English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 12/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news

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Bible Quotations For today
I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them
John 10/07-10: “Again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 11-12/2024
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Heavenly Justice Takes Vengeance on Hezbollah’s Terrorist Mastermind, the Criminal Salim Ayyash
Elias Bejjan/Video & Text: Hezbollah: Neither Lebanese Nor Resistance, But an Iranian Armed Jihadist-Terrorist Proxy Imposed on Lebanon and Its Shiite Community
Israel says ‘certain progress’ on Lebanon ceasefire
Israel Sees Progress in Lebanon Ceasefire Talks, Says Russia Can Help
Netanyahu Approved Pager Attacks against Hezbollah, Spokesman Says
Hezbollah says no official ceasefire proposal received yet
Seven killed in Israeli strike on Saksakiyeh in south Lebanon
At least 28 dead or hurt in Israeli strike on Akkar town
Mikati urges support 'for state not groups' amid 'existential' crisis
Hezbollah says not low on missiles, Israel unable to occupy a single town
Al-Rahi: Hezbollah must draw lessons from this destructive war
Berri: We have not been defeated
UK Ambassador commemorates ‘Remembrance Day’ in honor of Armed Forces members
Netanyahu acknowledges Israel was behind Hezbollah pager, walkie-talkie attack
Taiwan: Pagers that Exploded in Lebanon Were Not Made by Taiwanese Firms
At least 56 people, including 20 children, killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza
The Lebanese Rejectionists in Their Loneliness/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
Trump in Dealing with the Gaza and Lebanon Wars/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 11-12/2024
'I get goosebumps': Canadians across the country mark Remembrance Day
Israel's strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken as Gaza deadline nears
Israel says it has met most US demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms
Eyeing Trump support, Israeli minister pushes for West Bank settlement annexation
Israel's military is building along UN-patrolled demilitarized zone in Syria, satellite images show
Arab and Muslim leaders reaffirm support for Palestinian cause at end of Riyadh summit
Saudi Crown Prince: We Stand by Gaza and Lebanon, Reject Attacks on Iran
Saudi crown prince condemns Israel's attacks on Palestinians as 'genocide'
Saudi crown prince says Israel committing 'genocide' in Gaza
Iran aware of reports about Iranian-American journalist's arrest, ministry says
Former UK soldier accused of helping Iran pleads guilty to prison escape
Israel says it has met most U.S. demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms
Israeli Fire Kills 11 Palestinians as Tanks Roll into Central Gaza Camp
Syria’s Homs-Damascus Highway Temporarily Cut Off after Israeli Strike, SANA Says
Iran condemns Israeli assassinations as 'organized terrorism'
Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack near Jerusalem

Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on November 11-12/2024
America Failed Kamala/Daniel Greenfield/Gatestone Institute/November 11, 2024
Today in History: The Battle of Varna (or, ‘May Allah Exterminate Them All!’)/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/November 11, 2024
Only United Ethnic Groups Can Defeat The Islamic Republic Of Iran/Himdad Mustafa/MEMRI Daily Brief No. 673/November 11, 2024
Trump Time and the Mission of Ending the Hostilities/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
Introducing Egypt’s New Anti-Christian Grand Mufti/Raymond Ibrahim/Coptic Solidarity/November 11/2024
Alert: America Must Advance Leadership Role in Clean Fusion Power/Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/November 11, 2024
A diversifying Europe must not tear itself apart/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/November 11, 2024
A new era of hope: Trump’s return and the promise of stability/Khalaf Ahmad Al-Habtoor/Arab News/November 11, 2024

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on November 11-12/2024
Elias Bejjani/Text & Video: Heavenly Justice Takes Vengeance on Hezbollah’s Terrorist Mastermind, the Criminal Salim Ayyash
Elias Bejjani, November 11, 2024
Isaiah 33/01/Woe to you destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you betrayer, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betraying you will be betrayed.
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/11/136707/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7p_aitt-Cv8
Isaiah 33/01/Woe to you, destroyer, you who have not been destroyed! Woe to you, betrayer, you who have not been betrayed! When you stop destroying, you will be destroyed; when you stop betrayingyou will be betrayed.
In an act of divine justice, Hezbollah security leader Salim Ayyash—convicted for the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri along with multiple Lebanese MPs, journalists, and security figures—was reportedly killed by an Israeli airstrike in the town of Qusayr, Syria. Alongside three bodyguards, Ayyash met his fate, fulfilling the adage, “The killer will be killed, even if delayed.” This reflects the concept that God grants time but does not neglect justice. Such outcomes bear testimony to divine intervention in eradicating high-ranking Hezbollah terrorists, figures steeped in the corruption and heresy that Hezbollah’s Iranian-driven mission has wrought on Lebanon and beyond. Yesterday, Israeli Channel 12 announced the airstrike, marking the end of Ayyash’s long, murderous career, which inflicted terror on opponents of Hezbollah’s occupation and malign objectives.
***
Lebanese journalist, Jean Faghali, commented aptly in Nidaa Al-Watan newspaper today is an admonishing critics to refrain from disparaging the Lebanese Army, which he defended by contrasting Hezbollah’s failure to protect its own, leading to the assassinations of its key figures like Imad Mughniyeh, Qassem Soleimani, Mustafa Badreddine, and others—most of whom perished in Israeli strikes with no Hezbollah reprisal demanded against Syria or Iran.
He writes: “Raise your voices against Hezbollah’s shortcomings, not the Lebanese Army.”
In his piece, Jean Faghali draws attention to the series of high-profile Hezbollah figures who have been assassinated, often under puzzling circumstances.
He highlights the lack of accountability within Hezbollah for the repeated breaches in security that allowed these targeted killings. Figures like Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Syria within a tightly secured diplomatic zone managed by Syrian intelligence, raise serious questions. How did Israel’s Mossad penetrate such highly secured areas to eliminate Mughniyeh? Faghali asks why Hezbollah never issued a statement demanding Syria to account for this security breach.
He continues, noting similar cases, such as the assassination of Mustafa Badreddine, also in Syria, and others like Hajj Hassan Nasrallah and top Hezbollah operatives who were struck within Hezbollah-controlled territories in Lebanon, including the southern suburbs of Beirut.
Faghali criticizes Hezbollah for its failure to demand explanations or accept responsibility for these losses. Instead, he argues, critics fixate on perceived flaws within the Lebanese Army while overlooking the severe lapses in Hezbollah’s own security network.
He emphasizes that Hezbollah’s critics only focus on “the splinter in the eye” of the Lebanese Army, while ignoring “the plank in the eyes” of those responsible for guarding Hezbollah’s operatives. Even regarding recent incidents, such as the kidnapping in Batroun, Faghali raises questions: if the kidnapped individual was not affiliated with Hezbollah, why did Sheikh Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy secretary-general, take a significant interest in the matter? And if he was indeed affiliated, why did Hezbollah fail to protect him?
Faghali concludes that Hezbollah, by refusing coordination with the Lebanese Army and acting unilaterally, has no grounds to question or challenge the Army’s stance.
He asserts that the Lebanese Army remains the entity with the authority to ask questions—not Hezbollah. As he firmly states, “Raise your voices away from the Army.”

Elias Bejjan/Video & Text: Hezbollah: Neither Lebanese Nor Resistance, But an Iranian Armed Jihadist-Terrorist Proxy Imposed on Lebanon and Its Shiite Community
Elias Bejjani/November 09/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/11/136656/
The Shiite community in Lebanon has been held hostage by Hezbollah since 1982. This group did not emerge as a voluntary choice for the Shiites, but rather was imposed upon them by armed force during the 1980s under Syrian occupation. This imposition was a calculated agreement between the Iranian regime and the Assad Ba'athist regime, aimed at controlling Lebanon through a proxy force. Hezbollah completed its domination over Lebanon’s Shiite community in 1988, following the battles of Iqlim al-Tuffah, which forced the Amal Movement into submission and transformed it into a symbolic facade that carries out orders without any genuine decision-making power. From the start, Hezbollah has systematically isolated Lebanon’s Shiites from the rest of the Lebanese people, from the state, and from Arab identity, cementing its control over their representation, education, religious institutions, and social frameworks across all areas of Shiite presence in Lebanon. The group’s MPs do not serve the community; they serve Hezbollah’s command and agenda, which aligns solely with Iran’s interests. Hezbollah has militarized the youth, deploying them in battlefields across Syria, Iraq, Yemen, the Gulf, and even Western countries, all to serve the expansionist ambitions of the Iranian regime.
Hezbollah openly declares that it operates within the structure of Iran’s "Army of the Guardianship of the Jurist" (Wilayat al-Faqih), boasting that all its resources—financial, military, and operational—are provided by Iran and dedicated to advancing Iran’s agenda. From its inception, Hezbollah has never been a true resistance force for Lebanon. It is not concerned with liberating Palestine or defending Lebanese sovereignty. Instead, it functions as an obedient arm of Iran, carrying out Iran’s regional strategies with absolute loyalty to Tehran.
Hezbollah is not Lebanese; it is an Iranian military force in Lebanon. Its presence undermines Lebanon’s sovereignty, holds the Shiite community hostage, and drags Lebanon into wars that only serve Iranian interests, particularly the ongoing confrontation with Israel.
The ongoing current war, that Hezbollaha waged against Israel under the guise of "resistance," has nothing to do with Lebanon’s interests or its people’s safety. Hezbollah’s existence in Lebanon as well as its wars serve only the Iranian regime, and its loyalty lies entirely with Tehran—not with Lebanon.
The Lebanese people, and particularly the Shiite community, deserve freedom from this forced allegiance. They deserve a future where they can engage with the Lebanese state and the broader Arab community without the chains of Iranian control. The dismantling of Hezbollah’s hold over Lebanon and its people is imperative for reclaiming Lebanon’s sovereignty, stability, and peace.

Israel says ‘certain progress’ on Lebanon ceasefire
Reuters/November 11, 2024
JERUSALEM/BEIRUT: Israel said on Monday there was progress in talks about a Lebanon ceasefire and indicated Russia could play a part by stopping Hezbollah rearming via Syria, although the Iran-backed group said it had not received any new truce proposals. Pummeled by Israel’s offensive, Hezbollah said diplomatic contacts were under way involving its backers in Tehran, Washington and Moscow, whilst reiterating its readiness to fight on, saying it had enough weapons for a “long war.”In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the war against Hezbollah was not yet over. The main challenge facing any ceasefire deal would be enforcement, he said, though there was “a certain progress” in talks. After previous rounds of fruitless, US-led diplomacy to secure a Lebanon truce, the comments indicate renewed focus on the issue as President Joe Biden prepares to leave office in January, with President-elect Donald Trump set to replace him. Hopes of a Gaza truce have meanwhile suffered a setback, with Qatar suspending its mediation role. Ignited by the Gaza war, the conflict at the Lebanese-Israeli border had been rumbling on for a year before Israel went on the offensive in late September, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south. Saar, addressing a Jerusalem news conference, said Israel was working with United States on a ceasefire. Israel wants Hezbollah north of the Litani river — some 20 miles (30 km) from the border — and unable to rearm, he said.
Saar said a basic principle for any agreement had to be that Hezbollah would not be able to bring weapons into Lebanon from Syria. “It is vital to the success of any arrangement in Lebanon,” he said. “And the Russians are, as you know, present in Syria. And if they are in agreement with this principle, I think they can contribute effectively to this objective.”Russia deployed forces into Syria nearly a decade ago to support President Bashar Assad in the civil war there. Hezbollah also sent fighters to help Assad, and carved out big sway on the ground alongside other Iran-backed groups. Syria is widely seen as a major conduit for Iran to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israel has struck targets in Syria regularly during the conflict. An Israeli airstrike temporarily cut Syria’s main Homs-Damascus highway on Monday, Syrian media reported. In Lebanon, relatives held funerals for 20 people killed in a strike on the southern town of Deir Qanoun-Ras Al-Ain, including seven medics from rescue groups affiliated with Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal.
TESTING THE WATERS
In Beirut, Hezbollah official Mohammad Afif linked intensified political contacts to the looming change of US leadership. “There is a great movement between Washington and Moscow and Tehran and a number of capitals,” he said. “We hear a lot of talk, but so far, according to my information, nothing official has reached Lebanon or us in this regard,” he told a news conference. The contacts were “in the phase of testing the waters and presenting initial ideas.” Israel Hayom reported on Sunday that substantial progress has been made in diplomatic negotiations over a proposed Lebanon ceasefire that would require Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River, barring its military presence near the Israeli border, while the IDF would return to the international border. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s best-selling newspaper, reported on Monday that Israel and Lebanon have exchanged drafts through US envoy Amos Hochstein, signaling progress in efforts to reach a final agreement. The Lebanese government, which includes Hezbollah, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of a UN Resolution that ended a war between the group and Israel in 2006. The resolution calls for the area south of the Litani river to be free of all weapons other than those of the Lebanese state. Lebanon and Israel have accused each other of violating the resolution. Israel says its campaign aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate the north due to rockets fired by Hezbollah, which opened fire on Oct. 8, 2003, in solidarity with Hamas. Israel’s offensive has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes in Lebanon in the last seven weeks. Since the eruption of hostilities a year ago, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,189 people in Lebanon, the vast majority of them since late September, according to health ministry figures, which do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hezbollah attacks have killed roughly 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon over the last year. (Reporting by James Mackenzie in Jerusalem, Laila Bassam, Riham Alkousaa and Maya Gebeily in Beirut; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by William Maclean)

