English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For November 15/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak;
otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear
is made
Mark 02/18-22: “John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and
people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the
Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The
wedding-guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long
as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when
the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. ‘No
one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls
away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts
new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the
wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on November 14-15/2024
Hezbollah should abandon arms to end
Israel war, Lebanese Christian party head says
US hands Lebanon draft truce proposal
UN resolutions back Palestinian sovereignty, compensation for Lebanon, Syria
Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek,
governor tells Reuters
World Bank: Damages and Losses in Lebanon Conflict Estimated at $8.5 Billion
War costs Lebanon $5 billion in losses, damages 100,000 homes
Baalbek-Hermel governor: 12 Civil Defense members killed in Israeli strike on
center in Douris
Reports: Hochstein to present truce plan to Lebanon within days
Strikes hit Dahieh after Israel's deadliest day in south Lebanon
Berri's aide says Lebanon not against US-French truce supervision
Israel reportedly prepares Lebanon ceasefire plan as 'gift' to Trump
UNIFIL Patrol Comes Under Fire, Lebanon Requested to Probe the Incident
Lacroix: Resolution 1701 Remains Key, UNIFIL Ready to Support Lasting Peace
Roadmap
Moustapha Adib: “Lebanon’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites Are a Legacy for All
Mankind”
The Shadow of War on the Holiday Season!/Christiane Tager/This Is
Beirut/November 14/2024
Nabil Mamlouk: Journalist Facing Charges for “Dissenting Opinions”/Bouchra Al
Wajeh/This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Bassil says Hezbollah can't 'restore deterrence', rejects Geagea's remarks
Lebanon-Syria refugee crisis risks destabilizing the region/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab
News/November 14, 2024
AnalysisTrump's Economic Policies and Lebanon's Dollar Crisis/Liliane Mokbel/This
Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on November 14-15/2024
Israeli attacks on Syria’s Damascus kill
15, state media says
US Targets Syrian Company with Sanctions over IRGC, Houthi Funding
2 Israeli airstrikes hit Syria's capital and a suburb, killing 15 people, Syrian
state media says
Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek,
governor tells Reuters
Israel’s attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security
minister’s role
Israel’s warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds
‘Qatar is holding our hostages as much as Hamas is,’ scholar and former MK says
- interview
Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by far-right figures
UNRWA schools in Gaza: Principals, staff identified as members in terror units -
report
Saudi and British defense ministers hold talks on cooperation and Middle East
security
Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources on November 14-15/2024
The Talibanization of Bangladesh: 'Genocidal Campaign against Minority Hindu
Population.' Where is Mohammad Yunus?/Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute./November
14, 2024
Trump’s Peace Plan for Ukraine Looks Like Putin’s Victory/Mac William
Bishop/Rolling Stone/November 15/2024
Netanyahu chose ICC over GCC, and is likely to get what he wished for/Faisal J.
Abbas/Arab News/November 14, 2024
What the Gulf wants from the incoming Trump administration/Dr. Abdel Aziz
Aluwaisheg/Arab News/November 14, 2024
The absurdity of war and its ethical echoes in AI/Rafael Hernández de
Santiago/Arab News/November 14, 2024
An Effort to Understand the Saudi-Iranian Relationship/Hassan Al Mustafa/Asharq
Al Awsat/November 14/2024
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published
on November 14-15/2024
Hezbollah should abandon arms to end
Israel war, Lebanese Christian party head says
Maya Gebeily and Timour Azhari/MAARAB,
Lebanon (Reuters) - November 14, 2024
The head of Lebanon's largest Christian party said Iran-backed Hezbollah should
relinquish its weapons as quickly as possible to end its year-long war with
Israel and spare Lebanon further death and destruction. Samir Geagea,
Hezbollah's fiercest political opponent in Lebanon, spoke to Reuters on Thursday
at his mountain home and party headquarters in Maarab, north of Beirut, as
Israel carried out waves of strikes on areas Hezbollah holds sway. "With the
destruction of all of Hezbollah's infrastructure and its warehouses, a big part
of Lebanon is also being destroyed. That's the price," he said. Hezbollah's
critics in Lebanon, such as Geagea, say it unilaterally pulled Lebanon into a
new war after it began firing at Israel in solidarity with Palestinian group
Hamas following the Oct. 7 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war in Gaza.
Hezbollah says it is defending Lebanon from Israeli aggression and has vowed to
keep fighting, saying it will not lay down its arms or allow Israel to achieve
political gains on the back of the war. The intense pressure of Israel's
military campaign, which has escalated and expanded since late September to
include ground incursions into southern Lebanon, presented an opportunity to get
the country back on track, Geagea said. "If the challenges and the prices paid
are so big, then we can take advantage of them to get the situation back to
normal," he said, calling on Hezbollah and the Lebanese state to swiftly
implement local accords and international resolutions disbanding armed factions
outside the control of the state. "That is the shortest way to end the war. It's
the least costly way for Lebanon and for the Lebanese people," he said.
Faltering diplomatic efforts on a ceasefire have centred on United Nations
Resolution 1701, which brought an end to Hezbollah's last deadly conflict with
Israel in 2006. Israel has insisted that this time around, it wants to keep
carrying out strikes against Hezbollah threats even if a truce is agreed. Geagea
said he was opposed to granting Israel that option but said Lebanon had little
power to stop it, especially if an excuse remained in the form of Hezbollah's
armed presence.
'ARMS RACE'
Lebanon's population is a mosaic of more than a dozen religious sects, with
political representation divided along sectarian lines. Religious divisions
fuelled the 1975-1990 civil war, which left some 150,000 people dead and drew in
neighbouring states. Geagea's party, the Lebanese Forces, was one of the main
warring factions during the civil war and aligned itself with Israel, including
when Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon reached Beirut, and its leader, Bashir
Gemayel, was elected president. Gemayel was assassinated before he could assume
office, and Geagea said he saw no parallels with that period today. The Lebanese
Forces relinquished its weapons in line with the Taef Accord, which ended the
civil war and called on all militias to disband. Hezbollah did not, saying it
needed them to fight Israel's continued occupation of southern Lebanon. But the
group refused to disarm when Israeli troops withdrew in 2000, citing ongoing
threats. Despite his decades-old opposition to Hezbollah, Geagea, 72, said he
opposed the Lebanese army forcefully disarming the group. He said he does "not
see the possibility of any civil war" breaking out and said that his party
"categorically" did not want one to start. Still, he noted that the mass
displacement of mostly Shi'ite Muslim Lebanese into Sunni and Christian-majority
areas could spark "problems here or there" in a country that was already
suffering an economic crisis before the war. They include thousands who have
fled into areas that are strongholds of Geagea's party. In Beirut, Lebanese
Forces flags were put up overnight in neighbourhoods where the group has strong
support, but no clashes have been reported. More than 1.2 million people have
fled heavy Israeli strikes on Lebanon's south, eastern Bekaa valley and Beirut's
southern suburbs. In recent weeks, Israeli troops carrying out incursions into
southern Lebanon have laced entire villages with explosives and detonated them,
leaving border towns in ruins. Hezbollah says it has managed to keep Israeli
troops at bay by preventing them from holding any ground in south Lebanon.
But Geagea disputed that reading, saying Israel's "new military doctrine" was to
enter areas, carry out operations, and leave, and that the war's next phase
could see villages deeper into Lebanon being hit. He said Israel's military and
economic strength would always give it an advantage over Hezbollah, even if the
group re-armed. "Do you have the ability to enter this arms race?" he said.
US hands
Lebanon draft truce proposal
Reuters/Jerusalem Post/November 14/2024
The US has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its
ally Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but efforts are yet to be successful. The
US ambassador to Lebanon submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon's speaker
of parliament Nabih Berri on Thursday to halt fighting between Hezbollah and
Israel, two political sources told Reuters, without revealing details. The US
has sought to broker a ceasefire that would end hostilities between its ally
Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, but efforts have yet to yield a result. Israel
launched a stepped-up air and ground campaign in late September after
cross-border clashes in parallel with the Gaza war.
Hezbollah began firing at Israel on October 8, 2023 and has since fired
thousands of rockets toward Israel. The continued fire and fears of an invasion
led to the evacuation of tens of thousands of Israel's northern residents. The
war cabinet eventually agreed on a limited land operation into southern Lebanon
so that the residents of the North may return to their homes safely - the third
goal of the war.
UN resolutions back Palestinian sovereignty, compensation
for Lebanon, Syria
Arab News/November 14, 2024
LONDON: The UN Economic and Financial Committee has approved resolutions calling
on Israel to compensate Lebanon and Syria for an oil slick, and to hand
sovereignty to the Palestinians over their natural resources. The US, Argentina,
Canada, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau voted against both resolutions. The
slick occurred after the Israeli Air Force struck storage tanks near the Jiyah
electric power plant in 2006, covering two-thirds of Lebanon’s coastline with
oil. The draft resolution was introduced by Uganda’s representative, who
highlighted the disastrous impact the slick has had on biodiversity and the
local economy. It reiterated the UN General Assembly’s “deep concern” over the
negative impact the incident has had on Lebanon’s long-term sustainable
development, and reaffirmed a UN report that damage to the country caused by the
slick amounted to $856.4 million in 2014.
The resolution was passed by 161 votes in favor to seven against, with nine
abstentions. It called for “prompt and adequate compensation” from Israel to
Lebanon and Syria, which was also affected by the slick. Lebanon’s
representative thanked his country’s supporters at the UN, the World Bank and
elsewhere. He said the slick had hindered Lebanon’s ability to implement the
UN’s Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, and Israel’s use of chemical and
toxic substances in its ongoing military campaign could cause long-term
agricultural, economic and biodiversity damage. He called for an investigation
into Israeli war crimes in Lebanon and for further compensation.The Ugandan
representative also introduced a draft resolution calling on Israel to “cease
the exploitation, damage, cause of loss or depletion and endangerment of the
natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East
Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan.” The draft also recognizes the
right of the Palestinian people to seek compensation for any illegal activity by
Israel or Israeli settlers that exploits or damages their natural resources. It
cited an International Court of Justice advisory opinion from July 19, and
reaffirmed “the principle of the permanent sovereignty of the peoples under
foreign occupation over their natural resources and the applicability of the
Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war.”
The committee passed the resolution with 159 states in favor. Seven countries
opposed the motion, with 11 abstentions. The Palestinian representative said
Israel must be held accountable for crimes committed against her people and on
their territory, saying it has “for over a year” violated the UN Charter with
its “incomprehensible” acts in Gaza. She added that Israel has been allowed to
act as a state “above the law with brazen impunity, classifying all Palestinians
as terrorists to justify its acts.” The Syrian delegate said genocide,
destruction and displacement committed by Israel “have also threatened to set
fire to the entire region and beyond.” He blamed the US for preventing the UN
Security Council from taking firm action. The Algerian delegate said people
living under occupation should have sovereignty over their natural resources,
and damage caused by Israeli aggression will take years of reconstruction to
undo.
Israeli strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center
in Lebanon’s Baalbek, governor tells Reuters
AFP/November 14, 2024
CAIRO: An Israeli strike killed 12 people after it hit a civil defense center in
Lebanon’s city of Baalbek on Thursday, the regional governor told Reuters adding
that rescue operations were ongoing. Eight others, including five women, were
also killed and 27 wounded in another Israeli attack on the Lebanese city,
health ministry reported on Thursday. Meanwhile, Lebanese civil defense official
Samir Chakia said: “The Civil Defense Center in Baalbek has been targeted, five
Civil Defense rescuers were killed.” Bachir Khodr the regional governor said
more than 20 rescuers had been at the facility at the time of the strike.
World
Bank: Damages and Losses in Lebanon Conflict Estimated at $8.5 Billion
This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Tthe cost of physical damages and economic losses due to the conflict in Lebanon
is estimated at USD 8.5 billion. ©National News Agency (NNA). The World Bank has
published on Thursday an initial assessment report of the impact of conflict on
Lebanon’s Economy and Key Sectors. According to a new World Bank report, the
cost of physical damages and economic losses due to the conflict in Lebanon is
estimated at USD 8.5 billion. The Lebanon Interim Damage and Loss Assessment (DaLA)
finds that damages to physical structures alone amount to USD 3.4 billion and
that economic losses have reached USD 5.1 billion. The report noted that in
terms of economic growth, the conflict is estimated to have cut Lebanon’s real
GDP growth by at least 6.6% in 2024. “This compounds five years of sustained
sharp economic contraction that has exceeded 34% of real GDP,” the report added.
The report also looks at the impact of the conflict on the people of Lebanon.
“There are over 875,000 internally displaced persons in Lebanon, with women,
children, the elderly, persons with disabilities and refugees at highest risk.
An estimated 166,000 individuals have lost their jobs, corresponding to a loss
of USD 168 million in earnings,” the World Bank said. According to the report,
housing has been the hardest hit sector, with almost 100,000 housing units
partially or fully damaged, amounting to USD 3.2 billion in damages and losses.
Disruptions to commerce are amounting to close to USD 2 billion, driven in part
by the displacement of employees and business owners. The destruction of crops,
livestock and the displacement of farmers has driven agricultural losses and
damages of about USD 1.2 billion. “The Lebanon Interim Damage and Loss
Assessment draws on remote data sources and analytics to assess physical damage
and economic losses across seven key sectors,” the report said, adding, “The
damage assessment covers the six most conflict-affected governorates, while
economic losses are assessed nationwide whenever data allows. Data collection
was finalized as of October 27th for four sectors covered (commerce, health,
housing, tourism/hospitality) and as of September 27th for the other three
(agriculture, education, environment).” The report pointed out that “a
comprehensive Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) that assesses economic
and social losses as well as financing needs for reconstruction and recovery
will be completed when the situation allows.”“The cost of damages, losses and
needs estimated through a comprehensive RDNA is expected to be significantly
higher than that of this interim assessment,” the report noted. “To respond to
the current crisis facing the country, the World Bank is activating emergency
response plans to re-direct existing resources to support the urgent needs of
people in Lebanon,” the report concluded.
War costs Lebanon $5 billion in losses, damages 100,000
homes
Agence France Presse/November 14/2024
More than a year of clashes that escalated into war in September have cost
Lebanon more than $5 billion in economic losses and damaged nearly 100,000
housing units, the World Bank said Thursday. The World Bank report provided
estimates for damage between October 8, 2023, and October 27, 2024, saying "the
conflict has caused $5.1 billion in economic losses" and that it "damaged an
estimated 99,209 housing units" -- mainly in Lebanon's war-torn south.
Baalbek-Hermel governor: 12 Civil Defense members killed in Israeli strike on
center in Douris
LBCI/November 14/2024
The governor of Baalbek-Hermel, Bachir Khodr, reported that 12 Civil Defense
members were killed in an Israeli airstrike targeting their center in Douris,
Baalbek, on Thursday night. He added on his X account that Israel hit the Civil
Defense center while 20 members were inside.
Reports: Hochstein to present truce plan to Lebanon within
days
Naharnet/November 14/2024
U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein is expected to present the draft ceasefire
agreement to Lebanon within days, the Israel Hayom newspaper has reported.
Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth daily meanwhile quoted a senior official as saying
that “the discussions with Washington over the arrangements to end the fighting
against Hezbollah have entered their final stages.”
Strikes hit Dahieh after Israel's deadliest day in south
Lebanon
Agence France Presse/November 14/2024
Heavy air strikes hit the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital overnight
into Thursday.
The Israeli army issued Thursday morning evacuation warnings for buildings in
Choueifat's al-Amrousiyeh, Ghobeiri, Haret Hreik and Borj al-Brajneh following
three rounds of overnight airstrikes. Shortly after, the Israeli air force
struck al-Mrayjeh and "carried out a heavy strike on the southern suburbs
targeting the Haret Hreik-Rweis" area. The Israeli military said it struck
around 30 targets in the southern suburbs of Beirut over the past 48 hours.
