English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 23/2024
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is
well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practising
self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame
with passion
First Letter to the Corinthians 07,01-03.08-14.17.24/:”Concerning the matters
about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman. ’But because
of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman
her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and
likewise the wife to her husband. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it
is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practising
self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame
with passion. To the married I give this command not I but the Lord that the
wife should not separate from her husband = (but if she does separate, let her
remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband
should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say I and not the Lord that if any
believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he
should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and
he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving
husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy
through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is,
they are holy. However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord
has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches. In
whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on October 22-23/2024
Text and Video: Commemorating the Martyrdom of Wissam al-Hassan and the
Betrayal, Cowardice, and Failure of the March 14 Party Leaders/Elias Bejjani/October
19/2024
English, Video Link Interview With Etienne Sakr, Abu Arz conducted by Barb
Miller From the Indigenous Friends of Israel International youtube channel
Saint John Paul II Annual Day
Shin Bet confirms: Hezbollah drone succeeded in hitting Netanyahu's Caesarea
residence
IDF probe of Hezbollah detainee death not necessarily as bad as Sde Teiman
incident
'Do not waste time on theatrics': Journalists tour alleged Hezbollah hospital
bunker in Beirut
Hezbollah’s factory reset/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/October 22/2024
IDF intercepts Lebanese drone after hour-long pursuit in Israel's airspace
Hezbollah Takes ‘Full and Sole’ Responsibility of Targeting Netanyahu’s House
What Is the Hezbollah-Linked Financial Institution Israel Is Targeting in
Lebanon?
Journalists Taken on Tour of Beirut Hospital Where Israel Claimed Hezbollah
Stored Cash and Gold
Foreign and local journalists take a tour inside Sahel General Hospital, in
Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon,
Lebanon Needs $250 Mln a Month for Displaced, Minister Says Ahead of Paris
Summit
Israel Strikes at Hezbollah’s Iran-Backed Banks in Lebanon
The little airline that could — Lebanon’s national carrier braves Israeli
airstrikes
As Lebanon burns, self-serving leaders must rise to the challenge/Baria
Alamuddin /Arab News/October 22/2024
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on October 22-23/2024
Blinken urges Israel to reach Gaza truce,
allow more aid
Saudi-Jordanian Summit Underscores Solidarity with Palestinians, Lebanon
FBI says it's investigating leak of secret documents on Israel's possible attack
plans
Pentagon suspects employee of Iranian origin in Israeli strike plan leak -
report
Trump says classified Israeli strike plan leaks are real, might come from
Department of Defense
US charges Iran Revolutionary Guard official in alleged plot to kill a human
rights activist in NYC
Iran doesn't expect major Israeli retaliation, Revolutionary Guards ex-chief
says
Washington’s Arab allies engage with Iran as US efforts to stem Middle East
violence falter
How the U.S. Should Respond to the Death of Yahya Sinwar
US can prosecute Turkish bank in Iran sanctions case, US appeals court rules
Halkbank Iran Sanctions Case Can Go Forward, US Court Says
Family of Christian soldier who fell in Gaza asked to remove cross from his
headstone
Justin Trudeau says his leadership is not in danger as Liberals brace for revolt
Titles For The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on October 22-23/2024
Today in History: ‘One Man Chased a
Thousand, and Two Put Ten Thousand to Flight’/Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/October
22/2024
West's Political Elites Mourn the Death of a Terrorist Group/Robert Williams/Gatestone
Institute./October 22, 2024
Leaks and spy rings merely delay the inevitable Israeli operation/Janatan Sayeh/FDD's
Long War Journal/October 22/2024
Biden Administration Admits Iran’s Oil Exports Have Grown Exponentially in Value
and Volume/Saeed Ghasseminejad/FDD. Policy Brief/October 22, 2024
How Facebook Whitewashes ‘From the River to the Sea’/David Adesnik/The
Algemeiner/October 22/2024
How to Manage AI Big-Data Risks/Dr. Georgianna Shea & Zachary Daher/The National
Interest/October 22/2024
Want Israel to win the war? Don't vote for Harris /Shiela Nazarian/Jerusalem
Post/October 22/2024
A new front emerges with Iran’s growing threat to Israel and Jordan /Ruth
Wasserman Lande//Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
Israel Does Not Intend to Stop/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/October
22/2024
When Defeats Be and Don’t!/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News &
Editorials published
on October 22-23/2024
Text and Video: Commemorating the Martyrdom of Wissam al-Hassan
and the Betrayal, Cowardice, and Failure of the March 14 Party Leaders
Elias Bejjani/October 19/2024
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/135924/
On the anniversary of the assassination of martyr Wissam al-Hassan, it is
crucial to remember that Hezbollah, Iran's armed terrorist proxy, is the force
behind his murder. This group, with its long and bloody history, has
assassinated hundreds of Lebanese who dared to oppose its occupation and
criminal grip on the country. Wissam al-Hassan was one of many courageous
figures who paid the ultimate price for resisting Hezbollah’s dominance and
exposing its destructive agenda.
Hezbollah has become a relentless assassination machine, silencing anyone who
stands against it—politicians, military figures, journalists, and activists
alike. Its operations are not isolated incidents of political rivalry; they are
part of a systematic effort by Iran's regime to tighten its control over Lebanon
through fear, violence, and bloodshed. From Wissam al-Hassan to countless
others, Hezbollah’s methods have always been ruthless and calculated, designed
to eliminate any figure who advocates for Lebanese sovereignty and independence.
What is perhaps even more appalling is the role played by Lebanon's political
elite in enabling this occupation. The heads of Lebanon’s political parties,
including many who once identified with the March 14 coalition, have betrayed
the principles of freedom and resistance that Wissam al-Hassan and others died
defending. Instead of standing firm against Hezbollah’s tyranny, they chose to
collaborate with it, seeking personal gains—positions of power, government
posts, and political influence—while turning a blind eye to Hezbollah’s
systematic destruction of Lebanon’s independence.
These political leaders, who once vowed to oppose Hezbollah, now participate in
a government that grants legitimacy to the very group responsible for the
assassination of one of their own. Their actions have not only undermined
justice for Wissam al-Hassan and other martyrs but have also paved the way for
Hezbollah to continue its campaign of terror unchecked.
Today, as we remember Wissam al-Hassan, we must recognize that the real enemy is
not just Hezbollah but also the corrupt political class that has sacrificed the
country’s sovereignty for personal interests. Hezbollah’s grip on Lebanon
remains strong, not solely because of its weapons and militias, but because the
political leaders have sold out the nation’s independence in exchange for
short-term personal benefits. This betrayal is as damaging as the assassinations
themselves.
Hezbollah will continue its deadly path unless the Lebanese people, and the
international community, hold both the terrorist group and its enablers within
the political system accountable for their crimes. It’s time to expose not only
Hezbollah’s murderous agenda but also the complicity of those who have allowed
it to thrive, to restore justice for Wissam al-Hassan and countless other
victims of their treachery.
English, Video
Link Interview With Etienne Sakr, Abu Arz conducted by Barb Miller From the
Indigenous Friends of Israel International youtube channel
https://eliasbejjaninews.com/2024/10/136044/
رابط فيديو مقابلة
باللغة الإنكليزية مع ابو أرز-اتيان صقر أجرتها معه من أوسترليا بارب ميلر
Saint John Paul II Annual Day
“Open wide the doors to Christ,” urged John Paul II during the
homily at the Mass where he was installed as pope in 1978. Born in Wadowice,
Poland, Karol Jozef Wojtyla had lost his mother, father, and older brother
before his 21st birthday. Karol’s promising academic career at Krakow’s
Jagiellonian University was cut short by the outbreak of World War II. While
working in a quarry and a chemical factory, he enrolled in an “underground”
seminary in Kraków. Ordained in 1946, he was immediately sent to Rome where he
earned a doctorate in theology.
Back in Poland, a short assignment as assistant pastor in a rural parish
preceded his very fruitful chaplaincy for university students. Soon Fr. Wojtyla
earned a doctorate in philosophy and began teaching that subject at Poland’s
University of Lublin. Communist officials allowed Wojtyla to be appointed
auxiliary bishop of Kraków in 1958, considering him a relatively harmless
intellectual. They could not have been more wrong! Bishop Wojtyla attended all
four sessions of Vatican II and contributed especially to its Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. Appointed as archbishop of
Kraków in 1964, he was named a cardinal three years later. Elected pope in
October 1978, he took the name of his short-lived, immediate predecessor. Pope
John Paul II was the first non-Italian pope in 455 years. In time, he made
pastoral visits to 124 countries, including several with small Christian
populations. John Paul II promoted ecumenical and interfaith initiatives,
especially the 1986 Day of Prayer for World Peace in Assisi. He visited Rome’s
main synagogue and the Western Wall in Jerusalem; he also established diplomatic
relations between the Holy See and Israel. He improved Catholic-Muslim
relations, and in 2001 visited a mosque in Damascus, Syria.
The Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, a key event in John Paul’s ministry, was
marked by special celebrations in Rome and elsewhere for Catholics and other
Christians. Relations with the Orthodox Churches improved considerably during
his papacy. “Christ is the center of the universe and of human history” was the
opening line of John Paul II’s 1979 encyclical, Redeemer of the Human Race. In
1995, he described himself to the United Nations General Assembly as “a witness
to hope.” His 1979 visit to Poland encouraged the growth of the Solidarity
movement there and the collapse of communism in central and eastern Europe 10
years later. John Paul II began World Youth Day and traveled to several
countries for those celebrations. He very much wanted to visit China and the
Soviet Union, but the governments in those countries prevented that.
One of the most well-remembered photos of John Paul II’s pontificate was his
one-on-one conversation in 1983, with Mehmet Ali Agca, who had attempted to
assassinate him two years earlier. In his 27 years of papal ministry, John Paul
II wrote 14 encyclicals and five books, canonized 482 saints and beatified 1,338
people. In the last years of his life, he suffered from Parkinson’s disease and
was forced to cut back on some of his activities. Pope Benedict XVI beatified
John Paul II in 2011, and Pope Francis canonized him in 2014.
Shin Bet
confirms: Hezbollah drone succeeded in hitting Netanyahu's Caesarea residence
Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
Only hours earlier, a senior Hezbollah official had claimed responsibility for
the drone attack. A drone that infiltrated from Lebanon struck a building in
Caesarea on Saturday and was revealed on Tuesday to be the residence of Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Only hours earlier, A senior Hezbollah official had
claimed responsibility for the drone strike. Until now, it had only been
reported that the drone was launched toward his home, but it was not disclosed
that it hit the structure. The Prime Minister and his wife were not present
during the incident. Yossi Shelly, Director General of the Prime Minister's
Office, visited Netanyahu's Caesarea residence on Sunday. He was joined by Tax
Authority Director Shai Aharonovitch and Property Tax officials to assess the
damage caused by the strike. The drone was tracked by a combat helicopter, which
identified its infiltration from Lebanon until the moment of impact. As a
result, alarms were triggered in Glilot and northern Tel Aviv, though the Home
Front Command app did not issue any warnings. Two additional aircraft also
breached Israeli airspace from Lebanon but were intercepted in open areas. The
IDF spokesperson stated that an investigation is underway regarding the strike
on the building.
Netanyahu's response
In response to Hezbollah's drone attack, Netanyahu said on Saturday: "Iran's
proxies, who today attempted to assassinate me and my wife, made a grave
mistake. This will not deter me or the State of Israel from continuing the war
of resurgence against our enemies to secure our safety for generations to come."
He added: "I say to the Iranians and their partners in the axis of evil—anyone
who harms Israeli citizens will pay a heavy price. We will continue to eliminate
your terrorists, retrieve our hostages from Gaza, and restore security to our
northern residents."
IDF probe of
Hezbollah detainee death not necessarily as bad as Sde Teiman incident
Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
The case went public with an IDF announcement on Saturday of the incident and
the probe.
The IDF criminal probe into the death of a Hezbollah detainee last Thursday
while in the custody of special interrogation unit 504 and the Golani Brigade
may not be as problematic as a recent problematic incident by IDF soldiers
against a Gaza detainee at Sde Teiman, The Jerusalem Post has learned. That does
not mean that an IDF reservist soldier from Unit 504 (“the IDF’s Mossad”), who
is due to be questioned, and others, may not face charges. The case went public
with an IDF announcement on Saturday of the incident and the probe. According to
the IDF, a Hezbollah fighter who had opened fire on IDF forces, but later was
subdued and arrested, died in the process of being in custody and of
questioning. The Public Commitee Against Torture on Monday sent a letter to the
Attorney-General and Military Advicate General demanding that the case be
properly handled and that major changes occur regarding Israel's handling of
Gaza and Hezbollah detainees. The IDF has not yet responded to the letter. At
least one, but quite possibly more, Unit 504 soldiers are under suspicion of
having used violence during the questioning in a way which could have caused his
death. Both international law and Israeli law prohibit torture, let alone
killing a detainee, regardless of whether the person in question is a citizen or
a foreign terrorist, such as a Hezbollah fighter. Israel does have some special
rules related to Hezbollah terrorists, but they relate to how long they can be
detained without standard criminal proceedings, and do not allow physical
violence against the detainee. If there were clear indications from the start of
the Sde Teiman case that criminal charges, and likely serious ones, would be
filed, sources indicate that may not be true in this case. When the IDF makes
such claims in defense of a detainee death, the military often later argues that
the detainee in question had some prior undetected medical problem which caused
the death in question, not wilful conduct by the soldiers involved in the
interrogation. There were additional questions raised about the case on Tuesday
given disputes about whether the IDF had said a few days ago that at least one
suspect from Unit 504 had been summoned for questioning, whereas there were
indications on Tuesday that this process still had not started.
Opaque handling of probe
Sources defended the IDF’s opaque handling of the probe both because criminal
investigations are supposed to remain classified until charges are finalized and
because some recent probes of IDF soldiers have led to attacks on military
police. Israel and the IDF are already under the gun about detainee treatment
given that around 35 Gaza detainees died in custody relating to the Sde Teiman
detention facility. A few soldiers from Unit 100 from Sde Teiman are expected to
be indicted for shoving an object up the buttocks of a detainee, though the
charges have still not been finalized.
These cases led to international outcry from Israeli allies overseas and wide
global media coverage.
'Do not waste time on theatrics': Journalists tour alleged
Hezbollah hospital bunker in Beirut
Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
The journalists were allegedly not given access to the bunker beneath the
hospital where at least half a billion dollars were hidden. Reporters were given
access to tour the Al-Sahel Hospital Beirut on Tuesday, where it was revealed by
the IDF on Monday to be located above a Hezbollah bunker. The hospital
invited journalists to tour the hospital to refute the claim, media outlets
reported. In one instance, BBC journalist Orla Guerin was taken on a hospital
tour and reported from the facility. In her report, doctors took the BBC through
the building, including to the first and second levels below ground, where staff
insisted there was no bunker or Hezbollah facility underneath. "This hospital is
private and not affiliated with any entity," N12 quoted the manager of the Al-Sahel
Hospital as saying. According to the report, he said, "It [Al-Sahel Hospital]
was built 42 years ago, and there is no possibility of there being a bunker or
any kind of hiding place. The hospital is open to anyone who wants to verify
this matter. However, N12 reported that these journalists were not given access
to the bunker where at least half a billion dollars were hidden.
IDF spox. gives directions to bunker
IDF Arabic Spokesperson Avichay Adraee addressed the organized visit to Al-Saleh
in a post to X/Twitter on Tuesday. Adraee stated, "To the media personnel who
are currently participating in the media tour inside Haret Hreik: go to the
specific locations we have revealed and do not waste your time on theatrics
inside the medical departments." The spokesperson gave directions to the
journalists, saying, "Go down to Hezbollah's private shelter. Dargham Street,
Building No. 7, Airport Road, Haret Hreik. Entrance and exit in the Al-Ahmadi
Building and Sahel Center Building. Go there." IDF Spokesperson Rear Admiral
Daniel Hagari revealed on Monday night that a Hezbollah bunker hosting gold and
half a billion dollars in cash were stored underneath the Al-Sahel Hospital in
Dahiyeh. The IDF said that Nasrallah used the site as an emergency bunker. As
such, the hospital was evacuated following Israeli claims a Hezbollah cash
bunker was located beneath it.
Hospital director Fadi Alameh denied the allegations to Reuters.
Gadi Zaig contributed to this report
Hezbollah’s factory reset
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/October 22/2024
Growing up in West Beirut in the 1980s, I vividly recall the sudden appearance
of massive posters depicting a menacing, scowling figure. The quotes alongside
him labeled the United States as the “Great Satan” and Israel as the “Little
Satan,” calling for their destruction. This enigmatic man was none other than
Ruhollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and founder of
the Islamic Republic. His image was soon adopted by Hezbollah, Iran’s Lebanese
proxy, whose name quickly became synonymous with the abduction of Western
hostages and terrorist attacks. Beginning with the 1982 bombings of the US
embassy and Marine barracks, Hezbollah’s violent actions culminated for me
personally in the assassination of my friend Lokman Slim in February 2021 – a
staunch liberal voice who never accepted Hezbollah’s supposed “transformation.”