Israel Sees Progress in Lebanon Ceasefire Talks, Says Russia Can Help
Asharq Al Awsat/November 11, 2024
Israel said on Monday there was progress in talks about a Lebanon ceasefire and indicated Russia could play a part by stopping Hezbollah rearming via Syria, although the Iran-backed group said it had not received any new truce proposals. Pummeled by Israel's offensive, Hezbollah said political contacts were under way involving its backers in Tehran, Washington and Moscow, whilst also saying it had enough weapons for a "long war" and keeping up rocket fire into Israel. In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the war against Hezbollah was not yet over. The main challenge facing any ceasefire deal would be enforcement, he said, though there was "a certain progress" in talks. After previous rounds of fruitless, US-led diplomacy to secure a Lebanon truce, the comments indicate renewed focus on the issue as President Joe Biden prepares to leave office in January, with President-elect Donald Trump set to replace him. Hopes of a Gaza truce have meanwhile suffered a setback, with Qatar suspending its mediation role. Ignited by the Gaza war, the conflict at the Lebanese-Israeli border had been rumbling on for a year before Israel went on the offensive in late September, pounding wide areas of Lebanon with airstrikes and sending troops into the south.
Saar, addressing a Jerusalem news conference, said Israel was working with United States on a ceasefire. Israel wants Hezbollah north of the Litani river - some 20 miles (30 km) from the border - and unable to rearm, he said. Saar said a basic principle for any agreement had to be that Hezbollah would not be able to bring weapons into Lebanon from Syria. "It is vital to the success of any arrangement in Lebanon," he said. "And the Russians are, as you know, present in Syria. And if they are in agreement with this principle, I think they can contribute effectively to this objective."Russia deployed forces into Syria nearly a decade ago to support President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war there. Hezbollah also sent fighters to help Assad, and carved out big sway on the ground alongside other Iran-backed groups. Syria is widely seen as a major conduit for Iran to supply weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Israel has struck targets in Syria regularly during the conflict. An Israeli airstrike temporarily cut Syria's main Homs-Damascus highway on Monday, Syrian media reported. In Lebanon, relatives held funerals for 20 people killed in a strike on the southern town of Deir Qanoun-Ras al-Ain, including seven medics from rescue groups affiliated with Hezbollah and its Shiite ally Amal. The Israeli military said more than 150 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel. One barrage set fire to parked cars and a building in a Haifa suburb. Three people suffered moderate and light wounds, the national ambulance service said.
'TESTING THE WATERS'
In Beirut, Hezbollah official Mohammad Afif linked intensified political contacts to the looming change of US leadership. "There is a great movement between Washington and Moscow and Tehran and a number of capitals," he said. "We hear a lot of talk, but so far, according to my information, nothing official has reached Lebanon or us in this regard," he told a news conference. The contacts were "in the phase of testing the waters and presenting initial ideas". Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer was due to meet US Secretary of State Antony Blinken later on Monday in Washington, the State Department said.
Israel Hayom reported on Sunday that substantial progress has been made in diplomatic negotiations over a proposed Lebanon ceasefire that would require Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River, barring its military presence near the Israeli border, while the IDF would return to the international border. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's best-selling newspaper, reported on Monday that Israel and Lebanon have exchanged drafts through US envoy Amos Hochstein, signaling progress in efforts to reach a final agreement. The Lebanese government, which includes Hezbollah, has repeatedly called for a ceasefire based on the full implementation of a UN Resolution that ended a war between the group and Israel in 2006. The resolution calls for the area south of the Litani river to be free of all weapons other than those of the Lebanese state. Lebanon and Israel have accused each other of violating the resolution. Israel says its campaign aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people forced to evacuate the north due to rockets fired by Hezbollah, which opened fire on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas. Israel's offensive has forced more than 1 million people to flee their homes in Lebanon in the last seven weeks. Since the eruption of hostilities a year ago, Israeli attacks have killed more than 3,243 people in Lebanon, the vast majority of them since late September, according to health ministry figures, which do not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hezbollah attacks have killed roughly 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, and southern Lebanon over the last year.

Netanyahu Approved Pager Attacks against Hezbollah, Spokesman Says
Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved pager attacks that dealt a deadly blow to the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group Hezbollah in September, Omer Dostri, spokesperson for his office, said on Monday. The Israeli military, which has been engaged in cross-border fighting with Hezbollah since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, at first declined to respond to questions about the detonations. On Sept. 17, thousands of pagers simultaneously exploded in the southern suburbs of Beirut and other Hezbollah strongholds, in most cases after the devices beeped, indicating an incoming message. A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the incident was the "biggest security breach" for the group in nearly a year of conflict with Israel. Among the victims rushed to hospital, many had eye injuries, missing fingers or gaping holes in their abdomens, Reuters witnesses saw, indicating their proximity to the devices at the time of detonation. In total, the pager attack, and a second on the following day that activated weaponized walkie-talkies, killed 39 people and wounded more than 3,400. Israeli media reported that Netanyahu claimed responsibility for the attack during a cabinet meeting, telling ministers that senior defense officials and political figures were opposed to the detonation of the pagers but that he went ahead with the operation. Hezbollah fighters have been using pagers as a low-tech means of communication in an attempt to evade Israeli location-tracking, two sources familiar with the group's operations told Reuters this year. A pager is a wireless telecommunications device that receives and displays messages. Israel followed up the pager detonations with the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an air strike and launching incursions in south Lebanon.

Hezbollah says no official ceasefire proposal received yet
Reuters/November 11, 2024
Hezbollah has not received any proposals on a truce for Lebanon, a spokesperson said Monday, as Israel's foreign minister said diplomatic efforts had made "progress" and amid Israeli media reports that the cabinet had approved a ceasefire proposal. "So far, according to my information, nothing official has reached Lebanon or us in this regard," the head of Hezbollah's media office, Mohammad Afif, said in news conference in the southern suburbs of Beirut. "I believe that we are still in the phase of testing the waters and presenting initial ideas and proactive discussions, but so far there is nothing actual yet," he added. Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Monday that progress had been made in Lebanon's ceasefire talks but that enforcement remained the most important element. "There is progress," Saar told a press conference on Monday, adding: "the main challenge will be to enforce what will be agreed." Israel Hayom reported on Sunday that substantial progress has been made in diplomatic negotiations over a proposed Lebanon ceasefire that would require Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River, barring its military presence near the Israeli border, while the IDF would return to the international border. Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's best-selling newspaper, reported on Monday that Israel and Lebanon have exchanged drafts through U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, signalling progress in efforts to reach a final agreement.

Seven killed in Israeli strike on Saksakiyeh in south Lebanon
Agence France Presse/November 11/2024
Lebanon's health ministry said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people on Monday, with state media reporting women and children among the dead.
The ministry said that an "Israeli enemy strike on Saksakiyeh... killed seven people and injured seven others in an initial toll", with Lebanon's official National News Agency saying the attack "targeted a house" and killed "mostly women and children", adding that rescuers were searching for missing people under the rubble.

At least 28 dead or hurt in Israeli strike on Akkar town
Agence France Presse/November 11/2024
Lebanese state-run media said Israel struck a house in the northern Akkar region on Monday, one of the farthest attacks from the border in its war against Hezbollah, killing and wounding at least 28 Syrian citizens, displaced Lebanese and town residents.
Lebanese Red Cross chief Georges Kettaneh meanwhile told LBCI television that at least seven people were killed and 14 others wounded in the strike, as TV networks said the strike had been preceded by the bombing of a car near the building. Since September 23, Israel has intensified its air campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon's east, south and south Beirut, rarely targeting the country's north. "An enemy strike targeted a house in the village of Ain Yaacoub," some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from Israel, said Lebanon's official National News Agency. Local official Rony al-Hage told AFP that "displaced people lived in the two-story house" and that it was the northernmost Israeli attack since the full-blown war erupted. After it escalated its air raids, Israel sent ground troops in against Hezbollah in south Lebanon on September 30.
"Rescue and rubble-removing operations are still ongoing," Hage said. Residents of a nearby village heard a loud explosion and ambulance sirens. A local Facebook page broadcast a live video feed it said was from the scene of the strike that showed a completely destroyed house, while people removed the rubble with bare hands, using their phones as flashlights. Lebanon's health ministry earlier said an Israeli strike on the southern town of Saksakiyeh killed at least seven people on Monday. The Lebanon war erupted after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire, launched by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas following their October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. That attack triggered the ongoing Gaza war. More than 3,240 people have been killed in Lebanon since the cross-border fire began last year, according to Lebanon's health ministry, but most of the deaths have come since late September.

Mikati urges support 'for state not groups' amid 'existential' crisis
Agence France Presse/November 11/2024
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati on Monday warned that his country was suffering an "unprecedented" crisis that threatens its existence, as Israel says it is waging war on Hezbollah. "Lebanon is going through an unprecedented historical and existential crisis that threatens its present and future," he told a joint Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit in Riyadh. Mikati urged the international community to support the state, not factions operating in the country, and in a thinly veiled swipe at Iran, urged countries to stop interfering in its affairs. He demanded that countries stop "interfering in its internal affairs by supporting this or that group, but rather support Lebanon as a state and entity". Mikati also called for an immediate cease-fire along the Lebanon-Israel border, saying the war has had devastating effects on the small nation. He called for the implementation of a U.N. resolution that ended the Israel-Hezbollah war in the summer of 2006, and the deployment of Lebanese troops along the border with Israel in coordination with U.N. peacekeepers. Mikati spoke at the opening session of the Arab-Islamic summit. He said the war has caused “unprecedented losses” with more than 3,000 people dead, including 775 women and children. He said the war also had caused $8.5 billion in losses, including $3.4 billion caused by the destruction or damage of about 100,000 housing units in different parts of the country. “No state can take the burden of this huge destruction,” Mikati said, adding that Beirut is about to set up a fund that will be funded by friendly states for the reconstruction process. He said the fund will be under international supervision and subject to international auditing.

Hezbollah says not low on missiles, Israel unable to occupy a single town
Agence France Presse/November 11/2024
Hezbollah said on Monday that the Israeli military has been unable to occupy even a single village in Lebanon since launching cross-border ground operations in September.
"After 45 days of bloody fighting, the enemy is still unable to occupy a single Lebanese village," Hezbollah spokesman Mohammad Afif told a news conference in Beirut’s southern suburbs, which Israel has pounded with air strikes. “Claims about a major decline in our missile stockpile are mere lies,” he added. Commenting on recent remarks that accused Hezbollah of verbally attacking the Lebanese Army, Afif said: “We tell those who fought the army and killed its officers that they won't manage to sever the relation between the army and the resistance.”He was apparently addressing the Lebanese Forces and its allies. Afif stressed that “the enemy will not win the war through air superiority, raids and the killing of civilians including women and children.”“We know that the cost is high and the price is great, but victory needs some patience,” he added. As for the reports about progress in the political negotiations to end the war, Afif said: “There are major political efforts between Tehran, Washington and Moscow, but we have not received anything.” “Lebanon has not received any specific proposals as to halting the aggression,” he clarified. “The current talk about political efforts is due to the steadfastness of the resistance heroes in the battlefield,” he boasted.

Al-Rahi: Hezbollah must draw lessons from this destructive war
Naharnet/November 11/2024
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi has called on Hezbollah to “draw lessons” from its current war with Israel. “Hezbollah must draw lessons from this destructive war in which Israel has displaced 1.5 million Lebanese, killed thousands of innocents and wounded tens of thousands of people. This pattern is continuing every day, amid Arab and international silence, while Lebanon has repeatedly paid the price of the conflict with Israel,” al-Rahi said in an interview with the Nidaa al-Watan newspaper published Monday. Asked whether U.N. Secrurity Council Resolution 1701 can be implemented without the simulatneous implementation of resolutions 1559 and 1680, al-Rahi said “the talk today is limited to the implementation of Resolution 1701.”As for his stance on those who say that “political Shiism has turned Lebanon into a failed state, during whose era citizens lost their bank deposits and all state institutions were paralyzed,” al-Rahi said: “We do not blame political Shiism alone for all these things, but rather general corruption, the successive governments, presidential vacuum, mismanagement and many other things.”

Berri: We have not been defeated
Naharnet/November 11/2024
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has reportedly said that Israel is acting “as if we have lost the war, but we have not been defeated.”“Fighting is ongoing on the battlefield and Israel is incurring losses,” sources quoted Berri as saying in remarks to Al-Arabiya television. “Berri has pledged to implement what was agreed on with U.S. envoy Amos Hochstein, without any addition,” the sources said.
Moreover, the sources said that the Berri has not received any phone call regarding a new visit by Hochstein to Beirut.

UK Ambassador commemorates ‘Remembrance Day’ in honor of Armed Forces members
Naharnet/November 11/2024
On Saturday 9 November, the British Ambassador Hamish Cowell commemorated Remembrance Day. This annual event, which marks the end of the First World War on 11 November 1918, honors the sacrifice of the Armed Forces community from the UK and the Commonwealth and remembers innocent civilians who have lost their lives in conflict and acts of terrorism. The British Ambassador, Hamish Cowell, was joined in giving a reading by the German Ambassador, Kurt Georg Stoeckl-Stillfried, the American Ambassador, Lisa Johnson, and the French Deputy Head of Mission, Bruno Pereira Da Silva. Ambassadors and official representatives laid wreaths. A two minutes’ silence was held at the end of the service to mark the end of World War One. The service was conducted by Archdeacon Imad Zoorob, Rector of All Saints Anglican Episcopal Church. Also in attendance was the British Defense Attaché, Lt. Col. Charles Smith and representatives of the Lebanese Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, the Head of the Internal Security Forces General Imad Othman and the Acting Director General of the General Security, Brigadier Elias Al-Baysari. Ambassadors, diplomats and military attachés of U.S., European and Commonwealth countries were also present.