"Over the past two days, approximately 30 terror targets were struck in the
Dahieh area in Beirut. These strikes were a part of the IDF's ongoing efforts to
dismantle and degrade Hezbollah's military capabilities," the military said in a
statement. Daytime raids on Dahieh have been more frequent in the past week.
Israel has been striking the area mainly at night since it escalated its air
campaign across Lebanon in September.
6 Israeli soldiers killed in south Lebanon -
Israel suffered one of the deadliest days of its ground offensive on Wednesday
when six of its soldiers were killed in fighting in southern Lebanon, making it
the deadliest day for its troops since the start of ground operations in
September. The soldiers "fell during combat in southern Lebanon", the army said
in a statement. Their deaths mean 47 Israeli troops have been killed in combat
with Hezbollah since the start of ground operations on September 30.
Hezbollah targets soldiers in south Lebanon -
Hezbollah said Wednesday it had fired missiles at Israeli soldiers near the key
border town of Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, the scene of fierce fighting
during their 2006 war. The group said it targeted the forces "on the southern
outskirts of the town of Bint Jbeil with a salvo of Nasr 1-type missiles."
Hezbollah targets north Israel and Tel Aviv -
Hezbollah claimed responsibility for firing a series of missiles at army forces
in northern Israel on Wednesday night. The group said in a statement that it had
targeted "a gathering of the Israeli enemy army forces in the Sa’sa settlement
with a salvo of missiles". Hezbollah earlier launched a drone attack targeting
Israel's military headquarters and ministry of defense in the city of Tel Aviv
and fired missiles targeting a military intelligence base near Tel Aviv in
central Israel. The group said it fired a salvo of rockets at Glilot military
base in the suburbs of Tel Aviv, Israel’s main commercial hub.
Berri's aide says Lebanon not against US-French truce
supervision
Naharnet/November 14/2024
Lebanon has recently agreed with U.S. mediator Amos Hochstein on a draft
agreement that was supposed to be presented to Israel and “so far we have not
received any remarks or responses regarding that formula that we discussed,”
Speaker Nabih Berri’s aide MP Ali Hassan Khalil said.
“No new phone call has taken place between Hochstein and Speaker Nabih Berri and
Hochstein told us that he is continuing his mission regarding the efforts to
reach an agreement,” Khalil told Al-Jazeera television.“We’re waiting to obtain
a new draft containing an agreement proposal,” Khalil added. Stressing that
“Lebanon’s stance is clear, which is commitment to all stipulations of
Resolution 1701 by both parties,” Khalil said Lebanon insists on “clear
mechanisms for the resolution’s implementation,” noting that Lebanon is “not
opposed to U.S. and French participation in the monitoring of the ceasefire.”“We
do not have reservations over the accurate and literal implementation of
Resolution 1701,” he added. Media reports have said that Berri is opposed to any
German or British roles in the ceasefire supervision.
Israel reportedly prepares Lebanon ceasefire plan as 'gift' to Trump
Naharnet/November 14/2024
A close aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump and his aide Jared Kushner this week that Israel is
rushing to advance a ceasefire deal in Lebanon, the Washington Post quoted three
current and former Israeli officials briefed on the meeting as saying. Israel
wants to “deliver an early foreign policy win to the president-elect,” the
officials said. Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s minister of strategic affairs, made
Mar-a-Lago the first stop on his U.S. tour Sunday before traveling to the White
House to update Biden administration officials on the Lebanon talks, a sign of
how swiftly America’s political center of gravity has shifted after Trump’s
electoral victory. “There is an understanding that Israel would gift something
to Trump … that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon,” an
Israeli official said. Trump has said he wants to bring an end to the wars in
the Middle East, but he also told Netanyahu in a call last month to “do what you
have to do” against Hezbollah and Hamas. “Netanyahu has no loyalty to Biden and
will be focused entirely on currying favor with Trump,” said Frank Lowenstein, a
former special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations under President Barack
Obama who served during the transition to the first Trump administration.
Netanyahu said in a video statement Sunday that he had talked to Trump three
times in recent days and that the two saw “major opportunities ahead for Israel,
especially in advancing peace” -- a striking statement after more than a year of
devastating war in Gaza and six weeks after Israel broadened its military
campaign against Hezbollah by sending ground troops into southern Lebanon.
The Israeli prime minister was planning for a new era in Washington well before
Election Day on Nov. 5. Netanyahu had been in regular contact with Trump,
according to the Israeli official, and Dermer with Kushner, who helped broker
normalization agreements between four Arab nations and Israel during Trump’s
first term and maintains personal and financial ties to the region.
On Sunday, the Israeli official said, the conversations at Trump’s Florida
residence focused on an Israeli cease-fire proposal for Lebanon involving
Western and Russian cooperation. An Israeli military official said plans were
also being created to ramp up ground operations in Lebanon if talks were to
ultimately fall apart. The terms of the evolving deal, according to Israeli
officials, would require Hezbollah fighters to retreat beyond the Litani River.
A person close to Hezbollah said the group would be willing to withdraw its
fighters north of the Litani as part of a temporary ceasefire. The Israeli
official said the Lebanese military would take control of the border zone for an
initial 60-day period, overseen by the United States and Britain. Lowenstein
said Netanyahu could be aiming for a temporary agreement with Biden still in
office, leaving a final settlement for Trump to take credit for. “The one thing
Netanyahu cares more about than Trump is his own domestic politics, and getting
Israeli civilians back to the north is a major objective that he may not want to
wait on,” he said.
The broad contours of the reported agreement taking shape are similar to those
in previous rounds of negotiations and align with Trump’s expressed desire to
put an end to Israel’s multifront war, but the plan has yet to be formally
submitted to Hezbollah, according to officials in both countries. And the
proposal calls for the Israeli military to be able to operate across the border
in case of violations -- a nonstarter for Lebanese officials.
“Is there any sane person who believes that we will agree to a settlement or a
solution that serves Israel’s interests at the expense of Lebanon’s interests
and sovereignty?” Speaker Nabih Berri said Tuesday. Berri, a Hezbollah ally, has
served as an intermediary in negotiations.
The person close to Hezbollah said the group’s “condition for progress remains
clear: Israel must be prohibited from conducting operations within Lebanese
territory.”But Netanyahu -- who has been accused by his critics of extending and
expanding the war for his own political survival after being widely blamed for
the security failures on Oct. 7 -- appears to be betting that the political
moment is ripe for a breakthrough. “This was a deal that Netanyahu waited to
give to Trump,” said Israel Ziv, former head of the Israel army’s Operations
Directorate, who remains in contact with high-ranking members of the security
establishment. “But waiting had its price,” Ziv added, referring to Hezbollah
having regained its footing in recent weeks, and killing more Israeli soldiers
in the south, after a series of mortal blows to its senior leadership and
communications network.
Following his meetings at Mar-a-Lago, Dermer met Monday and Tuesday with Biden
officials in Washington, including Amos Hochstein, the president’s special envoy
to Lebanon, according to a senior U.S. official. The senior official noted that
Netanyahu remains engaged with the administration on the ceasefire process in
Lebanon. A second U.S. official said that all the work on a potential deal was
still being done by Biden’s team and that progress had been made. There
meanwhile appears to be a new X-factor in Israel’s peace plan for Lebanon:
Russia, a country whose ties with Trump complicated his first term. According to
the Israeli official, the proposal calls for Moscow to prevent Hezbollah from
rearming via Syrian land routes, which for years have been the main conduit for
arms from Iran, the militant group’s main patron.
Russian officials visited Israel on Oct. 27 to discuss the plan, according to
the Israeli official. Dermer made a secret trip to Russia last week for
follow-up discussions, the Israeli and U.S. officials said. The U.S. official
said Russia would not be involved in the implementation or supervision of a
cease-fire agreement. On the competing claims over Moscow’s involvement,
Lowenstein said, “it’s possible that both are true: no role for the Russians now
under Biden, but a big one later when Trump takes over.”In parallel with
Dermer’s diplomatic blitz, the Israeli army is preparing for a second phase of
its ground operation, according to an Israeli military official, in case talks
fall apart. And in recent days, Israel’s air force has pummeled Lebanon with
strikes.
“We have taken away Hezbollah’s ability to attack us” as it could have before
the war, said the military official. But there is always more to do, he added.
Both the Israeli army and Hezbollah have asserted that the battlefield remains
the main front in negotiations. It is the only factor, caretaker Prime Minister
Najib Mikati said Monday, that can “change the political equations.”
UNIFIL Patrol Comes Under Fire, Lebanon Requested to Probe
the Incident
This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon (UNIFIL) came under fire on
Thursday after noticing an arms cache on the roadside, according to a statement
issued on its Telegram channel. “A UNIFIL patrol near Qallawiyah (in the Bint
Jbeil district in southern Lebanon) noticed this morning a cache of ammunition
near the roadway. After informing the Lebanese Armed Forces of the discovery,
the peacekeepers continued on their planned route,” the statement said, adding,
“a short while later, they got out of their vehicle to remove some debris from
the roadway. When getting back into their vehicles, two or three unknown people
fired approximately 30 shots in their direction.” “The peacekeepers fired back
from their vehicles and moved to safety,” the statement said, indicating that
“no one was hurt and there was no damage to the vehicles.”UNIFIL pointed out
that “it is unclear if the discovery of the weapons cache and the attack are
directly linked,” stating that they have launched an investigation.
“Peacekeepers cannot be targeted, ever. Firing toward them is a flagrant
violation of international law and of Resolution 1701,” the statement said.
UNIFIL reminded “the Lebanese authorities of their responsibility to ensure the
safety and security of peacekeepers who are carrying out sensitive and important
work on Lebanese territory.” “We have requested the Lebanese authorities
undertake a full and complete investigation of this incident and bring the
perpetrators to justice,” the statement added.It stressed that “despite these
and other challenges, peacekeepers remain in all positions and will continue to
impartially monitor and report on violations of Resolution 1701.”
Lacroix: Resolution 1701 Remains Key, UNIFIL Ready to
Support Lasting Peace Roadmap
This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun meets with UN
Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix ©UNIFIL On his
third visit to Lebanon, UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations
Jean-Pierre Lacroix stressed that Security Council Resolution 1701 remains the
framework to return to stability — and build on it. Concluding a three-day visit
to Beirut, Lacroix underscored in meetings with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri,
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Defense Minister Maurice Sleem, Foreign
Minister Abdallah Bou Habib and Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun,
“the need for both Lebanon and Israel to commit to fully implementing their
obligations under the resolution.”Lacroix also met with members of the
diplomatic corps and representatives of UNIFIL’s troop-contributing countries
and visited a UNIFIL position in Mansouri and the mission’s headquarters in
Naqoura. “Peacekeepers from almost 50 troop-contributing countries continue to
do their utmost to implement their mandated tasks, in very difficult and
challenging conditions,” Lacroix said, adding, “By doing this, they are helping
to create and hold the space for a political and diplomatic solution to emerge.
We are extremely grateful to them for their dedication and commitment.” “I
reiterate the UN's call for a cessation of hostilities and a full implementation
of Resolution 1701.”
Moustapha Adib: “Lebanon’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites Are
a Legacy for All Mankind”
Elie Valluy - Paris Correspondent/This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Lebanon's ambassador to UNESCO and Berlin, Moustapha Adib, spoke with This is
Beirut about the upcoming special session organized by the UN on November 18 in
Paris. The session will focus on enhancing protection for Lebanon's historic
sites, which are being threatened by Israeli airstrikes.
UNESCO announced on Thursday, November 7, that its committee on the protection
of cultural property in armed conflict will hold an extraordinary session on
Monday, November 18, to discuss “enhanced provisional protection” for Lebanon’s
historic sites, which are under threat from Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah.
UNESCO stated that the session is being convened “at the request of the Lebanese
authorities.”On the same day, more than one hundred Lebanese MPs appealed to
UNESCO to protect Lebanon's historic sites, particularly in the ancient cities
of Baalbeck and Tyre. The November 18 meeting takes place at UNESCO’s
headquarters in Paris. For more on the meeting and its stakes, ambassador Adib
answered TIB’s questions.
What is the aim of this meeting?
In response to the Israeli strikes that targeted the Baalbeck citadel and the
historic sites in the city of Tyre, Lebanon’s permanent delegation to UNESCO
requested an extraordinary session of the intergovernmental committee
established by the 1999 second additional protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention
for the Protection of Cultural Property in Armed Conflict.The aim is to request
enhanced protection, a mechanism established by the 1999 second additional
protocol to the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in
Armed Conflict. The primary objective is to ensure the effective and
comprehensive protection of cultural property, regardless of whether it holds
international significance.
Cultural property under enhanced protection is granted immunity, which requires
parties in conflict to refrain from attacking or using these sites — or their
immediate surroundings — to support military actions.
Failure to respect this enhanced protection results in criminal sanctions, as
outlined by the 1999 second protocol.
How will this meeting be organized?
The committee (which will meet on November 18, editor’s note) is composed of 12
countries, currently chaired by Finland. A quorum of 8 members is required for
the meeting to take place. Lebanon has secured this quorum within the required
timeframe. In collaboration with our Ministry of Culture, Lebanon's permanent
delegation has prepared a dossier on 34 sites, which will be presented during
the session. Based on this dossier, a request for enhanced protection will be
submitted. A vote will be required for each individual site. Efforts are being
made to ensure the successful granting of this enhanced protection.
I would also like to commend Lebanese civil society for its active efforts in
this regard, sending open letters to the Director-General (Audrey Azoulay) and
all relevant officials at UNESCO to raise awareness of this issue. Lebanon’s
UNESCO World Heritage sites belong not only to Lebanon but to all of humanity.
Furthermore, one hundred Lebanese MPs signed a petition addressed to Ms. Azoulay.
In addition, our Permanent Delegation to UNESCO has sent multiple letters and
diplomatic notes to Ms. Azoulay and to the Director of World Heritage, Mr.
Lazare Eloundou Assomo, following each Israeli strike on the perimeters of these
historic sites.
The top priority is to implement a ceasefire. Otherwise, all of the heritage
remains at imminent risk of destruction. These historic and archaeological
sites, which belong to all of humanity, must be safeguarded. Is this the first
time such a meeting is being held?
Yes. Lebanon requested this meeting on October 5, and it was scheduled for
November 18. There has been extensive diplomatic effort to secure the quorum,
and many states have responded positively to our request.
What tangible outcomes can this meeting achieve?
The aim is to secure enhanced protection for the historic sites in question.
Personally, I am confident. This is a technical dossier, based on clearly
defined criteria, along with identifying the imminent threats to each site.
If no progress is made, do you plan to organize similar meetings in the future?
For now, we are focusing all our efforts on the November 18 meeting. The results
will be carefully assessed by Lebanon to determine the next steps.
The Shadow of War on the Holiday Season!
Christiane Tager/This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
As the year-end holidays approach, Lebanese expatriates who usually rush home to
celebrate Christmas and New Year's with their families are now facing a grim
reality. The ongoing conflict between Hezbollah and Israel is profoundly
affecting Lebanon, turning it from a place of festivities and celebrations into
a war zone.This year, behind the sparkle of lights and the magic of Christmas
displays lies a holiday season that appears bleak. The war between Hezbollah and
Israel is not only causing a reduction in the number of travelers but is also
impacting the entire tourism sector.
