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Bible Quotations For Today
The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 03/01-06: "In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high-priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. He went into all the region around the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah, ‘The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: "Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth; and all flesh shall see the salvation of God." ’

Suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us
Letter to the Romans 05/01-11: "Since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on january04-05.16.htm
Nasrallah settled an account, but did so with caution/Ron Ben-Yishai /Ynetnews/January 05/16
Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Israeli angle/Herb Keinon/Jesusalem Post/January 05/16
Iran-Saudi sectarian proxy wars set to explode, Israeli experts say/Jesusalem Post/January 05/16
Is Saudi Arabia next target of Islamic State/Week in Review/Al-Monitor/January05/16
By cutting ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia executed the 48th terrorist/Faisal J. Abbas/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
Why exclude Nimr al-Nimr from punishment/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
Saudi-Turkish cooperation: Opportunities and challenges/Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood has become one big mess/Raed Omari/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
Palestinian Leaders Promise a New Year of Violence and Death/Khaled Abu Toameh/2016 Gatestone Institute/January 04/16
New Year's Wish: A Worthwhile Palestinian Partner for Peace/Jagdish N. Singh/2016 Gatestone Institute/January 04/16
Saudi Arabia Vs. Iran: A Regional Sunni/Shia War Incited By Feckless Obama Foreign Policy/Jeff Dunetz /Lidblog/January 05/16
Saudi executions signal royal worries/Bruce Riedel/Al-Monitor/January 04/16

Hezbollah sets off large border bomb targeting IDF heavy vehicles
By YAAKOV LAPPIN /Jersusamem Post/01/04/2016/Hezbollah set off a large bomb on the Israel - Lebanon border, on the western section of Mount Dov on Monday, targeting two armored military vehicles that were clearing a road in the area.
The IDF has responded with cross-border artillery fire at targets into Lebanon. IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Moti Almoz said two heavy armored vehicles, one of which was a D-9 bulldozer, were targeted in the Hezbollah attack, describing the explosive that was set off as "relatively large." "We have opened artillery fire, and created a smoke screen to cover the area. We are in control of the incident," Almoz said. At this stage, there are no known injuries among IDF soldiers. Israeli farmers situated close to the Lebanese border have been moved back by the army. Beyond that, Almoz said, there are no special safety instructions for northern residents. The army is in touch with security coordinators in northern communities, he added. The army is unaware of any cross-border infiltrations at this stage. Almoz posted a Facebook statement, saying that the IDF completed a special security assessment meeting headed by Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Gadi Eisenkot. "We view the incident with severity, and we are on high alert for as long as necessary," he said. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack on the IDF vehicles, according to Lebanese Al-Mayadeen television. "A cell of the martyr Samir Kuntar detonated the large explosive in Sheba farms area in occupied Lebanon during an IDF patrol causing the destruction of a Hummer and injuring all its passengers," Hezbollah said. Lebanese media reported that that the explosive was meant to harm a senior Mossad official. Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon held a security assessment meeting on Monday night at IDF Headquarters in Tel Aviv. Ya'alon met with Eisenkot, Military Intelligence chief Maj.-Gen. Herzl Levi, the head of the IDF Operations Branch Maj.-Gen. Nitzan Alon, and other senior officers. No statement was released at the end of the meeting. Lebanese media earlier reported that Israeli shells were fired at the Sheba Farms region near the intersection of the Syrian, Israeli, and Lebanese frontiers. The news reports north of the border are consistent with eyewitness accounts of Israelis on the Golan Heights who told The Jerusalem Post’s Hebrew-language sister publication Ma’ariv that they heard the roar of artillery fire over the weekend. According to Lebanese news outlets, the IDF fired 20 shells toward the vicinity of Sheba Farms, which is also known as Mount Dov. An Israeli military official told Ma’ariv on Sunday that the purpose of the artillery fire was to deter Hezbollah from planting explosives along the border in an effort to avenge the death of Samir Kuntar, the commander who was killed in an airstrike in Damascus. Israel is believed to be behind the killing, though Jerusalem did not confirm this. “I cleared up this issue with the army after I received numerous complaints from residents,” a security guard in one of the Israeli towns along the border said. “A senior officer in the IDF Northern Command told me that there is a real concern that Hezbollah will plant a bomb along the border under the cover of fog, so whenever we spot suspicious activity we fire an artillery shell in that direction for the sake of deterrence.”Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, speaking a week after the assassination of Kuntar, praised the terrorist who killed four Israelis in an attack in Nahariya in 1979, saying he was an icon for the school of resistance. “The Israelis are hiding like rats along the border,” he said. They are worried and they should be worried along the border and inside Israel. Their threats will not benefit them. “The retaliation to Samir’s assassination will inevitably come,” Nasrallah said, adding that Hezbollah would not tolerate the “blood of our jihadist fighters and brothers to be shed anywhere in this world.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday sent an apparent message to Nasrallah in response, warning, "Our enemies should know that we will aggressively retaliate to any attack against us."Netanyahu made the comments at an awards ceremony for outstanding Mossad employees just two days after Nasrallah vowed retaliation. On Monday, Eisenkot said the military stands ready to face "any challenge" from the North, and Israel's enemies will pay a dear price if they seek to undermine Israeli security. "Beyond our borders too, facing the threats we hear to the North, we stand ready for any challenge, and as we have proven in the past, we know how to find and hit all who seek our harm," Eisenkot said. The chief of staff warned that "our enemies know that if they try to undermine the security of Israel, they will face severe consequences."
**Maariv Online and Yasser Okbi contributed to this report.

IDF fires artillery after bomb explodes on Lebanese border
Ynet Reporters/Published: 01.04.16/ Israel News /Hezbollah claims responsibility for explosive device near Chebaa Farms area in revenge for death of Samir Kuntar; Lebanese security forces report at least 50 shells hitting villages in the area. A large roadside bomb exploded near an IDF force at the Lebanese border near the Shebaa Farms area on Monday afternoon, leading the IDF to fire artillery shells at Hezbollah targets in the area for about an hour. The explosion targeted two of the IDF's Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers. No soldiers have been hurt in the incident. IDF Engineering forces cordoned off the area and were searching for any additional explosives. Lebanese media reported considerable Israel Air Force presence in the area. Al Mayadeen quoted a Lebanese security source saying the IDF had fired artillery at a Lebanese military post in the Bastra Farm area on the outskirts of Kfarchouba. The TV station also reported casualties on the Lebanese side. Lebanese security officials said more than 50 Israeli shells hit several villages in the area where the Hezbollah operation was carried out. Residents along the border said shelling from Israeli tanks and artillery landed in agricultural areas inside Lebanon, but did not report casualties. "We fired artillery at Hezbollah targets near the border," an IDF spokesperson said. "It happened near Nahal Sion." The spokesperson denied there was an attempt at kidnapping soldiers, anti-tank fire, or infiltration of terrorists into Israel. The Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack, which they say was committed by the "Samir Kuntar Brigades."Samir Kuntar was a notorious Hezbollah terrorist who spent almost three decades in Israeli prison for the murder of the Haran family and an Israeli police officer. After his release in a prisoners exchange deal in 2008, Kuntar returned to terror, planning attacks against Israel in the Golan Heights. He was killed in an airstrike in Syria, which Hezbollah attributed to Israel and for which it vowed revenge. The IDF has been conducting controlled explosions and firing artillery into unpopulated, empty areas in order to prevent Hezbollah from exploiting stormy weather to commit a terror attack in the border area.
**Yoav Zitun, Roi Kais, Ahiya Raved and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nasrallah settled an account, but did so with caution
Ron Ben-Yishai /Ynetnews/Published: 01.05.16 /Analysis: It's too soon to tell if the Hezbollah leader got the revenge he sought out for the death of Samir Kuntar, since there were no casualties on the Israeli side in the attack on Mount Dov. It does, however, seem like the message from Israel of a severe and destructive retaliation has been understood. The roadside minefield that was planted on the slopes of Mount Dov to target IDF patrols was probably part of an operation to avenge the assassination of Samir Kuntar. Kuntar was killed in an airstrike two weeks ago at a suburb on the outskirts of Damascus, and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly claimed that Israel was behind it. He might be right. After all, the Druze terrorist, who was released from Israeli prison, has returned to his evil ways on the Syrian border in the service of Hezbollah and Iran, and Israel had good reason to believe he was about to launch attacks against Israeli communities in the Golan Heights.
A bomb exploded next to IDF forces on the Lebanese border
Since the assassination, Nasrallah has vowed to take revenge against Israel in three different speeches. The attack on Monday was probably his way of settling the account. Just in case, so others in the Middle East see that Nasrallah keeps his promises, Hezbollah claimed responsibility for the attack and announced the explosives on Mount Dov were planted by the "Samir Kuntar Brigades."However, it's too early to declare that this as the end of this round of assassination, retaliation, and retaliation over the retaliation between the IDF and Hezbollah. There were no casualties among our troops in this attack, and that is why Nasrallah might decide that the account on Kuntar remains unsettled. There is still a possibility that Hezbollah would try to launch additional attacks against Israel on the northern border, and particularly on Mount Dov. The precautions taken over the past couple of weeks on the northern border and on the Mount Hermon slopes should, therefore, stay in place. In addition, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that under the cover of the stormy weather that descended on the area over the past few days, Hezbollah planted even more explosives and perhaps even anti-tank launchers ready to ambush IDF troops in other places along the northern border. That is why the Galilee Division, which is responsible for the area the bomb was planted in, closed off a few of the roads.
This round might also not be done as far as Israel is concerned, which means IDF soldiers and farmers working near the border fence should be particularly cautious and remain on high alert. When it became apparent to Israel that Nasrallah intends to follow up on his threats - and this time Military Intelligence's predictions were correct and accurate - the prime minister, defense minister and IDF chief of staff, as well as security sources speaking to the media, were all quick to stress that Israel would respond with force to any kind of revenge attack committed by Hezbollah. A year ago, Hezbollah committed a revenge attack after the IAF, according to foreign sources, bombed a patrol of commanders from Hezbollah, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Syrian Army, who were scouting the area for a series of terror attacks they were planning against Israel. Jihad Mughniyeh and an Iranian general were killed in the airstrike. Hezbollah took its revenge 11 days later by firing anti-tank missiles at a Givati patrol making its way from Mount Dov to the Galilee panhandle. Two IDF fighters were killed then, but Israel chose restraint in order to avoid further escalation. It might be that someone in the defense establishment thought in hindsight that this had been a mistake. So this time the heads of state and the IDF announced in advance and in a way that leaves no room for doubt that if Hezbollah launched a revenge attack, the Israeli retaliation would be severe and destructive. The message was fully understood not just by Hezbollah, but likely also by Tehran and by the heads of large communities in Lebanon. This led to Hezbollah being pressured by Iran, Russia (via the Syrian regime) and inside Lebanon not to act or to settle for a symbolic retaliation.
Nasrallah probably responded to the pressure with more than relief. It is likely that he also did not want to get involved with Israel over Samir Kuntar. He therefore probably decided to instruct his people to carry out a less serious activity as far as Hezbollah's terror attacks go: a minefield on the slopes of Mount Dov. On this point it is also important to understand that the IDF and Hezbollah work opposite one another according to a set of rules that have been consolidated since the Second Lebanon War. It explains, among other things, why Hezbollah has preferred over the last few years to operate in the Mount Dov area (Jabal Ru'us) on the western ridge of the Hermon mountain. This area is known to the Lebanese - and especially to Hezbollah - as the Shebaa Farms and is, they claim, sovereign Lebanese territory. This is despite Mount Dov having been under Syrian rule until Israel gained control over the area in the Six Day War. But the Lebanese claim it is their territory, going by old French Mandate maps. Hezbollah's perception is thus that an attack against the IDF in the Mount Dov area is not thought of as breach of Israel's sovereignty but rather as a legitimate action in a kind of "playground" that actually belongs to Lebanon. In Hezbollah's view, there is no legitimacy in Israel viewing activity in Har Dov as an attack on its sovereignty that would justify a serious military response.
Hezbollah estimates there will not be losses
The type of attack – a minefield – is also no coincidence. It is reasonable to estimate that this method was chosen precisely because Hezbollah expects that an attack of this nature will not cause heavy damage or losses to the IDF, and therefore will not lead to escalation. Indeed, Hezbollah knows full well that the IDF has learned over the years how to deal with explosives in a way that will not cause substantial losses among its soldiers. They know that the army uses heavy-duty vehicles in suspicious locations so that even a large explosion next to them would not cause significant damage or losses. And indeed, this is exactly what happened on Monday. The IDF incurred no losses; Hezbollah can claim, as it is quick to do, that it avenged Kuntar's death; the IDF unleashed its artillery causing damage and injuries in several south Lebanon villages – and everyone can be satisfied that an escalation was prevented without denting anyone's prestige, and that each side has now been deterred. This may be surreal but such a volatile reality dictates that these strange rules be observed in the "playgrounds" on our borders. Nonetheless, as mentioned, it is important to remain alert. It is quite possible that Hezbollah is preparing further surprises for us in the area, and we cannot be caught unprepared.