Netanyahu acknowledges Israel was behind Hezbollah pager, walkie-talkie attack
Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA TODAY/November 11, 2024
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged for the first time that he greenlit an operation on Iran-backed Hezbollah militants in September that saw thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies explode across Lebanon and parts of Syria, killing dozens. During a weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday, Netanyahu said the attacks and Israel's assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed that same month in an airstrike on Beirut, were carried out "despite the opposition" of some Israeli officials, according to comments leaked to the Times of Israel. Netanyahu's comments came after he fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Tuesday, the culmination of long-simmering disagreements between the two about how Israel should carry out wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Netanyahu said a "crisis of trust" had developed between the two. He appointed Foreign Minister Israel Katz to take over the position. Gallant was a close counterpart to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and the two spoke often. His firing, on the day of the U.S. election, was seen by some Israel watchers as Netanyahu sweeping under the rug a move to weed out dissent in his government. One U.S. official said it was cause for alarm. The pager attacks escalated Israel's attacks on Hezbollah. Days afterwards, Israel ramped up its airstrikes on Lebanese territory, mostly in the southern part of the country and the southern suburbs of Beirut. Israeli troops subsequently entered Lebanon to conduct ground raids for the first time since 2006. The latest Israeli attacks on Lebanon came on Saturday, killing 53 people and bringing the death toll in the country to 3,186, according to local officials. Hezbollah has kept up a near-daily barrage of rocket launches on northern Israel for more than a year – since Oct. 7, 2023, when its ally Hamas, which is also backed by Iran, carried out a surprise attack on Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking more than 200 hostage. Israel launched its ongoing siege of Gaza in response, which has killed at least 43,000 Palestinians, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. This has created a spiraling humanitarian crisis in the densely-packed enclave. Both Hezbollah and Hamas are part of a group of Iran-funded militias in the region known as the "axis of resistance."

Taiwan: Pagers that Exploded in Lebanon Were Not Made by Taiwanese Firms
Asharq Al Awsat/November 11, 2024
Taiwan on Monday said it had closed a probe into pagers that exploded in Lebanon in September and caused a deadly blow to Iran-backed Hezbollah, saying no Taiwanese citizens or companies were involved. Security sources have previously said the pagers carried the name of Taiwan-based Gold Apollo, a company which has asserted that it did not make them. Taiwan's government has also said the pagers were not made in Taiwan, Reuters said. Taipei prosecutors, who were investigating the case, said in a statement the AR-924 pager model that exploded in Lebanon was manufactured, traded, and shipped by a firm called Frontier Group Entity, and made outside of Taiwan. They added, however, that Gold Apollo had authorized the company to use the Apollo trademark. "There is no evidence indicating that any domestic manufacturers or individuals were accomplices in the relevant explosions, violating the Counter-Terrorism Financing Act, or engaging in other illegal activities," the prosecutors said in a statement. "No concrete evidence of criminal activity has been discovered in this case, nor have any specific individuals been implicated in any criminal activity, following a comprehensive investigation."

At least 56 people, including 20 children, killed in Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and Gaza
Paul Godfrey/(UPI)/November 11, 2024
Dozens of people were killed in Israeli military strikes on northern Lebanon and the Gaza strip, including as many as 20 children, authorities said. At least 23 people, including seven children, were killed and six injured in airstrikes Sunday north of the Lebanese capital, Beirut, in Almat near Byblos, the BBC quoted Lebanon's health ministry as saying. The Israel Defense Forces said Hezbollah was operating from the site it had targeted and claimed the group was using it to store weapons, adding that it had taken exhaustive measures to "mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, including the use of aerial surveillance and precise intelligence".At the other end of the country, three paramedics were also killed in an Israeli attack on Adloun, near Sidon, in the south. In Gaza, at least 25 people, 13 of them children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a residence in Jabalia in the north in which more than 30 people were also injured, according to Gaza's civil defense agency. A further five people were killed in Gaza City's Sabra district in an airstrike on a house, according to the CDA, which said the death toll could rise as some people were unaccounted for. The IDF told CNN it had hit "a terrorist infrastructure site in the area of Jabalia" that was endangering its troops operating in the area. "The details are under review," said the Israeli military, which reiterated that it had taken measures to minimize the likelihood of hurting civilians. The charity Save the Children condemned the attacks saying they were part of a war on children.
The number of people killed in Lebanon since Israel began its latest military campaign in late September was 3,189 and 14,078 injured, as of Sunday morning, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. "Parents, children, and grandchildren among at least 32 people reported killed in Israeli dawn strikes on Jabalia residence northern," Middle East regional director Jeremy Stoner wrote in a post on X. "The U.N. has confirmed children are the main victims of residential strikes. Make no mistake: this is a war on children." Figures posted online by the Hamas-run Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza on Sunday morning show 43,603 people killed and 102,929 injured since Israel began its military campaign immediately after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks. Israel disputes the casualty statistics, saying Hamas exaggerates the true figure and does not distinguish between combatants and civilians -- but the United Nations' various agencies use them, with a disclaimer acknowledging they are unverified. The number of people killed in Lebanon since Israel began its latest military campaign in late September was 3,189 and 14,078 injured, as of Sunday morning, according to the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. Sunday's attacks come as a 30-day U.S. deadline nears for Israel to take "concrete measures" to improve the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza or risk losing military assistance provided by Washington, as demanded by U.S. law. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Security Lloyd Austin wrote Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer on Oct. 13 expressing deep concern at the "increasingly dire humanitarian situation" facing more than 2 million civilians in Gaza and calling for "urgent and sustained action by your government this month to reverse this trajectory." They said the U.S. departments of State and Defense were legally obligated to continually assess whether Israel is facilitating, and not arbitrarily denying, restricting or otherwise impeding, directly or indirectly, the uninterrupted delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance and U.S. government-supported international assistance efforts.
The State Department must conduct a similar assessment under Section 620I of the Foreign Assistance Act to provide additional Foreign Military Financing assistance to Israel, the letter said. The communication also refers to a National Security Memo signed by U.S. President Joe Biden in February requiring that countries in receipt of U.S. military aid that are engaged in a military conflict allow the free transfer of U.S.-supported humanitarian aid without interruption.

The Lebanese Rejectionists in Their Loneliness
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
In the most recently broadcast speech of new Hezbollah Secretary General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, and in Resistance Axis supporters’ comments on the ongoing catastrophe, there is a loneliness that induces pity but also induces fear. This loneliness is not just a matter of isolation, as their rhetoric disregards everything else happening around us- and above and below us. We only find rocket barrages fired at Israel and hits on a group of enemy soldiers, a tank or a bulldozer; there are also Israelis forced into shelters, and, of course, we have the strange “field” that has been “between us and them” since the late Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah uttered this phrase. This is not to say that this military activity has no utility at all, but to say that it should be measured against the immense challenges posed by the security arrangements that will likely be imposed on Lebanon now that its border region has become scorched earth. Because the Resistance Axis’s (five or six) catchphrases are concerned only with themselves and their tendency for self-adulation impedes comparison and quantified evaluation, the number of those giving these catchphrases any attention is dwindling, while they leave everyone else yawning.
At best, such phrases (increasingly) tell us very little about the broad direction the war is taking and covers and shows us less and less of the entire picture, which is dominated by Israel’s indescribably savage rampage. Along with the extensive death and destruction, which includes the damage done to Hezbollah itself, the very foundations of Lebanon’s nationhood have begun to crack and perhaps even to be ripped out. The Israelis, regardless of how far they take their evil, could not dream of inflicting greater harm than this on those they intend to harm.
If the theory that Benjamin Netanyahu will become more brutal in the two months between now and Donald Trump’s inauguration, we can expect episodes even more horrifying than the extreme horrors we have been living through for just over a year, and we can also anticipate their depressing political implications. However, there are other sides to this loneliness that are made more apparent with the introduction of an external factor like the US presidential elections.
Going against the global consensus, which spans the entire spectrum of opinion about it, on the significance and immense implications of this development Sheikh Qassem deemed it a non-issue that he couldn’t care less about. Mind you, one scenario that could follow in the near future is a maximum pressure campaign on Iran, whereby the only way it could avoid an attack within its borders is to retreat back into them. That is why it is becoming noticeable that Iranian political officials do not have the luxury of exhibiting the same loneliness and indecision as their followers. And so, we now see them coupling their familiar rhetoric about "the resistance’s certain victory" with increasingly nuanced assertions in response to current events. The latest example of this is Ali Larijani, an advisor to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, stating that "Israel wants to take the conflict to Iran" and thus, "we must act wisely to avoid its trap and not react instinctively." The fact is that the only pulse of the Resistance Axis’s weak and repetitive resistance catchphrases- the less than five or six of them- are shallow arguments meant to convince us that the corpse is alive and that, on top of that, it is armed with coherent reasoning that explains its presence and role. However, the reason they are swiftly overlooked might be that they do not, in fact, constitute a solid ideological position and narrative- even when it opens the door to squabbles, a monologue is never a prelude to real debate.
For instance, as soon as an argument blaming the army for having failed to safeguard Lebanon’s sovereignty began to make the rounds following the incident in Batroun, it was met with a torrent of mockery and ridicule on social media. Indeed, those echoing this reproach were not held back by the collapse of Lebanon's sovereignty across the country because of Hezbollah’s decisions and actions.
Moreover, the claim that Israel does not need a pretext to attack Lebanon ignores the fact that the very existence of Hezbollah, with its arms and its explicit desire to annihilate Israel, is the ultimate pretext.
We should also note that, historically, the absence of a pretext had spared Lebanon, allowing it to avoid being dragged into the wars of 1967 and 1973; the policies of Hezbollah's predecessors, on the other hand, did nothing but create pretexts: this was true of the 1969 Cairo Agreement, which effectively nullified the 1949 armistice, and the successful effort to kill the “treasonous” May 17 Agreement. What if we applied this inane argument to Iraq and said that Israel will strike it regardless of pretexts, at a time when various Iraqi, Arab, and international actors are making futile attempts to remove the pretext, the rockets launched by the "Jihadist factions?”The truth is that the things we are seeing and hearing today, some samples of which were mentioned here, are the kinds of hallucinations that loneliness could engender. Hallucination cannot lead a country, any country, and determine its fate.

