LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

August 22/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For Today

But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 07/36-50/:"One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him, and he went into the Pharisee’s house and took his place at the table. And a woman in the city, who was a sinner, having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster jar of ointment. She stood behind him at his feet, weeping, and began to bathe his feet with her tears and to dry them with her hair. Then she continued kissing his feet and anointing them with the ointment. Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it, he said to himself, ‘If this man were a prophet, he would have known who and what kind of woman this is who is touching him that she is a sinner.’Jesus spoke up and said to him, ‘Simon, I have something to say to you.’ ‘Teacher,’ he replied, ‘speak.’ ‘A certain creditor had two debtors; one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they could not pay, he cancelled the debts for both of them. Now which of them will love him more?’Simon answered, ‘I suppose the one for whom he cancelled the greater debt.’ And Jesus said to him, ‘You have judged rightly.’Then turning towards the woman, he said to Simon, ‘Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment. Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many, have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love. But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little.’Then he said to her, ‘Your sins are forgiven.’But those who were at the table with him began to say among themselves, ‘Who is this who even forgives sins?’And he said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’

God, as chosen you, because our message of the gospel that came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction
First Letter to the Thessalonians 01/01-10/:"Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace.We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of people we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place where your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 21-22/16

Why did Nasrallah suggest peace with ISIS/Nadim Koteich/Al Arabiya 21/16
France: "First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People"/Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/August 21/16
US uncertainties trigger power game in Syria/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/August 21/16
Omran Daqneesh’s message/Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/August 21/16
Egypt’s church-building bill is milestone for Copts/Hassan Abdel Zaher/The Arab Weekly/21 August/16
The people of Aleppo are not waiting for US elections/Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya 21/16
A Syrian boy’s photo and the degradation of values/Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya 21/16
The Russian expansion in the region/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya 21/16
Where exactly do we stand on Brexit/Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya 21/16
What Israel gained from the Turkey deal and what it means for the region/Yossi Melnan/Jerusalem Post/August 21/16
Exclusive: The Sunni tribe that survived a two-year Islamic State siege in Iraq/Seth J. Frantman/Jerusalem Post/August 21/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on on August 20-21/16
Why did Nasrallah suggest peace with ISIS?
Military Appointments to Decide Govt.'s Fate as FPM Mulls Responses
'We Depend on God and Fate', Says Jumblat Responding to 'Death Threats'
Bomb Found near House of Arsal Municipal Chief
Hizbullah Shells Jihadists in Outskirts of Arsal
Iraqi Young Man Kidnapped in Baalbek Neighborhood
Fadlallah Calls for Dealing 'Positively' with Nasrallah's Proposal
Rifi Slams 'Package Deal' as 'Coup against Constitution'
Rahi presides over Mass in Seoul marking International Peace Conference's closing
Ibrahim: Storms are incapable of causing Lebanon's collapse!
Another sit in in Shebaa Farms against Israeli breaches
Bou Saab: Differences between Salam, FPM due to decisions taken outside cabinet

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on August 21-22/16

Turkey’s Erdogan: ISIS ‘likely perpetrator’ of Gaziantep attack
Syrian rebels prepare attack from Turkey on ISIS town
Iraq hangs 36 over 2014 ‘Speicher’ massacre
Kurds advance in Syria city after Russian mediation fails
Gunmen in Egypt kill informer, soldier at checkpoint north of Cairo
Azerbaijan detains dissident over books by Erdogan’s foe
Tunisia's newly nominated prime minister presents government
Iran releases new missile defense system images
Iran- the Imam of Tehran Friday described the massacre of prisoners a great service rendered by Khomeini:
METRO: Here’s what it’s like to be a political prisoner in Iran
Tehran's Khavaran mass grave of victims of 1988 massacre of political prisoners
Palestinian rocket strikes Israeli town near Gaza
Israel Hits Hamas Targets in Gaza after Rocket Attack

Links From Jihad Watch Site for on August 21-22/16
Prominent imam reveals goals of dawah, Sharia and to establish ‘ummah’ in Canada
Islamic Republic of Iran arrests 11 Christians in raid on house church
California: Man who killed grandparents was influenced by jihadis
UCLA and California Muslim judge lie about Jihad Watch

Latest Lebanese Related News published on on August 20-21/16

Why did Nasrallah suggest peace with ISIS?
Nadim Koteich/Al Arabiya 21/16
When senior Hezbollah figure Mustafa Badreddine was killed in Syria, the Lebanese party quoted him as saying: “I’ll return from Syria either as a martyr or crowned with victory, or I won’t return at all.” He did not achieve victory in Syria. Nor will Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Of all the fighting undertaken by the Iran-backed militia, the Syrian conflict – particularly the battle for Aleppo – has killed the largest number of its leaders and fighters. Given his many achievements, Nasrallah thought he was unstoppable. Unlike Hezbollah, Hamas has not achieved many victories against Israel, though it has been in multiple wars similar to the ones Hezbollah waged against Israel. Missiles were repeatedly fired against Israel, which responded with total destruction. Then a political solution was reached, restoring the pre-war status quo. Even when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza, Hamas did not claim victory, like Hezbollah did when Israel unilaterally withdrew from southern Lebanon. Hezbollah wants to bury the memory of Israel’s retreat, an electoral move made by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak with enormous public support. As with the Gaza withdrawal, it was a unilateral Israeli political decision, not a consequence of the resistance, as Hezbollah claimed. Like Hamas, Hezbollah left behind a free piece of land draped in misery and civil strife. Gaza’s horrors are mostly linked to the chains of Israeli politics from which Lebanon broke free. Shiite influence is fading and Hezbollah might have to start retreating from Syria soon. This is why Nasrallah has offered reconciliation. Nasrallah is obsessed with portraying himself and his party as all-time winners, an image reinforced by allied media outlets and opportunistic, dreamy and confused elites in Lebanon and the Arab world.
Reality check
However, in Aleppo specifically and Syria generally, Nasrallah has lost his best fighters, including Badreddine. The Hezbollah leader would have never thought that on the 10th anniversary of the July 2006 war with Israel, he would be begging Al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to make peace. Since Russia got involved in the Syrian war about a year ago, the militias have just been the fuel stoking the flames. Nasrallah would realize that sooner or later and adopt a different rhetoric regarding the Sunnis in Syria and Lebanon. As such, he has asked to make peace with Sunnis living in the Shiite sphere of influence, from ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri. However, Shiite influence is fading and Hezbollah might have to start retreating from Syria soon. This is why Nasrallah has offered reconciliation. He suggested that Baghdadi leave his weapons behind and embark on a reconciliation process. Nasrallah also proposed an agreement to revive the decaying Lebanese political system and appoint Hariri as prime minister. Nasrallah paved the way for a potential understanding by reminding his supporters that Hezbollah is above all a resistance movement. Since the start of the Syrian crisis, Nasrallah’s last speech was the longest one about Israel, a topic almost absent from his previous speeches. He used all possible arguments to highlight his victory, and more importantly to reinstate the resistance’s main function in anticipation of an imminent change in the party’s position on Syria.
It seems Nasrallah feels that the end of the Syrian adventure is near, whether his party leaves the battlefield or not. Syria will not offer any victory at all. He is fully aware that he will not leave the battlefield the way he entered it. However, Sunnis who want revenge against Hezbollah outnumber those who seek more reasonable solutions, because the party has a lot of blood on its hands in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Before the battle for Aleppo, Hezbollah’s motto was: “Either a martyr or a winner.” Now it seems more like: “A martyr either way.”
**This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on Aug. 19, 2016.
 

Military Appointments to Decide Govt.'s Fate as FPM Mulls Responses
Naharnet/August 21/The thorny issue of military appointments is expected to dominate the political scene next week, amid anticipation of the Free Patriotic Movement's response to Defense Minister Samir Moqbel's latest decision to extend the term of Higher Defense Council chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Kheir. The FPM has recently warned against the approach of extending the terms of top military officers, calling instead for appointing new chiefs. In remarks to An Nahar newspaper published Sunday, FPM sources said “all options are on the table,” without specifying the nature of the steps that might be taken or whether the response will reach the extent of suspending participation in the cabinet or even resigning. Observers believe that a drastic decision would require consultations with Hizbullah, the FPM's main ally. The issue of appointments is expected to be a new test for the cabinet, which will convene Thursday with a regular agenda. The file was raised in last Thursday's session and Moqbel proposed three candidates who did not garner the needed number of votes.

'We Depend on God and Fate', Says Jumblat Responding to 'Death Threats'
Naharnet/August 21/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has responded to assassination threats that media reports attributed to the Islamic State group by stressing that he “depends on God and fate.”“Whatever the threat might be, be it from local or external parties, we depend on God and fate at this age,” Jumblat said. “In these dark days, during which the trends of ignorance and backwardness are aggravating, we are in dire need for deepening our knowledge, which alone can confront bigotry and intolerance,” he added. “Only through learning we can fight ignorance and only through knowledge we can fight the feeble minds and the depraved souls,” Jumblat went on to say.

Bomb Found near House of Arsal Municipal Chief
Naharnet/August 21/An explosive device was discovered Sunday outside the house of Bassel al-Hujeiri, the municipal chief of the restive northeastern border town of Arsal, state-run National News Agency reported. It said the army was dismantling the bomb that weighs “around five kilograms of extremely explosive substances.”The explosive device was set for “remote detonation,” the agency added. Hujeiri and several Arsal figures have reportedly received death threats from the Islamic State group. Sunday's finding comes four days after a bomb was found in Arsal's Ras al-Sarj area and six days after another explosive device targeted an army vehicle in the same area, lightly injuring five soldiers. Militants from the IS and Fateh al-Sham Front -- formerly al-Qaida's Syria affiliate al-Nusra Front -- are entrenched in rugged areas along the undemarcated Lebanese-Syrian border and the army regularly shells their posts while Hizbullah and the Syrian army have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the border. The two groups briefly overran the town of Arsal in August 2014 before being ousted by the army after days of deadly battles. The retreating militants abducted more than 30 troops and policemen of whom four have been executed and nine remain in the captivity of the IS group.

