LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

July 24/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletin16/english.july24.16.htm

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Bible Quotations For Today

Chief tax-collecto, Zacchaeus receives Jesus in His House, Repents and offers the Penances
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 19/01-10/:"He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax-collector and was rich. He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycomore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way. When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, ‘Zacchaeus, hurry and come down; for I must stay at your house today.’So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, ‘He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.’ Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’Then Jesus said to him, ‘Today salvation has come to this house, because he too is a son of Abraham.For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.’"

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God
Letter to the Ephesians 02/17-22/:"Jesus came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling-place for God."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 23-24/16
Honour Your Vows, No Matter What!!/Elias Bejjani/July 23/16
Was the Second Lebanon War indeed a failure/Yossi Melman/Herusalem Post/July 23/16'

How We Honor Muslims Who Stand Up to Terror/Robert Satloff/The Washington Institute/July 23/16
Inside Turkey's Failed Coup: What Happened? Why? What Next/Soner Cagaptay and James F. Jeffrey/Washington Institute/July 22, 2016
Iranian refugee kills 9 in Munich mall. ‘No motive”/DEBKAfile/July 23/16
Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy/Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post/By Editorial Board July 22/16
Columnist Luma Simms called Israel the "last hope" for Middle East Christians/the Algemeiner/Lea Speyer/July 23/16
We Ignore Iran’s Words and Actions at Our Deathly Peril/Pini Dunner/Algemeiner.com/July 23/16
France: After the Third Jihadist Attack/Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/July 23/16
A Brotherhood group ‎behind the Turkey coup/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
Britain needs a competitiveness shake-up/Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
Is urban terror blinding us to countryside conflicts/Ehtesham Shahid/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
On Donald Trump’s acceptance speech of doom/Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/July 23/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on July 23-24/16

Honour Your Vows, No Matter What
Lebanese Foreign Ministry Says Lebanese Emigrants Unharmed in Munich Attack
Lebanese Army Launches Patrols in Arsal, Entryways to Refugee Camps
Sami Gemayel Visits Skaff in an Initiative to Mend Relations
Report: Franjieh is Ready to Withdraw from Presidential Race
Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi from Aabadiyeh: municipal elections are proof of possibility to conduct parliamentary ones
MP, Zahra: No presidential elections in near future
PM, Salam offers condolence over Munich attack victims
Lebanese Army patrols Arsal districts, Camps' entrances
Hariri reviews bilateral relations with Canadian delegation
Geagea sends condolences cable to German Chancellor over Munich victims
Kanaan calls on Future to rectify presidential, parliamentary flaw
Was the Second Lebanon War indeed a failure

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 23-24/16

Shocked Germany Probes 'Lone' Munich Mass Killer

Sporadic Clashes Rock Syria's Manbij as Deadline Nears
Canada appalled by depraved attack in Munich, Germany
UN reveals ISIS behind 393 Ramadan attacks
No evidence’ Munich shooter had links to ISIS
ISIS claims deadly twin Kabul blasts
Doomed EgyptAir flight ‘broke up midair’ after fire
Turkey pledges to adhere to democratic principles, rule of law
Turkey scolds allies for not visiting post-coup
Sixteen killed in Iran after bus smashes into electricity pole
Plan to rid Libya of chemical weapons backed by UN
Netanyahu offers condolences on death of Abbas’ brother

Links From Jihad Watch Site for July 23-24/16
UK: Muslims who tried to abduct RAF serviceman at knife-point part of larger gang
Afghanistan: Islamic State murders 80 with jihad bombings in Kabul
Miami: Three Muslims charged with trying to join the Islamic State
Mainstream media covers up Munich killer’s jihad, tries to link him to Breivik
Munich Jihad Shooting Exposes Media Double Standard
Allahu akbar, Tom Cruise”: LAPD probing jihad threat to Church of Scientology

Munich jihadi may have lured children to their deaths with fake Facebook ad
Islamic State uses gruesome instruments of torture against “enemies of Allah”
Robert Spencer in FrontPage: Another Day, Another Jihad Massacre
Christian theologian: “Radical Bible groups” are “much bigger problem than Islamists”
Munich jihad murderer was 18-year-old Iranian Muslim

Latest Lebanese Related News published on July 23-24/16
Honour Your Vows, No Matter What!!حافظ على عهودك مهما كانت الصعاب
Elias Bejjani/July 23/16
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/07/22/elias-bejjani-honour-your-vows-no-matter-what/
Back home in our beloved Lebanon, the land of the Holy Cedars, we have a very impressive popular proverb that simply shows how vital and how holy is for the righteous people who fear Almighty God and respect themselves to honor their vows and promises.
The proverb says:" Men are not tied by their necks, but by their tongues".
This simply means that the righteous people are ethically and morally obliged to willingly and with joy honour the vows and promises they make and utter, and not forced against their free will by ropes tied around their necks to fulfill their commitments.
This obligation of dignity and honor is stressed very clearly in the Holy Bible: "Matthew 05/33-37: "You have also heard that people were told in the past, ‘Do not break your promise, but do what you have vowed to the Lord to do.’ But now I tell you: do not use any vow when you make a promise. Do not swear by heaven, for it is God's throne; nor by earth, for it is the resting place for his feet; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not even swear by your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. Just say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’—anything else you say comes from the Evil One."
 Lebanon's dire problem in this current sad and horrible era lies in the fact that the majority of its politicians, leaders, officials and clergymen are mere Pharisees, a bunch of thugs and hypocrites who know no honor or self respect. They do not respect their vows and promises
Meanwhile and in the same evil context many Lebanese citizens have lost their faith and became sole puppets and cheap followers void of any patriotic responsibility.
They too do not respect their vows and promises.
 Salvation of Lebanon must start with the Lebanese themselves. Their country shell be saved and made free again only when they fear Almighty God and start to face their hardships with faith, hope, and dignity. Step one in this repent journey is respect foe vows and promises.
The wrath of God shall fall from heaven on all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, do not witness for what is righteous and do not honour their vows and promises.
 Lebanon's evil enemies and occupiers betray their vows and promises because they are slanderers, insolent, arrogant and boastful. Their end is not far and Lebanon shall again be a free, independent and sovereign country.
Trustworthy people respect, honor and fulfill their vows.
 BE ONE OF THEM, BE RIGHTEOUS, HONOUR YOUR VOWS