The recent war between Israel and Hezbollah, combined with the assassination of
Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah and the decimation of his top
command, has effectively “reset” the party to its original form, or back to its
factory setting. Decades of efforts to cultivate a Lebanese identity for
Hezbollah have crumbled, as Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
reasserted direct control over the party. What started as a fanatical militia
has grown into a strategic pillar of Iran’s regional ambitions, but the mask of
local legitimacy has been shattered.
In its first decade, Hezbollah – officially the “Party of God” – struggled to
shed its reputation as an Iranian proxy. Many Lebanese Shias, who largely
supported the cleric Musa al-Sadr and his Amal movement, derided Hezbollah as
the “anti-God party.” The group’s radical practices, such as emulating
Khomeini’s teachings by throwing acid at unveiled women, did little to endear
them to Lebanon’s majority Shia population. Many Lebanese Shias were already
active in secular and Marxist political movements, further limiting Hezbollah’s
appeal.
After the Lebanese Civil War ended in 1990, Hezbollah sought to reposition
itself by focusing on fighting the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Even
after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, the group refused to decommission its
weapons. Over time, Hezbollah’s so-called “resistance” became a threat to
Lebanon itself. In February 2005, the group was implicated in the assassination
of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. A year later, Hezbollah sparked a 34-day
war with Israel that devastated Lebanon’s infrastructure. Then, in May 2008,
Hezbollah attempted to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora,
revealing its true sectarian ambitions. By 2011, the group sealed its fate by
sending fighters to support the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, further
alienating it from much of Lebanon.
The devastating setbacks Hezbollah has faced recently have sparked conspiracy
theories suggesting that Iran “sold out” Hezbollah in exchange for a better deal
with the Biden administration. These theories portray Iran as a pragmatic player
that can be reasoned with. However, this view ignores the reality that, since
the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, Iran’s expansionist ambitions have relied on
Hezbollah and other factions as proxies to defend its regional hegemony.
Hezbollah’s declared goal of “liberating Jerusalem” and fighting for the
oppressed was always a façade – merely a tool for Iran’s messianic drive to
dominate Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. With Hezbollah weakened by military
failures and the looming threat of an Israeli strike on Iran, its utility as a
proxy has been compromised, if not destroyed. The group’s inability to appoint a
successor to Nasrallah has forced the IRGC to intervene directly. Mohammad Reza
Fallahzadeh, the deputy commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force, has been dispatched
to oversee Hezbollah’s fragmented fighting force. This explains the recent shift
in tactics, including more precise missile strikes on Israeli targets like the
Binyamina army base and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s summer residence.
Going forward, it is more accurate to see the IRGC, not Hezbollah, as the entity
negotiating with Israel and the West – by firepower, no less. Iran hopes that
escalating tensions on the Lebanese front will deter Israel from launching a
retaliatory strike against its mainland. Lebanon, meanwhile, finds itself under
three occupations: the advancing Israeli army, an Iranian regime that uses
Lebanon as a human shield for political leverage, and a domestic political elite
too corrupt or cowardly to chart a path forward.
Hezbollah and Iran have come full circle. What began in the summer of 1982 with
the founding of a small terrorist group has ended in the fall of 2024 with the
collapse of their proxy network of terror and corruption. The only viable path
for the Lebanese people is to declare Iran an occupying force and fight for
their liberation. Anything short of this will only waste more time, resources
and innocent lives.
IDF intercepts
Lebanese drone after hour-long pursuit in Israel's airspace
The Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
"We are conducting efforts to follow and intercept the target. The public is
asked to listen to Home Front Command security guidelines," the IDF said. The
IDF has successfully intercepted a drone from Lebanon that entered into Israel's
airspace, the military announced on Tuesday evening. The IDF also said that the
intercepted drone has yet to be found, and that it likely fell in an open area.
Around an hour passed between the time of the first drone intrusion alert and
the IDF announcement that the UAV had been brought down. The IDF first confirmed
a drone entered Israel's air space after 20 minutes of intrusion sirens across
Israel's North."We are conducting efforts to follow and intercept the target.
The public is asked to listen to Home Front Command security guidelines. More
details will follow shortly," the military stated. Drone sirens sounded in
communities across Israel, beginning as far north as Rosh Hanikra before
sounding in localities progressively more southward. Hezbollah drone hits
Netanyahu's home. This follows confirmation by the Shin Bet (ISA) earlier
Tuesday that a Hezbollah drone launched on Saturday succeeded in hitting Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's home in Caesarea. Neither the prime minister nor
his family was in the house at the time of the strike, and no one was injured.
Hezbollah Takes
‘Full and Sole’ Responsibility of Targeting Netanyahu’s House
Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
Lebanon's Hezbollah said on Tuesday that there will be no negotiations while
fighting continues, and that it held Israel responsible for the wellbeing of the
group's fighters who had been captured. "Hezbollah takes the full and sole
responsibility for targeting Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's house," Mohammad
Afif, the head of the armed group' media office, told a press conference in the
southern suburbs of Beirut. Israel said a drone was launched at Netanyahu's
holiday home on Saturday. Netanyahu was not there at the time. But he described
it as an assassination attempt by "Iran's proxy Hezbollah" and called it a
"grave mistake". Netanyahu’s office said the drone on Saturday targeted his
house in the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife was
there. It wasn’t clear if the house was hit.
What Is the
Hezbollah-Linked Financial Institution Israel Is Targeting in Lebanon?
Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
The Israeli military has carried out a wave of airstrikes targeting branches of
a financial institution affiliated with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, saying the
quasi-banking system is being used to fund the militant group's military wing.
The strikes destroyed more than a dozen branches of al-Qard al-Hassan across
Lebanon Sunday night, and came two weeks after an airstrike killed the man who
many referred to as Hezbollah’s “finance minister.”After assassinating most of
Hezbollah’s top political and military commanders, including the group’s
longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah, and pummeling its communities with devastating
airstrikes, Israel says it is now going after the Shiite group’s funders and
financial institutions in an attempt to further disrupt it and its base of
support.
Hezbollah started attacking Israeli military posts along the border with Lebanon
a day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on southern Israel that killed
some 1,200 people and took about 250 hostage. Hezbollah said that by launching
attacks along the Lebanon-Israel border it was backing up its Hamas allies in
the Gaza Strip. What is al-Qard al-Hassan and who benefits from it? Al-Qard al-Hassan
is officially a non-profit charity institution operating outside the Lebanese
financial system, and one of the tools by which Hezbollah entrenches its support
among the country’s Shiite population. In addition to its military wing,
Hezbollah has branches that run schools, hospitals, low-price grocery stores, as
well as al-Qard al-Hassan, from which hundreds of thousands of its supporters
benefit.
Israel says the institution finances arms purchases and is used to pay Hezbollah
fighters. The US Treasury has imposed sanctions on it since 2007, saying it is
“used by Hezbollah as a cover" to manage the militant group’s financial
activities "and gain access to the international financial system.”Founded four
decades ago, soon after Hezbollah’s inception, the association, whose name in
Arabic means “the benevolent loan,” offers interest-free loans and allows people
to deposit gold as collateral in return for the credit, enabling them to pay for
school fees and weddings, buy a car or open a small business. People can also
open savings accounts.
Al-Qard al-Hassan has more than 30 branches around Lebanon. Following Lebanon’s
2019 financial collapse, the institution provided a lifeline for many Lebanese.
Unlike banks around the country that imposed limits on how much people could
withdraw from their bank accounts, people with deposits at al-Qard al-Hassan
were still able to withdraw their cash. In 2021, the US Treasury’s Office of
Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on seven individuals in connection with
Hezbollah and al-Qard al-Hassan. A year later, the Biden administration slapped
terrorism sanctions on two others, including al-Qard al-Hassan’s director, Adel
Mansour, and two companies in Lebanon for providing Hezbollah with financial
services. Mansour did not respond to messages left by The Associated Press for
comment. After sanctions were imposed against him two years, he told the AP: “I
am proud and this is a medal of honor for me.” A senior official at the central
bank in Beirut refused to comment about the Israeli targeting of al-Qard al-Hassan
branches when contacted by the AP on Monday.
David Asher, an expert on illicit financing who has worked at the US Defense and
State Departments and is now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, said the
Israeli attacks were “a big deal.”“Al-Qard al-Hassan is part of Hezbollah’s
central financial unit,” which is akin to its treasury, he said. Faysal Abdul-Sater,
a Lebanese political analyst who closely follows Hezbollah’s affairs, said the
group is not funded through al-Qard al-Hassan. He said the money deposited at
the institution belongs to individuals and companies, and the system benefits
people with low incomes.
“This is a symbolic strike,” Abdul-Sater said about targeting al-Qard al-Hassan.
How harmful are the Israeli strikes? The systematic destruction of al-Qard al-Hassan
branches, coming after assassinations that took out almost all of Hezbollah’s
top leadership and displaced hundreds of thousands of the group’s supporters, is
bound to add to the chaos and fears within Hezbollah’s base of support. But
experts say it is unlikely to harm Hezbollah's finances in and of itself.
Al-Qard al-Hassan tried to reassure customers, saying in a statement late Sunday
that it had evacuated all its branches and relocated gold and other deposits to
safe areas.
Lebanese economist Louis Hobeika said destroying al-Qard al-Hassan branches will
have no effect on Hezbollah’s funding as its money comes from Iran and wealthy
supporters around the world. The group's salaries are known to be paid in cash
in dollars. “As long as Iran and Hezbollah’s allies are funding the group it
will not be affected,” Hobeika said, adding that the flow of “bags of cash” from
abroad will continue just like in the past. Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at
Chatham House who focuses on the Middle East, said al-Qard al-Hassan customers
still have faith that “Hezbollah will be able to compensate them for their
losses.”Khatib noted that al-Qard al-Hassan's operations, like those of any
financial institution, are not limited to any physical assets the strikes
targeted. A Lebanese woman who gave only her first name, Zahraa, for safety
reasons, said she was in need of cash and deposited a gold necklace and several
rings earlier this year in return for an $800 loan. The woman said she has been
repaying it in $50 monthly installments. “I don’t care whether I get the gold or
not at a time when men are sacrificing their souls in south Lebanon,” Zahraa
said referring to Hezbollah gunmen who are fighting invading Israeli forces.
Who was the Hezbollah financier killed? Israel began going after Hezbollah's
finances earlier this month, when an Israeli airstrike destroyed the top two
floors of a south Beirut building, killing Mohammed Jaafar Qassir, who the US
Treasury and Israel accused of transferring hundreds of millions of dollars from
Iran to Hezbollah over the years. The US had offered $10 million for information
leading to the disruption of the financial mechanisms of Hezbollah. The US
Treasury said Qassir provided funding for Hezbollah operations through a number
of “illegal smuggling and procurement activities and other criminal
enterprises.”It added that Qassir was also a critical conduit for financial
disbursements from the powerful Quds Force branch of Iran’s paramilitary
Revolutionary Guard that are used to fund Hezbollah’s activities.
The Israeli military said Qassir was in charge of Hezbollah’s Unit 4400, which
ships weapons from Iran to Lebanon, and supervised Hezbollah’s development of
precision-guided missiles. Hezbollah did not comment on Qassir’s killing. Days
after Qassir was killed in Beirut, an airstrike in Damascus, Syria, blamed on
Israel killed his brother Hassan, who was married to Nasrallah’s daughter,
Zeinab.
Journalists Taken on Tour of Beirut Hospital Where Israel
Claimed Hezbollah Stored Cash and Gold
Foreign and local journalists take a tour inside Sahel General Hospital, in
Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon,
Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
An Associated Press team was among journalists taken on a tour inside a hospital
in Beirut’s southern suburb where the Israeli army claimed without offering
evidence that Hezbollah was storing hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and
gold in tunnels underneath.
The Sahel General Hospital had already been emptied of most patients and staff
following intense bombardment of the area in recent days, and the few remaining
ones were hastily evacuated late Monday after the Israeli claim.
“We have been living in terror for the last 24 hours,” hospital director Mazen
Alame said Tuesday. “There is nothing under the hospital.”Journalists were taken
to the two floors under the hospital, the first of which had two rooms for
surgeries and the other had oxygen bottles stored inside. The second floor
included a morgue with six doors in one room and a giant water tank in another.
Alame said the hospital has no affiliation with any political group or religious
institution and has been working under the supervision of Lebanon’s Health
Ministry since its founding.
Israel has made similar claims about tunnels used by Hamas fighters under
hospitals in Gaza. Omar Mneimne, a doctor at the hospital’s emergency
department, said he fears a repeat scenario in Lebanon. “We fear that,” Mneimne
said, adding that the international community should act to defend health
facilities in Lebanon. “It’s extremely hard. It’s very stressful for the
community.”
Lebanon Needs $250 Mln a Month for Displaced, Minister Says
Ahead of Paris Summit
Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
Lebanon will need $250 million a month to help more than a million people
displaced by Israeli attacks, its minister in charge of responding to the crisis
said on Tuesday, ahead of a conference on Thursday in Paris to rally support for
Lebanon. Nasser Yassin told Reuters the government response, helped by local
initiatives and international aid, only covered 20% of the needs of some 1.3
million people uprooted from their homes and sheltering in public buildings or
with relatives. Those needs are likely to grow, as daily waves of airstrikes
push more people out of their homes and leave Lebanon's government scrambling to
find ways to house them, Yassin said. "We need $250 million a month" to cover
basic food, water, sanitation and education services for the displaced, he said.
Schools, an old slaughterhouse, a fresh food market, an empty complex - all of
them have been turned into collective shelters in recent days. "We're
transforming anything, any public building," Yassin said. "There is a lot to be
done."Yassin - whose official mandate as environment minister meant he was
working on preventing forest fires before the current conflict broke out a year
ago - now spends much of his time at government headquarters with a crisis team,
including other Lebanese ministries, the United Nations Development Program and
the Lebanese Red Cross. They are planning for relief operations on a timeline of
four to six months - but Yassin hopes the spreading war will end sooner. "We
need to have a ceasefire today, and we need everybody in the international
community, for once...to be brave enough to say what's happening," he told
Reuters, a message he said he would stress in Paris.
"There is a member state of the UN waging war against a small nation in the most
aggressive manner we've ever seen in the history of Lebanon. This should be the
message," he said. Yassin said he estimated the damage to Lebanon to be in the
billions of dollars. "Full villages on the border were blown up in the last few
days, but also public institutions...water establishments, pumping stations,
hospitals, you name it. All of these need to be rebuilt." Lebanese authorities
have yet to put a firm estimate on the scale of destruction across Lebanon and
how much money it will take to rebuild. Nasser Saidi, a former economy minister,
told Reuters last week that Israel's bombing campaign has caused damage that
will cost $25 billion to repair. UNDP's regional representative Blerta Aliko
said on Tuesday the damage would be far-reaching and include "a drastic capital
loss" - including to Lebanon's ability to feed itself long-term. "I'm not
talking from the perspective of what is required in an immediate term, in the
next month - I'm talking about the impact that has on the harvesting season ...
being impacted in the south, being impacted in the east, which are very, very
important for the country," she said.
Israel Strikes
at Hezbollah’s Iran-Backed Banks in Lebanon
FDD-Flash Brief/October 22/2024
Hezbollah has stockpiled up to half a billion dollars in cash in a secret bunker
under a Beirut hospital, Israel revealed on October 21. In a televised briefing,
Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said that a
site hidden under a residential building in the Bekaa Valley and used to store
cash and gold worth tens of millions of dollars was among the targets in Lebanon
struck by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) on October 20. But, he added, as yet
untouched was a stockpile of up to $500 million in cash and gold in a secret
Hezbollah command bunker located under al-Sahel General Hospital in the Lebanese
capital.
Hagari said that Hezbollah — spearheaded by its Unit 4400, which coordinates
arms and financial deliveries from Iran — raises funds through sales of Iranian
oil in Syria as well as flying in cash directly from Tehran to Beirut, where it
is disbursed at the Iranian embassy. Monies are also raised through gas exports
to Syria and other business ventures in the region and by drawing donations for
fake charities.
Having eliminated Unit 4400 chief Muhammad Jafar Qassir in Beirut on October 1,
Israeli forces on October 21 killed his successor in Syria, Hagari said, without
naming the second man. Syria’s Defense Ministry earlier said two people had been
killed in a strike on a car in Damascus.
