Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 20-21/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video: In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
Elias Bejjani/Video & Text/In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
Israel forms new 'mountain' brigade on border with Lebanon and Syria
Lebanese prime minister accuses Israel of intentional environmental destruction
Mikati says govt. to pay compensations to war-hit southerners
Hezbollah official makes landmark visit to UAE to facilitate the release of Lebanese nationals: Reuters sources
Hezbollah's Wafiq Safa on sudden visit to UAE
Egypt Ambassador: No Lebanese president has ever been elected without dialogue
Wronecka calls for protecting civilians as tensions escalate 'beyond Blue Line'
US proposes sponsoring Lebanese Army presence in south
USAID supports vulnerable farmers with seedlings to improve food security in Lebanon
MP Ghassan Skaff discusses Lebanon's political landscape with Maronite Patriarch
Bou Habib honors Yasmina Zaytoun's success with special passport
Lebanon ranks second unhappiest in World Happiness Report 2024

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 20-21/2024
Netanyahu remains set on Rafah ground invasion despite US misgivings
Israel says defense minister to visit Washington
Arab foreign ministers, top Palestinian official to meet Blinken in Cairo on Thursday
Blinken lands in Saudi Arabia for Gaza talks
Saudi crown prince, Blinken discuss situation in Gaza
Blinken says negotiations on ceasefire, hostage release ‘getting closer’
Israeli air strike kills three in West Bank: Palestinian ministry
Heavy fighting rages around Gaza's biggest hospital as Israel raids it for a second day
Palestinians mourn 28 killed in Israeli airstrikes on urban refugee camps in Gaza
Trump's son-in-law praises 'very valuable' potential of Gaza's 'waterfront property'
Ukrainian drones attacked Russian bomber air base overnight, Kyiv source says Reuters
Russia Warns of Potential Military Strike on SpaceX Satellites
German woman loses appeal of 14-year sentence for letting Yazidi slave girl die in Iraq
Turkish warplanes strike Kurdish positions in Iraq after attack kills soldier, wounds 4
Wall Street's main stock indexes gain ground after Federal Reserve keeps rates unchanged
Biden impeachment inquiry is at a crossroads
Trump asks Supreme Court to dismiss case charging him with plotting to overturn 2020 election
N. Korea claims progress in developing hypersonic missile designed to strike distant US targets
US vows $47 mln humanitarian aid for Sudan, neighboring countries
Yemen anger grows as death toll from Houthi blast climbs to 13

Titles For The Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on March 20-21/2024
Why did Biden close the State of the Union address with Gaza?/James J. Zogby/The Arab Weekly/March 20/2024
Oman and the ‘First Regional War’/Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/March 20/2024
Palestine’s Friends… and Its Enemies?/Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 20/2024
Hamas’s Delusion/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 20/2024
Hamas and Netanyahu’s Roles as Representatives is the Issue/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 20/2024
Nowruz: A celebration of renewal, unity and cultural diversity/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 20, 2024
Canada’s Gaza policy shift reasserts its moral leadership/Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab News/March 20, 2024
Israel Betrayed?/Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute./March 19, 2024
Hamas's Industrial Murder: Why Is Senator Chuck Schumer Not Demanding a Change of Leadership in Hamas and Iran?/Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute./March 19, 2024

Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 20-21/2024
Elias Bejjani/Video: In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWGDmKjGqqg&t=29s
Elias Bejjani/March 20/2024

Elias Bejjani/Video & Text/In a time where the weakest are oppressed, the corrupt flourish, and immorality embodied in the Terrorist Hezbollah is celebrated while virtues are mocked,
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/128040/128040/
Elias Bejjani/March 20/2024
The people of Lebanon wander in darkness, Amidst the absence of humane values and principles, their souls dancing in the winds of despair,And their consciences drowning in an ocean of betrayal.
In this era of destitution and loss, many of the sycophants and opportunists, along with the majority of politicians, lawmakers, ministers, and the merchants of resistance, have become mere tools,
In the hands of the vile merchants of Iran, spreading hypocrisy, chaos, narcissism, and the culture of lawlessness and barbarity everywhere.
They are nothing but slaves to the enemies of Lebanon and humanity, selling their nation and its people for profit, denying truth and embracing treachery, shattering every hope of a dignified life for the Lebanese,
under the guise of a state governed by law and institutions.
They willingly surrender to oppression and oppressors, cheerfully pledging allegiance to crime and bloodshed, amidst turmoil and chaos, they sway, Between the values of the nation and the whims of tyrants.
They are mere instruments of corruption, spreading turmoil, anarchy and injustice on earth, discarding morality into the abyss of oblivion, for the sake of power and wealth, selling their consciences, and devouring ethics and principles.
In the face of this bitter, saddening, and tragic reality, we stand with every free and sovereign individual, guardians of identity, history, existence, and dignity, shouting loudly for freedom and justice,
Holding high the banners of truth, honesty, and justice.
We, along with all those who reject the Persian occupation, and condemn terrorism, jihadism, and satanic hypocrisy, of resistance, defiance, and futile wars, shall not surrender to oppression, corruption, or occupiers, and we shall remain steadfast like lions in the face of storms, until we rebuild our beloved homeland. Lebanon, the land of cedars, is a sanctuary of saints, a temple erected for the divine, therefore, every free, sovereign, independent Lebanese citizen, is a guardian of this temple, charged with protecting it,
and fighting its enemies relentlessly.

Israel forms new 'mountain' brigade on border with Lebanon and Syria
Naharnet/March 20/2024
The Israeli army has announced the formation of a new regional brigade on Israel’s border with Syria and Lebanon. The “HeHarim,” or Mountains Brigade, will be tasked with the Mount Hermon and the occupied Shebaa Farms regions, under the 210th “Bashan” Division, replacing the existing 810th “Hermon” Regional Brigade. The Israeli army said the new brigade is formed “as part of the operational response to the situation on the northern border and in accordance with the situational assessment.”“The brigade will specialize in combat in difficult terrain and warfare in mountainous areas,” the Israeli army said. It added that the brigade will begin its activity in the coming weeks and that Col. Liron Appleman will be appointed as its first commander. Since the war in Gaza erupted in October, there have been near-daily exchanges along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army. At least 322 people have been killed in Lebanon, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 56 civilians. In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border exchanges, the military says. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border and Israel has repeatedly warned that it might launch an operation against Hezbollah to secure its residents' return.

Lebanese prime minister accuses Israel of intentional environmental destruction
NAJIA HOUSSARI/Arab News/March 20, 2024
BEIRUT: Israel continues “to violate international law by attacking civilians and infrastructure in southern Lebanon,” caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Wednesday. “We are still victims of the ongoing Israeli aggression, which is causing significant damage to the environment and agriculture,” he added
Speaking during a celebration in Beirut for International Francophonie Day, Mikati said: “In light of the turmoil resulting from regional and global destabilization, peace has become more at risk than ever before. “Lebanon has no choice but to follow the path of constructive dialogue, mutual respect and tolerance, which represents harmony despite differences.” Abbas Al-Hajj Hassan, Lebanon’s minister of agriculture, said the extent of the damage caused by Israeli attacks on border towns, in some cases 10 kilometers inside Lebanese territory, is being assessed. “The losses are significant, as the bombing has affected 55 towns and led to the burning of vast areas of forests and the elimination of thousands of dunams of agricultural land that include various crops, besides the loss of many animals and birds, and the complete ruin of food-storage buildings.” A thousand dunams of land is an area equivalent to 1 square kilometer. About 70 percent of people living in the southern region of Lebanon rely on farming for income. Some depend entirely on raising cows, sheep and bees for their livelihoods. According to Ministry of Agriculture data, as of mid-March Israeli attacks in Lebanon involving white phosphorus weapons had caused 683 small and large fires that destroyed 2,100 dunams of land. In addition, about 6,000 dunams of forest and agricultural land were damaged, including areas containing olive trees, some of them up to 300 years old, pine trees and oak trees. White phosphorous, which reacts rapidly with oxygen and burns at a high temperature, is not banned under international law but weapons that use it are tightly regulated and not supposed to be used in civilian areas. Hassan said: “The percentage of damage in forest areas containing oak and bay laurel trees reached 55 percent, agricultural and citrus trees suffered 35 percent, and herbs 10 percent, while 340,000 birds and 970 head of cattle perished, 91 agricultural tents were damaged, along with 310 bee hives, and a 600-square-meter area of a fodder warehouse was completely destroyed, in addition to attacks on eight farms.” Israeli forces are carrying out attacks daily on targets in “the plains of Wazzani, Khiam and Marjayoun, extending from Naqoura to the Shebaa Farms, in addition to intimidating farmers and herders and preventing them from working on their lands,” he added. A national committee has been established to carry out a comprehensive survey of the damage to land once the hostilities cease, officials said. Researchers will take samples from areas subjected to concentrated shelling and test the soil, flowing water and artesian wells to determine the extent of any contamination. On Wednesday, there was a noticeable decline in military clashes between Hezbollah and the Israeli army, with skirmishes limited to disputed areas in the Shebaa Farms area. Israeli troops in the occupied village of GHajjar reportedly fired bursts of machine gun fire toward cattle herders east of the town of Wazzani. Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari said: “Hezbollah is dragging Lebanon into a dangerous escalation but there is still a diplomatic window open. Hezbollah rejected our call for peace on the borders.”

Mikati says govt. to pay compensations to war-hit southerners
Naharnet/March 20/2024
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has been quoted as saying that “the government is committed to paying compensations to those affected by the Israeli attacks on the south” and that “efforts are underway to secure the needed funds,” al-Akhbar newspaper reported on Wednesday. “The government will pay $20,000 to the family of every martyr and $40,000 for every fully-destroyed residential unit, while mechanisms will be devised for specifying the compensations for the partial damages that have affected homes, shops and public and private facilities,” the daily said. According to unofficial statistics, more than 1,000 residential units have been fully destroyed since the beginning of the conflict while a large number of homes and civilian facilities have been damaged and agricultural crops have been burned. “There are discussions with Speaker Nabih Berri regarding an initiative that the Lebanese Tobacco and Tombacs Authority would carry out in order to compensate the affected tobacco farmers in the border towns, especially in the towns of Rmeish, Aitaroun, Houla and Mays al-Jabal,” al-Akhbar added. Since the war in Gaza erupted in October, there have been near-daily exchanges along the Lebanon-Israel border between Hezbollah and the Israeli army. At least 322 people have been killed in Lebanon, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 56 civilians. In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border exchanges, the military says. The fighting has also displaced tens of thousands of residents on both sides of the border and Israel has repeatedly warned that it might launch an operation against Hezbollah to secure its residents' return.

Hezbollah official makes landmark visit to UAE to facilitate the release of Lebanese nationals: Reuters sources
Reuters/March 20/2024
A senior official from the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah has made a landmark trip to the United Arab Emirates to facilitate the release of more than a dozen Lebanese nationals detained there, four sources close to Hezbollah told Reuters. The visit at the invitation of the UAE could signal a significant shift away from the hostility that has long defined relations between Shi'ite Muslim Hezbollah and the Sunni Muslim UAE, a strategic ally of the United States, analysts said. There was no immediate response from the UAE foreign ministry to Reuters' requests for comments.
One of the sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, described Wafiq Safa's visit as a "new page" in ties between the UAE and Hezbollah, which is designated a terrorist group by the United States and its Gulf Arab allies. Safa travelled to the UAE on Tuesday, the sources said. He runs Hezbollah's Liaison and Coordination Unit, responsible for coordinating with Lebanese security agencies, and is sanctioned by the United States. The four sources familiar with Hezbollah's thinking said that the UAE had made contact Hezbollah with a message that they were seeking to release the Lebanese detainees, several of whom were serving life sentences. The sources said the detainees had been arrested on charges including providing support and finance for Hezbollah, describing these as politically-motivated charges. All four sources said the detainees would be released in the coming days and would accompany Safa back to Lebanon. Two of the sources said the UAE asked Hezbollah's ally Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to pass on the message before the start of the Gaza war, during which Hezbollah and Israel have exchanged fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border. There was no immediate response from Syria's information ministry to a Reuters request for comment. One of the sources said the visit suggested an effort to alleviate "some of the regional tensions", without elaborating. UAE foreign policy moves in recent years have included restoring ties with Assad, having once backed the rebels seeking to topple him, and normalizing ties with Israel in 2020. The UAE began re-engaging Tehran in 2019, and Saudi Arabia re-established ties with Iran last year. The tensions between Hezbollah and the UAE reflected a wider struggle between Iran and Sunni Arab Gulf states which fuelled conflicts including wars in Syria and Yemen. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, declared Hezbollah a terrorist group in 2016. The GCC imposed sanctions on Hezbollah in 2013 for entering the Syrian war on Assad's side. At a high point in regional tensions in 2019 following a drone attack on Saudi oil installations, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah warned the UAE and Saudi Arabia that they should halt the conflict in Yemen to protect themselves. The UAE led Arab moves to re-establish ties with Assad in recent years. Syria's membership in the Arab League was restored last year, after a more than decade-long suspension. The UAE last year released 10 Lebanese nationals who had been detained there for two months, according to Lebanon's foreign ministry.

Hezbollah's Wafiq Safa on sudden visit to UAE
Naharnet/March 20/2024
Wafiq Safa, the head of Hezbollah's Liaison and Coordination Unit, arrived Tuesday in the United Arab Emirates on a sudden visit, following around 10 years of animosity and severed ties between the two sides.Al-Akhbar newspaper quoted prominent political sources as saying that the visit is “exclusively related to the file of the (Shiite) detainees in the UAE.” “This visit comes after a long course of negotiations that started around six months ago,” the sources said. While Safa is supposed to return from the UAE today, the sources said there are reports that he might bring the released detainees with him. “The communication channels were opened between the UAE and Hezbollah following a mediation by a regional country, knowing that Lebanese security officials had exerted efforts with their Syrian counterparts and with the Iraqi government so that they mediate with the UAE to wrap up this file,” al-Akhbar said. According to media reports, a private Emirati plane carried Safa from Beirut’s airport, accompanied by two people. An informed source meanwhile told al-Joumhouria newspaper that “Safa’s visit reflects major political openness between the UAE and Hezbollah that is expected to have very important results at the level of the relation between the UAE and Hezbollah and particular and between Hezbollah and the GCC countries in general.”The crisis between the two sides had started with the eruption of the Yemen war and deepened with the UAE’s arrest of around 10 Lebanese Shiite who were working in the wealthy Gulf country.

Egypt Ambassador: No Lebanese president has ever been elected without dialogue
Naharnet/March 20/2024
The five-nation group for Lebanon, which comprises the U.S., France, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt, has met Lebanese leaders this week in an initiative aimed at ending a presidential crisis and months of political wrangling. The group's initiative consists of three phases, Egyptian Ambassador Alaa Moussa said. Moussa told LBCI Wednesday that the first and most important step is to communicate with the blocs and to have their commitment. Consultations would follow, and the third step would be the election of a president in Parliament. Crisis-hit Lebanon has been without a president since Michel Aoun's term ended in October 2022, with neither of the two main blocs -- Hezbollah and its opponents -- having the majority required to elect one. The international community and the five-nation group have long urged Lebanese leaders to elect a president and stem the financial meltdown. The ambassadors of the five-nation group met this week with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi, former President Michel Aoun, former Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. They said they will resume their meetings with other political forces early next month. "Some have concerns over holding a dialogue but no Lebanese president has ever been elected without one," Moussa said. "Our aim is to implement the constitution," he added. Al-Rahi had told the ambassadors that the president should be elected by a parliamentary vote and that he fears that the presidential vacancy would protract every time under the excuse of dialogue and prior understanding. "Resorting to the constitution to elect a president is the shortcut to the democratic process", Bkerki's sources said, dubbing dialogue "a waste of time."