Trump in Dealing with the Gaza and Lebanon Wars
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
When Donald Trump won his first presidency, it came as a surprise. We knew very little about him—his personality, ideas, or leadership style. In a closed seminar, one of his close associates said, “His strength is also his flaw; he has a strong personality, so beware of angering him—he might just throw you under the bus.” It turned out he wasn’t wrong. This new version of Trump appears to be different from the first. He seems less aggressive, more willing to listen, and seems to have a broader understanding of political issues.
We’re cautiously optimistic as he begins, given his immense popularity at home. This domestic support gives him a strong foundation for both internal and external influence. He won every battle of his campaign, and his opponents have laid down their arms, recognizing his victory. We know his abilities from his previous presidency—he has the courage and energy to bring significant change. Like any president entering a second term, he’ll aim to make his mark in the history books. It may be overly hopeful to see Trump as the man who will end wars and conflicts, or even say he can “save the planet.” However, he has promised to work toward these goals. Currently, there’s the Ukraine and European war, conflicts in Gaza and Lebanon, the question of a Palestinian state, tensions with Iran, the Houthis’ presence at the entrance to the Red Sea, the end of the US military presence in Iraq and Syria, North Korea’s threats to US allies, and perhaps the most challenging issue—strained relations with China, both politically and militarily, in regions like the Philippines and Taiwan. Trump has often spoken about his ability to leverage his relationship with Russian President Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Europe and Russia are both bogged down in this conflict; after nearly two years, Russia hasn’t been able to take over Ukraine, nor have the Ukrainians succeeded in driving out Russian forces. A military resolution seems out of reach.
Finding a solution in Ukraine might be easier than addressing the complex and overlapping conflicts in the Middle East. Can Trump navigate this landscape, where previous presidents like Biden, George W. Bush, Clinton, and Reagan saw their efforts falter?
Reports suggest that Trump has already begun unofficial and unpublicized efforts to mediate an end to the hostilities between Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon. This implies that combatants may continue fighting until after January 20, when Trump officially enters the White House and might announce the first peace deal.
Until then, over the next two months, Trump will leave Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to continue military operations to weaken Hamas and Hezbollah. Once in office, Trump could press all three sides to negotiate, with each making concessions: Hamas could release hostages, Israel might accept Palestinian Authority leadership in Gaza, and the Lebanese army would take control of the south, disarming Hezbollah. Trump supports Israel’s demand to prevent Hezbollah from rebuilding its military capability. This would make for a limited agreement, but the negotiators representing Hezbollah would have little choice. Without an agreement, Israel might expand operations in southern Lebanon, escalating its military actions, and Lebanon might eventually have to accept terms it currently rejects. If an agreement is reached, it would be a positive step as it would bring an end to the longest-running conflict with Israel in the region’s history. If Trump can oversee these trilateral agreements in January, as expected, it would set the stage for the bigger challenge: seeking a potential deal with Iran.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 11-12/2024
'I get goosebumps': Canadians across the country mark Remembrance Day
Jim Bronskill and Laura Osman/The Canadian Press/November 11, 2024
OTTAWA — An echoing peal of cannon fire signalled the start of a moment of silence Monday in St. John's, N.L., and throngs of people along the city's two main downtown streets fell quiet and bowed their heads. Across Canada, dignitaries marked Remembrance Day by laying wreaths at ceremonies, school children sang in the late fall chill and veterans recalled the horrors of battle. Canadians gathered in cities and towns to honour the sacrifice of men and women in uniform who gave their lives in service of the country's values and principles. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon paid their respects in a ceremony at the National War Memorial in Ottawa. They were joined by this year's Silver Cross Mother, Maureen Anderson of New Brunswick, whose two sons served in Afghanistan. Sgt. Ron Anderson and Sgt. Ryan Anderson each died after a battle with post-traumatic stress disorder. Their mother represented the mothers left behind by all service members killed in the line of duty. The mournful sound of the Last Post was heard at cenotaphs and monuments as Canadians took a moment at 11 a.m. to pay silent respects to the fallen. "Throughout our history, the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces have kept our country safe," Trudeau said in a social media post before the Ottawa ceremony. "Some returned home from the battlefield and were never the same. Others never returned at all. It is a debt we can never repay, and one we will never forget." Veterans Affairs Canada estimates the current Canadian war veteran population at 7,300 people — 6,142 men and 1,158 women — based on 2021 census data. Royal Canadian Legion president Berkley Lawrence, 70, said the day gives people a "chance to remember what happened, how we get our freedom today."It was the first Remembrance Day in St. John's to be held at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The soldier fought and died in France during the First World War, and was reinterred in Newfoundland this year. Sculptor Morgan MacDonald, who made the bronze forget-me-not flowers that decorate the tomb, said it was an honour to be given such important work. Joanne Geddes, district commander of the Nova Scotia and Nunavut legions, said she was touched to see how many people of all ages turned up despite wind and rain at the cenotaph in Halifax's Grand Parade. Hearing the bands play and the cannons ring out brought on chills, Geddes said. "I get goosebumps. I well up. It’s emotional in a good way, in a sad way." Paul Baiden, who served during the Cold War era, said he was thinking of mates from aircraft carrier HMCS Bonaventure "and everybody, basically, that lost their lives."
"Every day my group gets smaller," he said in Ottawa as a tear formed in his eye. "From our crew … there's maybe 20 of us left."In the national capital, the sunny sky turned grey and light rain fell, matching the solemn mood.
Ninety-eight-year-old John Preece, who was a private in the Second World War, said it is difficult to explain what it's like to be in combat. "When you face somebody shooting at you, and you don't even know them and they don't know you. And it's not very nice, and that's all I can say. It's really a terrible scene." John Young, 66, a retired chief warrant officer, asked that Canadians think of troops in Latvia who have left behind spouses and children — and all the high school and kindergarten graduations they will miss. "This is the commitment that people who wear the uniform have agreed to willingly," he said. "I reflect on my own mother. I have no idea of the angst that she went through when both my brother and I were deployed at the same time. In her later years, she said, 'I didn’t sleep when you guys were gone.'"Each cannon boom from a 21-gun salute set off a wave of car alarms in Montreal during a ceremony held in English, French and occasionally Mohawk. Matthew Krisko-MacCormack brought a photo of his grandfather, late First World War veteran Joseph MacCormack. He said he was thinking of people like his grandfather, who left his small P.E.I. farming community to defend home and country, and who later died as a result of injuries he suffered overseas. Former Ontario lieutenant governor Richard Rohmer helped lead ceremonies at the provincial Veterans' Memorial outside Queen's Park in Toronto. The 100-year-old Rohmer told the crowd about his role helping to end the Second World War as a reconnaissance fighter pilot, taking out a key bridge in the Netherlands that trapped German forces in May 1945. Unable to cross the river, the Germans surrendered, he recalled. "I'm just lucky to be alive."

Israel's strategic affairs minister to meet Blinken as Gaza deadline nears
Kanishka Singh/Reuters/November 11, 2024
Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer will meet with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday in Washington, the State Department said, as a deadline set by Washington to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza nears. The meeting will take place at 5 p.m. ET (2200 GMT), according to the department's public schedule, which did not offer further details. Hopes for a truce in Israel's war in Gaza suffered a setback, with Qatar suspending its role as a mediator in negotiations. Israel separately said on Monday there was progress in talks about a ceasefire in its war in Lebanon. The U.S. government said in an Oct. 13 letter that Israel had 30 days to take specific steps to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where Israel's military assault in the last 13 months has displaced nearly the entire population, caused a hunger crisis and led to allegations of genocide at the World Court, which Israel denies. Since that letter, Blinken has urged Israel to substantially increase humanitarian aid. Earlier this month, he spoke to Dermer and discussed a diplomatic solution in Lebanon as well as ending the war in Gaza, according to the State Department. Some analysts say Democratic President Joe Biden's administration may no longer have enough leverage after Republican Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. He is set to take office on Jan. 20. The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7, 2023, when Palestinian Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's subsequent assault on Gaza has killed over 43,000, according to Gaza's health ministry. Israel's separate military operations in Lebanon have killed over 3,000 and displaced over a million. Israel says it is targeting Lebanese Hezbollah militants.

Israel says it has met most US demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms
Reuters/November 12, 2024
JERUSALEM: Israel said on Monday it had met most demands by the United States to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza but was still discussing some items as a deadline looms to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on US military aid. There are a number of things that remain under discussion and they touch on safety issues, an Israeli official told reporters. He said most issues had been addressed. Among the US demands that Israel appears to have refused is allowing the entry of 50-100 commercial trucks a day. The official said commercial activity had been halted because Hamas was controlling the merchants. Restrictions on the entry of closed containers would also not be lifted due to security risks, the official said. Others, including the opening of a fifth crossing into Gaza, have been implemented. The United States told its ally Israel in a letter on Oct. 13 that it must take steps to improve the aid situation within 30 days, with Tuesday as the final deadline. Last week, the State Department said Israel had taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but had so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday he had met the US ambassador and was confident that “we can reach an understanding with our American friends and that the issue will be solved.”Last week, a committee of global food security experts warned of a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in certain areas of northern Gaza, a claim which Israel rejected outright.
The Israeli official said Israel had added entrances into Gaza, expanded the humanitarian zone, increased security for aid vehicles and managed joint task forces with the international community and many others as part of the process to improve the humanitarian situation.
Israel began a wide military offensive in northern Gaza early last month. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US envoy to the UN, said on Oct. 16 that Washington was watching to ensure Israel’s actions on the ground show it does not have a “policy of starvation” in the north.

Eyeing Trump support, Israeli minister pushes for West Bank settlement annexation
Dana Karni and Mick Krever, CNN/November 11, 2024
Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has ordered preparations for the annexation of settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Smotrich, who is in charge of the settlements, said on Monday that he had instructed his department to “prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty.”It is unclear whether his long-standing desire to apply full Israeli law in West Bank settlements has any chance of being implemented soon. Earlier Monday, Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s new foreign minister, had said the government had made no decision on the issue of annexation as yet, but noted it had been discussed during Donald Trump’s first term as US president and added that “if it will be relevant it will be discussed again with our friends in Washington.” Observers said Smotrich’s announcement was likely motivated in large part by staking out political ground in Israel’s fractious domestic politics.
Still, it drew swift condemnation from the Palestinian Authority, whose foreign affairs ministry characterized such comments as “a blatantly colonial and racist extension of the ongoing campaign of extermination and forced displacement against the Palestinian people.” Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority’s presidency, said Smotrich’s comments confirmed “the Israeli government’s intention to finalize its plans for taking control of the West Bank by 2025” and said he held both the “Israeli occupation authorities” and the US administration responsible for allowing Israel to “persist in its crimes, aggression and defiance of international legitimacy and international law.”
Trump victory brings ‘opportunity’
Smotrich told the Knesset, or Israeli parliament, that US President-elect Donald Trump’s victory in the US election “brings an important opportunity for the State of Israel.”The “only way to remove” the “threat” of a Palestinian state, Smotrich added, “is to apply Israeli sovereignty over the entire settlements in Judea and Samaria,” the biblical term by which Israelis refer to the West Bank. Israel has occupied the West Bank since seizing the territory from Jordan in 1967. In the decades since, it has expanded Jewish settlements in the area, which are considered illegal under international law, despite signing a series of peace agreements with the Palestinians in the 1990s. Around half a million Israelis live in West Bank settlements. Smotrich, himself a settler, has long called for Israeli law to apply in the settlements, and previously opposed the creation of an independent Palestinian state. The minister said he intends to “lead a government decision” that will allow Israel to “work with the new administration of President Trump and the international community to apply sovereignty and achieve American and international recognition.”During his first term, Trump took several steps in Israel’s favor. In 2017, he recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, upending decades of US policy and international consensus. He also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which it captured from Syria during the 1967 war and is also considered occupied under international law. “I have instructed the Settlement Division in the Ministry of Defense and the Civil Administration to begin professional and comprehensive work to prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty,” Smotrich said on Monday. “In his first term, President Trump led dramatic steps, including… affirming the legality and legitimacy of settlements in Judea and Samaria,” Smotrich added. “Alongside this, there were the Abraham Accords – peace for peace.” Those accords, a set of agreements facilitated by Trump’s first administration, saw Israel normalize relations with four Arab nations. “We were on the verge of applying sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria, and now the time has come to do so.”Hamas, the Palestinian militant group Israel is fighting in Gaza, said Smotrich’s comments confirmed “the colonial intentions of the occupation” and “refutes the claims of those who are delusional about achieving peace and coexistence” with Israel.
Another militant group, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, said it was “tantamount to an admission of the open war waged by the criminal entity against the Palestinian people.”CNN has asked Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office for reaction to Smotrich’s announcement.

Israel's military is building along UN-patrolled demilitarized zone in Syria, satellite images show
Jon Gambrell/November 11, 2024
Israel has begun a construction project along the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria, apparently laying asphalt for a road right along the frontier, satellite photos analyzed by The Associated Press show. Israeli troops have entered the demilitarized zone during the work, the United Nations confirmed to the AP, a violation of the cease-fire rules governing the area. The work, which earlier satellite photos show began in earnest in late September, follows the completion by the Israeli military of new roadways and what appears to be a buffer zone along the Gaza Strip's frontier with Israel. The Israel military also has begun demolishing villages in Lebanon, where United Nations peacekeepers have come under fire. So far, there has been no major violence along the Alpha Line, which delineates the demilitarized zone between Syria and Israeli-occupied territory that U.N. peacekeepers have patrolled since 1974.

Arab and Muslim leaders reaffirm support for Palestinian cause at end of Riyadh summit
Arab News/November 11/2024
In closing statement they reiterate their backing for the Palestinian people and the fight for their legitimate rights
These include the right to freedom, the right to an independent sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return for refugees
RIYADH: The leaders of Arab and Muslim countries who attended an extraordinary summit in Riyadh on Monday to discuss Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon issued a closing statement in which they affirmed the importance of the Palestinian cause, and their firm support for the Palestinian people and their efforts to achieve their legitimate and inalienable national rights. These rights include the right to freedom, the leaders said, the right to an independent and sovereign state with East Jerusalem as its capital, the right of return for refugees, the right to the compensation to which they are due in accordance with international resolutions, and the right to challenge any attempts to deny or undermine these rights. The leaders also reaffirmed their support for the full sovereignty of the State of Palestine over occupied East Jerusalem. They said Jerusalem remains a red line for Arab and Muslim nations, and expressed absolute solidarity in protecting the Arab and Islamic identity of occupied East Jerusalem and defending the sanctity of Islamic and Christian holy sites there.They also affirmed their absolute support for Lebanon, including its security, stability, sovereignty and the safety of its citizens.