Hizbullah Claims Destroying Israeli Vehicle in Shebaa Farms with Bomb
Naharnet/January 04/16/Hizbullah targeted an Israeli patrol in the occupied Shebaa Farms with an explosive device on Monday, prompting Israel to shell areas in southern Lebanon. The party claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement. “At 3:10 pm Monday, the Martyr Leader Samir al-Quntar Unit blew up a large bomb against an Israeli armored patrol in the occupied Lebanese Shebaa Farms, destroying a Humvee vehicle and inflicting casualties on those inside it,” the Hizbullah statement said. The wording of the statement indicates that the operation is in response to the assassination of Hizbullah top operative Samir al-Quntar, who was killed in an airstrike in Syria blamed on Israel. Israel has since retaliated by opening artillery fire on areas in southern Lebanon, reportedly causing casualties. Hizbullah's al-Manar television quoted “security sources” as saying that “one of the targeted vehicles was carrying a senior Israeli officer.”Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah had vowed to take revenge for the death of Quntar, who had been jailed by Israel for around 30 years over the killing of three Israelis before he was freed by a 2008 prisoner exchange. Israel confirmed that its forces had been targeted in the border area after the attack. "IED detonated against IDF (Israeli army) vehicles in the area of Mt. Dov," wrote Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner in a tweet, referring to the disputed Shebaa Farms. He said the Israeli army responded with "targeted artillery fire."An Israeli army spokeswoman said there were no indications so far of injuries on the Israeli side. Lebanese security sources said Israel responded with artillery fire into two villages adjacent to the Shebaa Farms, but had no immediate information on damage or injuries. Shortly after his release in 2008, Quntar joined Hizbullah. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said he became "head of the Syrian Resistance for the Liberation of the Golan," a group launched two years ago by Hizbullah in the Syrian region, most of which Israel seized in the 1967 Middle East war. The Shebaa Farms have been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 Middle East war. Lebanon says the area is Lebanese territory, while the U.N. says it was annexed from Syria. Hizbullah has an extensive presence in Syria, where it is mostly working to bolster the regime against an uprising that began in March 2011. Hizbullah and Israel scuffle intermittently in the disputed border area between Lebanon and Israel, and the powerful Lebanese group has in the past targeted Israeli army patrols in response to strikes against its members. In January last year, it claimed an attack in the Shebaa Farms against an army patrol in apparent revenge for an Israeli strike in Syria that killed six Hizbullah fighters and a member of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards. In 2006, Israel fought a devastating war against Hizbullah that killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly civilians, and some 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

Kaag Warns of 'Danger of Miscalculation' after Shebaa Farms Attack
Naharnet/January 04/16/U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag expressed “concern” Monday after Hizbullah detonated a bomb against an Israeli army vehicle in the occupied Shebaa Farms and Israel retaliated by shelling south Lebanon. “In discussions with the parties, including regional stakeholders, the Special Coordinator stressed the risks posed to the stability of Lebanon,” Kaag's office said in a statement. She also highlighted “the danger of miscalculation which could lead to a deterioration of the situation on the ground,” the statement added. Kaag urged all parties to “fulfill their obligations under (U.N. Security Council) resolution 1701, and to refrain from any acts or rhetoric which could undermine stability across the Blue Line,” it said. Hizbullah's operation appeared to be revenge for an Israeli air strike in Syria in late December that killed senior Hizbullah militant Samir Quntar. In a statement, Hizbullah said the attack in the Shebaa Farms along the Lebanon-Israel ceasefire line "destroyed the armored Hummer vehicle and injured those in it."It said the attack was carried out by a group named for Quntar, who commanded Hizbullah's operations in Syria's Golan Heights, parts of which are occupied by Israel.

Report: Initiative to Nominate Franjieh First Victim of al-Nimr's Execution
Naharnet/January 04/16/The thorny presidential file and the stalled initiative settlement to nominate Marada chief MP Suleiman Franjieh as head of state, could become more complicated following the execution of Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr, As Safir daily reported on Monday. “The regional conflicts following the execution of Sheikh al-Nimr could reflect on the file of electing a president,” prominent sources of March 8 told the daily on condition of anonymity. They pointed out that the initiative to nominate Franjieh for the presidency might be the first “victim” to the execution of al-Nimr. “The current regional atmospheres following the execution are no more favorable for any settlements now, and it will be more difficult to distance Lebanon from the inflamed regional situation now,” added the source. Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 47 people convicted of "terrorism", including a prominent Shiite cleric, al-Nimr who the Saudi interior ministry said were behind anti-government protests. On the other hand, sources following up closely on the dialogue between Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal said that it is “unlikely for the execution of al-Nimr to be a reason for halting dialogue between the two parties. Since the inception of the dialogue, both parties had agreed that it will carry on regardless of any incidents that take place outside Lebanon's borders.”However, they “did not rule out that the political productivity of the sessions might gradually diminish in light of the dire circumstances in the region.”An initiative emerged lately by (Saudi backed) Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri suggesting the nomination of Marada chief MP Suleiman Franjieh (of the March 8) for the presidency. The nomination has been met with reservations from the Kataeb Party, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces. Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday launched one of his fiercest verbal attacks to date against Saudi Arabia over its execution of al-Nimr, as he warned against turning the issue into a Sunni-Shiite conflict. Relations between Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia and Shiite-ruled Iran have been strained for decades, with Riyadh frequently accusing Tehran of interfering in Arab affairs. Both countries are also divided over a raft of issues, namely the nearly five-year war in Syria, where Iran is allied with the regime of embattled President Bashar Assad, and Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Iran-backed rebels.

Kataeb Urges 'Consensual President', Neutrality in Face of Region Tensions
Naharnet/January 04/16/The Kataeb Party called Monday for electing a so-called “consensual president” to help the country face the current domestic and regional challenges, as it warned against “implicating Lebanon” in the tensions that engulfed the region following Saudi Arabia's execution of a top Shiite dissident. “Lebanon is in dire need for a consensual president who can contain the internal rift through his free stances,” said the party in a statement issued after its politburo's weekly meeting. Calling for “liberating” the presidential vote from “its regional captivity,” Kataeb stressed that it is necessary to dissociate the presidential election from the “current local and external tensions.”“The regional tensions … must be confronted by the approach of neutrality, which can protect Lebanon and preserve its internal unity,” the party said. Condemning “the stances that were launched in the past few hours” by Lebanese leaders in connection with the Saudi-Iranian tensions, Kataeb warned that such remarks would “implicate Lebanon and the Lebanese in conflicts that Lebanon has nothing to do with.”On Sunday, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Sunday launched one of his fiercest verbal attacks to date against Saudi Arabia over its execution of top Shiite dissident Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. “The House of Saud imposed itself on the Arabian Peninsula's people through massacres, murder and intimidation and the kingdom was created with British support and funding as part of a colonial scheme,” Nasrallah said. Al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri was quick to hit back at Nasrallah, accusing the party of “acting as if it is in charge of all Shiites in the world.” The 56-year-old Nimr was a force behind 2011 anti-government protests in eastern Saudi Arabia, where Shiites have long complained of marginalization. He was among 47 men executed on Saturday, including other Shiite activists and Sunni militants the Saudi interior ministry said were involved in al-Qaida attacks that killed dozens in 2003 and 2004.

Harb: Situation Hampers Would-be Solutions, Government to Assume Responsibilities or Resign
Naharnet/January 04/16/Telecommunications Minister Boutros Harb said on Monday that the government should either assume its responsibilities or step down, and highlighted the latest developments that “complicated the election of a president even further.”“The government must shoulder its responsibilities otherwise it should resign,” said Harb after meeting PM Tammam Salam at the Grand Serail. “If the government is unable to assume its duties because of the political positions of some parties that are disrupting the elections of a president then it should resign,” he added. Harb warned that the latest local and regional developments have further complicated the situation in Lebanon and made the possibility of electing a president a complex mission. “As the result of the latest developments inside Lebanon and abroad, things seem to be increasingly complex and some of the solutions that could have been achieved have become impossible at the moment,” said the Minister. “This however, hinders any suggestion that could save Lebanon from the crisis especially at the presidential level,” he added. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. Conflicts among the March 8 and March 14 camps thwarted all efforts to elect a successor. The latest regional disputes between Saudi Arabia and Iran erupted following the execution of a Shiite cleric over the weekend, have also reflected on Lebanon and triggered fiery reactions voiced by Hibzullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a speech on Sunday. Saudi Arabia executed 47 people convicted of "terrorism", including a prominent Shiite cleric, al-Nimr.

Geagea: We Must Have Forethought to Preserve our Country
Naharnet/January 04/16/Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geaega voiced calls on all political groups to practice calm and premeditation at this critical stage because “our major goal is to preserve our country,” he said on Monday. “All political factions should practice calm and forethought at this difficult stage in the history of the region, because in the end our first and foremost duty is to preserve Lebanon regardless of anything else,” said Geagea via twitter. He was referring to the latest Saudi-Iranian conflict that emerged following the execution of a Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia and the fiery reactions that followed after that in Lebanon. Geagea continued and asked: “What compels some parties to expose Lebanon's national security to danger by sharply attacking brethren Arab countries without any justification related to Lebanon's interest?”On Sunday, Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah launched one of his fiercest verbal attacks to date against Saudi Arabia over its execution of al-Nimr, as he warned against turning the issue into a Sunni-Shiite conflict.Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 47 people convicted of "terrorism", including a prominent al-Nimr whom Saudi authorities said was behind anti-government protests.

Report: Fear of Reactions in Lebanon Following Saudi Cleric Execution
Naharnet/January 04/16/The security measures around the Saudi embassy were already there but were only intensified following the recent developments that accompanied the execution of Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr in Saudi Arabia, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday. “The security measures around the embassy were taken a long time ago, but the latest developments following the execution of Sheikh Nimr made us up these measures,” a security source told the daily on condition of anonymity. However, the source made some reassurances that Lebanon will not witness reactions to the capital punishment, he said: “We believe that Lebanon is not a scene for reactions on what Saudi Arabia has witnessed.”On Sunday, reports said that the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Lebanon has taken precautionary security measures following the execution of al-Nimr and the torching of the Saudi Embassy late on Saturday in Tehran. The embassy's staff were notified of the necessity to stay inside the embassy to avoid any reprisals they may be exposed to by supporters of Iran in Lebanon. The source added that “reports gathered so far from various security agencies were reassuring as they did not mention any potential risks in Lebanon. Most of the reactions expected will not come out of the circle of peaceful expression.” “The security sources have received high degree assurances from responsible figures that Lebanon will not be a scene of reactions in any way. But that does not mean that there will be leniency in taking the necessary measures around the embassies concerned including the embassies of the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait Jordan and the the Iranian Embassy and its facilities,” concluded the source. Saudi Arabia on Saturday executed 47 people convicted of "terrorism", including a prominent al-Nimr whom the Saudi authorities said was behind anti-government protests. The execution drew the ire of several including Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah who launched on Sunday one of his fiercest verbal attacks to date against Saudi Arabia over its execution of al-Nimr, as he warned against turning the issue into a Sunni-Shiite conflict.

Canada decries mass executions in Saudi Arabia
January 3, 2016 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement regarding yesterday’s executions in Saudi Arabia: “Canada opposes the death penalty and decries the execution of 47 individuals in Saudi Arabia on January 2, 2016. “The Government of Canada raises concerns about human rights and due process with senior Saudi Arabian officials on a regular basis and will continue to do so. In the wake of these executions, we reiterate our call to the Government of Saudi Arabia to protect human rights, respect peaceful expressions of dissent and ensure fairness in judicial proceedings. “Canada is particularly concerned that the execution of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr could further inflame sectarian tensions in the region. We urge Saudi Arabian authorities and local and regional leaders, including those in Iran, to work with all communities to defuse these tensions and promote reconciliation.”

U.S. urges Middle East leaders to ‘calm tensions’
AFP, Washington Monday, 4 January 2016/The United States on Sunday urged Mideast leaders to take measures to soothe tensions in the region after Saudi Arabia severed ties with Iran following an attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran. The attack was prompted by Saudi Arabia's execution of Shiite preacher Nimr al-Nimr, provoking outrage from Iran."We're aware that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has ordered the closure of Iranian diplomatic missions in the kingdom," U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said about the diplomatic rift. "We believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations remain essential in working through differences and we will continue to urge leaders across the region to take affirmative steps to calm tensions."The diplomatic fallout come as Iran's supreme leader condemned Saturday's execution of Nimr al-Nimr, and as Western nations voiced concern about escalating sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiite Muslims. Nimr, 56, was a force behind 2011 anti-government protests in oil-rich eastern Saudi Arabia. He was put to death along with 46 other people, including convicted Sunni militants who the Saudi interior ministry says were involved in al-Qaeda attacks that killed dozens in 2003 and 2006. After his execution, a mob attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran and a consulate in second city Mashhad. Saudi authorities said they had asked their Iranian officials to ensure security at the embassy, but Tehran failed to protect it.