Jean Abboud, President of the Union of Travel Agency Owners, tells This is
Beirut that reservation levels are far from ideal. He points out that only the
national airline, MEA, continues to serve Lebanon, compared to 55 airlines
operating flights to Beirut before the war. MEA currently operates 25 departures
and 25 arrivals daily. "Last year, 70 flights arrived each day during this same
period," he says. "Still, a small glimmer of hope: starting December 10, MEA
flights to Beirut are at 60% capacity, which is not bad given the
circumstances," says Abboud. However, he notes that this remains minimal
compared to previous years, especially since the number of flights has been
reduced by more than half. He laments that tourism will not contribute to the
economic cycle as it once did, pointing out that last year, tourism generated $6
billion, whereas this year, it will only bring in $2 billion. Pierre Achkar,
President of the Federation of Tourism Unions and the Hotel Union, describes the
situation in the hotel sector as "catastrophic." No reservations have been made
so far, and hotel occupancy rates are hovering around 0%. To cover its operating
costs, a hotel needs an occupancy rate between 30% and 50%. And how will the
hotels survive? He responds fatalistically, "We have vast experience managing
such situations. We’re trying to self-finance, but unfortunately, some
establishments will be forced to close."Most guesthouses have closed their
doors, waiting for better days. Ramzi Salman, President of the Union of
Guesthouse Owners, says that some were scheduled to reopen in December, but
given the circumstances, they will likely remain closed until the situation
improves. As for the restaurateurs, the vice president of their union, Khaled
Naha, tells This is Beirut that compared to 2023, when establishments were fully
booked throughout the holiday season and generated significant revenue, the 2024
year-end celebrations “offer no encouragement and above all, no visibility.” He
hopes the conflict will end as soon as possible, estimating that "at that point,
many expatriates will return to the country."It’s worth noting that the number
of passengers at Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport (arrivals,
departures, and transits) dropped by 19.1% in the first ten months of 2024,
falling from 6.3 million in 2023 to 5.1 million in 2024. The number of tourists
also declined by 24% compared to 2023.
Nabil Mamlouk: Journalist Facing Charges for “Dissenting
Opinions”
Bouchra Al Wajeh/This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Journalist Nabil Mamlouk was attacked and beaten in front of his father by
partisans with known political affiliations, attempting to intimidate him over
his “dissenting opinions,” despite his support for “resistance against the
Israeli enemy.”
Under the pretext of a voice recording sent by journalist Nabil Mamlouk, a
native of Tyre, to a WhatsApp news group he created after the war broke out to
inform the city’s residents—many of whom had fled the bombing—he was assaulted
and beaten in front of his father, a pharmacist, by youths with known political
affiliations. The attack was an attempt to intimidate him over his “dissenting
opinions,” despite his support for “resistance against the Israeli enemy.”To
further intimidate him, the attackers filmed the assault and shared the video,
falsely accusing him of collaborating with Israel and providing coordinates for
rocket launches from southern Lebanon. However, what the video failed to show
was the attackers brandishing a weapon at Mamlouk’s head and firing gunshots
inside his father’s pharmacy, as Mamlouk revealed to our sister company Houna
Loubnan. He stressed that “the attackers deliberately hid the full extent of
what occurred.”Describing the incident, Mamlouk said, “Because my views differ,
and because I report news accurately and objectively through the WhatsApp group
I created to counter fake news and protect people from the Israeli enemy, as
well as provide humanitarian aid to those still in the city and the displaced,
some people were upset by my actions and resented the fact that I don't share
their views. As a result, I started receiving threats, insults, accusations, and
charges of treason. Today, after I posted a warning for people in a specific
area of Tyre to avoid gatherings and stop filming, they falsely accused me of
informing the Israeli enemy about them. They then attacked me with violence and
weapons. I might have been killed if my father and a neighbor hadn’t
intervened.”
“I chose to stay in Tyre with my parents because our family has always remained
steadfast on our land during past wars,” Mamlouk adds, reaffirming his resolve
to stay in his home and city, continuing his work despite Israeli aggression on
one side and assaults and threats on the other.
Bassil says Hezbollah can't 'restore deterrence', rejects
Geagea's remarks
Naharnet/November 14/2024
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has said that he will be happy if
Israel “does not triumph over Lebanon or occupy it.” “Of course we support the
resistance in preventing Israel from occupying the country, but whatever happens
will not restore Lebanon’s force of deterrence, because this force could not
prevent the destruction of Lebanon and the displacement of its people,” Bassil
said in an interview on Egypt’s al-Ghad television. “We believed in a certain
strength for the Axis of Resistance, but it has not showed until now, knowing
that there are weapons and capabilities that are yet to be used by this Axis,
and I believe that they are deliberately being concealed in order not to harm
Lebanon, especially its infrastructure,” Bassil added. “Lebanon cannot regain
the equation of deterrence, because Hezbollah had built its combat capabilities
over time and amid many circumstances, with the supply routes passing through
Iraq and Syria all the way to Lebanon. Can these internal and external
circumstances be formed again?” the FPM chief explained. He also doubted that
the Lebanese would want to “repeat the experience” and engage in a similar
war.“Hezbollah has lost its popular legitimacy as to its ability to protect
Lebanon, whereas it is carrying out defensive missions today in a good manner,”
Bassil added. Noting that a solution involving Israeli security hegemony over
Lebanon would be a “disaster,” the FPM chief said that “any bet on an imminent
ceasefire in Lebanon would be a mistake.”“All the papers that are reaching
Hezbollah’s leadership and Speaker Nabih Berri include the same Gaza scenario,”
Bassil added. Asked about Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea’s call for the
election of a president without Shiite participation in the electoral session,
Bassil said he cannot be with “a Lebanon without Shiites.” “As much as I defend
the rights of Christians, I will defend the rights of any sect when someone
wants to isolate it -- be it Sunni, Shiite or whatever,” Bassil added. “When I
told LF leader Samir Geagea that I supported his ambition but not his plans, I
meant these crazy plans that would only take us to an internal war and which I
certainly don’t support,” Bassil said.
Lebanon-Syria refugee crisis risks destabilizing the region
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/November 14, 2024
Israel’s ongoing war on Lebanon has caused an unprecedented wave of
displacement, with thousands of Lebanese and Syrians fleeing across the border
to Syria to escape the escalating violence. This mass exodus represents a new
humanitarian crisis, with more than 276,000 people, primarily women and
children, forced to cross into Syria under extremely challenging circumstances.
The displaced face a lack of essentials — such as water, food and shelter — at
border and reception areas, revealing a severe shortfall in resources to address
the needs of this vulnerable population.This humanitarian crisis should not be
underestimated or overlooked. The situation extends far beyond a simple refugee
movement; it could become a multifaceted disaster affecting the entire region.
As global powers struggle to broker a peace deal or offer substantial aid, the
toll of inaction grows.
“We can no longer view the situation in the Middle East as a series of isolated
conflicts and displacement crises. Political failure risks destabilizing an
entire region and condemning millions to catastrophe. Global diplomacy must move
beyond platitudes and unkept commitments,” said Angelita Caredda, the Norwegian
Refugee Council’s Middle East and North Africa regional director. Her words
capture the urgency needed from international leaders to prevent an escalation
of this crisis. This issue is compounded by Syria’s limited capacity to manage
an influx of refugees. Economically, the country is already under immense strain
due to 13 years of internal conflict that have decimated its economy, reduced
national income and left millions impoverished. The nation’s struggling economy
cannot feasibly absorb this influx of displaced people from Lebanon, adding a
new layer to the crisis.As global powers struggle to broker a peace deal or
offer substantial aid, the toll of inaction grows
Refugees require jobs, housing and economic support, all of which are in short
supply in Syria due to years of conflict and the country’s own humanitarian
challenges. This economic strain ultimately impacts both the host country and
the displaced individuals, who face higher costs and limited opportunities for
survival. Syria’s infrastructure is similarly unprepared to handle this influx.
With hospitals, schools and housing already in disrepair, Syria lacks the
essential facilities to support both its citizens and the incoming refugee
population.
Years of war have severely damaged basic services like healthcare, education and
transportation, creating barriers for those in need. The Norwegian Refugee
Council has reported that the situation is dire: basic resources are
unavailable, food prices have surged and affordable housing is scarce. In this
environment, even the most resilient refugees will struggle to rebuild their
lives. In some cases, refugee populations can benefit host economies through
contributions to the workforce and demand for goods and services. However, these
benefits are only possible when there is sufficient infrastructure and basic
resources to support the additional population. In Syria’s case, where even the
foundational elements of public services are severely depleted, the refugee
influx presents a daunting challenge rather than an economic opportunity. For
Syria to experience any economic benefits from hosting refugees, substantial
investments in infrastructure and humanitarian support are essential.
This crisis within a crisis becomes even more complex considering Syria’s
prolonged suffering. After 13 years of conflict, it does not seem to be in a
position to handle the arrival of a new wave of displaced families. The
situation for Syrian refugees has been dire for more than a decade, with
humanitarian aid stretched thin and communities exhausted from years of
instability. The thousands of families crossing into Syria from Lebanon now face
challenges with no immediate or sustainable support in sight. “Syria is already
on its knees after 13 years of conflict. The mass displacement from Lebanon
comes at a time when the aid response already cannot keep pace with existing
needs. Thousands of families crossing into Syria will struggle to find a safe
place to stay or the basics their children need. This is a crisis within
multiple crises,” Caredda noted, underscoring the heavy burden on Syrians. The
children crossing into Syria alone or with their families are at risk of trauma,
malnutrition and neglect
More fundamentally, refugees need more than mere survival — they need access to
healthcare, education and protection, especially children, who are often left
vulnerable. The children crossing into Syria alone or with their families are at
risk of trauma, malnutrition and neglect. Basic provisions, including water,
food, shelter and mental health support, are vital for their survival and
well-being. Mental health services, particularly for children who have
experienced the horrors of war, are critical to help them cope and adapt. In the
absence of these fundamental necessities, the crisis will continue to spiral,
affecting generations.
As a result, the international community must urgently address this humanitarian
catastrophe. Three essential actions must be taken to prevent further suffering
and instability. First, global leaders need to secure and create a pathway
toward peace. Diplomatic efforts must shift from empty promises to concrete
actions that prioritize stability and security in the region. Second,
humanitarian aid must be significantly increased, focusing on essential services
and infrastructure for refugees. The €5 million ($5.2 million) allocated by the
EU last week is a positive step, but much more funding and resources are
required to meet the needs of the displaced. Third, support can be provided to
strengthen Syria’s ability to host refugees. The international community should
focus not only on immediate relief but also on building long-term resilience in
host regions.
In a nutshell, the emerging refugee crisis between Lebanon and Syria demands
immediate and concerted action from the global community. Without substantial
intervention, this crisis risks destabilizing the entire region, resulting in
untold human suffering. The needs of the displaced cannot wait and the
international community has a moral obligation to prevent this crisis from
spiraling out of control.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian American political scientist.
X: @Dr_Rafizadeh
AnalysisTrump's Economic Policies and Lebanon's Dollar
Crisis
Liliane Mokbel/This Is Beirut/November 14/2024
Trump's strong dollar policy could have profound effects on Lebanon’s struggling
economy, which has been in decline for over five years. The 1971 remark by
former US Treasury Secretary John Connally feels more relevant than ever: “The
dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem.” Connally made this statement to
European officials as the US ended the Bretton Woods system, severing the
dollar’s convertibility to gold. While the dollar’s value is primarily shaped by
US domestic factors, its fluctuations continue to ripple through the global
economy. A 2023 International Monetary Fund (IMF) study found that the negative
impact of a strong dollar tends to last around two and a half years in emerging
markets, compared to just one year in developed economies. The study highlighted
that a 10% rise in the dollar’s value would, after a year, lead to a 1.9% drop
in output for emerging economies, while advanced nations would see a milder
decline of 0.6%.
Stock Market Euphoria
The economic policies promised by President-elect Donald Trump have sparked
investor optimism, with expectations that the incoming administration will drive
US corporate profits higher through tax cuts, deregulation, and increased
government borrowing.
Moreover, the recent surge in US stock markets and the dollar’s movement provide
a glimpse of what could unfold during at least part of Trump's tenure. The
Standard & Poor’s 500 index, which includes leading US companies, set
consecutive record highs on November 6, 7, and 8.
The euro weakened on Tuesday by 0.5%, falling to $1.0596—its lowest point in a
year—while the yen slipped by 0.7% to 154.8 per dollar. The Canadian dollar also
declined for the third straight day, nearing its lowest level in four years.
Dollar Shortage in Lebanon
In an interview with This is Beirut, Nicole Ballouz Baker, Associate Professor
at Saint Joseph University (USJ), explains that the optimism triggered by
Trump's election led to a surge in demand for the dollar, causing its
appreciation. For the United States, this results in cheaper imports but less
competitive exports. However, for Lebanon, an import-dependent country, the
impact is reversed: it faces imported inflation. She notes that although
Lebanon’s economy is largely dollarized, which could theoretically improve
purchasing power, the situation is different. “The economic recession, which has
reached 50% due to the war, has drastically reduced dollar inflows, especially
from tourism and investments. Our dollar reserves at the Central Bank are
insufficient to cover the costs of the war. This will force an increase in the
local money supply through printing Lebanese pounds, further fueling inflation.
It's a vicious cycle that's difficult to break.”
Depreciation of the Lebanese Pound
In a separate interview with This is Beirut, economic expert Jassem Ajaka
observes that in Lebanon’s informal dollarized economy, where the national
currency coexists alongside the dollar—used extensively for transactions,
savings, and loans—an appreciating dollar inevitably leads to further
depreciation of the Lebanese pound. However, he stresses that the current
exchange rate does not reflect Lebanon's true economic conditions, comparing it
to a series of “fake knockouts” in a combat sport, where one side is simply
stalling for time. “In other words, given the political, military, and financial
pressures (such as being on the grey list), the dollar supply should decrease in
the medium to long term,” he explains. He also points out that “the State uses
dollars, even though it has no real revenue in that currency.” The Central Bank
buys dollars from the market using Lebanese pounds from its reserves, then
recovers them through a fiscal policy that forces taxpayers to make payments in
cash, in Lebanese pounds. While the recent global appreciation of the dollar may
temporarily enhance the purchasing power of the Lebanese people, a contraction
in the dollar supply circulating within the economy is likely inevitable in the
long term.
Jassem Ajaka suggests that a return to using LBP in the economy would more
accurately reflect the country’s true economic health and the situation of its
public institutions. In this case, the national currency would likely experience
further depreciation against the dollar. Dollar Injection by the BDL Economist
Mahmoud Jébae offers a different perspective, choosing not to speculate on the
effects of a strong dollar on Lebanon's economy. He argues that “the rise of the
dollar currently has more of a psychological impact than a tangible economic
one.”Jébae believes that the BDL will continue injecting dollars into the
market, while hoping for a swift resolution to the ongoing conflict.
Additionally, he highlights the annual inflow of approximately $13 billion from
remittances by the diaspora, exports, and aid from international NGOs, which, in
his view, dismisses any immediate risk of a currency shortage.
Trump’s Opposition
That being said, the strengthening of the dollar is contrary to the preferences
of Donald Trump, as noted by some analysts. Trump has long argued that a strong
dollar hurts domestic manufacturers and costs US jobs, but he has limited
ability to pressure the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. As long as
inflation remains high, interest rates will likely stay elevated, ensuring that
the US currency continues to be a preferred safe haven for investors.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on November 14-15/2024
Israeli attacks on Syria’s Damascus kill
15, state media says
Reuters/November 14, 2024
DUBAI: Fifteen people were killed and 16 injured in Israeli attacks on a number
of residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday,
state news agency SANA reported, citing a Syrian military source. The buildings
are located in the suburbs of Mazzeh and Qudsaya, both west of the capital, the
SANA report said. Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus
were a headquarters of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad and what it
described as other assets, without elaborating. Israel has been carrying out
strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such
raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli
territory that sparked the Gaza war. Commanders in Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed
group and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards based in Syria have been known to reside
in Mazzeh, according to residents who fled after recent strikes that killed some
key figures from the groups. Mazzeh’s high rise blocks have been used by the
authorities in the past to house leaders of Palestinian factions including Hamas
and Islamic Jihad.