Saudi Crown Prince: We Stand by Gaza and Lebanon, Reject Attacks on Iran
Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Crown Prince and Prime Minister, stressed on Monday the Kingdom’s categorical rejection of Israel’s attacks on Gaza. He made his remarks while opening the extraordinary Arab-Islamic summit in Riyadh. Crown Prince Mohammed expressed solidarity with Lebanon and declared his rejection of attempts to undermine the role of the Palestinian Authority and efforts to hinder the role of humanitarian agencies in Gaza. He condemned attempts to thwart the work of UNRWA in the Palestinian territories, while underscoring the need for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state. Crown Prince Mohammed also highlighted Saudi Arabia’s launch of an international coalition for supporting the two-state solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He also announced his rejection of attacks on Iranian territories. Arab and Islamic leaders arrived in Riyadh on Monday to attend the summit. Speaking at the opening of the event, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared: “We condemn the systematic killing of Palestinians in Gaza and we reject their displacement.” “We must work together to implement the two-state solution,” he urged, while voicing commitment to just and fair peace. Jordan’s King Abdullah II said: “We must focus our efforts immediately on ending the Israeli siege on Gaza and ending the humanitarian catastrophe.” “These wars must stop so that we can prevent the region from slipping into a wide-scale conflict,” he added. “The region is enduring a tragedy that demands immediate action,” he stressed. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas expressed his gratitude to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed for supporting the drive for countries to recognize a Palestinian state, noting that it was the foundation for achieving stability and peace. He demanded the implementation of United Nations Security Council resolution 2735 that would stop the Israeli assault and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. He also called on the international community to impose sanctions on Israel, accusing it of committing “genocide against the Palestinian people for over a year.”Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for “isolating Israel on the international stage should it fail to end its attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.”He also called for “imposing an arms and trade embargo against it.”The solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict lies in the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, he stressed. Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said his country is “going through an unprecedented historic and fateful crisis.”“Israel cannot continue with its assault on Lebanon and its people,” he demanded, saying over 3,000 people have been killed and the human losses are devastating. Mikati urged the gatherers to continue on sending aid to Lebanon. On the regional level, he said the greatest challenge lies in the Palestinian cause and the suffering of the Palestinian people, echoing demands for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Saudi crown prince condemns Israel's attacks on Palestinians as 'genocide'
Reuters/November 11, 2024
Saudi Arabia's crown prince and de facto ruler condemned what he called the "genocide" committed by Israel against Palestinians during a speech at a summit of leaders of Muslim and Arab countries in Riyadh on Monday. "The Kingdom renews its condemnation and categorical rejection of the genocide committed by Israel against the brotherly Palestinian people," Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said at an Arab Islamic summit, echoing comments by Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud late last month. He urged the international community to stop Israel from attacking Iran and to respect Iran's sovereignty. The crown prince said in September the kingdom would not recognise Israel unless a Palestinian state were created. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration had sought to broker a normalisation accord between Saudi Arabia and Israel that would have included U.S. security guarantees for the kingdom, among other bilateral deals between Washington and Riyadh. Those normalisation efforts were put on ice after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas militants from Gaza and Israel's subsequent retaliation. Israel's military assault on Gaza in the last 13 months has killed tens of thousands, displaced nearly its entire population, caused a hunger crisis and led to allegations of genocide at the World Court, which Israel denies.

Saudi crown prince says Israel committing 'genocide' in Gaza
Frank Gardner - BBC Security Correspondent and Hafsa Khalil - BBC News/November 11, 2024
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has condemned Israel’s actions in Gaza as “genocide” in some of the harshest public criticism of the country by a Saudi official since the start of the war. Speaking at a summit of Muslim and Arab leaders the prince also criticised Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Iran, and - in a sign of improving ties between rivals Riyadh and Tehran, warned that Israel should not launch attacks on Iranian soil. Saudi's de facto leader was joined by other leaders present in calling for a total Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister said it was a “failing of the international community” that the war in Gaza had not been stopped, accusing Israel of causing starvation there. Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al-Saud said: "Where the international community primarily has failed is ending the immediate conflict and putting an end to Israel’s aggression.”
The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack, which saw hundreds of gunmen enter southern Israel. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 others taken hostage. Israel retaliated by launching a military campaign to destroy Hamas, during which more than 43,400 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. A report by the UN’s Human Rights Office found that close to 70% of verified victims over a six-month period in Gaza were women and children. Leaders at the summit also condemned what they described as Israel's “continuous attacks” against UN staff and facilities in Gaza. Last month, the Knesset passed a bill to ban the Unrwa, the UN Palestinian refugee agency, from operating in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, accusing the organisation of colluding with Hamas. Several countries, including the US and the UK, have expressed serious concern about the move limiting the agency’s ability to transfer aid to Gaza. In the backdrop of the well-attended summit, is Donald Trump’s return to the White House. Gulf leaders are aware of his closeness to Israel, but they also have good relations with him, and want him to use his influence and his fondness for deal-making to secure an end to conflicts in this region. In Saudi Arabia, Trump is viewed much more favourably than Joe Biden, but his track record in the Middle East is mixed. He pleased Israel and angered the Muslim world by recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as well as the annexation of the occupied Golan Heights. He also secured the Abraham Accords in 2020 which saw the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco establish full diplomatic relations with Israel and Sudan agree to do so. Still, one editorial in a leading Saudi newspaper today is titled: “A new era of hope. Trump’s return and the promise of stability.”

Iran aware of reports about Iranian-American journalist's arrest, ministry says
Reuters/November 11, 2024
Iran's foreign ministry is aware of reports about the arrest of Iranian-American journalist Reza Valizadeh in Iran, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei said on Monday. Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that Reza Valizadeh, an Iranian-American journalist who once worked for a U.S. government-funded broadcaster, was believed to have been detained by Iran for some months. "We are aware of reports regarding the arrest of one Iranian national, he is an Iranian national and I do not have information on his second citizenship. We are in contact with relevant institutions to follow up on the case," Baghaei said when asked about Valizadeh in a press conference. Iran does not recognise second nationalities and treats dual nationals solely as Iranians. The U.S. State Department had earlier acknowledged the imprisonment of Valizadeh, who previously worked for Radio Farda, an outlet under Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that is overseen by the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

Former UK soldier accused of helping Iran pleads guilty to prison escape
Reuters/November 11, 2024
A British soldier accused of passing sensitive information to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps pleaded guilty on Monday to escaping from prison while awaiting trial. Daniel Abed Khalife is on trial at London's Woolwich Crown Court, accused of collecting sensitive information between May 2019 and January 2022. Khalife, who is no longer a member of the British armed forces, also denies leaving a fake bomb on a desk and absconding from his barracks in 2023. Prosecutors had also alleged Khalife escaped from London's Wandsworth prison in September 2023 by tying himself to the bottom of a delivery van, sparking a brief nationwide manhunt. The 23-year-old had originally pleaded not guilty to escaping from lawful custody, but changed his plea to guilty on Monday after having given evidence for several days earlier this month. Khalife is also charged with gathering information that might be useful to an enemy, namely Iran, obtaining information likely to be useful for terrorism and perpetrating a bomb hoax. He still denies those three charges and his trial continues.

Israel says it has met most U.S. demands on Gaza aid as deadline looms
Emily Rose/JERUSALEM (Reuters)/November 11, 2024
Israel said on Monday it had met most demands by the United States to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza but was still discussing some items as a deadline looms to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on U.S. military aid. There are a number of things that remain under discussion and they touch on safety issues, an Israeli official told reporters. He said most issues had been addressed. Among the U.S. demands that Israel appears to have refused is allowing the entry of 50-100 commercial trucks a day. The official said commercial activity had been halted because Hamas was controlling the merchants. Restrictions on the entry of closed containers would also not be lifted due to security risks, the official said. Others, including the opening of a fifth crossing into Gaza, have been implemented. The United States told its ally Israel in a letter on Oct. 13 that it must take steps to improve the aid situation within 30 days, with Tuesday as the final deadline. Last week, the State Department said Israel had taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but had so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said on Monday he had met the U.S. ambassador and was confident that "we can reach an understanding with our American friends and that the issue will be solved".Last week, a committee of global food security experts warned of a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in certain areas of northern Gaza, a claim which Israel rejected outright. The Israeli official said Israel had added entrances into Gaza, expanded the humanitarian zone, increased security for aid vehicles and managed joint task forces with the international community and many others as part of the process to improve the humanitarian situation. Israel began a wide military offensive in northern Gaza early last month. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. envoy to the U.N., said on Oct. 16 that Washington was watching to ensure Israel's actions on the ground show it does not have a "policy of starvation" in the north.

Israeli Fire Kills 11 Palestinians as Tanks Roll into Central Gaza Camp
Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
Israeli forces sent tanks into the western side of Gaza's Nuseirat camp on Monday in a new incursion into the enclave's central area, and Palestinian medics said Israeli military strikes had killed at least 11 people since Sunday night. Residents said Israeli tanks opened fire as they rolled into that sector of the camp, one of the Gaza Strip's eight historic refugee sites, causing panic among the population and displaced families. One resident, Zaik Mohammad, said the tanks' advance was a complete surprise. "Some people couldn't leave and remained trapped inside their homes, appealing to be allowed out, while others rushed out with whatever they could carry as they fled," Mohammad, 25, who lives one kilometer away from the targeted area, told Reuters via a chat app. With the war in Gaza now in its 14th month, Israel is focusing its operations in the north and center in what it says is a campaign to stop Hamas fighters waging attacks and to prevent them from regrouping. Tens of thousands of Palestinian residents have been told to evacuate the areas, fueling fears that they may never be allowed to return. The already slim chances of a ceasefire receded further at the weekend when mediator Qatar said it was suspending its efforts until both Israel and Hamas showed greater willingness to reach an agreement. In attacks overnight and into Monday, medics said seven people were killed in Nuseirat in two separate Israeli airstrikes, one that hit a tent encampment. In the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya, where Israeli forces have operated since Oct. 5, medics said four people were killed in an Israeli airstrike. At Kamal Adwan Hospital near Beit Lahiya, medics said Israeli fire from a drone wounded three medical workers in the facility. There was no Israeli comment on Monday's violence. The Israeli military said it killed a senior commander of the Islamic Jihad group, an ally of Hamas, Mohammad Abu Skhail, in a strike on Saturday at a command center inside a compound that previously served as a school in Gaza City. Palestinian medics said the attack killed six people.
HOSPITAL SIEGE
Israeli forces have besieged the three hospitals in and around Jabalia for several weeks and hospital officials have refused orders to evacuate the facilities or leave their patients unattended despite the lack of food, medical, and fuel supplies. The Israeli military accuses Hamas of exploiting Gaza's civilian population for military purposes, a charge the group denies. The army sent tanks into Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun, and Jabalia camp in northern Gaza over a month ago. It said it had killed hundreds of fighters in Jabalia and around it since the raids began. The armed wings of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said their fighters carried out ambushes, mortar fire, and anti-tank rocket attacks, claiming to have killed many Israeli soldiers in recent weeks. On Monday, the Israeli military said it had expanded the "humanitarian zone" in the enclave. It also said it would allow more tents, shelter materials, food, water, and medical supplies to enter. Its forces "will continue to work to achieve the war's objectives, including dismantling Hamas and returning all the abductees," it said. Palestinian and United Nations officials say there are no safe areas in the enclave, home to more than 2.1 million people and now largely in ruins. The war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas gunmen attacked Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and seizing another 253 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel's military campaign has leveled much of Gaza and killed around 43,500 Palestinians, Gaza health officials say.

Syria’s Homs-Damascus Highway Temporarily Cut Off after Israeli Strike, SANA Says
Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
Syria's main Homs-Damascus highway was temporarily cut off after an Israeli strike targeted an aid gathering center for displaced Lebanese south of the city of Homs, the Syrian state news agency SANA reported on Monday. SANA said earlier there were initial reports of an Israeli attack on the Chenchar area in Homs' southern countryside in central Syria.

Iran condemns Israeli assassinations as 'organized terrorism'
Agence France Presse/November 11/2024
"The world is waiting" for Donald Trump’s incoming U.S. government to "immediately" end Israel’s wars with Hamas and Hezbollah, Iran’s First Vice President Mohammad Reza Aref told a summit of Arab and Islamic countries on Monday. "The American government is the main supporter of the actions of the Zionist regime (Israel), and the world is waiting for the promise of the new government of this country to immediately stop the war against the innocent people of Gaza and Lebanon," Aref told the joint Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit. Aref condemned Israel’s assassinations of Hamas and Hezbollah leaders as "organized terrorism", in remarks to a joint Arab League and Organization of Islamic Cooperation summit on Monday. "The operations that are conceptualized with the deceptive phrasing of 'targeted killing', and during which Palestinian elites and leaders of other countries in the region are killed one by one or en masse, are nothing but lawlessness and organized terrorism," Aref said.

Yemen’s Houthis claim missile attack near Jerusalem
AFP/November 11, 2024
JERUSALEM: Yemen’s Houthi militants said they conducted an attack Monday on central Israel, after the Israeli military said it intercepted a missile fired from the Arabian Peninsula country. In a statement, the Iran-backed Houthis said they carried out a “military operation targeting the Nahal Sorek military base” southeast of Jaffa, adding the “hit was accurate and led to a fire”. Israeli firefighters were battling blazes west of Jerusalem, with the army saying the fires were sparked by debris from an intercepted missile fired from Yemen. Firefighters were working to douse the blazes, conducting scans around Beit Shemesh to rule out more fires and “damage from interceptor/missile shrapnel,” the Jerusalem region fire service said. In a statement, it said: “Following the sirens that sounded in the Shfelat Yehuda, Yehuda, and Lakhish areas of central Israel, the IAF (Israeli Air Force) intercepted one projectile that approached Israel from the direction of Yemen. “The projectile did not cross into Israeli territory. Sirens were sounded in accordance with protocol.”Yemen’s Houthi militants, part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and the United States, have periodically fired drones and missiles at Israel since the start of the Gaza war.
The Houthis have also waged a harassment campaign against shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden during the Gaza war, severely disrupting the vital trade route.