Brother of executed Saudi cleric condemns attacks on missions
AFP/January 4, 2016/The brother of Nimr al-Nimr, the Shiite cleric executed in Saudi Arabia at the weekend, on Monday condemned retaliatory attacks on the kingdom's diplomatic missions in Iran, insisting: "We love our country". The brother of Nimr al-Nimr, the Shiite cleric executed in Saudi Arabia at the weekend, on Monday condemned retaliatory attacks on the kingdom's diplomatic missions in Iran, insisting: "We love our country". "We appreciate your love towards the martyr Sheikh_AlNimr who lives in our hearts but we refuse attacks on Saudi ambassies in Iran or others," Mohammed al-Nimr tweeted in..."We appreciate your love towards the martyr Sheikh_AlNimr who lives in our hearts but we refuse attacks on #Saudi ambassies in Iran or others," Mohammed al-Nimr tweeted in English.Angry demonstrators attacked the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad following Saturday's execution of Nimr, a driving force behind anti-government protests in 2011. Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia responded on Sunday by severing diplomatic ties with Shiite-dominated Iran, its long-time regional rival. Nimr, 56, was executed along with 46 other men, mostly Sunnis linked to Al-Qaeda. His body was not given for his family for burial, according to another post on Twitter by his brother, who said authorities informed the family that the cleric had already been buried. Mohammed al-Nimr has condemned attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran (photo by: AFP). Nimr's brother issued a statement calling for the corpse of Nimr to be handed over to his family. He expressed the family's hopes that "officials would answer our legitimate wish quickly by giving us the body of the martyred sheikh so that he would be buried in his hometow n Awamiya."Assailants killed a civilian and wounded a child on Monday when they opened fire on Saudi police in Awamiya, Nimr's birthplace in Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province, state media reported.

Russia ready to act as 'intermediary' between Saudi Arabia, Iran: foreign ministry source
AFP/January 04/16 /Russia is ready to serve as an intermediary to resolve the dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran that saw the kingdom break off diplomatic relations with Tehran, a Russian foreign ministry source told AFP on Monday."Russia is ready to serve as an intermediary between Riyadh and Tehran," the source said, without providing any specifics about Moscow's potential role in resolving the crisis. Another unnamed Russian diplomatic source quoted by TASS news agency said Moscow was ready to host the Saudi and Iranian foreign ministers -- Adel al-Jubeir and Mohammad Javad Zarif -- for talks. "If our partners Saudi Arabia and Iran show they are ready and willing (to meet), our initiative will remain on the table," the source said. Saudi Arabia announced Sunday it was severing its ties to Iran after its embassy in Tehran was firebombed in protest at the kingdom's execution of Shiite cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Nimr was a force behind 2011 anti-government protests in eastern Saudi Arabia, where Shiites have long complained of marginalisation. The oil-rich rivals have also been divided over the nearly five-year war in Syria, where Iran is backing the regime, and the conflict in Yemen where a Saudi-led coalition is battling Shiite rebels. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted both Jubeir and Zarif individually last year for talks on the Syrian crisis as Moscow pushed for the creation of a broad coalition to fight Islamic State jihadists in Syria.

Thousands Protest against Saudi Arabia in Baghdad
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 04/16/Thousands of supporters of a prominent Iraqi Shiite cleric protested near the foreign ministry Monday to demand Baghdad sever ties with Saudi Arabia.The demonstrators chanted slogans praising their leader Moqtada al-Sadr and condemning the execution by the Riyadh authorities of Saudi Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The execution on Saturday sparked outrage across the Shiite world and beyond, with leaders accusing Saudi Arabia of attempting to stoke tensions across the region. "We demand that the Saudi embassy be closed down and all Saudi interests terminated," said Ahmad, one of the more than 5,000 protesters in central Baghdad.The crowd, which had gathered near one of the entrances to the fortified "Green Zone" where the Saudi embassy is located, threatened to force its way in but was held back by organizers and riot police. "Government, find a solution because today we will burn the embassy," the crowd chanted.
Protesters set fire to Saudi Arabia's embassy in Tehran on Saturday, leading Riyadh to break off diplomatic relations with Iran. The Gulf monarchy was followed by Bahrain and Sudan in severing ties with Tehran. The Saudi embassy in Baghdad only reopened on December 15, a quarter of a century after relations were broken over Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. "We demand that the government close the Saudi embassy, kick out the ambassador and boycott all Saudi products and products from allied countries," said Hatem Oraid, a lawyer at Monday's demonstration. The protest ended without any incident. The government of Iraq has responded to Nimr's execution with statements warning against any attempt to fuel sectarian tensions in the region.Baghdad has accused Riyadh of providing funding and weapons to the Islamic State jihadist group which took over a third of Iraq in 2014 and still controls large parts of it.

Arab League to Hold Emergency Talks on Iran-Saudi Row
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 04/16/The Arab League will hold emergency talks at the request of Saudi Arabia on Sunday to discuss attacks in Iran on the kingdom's embassy and consulate, its deputy head said. The weekend talks are aimed at "condemning the violations committed by Iran against the sanctity of the Saudi embassy in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad," Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters on Monday. The meeting, which comes after Saudi Arabia broke off ties with the Islamic republic amid a row over Riyadh's execution of a Shiite cleric, was also aimed at "condemning Iranian interference in Arab affairs", he added. Tensions have risen between the two oil-rich Gulf rivals after Saturday's execution in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia of prominent Shiite cleric and activist Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, whose death has sparked fury. He was put to death alongside 46 others, including Shiite activists and al-Qaida-linked militants convicted on charges of "terrorism."

Bahrain, Sudan Sever Relations with Iran as UAE Downgrades Ties
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 04/16/The United Arab Emirates said Monday it has recalled its ambassador from Iran and downgraded diplomatic relations with Tehran over its "interference" in the affairs of Gulf and Arab countries, as Bahrain and Sudan announced a total cutoff of ties with Tehran.
The UAE had decided to lower "diplomatic representation to the level of charge d'affaires and reduce the number of Iranian diplomats in the country," the foreign ministry said in a statement, quoted by the official WAM news agency. The move came after Saudi Arabia severed links with the Islamic republic on Sunday, amid escalating tensions triggered by the execution of a Shiite cleric in the Sunni-ruled kingdom at the weekend. Bahrain and Sudan followed suit by also cutting ties with Iran on Monday. "This exceptional step has been taken in the light of Iran's continuous interference in the internal affairs of Gulf and Arab states, which has reached unprecedented levels," said the UAE foreign ministry. It said relations should be based on "mutual respect for the sovereignty" and "non-interference in the internal affairs of others."The UAE enjoys strong business ties with Iran, and the emirate of Dubai is home to a large Iranian community. Bahrain for its part said it is cutting diplomatic ties with Iran, ordering Tehran's diplomats in the tiny Gulf state "to leave the kingdom within 48 hours," BNA state news agency said on Twitter. A Bahraini statement said the decision was triggered by "cowardly" attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran and "increasing flagrant and dangerous meddling" by Tehran in the internal affairs of Gulf and Arab states. Manama said the attacks on the Saudi missions represent a "very dangerous pattern of sectarian policies that should be confronted... in order to preserve security and stability in the entire region."
The Bahraini foreign ministry summoned Iran's charge d'affaires Murtada Sanawbari and handed him an official note in this regard, said the statement carried by BNA. Saudi Arabia said Sunday it was severing its ties with Iran after angry crowds set fire to its embassy in Tehran and attacked its consulate in Mashhad a day after Riyadh executed Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr. The Sudanese government meanwhile announced "the cutting of diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran immediately." The foreign ministry said the decision was taken "in the wake of the brutal attack on the embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Tehran and its consulate in Mashhad," which it said was "clear abuse of international law."Sudan was seen as enjoying generally good relations with Iran until September 2014, when it shut Iranian cultural centers in Khartoum. Khartoum also moved closer to Sunni Gulf states in March last year when it announced it was joining the Saudi-led coalition against Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels in Yemen.

British PM Says Saudi-Iran Tensions 'Hugely Concerning'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 04/16/British Prime Minister David Cameron said tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia were "hugely concerning" Monday and condemned the death penalty following Riyadh's controversial execution of a Shiite cleric. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was put to death on Saturday with 46 other people, setting off a chain of events which has seen Saudi Arabia and Bahrain severing their ties with Iran after protestors torched the Saudi embassy in Tehran and a consulate in second city Mashhad.The crisis has raised fears of increased sectarian violence in the Middle East. "It is hugely concerning because of course we want to see stability in the Middle East... not least because that will be absolutely essential for solving the crisis in Syria which is the source of so many of these problems," Cameron said on a visit to east London. "We condemn and do not support the death penalty in any circumstances and that includes Saudi Arabia... we always make representations on the death penalty and the foreign office ministers made it very clear on this occasion."Saudi Arabia is Britain's most important trade partner in the Middle East and was its biggest market for arms exports in 2014. Nimr had been branded an "instigator of sedition" by Saudi Arabia. He was notably a force behind 2011 anti-government protests in the east of the country, where Shiites have long complained of marginalization. Executions have soared in Saudi Arabia since King Salman ascended the throne a year ago with 153 people put to death in 2015, nearly twice as many as in 2014.

Bahrain follows Saudi in cutting diplomatic ties with Iran
AFP Posted January 4, 2016/Manama ordered Tehran's diplomats in the tiny Gulf state "to leave the kingdom within 48 hours," BNA state news agency said on Twitter. A Bahraini statement said the decision was triggered by "cowardly" attacks on Saudi diplomatic missions in Iran and "increasing flagrant and dangerous meddling" by Tehran in the internal affairs of Gulf and Arab states. Manama said the attacks on the Saudi missions represent a "very dangerous pattern of sectarian policies that should be confronted... in order to preserve security and stability in the entire region."The Bahraini foreign ministry summoned Iran's charge d'affaires Murtada Sanawbari and handed him an official note in this regard, said the statement carried by BNA.Saudi Arabia said Sunday it was severing its ties with Iran after angry crowds set fire to its embassy in Tehran and attacked its consulate in Mashhad a day after Riyadh executed Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr.

IS jihadists attack key Libya oil facility: military
AFP/January 04/16 /The Islamic State jihadist group launched attacks near key oil facilities in northern Libya on Monday but were pushed back, an army official said. The jihadists first carried out a suicide car bomb attack on a military checkpoint at the entrance to the town of Al-Sidra, killing two soldiers, said a colonel in the army loyal to the internationally recognised government. "We were attacked by a convoy of a dozen vehicles belonging to IS," Bashir Boudhfira said. "They then launched an attack on the town of Ras Lanouf via the south but did not manage to enter." IS has been trying to push east from Sirte for several weeks to reach the country's "oil crescent" where its main oil terminals such as Al-Sidra and Ras Lanouf are based. A Libyan oil official told AFP that a 420,000-barrel oil tank in Ras Lanouf caught fire during the clashes. IS on Twitter announced that its fighters had led an "attack on the Al-Sidra area followed by violent clashes with the enemies of God."The group said that the attack came after it took control of Ben Jawad town, 150 kilometres (90 miles) east of the central coastal city Sirte, which has been under IS control since June 2015. No official or army source could confirm this. Monday's attack is the first of its kind since IS seized Sirte last summer.

Qaeda in Yemen stones woman to death for adultery
AFP, Aden Monday/04 January 2016/Al-Qaeda militants have stoned a woman to death in a southeastern Yemeni city they control after accusing her of adultery and prostitution, several witnesses said on Monday. The militants on Sunday “placed the woman in a hole in the middle of the courtyard of a military building and stoned her to death in the presence of dozens of residents” of Hadramawt provincial capital Mukalla, one witness said. A local journalist at the scene confirmed the rare stoning, saying that the gunmen prevented photography of the execution. “This was the first time we have seen such a thing,” another witness said. A copy of the purported verdict issued by the so-called Hadramawt court of Al-Qaeda’s Ansar al-Sharia in December said the married woman “confessed in front of the judges to committing adultery”. Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch is considered by Washington to be the most dangerous affiliate of the global network. It has taken advantage of the state’s weakness to expand its control in various areas, including the vast Hadramawt region

At least two Sunni mosques attacked in Iraq
Reuters, Baghdad Monday, 4 January 2016/At least two Sunni Muslim mosques have been attacked in Iraq in apparent retaliation for the execution of a senior Shiite cleric in Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia, officials and police said on Monday. The interior ministry in Baghdad confirmed the attacks late Sunday in Hilla, around 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad. It didn’t confirm reports that at least one person was killed. Iraq has faced sectarian bloodletting for years, mainly between the Sunni minority and Shiite majority that was empowered after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi ordered the provincial authorities “to chase the criminal gangs” who attacked the mosques. He blamed the attacks on “Daesh and those who are similar to them,” according to a statement that refers to Islamic State by one of its Arabic acronyms. On Saturday, Saudi Arabia executed prominent cleric Nimr al-Nimr, triggering angry reactions in Shiite ruled Iraq and Iran. The government in Riyadh cut ties on Sunday with Tehran after protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic representations in Iran. The attack on the Ammar bin Yasir mosque in the northern outskirts of Hilla destroyed its dome and several walls, according to a Reuters TV cameraman who visited the site. The second attack on the al-Fath al-Mubeen mosque in central Hilla was reported by a provincial council member and a police source who said a guard inside the building was killed.