On October 20, the IAF conducted precise airstrikes against “facilities and
sites” operated by al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH) Association — a financial
institution “which directly funds Hezbollah’s terror activities, including the
purchase [of] weapons and payments” to Hezbollah operatives. IDF Chief of the
General Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said that nearly 30 targets were struck
across Lebanon targeting AQAH, “which receives funds from Iran, provides loans,
and ultimately finances Hezbollah’s terrorism.” Strikes were reported in
Beirut’s southern suburbs, especially the Dahiya area — the hub of Lebanon’s
Shia community. The IAF also struck AQAH facilities in southern Lebanon and the
Bekaa Valley.
On October 21, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant signed an order declaring
AQAH a terrorist organization. According to a senior Israeli intelligence
official, Iran provided AQAH with approximately $50 million a month.
Expert Analysis
“Having cut down Hezbollah’s personnel and materiel, Israel is now going for its
pocketbook. It’s possible, however, that ordinary Lebanese will get there first.
Is there anything more galling than a foreign-commanded mafia posing as a
religious group and storing hard cash while the rest of the country starves?” —
Mark Dubowitz, FDD CEO
“In theory, this is a significant blow to Hezbollah’s warfighting capabilities
and ‘day after’ ability to regenerate — which will depend on Hezbollah’s social
arms having the funds to provide its base with reconstruction aid and other
assistance. In the long run, Hezbollah will also need to revive its vast social
apparatuses that act as conveyor belt mechanisms to draw immediate and long-term
support. The question is: Has Hezbollah already moved its funds, either at the
outset of the conflict or after its intensification since mid-September? Or did
the IDF’s warning yesterday, hours before strikes commenced, give Hezbollah
sufficient notice to move its money?” — David Daoud, FDD Senior Fellow
“AQAH is Hezbollah’s bank and, alongside Bayt al-Amal, a key conduit of its
illicit financial operations. Due to its charitable status, AQAH has eluded
banking oversight and has successfully hoarded the hard currency it uses as
leverage on Lebanon’s population, especially at a time when the local financial
system is crumbling. It is also a major channel for the transfer of illicit
funds from Hezbollah’s overseas financial networks back to Lebanon.” — Emanuele
Ottolenghi, FDD Senior Fellow
The little
airline that could — Lebanon’s national carrier braves Israeli airstrikes
AP/October 22, 2024
BEIRUT: Since Israel began bombarding Beirut’s southern suburbs as part of its
offensive against the Hezbollah militant group, Lebanon’s national air carrier
has become a local icon simply by continuing to do its job. Middle East Airlines
is the only commercial airline still operating out of the Beirut airport,
located on the coast next to the densely-populated suburbs where many of
Hezbollah’s operations are based. Unlike the bruising monthlong war between
Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, in which an Israeli strike almost immediately took
Lebanon’s only commercial airport out of commission, it has not been targeted in
the current conflict. Capt. Mohammed Aziz, adviser to MEA chairman Mohamad El-Hout,
said the airline has received assurances that Israel won’t target its planes or
the airport as long as they are used solely for civilian purposes. The carrier
conducts a risk assessment each day to determine if it’s safe to fly, he said.
“As long as you see us operating, it means our threat assessment says that we
can operate,” Aziz said. “We will never jeopardize the life of anyone.”
Still, the sight of jetliners rising and descending as fire and clouds of smoke
blacken the Beirut skyline can be alarming. Some of the most dramatic images
making the rounds on social media depicting jets landing in fiery hellscapes
have been AI-generated. And, Aziz said, the plumes of smoke that appear in news
footage are often farther away from the airport than they appear.Still, some
strikes have landed too close for comfort. On Monday night, one hit the coastal
area of Ouzai, about 200 meters (650 feet) from one of the runways. There were
no planes in the area at the time.Since the escalation began, many embassies
have chartered extra commercial flights to get their citizens out. Other flights
have carried Lebanese citizens to nearby destinations like Turkiye and Cyprus to
wait out the conflict. The number of daily MEA flights ranges from 32 to 40 —
not much below the usual number for this time of year, Aziz said. The
difference: now the flights usually depart Beirut full and return two-thirds or
three-quarters empty.
While many Lebanese have fled, others continue to fly in and out for business or
family reasons.
Elie Obeid, a business consultant, was scheduled to fly to Brussels this month
for a seminar. After his original flight on Turkish Airlines was canceled, he
booked on MEA. As his return flight was landing Saturday, heavy airstrikes were
underway in the surrounding area. Onboard, Obeid was unaware of what was
happening until the plane landed and he opened his phone to a barrage of
messages. He said he had mixed feelings about the experience.“I do appreciate
the fact that they are still flying, since that’s our only connection with the
outer world currently,” he said. “But at the same time it is very risky. We
should have been told that strikes were happening, and maybe even they could
have told the pilot to request to land in Cyprus for a while until the strikes
ended.”
John Cox, a US-based former airline pilot who is now an aviation-safety
consultant, said when there’s a potential threat, it’s the captain’s call
whether or not to proceed, and it’s not unusual for passengers to be left in the
dark.
Telling them about a threat they can’t control “doesn’t really do any good, and
it stresses them out. So, I would be very hesitant to do that,” he said. But, he
added, “I’m not sure that I want to fly into an area of open conflict like that
with passengers on board.”
It is “pretty unusual,” Cox said, for a commercial airline to decide that
operating in an active war zone is an “acceptable level of risk.”
“When you’re in an area with ongoing military operations there’s an awful lot of
variables,” he said. “Even just keeping the airplanes ... so that they’re not in
the same airspace at the same time, that becomes very difficult.”
Aziz said the airline is in “continuous coordination” with the Lebanese
government and security agencies, and attempts to mitigate the risk by spacing
out flights so the airport is not too crowded at any given time. About 20
percent of its fleet is parked outside of Lebanon to reduce potential damage.
They have also taken measures to adjust for the frequent GPS jamming that is
used by Israel to ward off missile and drone attacks but also disrupts civilian
navigation technology.
Other airlines have different considerations, Aziz said. Their trips to Lebanon
might be “one flight out of 200 or 300 flights per day, so spending two or three
hours a day just to make a risk assessment for one flight is a waste of time for
them,” he said.
“But for us it’s a necessity, because if we don’t do it we’ll stop operation
completely.”
He added, “It’s our duty, of course, to maintain this link between Lebanon and
the outside world.”For many, having that link is a comfort — even if the journey
might be harrowing. Marie-Jose Daoud, editor-in-chief of an online journalism
platform, flew to Cyprus with her parents a few days after the massive strike in
Beirut’s southern suburbs that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. As they
were waiting for their flight, she saw on the news that the Israeli military had
issued evacuation notices for two areas close to the airport. Soon after, she
heard the muffled sounds of airstrikes through the airport’s soundproofed walls.
As the plane took off, the crew and most of the passengers remained calm. One
man pointed out the window to show his young son the smoke rising. The plane
made it safely to Cyprus.
Daoud said her parents want to return home despite the risks, so she is
traveling back with them in a few days. She plans to leave again soon after, but
she knows she can “come back at a day’s notice” if her family needs her.
“As long as the airport is open, I know that (MEA) are going to be flying,” she
said.
As Lebanon
burns, self-serving leaders must rise to the challenge
Baria Alamuddin /Arab News/October 22/2024
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati has long been considered a friend of
Hezbollah and Syria, so people were pleasantly surprised last week when he
issued a rare rebuke of Iran for “blatant interference in Lebanese affairs.”
Iran's parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf had declared that Tehran
would be ready to “negotiate” with the West to implement UN Resolution 1701 in
southern Lebanon, as though the country were a mere playing card to be
negotiated over.
With Israel pointing its missiles toward Tehran, it is striking to witness the
ayatollahs being so brazen about their ability to manipulate regional
developments – even under the supposedly moderate presidency of Masoud
Pezeshkian. Meanwhile, it is depressing to witness the timidity of the Lebanese
government in failing to act to curtail blatant Iranian interference. As a
result of naked personal ambitions, Christian leaders are failing to unite to
steer events in a positive direction, while Sunnis remain utterly leaderless.
National salvation takes second place to ambitions of capturing the
presidency.These Christian rivalries were on display for all to see in recent
days when Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea hosted a meeting to discuss
developments, attended by representatives of various communities, but from which
Christian leaders such as Suleiman Frangieh, Samy Gemayel and Gebran Bassil
distanced themselves. How can we have any sort of political roadmap when the key
protagonists aren’t even talking to each other?
The notable presence of Iranian commanders at the scene of most of Israel’s
assassinations of Hezbollah leaders caused people to conclude that, with the
loss of the entire top echelons of Hezbollah, it is the Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps that is increasingly directing this fight in Hezbollah’s name.
Although Israeli losses in south Lebanon already appear to have been relatively
heavy, we are talking about an enemy perfectly willing to destroy 100 villages
for every 10 soldiers killed, and Lebanese fatalities have already soared to
over 2,400, with tens of thousands injured. A radically diminished Hezbollah
appears to be pulling its punches because it knows its weapons stockpiles may
not be replenished. When the two sides are so woefully mismatched, Hezbollah’s
pinprick attacks simply reap infinitely greater pain upon Lebanon itself. The
Assad and Putin regimes recently demanded that Hezbollah and paramilitary
affiliates move away from airports and other sensitive sites in Syria. If these
entities have become persona non-grata even among their closest allies, they
should ponder about what privileges their beholdenness to Iran really buys them.
As the conflict grinds on, there is only one conceivable outcome: Lebanon’s
utter destruction. Hassan Nasrallah knew this, and Iran clearly knows it too.
Lebanon is stuck in the middle of an ideological battle within Iran itself,
between hard-line generals aspiring to dominate Arab states in perpetuity and
government ministers who want to exploit Lebanon as a cheap bargaining chip for
securing sanctions reduction, nuclear concessions, or guarantees that Israel
won’t attack Tehran. This is not Lebanon’s fight, and there is no victory to be
had. Hezbollah’s continuing rhetoric about the resistance standing firm and
imposing losses upon the enemy is nonsense talk for consumption by its shrinking
pool of grassroots supporters.
With US envoy Amos Hochstein talking about “additions” and “amendments” to
Resolution 1701, there will probably be intensive renewed pressure for
disarmament of Hezbollah and perhaps a permanent Israeli presence in south
Lebanon, or a more muscular mandate for the UN peaekeeping force — with Lebanon
by any standards coming out of this the broken and defeated party, the US and
Israel may be free to impose whatever conditions they desire at the cost of
Lebanese sovereignty.
With Israeli strikes spreading to almost the entirety of Lebanon, around a
quarter of the population has already been displaced. That most of the displaced
are from traditionally pro-Hezbollah areas is exacerbating social tensions, with
some calls for excluding refugees from non-Shiite districts. Israel appears to
be calculatedly striking Christian-majority villages with the goal of stirring
sectarian tensions and discouraging residents from receiving displaced people
for fear of being targeted themselves. Israel’s drone strike against a Hezbollah
operative in the Christian heartland of Jouneh sent a strident message that
nowhere is safe.
We should guard against those doing Israel’s work for it in exacerbating
sectarian tensions, pitting Lebanese against each other, and dividing the
country into cantons — dragging us back to the mentality of the civil war era,
or even triggering civil conflict. All this goes against the prevailing national
spirit in a country that already had proportionately the highest refugee
population in the world. A generation of young people had their political
awakening during the 2019 anti-sectarian protests. Such attitudes have led to
young Sunnis, Christians and Druze volunteering en masse in shelters, community
kitchens and hospitals for assisting displaced citizens. Lebanon is too small to
be fragmented. Its status quo is too precarious to remain without president or
effective government. The ongoing catastrophe nevertheless offers unprecedented
opportunities to reconceptualize Lebanese politics, within a non-sectarian
system that prioritizes functioning, effective and responsive government for the
benefit of all citizens.
With all districts of Lebanon now subjected to attack, Christian and other
leaders should not be passively sitting on their hands, issuing empty statements
to the media. All sides must put aside personal and factional aspirations and
establish a united front for the sake of national salvation.
This is not Lebanon’s fight, but that doesn’t mean Lebanon’s leaders can’t come
together to stave off the country’s utter destruction in this unwinnable and
vengeful conflict, before the country loses its sovereignty and identity
altogether.
Lebanon can be saved, but only if those leaders who have failed, harmed and
neglected their country so often in the past rise to this challenge and bring
this beautiful, traumatized nation back together.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle
East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has
interviewed numerous heads of state.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on October 22-23/2024
Blinken urges Israel to reach Gaza truce, allow more aid
AFP/October 22, 2024
JERUSALEM: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel’s leaders to work
toward a ceasefire in Gaza on Tuesday, the latest call for a truce coming as
fighting raged in the territory’s aid-starved north and Israeli strikes hit
Lebanon. Blinken is on his 11th trip to the Middle East since Hamas’s attack on
Israel more than a year ago triggered the Gaza war, and his first since Israel’s
conflict with Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah escalated last month. The top US
diplomat told Israel’s leaders that the army’s killing of Hamas leader Yahya
Sinwar last week presented an “opportunity” for a truce and the release of the
hostages Hamas seized during the October 7, 2023 attack. “I believe very much
that the death of Sinwar does create an important opportunity to bring the
hostages home, to bring the war to an end and to ensure Israel’s security,”
Blinken said as he met Israeli President Isaac Herzog in Tel Aviv.
During an earlier discussion with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in
Jerusalem, Blinken pressed for more aid to be allowed into the besieged
Palestinian territory as concerns rise for tens of thousands of civilians
trapped by a major Israeli assault in the hard-to-reach north.
A US official said that Netanyahu had recognized the “seriousness” of Blinken’s
warnings to ramp up aid access to Gaza, “but it’s the results that
matter.”Washington has warned it may suspend some of its military assistance if
Israel does not quickly improve humanitarian access to the area. Netanyahu also
denied claims that Israel was implementing a controversial plan for an intense
siege to starve out northern Gaza, the US official said. Previous efforts by the
United States — Israel’s top ally and main arms supplier — to end the Gaza war
and contain the regional fallout have failed, as did a previous bid to secure a
temporary ceasefire in Lebanon. Blinken’s visit comes as Israel weighs its
response to Iran’s missile attack on October 1. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant
told Blinken that Israel expects Washington’s support “following our attack on
Iran,” his office said. Blinken again called for a “diplomatic resolution” in
Lebanon and compliance with a UN resolution that ended Israel’s last war with
Hezbollah in 2006.After Israel, Blinken will visit Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, a
last-minute change from plans to head to Jordan caused by scheduling issues, a
US official said. Fighting meanwhile raged in Lebanon, with the Israeli military
issuing new calls for residents to evacuate areas in the southern suburbs on
capital Beirut on Tuesday evening, warning of imminent attacks. After nearly a
year of war in Gaza, Israel shifted its focus to Lebanon in late September,
vowing to secure its northern border to allow tens of thousands of Israelis
displaced by cross-border fire to return to their homes. Israel ramped up its
air strikes on Hezbollah strongholds around the country and sent in ground
troops late last month, in a war that has killed at least 1,552 people since
September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures. On
Tuesday, an Israeli strike on the eastern Hermel region killed five people,
while five more died from a separate strike in the southern city of Nabatiyeh,
the ministry said.An Israeli air strike near a Beirut hospital overnight killed
18 people, four of them children, according to the health ministry. The strike
flattened four buildings near the Rafic Hariri Hospital, Lebanon’s biggest
public health facility which is located outside Hezbollah’s traditional
strongholds, an AFP correspondent reported. Resident Ola Eid said she was
tossing children chocolate and candy from her balcony when her neighborhood was
bombed. “Before they could even catch them, the first strike hit, then a second.
I saw the children ripped apart,” she told AFP. UN human rights chief Volker
Turk said he was “appalled” by the strike. Another Israeli strike on Tuesday
came just minutes after a Hezbollah official cut short a news conference in
response to an Israeli evacuation warning, an AFP correspondent said. Hezbollah
said it launched attack drones at an Israeli military base south of the coastal
city of Haifa on Tuesday, with the group also saying it struck seven tanks at
the border. In the Gaza Strip, Israel launched a major air and ground assault in
northern Gaza earlier this month, vowing to stop Hamas militants from regrouping
in the area. Despite the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians, around
400,000 have been trapped by the fighting, the UN agency for Palestinian
refugees warned last week. Paramedic Nevin Al-Dawasah said she was trapped for
16 days in a shelter for displaced people in the Jabalia refugee camp, the focus
of the recent fighting. When an Israeli army drone equipped with loudspeakers
told them to evacuate, they started leaving “but suddenly there was shelling”
that killed some people and wounded others, Dawasah told AFP. The only medical
facility still only partially functioning in the targeted area of northern Gaza
has “no medicine or medical supplies,” warned Kamal Adwan Hospital director
Hossam Abu Safia. “People are being killed in the streets, and we can’t help
them. Bodies are lying on the streets.”The war was sparked by Hamas’s
unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7 last year, which resulted in the
deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli
official figures. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 42,718 people in
Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s
health ministry which the UN considers reliable.