The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources on November 11-12/2024
America Failed Kamala
Daniel Greenfield/Gatestone Institute/November 11, 2024
Americans had the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris. And we had failed to live up to her.
[A]s Michelle Obama told us, we were not good enough for her.
Perhaps one day we will be. And Harris, along with Hillary Clinton, can wait in the wings, sipping chardonnay and listening to selections from Oprah Winfrey's book club until we show that we are ready for them to finally come and save us from ourselves. Decades may pass. Even centuries. But surely one day Americans will finally be ready for a completely inept president.
Herds of angry liberals wander the aisles of organic supermarkets and wonder how millions of people could have ever put their selfish economic interests ahead of a presidential DEI hire.
America's selfish founders put their desire for cheaper tea ahead of the glory of being ruled by a mad king who talked to trees, and their unworthy descendants want cheaper eggs and beef more than they want to listen to a woman of the right race who speaks in word salads.
It cannot be that Harris failed. DEI hires can never fail, only be failed. Nothing is ever their fault, only that of the systemic racism of the electoral college, the legacy of oppression in Berkeley and the unfair double standard of being expected to state coherent policy positions.
Or to put it more succinctly, Harris and [Nikole Hannah Jones of the revisionist "1619 Project"] are awesome and America sucks.
It would have been kinder for Democrats, Republicans and squishes of no particular political denomination not to reward Harris or ten thousand other DEI hires who fill academia, politics and corporations with positions they are unqualified for to avoid appearing bigoted. Bigotry is not only refusing to hire people because of their race, but also hiring people because of their race.
Biden made no secret of choosing Harris because he had promised to pick a black woman. Americans refused to hire Harris to run the country just because she was a black woman.
Whites, blacks and Latinos of all ages and sexes did the right non-bigoted thing by Harris. But nothing in Harris's life had led her to expect to be judged on merit rather than on her identity.
Americans had the opportunity to elect Kamala Harris. And we had failed to live up to her. As Michelle Obama told us, we were not good enough for her.
"Is America ready for that? Are they ready for a woman of color to be President of the United States?" Kamala Harris asked a month before dropping out of the 2020 primaries.
Five years later, the consensus is not that Harris wasn't ready, but America still wasn't.
"Kamala Harris didn't lose, America did. As a nation, we collectively failed her," John Pavlovitz, a liberal Christian blogger, damned.
"This election was not an indictment of Kamala Harris. It was an indictment of America," Cosmopolitan columnist Jill Filipovic argued.
Americans had the opportunity to elect Harris. And we had failed to live up to her.
"By every measure, she has demonstrated that she's ready," Michelle Obama had warned at a Harris election rally. "The real question is, as a country, are we ready for this moment?"
We were not ready.
"There is racial bias in this country, and there is sexism in this country," Obama adviser David Axelrod told CNN to explain Harris's defeat. The racism and sexism in America was so bad that Trump won the votes of 1 in 5 black men and a majority of white suburban women.
If only Latino and black men had been able to overcome their racism, and white women their sexism, we could have had Harris. But as Michelle Obama told us, we were not good enough for her.
Perhaps one day we will be. And Harris, along with Hillary Clinton, can wait in the wings, sipping chardonnay and listening to selections from Oprah Winfrey's book club until we show that we are ready for them to finally come and save us from ourselves. Decades may pass. Even centuries. But surely one day Americans will finally be ready for a completely inept president.
Until then maybe some other country in the world is ready for Harris? Finland? Thailand? Somaliland? But not this land, where a jealous nation insisted on voting with their wallets instead of understanding the incredible opportunity before them to elect the first black woman.
Herds of angry liberals wander the aisles of organic supermarkets and wonder how millions of people could have ever put their selfish economic interests ahead of a presidential DEI hire.
America's selfish founders put their desire for cheaper tea ahead of the glory of being ruled by a mad king who talked to trees, and their unworthy descendants want cheaper eggs and beef more than they want to listen to a woman of the right race who speaks in word salads.
It cannot be that Harris failed. DEI hires can never fail, only be failed. Nothing is ever their fault, only that of the systemic racism of the electoral college, the legacy of oppression in Berkeley and the unfair double standard of being expected to state coherent policy positions.
The Democrats also don't need to consider how they had managed to alienate a swathe of the American public so broad that it included crypto bros, the Amish, Latino men, Chassidic Jews, the tech industry and the rust belt, the black barbershop and the gay bars of Miami. All they need to do is accuse them of being racist sexists or sexist racists who should be ashamed.
Telling the American public that they are bad people for not supporting you is not a winning strategy, as Harris, Biden, the Obamas and the rest of the Democrats found out when they pivoted to accusing Republican voters of being garbage Nazis who want women to die.
But there are different kinds of winning. There's the kind where you win a popular referendum of the nation's citizens and the kind where you dismiss the nation as worthless pieces of garbage.
Or as Nikole Hannah Jones of the revisionist "1619 Project" wrote, Harris lost because "racism and misogyny are embedded in the culture", "anti-Blackness is deeply embedded in Latino cultures", and white women are "enforcing a white ethnocracy."
"Black people uniquely understand this nation, and how awful it can get" she concluded.
Or to put it more succinctly, Harris and Jones are awesome and America sucks.
Nominating a widely disliked politician with approval ratings south of spoiled cheese who could never answer the same question the same way twice could be seen as a purity test. For Harris, her aides, donors and party, the goal was to win, but for many leftists like Jones, the test was one that we were always meant to fail to justify their burning hatred of America.
Leftist radicalism is part power-grab and part test to destruction. Radicals push the country to see how much we will take, not in the hopes that we will genuinely replace William Shakespeare with Audre Lorde or agree that being on time is systemic whiteness, but that we will not, and they are suspiciously baffled when we go along with it, and then they act as if it's some racist trick.
Harris's defeat is gloriously empowering because it confirms every one of their prejudices.
After a career of failing upward through multiple prosecutorial positions, a brief Senate tenure and an even less well-regarded vice presidency, Harris finally hit an election where she could not just be promoted based on her identity politics quotient without serious consequences.
And that is where affirmative action usually falls apart. This was where the American people considered the consequences that four years of incompetence in the White House would have on them and refused to give her the job to prove they weren't racist sexists.
America failed Kamala Harris. It let her believe that life was just showing up while embodying the right quotas, smiling a lot and trying to be relatable to the people she's used to socializing with.
Now she doesn't understand what happened.
David Axelrod, Nikole Hannah Jones and the rest of the gang are not entirely wrong. A lot of Americans, including Democrats, who were willing to pander to affirmative action or DEI hires, drew the line at putting Harris in front of the nuclear button or letting her control the economy.
Equity had a red line. And Harris was it.
It would have been kinder for Democrats, Republicans and squishes of no particular political denomination not to reward Harris or ten thousand other DEI hires who fill academia, politics and corporations with positions they are unqualified for to avoid appearing bigoted. Bigotry is not only refusing to hire people because of their race, but also hiring people because of their race.
Biden made no secret of choosing Harris because he had promised to pick a black woman. Americans refused to hire Harris to run the country just because she was a black woman.
Whites, blacks and Latinos of all ages and sexes did the right non-bigoted thing by Harris. But nothing in Harris's life had led her to expect to be judged on merit rather than on her identity.
America failed Kamala Harris. Now it will have to find her a nice position telling us we're all bigots.
**Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
Reprinted by kind permission of the author and Front Page Magazine.
**Follow Daniel Greenfield on X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook
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Today in History: The Battle of Varna (or, ‘May Allah Exterminate Them All!’)
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/November 11, 2024
The adventures of John Hunyadi — the Hungarian governor and scourge of Muslim Turks, loved by peasants and hated by the elites — all but climaxed in a horrific way on this date in history.
Following his epic “Long Campaign,” which terrorized the aggressive Ottomans during the fall and early winter of 1442, Hunyadi’s “name struck such fear into the enemy that, when their children cried, [Turkish] mothers made them be quiet by threatening that John would come,” wrote Aeneas Piccolomini (1405–1464), the future Pope Pius II and one of Hunyadi’s contemporaries.
Indeed, so traumatized by what they had just experienced, and so convinced that “the military strength of not only Hungary but also Germany had been mobilized against them, the Turks rather uncharacteristically “sued for peace.” Hungarian King Ladislaus agreed, and a ten-year truce was declared.
Rome was outraged that a peace had been made just when the Ottomans’ overthrow seemed imminent. Pope Eugene IV implored Ladislaus to maintain the Crusade and “hurl back the infidel sect of Muhammad overseas,” from where it could no longer terrorize the Christian West. Others, including Hunyadi himself, were not so sure; he was concerned by how utterly exhausted Hungary was, how costly the last battles were, and how difficult it was to obtain outside help. But he resigned himself by saying, “I listen to the ruler, I do not rule.”
For long Ladislaus deliberated; although he did not want “to abandon his defense of Christendom,” he also did not want to renege on the peace treaty he had made with Murad. During that time, John Palaeologus, the emperor of perennially besieged Constantinople — who knew the Turks better than most — sent a message warning the Hungarian king “against false, deceitful peace treaties” from the Ottomans (a sentiment echoed by many contemporary Christians).
When soon thereafter the Turks refused to surrender several castles they had agreed to in keeping with the treaty, Ladislaus finally decided to resume the war. He managed to put together an army of some 20,000 fighters drawn primarily from Hungary, Poland, and Wallachia (Romania).
In response, the sultan himself led the Muslim army, which at the very least outnumbered the Crusaders by four to one (though several sources put the Ottoman army at 120,000). Such swollen numbers could mobilize so quickly only because Murad had proclaimed a defensive jihad, prompting his chief ulema to issue a fatwa “in accordance with sharia law,” saying that, “because the infidels who are as low as the dust are attacking us, it is an obligation on all of us to join the jihad.”
Being so outnumbered, Hunyadi’s plan was to shock and awe the enemy — “to attack them violently, to strike terror amidst them” with “vigour and quickness.”
The opposing forces finally met at Varna by the Black Sea. There, on November 10, 1444, in the midst of a massive sea-storm and driving wind, the Christians and Muslims collided in one of history’s most dramatic battles. In the words of an Ottoman chronicler:
They shot each other with cannons, muskets, and crossbows, like a rain of death. The accursed king [Ladislaus] stood in the middle, the accursed Yanko [Hunyadi] on one side … and attacked Sultan Murad and overwhelmed him, carried both his wings away, and grappled with the Anatolian troops. It was a very great battle.
So overwhelmed by the fiery onslaught of this Christian blitzkrieg, the much larger Turkish lines began to break; terrified Muslims “fled before the infidels had even attacked them,” continues the Turkish chronicler. “No one remained; they ran away without looking behind them.”
On seeing this, Murad cried, “O Allah, give the religion of Islam strength and bestow victory on the religion of Islam out of respect for the light of Muhammad!” Instantly, Allah reportedly “caused temptations to enter the heart of the accursed [Ladislaus] so that he became overweening and attacked Sultan Murad. In his pride he thought himself a mighty hero … and hurled himself against Sultan Murad’s people. Through Allah’s grace the king’s horse stumbled and he himself fell head over heels on his face.” Two giant Muslims instantly pounced on and beheaded him.
Concludes the Ottoman chronicler:
When Sultan Murad saw it, he thanked Allah greatly and had the head stuck on a spear and held aloft. Criers cried in all four directions, saying “The king’s head has been cut off and stuck on a spear!” The whole scattered army reformed around Sultan Murad…. When the accursed [Hunyadi] saw that the [Christian] armies were beginning to scatter [on news of the king’s slaughter], he said to the infidels, “We came here for the sake of our religion, not for the sake of the king!” and thus he brought the army to order again. Then he turned and made two or three attacks. He saw that the Muslims had increased in numbers [because those who had fled were returning] and thought it best to flee without further ado. When the army of Islam saw this, they pursued the infidels on every side. The soldiers of Islam had beaten the soldiers of the infidels and began to kill them.
While the above Muslim account is permeated with hagiographical elements, its general outline is confirmed by Christian sources. Greek historian Doukas succinctly summarizes the battle as follows:
A terrific and frightful battle was fought from early morning until the ninth hour [3 p.m.], and the Christians butchered the Turks mercilessly. At about the tenth hour the Saxon king [Ladislaus], accompanied by about five hundred troops, turned his cavalry toward the enemy. [Hunyadi] attempted to stop him but could not. And as the Saxon king drew near, his horse was struck a mortal blow, throwing its rider headlong. The Turks decapitated him on the spot. Janos became aware of what had happened when he saw the head hoisted on a lance. There were cries and shouts, such as, “Let him flee who can!” The Turks slaughtered most of the Christians. As night fell, Janos barely escaped by crossing the Danube.
Turkish casualties were so high and mangled bodies so widely scattered that it took the sultan three days to confirm his victory. Aside from those few who managed to escape, the Christians were utterly annihilated. There and then, “in accordance with a barbarous custom, the Sultan ordered tables to be set and held a feast among the corpses of the vanquished.”
As for Ladislaus’s head, Murad “had it flayed and the skin stuffed with various roots and cotton so that it would not spoil; and he had the hair combed and prepared with sulfide, so that it would be made up as if it were alive. And he ordered that this head be stuck on a pike and carried about all his cities,” as proof that Allah “had let him vanquish his enemy.”
Because Varna was arguably the greatest victory of Sultan Murad’s career, he decreed that “all the community of Muhammad should be informed of it. Let there be great illuminations and celebrations so that all the community of Muhammad can rejoice, and the infidels … suffer grief and foreboding when they hear of it.” In a letter to the sultan of Tabriz, Murad boasted that Allah had made him victorious “in scattering and confounding the infidels who are as low as the earth,” adding “may Allah exterminate and destroy them and may He not leave a trace of them on the face of the earth.” Especially invective words were directed against the “the ill-omened Hungarians, who are worshippers of idols … enemies of the religion of the Prophet and deniers of Muhammad’s message.”
It was an especially dark time for Hungary, which also suffered a succession crisis following the slaughter of its king, as one noble fought the other. Worse was to come at the hands of the Turks, but in the end, after more than a decade of setbacks, Hunyadi — with the aid of the average Christian “peasant” — managed to rise to the task and reverse the tide.
But that is another story.
**Raymond Ibrahim is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum. Portions of this article were excerpted from his book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.