Two Israeli soldiers wounded in West Bank shootings
AFP, Jerusalem Monday, 4 January 2016/Two Israeli soldiers, one a woman, were wounded on Sunday in separate shootings in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, the army said. The young woman was seriously wounded when a gunman opened fire on her, and she was evacuated to Jerusalem’s Shaare Tzedek hospital, as army statement said. The shooting happened near a disputed holy site in the heart of Hebron’s Old City, which is known to Muslims as the Ibrahimi Mosque and to Jews as the Cave of the Patriarchs. Three hours later, another gunman opened fire on an army patrol in southern Hebron, slightly wounding a soldier, the army said, adding that the unknown assailant fled after the attack. Sunday’s shootings come amid a wave of violence since the beginning of October last year that has killed 138 Palestinians and 20 Israelis.

Israel destroys east Jerusalem assailant homes
AFP/January 04/16/ Israeli forces on Monday destroyed the east Jerusalem homes of two Palestinians who killed four Israelis in one of the deadliest days in the recent surge in violence. In the neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber, the home of Palestinian Alaa Abu Jamal was filled with concrete and sealed off, an AFP reporter at the scene said. Abu Jamal had on October 13 rammed his car into people at a Jerusalem bus stop and jumped out with a knife, stabbing a rabbi to death before being shot dead. Abu Jamal was also a cousin of two Palestinians who in November stormed a synagogue in Jerusalem's Har Nof neighbourhood with meat cleavers and a pistol, killing five Jewish worshippers and a policeman before being shot dead. In another part of Jabel Mukaber, Israeli forces used jackhammers to destroy the walls of Bahaa Allyan's home, the middle floor of a three-storey building. Allyan and another Palestinian, Bilal Ghanem, had on October 13 shot and stabbed passengers on a bus in Jerusalem, killing two Israelis and a US-Israeli dual national. Allyan was shot dead while Ghanem was arrested. Hundreds of Israeli police and soldiers were on site for the home destructions, which took place without incident after residents were cleared from the area. "I don't have any other place to live," Allyan's father Mohammed told AFP. "The army just said 'we are going to destroy the house, get out' -- this measure punishes a father, a mother, a brother, a sister and (four) children" who were living in the house, he said. In a wave of Palestinian attacks since October 1 -- including stabbings, car rammings and gunfire targeting security forces and civilians -- 22 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean have been killed. At the same time, according to an AFP count, 138 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, most while carrying out attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in November vowed to expedite punitive house demolitions in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, which he said were "one of the most efficient tools" in discouraging Palestinian attacks. The controversial practice is widely used in the West Bank and resumed in east Jerusalem in November after a five-year hiatus. According to the United Nations, 19 homes of families and neighbours of Palestinian attackers were destroyed by Israel last year.

Syrian opposition leader to visit Beijing: China
AFP, Beijing Monday, 4 January 2016/The leader of the main exile Syrian opposition group will visit China this week, Beijing said Monday, despite the country repeatedly blocking U.N. Security Council resolutions on the conflict. China is a veto-wielding permanent member of the U.N. Security Council and has voted against resolutions on Syria four times alongside Russia -- which is mounting a campaign of air strikes to defend President Bashar al-Assad. Most recently, it blocked a 2014 measure to ask the International Criminal Court to investigate war crimes in the country, and Beijing has consistently called instead for a “political solution” to the conflict. Khaled Khoja, President of the Istanbul-based National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces will visit China from Tuesday to Friday, foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying told a regular briefing. “We believe that at the current stage we need to seek a ceasefire and a political settlement in parallel,” she said. The Security Council in mid-December unanimously endorsed a proposed peace plan to bring the regime and opposition together for talks this month. China hosted members of the Syrian regime on an official visit the following week, when Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem declared Damascus ready to participate, but appeared to make it conditional on which opposition groups will attend. It would be the third round of talks in Geneva -- the last session took place in early 2014 but did not bear fruit. China depends on the Middle East for its oil supplies but has long taken a back seat in the region’s disputes, only recently beginning to expand its role.

Jordan frees No. 2 figure in Muslim Brotherhood from prison
The Associated Press, Amman, Jordan Monday, 4 January 2016/Jordan on Monday released a top leader of the Muslim Brotherhood opposition group after he served over two-thirds of his 18-month prison term for criticizing the United Arab Emirates, an ally of the kingdom. Zaki Bani Ersheid’s release comes at a time of growing divisions in the Jordanian branch of the pan-Arab Brotherhood, weakening its long-time role as the main political opposition. In 2015, the Jordanian branch split, with a breakaway faction emphasizing its Jordanian identity and seeking government recognition. Bani Ersheid is the deputy leader of the original Brotherhood, which retains ties to the regional parent movement.In another sign of internal turmoil, more than 300 activists, including senior members, resigned from the original Brotherhood branch in recent days, in part because of disputes over previous leadership elections, said a spokesman, Murad Adayleh. The regional movement has also suffered major setbacks, including government crackdowns, since first emerging as the main beneficiary of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings. Bani Ersheid was released early Monday, 13 months after his November 2014 arrest, said Adayleh. Bani Ersheid had been sentenced to 18 months after he criticized the UAE for labeling the Brotherhood a terrorist group. Jordan’s government spokesman, Mohammed Momani, said Bani Ersheid “served his time after being sentenced by the court.” Momani and Adayleh said Bani Ersheid did not win early release and that under the Jordanian system, a year-long term means less than 12 months in prison. The charges against Bani Ersheid came at a time of growing polarization in the region, with some Arab countries such as Egypt and the UAE adopting a harder stance against Islamist groups. The Muslim Brotherhood has been formally banned in Egypt and several Arab Gulf countries.

Eight Dead as Strong Quake Hits Northeast India
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 04/16/At least eight people were killed and scores injured Monday when a strong 6.7 magnitude earthquake struck northeast India, sending panicked residents fleeing into the streets even hundreds of kilometers away in Bangladesh. Five were killed in India, the government said, while three people died in Bangladesh after suffering strokes or heart attacks following the early-morning quake. Anurag Gupta of India's National Disaster Management Authority said buildings had been damaged in Imphal, capital of Manipur state where the quake was centered. "Five people are confirmed dead and 33 have been injured in Imphal. A six-storey building in the capital was partially damaged and some small structures have also developed cracks," he told Agence France Presse. An official at one of the main hospitals in Imphal however said more than 50 people had been admitted since the quake with head injuries and limb fractures. Imphal resident Deepak Shijagurumayum whose house was severely damaged described scenes of chaos after the quake. "Almost everyone was asleep when it struck and were thrown out of their beds," Shijagurumayum told AFP by phone from the city.
"People were crying and praying in the streets and in open spaces. Hundreds remained outdoors for several hours fearing aftershocks." The US Geological Survey said the quake hit at 4:35 am (2305 GMT Sunday) 29 kilometres (18 miles) west-northwest of Imphal. The Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency said buildings had collapsed near the epicentre and the electricity supply had been cut in parts of Manipur, which borders Myanmar and has a long history of separatist unrest. - 'State of shock' -Nearly 60 victims were being treated for their injuries in hospitals in Bangladesh, where the earthquake triggered panic on the streets of major cities. One 23-year-old Bangladeshi man died after suffering a stroke when he ran out of his house, while another two people -- a farmer and a university official -- died of heart attacks, police said. One of the wounded was a university student who jumped from a fourth-floor balcony and was in a critical condition. There were similar scenes in the northeast Indian city of Guwahati, the main commercial city of the mineral-rich state of Assam, where an AFP correspondent said residents were "in a state of shock" after being woken by the shaking. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he had spoken to local authorities in Assam about the impact of the quake. The tremors were felt as far away as Kolkata some 600 kilometres distant in the Indian state of West Bengal, where buildings shook. "Many people were seen coming out of their homes in panic," said local resident Rabin Dev.
India's seven northeastern states, joined to the rest of the country by a narrow sliver of land, are located in an area of frequent seismic activity. In 1950, dozens of villages were swallowed in a string of disasters generated by a powerful earthquake whose epicentre was in Tibet but which caused the greatest destruction to India's Assam state. More than 1,500 people died in the quake, which had a magnitude of 7.6, and its disastrous aftermath of landslides and floods. There were no immediate reports of casualties on the Myanmar side of the border, a remote and sparsely populated area that suffered widespread damage this summer from landslides caused by torrential monsoon rains. The USGS has raised its assessment alert for casualties and damage to orange, meaning there is a 33 percent chance of between 100 and 1,000 fatalities.

Iran, Saudi Arabia and the Israeli angle
Herb Keinon/Jesusalem Post/January 05/16
Jerusalem on Monday was closely monitoring the rapid breakdown in relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, knowing full well that ripples from that crisis will surely be felt in Israel. Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the National Security Council and, before that, of Military Intelligence, told The Jerusalem Post there could be two immediate ramifications for Israel. The first, he said, is that the crisis will prolong the Syrian civil war, in which Iran and Saudi Arabia are backing different forces, and the second is that the crisis with Riyadh will mean Tehran will have an additional front and point of friction to keep in mind when making decisions, including those having to do with Israel. Referring to attempts to negotiate an end to the Syrian crisis, Amidror, who is now a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, said: “Anyone who thinks he will be able to bring about calm here does not know where they are living. It is clear that so much oil has been poured on the flames now that I don’t know how long it will take to put them out.”He sidestepped the question as to whether a continuation of the war in Syria was good or bad for Israel, saying that depended on how one looked at the situation on Israel’s northern border.
There are some who believe the current situation is bad for Israel since chaos in Syria provides an opening for various elements hostile to Israel to operate directly on the country’s borders. Others, however, maintain that having Hezbollah and Iran embroiled in Syria’s conflict not only weakens them, but also keeps them from focusing on Israel. This school of thought maintains that the war has removed Syria as a conventional threat to Israel for the foreseeable future. The second immediate fallout from the diplomatic crisis between Iran and Saudi Arabia is that the Iranians will now have to factor in another point of friction in their decision making, he said. No country has infinite energy, he said, and Iran – when making its decisions – will now have to take into consideration their considerable conflict with Saudi Arabia. “They will be busy with other things,” he said. “That doesn’t meant they won’t do anything [toward Israel]. This doesn’t mean, for instance, that this will influence Hezbollah [backed by Iran] not to carry out revenge attacks against Israel. But it means that whenever there is something, there will be someone in Iran who will say that they have other problems to think about; we will not be the only issue they will be focusing on.
“The very fact that they have another source of friction is not bad for Israel,” Amidror said, adding that there were parallels between how this crisis may affect Israel, and how the crisis between Moscow and Ankara stemming from Turkey’s downing of a Russian fighter-plane impacted on Israel.
While stopping short of saying that the crisis with Moscow is what has led to a recent softening of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s position toward Israel, he said it was one of the elements leading to a change of tone because Turkey had to consider other sources of friction.
The same thing is likely to happen with the Iranians, he said. Amidror added that another likely result of the current conflict will be that “when Saudi Arabia looks around and asks who their allies are, they will not find too long a list.”Asked whether as a result of this he could imagine a scenario in which Saudi Arabia would turn to Israel for intelligence or logistical help in dealing with the Iranian threat, Amidror said he had “nothing intelligent” to say on that matter. He did say, however, that he did not see how the current Iranian-Saudi crisis could have any impact on the diplomatic process with the Palestinians.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said in the past that a confluence of interests between Israel and the moderate Sunni states in the region could – by getting them to press the Palestinians into taking more flexible positions – have a positive impact on peace efforts with the Palestinians.
“There is a big gap between the sentiments in the [Arab] street [about the Palestinian issue] and the understanding of the [Arab] leaders [of the issue]. The understanding of the leaders, in all the Arab countries, is that the Palestinian issue does not impact at all on the real situation in the Middle East and all the countries in the Middle East, except perhaps for Jordan, where there are more Palestinians,” he said. “But except for Jordan, there is not a state that thinks that what we do with the Palestinians will influence their fate, situation, problems, solutions and the sentiments on the street,” he said. “As a result, there will always be a gap between what the leaders can do in public, and what they can do [with Israel] under the radar.”