Wronecka calls for protecting civilians as tensions escalate 'beyond Blue Line'
Naharnet/March 20/2024
United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix have briefed the Security Council on the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 (2006). The Security Council was meeting in closed consultations to discuss the latest report of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on the implementation of the resolution, the U.N. said in a statement. Deeply concerned by the escalation in the exchanges of fire across, and increasingly beyond, the Blue Line, the Special Coordinator said these repeated violations of resolution 1701 increase the risks of miscalculation and further deterioration of an already critical situation.
“With prevention and de-escalation at the top of our agenda, our collective focus, advocacy, and pressure must be foremost on urging the parties to restore the cessation of hostilities,” the Special Coordinator told the Council, adding that there is still space for diplomacy to forge a solution to prevent a larger conflagration. Wronecka regretted in particular the impact of the fighting on civilians. “I have reminded relevant stakeholders of all parties about their obligation to comply fully with international humanitarian and human rights law, namely to protect civilians.” The Special Coordinator said the current situation puts in focus the dangers that the incomplete implementation of resolution 1701 poses to Lebanon, Israel and the stability of the region at large. “It is no longer enough to return to the relative calm and stability that prevailed prior to 8 October. A political process, anchored in the full implementation of Resolution 1701, to address the root causes of the conflict and ensure long-term stability has become necessary,” she said. Noting that major obligations under resolution 1701 have remained outstanding and require action by each party, the Special Coordinator said it is imperative to focus anew on the overarching objective of a permanent ceasefire and long-term solution to the conflict. She underscored the critical role of an empowered and well-resourced Lebanese Armed Forces to the full implementation of Resolution 1701 and encouraged additional international support to enable the army to carry out its duties to the fullest, including its cooperation with UNIFIL. She also reiterated the urgency of ending Lebanon’s presidential vacancy to enable the full functioning of the country’s state institutions in this time of crisis. The Special Coordinator said the unity of the Security Council behind the efforts to maintain Lebanon’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and political stability was also critical. In conclusion, the Special Coordinator reiterated the commitment of the United Nations to continue standing by Lebanon and its people.

US proposes sponsoring Lebanese Army presence in south
Naharnet/March 20/2024
Washington has proposed sponsoring the “comprehensive military structure in south Lebanon for years to come” once a solution is reached for the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, Al-Arabiya’s Al-Hadath channel has quoted sources as saying. “There is an American-European desire to assist the Lebanese Army financially pending the presence of a comprehensive plan,” the sources said. The sources, however, said that Paris and Washington “are not coordinating their stances on south Lebanon” and that “Washington has informed the Lebanese that it is incapable of preventing a war.”Border tensions between Hezbollah and Israel have de-escalated in the past few days during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan as international mediators push for a truce in Gaza. It is still not clear whether a Gaza ceasefire would apply to Lebanon. Although Hezbollah has said it would abide by any Gaza truce, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has said that Israel would increase its strikes on Hezbollah even if a ceasefire is reached in Gaza. Since the war in Gaza erupted in October, there have been near-daily exchanges along the Lebanon-Israel border and international mediators have scrambled to prevent an all-out war in tiny Lebanon. At least 322 people have been killed in Lebanon, mainly Hezbollah fighters but also 56 civilians, according to an AFP tally. In Israel, at least 10 soldiers and seven civilians have been killed in the cross-border exchanges, the military says.

USAID supports vulnerable farmers with seedlings to improve food security in Lebanon
Naharnet/March 20/2024
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID), through the Agriculture and Rural Empowerment (ARE) activity, is providing over 11,000 Lebanese farmers with seeds, seedlings, and compost to bolster food security in Lebanon, USAID said. “This ongoing initiative aims to mitigate the impact of rising food costs and reduced purchasing power, particularly impacting rural Lebanese communities. On March 20, 2024, USAID Lebanon Mission Director Julie Southfield visited a distribution site in Jbeil to engage with farmers, addressing their challenges and underscoring the vital role of the agriculture sector in Lebanon’s economy,” the U.S agency said in a statement. Input costs for essential agricultural supplies like seeds have surged, hindering farmers’ ability to obtain high-quality seeds and leading to missed planting seasons or diminished yields with lower-grade seeds. “By empowering farmers with the necessary resources to enhance productivity and resilience, USAID seeks to foster food self-sufficiency, revitalize agricultural production, and strengthen food systems in the country, amidst economic challenges,” it said. Commenting on the initiative, USAID Lebanon Mission Director Julie Southfield stated, “Supporting agriculture and farmers plays a pivotal role to enhance food security for Lebanese communities and families. With Lebanon's agricultural sector being a significant source of livelihoods for many, investing in this sector not only boosts local economies, but also ensures access to nutritious and affordable food for all. Moreover, supporting agriculture fosters self-sufficiency, reducing reliance on imported food items.”Over a period of two years, USAID is investing approximately $1.1m to support 11,500 small-scale farmers nationwide. These farmers will receive critical agriculture inputs for both unirrigated and irrigated production systems, facilitating the cultivation of nutritious vegetables and legumes for consumption or sale. To date, 5,000 farmers have benefited from this support. The distribution of seeds and seedlings will be organized into fall and spring seasons with each assistance recipient receiving a tailored support package based on their farming requirements. This in-kind support is coupled with technical training and educational materials to improve crop productivity, and with linkages between farmers and input suppliers to sustain production. The Agriculture and Rural Empowerment (ARE) activity is a $57 million, multi-year activity funded by USAID. ARE supports Lebanese rural and peri-urban communities with obtaining technical and financial resources to increase productivity, sales, and exports, improve business income, and ensure sustainable livelihoods, all while improving food security for vulnerable populations.

MP Ghassan Skaff discusses Lebanon's political landscape with Maronite Patriarch
LBCI/March 20/2024
Maronite Patriarch Mar Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi received MP Ghassan Skaff on Wednesday evening in Bkerki, where they discussed topics related to the current situation. After the meeting, Skaff pointed out that what is happening in Lebanon is a process of searching for a president. He said: "In this context, I entrusted His Beatitude with a new initiative to reach the election of a president as soon as possible." He noted that "there is no constitution that observes the absence of a president." He believed that "mediation should be confidential, especially with the beginning of proposing names, which necessitates the need for confidentiality." He considered that achieving a ceasefire in Gaza would calm the southern front, which would "ignite" the presidential file, saying: "Everyone must be ready for consensus, at least on the internal level."

Bou Habib honors Yasmina Zaytoun's success with special passport
LBCI/March 20/2024
Miss Asia and Oceania and the first runner-up for Miss World 2024, Yasmina Zaytoun, met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Abdallah Bou Habib, along with the Minister of Tourism, Walid Nassar, and the Chairman of LBCI, Pierre El Daher. Bou Habib presented Yasmina with a special passport in appreciation of her success and for representing Lebanon excellently abroad. The special passport enhances the opportunity to obtain entry visas to most countries easily and free of charge.It also facilitates procedures at Lebanese embassies abroad. This passport is usually granted to judges, general managers, current and former MPs, former ministers, diplomats' families, and honorary consuls, but this is the first time it has been granted to a beauty queen. Bou Habib announced that the VIP lounge at the Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport will be open to Zaytoun on all her flights.

Lebanon ranks second unhappiest in World Happiness Report 2024
LBCI/March 20/2024
Amidst economic and political challenges, Lebanon is placed among the low tiers as the World Happiness Report (WHR) 2024 unveils its rankings. Based on Lebanon's life evaluations in 2021-2023, the country ranked in the 142nd place. The report stated: "Some of the worst-faring countries, especially Lebanon and Afghanistan, saw their life evaluations halved from their base values." Released by the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network, the report delves into various facets of happiness, analyzing data from over 140 countries. Lebanon's position in the rankings underscores the profound impact of ongoing crises on the nation's collective morale. In addition, the report highlights many factors contributing to Lebanon's low happiness index, ranging from economic woes to social unrest. The WHR employs a detailed methodology to assess happiness across different life stages and generations. It categorizes individuals into age groups, focusing on the younger (<30), the older (60+), and those in between while also dividing respondents into three generational cohorts. The assessment begins with a comprehensive ranking of countries based on average life evaluations over the preceding three years, providing insights into national happiness levels. Subsequent sections explore happiness dynamics across age groups, analyzing changes over time and variations in emotions and inequality. Moreover, the report concludes by synthesizing international differences in life evaluations across ages and generations, offering insights into the complex interplay between individual life stages, societal factors, and generational experiences. European countries took the lead in 2024's ranking, with Finland ranked first and Denmark, Iceland, and Sweden ranked second, third, and fourth, respectively. However, the lowest-ranking countries were Sierra Leone, Lesotho, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, with rankings of 140, 141, 142, and 143, respectively. As Lebanon navigates through its tumultuous journey, the findings of the World Happiness Report serve as a sobering reminder of the urgent need for meaningful change to pave the way for a brighter and happier future for all its citizens.

Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 20-21/2024
Netanyahu remains set on Rafah ground invasion despite US misgivings
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he remains determined to carry out a ground invasion of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, despite the misgivings of U.S. President Joe Biden. Netanyahu told a parliamentary committee Tuesday that he would wait to hear proposals from the U.S. “out of respect to the president” about ways to protect the civilian population in Rafah before ordering the operation. But he said he does not see any alternative to a ground offensive if Israel is to carry out its goal of destroying the Hamas militant group’s remaining battalions in Rafah. “We have a debate with the Americans over the need to enter Rafah, not over the need to eliminate Hamas,” Netanyahu said. “We are determined to complete the elimination of these battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion.” Israel says that Rafah, located on the Egyptian border, is Hamas’ last major stronghold in Gaza. An estimated 1.5 million Palestinians, over half of Gaza’s population, are now huddled in Rafah after fleeing fighting elsewhere in the territory. U.S. officials say they will not support a Rafah operation without the Israelis presenting a credible plan to ensure the safety of Palestinian civilians. Israel has yet to present such a plan, according to White House officials. On Monday, Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss a prospective Rafah operation with the U.S. The decision took place during Netanyahu and Biden’s first conversation in over a month.

Netanyahu Scrambles for Mysterious Meetings With U.S. Senators
Shannon Vavra/The Daily Beast./March 20, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is privately working to speak with U.S. lawmakers on both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill, in what appears to be an effort to smooth over mounting divisions over Israel’s war in Gaza. Netanyahu requested to speak with the Senate Democratic Caucus, but Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer denied his request, suggesting these conversations should not happen in a partisan way. “Sen. Schumer made it clear that he does not think these discussions should happen in a partisan manner,” a spokesperson told The Daily Beast. “That’s not helpful to Israel.” Punchbowl News first reported his request. Netanyahu also spoke virtually with Senate Republicans at their weekly lunch meeting Wednesday afternoon. Netanyahu’s increased interest in making his case to U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill coincides with surging partisan tensions over Netanyahu’s approach to the war in Gaza. The war has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, worsening an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Just days ago, Schumer delivered a speech calling for new elections in Israel, criticizing Netanyahu’s current vision for Israel as “stuck in the past.”
White House Chose Not to Block Schumer’s Bombshell Netanyahu Speech
“The Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel after October 7,” Schumer said in his remarks. “Nobody expects Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the things that must be done to break the cycle of violence, preserve Israel’s credibility on the world stage, and work towards a two-state solution.”
Schumer publicly criticized Netanyahu’s approach to the war last week, noting the high civilian death toll and accusing Netanyahu of shirking the responsibility to carefully avoid killing civilians in military planning. “He won’t commit to a military operation in Rafah that prioritizes protecting civilian life. He won’t engage responsibly in discussions about a ‘day-after’ plan for Gaza, and a longer-term pathway to peace,” Schumer added. Schumer has since been lambasted by both Netanyahu and fellow lawmakers in the GOP, who accused him of interfering in another country’s democracy and turning a cold shoulder on an ally. “It’s inappropriate to go to a sister democracy and try to replace the elected leadership there. That’s something that Israel, the Israeli public does on its own, and we’re not a banana republic,” Netanyahu said in a CNN interview. Benjamin Netanyahu Slams Chuck Schumer’s Senate Speech as ‘Totally Inappropriate’. In their meeting Wednesday, Netanyahu and Republicans discussed efforts to release hostages Hamas still holds in Gaza and efforts to defeat Hamas, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) told reporters following the meeting. Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) issued a warning that bipartisan support for Israel is faltering. “The bipartisan support for Israel seems to be cracking on the political level in this country,” he told reporters, adding that he told Netanyahu that the United States should not be dictating Israeli elections. “I made it clear to him it’s not the business of the United States to be giving a democratic ally advice about when to have an election or what kind of military campaign that they’d be conducting,” McConnell said.The White House has been pressing Netanyahu to step up efforts to protect civilians in the war too. Israel has said that it intends to go after the last bastion of Hamas in Rafah, the city where Israel has forced vulnerable Palestinians to relocate during the war. The White House has been urging Netanyahu to conduct the operation in a way that protects the nearly 1.4 million innocent civilians that have sought refuge in Rafah. Israel claims it has a plan to relocate a significant portion of the 1.4 million Palestinians to safe zones. Some American officials have expressed interest in speaking with the Israeli prime minister too. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Wednesday he is considering inviting Netanyahu to address Congress. Other U.S. lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), have been urging President Joe Biden to condition U.S. military assistance to Israel on whether Israel properly allows humanitarian assistance to flow in Gaza, which has been restricted for weeks. “The severe humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza is nearly unprecedented in modern history,” the senators wrote in a letter to Biden earlier this month.

Israel says defense minister to visit Washington
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant will meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin next week in Washington, a U.S. defense official confirmed Tuesday. The official, who spoke under condition of anonymity to provide details not yet made public, said Austin and Gallant plan to discuss securing the release of Hamas-held hostages, humanitarian aid to Gaza and protecting those in Rafah. Over a million displaced people have sought shelter in the southern Gaza city, where Israel has said it plans to stage a ground offensive.

Arab foreign ministers, top Palestinian official to meet Blinken in Cairo on Thursday
Reuters/March 20/2024
Arab foreign ministers and a top Palestinian official will meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Cairo on Thursday as he pushes for a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip during his latest tour of the region.Blinken will meet foreign ministers from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Jordan, as well as the Emirati international cooperation minister and the general secretary of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation's (PLO) executive committee, according to an Egyptian foreign ministry note. The note did not give details on the subject of the meeting, but Egyptian security sources said Arab nations will stress the urgency of developing plans for a political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Such plans had been put on hold as mediators from Qatar, Egypt and the US sought to secure a deal for a ceasefire in Gaza and for the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Blinken has said he would pursue conversations on arrangements for the governance, security and redevelopment of post-conflict Gaza, and for lasting regional peace during his tour. The PLO executive committee general secretary, Hussein al-Sheikh, is a top official in the Palestinian Authority and a confidant of its president Mahmoud Abbas as well as an intermediary with Israel. The PA, which exercises limited governance in the occupied West Bank, may play a key role in administering Gaza once fighting ends, though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed strong opposition to its involvement in running the enclave. Talks for a ceasefire deal continued in Qatar this week following failed attempts to secure an agreement ahead of start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Blinken lands in Saudi Arabia for Gaza talks
Agence France Presse/March 20/2024
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken landed in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to discuss efforts to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and ramp up aid deliveries to the Palestinian territory. The US top diplomat touched down in Jeddah where he was to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, said an AFP journalist on board, the first stop on Blinken's sixth Middle East tour since the Israel-Hamas war started on October 7.