Only United Ethnic Groups Can Defeat The Islamic Republic Of Iran
Himdad Mustafa/MEMRI Daily Brief No. 673/November 11, 2024
https://www.memri.org/reports/only-united-ethnic-groups-can-defeat-islamic-republic-iran
Understanding Iran's periphery and the grievances of its ethnic groups is essential to shaping a strategy for the collapse of the Islamic republic of Iran.
Contemporary Iran, like medieval Iran, is not a country but a heterogeneous, multinational, and multilingual empire. In Iran, Persians make up half the country's population, while the other half comprises minorities, which maintain a strong ethnic identity that distinguishes them from Persians.
It is worth noting that some 75 languages (e.g., Turkic, Kurdish, Balochi, Arabic, and Caspian languages) are spoken in Iran. As noted by the Iranian scholar Eliz Sanasarian, "if language is utilized as the main distinguishing feature of ethnicity, Persian, despite being the official language, is the mother tongue of barely half of the population of Iran."[1] Yet many of these languages are becoming extinct due to the discriminatory policies implemented by the Islamic Republic of Iran – and before that, by the Pahlavi regime.
Population Data
Iran's population is estimated at around 89,000,000, roughly half of whom are ethnic Persians that predominantly live in central Iran, the rest being Kurds, Balochs, Azeris, Arab Ahwazis, Turkmen, Lurs, Gilakis, Mazandaranis, etc. Hence, it can be stated that non-Persian ethnic minorities make up 40 to 50 percent of Iran's population. It is worth noting that the Islamic republic of Iran has deliberately not collected data on ethnic groups for decades, making it difficult to accurately assess the country's ethnic composition. Yet, in 2018, the Washington Kurdish Institute estimated that Kurds constitute 12-15 percent of the Iranian population.[2]
The Arab Ahwazi also denounced the deliberate demographic changes in their region that were put in place by the Islamic Republic Of Iran, and before that by the Pahlavi regime. "The population of Ahwaz is about 12 million people, 99 percent of the population was Arab, but this percentage has changed. This is due to the Iranian government's policy of encouraging its citizens to migrate to Ahwaz and settle there, as well as the displacement of the indigenous Arabs from it. The roots of the Ahwaz people go back to many Arab tribes, including, for example but not limited to: "Bani Ka'b," "Bani Taraf," Khazraj, Kinana, Qawasim, Hammadi, Shammar, Anza, "Bani Tamim," and other tribes, Farsi is imposed as an official language for learning in the region. "It is also noted that many Ahwaz Arabs reside outside the region, either in the Gulf states or in European countries, for political or economic reasons," Ahwazstat.org reported.[3]
Concerning the Baloch population, no reliable census was conducted under the supervision of Baloch natives. However, it is estimated that there are approximately more than 10 million Balochs living under the Iranian regime. It is also worth noting that there are more than 50 million Balochs under Pakistani rule. As in the case of the Kurds, whose population, despite being divided into four countries (Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran), maintains a common identity and a shared cause, Balochs, in Iran and Pakistan, support each other and their fight to free themselves of the oppressive rule of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan.
A Strategic Outpost For The West
Although the successive regimes in Iran have succeeded in tackling ethnic uprisings, they have lost the ideological and political war against non-Persian ethnic groups.
Since the foundation of modern Iran in 1925, there has been little support for the central government or its ideology and politics in the ethnic regions of the country. The state has therefore viewed non-Persian ethnic groups and their political struggle for survival as an existential threat to its integrity. Nevertheless, through their growing opposition to the regime's policies and systematic discrimination, ethnic groups across Iran have become a crucial force turning ethnic mobilization into an important space of resistance and movement for political change in the country.
It is worth noting that there is considerable solidarity between non-Persian ethnic groups seeking greater political and cultural rights. They have a common enemy that persecutes, imprisons, executes them, deprive them of their natural resources, and even denies non-Persian students the right to education in their mother tongues. This has led them to view their fight for self-determination as a common struggle for national liberation against the Islamic Republic of Iran. This shared struggle unites these ethnic groups.[4]
There is a need for an organization outside Iran designed to unite the Iranian opposition around a common platform. There are attempts by these groups to unite, but sustaining a powerful, unified front against Iranian regime would require substantial external political support. To support these ethnic groups signifies protecting Western strategic interests not only in the Middle East. China has eyed Balochistan, for example, for its Gwadar port, in order to push the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) as part their Belt and Road Initiative. If supported by the West, Balochistan can be a strategic outpost not only to counter the Islamic Republic of Iran but also China's hegemonic ambitions.
*Himdad Mustafa is a Kurdish scholar and expert on Kurdish, Iranian and Turkish affairs.
[1] Eliz Sanasarian, Religious Minorities in Iran. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
[2] Dckurd.org/2018/10/01/the-kurds-an-easy-meal-for-the-iranian-regime, October 2, 2018.
[3] Ahwazstat.org/en/ahwaz-a-systematic-iranian-policy-to-obliterate-the-arab-identity-2, April 7, 2022.
[4] Balochwarna.com/2023/04/23/free-balochistan-movement-activists-express-solidarity-with-ahwazi-arabs-and-kurds/, April 23, 2023.

Trump Time and the Mission of Ending the Hostilities
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al Awsat/November 11/2024
The world has been living on the time of Donald Trump ever since the results of the US presidential elections were announced. We have never seen anything like this before. The world did not hold its breath when Russia handed the keys of the Kremlin to a mysterious man with a past in the KGB called Vladimir Putin. It did not hold its breath when Xi Jinping was crowned heir to Mao Zedong.
Rarely does the world look at its watch because of a single man. Is this the reflection of his power or the power of his country? Or perhaps it’s a bit of both. Moreover, the world knows what it is like for him and his party to be in office. It saw how he was pursued by the judiciary and as he embarked on a campaign for another term in office, under the slogan of “making America great again.” He danced, survived an assassination attempt, raised his fist and wiped the blood with his red tie. Rarely does the world look at its watch for a single man, but it did. Several people are worried that he will rearrange world affairs. The Europeans know that the old continent doesn't figure much in his plans. He has previously reprimanded them for placing the responsibility of defending them on the US and for being stingy in covering costs. They know that he acts alone and will not ask for permission from anyone, not even the French president, British prime minister or German chancellor, to spring his surprises.
The White House is now in the hands of a strong man, who claims to have the decisive solutions for the world’s economic, security and immigration problems and other open crises. His treatments do not rely on Antonio Guterres and the United Nations’ diagnosis. The bitter pill is the deal and whoever refuses the pill will incur the wrath of Mr. President. He is the sole doctor, and this is why Volodymyr Zelensky was disappointed with the results of the elections.
Zelensky knows that the time of open-ended support and flow of billions of dollars and weapons to Ukraine is over. Ukraine must swallow the bitter pill if he wants to stop the advance of the czar’s forces. Trump doesn’t view Russia’s Putin as a great threat, even after it brought “comrade” Kim Jong Un's forces to Europe. The great danger comes from China and Trump has prepared treatments that will be painful for its economy and for the world economy as well.
The year of the US elections was exciting, and the year of the Middle East was terrible. The region observed the race for the White House amid the strikes, missiles and drones and massacres. Gaza has been transformed into a lake of blood that is filled with rubble, corpses and the displaced. The same scenes are being replicated in Lebanon.
Let us set aside observations over Hamas’ management of the scene after the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, Hezbollah’s decision to launch its “support front” and Lebanon’s ability to withstand playing a regional role that goes beyond its capabilities. The main issue now is about ending the hostilities.
It is the right of every person in the Middle East to love or hate America. The same applies to Donald Trump, but the people of the region find themselves confronted with an unavoidable situation: the man who has returned to the White House is the only one capable of stopping the killing before he can even officially take office.
A ceasefire is not a new demand. It has been repeatedly demanded in the past months and has repeatedly been met with Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence on achieving the goals of the “existential war” waged by Israel. He has gone beyond that and spoken of waging a coup against the balances of power in the Middle East. His battle has shifted to confronting Iran’s proxies to trading blows with it. Joe Biden sought to strike a deal in Gaza that would include the release of hostages and tried to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon. Netanyahu, however, skirted around all American pressure and refused to gift Biden a ceasefire, as if he were banking on Trump winning the elections.
The Americans have given Trump a broad mandate: that of ending the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon. Some believe that Netanyahu will be unable to refrain from offering a gift to Trump, so talk has again emerged of US envoy Amos Hochstein’s efforts to reach a ceasefire.
Lebanon urgently needs a ceasefire. The prolongation of the war will prolong the catastrophe. The US can add to the implementation of resolution 1701 a pledge to quickly resolve the border differences. The success of the ceasefire hinges on a Lebanese stance that clearly reflects a decision to restore the southern front to the fold of the Lebanese state and take it out of any regional equation. This stance is necessary amid reports that world countries will not help in reconstructing Lebanon if the possibility of the war erupting again in a few years remains.
Taking southern Lebanon out of the military equation of the conflict with Israel will not be easy for Hezbollah and Iran. But do the Lebanese people have another choice other than stopping the war whose losses and horrors have exceeded previous conflicts? Ending the tragedy demands taking difficult choices and the Lebanese state has the right to follow the example of Syria and Iraq in keeping itself away from raging conflicts, especially after all the prices it has paid in being involved in them. Reaching a ceasefire is no easy task. It needs a firm American role. The rebuilding of the state must come from Lebanon. Gaza must give hope for the Palestinian people that they can pursue the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

Introducing Egypt’s New Anti-Christian Grand Mufti
Raymond Ibrahim/Coptic Solidarity/November 11/2024
Proof of Egypt’s official endorsement of “radical” policies that promote intolerance for the “other”—in this case, Christians—continues to mount.
Recently we saw how Al Azhar and its Grand Imam, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, allowed for the publication and dissemination of a book that called for the destruction of all churches in Egypt. Now, on the recommendation of this same Grand Imam, President Sisi has appointed a new Grand Mufti for Egypt, Sheikh Nazir Muhammad ‘Ayyad, formerly Secretary General of Al Azhar’s Islamic Research Center (a bastion of fundamentalist currents).
As an official figure of state, the new Grand Mufti will have the final word on the issuance of fatwas—decrees based on Islamic sharia—and will be responsible for reviewing certain draft laws and court rulings, to make sure they all comply with sharia.
There’s only one problem: while Sisi regularly proclaims that Christians (Copts) and Muslims are “equal brothers” in Egypt, the new Grand Mufti just so happens to be the author of a highly inflammatory book dedicated to condemning Christians in terms that would make “extremists” of ISIS’s variety proud. Indeed, if a book is not known by its cover but by its contents, ‘Ayyad’s book on Christianity makes clear that his vision—the vision of Egypt’s new Grand Mufti—and that of the “radicals” are one and the same.
Hostility for Christians begins with just the book’s title: in translation, Problems with Christian [Nasrani] Teaching. The mainstream Arabic word for “Christian,” used by both Mideast Christians and (moderate) Muslims is Masihi; only radicals use the derogatory Nasrani.
The book’s subtitle is no less problematic. When audibly heard, it sounds like “review and critique,” which is of course appropriate; however, when visually read, the spelling is such that the word which sounds like “critique” (naqd, نقد) is really “break” or even “demolish” (naqD, نقض). Considering that the image on the cover is a targeted cross, no doubt for “radicals” the title invokes the notorious phrase made popular by (though is much older than) ISIS: “Break the Cross.”
Beyond its title, several Egyptian reviewers have decried the book, which focuses primarily on dismantling and condemning the concept of the Trinity, as a “catastrophe.” It promotes, they say, hate for and violence against Christians, whom the book further presents as kuffar—a word often but poorly translated as “infidels”—who follow a “false religion,” no different than idolaters and “stone worshippers,” who are all destined to eternal hell.
The significance of all this is easily lost on the Western mind, which accepts that everyone is free to believe whatever they will—including the notion that this or that group of people are sinners destined to hell—so long as they of course do not act on such beliefs. Islamic teachings approach the matter differently. To be labeled and categorized as a kafir (pl. kuffar), is to be declared an enemy of the (Islamic) state—someone who deserves nothing less than death, (as Koran 9:5 and other verses make clear.)
The usual “formulation” supposed “moderate” Muslim clerics rely on when talking about Christians (and Jews) is ahl al-kitab (“People of the Book”), which allows for some measure of toleration, whereas being called an out and out kafir does not.
Put differently, categorizing the Christian “citizens” of Egypt as kuffar, as the new Grand Mufti does, is tantamount to stripping them of any and all rights, leading to, at the very least, a continuation of the systematic discrimination they already experience, if not outright and open persecution.
Even so, considering that the West itself is—in the name of “academic freedom”—inundated with books critiquing Christian theology, the significance of ‘Ayyad’s anti-Christian diatribe may easily be missed. Here’s the point: the publication of anything critical of Islam—not just a book, but an online article, even a social media post—is banned in Egypt; and if by chance some maverick publisher produces even a mild academic book, a court case for “derision of Islam,” with up to five years’ imprisonment would be all but guaranteed.
Just ask Dr. Ahmed Abdu‘ Maher, a high-profile lawyer, expert on Islam, and author of 14 books on Islamic history and jurisprudence, who in 2019 was handed five years imprisonment for “contempt of Islam, stirring up sectarian strife and posing a threat to the national unity.” His crime? Writing a book on the early Islamic conquests, which—heavily based on the Islamic sources he cited—were replete with atrocities, injustices, and quite a bit of impiety, as opposed to the “official,” hagiographic version taught in Egypt.
Why is Maher’s book problematic? Because in Egypt, the State sees itself as the protector and promoter of Islam; and a book critical of Islam might lead to apostasy, which is unacceptable. On the other hand—and here is the grand point—a book critical of Christianity is absolutely fine: it may lead to hate for and violence against Egypt’s despised Christian minority, but it will also make Islam “look good,” look like the “true religion,” which again complements the State’s pro-Islamic mandate.
Birds of a Feather: Grand Mufti ‘Ayyad and Grand Imam al-Tayeb
At any rate, the new Grand Mufti’s anti-Christian stance has not, of course, prevented him from stressing—at least when speaking in public—that his tenure will usher in a “cooperation and joint coordination between the religious institutions of Egypt,” as well as fostering “religious discourse and support for the moderate approach under the umbrella of Al Azhar.”
In this, Grand Mufti Nazir Muhammad ‘Ayyad demonstrates that he is at least fit company for the Islamic leadership of Egypt, such as the Grand Imam of Al Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb: they are all experts at saying one (radical) thing to fellow Muslims and one (moderate) thing to Christians and Western dignitaries.

