be known as the "1929 riots." A week after the Tisha B'Av march, the signal came from Al-Aksa. Masses of fellahin [Arab villagers] assembled, bearing clubs and knives. The inflamed Arab mass attacked Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and from there the pogroms spread to Jewish agricultural settlements such as Motza, Be'er Tuvia, and Hulda, Jewish urban concentrations such as Haifa and Tel Aviv, and the mixed cities of Hebron and Safed. The mayhem went on for a week. One hundred and thirty-three Jews, mostly in Safed and Hebron, were butchered. Three hundred and thirty-nine Jews were injured. Eight Jewish settlements had to be abandoned, and the events came to be etched as a terrible calamity in the collective memory of the Jews of Israel."
Since then, Palestinian leaders Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, together with many Palestinians, including Hamas, have been using the Al-Aqsa Mosque as an excuse to justify terrorism and other acts of violence against Israel and Jews.
In 2000, Arafat exploited a brief visit by Ariel Sharon (then leader of the Israel's opposition) to the Temple Mount to stir up hatred against Israel and Jews. In a speech at the Arab Summit in Cairo in October 2000, Arafat accused Sharon of "desecrating" the Al-Aqsa Mosque and its compound. It is important to note that during his tour of the compound, as had been agreed with Palestinian Authority security chief Jabril Rajoub, Sharon did not set foot inside the mosque.
Arafat's inflammatory rhetoric and lies triggered a violent Palestinian uprising, known as the Second Intifada, also known as the "Al-Aqsa Intifada," during which thousands of Palestinians and Israelis were killed. Twenty-four years later, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is still in its place and Muslims continue to enjoy free access to the holy site in Jerusalem.
Arafat's successor, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, has also been making false accusations against Israel surrounding the mosque. In a speech in 2015, Abbas said that Jews "have no right to defile the Al-Aqsa Mosque with their filthy feet." He was referring to peaceful and routine visits by Jews to the Temple Mount. Abbas added:
"We salute every drop of blood spilled for the sake of Jerusalem. This blood is clean, pure blood, shed for the sake of Allah. Every martyr will be placed in Paradise, and all the wounded will be rewarded by Allah."
Shortly after Abbas's speech, Palestinians took to the streets to stab Jews in what has become known as the "Knife Intifada." Thirty-eight Israelis were murdered, while 558 others were wounded.
Like al-Husseini and Arafat, Abbas denies any Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, and its adjacent Western Wall. Abbas has also been spreading the lie that Jews are plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
In reality, Arafat had agreed that non-Muslims may, at certain times, tour the exterior of the Al-Aqsa Mosque -- the gardens and patios -- as long as they do not go inside and pray there.
Abbas and his media nevertheless continue to portray the peaceful visits by Jews to the Temple Mount as violent incursions. On June 5, 2024, Abbas's official news agency Wafa reported:
"Hundreds of Israeli colonists today broke into the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque...[they] raided the holy Islamic Mosque from al-Maghariba Gate and took provocative tours in its compounds."
Needless to say, Abbas is again lying: no Jew had "raided" or "broken into" the mosque.
This is the type of false propaganda that prompts Palestinians to shoot or stab the first Jew they encounter. There is no difference between the rhetoric used by Hamas and that used by Abbas regarding the lie that Jews are desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque and planning to destroy it. Hamas was undoubtedly inspired by Abbas's 2015 speech (Jews defiling with their "filthy feet" the Al-Aqsa Mosque) when it decided to call its October 7 massacre "Operation Al-Aqsa Flood."Abbas bears equal responsibility for the October 7 atrocities because of his part in disseminating the falsehood that Jews are attacking and desecrating Islamic holy places, particularly the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Biden administration and some European countries that want to give the Palestinians a state fail to recognize that, when it comes to rejecting Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people and denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, there is no real difference between Abbas and Hamas. If anyone is desecrating the Al-Aqsa Mosque, it is Palestinians who are using it to justify murder -- of Jews. *Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based in the Middle East. The work of Bassam Tawil is made possible through the generous donation of a donor who wished to remain anonymous. Gatestone is most grateful.1] More recent sources for this quote indicate that the primary source is the Federal Communications Commission's Weekly Review of Foreign Broadcasts, No. 118 3/4/44, Near and Middle East (United States National Archives, College Park, Record Group 165, MID, Regional File, 1922-44, Palestine, entry 77, Box 2719, folder 2930) Particularly, see the listing of 3335 boxes under Formerly Security-Classified Intelligence Reference Publications ("Regional File") Received From U.S. Military Attaches, Military and Civilian Agencies of the United States, Foreign Governments, and Other Sources, 1922-1944 (Entry 77)
© 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.