Lebanese Foreign Ministry Says Lebanese Emigrants Unharmed in Munich Attack
Naharnet/July 23/16/Lebanon's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that Lebanese emigrants in Germany were unharmed in the terrorist attacks that targeted Munich a day earlier. “There are no Lebanese nationals among the victims of the terrorist attack that targeted Munich on Friday,” said a ministry statement.
An attacker armed with a handgun opened fire at a McDonald's restaurant early Friday evening and continued in the street before entering the Olympia mall, killing nine people and wounding 16 in his rampage, according to reports. A police patrol had shot and wounded the attacker but he had managed to escape.
The suspected attacker's body was later found about one kilometer from the mall where the shootings took place, German DPA news agency reported. The attack came just days after a teenage asylum seeker went on a rampage with an axe and a knife on a train on Monday near Wuerzburg, also in Bavaria, injuring five people.

Lebanese Army Launches Patrols in Arsal, Entryways to Refugee Camps
Naharnet/July 23/16/The Lebanese Army launched security patrols on Saturday in the restive northeastern border town of Arsal and on the entrances of the refugee encampments, the National News Agency reported on Saturday.“Since the early hours on Saturday, the army units carried out mechanized and infantry patrols inside the town and around its neighborhoods including the entrances leading to the Syrian refugee encampments,” said NNA. Furthermore, the army took a wide-range of security measures in Wadi al-Arnab, Wadi Ata Wadi al-Hosn and Wadi al-Raayan. The troops erected checkpoints in the Arsal neighborhoods of al-Jamalah, Wadi Hmeid and al-Masyada and at the entrances of the refugees camps. The border crossings were closed. Troops have been on high alert since the unprecedented suicide bombings that hit the Christian border town of al-Qaa late in June.The army regularly shells the posts of militants from the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front entrenched in rugged areas along the undemarcated Lebanese-Syrian border.

Sami Gemayel Visits Skaff in an Initiative to Mend Relations
Naharnet/July 23/Kataeb Party chief Sami Gemayel met with Popular Bloc leader Myriam Skaff, the widow of late Zahle politician Elie Skaff , after a rift in relations between the two parties, media office of Gemayel said on Saturday. Gemayel visited Skaff in her place of residence in Yarzeh and offered his condolences on the death of her husband, marking a breakthrough in ties between the two after an eight-year boycott. Gemayel and Skaff highlighted the need to end the standoff between Kataeb and the Popular Bloc since the tragic accident that led to the death of Kataeb officials Salim Assi and Nasri Marouni (brother of former Minister and MP Elie Marouni) in Zahle. The statement added that the visit is a first step in mending the relations between the two in a bid to bring ties back to normal.

Report: Franjieh is Ready to Withdraw from Presidential Race
Naharnet/July 23/16/Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh will reportedly withdraw his candidacy for the presidential post in favor of founder of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Michel Aoun, As Safir daily said on Saturday. Franjieh told French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault that he is ready to move back from his nomination for the head of state in favor of Aoun if Lebanon's interest requires that, according to the daily. Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate the Marada chief for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Head of the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc, Aoun, has become optimistic now that the chances increased for his arrival at the presidential post, added the daily. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the electoral sessions at parliament, stripping them of the needed quorum. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi from Aabadiyeh: municipal elections are proof of possibility to conduct parliamentary ones
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rahi, on a pastoral visit to Aabadiyeh, stressed on Saturday that the municipal elections that took place this year in Lebanon were a proof of the possibility of organising and holding parliamentary elections. Speaking before an audience of municipal and religious figures in the region, the Maronite prelate added that conflicts and disputes have largely contributed to the presidential vacancy, reiterating the need to focus on national unity to save the country.

MP, Zahra: No presidential elections in near future
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - "Presidency is being detained for more than two years and there is no release for this issue in the near future," Member of the Lebanese Forces (LF) MP Antoine Zahra said during an interview with Voice of Lebanon radio station, noting that "this matter disables institutional and democratic daily life which makes us hostage for an indefinite period."Commenting on the participation of the LF in the upcoming dialog in August, Zahra ruled out their participation when he described previous dialogues as a "waste of time."Zahra excluded Presidential elections in August because the matter was linked to regional developments, he concluded.

PM, Salam offers condolence over Munich attack victims
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - Prime Minister Tammam Salam wired condolences on Saturday to the German Chancellor Angela Merkel over the victims who fell in Munich attack.