Iran-Saudi sectarian proxy wars set to explode, Israeli experts say
Jesusalem Post/January 05/16/Saudi Arabia’s execution of Shi’ite cleric Nimr al-Nimr seems likely to escalate sectarian Sunni- Shi’ite violence in the Middle East, experts told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. Gulf Sunni states, with the exception of independent- minded Oman, are expected to publicly back the Saudis, while Shi’ite-dominated Iraq and allied Syria back Iran. “The Shia Sunni conflict is boiling,” Eliezer “Geizi” Tsafrir, a former Arab affairs adviser to the prime minister and senior Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) official, currently a fellow at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC), Herzliya. “Backed by petro-dollars and aggressiveness” revolutionary Iran is supporting its allies throughout the region and the “Sunni world is terribly afraid of the Iranian threat, perhaps dreaming that the US or Israel will do the job,” Tsafrir said. Tsafrir pointed at how tensions were already rife since the Saudis, having had enough of Iranian subversion near its border, launched a war in Yemen last year to defend its interests against Iranian- backed Houthis taking over the country. Tsafrir added that the decision by Sudan, until recently in Iran’s orbit of influence, to cut off diplomatic relations with the Islamic Republic, may be a sign of things to come. He said Khartoum’s maneuver demonstrated how far the conflict between the Sunni and Shi’ite factions has escalated. “We can expect more steps,” Tsafrir said. Prof. Joshua Teitelbaum, an expert on Saudi Arabia and the modern Middle East, told the Post that since King Salman took over a year ago, “he and his advisers have pushed for a more muscular foreign policy to assert Saudi responsibility for Sunni Muslims.” In addition, Teitelbuam, a senior research associate at Bar-Ilan University’s Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, sees Saudi action as a response to American retrenchment in the region. “The Saudis perceive it as creating a vacuum that the pro-Iranian Shi’ite forces are filling,” Teitelbaum said. The latest anti-Iranian Saudi moves can also be seen as a step by the young new Saudi defense minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Salman, the king’s son, as seeking to prove his mettle, Teitelbaum said. Meir Javedanfar, a lecturer on Iranian politics at the IDC said that both sides “are going to significantly increase support for proxy groups in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, and even Lebanon.”“This is going to make the job of [Secretary of State] John Kerry of finding peaceful solution in Syria much more difficult,” Javedanfar said. Asked if he envisages direct military conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Jevadanfar responded that for now direct confrontation is unlikely as they “prefer fighting proxy wars against each other. And this is likely to continue.” Dr. Michael Barak, a Middle East senior researcher at ICT and a lecturer at the IDC’s Lauder school of government diplomacy and strategy, said that “Saudi Arabia crossed an Iranian red line by executing Nimr, which humiliated Iran.”In recent years, Iran warned Saudi Arabia not to execute Shi’ite clerics, but the Saudis were determined to act against Shi’ite terrorism, Barak said. “The execution of Nimr and three other Shi’tes is a declaration of war against Iran,” Barak said. He predicted Iran would respond “in the near future, perhaps by assassinating a prominent Saudi figure such as an ambassador.”Barak said Iranian authorities have also arrested clerics from its Sunni minority and could execute them in revenge. Another possibility, he said, is that Iran may use its proxy in Yemen, the Houthis, to launch more attacks on Saudi Arabia.

Is Saudi Arabia next target of Islamic State?
Week in Review/Al-Monitor/January05/16
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia may be forced to shift priorities
This week, Bruce Riedel laid out the daunting challenges facing Saudi Arabia in 2016, including a seemingly endless and costly war in Yemen and the largest budget deficit ever, as oil prices continue to slide.
Riedel wrote that Riyadh hopes that the new Islamic Coalition will “silence criticism that the Saudis and their allies are doing too little against IS [Islamic State] in Syria and Iraq because of their commitment in Yemen.” While the Saudi effort may have the potential to serve as “a platform for more effective countermeasures in the ideological battle by mobilizing Islamic clerics,” the coalition’s sectarian bent is hard to conceal. The kingdom considers Iran, which is not a member of the coalition, as a lead sponsor of terrorism in Syria and Yemen. While the kingdom has until now considered the battle against Iran a higher priority than the fight against al-Qaeda and IS, circumstances in the coming year may force a change in priorities. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Dec. 26 mocked the coalition and called on the kingdom’s citizens to “rise up against the apostate tyrants, and avenge your people in Syria, Iraq and Yemen.”
The United States and its allies expect Saudi Arabia to step up in battling IS and al-Qaeda, and in the end, that is how the alliance will be judged, at least in Washington and European capitals. The threat from IS to the kingdom is likely to grow. Saudi security forces broke up a cell linked to IS in 2014, and the terrorist group claimed credit for two bombings in 2015 that killed 36 people. IS continues to hold ground in Iraq and Syria, maintains a cell network in Europe and is expanding its presence in Afghanistan, Yemen and North Africa. The kingdom is, of course, not a “fragile” state like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Libya or Afghanistan, but neither is France or Belgium. Unlike Syria and Iraq, which have ethnically and religiously diverse populations, Saudi Arabia’s population is 85-90% Sunni Muslim. And if IS continues to lose ground in Syria and Iraq, as it did in Ramadi last week, it may seek other nearby targets to rally its followers. As this column reported in December, the kingdom’s hosting of the Syrian opposition conference last month may eventually serve to turn IS and al-Qaeda on the Saudi and Western-backed armed groups, which have been mostly preoccupied with fighting the Syrian government until now. In other words, IS may be taking the fight to Saudi Arabia, even if the kingdom would prefer to keep its prime focus on Bashar al-Assad and Iran.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s incoherent foreign policy
Semih Idiz this week painted a bleak picture of the prospects for Turkish foreign policy in 2016. Reflecting on the disastrous decision to send a more expansive military force to a Turkish training facility in Iraq, Idiz wrote, “This development weakened Ankara’s hand in the region further, thus prompting new questions about the AKP’s [Justice and Development Party] ability to pursue a coherent foreign policy. Many wondered how Turkey could have assumed that deploying troops in Iraq without informing Baghdad would not have consequences. The AKP’s policies have left Turkey facing the United States in Iraq — where Ankara also faces Russia and Iran — and facing Russia and Iran in Syria, where it is not completely on the same page with the United States, either.”
Idiz added, “None of this suggests that Ankara’s influence in the region will improve. … Turkey’s ties with Europe in 2016 will be determined by the fight against Islamic terrorism and the refugee crisis emanating from Syria. The EU-Turkey summit in November resulted in a joyful declaration by [Prime Minister Ahmet] Davutoglu that ‘a new chapter had been opened in Turkey’s ties with Europe.’ European leaders also promised to help energize Ankara’s bid for EU membership. But Turkey’s ties with Europe will be predicated on issues that have little to do with Ankara’s EU bid. While more cooperation is expected on the issues of Islamic terrorism and refugees, the European Union remains concerned about the AKP’s Islamist/Sunni leanings and its less-than-democratic policies at home, which are not expected to change in 2016. … The fact that Ankara went beyond its capacity in that way, while making its Sunni leanings apparent, also shows there will be no role for Turkey as a mediator or facilitator in any dispute in the region in 2016, especially ones fueled by sectarian divisions.”
Despite the ruling AKP’s win in the November 2015 general elections, one might wonder about the threshold for discontent within the AKP and the military given Erdogan’s record of foreign policy failures. The Turkish president will continue to fend off domestic challenges by playing the “security card” at home. He believes he has a winner in a brutal campaign against increasingly radicalized and localized Kurdish armed groups in southeastern Turkey. Metin Gurcan does not rule out that the violence may soon spread to Ankara and Istanbul. He writes, “As long as the government keeps stepping up its pressure on Cizre and Silopi, Ankara and Istanbul could become targets of sensational operations directly targeting civilians and designed to paralyze the cities. The PKK's [Kurdistan Workers Party] ability to use proxies in its battles is expanding; it is perfectly capable of organizing attacks and then denying involvement or even condemning the acts. Neither Ankara nor the PKK appear willing to acknowledge the social and economic costs of increasingly urbanized clashes and the use of proxies. In the end, innocent civilians are paying the price.”
Week in Review

By cutting ties with Iran, Saudi Arabia executed the 48th terrorist
Faisal J. Abbas/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
It was as if Saudi Arabia executed yet another terrorist when Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir announced the severing of ties with Iran last night. In fact, one could argue that the Iranian regime resembles the single biggest terrorist threat, not just to Saudi Arabia and the region, but to global security as well.
Iran – in a typical manner – pretended that it was trying to prevent protesters from attacking and setting fire to the Saudi embassy in Tehran, but in reality it did not prevent them (it wouldn’t be surprising, or a first, if it turns out that it actually encouraged them as well). Iran also criticized the execution of convicted hate preacher Nimr al-Nimr, who had been described by Saudi authorities as an “instigator of sedition” and was found guilty of seeking "foreign meddling" in the kingdom, among other charges. Through its media and various mouthpieces, Iran made the issue appear sectarian – because Saudi Arabia is a Sunni state and Nimr was Shiite. Conveniently, Iranian officials avoided mentioning the fact that only 3 of the 47 executed terrorists were Shiite. It is shocking that Riyadh is still seen with dubious eyes when it is Tehran – according to U.S. State and Treasury Departments – that is providing refuge and assisting al-Qaeda leaders both logistically and financially. The rest were not only Sunni, but extremist Sunnis who were leading figures in al-Qaeda, which Saudi Arabia is accused – by Iran in particular – of supporting! Of course, it is easy to point the finger at Riyadh, for 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9-11 were Saudis. In addition, the late leader of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, was a Saudi before he was stripped of citizenship.
However, there is a big difference between being a regime that supports terrorism, such as Iran, and the Saudi government which has been praised by global powers as a key ally in the war against terror. The truth is the kingdom has been fighting the likes of al-Qaeda and ISIS relentlessly (for anyone who hasn’t seen it yet, Al Arabiya’s exclusive, recently aired documentary is a must watch) and relentlessly going after any of its own citizens who are proven to be members of such groups. Among the al-Qaeda members executed was Faris al-Shuwail, a top al-Qaeda ideologue, whose writings attempted to justify the strategies and tactics employed by the militants. Like Nimr, al-Shuwail might have not personally killed people, but his teachings and sermons were a direct factor behind the taking of innocent lives, which makes them both equally responsible for the crimes committed. While many fail – whether intentionally or not – to recognize Saudi Arabia’s intense efforts and the sacrifices made by a large number of its own security forces on this front, it is shocking that Riyadh is still seen with dubious eyes when it is Tehran – according to the U.S. State and Treasury Departments – that is providing refuge and assisting al-Qaeda leaders both logistically and financially. This explains why al-Qaeda is more preoccupied with the Saudi government rather than what would arguably be its natural foe: Iran.In all cases, it is surreal that Iran would have the audacity to criticize Saudi Arabia for executing a number of convicted terrorists.
It is surreal that Iran would have the audacity to criticize Saudi Arabia for executing a number of convicted terrorists. According to Amnesty International, Tehran executed over 700 people in the first half of last year and the final toll for 2015 is expected to top 1,000 once officially announced (it should be noted that this is happening under the nose of the so-called “moderate” leader President Rowhani!). It goes without saying that many of these sentences were against Sunni clerics who are believed to have not committed any crimes or received a fair trial.
While Saudi Arabia publicly tried and executed the al-Qaeda gunman who, among his many terrorist acts, attacked and paralyzed BBC journalist Frank Gardner and killed his cameraman back in 2004, the Iranian regime still maintains the detention of Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian, who was subjected to a secretive trial and a cryptic sentencing late last year.
There is clearly no issue with the Iranian people themselves, who are far more moderate and tolerant than their leaders; the issue is with the regime’s regional maneuverings. Iran is also responsible for backing and financing numerous terrorist and paramilitary groups in the region, from Hezbollah (the key destabilizing force in Lebanon which is also responsible for the 1983 Beirut barracks attack on U.S. marines) to Asaaib Ahl al-Haq in Iraq (responsible for the killing of Iraqis, Brits and Americans), as well as the Houthis in Yemen. Riyadh severing its ties with Iran is certainly a step in the right direction and Saudi Arabia’s allies should follow suit, like Bahrain did today. If the U.S. and other global powers managed to succeed in ridding Iran of its nuclear ambitions (or so it seems) in 2015, then 2016 should be the year in which Iran’s interference and destabilizing behavior in the region is put to an end… once and for all!