Hizbullah Shells Jihadists in Outskirts of Arsal
Hizbullah on Sunday bombed gatherings of jihadists in the outskirts of the northeastern border town of Arsal, Hizbullah's al-Manar TV said. The Lebanese group fired artillery at “gatherings for the militants of al-Nusra Front on the heights of Qornet al-Qanzah in Arsal's outskirts,” al-Manar said.
Al-Nusra has recently renamed itself Fateh al-Sham Front after renouncing its status as al-Qaida's Syria franchise. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced in an interview aired Friday that the Lebanese army has the ability to oust the jihadist groups from Arsal's outskirts but lamented the lack of a “political decision,” alleging that “al-Nusra has allies in the Lebanese government.” Militants from the former al-Nusra and its jihadist rival, Islamic State, are entrenched in rugged areas along the undemarcated Lebanese-Syrian border and the army regularly shells their posts while Hizbullah and the Syrian army have engaged in clashes with them on the Syrian side of the border. The two groups briefly overran the town of Arsal in August 2014 before being ousted by the army after days of deadly battles.

Iraqi Young Man Kidnapped in Baalbek Neighborhood
Naharnet/August 21/An Iraqi young man was kidnapped Sunday in the eastern city of Baalbek, state-run National News Agency reported. “Unknown individuals riding an SUV abducted Iraqi citizen Mohammed Bassem Mohammed Ali al-Bahrani, 22, in an area behind the cemetery in Baalbek's al-Solh neighborhood,” NNA said. “They took him to an unknown location,” it added.

Fadlallah Calls for Dealing 'Positively' with Nasrallah's Proposal
Naharnet/August 21/Hizbullah MP Hassan Fadlallah on Sunday called on the political parties to deal “positively” with the latest proposal that was launched by Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Nasrallah's remarks “opened the doors for the possibility of resolving the political crisis, because we want our country to overcome the current situation, especially at the level of addressing the political crises that involve the presidential vacuum and the electoral law,” said Fadlallah during an educational ceremony in the southern town of al-Taybeh. In a speech on August 13, Nasrallah had hinted that Hizbullah would accept the re-designation of al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri as prime minister in return for the election of Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun as president and Speaker Nabih Berri as head of parliament. “We do not want others to deal with this call in a negative manner, because we have opened the doors and said that we will act positively and that we want to facilitate things in our country,” Fadlallah added. “Continuing the intransigence and stubbornness will not lead to positive results. This intransigence has been running in Lebanon for two and a half years now and it has failed to address any of our political problems,” the MP said. “It has deepened the political system's crisis and it has started to jeopardize the entire structure of the State,” he warned. “Some parties in Lebanon must meet positivity with positivity instead of betting on foreign forces. They must rather act according to local, domestic equations and we do not want to engage in a war of words with any of those who are launching random stances nowadays,” Fadlallah went on to say. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Rifi Slams 'Package Deal' as 'Coup against Constitution'
Naharnet/August 21/Resigned Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi has voiced rejection of any political settlement that takes the form of a so-called “package deal” or seeks to alter the 1989 Taef Accord.
“We will carry on with the confrontation against the approach that is destroying the State and the values of the republic,” Rifi said. “We reject the coup against the constitution and we will face it, whether it disguises itself as a so-called package deal or reveals its true face through seeking to torpedo the Taef Accord,” the minister added. “When the need arises, we won't hesitate to use all peaceful means to thwart the coup and our people are ready to heed the call, the same as they did on February 14 and March 14, 2005,” Rifi went on to say. Referring to Hizbullah without naming it, the minister said he will not allow the “mini-state” to “give itself the right to appoint a president, name a premier, usurp the parliament, and turn institutions into paralyzed puppets.” “We have expressed our stance and we call on everyone not to be dragged into the trap of deceitful settlements. The Lebanese have tried those settlements, which were only a cover for pouncing on the State and usurping it and for changing equations through the force of arms,” Rifi added. “We will not be intimidated by weapons and threats as long as we defend the right of the Lebanese to preserve their State and its institutions, and the Lebanese are capable of confronting this threat,” he went on to say. Speaker Nabih Berri has recently proposed a so-called package deal that involves holding parliamentary elections under a new electoral law before electing a new president and forming a new government. Should the parties fail to agree on a new law, the parliament's current extended term would be curtailed and the elections would be held under the 1960 law which is currently in effect, Berri says.

Rahi presides over Mass in Seoul marking International Peace Conference's closing
Sun 21 Aug 2016/NNA - Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bchara Butros al-Rahi, presided over Sunday Mass at the Korean Martyrs Shrine in Seoul, crowing the end of works of the International Conference for Peace held in the South Korean capital. In his Homily, al-Rahi hoped that "peace would reign in countries that are torn by wars, including Korea and the Middle East."He also prayed for "stability in Lebanon," hoping that "political reconciliation would occur and a new President would be elected, so that Lebanon's place within the international community would be restored and the work of constitutional institutions would be reactivated."

Ibrahim: Storms are incapable of causing Lebanon's collapse!
Sun 21 Aug 2016/NNA - Public Security Chief, General Abbas Ibrahim, said on Sunday that "storms are unable to cause Lebanon to collapse, even if they have succeeded, for a certain time, to shake its stability.""The vigilance of the military and security forces, which managed to send violent blows to the takfiri terrorists, prevented the country's downfall," said Ibrahim. He added: "These security networks have carried out preventive operations that allowed for dismantling of dormant cells, thus, thwarting all plots to shake Lebanon's stability." Speaking at a reception organized in his honor by Lebanese Emigrants Council Head, Nassib Fawaz, in Nabatiyeh, Ibrahim called on emigrants "to invest in their country, so as to contribute to the development of various Lebanese regions.""It is a national responsibility weighing on your shoulders, which I am sure you will rise up to, bringing hope for the future of Lebanon," Ibrahim underscored.

Another sit in in Shebaa Farms against Israeli breaches
Sun 21 Aug 2016/NNA - Shebaa and Orkoub citizens who staged two sit-ins at the border crossing of Berket el Nakkar managed to suspend the work of the Israeli enemy in the area for several hours.
They also managed to repel the tanks that were cocking the canons towards the protesters after threatening to cross the border line.

Bou Saab: Differences between Salam, FPM due to decisions taken outside cabinet
Sun 21 Aug 2016/NNA - Higher Learning and National Education Minister, Elias Bou Saab, said that differences between the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) and the Prime Minister resulted from decisions taken outside the Cabinet. Bou Saab's stance came during a luncheon hosted in his honor by Former Minister Faisal Karami on the occasion of the graduation ceremony of Rashid Karami Educational Foundation's students in Tripoli. After criticizing public money waste and embezzlement, the minister called for the support of two armies in the country, notably, the military institution and the teachers' institution, noting that "this question was one of the current battles at the government."Bou Saab pointed out that the decision regarding the election of a president was not a local one. "Whoever is worried about his country must make concessions and reach out to others. We need to agree on a partnership to save the country from its crisis," he said. He added that MP Michel Aoun represented the majority of Christians, "which enable him to become the head of state."

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on August 21-22/16

Turkey’s Erdogan: ISIS ‘likely perpetrator’ of Gaziantep attack
AFP, Ankara Sunday, 21 August 2016/Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday said ISIS was the “likely perpetrator” of a bomb attack on a wedding in the southeastern city of Gaziantep that left at least 30 dead. Erdogan said in a written statement that there was “no difference” between the group of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen who he blames for a failed July 15 coup bid, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) “and Daesh (ISIS), the likely perpetrator of the attack in Gaziantep.”“Our country and our nation have again only one message to those who attack us -- you will not succeed!” he said. Erdogan added that PKK attacks on security forces had claimed 70 lives in the last month alone. Erdogan said that the aim of attacks like Gaziantep was to sow division between different groups in Turkey such as Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen and “spread incitement along ethnic and religious lines.”Turkey would not give in to the “provocation” of the Gaziantep attack and would instead show “unity, togetherness and brotherhood”, he said. Ankara has long insisted there is no difference between the various “outlawed” terror groups it is fighting and has urged the West to take a tougher stance against the PKK.

Syrian rebels prepare attack from Turkey on ISIS town
Reuters, Beirut Sunday, 21 August 2016/Hundreds of Syrian rebels are preparing to launch an operation to capture a town held by ISIS at the border with Turkey, a senior Syrian rebel said on Sunday, a move that would frustrate Kurdish hopes to expand further in that area. The rebels, Turkey-backed groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, are expected to assault Jarablus from inside Turkey in the next few days, said the rebel official, who is familiar with the plans but declined to be identified. “The factions are gathering in an area near the border (inside Turkey),” the rebel said. Jarablus, located on the western bank of the Euphrates river, is the last significant town held by the militant Islamist group on Syria’s border with Turkey. It is 34 miles (54km) east of al-Rai, a border town the same rebel groups recently took from ISIS. By taking Jarablus themselves, the rebel groups would preclude an assault on the town by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish-dominated militias who on Aug. 6 took the city of Manbij, 20 miles (30km) to the south, from ISIS. Turkey, an important supporter of the FSA groups, is worried that Kurds are using the SDF’s westwards expansion against ISIS to extend their influence across northern Syria. The SDF already holds the eastern bank of the Euphrates opposite Jarablus. On Saturday Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that Ankara would play a more active role in addressing the conflict in Syria in the coming six months to stop it being torn along ethnic lines.
ISIS has pulled personnel out of Jarablus in recent days, the rebel leader said. On Friday families of ISIS fighters were evacuated from Jarablus and another city nearby, al-Bab, to the group’s stronghold of Raqqa, a war monitor said. The operation aimed to effectively end ISIS’s foothold at the Turkish border, the official said, adding that the assault on the town would difficult. “There will certainly be resistance. They will have mined it heavily,” he said. “The operation of entering Jarablus will not be easy”.

Iraq hangs 36 over 2014 ‘Speicher’ massacre
AFP, Nasiriyah, Iraq Sunday, 21 August 2016/Iraq on Sunday hanged 36 men convicted over the 2014 massacre by extremists and allied militants of hundreds of military recruits, officials said. They had been found guilty of involvement in the “Speicher” massacre, named after a base near Tikrit where up to 1,700 recruits were kidnapped before being executed. “The executions of 36 convicted over the Speicher crime were carried out this morning in Nasiriyah prison,” a spokesman for the governor's office in Dhiqar, the province of which Nasiriyah is the capital, told AFP.