Lebanese Army patrols Arsal districts, Camps' entrances
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - Lebanese Armed Forces ran patrols and infantry units inside the town of Arsal, its districts and camps' entrances, National News Agency Correspondent said on Saturday. The same correspondent added that the army took comprehensive and wide-ranging measures in Wadi Al-Arnab, Wadi Al-Hosn, Wadi Al-Ata, and Wadi Al-Raayan, where they established a number of checkpoints. Inside the town of Al-Jamala ,at the entrances of the Syrian Refugee Camps, the Lebanese army patrolled the town where they established checkpoints searching vehicles and pedestrians.The same source concluded that the army is working on closing the border crossings.

Hariri reviews bilateral relations with Canadian delegation
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - Former PM Saad Hariri met at the "House of Center" on Saturday with Canadian Deputy Ziad Abu Lteif, accompanied by Canadian Ambassador to Lebanon, Michelle Cameron, with bilateral relations and latest developments topping their discussions.
On emerging, Abu Lteif valued the efforts undertaken by Hariri during the current difficult circumstances and his role in "ensuring that moderation persists at the political level, which is much needed in Lebanon and the world at large."
He added: "The relation between Lebanon and Canada is good, and there is a large Lebanese expatriate community residing in Canada." He hoped that said relation would be further strengthened so that cooperation and communication would continue to the benefit of both countries. Earlier, Hariri also met with a delegation from the town of Arsal, who raised with him the current prevailing conditions in their town at the security, economic and social levels. Speaking on behalf of the delegation, Arsal Municipality Head, Bassel Hujeiri, described the encounter as "good," adding that Hariri showed great concern and readiness for providing assistance and care to families of Arsal, thanking him for his continuous support.

Geagea sends condolences cable to German Chancellor over Munich victims
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - Lebanese Forces Party Head, Samir Geagea, sent on Saturday a cable of condolences to German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, in wake of yesterday's tragic incident that took the lives of several innocent victims in Munich. "The insane terrorism and killing has hit Germany this time," said Geagea, voicing confidence in the ability of the German State "to overcome this ordeal, as always, with all dignity and determination." Geagea expressed sincere sympathy to the families of the fallen victims and solidarity with the German people "with whom we share strong bonds of friendship and mutual values."

Kanaan calls on Future to rectify presidential, parliamentary flaw
Sat 23 Jul 2016/NNA - Secretary of Change and Reform Parliamentary Bloc, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, said in a statement on Saturday that he is open to August's dialog, calling on Future Bloc not to go against the "Christian decision to nominate [Michel] Aoun for presidency," and to rectify the flaw in this matter. Kanaan voiced cautious optimism regarding the dialog planned for August, noting that international and domestic indicators point towards a solution, adding to it a French keenness on encouraging an inter-Lebanese solution. "Our stance at the dialog table will be supportive of a president that respects the charter, the will of Christians, and the common factors among partners."The MP categorically denied his Bloc's support for the extension of the term of current commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces as a matter of principle. "Contacts with Future Movement exist, and what is more important is reaching common denominators," he said, "there is a chance for things to develop either negatively or positively in upcoming two months, otherwise we will enter a dark tunnel with an unknown end." Kanaan considered it "unhealthy" for Future Movement to stand against the decision of Christians on the issue of the presidency.He also denied receiving any information on refusal of House Speaker Nabih Berri of Aoun for presidency. Kanaan went on to deny that any swap deal was made with Berri between the oil file and the presidential one.