Why exclude Nimr al-Nimr from punishment?
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/January 04/16/A New York Times reporter in Tehran deleted his tweet that all the convicts executed by Saudi Arabia on Saturday were Shiite, and clarified that this was untrue. However, he did not say only four of those executed were Shiite, while the 43 others were Sunni.
The BBC summarized news of the executions by just referring to that of Nimr al-Nimr. It reported the execution of a man convicted in the murder of a BBC cameraman in a separate piece of news. We understand why Iran is leading the media campaign against the executions. It is targeting Saudi Arabia, against which it has been fighting a political and propaganda war since it decided to engage in sectarian wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. But why would others follow Iranian propaganda without at least examining the allegations of both parties? Was Nimr a peaceful opposition figure? Of course not. Was he a leader of Shiites? Absolutely not. He was like other extremist preachers. Did his speeches criticize the Saudi government? Yes, but so do those of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Saudi Arabia cannot execute Sunni religious preachers who are guilty of incitement that lead to murder, and overlook the cases of Shiite convicts. There are 5,000 extremists in Saudi jails, hundreds of whom have been convicted. Most of them are Sunni Saudis, while only dozens of them are Shiite Saudis. It makes no sense to ask Saudis to execute Sunni religious leaders, and let other implicated preachers be. Nimr was an extremist Shiite Saudi preacher. He was exactly like Al-Qaeda theorist Faris al-Shuwail, and Sunni extremist preacher Hamad al-Humaidi. None of the three committed murder, but they were convicted by the judiciary based on the law of criminalizing incitement to violence, as they incited their followers to commit murder, and were involved in other activities that are based on practicing violence. Humaidi’s group kidnapped and killed U.S. citizen Paul Johnson, and kept his head in a fridge in the house where they were arrested. Although it was not Humaidi who slaughtered Johnson, his followers committed the crime based on his instructions. Shuwail, who surrendered after he was injured in security confrontations in the town of ar-Rass, is considered one of the most prominent takfiri preachers in Saudi Arabia. Abdulaziz al-Toaili’e, a Sunni figure and Al-Qaeda’s media broadcaster, was also among those executed. He did not kill anyone himself, but was involved in recruitment and armament operations, and incited against others.
Incitement
Nimr was an extremist preacher, not a political leader. Like leaders of Sunni extremist organizations, he incited others to pursue armed opposition and fight, and helped them by collecting arms and funds. He was arrested while helping a man wanted for murder to escape. Nimr had a group known as the List of the 23, who were accused of armed operations. Four of the 23 men handed themselves in and were later released, some were killed during confrontations, and others are on the run. Nimr was arrested while police pursued a wanted man called Hussein al-Rabee. Nimr and Rabee were in two separate cars, and Nimr’s car bumped into a police car to help Rabee escape. While the police arrested Nimr, gunmen in another car opened fire on security forces, injuring Nimr and others. Rabee escaped, but was arrested two months later. According to the Saudi system, Nimr is legally responsible for the incitement, recruitment and crimes that his followers committed because of him. These crimes are many. His followers deliberately killed six policemen in separate incidents, and dozens were injured. They killed three civilians, and arbitrarily opened fire on foreign workers to obstruct work, killing a Bengali. They opened fire on a car belonging to the German embassy, and the vehicle burnt as a result. The two diplomats in the car survived the attack, and the perpetrators were later arrested. Our problem, or rather the world’s problem today, is extremist clerics who lead destructive acts and threaten peace everywhere. It makes no sense to ask Saudis to execute Sunni religious leaders, and let other implicated clerics be.

Saudi-Turkish cooperation: Opportunities and challenges
Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
The strategic cooperation council established by Saudi Arabia and Turkey is one step above a bilateral alliance, and its goal goes beyond restoring balance to Sunni forces in Iraq and Syria, and thus requires an in-depth examination of Saudi-Egyptian, Turkish-Russian, and Turkish-Egyptian relations. Meanwhile, Iran and Qatar are both relevant to the developments in Saudi-Turkish relations, as are the U.S., ISIS, and the Syrian opposition.There are both convergences and divergences in Saudi-Turkish relations, which were upgraded this week to the level of strategic cooperation. The linchpin of this strategic cooperation council will be the mechanisms of activating the alliance should developments in Syria require intervention to counter Russian protection of Bashar al-Assad. Other challenges include reconciling Turkish hostility to the Kurdish organizations and the aspirations of the Kurds, with Saudi Arabian neutrality in this matter.
Furthermore, there are several grey areas when it comes to the fight against radical Sunni groups Washington and Moscow designate as terrorist groups, despite the fact that Ankara and Riyadh have agreed to fight ISIS and similar groups that pose an existential threat to Saudi Arabia, perhaps more so than to Turkey. The first country of concern in this context is Egypt. Egypt, an ally of Saudi Arabia, has tense relations with Turkey. The government of Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi sees the Turkish government under Recept Tayyip Erdogan to be an incubator of the Muslim Brotherhood, and thus sees any Saudi-Turkey rapprochement as rapprochement over the Muslim Brotherhood, which were designated in the past as a terrorist group by Riyadh. Cairo wants the Muslim Brotherhood to continue to have that designation, and fears that the rapprochement might entail a reversal of that designation. Already, there are liberal as well as Muslim brotherhood voices that believe the kingdom’s designation of the Muslim Brotherhood is harmful and unnecessary.
The Saudi-Turkish cooperation council is an important event, but it is no alternative to the Gulf Cooperation Council, nor is it an alternative to the regional security system that Iran is seeking to build. Despite some tension over Cairo’s attitudes vis-à-vis Syria, Yemen, and anti-terrorism Saudi is determined to maintain the alliance with Egypt and preserve the regime there. For its part, Egypt is appreciative of the indispensable Saudi, Emirati, and Kuwaiti support despite its resentment over Gulf expectations and the fact that it has had to take a back seat in Arab leadership in the present time. Ultimately, both Cairo and Riyadh realize that Egypt is vital, pivotal, and irreplaceable in the regional balance of power.
Arab heavyweights
However, with the establishment of a Saudi-Turkish strategic alliance, Egypt must be asking what place it will have in it, and how its position in the Arab strategic weight will be reconciled in the regional balance of power. Saudi’s response is that there is no contradiction between the two, as evidenced by the commitment to the continuation of the alliance. Clearly, there is a need for a profound dialogue between the two Arab heavyweights. Russia is on good terms with Egypt and has interesting relations with Saudi Arabia. One of the aspects of strategic Russian-Egyptian cooperation stems from their combined hostility to Islamist groups led by the Muslim Brotherhood. In turn, this has led to Russian-Egyptian convergence on Syria, at a time when Saudi and Russian attitudes on Syria are diverging while Russian-Turkish attitudes there are clashing outright. The pragmatism Saudi diplomacy currently adopts led Riyadh to seek a working relation with Moscow, despite profound differences over Syria, which has helped set the Vienna peace process in motion and bring in Iran to the table of discussions surrounding Syria’s fate. It is the same kind of pragmatism that has prompted Riyadh to establish a strategic cooperation council with Ankara, at the height of Russian-Turkish tension, while at the same time voiding any animus with Moscow. For its part, Moscow pledged not to intervene in Yemen against the Arab coalition. This week, Moscow rejected a request from ousted Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to take action against the Saudi-led coalition. Yemen is a top Saudi priority, both militarily and diplomatically, including at the UN, where Moscow’s role is extremely important. So no matter how deep Saudi disputes are with Russia over Syria or Iran, Riyadh is keen on maintaining its newfound pragmatic ties with Moscow for both tactical and long-term strategic calculations.
Moscow, for its part, wants to maintain strong relations with Saudi Arabia, as long as Riyadh does not condition this on disengagement with Iran and Syria. This pragmatism is to thank in part for the Vienna process, which has brought together around twenty nations, led by the U.S., Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, who all followed the plans drafted by Russian diplomacy culminating with the third round in New York that produced an unprecedented U.N. Security resolution on Syria. Resolution No. 2259 deferred contentious issues, led by the fate of Bashar al-Assad during the transitional process, the question of which opposition figures are acceptable, and the question of which groups in Syria are terror organizations. The Vienna process resolution, midwifed by Russia, bypassed the Geneva Communique, which called for a transitional period during which Assad hands over power to an executive governing body. The new resolution effectively repealed the Geneva Communique and bypassed the “Assad Knot.” The list of proposals given to Jordan, which has been assigned by the Vienna nations to prepare a list of groups to be listed as terrorist organizations, was also deferred, containing 167 putative groups. The reason is the anger expressed by Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif at the latest meeting of the Vienna process in New York, when he learned the Qods Force and Hezbollah were included in the list. The meeting was then suspended, the list was buried, and work has restarted from scratch on a new list. Turkey, in turn, has listed the groups it considers to be terror organizations, including the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK). For its part, Russia has focused its gaze on the list of Syrian opposition group prepared by Riyadh in the wake of a previous meeting of the Syrian opposition. However, Moscow insisted on merely referring to that effort in the preamble to resolution 2259, and removed it from the operative clauses that were originally meant to endorse the list. The political battle over the implementation of resolution 2259, which for the first time endorsed a political process in Syria since the conflict there began five years ago, is inevitable. Saudi Arabia and Turkey want to include figures and groups in the terror lists that Russia do not want included. However, Riyadh wants to benefit from Ankara to pressure on Iran not just with regard to the list, but also to curb Iranian meddling in the region, and agree on mechanisms that guarantee the effectiveness of the alliance against terrorism and counter Russian protection of Assad. Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir had declared the creation of the joint strategic cooperation council in a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart following the summit between King Salman and President Erdogan in Riyadh last week.
Tenser by the day
He said the purpose of the council includes deeper coordination with Turkey in light of the challenges both countries face in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and Libya, from terrorism to extremism to Iran’s negative intervention in regional issues. Countering challenges will not be easy however. Turkey is not an effective participant in the war with ISIS and similar groups in Syria, and its main concern is the Kurds as the regime is weakened. Turkey is opposed to secular groups, including Kurdish groups, which reveals its keenness on empowering Islamist groups. In Iraq, Turkey is at odds with Saudi Arabia in a way; Saudi has normalized relations with Baghdad after 25 years of estrangement, while Turkish-Iraqi relations grow tenser by the day. True, both countries have reservations with regard to the government of Haider al-Abadi in Baghdad, but they have different reasons. While Turkey’s reasons have Kurdish dimensions, Saudi’s have Iranian dimensions. Yet both are pursuing the restoration of the Sunni element in the balance of power after ISIS fled from Ramadi. Saudi Arabia and Turkey are both crucial for the quest to defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria. The Saudi-Turkish cooperation council is an important event, but it is no alternative to the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Bahrain. Nor is it an alternative to the regional security system that Iran is seeking to build, to include it, Iraq and the countries of the GCC after the latter is dismantled. It is an important event that requires profound analysis and follow-up.

Jordan’s Muslim Brotherhood has become one big mess
Raed Omari/Al Arabiya/January 04/16
It would be no exaggeration to say that Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood is perishing. Given the widening cracks within the long-established group, which led to hundreds of leaders recently submitting their mass resignation, the kingdom's Islamist movement is now as fragmented and weak as leftist powers. In other words, the dispute-plagued movement is no longer Jordan's largest opposition force. Over the past year, the Muslim Brotherhood’s prominent leaders have been jumping overboard, mostly for being fed up with the totalitarian attitude of the group's 'hawkish' leadership. Last week's mass resignation of 400 leaders and founding members of the Islamic Action Front (IAF), the Muslim Brotherhood's political arm, was the most recent manifestation of fierce disputes within the group which, for decades, was well-known for being in harmony and having a solid structure. One of the Islamist leaders whose membership in the Brotherhood was previously terminated by an internal tribunal, professor and columnist Rheil al-Gharaibeh, has founded Zamzam, a reform-oriented initiative which has been gaining ground and attracting conservative statesmen who long-opposed the Islamist movement. Zamzam is now a licensed body in Jordan with moderate socio-political tendencies and is highly expected to participate in the upcoming parliamentary election, expected in January 2017. This will definitely strike a big blow to the Brotherhood’s trend of boycotting elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was licensed in 1946 as a charity affiliated with the mother group in Egypt and relicensed in 1953 as an Islamic society.
Offshoots
The Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was licensed in 1946 as a charity affiliated with the mother group in Egypt and relicensed in 1953 as an Islamic society. Probably the strongest rift in the Jordanian Brotherhood happened when a group of prominent “dovish” leaders recently walked out of the organization, severing affiliations with the Egyptian mother group, with the intention to form an offshoot group. Many political observers now believe that the Brotherhood's hawkish leader Hammam Said has been putting the group at the disposal of Hamas member and Egypt's Brotherhood, thus depriving the Jordanian group of its national distinctiveness and pushing it to become embroiled in the troubling politics of Gaza and Egypt. Each of the two offshoots and the original Brotherhood in Jordan is claiming to be the authentic and legitimate heir of the Brotherhood movement. The 400 resigned members had gathered in a group dubbed the “Group of Elders” with an aim being to reform the Brotherhood and restore its allure which, they said, has had been damaged by the hawkish camp. Zamzam founders also say they are still Muslim Brotherhood members, announcing that their initiative's aim is also centered on rescuing the old group. We also have a newly-established, licensed Muslim Brotherhood– named the Muslim Brotherhood Society – and the old group, which is unlicensed but not outlawed. There has even been a court ruling obliging the old group to transfer all assets to the new licensed Muslim Brotherhood Society. The new group is claiming to be the legitimate successor of the Brotherhood while the old movement has repeatedly charged that the establishment of the new Brotherhood society is a “government conspiracy” against the Islamists. In a bid to contain the growing crisis, the old, unlicensed Islamist movement is nowadays calling for dialogue, saying the mass resignations have not yet been accepted. But those who have resigned say their decision is irreversible and that they will move ahead with their reformist endeavor. The IAF, or again Said's movement, is claiming that the resignations are not affecting the group's popular base which, it said has been seeing a rise in the number of subscribers and branches across the kingdom. But this is all such a mess. Even in terms of terminology and phrases – the old group, Zamzam, the licensed group, the unlicensed one, the IAF, the mother movement, the Group of Elders, the Muslim Brotherhood Society. This is the current frayed state of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood. No matter what comes from their efforts to resolve the growing crisis, what is indisputable is that the Jordanian Islamist movement is no longer cohesive and influential.