US
Targets Syrian Company with Sanctions over IRGC, Houthi Funding
Washington : Asharq Al Awsat/14 November 2024
The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Thursday on companies,
individuals and vessels associated with a Syrian conglomerate that Washington
said was funding Iran's Quds Force and Yemen's Houthis. The Syrian conglomerate,
the Al-Qatirji Company, is responsible for generating hundreds of millions of
dollars in revenue for the Quds Force and the Houthis through the sale of
Iranian oil to Syria and China, the department said in a statement. "Iran is
increasingly relying on key business partners like the Al-Qatirji Company to
fund its destabilizing activities and web of terrorist proxies across the
region," said department official Bradley Smith said. The Al-Qatirji Company had
already been under sanctions for its role in facilitating the sale of fuel
between the Syrian regime and ISIS of Iraq and Syria, the department said. Some
26 companies, individuals and vessels associated with the company were targeted
in Thursday's action, it added.
2 Israeli
airstrikes hit Syria's capital and a suburb, killing 15 people, Syrian state
media says
Albert Aji/DAMASCUS, Syria
(AP)/November 14, 2024
Israel carried out at least two airstrikes on a western neighborhood of Damascus
and one of the capital’s suburbs on Thursday, killing at least 15 people and
wounding another 16, Syria's state news agency said. The airstrikes on the
Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus and the suburb of Qudsaya, northwest of the
capital, struck two buildings, the SANA news agency said. An Associated Press
journalist at the scene in Mazzeh said that a five-story building was damaged by
a missile that hit the basement. The Israeli military said it had hit
infrastructure sites and command centers of the Islamic Jihad militant group in
Syria, and had “inflicted significant damage to the terrorist organization’s
command center and to its operatives.”The airstrikes in Damascus and the nearby
suburb came shortly before Ali Larijani, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ali
Khamenei, was scheduled to meet in the Syrian capital with representatives of
Palestinian factions at the Iranian Embassy in Mazzeh. The Israeli military said
Islamic Jihad had participated alongside Hamas, the Palestinian militant group
in the Gaza Strip, in the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel that killed
some 1,200 people — mostly civilians — and saw 250 others abducted into Gaza.
The military “will continue to operate against the Islamic Jihad terrorist
organization wherever necessary,” it said. Israel's retaliation to the Oct. 7
attack and the ensuing Israel-Hamas war has spilled into the wider region,
affecting Lebanon, Syria and leading to strikes between Israel and Iran. The war
has left much of Gaza in ruins and has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, mostly
women and children, according to local health authorities who do not distinguish
between civilians and combatants.
An official with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Group said that the strike in
Mazzeh targeted one of their offices, and that several members of the group were
killed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t
authorized to speak to the media. Syria’s state news agency SANA said that the
country’s air defenses were activated against a “hostile target” south of the
central city of Homs. It gave no further details. Tehran has been a main backer
of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government since a 2011 uprising turned into
a full-blown civil war and has played an instrumental role in turning the tide
of the conflict in his favor. Iran has sent scores of military advisers and
thousands of Iran-backed fighters from around the Middle East to Syria to fight
on Assad’s side. Tehran has also been an economic lifeline for Assad, sending
fuel and credit lines worth billions of dollars. Israel has carried out hundreds
of airstrikes in Syria targeting members of neighboring Lebanon’s Hezbollah and
officials from Iranian-backed groups.
Hezbollah began firing into Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with Hamas in
Gaza. Since then, more than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon and more
than 14,200 wounded, the country’s Health Ministry reported. In Israel, 76
people have been killed, including 31 soldiers.
Lebanon's state media said an Israeli airstrike Thursday hit a building in
Baalbek city in eastern Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding five
others. The strike on Baalbek came without warning. The Israeli military did not
immediately comment and the target was not clear.
Speaking Thursday evening, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari
said that over the past week, Israel had "struck more than 300 targets from the
air across Lebanon, including about 40 targets in the heart of the Dahiyeh in
Beirut.”Israeli warplanes intensified airstrikes on Thursday, targeting various
areas in southern and eastern Lebanon, including the outskirts of the southern
port city of Tyre city and the Nabatieh province, the National News Agency said.
Throughout the day, sporadic airstrikes targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs in a
clear uptick in attacks on the area over the past two days, with the Israeli
army issuing evacuation warnings for several locations and buildings in the
suburbs. The Israeli military said it carried out strikes on Hezbollah targets
in the Dahiyeh area, including weapons storage facilities and command centers.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry said the death toll in Lebanon since the war began on
Oct. 8, 2023 has reached 3,365 while those wounded are 14,344. Nearly 1.2
million people have been displaced. Before the war intensified on Sept. 23,
Hezbollah said that it had lost nearly 500 members but the group has stopped
releasing statements about their killed fighters since.
United Nations peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix, speaking during a visit
to Lebanon, said the U.N. remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force,
known as UNIFIL, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon, despite
intense ongoing battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants. UNIFIL
has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and Hezbollah
across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for
peacekeepers to pull back five kilometers (three miles) from the border. UNIFIL
has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13
peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting.
Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip. UNIFIL forces
“continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important
to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said. ”...Had we vacated some of
the positions, then that would have certainly jeopardized the capacity for
UNIFIL to continue today, but probably even more importantly, that would have
significantly undermined the capacity for UNIFIL to play a role, tomorrow, when
the cessation of hostilities takes place - hopefully sooner than later.”Lacroix
said there is still a “large consensus that resolution 1701 remains the critical
framework for settlement,” referring to the U.N. Security Council resolution
that ended the brutal monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, but
which has never been fully implemented by either party.
Israeli
strike kills 12 after hitting civil defense center in Lebanon’s Baalbek,
governor tells Reuters
Arab News/November 14, 2024
LONDON: Israeli forces demolished the office of the Palestinian Al-Bustan
Association in occupied East Jerusalem’s neighborhood of Silwan, whose residents
are under threat of Israeli eviction orders. The Palestinian Authority’s
Ministry of Culture condemned on Thursday the demolition of Al-Bustan by Israeli
bulldozers and a military police force. The ministry said that “(Israeli)
occupation’s arrogant practices against cultural and community institutions in
Palestine, and specifically in Jerusalem, are targeting the Palestinian
identity, in an attempt to obliterate it.”
Founded in 2004, the Al-Bustan Association functioned as a primary community
center in which Silwan’s youth and families ran cultural and social activities
alongside hosting meetings for diplomatic delegations and Western journalists
who came to learn about controversial Israeli policies in the area. Al-Bustan
said in a statement that it served 1,500 people in Silwan, most of them
children, who enrolled in educational, cultural and artistic workshops. In
addition to the Al-Bustan office, Israeli forces also demolished a home in the
neighborhood belonging to the Al-Qadi family. Located less than a mile from Al-Aqsa
Mosque and Jerusalem’s southern ancient wall, Silwan has a population of 65,000
Palestinians, some of them under threat of Israeli eviction orders. In past
years, Israeli authorities have been carrying out archaeological digging under
Palestinian homes in Silwan, resulting in damage to these buildings, in search
of the three-millennial “City of David.”
Israel’s
attorney general tells Netanyahu to reexamine extremist security minister’s role
Reuters/November 15, 2024
JERUSALEM, Nov 14 : Israel’s Attorney General told Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu to reevaluate the tenure of his far-right National Security Minister
Itamar Ben-Gvir, citing his apparent interference in police matters, Israel’s
Channel 12 reported on Thursday. The news channel published a copy of a letter
written by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara in which she described instances
of “illegitimate interventions” in which Ben-Gvir, who is tasked with setting
general policy, gave operational instructions that threaten the police’s
apolitical status. “The concern is that the government’s silence will be
interpreted as support for the minister’s behavior,” the letter said. Officials
at the Justice Ministry could not be reached for comment and there was no
immediate comment from Netanyahu’s office. Ben-Gvir, who heads a small
ultra-nationalist party in Netanyahu’s coalition, wrote on social media after
the letter was published: “The attempted coup by (the Attorney General) has
begun. The only dismissal that needs to happen is that of the Attorney General.”
Israel’s
warfare in Gaza consistent with genocide, UN committee finds
Ephrem Kossaify/Arab News/November 14, 2024
NEW YORK: Israel’s methods of warfare in Gaza, including the use of starvation
as a weapon, mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions
deliberately inflicted on Palestinians in the territory, are consistent with the
characteristics of genocide, the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli
Practices said in a report published on Thursday. “Since the beginning of the
war, Israeli officials have publicly supported policies that strip Palestinians
of the very necessities required to sustain life: food, water and fuel,” the
committee said.
Statements from Israeli authorities and the “systematic and unlawful” blocking
of humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza make clear “Israel’s intent to
instrumentalize life-saving supplies for political and military gains,” it
added. The committee, the full title of which is the UN Special Committee to
Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian
people and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, was established by the UN
General Assembly in 1968 to monitor the human rights situation in the occupied
Golan heights, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. It
comprises the permanent representatives to the UN from three member states,
currently Malaysia, Senegal and Sri Lanka, who are appointed by the president of
the General Assembly. Its latest report, which covers the period from October
2023 to July 2024, mostly focuses on the effects of the war in Gaza on the
rights of Palestinians. “Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of
humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid
workers, despite repeated UN appeals, binding orders from the International
Court of Justice and resolutions of the Security Council, Israel is
intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as
a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian
population,” the committee said. The “extensive” Israeli bombing campaign has
wiped out essential services in Gaza and caused an “environmental catastrophe”
that will have “lasting health impacts,” it adds. By early 2024, the report
says, more than 25,000 tonnes of explosives, equivalent to two nuclear bombs,
had been dropped on Gaza, causing “massive” destruction, the collapse of water
and sanitation systems, agricultural devastation and toxic pollution. This has
created a “lethal mix of crises that will inflict severe harm on generations to
come,” the committee said. The report notes “serious concern” about Israel’s use
of artificial intelligence technology to choose its targets “with minimal human
oversight,” the consequence of which has been “overwhelming” numbers of deaths
of women and children. This underscores “Israel’s disregard of its obligation to
distinguish between civilians and combatants and take adequate safeguards to
prevent civilian deaths,” it adds. In addition, Israel’s escalating censorship
of the media and targeting of journalists are “deliberate efforts” to block
global access to information, the committee found, and the report states that
social media companies have disproportionately removed “pro-Palestinian content”
in comparison with posts inciting violence against Palestinians. The committee
also condemned the continuing “smear campaign” and other attacks on the
reputation of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, and the
wider UN. “This deliberate silencing of reporting, combined with disinformation
and attacks on humanitarian workers, is a clear strategy to undermine the vital
work of the UN, sever the lifeline of aid still reaching Gaza, and dismantle the
international legal order,” it said. It called on all states to honor their
legal obligations to stop and prevent violations of international law by Israel,
including the system of apartheid that operates in the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, and to hold Israeli authorities accountable for their actions.
“Upholding international law and ensuring accountability for violations rests
squarely on member states,” the committee said. Failure to do this weakens “the
very core of the international legal system and sets a dangerous precedent,
allowing atrocities to go unchecked.” The committee will officially present its
report to the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly on Monday.
‘Qatar is holding our hostages as much as Hamas is,’
scholar and former MK says - interview
Ohad Merlin/Jerusalem Post/November 14/2024
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Dr. Einat Wilf, a political scientist
and former MK, slams Qatar for their sponsoring of Hamas.
Qatar carries out a destructive role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,
Israeli political scientist and former member of Knesset Dr. Einat Wilf told The
Jerusalem Post in a wide-ranging interview.
In the interview, Wilf argued that through its support for Hamas and undermining
of Israel, Qatar poses a major threat to regional stability.
Wilf began by asserting that contrary to the perception that Qatar is a mere
mediator, "Qatar is not our friend. Qatar and Hamas are one and the same." She
stressed that Qatar had provided Hamas with the economic, material, and moral
means to build the army that invaded Israel on October 7 and committed the
massacre, all the while maintaining the group in power in Gaza.
"Despite the terrorist infrastructure destroyed and the many militants dead,
Hamas has yet to pay a high toll for the massacre they committed,” Wilf added.
“Any tunnel or military capabilities destroyed will be quickly fixed by Qatar,
who is keen on keeping them in power in Gaza." This dynamic, she explained, has
prevented Hamas from truly feeling the consequences of its actions. "As long as
Hamas remains in power in Gaza, we haven't achieved anything, and it will keep
on terrorizing our citizens."
Wilf also discussed Qatar's broader efforts to undermine Israel through its
state-owned media outlet Al Jazeera. "Al Jazeera is a crucial part of Qatar's
arsenal against the political existence of Israel. The channel is quoted
disproportionately by American media outlets, giving it an outsized impact, as
proven by studies.” Wilf continued: “What Qatar discovered is that antisemitism
is a great way to talk to both the left and the right, and this is why it is a
central element at Al-Jazeera.
The assumption that the network is cited despite its antisemitism is not true.
It is exactly the opposite; that is, they cite because of its antisemitism.
What Qatar, through Al Jazeera, is gifting the West is the ability to cite its
antisemitism without being responsible for it. That is, if Al Jazeera brings
lies and quotes, then apparently, all kinds of American and British networks can
say that they only quoted the so-called ‘serious’ network. It is their way of
outsourcing antisemitism .” When asked what mistakes Israel made in relation to
Qatar, Wilf answers decidedly. “Obviously, the main mistake that Israel made is
to think that the mere fact that they talk to us means that they are our
friends.
They are an enemy state, and we just gave them the king’s road all the way to
our border. The story of the money suitcases tells it all.
Israel, from the Prime Minister to all the security establishment, brought Qatar
in and allowed Qatar to turn Hamas into an army that threatened our existence, a
real existential danger.” ‘Qatar holds our hostages’
When prompted to talk about the issue of the hostages, Wilf is especially
shaken, firmly denouncing the very normalization of the mere idea that this is
even a negotiable issue.
“As if kidnapping innocent families from their beds on a Saturday morning is
something to be negotiated,” she commented, pointing her criticism at both
Israel and the US.
"The Qataris call Blinken to talk about negotiations on bringing back a baby
from the tunnels they helped build, and instead of slamming the phone in their
face and scolding them for not pressuring Hamas to let these innocent civilians
go, the US accepts Qatar's role as a ‘mediator,’ which only strengthens Hamas'
position. And this is all done under the guise of foolish Israeli legitimacy."
Rather than negotiate, Dr. Wilf argued that Israel should have taken a firm
stance and applied maximum pressure on Qatar to cut ties with Hamas. "From the
very beginning, we should have said that Qatar is the enemy, not the mediator.
The hostages are being held by Qatar as much as by Hamas,” she asserted. The
former Knesset member lamented Israel's failure to mobilize international
opinion against Doha, which she believed would have helped bringing back the
hostages sooner.
"We foolishly gave Qatar the opportunity to present itself as an honest,
merciful broker, when in fact it is bankrolling the very group holding our
citizens hostage."
When asked about the deal mediated by Qatar almost a year ago, which brought
back women and children, Dr. Wilf commented strongly. “People may see this as
evidence that Qatar has done something good. But no. What Qatar did was to
protect Hamas in this deal, because those children, families, mothers, and
elderly women that Hamas kidnapped made them live under huge image pressure, and
so were Qatar. Muslim leaders began to come out and say ‘this is not Islam,
Islam doesn't kidnap little girls, Islam doesn't kidnap old women’ and Qatar and
Hamas also need support among their audiences.
Instead of Israel taking advantage of these voices and starting a campaign
saying "You want to tell us that this is not Islam? Then let everyone go" - we
entered this ‘deal’ and started debating how many terrorists we should release
and which indictments they face. This is what allows Hamas to continue the same
demands they had on October 8, 2023.”Wilf holds that the first deal actually
freed Hamas from the huge image-related and logistical pressure they faced. “And
in addition, as a result of this deal, we began to provide regular supplies that
keep Hamas in power ever since,” she added. So, what could have actually been
done differently? According to Wilf, “Instead of inciting against the hostage
families, the Israeli government should have embraced them from the start.