Was the Second Lebanon War indeed a failure?
Yossi Melman/Herusalem Post/July 23/16'
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2016/07/23/yossi-melmanjerusalem-post-was-the-second-lebanon-war-indeed-a-failure/
AFTER EACH of Israel’s 13 wars and battles with its neighbors since independence – Arab states, Palestinian groups and Hezbollah in Lebanon – serious questions were raised about their results and achievements. But the Second Lebanon War is the only one of Israel’s conflicts that resulted in an almost unbridgeable gap between fact and myth, and between reality and perception. It is probably the war that suffered from the worst public relations. It was one both sides didn't want, yet still couldn’t prevent.
The Second Lebanon War began July 12, 2006, and ended 34 days later on August 14; 121 Israeli soldiers and 44 civilians were killed in the conflict. A month ahead of the war’s 10th anniversary the Israeli media, public and academia are engaged in a lively debate on its legacy.
In the years prior to the Second Lebanon War, the IDF was preoccupied in an intensive effort to quash the second Palestinian intifada. This affected its state of mind and preparedness for battle. IDF conscripts and reservists were engaged in fighting Palestinian terrorist networks and had little time for training and exercises.
A few weeks before the war, the IDF was taken by surprise when Gaza-based Hamas guerillas penetrated Israel via a tunnel and took Gilad Schalit, a soldier in a tank battalion, as a prisoner of war in an attack that killed two other Israeli soldiers. A day before the war, the IDF attacked a safe house where Hamas leaders were gathered. The main target was Muhammad Deif, the commander of Hamas’s military wing, the Izzadin Kassam Brigades.
According to intelligence reports received by the IDF at the time, Deif was killed in the attack. The next day, in a high-level security meeting, the defense chiefs were deliberating the ramifications of his death. During the meeting, a note was brought in informing the participants that two IDF soldiers in a patrol along the northern border in the Galilee had been ambushed by Hezbollah and taken prisoner. Meanwhile, the rumors of Deif’s demise proved premature; like a cat with nine lives, he survived that attack, as well as a few other plots including in the summer of 2014 during the last war in Gaza.
As news of the developments in the North began to pour in 10 years ago, the cabinet convened an urgent meeting and decided to launch a punitive campaign against Hezbollah. This evolved into the Second Lebanon War.
The Israeli public and the international community have come to see the Second Lebanon War as an Israeli failure, but the truth is completely different.
Indeed, many tactical errors were made, however, in a stroke of historical irony reminiscent of General Kutuzov in Tolstoy’s “War and Peace,” the Second Lebanon War provided Israel with a significant strategic achievement: For the past decade, the border with Lebanon has been quite and Hezbollah fears entering into a new round of hostilities with Israel.
During the war, the Shi’ite organization suffered severe damage. Its headquarters in the Dahiya neighborhood of Beirut were destroyed. Thanks to outstanding strategic intelligence, the Israeli Air Force was able to launch a devastating strike in which it destroyed, in just 34 minutes, Hezbollah’s arsenal of long-range rockets that had been hidden in civilian residences.
But one also cannot ignore the fact that the IDF went into the war without having done the necessary professional groundwork ‒ its operational plans were only partially developed, tactical intelligence was in short supply and didn’t reach the field units and the home front was insufficiently prepared. One can assume, though, that in the decade that has passed, the lessons have been learned and these shortcomings have been remedied.
The facts speak for themselves. The strategic goals set by the political echelon were achieved by the IDF: deterrence of Hezbollah was deepened; the equilibrium with Lebanon has been irrevocably changed; terrorism emanating from Israel’s northern neighbor has disappeared – only four soldiers have been killed on the Lebanese border in the past decade; and not one civilian has suffered so much as a scratch. It is the longest period of quiet (together with the years from the Sinai Campaign to the Six Day War) that Israel has experienced since its founding, and if the sides manage to avoid a miscalculation and conflict that neither wants, the quiet could continue for at least several more years.
So why was the Israeli public left with such a feeling of discontent?
The person responsible is not Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who in a rare moment of candor admitted in a television interview after the war that had he known what its results would be he would never have ordered the operation in which reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser were kidnapped and three other soldiers were killed.
Rather, responsibility for the mistaken perception that the war was a failure lies with the journalists and analysts who covered it in real time from the Lebanese border and competed among themselves as to who would provide a more melodramatic description of a particular tactical failure in battle. Those correspondents and commentators failed to see the wider strategic view, although some have changed their opinion or at least softened their criticism since the war.
And there were others who played their parts, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, then leader of the opposition; his bureau chief Naftali Bennett, now his coalition partner and head of the Bayit Yehudi party; and Maj.-Gen (res.) Uzi Dayan, who at the time had his own political ambitions and was rewarded by Netanyahu with the job of chairman of the national lottery.
Yesha Council, the umbrella organization of the West Bank settlers, launched a nationwide public campaign portraying the war as a failure as a means of leverage to advance its aim of toppling the government of then prime minister Ehud Olmert.
“The atmosphere at the time was poisonous,” Amir Peretz, Olmert’s defense minister during the war, told me about three years ago. “There was practically a competition to see who could be more scathing in their criticism of the war and its results. Reserve generals, commentators, journalists and politicians all took part. The attacks were mostly against me; they laid into me without mercy and also without any connection to facts.”
Olmert, who is now serving time in prison after being convicted on corruption charges, told me on several occasions in the past: “The war had significant achievements. It took years, but more and more, people have come to realize that and to admit they were wrong. First and foremost, we have quiet along the Lebanese border.”
True, Hezbollah has far greater capabilities today than it did a decade ago – it has more than 120,000 rockets and missiles aimed at Israel, up from around 25,000 at the time of the war. Some 1,000 of its present arsenal are long-range, accurate missiles. It has gained battle experience in the Syrian civil war although it has also suffered some 1,600 dead and 5,000 wounded ‒ but the IDF, too, is a far different organization.
In the next war, if and when it breaks out, Hezbollah’s plans will be different from the 2006 war. The daily rate of rockets and missiles launched against Israel will go up from 120 per day in the last war to 1,200. The longrange missiles carry a much heavier load of up to 500 kg. warheads. Some will be intercepted by Iron Dome and David Sling ground-to-air defenses; some will be destroyed by the Israeli Air Force in preemptive strikes; but some Hezbollah rockets will reach their targets.
The expected damage will be very high and costly. The IDF estimates that hundreds of people will be killed and hundreds of buildings destroyed or damaged. Hezbollah will also try to move the war inside Israeli territory and capture, even for just a few hours, an Israeli rural community along the border.
But, the Israeli reaction also will be much harsher. Hezbollah’s military power will be completely destroyed this time. Lebanon, too, will not be the same. Hezbollah knows it very well and, therefore, has no plans to go for another round. Hezbollah is deterred.
And, not only that. As long as the Syrian civil war continues – and there is no end in sight – the chance of a third Lebanon war is low, mainly thanks to the achievements of the previous round, which many still refuse to recognize.
**Yossi Melman is an Israeli security commentator and co-author of ‘Spies Against