Saudi crown prince, Blinken discuss situation in Gaza
ARAB NEWS/March 21, 2024
RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has received US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, the Saudi Press Agency said early Thursday. The meeting discussed “Developments in the Gaza Strip, and efforts made to stop military operations and deal with their security and humanitarian repercussions, the SPA added. The pair “reviewed bilateral relations and areas of joint cooperation, in addition to the latest regional and International developments.”Earlier, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan and Blinken discussed the “importance of an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
Blinken landed in Jeddah earlier on Wednesday on the first leg of a regional tour that was extended to include Israel. On Thursday, he is due to travel on to Egypt, which neighbours Gaza and whose envoys have been involved in previous mediation efforts.

Blinken says negotiations on ceasefire, hostage release ‘getting closer’
Jennifer Hansler, CNN/March 20, 2024
Negotiations to secure an immediate ceasefire in the war in Gaza tied to the release of hostages held by Hamas are “getting closer” to a deal, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday. “I think the gaps are narrowing, and I think an agreement is very much possible,” Blinken said in an interview with Al-Hadath in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, according to a transcript released by the State Department. “We worked very hard with Qatar, with Egypt, and with Israel to put a strong proposal on the table. We did that; Hamas wouldn’t accept it. They came back with other requests, other demands. The negotiators are working on that right now,” Blinken explained. Blinken did not give details about what gaps were narrowing or what undergirded his confidence that an agreement is possible. President Joe Biden last month expressed confidence that a ceasefire was near, but his administration later walked back that prediction after officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar distanced themselves from Biden’s optimism. Blinken again reiterated that the onus is on Hamas to accept the proposal that is on the table, with a senior Biden administration official telling reporters earlier this month that a six-week ceasefire was “basically accepted” by Israel.
“A very strong proposal was put on the table, and we have to see if Hamas can say yes to the proposal. If it does – if it does – that’s the most immediate way to alleviate the misery of people in Gaza, which is very much what we want,” Blinken said. Blinken again said that not enough assistance is reaching the people of Gaza and called on Israel “to open up more access points to Gaza.” He said a floating maritime pier, which Biden announced earlier this month would be built to send large shipments of aid into the territory, is in the process of being built, “and I think in a matter of weeks, hopefully, that will be done.”
“It’s not a substitute for making sure that we’re getting as much assistance through over land as possible,” he noted.
Blinken, who will travel on to Egypt to meet with Arab leaders Thursday, said that it is important to be ready “for what happens with the governance of Gaza” after the war ends. “I think it’s very important that the cabinet of the new government that emerges have new faces, younger people – people who are genuinely representative of Gazans, the West Bank, and who are prepared to do the necessary things to really revitalize the Palestinian Authority so that it’s better able to deliver for the Palestinian people – more transparency in government, combatting corruption, and then winning the confidence of people,” he said. “Now, it’s also going to be imperative that Israel work with, cooperate with, a new Palestinian Authority because it’s going to be very difficult for it to actually deliver results without that,” he added. Blinken would not give details about “alternatives” to an Israeli incursion in Rafah that US officials plan to discuss with Israeli officials. The US has been asking Israel how it intends to protect the estimated 1.5 million Palestinians seeking refuge in the southern Gaza city ahead of a planned military operation there. “We have to have a chance to talk to the Israelis about this, but as I said, what we don’t want to see is a major ground operation because we don’t see how that can be done without doing terrible harm to civilians,” he said. “But at the same time, it is imperative to do something about Hamas, because Hamas has brought nothing but death and destruction to Palestinians. And if you go back, Israel withdrew from Gaza unilaterally in 2006; Hamas engaged in major attacks on Israel in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2014, 2021, and of course October of 2023. That’s not a sustainable situation. And it’s also the greatest impediment to trying to find a lasting peace, lasting security, including a Palestinian state, which is the only way in our judgment to have something that’s genuinely enduring and that can bring lasting security for Palestinians, for Israelis, and for the region,” he said.

Israeli air strike kills three in West Bank: Palestinian ministry
AFP/March 21, 2024
JENIN, Palestinian Territories: An Israeli strike on Wednesday killed three Palestinians in a car in the occupied West Bank, including a senior Islamic Jihad militant, the Palestinian health ministry said. AFP journalists saw a crowd gathered around the charred remains of a vehicle and blood on the pavement in the northern West Bank city of Jenin after the army said “an aircraft struck two senior Islamic Jihad operatives.” The military said it had “eliminated” Ahmed Barakat, whom it accused of a May 2023 attack that killed an Israeli settler. Three other militants were also “struck” in the attack, according to a military statement. According to the Palestinian ministry, the strike killed three people including Barakat and wounded one. Islamic Jihad’s armed wing confirmed in a statement that Barakat, whom it said headed its military operations in Jenin, had been killed.Witness Amir Al-Sabah, 30, said: “Suddenly there was an explosion near my car. Because of the force of the blast, my car caught fire, so I had to get out.” Emergency workers sprayed blood off the street with a hose after the strike, while a drone could be heard buzzing overhead.Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp are a stronghold of armed Palestinian groups opposing Israel, which has occupied the West Bank since 1967. Israeli troops regularly carry out incursions into Palestinian communities but until several months ago had rarely struck the West Bank from the air. Violence in the territory has intensified since war broke out between Israel and Hamas, sparked by the Gaza militants’ October attack on southern Israel. According to the Ramallah-based health ministry, Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 435 Palestinians in the West Bank since the Gaza war began. The Hamas attack on October 7 resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures. Militants also seized about 250 hostages, of whom Israel believes 130 remain in Gaza, including 33 who are presumed dead. Israel’s military has since waged a relentless offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 31,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the Hamas-ruled territory’s health ministry.

Heavy fighting rages around Gaza's biggest hospital as Israel raids it for a second day
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Explosions and shootings shook the Gaza Strip's biggest hospital and surrounding neighborhoods as Israeli forces stormed through the facility for a second day Tuesday. The military said it had killed 50 Hamas militants in the hospital, but it could not be independently confirmed that the dead were combatants. The raid was a new blow to the Shifa medical complex, which had only partially resumed operations after a destructive Israeli raid in November. Thousands of Palestinian patients, medical staff and displaced people were trapped inside the sprawling complex Tuesday as heavy fighting between troops and Hamas fighters raged in nearby districts. "It's very hard right now. There's heavy bombardment in the area of Shifa, and buildings are being hit. The sound of tank and artillery fire is continuous," Emy Shaheen, who lives near the hospital, said in a voice message with repeated booms of shelling audible in the background. She said a large fire had been raging for hours near the hospital. The Israeli military said it raided Shifa early Monday because Hamas fighters had grouped in the hospital and were directing attacks from inside. The claim could not be confirmed, and the Hamas media office said all those killed in the assault were civilians. But the surge in fighting in Gaza City underscored Hamas' continued presence in northern Gaza months after Israeli ground troops claimed they largely had control over the area. Israel launched its offensive in Gaza vowing to destroy Hamas after the group's Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. More than 31,800 Palestinians have been killed in the bombardment and offensive since. Much of northern Gaza has been leveled, and an international authority on hunger crises warned on Monday that 70% of the people there were experiencing catastrophic hunger and that famine was imminent.
The mayhem in the north came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated his determination to invade Gaza's southernmost town, Rafah – one of the last major towns not targeted by a ground assault. A day earlier, in their first phone call in a month, U.S. President Joe Biden urged Netanyahu not to carry out a Rafah operation, urging "an alternative approach" to more precisely target Hamas fighters there. The United States, Israel's closest ally, has expressed concern over attacking Rafah because some 1.4 million people from across Gaza have crowded into the area. U.N. officials have warned of a massive death toll and the potential collapse of the humanitarian aid effort if troops moved into Rafah. Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss Rafah with Biden administration officials. But on Tuesday, he told a parliamentary committee that while he would listen to U.S. proposals "out of respect" to Biden, "we are determined to complete the elimination of these (Hamas) battalions in Rafah, and there is no way to do this without a ground incursion."Airstrikes in Rafah overnight destroyed an apartment and several houses, killing at least 15 people, including six women and children, hospital officials said.
NEW SHIFA SIEGE
The army last raided Shifa Hospital in November after claiming that Hamas maintained an elaborate command center within and beneath the facility. The military revealed a tunnel leading to some underground rooms, as well as weapons it said were found inside the hospital. However, the evidence fell short of the earlier claims, and critics accused the army of recklessly endangering the lives of civilians. The hospital, which is the heart of Gaza's health system, was severely damaged in the assault and has only been able to resume limited operations since. Gaza officials say some 30,000 displaced people were taking refuge in the compound when the new Israeli assault began. The raid came before dawn Monday when tanks surrounded the facility and troops stormed into multiple buildings. The military on Tuesday said two of its soldiers had been killed in the operation. It said Tuesday that 300 suspects were detained, including dozens it accused of being fighters from Hamas and the smaller Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad. Some patients were evacuated to nearby Ahli Hospital, said Mahmoud Bassal, civil defense spokesperson. Abdel-Hady Sayed, who has been sheltering in the Shifa hospital, said troops had rounded up dozens in the hospital's yard, blindfolding, handcuffing, and ordering them to strip their clothes before some were taken away. He said those inside, especially men, were afraid to follow Israeli calls to evacuate the hospital. "They tell you to get out, it's a safe corridor and once they see you they arrest you," he said. "All are afraid here. The world should do something to stop them." The military has identified one person killed in the raid — Faiq Mabhouh, a senior officer in Gaza's police force, which is under the Hamas-led government but distinct from the militant group's armed fighting wing. The military said he was hiding in Shifa with weapons, but the Gaza government said he was in charge of protecting aid distribution in the north.
The raid prompted heavy fighting for blocks around Shifa. Hamas' military wing said it struck two Israeli armored vehicles and a group of soldiers with rockets in the vicinity of the hospital. Emergency services received multiple calls for help from people whose buildings had been bombed in the streets around Shifa, but rescue teams could not go to the scene because of the fighting, Bassal said. Kareem al-Shawwa, a Palestinian living about a kilometer (less than a mile) from the hospital, said the past 24 hours had been "terrifying," with explosions and heavy exchanges of fire. He said Israeli troops had told residents to evacuate the area, but he and his family were too afraid of getting arrested or caught in the fighting to leave their home. Israel accuses Hamas of using hospitals and other civilian facilities to shield its fighters, and the Israeli military has raided several hospitals since the start of the war. The Gaza Health Ministry said Monday that at least 31,726 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's offensive. The ministry doesn't differentiate between civilians and combatants in its count, but it says women and children make up two-thirds of the dead. Palestinian militants allegedly killed some 1,200 people in Hamas' Oct. 7 attack into southern Israel that triggered the war and took another 250 people hostage. Hamas is still believed to be holding about 100 captives, as well as the remains of 30 others, after most of the rest were freed during a cease-fire last year.

Palestinians mourn 28 killed in Israeli airstrikes on urban refugee camps in Gaza
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Mourners held funeral prayers Wednesday morning outside a hospital in central Gaza for 28 people killed in three separate Israeli airstrikes on urban refugee camps. Associated Press footage showed mourners praying over the bodies, which were wrapped in funeral shrouds, before the bodies were taken away in donkey carts for burial. Nineteen people, including five women and nine children, were killed when a strike flattened a family home late Tuesday in the urban Nuseirat refugee camp. Another person was killed in a separate strike in the camp. A strike in the nearby Bureij camp killed eight people, including three women. The dead were brought to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Hospital, the main medical facility in central Gaza. An Associated Press reporter saw the bodies and their names in hospital records. Nuseirat and Bureij are among several dense, built-up refugee camps in Gaza that date back to 1948, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes in what is now Israel during the war surrounding its creation. Refugees and their descendants make up a majority of Gaza's population of 2.3 million.

Trump's son-in-law praises 'very valuable' potential of Gaza's 'waterfront property'
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's former White House adviser and his son-in-law, praised the "very valuable" potential of Gaza's "waterfront property," suggesting that Israel should remove civilians while it "cleans up" the area. "Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods," Kushner said in an interview dated Feb. 15, posted earlier this month on the YouTube channel of the Middle East Initiative, a program of Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and reported first on Tuesday by The Guardian. "If you think about all the money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?" "It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up," Kushner added. "But I don't think that Israel has stated that they don't want the people to move back there afterwards." Responding Tuesday on X to "those dishonestly using selected parts" of his remarks, Kushner posted a video of the entire interaction, saying he stood by his comments "and believe the Palestinian people's lives will improve ONLY when the international community and their citizenry start demanding accountability from their leadership."
About 1.5 million displaced Palestinians are sheltering in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, as Israel looks to eliminate Hamas following the militant group's deadly Oct. 7 attack. More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 70,000 wounded in the Gaza Strip since Israel's war on Hamas began.
On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss a prospective Rafah operation with Biden administration officials. The agreement to hold such talks came as President Joe Biden and Netanyahu spoke Monday, their first interaction in more than a month, as the divide has grown between allies over the food crisis in Gaza and Israel's conduct during the war, according to the White House. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the talks will happen in the coming days and are expected to involve military, intelligence and humanitarian experts. In the interview last month, Kushner also suggested that getting civilians out of Rafah and potentially into Egypt, might be possible "with the right diplomacy," also positing a plan for the the Negev desert in southern Israel.
Additionally, Kushner suggested that he "would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there," adding: "I know that won't be the popular thing to do, but I think that's a better option to do, so you can go in and finish the job.""I think Israel's gone way more out of their way than a lot of other countries would, to try to protect civilians from casualties," Kushner added.
The debate over the Israel-Hamas war has developed into a major theme of this year's U.S. presidential election, drawing dividing lines between Biden and Trump, as well as within their own parties. Asked in an interview Monday about Democrats' growing criticism of Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza, Trump charged that Jews who vote for Democrats "hate Israel" and hate "their religion," igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders. He doubled down on those remarks Tuesday, telling reporters in Florida that "the Democrats have been very, very opposed to Jewish people." Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., meanwhile, gave a speech from the Senate floor calling Trump's comments "utterly disgusting and a textbook example of the kind of antisemitism facing Jews." Kushner worked on a wide range of issues and policies in the Trump administration, including Middle East peace efforts. Noting that he is not interested in rejoining the White House if Trump — who last week became the presumptive GOP nominee — wins the 2024 presidential election, Kushner said last month that he was focused on his investment business and his living with his family in Florida out of the public eye.