Explained to them bravely that there is no possibility to go back to Hamas’s
October 7th demands and collaborate with them to apply pressure on Qatar.” Wilf
continued passionately: “The government should have told the families: ‘In order
to release your loved ones, we need your help. We need to create an equation
that is reasonable and to do that; we need to apply pressure revolving around
Qatar’s own image.’ They should have send the families to Western capitals,
house them in hotels, and having the local Israeli embassies make sure that
there is a 24/7 vigil shifts in front of Qatari embassies and consulates around
the world, with pictures of the hostages.”“By the way, I know from many sources
that the Qatari ambassadors in different countries try to present themselves as
very nice to the families of the hostages and make the families think that Qatar
is nice to them. They don't understand that they are being nice to them just so
that the families don't stand on the sidewalk opposite and protest in front of
them,” Wilf commented, adding that in her view, the hostage families have the
most important thing: “the ability to hurt Qatar in terms of its image, which is
the thing that is most important to it,” as she put it.
From UNRWA to Doha
For Wilf, there are many parallels between her work on the issue of UNRWA and
its ‘deliberate perpetuation of the refugee issue’ as she named it – and Qatar's
role in Israel’s eyes.
"I feel there is a natural continuity between my work on UNRWA and my focus on
Qatar. In both cases, I'm trying to explain that what everyone thinks is ‘so
nice’ and a supposed part of the world order from time immemorial – is in fact,
a disaster and a big threat to Israel."
Wilf argued that just as Israel has given legitimacy to UNRWA's narrative around
the "right of return" for Palestinian refugees, it has also legitimized Qatar's
role as a mediator.
"If Israel sees Qatar as a positive factor, then why would anyone else think
differently? If we, who are trying to free the hostages, officially see Qatar as
a ‘positive’ player, and we also accept the rules that we won't harm Hamas'
leaders as long as they're in Qatar - then we're giving them enormous
legitimacy,” she commented. Now, Wilf is hopeful that Israel will wake up and
capitalize on opportunities to counter Qatar's anti-Israel endeavors. "We should
use this upcoming Trump administration, with all of its promising appointments,
and lobby for Qatar not to have the status of a NATO ally, not to host the US
military base, not to be able to fund universities and K-12 curricula. This
would be threatening Doha where it most hurts them."When asked about what
Israelis can do in the Qatari context, Wilf emphasized the need to mobilize
public opinion, both domestically and internationally. "Write to your Knesset
members, raise this issue on every platform you're active on. Ask any decision
maker: 'Why aren't you doing anything about Qatar?' Gradually, this discourse
will build up. The more we can keep talking about this, especially in the
context of the hostage families, the better."Wilf argued that this public
pressure could be the catalyst for change, drawing inspiration from the
Knesset’s recently passed law to close UNRWA offices in Israel despite fierce
international pressure, which led to internal procrastination on the government
level. "The public is waking up to who the real enemies are and who we should
not be cooperating with, and we are now in a dramatic moment where our
institutions are less and less disconnected from where the public sentiment
is."Ultimately, Wilf stressed the urgency of addressing the Qatari threat. "As
long as Qatar continues to enable Hamas and prop up its rule in Gaza, we will be
stuck in a cycle of violence and instability. We can't afford to ignore this
issue any longer."
Protests erupt in Paris over pro-Israel gala organized by
far-right figures
Tom Nouvian/AP/November 14, 2024
PARIS (AP) — Protests erupted in Paris on Wednesday against a controversial gala
organized by far-right figures in support of Israel. The event, intended to
raise funds for the Israeli military, included Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel
Smotrich among its invited guests.
The demonstrations came on the eve of a high-stakes soccer match at France's
national stadium against the Israeli national team, overshadowed by tensions
around the wars in the Middle East. Authorities in Paris announced that more
than 4,000 police officers and 1,600 stadium staff will be deployed for the
game. Smotrich, a vocal advocate of Israeli settlements, had been expected to
attend Wednesday's gala, dubbed “Israel is Forever,” which was planned by an
association of the same name. The group’s stated goal is to “mobilize
French-speaking Zionist forces.”
After days of growing criticism of the event, Smotrich's office confirmed
Wednesday that the minister would not travel to Paris to participate. But the
invitation to Smotrich drew sharp criticism from local associations, unions and
left-wing political parties, prompting two protests in the French capital. The
minister, a hard-line settler leader, has been accused of inflaming tensions in
the West Bank and drew international condemnations this week by saying he hopes
the election of Donald Trump will clear the way for Israeli annexation of the
West Bank — a step that would extinguish Palestinian statehood dreams.
The French Foreign Ministry called Smotrich’s remarks “contrary to international
law” and counterproductive to efforts to reduce regional tensions. “France
reiterates its commitment to the implementation of the two-state solution, with
Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security, which is the
only prospect for a just and lasting settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict,” the ministry said in a statement. Critics also pointed at Nili
Kupfer-Naouri, president of the “Israel is Forever” association, who sparked
outrage in 2023, after the Israel-Hamas war started, when she tweeted that “no
civilian in Gaza was innocent.”On Wednesday night, several hundred protesters
marched through central Paris, denouncing the event as a “gala of hatred and
shame.” “Imagine if an association were hosting a gala for Hezbollah or Hamas —
there’s no way the police would allow that,” said Melkir Saib, a 30-year-old
protester. “The situation is just unfair.” The march was largely peaceful, but
some demonstrators broke windows at a McDonald's along the route. A separate
group, including Jewish leftist organizations opposed to racism and antisemitism,
gathered near the Arc de Triomphe chanting slogans against the gala and Smotrich.
French authorities defended the event, with Paris police chief Laurent Nunez
stating that the gala posed “no major threat to public order.”The protests came
days after tensions flared in Paris and Amsterdam related to the conflicts in
the Mideast. A massive “Free Palestine” banner was displayed during a Paris
Saint-Germain Champions League match against Atletico Madrid, while violence
broke out in Amsterdam last week targeting fans of an Israeli soccer club.
UNRWA
schools in Gaza: Principals, staff identified as members in terror units -
report
Ohad Merlin/Jerusalem Post/November 14/2024
A new report highlights the involvement of UNRWA educational staff in Hamas
militant activity, inflammatory and inciting ‘educational’ material. Updated:
NOVEMBER 14, 2024 20:53 In July, Israeli intelligence published an expose
showcasing that over 10% of UNRWA’s senior education staff in Gaza were members
of Hamas or Islamic Jihad. The findings, shared with the agency as well, were
quoted as casting a dark shadow over the organization’s claims of providing
neutral and non-extremist education to Palestinian children. Now, a detailed
investigation by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in
School Education (IMPACT-se) has identified twelve UNRWA school principals and
deputy principals as active members of terrorist organizations, with many
holding commanding positions in the terror units. “This discovery directly
contradicts UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini’s recent assurances to the UN General
Assembly about his agency’s commitment to tolerant and anti-extremist
education,” an institute spokesperson told The Jerusalem Post.
‘Bus bombing as a barbecue party’
IMPACT-se focused on 5 UNRWA school principals identified by the IDF as serving
in Hamas. For instance, at Al-Zaytun Boys Preparatory and Elementary Schools,
principal Mohammad Juma Shuwaideh served as a squad commander in Hamas’s Gaza
City Brigade. Similarly, both the principal and deputy principal of Al-Maghazi
Boys Preparatory School B, Khaled Said Mustafa Al-Massri and Ahmad Samir Mahmoud
El Khatib, operated as squad commanders in Hamas’s Khan Yunis Brigade. One of
the most alarming findings was the discovery of Hamas tunnels beneath two of
these educational institutions – Al-Maghazi B and Al-Zaytun A. “This physical
evidence of militant infrastructure directly beneath classrooms raises serious
questions about the exploitation of educational facilities for military purposes
by Hamas,” the spokesperson said. The investigation of the school materials
revealed deeply concerning educational practices within these schools. At Al-Zaytun
School, fifth-grade students were taught to glorify Dalal Mughrabi, the
terrorist responsible for the 1978 Coastal Road Massacre that claimed 38 Israeli
lives. Classroom materials presented Mughrabi as a “combat leader” and “hero,”
encouraging students to name their children and streets after her. The
educational content extends beyond historical revisionism to active incitement.
UNRWA-branded examination materials include questions stating that “Liberating
the al-Aqsa Mosque and making sacrifices for it is a duty for all Muslims.” At
Al-Maghazi, teaching materials celebrated violence, including a disturbing
reference to a firebomb attack on an Israeli bus as a “barbecue party.”The
manipulation of educational content appears systematic and crosses multiple
subject areas. At Ahmed Abdel Aziz School, maps erase Israel entirely, showing
the whole territory as Palestine. Even science lessons are weaponized – a unit
on “liquid solutions” uses hunger strikes as teaching metaphors, complete with
illustrations of shackled Palestinian prisoners and equations forming maps that
also exclude Israel. Social media platforms associated with these schools
further amplify these messages. Al-Nuseirat School’s official Facebook group
shared examinations that deny Israel’s existence and include grammar exercises
based on terrorist phrases such as “Oh, son of Palestine, fight your enemy
courageously.” Similar content appears on Al-Mughraqa School’s social media,
where Israeli cities are consistently portrayed as Palestinian territories.
“What makes these findings particularly troubling is UNRWA’s apparent inaction
despite prior warnings,” added the spokesperson. “In March, IMPACT-se presented
UN under-secretary-general Catherine Colonna with a comprehensive 245-page
dossier detailing evidence of incitement to violence and antisemitism in two of
these schools. Yet, no meaningful changes were implemented.”“The implications of
these findings extend far beyond educational concerns,” it said. “These UNRWA
employees, who have been shaping the minds of thousands of Palestinian children,
have continued to receive salaries funded by international taxpayers, even after
the October 7 attacks. This raises serious questions about the accountability of
international aid and its potential misuse.”
The spokesperson continued: “Our investigation suggests that rather than
isolated incidents, these cases represent a systemic problem within UNRWA’s
educational framework in Gaza. The combination of Hamas-affiliated leadership,
militant-influenced curriculum, and the physical presence of terror
infrastructure within school grounds points to a deeply entrenched problem that
requires immediate international attention. “This investigation comes at a
critical time when UNRWA’s role and effectiveness are under intense scrutiny,
and a failure of the organization to address these issues, despite repeated
warnings and evidence, raises fundamental questions about its ability to fulfill
its mandate of providing neutral, quality education to Palestinian children,”
the spokesperson said. “The findings of this investigation suggest that UNRWA’s
educational system in Gaza may be contributing to the perpetuation of conflict
rather than fostering peace. With terrorist organizations apparently wielding
significant influence over educational content and administration, the
international community faces urgent questions about how to ensure that
humanitarian aid and educational support truly serve their intended purposes
without being co-opted by militant groups. “We are deeply concerned, although
unsurprised, by the ongoing revelations of terror links within UNRWA’s
educational system, as uncovered in IMPACT-se’s latest report,” its CEO Marcus
Sheff said. “UNRWA has repeatedly failed to act despite mounting evidence and
repeated warnings of the deep influence of terror groups on UNRWA’s schools.
This is not just about accountability but about protecting young minds from an
education that fuels hatred and extremism. Once again, it is evident that
UNRWA’s education system is not fit for purpose.”
Saudi
and British defense ministers hold talks on cooperation and Middle East security
Arab News/November 15, 2024
RIYADH: The defense ministers of Saudi Arabia and the UK held talks on Thursday
on cooperation between their nations and efforts to bring stability to the
Middle East. During their meeting in Riyadh, Prince Khalid bin Salman and John
Healey discussed the “Saudi-British strategic partnership and explored avenues
to enhance defense cooperation,” the Saudi Press Agency reported. Prince Khalid
said: “We also discussed our joint efforts to address regional challenges, as
well as our shared vision to promote regional and international security and
stability.” Ahead of the talks, the British Defense Ministry said Healey would
“reaffirm the UK’s commitment to a future-facing defense relationship with the
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The defense secretary will build on the decades-long
defense relationship between the (countries) to enhance cooperation on shared
security priorities.”Healey, making his first visit to Riyadh since becoming
defense minister following the Labour Party’s election victory in July, was also
expected to discuss with Prince Khalid the ongoing efforts to secure ceasefire
agreements in Gaza and Lebanon. Earlier on Thursday, Healey met in Ankara with
Yasar Guler, his counterpart in Turkiye, a NATO ally.
Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
as health secretary
AP/November 15, 2024
NEW YORK: President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine
activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human
Services, putting a man whose views public health officials have decried as
dangerous in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug,
vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs
Medicare and Medicaid. “For too long, Americans have been crushed by the
industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception,
misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said
Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy,
he said, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and
Healthy Again!” Kennedy is one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in
the world and has long advanced the debunked idea that vaccines cause autism and
other health issues. Hailing from one of the nation’s most storied political
families, Kennedy is the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and
the nephew of President John F. Kennedy. He first challenged President Joe Biden
for the Democratic nomination last year. He then ran as an independent before
abandoning his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a
promise to have a role overseeing health policy in a second Trump
administration. He and the president-elect have since become good friends. The
two campaigned together extensively during the race’s final stretch, and Trump
had made clear he intended to give Kennedy a major role overseeing public health
as part of a campaign to “Make America Healthy Again.” “I’m going to let him go
wild on health,” Trump said at a rally last month. During his victory speech in
Palm Beach, Florida, last week, Trump exclaimed, “Go have a good time, Bobby!”
Still, it was unclear precisely what job he would be offered. In an October
interview on CNN, Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick assured there was no
way Kennedy would receive the job he got. The appointment drew alarms from
public health experts. “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is not remotely qualified for
the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard
our nutrition, food safety, and health,” said Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the
public health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest. Dr.
Mandy Cohen, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told
The Associated Press, “I don’t want to go backwards and see children or adults
suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am
concerned.” “Any misinformation coming from places of influence, of power, are
concerning,” she said. During the campaign, Kennedy told NewsNation that Trump
had asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the CDC, the National
Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration. Kennedy has pushed
against processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He
has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations
that dominate the industry.
But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.
Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he
said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective”
and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that
vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC
guidelines that advise when kids should receive routine vaccinations. “I see
somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, ‘Better not
get them vaccinated,’” Kennedy said. Repeated scientific studies in the US and
abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven
safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of
millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood
vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year. Trump during his
first term launched Operation Warp Speed, an effort to speed the production and
distribution of a vaccine to combat COVID-19. The resulting vaccines were widely
credited, including by Trump himself, with saving many lives. Trump, in his
announcement, said that, under Kennedy, HHS would “play a big role in helping
ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants,
pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to
the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.” But HHS does not have
jurisdiction over many of those issues, which fall under the purview of the
Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Agriculture. Kennedy is an
attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who
admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has
pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in
particular, with his message of making food more healthful in the US, promising
to model regulations after those imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original
campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”It remains
unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big
industries, including food. Trump has pushed for fewer inspections of the meat
industry, for example. Kennedy’s stance on vaccines raises question about his
ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water,
although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments. The
addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health and
is considered safe at low levels.
He has said he would seek to ban certain food additives, cracking down on
substances such as food dyes and preservatives, which are regulated by the Food
and Drug Administration. He has also targeted pesticides, which are jointly
regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency and the FDA.Kennedy has also
drawn headlines for his history with wild animals. He admitted to dumping a dead
bear in New York’s Central Park — placing it as though it had been hit by a bike
— and found himself the subject of a federal probe after his daughter revealed
that he had cut off a beached whale’s head and strapped it to the roof of his
car to take home.HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. Kennedy
has promised to take a serious look at those who work for HHS and its agencies,
including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health
and the CDC.
He has said he is especially focused on putting an end to the “revolving door”
of employees who have previous history working for pharmaceutical companies or
leave government service to work for that industry, his former campaign
communications manager, Del Bigtree, told the AP last month. Bigtree is also an
anti-vaccine organizer.
Kennedy said he wanted to fire 600 employees at the National Institutes of
Health, which oversees vaccine research. The expected appointment was first
reported by Politico Thursday.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has
a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The
Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to
identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy
took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed
as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit. Trump also announced Thursday that he
will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as chairman of the US Securities and
Exchange Commission during his first term, to serve as US Attorney for the
Southern District of New York.