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on July 23-24/16

Shocked Germany Probes 'Lone' Munich Mass Killer
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 23/16/Police were probing Saturday the motives of the lone teenage German-Iranian gunman who went on a deadly rampage at a busy Munich shopping center, the third bloody attack on civilians in Europe in just over a week.
Nine people were killed and another 16 wounded as the black-clad gunman brought terror to Germany's third largest city on Friday evening, before committing suicide. "Bloodbath in Munich," was the headline on the best-selling Bild newspaper as shockwaves reverberated across the continent. The killing spree sent the southern city into lockdown as elite police launched a massive operation to track down what had initially been thought to be up to three assailants. Chancellor Angela Merkel is to convene her security council on Saturday to address the shooting, which came just days after an axe rampage on a train in the same German state of Bavaria and just over a week after a truck attack in the French Riviera city of Nice that killed 84 people. Grieving Munich residents laid roses and lit candles in memory of the victims, with one placard bearing the simple plea: "Why?"
Police chief Hubertus Andrae told reporters that the assailant was an 18-year-old dual national German-Iranian from Munich, who had no criminal record. "The motive or explanation for this crime is completely unclear," he said. Armed with a handgun, the attacker opened fire at a McDonald's restaurant and continued along the street before entering the mall. A police patrol shot and wounded the gunman but he managed to escape, before police found the body of what they believed was the "only shooter."
Among the nine killed were three Kosovans, according to the foreign ministry in Pristina, while Munich police said the injured included children. - Scenes of panic -A video posted on social media appeared to show a man in black walking away from a McDonald's while firing repeatedly on people as they fled screaming. Survivors described terrifying scenes as shoppers rushed from the area, some carrying children in their arms.
"We entered McDonald's to eat... then there was panic, and people ran out," one woman told Bavarian television. Another video appeared to show the gunman on a car park roof exchanging a tirade of insults with a man on a nearby balcony.
"I'm German, I was born here," the assailant replies after the man fired off a volley of swear words, including an offensive term for foreigners. Police initially believed there could be up to three assailants. But Andrae later said two others had "absolutely nothing to do" with the attack -- and that they were simply fleeing the scene. Munich's main train station was evacuated and metro and bus transport suspended for several hours while residents were ordered to stay inside, leaving the streets largely deserted. By early Saturday, transport services were running again.
- 'Europe stands united' - President Joachim Gauck said he was horrified by the "murderous attack", while U.S. President Barack Obama voiced staunch support for Washington's close ally. "Our thoughts are with the victims, their families, and all German people. Europe stands united," EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said on Twitter.
The attack came just days after a 17-year-old asylum seeker went on a rampage with an axe and a knife on a train on Monday near Wuerzburg, also in Bavaria, injuring five people.
Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere had said that assailant was believed to be a "lone wolf" who appeared to have been "inspired" by Islamic State group but was not a member of the jihadist network. The train attack triggered calls by some politicians to impose an upper limit on the number of refugees coming into Germany, which accepted a record 1.1 million migrants and refugees last year, many through Bavaria. - 'No security anywhere' -The Munich mall is near the stadium for the 1972 Olympics and the athletes' village which was the site of the hostage-taking of Israeli athletes by the Palestinian Black September group that ended in a massacre.
Europe has been on high alert for terrorism after a string of attacks in neighboring France and Belgium claimed by IS. "It has reached us. People in Munich have long had a queasy feeling. Fears grew with every attack in Paris, Istanbul or Brussels," said the Abendzeitung newspaper's editor-in-chief Michael Schilling. "There were particular concerns about the Oktoberfest. But since Friday it is clear that there can be no security anywhere, not even in the safest German city." The mall shooting occurred just eight days after 31-year-old Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel used a truck to mow down 84 people, including children, after a Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, the third major attack on French soil in the past 18 months. In March, IS claimed suicide bombings at Brussels airport and a city metro station that left 32 people dead. In May, a mentally unstable 27-year-old man carried out a knife attack on a regional train in Bavaria, killing one person and injuring three others.

Sporadic Clashes Rock Syria's Manbij as Deadline Nears
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/July 23/16/Islamic State group militants clashed Saturday with U.S.-backed fighters in Syria's Manbij as a 48-hour deadline loomed for the jihadists to leave the battleground town, a monitor said. The ultimatum was issued Thursday by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an Arab-Kurdish alliance that is fighting IS with support from a U.S.-led coalition. The jihadists are accused of using civilians as human shields in Manbij, located in the northern province of Aleppo on IS's main supply route between Syria and Turkey. The ultimatum came after the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitor, said that at least 56 civilians, including children, were killed on Tuesday in coalition air strikes near Manbij. Coalition spokesman Colonel Chris Garver said on Friday that IS had "used civilians as human shields and as bait" in order to draw the fire of the SDF towards civilians. Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said there were sporadic clashes inside Manbij and raids by the U.S.-led coalition on the town as the deadline approached for IS to leave. "IS is fiercely resisting attempts by the SDF forces to advance inside the city and is pushing children towards the frontlines in spite of the deadline," he said. The coalition spokesman said that the jihadists were mounting an exceptionally tough fightback in Manbij. Fighting has grown more intense as SDF units move into the city, he said, "which is sort of different than what we saw in Ramadi and what we saw in Fallujah," two Iraqi cities from which jihadists were ousted this year. "It's a fight like we haven't seen before," said Garver. He estimated that the SDF had taken back roughly half the city, an area still housing at least 2,000 civilians. Garver said he could not confirm that the SDF had issued an ultimatum to IS fighters to leave Manbij. He said that Tuesday's air raid was called