Ukrainian drones attacked Russian bomber air base overnight, Kyiv source says Reuters
(Reuters)/March 20, 2024
Ukrainian drones operated by the GUR military intelligence agency attacked the Engels air base deep inside Russian territory early on Wednesday and Kyiv was assessing the damage, a Ukrainian intelligence source told Reuters. The governor of the Saratov region, where the base is located, said Ukrainian drones had been downed near the city of Engels but did not report any damage. "The results are being verified," the Ukrainian source said of the attack. The base is the main home of Russia's long-range strategic bomber fleet and is located near the city of Saratov - about 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Three Russian air force personnel died in December 2022 when a drone believed to be Ukrainian was shot down at the Saratov base.Russia has regularly conducted missile and drone attacks on targets in Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

Russia Warns of Potential Military Strike on SpaceX Satellites
Victor Tangermann/Futurism/March 20, 2024
Russia has accused the United States of using commercial satellite operators for its intelligence efforts — and is threatening to take military action in response. The news comes days after Reuters released a report earlier this month, detailing a classified contract that SpaceX signed with a US intelligence agency to launch hundreds of spy satellites. "We are aware of Washington's efforts to attract the private sector to serve its military space ambitions," foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told reporters, as quoted by Reuters. These systems "become a legitimate target for retaliatory measures, including military ones." Insider sources told Reuters that SpaceX was working on a massive constellation of spy satellites under its military-focused business unit, called Starshield. The Elon Musk-led company signed a $1.8 billion contract with the National Reconnaissance Office in 2021, as the Wall Street Journal reported last month. The development highlights SpaceX's deepening ties with the US military, as well as the Pentagon's reliance on the private sector to gain a tactical advantage in orbit. World powers, including the US, Russia, and China, have been racing to develop space-based weapon systems that can take out adversary satellites. The consequences of war in Earth's orbit could prove disastrous. Earlier this year, German military officials warned that nuclear-powered anti-satellite space weapons Russia is said to be developing could wipe out all satellites in its range, not just American or Russian ones. According to Reuters, a SpaceX-powered spy constellation could give the US military a big leg up, allowing it to identify targets from across the globe through the use of continuous imagery of activities on the ground. "No one can hide," one source told Reuters. The relationship between SpaceX and the US military has been strained by the use of Starlink satellite technology in Ukraine. Musk has been accused of sabotaging the besieged country's military by cutting off its forces from Starlink internet. It remains to be seen whether Russia's latest comments are anything more than empty threats — but the US military is certainly listening.

German woman loses appeal of 14-year sentence for letting Yazidi slave girl die in Iraq
BERLIN /Associated Press/March 20, 2024
A German federal court said Wednesday it had rejected a woman's appeal of her 14-year sentence for allowing a 5-year-old Yazidi girl she and her husband kept as a slave when they were members of the Islamic State group in Iraq to die of thirst in the sun.
The defendant, a German convert to Islam, was convicted in October 2021 of, among other things, two counts of crimes against humanity through enslavement — one case resulting in death — and membership in a terrorist organization abroad. She was initially given a 10-year sentence, which was overturned by the Federal Court of Justice on the grounds that judges had erred in sentencing the defendant for a “less severe case” of crimes against humanity and overlooked aggravating circumstances. A new sentencing hearing for the woman, identified only as Jennifer W. in line with German privacy rules, ended in August with the 14-year sentence. The court said Wednesday it rejected her appeal as “manifestly unfounded.” The statement on the ruling didn't specify on what grounds she appealed. The girl died in Fallujah, Iraq in August 2015. At the original trial, the court found that the defendant did nothing to help the girl — who had been chained by her husband in their courtyard — although doing so would have been “possible and reasonable.” The couple also kept the girl's mother as a slave. Jennifer W., now 32, was taken into custody while trying to renew her identity papers at the German Embassy in Ankara in 2016 and deported to Germany. Her former husband, an Iraqi citizen identified only as Taha Al-J., was convicted by a Frankfurt court in November 2021 of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and bodily harm resulting in death. He was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Turkish warplanes strike Kurdish positions in Iraq after attack kills soldier, wounds 4
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Turkey carried out a new round of airstrikes targeting Kurdish militants in neighboring Iraq on Tuesday, Turkey's defense ministry said, hours after a Turkish soldier was killed and four others were wounded in an attack in the region. Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s. On Tuesday, the Turkish warplanes struck suspected PKK positions in the Metina, Zap, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil regions in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, according to a ministry statement. The jets reportedly destroyed 27 PKK targets, including caves, bunkers, and shelters. There was no immediate comment from the PKK. "We have not left the blood of any of our martyrs on the ground," the ministry said, suggesting that the airstrikes were in retaliation to the attack that killed the Turkish soldier and wounded four others. Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan held high-level meetings with his counterpart Fuad Hussein and other Iraqi officials to discuss the PKK's presence in Iraq and measures to be taken against the organization. A joint statement issued by the two countries said both sides had "stressed that the PKK organization represents a security threat to both Turkey and Iraq" and that its presence in Iraq "represents a violation of the Iraqi constitution." The PKK is not designated a terrorist organization in Iraq, but is banned from launching operations against Turkey from Iraqi territory. It nevertheless has a foothold in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, where the central Iraqi government does not have much influence. The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is expected to visit Iraq next month, has said that his country is determined to end PKK's presence in Iraq this summer, suggesting a possible large-scale military offensive into the region.

Wall Street's main stock indexes gain ground after Federal Reserve keeps rates unchanged
Reuters/March 20/2024
Wall Street's main stock indexes gained ground on Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it was keeping borrowing costs unchanged and indicated that it still expects to cut rates by three-quarters of a percentage point by the end of 2024. However, the Fed's policy statement described inflation as remaining "elevated," and it updated quarterly economic projections to forecast growth of 2.1 percent for the year versus 1.4 percent projected in December and an unemployment rate ending the year at 4 percent, lower than the 4.1 percent anticipated in December. Investors will look for more clues about the path for interest rates in Chair Jerome Powell's press conference, due to start at 2:30 p.m. EDT (1830 GMT). "The market is relieved that the Fed is still projecting three rate cuts this year. Recent too-hot inflation readings have not derailed the Fed’s plan so far," said Irene Tunkel, chief US equity strategist at BCA Research in Sarasota, Florida. "This is consistent with the baseline market expectations and is only marginally positive for equities as this scenario is fully priced in. This is a 'no-harm-done' outcome." The indexes had rallied to record highs this month on optimism around artificial intelligence, but had retreated slightly in recent weeks after reports showing robust inflation shook confidence that the Fed would start rate-easing soon.

Biden impeachment inquiry is at a crossroads
Associated Press/March 20/2024
The House impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden has hit a crossroads, lacking the political appetite from within Republican ranks to go forward with an actual impeachment, but facing political pressure to deliver after months of work. The Republican chairman of the House Oversight Committee, James Comer, has signaled an interest in another direction. He is stopping short of drawing up articles of impeachment against the president, but eying criminal referrals of Biden family wrongdoing to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. With the panel's star witness, Hunter Biden, not expected to appear for Wednesday's public hearing after having testified privately last month, Comer telegraphed what was coming next. "If he does not show up, then it's not going to end well for the Bidens," Comer said over the weekend on Fox News.
He said, "There's going to be multiple criminal referrals." It's the start of a potential wind-down for the lengthy GOP-led probe that was launched after Republicans seized control of the House in January, eager to hold Biden to the high bar of impeachment that twice reprimanded Donald Trump during his presidency. As Trump and Biden face another likely rematch this November, Comer is weighing whether to keep the impeachment inquiry going through Hunter Biden's often complicated business dealings and his storied, but troubled life, or wrap up work even if that falls short of a historic presidential impeachment. The White House has called the inquiry a "charade" and told Republicans to "move on." Wednesday's hearing will delve deeper into Hunter Biden's business dealings as Republicans seek testimony from Jason Galanis, who is serving a lengthy federal prison sentence in Alabama for fraud schemes and is expected to appear remotely, and Tony Bobulinski, a one-time business associate of Hunter Biden who took his claims against the family public during the first Trump-Biden presidential debate in 2020.
The Democrats have called witness Lev Parnas to testify, relying on the convicted businessman who was central to Trump's first impeachment as a Rudy Giuliani associate working to dig up political dirt on Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election. Parnas has since played a key role in dispelling the House GOP's main claim of bribery against the Bidens as simply not true. "Who better than Lev Parnas himself — Rudy Giuliani's right-hand man on the original mission to smear Joe Biden — to tell the story of how this campaign of lies and slander works?" said Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, in a statement. Raskin said Parnas can "debunk the bogus claims at the heart of the impeachment probe and, in the process, explain how the GOP ended up in this degraded and embarrassing place."
So far, the impeachment inquiry's public hearings have often devolved into all-day spectacles as scores of lawmakers take their turn grilling the witnesses.
Hunter Biden, who is facing firearm and tax charges in separate matters, testified behind closed doors last month in a committee deposition that filled more than 200 pages but left Comer's panel without the hard evidence it was seeking of wrongdoing by the president or his son. The committee asserts that the Bidens traded on the family name, an influence-peddling scheme that seeks to link a handful of phone calls or dinner or lunch meetings between Joe Biden, when he was vice president, and Hunter Biden and his business associates.
But their slim majority narrowed by early retirements, House Republicans may not have enough support within their ranks to pursue articles of impeachment against President Biden, especially since Democrats would likely vote against any such charges. Instead, Comer has been looking into potential criminal referrals to the Justice Department, which would likely be symbolic, but could open the door to prosecutions in a future administration.
It's unclear who would exactly be charged, and over what offenses, and Comer has also discussed drafting ethics-related legislation to tighten influence peddling or foreign lobbying among officials. A House committee spokesperson said that the impeachment inquiry is ongoing without a predetermined outcome. The committee will issue a final report with its recommendations once the inquiry has concluded. Galanis, who was initially interviewed by the committee last month from prison, has told the panel that he expected to make "billions" with Hunter Biden and other associates, using the Biden family name in their foreign business dealings. He has told the panel of a particular time when Hunter Biden put his dad on speakerphone for a brief minute-long chat during a birthday party at a New York restaurant for the 1-year-old child with potential foreign business partners. He acknowledged that he unsuccessfully sought a pardon in the final days of the Trump presidency. Hunter Biden, in his own deposition to the panel, said he met Galanis for about 30 minutes 10 years ago. Bobulinski who has gone public with his allegations has told the panel in his interview that he met briefly with Joe Biden when he was vice president through Hunter Biden. The Democratic witness, Parnas, had been a central figure in Trump's first impeachment over withholding aid to Ukraine. He helped Giuliani with the false claims that Joe Biden, as vice president, had intervened in the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor as a favor to Hunter Biden's work on the board of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma. Western allies also wanted the prosecutor fired over allegations of corruption. Last summer, Senate Republicans released unverified claims from an FBI informant who disclosed more such details, including allegations of payments to the Bidens that became central to the House GOP probe. At the time, Parnas sent Comer a lengthy later dispelling those claims, saying it was all talk and the money was not paid to the Bidens. The now former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was arrested last month and pleaded not guilty to charges that he fabricated the bribery allegations.

Trump asks Supreme Court to dismiss case charging him with plotting to overturn 2020 election
Associated Press/March 20/2024
Lawyers for Donald Trump urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday to dismiss an indictment charging the former president with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election, renewing their arguments that he is immune from prosecution for official acts taken in the White House. Lower courts have already twice rejected the immunity claims, but Trump's lawyers will get a fresh chance to press their case before the Supreme Court when the justices hear arguments on April 25. The high court's decision to consider the matter has left the criminal case on hold pending the outcome of the appeal, making it unclear whether special counsel Jack Smith will be able to put the ex-president on trial before November's election. In a brief filed Tuesday, Trump's lawyers repeated many of the same arguments that judges have already turned aside, asserting that a president "cannot function, and the Presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the President faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office." "A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents," the lawyers wrote. "The threat of future prosecution and imprisonment would become a political cudgel to influence the most sensitive and controversial Presidential decisions, taking away the strength, authority, and decisiveness of the Presidency." Smith's team has said ex-presidents do not enjoy absolute immunity and that, in any event, the steps Trump is accused of taking in his failed but frantic effort to remain in power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden would not count as official presidential acts. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, and a three-judge federal appeals panel in Washington have both agreed with Smith, but the case — once scheduled for trial on March 4 — has been effectively frozen for months as the appeal continues to wind through the courts. Trump's lawyers also told the justices that in the event they don't accept the immunity arguments, they should send the case back to Chutkan for additional "fact-finding." Such a move would result in even lengthier delays before a trial could be scheduled. Trump's position was supported in separate briefs filed Tuesday with the Supreme Court, including one from 18 Republican-led states.
The case is one of four state and federal criminal prosecutions that Trump is facing as he seeks to reclaim the White House. He and his lawyers have sought to delay the cases from proceeding to trial, a strategy that to date has yielded some success for the ex-president.
Of those four, only one — a case in New York charging Trump in connection with hush money payments meant to suppress claims of an extramarital sexual encounter — is on track to start in the next several months. The judge in that case delayed the trial last week until at least mid-April as he seeks answers about a last-minute evidence dump that the former president's lawyers said has hampered their ability to prepare their defense.

N. Korea claims progress in developing hypersonic missile designed to strike distant US targets
Associated Press/March 20/2024
North Korea successfully tested a solid-fuel engine for its new-type intermediate-range hypersonic missile, state media reported Wednesday, claiming a progress in efforts to develop a more powerful, agile missile designed to strike faraway U.S. targets in the region. A hypersonic missile is among an array of high-tech weapons systems that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un publicly vowed to introduce in 2021 to cope with what he called deepening U.S. hostility. Outside experts say Kim wants a modernized weapons arsenal to wrest U.S. concessions like sanctions relief when diplomacy resumes.
On Tuesday, Kim guided the ground jet test of the multi-stage solid-fuel engine for the hypersonic missile at the North's northwestern rocket launch facility, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. It cited Kim as saying the strategic value of the new missile with an intermediate-range is as important as intercontinental ballistic missiles targeting the U.S. mainland and that "enemies know better about it." It said that a timetable for completing the development of the new weapons system was "set through the great success in the important test." Intermediate-range missiles possessed or pursued by North Korea are the weapons systems primarily aimed at attacking the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam, home to U.S. military bases. Those missile can also reach Alaska, and with a range adjustment they can be used to strike closer targets like U.S. military installations in Japan's Okinawa island, experts say.
In recent years, North Korea has been pushing to develop more weapons with built-in solid propellants, which make launches harder to detect than liquid-propellant missiles that must be fueled before liftoffs and cannot last long. The North's pursuit of hypersonic weapons is also meant to defeat U.S. and South Korean missile defense systems, but it's unclear the North's hypersonic vehicles proved their desired speed and maneuverability during tests in recent years, analysts say. In January, North Korea said it flight-tested a new solid-fuel intermediate-range ballistic missile tipped with a hypersonic, maneuverable warhead, in a likely reference to the missile mentioned in Wednesday's KCNA dispatch. In November, North Korea said it had tested engine tests for an intermedia-range missile but didn't say whether it's designed to carry a hypersonic warhead.
While the North's missile test in January was likely related to the development of its first-stage rocket, this week's engine test appeared focused on the development of its second-stage rocket in part of the North's efforts to increase the weapon's flying speed, said Chang Young-keun, a missile expert at South Korea's Research Institute for National Strategy. Chang said the latest engine test suggests North Korea could soon test-launch the new hypersonic missile. After short-range tests with hypersonic weapons, North Korea would want to increase their ranges with maneuverable hypersonic warheads, Lee Choon Geun, an honorary research fellow at South Korea's Science and Technology Policy Institute, said. He said the capacities of the new missile can be assessed when it's test-flighted. On Monday, South Korea, the U.S. and Japan said they detected the multiple ballistic missile test-launches by North Korea in what was the country's first missile firings in about a month. The North said Tuesday it performed a live-fire drill of what it called nuclear-capable "super-large" multiple rocket launchers designed to target South Korea's capital, Seoul. South Korea's military later said it views the North Korean weapons system tested as a ballistic missile. North Korea has been engaging in a provocative run of missile tests since 2022. The U.S. and South Korea militaries have responded by expanding their bilateral exercises and trilateral drills involving Japan. Observers say North Korea will likely intensify its run of missile tests ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.