Bringing Iran 'To Its Senses'
Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/June 6, 2024
At the very least, the United States should return to a policy that seeks to bring Iran "to its senses" if not its knees. It is time to return and enforce strict economic sanctions immediately.
As Imperial Japan pursued a strategy of aggression and murderous destruction in China, the United States in 1940 sought to confront Tokyo with a strategy of economic restrictions, trading embargoes, and the threat of frozen financial assets.
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) said at the time it was not his intent to bring Japan to its knees but to its senses. There are lessons from policies and strategies forged nearly 85 years ago that need to be learned and applied as it becomes evident to those even in deliberate denial that Iran remains the malevolent force in the Middle East, masterminding the recent carnage inflicted by Hamas on Israel. Under FDR, the Commerce Department created a task force of specialists that identified key commodities they believed were vital to Japan functioning as a society and important to their military. From rubber and petroleum to chromium and silk, Japan's imports and exports were analyzed within the context of their war-making capabilities. The U.S. Treasury would also deploy their analysts to track Japan's cash reserves, including their tens of millions of dollars that, even then, was the crucial global currency for international trade. Today, the United States is facing an Iran that has used diplomatic guile, terrorist surrogates, and hidden cryptocurrency transfers to handle everything from paying for imports to funding those who will do their bidding in Gaza, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. They are a sophisticated and ruthless enemy. Yet they are strategically vulnerable if America and her allies are prepared to use that most potent of weapons: economic sanctions.
Analysts report that Iranian oil exports have significantly increased over the past three years as U.S. sanctions eased. To no surprise, China has taken advantage of the opportunity to literally fuel their economy with Tehran's "liquid gold." But that is a minor sideshow compared to how Iran has used its resurging oil profits to instigate a conflict that has catastrophically harmed the ability of the Middle East to find peace. And tragically, it has been the misguided policies of the current White House that allowed these events to unfold.
Some may argue that, with militants in Syria attacking American forces at the direction of Iran, we have the right to respond by mining the waters off their oil terminals. That escalation would surely have unintended consequences, but our failure to enforce and sustain crippling economic sanctions requires us to understand the forces of evil we have allowed to be unleashed. At the very least, the United States should return to a policy that seeks to bring Iran "to its senses" if not its knees. It is time to return and enforce strict economic sanctions immediately.
*Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
© 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.

Western-led world order under threat 80 years on from D-Day

Mohamed Chebaro/Arab News/june 06/2024
With war raging on Europe’s borders and an open NATO-Russia clash increasingly possible after US President Joe Biden approved the use of American weapons against targets inside Russia, the 80th anniversary of D-Day on Thursday should carry special resonance for the leaders gathered in Normandy, France. They should know that anything less than a common resolve to defend Ukraine and the Western-led world order could leave them vulnerable to the many forces that today are less than keen to uphold them.
Western nations, or the countries of the so-called Global North, are undeniably under pressure as they undergo tests of their democracies domestically and face growing and open adversities from competing rising powers. Those that call themselves the “global majority” are bent on diluting, if not neutralizing, the Western powers and their tenets of peace, security and prosperity, as set up after the Second World War. And the war in Ukraine has no doubt served only to reveal the scale of the geostrategic discord, which will, if not kept in check, disrupt the achievements born from the suffering of the Second World War.
In a strong act of symbolism, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will attend the commemoration of the Allies’ landing on the beaches of Northern France, but not the Russian leader Vladimir Putin or any other Russian officials. Paris has opted to reverse its plan to host lower-level Russian representatives, claiming that the conditions for Moscow’s participation are not there, given the war of aggression it launched against Ukraine in 2022.