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources on November 14-15/2024
The Talibanization of Bangladesh: 'Genocidal Campaign
against Minority Hindu Population.' Where is Mohammad Yunus?
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute./November 14, 2024
"Hindus targeted in #Bangladesh again. This time in Chittagong. Is
administration led by Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus unable or unwilling to
help Hindus?" — India Today, November 7, 2024.
Since the collapse of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government in August, the
world has witnessed the full Islamization and Talibanization of Bangladesh.
"Ever since the Bangladesh prime minister was forced to flee... images, videos
and accounts are streaming in of atrocities against the Hindu minority in
Bangladesh, whose numbers have dangerously depleted over decades almost to the
point of extinction...." — Sreemoy Talukdar, firstpost.com, August 8, 2024.
"One viral video clip shows radical Islamist lunatics inspecting the genitals of
a murdered man, possibly lynched to death, and expressing satisfaction that he
was a Hindu." — Sreemoy Talukdar, firstpost.com, August 8, 2024.
In many instances, members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist
party, are behind these attacks and rights violations. Jamaat-e-Islami was
banned by the Awami League government on August 1. Four days later, PM Hasina
was forced to resign and her government collapsed.
Jamaat-e-Islami has now gained strength under Bangladesh's Islamist interim
government, led by Muhammad Yunus. Islamist radicals are the ones who brought
Yunus to power.
The influence of the Hizb-ut Tahrir -- another in Islamist organization that
aspires to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate and globally implement Sharia law
-- also keeps increasing.
"The interim government led by Mohammad Yunus has largely failed to stop the
violence against the minorities and has made matters worse by lifting bans on
radical Islamist groups and releasing terror suspects from jail that rule the
roost on the streets of Bangladesh." — Raja Muneeb, firstpost.com, September 5,
2024.
If a power such as the US sits back, does nothing and watches as the
Talibanization of Bangladesh unfold -- as the Biden administration has done --
it is likely that the chaos will not remain within the borders of Bangladesh.
India will not allow another Islamist state on its borders to wipe out Hindus,
Christians and secular Muslims in Bangladesh. India might justifiably decide
that its security is threatened enough.
Since the collapse of Sheikh Hasina's Awami League government in August, the
world has witnessed the full Islamization and Talibanization of Bangladesh. On
November 5, the Hindu community came under attack from the police and military
in Chittagong, the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Pictured: Members of
Bangladesh's religious minorities protest the attacks, looting, vandalism and
arson targeting temples across the country, in Dhaka, on September 27, 2024.
(Photo by Mehedi Hasan/Middle East Images via AFP)
Islamist violence against minorities, including Hindus and Christians, has been
ongoing since the violent removal of Bangladesh's secular Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina on August 5. Non-Muslims in the country are facing heightened risk amid
the country's ongoing political and social crises.
On November 5, the Hindu community came under attack from the police and
military in Chittagong, the second-largest city in Bangladesh. Videos posted by
news website OpIndia show policemen and soldiers hunting down Hindus. Videos
also show law enforcement authorities deliberately destroying closed-circuit
cameras.
Many accounts on Twitter have also reported on the attacks: Amy Mek posted:
"[T]he world remains silent, passively witnessing a Hindu genocide in
Bangladesh.
"Trump has already issued a warning to Bangladesh, urging them to halt these
attacks on Hindus—a reminder that strong leadership is needed to address this
crisis."
India Today posted:
"Hindus targeted in #Bangladesh again. This time in Chittagong. Is
administration led by Nobel laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus unable or unwilling to
help Hindus?"
Christians in Bangladesh are also being violently targeted. On September 5, for
instance:
"Two evangelists in Bangladesh were beaten and detained by police... they were
detained overnight without any treatment for their wounds... Many such believers
are living in fear and panic. Meanwhile, church activities have been disrupted,
and evangelists and pastors, especially those in rural areas, are fearful of
attack. Please continue to keep your Bangladeshi family in your prayers."
Since the collapse of Hasina's secular Awami League party (AL) government in
August, the world has witnessed the full Islamization and Talibanization of
Bangladesh. If this process is completed, Bangladesh will be the second country
– after Afghanistan -- to be taken over by Islamists in less than four years.
In October, Islamic revolutionary authorities in Bangladesh officially banned
the Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), the student wing of the Awami League,
declaring it a "terrorist organization".
According to regional news, Bangladesh's interim government led by Mohammed
Yunus may also ban the Awami League from participating in political activities,
including elections. Most of the party's leaders have fled.
Banning the Awami League, which was the main ruling party in the country for 21
years, after playing a massive role in achieving Bangladeshi independence, would
be the equivalent of banning the only viable opposition group to the Islamists.
It is the only party that has representation including not only Muslims, but
also minority Hindus and Christians.
The ongoing jihad against non-Muslim minorities in Bangladesh was described by
Sreemoy Talukdar, an editor at the website Firstpost:
"What started as a students'-led 'liberation movement' in Bangladesh leading to
Sheikh Hasina's ouster is in danger of losing its legitimacy before the eyes of
the world as it appears to have been co-opted, appropriated and hijacked by
Islamist fundamentalists who have utilised the ensuing chaos, turbulence,
lawlessness and the lack of any governing authority to launch a genocidal
campaign against the minority Hindu population.
"Ever since the Bangladesh prime minister was forced to flee, resulting in a
power vacuum in the eighth-most populous country in the world, images, videos
and accounts are streaming in of atrocities against the Hindu minority in
Bangladesh, whose numbers have dangerously depleted over decades almost to the
point of extinction...
"The Bangladesh Army, now the custodian of all power till a promised interim
government led by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus takes oath, has been
mysteriously missing in action. Law enforcement personnel are absconding, having
come under retributive attack from vengeful 'protestors', and in the ensuing
free-for-all, Hindu properties and places of worship and women have become
prized meat for religious fanatics involved in wanton violence.
"Harrowing videos have surfaced on social media that give an indication of the
unfathomable cruelty and genocidal nature of the violence being perpetrated on
defenseless minorities. One viral video clip shows radical Islamist lunatics
inspecting the genitals of a murdered man, possibly lynched to death, and
expressing satisfaction that he was a Hindu."
In many instances, members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Bangladesh's largest Islamist
party, are behind these attacks and rights violations.
Jamaat-e-Islami was banned by the Awami League government on August 1. Four days
later, PM Hasina was forced to resign and her government collapsed. On August
28, Bangladesh's interim government lifted the ban. Jamaat-e-Islami members are
known for collaborating with Pakistan during Pakistan's 1971 genocide and
Bangladesh's War of Liberation.
In 1971, the government of West Pakistan launched a devastating ten-month
campaign of mass murder, rape and other atrocities against the Bengali and Hindu
residents of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh).
The Holocaust Museum of Houston relates:
"After independence from Britain in 1947, India was partitioned into the
separate states of India and Pakistan in one of the largest and most violent
mass movements of people in history.....
"The genocide began with massacres in the capital, Dhaka, on March 25, 1971, and
soon spread to the rest of Bangladesh. The army had premade lists of targets,
including members of the Bengali nationalists, intellectuals, and Hindus. The
army believed that mass violence would terrorize what they saw as a racially
inferior population into subservience, especially if Bengali elites were killed,
but instead faced popular resistance that was put down with violence. Young men
were targeted as potential sources of resistance and women and girls were raped
as a way to destroy Bengali families."
By the time India intervened and forced a Pakistani surrender in December 1971,
about three million people had been killed, around 200,000 women raped and
millions more became refugees in India or Bangladesh.
Under Hasina's rule, some of the Jamaat-e-Islami's top leaders were sentenced to
death or imprisoned for the atrocities they committed against civilians during
the genocide. Jamaat-e-Islami has now gained strength under Bangladesh's
Islamist interim government, led by Muhammad Yunus. Islamist radicals are the
ones who brought Yunus to power.
On August 31, Yunus and Mamunul Haque, leader of the Hefazat-e-Islam ("Protector
of Islam") organization met, despite the group's history of maintaining a
radical Islamist stance. Hefazat-e-Islam was formed in 2010 to protest the Awami
League government's women's development policy, which proposed to confer equal
rights of inheritance on women. Hefazat-e-Islam was opposed to this policy: it
contradicts Islamic Sharia law.
Yunus' interim government also freed Jashimuddin Rahmani, the chief of the
Ansarullah Bangla Team, an al-Qaida-affiliated terrorist organization. Rahmani
was convicted in December 2015 and handed a five-year jail term for abetting the
murder of blogger Rajib Haider in 2013. He was also charged in terror cases.
The influence of the Hizb-ut Tahrir (HuT) -- another in Islamist organization
that aspires to re-establish the Islamic Caliphate and globally implement Sharia
law -- also keeps increasing.
Although Hizb-ut Tahrir was banned in Bangladesh in 2009, "its supporters are
taking out marches, including in Dhaka, and posters propagating their ideology
have mushroomed." The New Indian Express reported:
"On August 9, supporters of the HuT organized a rally at Baitul Mukarram North
Gate in Dhaka and demanded the establishment of the Khalifah [caliphate] in
Bangladesh based on Sharia law which they claim would ensure 'true justice and
welfare' of all the citizens in Bangladesh."
Hizb-ut Tahrir also called on Bangladesh's interim government to revoke the 2009
ban. HuT leader Imtiaz Selim said the government should replicate the model that
it applied to have the ban lifted on Jamaat-e-Islami. His demand comes amid the
release of several terrorist leaders and radicals in the country.
As Raja Muneeb, an editor of Firstpost, noted:
"The interim government led by Mohammad Yunus has largely failed to stop the
violence against the minorities and has made matters worse by lifting bans on
radical Islamist groups and releasing terror suspects from jail that rule the
roost on the streets of Bangladesh."
If a power such as the US sits back, does nothing and watches as the
Talibanization of Bangladesh unfold -- as the Biden administration has done --
it is likely that the chaos will not remain within the borders of Bangladesh.
India will not allow another Islamist state on its borders to wipe out Hindus,
Christians and secular Muslims in Bangladesh. India might justifiably decide
that its security is threatened enough.
*Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone
Institute. She is also a senior researcher at the African Jewish Alliance.
© 2024 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Trump’s Peace Plan for Ukraine Looks Like Putin’s Victory
Mac William Bishop/Rolling Stone/November 15/2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin sees an opportunity to consolidate territorial
gains in Ukraine and freeze the war in Moscow’s favor, with President-elect
Donald Trump having vowed to end the war “in 24 hours” once he was elected —
even if it means forcing the beleaguered democracy to cede land that has been
occupied or illegally annexed. American efforts to force Ukraine to capitulate
to Russia could spur Kyiv to develop nuclear weapons, and spark a race by
several erstwhile U.S. allies to acquire their own nuclear arsenals for
self-defense and deterrence. The Kremlin has begun a massive counteroffensive
with nearly 50,000 Russian and North Korean soldiers in an effort to retake
territory lost to Ukrainian forces in Kursk ahead of Trump’s inauguration in
January, military sources in Kyiv tell Rolling Stone. Meanwhile, Russian forces
are making costly-but-steady progress in Ukraine’s east, and the Ukrainian Armed
Forces are stretched to the breaking point.
With Trump packing his prospective cabinet with MAGA loyalists and surrounding
himself with radicals who parrot Russian talking points, how he hopes to end the
war in Ukraine is unclear. Trump’s policy decisions are often capricious, but he
does have a history of making good on pledges to end American support for
allies. Trump’s promise to end the war was a centerpiece of his foreign policy
pitch during the 2024 election campaign. “They’re dying, Russians and
Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying. And I’ll have that done. I’ll have that
done in 24 hours,” Trump told a town hall in May 2023, a stance he repeated
often throughout the election cycle.
Despite his hyperbole — a U.S. president can hardly force either Ukraine to stop
defending itself, or Russia to cease attacking it — Trump and his supporters say
they can bring Putin to the negotiating table through economic and military
coercion, warning that Ukraine may have to give up land to achieve peace.
The barriers to starting meaningful negotiations are high. Putin is committed to
disarming Ukraine and installing a Moscow-friendly puppet government in Kyiv,
routinely thundering against the “lies, deceit, and betrayal by the Western
elites,” who have “turned Ukraine into their colony, into a military outpost
aimed at Russia.”“The truth is on our side,” Putin said in a video address on
Sept. 30. “All the goals we have set for ourselves will be achieved.”The U.S.
and its allies have put in place wide-ranging economic sanctions against Russia,
and the 54-country coalition supporting Kyiv has supplied more than $300 billion
worth of aid to Ukraine since the war began in 2022, according to data from the
Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German research organization. The vast
bulk of direct military aid — weapons and munitions purchases or donations —
comes from the United States. Speculation that Trump’s team could “flood Ukraine
with weapons” to encourage Russia to reach a deal must reckon with the hard
reality that even with expanded production, American arms factories are working
at capacity, and Washington is already struggling to spend the funds allocated
for aid before Biden leaves office. Regardless of the shape of the promised
diplomacy to come, Republicans are already signaling they have no appetite for
continuing to support Ukraine with further military aid. With majorities in the
House and Senate, it is increasingly unlikely that Congress will approve further
funding for Ukraine.
The effects of a suspension of American aid are easy to predict. When
Republicans in Congress blocked $61 billion earmarked for Ukraine earlier this
year, Russia regained momentum as Ukrainian defenders ran short of ammunition,
and drone and missile attacks proliferated against infrastructure and civilians
as air defenses began to run dry. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
meanwhile, has vowed that his people “are not ready to give our freedom to this
fucking terrorist, Putin.”
That public defiance, however, is tempered by the grim reality that Ukraine’s
military is in some areas on the brink of collapse, its ranks depleted from
savage attritional warfare against a numerically superior foe. While officials
in France and Britain have mused about the possibility of sending ground troops
to support the Ukrainians, there is at present no plan for any of Kyiv’s
European allies to directly join the war. In an October meeting with Trump,
Zelensky said he told the now president-elect that in the absence of a formal
security alliance, his nation’s best option would be to develop its own nuclear
arsenal. Although he later walked back the statement, saying Kyiv was not
seeking nuclear weapons, Ukraine does possess a number of nuclear power plants
capable of producing the materials necessary for a weapons program.
A report prepared for Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense leaked Thursday to the
British newspaper The Times outlined how a rudimentary plutonium bomb similar to
the one dropped on Nagasaki could be built “within months.” “You need to
understand we face an existential challenge. If the Russians take Ukraine,
millions of Ukrainians will be killed under occupation,” Valentyn Badrak,
director of the group that produced the paper, told The Times. “There are
millions of us who would rather face death than go to the gulags.”The policy
turnaround in Ukraine between Biden and Trump is also being closely observed by
other American allies. Hawks in some countries, like Poland, see a strategic
imperative in the long-term acquisition of nukes, while others — like Japan,
Taiwan, South Korea, and Saudi Arabia — are judged to be capable of acquiring
nuclear weapons in a short timespan. All of these U.S. allies are signatories of
the Non-Proliferation Treaty — which prevents the spread of nuclear weapons —
and have previously felt no need to develop a weapons program for a variety of
reasons, including the deterrent effect of America’s “nuclear security
umbrella.”
With America turning inward, that umbrella seems to offer less protection than
it used to.
Mykola Bielieskov, a security researcher at Ukraine’s National Institute for
Security Studies, asserts that allowing a nuclear power like Russia to seize the
territory of a non-nuclear power like Ukraine with nuclear threats signals an
“end of nuclear non-proliferation. Period.”
Since beginning its full-scale invasion in 2022, Russia has invaded and occupied
nearly 20 percent of Ukraine, claiming the right to annex the oblasts of
Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia — in addition to Crimea, which it
seized in 2014. None of the annexations are recognized under international law.
In August this year, Ukraine conducted a surprise attack on the Russian border
province of Kursk, seizing several towns and villages and eventually capturing
an area of about 390 square miles — an expanse slightly smaller than the city of
Los Angeles. Russia, meanwhile, holds about 45,000 square miles of Ukrainian
territory.