Saudi-Jordanian Summit Underscores
Solidarity with Palestinians, Lebanon
Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, Crown Prince and Prime
Minister, received in Riyadh on Tuesday Jordan’s King Abdullah II. King Abdullah
expressed gratitude for the warm reception and hospitality extended to him and
his accompanying delegation. Crown Prince Mohammed conveyed the greetings of
Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.The leaders
reviewed brotherly relations between their countries and ways to boost
cooperation in various fields. They discussed Arab and Islamic affairs and
developments in the Middle East, including efforts to achieve a ceasefire in
Gaza and Lebanon and de-escalate tensions in the region. Crown Prince Mohammed
and King Abdullah underscored their full support for their brothers in Palestine
and Lebanon, stressing the need to provide uninterrupted humanitarian aid to
alleviate their suffering. Attending the meeting from the Saudi side were
Minister of Energy Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Minister of State
and Cabinet Member Prince Turki bin Mohammed bin Fahd bin Abdulaziz, Deputy
Governor of Riyadh Region Prince Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Abdulaziz,
Minister of Interior Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Naif bin Abdulaziz, Minister
of National Guard Prince Abdullah bin Bandar bin Abdulaziz, and Minister of
Foreign Affairs Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah. Also present were Saudi
Minister of State and National Security Adviser Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban,
Minister of Transport and Logistics Eng. Saleh bin Nasser Al-Jasser, President
of General Intelligence Khalid bin Ali Al-Humaidan, and Saudi Ambassador to
Jordan Naif bin Bandar Al-Sudairi. On the Jordanian side, the meeting was
attended by Crown Prince Al-Hussein bin Abdullah II, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Ayman Safadi, Director of the King's Office Eng. Alaa Batayneh, Director of the
Crown Prince’s Office Dr. Zaid Baqaeen, and Jordan’s Ambassador to the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia Haitham Abu Alfoul. King Abdullah and the accompanying
delegation had arrived in Riyadh earlier on Tuesday where they were welcomed by
Crown Prince Mohammed at King Khalid International Airport.
FBI says it's investigating leak of secret documents on
Israel's possible attack plans
Associated Press/October 22, 2024
The FBI said Tuesday that it is investigating the unauthorized release of
classified documents on Israel’s preparation for a potential retaliatory attack
on Iran. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday that the
Biden administration is still not certain if the classified information was
leaked or hacked but that officials don’t have any indication at this point of
“additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain."The
Associated Press reported Saturday that U.S. officials were investigating the
release. The FBI confirmed the investigation for the first time on Tuesday and
said in a statement that it is “working closely with our partners in the
Department of Defense and Intelligence Community." It did not comment further.
The documents are attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and
National Security Agency and note that Israel is still moving military assets in
place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic
missile attack on Oct. 1. They were shareable within the “Five Eyes,” an
intelligence alliance comprised of the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand
and Australia. Marked top secret, the documents first appeared online Friday on
the Telegram messaging app and quickly spread among Telegram channels popular
with Iranians.
Pentagon suspects employee of Iranian origin in Israeli
strike plan leak - report
Reuters & Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
Last week, two US intelligence documents reportedly disclosing Israel's plan for
a potential retaliatory attack on Iran were leaked. The Pentagon has reportedly
named Chief of Staff of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special
Operations, Ariane Tabatabai, as the prime suspect for an alleged leak of
classified documents, Sky News Arabia reported on Tuesday, citing a senior
Pentagon official. Tabatabai, an American of Iranian origin, is also an officer
in US Naval Intelligence. According to the report, members of Congress wrote a
letter in 2023 to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin against keeping Tabatabai in
her position. The members of Congress urged Secretary Austin to “immediately
suspend Tabatabai’s security clearance pending further review, as the State
Department did with his former supervisor, Robert Malley," the report stated.
The FBI has also begun investigating the leak of a pair of highly classified
intelligence documents describing Israel's preparations for a retaliatory strike
on Iran, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. "The FBI is investigating the
alleged leak of classified documents and working closely with our partners in
the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community," the Federal Bureau of
Investigation said in a statement cited by the Washington Post. “As this is an
ongoing investigation, we have no further comment,” the statement further read.
Last week, two US intelligence documents reportedly disclosing Israel's plan for
a potential retaliatory attack on Iran were leaked and disseminated on a
Telegram channel. The channel claimed it had received the documents via a source
within the US intelligence community. US investigating incident. Following the
leak, the US said it was investigating the incident, which House Speaker Mike
Johnson characterized as "very concerning."Israel said it would respond to
Iran's October 1 attack, which saw the Islamic Republic launch some 180
ballistic missiles at Israel.
Tovah Lazaroff and Walla contributed to this report.
Trump says classified Israeli strike plan leaks are real, might come from
Department of Defense
Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
The report detailed alleged recent actions at Israel Air Force (IAF) bases,
including the movement of advanced munitions believed to be intended for a
strike on Iran. Former US President Donald Trump claimed that a leak of highly
confidential Israeli documents, potentially from the US defense department,
severely compromised Israel’s wartime strategy in a Tuesday Truth Social post.
In the post, Trump warned that Israel may no longer want to share sensitive
information with the US and demanded the leaker be found. "Israel has been
seriously damaged and compromised by this. Wartime strategy and data. Probably
came from Defense Department. MUST FIND THE LEAKER!," Trump said in the post.
"Israel no longer wants to share documents with US, and who can blame them!,"
his post concluded. Trump's post referred to reports on Saturday where the
Iran-linked Telegram channel "Middle East Spectator" made a post containing two
documents that were claimed to be classified Israeli documents relating to the
IDF's plans for a retaliatory strike on Iran. While both the US Department of
Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to
comment on the leaked documents, they did not deny their authenticity. The
timing of the leak comes as Israel is completing preparations for a retaliatory
strike on Iran in response to the October 1 missile attack. An unnamed senior
Israeli official remarked, “Israel’s defense establishment is aware of the leak
and takes it very seriously.” The documents included an alleged report from the
US Department of Defense's visual intelligence agency, which had been circulated
within the US intelligence community three days earlier.
Israel's alleged attack plan
The report detailed alleged recent actions at Israel Air Force (IAF) bases,
including the movement of advanced munitions believed to be intended for a
strike on Iran. The report also noted that intelligence obtained through
wiretaps indicated that the IAF conducted an exercise this week involving
fighter jets and drones as part of its strike preparations.
US charges Iran Revolutionary Guard official in alleged
plot to kill a human rights activist in NYC
Associated Press/October 22, 2024
An official with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard has been charged in a plot to kill
an Iranian American author on U.S. soil, according to a rewritten indictment
filed on Tuesday. Ruhollah Bazghandi and three other men were charged in the
updated indictment against those accused of trying to kill Masih Alinejad.
Bazghandi is not in custody. The Iranian opposition activist and journalist has
been living in exile in New York City. Her identity is not in court papers, but
she confirmed to The Associated Press that she was the intended target. Alinejad
fled Iran following the country’s disputed 2009 presidential election. Bazghandi
is described in court papers as a brigadier general who previously served as
chief of the Revolutionary Guard's counterintelligence department. In October,
2017, the Office of Foreign Assets Control, a wing of the U.S. Department of
Treasury, designated the Revolutionary Guard as a global terrorist group, saying
it has played a key role in supporting Iran's involvement in international
terrorism. In April 2023, the office said Bazghandi was involved in
assassination plots against journalists, Israeli citizens and others deemed
enemies of Iran, along with his participation in the detention of foreign
prisoners held in Iran and involvement in operations in Syria by the
Revolutionary Guard's counterintelligence department, the indictment noted.
Iran doesn't expect major Israeli retaliation, Revolutionary Guards ex-chief
says
Reuters/October 22, 2024
Israel is unlikely to make a "significant move" against Tehran but could instead
mount a symbolic limited attack, Revolutionary Guards cultural and social
commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Tuesday, according to the Iranian Student
News Network.Israel is widely thought to be planning retaliation for a missile
barrage launched by Iran on Oct. 1. "Israel is too small to be able to attack
Iran, although it may carry out a desperate, limited, and small attack to say it
has retaliated, but it will definitely not carry out an offensive (strike)
similar to ours," said Jafari, the former commander in chief of Iran's elite
Revolutionary Guards. He added that Iran's response would depend on the
intensity of Israel's retaliation, and that if Israel ended up carrying out a
significant attack, Iran would respond with a higher-intensity offensive against
Israel. Jafari commanded the Revolutionary Guards from 2007-2019.
Washington’s Arab allies engage with Iran as US efforts to stem Middle East
violence falter
Mostafa Salem, CNN/October 22, 2024
Growing unease over the United States’ inability to de-escalate tensions in the
Middle East is prompting some of Washington’s closest Arab allies to
significantly increase engagement with its primary regional adversary: Iran.
Over the past few months, Arab nations have been leveraging their revived
relations with the Islamic Republic to ward off a wider regional war as the US
fails to contain an impending regional escalation. US Secretary of State Anthony
Blinken landed in Israel for his eleventh trip to the region in a year on
Tuesday in an apparent effort to take advantage of the killing of Hamas leader
and October 7 architect Yahya Sinwar to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. US officials,
however, are tempering expectations as Washington’s calls for calm fall on deaf
ears and Israel vows to push ahead with its wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Blinken’s
visit also comes as Israel prepares a response to Tehran’s October 1 firing of
hundreds of missiles in one of the biggest ever attacks on the Jewish state. The
strike was in response to Israel’s assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan
Nasrallah last month and its suspected killing of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in
Tehran in July. Arab nations have long been suspicious of Shiite Iran’s role in
a region that is dominated by US-allied Sunni states, and share Israel’s
concerns about its support for non-state Islamist groups. For the past month,
Tehran has tried to gauge their position on its conflict with Israel,
dispatching its top officials and diplomats for an intensive campaign of
diplomacy with its neighbors, many of whom host US military personnel and bases.
Arab nations that had spent decades brawling with Iran for regional influence
are now opting to engage with it again.
Intensified diplomacy
In a rare meeting this month, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman,
who once called Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei the “new Hitler of
the Middle East,” sat down with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in
Riyadh. It was the third meeting between Iranian and Saudi officials in one
month. Tehran’s top diplomat also met Jordan’s King Abdullah II in Amman and
made a rare trip to Egypt for a meeting with President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in
Cairo. He has also met Qatar’s prime minister in Doha, the Omani foreign
minister in Muscat and the Bahraini king in Manama.
Those efforts appeared to have borne fruit. “All our friends gave us assurances
that their land and airspace will not be used to attack Iran… We are expecting
this from all countries in the region,” Araghchi said after meeting Kuwait’s
Crown Prince Sabah Al-Sabah in Kuwait City.
Despite seeing an opportunity to weaken Iran’s regional influence, Arab nations
are now signaling neutrality. A regional source told CNN last week the UAE’s
airspace will not be used for any strike on the Islamic Republic. “The Gulf
(Arab) monarchies’ priority is not to be directly involved in a proper regional
conflagration. They fear they would be targeted and would end up being directly
hit in the crossfire,” said Cinzia Bianco, a visiting fellow at the European
Council on Foreign Relations. “They think the best way to avoid such a scenario
is to make themselves very useful interlocutors for both sides and especially
Iran, which is the most likely party to attempt hitting them.”Israel’s actions
in Lebanon and Gaza have significantly degraded Hezbollah and Hamas, groups that
some Arab states and their media outlets have described as “terrorists.” While
some Gulf Arab states may privately welcome the development, experts say they
are very concerned about the potential of significant escalation in regional
violence should Israel not be contained. “In the immediate sense (Gulf states)
are not unhappy to see Hezbollah weakened and decapitated, but given how
reckless Israel has been, and how unclear its strategic goals are in the war,
there are broader concerns about how their immediate neighborhood might end up
looking once the bulk of the war is over,” Hasan Alhasan, senior fellow for
Middle East policy at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in
Bahrain, told CNN. The Biden administration’s yearlong effort to mediate a
ceasefire deal in Gaza and contain the violence in Lebanon has failed. The US
has also struggled to convince Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to
de-escalate.
A ‘critical juncture’
Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), two of
the world’s top oil producers, have in recent years steered their foreign
policies away from conflict to serve their economic interests, which has seen
them repair ties with former adversaries like Iran. But they fear that an
uncontained regional war could throw a wrench into their economic ambitions. “At
this critical juncture, the UAE believes a robust and effective American role is
extremely necessary,” Anwar Gargash, diplomatic adviser to the UAE president,
told CNN this month. “We need a ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza as soon as
possible.”Gulf Arab nations that have come under attack several times from
Iran-allied groups have grown skeptical of the US’ willingness to protect them
if Iran strikes. Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities were hit in 2019 in an attack
Washington blamed on Tehran, and the Iran-backed Houthi group in Yemen struck
Abu Dhabi in 2022. The US did not intervene. The UAE was disappointed by
President Joe Biden’s de-designation of the Houthis as a terrorist organization
soon after he took office, and the US failure to re-designate it in the wake of
the Abu Dhabi attacks. The US only reinstated the terror designation this year
after group started attacking shipping in the Red Sea to punish Israel after
October 7. “The sentiment in the Gulf has certainly shifted,” Bianco said,
adding that “the Gulf monarchies have lost faith in their primary security
guarantor, the United States.”
The shift in sentiment is the result of what Gulf states see as a yearslong
effort by the US to step back from the Middle East as it moves its focus to
China. Still, regional states rely heavily on their military relationship with
the US. Saudi Arabia is seeking a formalized security agreement with Washington
and the UAE, which hosts some 5,000 US military personnel, is expected to become
a major US defense partner. Just a week before Hamas’ October 7 attack last
year, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a discussion at the
Atlantic Festival in Washington, D.C. that the Middle East “is quieter today
than it has been in two decades.”“The amount of time I have to spend on crisis
and conflict in the Middle East today compared to any of my predecessors going
back to 9/11 is significantly reduced,” he said, adding that the US’ efforts
were focused on regional integration and normalization with Israel which “could
create a greater and more stable foundation as we go forward.”
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How the U.S. Should Respond to the Death of Yahya Sinwar
Jonathan Schanzer and Natalie Ecanow/The Dispatch/October 22/2024
It’s time to put pressure on Qatar, a U.S. ally that has provided refuge to
Hamas leaders.
Hamas chief and October 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar is dead. In contrast with the
recent series of strikes that culminated in the death of Hezbollah chief Hassan
Nasrallah, this was not one of those signature Israeli pinpoint operations
driven by intelligence. It was dumb luck that a handful of young Israeli
soldiers on patrol stumbled upon the most wanted man in Gaza. Regardless, the
momentum of this war has unmistakably shifted. And now it’s crucial to
capitalize on this shift in momentum. That’s not likely to happen through garden
variety calls for diplomacy by the Biden administration. The proper move for the
White House is to play hardball—and not with Israel, for a change. Rather, it’s
with Qatar. First, some background: Sinwar became Hamas’ leader in Gaza in 2017.
He consolidated his control of the group in August following the assassination
of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, adding the political and military files
to his portfolio—all while running the war from underground tunnels. In
consolidating power, Sinwar snubbed Hamas’ de facto foreign minister, Khaled
Meshal, who had been expected to succeed Haniyeh. Operating out of Hamas’
external headquarters in Qatar, Meshal appeared destined for obscurity. What a
difference a few months can make. Meshal today is among the last remaining
recognizable figures on the Hamas org chart. It’s likely (although not certain)
that he will reemerge as one of the group’s top leaders.
Meshal is a founding member of Hamas. His decades-long career in the terrorist
organization has taken him from Kuwait to Jordan (where he survived an Israeli
assassination attempt), to Syria (where he became head of the group’s
politburo), and finally to Qatar, where Meshal emerged as the group’s chief
envoy. Meshal has lived like royalty in Qatar since 2012. Reports suggest that
he has amassed billions of dollars while he has been based in the tiny Gulf
emirate. Remarkably, the U.S. government, under both Democrat and Republican
administrations, has failed to call upon Qatar to freeze his assets and arrest
him. The logic for doing so is no great mystery. Meshal is a U.S. specially
designated global terrorist (SDGT), a designation that bears clear legal and
economic consequences.
And yet, even as Qatar continued to host Meshal and a gaggle of other Hamas
leaders, the Biden administration bestowed upon the regime in Doha the
distinction of “major non-NATO ally.” The White House also extended the lease on
Al Udeid, the American air base in Qatar, this past year, as Hamas leaders based
there continued to reject ceasefire deals and refused to release the Israeli
hostages held by their counterparts in Gaza. This was all infuriating. But
Sinwar’s death gives the U.S. an opportunity to make up for lost time and compel
Qatar to act like a true ally and expel one of the world’s top terrorists. Doha
should be forced to freeze Meshal’s assets and then extradite him to the U.S. or
Israel. Meshal’s inclusion on the SDGT list justifies such action on its own, as
do the terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions-evasion charges that the U.S.