Kurds advance in Syria city after Russian mediation fails
AFP, Hasaka, Syria Sunday, 21 August 2016/Kurdish fighters advanced in the flashpoint city of Hasaka in northeast Syria after a Russian mediation bid failed to halt clashes with pro-regime forces, a monitoring group said Sunday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a military source said the Kurds seized territory across several neighborhoods in the city’s south in violent clashes on Saturday night. The Britain-based Observatory said Kurds advanced in Zuhur, while a Kurdish military source told AFP that they pushed forward in Al-Nashwa and Ghweiran. A local journalist working for AFP said he saw members of the pro-government National Defense Forces militia retreating from Al-Nashwa. Regime aircraft flew over the city early Sunday morning, most of which is under Kurdish control, but without carrying out any bombing raids, the Observatory said. In an escalation of Syria’s five-year war, regime planes on Wednesday bombarded positions held by US-backed Kurdish forces in the city fighting ISIS. The unprecedented strikes prompted the US-led coalition to scramble aircraft to protect its special operations forces helping the Kurdish fighters. Fighting between a pro-government militia and Kurdish forces since Wednesday has left at least 43 people dead including 27 civilians, among them 11 children, according to the Observatory. Thousands of civilians have fled the city. Al-Masdar News, a pro-regime website, said renewed clashes broke out Saturday after the failure of mediation efforts in the neighboring city of Qamishli by a Russian military delegation. It said the government had rejected a Kurdish demand for pro-regime militiamen to withdraw from Hasaka, instead proposing that both sides disarm. A senior regime source told AFP that Russian efforts at mediation continued into Sunday.
The regime and Kurdish forces share a common enemy in ISIS, but there have been growing tensions between them in Hasaka. In the northern province of Aleppo, the scene of heavy clashes all month between government forces and rebels allied with extremists, 28 civilians were among 38 people killed Saturday in strikes by the regime and its Russian allies, the Observatory said. More than 290,000 people have lost their lives since Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, and millions have been forced to flee their homes.

Gunmen in Egypt kill informer, soldier at checkpoint north of Cairo
Reuters, Cairo Sunday, 21 August 2016/Gunmen killed an informer and a soldier and injured five other people, including two civilians, in an attack at a police checkpoint in the province of Menoufia north of Cairo, the director of the ambulance services said on Sunday. Security forces are searching for the men in that area, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Cairo, one security source said. Egypt's government is facing an insurgency that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen, mostly in northern Sinai, since mid-2013, when then-army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi ousted Islamist President Mohamed Mursi.
ISIS’s Egyptian affiliate, which calls itself Sinai Province, mainly operates out of the northern Sinai Peninsula, which borders Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal. Militants have also targeted security forces in central Cairo, its outskirts and elsewhere in the past few years.

Azerbaijan detains dissident over books by Erdogan’s foe
AP, Baku, Azerbaijan Sunday, 21 August 2016/Azerbaijan has detained a senior opposition figure for allegedly possessing books by US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, whom Baku’s ally Turkey accuses of masterminding last month’s coup. Azerbaijan, a mainly Muslim but secular ex-Soviet state on the Caspian Sea, has launched a crackdown on supporters of the cleric, whom Turkey accuses of masterminding the July 15 coup bid. Faig Amirov - an aide to Ali Kerimli, the leader of the Popular Front opposition party - is being held on suspicion of inciting religious hatred and faces up to five years in jail, his lawyer Agil Layijev told AFP on Sunday. Investigators said they found books by Gulen in the boot of the opposition figure’s car. Amirov, who is also the financial director of the main opposition newspaper, claims the books were planted after investigators pulled him in for questioning on Saturday, according to his lawer. Amirov says the books are not banned in Azerbaijan, and claims he has not make any statements that could be legitimately seen as inciting hatred, his lawyer added. Opposition leader Kerimli told AFP that Amirov was detained in his flat on Saturday morning by security officers in plain clothes who then searched his home.Amirov’s Azadlig (Freedom) opposition newspaper issued a statement saying the future of both the paper and freedom of speech in the country was under threat. Kerimli says the authorities have stepped up a “repressive campaign targeting me personally, the party and the newspaper,” using the pretext of a “made-up case” about links to Turkish preacher Gulen. Baku on Friday said it had arrested four men over suspected ties to the preacher, accusing one of keeping copies of his speeches at his home. Iran releases new missile defense system images.
Last month Azerbaijan shut down a private television channel over plans to broadcast an interview with Gulen, “in order to avoid provocations aimed at damaging the strategic partnership between Turkey and Azerbaijan”. Baku earlier this month opened a criminal investigation into supporters of Gulen, who has consistently denied any involvement in the failed putsch.

Tunisia's newly nominated prime minister presents government
AP, Tunis Saturday, 20 August 2016/Tunisia’s newly nominated prime minister has announced that his government will include members of the previous administration in key posts. Youssef Chahed said on Saturday that he was keeping seven ministers of the former government, including the defense, interior and foreign affairs portfolios.
Fiight against terror
He told reporters this choice was inspired by recent “successes” in the security field and the fight against terrorism. Tunisia suffered two major terror attacks last year - at a beach resort and at the well-known Bardo Museum - that killed around 60 people. The new governmental team of 26 senior ministers and 14 junior ministers includes eight women - up from three previously. Chahed, 41, was minister for local affairs in the government that fell last month. His government still needs approval from parliament.

Iran releases new missile defense system images
AFP, Tehran Sunday, 21 August 2016/Iran released images of its first domestically built long-range missile defense system on Sunday, a project started when the country was under international sanctions. Images released on multiple state news agencies showed President Hassan Rouhani and Minister of Defence Hossein Dehghan standing in front of the new Bavar 373 missile defense system. The system was designed to intercept cruise missiles, drones, combat aircraft and ballistic missiles, according to earlier statements by Dehghan. It was intended to match the Russian S-300 system, the delivery of which was suspended in 2010 due to sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program. “We did not intend to make an Iranian version of the S-300 -- we wanted to build an Iranian system, and we built it,” Dehghan told the IRNA news agency on Saturday. Rouhani said in a televised speech that Iran’s military budget had more than doubled compared with last year. “If we are able to discuss with world powers around the negotiating table, it is because of our national strength, because of our national unity,” he said. In 2015, shortly before the conclusion of an international agreement on the nuclear program, Moscow re-authorized the delivery of the S-300 system in a move criticized by the United States and Israel. Iran’s army said in May that it was now equipped with the S-300 system, though further parts are due over the coming months. Rouhani also unveiled the first Iranian-made fighter jet engine on Sunday, saying it was capable of flight at 50,000 feet. “The Islamic republic is one of eight countries in the world who have mastered the technology to build these engines,” the president said. Dehghan added that Iran was now looking to develop seaborne cruise missiles capable of supersonic speed. In 2015, shortly before the conclusion of an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme, Moscow re-authorized the delivery of the S-300 system in a move criticized by the United States and Israel. Iran’s army said in May that it was now equipped with the S-300 system, though further parts are due over the coming months.The new Bavar 373 has Iran’s first vertical launcher, using Sayad 3 missiles that were first tested in September 2014.

Iran- the Imam of Tehran Friday described the massacre of prisoners a great service rendered by Khomeini:
Sunday, 21 August 2016 /Ahmad Khatami, the Iranian regime’s Friday prayers leader, in Tehran and vice president of the Assembly of Experts, spoke Friday, August 19, 2016, about the shocking revelations of the deceased Hossein-Ali Montazeri (the hand-picked successor to Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the clerical regime,), which was made public on August 9.
Ahmad Khatami reacted to the publication of an audio file that surfaced this month — posted on a website maintained by supporters of Hossein Ali Montazeri revealing the confidential meeting between Montazeri and members of the “death commission” in charge of implementing a fatwa by Khomeini to massacre the prisoners.
The task of “death commission” was to liquidate in three months all political prisoners who were defending their beliefs beginning with the activists of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK).
Referring in his sermon to the comments made in the record concerning the People's Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI), mullah Khatami who is close to the regime’s Supreme Leader, said, "It seems that lately the world is against us, a new agenda, which is to revive PMOI.
Justifying the massacre of political prisoners in 1988, Mullah Khatami said "the conduct of the prisoners had changed ... maybe was it collusion with mohareb (those waging war against God)? The prisoners said they would remain firm on their positions. They were also considered enemies of God."
The secretary of the Assembly of Experts added: "What the Imam (Khomeini) did in ordering the executions in 1988 (the massacre of political prisoners) was a Quranic job, legal, revolutionary and a great service to the Muslim nation of Iran.”
Khatami added: "I thef Imam had not made this great service to the Iranian nation, then today we would face serious problems. There would be no security. Today we owe our security to the Imam Khomeini."
The audio file of Montazeri which was posted on the internet by his son has sent shockwaves in Iran. The Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) has called Montazeri's son and ordered him to withdraw the file from website.
In this recording, Montazeri described the massacre of political prisoners in 1988 as "the greatest crime" committed by the regime in Iran.
According to Afshin Alavi, a member of the Foreign affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), "the words of one of the most senior officials of the regime in the official ceremony of Friday prayers in Tehran is a clear recognition of the most terrible massacre perpetrated by the mullahs' regime. Khatami who- as Friday prayers leader - is representing the whole regime on this platform, confesses that the massacre was the means of survival for the regime."
Afshin Alavi called on governments and human rights organizations to "strongly condemn the criminal remarks." He reiterated the call of the Iranian Resistance in international forums to "bring to justice all those officials of the current regime, implicated in the massacre of political prisoners.
Afshin Alavi states that the massacre is ongoing, since the executions of political prisoners in Iran is continuing with impunity. Today the weakened regime is unsuccessfully finds the executions and the justification for these crimes, the only way of survival.”