Although it is impossible to gather reliable data on the costs of the conflict
while it is ongoing, independent estimates indicate the war may already have
killed and wounded nearly 600,000 Russians and 200,000 Ukrainian soldiers — with
casualties on both sides easily surpassing more than 1,000 a day across the line
of contact. Ukrainian civilians have also paid a heavy price, with at least
30,000 killed or wounded and tens of thousands still missing in captured cities,
or from incessant air attacks by Russian drones and missiles.
Russia says that it will spend $145 billion on defense spending — i.e., the
Ukraine war — in 2025. Putin continues to throw hundreds of thousands of
professional soldiers, volunteers, and conscripts into the fight, and steadily
receives munitions and aid from Tehran and Pyongyang — including, most recently,
about 10,000 North Korean soldiers now deployed to Kursk. If Moscow recaptures
the Russian territory currently in Ukrainian hands, it will enhance Putin’s
bargaining position, in the eventuality that he agrees to negotiations led by
Trump.
That Trump himself intends to represent the U.S. in any summit is clear, and it
is unlikely he will find voices advocating alternative strategies from within
his own administration.
His choice for Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, is a Fox News television
personality and National Guard veteran — but has virtually no international or
defense policy experience. While he has long been obsessed with the “wokeness”
of the U.S. military, he has also criticized NATO as “outdated” and “impotent,”
while saying the war in Ukraine “feels like Putin’s ‘gimme my shit back’ war.”
“Maybe in a perfect world where he [Putin] had unlimited capabilities and he
could crown himself king of Europe, he would,” Hegseth said in a podcast
released shortly before his nomination was announced. “I think he probably knows
enough to know he’s probably not going much further than Ukraine. And I don’t
think he’s a suicidal maniac who’s hell-bent on bringing on Armageddon through
nuclear warfare.”“Hey, if Ukraine can defend itself against that, great,”
Hegseth said, adding that he didn’t “want American intervention driving deep
into Europe” and making Putin feel like he had to use nuclear weapons. The
appointment of Rep. Mike Waltz, a former Green Beret and staunch Trump
supporter, as National Security Adviser offers added insight into the direction
of Ukraine policy. Waltz, with a reputation as an outspoken “America First”
realist, was highly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He has
since become scathing about the Biden administration’s support for Kyiv, saying
Washington “lacked clear strategy,” and lambasting “Biden and Harris’ too
little, too late, incremental, slow-as-you-go strategy — with no end in sight,
unlimited costs — that have backed us into a stalemate.”
Sen. Marco Rubio, Trump’s pick for Secretary of State, is the closest nominee
yet to a traditional GOP hawk. But he is also in alignment with ending support
for Ukraine, saying earlier this month: “At the end of the day, what we are
funding here is a stalemate war, and it needs to be brought to a conclusion, or
that country is going to be set back 100 years.”On the surface, criticisms about
Biden’s lack of strategy are indistinguishable from similar complaints by an
angry coterie of Ukraine supporters, who have long lamented that the U.S. was
slow-rolling aid and preventing Kyiv from striking targets inside Russia with
American weapons.
Unlike those who disparage Biden for not being hawkish enough toward Russia,
Trump’s inner circle is filled with those who wish to cut off aid to Kyiv, and
who feel no sympathy for Ukraine’s plight — with some exhibiting an almost
pathological animosity toward the country as it fights for survival. Billionaire
Elon Musk, who was invited to join a call between Trump and Zelensky last week
and is reportedly advising the former president on Cabinet picks, regularly
shares memes and posts opinions that align with Russian propaganda. Last year,
Musk mocked Zelensky’s requests for military aid, sharing a photoshopped picture
of the Ukrainian president with a throbbing vein in his forehead and the
caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t asked for a billion dollars
in aid.” The president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr., has also shared memes
mocking Ukraine, last week reposting a video of an upset-looking Zelensky with
the caption, “POV: You’re 38 days from losing your allowance.” While it is
tempting to write off such callous social media posts as trolling — easy enough
for MAGA diehards to be edgy when it isn’t their brothers or sisters dying on
the frontlines, or neighbors being killed by drones and missiles — such messages
resonate with a wider audience that supports Trump.
Right-wing influencers like podcaster Joe Rogan and commentator David Sacks
continue to rail about “corruption” and portray American support for Ukraine as
not just a massive boondoggle, but an intentional deception by the “deep state”
aimed at continuing war.
The idea that the American people have been suckered into supporting a
misbegotten war is a potent force, particularly given U.S. misadventures in Iraq
and Afghanistan, not to mention Vietnam. The “fundamental suspicion in the
American character” — as identified by the war correspondent Eric Sevareid in
his 1946 memoir, Not So Wild A Dream — that involvement in foreign conflicts is
a swindle has a long pedigree.
“It was an American trait, not so much to avoid action, but to avoid the
humiliation of being ‘taken in,’” Sevareid wrote upon returning to a neutral,
isolationist America in 1940, after covering the Fall of Paris and Battle of
Britain. “America was terribly afraid of losing its fancied status as the ‘wise
guy,’ of being a ‘sucker.’”Trump’s most vocal supporters — and incoming members
of his administration, like his pick for Director of National Intelligence,
Tulsi Gabbard — take it as an article of faith that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
is America’s fault, and want nothing to do with aiding Ukraine. Whether this is
out of partiality for Putin or hostility toward a “war-mongering” establishment
responsible for decades of failed military interventions is immaterial.
“The mandate is very specific… a desire to get out of stupid foreign wars,” the
libertarian commentator Dave Smith told Rogan in a podcast shortly after the
election. “Bring in the non-interventionists, man. No one wants to fight these
stupid wars anymore.”
That it is tens of thousands of Ukrainians, not American G.I.s, who are
sacrificing their lives in the “stupid” defense of their country makes little
difference to such skeptics. That billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine are
primarily used to clear existing stocks of munitions and replenish them with new
weapons produced by American arms factories merely reinforces the conspiratorial
view: that the real purpose of all this activity is to engorge an insatiable
military-industrial complex.
There are reasons why views like Smith’s gain traction across swaths of the
electorate both left and right, even as most Americans continue to support
Ukraine. Americans are grappling with a cost-of-living crisis with a limited
safety net, while the U.S. spends billions on military and foreign aid for
reasons which are rarely clearly articulated outside wonkish policy circles. And
in truth, it is difficult to identify resounding American foreign policy
successes in the 21st century, whether under George W. Bush, Barack Obama,
Donald Trump, or Joe Biden.
Certainly there are valid critiques to be made about the Biden administration’s
handling of the war and support for Ukraine. It closed the U.S. Embassy and
evacuated American military forces training Ukrainians as Russian forces
gathered on the border, and abandoned strategic ambiguity to openly declare the
U.S. would not put “boots on the ground” to defend Ukraine, giving Putin a clear
signal that the door was open on the eve of invasion.
But in the end, it was neither Biden, nor Zelensky, nor the “deep state” that
chose to invade Ukraine. It was Putin. And it is Putin with whom Trump must make
a deal — all the while convincing Ukrainians that the dictator who has already
broken multiple agreements will not do so again. That Trump can be trusted to be
an honest broker in negotiations will be undermined by the former president’s
open admiration for the dictator. Trump admires Putin, as he does most
autocrats, and regularly praises him — even as he disparages America, NATO, and
Ukraine.
Trump has repeatedly shown enthusiasm for Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine,
calling the dictator’s move “smart.”“They say, ‘Trump said Putin’s smart.’ I
mean, he’s taking over a country for two dollars’ worth of sanctions. I’d say
that’s pretty smart,” Trump told a crowd at a fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago the day
after the invasion began. “He’s taking over a country — really a vast, vast
location, a great piece of land with a lot of people, and just walking right
in.”
It is difficult to define a doctrine that can be attributed to the former
president, but this reporter saw the impact of his decisions directly during the
first Trump presidency, covering violent protests by Palestinians when Trump
recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2017; spending months on the
Korean Peninsula during the tense standoff that ended with Trump meeting North
Korean dictator Kim Jong Un at the DMZ in 2018; and standing on a hill watching
Turkish artillery bombard the Syrian city of Ras al-Ayn when Trump pulled U.S.
forces out of northern Syria, abandoning America’s Kurdish allies in 2019.
Mercurial, theatrical, and transactional are the words best used to describe
Trump’s foreign policy. Years later, with Trump returning to the presidency,
Israel is fighting a two-front war, in Gaza and Lebanon, while the U.S. provides
cover against Iran; North Korean troops are in combat in Europe; and Russia is
mired in a bloody war of conquest.
Outside America, friend and foe alike are awakening to the reality that “America
First” — anti-interventionist, nationalist, non-aligned, and alliance-skeptical
— policies will dominate the incoming Trump administration. But history shows
that whatever guideposts observers believe these principles offer will quickly
be ignored amid conflicting priorities. Certainly it is difficult to make a case
for military action against drug cartels in Mexico — as Trump has done — while
claiming a mantle of non-interventionism. It is difficult to declare oneself
anti-war while continuing to support Israel — as Trump says he will — as it
bombards civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.
Still, every indication is that under Trump 2.0, Washington will forsake NATO,
coddle Putin, and end American support for Ukraine — handing a significant
victory to Moscow.
“Americans want allies in Europe, not client states, and our generosity in
Ukraine is coming to an end,” Trump’s vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, wrote in
an opinion piece in the Financial Times, establishing himself as one of the more
analytical voices in Trump’s orbit — and one who is deeply skeptical about
Ukraine. “Europeans should regard the conclusion of the war there as an
imperative. They must keep rebuilding their industrial and military
capabilities. And Europe should consider how exactly it is going to live with
Russia when the war in Ukraine is over.”
Last Thursday, Trump is reported to have spoken to Putin — again with Musk
listening over his shoulder — and issued a warning to Moscow not to “escalate”
the war before he returned to office. The Kremlin denies that such a call ever
happened. Certainly if it did, Putin did not take the warning to heart. In
addition to the counter-offensive in Kursk, in the week since Trump’s election
there have been over 400 air alerts across Ukraine, with nearly 100 documented
impacts.
One attack in Kryvyi Rih killed a mother, Olena Kulik, and her three children,
the youngest of which was only two months old. Their names are added to the
dozens of civilians who die every week in such strikes. If the past is any
indication, Trump’s primary goal will be to host a grand summit to showcase
himself as a dealmaker on the world stage. Ukraine’s defense, or concern for the
wider consequences of allowing Putin to achieve victory there, will be an
afterthought.
“People are dying every day,” one official in Kyiv, who asked to be identified
only by Yulia as she has loved ones currently fighting on the frontlines, tells
Rolling Stone. “It seems like it’s all for nothing if Trump makes a deal without
considering Ukraine’s interests.”
Netanyahu chose ICC over GCC, and is likely to get what he
wished for
Faisal J. Abbas/Arab News/November 14, 2024
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House, pivotal
moments in the past few weeks make it abundantly clear that the climate for both
US and Israeli foreign policy will be very different next January. Israel would
be well advised to understand that it cannot continue to ignore the global call
for justice and peace. Led by Saudi Arabia, the region is showing a unity and
assertiveness not seen in years, and is having an influence worldwide.
Statements from Saudi leaders and the outcomes of international summits indicate
that the era of unchecked Israeli actions is coming to an end. Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu would do well to pay close attention: the geopolitical
environment is no longer one he can control through political maneuvering or the
goodwill of the US or other sympathetic allies. At last month’s Future
Investment Initiative summit in Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin
Farhan made a powerful and unambiguous statement. Asked about the possibility of
a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, he told Becky Anderson of
CNN that such a deal was “off the table.” This is a message that Israel should
interpret as a red line, not a negotiating tactic. There is no mood in the
region for another round of Abraham Accords that ignore Palestinian statehood.
Whether Israel still cares about normalizing ties with Saudi Arabia and
the rest of the Muslim world is irrelevant. Its leaders should realize that with
so much blood on their hands, nobody will be willing to shake them: in fact, the
mood now is for Israel to be punished for its violations and held accountable
under international law.Saudi Arabia again took a public and uncompromising
stance against Israeli aggression at this week’s Arab-Islamic Summit. Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman did not mince words in addressing the escalating
violence in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria. Describing Israel’s actions as genocide,
the crown prince called for the international community to recognize the
devastation being wreaked upon the Palestinian people. His condemnation was met
with unanimous support in the summit’s final communique, which reinforced Saudi
Arabia’s push for a unified stance on the Palestinian issue and a commitment to
the two-state solution: which, since it is already accepted by the UN, does not
legally need Israel’s approval.
For decades, the concept of a two-state solution has been the global consensus
for peace between Israel and Palestine. But with each passing year, Israel’s
expansionist policies and the continued suffering in Gaza erode this
possibility, leaving the region on the brink of perpetual conflict. Saudi
Arabia’s leadership, however, offers a way forward, not just for Palestinians,
but for regional stability. The Kingdom’s recent moves reflect an effort to
build a coalition of nations committed to real solutions, not just words. From
Riyadh to Rabat, from Cairo to Jakarta, Muslim-majority nations are coming
together to insist on Palestinian self-determination and an end to the violence
that has plagued the region for generations.
For Netanyahu, the situation could not be clearer. His long-standing strategy of
appealing to Western allies while ignoring the Arab and Muslim world is now
facing a stern test. He may be counting on the support of a sympathetic
administration in Washington, but there are limits to what that can shield him
from. The days when the US could unconditionally veto international action
against Israel are fading. A new American leadership will take office with a
united Arab and Islamic world, along with a substantial portion of the
international community, all pushing for accountability and a concrete two-state
solution.
One need only look at the legal landscape to understand the pressure now
mounting on Israel. Legal action for its actions in Gaza has already reached
international courts, including the International Criminal Court, with
allegations of war crimes and genocide. Netanyahu and his government might
believe that they are immune to such legal repercussions, or that international
law can be circumvented by powerful allies. However, as Saudi Arabia has shown,
the tide is turning. The era of impunity is being challenged, and the global
coalition building around Palestine is not one Israel can simply brush off.
At the core of this shift is the undeniable reality of Gaza. The horrors that
have unfolded there cannot be dismissed as collateral damage or “self-defense.”
It is, by many accounts and definitions, genocide, the systematic destruction of
a people. Images of children suffering, families torn apart, and entire
neighborhoods reduced to rubble have mobilized people worldwide. The world,
including Israel's neighbors, is saying “enough.” Saudi Arabia’s stance is not
isolated: it is part of a growing demand for accountability. Israel cannot hope
to maintain its current trajectory without facing consequences.
It is worth noting that Netanyahu’s government had the opportunity to forge
historic alliances in the Middle East: a future in which Israel coexists
peacefully with the GCC states and the broader Arab and Muslim world was within
reach. Instead, by continuing down this path of violence and neglect of human
rights, Israel has alienated potential allies and placed itself under scrutiny
from international bodies. The choice of peace or isolation remains in
Netanyahu’s hands, but the moment to choose is rapidly slipping away.
For Israel, the writing is on the wall. Saudi Arabia, with its influence as both
a regional powerhouse and religious leader, is making it clear that the path to
peace lies in respecting Palestinian rights and pursuing a genuine two-state
solution. Israel must abandon its current approach and realize that there is no
longer any “luck” left to rely on. As a global coalition forms, Israel has two
options: it can either join the path to peace or find itself increasingly
isolated on the world stage.
Israel’s future now hinges on its willingness to embrace a true, sustainable
peace. The Arab world, led by Saudi Arabia, is ready to support this vision, but
it will not compromise on the principles of justice and dignity. It is time for
Israel to wake up to the new realities, or risk losing far more than it stands
to gain by continuing its current policies.
*Faisal J. Abbas is the editor in chief of Arab News. X: @FaisalJAbbas
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not
necessarily reflect Arab News' point of view
What the Gulf wants from the incoming Trump administration
Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arab News/November 14, 2024
The speed with which Donald Trump is assembling his team indicates that he wants
to hit the ground running come his inauguration on Jan. 20. Choosing Steve
Witkoff, a close adviser and confidante, as special envoy to the Middle East
could mean that the president plans to be hands-on when it comes to this region.