Department of Justice unsealed against him in September. And just last month,
Meshal encouraged Palestinians in the West Bank to return to “attacks of
self-sacrifice”—suicide bombings—against Israelis. But before Meshal is sent
elsewhere to account for his crimes, the Qataris should sit him down in front of
a camera at the Al-Jazeera headquarters in Doha. The Qatar-controlled television
station has been cheerleading for Hamas for the last 13 months—if not the last
28 years. Meshal must be compelled to surrender unconditionally on behalf of
Hamas and to call for the release of the remaining 101 hostages (seven of whom
are American citizens).
Meshal’s surrender would not mean the end of Hamas, but it would mean the end of
war in Gaza. Moreover, Meshal’s surrender could jumpstart the process of de-Hamasification
in Gaza, which is a core Israeli objective and an essential aspect of postwar
planning and reconstruction.
The war will not end until Hamas waves the white flag. And Qatar is the key. But
if the Biden administration waits too long to wield its influence, the Qataris
may allow Meshal to leave for another jurisdiction hospitable to Hamas, perhaps
Turkey.
Former Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid bin Mohammed Al Attiyah once publicly
touted Meshal as a “dear guest of Qatar.” That is no longer sustainable, if it
ever was. The U.S. has missed too many opportunities to deal with Meshal and
hold Qatar accountable. Sinwar’s death gives Washington its best opportunity yet
to do so, and to facilitate the end of this yearlong crisis in the process.
US can prosecute Turkish bank in Iran sanctions case, US
appeals court rules
Jonathan Stempel/Reuters/October 22, 2024
A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday said the federal government may prosecute
Turkey's Halkbank on charges it helped Iran evade American sanctions, rejecting
the state-owned lender's argument that it deserved immunity. In a 3-0 decision,
the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found no basis under centuries-old common
law principles for foreign state-owned companies to be absolutely immune from
U.S. prosecution related to commercial, nongovernmental activities. Circuit
Judge Joseph Bianco said the Manhattan-based appeals court should defer to the
executive branch's determination that the U.S. Department of Justice could
prosecute Halkbank. "Although certain prior cases extended immunity to
state-owned corporations based on their governmental conduct, the common law
places no independent bar on the prosecution of such corporations for their
commercial activity," he wrote. He also wrote that a decision to prosecute
foreign state-owned companies such as Halkbank, rather than impose tariffs or
deny military aid to their state sponsors, "is not one for the judiciary to
second guess." Lawyers for Halkbank did not immediately respond to requests for
comment. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Damian Williams in Manhattan declined to
comment. The appeals court panel was considering the case for the second time,
following a related April 2023 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S.
prosecutors charged Halkbank in 2019 over its alleged use of money servicers and
front companies in Iran, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates to evade sanctions.
Prosecutors said Halkbank helped Iran secretly transfer $20 billion of
restricted funds, converted oil revenue into gold and cash to benefit Iranian
interests, and documented fake food shipments to justify transfers of oil
proceeds.Halkbank pleaded not guilty to bank fraud, money laundering and
conspiracy. The case became a thorn in U.S.-Turkey relations, with Turkish
President Tayyip Erdogan calling the U.S. charges an "unlawful, ugly" step.
'UNPRECEDENTED'
In 2021, the appeals court had concluded that Halkbank could be prosecuted under
the federal Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 because its alleged
misconduct involved commercial activity not covered by that law. The Supreme
Court later agreed that Congress' desire to shield foreign countries and their
instrumentalities from civil liability did not cover criminal cases. But in a
7-2 decision, the high court said the 2nd Circuit should more fully review
whether common law immunity shielded Halkbank. The bank's arguments included
that the case concerned "diplomatic activity" because it included a charge based
on Halkbank's alleged misrepresentations to U.S. Treasury officials about its
sanctions compliance. During oral arguments on Feb. 28, Justice Department
lawyer Michael Lockard said that was no reason to excuse Halkbank. "For a
foreign commercial bank, one that is majority owned by the state of Turkey, to
launder billions and billions of dollars (to benefit Iran), to deceive banks, to
lie to U.S. Treasury officials, that conduct is unprecedented," he said. The
appeals court returned the case to U.S. District Judge Richard Berman in
Manhattan. He ruled on different grounds in 2020 that Halkbank did not deserve
immunity./The case is U.S. v. Halkbank, 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No.
20-03499.
Halkbank Iran Sanctions Case Can Go Forward, US Court
Says
Bob Van Voris/Bloomberg/October 22, 2024
Tuesday’s decision by the US Court of Appeals in Manhattan could remove legal
obstacle to the longstanding case proceeding to trial. Last year, the US Supreme
Court ruled Halkbank wasn’t shielded from prosecution by a US statute granting
immunity to governments for official acts. But while the courts have largely
decided the legal issues, the future of the case may also hinge on the outcome
of the presidential election. Geoffrey Berman, the former Manhattan US attorney
who oversaw the investigation into the bank, has said he was subject to
political pressure on the case based on then-President Donald Trump’s
relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Shares of Halkbank
reversed gains of as much as 4.7% to trade 1.2% lower as of 5:12p.m. in
Istanbul. US prosecutors in New York charged Halkbank in 2019 with being at the
center of a scheme to give Iran access to some $20 billion in proceeds from
overseas oil sales that were frozen at the bank. Halkbank has pleaded not
guilty. Evidence introduced in an earlier trial against a Halkbank executive
showed that top officials, including the then-chief executive, took bribes and
held meetings with a key money launderer to devise ways to move the money on
Iran’s behalf. Halkbank had argued that was immune from prosecution because it
is majority-owned by Turkey, that the conduct occurred outside the U.S. and that
it is beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts. The doctrine of sovereign immunity
protects nations from being sued or prosecuted for actions of state, with
exceptions for when a state acts as in a purely commercial or business capacity.
The New York court on Tuesday ruled against the bank on additional sovereign
immunity issues that weren’t decided by the Supreme Court.
Family of Christian soldier who fell in Gaza asked to
remove cross from his headstone
Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
Bogdanovski's family immigrated to Israel from Ukraine in 2014, and David
enlisted in the IDF and served in the engineering corps.
The Defense Ministry is attempting to reach an agreement with the family of
St.-Sgt. David Bogdanovsky, who fell in battle in the south of the Gaza Strip in
December, to remove a cross from his headstone. “By law, it is not permissible
to place a cross or any other religious marker on a military headstone,” the
Ministry said. “This is especially important in the Haifa military cemetery,
where fallen Jewish soldiers are also buried,” the Ministry added, citing a
ruling by the IDF Chief Rabbi that states the holiness of the Jewish cemetery is
harmed by the cross. The Ministry said it is working with the public committee
for soldier memorial to reach an agreement with the family, “in light of
requests by families whose loved ones are buried nearby who claim that the cross
hurts their feelings and their ability to pray and say [the] Kadish [mourning
prayer], and in light of the ruling of the IDF chief Rabbi.” “The Defense
Ministry mourns with the family of fallen soldier David Bogdanovsky z”l and will
continue to accompany the family and all bereaved families.”“The Defense
Ministry is working and will work sensitively with all sides, and we hope that
we can reach an agreement and solution as soon as possible,” it added.
Other graves had religious markers
The family said that other graves in the cemetery have religious markers on
them, N12 reported. “I thought that my David, who gave his life to the country,
who loved the country with all his heart for nine years, since his aliyah, who
joined the IDF to defend me, his family, and all of us, is no different than any
of the other guys, [and] is not a second-class citizen. I stood there and cried
with anger, frustration, and not understanding,” she said. “I thought that my
David, who gave his life to the country, who loved the country with all his
heart for nine years, since his aliyah, who joined the IDF to defend me, his
family, and all of us, is no different than any of the other guys, [and] is not
a second-class citizen. I stood there and cried with anger, frustration, and not
understanding,” she said.
Justin Trudeau says his leadership is not in danger as Liberals brace for revolt
Laura Osman/The Canadian Press/October 22, 2024
The Canadian Press
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says his leadership of the Liberal party
is not in danger, even as members of his caucus prepare to confront him
Wednesday in the hopes of convincing him to step down. He brushed off those
concerns as he headed into his regular Tuesday meeting with cabinet ministers.
While members of the cabinet have defended Trudeau staying on as leader, a
number of Liberal MPs have signed onto a letter that aims to convince him to
step aside before the next election. It's not clear how many members of
Trudeau's team of MPs plan to confront him, or exactly what their message will
be. So far Charlottetown MP Sean Casey is the only Liberal to publicly say that
he has signed the letter. Immigration Minister Marc Miller says the MPs' plans
are "garbage" and the issue is taking time away from the Liberal fight against
Pierre Poilievre's Conservatives.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2024.
Laura Osman, The Canadian Press
The Latest English LCCC analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources
on October 22-23/2024
Today in History: ‘One Man Chased a Thousand, and
Two Put Ten Thousand to Flight’
Raymond Ibrahim/The Stream/October 22/2024
On October 21, 1094, a tiny force of Christian knights destroyed a massive
Muslim horde in Spain, where the jihad and the Reconquista had been raging for
years. For Christians, the leader of these knights had validated the biblical
verse that “one man will chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight”
(Deuteronomy 32:30).
Background: Around 1085, the Almoravids, a North African group committed to
jihadist teaching that was led by the Emir Yusuf bin Tashfin, began pouring into
Spain to aid their Islamic counterparts, the Moors, who had suffered several
significant defeats by the Christians in recent years.
In 1086, the Muslims and Christians clashed at Sagrajas. The Christians were
annihilated; their king barely managed to escape with a dagger embedded in his
thigh. Afterward, in a typical gesture of Islamic supremacy, Yusuf had some
2,400 Christians decapitated and then assembled their heads into a pyramid, atop
which the muezzin called the faithful to prayers.
Retaking Valencia
Following the disaster at Sagrajas, one by one, Moorish kingdoms that had been
liberated from Islam during the Reconquista — even a few Christian strongholds —
fell back under Muslim control.
But when the Muslims overran Valencia in 1093, its lord, Roderick (or Rodrigo)
Díaz of Vivar — better known to posterity as “the Cid” — returned and laid siege
to the city for nearly nineteen months, finally reconquering it.
As a result, the pride and prestige of the glorious jihadist victor of Sagrajas,
who had subsequently unified virtually all of Muslim Spain under his authority,
was shaken to his core: “He has forcibly invaded my territory and he attributes
all his success to Jesus Christ!” blurted Yusuf, who, on hearing of the fall of
Valencia, “was powerfully moved to anger and bitterness.”
The emir was, accordingly, “determined to recover the city at all costs,” writes
the contemporary Muslim, Ibn Bassam, before adding that “the news of the fall of
Valencia filled every Moor in Spain with grief and humiliation.”
A showdown was inevitable: “Islam and the Occident were now each represented by
an outstanding personality,” writes historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal: “Yusuf the
Saharan and the Castilian Cid stood face-to-face in the struggle between the two
civilizations.”
Epic Battle
The emir responded by sending the supreme Almoravid general of Spain — his
nephew, Muhammad — “with an infinite number of barbarians and Moabites [Almoravids]
and Ishmaelites [Moors] drawn from all over Hispania to besiege Valencia and to
bring Roderick to him captive and in chains,” wrote one contemporary (using, as
every Christian did back then, biblical names to refer to Christians’ enemies).
Reportedly consisting of some 50,000 fighters, the Almoravids dwarfed the Cid’s
Valencian garrison of 4,000 men. By late 1094, “the infidel hordes” had arrived
and “pitched their tents and encamped” at Cuarte, three miles from Valencia.
The final showdown between the Cid and his Muslim adversaries had come and is
recorded in both song and chronicle. According to the Historia Roderici,
This Moabite army lay about Valencia for 10 days and as many nights, and
remained inactive. Every day indeed they used to go around the city, shrieking
and shouting with a motley clamor of voices and filling the air with their
bellowing [references to the takbir, i.e., spasmodic cries of “Allahu Akbar”].
They often used to fire arrows… But Roderick … comforted and strengthened his
men in a manly fashion, and constantly prayed devoutly to the Lord Jesus Christ
that he would send divine aid to his people.
The sources emphasize the ominous beat of the African drums, the thundering roll
of which seemed to rend the earth asunder. It filled the hearts of all —
especially those unacquainted with its booming sounds, such as Roderick’s wife
and daughters, who were holed up with him in Valencia — with dread and
consternation.
October Surprise!
With every day that the Cid remained on the defense, the Muslims became more
emboldened and encroached closer to his city’s walls. Before long they had
surrounded Valencia’s gates in very tight formations — precisely what the Cid
was waiting for.
And so, on October 21, 1094 , when “the enemy were as usual going around outside
the city yelling and shouting and scrimmaging, confident in the belief that they
would capture it,” Roderick Díaz, “trusting with his whole mind in God and his
mercy, courageously made a sortie from the city,” whereupon “a major encounter
ensued.”Thus, at the height of Muslim confidence, heavily armored knights
astride even heavier steeds of war burst out of one of the gates, taking the
jihadists by complete surprise.
Before they could effectively retaliate, another Christian sortie burst out from
another gate. Though unclear which, the Cid led one of these two forces which
now crisscrossed each other in a medieval-style blitzkrieg, causing mass
confusion and carnage among the densely packed Muslims. After a “multitude” of
Almoravids “fell to the sword,” the panicked Africans “turned their backs in
flight,” the Historia concludes, many of them falling and drowning in the Jucar
river.
Epic Upset
The battle of Cuarte was a shattering blow to the hitherto undefeated Almoravids:
though outnumbered 12 to one, the Spanish knights had defeated and driven off
50,000 jihadists, giving life to the ancient words of Moses as recorded in
Deuteronomy. Christians all throughout Western Europe wildly celebrated.
Historian James Fitzhenry summarizes the Cid’s strategy:
The maneuver Rodrigo used that day has come to be known as “la tornada,” or, the
tornado. Once the Christian knights had charged through the enemy lines in one
direction, they turned and passed through again in a different direction. Whole
units were disrupted, broken apart and irreversibly separated. The Africans were
packed so tightly together, and their shouts and screams and the clash of steel
so loud, that few commands could be heard over the din of battle. Besides, the
attack was so swift that there was no tactic that could be successfully employed
to neutralize it.
After the battle, and now “sated with slaughter,” the twelfth-century Poem of
the Cid resumes the narrative: “
the Cid returned to his wife and daughters, his helmet gone, the hood of his
coat of mail thrown back and the linen under-cap pushed over his brow. His sword
was dripping with blood, which had run up the blade to the hilt and along his
arm up to the elbow.
With the other arm he hurled a mutilated drum at their feet, crying, “Thus are
Moors vanquished!” In terror and awe, they fell to the ground before him,
vowing: “We are thy servants!”
*Raymond Ibrahim is the Distinguished Senior Shillman Fellow at the Gatestone
Institute and the Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Portions of this article were excerpted from his book, Defenders of the West:
The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam.
West's Political Elites Mourn the Death of a Terrorist
Group
Robert Williams/Gatestone Institute./October 22, 2024
[T]he West's political "elites" condemned Israel for defending itself by
targeting Hezbollah's leadership.
There was no mention of international law for Hezbollah's unprovoked, year-long
attacks: bombardments of missiles and attack drones every day at a country
smaller than New Jersey.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented Israel's continued successful
attempts at destroying one of Iran's proxy armies.
When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world's most
dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely
hold back his disappointment, counterfactually calling Hezbollah's unprovoked
war against Israel and the IDF's response a "cycle of violence."
Only Argentina's President Javier Milei displayed a reaction fitting the removal
of a terrorist mass murderer...
Israel, as has been noted, is doing the entire world an enormous service by
taking out Hezbollah.
Iran, just since October 2023, through its militias in Syria and Iraq, has
launched more than 160 attacks on the US forces in the Middle East.
[W]hen Israel killed Ibrahim Aqil, the mastermind of the 1983 attacks and a
member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, its highest military body, the US could not
even bring itself to thank its ally.
The world's political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to
defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America
and Western civilization. Could these elites, wittingly or not, be working
towards the same result?
The world's political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to
defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America
and Western civilization. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has lamented
Israel's continued successful attempts at destroying one of Iran's proxy armies.
When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world's most
dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely
hold back his disappointment. Pictured: Borrell (L) and Guterres at the UN
headquarters in New York, September 18, 2022. (Photo by Craig Ruttle/Pool/Getty
Images)
It took the world community nearly a year to condemn the war in Lebanon, but
they got the wrong mark. Instead of condemning Hezbollah, the world's largest
Iranian proxy terrorist army, with an estimated 40,000 - 50,000 fighters, for
starting a year-long war on October 8, 2023 in support of the terrorist
organization Hamas, the West's political "elites" condemned Israel for defending
itself by targeting Hezbollah's leadership.