Canada appalled by depraved attack in Munich, Germany
July 22, 2016 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Stéphane Dion, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today released the following statement regarding reports of a depraved attack in Munich, Germany:
“We condemn this attack, and we offer our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those killed and a quick recovery to those injured. Canadians are deeply saddened by these tragic events, especially the targeting of children, and our thoughts are with the people of Germany during this stressful period.
"As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said earlier today, Canada stands with Germany at this difficult time.
“The Government of Canada is closely monitoring the situation, as German authorities continue their search for those involved in the attack, as well as for those who may have played a role in organizing it.”
Emergency consular assistance
The Consulate of Canada in Munich is in communication with local authorities, and the Emergency Watch and Response Centre is active and assisting Canadians.
Canadian citizens in Munich requiring emergency consular assistance should contact the Consulate of Canada in Munich at 49 89 219 9570 or call Global Affairs Canada's 24/7 Emergency Watch and Response Centre at 1 613 996 8885 or at 00 800 2326 6831 (toll–free from Germany only). An email can also be sent to sos@international.gc.ca.
In Canada, friends and relatives of Canadian citizens known to be in Munich can contact Global Affairs Canada's 24/7 Emergency Watch and Response Centre by calling 613-996-8885 or 1-800-387-3124, or by sending an email to sos@international.gc.ca.

UN reveals ISIS behind 393 Ramadan attacks
The Associated Press, United Nations Saturday, 23 July 2016/The United Nations counter-terrorism chief says ISIS committed or indirectly inspired at least 393 attacks in 16 countries during the month of Ramadan. Executive Director of the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate Jean-Paul Laborde said Friday that despite having their territorial expansion halted or reversed, such attacks are likely to continue as ISIS continues to transform itself from military organization into a “real terrorist organization.” He said the majority of the attacks, between June 6 and July 5, took place in Iraq and Syria. “There is no doubt that the threat from terrorism remains persistent and unfortunately credible as demonstrated in many places,” Laborde said. “The world is not becoming a safer place anytime soon.”

‘No evidence’ Munich shooter had links to ISIS
Agencies Saturday, 23 July 2016/German police said Saturday they had no evidence a teenage gunman who killed nine people in Munich had any links to ISIS and described the attack as "a classic act by a deranged person.""There is absolutely no link to the Islamic State," Munich police chief Hubertus Andrae said, adding that the suspect had been obsessed with books and articles about mass killings "linked to maniacs."Andrae said the 18-year-old attacker's room had been searched, adding that investigations had not given any reason to believe there was more than one perpetrator and attacker had "no link whatsoever to the topic of refugees". He said there was no reason not to visit Munich or to cancel events for security reasons. The Munich prosecutor also said the suspect -- whose name has been withheld for the time being -- had suffered depression and reportedly undergone psychiatric treatment.
Three Kosovans were among the nine killed, the foreign ministry said Saturday. "Three citizens of Kosovo are among the victims of the shooting in Munich. Our consulate in Munich has established with the German police and the families that the three young (ethnic) Albanians (from Kosovo) lost their lives during the attack," the ministry said in a statement. The gunman apparently acted alone as he opened fire in a busy shopping mall in Munich Friday evening. The pistol-wielding attacker, identified by Munich Police Chief Hubertus Andrae as a dual national, was later found dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound to his head.Police, citing eyewitness accounts, had initially said they were looking for up to three suspects in the shooting attack at the Munich Olympia Shopping Center that sent shoppers fleeing in panic and shut traffic across the city. But authorities told a news conference early on Saturday the shooter was believed to have staged the attack alone, opening fire in a fast food restaurant before moving on to the mall.
Special forces police officers stand guard at an entrance of the main train station, following a
Sixteen people, including several children, were injured in the attack and three were in critical condition, Andrae said. Three Turkish citizens were among nine people killed in the shooting, Turkey's foreign minister said on Saturday. In an interview with local television station NTV, Mevlut Cavusoglu identified the Turkish victims of the attack as two teenagers and a woman. Germany is home to a large ethnic Turkish minority. There was no known motive for the shooting in Germany’s third largest city, which went into lockdown with transport halted and highways sealed off immediately after the attack. It was the third major act of violence against civilians in Western Europe in eight days. Previous attacks in France and Germany were claimed by the ISIS. “The motives for this abhorrent act have not yet been completely clarified - we still have contradictory clues,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but supporters of ISIS celebrated on social media. France’s Hollande says Munich shooting is a ‘terrorist attack’. The deadly shooting in Munich was a “disgusting terrorist attack” aimed at stirring up fear in Germany after France was targeted last week, French President Francois Hollande said on Saturday. “The terrorist attack that struck Munich killing many people is a disgusting act that aims to foment fear in Germany after other European countries,” Hollande said in a statement. “Germany will resist, it can count on France’s friendship and cooperation,” he said, adding that he would speak with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Saturday morning.
Obama vows support for Germany after Munich shooting. US President Barack Obama on Friday pledged support to Germany in the wake of the deadly shooting rampage in Munich, as officials said they were working to determine if any US citizens were affected. Obama, speaking at a meeting with law enforcement officials, said he had been briefed on the unfolding drama in Germany, where at least six people are believed dead in a shooting at a shopping center in Munich. “Our hearts go out to those who may have been injured. It’s still an active situation, and Germany’s one of our closest allies, so we are going to pledge all the support that they may need in dealing with these circumstances,” he said. White House spokesman Josh Earnest said: “The resolve of Germany, the United States, and the broader international community will remain unshaken in the face of acts of despicable violence such as this.”At the State Department, spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said US officials were working with local authorities to determine if any US citizens were affected by the incident. American citizens in Germany were urged to contact loved ones to let them know their whereabouts. “For your own safety, avoid squares and streets: perpetrators are on the run,” said a statement on the website of the US embassy in Germany. “Continue to shelter in place, contact your family members to let them know you are safe, and follow the instructions of police and emergency personnel.” Trump says rise of terrorism threatens all civilized people
US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, commenting on the shooting, said the United States should do all in its power to keep out terrorism. “This cannot continue. The rise of terrorism threatens the way of life for all civilized people, and we must do everything in our power to keep it from our shores,” Trump said on Facebook.Iran urges global fight against terrorism after Munich attack Iran said on Saturday the international community should make fighting terrorism its top priority, after the events in Munich. The attack was the third on civilians in Western Europe in eight days. “Today, fighting terrorism, in any form and place, is an urgent demand of the world community ...that should be considered as the top priority by all countries in an international consensus,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi was quoted as saying by state news agency IRNA.
German authorities said they had no immediate evidence of an Islamist motive.