US vows $47 mln humanitarian aid for Sudan, neighboring countries
Reuters/March 20/2024
The United States on Wednesday pledged about $47 million in new humanitarian assistance for the emergency response in Sudan and neighboring countries, including Chad and South Sudan, the US State Department said in a statement. The announcement brings total US humanitarian assistance for people in Sudan and neighboring countries to more than $968 million since fiscal year 2023, the State Department said.

Yemen anger grows as death toll from Houthi blast climbs to 13
SAEED AL-BATATI/Arab News/March 20, 2024
AL-MUKALLA: Hundreds of Houthi troops were sent to the Yemeni town of Radaa on Wednesday amid rising anger at the death toll from a militia attack on a residential area the previous day. The Houthis on Tuesday blew up a home in Radaa, in the central province of Al-Bayda, killing nine members of a single family, and destroying at least four mud buildings nearby. Four other people are said to have died when a Houthi rocket struck their home during a clash with residents trying to stop the militia from destroying their properties. Nasser Ali Al-Sanae, a Yemeni activist from Radaa who fled Houthi repression and now lives in Marib city, told Arab News that friends reported seeing at least 30 vehicles from Houthi security and military units enter the town, hours after the militia suppressed a protest condemning the attacks. “They have positioned soldiers in every part of town and shot live bullets at people who went out to protest the killing,” Al-Sanae said. On Monday, tensions erupted in Radaa when a local tribesman shot and killed two Houthis suspected of murdering his brother. The Houthis responded by surrounding the man’s home and destroying it with explosives. In Sanaa, the Houthi Ministry of Interior said that the soldiers made a mistake by using “excessive force in an illegal way” while chasing “wanted criminals” who killed two of their troops. In an attempt to defuse the rising outrage against the militia, the Houthis sent officials to Radaa to meet with relatives of the dead, vowing to compensate them and punish the security men who destroyed the house. Houthi leader Mohammed Ali Al-Houthi said on Wednesday that the militia had compensated victims of the bombing and also questioned security personnel. Since seizing control in Yemen by force in late 2014, the Houthis have demolished hundreds of opponents’ residences in a bid to quell any opposition, Yemeni activists and authorities say. “Houthis have blown up hundreds of homes in the past. It’s a common practice and a tactic they use to humiliate their foes, silence dissent, and scare the community at large into submission,” Hisham Al-Omeisy, a Yemeni conflict analyst, said on X. At the same time, Yemen’s government, the EU, and local and international rights organizations have condemned the Houthi destruction of homes in Radaa and the resulting fatalities, and urged the militia to bring the offenders to justice. Yemen’s Prime Minister, Ahmed Awadh bin Mubarak, described the Houthi demolition of homes in Al-Bayda and their assaults on ships in the Red Sea as “fascist crimes,” and pledged to take action. “We have no choice but to cut off and defeat this terrorist arm,“ bin Mubarak said on X. The EU delegation and the French Embassy in Yemen also denounced the Houthi attacks on homes and the civilian deaths in Al-Bayda. “We are deeply shocked by reports about the blowing up of a house in Radaa, Al-Bayda province, which killed & injured many innocent people, including women & children. This horrific crime is a serious human rights violation. It should be investigated & those responsible held to account,” the EU mission said on X.

Latest English LCCC  analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 20-21/2024
Why did Biden close the State of the Union address with Gaza?
James J. Zogby/The Arab Weekly/March 20/2024
President Joseph Biden faced a heady task as he delivered this year’s State of the Union address to Congress. He had to confront concerns about his age, anxiety about the economy, the dysfunctional environment created by Republican hyper-partisanship and the ongoing threat to our democratic processes posed by a feared replay of the January 6, 2021 insurrection.
As expected, commentators had differing views as to how successful he was at meeting the challenges before the country and his presidency, with partisan Democrats reading from Biden campaign talking points and Republicans glibly finding fault with the president’s every word. An honest assessment, however, would suggest that Mr Biden gave Democrats what they needed to campaign for his re-election, but did little to heal the partisan divide or advance any legislation currently blocked in Congress.
Given the magnitude of the domestic challenges that comprised the bulk of the president’s State of the Union address, it was strange that he chose to open and close his remarks with two foreign policy issues, both of which were dealt with quite unsatisfactorily.
He opened with the war in Ukraine comparing challenges facing the West’s democracies with the situation in Europe in the lead up to World War II. At best, this was an extreme overstatement. Russia’s Putin is no Hitler and the war in Ukraine is most certainly not a threat to the US and poses no serious challenge to any of Europe’s NATO countries. Russia has a particular grievance with regard to Ukraine, and while it has been important to defend that country’s territorial integrity, it can be done without exaggeration or making overblown inaccurate historical comparisons. And excessive rhetoric about how democracies are confronting authoritarianism is off-putting and more than a little disingenuous, since the European “democracies” in question were colonial powers in the 1940s and among the world’s worst violators of rights.
It has been two years now that the president has been using Churchillian or Reaganesque flourishes to describe his recreation of the Cold War conflict with Russia and China. It may sound good to some in his inner circle, but it is not registering with voters, with a significant percentage of both Democrats and Republicans not in support of sending more billions to fight a war in Ukraine.
If the Ukraine opening fell flat, the president’s closing treatment of Gaza hit with a thud. While Mr Biden’s re-election effort will not be harmed by his support for Ukraine, results in some of this year’s early primaries are making it clear that his continued arming of Israel and refusal to condemn its genocidal policies in Gaza may cost him votes in November. As a result, he felt compelled to address the issue, but his approach was, at best, confusing. His problem: he tried to square a circle. On the one hand, he pledged total support for Israel and its reputed “right to defend itself,” while also calling on Israel to demonstrate more concern for Palestinian civilians, calls which Israel has acknowledged but ignored for months. Despite Mr Biden noting Israel’s responsibility for the humanitarian crisis created in Gaza, instead of calling for a ceasefire and demanding that Israel pull back its forces, he pledged to build a floating port to bring needed supplies into the Strip.For the most part, this proposal drew scorn. It was seen as unnecessary, since the problem of getting supplies into Gaza could be solved by joining the calls for a ceasefire. Additionally, it has been noted that in the two months it would take to get the port operational, thousands of Palestinians will have died of starvation. Final assessment: regrettably I am joining the camp of those who want to end this annual ritual. The State of the Union neither honestly describes the state of our nation, nor does it serve to unify us to confront the challenges we face. Rather it has become a patently partisan affair complete with heckling or a campaign event with repeated and unnecessary applause. It does more to deepen the partisan divide, than to unify the country to serve the common good. Seen in this light, President Biden’s address probably served him well with some in his party but did little to unify the nation.
*Dr James J. Zogby is President of the Washington-based Arab American Institute.

Oman and the ‘First Regional War’
Haitham El-Zobaidi/The Arab Weekly/March 20/2024
The Sultanate of Oman is preparing for unstable regional security by reconsidering the provisions of its state of emergency law, including the circumstances rendering a state of emergency a necessity, determining who is responsible for implementing the law, and the mechanisms involved in its implementation. A new royal decree (13/2024) has revisited many of the provisions of the 2008 royal decree regulating the state of emergency and identifying the authorities tasked with supervising the conditions surrounding it. The new decree addresses many of the loopholes in the old text taking into account the new political, technical and military developments.
Before addressing the issue of why the sultanate of Oman should adjust its state emergency law, it is necessary to look at how the sultanate views itself in the context of current conflicts in the region.
Without undue exaggeration, there is ample reason to believe we are now in the middle of the “First Regional War”, to borrow from the term of the “First World War”.More than any other part of the world, the Arab region is a place of continuing conflicts. Aside from the wars of independence, the Arab-Israeli war has been going on since 1948. Since 1980, the region has been experiencing long wars with Iran. After Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, the US war in Iraqi continued in one shape or another, twice against the Iraqi army in 1991 and 2003, once against the Iraqi resistance starting in 2003, and once against the Islamic State extremist group (ISIS), starting with the fall of Mosul in 2016. Finally, the face-off today is with the Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF). This militant coalition loyal to Iran would not have been born had it not been for the occupation of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The region’s civil wars also continue under different political, national and sectarian banners, in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Libya. The conflicts in Iraq, Syria and Yemen can be described as civil wars with regional extensions.
The Gaza war has changed the landscape. There is a war of systematic destruction of the Gaza Strip carried out by the Israeli war machine in an unparalleled criminal manner. But Gaza was also the fuse which ignited other spin-off wars involving other belligerents beside Palestinians and Israelis.
A war is taking place today in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden between Western forces and the Iran-backed Houthis. The war in the Iraqi battlefield is pitting Iraqi militant factions against US forces. The Lebanese-Israeli border skirmishes point to a delayed war between Iran and the West, even if the direct antagonists in this showdown appear to be Hezbollah and the Israeli army. Israel is waging a war against the Iranian military presence in Syria based on considerations pre-dating the Gaza war by many years and having basically nothing to do with the current conflict in the enclave.
Iran, which seems to be relatively calm for now, has not stopped saying that it would consider the whole Gulf region to be a legitimate target if it is attacked by the West. The multiplicity of fronts and belligerents and the widening geographical scope of the conflicts definitely warrant the use of the term of “the first regional war”.
Where does Oman fit in this regional war? To the northeast of the sultanate, there are the Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. To the southwest, there is the lingering Yemen war and the escalating confrontation in the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Through political and diplomatic planning and manoeuvring, Oman has been able to distance itself from the raging regional wars. But behind the calm facade it projects of a country which avoids being dragged into conflicts, it is certainly involved in the region’s various incipient cold conflicts.
Most certainly, the sultanate does not want to have to confront passionate Omani youth who are angered by the war in Gaza. This partly explains the official and religious tendency to go along with the youth’s expression of outrage. But one well remembers though how young Saudis came back from Afghanistan and then turned against the Saudi state, which had gone along with them and financed their fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Omani youth did not fight in Gaza, but war in the enclave is today in every Omani home, with the daily staple of pictures and video images broadcast on satellite channels and social media sites. Many provisions in the original text (75/2008) and the amendments (13/2024) of the state of emergency law relate to public gatherings and possible national security threats emanating from communication and social media use. The law grants total discretion to the security services to deal with such threats. There is a difference between the reactions of enthusiastic young people to events in Gaza and the protests which Oman witnessed in 2011 and 2021. However, in a country that went through internecine conflict leading to war in Dhofar and Jabal Al Akhdar during the 1970s, matters should not be left unattended. This does not mean at all that the Omanis have an axe to grind against their own country’s leadership, but whoever invests in incitement could try to channel the well-intentioned feelings of the masses to his goals.
It is certain that the north-eastern edge of the Sultanate (Musandam and Sohar) enjoys calm despite being geographically very close to the Strait of Hormuz. This is part of a long-term understanding with Iran. But the location of western Oman, with its long desert border with the Mahra region in Yemen and its Arabian Sea coast extending to the Gulf of Aden, makes it very close to the positions of the remaining belligerents in the tripartite Yemeni conflict. There is civil strife between various Yemeni factions, a conflict between the Saudi-backed Yemeni government forces and the Iran-aligned Houthis, and an escalating confrontation between Western forces and the Houthis. Oman is aware of the critical situation in the region and is channelling much of its military and intelligence capabilities to control it. It is no secret that a few years ago, the Saudi-led Arab coalition forces were on the verge of clashing with Yemeni forces affiliated with Oman in the Mahra region. It still remains to be seen, within the context of the Yemen conflict, who will have the upper hand in the Hadramawt. To this day, there is talk of Iranian supplies reaching the Houthis across the “porous” and long Omani-Yemeni border. Omani caution places these considerations within the emergency law, because all sides involved in the ongoing regional war are not known to respect borders. They even have no qualm about them transgressing these borders when they feel it is necessary to do so. The Omani diplomatic and intelligence efforts are well known. The calm official façade and absence of public statements do not mean that Muscat is removed from current developments. Active Omani presence was evident in the Yemen war. Omani envoys, whose names were deliberately omitted, used to arrive in Sana’a at the head of delegations delivering messages to the Houthis and conveying the Yemeni militias’ messages to the Arab coalition or to the West. There is an almost permanent presence of political and media representatives of the Houthis in Muscat. The Mufti of Oman, Sheikh Ahmed bin Hamad Al-Khalili, may welcome the Houthi attacks on navigation in the Bab al-Mandab Strait, purporting to show support for the people of Gaza. But Muscat has at the same time hosted talks between American and Iranian delegations discussing the means to put an end to such attacks, and for Tehran to put pressure on the Houthis to limit the targeting of Western naval warships in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The new decree remedies to the previous loopholes. It also addresses new developments starting with the role of communication technologies and social media, as well as financing and the impact of drones, which Omanis see as having altered the balance of power. The new decree distinguishes between conspiracy and national security issues to be referred to military courts, and criminal issues related to intentional or unintentional violation of the emergency law. The provisions of the updated emergency legislation show the importance which the sultanate accords to its security. It also demonstrates that various Omani agencies, especially the National Security Council, the Royal Office and the Office of the Supreme Commander of the Royal Armed Forces, are prepared for all contingencies and are not willing to leave anything to chance. These details are important, as is the timing of the decree’s issuance.
*Dr Haitham El-Zobaidi is the executive editor of Al Arab Publishing Group.