METRO: Here’s what it’s like to be a political prisoner in Iran
NCRI/Sunday, 21 August 2016/The article, 'Here’s what it’s like to be a political prisoner in Iran' was published on Metro.co.uk, 20 Aug 2016. In this article Farzad Madadzadeh, the prominent Iranian political prisoner, speaks at length about the harsh conditions he experienced first-hand, and describes Shocking Treatment of the Political Prisoners Held in Evin Prison and its notorious Ward 209 – run by the intelligence ministry.
The following is the text of the article:
Farzad Madadzadeh had just dropped off a fare in Karaj and was returning to Tehran when his phone rang. It was the police, the officer on the line asked him to come to a station in the Iranian capital for what the taxi driver assumed were mundane reasons. ‘I thought that it related to my taxi driving,’ Farzad told metro.co.uk from a location In Paris. ‘Perhaps someone had taken my license plate down and reported me.’He was wrong. What followed was an arrest, months of interrogation, what he described as brutal beatings and solitary confinement, followed by a trial that lasted a matter of minutes and then five years in prison. But the taxi driver was one of the lucky ones. Arrested in 2009 and then released from prison in 2014, he was one of tens of thousands of prisoners incarcerated at that time. But while he faced a five year prison term, others wouldn’t escape with their lives. Amnesty International estimates that between 2013 and 2015 around 2,000 people have been executed in Iran. And a recent escalation – including the hanging of 20 Sunni inmates at Gohardasht Prison earlier this month – has left many fearing we could see a return of something akin to one of the bloodiest periods in Iran’s recent history. In 1988 the regime executed as many as 30,000 political prisoners. Something which The British Parliamentary Committee for Iran Freedom recently said should be considered a crime against humanity.
In 2009, Farzad became a political prisoner himself. His active support of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI), an opposition group within Iran, had captured the attention of the authorities. ‘When I went inside the station I saw that the atmosphere was not normal,’ he said. ‘There were several plain clothes policemen there. I didn’t realise at the time but they were agents of the ministry of intelligence.’
Farzad said once they realised it was him, he was jumped on and his possessions confiscated.
‘I asked them “who are you?” they told me “it has nothing to do with you”.
‘I said “give me a warrant”, “tell me what it’s about”.
‘They took a hood out put it on my head and threw me in a car.’
He would be taken to Evin Prison and its notorious Ward 209 – run by the intelligence ministry.
While there he would get first hand experience of the brutal methods used by interrogators to extract information from their prisoners. He said: ‘They would take me at eight or nine in the morning or eight or nine in the evening. ‘Whatever information they wanted from me, if I wouldn’t give it to them they would start to beat me. ‘There was three of them and they would kick me around like a football. ‘This was not just to extract information from me also they wanted me to make a false confession. ‘Provide false evidence against the PMOI. In essence, to lie about everything I believed in.‘But to be honest with you the worst of the torture was the solitary confinement.’
Farzad would spend two three month spells in solitary confinement.
The long spells can have a particularly sharp impact on both physical and mental health. British mum Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, who has just faced trial in Iran after she was accused of being a ‘Western spy’, was left unable to walk after 45 days. And ward 209 is not just for supporters of the PMOI.
Farzad explained: ‘Anybody who is arrested by the intelligence ministry of the revolutionary guard. First of all they are tortured, nothing else. ‘Unless that particular person from day one is willing to cooperate and say what ever the regime wants, that’s the only exception. ‘But even that is only after torture.’
As a supporter of the PMOI, Farzad had taken part in human rights activities, supported families of prisoners and conveyed their news outside Iran. He also took part in anti-regime protests, as he explained his ‘first priority was activities against the regime.’ Such activity carries a risk but as Farzad explained it was one he, and others, were prepared to face. He said: ‘It is the right of any individual to protest. I recognise this right for myself as well.
‘Many of my other friends realised this right for themselves. ‘Of course, the price is high many of them are in prison now, are executed now.
‘I accepted that if it comes to that I would be willing to pay the price for it with my life.
‘For me this sort of thing happened a lot in prison.’
For his participation in anti-regime activities, Farzad would eventually face two charges, something akin to ‘Enmity against God’ and also Having a Relationship with the PMOI.
He did appear in court, but not in a manner we would be used to seeing in the UK.
‘I was taken once to court. When the court session was held, it lasted five minutes,’ he continued.
‘In five minutes the judge told me you are accused of War on God and having a Relationship with the PMOI they do not give me a chance to defend myself.
‘I just told them “a lot to what you are saying are lies, I don’t accept what you are saying”
‘Two weeks later they informed me I had a five year sentence.’
Farzad would sevre four years of his term under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s rule and then the final year under that of Hassan Rouhani, the current president.
He said in that time, and since his release, things have got worse, not better.
He continued: ‘For us not only did the human rights situation not improve it got worse.
‘The atmosphere in prison became more closed, for example, hospital treatment for those that are ill, that was put off completely.
‘The number of arrests increased; teachers workers, all sorts of people. Also the number of executions of prisoners was higher.’
The increasing level of suppression has led to a growing fear that the government could exercise its power in a mass execution akin to that in 1988.
Last year alone, Amnesty International says some 977 prisoners were executed.
Farzad fears a repeat of what occurred in 88 is as a real possibility.
He said: ‘The atmosphere of the prisons is closed again and even the prisoners are warning their own relatives of this.
‘For example, just yesterday a letter was published by an opposition website from political prisoners warning the international community and human rights groups that another mass execution could take place.’
Multiple demonstrations have taken place across the world, including London, in recent weeks attempting to draw attention to what is happening in Iran.
‘Right now is a very worrying time inside Iran’ he continued. ‘The social atmosphere is very intense.
‘It’s like a powder keg every day there are protests and anything can trigger a protest.
‘The only tool the regime has to be able to maintain power is suppression and, in particular, execution.
‘The western governments must put pressure on the regime to make it stop.’
He added: ‘Right now these days you can find multiple protest in Tehran daily. Teachers, workers, this is of economic nature but a lot of it is political.
‘But all these protests what they seek is a regime change. This is very visible.
‘You can see it in the slogans they are chanting, the way they are acting and the protests they are holding.
‘All these arrests and executions they show Iranian society wants change.’

Tehran's Khavaran mass grave of victims of 1988 massacre of political prisoners
Sunday, 21 August 2016/NCRI - August 2016 - A supporter of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI or MEK) films the Khavaran mass grave in Tehran where large numbers of victims of the 1988 massacre of Iranian political prisoners were buried. In the summer of 1988, the Iranian regime summarily and extra-judicially executed tens of thousands of political prisoners held in jails across Iran. The massacre was carried out on the basis of a fatwa by the regime’s then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini. The vast majority of the victims were activists of the opposition PMOI (MEK).
A Death Committee approved all the death sentences. Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, a member of the Death Committee, is today Hassan Rouhani’s Justice Minister. The perpetrators of the 1988 massacre have never been brought to justice. On August 9, 2016, an audio tape was published for the first time of Khomeini’s former heir acknowledging that the massacre took place and had been ordered at the highest levels.

Palestinian rocket strikes Israeli town near Gaza
The Associated Press, Jerusalem Sunday, 21 August 2016/The Israeli military says a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip has landed in southern Israel. The army says the rocket struck the border town of Sderot on Sunday. There were no reports of injuries or damage. Israel and the Hamas militant group fought a 50-day war in the summer of 2014. Since then, a cease-fire has largely held. But militant groups in Gaza occasionally launch rockets toward Israel. Israel holds Hamas, which controls Gaza, responsible for all attacks emanating from the territory.
 

Israel Hits Hamas Targets in Gaza after Rocket Attack
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 21/Israel targeted Hamas positions in the Gaza Strip by air and with tank fire Sunday after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave crashed into the Israeli city of Sderot. Police said the rocket hit "between two buildings on a road" in Sderot, which is less than four kilometers (2.5 miles) from Gaza, causing no casualties. Army spokesman Peter Lerner said Israeli forces retaliated by hitting targets of the Palestinian Islamist movement in northern Gaza. "In response to the rocket attack from the Gaza Strip, the IAF (Israeli air force) and tanks targeted two Hamas posts in the northern Gaza Strip," Lerner said in a statement. Palestinian health and security sources said two people were lightly wounded by the Israeli fire. "One of them is a 20-year-old (young man) who was hit by shrapnel in the face," said Ashraf al-Qudra, spokesman for the Palestinian health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza. Security sources in the territory said several targets in northern Gaza were struck by Israeli fire, and that a reservoir in Beit Hanun was destroyed. Witnesses said a base of Hamas' military wing the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, in nearby Beit Lahya, was also hit. Israeli media said it was the first time downtown Sderot had been hit by a rocket from Gaza since the last war with Palestinian militants in the territory in 2014. On July 2, Israeli air raids hit four sites in Gaza after a rocket struck a building in Sderot. There were no casualties in either incident.

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on on August 21-22/16

France: "First the Saturday People, then the Sunday People"

من بعد السبت يأتي الأحد: القضاء على اليهود أولاً وعلى المسيحيين بعد ذلك

Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/August 21/16

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/08/21/uy-millieregatestone-institute-france-first-the-saturday-people-then-the-sunday-people%D9%85%D9%86-%D8%A8%D8%B9%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D8%A8%D8%AA-%D9%8A%D8%A3%D8%AA%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84/