During Trump’s first term (2017-2021), the Gulf Cooperation Council,
collectively and bilaterally through its member states, enjoyed a close and
mutually beneficial relationship, ever since Trump broke with tradition by
choosing Saudi Arabia for his first trip abroad and meeting with GCC, Arab and
Muslim leaders in Riyadh in May 2017. Although at times there were differences
of opinion between the two sides, especially on the Israel-Palestine conflict,
their strategic partnership continued through Trump’s last days in office. Most
likely, that spirit of cooperation will continue and strengthen over the next
four years.What the Gulf wants from Trump’s second term can be summarized under
three main headings: political, economic and cultural. Trump’s motto of “ending
all wars” is appealing and so is his prioritizing of economic objectives. We
share an interest in combating illegal migration and predatory trading
practices, although we may differ on the means. We would also like to join hands
in combating hate and intolerance.
At the political and strategic levels, the GCC wants to dial back raging
conflicts and return to diplomacy and the pacific resolution of disputes, as the
UN Charter calls for. There is little doubt that the international system is
broken because of the intense disagreements between the permanent members of the
UN Security Council, which render the organization unable to play its key role
in maintaining peace and security around the world, as is evident in its
inability to stop Israel’s war on Gaza and Lebanon. Most likely, the spirit of
cooperation seen in his first term will continue and strengthen over the next
four years
On Gaza and the underlying Israel-Palestine conflict, the GCC would like to work
more closely with the US on ending the conflict. The international community has
spoken clearly about the parameters of the solution, based on the UN Charter and
resolutions. There are only a handful of countries that still tolerate Israel’s
genocidal war in Gaza and its maximalist approach to the underlying conflict.
Last month, the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State
Solution, of which the US is a member, together with about 90 other countries,
articulated the global consensus on these issues. This includes an immediate and
permanent ceasefire in Gaza, reunifying it with the West Bank under the
Palestinian Authority and embarking on an irreversible path toward an
independent and viable Palestinian state along the 1967 borders.
The extraordinary summit held in Riyadh last week expressed the unified voice of
the Arab and Islamic worlds on the conflict and called for accountability for
the unspeakable atrocities committed by Israel in both Gaza and the West Bank.
So, what is needed in the region is de-escalation and for the way to be prepared
for sustainable solutions in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and elsewhere.
Diplomacy should also be the starting point in dealing with Iran and its
regional network of supporters and allies.
At the economic level, the GCC shares Trump’s interest in combating predatory
economic practices but believes that this should be done by fixing the global
trading system, which has pitted industrialized countries against developing
countries. Because that system is dysfunctional, major trading nations have
abandoned cooperation and engaged in a mutually destructive cycle of actions and
retaliations. The first Trump administration imposed a long series of
protectionist tariffs, including on GCC exports to the US. To go by Trump’s
election rhetoric, his new administration may initiate additional punishing
tariffs against China, which could spark another cycle of retaliation.
The best way to deal with trade disputes is through the World Trade
Organization, by doubling efforts to reenergize the organization and strengthen
its dispute resolution mechanism.
At the economic level, the GCC shares Trump’s interest in combating predatory
economic practices
Finally, we want the new White House to lead on cultural reconciliation and
mutual understanding. Cultural estrangement has led to a rise in hate speech and
hate crimes in many parts of the world. Some of the pernicious outgrowths of
this intolerance can be found in rising racist rhetoric, Islamophobia and
antisemitism. The Trump administration would find ready partners in the GCC and
the wider Arab and Islamic worlds to work together on toning down the rhetoric
of cultural war and to reinforce cultural and religious tolerance.
Fortunately, there exists an extensive framework for cooperation under the
GCC-US Strategic Partnership, which includes engagement at the heads of state
level, as well as at the ministerial and technical levels. There are more than
10 working groups covering many aspects of this partnership, including political
and defense issues, cyber threats, maritime security, air defense and
counterterrorism. There are also working groups dedicated to specific issues,
such as Iran and Yemen. The GCC states and the US are active members of the
US-led Combined Maritime Forces, a coalition of 46 nations that operates out of
Bahrain through five task forces covering the Gulf, the Red Sea and areas in
between. The long-standing GCC-US Trade and Investment
Dialogue and the 2012 framework agreement on economic cooperation provide
appropriate channels for coordinating trade policies. As the US and GCC
countries are major producers of energy, they have overlapping interests in both
conventional and renewable energies. They have an abiding imperative to
coordinate on both types of energy. As most GCC currencies are pegged to the
dollar, it is important to continue to coordinate closely on monetary policy, as
decisions taken by the Fed affect GCC economies and have a direct impact on
monetary policy. On culture, the framework of the
GCC-US Strategic Partnership allows for engagement to promote mutual
understanding, although this area was in the past dealt with bilaterally with
member states. Rising cultural tensions in the US and elsewhere make it
necessary to develop and grow cooperation at the regional level to deal with
this phenomenon.
*Dr. Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the Gulf Cooperation Council assistant
secretary-general for political affairs and negotiation. The views expressed
here are personal and do not necessarily represent the GCC. X: @abuhamad1
The absurdity of war and its ethical echoes in AI
Rafael Hernández de Santiago/Arab News/November 14, 2024
In a city where artificial intelligence promises to revolutionize everything
from grocery shopping to pet care, one question looms larger than the latest
tech trend: What happens when we forget the lessons of humanity in the quest for
efficiency? As our screens flash with notifications, a local philosopher and
self-proclaimed ethical warrior, Mr. Raf, urges us to reflect on the
often-ignored costs of conflict — both in the battlefield and in our evolving
digital landscape.
“War, like a poorly programmed AI, often leads to catastrophic outcomes,” Raf
quipped during a recent lecture. “Blood is not even useful for making mud. It’s
just messy!”
In the annals of history, war has always demanded a staggering price, and not
just in dollars and cents. The most chilling aspect is the loss of human life.
Each casualty in conflict is not merely a statistic; it represents a unique
individual — someone with hopes, dreams, and loved ones. “When we wage war,
we’re not just destroying buildings; we’re dismantling lives,” Raf stated,
recalling the painful remnants of countless conflicts.
According to the World Health Organization, wars claim tens of thousands of
lives annually, and the toll is not limited to soldiers. Civilians — those who
were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time — find themselves swept into
the storm. “Imagine being at a family picnic and having it interrupted by
artillery fire. That’s no way to spend a Saturday!” Raf remarked dryly,
emphasizing the absurdity of violence amid humanity’s gatherings.
But the scars of war run deeper than physical loss. The psychological impacts
are profound and often overlooked. Soldiers return home carrying the invisible
burdens of post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and depression. “It’s like
bringing a demonic AI home from work; you can’t just turn it off!” Raf lamented.
He highlighted that the horrors of war haunt veterans and civilians alike,
leaving a legacy of trauma that can echo through generations.
The emotional toll on children, especially those growing up in war zones, is
particularly alarming. “You think kids have it rough with homework? Try growing
up while bombs are falling!” Raf added, shaking his head in disbelief. The
trauma these children endure can shape their futures, perpetuating cycles of
violence and despair.
Then there is the economic fallout, which can feel as invisible as the
psychological scars but is no less devastating. The funds poured into military
campaigns could be better spent on education, healthcare, and infrastructure.
“Let’s not forget the opportunity cost here,” Raf urged. “Imagine the roads we
could build or the schools we could fund instead of financing yet another
conflict.”
The irony is palpable: We invest billions in creating more sophisticated weapons
while ignoring the very real problems we could solve with those resources. “It’s
like spending all your money on a fancy coffee machine but not using it to make
coffee. What’s the point?” he quipped.
Even our planet bears the scars of warfare. From bombings that raze forests to
chemical weapons that poison water supplies, the environmental destruction
wrought by conflict is catastrophic. “War is like a poorly designed AI: It
doesn’t just affect the immediate environment; it disrupts the whole ecosystem,”
Raf argued. “The trees don’t just fall; they take entire habitats with them. If
we’re going to wage war, we’re also declaring war on the Earth itself.”
The irony is palpable: We invest billions in creating more sophisticated weapons
while ignoring the very real problems we could solve with those resources.
The consequences of this destruction are felt long after the fighting stops.
Communities left with barren land and polluted water face dire challenges. “It’s
a vicious cycle: War devastates, and the aftermath leaves people hungry and
desperate,” he said.
Raf’s mantra — “Blood is not even useful for making mud” — serves as a stark
reminder of the senselessness of war. “It’s a truth that echoes through history:
Conflicts often end in stalemates or resolutions that could have been achieved
through dialogue,” he pointed out. The philosopher Aristotle once said: “It is
the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting
it.” Yet, in war, we often accept the thought of violence without questioning
its futility.
“Wouldn’t it be great if we could use all the energy we spend on fighting to
solve our differences peacefully?” Raf proposed. “Imagine an AI that mediates
disputes instead of escalating them. Now that’s the kind of machine we need!”
As Techville embraces the future of AI, Mr. Raf advocates for an ethical
approach — one that learns from the past. “If we can’t teach AI to value human
life, we might as well hand over the keys to a malfunctioning robot,” he
cautioned. “We need to instill the values of diplomacy and cooperation in our
technology.”
In this context, the role of the international community becomes crucial. “We
must prioritize dialogue over military intervention,” Raf emphasized. By
addressing root causes like poverty and inequality, we can create a world where
conflicts are less likely to arise. “Investing in education and social justice
is like teaching AI to be kind — it’s not easy, but it’s necessary.”
In a world increasingly defined by AI and technological advancement, it is our
ethical responsibility to ensure that we do not repeat the mistakes of history.
“Peace isn’t just a noble idea; it’s essential for our survival,” Raf declared.
As he concluded his talk, the crowd erupted in applause. “Let’s strive for a
future where our conflicts are resolved through dialogue, and where human life
is cherished above all else,” he urged. “After all, if we can’t learn from our
past, how can we expect our machines to do better?”
In Techville, where the buzz of technology mingles with the echoes of history,
Mr. Raf stands as a beacon of hope. He reminds us that as we navigate the
ethical landscape of AI, the lessons of humanity must guide our way. With a
wink, he added: “And maybe one day, we’ll look back and wonder why we ever
thought war was a good idea in the first place!”
• Rafael Hernandez de Santiago, viscount of Espes, is a Spanish national
residing in Saudi Arabia and working at the Gulf Research Center.
An Effort to Understand the Saudi-Iranian Relationship
Hassan Al Mustafa/Asharq Al Awsat/November 14/2024
At the extraordinary Arab and Islamic Summit held on November 11, Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman affirmed the need to oblige “Israel to respect Iran's
sovereignty and refrain from attacking Iranian soil." The Saudi Ministry of
Foreign Affairs issued a statement on October 26 expressing "its condemnation
and denunciation of the military targeting of the Islamic Republic of Iran,
which is a violation of its sovereignty and a violation of international laws
and norms.”
It is important we think about two explicit political positions. They are key to
understanding the trajectory that Riyadh and Tehran’s relations have been on
since the "Beijing Agreement" of March 2023, which was sponsored by China. Both
countries have repeatedly committed to implementing this agreement. Saudi Arabia
is pursuing a strategy aimed at reducing tensions in the Middle East, and it is
working to resolve outstanding issues with neighboring countries through direct
dialogue. This is part of Riyadh’s vision that the most effective way to build a
regional safety network, especially in this critical time of military and
security issues during which Israel is committing a "genocide" against the
Palestinian people, as Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman said. He warned that
Israel's ongoing war is “undermining efforts to grant the Palestinians their
rights and achieve peace in the region."
Saudi Arabia is continuously developing state institutions, pursuing the
objectives of "Vision 2030," diversifying income sources, drawing foreign
investment, creating new job opportunities for citizens, and turning several
regions and cities into tourist attractions. The country is also striving to
play a leading role in the acquisition and investment in artificial intelligence
technologies. Achieving this goal requires a stable and secure environment that
allows major projects to grow without fear of devastating regional wars. Riyadh
does not want regional unrest to drain its budget. Instead, it wants to channel
its money toward the well-being and education of its people, as well as
developing and building modern cities and projects.
To this end, Riyadh has been supporting reconciliation efforts among the various
parties in Yemen, strengthening its southern borders, and communicating with the
Houthis. So far, this has given rise, through a strategy that combines military
strength, diplomacy, and relief, to arrangements that have allowed Saudi Arabia
to avoid the kinds of attacks that it used to face.
To the east, Saudi Arabia has been working on restoring its relations with Iran,
not from a position of weakness but to find out-of-the-box solutions!
American sanctions that were imposed because of IRGC actions have weakened
Iran’s economy, sparking debates in Tehran about the feasibility of maintaining
its ineffective policies towards its Arab neighbors that have compelled Iran to
seek a rapprochement with the Gulf Arab states, particularly Saudi Arabia.
The "Beijing Agreement" can be considered the cornerstone of Saudi-Iranian
relations as they improve day by day. However, Riyadh wants to build this
relationship on serious, sustainable understandings that address contentionious
security and political issues. “Non-interference in internal affairs" and
"respect for good neighborliness," are necessary for achieving this, as is
ending the disruptive roles of armed organizations.
We certainly cannot claim that there is agreement on all of these, which
requires objective operational conditions, and building them needs time.
Additionally, the major military developments that the Middle East witnessed
since October 7, 2023, have complicated the political landscape in unexpected
ways. Crucially, however, Saudi Arabia and Iran have managed their relationship
prudently despite these challenges, ensuring stability in the Arabian Gulf. This
has created a safety net, and without it, the situation in the region could have
deteriorated significantly. Both countries are highly influential, and it should
not be forgotten that Iran is intrinsic to the "Axis of Resistance," which is
currently taking part in the war on Israel from multiple fronts.
If we look at the timeline, we find that it shows accumulation that takes the
form of a steadily rising trajectory.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman met with the First Vice President of the
Islamic Republic of Iran, Mohammad Reza Aref, on the sidelines of the
extraordinary Arab and Islamic summit in the capital, Riyadh. According to the
Saudi Press Agency, the two men went over bilateral relations and several issues
of mutual interest.
For its part, the "Iranian News Agency" quoted Mohammad Reza Aref praising
"Riyadh's efforts in hosting the emergency summit of the Organization of Islamic
Cooperation and the Arab League," affirming that "the new path taken in recent
months for the development and the broadening of communication and engagement
between the two countries is irreversible." He also said that "the benefits of
deepening and strengthening these bilateral relations will not be limited to
Iran and Saudi Arabia. They will facilitate regional cooperation and solidarity
among Islamic countries."
It was the second time an Iranian official met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin
Salman in the past five weeks- the Crown Prince previously had met Iranian
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi on October 9.
Prior to Mohammad Reza Aref's visit to the Kingdom, Iranian President Masoud
Pezeshkian spoke with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on the phone.
During the call, "President Pezeshkian said that he hoped to develop and expand
relations between the two countries more than ever before and in all fields,"
according to IRNA.
On the same day, Kazem Gharibabadi, Secretary of the Iran High Council for Human
Rights Committee in Iran, went to Riyadh to take part in the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation meeting.
Speaking to American journalist Becky Anderson during a Future Investment
Initiative event in Riyadh, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said
that Saudi-Iranian relations are "heading in the right direction" but they are
complicated by the “regional situation.” He added that Iran understands the
danger of escalation and wants to avoid it, and said that the Kingdom has had
frank and clear conversations with them.
Blunt and clear conversations between the two sides have improved relations, and
they are being built slowly and without confusion or unwarranted haste. The goal
is to seek dialogue for dialogue's sake or to build a superficial relationship,
but to ensure that the two influential actors engage in constructive cooperation
that will serve not only their interests but also precipitate pivotal shifts in
the Middle East. If Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian can implement his more
open foreign policies and neutralize the negative security repressions of the
IRGC and the factions subordinate to it, then the relations will reach new
levels.