Palestinian Leaders Promise a New Year of Violence and Death
Khaled Abu Toameh/2016 Gatestone Institute/January 04/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7166/palestinians-new-years
Instead of wishing Palestinians a happy and prosperous New Year, both Fatah and Hamas are asking their people to prepare for increased violence and "resistance," including suicide bombings, against Israelis.
Fatah's armed wing used the occasion to issue yet another threat: "We will continue in the path of the martyrs until the liberation of all of Palestine."
Masked Palestinians in Bethlehem attacked several restaurants and halls where New Year's Eve parties were supposed to take place. The assailants, eyewitnesses reported, were affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction, not Hamas.
Hamas banned Gazans from celebrating New Year's Eve, saying such parties are "in violation of Islamic teachings." Hamas does not want young Palestinians enjoying their time in restaurants and cafes. Instead, Hamas wants them to join its forces, armed and dressed in military fatigues, preparing for jihad against Israel.
After failing to offer their people any hope for the future, Fatah and Hamas are now telling Palestinians that they should expect more violence and bloodshed during in 2016.
In separate messages to the Palestinians on New Year's Eve, the two rival Palestinian parties pledged to pursue, and even step up, "resistance" attacks against Israel. Needless to say, the messages did not make any reference to peace, coexistence or tolerance.
Instead of wishing Palestinians a happy and prosperous New Year, both Fatah and Hamas are asking their people in the Gaza Strip and West Bank to prepare for increased violence and "resistance" attacks against Israel. The two parties have nothing to offer the Palestinians besides more bloodshed and despair.
Hamas, which has been in power in the Gaza Strip for almost 10 years, is even reported to be preparing for a new wave of suicide bombings against Israelis. The last time Hamas launched suicide attacks in Israel was during the second intifada, 2000-2005, which wrought havoc and destruction to Palestinians.
Various reports have suggested that Hamas was now considering activating its West Bank "sleeper cells," in preparation for resuming suicide bombings against Israelis. Hamas, according to the reports, is also planning to target Israeli security and political figures.
Hussam Badran, a senior Hamas official in the Gaza Strip, painted a grim picture of what awaits Palestinians during 2016. In a message to Palestinians, Badran announced that the current wave of terrorism, which he referred to as the "Al-Quds Intifada," would escalate during the coming year. He also hinted that Hamas was indeed considering resuming suicide attacks against Israelis: "The year 2016 will witness a development and escalation of the intifada and all forms of resistance operations."
His message, like those of many Hamas officials, did not contain any reference to the harsh living conditions of Palestinians under the rule of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. When Badran and other Hamas officials talk about waging "all forms of resistance" against Israel, they are actually referring to plans to launch suicide bombings and other terror attacks against Israelis.
The Hamas New Year's messages do not offer Palestinians in the Gaza Strip any hope that their leaders are working towards ending their misery and state of despair. There is no promise to help solve the problem of unemployment or poverty in the Gaza Strip. Nor is there any promise to help solve the crisis with Egypt, one which has resulted in the closure of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt for most of 2015.
As if that were not enough, Hamas last week banned Palestinians in the Gaza Strip from celebrating New Year's Eve. Hamas security officers warned owners of restaurants and hotels against holding New Year's Eve parties, saying that this practice is "alien to our traditions and values and in violation of Islamic teachings." Hamas also justified the ban by arguing that Palestinians in the Gaza Strip must show solidarity with their brothers in the West Bank, who have been waging a campaign of stabbing and vehicular attacks against Israelis since early October.
By banning New Year's Eve celebrations, Hamas is following the example of other Islamist terror groups such as the Islamic State, which have denounced such parties as "un-Islamic." These groups consider New Year's Eve celebrations as being part of the same Western culture they are seeking to replace with extremist Islam and Sharia law.
Hamas cannot tolerate scenes of Palestinians rejoicing and celebrating the arrival of a new year. It does not want to see young Palestinians enjoying their time in restaurants, cafes and hotels. Instead, Hamas wants young Palestinians to join its forces and prepare for jihad against Israel. Hamas prefers to see young Palestinians dressed up in military fatigues and carrying weapons. It wants the young men, instead of celebrating and rejoicing, to participate in digging more tunnels under Gaza's borders with Israel and Egypt.
Armed Hamas militiamen on parade with a mock rocket in Gaza. (Image source: i24 News video screenshot)
Similarly, President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction in the West Bank, which this week celebrated the 51st anniversary of its first armed attack against Israel, is hoping that 2016 will witness more violence. Several Fatah officials and groups marked the anniversary by vowing to step up "resistance" against Israelis and urging Palestinians to join the "struggle" against Israel.
Fatah's armed wing, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, used the occasion to issue yet another threat to launch terror attacks against Israelis. "We remain committed to the option of an armed struggle," the group rote in a leaflet distributed in the West Bank. "We will continue in the path of the martyrs until the liberation of all of Palestine."
President Mahmoud Abbas, who is also head of Fatah, also had nothing to offer his people on New Year's Eve, other than more messages of hate and defiance towards Israel. In a message to his people, Abbas once again justified the current wave of violence by saying it was the "result of the continuation of occupation and settlements, and the desecration of our holy sites." He added: "Our people won't capitulate, surrender or accept humiliation."
As Abbas was addressing his people, masked Palestinians in Bethlehem attacked several restaurants and halls where New Year's Eve parties were supposed to take place. Eyewitnesses said that the masked men opened fire at the restaurants, halls and vehicles, to prevent Palestinians from celebrating. The assailants, eyewitnesses reported, were affiliated with Abbas's Fatah faction, not Hamas.
The leaders of Fatah and Hamas have once again shown they have nothing to offer the Palestinians other than violence, destruction and death. These leaders want their people to remain in a combatant mood in order to pursue the fight against Israel. As such, the year 2016 does not look very promising for Palestinians under the current leadership of Fatah and Hamas.
**Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. 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.

New Year's Wish: A Worthwhile Palestinian Partner for Peace
Jagdish N. Singh/2016 Gatestone Institute/January 04/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7164/palestinian-partner-for-peace
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has never been a man of peace. Even now, he continues calling for Jewish blood. Israel, however, has offered peace deal after peace deal – never even to receive even so much as a single counter-offer.
Sometimes, Abbas harps on Israel's settlement policy as the sole reason for the absence of peace in the region. But before 1967 there were no settlements -- and still no peace. What, then, was the PLO thinking of liberating? If you look at any current map of "Palestine" from the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, it blankets the entire country of Israel.
"For how long will this protracted Israeli occupation of our land last? After 67 years, how long?" -- Mahmoud Abbas, saying recently that the "occupation" has existed since Israel's creation in 1948.
One wonders if or when the U.S. administration and the Europeans might ever be serious about promoting real peace and prosperity in the disputed Palestinian territories. Sadly, the White House, in pinning all its hopes on Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, has just been trying to hook its cart to someone not only with a shelf-life that officially expired years ago, but who is also too corrupt to be of any help to his people.
In backing Abbas, whose four-year term in office ended in 2009, both the White House and Europe have tragically undermined a productive future for the Palestinian people -- in the same way that strengthening the Castros' dictatorship in Cuba has dealt a death blow to a productive future for the people of Cuba. As with Iran, these are rulers that do not need to be need strengthened, they need to be removed.
Instead, at a White House meeting with Abbas in March 2014, U.S. President Barack Obama commended him as "somebody who has consistently renounced violence, has consistently sought a diplomatic and peaceful solution that allows for two states, side by side, in peace and security -- a state that allows for the dignity and sovereignty of the Palestinian people and a state that allows for Israelis to feel secure and at peace with their neighbors."
That would have been superb if any of it were true. Obama seems to have acquired the bad habit of either hoping that if he says something, his mere voice magically makes it true ("You can keep your doctor;" "Al-Qaeda is on the run," and the Iran deal will "prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon"), or, bluntly, of lying: saying something that is not true all the while knowing that it is not true.
In an interaction with Israel's President, Reuven Rivlin, ahead of the White House Hanukkah party recently, Obama said there was "the need for leaders like President Abbas to unequivocally condemn violence which has been taking place, the need to end incitement, also the need for Israelis and Palestinians to find mechanisms in which to dialogue and arrive at peace." Now that was true: there is the need. There is just no one on the Palestinian side to do it.
The current crop of Palestinian leaders appears to think that cozying up to racist, Jew-hating European elites, and to unelected, untransparent and unaccountable organizations such as the UN and the EU, might, in contravention of piles of international agreements, hand the Palestinians statehood, free of diplomatic cost, free of obligations, and free of any responsibility to treat either its people or its neighbors in a civilized way.
Abbas, like his former boss, Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat, has never been a man of peace. Even now, he continues calling for Jewish blood.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, speaking on PA television, September 16, 2015.
Israel, however, ever since its creation in 1948, has offered peace deal after peace deal – never to receive even so much as a single counter-offer -- apart from war. Israel has, since its creation, been a tireless advocate for peace with Palestinians. All Israel asked in return were defensible borders, as agreed to by all parties in UN Security Council Resolution 242; no "right of return," so that Israel will not become the twenty-second Arab state (and a radicalized one, at that), and an agreement to the end of conflict to prevent war from being reignited every few weeks, as sometimes appears to have become a Palestinian habit. Israel also insists, as it must, on an undivided Jerusalem -- both to ensure freedom for all faiths, and -- as it learned the hard way -- that Jerusalem will not become another Palmyra of devastation or the headquarters of an Islamist State. Israelis no doubt remember all too well that when east Jerusalem was under the control of Jordan, before 1967, its Arab inhabitants took 38,000 ancient headstones from the Jews' sacred Mount of Olives cemetery to use as flooring for their latrines.
In keeping with the policy of his predecessors, Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu said in the UN General Assembly this year: "I am prepared to immediately resume direct peace negotiations with the Palestinian Authority without any preconditions whatsoever."
In addition, it is only thanks to round-the-clock protection from Israel's security forces that the Abbas is literally able to exist. Hamas, as he is well aware, would have killed him long ago.
While Netanyahu had always worked with the existing security, economic and civil cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian leadership, regrettably, seems never to have tried to bring its people either peace or development. In August 2005, Israel forcibly removed more than 8,500 Jewish residents from the Gaza Strip -- with no conditions for the Palestinians – to let the Palestinians make this exquisite section of seaside land into another Côte d'Azure or Singapore. The Israelis even left their greenhouses there to give the Palestinians an economic head start. Within hours, every last greenhouse was looted or destroyed.
Then the Gazans, in free and fair elections, voted in Hamas -- which the U.S. designated a terrorist group -- to run their government. In just a few weeks, Hamas was throwing Palestinian Authority officials off the highest floors of Gaza's buildings and expelling whoever had not yet fled. Abbas, to this day, cannot visit his own house in the Gaza Strip.
As a notable postscript, reliable accounts indicate that if the Palestinians on the West Bank were to hold free and fair elections to replace Abbas tomorrow, they, too, would elect Hamas.
In addition, in conformity with the Jew-hating members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, (OIC), the Palestinian leadership indulges in daily incitement promoting violence to eliminate Israel. This scenario has not changed since Arafat and the late Israeli Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin, concluded the Oslo accords in 1993; it may even have intensified.
Notwithstanding its occasional diplomatic postures, the Palestinian leadership has proceeded with its practice of hatred and violence against Israelis and Jews. Successive Palestinian leaderships have ideologically followed the policies of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the pro-Nazi Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and friend of Adolf Hitler, who "created the permanent problem of Palestinian violence."
The Palestinian leadership keeps insisting -- possibly in the belief that history can be shaped to whatever is said the loudest (especially if accompanied by a sword) -- that there is no historical connection between the Jews and the land of Israel/Palestine. They market this misrepresentation even in the teeth of massive historical and archaeological evidence which proves the opposite. This year, they defrauded an all-too-willing UNESCO into renaming the clearly Jewish sites -- Rachel's Tomb and the Cave of the Patriarchs -- Muslim sites. Obviously there never were any Muslim "patriarchs," let alone a Muslim woman named Rachel. So this treacherous act was a cultural theft in broad daylight, and committed with the full complicity of that club of dictators and anti-Semitic racists, which should, in a decent word, be closed down.
Never mind that for nearly four millennia there has been a land that is named Judea. Never mind that the Temple Mount is sacred not only to Muslims, but also to Jews, as the site of their two ancient Jewish Temples, the last of which was destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 CE. Palestinian leaders insist that Muslims alone have a right to be there. (Jews are already not allowed to pray there: it might be advisable to take that as a warning.) Jews can be no more than dhimmi, a tolerated but subordinate religious minority, under the paid protection of Muslims -- never a sovereign people equal to a Muslim Palestinian state, or its Jews to Muslim nationals.
The Palestinian Authority, in conformity to Muslim anti-Semitism, still refers to Jews as "apes and pigs" intent upon destroying the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, despite all evidence to the contrary. PLO Executive Committee member Mahmoud Ismail has declared that the presence of "settlers"(meaning "Jews" -- in the view of many Palestinians, all of Israel is one big "settlement" and all Jews are "settlers") is "illegal," and every measure taken against them is "legitimate and legal," and a "national duty."
The Palestinian Authority has done much to start, and nothing to stop, the recent violence against Jews that the ISIS-inspired Palestinian youths have been indulging in throughout Israel. And members of Abbas's Fatah party have openly been "part of the incitement campaign."
Fatah has also been distributing leaflets honoring terrorists; photographs include pictures of Abbas as well as Arafat. Rockets have been fired at Israel by Fatah's military wing, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, and Abbas himself has deliberately fueled the flames of terror against Jews.
He has recently been trying falsely to claim -- again in an echo of the Grand Mufti Amin al-Husseini -- that the al-Aqsa Mosque was threatened by the Jews.
Far from condemning calls by Hamas for a "Day of Rage, Abbas chose to refer to it as a "popular uprising." Abbas also regularly lionizes terrorists and continues to hand them awards.
In 2013, he posthumously celebrated Abu Jihad, head of the PLO's military wing, accused of planning attacks that killed 125 Israelis. Abbas described Abu Jihad as "the model of a true fighter and devoted leader." In 2010, Abbas gave a military funeral to one of the key planners of the PLO's terrorist attack that murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics. And so on.
Sometimes, Abbas harps on Israel's settlement policy as the sole reason for the absence of peace in the region. But before 1967 there were no settlements -- and still no peace. What, then, was the Palestine Liberation Organization "liberating"? If you look at any current map of "Palestine" from the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, it blankets every inch of Israel -- "from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea," as the Palestinians openly admit. Both the Hamas Charter and the PLO Charter (which has never, contrary to rumor, been amended) call for the destruction of all of the State of Israel.
The reality is that Abbas, like Arafat, seems never to have been serious about honoring his agreements -- probably now more than ever, when the whole world can see that Iran is being generously rewarded for repeatedly violating the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).
One could easily discern Abbas's real designs in what he said at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last year: "For how long will this protracted Israeli occupation of our land last? After 67 years, how long?" He is saying that for him, the "occupation" has existed since the day of Israel's creation – not since 1967. For Abbas, the timeline starts in 1948, when Israel was founded, not after the 1967 Six Day War, which led to Israel assuming control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Abbas is not what some political leaders may wish him to be: "among the last of Arafat's generation of leaders who led the Palestinians from brutal terrorism to recognition of the state of Israel".
Palestinians have long been in a bad way, denied of all fruits of development in modern times. Despite that, the rulers of both the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the extreme Islamist Hamas, ruling the Gaza Strip since 2006, are too preoccupied with their own comforts and luxuries to think of the masses. Abbas is estimated to be worth $100 million. In 1997, a Palestinian administrative report found "$326 million of the Palestinian autonomy government's $800 million annual budget had been squandered through corruption or mismanagement." Abbas and his cronies have squandered the money of Arab refugees.
In the Gaza Strip, the situation is even worse. Hamas has planned to pay salaries to their tens of thousands of employees by distributing among them 1000 dunams (247 acres) of land -- part of which once housed the Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip.
The land was supposed to provide a solution to the severe housing crisis in the Palestinian-controlled area. Hamas seized total control over the Gaza Strip in 2007, and has transformed it into a base for various Islamist groups to launch terror attacks against Israel and Egypt.
At the same time, the Jewish state is flourishing in almost all fields of life, including advanced science and technology, medicine and renewable energy sources. It is hard not to think how beneficial it would be for the Palestinians if they had a leader who actually cared about them, one who could even co-exist with the Jewish state and take advantage of its advances.
**Jagdish N. Singh is a senior Indian journalist based in New Delhi.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone website or any