Palestine’s Friends… and Its Enemies?
Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 20/2024
This question is asked with every wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. And here it is now, imposing itself on Palestinians and Arabs once again in light of the war that has been raging in Gaza since October 7, 2023, the most destructive in the history of this conflict. Humanitarian aid workers, those seeking peaceful solutions, and those who oppose war on both camps are confronted with a flood of all sorts of accusations. They are cruelly slandered, with the misrepresentation of their objectives going so far as to portray them as singularly focused on serving Israel.
On the other hand, those calling for "limitless resistance" are hailed as heroes who have refused to lose heart despite the odds being overwhelmingly stacked against them. Their resilience and defiance are celebrated, with no thought to the death, destruction, and displacement that comes with it. Didn’t a former general secretary of one of this front’s parties and militias once say: "Kill us, for our people will become more and more aware." Death, here, is merely a mechanism for heightening awareness and mobilizing the masses, an unmitigated blessing.
According to this line of thinking, the former are the Palestinians’ enemies, neo-Zionists, while the latter are friends of Palestine, the nation’s only hope, the salt of the earth and the guardians of its dignity. This dichotomy is not a lethal simplification of the complexities of politics, war, power balances, and geopolitics that innocent Palestinians pay the price for. Indeed, it has proven to be a dichotomy that threatens to undermine the foundations of peace and stability across the Middle East.
True, the resistance continues to be valorized in Gaza and Palestine as a whole. It is a deeply ingrained feature of the history and identity of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. However, romanticizing the conflict and trivializing the perpetuation of war in search of an illusory victory here or there threaten to trap Palestinians in an endless cycle of violence and destruction.
Strangely, "Palestine’s friends," who are calling for a ceasefire, and brandish accusations of treason without a second thought, ignore the fact that Hamas, under Yahya al-Sinwar’s leadership, is rejecting the ceasefire. Hamas is betting that if the war rages on, a larger and broader uprising against Israel will erupt. Instead of condemning Hamas, however, they condemn those who are actually striving to bring about a ceasefire. "Palestine’s friends" overlook the fact that the Arab states have spared no effort within and without the UN Security Council to ensure a ceasefire but were faced with the irreconcilable terms of Israel and Hamas. This is not merely a question of political preferences. Our culture and values are being distorted, with the pursuit of peace equated with betrayal or weakness and the basic needs and rights of the Palestinian people totally disregarded. This distorted culture, in which the willingness to sacrifice is the sole criterion, equates victory with the scale of suffering, whereby the more pain is endured, the greater the victory.
This binary classification, whereby actors are either friends or enemies of Palestinians depending on their stance regarding the so-called resistance, obscures the complex motives and real contributions of these actors. If we must face this simplification with another, then the true allies of Palestine are those who support the people's aspirations for freedom, justice, and dignity in ways that do not make a bad situation worse. Conversely, those who exploit the Palestinian cause to further their own political or ideological objectives, even if they do so under the guise of supporting resistance, are the real enemies of Palestine and its people. Those seeking to bring aid into Gaza, regardless of the means, cannot be equated with those who prefer to see its people starve if that creates a platform for mobilizing the masses. Those seeking a political solution, even one that is not ideal, cannot be equated with those dragging the Palestinians from a bad situation to one that is worse in search of absolute justice. Hundreds of videos have been published by all Arab broadcasters (including those that support the resistance) in which Palestinians say that they had not appreciated the "blessings" they had compared to the calamities the war has brought upon them. No battle today is more important than the fight to expose this cultural distortion that is laying the groundwork, through the weight of their sympathy for the Palestinians, for the emergence of new generations of radicals with dysfunctional notions of peace and coexistence. Cultural, political, and media efforts are needed to deconstruct these sick narratives of victory and defeat, friends and enemies. Sinwar's illusion that "Palestine’s friends" would open other fronts following the October 7 operation has been shattered.
Sinwar fancied that Israel would not rush into war to ensure the well-being of the captives held by Hamas. He then deluded himself into thinking that any incursion would be limited and nominal - the Israelis have now reached Rafah. His next fantasy was that, should the occupiers remain in Gaza, they would become sitting ducks hunted by the resistance. However, all his illusions have been shattered. Now, Sinwar dreams of snatching some victory from the jaws of all this destruction and death. He believes that continuing the war into Ramadan will introduce new fronts into the war with Israel. How many more illusions must be shattered before the entire narrative collapses and Palestinians understand who their real friends and enemies are?

Hamas’s Delusion
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 20/2024
The intra-Palestinian "struggle" between the Palestinian Authority or Fatah and Hamas has resurfaced. It is a real "struggle" that only ever disappeared in the delusional minds of dreamers. I say "struggle" because it is an existential threat to the struggle for the Palestinian cause itself.
Hamas has accused the Palestinian Authority and President Mahmoud Abbas of making decisions "unilaterally," claiming that "the president's actions indicate the depth of the crisis at the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, its detachment from reality, and the chasm between it and our people and their concerns and aspirations."Naturally, Fatah hit back with a sharp statement that went further than even the fiercest opponents of Hamas and its ventures, especially that of October 7, which has given rise to a Nakba worse that of 1948, as Fatah's warranted and precise statement put it.
The truth is that Hamas and its leaders are the ones who are detached from reality and operating unilaterally. How can Hamas accuse the Palestinian Authority, or Fatah, of monopolizing decision-making by choosing the Palestinian prime minister? Hamas unilaterally decided on an unprecedented war represented by the operation on October 7!
How can Hamas direct these accusations at the Palestinian Authority, or Fatah, while Gaza is being destroyed by a war that Hamas had decided on and that neither it nor Gaza and its people, can bear? This decision has led to the death of more than 30,000 Palestinians, women, children, and men.
The war has redrawn the map and reduced Gaza, which is not larger than 140 square miles. The world is still trying to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from continuing the war with an incursion into Rafah, and the conflict may escalate and pose a real threat to the West Bank and the prospect of a Palestinian state. Yes, Hamas is out of touch. It is currently struggling to reach a truce that guarantees a ceasefire and Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, allowing it to return to power there, i.e., a return to the pre-October 7 status quo.
The question here is clear and explicit. What has Hamas achieved from this operation that led to an unprecedented war on Gaza? Doesn't Hamas and its leadership understand the world rejects them, with Washington announcing that the movement must be destroyed?
The problem is that Hamas has not learned from previous mistakes that led to wars, this one the worst of them all. It has not learned that dialogue and debate are not conducted through disrespectful statements and accusations of treason. Hamas has not understood that it is now rejected internationally, and even regionally. Gaza's predicament is real, and the scale of the Israeli crime there, due to "Hamas'" adventure, is massive and horrendous. The danger to the Palestinian cause is real and undeniable except by the obstinate. This crisis cannot be resolved with boastful and accusatory statements.
What Hamas fails to understand is that those who lose on the ground cannot give lectures. It will not find a seat at the negotiation table, no matter how loud its officials scream or how many moving statements they issue. In war, bullets are stronger than words, even if the latter goes viral on social media.
Accordingly, the Palestinian Authority, specifically President Mahmoud Abbas, is Hamas's only protection. There is an Arab and international consensus on this matter, because Hamas has lost on the ground, and its leaders are either besieged in trenches or they have fled in hotels.
Will Hamas grasp this? I doubt it, because Hamas is extremely deluded, and it never learns from its lessons, much like its parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.

Hamas and Netanyahu’s Roles as Representatives is the Issue
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 20/2024
As has become clear for all to see, there are two stages in the negotiations regarding Palestine-Israel: The first deals with an immediate question of security, and it is essentially aimed at bringing about a six-week ceasefire during which dozens of Israeli hostages and hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are to be released. Despite the many setbacks we have seen on this front, Hamas's response to the framework for a hostage deal proposed by the United States, Egypt, and Qatar has broadly been qualified as a relatively positive signal, with suggestions that indirect negotiations between the movement and the Israeli government will build upon it. The second stage is political, with peace - or some sort of peace that remains highly ambiguous - as its principal objective. Here, the two sides that are supposed to bring the ceasefire about, Netanyahu and Hamas, become the problem that must be dealt with.
The path to arriving at this second stage could perhaps be summed up in two formulas, each of which influences and is influenced by the other.
- The United States, along with Western countries, preventing another massacre in Rafah and then starting a process that precipitates the collapse of Netanyahu and his government. Doing so is a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition for progress on other fronts. When they spoke two days ago, after communication between them had been cut off, Joe Biden warned Netanyahu against launching a military operation in Rafah, pointing to the fact that Israel had agreed to send a delegation to Washington to discuss the matter. With assured confidence, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan added that no operation in Rafah would be carried out before those talks.
- The Arab and Islamic worlds, along with the so-called moderate Palestinian forces, preventing Hamas from appearing to have won this war along the lines of the "Divine Victory" that Hezbollah had declared after the 2006 war. This must be followed by an effort to prevent them from taking the reins of Palestinian decision-making and representing the Palestinian people, or achieving either objective to a significant extent. Of course, any positive development in either formula would be bound to reflect positively on the other, and vice versa. However, the divergent conditions of the two stages warrant concern that a ceasefire could be impeded to prevent us from getting to the second stage. Indeed, it is difficult to bet that Netanyahu or Hamas will suddenly become altruistic and prioritize peace over their direct, personal, and partisan interests.
Nonetheless, assuming that the foreign actors applying pressure on the two directly involved parties prevail, we can maintain some cautious optimism. Since politics and its tools would necessarily be part of the trajectory that brings this hypothetical outcome about, we have begun to see an increasing number of signs that Netanyahu is being circumvented in Israel. For example, Benny Gantz, a member of the war cabinet, recently visited Washington in what was described as a challenge to his Prime Minister. In turn, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has taken a number of defiant steps, foremost among them his initiative to integrate the Haredim into the army and his assertion that "taking responsibility {in war} is the source of authority."
On the other side, President Mahmoud Abbas's very late appointment of Mohammad Mustafa as the new prime minister tasked with forming a government falls into the same category. This government is expected to reconfigure the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah but, first and foremost, to take part in a political process and exploit the current gap between Israel and its Western allies, paving the way for a feasible Palestinian state to emerge. Naturally, paving the way for this eventuality through a six-week ceasefire that is accompanied by the release of hostages and prisoners, would diffuse the situation to a certain extent and create an atmosphere more conducive to political opportunities and critical revisions on both sides. That, in turn, would help the transition from the security stage to the political stage.
As for the vitriol that has come from Hamas and other Axis of Resistance factions following Abbas's move, it overlooks the fact that while Hamas is required in the first, security stage, it will not be tolerated as a negotiating party in the political stage unless it hides behind Fatah, the Palestinian Authority, and some Arab countries. For his part, Netanyahu has voiced his opposition differently, going as far as he can in his effort to outbid the rest of the Israeli political body politic, as well as the entire world, by continuing to identify his war with the survival and fate of the Jewish state.
In fact, political acceptability is an issue for both Hamas, which lacks it, and Netanyahu, who is threatened with losing it. Both parties, if they could evade the pressures currently being applied on them, would opt to remain entrenched in their fighting positions and tunnels, regardless of the repercussions for civilians. They would not ascend to a political future in which a Palestinian state, which both oppose (albeit for different reasons and by different means), could emerge. Moreover, they are both stuck in the pre-Oslo Accord’s (1993) era of existential conflict. Regardless of the criticisms directed at it, the Oslo Accord granted Palestinianism its physical embodiment and suggested that the conflict could be resolved through non-violent means. However, it also underlined the limitations of the raw ideological notions regarding the conflict, nationalist in Netanyahu's case and religious in Hamas's.
The coming days could give rise to developments that speak volumes about the paradox surrounding those two stages and many sides' attempts at circumvention and subterfuge.