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8657/france-islam

The path of Adel Kermiche, born in France to immigrant parents from Algeria, and one of the two men who murdered the elderly priest Father Jacques Hamel, looks like the path followed by many young French Muslims: school failure, delinquency, shift towards a growing hatred of France and the West, return to Islam, transition to radical Islam.
The French education system does not teach young people to love France and the West. It teaches them instead that colonialism plundered many poor countries, that colonized people had to fight to free themselves, and that the fight is not over. It teaches them to hate France.
All political parties, including the National Front, talk about the need to establish an "Islam of France". They never explain how, in the internet age, the "Islam of France" could be different from Islam as it is everywhere else.
Many French Jews fleeing the country recalled an Islamic phrase in Arabic: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people." In other words, first Muslims attack Jews; then when the Jews are gone, they attack Christians. It is what we have been seeing throughout the Middle East.
The slaughter of French priest Father Jacques Hamel on July 26 in Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray was significant. The church where Father Jacques Hamel was saying mass was nearly empty. Five people were present; three nuns and two faithful. Most of the time, French churches are empty.
Christianity in France is dying out. Jacques Hamel was almost 86 years old; despite his age, he did not want to retire. He knew it would be difficult to find someone to replace him. Priests of European descent are now rare in France, as in many European countries. The priest officially in charge of the parish of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, Auguste Moanda-Phuati, is Congolese.
The reaction of the French bishops was also significant. Speaking in their name, Georges Pontier, chairman of the Conference of Bishops of France, called on Catholics for a day of fasting and prayer. He also asked Muslims living in France to come to church to "share the grief of Christians." He added that Muslims are welcome in France.
The decision to deliver a message of brotherhood is consistent with the spirit of Christianity. The wish to welcome Muslims to France but to leave completely aside that the assassins of Father Jacques Hamel acted in the name of Islam and jihad seem signs of willful blindness, severely pathological denial, and a resigned, suicidal acceptance of what is coming.
The assassins of Father Jacques Hamel are what is coming. One of them, Adel Kermiche, was born in France to immigrant parents from Algeria. His path looks like the path followed by many young French Muslims: school failure, delinquency, shift towards a growing hatred of France and the West, return to Islam, transition to radical Islam. The other, Abdel Malik Petitjean, was born in France too. His mother is Muslim. His father comes from a Christian family. Abdel Malik Petitjean nevertheless followed the same path as Adel Kermiche. A growing number of young French-born Muslims radicalize. A growing number of young French people who have not been educated in Islam nevertheless turn to Islam, then to radical Islam.
Father Jacques Hamel was murdered on July 26, in the church of Saint-Étienne-du-Rouvray, by Islamic jihadists.
The French education system does not teach young people to love France and the West. It teaches them instead that colonialism plundered many poor countries, that colonized people had to fight to free themselves, and that the fight is not over. It teaches them to hate France. But it erroneously describes Islam as a religion that brought "justice, dignity and tolerance" wherever it reigned. Seventh-grade students spend the first month of the school year learning what Islamic civilization brought to the world in science, architecture, philosophy and wealth. A few weeks later, they have to memorize texts explaining that the Church committed countless atrocious crimes. Economics textbooks are steeped in Marxism and explain that capitalism exploits human beings and ravages nature. The Holocaust is still in the curriculum, but is taught less and less; teachers who dare to speak of it face aggressive remarks from Muslim students. A 2002 book, The Lost Territories of the Republic (Les territoires perdus de la république), exposed the problem. Since then, the situation has worsened considerably.
French mainstream media do their best to hide the truth. Abdel Malik Petitjean and Adel Kermiche are described as troubled and depressed young people who slipped "inexplicably" towards barbarity. Their actions are widely presented as having nothing to do with Islam. The same words were used to depict Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the jihadist who murdered 86 people in Nice on July 14th. These words were used to depict all the jihadists who killed in France during the last few years. Each time, Muslim intellectuals are invited to speak, and invariably explain that Islam is peaceful and that Muslims are guilty of nothing.
The anger expressed by political leaders after the attack in Nice has already faded. Some political leaders in France call for tougher measures, but speak of "Islamic terrorism " very rarely. They know that speaking too much of "Islamic terrorism" could be extremely bad for their future careers.
All political parties, including the National Front, talk about the need to establish an "Islam of France." They never explain how, in the internet age, the "Islam of France could be different from Islam as it is everywhere else.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls recently said that France would become an example -- a "center of excellence" in the "teaching of Islamic theology."
For several days after the attack in Nice, it seemed that the country was on the verge of explosion. This is no longer so. The French population seems resigned.
Manuel Valls was criticized when he argued that the French should learn to live with terrorism. Critics of that view now are rarer. The French sense that Islam in France is here to stay. They see that the risks of riots in lawless zones are huge and that all those in positions of responsibility think and act as if it were too late to reverse the course. Fear fills the air.
The French Jewish philosopher Shmuel Trigano recently published an article entitled, "Sacrificing victims for not having to fight the murderers." The French collectively accept the sacrifice of victims because they feel France will not have the strength and the fortitude to fight ruthless murderers. Most of the French seem helpless.
A book written by Antoine Leiris, the husband of one of the victims of the attacks of November 13, 2015 became a bestseller. It is called, You Will Not Have My Hatred. (Vous n'aurez pas ma haine) The author describes what happened at the Bataclan concert hall as a twist of fate, and say that he feels "compassion" for those who killed his wife.
What is happening today is a continuation of what has been happening here so far this century. In 2001-2003, France experienced a huge wave of anti-Semitic attacks by Muslims supporting the "Palestinian cause." The French government denied that the attacks were anti-Semitic. It also denied that they were perpetrated by Muslims. It chose appeasement, expressed loudly its own support for the "Palestinian cause," and added that the revolt of a "part of the population" was "understandable." It asked Jewish organizations to remain silent. French Jews began to leave France. Many of them recalled an Islamic phrase in Arabic: "First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people." In other words, first Muslims attack Jews; then when the Jews are gone, they attack Christians. It is what we have been seeing throughout the Middle East.
Attacks against non-Jews began in 2005: riots broke out all over France. The French government again chose appeasement, and said that the revolt of a "part of the population" would be "heard."
A Jew, Ilan Halimi, was tortured for three weeks and then murdered in Paris in 2006. Then, more Jews were murdered in Toulouse in 2012 and in a Paris suburb in 2015.
Now more and more often, non-Jews are attacked. The French government has repeatedly talked of war, but each time returns to a policy of appeasement.
Today, appeasement reigns, virtually unchallenged. All French political parties are choosing appeasement over confrontation, and hardly dare to call the danger by its name: radical Islam. The French choose submission: they have no real alternative.
Jews continue to flee. Synagogues and Jewish schools throughout the country are guarded around the clock by armed soldiers. Jews who are still in France know that wearing a skullcap or a Star of David is extremely dangerous. They seem to see that appeasement is a dead end. They often emigrate to the country that appeasers treat as a scapegoat and that Islamists want to destroy: Israel. They know that when in Israel, they might have to confront jihadists like those who kill in France, but they also know that Israelis are more ready to fight to defend themselves.
French non-Jews now see that appeasement will not allow them to be spared.
If they look around them in Western Europe, they see there are no more safe places; they have nowhere else to go. They know that hundreds of thousands of migrants in Germany can easily cross nonexistent borders. They know there are thousands potential jihadists in France, that the worst jihadi crimes in France are still to come, and that the authorities have no will to stop them.
There will be no civil war in France. The jihadists have won. They will kill again. They love to kill. They love death. They say, "we love death more than you love life."
One of the nuns present in the empty church said that after slaughtering Father Jacques Hamel, Adel Kermiche and Abdel Malik Petitjean smiled. They were happy.
**Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
© 2016 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.

US uncertainties trigger power game in Syria
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/August 21/16
There is a division of influence in Syria that could lead to outright territorial fragmentation.
What is happen­ing in Syria and the region today? The situation in the Middle East is so complex, involving so many countries that are at cross purposes, that it is difficult to predict anything. The only thing that can be said with any cer­tainty is that everyone is seeking to fill the vacuum caused by Washington’s disengagement from the region. This is a state of affairs that could lead to destruc­tive division and fragmentation, particularly in Syria.
This division could take place at any time. Each side in the Syrian conflict is seeking to safeguard areas under its control, awaiting a new US administration that will decide whether to take a more proactive role in Syria. Will Demo­cratic nominee Hillary Clinton fol­low US President Barack Obama’s foreign policy towards the region or seek a new tack? What about Republican rival Donald Trump? Can anybody even guess what his policy towards the region would be?
Given this looming deadline, there is a state of regional adjust­ment. Following signs of rap­prochement between Turkey and Russia, Iran has sought to readjust its position and also move closer to Turkey. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif visited Ankara and praised the Turkish government, highlighted Turkish- Iranian ties and congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on overcoming a recent failed military coup.
Zarif’s visit to Ankara took place after a historic meeting between Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those two leaders sought to draw a final line under the Turkish shooting down of a Russian jet — which Erdogan apol­ogised for in June — and confirmed Moscow would “step-by-step” lift sanctions from Ankara. “The axis of friendship between Moscow and Ankara will be restored,” Erdogan said during a news conference with Putin.
As for the wider reper­cussions of this restora­tion, that remains to be seen, particularly on the Syrian crisis where Moscow and Ankara are on opposing sides.
The question of Syrian Presi­dent Bashar Assad’s ultimate fate remains. Iran and Russia are well aware that the Assad regime has lost all legitimacy. It is not a ques­tion of if Assad will go, but when. This is something that was con­firmed by the latest developments in the battle for Aleppo. Moscow is waiting for the most opportune time to release its hand from the beleaguered Syrian president. It will only do so when the price is right.
Both Putin and Erdogan are un­der pressure domestically. Erdogan survived a failed military coup but is continuing to wrestle with his former allies in the Gulen Move­ment, which Erdogan claims was behind the July 15th failed coup attempt.
As for Putin, Russia’s economy is flagging and this was not helped by the diplomatic crisis with Tur­key, a vital foreign market. Both countries, and leaders, are in need of each other, it seems.
As for any future Iranian-Turkish rapprochement, there is ample rea­son to explain this.
In particular there is the question of the Kurds. The rise of the Islamic State (ISIS) has proven to be an opportunity for the region’s Kurds, who have shown themselves to be an invalu­able Western ally. Both Iran and Turkey are concerned about their countries’ Kurdish communities and the potential establishment of an independent Kurdish state.
In Syria and the wider region, each country is seeking to serve its own interests.
Previously, Iran and Russia had somewhat disregarded Turkey’s involvement in Syria but the recent rebels’ advance — which can be traced to arms and equipment from across the nearby Turkish border — shows that this is misplaced. Aleppo is an issue of life or death for Erdogan’s Turkey. “Turkey’s security belt starts from Mosul to Aleppo and north to Su­laimaniya,” former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu famously said.
Still, Assad will remain, so long as Russia and Iran protect him and Russia and Iran will continue to protect him, so long as this serves their overall interests. All sides are therefore waiting for the new US administration, or any other factor, that could tip the balance one way or the other.
There is a division of influence in Syria that could lead to outright territorial division and fragmen­tation. This might happen but it could also be averted. Syria’s future is in the balance.
Khairallah Khairallah is a Lebanese writer. The commentary was translated and adapted from the Arabic. It was initially published in middle-east-online.com.