The UN Security Council called an emergency session on September 20, during
which UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk told ambassadors that he
was "appalled by the breadth and impact" of the attacks on Hezbollah pagers and
walkie-talkies.
He was joined by Slovenian ambassador Samuel Žbogar – Slovenia held the Security
Council presidency – who blamed Israel for creating destabilization and "terror"
with its precision targeting of Hezbollah terrorists. Because nothing spells
stability and non-terror more than Hezbollah launching "8,000 rockets at Israel,
killing 46 Israelis, injuring 294 and displacing 60,000 civilians who are still
homeless," and creating "a major environmental disaster, with over 800 fires
breaking out as a result of missiles that have damaged over 50,000 dunams
[12,355 acres] of forest land."
"It [Israel] has created a climate of terror," Žbogar said. "We are stepping in
a dangerous new territory and as new technology is being used and developed, we
underline the need to respect the existing legal obligations."
The Slovenian even tried to cite international law and call for a full
investigation of the pager and walkie-talkies attacks. "[T]he international law
is clear: use of booby traps is prohibited," and calling for a full
investigation of the pager and walkie-talkies attacks. "Those who ordered and
carried out such an attack must be brought to justice," he said.
There was no mention of international law for Hezbollah's unprovoked, year-long
attacks: bombardments of missiles and attack drones every day at a country
smaller than New Jersey.
Israel, in other words, must supposedly be brought before a world court for
having the gall to defend its civilians from a terrorist organization and its
estimated 150,000 rockets, missiles and drones, which it lobbed indiscriminately
against both Jews and Arabs in Israel.
Hezbollah terrorists, evidently, merit special UN concern and protection. In
fact, there is recent precedent for it.
More than 100 October 7 terror victims filed a case at the U.S. District Court
for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, against the United Nations
Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and several of its high-standing officials. The
lawsuit charges that UNRWA led a long-standing money-laundering operation to the
financial benefit of Hamas. The UN, however, has refused to lift the immunity of
its UNRWA employees, at least nine of whom actually participated in the Hamas
October 7 massacre during which they murdered more than 1,200 innocent people,
including many that they raped, mutilated and burned alive, and took 251 people
hostage.
The UN claimed in its filing that "since the U.N. has not waived immunity in
this instance, its subsidiary, UNRWA, continues to enjoy absolute immunity from
prosecution, and the lawsuit should be dismissed."
Unbelievably, the Biden-Harris Department of Justice stood by the UN, copying
its intervention verbatim. "Because the U.N. has not waived immunity in this
case, its subsidiary, UNRWA, retains full immunity, and the lawsuit against
UNRWA should be dismissed due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction," the
Department of Justice alleged.
On September 27, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell lamented Israel's
continued successful attempts at destroying one of Iran's proxy armies.
"What we do is to put all diplomatic pressure to a ceasefire, but nobody seems
to be able to stop Netanyahu," he griped.
When Israel took out Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, one of the world's most
dangerous arch-terrorists, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres could barely
hold back his disappointment, counterfactually calling Hezbollah's unprovoked
war against Israel and the IDF's response a "cycle of violence."
"I'm gravely concerned by the dramatic escalation of events in Beirut in the
last 24 hours," he posted on X. "This cycle of violence must stop now. All sides
must step back from the brink. The people of Lebanon, the people of Israel, as
well as the wider region, cannot afford an all-out war."
What Guterres was actually saying, was that the world's political elites cannot
afford to be rid of one of the world's worst terrorist organizations.
Several European leaders also appeared saddened by the elimination of Hassan
Nasrallah. Germany's Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said that his demise
"threatens destabilization for the whole of Lebanon", which she alleged --
wrongly -- "is in no way in Israel's security interest."
UK's Foreign Secretary David Lammy posted about "the need for an immediate
ceasefire to bring an end to the bloodshed. A diplomatic solution is the only
way to restore security and stability for the Lebanese and Israeli people."
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot reacted to Nasrallah's death by
demanding Israel "immediately stop its strikes in Lebanon" and said France was
opposed to any ground operation in the country.
Only Argentina's President Javier Milei displayed a reaction fitting the removal
of a terrorist mass murderer, when he reposted on X a message from a member of
his council of economic advisers, David Epstein, who praised the demise of
Nasrallah: "Israel eliminated one of the greatest contemporary murderers.
Responsible, among others, for the cowardly attacks in #ARG. Today the world is
a little freer."
Precisely. Israel, as has been noted, is doing the entire world an enormous
service by taking out Hezbollah. It posed a threat not only to Israel, but, as
the terrorist group is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran, to the Middle East and
the entire Western Hemisphere -- especially if Iran is allowed to possess
nuclear weapons, reportedly within "weeks."
Hezbollah and Iran have long established themselves in Latin America and Europe.
Hezbollah already murdered more than 250 Americans. In April 1983, a Hezbollah
suicide bomber in a truck loaded with 2,000 pounds of explosives blew up the US
Embassy in Beirut, killing 63 people, including 17 Americans. That attack was
followed in October by two truck bombs that blew up the US Marines barracks in
Beirut. The explosion killed 241 US service members. Iran, just since October
2023, through its militias in Syria and Iraq, has launched more than 160 attacks
on the US forces in the Middle East.
All the same, when Israel killed Ibrahim Aqil, the mastermind of the 1983
attacks and a member of Hezbollah's Jihad Council, its highest military body,
the US could not even bring itself to thank its ally.
Since April 2023, the US had a $7 million reward for any information leading to
Aqil's whereabouts. Instead, the Biden administration keeps repeating that it is
trying to prevent the war's "escalation," though such an announcement could well
be viewed as a sign of weakness, causing the regional war it is hoping to avoid.
The precision strike that killed Aqil also took out the top 15 Hezbollah
commanders of the terrorist organization's elite Radwan Force who were
reportedly planning a repeat of Hamas' October 7 invasion, this time into
northern Israel. UN chief Guterres nevertheless reacted by expressing "grave
alarm" over the elimination of terrorists in Lebanon, after having expressed no
alarm whatsoever at Hezbollah's daily pummeling of northern Israel for the past
year. He was joined by the likes of Belgium and France.
Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter condemned the Hezbollah pager
explosions in Lebanon. "I strongly condemn the massive terror attack in Lebanon
and Syria, which injured thousands of people. A brutal escalation of violence.
Silence is not an option. An international investigation is called for. The
bloodshed must end," she posted on Twitter. In October 2023, it took De Sutter
four whole days to condemn Hamas's savage massacre in Israel.
French President Emmanuel Macron, meanwhile, accused Israel of "pushing the
region into war," a charge that is laughable.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pretends that the US is working to
prevent "full-blown war" when these claims can also be seen as yet another
attempt at saving both Hezbollah and Hamas so they can rearm and attack Israel
again until it "is annihilated," as Hamas officials have vowed to do. A
ceasefire now -- a pause for Hamas and Hezbollah to re-arm -- would also save
Iran's regime, complete with nuclear weapons, as well as the regime's dreams of
hegemony.
The world's political elites apparently cannot forgive Israel for seeking to
defend itself, and rid the world of terrorists working to destroy both America
and Western civilization. Could these elites, wittingly or not, be working
towards the same result?
*Robert Williams is based in the United States.
© 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.
Leaks and spy rings merely delay the inevitable Israeli
operation
Janatan Sayeh/FDD's Long War Journal/October 22/2024
Allegedly leaked documents from the US National Security Agency and the National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, paired with Tehran’s ongoing intelligence
operations, seek to disrupt Israel’s plans of responding to Iran’s recent
ballistic missile assault on Israel. Regardless, Iran is bracing for an Israeli
attack that may target its nuclear facilities, and Israel remains undeterred,
especially following Hezbollah’s failed attempt to eliminate Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The alleged leak, described by CNN and Axios as a major security breach,
supposedly outlines the scale of Israel’s potential attack against the Islamic
Republic. Published on October 17 on the pro-Iranian “Middle East Spectator”
Telegram channel, the two documents are labeled “top secret” and contain notes
specifying they are intended exclusively for the United States and its “Five
Eyes” partners: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom.
The satellite analysis allegedly compiled by the US National
Geospatial-Intelligence Agency states that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has been
handling air-launched ballistic missiles (ALBMs) and has moved various munitions
around, while there is no indication of an intended use of nuclear weapons.
The other document that appears to be sourced to the National Security Agency
outlines recent activities conducted by the IAF, including air drills,
intelligence operations, and the relocation of advanced-weaponry munitions. The
leak alleges that the IAF transferred 16 Golden Horizon missiles, likely an
Israeli Sparrow missile variation that was used to strike an Iranian S-300
outpost located close to the Natanz nuclear facility. The document added that
Israel had relocated 40 ROCKS IS02 stand-off range air-to-surface missiles
developed by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.
The file also claims that the IAF conducted two air drills on October 15–16,
training air-to-air refueling with three KC-707 tankers and one Gulfstream G550
aircraft. Further, it indicates that the IAF installed concealment screens over
six F-15I fighter jets capable of firing ALMBs and suggests Israel has been
deploying surveillance UAVs to monitor different targets.
This is not the first instance in which leaked documents have revealed the
imminent threat of a large-scale Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic. In
2012, Foreign Policy reported that Israel was planning on striking Iran’s
nuclear facilities via airbases in the Republic of Azerbaijan. The seemingly
intentional leak allegedly disrupted the operation from taking place, with many
officials claiming that elements within the US administration at the time sought
to prevent Israel from striking Iranian nuclear sites.
Meanwhile, Israel recently uncovered a spy ring led by Tehran consisting of
seven Israeli-Azerbaijani dual nationals. Prosecutors stated on October 21 that
the suspects had allegedly collected information on Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
facilities, including the Nevatim and Ramat David Airbases that were struck by
Iranian ballistic missiles and Hezbollah in the last few weeks. The defendants
are also accused of gathering intelligence on Iron Dome batteries, ports, energy
infrastructure, and an unnamed “senior security figure.”
Despite the leaks and Tehran’s intelligence operations, the regime still expects
a strong Israeli response that could target Iranian nuclear facilities. A day
after the leak, Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi threatened
that “the necessary response will be given to any attack on Iran’s nuclear
facilities or any similar attack.” Echoing these remarks, Iranian Foreign
Ministry Spokesperson Esmail Baghaei confirmed that Tehran has submitted a
formal letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arguing that an
attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure is not permissible under UN Security
Council Resolution 533. A recent escalation by the Iran-led Axis of Resistance
has further pressured Israel to carry out a strong response. A drone launched on
October 19 by Hezbollah struck the residence of Israel’s prime minister, urging
Netanyahu to promptly issue a warning: “The agents of Iran who tried to
assassinate me and my wife today made a bitter mistake.”Seemingly aware of its
miscalculation during heightened tensions, Iran was quick to backpedal on its
ties to the attack. Tasnim News, closely affiliated with the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, first hailed the attack as a “historical event,” only
to swiftly distance itself by claiming that “Hezbollah’s involvement in the
attack is contested.” Similarly, the Islamic Republic’s mission to the United
Nations denied any involvement in the assassination attempt.
Israel supposedly remains undeterred by the recent Hezbollah attack and Tehran’s
threats. The Israeli N12 News cited anonymous political officials claiming that
Jerusalem’s response will intensify as a result of the UAV attack. The Israeli
Security Cabinet finalized a six-hour meeting on October 20, discussing Israel’s
upcoming operation and agreeing to last-minute approval of the strikes to ensure
operational security.
**Janatan Sayeh is a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies focused on Iranian domestic affairs and the Islamic Republic’s
regional malign influence.
Biden Administration Admits Iran’s Oil Exports Have Grown
Exponentially in Value and Volume
Saeed Ghasseminejad/FDD. Policy Brief/October 22, 2024
Earlier this month, the Energy Information Agency (EIA) published its first
report about Iran’s petroleum exports as mandated by the Stop Harboring Iranian
Petroleum(SHIP) Act enacted earlier this year. The EIA reported that Iran sold
$144 billion in the first three years of the Biden administration, $100 billion
more than what Tehran exported in the last two years of the Trump administration
when the oil sanctions were in effect. The SHIP Act required the EIA to provide
data on Iran’s total petroleum export volume and revenue and a breakdown of how
Iran sold to China and other countries and at what price. Finally, it sought an
analysis of Iran’s labeling practices of exported petroleum and petroleum
products and a description of companies, ships, and ports involved in the export
and sale of Iranian petroleum and petroleum products.
The report confirmed what critics of current U.S. policy have been saying:
During the Biden administration, Iran’s petroleum exports have increased in
value and volume. The report found that between 2021 and 2023, Tehran sold $144
billion of petroleum and petroleum products. This contrasts sharply with the
“Maximum Pressure” period, during which Iran’s oil exports declined to just $16
billion in 2020. The trend has been both broad and consistent. Crude oil and
condensate exports more than tripled between 2020 and 2023 to more than 1.59
million barrels per day. Iranian petroleum product exports increased more than
50 percent over the same period.
The Biden administration argues that it has been enforcing the sanctions, but
the EIA suggests the opposite. The administration might have been worried about
the effect on the price of oil of fully enforcing the sanctions. However, other
producers had spare capacity to offset the rise in the volume of Iranian exports
had the administration enforced sanctions. Iran currently exports around 1.7
million barrels per day (mbpd) of crude oil. OPEC’s effective spare capacity —
excluding Iran, Russia, and Libya — is currently above 5 mbpd.
The report does not answer every question the SHIP Act requires. It omits
discussion of labeling practices of exported petroleum and companies involved in
selling Iran’s petroleum and petroleum products, saying it neither collects
sufficient data nor has the legislative authority to do so and so fills some
gaps with third party data to respond to other questions. The report also fails
to identify the Chinese refineries that process most Iranian oil.
Future EIA reports could be more robust, better inform policy, and reflect
reality if they also incorporate tanker traffic to estimate Tehran’s exports
rather than simply subtracting estimates of domestic consumption from Iran’s
production. The EIA also fails to consider the discount that Tehran offers to
its customers, potentially leading the report to overestimate Tehran’s export
revenue. Nevertheless, the SHIP Act-mandated EIA report can inform policymakers
should they seek to tighten enforcement. The U.S. government could designate
tankers, ships, and holding companies the report identifies and Chinese
refineries yet unidentified. Such designations should include board members,
C-level executives, and major shareholders.
The United States has yet to designate port operators involved in exports of
Iranian petroleum and petroleum products. The report identifies ports in 28
countries, including China, Eritrea, Turkey, and Venezuela. Targeting the port
operators increases the pressure on the network that illicitly exports Iranian
oil and its derivatives. While the SHIP Act did not require the U.S. government
to identify the banks and insurance companies facilitating these transactions,
their identification and targeting are likewise crucial to curb Tehran’s illicit
oil and oil product exports.
U.S. policy is strongest when calibrated to reality. Here, the EIA report is a
step in the right direction. While the decision to leverage sanctions and dry up
revenue the Iranian regime derives from oil sales and the use of oil for malign
purposes is a political one, the EIA report ensures that Congress can base its
oversight more on fact rather than political spin.
**Saeed Ghasseminejad is a senior advisor on Iran and financial economics at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he contributes to FDD’s Iran
Program and Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). Follow Saeed on X @SGhasseminejad.
For more analysis from Saeed and FDD, please subscribe HERE. FDD is a
Washington, DC-based, non-partisan research institute focusing on national
security and foreign policy.
How Facebook Whitewashes ‘From the River to the Sea’
David Adesnik/The Algemeiner/October 22/2024
The brilliance of the slogan “From the river to the sea,” is that it allows
protesters to call for dismantling the State of Israel, and then insist that
they have articulated nothing more than “an aspirational call for freedom, human
rights, and peaceful coexistence.”
Or at least that’s how Michigan Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D) describes the
hateful chant. Even if Tlaib’s argument doesn’t carry the day, it does a very
effective job of persuading uninformed observers that the meaning of the slogan
is disputed — and that it’s a perfectly acceptable phrase to use.The latest
authority to validate this artifice is Facebook, which used its Oversight Board
to adjudicate the issue. Last month, its board issued a decision stating that
“From the river to the sea” does not violate the platform’s rules governing hate
speech or violence and incitement.
The fundamental premise of the decision is that the phrase has “multiple
meanings,” and is “often used as a political call for solidarity, equal rights
and self-determination of the Palestinian people.”
The Oversight Board should have known better.
In May, the board announced that it was taking up the case and invited the
submission of written comments from all quarters. The board received 2,142
comments, most of which simply take a side, yet dozens of civil society
organizations submitted polished opinions.
Defenders of the slogan included the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR),
American Muslims for Palestine (AMP), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), Human Rights
Watch, and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
Organizations on the other side included the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the
American Jewish Committee (AJC), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East
Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA), and my own organization, the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies (FDD).