Nowruz: A celebration of renewal, unity and cultural diversity
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 20, 2024
Millions of people around the world will on Wednesday celebrate Nowruz, the Persian new year. This ancient festival, whose roots go back thousands of years, carries profound significance beyond merely marking the beginning of a new year. Nowruz embodies a rich tapestry of cultural heritage, symbolizing renewal, unity and the resilience of diverse communities. As we observe Nowruz, this is an opportune moment to reflect on the festival’s enduring relevance in today’s world and its capacity to foster understanding and harmony among peoples of varied backgrounds.
Originating in the ancient lands of Persia, Nowruz has transcended geographical boundaries, becoming a cherished tradition for millions across Central Asia, the Middle East and beyond. Its roots lie in Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, in which it was celebrated as a festival of rebirth and the triumph of light over darkness. Over time, Nowruz evolved into a secular and inclusive observance, embracing diverse cultural and religious expressions. At its core, Nowruz signifies the arrival of spring — a season of rejuvenation and hope. The symbolism of nature’s renewal is deeply intertwined with the human spirit’s capacity for growth and transformation. As the earth wakes from its winter slumber, Nowruz serves as a reminder of the cyclical nature of existence, encouraging individuals to reflect on their past, set intentions for the future and embrace the opportunity for personal and collective renewal.
Moreover, Nowruz exemplifies the values of unity and solidarity across communities. Regardless of one’s cultural or religious background, Nowruz invites people to come together, share meals, exchange gifts and engage in festivities. In a world often plagued by division and discord, Nowruz offers a beacon of hope, demonstrating the power of cultural traditions to bridge differences and foster mutual understanding.
This festival has become a cherished tradition for millions across Central Asia, the Middle East and beyond.
It is worth noting that, prior to Nowruz, many people practice “khooneh tekouni” (shaking the house), a ritual house cleanup that bears resemblance to the concept of spring cleaning. This tradition involves thoroughly cleaning every corner of the home and symbolizes the removal of physical and spiritual impurities accumulated over the past year. As individuals engage in this cleansing process, they not only prepare their homes for the arrival of the new year, but also symbolically purify their hearts and minds. Just as the earth undergoes a rejuvenation process during spring, this tradition serves as an opportunity for personal renewal and reflection. The haftseen — a traditional centerpiece of Nowruz celebrations — is a symbolic representation of renewal and abundance. Consisting of seven items, each starting with the Persian letter “seen,” the haftseen table typically includes sabzeh (wheat, barley or lentil sprouts symbolizing rebirth and growth), samanu (a sweet pudding symbolizing affluence), senjed (dried oleaster fruit symbolizing love), seer (garlic symbolizing medicine and health), sib (apple symbolizing beauty and fertility), somaq (sumac berries symbolizing the color of the sunrise) and serkeh (vinegar symbolizing aging and patience). This elaborate display serves not only as a visual feast but also as a reminder of the interconnectedness of nature and human existence.
Additionally, Nowruz encourages people to embrace the spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation. During this time, individuals set aside grudges and grievances, mending relationships and starting afresh in the new year. It is a time for reflection, introspection and, ultimately, the renewal of bonds that may have been strained or broken. Through acts of forgiveness and reconciliation, Nowruz fosters a sense of harmony and unity within families and communities, reaffirming the importance of compassion and understanding in our collective journey toward a brighter future.
Poetry also holds a cherished place in Nowruz celebrations, adding a layer of depth and resonance to the festivities. Whether recited in intimate family gatherings or public events, the reading of poetry during Nowruz serves as a bridge between the past and the present, connecting individuals with their cultural heritage and shared humanity.
As we confront global challenges, Nowruz offers a blueprint for building a more inclusive and harmonious world. Through the timeless verses of poets like Rumi, Hafez and Saadi, Nowruz poetry invites reflection on themes of love, nature and the eternal cycle of renewal. As families and communities come together to mark the arrival of the new year, the recitation of poetry creates moments of beauty, inspiration and connection that transcend linguistic and cultural boundaries.
However, amid the celebrations, it is crucial to acknowledge the challenges faced by communities that observe Nowruz. In some regions, political instability, economic hardship and social upheaval threaten to overshadow the joyous spirit of the festival. Moreover, the spread of globalization and modernization has led to concerns about the erosion of traditional customs and values associated with Nowruz. In the face of these challenges, it is important to safeguard and promote the rich cultural heritage embodied by Nowruz. Governments, civil society organizations and individuals must work together to preserve traditional practices, promote cultural education and ensure the continued vitality of Nowruz for future generations.
Finally, in a world increasingly divided along cultural, religious and ideological lines, Nowruz stands as a symbol of hope and resilience. Its message of renewal, unity and cultural diversity resonates across borders, transcending language and creed. Now more than ever, as we confront global challenges, Nowruz offers a blueprint for building a more inclusive and harmonious world. So, as we gather with family and friends to celebrate Nowruz, let us reaffirm our commitment to the values it represents. Let us embrace diversity, foster understanding and work toward a future where the spirit of Nowruz — of renewal, unity and cultural richness — guides our collective endeavors. In doing so, we honor the ancient traditions of our ancestors while paving the way for a brighter, more inclusive world for generations to come.
Nowruz Mubarak to all those who celebrate it. May this auspicious occasion bring joy, prosperity and renewed hope to your lives and communities. Let us cherish the traditions of Nowruz and carry forward its message of peace, solidarity and cultural diversity throughout the year.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian American political scientist.
X: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Canada’s Gaza policy shift reasserts its moral leadership
Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab News/March 20, 2024
Canada appears to be recalibrating its policy toward the war in Gaza. Initially, it sided uncritically with Israel, but it has now reconsidered in light of the catastrophic conditions in Gaza, which has become a virtual concentration camp and a free-for-all death zone. Palestinians who are not killed by airstrikes, sniper bullets or tank and artillery shells die in large numbers as a result of Israel blocking humanitarian assistance or systematically destroying medical facilities. Israel’s current leaders appear to have totally abdicated their responsibilities under international humanitarian law in a nonstop killing and destruction spree not seen in Palestine since the Crusades. To distance Canada from these actions, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has become increasingly critical of Israel’s war on Gaza. And now his government has made two concrete decisions indicating its displeasure. The changes are more than symbolic, although Canadian humanitarian organizations have demanded that the government do more. On Tuesday, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly announced that her government would halt future arms shipments to Israel. Another equally important reversal was the announcement on March 8 that Ottawa would resume its funding for the UN Relief and Works Agency, the main humanitarian organization operating in Gaza, after a disruption of several weeks due to accusations by Israel that some of UNRWA’s staff had Hamas connections.
The decision to halt future arms sales to Israel follows a nonbinding vote in Canada’s House of Commons on Monday. The motion was introduced by the New Democratic Party, which supports Trudeau’s minority government. The New Democrats have repeatedly criticized the government for failing to do enough to protect civilians in Gaza. The motion passed 204-117 with the support of the ruling Liberal Party, Bloc Quebecois and the Green Party. The vote on Monday also called on Canada to work “toward the establishment of the state of Palestine.” The New Democrats had originally called on the government to directly “recognize the state of Palestine,” but that was watered down at the behest of the government, which believes that Palestinian statehood should come as the result of a negotiated settlement with Israel, a position it shares with the US.
Canada previously said that, while it had paused issuing military export permits to Israel, it was still assessing applications on “on a case-by-case basis,” but the vote on Monday appears aimed at stopping delivery of previously licensed shipments. “It is a real thing,” Joly told the press.
Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East called the vote “watered-down,” but said it represented a “small step forward for ending Canadian complicity in Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.”
Many in Canada have opposed their country’s continued arming of Israel despite the atrocities its forces have committed in Gaza. On Feb. 4, more than 50 peace and humanitarian organizations sent a letter to Joly expressing their “profound concerns about the legal and humanitarian implications of Canada’s transfer of weapon systems to the government of Israel.”
They added: “Over the last decade, Canada has exported more than 140 million Canadian dollars ($102 million) in military goods to Israel, including military aerospace components as well as bombs, missiles, explosives and associated parts.” And that “some of these weapons could be enabling Israel’s operation in Gaza.”In addition to direct exports, the letter stated that Canadian-produced technology has also been supplied to Israel after first being integrated into US-produced systems, including components incorporated into the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which Israel has used in its bombing campaign across Gaza. The letter quoted experts describing this campaign as the “deadliest and most destructive in recent history.” Given Israel’s conduct in Gaza, there is “clear and substantial risk” that Canadian arms may be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law or international human rights law, according to the signatories. The letter cited Canada’s obligations under the Export and Import Permits Act and the Arms Trade Treaty to stress that it is “required to halt arms transfers and deny further arms export and brokering authorizations to Israel.”
The letter also cited the Jan. 26 provisional ruling by the International Court of Justice, which deemed that at least some of South Africa’s allegations of violations of the rights of Palestinians under the Genocide Convention are “plausible.” All parties to the Genocide Convention, including Canada, have a duty to ensure the prevention of and their non-complicity in genocidal acts. Countries that transfer arms to another country that are likely to be used in the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide risk being complicit in those crimes, the letter said.
To distance Canada from Israeli actions, Trudeau has become increasingly critical of Israel’s war on Gaza. The letter concluded by welcoming Canada’s strong support for the “critical role” of the world court and commitment to abide by its rulings in the genocide case brought by South Africa against Israel. However, it cannot at the same time continue to “arm those whom the ICJ has ruled are plausibly accused of genocide.” So it is with Canada’s decision to resume funding for UNRWA. Initially, in January, it went along with a number of other countries in stopping funding for the organization based on unsupported claims made by Israel, which has long tried to disrupt UNRWA’s work, if not end it altogether. The devastation in Gaza appears to be deliberate and politically motivated; it serves Israel’s purpose of making the territory uninhabitable. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Monday that “1.1 million people in Gaza are facing catastrophic hunger — the highest number of people ever recorded — anywhere, anytime.” What makes it worse, he added, is that it is an “entirely manmade disaster.” So, faced with this unspeakable suffering, and bowing to criticism from within Canada for its hasty initial decision, the Canadian government decided this month to resume the funding. These two decisions are significant indicators that Canada plans to play a more constructive role in this conflict, which Joly stressed during her visit to Saudi Arabia and several other countries in the region this month. They could also restore Canada’s global moral leadership for upholding international norms and values.
**Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the Gulf Cooperation Council assistant secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation. The views expressed here are personal and do not necessarily represent the GCC. X: @abuhamad1