Saudi Arabia Vs. Iran: A Regional Sunni/Shia War Incited By Feckless Obama Foreign Policy
Jeff Dunetz /Jan 4, 2016/Lidblog/Foreign Policy/Terrorism
Saudi Arabia Vs. Iran: A Regional Sunni/Shia War Incited By Feckless Obama Foreign Policy
It supposedly started with the Saudi government executing a Shia cleric who (they claim) was trying to overthrow the monarchy. That was followed by Iranian protesters (it was probably arranged by the Iranian government) attacking the Saudi Arabian embassy in Iran, which Saudi Arabia followed up by breaking off relations with Iran ordering Iranian diplomats out of the country. There are rumors that other Sunni countries such as the UAE may join the Saudi Kingdom in tossing out Iran.
UPDATE: Sunni Sudan has expelled the Iranian Ambassador, and the UAE has downgraded its diplomatic relations with Iran. The UAE’s Foreign Ministry also said it was recalling its ambassador from Tehran.
What’s next is that this conflict may flare up into a Shia and Sunni regional war that was started 14 centuries ago but fanned by recent impotent policies of the United States including the Iran nuclear deal.
This is a battle which started centuries ago after the death of the Prophet Mohammed some 1,400 years ago, as a disagreement about who should succeed him. The Sunnis felt that Abu Bakr, a close friend of the prophet’s, ought to be the next Muslim leader. But the Shiites claimed that Mohammed had anointed his son-in-law, Ali, as his rightful successor.
The Sunnis won out, but a rupture in Islam was created. The chasm was cemented when Ali’s son was later killed by the ruling Sunni’s troops an event which the Shiites commemorate every year. Roughly 85% of the 1.6 billion Muslims across the world are Sunnis.
Sunnis and Shias have been hating themselves for the past 1400 years. The map below shows which countries are which. Just to add the the conflict, Terrorist group Hezbollah is Shia, ISIS and al Qaeda are Sunni
The word Sunni comes from “Ahl al-Sunna”, the people of the tradition. The tradition in this case refers to practices based on precedent or reports of the actions of the Prophet Muhammad and those close to him.
Sunnis venerate all the prophets mentioned in the Koran, but particularly Muhammad as the final prophet. All subsequent Muslim leaders are seen as temporal figures.
Saudi Arabia is the leader of the Sunni world and the holy cities of Mecca and Medina are in the Kingdom. Iran is the leader of the Shia world, they believe the Saudi monarchy should be overthrown and replaced by Shiites to control the holy cities.
Note: It is not true that if a Shia and Sunni marry their children will be Sushi.
While tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran have always existed because of the religious divide, it’s gotten much worse in recent months There are on-going proxy wars between the two countries in Shia dominant Yemen and the Sunni majority country of Syria.
Adding to the tension is the Obama deal with Iran. In Saudi Arabia the ruling monarchy fears Shia Iran will try to overturn its rulers. The Iran deal upset the fragile Sunni/Shia balance in the region and put the Saudi monarchy on edge.
The Saudis started losing trust in the U.S. when Obama drew the red-line in Sunni Syria and then punted. Syria is majority Sunni but their rulers are Alawites which is a branch of Shia Islam. Then came the Iran deal which was seen by the Saudis as Obama choosing the Shias over the Sunnis. The kingdom was more low profile in its opposition than Israel, but their diplomats were quietly talking to the US about the dangers posed by Iran.
As Reuters reported soon after the deal was announced:
Saudi officials fear an Iran released from international pressure and economic sanctions will have more freedom and money to back allies across the region who are opposed by Riyadh.
A Saudi official told Reuters after the Iran agreement was announced that he feared the agreement would make the Middle East more dangerous if it gave too many concessions to an Iranian government that Riyadh blames for turmoil in Yemen, Syria and Iraq.
Meanwhile, a Saudi official said Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers on Tuesday will make the Middle East a “more dangerous part of the world” if it comes with too many concessions, signalling Gulf Arabs’ deep unease at the agreement.
The lack of official responses from Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies reflected huge nervousness about a deal set to end the pariah status of Iran, already Riyadh’s main rival for influence across the Middle East, and unchain its economy from crippling sanctions.One Saudi diplomat described the agreement as “extremely dangerous” and said it would give a green light to his own government to start a nuclear energy programme.
Iran has taken of the many U.S. concessions as a carte blanche to whatever it wants. Witness the fact they launched two ballistic missile test against UN sanctions. In fact the Iranian parliament has rejected the formal, legal text of President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal, negotiated in July by the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Russia, China and the Tehran regime. Instead, the legislature approved their own version of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), creating a situation where the Iranian government simply hasn’t signed on to the accord that Obama and Democratic Senators obligated the United States to uphold. And the fact throughout all this they haven’t been punished is a message to Iran they can do whatever they wish, and a message to the Saudis they are on their own.
Recent hints by the Obama administration that they will allow the Alawite (Shia) Bashar Hafez al-Assad to rule over the Sunni majority in Syria simply adds to the Saudi fear that they have been abandoned by the United States.
This latest battle which seems to be brewing between the Sunni world led by the Saudi Arabian monarch and the Shia world led by the Iranians, started much earlier than last week’s execution of a Shia cleric. It started 1400 years ago with a fight between Mohammed’s son-in-law and one of his close friends. The pressure between the sides was increased by an incompetent U.S. foreign policy which sent the Sunni Islam Saudis a message that the west was on the side of the Shias.
Unless someone finds away to throw water on the fire growing between these two sides it will quickly erupt into a regional war.
Ed Morrissey gives his take on the situation at Hot Air-as usual it’s worth a read, “WaPo: White House suddenly concerned about Iran-Saudi eruption, as is Paul Mirengoff’ post at PowerLine Middle East Fires Blaze Hotter Following U.S. Capitulation To Iran.
http://lidblog.com/saudi-arabia-vs-iran-a-shia-and-sunni-regional-war-incited-by-obama/#

Saudi executions signal royal worries
Bruce Riedel/Al-Monitor/January 04/16
The executions of 47 accused terrorists in Saudi Arabia Jan. 2 and subsequent severing of relations with Iran underscore the Saudi royal family's deep concerns about stability in the kingdom. The mass executions are a warning that dissent will not be tolerated, especially by Iranian-supported dissidents.
The kingdom faces a potentially perfect storm of low oil income, open-ended war in Yemen, terrorist threats from multiple directions and an intensifying regional rivalry with its nemesis Iran. The most dangerous threat is economic. The Saudi welfare state — which provides subsidies for health and housing, cheap gasoline and free education — is already being cut back because of the large deficit between oil revenues and government spending. Last years' deficit totaled $98 billion and foreign reserves dropped from $728 billion to less than $640 billion. With Iranian oil returning to the market, Saudi revenues could be depleted even faster than anticipated in the 2016 budget.
The majority (43) of those executed were al-Qaeda members arrested a decade ago during the campaign to overthrow the monarchy ordered by Osama bin Laden in 2003. Before the executions, the Saudi Interior Ministry, led by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, conducted an extensive public relations campaign to remind Saudis and others of the brutal battle with al-Qaeda 10 years ago. Large amounts of material, including videos, captured documents and weapons, were declassified to help explain the threat.
Of course, al-Qaeda remains a major threat today. Its affiliate in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, has grown considerably stronger in the last year due to the collapse of law and order in Yemen. AQAP controls most of Hadramaut Province in the south, and has an extensive presence in and around Aden. Almost a year after it carried out the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris, AQAP is stronger than ever.
The Islamic State also targeted the kingdom and its neighbor Kuwait in 2015. Just last month, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State, called for the overthrow of the Sauds, arguing that they are secretly allied with Israel. In response, Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al Sheikh, the Saudi grand mufti, dismissed Baghdadi's claim as a lie. The 72-year-old cleric said, “Actually, Daesh is part of the Israeli soldiers,” using the pejorative Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.
The sheikh is a direct descendant of the 18th-century founder of Wahhabi Islam, Muhammad ibn Abd-al-Wahhab. The Sheikh family is the theological equivalent of the Saud family. Abdul-Aziz was appointed grand mufti in 1999 by King Fahd, and he wields enormous authority. He sanctioned the mass executions.
Four of the executed were Shiite Saudis accused of inciting and promoting violence in the kingdom's Eastern Province. The killing of the popular Shiite cleric Nimr al-Nimr has sparked protests in Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Bahrain, Pakistan, Yemen and in Eastern Province. The Saudis have not made as compelling a case against the Shiite dissidents as they have against the al-Qaeda operatives.
The 55-year-old Nimr was educated in Iran and Syria before returning to the kingdom in 1994, becoming an outspoken opponent of the crown prince's father, Prince Nayef. His biggest sin in the Saudis' view was advocating the secession of Eastern Province to form a majority-Shiite state.
Eastern Province, also called al-Hasa, is home to the kingdom's oil wealth and has been an integral part of Saudi Arabia since before World War I. A separate Shiite state would pose an existential threat to the kingdom and its ally Bahrain, where Saudi troops have been shoring up the Sunni-minority monarchy since the eruption of the Arab Spring in 2011.
One Saudi Shiite prisoner not executed is Ahmed Ibrahim al-Mughassil, abducted last summer from Beirut. Mughassil was the mastermind of the 1995 attack on US Air Force personnel at Khobar, in Eastern Province, that killed 19 and wounded 372 Americans. Mughassil is a senior leader of the Saudi Hezbollah group, which is closely linked to both Iranian intelligence and Lebanese Hezbollah. He has been undergoing extensive interrogation since his capture.
Iran has already promised revenge for the killing of Nimr and his colleagues. The annex of the Saudi Embassy in Tehran was ransacked by a mob Jan. 2. The Houthi rebels in Yemen have also promised to avenge their fellow Shiite. If the Saudis choose to up the ante, Mughassil could be brought out to "confess" about his past before being executed. The value of his continued insight into Iranian intelligence operations in the Gulf is probably the only constraint holding the crown prince back for now.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/01/saudi-arabia-iran-execution-nimr-al-nimr-concerns-stability.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=ca91d3096f-January_04_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-ca91d3096f-102494681

http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.january05.16.htm

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