The FDD submission, which I co-authored with my colleague Ahmad Sharawi, sought
to pre-emptively dismantle the claim that the meaning of the phrase is in the
eye of the beholder. Rather, the phrase originated as a call for the use of
force to replace Israel with a Palestinian state. We also emphasized that, in
its original Arabic form, the phrase explicitly calls for Arab supremacy.
Footage from this past spring shows protesters at Harvard and MIT chanting “Min
al-mayah lil-mayah, Falastin arabiyah” — literally, “From the water [the Jordan
River] to the water [the Mediterranean Sea], Palestine is Arab.”
Yet in English, what follows “From the river to the sea” is invariably
“Palestine will be free.” Influential media outlets have devoted considerable
space to parsing this slogan, generally noting its use by Hamas and other
advocates of violence, then retreating to the comfortable relativism of the view
that its meaning is uncertain or disputed.
The FDD brief also explained that the effort to reframe the slogan as a call for
justice began 20 years ago in a bid to sanitize it for use on campus. The
earliest dispute for which there is a solid documentary record took place at
Rutgers in 2003, when Jewish students challenged protesters who unfurled a
banner bearing the slogan in the university’s student center.
Protest leader Charlotte Kates told The New Jersey Jewish News that the slogan
“is about liberation” and “doesn’t have to do with kicking anybody out.”
In a separate interview with The New York Times, she refused to condemn suicide
bombings and said that all of the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean
should be returned to Palestinians. Kates would go on to become a career
activist; Canadian police arrested her earlier this year on hate crime charges
for leading a Vancouver crowd in chants of “Long live October 7.”
In their submissions to Facebook, the slogan’s defenders do not just ignore its
history as a call to dismantle Israel by force of arms. Rather, they insist it
is actually an expression of a desire for a “Palestinians and Israelis to live
together in a single state with equal rights for all,” as CAIR would have it.
Yet CAIR is an unlikely advocate of co-existence. In November, its national
executive director, Nihad Awad, declared that on October 7, “I was happy to see
people breaking the siege” of Gaza and denied Israel has a right of
self-defense.
Even the Biden White House, amid its scramble for Arab-American votes in
Michigan and other swing states, felt compelled to denounce Awad’s comments as
antisemitic.
In its brief, AMP described the slogan “as a call for liberation from all forms
of oppression and as a call for equality for all.”
This rings hollow when coming from a group which issued a statement on October 7
that did not even mention Hamas, while asserting that the “unfolding crisis in
Gaza” had been “precipitated by increased Israeli aggression.”
Strangely, AMP even claimed, regarding “From the river to the sea,” that
“Critique of this slogan has only emerged after October 7,” demonstrating the
critics’ disingenuity. A more accurate description of the situation would be
that CAIR, AMP, and their fellow travelers are simply gaslighting Facebook.
To be sure, the slogan’s defenders also include genuine civil libertarians, like
those at FIRE. Yet their scant knowledge of history leads them into error.
FIRE acknowledges that the slogan’s association with Hamas has led to some “to
hear it as a call for genocide and ethnic cleansing,” but “the phrase predates
Hamas and holds different meanings depending on who is using it.” Human Rights
Watch also notes the tie to Hamas while crediting the good intentions of those
who use the phrase to “demand that Palestinians, wherever they live, including
in Israel, be free.”
As numerous Jewish community organizations pointed out in their submissions, the
interpretation of the slogan as innocuous depends on ignoring its plain, direct
meaning.
If one insists that the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea
constitute an entity known as Palestine, then one must dismantle the entity
known as Israel. Given that Israelis prefer their country continue to exist, it
requires a good measure of ingenuity to claim that its dismantling would occur
through peaceful means, especially given the actual conduct of those who sought
to initiate the dismantling on October 7 or previous occasions.
Still, even if one grants that “From the river to the sea” is inherently
offensive, one might argue that Facebook should allow offensive speech, hewing
closely to the First Amendment.
Yet Facebook’s community standards warn it will not tolerate “content that
threatens people.”
The platform’s policy on hate speech prohibits “calls for exclusion or
segregation” as well as “statements advocating or calling for harm.” There is
even a ban on “aspirational or conditional statements” advocating “Political
exclusion, which means denying the right to political participation.” This seems
to fit a slogan whose aspiration is to terminate a political entity against the
will of its people.
Of course, one should not be surprised when intellectual and moral consistency
prove to be less important to a major corporation than remaining in the good
graces of progressive opinion. That, too, is a part of how free markets operate.
So those who understand the history and meaning of “From the river to the sea”
should focus on making their case in the marketplace of ideas, despite the
prospect of an uphill battle.
**David Adesnik is a senior fellow and director of research at the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies.
How to Manage AI Big-Data Risks
Dr. Georgianna Shea & Zachary Daher/The National Interest/October 22/2024
Establishing a taxonomy for AI risks would enable researchers, policymakers, and
industries to communicate effectively and coordinate their efforts.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a science fiction fantasy—but AI
systems are only as good as the code, training data, and algorithms used to
create them. As AI continues transforming industries, understanding and
addressing its inherent risks is paramount. What’s needed now is a robust
framework to manage AI vulnerabilities. Cybersecurity is light years ahead of
AI. By applying lessons learned from cybersecurity, effective strategies can be
developed to ensure the responsible and trustworthy advancement of AI
technologies.
That AI systems are only as good as their inputs—and, consequently, can do great
damage—is indisputable. Consider, for instance, a scenario where an AI system
designed to monitor water quality inadvertently underreports contaminants due to
flawed training data. This could lead to entire communities consuming unsafe
water, resulting in public health crises and loss of trust in technology and
government.
The recent introduction of MIT’s AI risk repository offers a promising tool for
categorizing and analyzing these threats. The repository serves as an invaluable
resource. Aggregating hundreds of AI-associated threats across various
environments and categorizing these risks based on their causes and
natures—whether related to privacy, security, disinformation, or other
concerns—enhances the probability of risk mitigation.
This comprehensive perspective is crucial for organizations aiming to understand
and moderate the complex challenges posed by AI. The implications of AI failures
extend beyond water quality monitoring. In healthcare, faulty algorithms could
lead to misdiagnoses. In the finance sector, erroneous models might enable fraud
and significant financial loss. Given AI’s immense potential, ensuring that
these systems are trustworthy, accountable, and transparent is essential.
Cybersecurity—which draws from decades of experience in developing effective
frameworks and tools to tackle complex threats—offers valuable insights for
managing AI risks. A key tool in the cybersecurity domain is the National
Vulnerability Database (NVD), which maintains a comprehensive catalog of known
software vulnerabilities. Each vulnerability is assigned a Common
Vulnerabilities and Exposures (CVE) ID, a unique identifier that standardizes
the way vulnerabilities are tracked and reported. The CVE system is significant
because it provides a common language for cybersecurity professionals,
researchers, and vendors to discuss and address security flaws consistently and
efficiently.
This system helps prioritize risk management efforts, allowing developers and
security teams to focus on the most critical vulnerabilities. The CVE system
also fosters transparency and accountability in software development, ensuring
that known flaws are not only tracked but also mitigated as part of an ongoing
effort to secure the ever-evolving software landscape.
This structured approach in cybersecurity, exemplified by the NVD and CVE
systems, can be a model for managing AI risks. As AI systems become more
widespread and complex, creating a similar framework to catalog and address
AI-specific vulnerabilities—whether in the code, data, or algorithms—would help
ensure AI technologies remain secure, transparent, and accountable.
Currently, AI lacks a comparable framework. AI-specific risks remain largely
untracked and unstructured. Even if an AI system’s’ code is flawless, the real
risks often lie within the data. For example, an AI system trained exclusively
on data from North America might incorrectly assume that July is the hottest
month worldwide because it was never trained to know that it was winter in the
Southern Hemisphere during that period.
Such biases can have significant consequences, whether unintentional or the
result of deliberate adversarial interference. Additionally, the
non-deterministic nature of AI—where outputs depend on probabilities, training
data, and real-world conditions—adds further unpredictability. Unlike
traditional software, which produces consistent outputs given the same inputs,
AI systems can exhibit varying behavior based on their data and probabilistic
models. This unpredictability increases the risk of unintended consequences if
the training data is flawed or biased.
To address these challenges, an AI framework analogous to the NVD is necessary.
This would involve creating a structured system to systematically identify and
address vulnerabilities arising from both the code and the data used by AI
systems. Such a framework would help avoid the black-box problem, where AI
decisions are opaque and difficult to understand or correct.
The MIT risk repository represents a significant advance in addressing AI risks.
However, standardization in how AI risks are categorized and responded to is
required to manage these risks fully. Establishing a taxonomy for AI risks,
similar to the CVE system in cybersecurity, would enable researchers,
policymakers, and industries to communicate effectively and coordinate their
efforts. This taxonomy would cover intentional and unintentional risks,
providing a framework for understanding how various factors undermine AI
trustworthiness.
By leveraging the MIT risk repository, we can develop a knowledge base similar
to the MITRE ATT&CK framework specifically for AI trustworthiness. The MITRE
ATT&CK framework is a comprehensive and widely recognized knowledge base used in
cybersecurity to catalog and describe various tactics, techniques, and
procedures employed by threat actors. It provides a structured way to understand
and analyze how cyber adversaries operate, allowing security professionals to
detect, respond to, and mitigate attacks more effectively.
Similarly, a structured framework for AI trustworthiness would analyze
intentional and unintentional risks associated with AI systems. This would
involve identifying tactics and techniques that impact AI reliability, such as
deliberate attacks like data poisoning and unintentional issues like data drift
and model bias. The framework would enhance understanding of how various factors
compromise AI systems by categorizing these risks and providing detailed
descriptions, mitigation strategies, and detection methods.
This approach would empower researchers, developers, and policymakers to
systematically address vulnerabilities in AI systems, ensuring their development
is more reliable, transparent, and accountable.
Another relevant cybersecurity practice is the Software Bill of Materials (SBOM).
An SBOM lists all the components of a software product, improving transparency
and allowing users to identify vulnerabilities in specific parts of the code.
For AI, an analogous AI Bill of Materials (AI BOM) could be developed to detail
how an AI system was created, including data sources, algorithms, and testing
processes. An AI BOM would enhance transparency, facilitating the tracing of
errors or biases and holding developers accountable for their systems.
The principles of supply chain security in cybersecurity also offer valuable
insights for AI. By incorporating rigorous testing and transparency practices,
AI technologies can be developed and tested with the same scrutiny applied to
cybersecurity. This would reduce the risk of vulnerabilities and improve overall
trustworthiness.
Addressing its risks is crucial as AI continues to evolve and become more
embedded in daily life. The lessons learned from cybersecurity provide a clear
roadmap for managing these risks. We can build more reliable and transparent AI
systems by adopting frameworks like the NVD and SBOM, as well as developing a
structured taxonomy for AI-specific vulnerabilities. Collaboration across
sectors is essential, as AI risks span various industries, and a piecemeal
approach will not suffice. Cooperation between governments, academia, and the
private sector must be fostered to create a unified approach to AI safety.
Investing in ongoing research into AI ethics and risk management will further
ensure that the benefits of AI are realized while minimizing its potential for
harm. Ultimately, the future of AI depends on the ability to manage its risks
effectively. By drawing on successful cybersecurity strategies, we can develop a
resilient framework that promotes the responsible advancement of AI
technologies, ensuring they serve society positively while safeguarding against
their inherent dangers.
**Dr. Georgianna Shea is the chief technologist of the Center on Cyber and
Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
Zachary Daher served as a summer 2024 intern at FDD. Mr. Daher is a cyber
science student at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Want Israel to win the war? Don't vote for Harris – opinion
Shiela Nazarian/Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
Democrats seem more interested in appealing to voters by publicly condemning
Israel than upholding the ironclad American commitment to Israel.
Recently, the Biden-Harris administration sent a letter to Israeli Defense
Minister Yoav Gallant instructing officials to address the “humanitarian
situation” in Gaza or risk losing key American military aid. The letter, signed
by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin,
cites their “deep concern” over the conditions in northern Gaza, where trucks
bringing humanitarian aid are “delayed at crossing points” and the amount of aid
making it inside has dropped by more than 50 percent.
The administration went on to provide a list of “concrete measures” to “surge
all forms of humanitarian assistance” through Gaza, telling the Israelis that a
failure to follow through on these policies could lead to a reevaluation of
American military assistance.
The timing of the letter couldn’t be more galling.
Israel is currently fighting a war on seven fronts – including a historic
missile attack from Iran, an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu, and a suicide drone attack from Hezbollah that killed four soldiers
and injured almost 70 in the bloodiest day since October 7.
Threatening to withhold critical military assistance at such a perilous time is
not only a flagrant slight, it is also a shortsighted measure that will
inevitably extend the war – especially after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya
Sinwar, which offers the best pathway in months for forcing the terrorists to
lay down their weapons. Biden administration’s pathetic approach to Middle East
Under international law, belligerents are allowed to lay siege to their enemy
until they surrender, meaning that any Israeli efforts to control aid into Gaza
should be well within their wartime rights.
Any reasonable observer of this conflict understands that Hamas – having spent
the past year stealing aid shipments from Gazan civilians and giving them to its
terror operatives – bears significant responsibility for situations such as
missing aid or derailed trucks. Forcing Israel to send even more aid into the
area only gives the already embattled terror group life support at a time when
the world should be calling for its surrender. More broadly, the letter and its
timing are emblematic of the Biden administration’s pathetic approach to Middle
Eastern foreign policy, which constrains Israel at every turn while handing a
virtual blank check to Iran, and by extension to its proxies, to wreak havoc in
the region.
The Democratic establishment has attempted to curtail Israel since the start of
the war, demanding at every turn that it produce plans to protect civilians – a
steep ask in any war, but particularly so when it is battling an enemy that
hides beneath civilian populations as a cornerstone of its strategy.
The White House’s recent request for Jerusalem to “surge” aid into Gaza is
nothing new. The Biden-Harris administration has been set on breaking Israel’s
legal siege and demanding that Israel resupply their terrorist enemy for months.
It even delayed Israel’s invasion of Rafah – the place where six hostages,
including an American, were later found murdered in terror tunnels 65 feet (20
m.) underground; and where Sinwar was ultimately killed – with similar demands,
threatening to withhold aid and weapons shipments if the Israelis went in.
This clear ploy by Democrats to pick up a few votes in Arab-majority Dearborn,
Michigan only hobbled the Israeli war effort and prolonged the fighting,
creating more carnage and instability, which Washington then blamed on the
Jewish state.
THIS WOULD be egregious enough on its own, but the administration’s constant
slaps on the Israeli wrist are made infinitely more infuriating when compared to
its approach to Iran. Biden-Harris inherited Obama’s permissive attitude toward
the Islamic Republic, promising over and over that their leniency stemmed from
efforts to enact a nuclear deal and that a stronger posture was just around the
corner. Of course, the deal fell through, the administration’s approach didn’t
change, and, as Michael Doran wrote in Tablet last year: “The Islamic Republic
has, to name just a few developments, brutally suppressed the worst protests in
its history, advanced its nuclear weapons program considerably, pursued plots to
murder former American officials on American soil, and developed a defense
industrial cooperation with the Russian military... “None of these developments
managed to try the patience of the Biden administration.”
There seems to be nothing – including its launching the biggest missile attack
in history two weeks ago – that will force the Democrats to take a stronger
stance on Iran, which in turn only emboldens the Islamic Republic to continue
sowing chaos throughout the entire Middle East.
The situation should be crystal clear to anyone who values Israeli security.
Beneath the lip service from the Biden-Harris camp about wanting Israel to
finally win their war lies a track record of limiting, meddling with, and
downright damaging the Jewish state’s ability to do just this – and a parallel
track record of enabling the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue funding the
proxies that launch rockets into Israel every single day.
The Democratic Party is more interested in appealing to its contingent of pro-Hamas
voters by publicly condemning Israel than it is in upholding what should be an
ironclad American commitment to the only democracy in a region rife with
jihadists and instability.
It is no coincidence that the latest Democratic threat against Israel comes only
weeks before a crucial election – and voters with the Jewish state high on their
priority list should take note of this too.
*The writer is a prominent Beverly Hills plastic surgeon and star of an
Emmy-nominated Netflix original series, Skin Decision: Before and After.
A new front emerges with Iran’s growing threat to Israel and Jordan – opinion
Ruth Wasserman Lande//Jerusalem Post/October 22/2024
As Israel fights Iran's proxies in Gaza and Lebanon, Iran's efforts to
destabilize the region could open another dangerous front in the east.
As Israel’s military campaign against the proxies of the Islamic Republic of
Iran succeeds, and the scope of potential attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran
against Israel in the South and the North becomes narrower, there is a growing
probability that the latter will activate additional fronts that have not yet
been exhausted.
I have written previously about the threat that looms from the east, yet now it
no longer “looms.” It is here. We are, almost unwittingly, already in the midst
of yet another campaign, only one which is not yet making headlines in the
media.