Omran Daqneesh’s message
Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/August 21/16
Even after hundreds of thousands of deaths, picture of one single casualty in Syria’s bloody war can still move us.
If truth is the first casualty of war, children are a very close second. The advent of the modern media — the constant bombardment of information, the 24-hour channels and the internet with hundreds of websites offering news from all perspectives along with social media — has rendered many people almost immune to the harshness and the realities of war. Chronicling the violence of conflicts has become so common that we hardly flinch at the monstrosities unfolding on our television screens, laptops, smartphones and tablets.
However, every so often there emerges an image — a single image — that makes us pause and reflect. A particular photograph that succeeds in capturing a fraction of an instant, the fraction of a second in the immense drama, giving us a very brief aperçu into the insanity and the cruelty of war. If you have any doubts about how cruel war can be, especially on children, take a good look at the image of 5-year-old Omran Daqneesh.
This image of another Syrian boy, identified as Omran, shows him moments after he was rescued from the rubble of a building in Aleppo that was destroyed by aerial bombardment by Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar Assad or Russian warplanes.
What is particularly gripping about this image is the look on the boy’s face. Omran’s eyes are focusing off into space. He is quite possibly reliving in his mind the horror of what he just lived through; playing back memories of events that just occurred, reliving the horrendous sound of warplanes sweeping over the city, the sound of rockets fired, the explosions, a tremendous bang, death knocking on his door, the smoke, the dust, the building collapsing around him. The cries of pain from the wounded around him and the eerie silence of those killed.
The young boy who has become overnight an iconic symbol of Syria’s tragedy has the same look in his eyes found in many soldiers after a particularly vicious battle. As with the previous image of the tortured Syrian youth, there will be many calls for an end to the violence, regretfully a call that will very likely also be ignored.Earlier in the Syrian civil war, there was the unforgettable image of Aylan Kurdi, an innocent 3-year-old Syrian whose body washed up on the shore of Turkey. That image moved the world to tears and led to cries for greater efforts to stop the war in Syria, a war that has driven nearly a quarter of the country’s population into exile, claimed the lives of some 450,000 people and maimed possibly more than 2 million others.
Well, the war did not stop, the fighting continues and now there emerges another iconic moment from the madness of this conflict, now in its fifth year.
Much like the picture of the boy who drowned, the heart-wrenching pictures of young Omran, showing him moments after his rescue, his face and body covered with dust and dirt, will undoubtedly raise new calls for cessation of the fighting and killing.
Worldwide reactions to Omran Daqneesh’s picture tell us something fundamental: Even after hundreds of thousands of deaths, the picture of one single casualty in Syria’s bloody war can still move us. That’s probably the only glimmer of hope in the tragedy.

Egypt’s church-building bill is milestone for Copts
Hassan Abdel Zaher/The Arab Weekly/21 August/16
Some Christians travel hundreds of kilometres each week to worship because of lack of churches near their homes.
CAIRO - The Egyptian parliament is to consider legislation giving Egypt’s Copts the right to construct churches just as their Muslim compatriots can build mosques. There are fears, however, the measure could trigger opposition from radical Muslims that would politically destabilise Egypt. Christian member of parliament Suzy Nashid said the bill, if passed, would “give Christians a right they have been struggling to attain for close to a century”. But, she warned the measure could be meaningless, even if enacted, if authorities fail to enforce it.”

The growing number of Christians in Egypt has dwarfed the number of churches. Only a fraction of the country’s more than 9 million Christians — about 10% of the overall population — can fit into church pews. The bill, which is expected to be referred to parliament for debate in the next few weeks, allows Christians to file a request to build a church with the offices of provincial governors for approval. It also allows them to request licences for the scores of unlicensed churches and houses of worship.
The bill is a milestone in the struggle of Egypt’s Christian Copts for equality with their Muslim compatriots who can easily construct mosques after filing a request with municipal authorities. Copts have long complained that they are unable to build churches or renovate older ones. Church construction and renovation have been regulated by rules in force since 1934.

Authorities who formulated the rules were so keen to prevent the Christian minority from establishing new churches that they made them almost impossible to meet. Christians who want to build a church currently have to demonstrate that they own the land, that it is far enough away from a mosque and not close to a concentration of Muslim residents. Other conditions include that there are no other churches nearby and that there are enough Christians in the area to make the construction of a church necessary.
Some Christians travel hundreds of kilometres each week to worship because of the lack of churches near their homes.
“Sometimes Christians have to make their churches look like homes or factories to evade these unbeatable church construction rules,” said Christian activist Ishaq Ibrahim. Unlicensed churches have triggered bloody clashes in Egypt, especially in southern provinces where radical Islamist groups have a strong following. There are fears that the new bill could anger Egypt’s Muslim majority fanned by radical Islamists who oppose freedom of faith.
Egypt’s Islamists, especially ultra-orthodox Salafists and the banned Muslim Brotherhood, oppose the presence of Christian houses of worship. They also say Christians should not occupy top government positions or serve in the judiciary. Muslim Brotherhood supporters torched dozens of churches in July 2013 after accusing Christians of being behind the overthrow of Islamist president Muhammad Morsi. The army rebuilt the churches.
“The same propaganda can be used now but this time the current authorities can be accused by radicals of paying the Christians back by allowing them to build new churches,” Ibrahim said. Extremists have been behind the demolition of scores of unlicensed churches and the closure of others.
At least 48 churches were closed because their builders did not have construction licences but built them anyway, according to local non-governmental organisation Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights. It faults the new bill for not referring to those churches, which, it said, means they could remain closed.
The bill is in line with Article 235 of the constitution, which makes it necessary for parliament to pass a law to regulate the construction of churches. Under the new bill, governors can approve church construction requests only after consulting “concerned agencies”. Critics say these “concerned agencies” are Egypt’s security apparatus.
“The problem is that security should have nothing to do with church construction,” said Emad Gad, another Christian member of parliament. “Such a requirement will bring us back to square one where Christian religious life is controlled by the security apparatus.”
***Hassan Abdel Zaher is a Cairo-based contributor to The Arab Weekly.

The people of Aleppo are not waiting for US elections
Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya 21/16
Life, political developments, murder and destruction in Aleppo will not be put on hold until November, when Americans elect a new president. No one should expect him or her to be very different from current President Barack Obama regarding bad US policy in our region. The current American retreat is not exclusive to Obama. It is not a policy he created, but the expression of a national mood that is shifting toward isolation and domestic economic affairs. The United States is supposed to rise up in anger as it sees Russian long-range bombers take off from Iran’s Hamedan International Airport to shell targets in Syria. It should not be angered out of concern for the Syrian people - this is not part of Obama’s calculations as he has more than once failed this moral test. It should be angered on the basis of strategic balances in the region, as this development is as significant as the Czech arms deal that late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser sealed with the Soviets in 1955, and which marked their arrival in the region. The US reaction then was a series of strategic mistakes that strengthened the Soviet presence. However, at least there was a reaction.
US retreat
This time, Washington has settled for voicing its concern and dissatisfaction, and said allowing Russian bombers to take off from Hamedan violates last year’s nuclear deal. This means it will do nothing. The United States has not done anything to curb the Russians in Ukraine, so why do we expect it do something in our region? We must unfold the map of northern Syria as we analyze statements that the Americans and Russians will begin joint operations in the context of the war on terror in Aleppo. The Americans and Europeans who after World War II did not hesitate to engage in foreign adventures - whether smart or not - are now gone. They have been replaced by young leaders who are more occupied with healthcare, interest rates and enjoying life more. However, the United States, Britain and France recall that they are superpowers now and then, so they practice foreign policy but in a confusing manner that includes indifference and retreat from red lines, but excludes intervening to protect the Syrian people.
They stand by and observe as rebels and armed gangs in Yemen reject UN peace proposals. The international community did not get angry when the Houthis rejected the initiative of UN special envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh following four months of talks in Kuwait. It could not even hold a UN Security Council session. It settled with saying negotiations will continue. The same goes for Syria. There are negotiations but no real international efforts, and these talks end without achieving anything. The only thing that is happening is more Russian, Iranian, and most recently Chinese involvement. The only efficient reactions come from the Syrian and Yemeni resistance, which await more support from Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
Russian intervention
Is Russia getting more involved in the Syrian war because it is happy to display its strength to the weak Americans? Or because Moscow is afraid of the rising power of jihadists who leave Russia, Chechnya, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Dagestan and later return? No one agrees on the number of these jihadists. Most of them are with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and a few are with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front). There are independent jihadists who belong to neither. Syria has turned into an arena for global jihad. Why have the Russians not listened to Saudi and Turkish warnings that what they are doing there is nurturing this environment? Even China, which is worried about the rising power of the Islamic Party of Turkestan, has started to look forward to playing a role in Syria. And why not? Russia preceded it, and the Syrian regime – which has abandoned all forms of sovereignty – welcomed it and is willing to receive and cooperate with anyone willing to fight alongside it and protect it. The regime does not care what the aim and interests of these forces are. Most jihadists from the former Soviet states belong to ISIS, while Chinese jihadists are closer to al-Qaeda and their relations with Syrian rebels are good, having done well during the recent battle to end the siege of Aleppo.
Cooperation
We must unfold the map of northern Syria as we analyze statements that the Americans and Russians will begin joint operations in the context of the war on terror in Aleppo. This is what Russia’s defense minister said, but the Americans have not echoed this. Before that, there were statements about Russian-Turkish cooperation in the war on terror in Syria, following a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan. These notions will most probably collapse over the issue of who the terrorists are. The Turks view the US-backed Kurds as militants. The Russians view everyone as terrorists, while the Americans no longer know where they stand. Perhaps the people of Aleppo are the best strategic analysts in the region. They are not waiting for the US election results, or for agreement on labelling terrorists. They did not wait for the result of the meeting between their Turkish ally and Russian enemy. They agreed to end the siege of their city. They united, succeeded, and turned the table on everyone. It does not matter who supplied them with the TOW missiles that destroyed Russian armored vehicles – whether it was Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Qatar or all three. It did not matter to them whether their battle and victory would serve their allies’ regional agendas. What matters to them is imposing their agenda on everyone, from Moscow to Washington via Riyadh and Ankara. They have gained the respect and acknowledgment they deserve.
**This article was first published in Al-Hayat on Aug. 20, 2016.