Alert: America Must Advance Leadership Role in Clean Fusion Power
Lawrence Kadish/Gatestone Institute/November 11, 2024
As the world discovered when the United States deployed the power of atomic energy to end World War II, the nation that has the means to harness this incredible force in any of its many forms has the means of dictating terms to the rest of the globe.
So it should come as no surprise that China is devoting financial, technological, and educational resources to harness what is commonly called, "controlled fusion." Or, to be specific, to place the enormous energy that powers the Sun inside a reactor that, in turn, could replace virtually every fossil fuel facility on the planet, running on a virtually inexhaustible supply of "clean" fuel.
From subduing the political power of those enemy nations seeking to use their oil and gas reserves to bully America, to addressing climate change concerns, controlled fusion could be as powerful an advance as fire and the wheel.
The Chinese fully recognize the implications of owning this kind of strategic achievement.
Industry reports suggest the Chinese government is putting billions into developing laboratories required to study how to create a sustainable controlled fusion reaction. It is far from easy, as it requires extremely high heat and enormous pressures. One energy industry report says:
"They are training a growing cadre of scientists, with a goal of training 1,000 new plasma physicists to support this program. This plan by the Chinese government shows a real commitment to fusion and makes them a possible front-runner in the global rush to viable fusion technology."
The Chinese are clearly playing the long game, something our nation has traditionally declined to do. Recent media reports reveal that Chinese leadership has directed significant investment in educational initiatives that will allow growing numbers of Chinese students to major in math, science and engineering. One news dispatch suggests that enrollment has increased more than tenfold since 2000, while spending on research and development has tripled over the past ten years.
In the 1950s, America coasted along, content in its postwar era of big cars, new suburban homes, and contented families. Little interest was displayed in science, math or engineering. And then the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite, and the United States suddenly discovered they were a distant second place in space travel. Our first response to counter their orbital achievement blew up on the launch pad.
But we learned our lesson and were the first humans to land on the Moon. We vowed to never give up our first place position in technology.
Yet we are now in danger of doing so, as China continues to seek to unlock the enormous energy of a controlled fusion reaction.
The incoming Trump Administration has the means -- and certainly has revealed the will -- to regain American leadership in an arena that could determine who will dominate the rest of the 21st Century. The time to win this latest chapter in the world's atomic race is now.
*Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
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A diversifying Europe must not tear itself apart
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/November 11, 2024
Initial reports from Amsterdam last week described horrific scenes of Israeli football supporters being beaten up in violent clashes that the authorities condemned as antisemitic.
A more nuanced version of events gradually emerged: extremist fans of Maccabi Tel Aviv had been creating chaos before and during the match against Ajax, with anti-Arab chants and the championing of Israeli attacks on Gaza. Houses bearing Palestinian flags had been attacked. Among a relentless succession of racist chants, supporters sang: “There are no schools in Gaza, because there are no children left.” All hell broke loose after the match, with violent clashes between Maccabi fans and local people, many of whom are of North African origin. Gangs of youths attacked Israeli football fans. The Maccabi ultras have a shameful history of racist violence and agitation, with strong connections to Israel’s extreme right. Fans are notorious for shouting racist slogans at players of various ethnicities, including members of their own team — such as the Jewish Ethiopian player Baruch Dego, who routinely had to put up with monkey noises from the crowd. During the 2020-2021 anti-Netanyahu protests, Maccabi fans attacked protesters with sticks and broken bottles.
This all raises the question of why European states let them enter in the first place and why preemptive measures were not taken to prevent violence. Indeed, the controversial decision has been taken to proceed with the Israeli national team’s match in Paris this week, despite everything that occurred in Amsterdam. We should condemn violence of all kinds. But this is just one example of thousands of such tumultuous incidents since the eruption of violence in the Middle East in October 2023, which has given rise to mass demonstrations around the world by supporters of both sides, a sharp rise in antisemitic and Islamophobic attacks, and a tsunami of online hate speech, misinformation and incitement. Much of the exacerbation in civil tensions has been deliberately engineered by various entities with specific antisocial agendas
Much of this exacerbation in worldwide civil tensions, such as the rioting that erupted across Britain in the summer after three children were stabbed to death at a dance class, has been deliberately engineered by various entities with specific antisocial agendas. Fake online claims that the perpetrator of the Southport stabbing was a Muslim immigrant led to far-right and neo-Nazi groups organizing several nights of violent Islamophobic rioting. Hostels housing immigrants and people from ethnic minorities were attacked. The rioting subsided only after huge nationwide antiracism rallies, along with a robust government response.
Such events occur in the context of years of whipping up of anti-immigrant sentiments by right-wing politicians and the populist media, normalizing increasingly draconian political measures to curb immigration, often with the shocking outcome that thousands of those fleeing war and persecution are abandoned to drown at sea. Europe plays host to huge populations of multiethnic origins, including North Africa and the Middle East. While such xenophobia is frequently focused on recent migrants and refugees, the extreme right has also sought to foment hatred of all those of non-European origin. The Gaza conflict has contributed to this polarization, with the far right seeking to demonize Arabs and Muslims as “terrorism supporters,” while huge numbers of white Europeans have become increasingly outspoken in support of the Palestinian cause.
In France, more than 10 percent of the population are immigrants born outside the country, with a significantly wider proportion of citizens having parentage of various ethnic origins. Many other European states enjoy comparable levels of diversity. The reality is that immigration into Europe will continue increasing, because the economies of aging Western nations with plunging birth rates are in dire need of foreign workers and the number of people displaced by conflict and instability worldwide has soared. Over the coming century, we will probably reach the point at which a majority of European citizens claim, at least in part, descent from immigrants. Entire economic sectors these days are dominated by people of a broad spectrum of ethnicities.
Thus, the racist panic of those on the extreme right arises from a recognition that their hateful cause is already lost. When I moved into my current home many years ago, the previous owner remarked that in this “really nice neighborhood” I would not come across anybody else from other countries. Nowadays, a significant number of my neighbors are of South Asian origin.
But we must not ignore the genuine social challenges of large-scale immigration. Refugees are often traumatized by the horrific experiences from which they fled. The children of immigrants often feel a sense of dislocation, of not properly fitting into either culture. Too many immigrant districts have become ghettoized, as impaired access to quality education, services and career opportunities create a vicious circle of deprivation. It is also vital that immigrants themselves strive to integrate with their new culture, conscientiously learning the language and not behaving in ways that will alienate and antagonize. With the preeminence of the European extreme right over the past decade, there have been consolidated efforts to weaponize cultural differences. Too often, the populist media, instead of enlightening and informing, has founded its business model on playing on people’s prejudices and preconceptions — hyping fake and exaggerated stories to whip up animosity toward all those who are different. Cultural diversity is already wholly inherent to contemporary Europe, and managed immigration is a prerequisite for its continued economic vigor. The world’s greatest cities, such as London, New York and Paris, are the most diverse. Newly arriving cultural influences immensely enrich Europe: music, art, literature, food and other cultural practices have immeasurably broadened the quality of life of communities that were previously rather more parochial, conservative and homogenous. Governments must take the lead in encouraging societies to celebrate and champion this diversity, which enriches us all. The real threat to Europe from within is not from North Africans, Turks or Afghans, but from the narrow-minded xenophobes and hatemongering media organs that aspire to tear their own societies apart.
**Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

A new era of hope: Trump’s return and the promise of stability
Khalaf Ahmad Al-Habtoor/Arab News/November 11, 2024
The reelection of President Donald Trump heralds a new era of optimism and possibility for both the US and the global community. His impending return to office signals a steadfast commitment to revitalizing the US economy and prioritizing the well-being of the American people. As a businessman with a proven track record, Trump brings a practical approach to governance, focusing on economic prosperity and tangible results. During his previous term, Trump’s policies spurred economic growth, reduced unemployment and created a favorable environment for businesses. His emphasis on deregulation and tax reforms breathed new life into various sectors, fostering investment and job creation. The American people can expect a continuation of these strategies, aimed at further strengthening the nation’s economic foundation.
Beyond the economy, Trump has consistently championed traditional family values and has made it clear he intends to protect the youth from harmful ideologies. His stance against the “woke” movement demonstrates a commitment to safeguarding cultural values and shielding younger generations from agendas that threaten to erode societal foundations. This form of leadership is not only crucial for the US but also serves as an example for young people around the world.
On the international front, Trump’s approach to foreign policy is characterized by a focus on peace and stability. His administration’s success in brokering agreements in the Middle East, such as the Abraham Accords, underscored his commitment to fostering dialogue and reducing tensions.
As the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues to claim lives and create global instability, I am confident that Trump will leverage his diplomatic acumen to facilitate negotiations that could bring an end to this crisis.
Trump’s commitment to addressing the Middle East’s unique security challenges is clear. A renewed US-Gulf Cooperation Council partnership under his leadership would reinforce stability across the Gulf states. His strategic alliance with the GCC nations reflects a shared commitment to countering common threats and promoting regional security. UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan last week extended his congratulations to Trump and emphasized the importance of this collaboration by stating: “The UAE and US are united by our enduring partnership based on shared ambitions for progress. The UAE looks forward to continuing to work with our partners in the US toward a future of opportunity, prosperity and stability for all.”
Trump’s commitment to addressing the Middle East’s unique security challenges is clear.
In a Middle East where stability is paramount, Trump’s focus on strengthening alliances and curbing extremist forces offers a path forward. His leadership is an encouraging sign for all those invested in a secure and prosperous future for the region.
Trump’s foreign policy extends beyond the Middle East, reaching key players in Asia. His diplomatic engagements with North Korea and China signaled a shift from military confrontations toward economic cooperation. His landmark meetings with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, though met with skepticism by some, opened channels of communication that had long been dormant, while his firm stance on trade imbalances with China sought to establish a more equitable economic relationship.
As Trump once said, “sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.” This sentiment captures the resilience and adaptability that characterize his approach to leadership — qualities that will undoubtedly serve him well in navigating both domestic and global complexities.
World leaders have expressed optimism regarding their renewed collaboration with Trump. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised Trump’s “historic victory,” highlighting the enduring UK-US alliance, while European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reaffirmed the “true partnership” between the EU and the US, emphasizing a strong transatlantic agenda to address shared challenges during Trump’s presidency.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, recognizing the significance of Trump’s reelection, expressed hope for “strong bipartisan support for Ukraine in the United States.” His message reflects the optimism felt by nations worldwide that Trump’s leadership will contribute to a more peaceful and balanced international order.
Reflecting on my endorsement of Trump during his first campaign, I believed that his background as a businessman would bring a refreshing change to American politics. While some people, including celebrities, opposed him, it was crucial to set aside personal biases and offer him the chance to implement his vision. His subsequent achievements demonstrated the effectiveness of a pragmatic, business-oriented approach. Today, with his reelection, we are presented with an opportunity for a brighter future. I urge all stakeholders to put personal differences aside and engage constructively, listening to the voices of the American people who have chosen this path. As we look ahead, the alliance between Trump’s incoming administration and the Gulf nations will be instrumental in countering the threats posed by those who seek to destabilize our region. With a renewed focus on economic and security cooperation, we can achieve a prosperous future that reflects the values we hold dear.
In conclusion, Trump’s reelection is not just a victory for the US but a beacon of hope for the world. His leadership, grounded in practical experience and a results-oriented mindset, is poised to address both domestic and international challenges. As we move forward, let us seize this moment to build a future of stability, security and growth for all.
• Khalaf Ahmad Al-Habtoor is a prominent UAE businessman and chairman of the Al-Habtoor Group and Dubai National Insurance and Reinsurance Company. He formerly held the posts of chairman of the Commercial Bank of Dubai and vice chairman of Al-Jalila Foundation Board of Trustees and was a member of the UAE’s Federal National Council, the Board of Directors of the Dubai Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He was the only non-US member of the World Board of Governors of the American United Service Organizations (USO) from 1994 to 1997.
X: @KhalafAlHabtoor