From a broad observation of the interests of the Islamic Republic, the intention
to expand over as wide an area as possible is evident. First, it intends to take
over the Middle East, then the Gulf countries, and then the entire world.
Despite the fact that it sounds more than a little like science fiction, this is
indeed the aspiration of the Shi’ite extremist Islamic rule in Iran. Iran’s
modus operandi is to overthrow regimes and countries from within and to then
take control of them, amid the chaos and lack of stability. This is what was
done in Iraq, following the withdrawal of the Americans from the country and
also the international coalition led by the US against the Sunni terrorist
organization ISIS. Today, Iraq is no longer an independent country but an
extension of Iran, which has significantly expanded its own territory.
This is how the Islamic Republic of Iran also behaved in Lebanon, through the
designated terrorist organization Hezbollah, and in Syria, via its Shi’ite
militias. This is how it operated and continues to do so in Yemen, via the
Houthis, and this is how it operates through sleeper cells throughout Europe and
the entire West. Jordan and Israel interrupt Iranian expansion
What prevents the territorial continuity of the Iranian regime in the region is
the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the State of Israel. The relatively weak
Jordanian regime, whose national security is being upheld by the US and in more
ways than one also by Israel, has had difficulty in recent years preventing the
Ayatollah regime from trying to erode its strength from within. This is a point
that is not at the center of attention of the world and/or the public in Israel.
The current Iranian regime has begun to justify its infiltration into Jordan
several years ago, by having to send emissaries to maintain the graves of
righteous Shi’ites in the kingdom, some of which, quite coincidentally of
course, are close to the Israel-Jordan border. At the same time, the Iranian
regime works day and night to strengthen Hamas among the Palestinian majority in
the kingdom. The Islamic Republic also made and continues to make cynical use of
the territory of Jordan as a transit country for smuggling weapons to the Judea
and Samaria region to arm Hamas, as well as for smuggling weapons and drugs to
Hezbollah in Lebanon. Another unexpected country in Latin America joins this
profitable industry – Venezuela – which supports the drug industry and sees it
as an important source of income.
All this has been going on for years, while between Israel and Jordan there is a
significant border of over 300 km., without any substantial obstacle between the
two countries for most of those kilometers, and with a laughable obstacle along
a very small part of the border.
The meager military presence along the border is that of the Jordanian army,
which is financed and equipped for the most part by the Americans, and relies on
the US for its very existence, but is largely fed by an educational system that
is no different from the one used in Judea and Samaria – that is, full of
incitement against Israel, the US, and the West. Indeed, until now, once every
few years, a Jordanian soldier carried out an attack against Israelis, before
things were swept under the carpet in order not to disrupt the delicate nature
of the Israeli-Jordanian peace agreement signed in 1994.
It is perhaps also important to highlight what has been happening in the past
several years in Jerusalem during the month of Ramadan. Hamas, an extremist
Sunni movement, which is known to be funded and supported by the Ayatollah
regime in Iran, cried out against the “cruel Zionist regime that is attacking
the holy al-Aqsa Mosque.”
This outcry was cleverly engineered by the Islamic Republic, as an attempt to
“steal” the ownership of guarding al-Aqsa Mosque from its traditional guardians
– the Hashemite dynasty in Jordan. This is owing to the fact that al-Aqsa and
the symbolism thereof is sufficient to instigate a mass outrage among Muslims
throughout the world.
What did the Jordanians do in response? Did they try to signal to the Iranian
regime that they were overstepping their boundaries? Did they try to reshape
public opinion inside Jordan by changing the educational system to be less
inciteful and jealous and more pragmatic so that the public would be less
susceptible to Iranian attempts to encourage extremism or support for movements
like Hamas?
No. The Jordanian regime cried out louder and with harsher insults against
Israel than Hamas, hoping to please the enraged masses at home and demonstrate
that they are the authentic guardians of the mosque. Only in the last year,
following the events of October 7, when the Iranian regime made use of Jordanian
airspace for the benefit of the first missile attack against Israel, the king of
Jordan put his foot down and cried out publicly against Iran for the first time.
Herein, a message was also conveyed to the Iranians regarding their attempt to
bring about a coup in Jordan, through the agitation of the Palestinians and the
encouragement of Hamas in the kingdom, in their pursuit against the monarchy and
the existing regime. In the meantime, the border remains long and easily
passable. The world’s attention is directed to the Gaza Strip and to Lebanon,
while the eastern arena is left largely unattended.
*The writer is a fellow of the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist
Strategy, a former member of Knesset, and a past deputy ambassador to Egypt.
Israel Does Not Intend to Stop
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
The sun rises again over Gaza and Lebanon, but this time without the dominance
of Hezbollah and Hamas, whether we see them as resistance movements or
extensions of Iranian influence. A new and a different scene is about to unfold,
demanding a Palestinian, Lebanese, Arab, and international effort to minimize
human and political losses and to prevent further collapses. Following the death
of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the destruction of Hamas’ power, Israel finds
itself in a stronger position than before, largely due to mismanagement of the
crisis earlier in the year. Israel is no longer pressured to negotiate hostage
exchanges or accept the compromises that were discussed during Cairo
negotiations over the administration of Gaza. Proposals from Paris are now off
the table, and no one can dictate to Israel how it will manage border crossings,
including the key “Philadelphi” corridor.
With the death of Hassan Nasrallah and most of Hezbollah’s leadership, Lebanon
too is in a different position. Israel is no longer content with just the
demands of Resolution 1701, which required the cessation of rocket fire and the
disarmament of Hezbollah fighters in exchange for Israeli restraint.
The Lebanese army can take full responsibility for protecting the borders and
dismantling Hezbollah’s military role. Without this, Israel will continue its
military operations until the spring, aiming to eliminate every last fighter in
Lebanon. This could lead to the complete destruction of Lebanon and the end of
Hezbollah’s political and military presence.
The war is not over yet. A new confrontation is looming, potentially on a third
front in Syria and a fourth with Iran. After its success in destroying Hamas and
most of Hezbollah’s capabilities, Israel fears that these threats could
resurface unless it cuts off Iran’s influence stretching from Iraq through
Syria.
Although not officially stated, Israel’s current goal seems to be driving Iran
out of Syria, as reflected in its actions on the ground. For example, Israel has
cleared mines on the Golan Heights and called for the removal of international
forces, indicating plans for further military operations. Although Syria has
avoided getting involved in the Hamas and Hezbollah conflicts, not giving Israel
any excuse to target it, Netanyahu’s government is determined to eliminate
surrounding Iranian threats, which include Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iranian bases
in Syria.
Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus in early April was a clear
message: Iran must pack its bags and leave Syria. If Iran withdraws peacefully,
it will be a gain for the Syrian government, which no longer needs Iran’s
presence as it did during the civil war. Now, Iran’s presence has become a
burden on Syria. Netanyahu may seem reckless, firing in all directions, but in
reality, he is following a well-structured plan with a clear objective. Few
expected him to be capable of this—dismantling the major regional Iranian
threats surrounding Israel. It is anticipated that he will strike Iran this
week, aiming for more than just Yahya Sinwar. If the attack happens, Iran will
face two choices: accept Israel’s conditions and curb the activities of its
external Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), or face an even more
dangerous conflict, both for Iran and the entire region.
When Defeats Be and Don’t!
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
Contrary to the claims of those who are fond of generalizing, it is not true
that "Arabs do not acknowledge defeat when they are defeated." In 1948, and
especially in 1967, there was a broad spectrum of opinions on everything linked
to the defeat: there was disagreement about its scale and nature, as well as a
variety of divergent proposals for how to overcome it. Some, for instance, saw
"our atheism" as the reason for our defeat, while others believed it was the
result of "our faith." Some blamed it on Nasserism and Baathism’s socialism,
while others argued that the problem had been that their socialism was not
socialism but "bureaucratic state capitalism." Some critics chose to satirize
"our culture," others "our dictatorial regimes" or "our armies"...
Nonetheless, almost everyone acknowledged that we had been defeated. Even the
military regimes, which circumvented its implications and insisted on its
deliberate interpretation, acknowledged that it occurred.
We have not seen any acknowledgement of this kind today. We find even those who
use terms like "tragedy" and "nakba" to characterize what is happening, speaking
of our shining victory, just a sentence or two later, as they point to a missile
that landed on Tel Aviv or the killing of Israeli soldiers in a direct clash.
Such developments could help slow the invaders' advance, or increase the costs
of this advance, but it unequivocally does not change a broad trajectory for
which there is an abundance of painful evidence.
This stance, which goes further than denying defeat to insist on victory, begs a
question that comprehensive and extremely harmful cultural collusion avoids:
when should a party to a conflict admit that it has been defeated? Or, to put it
another way: Is there a criterion by which we can assess whether an armed force
has been defeated? Is it the number of casualties? The scale of destruction?
Whether cities and villages have been ravaged to the ground? Whether land has
been occupied? The magnitude of displacement? Factors that determine our
economic resilience? The strengths and weaknesses of foreign allies? The degree
of social cohesion that fighters rely on? Whether military and political leaders
live or die? The technological tools of war? Supply lines, weapons depots, and
arms manufacturing plants?...
In reality, adopting any one of these criteria, or some or all of them, would
lead us to conclude that the forces fighting the wars in Gaza and Lebanon have
been defeated. Saying so isn’t "defeatist propaganda" or "an attempt to spread
despair." Nothing is easier than making accusations and setting slanderers loose
to silence debate and obscure developments that make themselves known
organically.
At this point, confronting the truth is not driven by the love of the truth, nor
even a desire to stop the defeat from going any further. Although these two
impulses are virtuous in themselves, the risk of having our land (whether in
Lebanon or Gaza) occupied takes precedence over both, as do the people being
killed, starved, displaced, impoverished, and humiliated, who are bearing the
costs of this silence that perpetuates their suffering. This matter should
concern those who claim to care about "our people," and they should be doing
everything in their power to put an end to the immense pain being inflicted upon
them by a merciless and undeterred army.
The content we are being bombarded with, on the other hand, reflects nothing
less than an absolute insensitivity to the wellbeing of civilians, who are not
factored into calculations of gains and losses, as victory and resilience are
the only focus. This focus is not underpinned by facts but by cliches, some are
religious ones taken out of their historical context, and others are remnants of
"national liberation" and "protracted people's war" literature.
Thus, we hear things like: "You’re not defeated so long as you’re resisting,"
whereas our lived experience refutes such simplistic and naive absolutist claims
about abstract concepts, including resistance. Under certain circumstances,
resistance can, in fact, lead to defeat. That was true, to give one of many
examples, for Che Guevara, the emperor of resistance militants, in Congo and
Bolivia.
This shift from announcing defeats to totally denying them has emerged in
parallel with the shift from a culture of statehood (with all its shortcomings
and deficiencies) to a militia culture. A state does not just carry and use
arms, it also has other unrelated functions and institutions, and it provides
services that do not vanish following the defeat of its arms. In contrast,
militias' raison d’etre, by definition, is to build and use their arsenal, while
all the other roles it may or may not play are dependent on this arsenal and the
control it enables the militia to exercise. This means that announcing defeat -
announcing that its weapons have been defeated - entails announcing the death of
everything else and confronting a bitter truth, that normal life continues to
flow after the weapons are gone.
Militia groups must feel a profound sense of inadequacy in the knowledge that
the "legitimacy of resistance" does not suffice to compensate for losing all
legitimacy in a normal world. Accordingly, what the slogan "the era of defeats
is over" actually means is that the era of acknowledging defeats is over, as
there is no longer anything that can be known, documented, or publicly stated
that violates the rules of their underground world.
In militia culture, and in the world of liberating war from the shackles of both
its laws and the knowledge of its events, the universe fades, behind militia
subjectivity, into either glory or annihilation. Thus, this lexicon brims with
terms and phrases like "shame,manhood,honor,dignity,we dragged them down into
shelters," and "we forced them to impose military censorship..." And while human
beings are nothing but future corpses, announcing defeat is presented as an
intolerable breach of these standards. And this is before the silence of graves
adorns the graves of our silence.
On the Myth of an Israeli Lebanon
Nadim Koteich/Asharq Al Awsat/October 22/2024
Hezbollah deceitfully sensationalizes the ambitions of its opponents, claiming
that they are striving for an "Israeli Lebanon." This term is often invoked to
frighten the people of Lebanon and force them into a lethal binary choice
between Israel and the resistance state. Sheikh Naim Qassem, the man who now
speaks for Hezbollah, used it in his latest speech, warning us that the
emergence of an "Israeli Lebanon" is the aim of this war. The head of
Hezbollah's parliamentary bloc, Deputy Mohammad Raad, once explained this
notion: It is a Lebanon of nightclubs, dancing, banks, and financial and
commercial services. Hezbollah portrays this "Israeli Lebanon" as a politically
and economically subjugated state that has no values or morals; it allows our
authentic culture to wane in favor of an imperialistic culture that has no roots
or ties to "our causes."
However, Lebanon is undergoing a catastrophic economic collapse, its
infrastructure is falling apart, and the state's foundations, institutions, and
constitution are being eroded under the weight of the "resistance Lebanon,"
leading us to ask: What if this alleged "Israeli Lebanon" is actually a better
alternative?
Let us delve deeper into this Lebanon as Hezbollah characterizes it, rather than
giving in to fear of what it represents and stands for.
Hezbollah's first objection to this Lebanon is that it would, in the medium or
long term, become part of the architecture of regional peace. Should seeking a
Lebanon that chooses peace instead of perpetual conflict be taboo? Is it an
accusation one should repudiate? Wouldn't this outcome enable the country to
channel its resources toward building a robust economy, developing effective
institutions, and reinforcing its vibrant civil society, as well as allow the
Lebanese to turn their country into a regional hub for trade, innovation, and
investment?
Is joining the axis of peace with Israel and all neighboring countries not an
opportunity for Lebanon to be on the side of regional stability instead of a
battleground where foreign forces wage their conflicts?
Let’s be honest. The Lebanese experienced what Hezbollah calls "Israeli Lebanon"
during the Rafic Hariri era. The project he pursued as prime minister provided
the country with an opportunity to rebuild and develop its state, and this era
witnessed an economic and cultural renaissance.
Was this project not portrayed as a covert Israeli project? Wasn’t Hariri
assassinated after a massive wave of accusations of treason?
Even intra-Lebanese reconciliation and the promotion of pluralism seem more
conceivable in "Israeli Lebanon" than in "resistance Lebanon."
Hezbollah also warns us that the “resistance” would be disarmed in "Israeli
Lebanon." However, is doing away with militias and a strong, unified national
army that operates under the authority of the state- a genuine safeguard of its
sovereignty- not a basic function of any state? By the way, nothing would
prevent Lebanon from maintaining its commitment to Palestine. However, it would
support Palestine through diplomatic and humanitarian channels, working
alongside legitimate Arab, international, and Palestinian actors without
sacrificing Lebanon's future as is happening now.
This Lebanon would not simply sacrifice its identity or interests to ally with
Israel. No Lebanese political faction favors this out, neither secretly nor
openly. Raising this prospect is meant to prevent us from recognizing that the
path Hezbollah is taking, that of eternal resistance, militarization, and
isolation, has destroyed and is destroying Lebanon, as we can all clearly see.
Indeed, Hezbollah's vision for Lebanon as a center for resistance has depleted
the country's resources, stifled its potential, and undermined Lebanon’s social
fabric for decades. Hezbollah's insistence on assuming the role of Lebanon's
protector and defender through armed resistance has given rise to a failed state
that continues to prioritize armed struggle over good governance, development,
and social progress.
"Resistance Lebanon" oversaw the collapse of the economy, and it has essentially
killed any chance for recovery through its imposition of near-total isolation
from the region. As a result, regional states have stopped investing and
providing services in Lebanon and their people have stopped flocking to the
country as tourists. Even Lebanon's sovereignty, which Hezbollah pretends is
justification for its armed resistance, has been crushed by the militia's
dominance over the state and its imposition of decisions on war and peace,
leaving both the state and the country in tatters.
Equally concerning is that "resistance Lebanon" has stifled Lebanon's unique
pluralism and openness. Anything that isn't linked to resistance is seen as
paving the way for an Israeli era. This applies to culture, education,
development, and the economy, which have all been weakened to allow for the
narrative of resistance’s hegemony. The myth of "Israeli Lebanon" is a means by
which Hezbollah instills fear, stifles debate, and corners the Lebanese by
presenting resistance as their only option. However, the truth is that this
so-called "Israeli Lebanon" is not the real threat to Lebanon's future.
Maintaining the resistance model, with all the horrific outcomes it has
engendered, is the real danger.
The "Israeli Lebanon" Hezbollah warns of is a normal Lebanon, which is exactly
what the Lebanese need. Hezbollah is free to choose who to frame this Lebanon,
but it is a country that chooses life, growth, and opportunities instead of
eternal resistance!