A Syrian boy’s photo and the degradation of values
Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya 21/16
The photograph of Omran Daqneesh, the Syrian boy who was pulled from rubble in Aleppo, has made headlines across the world. There’s nothing like the Syrian tragedy and Omran’s photo is a symbol. It is a story that sums up what’s happening in Syria. Omran sat quietly on the chair in the ambulance, shocked and unaware of what was going on around him as his eyes gazed into nothingness. This is what immortalized the photo and why it is significant. According to a nurse, the child did not shed a single tear until he saw his mother and father. “He’s in shock. He did not say a word other than to ask about his mother and father who were saved after him. He started to cry the second he saw them,” the nurse said. International abandonment of Syria is the most terrible thing to happen since World War II. In 1995, then-US President Bill Clinton intervened in Bosnia and Herzegovina and crushed Milosevic and gave him two options: to either impose peace by force or accept the terms of a peace plan. Thus came the Dayton Agreement which ended the war. The US did the same in Kosovo. Consecutive American administrations have been strict about maintaining peace in the world based on the responsibility that “American domination” entails. International abandonment of Syria is the most terrible thing to happen since World War II. US President Barack Obama said that a large portion of his grey hair is due to meetings he attends on Syria. History will document the photos of Omran and Aylan Kurdi and mark that the 17 million refugees and 300,000 Syrian people killed since the crisis erupted are the outcome of international and American inaction. While fiercely criticizing Obama for abandoning Syria, Fouad Ajami said: “Don't tell a man to go to hell unless you intend to send him there.”
This article was first published in Okaz on Aug. 21, 2016.

The Russian expansion in the region
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya 21/16
Although it’s surprising that the Russians have a military base for their troops in Iran, what’s stranger is that the Iranian regime has granted them a foothold in its territory. Military cooperation between Moscow and Tehran has existed for a long time, during which the Russians used Iranian airspace and military airports to carry out their joint operation aimed at defending the Assad regime. Why have relations taken a step forward with Russians being granted the use of an Iranian military base, instead of Iran simply allowing the Russians to use their airspace? This makes the situation suspicious and we will continue to wonder about the nature of this new alliance until we are provided with convincing answers. I doubt that the joint war in Syria is the only motivation behind this development in military relations. There was cooperation between the two countries before the existence of the base and that period of cooperation achieved its goals. However, it now seems that Moscow is resorting to mystery and to sending contradictory messages. Around three months ago, the Kremlin officially announced the withdrawal of most of its troops from Syria. It said it had accomplished most of the goals it went to Syria to achieve. Weeks after this announcement was made, the world found out that the Russian command had actually increased its participation in the war and escalated its sorties in Syrian airspace.
Does Moscow’s step toward expanding its military activity in the Middle East, including the adoption of Iran’s Hamadan airport as a base for Russian aircraft, have anything to do with its struggle with NATO in central Asia, eastern Europe and what used to be Soviet Union republics?
The Russian government’s NATO representative spoke to television channel Russia Today and said that NATO had moved toward implementing a deterrent plan against Russia. He added that the Western alliance was deploying four battalions in eastern European countries to enhance its presence in the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea and also stated that NATO was intensifying its patrols in Baltic countries.
It is likely that Moscow’s rapprochement with Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime will come at the expense of its relations with other countries in the Middle East. Even if confronting the West is the Russian excuse for using Iran as a military headquarters, this does not justify its support of Tehran , a move which cannot be considered within the map of strategic balance against NATO. Truth be told, Iran is engaged in wars which do not concern the US, such as the wars in Syria and Yemen. Syria is the focus of the alliance between Moscow and Tehran, however, the ongoing Syrian crisis does not concern the Americans who have refused to intervene.
Contradicting the reality on the ground
The Iranians are cooperating with the Americans in Iraq on a military level, something we have seen play out in Anbar, Fallujah and most recently in Mosul. Therefore, if the Russian justification behind their alliance with Iran is that it’s directed against the US and NATO in general, it contradicts the facts of the battlefield. It is likely that Moscow’s rapprochement with Ayatollah Khamenei’s regime will come at the expense of its relations with other countries in the Middle East. I don’t rule of that Russia will abort all recent efforts at rapprochement with Arab Gulf countries and indeed other countries which have expressed interest in bolstering relations with Russia – something we have not seen for a century. Many Arab leaders, presidents and kings have visited the Kremlin, signed economic deals and agreed on unprecedented military purchases. These visits, and the Arab rapprochement with Moscow, led many military and political figures in Washington to criticize Barack Obama’s administration for the perceived abandonment of US relations in the Arab region, leaving the space open to the Russians. What do the Iranians want? In granting the Russians the Hamadan military base, the Iranians may be aiming to negotiate with, and blackmail, the Americans following the apparent failure of the nuclear agreement which was reached last year between Iran and the West. The alternative to the agreement is military cooperation between Iran and the Russians but what’s new about that? Cooperation between the two countries is nothing new, however, the Iranians now want Russia to be more than an arms trading partner and instead become an ally in Iran’s wars. These are all the possible scenarios one imagines when analyzing the Iranian-Russian decision. To recap, the alliance between the two countries could reflect Moscow’s desire to expand its military and political influence, or it could be part of the Russian strategy to confront Iran, or it could be part of an Iranian plan to blackmail the West into activating the nuclear agreement.
**This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on Aug. 21, 2016.

Where exactly do we stand on Brexit?
Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya 21/16
Heaven for some, hell for others, such are the divisions over Britain’s decision to leave the European Union that certainly have not healed seven weeks after the 23 June vote. The genuine whole-hearted leavers are anxious to charge forward with a full disengagement from the world’s largest trading bloc.
The ardent remainers still dream that somehow exit can still be avoided and hope that since the vote is not legally binding the Parliament will ignore it. Many in the European Union just want to move it along. Prime Minister Theresa May is fond of restating that “Brexit means Brexit” but is it that clear exactly what Brexit will mean? Is it a full divorce or just some form of partial separation? Various newspaper reports claim that Brexit will not happen until at least 2019. Article 50, the trigger clause for the divorce, may, it is reported, not even be invoked until late 2017. Officially the position is that it will not happen in 2016. The argument is that elections in France and Germany in 2017 create too much uncertainty given that Britain will not know with whom it will be negotiating. The reality is that things have calmed down and having taken stock, the overarching atmosphere in Britain is one of resilient calm in the face of an uncertain future. The milder leavers know they have to carry the rest of the country with them and that too much haste could damage trust in the project. The milder remainers no longer argue that it will be all doom and gloom. After all, those who led the charge for Brexit apparently had zero idea let alone a plan as to what should happen following a successful leave vote. Boris Johnson, one of the leaders of the campaign and now foreign secretary, appeared stunned to have won, his confused post-referendum newspaper articles undermined his leadership bid. Others asked what their plan was, claimed that this was the job of Downing Street not them. Britain jumped over the cliffs of Dover blindfolded. There is still no comprehensive national debate over exactly what sort of relationship Britain should have with the EU in the future
This means that coming in terms with the full gamut of implications of the vote and leaving the EU takes time. A new ministry has been created just for leaving the EU. Tensions between the three key ministries - this new one, the Foreign Office and the new Ministry for International Trade (exacerbated as they are headed by three rival Brexiteer ministers) - may see the start of a seismic turf war. Of course, as critics point out, the leavers promised to cut bureaucracy, not increase it. It is a gamble not having one specific political address to handle the issue but the suspicion is that ultimately, Theresa May wants it to be her as prime minister. All ministries and other authorities have to prepare and this takes time. Remember that Britain has not been involved in bilateral trade negotiations as a member of the EU, so it is now employing a bevy of hugely paid consultants to prepare the ground, additional bureaucracy that could cost in excess of £5 billion over a decade.
The steadied ship
Economically the ship has steadied, the pound did as expected plummet but not as drastically as some feared. Inflation has not shot upwards, just a 0.6 percent rise and the cost of borrowing has decreased and in fact the threat is from negative interest rates. But international banks are anxious, aghast at the absence of a strategic plan to defend London’s pre-eminent position as a global financial center. Yet matters are also far from resolved. It is not black and white - is it ever? There is still no comprehensive national debate over exactly what sort of relationship Britain should have with the EU in the future. Some still argue for the free movement of people, the Rubicon that must not be crossed for core leavers. Will there be a Norwegian style relationship with the EU, with all the trading privileges but no political influence in Brussels? Norway has already hinted that this option may not even be possible as it might veto Britain’s membership of the European Free Trade Association. There is also the Canadian option, based on Canada’s comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement, perhaps the EU’s most advanced trade deal yet. However, this did take seven years to negotiate. Constitutional issues are massively difficult. The Scottish first Minister Nicola Sturgeon resolutely insists that Scotland should remain within the EU, perhaps following another independence referendum. But then if Scotland was independent and a part of the EU, would there have to be a proper hard border with the rest of Britain? Border issues plague Irish politics too as here delicate border arrangements as part of the Northern Irish peace process could be undermined. Immigration remains the touch paper issue. Can it be controlled and to what extent should it be? The 2.9 million EU citizens in Britain still face uncertainty as to their future status. Most worrying are the continued societal tensions and hate crime against immigrants, and indeed Muslims, that has continued since the referendum. Britain is then not making a hasty spring for the exit, more a long-drawn out crawl, but still with very little idea of what is on the other side of the door.

What Israel gained from the Turkey deal and what it means for the region
Yossi Melnan/Jerusalem Post/August 21/16