ISIS claims deadly twin Kabul blasts
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Saturday, 23 July 2016/ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in the Afghan capital Kabul on Saturday that killed at least 61 people and wounded more than 200 when it tore through a demonstration by members of the mainly Shia Hazara minority. Graphic television footage from the site of the attack showed many dead bodies lying on the bloodied road, close to where thousands of Hazara had been demonstrating over the route of a planned multimillion dollar power line. “Two fighters from Islamic State detonated explosive belts at a gathering of Shiites in the city of Kabul in Afghanistan,” said a brief statement on the group’s Amaq news agency. The attack was the worst in months and if confirmed as the work of ISIS, would represent a major escalation for a group which has hitherto been largely confined to the eastern province of Nangarhar. Menacing departure . The explicit reference to the Hazara's Shia religious affiliation also represents a menacing departure for Afghanistan, where the bloody rivalry between Sunni and Shia typical of Iraq has been relatively rare, despite decades of war. Shortly before the ISIS statement, the Taliban’s spokesman sent an email denying any Taliban involvement in the blast. Mohammad Ismail Kawousi, a spokesman for the ministry of public health, said the dead and wounded had been taken to nearby hospitals. He added that the toll could rise further, “as the condition of many of the injured is very serious.” Dr. Waheed Majroeh, the head of international relations for the Ministry of Public Health, said 207 people wounded. The spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said that the central government had shared intelligence with the march organizers of a protest march in Kabul that was bombed, warning that the marchers faced a possible “terrorist attack.” He said government officials had warned the organizers that they risked attack because, “We knew that terrorists wanted to bring sectarianism to Kabul, and cause splits within our community.” The president was expected to meet leaders of the Hazara demonstrators later in the day. Many of the leaders did not attend Saturday’s demonstration. The protesters were demanding that a major regional electric power line be routed through their impoverished home province. One of the march organizers Laila Mohammadi said she arrived at the scene soon after the blast and saw “many dead and wounded people.”
Second protest march
It is the second march against the current route of a multi-million-dollar regional electricity line. The last one in May attracted tens of thousands. The so-called TUTAP line is backed by the Asian Development Bank with involvement of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The original plan routed the line through Bamiyan province, in the central highlands, where most of the country’s Hazaras live. That route was changed in 2013 by the previous Afghan government. (With Reuters, AP and AFP)

Doomed EgyptAir flight ‘broke up midair’ after fire
AFP, New York Saturday, 23 July 2016/An EgyptAir flight that crashed into the Mediterranean in May likely broke up in midair after a fire erupted in or near the cockpit, the New York Times reported Friday. However it remains unclear whether the blaze was triggered by mechanical malfunction or a criminal act, Egyptian officials who spoke on condition of anonymity told the Times. Last Saturday an Egyptian-led investigative committee reported that the word “fire” could be heard on EgyptAir flight 804’s cockpit voice recorder before it crashed. But the forensic and aviation officials in Cairo who spoke with the Times said that both the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, combined with the distribution and condition of recovered debris and human remains, had led them to their latest conclusion. EgyptAir flight 804 was carrying 40 Egyptians, 15 French people, two Iraqis, two Canadians and one passenger each from Algeria, Belgium, Britain, Chad, Portugal, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo when it disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean. The crash followed the bombing of a Russian passenger plane over Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula last October, killing all 224 passengers and crew. ISIS claimed responsibility for that attack, but there has been no such claim linked to the EgyptAir crash.