Israel Betrayed?
Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute./March 19, 2024
It seems clear that the Biden administration would like to see the rapid creation of a Palestinian state or at least a "Palestinian unity government" -- unfortunately composed of the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist group Hamas -- and, abracadabra, recognize it.
The Palestinian leaders have, in fact, been admirably clear: They do not want a state alongside Israel, they want a state instead of Israel.
"[W]hile Qatar is helping assemble a new 'technocratic' front for the terrorists, the Moscow summit made it clear that the real agenda of the new government would be terror against Israel and the U.S." — Daniel Greenfield, journalist, March 12, 2024.
"They [families of the hostages] can raise hell for the release of their loved ones – in media, in Congress, and by demonstrating in front of the Embassy of Qatar on M Street in Washington, D.C. Qatar is extremely and incredibly sensitive to being exposed in any way as a terror-sponsoring state... A single statement by a U.S. Department of Defense official, about relocating – or even considering relocating – this base from Qatar to another country that is not a state sponsor of terrorism is all it would take to get the American hostages released. Even indicating that the U.S. has other options besides Qatar would do it." — Yigal Carmon, Founder and President of the Middle East Media Research Institute, November 6, 2023.
Qatar is not an honest broker.... Qatar has been Hamas's main funder... Hamas is Qatar's pet; Qatar most likely does not want Hamas to lose the war and is sure to do all it can to secure that result.
It appears that the Biden administration would like to trade Netanyahu in for a doormat who would agree to a terrorist Palestinian state next door, a Hamas victory in Gaza and Iran having nuclear weapons.
It seems clear that the Biden administration would like to see the rapid creation of a Palestinian state or at least a "Palestinian unity government" -- unfortunately composed of the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist group Hamas -- and, abracadabra, recognize it. Pictured: President Joe Biden speaks on the terrorist attacks in Israel alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken from the State Dining Room at the White House on October 7, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)
February 15, 2024. President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have a long phone conversation. The communiqué published by the White House briefing room says they spoke about humanitarian assistance to civilians in Gaza and Israeli military operations.
A few hours later, Netanyahu posted a message on X, saying bluntly:
"Israel will continue to oppose the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state. Such recognition in the wake of the October 7 massacre would give a huge reward to unprecedented terrorism and prevent any future peace settlement".
It seems clear that the Biden administration would like to see the rapid creation of a Palestinian state or at least a "Palestinian unity government" -- unfortunately composed of the Palestinian Authority and the terrorist group Hamas -- and, abracadabra, recognize it.
According to The Washington Post:
"The Biden administration and a small group of Middle East partners are rushing to complete a detailed, comprehensive plan for long-term peace between Israel and Palestinians, including a firm timeline for the establishment of a Palestinian state".
The article suggests that the US State Department is conducting a review of options for recognizing the "Palestinian state" as soon as the war ends.
The article also says that there is an "elephant in the planning room": the talks are taking place without any Israeli participation. As Netanyahu's message shows, they are taking place against the will of Israel's prime minister and his government. They are even taking place against the will of almost all members of the Israel's parliament (the Knesset): they voted 99-to-11 on February 21 to back the government's decision to reject "international dictates regarding a permanent settlement with the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state" and its "unilateral recognition".
How can members of the Biden administration think it will achieve any kind of "peace" between Israel and Palestinians under these conditions? They probably do not. They probably are just looking at the election polls in Michigan, where many Democrats who are likely pro-Hamas recently voted "uncommitted" in the party's presidential primary. How can officials in the administration even imagine being able to create a Palestinian state without Israel's acceptance? They are probably hoping -- as with three years of US open borders, stifling US energy production and appeasing US adversaries such as Russia, China and Iran -- that they can get away with it.
How can the Biden administration fail to see that creating an essentially unrevitalized Palestinian state or a terrorist "Palestinian Unity Government" just months after the October 7 massacre would constitute a huge reward for terrorism?
The Biden administration also appears ready to reward terrorists. It already does. On October 18, the Biden administration gave $100 million in "humanitarian aid" to Gaza and the West Bank, just 11 days after the October 7 massacre -- knowing full well that Gaza was controlled by Hamas and that the money and aid would end up with Hamas.
The Biden administration, to its great credit, sent US Navy aircraft carriers to the area, munitions to Israel and has verbally supported it -- but they are also apparently trying not to lose the "Arab-American vote."
On January 26, 2021, six days after Biden was sworn in, acting US Ambassador to the United Nations Richard Mills said that the Biden administration would "restore aid" to the Palestinian Authority (PA). A few weeks later, without the Biden administration even asking the PA to stop funding terrorism, aid was restored.
In 2021, when Hamas attacked Israel, the Biden administration pressured the Israeli government to stop the Israeli response. When a ceasefire was implemented, Biden promised to provide rapid humanitarian assistance for the Gaza population and aid for the reconstruction of Gaza. Even then, it was clear that the aid would help the ruling terrorist group Hamas, whatever denials Biden stated at that time, such as: "We will do this in full partnership with the Palestinian Authority — not Hamas".
To "manage" the situation, Biden sent Hady Amr, a man who had written that the terrorist group Hamas should be included in the negotiations; Biden then named Amr the US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs.
On January 19, 2021, Antony Blinken, who was not yet sworn in as Secretary of State, pledged that the Biden administration would negotiate a new agreement with Israel's main enemy in the region, Iran. Nine days later, having become Secretary of State, he appointed as Special Envoy to Iran Robert Malley, a man reportedly sympathetic to Iran and later suspended for activity currently under investigation – if the investigation has not been secretly dropped.
The Biden administration then lifted various sanctions on Iran's regime and gradually unfroze billions of dollars of Iranian funds. Although the main funder of Hamas has been Qatar – which provide "protection money" "without protection" -- Iran has reportedly been giving Hamas $100 million a year, part of which was likely used to finance Hamas's October 7 massacre and war machine.
In a move no one ever talks about, the Palestinian Authority -- in a move recommended by the 2009 Fayyed Plan and implemented with the inordinately generous help of the European Union -- have been rushing as fast as they can to build "facts on the ground" in disputed areas, thereby bypassing the direct negotiations to which both sides had agreed. These "facts"" now include at least "close to 10,000" illegal Arab construction sites. All the same, under the Israeli government of then PM Naftali Bennet, the Biden administration, published statements hostile to Israel and to the Jewish "settlements" on the West Bank. Many Palestinians, nevertheless, appear to view all of Israel as "one big settlement".
As soon as Netanyahu won the Israeli elections on November 1, 2022, the Biden administration's hostility intensified -- not for the first time -- against Netanyahu himself. The State Department helped to fund months-long anti-Netanyahu protests that were essentially aimed at bringing down his government -- first, so Iran could get a nuclear weapon and then to agree to a ceasefire, or a "Palestinian State", or a terrorist unity government or, one assumes, whatever the Biden administration requests.
Immediately after the October 7 massacre, Blinken and Biden showed their support for Israel but even then began started to pressure Israel -- not Hamas or Iran or Hamas's sponsor, Qatar. Blinken reportedly made the supply of munitions to the Israeli military conditional on Israel's acceptance of the payment of a hundred million dollars in aid to the Palestinians from the United States. "[D]on't be consumed by rage", Biden cautioned. Since then, for the most part, pressures have continued to increase.
On November 30, Blinken denounced the "massive loss of civilian lives" resulting from Israeli military action in Gaza and added that Israel must "respect international humanitarian law", implying that Israel was not. Israel, meanwhile, has been going to extraordinary lengths to protect the citizens of Gaza. Israelis made thousands of calls to Gazans' cell-phones and blanketed Gaza by air with leaflets in Arabic telling them where to flee to safety -- while their own leaders from Hamas shot at them to keep them from leaving, and, later, to stop them from taking humanitarian aid.
The Biden administration, while having been immensely helpful in sending aircraft carriers to the region --presumably as a deterrent to keep the war from spreading -- now appears to be trying to dictate to Israel how it should fight its war. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, however, assured Israel that the US will not limit the timeline it needs to complete is mission.
Biden has also helpfully ignored requests from "Democratic Senators" to withhold military support for Israel if it does not approve humanitarian aid for Gaza, unfortunately meaning for Hamas, who appropriate it (here, here , here , here and here).
Trying to establish a "peace plan" that is bound to bring more war -- especially against the will of the country, Israel, that would be directly affected by a "peace plan" -- is acting against Israel. Attempting to create a Palestinian state against the will of Israel is not helpful to anyone – least of all the Palestinians who would be condemned to live under a corrupt and dismissive leadership. Recent Palestinian opinion polls show that nearly 90% say they want Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, now in the 19th year of his four-year term in office, out.
Any peace plan established in this way is destined to fail: peace, as agreed to by both the Israelis and the Palestinians in the 1993 Oslo Accord, can only be achieved by agreement between the two parties involved. Israeli leaders have offered peace many times as well as immense concessions. Each time, the Palestinian leaders have refused, without even a counteroffer.
The attempt to create a Palestinian state is also, unfortunately, destined to fail: Israeli leaders have proposed the creation of a Palestinian state several times, and each time the Palestinian leaders were offered one, they refused. The Palestinian leaders have, in fact, been admirably clear: They do not want a state alongside Israel, they want a state instead of Israel.
Even now, according to the journalist Daniel Greenfield, Palestinian terrorists in Moscow are working to create a "technocratic government": "a front for the terrorists and composed of nonprofit executives, academics, economists and others who have experience dealing with the international community and extracting foreign aid from them":
Hamas, will not officially be part of the puppet regime, but will control the puppets."
Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian Authority's ambassador to the United Kingdom told The Financial Times. "About Hamas — there are ongoing discussions . . . but this government is a technocratic government, it's not made of any political factions, because this is not the time for political factions."
That's what the Biden administration and the EU want to hear, but while Qatar is helping assemble a new 'technocratic' front for the terrorists, the Moscow summit made it clear that the real agenda of the new government would be terror against Israel and the U.S.
The Moscow summit revealed that a technocratic government will not end terrorism, it will disguise it, and it will not end the conflict, it will escalate it.
A "Palestinian" state, the terrorist groups have already announced, will be a terror state.
The Biden administration, regrettably, sometimes seems to have a way of ignoring what they do not want to hear or see (as with America's open borders), and apparently all past failures (Afghanistan, inflation, immigration) and their consequences.
In the Middle East, every time Israeli leaders have had illusions about Palestinian leaders or given in to foreign pressure, devastating terrorist acts have followed: hijacked airliners, the Munich Olympics massacre, hijacking the Achille Lauro ship, where the Palestinians pushed the elderly, wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer into the sea; the Sbarro pizzeria bombing, the Café Hillel bombing, the Park Hotel bombing, and several murderous intifadas (uprisings). The so-called "peace process" that followed the Oslo Accords led to the creation of the Palestinian Authority which quickly became a base for continuous anti-Israeli terrorism, and a wave of bloody attacks that, until October 7, was interrupted only by constructing a security barrier.
If elections were held today, polls show, Palestinians would vote overwhelmingly for Hamas. Any Palestinian Arab leader that signs a peace treaty with Israel today would only be seen as a traitor and be lynched. The aim of the Palestinian leadership at the moment, as Greenfield points out, is probably how to keep the money coming in.
On February 23, Blinken said that Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank is "inconsistent with international law" -- a clear step back from the position expressed by then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in 2019: "Judea and Samaria are rightful parts of the Jewish homeland, and Israelis have a right to live there".Three weeks earlier, Biden signed an executive order allowing sanctions on Israeli settlers (and potentially Israeli politicians) alleged to have been involved in violence against Palestinians -- after 5,600 terrorist attacks were carried out against Israelis in 2023. During the same period, Israelis carried out 60 acts of violence against Palestinians, largely to defend themselves against aggressors. The Biden administration punished the defensive acts of Israelis who were attacked, not their attackers.
The Biden administration, citing the risks of famine, has been insisting on sending more humanitarian aid to Gaza even though most of it is captured by Hamas and given to its terrorists, enabling them to prolong the war. When civilians come near the aid supplies, Hamas shoots. More aid just means more aid for Hamas.The US is about to build a pier in Gaza to bring in more humanitarian aid with the help of the United Arab Emirates. However it is not clear how they plan to prevent Hamas from commandeering the additional aid.
Gaza hospitals are overcrowded. Many Gazan civilians could be treated if they could get out of the Gaza Strip. The Egyptian government opposes this. It has had its own run-ins with terrorists and additionally can recall all too well how in 1970, the Palestinians showed their appreciation for the hospitality of King Hussein of Jordan. In a slaughter called Black September, they tried to overthrow and assassinate him.
Egypt depends largely on American financial aid and the Biden administration has leverage on its government, but the Biden administration has not pressured the Egyptian government. It appears as if the US has been bending to the wishes of Iran and Hamas, who refuse to allow Gaza civilians to leave the Gaza Strip and instead keep them in the zone of conflict as human shields. If they are killed, Israel will wrongly be blamed, not Hamas. Several countries have offered to welcome civilians from Gaza: Turkey, Canada, Chechnya. "The United States," Blinken announced, "unequivocally rejects any proposals advocating for the resettlement of Palestinians outside of Gaza."
"To survive", President Biden said on February 26, "Israel must take opportunity for peace, security with Palestinians.... I think that if we get that temporary ceasefire, we're going to be able to move in a direction where we can change the dynamic".
Polls show that most Israelis know that the survival of Israel is at stake. They do not think for a moment that there is any opportunity for peace and they definitely do not want to "change the dynamic". Israelis have not forgotten October 7 which Netanyahu has compared to "twenty 9/11s". The Israeli people, according to reports, are unified in seeing that that without the destruction of Hamas as a political and military threat, Israel will not be safe.
They understand that if Hamas survives the war, its leaders will declare victory and the threats to Israel will only worsen.
Israelis are also well aware that the real threat to Israel is the regime of Iran, which, despite denials, clearly helped plan the attack. Even though its proxy militias in Iraq and Syria have since Oct. 7 launched more than 150 attacks on American troops, the Biden administration still refuses to hold Iran to account. Another of Iran's proxies, Hezbollah, which boasts at least 150,000 missiles aimed at Israel, a country the size of New Jersey, continues to fire missiles into the north of Israel -- 100 in one recent day -- to make life there unlivable.
The Biden administration just gave up trying to put in place a ceasefire lasting six weeks in exchange for just some of the hostages held by Hamas – the women and children -- and the release of 10 terrorists imprisoned in Israel for each freed hostage. When Hamas refused to provide the names of the hostages still alive, the deal collapsed.
Any ceasefire would just give Hamas the opportunity to resupply and reorganize itself , and the released terrorists would quickly go back to being terrorists again. Hamas's demands to free the remaining hostages would undoubtedly keep growing higher.
The Biden administration could easily rescind the 10-year lease of America's Al Udeid Airbase in Qatar tomorrow -- it renewed the lease in January, presumably in exchange for nothing -- and see all the hostages home by this weekend. Concerned groups could also demonstrate against Qatar as a state sponsor of terrorism, as advised by Yigal Carmon, the founder and president of the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI):
"They [families of the hostages] can raise hell for the release of their loved ones – in media, in Congress, and by demonstrating in front of the Embassy of Qatar on M Street in Washington, D.C. Qatar is extremely and incredibly sensitive to being exposed in any way as a terror-sponsoring state...
"Many Americans believe that they owe Qatar for its hosting of the U.S. CENTCOM base. The truth is precisely the opposite: It is Qatar that owes the U.S., for locating this base there. Without this base's presence in the country, Qatar would disappear within less than a week – its neighbors would eat it up.
"A single statement by a U.S. Department of Defense official, about relocating – or even considering relocating – this base from Qatar to another country that is not a state sponsor of terrorism is all it would take to get the American hostages released. Even indicating that the U.S. has other options besides Qatar would do it."
Although purportedly negotiating the release of the hostages, Qatar is not an honest broker. Far from being a "Major Non-NATO Ally", as Biden quixotically anointed it, Qatar is a state sponsor of terrorism, from Al-Qaeda to Al Shaabab to the Taliban to the Al Nusra Front "and even ISIS," according to former US Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen. Qatar should be designated as such. Qatar has backed Hamas since it ousted the Palestinian Authority from the Gaza Strip in 2007. Qatar has been Hamas's main funder, providing more than $1.8 billion since 2007. Hamas is Qatar's pet; Qatar most likely does not want Hamas to lose the war and is sure to do all it can to secure that result.
Israel's government, which reportedly continues to receive valuable intelligence from the interrogation of terrorists it has apprehended so far, says it still needs go into Rafah, the last part of southern Gaza. It is believed Hamas's terrorist leaders might be hiding there, moving through the endless tunnels, and keeping hostages with them as human shields.
The Biden administration, for its part, sometimes seems frustrated by Israel's determination to act as a sovereign nation in deciding what is best for its security, rather than being a vassal of the US. On January 7, CNN's Jake Tapper reported that a Biden administration official told him that Netanyahu will have to choose between his coalition and his ties to the United States.
The Biden administration has tried to circumvent Netanyahu and create political divisions in Israel during the war. Last month, a political rival of Netanyahu, Benny Gantz, whom Netanyahu had brought into his war cabinet, made an unauthorized visit to Washington, at the invitation of the Biden administration, for "policy meetings" -- without Netanyahu's agreement and without coordinating his plans with the Israeli government.
NBC's Andrea Mitchell wrote that senior U.S. officials said that the Biden administration is looking past Netanyahu to try to achieve his goals in the region. It appears that the Biden administration would like to trade Netanyahu in for a doormat who would agree to a terrorist Palestinian state next door, a Hamas victory in Gaza and Iran having nuclear weapons.
On March 14, US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) actually called for ousting the democratically elected Prime Minister Netanyahu and proposed new elections – as if it were his prerogative to tell the government of another sovereign nation how to conduct its internal affairs. The impropriety shocked even the usually shock-resistant Washington DC. "Chuck Schumer's demand for new Israeli elections is inappropriate and offensive", Senator Tom Cotton. (R-Arkansas) shot back. "The last thing Israel needs is the 'foreign election interference' that Democrats so often decry here".
Netanyahu, meanwhile, is not giving in, and his governing coalition is solid. Israel also benefits from strong support from the American people. A recent poll shows that 82% of Americans support Israel in its fight against Hamas, 67% think that a ceasefire should happen only after the release of all hostages and Hamas being removed from power, and 78% think that Hamas must be removed from running Gaza. Biden's most recent comment, after saying that he would have a "come-to-Jesus meeting" with Netanyahu, later emphasized that there is "no red line" and that he will "never leave" Israel without support.
Since then, however, the Daily Mail noted:
"I have been asked by a serious administration figure what it is that will force the Netanyahu coalition to collapse," the Israel expert told New York Magazine. "They were interested in the mechanics, what can we demand which will collapse his coalition."
Schumer said that Netanyahu, democratically elected by a sovereign nation, must step down and Israel must hold new elections. Biden immediately agreed with him. The incident reportedly served to unite more Israelis behind Netanyahu. According to columnist Caroline Glick:
"To win, Israel must do three things. It must remain politically stable. Schumer's broadside from the Senate floor was just the latest salvo in an all-out effort by the administration to destabilize Israel politically and replace Netanyahu with his chief rival Benny Gantz, whom they believe will agree to capitulate and accept the formation of a Palestinian state. Minister-without-Portfolio Gideon Sa'ar's decision on Tuesday to ditch Gantz's party and take his faction's four Knesset seats into the coalition speaks to the near consensus view in Israel that Netanyahu is the only leader that will fight to victory despite U.S. opposition. Last Wednesday, a new Direct Polls survey showed that U.S. hostility has strengthened Netanyahu and the right. Netanyahu leads Gantz 47 % to 37% in public support. His right-religious bloc of parties, (including Sa'ar) is polling a 62 seat-majority to Gantz's leftist bloc of parties' 48 seats."
That item, however, was followed shortly by another assessment by Greenfield in "Biden's 'Trojan Pier' for Gaza": that a new, "temporary" pier being built by the US to help humanitarian aid into Gaza, is actually anything but:
"The temporary pier setup is about bypassing Israel to provide long term access to Gaza.
"While administration officials describe the pier as "temporary", a senior official also admitted that "we look forward to the port transitioning to a commercially operated facility over time."
"That means it's not actually meant to be temporary, but a permanent port for the terrorists...
"The Pentagon spokesman emphasized, however, that American forces would not be on the ground, would not be in a position to secure the aid deliveries or stop Hamas from taking them.....
"The Biden administration claims that it personally will not put troops on the ground in Gaza, but there's no word on whether other nations might do so. The Pentagon has claimed that security arrangements are still being discussed with partner nations. And some of those partner nations could include Hamas allies like Qatar or Turkey. Any armed foreign nation entering Gaza would amount to an invasion of Israeli territory with the ultimate aim of aiding the terrorists living on it...
"Beyond any immediate MREs, the causeway will be inevitably used to move supplies for the "reconstruction" of Gaza as part of a new "Palestinian State".
"The Biden administration is creating a gateway to Gaza that Israel isn't supposed to control.
"The Trojan pier is not only about bypassing Israel, but also Egypt. The administration's vision is that the new arrangement will allow it to directly move materials into Gaza without having to get permission from either Israel or Egypt. And that's a major victory for the terrorists....
"Once the system is in place and if Israel has been pressured into withdrawing, it gives the terrorists a direct connection to their allies on the outside. And that includes so-called humanitarian groups...
"Biden's actions are a violation of Israel's sovereignty."
"At a certain point in the not-so-distant future, wrote Glick, "Netanyahu will need to say 'no' to the administration. It can only be hoped that the vast majority of Americans, who stand with Israel against its enemies, will stand with Israel when we arrive at that point".
*Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
© 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.

Hamas's Industrial Murder: Why Is Senator Chuck Schumer Not Demanding a Change of Leadership in Hamas and Iran?
Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute./March 19, 2024
When the terrorist organization Hamas murders, tortures, rapes and abducts Jews in Israel, do not be surprised that the Jews of today will respond with the righteous might of a nation that will never allow such crimes against humanity to be left unanswered.
Within every Jew's DNA is the experience of when our lineage stepped out of the cattle-cars at Auschwitz and were selected for immediate death in the gas chambers or assigned to slave labor, kept just barely alive until we were no longer of use to the Third Reich.
Industrialized murder at its most efficient was found there, along with places with names such as Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Majdanek and others now known to few but historians. And to Jews.
For the Nazis' "Final Solution to the Jewish question" has left a permanent imprint on generations of Jews who will neither forgive, nor forget, carrying that experience forward as long as the sun shines on this planet. Nor will Jews forget the world's response to the Holocaust when it became apparent to all that Jews who had fallen under Nazi rule were being methodically exterminated. The world simply looked away with indifference as the smoke from the crematoria filled the air.
So when the terrorist organization Hamas murders, tortures, rapes and abducts Jews in Israel, do not be surprised that the Jews of today will respond with the righteous might of a nation that will never allow such crimes against humanity to be left unanswered. Further, in lighting the fuse of open warfare, Hamas has proven itself cynically indifferent to the lives of its own "constituents" in Gaza. Hamas terrorists have repeatedly shown that they are more than willing to sacrifice their neighbors in an effort to destroy Israel.
So it is beyond stunning that U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer would take to the floor of the Senate and demand that Israelis remove Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who now leads a united war cabinet in confronting and destroying Hamas, which has been compared to al-Qaeda and ISIS.
What could possibly motivate Schumer to turn on one of America's most important international allies? Does he have a domestic political agenda that he believes is far more important than confronting Hamas terrorism? Could it be that his remarks have little to do with Israel's response to savagery and everything to do with appealing to voters here in the United States?
Perhaps Schumer needs a history refresher on the reality of the Middle East. Since Israel declared its independence in 1948, it has fought for its very existence. It has faced existential conflict more than a dozen times since its formation. Ironically for Schumer and his Democrat colleagues, it was a Republican president, Richard Nixon, who saved Israel in 1973 when Arab armies launched a surprise attack during the holiest holiday for Jews, Yom Kippur. Nixon directed vital war supplies to be immediately airlifted into Israel, thereby allowing the Jewish state to successfully defend itself, even if at a terrible cost.
Why is Schumer not instead demanding a change of leadership for those who committed these atrocities on October 7: Hamas and Iran?
Urban warfare is deadly, ugly and dreadful. The United States knows this full well, as it, too, has been forced to engage in this kind of combat. But on October 7th, Israelis came face to face with the same vicious evil that met the death trains at Auschwitz. However, unlike 1944, this time, precisely because Jews, like Schumer, finally have a democratic State of Israel, they could respond. It would be wise for Schumer to recognize that he, and all those who embrace humanity, connect to a shared past.
**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.