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/08/21/yossi-melnanjerusalem-post-what-israel-gained-from-the-turkey-deal-and-what-it-means-for-the-region/
Israel stands to gain the most from the reconciliation agreement with Turkey that was finally approved – after a long delay – over the weekend.
Ultimately, Israel did not back down and agree to Turkey’s initial demand that it be allowed to transfer goods directly to Gaza without Israeli supervision. However, while Turkey committed to remove Hamas’s military headquarters and activists from its territory, the Israeli defense establishment is doubtful this will happen.The Turkish parliament is passing legislation that will cancel the lawsuits it had filed against IDF officers and soldiers who were involved in the Mavi Marmara incident conducted by the Israeli Navy, an episode in which 10 Turkish citizens were killed attacking Israeli commandos.
According to the new law, it will not be possible for Turkish citizens to file similar lawsuits in the future.Turkey’s achievements, though, are mostly ones of honor.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologized for the six-year-old incident. In about three weeks, Israel will also transfer $21 million to a humanitarian fund that will be managed by the Turkish government. The funds will be distributed by the Turkish government to families impacted by the incident and those who were wounded in the flotilla.Both countries will reinstate ambassadors to each other’s embassies, re-establishing the highest diplomatic relations, but this is also only a symbolic step. As far as economic relations are concerned, relations between the two nations were actually ongoing during the last six years and trade even increased. Turkey has changed much over the years and not for the better. By maintaining a failing foreign policy, she found herself isolated and conflicted with her neighbors: Syria, Iraq, the Kurds and, until recently, Russia. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s regime secretly supported ISIS, purchasing oil from the terrorist organization while smuggling weapons and allowing terrorist supporters from Europe, Russia, China and Southeast Asia to pass through its borders on their way to the killing fields of the Islamic state. On the other hand, Turkey allowed and assisted refugees, mainly from Syria, to infiltrate Europe – which undermined Turkey’s relations with the European Union.
The United States for years urged Israel to sign the reconciliation agreement. Following the coup attempt in Turkey late last month, relations between Ankara and Washington have considerably soured, in part due to the United States’ refusal to extradite Erdogan’s sworn enemy, Fethullah Gulen, whom the Turkish president blames for the military uprising. Erdogan is also looking to reconcile with Russia and rebuild ties with Iran, which supports Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Now Turkey is singing a different tune, and is no longer demanding Assad’s removal from power, instead publicly stating the need for Syria to maintain its integrity and stop the Kurdish population from establishing its own state. Israel must continue to be cautious in its relations with Turkey and take a respectful, yet wary, approach. Erdogan will continue to support Hamas, and it is doubtful that his intelligence services would agree to renewed links with the Mossad. The prospect that Turkey will return to the Israeli arms market is also dim, though there is little doubt that Ankara will not hesitate to purchase Israeli-made drones or intelligence equipment for its war against the Kurds. Perhaps most important of all, Israel does not want to be a part of a Russian effort to establish a new alliance in the Middle East that looks to push out the United States.
Even so, Washington is not pleased with Netanyahu’s frequent dealings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has visited four times in the last year, and is not convinced that their relationship is based solely on creating a coordinated mechanism designed to prevent accidents between their air forces as they fly above Syria. Perhaps this explains former prime minister Ehud Barak’s cryptic remarks, statements he declined to explain publicly, on “another affair” that demonstrates the lack of responsibility on the part of Netanyahu.

Exclusive: The Sunni tribe that survived a two-year Islamic State siege in Iraq
Seth J. Frantman/Jerusalem Post/August 21/16
ISIS swept through Iraq in June 2014, captured Mosul and days later was in Tikrit, the birthplace
birthplace of Saddam Hussein, and Baiji, a major oil-refining town on the Tigris river.
Then its fighters, outfitted with Humvees they had captured from the fleeing Iraqi Army, swept 150 kilometers to the southwest to the gates of Haditha, a town of 25,000.
The extremists called a local and powerful sheikh of the Jughayfa tribe and demanded he surrender. They offered him money. The sheikh responded with an Arabic insult “taksha wa takeb,” in the local dialect meaning something like “screw off.” The sheikh said they’d “fight until we win or die here in Haditha.”
When the siege of Haditha was broken in May 2016, the Jughayfa tribe and its allies had resisted ISIS for almost two years. They were battle-hardened and ruthless. Brett McGurk, the US special envoy for the global coalition to counter ISIS, tweeted that ISIS had said the Jughayfa would be wiped out. “Not quite. ISIS terrorists impaled themselves.”
In an exclusive interview with The Jerusalem Post, a member of the tribe who fought ISIS describes why the tribe chose to fight and the issues facing Iraq today. He even thinks it’s time for Arabs to be friends with Israel. To protect his identity he goes by the name Ahmed al-Hadithi.
The Jughayfa are a tribe located in Anbar province, Iraq’s largest, which contains 138,000 sq. km. of mostly desert in the west of the country.
According to al-Hadithi, there are more than 300,000 members of the tribe, with some living far away in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia; Al-Bukamal across the border in Syria; and in Mosul.
The tribe has sub units with their own powerful local sheikhs.
“The tribe had little to do with Saddam Hussein’s government or political matters [before 2003] and lived by fishing, hunting, raising cattle and shepherding,” says al-Hadithi.
However, after the US invasion in 2003, the Jughayfa decided to work with the new regime in Baghdad and they became deeply opposed to the terrorist groups, such as al-Qaida, that were operating throughout Sunni areas.
Al-Hadithi gives a long list of terrorist groups the tribe had to contend with, including Ansar al-Sunnah, Jaish Muhammad, Kata’eb Thorat al-Ashrin and Al-Tawhid wal-Jihad. These groups had entered the vacuum created by the post-Saddam chaos. Alongside other tribes, such as the Albu Nimr, the tribe joined the al-Sahwah or Awakening movement in 2006 and partnered with US forces hunting the extremists.
“When the US took Haditha, they established a forward operating base here and supported us to capture and kill terrorists. We took 16 villages around Haditha, including positions held by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi [a wanted terrorist].”
Haditha is a strategic town. Around 200 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, it is the third-largest town in Anbar province and located next to Iraq’s second-largest dam, the Haditha. It is also about 20 km. from the massive Ayn al-Asad Air Base, which was a center of US operations after 2003.
When ISIS swept toward Haditha in the summer of 2014 and the sheikhs refused to surrender, the source recalls seeing the Iraqi Army fleeing toward Asad Air Base.
“We stopped them gave them two options, one is to give all their vehicles and weapons and go, and the second is to stand as men and fight alongside us. They picked the second option.”
In the view of al-Hadithi, ISIS’s main core of support in Iraq came from terrorists released in 2012 by corrupt Iraqi politicians close to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. They joined forces across the border with extremists, who were actually fighting the Sunni-led rebellion against Syrian President Bashar Assad and undermined the rebellion in Syria.
“The Turkish government allowed ISIS fighters to move through Turkey, believing these fighters were helping the revolutionaries take down the Assad regime,” he says.
But they weren’t, a fact Turkey realized only later.
In this complex arrangement, ISIS was able to draw on tens of thousands of foreign fighters, undermine the rebellion against Assad and spread into Iraq, where it captured masses of equipment from the Iraqi Army.
“In Mosul, they captured banks full of salaries for government employees,” says al-Hadithi, who asserts that many ISIS supporters had fond memories of Hussein.
“Everyone remembers pictures of Saddam on the Humvees of ISIS in Mosul, and Ba’ath Party posters on bridges in Tikrit. They said they were coming in the name of Saddam to remove Maliki, not as jihadists.”
The source claims that ISIS deceived local people by naming their local offices as Majlis Askaria, or “military councils” and created a core of Saddam-era officers to rebuild their new ISIS military units.
“This made people think they are officers from the previous government, which made most of the Sunni join them, and they even hid their [black] ISIS flags.”
Then ISIS began killing anyone who opposed them, massacring more than 1,600 mostly Shi’a Iraqi cadets at Camp Speicher in June of 2014, recording it in bloody videos.
They killed members of the Nimr tribe who resisted.
“For us, al-Jughayfa tribe, we were collecting intelligence on al-Qaida members because we had sources and intel about terrorists who had met six months before Mosul fell.”
He says the tribe realized the connections between the former al-Qaida they had been fighting and ISIS.
“Why should we join a group of terrorist killers?” In the fall of 2014, ISIS continually pressed its offensive against Haditha and Asad Air Base, which became the tribe’s only lifeline to the outside world. In February, ISIS closed in on the air base and in May it captured Ramadi. But the Jughayfa held on.
On social media, tribal members put up the logo of the local comic book Punisher with two AK-47s above it. There would be no quarter given to ISIS.
“The Iraqi central government did not support us with one rifle. We bought our own ammunition and guns from the black markets and recovered many heavy weapons from ISIS’s failed attacks,” al-Hadithi says.
In addition, US forces and coalition air strikes helped the tribe weaken the enemy. “It made them afraid to get closer to the city.”
Nevertheless, ISIS fighters continued to throw themselves at the tribesmen. One tribal fighter named Abu Muhammad told reporter Alia Allana that in 2014 they came in human-wave attacks, seeking “martyrdom” and charging the lines of the defenders. The battle of Haditha became a symbol of resistance to ISIS and has shown that there are many Sunnis willing to fight and oppose the extremists.
But al-Hadithi thinks ISIS will not be defeated easily in the coming months, because the Iraqi Army continues to employ “bad officers and corrupt officers.” He says there are cases where local police were bribed to delete the names of wanted ISIS members, and that in Falluja security forces found payments to one ISIS member while his brother sits on a local council in Anbar.
As Sunnis in Anbar, tribes like Jughayfa that lost so much fighting ISIS do not see themselves receiving political benefits for their sacrifice.
The source says they should receive support from foreign countries to encourage them to keep fighting terrorism and extremism.
The Iraqi Army doesn’t want local Sunni tribal forces becoming too strong. “Neither the Western countries [in the anti-ISIS coalition] nor the Iraqi government listen to our needs.”
He argues that the influence of Iranian-backed Shi’a militias in the war against ISIS is merely the “other face of terrorism.” This has drawn the Jughayfa closer to the Kurdish forces that have been fighting ISIS.
“I will be happy for them to announce themselves as an independent country, and 10 years from now we will see a strong country, which is good for them,” he says.
Hadithi also thinks other minority groups such as Yazidis and Christians will never be safe in Iraq from terrorists such as ISIS or al-Qaida and should create their own militias and armies to fight and defend themselves.
In his most controversial statement, Hadithi says the US might be more safe with Donald Trump and that Western countries should be wary of extremists among Muslim immigrants.
Asked if accusations that Trump is anti-Muslim don’t bother, him he is adamant: “America gave [the lives] of 5,000 soldiers in Iraq and because of stupidity of the [administration of US President Barack] Obama they pull out from Iraq. In Arab culture if someone is killed, someone else should take revenge for them.”He implies that Trump’s policies would lead to less chaos and intervention while backing up US words with actions. He argues that the West needs to take seriously the need to support armed groups that will hunt down and kill terrorists.
When it comes to Israel’s role in the region, he sees a country with strong technology and says many are afraid of Israel’s power.
“They [Israelis] have a right to raise the Israeli flag because they made that land the most beautiful in the Middle East,” he says, recalling stories his father told him about a Jewish trader who lived in Haditha in the 1970s and sold rice. “Hopefully, we will have them back like in the past when we used to live together as friends and partners.”Today, Haditha’s siege has been lifted. The blue waters above the dam are calm, and the road to Baghdad is open. The tribal fighters continue to oppose ISIS, as Iraq’s army sets its sights on Mosul.
However, for those tribal members who fought for two years, the uncertainty over the future of Iraq and their role in it remains.