But as Western leaders pay their respects to those who fought in the Second World War, the all-too-modern war that has raged for more than two years will be uppermost in their minds. As, short of a significant increase in help for Kyiv, Russia may well gain the upper hand in Ukraine again.
The geostrategic discord will, if not kept in check, disrupt the achievements born from the suffering of the Second World War
Despite French President Emmanual Macron’s constant efforts to break taboos by refusing to rule out sending troops or military instructors to Ukraine and Biden indicating US approval for Ukraine to use its weapons to strike targets inside Russia — a position that unsettled some EU allies — the scale of the existential threats facing the Western world is unlikely to be mediated by the drip-drip approach to backing Ukraine as witnessed until now.
The list of Ukrainian needs is proving larger than what the Western nations can provide. Italy this week announced it will soon send a second air defense system capable of intercepting Russian ballistic missiles, but this should have been operational already. Germany’s new plan to increase its production of artillery shells, fuses and charges ought to have been carried out in the earlier stages of the war. The Ukrainians are also still waiting for F-16 fighter jets to be delivered. These are expected by the end of the year but, if recent Russian advances turn the table on the outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian military units, that could be too late.
On the Russian side, Western experts have, since early 2024, been pointing out that its latest attacks against Ukraine have been carried out using weapons with technology from China, missiles from North Korea and drones from Iran. They point out that these three countries have become critical enablers of Moscow’s war machine in Ukraine. And their support has been crucial in strengthening Russia’s position not only on the battlefield, but also in other areas of geostrategic interest to the Kremlin. Though the cooperation between these four countries predates 2022, their political, economic and technological ties have accelerated since then.
And where Russia, China, North Korea and Iran have been firmly aligning their interests, matching their rhetoric with overt or covert actions and coordinating their military and diplomatic activities, Western nations look increasingly in disarray. The latter are only reacting to the growing disparate but targeted efforts by rogue or state actors against the Western principles, rules and institutions that have underpinned the prevailing international system for decades.
Western nations are only just linking the dots to reveal the scale of the pushback against them. Western nations are only just linking the dots to reveal the scale of the pushback against them. These include reports of China using artificial intelligence to sow division in the US in a crucial election year, as revealed by Microsoft in April, or Sweden claiming that Iran is using Swedish criminal gangs to target Israeli interests on its territories.
Other EU countries have reported increased levels of criminal activity that carry the seeds of stoking communal hate, racial tensions and discord in their respective societies. These include incidents reported in France of hurtful antisemitic images or racist symbols being painted in public places. And on Saturday, coffins draped in the French flag were left in the middle of Paris by individuals linked to Russia, with the aim of reminding the French that their troops would perish if their leadership sent any of them to fight in Ukraine.
The collusion between China, Iran, North Korea and Russia has been clear for a few years now. This has been fueled by their shared opposition to the Western-dominated global order, which does not accord them the status or freedom of action they claim they deserve. The collaboration between these four countries has been transactional, covering trade, sanctions evasion, military development and politics. They are always hoping to erode the existing order, which is dominated by the US and other Western countries, or rejig it to serve their own ascending power and spheres of influence.
As Western countries mark the anniversary of D-Day, their near disregard for how severe the threat has become needs to be changed. In the past, policies of containment and the tools of international institutions might have worked to preserve their interests and models of governance. But the level and multifaceted type of the emerging threat means it is proving to be a generational one that could eliminate the achievements of those who fell in Normandy and elsewhere. There needs to be a major strategic shift in how democratic states run their affairs, taming where possible their ultra-capitalist and extreme neoliberal states and societies. A renewed common resolve must be found in order to push back; otherwise, the US and its Western allies could soon wake up with not only Ukraine lost, but also the foundations of the international order they set in motion from 1945.
*Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy. He is also a media consultant and trainer.

Will Israel move toward 2030, or stay stuck in 1967?
Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/june 06/2024
In case you missed the headline, or saw it but thought you might have misread it, allow me to repeat: the Middle East — despite all its woes, wars and wounds — still has a chance to “change for the better.”
These enthusiastic words are not mine, but are rather what the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Michael Ratney, repeatedly told Arab News in an exclusive interview this week with our flagship talk show “Frankly Speaking.”
The ambassador acknowledged that the word “historic” was a cliche, but still insisted on using it to describe a proposed new Saudi-US pact that would give birth to a written security agreement, normalize ties, integrate Israel into the region and guarantee Palestinians a state. “All the elements … are of extraordinary value,” he said. “The real value is taking it all together.” Such comments from a US ambassador are a big thing, which is why they were quickly translated into Arabic and widely shared online. Moreover, Ratney is not just any ambassador: before Riyadh, he served in the US Embassy in Israel and, in total, has devoted nearly three decades to trying to resolve Middle Eastern conflicts and counter violent extremism.
A few days after our interview, US President Joe Biden said it was time for the Gaza war to end and laid out the details of a reasonable three-phase peace plan: an initial six-week ceasefire for the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, negotiations for a permanent end to all hostilities, and finally the reconstruction of the devastated Gaza Strip. Some, including me, might argue that this is all too little, too late, but let’s be realistic too: it is better late than never.
Those who burn American flags and think that by boycotting hamburgers and caramel lattes they are serving the Palestinian cause are delusional if they believe that any peace deal or regional stability can be achieved without the deployment of the carrots and sticks available only to the US. The fact is, America remains the world’s most significant superpower and it alone has leverage over Israel.
On the subject of Israel, eight months after this war began, all that Benjamin Netanyahu and his war Cabinet have managed to achieve is a human-made famine, the loss of approaching 40,000 Palestinian lives — mostly civilians, women and children — and the reduction of Gaza’s infrastructure to debris and rubble. They have achieved none of their stated war aims: the hostages remain in captivity, Israel is no safer and, as for eradicating Hamas — well, the Israeli prime minister and his right-wing extremist government may well have sown the seeds and applied the fertilizer that will grow into Hamas 2.0 in generations to come.
That would be nothing new for Netanyahu: in fact, it would be a continuation of his policy for the past 16 years, which has sought to empower Hamas and discredit the legitimate Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. Again, don’t take my word for it but take it from Tal Schneider, The Times of Israel columnist who wrote an op-ed published the day after the Oct. 7 attack on Israel under the headline: “For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces.”
That newspaper also reported recently that Saudi Arabia was removing antisemitic materials from educational curriculums. This should not be surprising; it is not new and the Kingdom’s Education Ministry seldom gets credit for the incredible work done so far. The truth is that Saudi reforms have been underway since 2016 and the Kingdom is ensuring that its entire ecosystem reflects its long-standing point of view — which is that the issue with Israel is not religious, it is a land dispute and, once it is resolved, there will be recognition, reconciliation and rewards for both sides.
This newspaper, for example, has published reports celebrating Judaism as part and parcel of our social fabric as Arabs; we were the first to wish Jews “Shana Tova,” or happy new year; and we have published interviews and columns by leading rabbis and community leaders from Ronald Lauder to Deborah Lipstadt, Biden’s envoy for combating antisemitism. In fact, it is the actions and rhetoric on the Israeli side that need to be monitored and accounted for.
As The New York Times writer Tom Friedman put it in a column published last month, Saudi Arabia and Israel are now “trading places” in terms of how they are viewed by the US. While elected Israeli officials are calling for Gaza to be nuked and citing biblical references that they claim justify the killing of women, children and even animals, Saudi officials are pushing for peace, investing in artificial intelligence and sending the first female Arab Muslim astronaut into space.
With our compass set to 2030, Saudi Arabia is determined to keep progressing and longtime partners such as the US are invited to be part of the journey.
Israel, too, has a pending invitation and could benefit greatly from being part of the 2030 club. Saudi Arabia offers legitimacy and Arab/Muslim world recognition, along with its huge diplomatic weight and vast international relations network to support the legitimate Palestinian Authority in being a peaceful and prosperous neighbor to Israel — which simply has to choose between being stuck in 1967 or boarding the bullet train toward 2030 with the rest of us. All Israel needs to do is end the hostilities, trust in Biden’s peace plan and recognize that only by allowing a legitimate Palestinian state to exist can it guarantee its security and end its isolation, which is increasing on a daily basis.
Faisal J. Abbas is the editor-in-chief of Arab News.
X: @FaisalJAbbas