Turkey pledges to adhere to democratic principles, rule of law
Reuters Saturday, 23 July 2016/Turkey will strongly adhere to democratic principles and rule of law, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said on Saturday, referring to the government’s crackdown in the aftermath of a failed military coup.“From the very beginning, I wanted to say that despite what has happened a week ago in Turkey, that we will continue to strongly adhere to democratic principles and apply rule of law and not much really has changed. I know there are question marks,” he told a meeting of G20 finance ministers and central bankers in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu. The government’s widening crackdown in the aftermath of a failed military coup has spooked investors, who have dumped the lira currency and sold stocks. Obama denies any US involvement in Turkey coup bid . President Barack Obama on Friday denied any US role in Turkey’s failed coup and insisted that an extradition request for a US-based Muslim cleric accused of orchestrating the putsch would have to go through normal channels. Obama, speaking at a news conference, said he told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan in a call earlier this week that the United States had no prior knowledge of the abortive coup.
“Any reports that we had any previous knowledge of a coup attempt, that there was any US involvement in it, that we were anything other than entirely supportive of Turkish democracy are completely false, unequivocally false,” Obama said.“He (Erdogan) needs to make sure that, not just he but everybody in his government, understands that those reports are completely false,” Obama added. “Because when rumors like that start swirling around, that puts our people at risk on the ground in Turkey and it threatens what is a critical alliance and partnership between the United States and Turkey.”
Reports of US involvement in the coup attempt, which were also denied earlier this week by the US ambassador to Turkey, appear to be partly fueled by the fact that cleric Fethullah Gulen lives in self-imposed exile in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains. Erdogan accuses Gulen, a charismatic former ally, of masterminding the plot against him. In a crackdown on Gulen’s suspected followers, more than 60,000 soldiers, police, judges, civil servants and teachers have been suspended, detained or placed under investigation. Gulen has condemned the attempted coup and denied any involvement in it.
Obama, reiterating what US officials had said earlier this week, said he told Erdogan his government must first present evidence of Gulen’s alleged complicity in the failed coup. An extradition request would then receive the review required by the Justice Department and other government agencies just like any other petition.“America’s governed by rules of law, and those are not ones that the president of the United States or anybody else can just set aside for the sake of expediency,” Obama said. “We’ve got to go through a legal process.”Serdar Kilic, the Turkish ambassador to the United States, told a news conference on Friday that his country had submitted the “necessary documentation” for Gulen’s extradition. But US Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said he could not yet give a “hard yes or no” on whether the materials submitted by Turkey constituted a formal extradition request.

Turkey scolds allies for not visiting post-coup
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Saturday, 23 July 2016/A Turkish minister chided the country’s Western allies on Saturday for not sending any representatives to demonstrate their solidarity with Turks following last weekend’s failed military coup. Western leaders have pledged support for Turkish democracy since the July 15 coup attempt but have also expressed concern over the scale of purges against supporters of the coup and of the US-based Muslim cleric Ankara says was behind it. Turkish authorities’ mass purges of the armed forces, police, judiciary and education system, targeting followers of a US-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan has accused of masterminding the failed coup. However, the reclusive 75-year-old Gulen denies the charge. “We are very surprised that our allies have not come to Turkey to visit even after one week has passed,” Omur Celik, the minister for European Union affairs, told reporters in Ankara. Celik added that NATO needed to collaborate with Turkey, a reference in part to the struggle against ISIS militants in Turkey’s southern neighbors Syria and Iraq. Turkey has the second biggest armed forces in NATO and is also negotiating to join the European Union.
Coup’s outcome
Earlier on Saturday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has ordered the closure of more than 1,000 private schools and extended the period in which some suspects can be detained without charge, in his first decree since declaring a three-month state of emergency. Erdogan declared the state of emergency late on Wednesday saying it would enable authorities to swiftly and effectively root out supporters of last weekend’s failed military coup in which at least 246 people were killed. The state of emergency allows the president and government to pass laws without first having to win parliamentary support and also allows them to curb or suspend rights and freedoms as they deem necessary. The first decree signed by Erdogan authorizes the closure of 1,043 private schools, 1,229 charities and foundations, 19 trade unions, 15 universities and 35 medical institutions over suspected links to the Gulen movement, the state news agency Anadolu reported on Saturday. Erdogan has also approved the extension of the period in which certain suspects can be detained to 30 days from a maximum of four days, Anadolu said. The period has been extended to facilitate a full investigation into the coup attempt. Parliament must still approve the decree but requires only a simple majority, which the ruling AK Party founded by Erdogan and in power in Turkey since 2002 commands. In an address to lawmakers late on Friday Erdogan vowed to bring to justice supporters of the Gulenist “terrorist” movement. He also inspected damaged parts of the parliament building in Ankara that were strafed by the coup plotters during last weekend’s violence. (With AFP and Reuters)

Sixteen killed in Iran after bus smashes into electricity pole
AFP, Tehran Saturday, 23 July 2016/At least 16 people were killed and 12 others injured early Saturday when a speeding bus smashed into an electricity pole in northern Iran, state television reported. It quoted a police official as saying that the driver of the bus, that was travelling to the capital Tehran from a city near the Caspian Sea, was driving at high speed and lost control of the vehicle. The accident came a day after at least 30 people were injured when a truck driver crossed a railroad at high speed and crashed into a train in the north of Iran. Iran has a good road network but accidents caused by reckless drivers kill thousands each year. Last year more than 16,000 people were killed in road accidents, according to the traffic police quoted by state television website IRINN, down from 28,000 deaths a decade ago.

Plan to rid Libya of chemical weapons backed by UN
AFP Saturday, 23 July 2016/The UN Security Council on Friday endorsed plans to rid Libya of its chemical weapons and prevent them from falling into the hands of extremists like ISIS. Libya this week asked the OPCW chemical watchdog to draw up a plan for the destruction of the toxic agents that until recently were stored at the Ruwagha depot in southeastern Libya. Libyan authorities moved the stockpile to another location in recent days and now want the OPCW -- the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons -- to help remove them from the country and destroy them outside Libya. The council unanimously adopted a resolution calling on UN member-states to help Libya's UN-backed national unity government and the OPCW with "the elimination of category 2 chemical weapons safely and in the soonest practicable timescale." The measure authorizes governments to take part in the operation, allowing them to "acquire, control, transport, transfer and destroy" chemical weapons to "ensure the elimination of Libya's chemical weapons stockpile in the soonest and safest manner."Making his first visit to the United Nations, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said the resolution "marks the beginning of the end of the Libyan chemical weapons program." "We have reduced the risk of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists and fanatics," he said. The resolution invokes chapter 7 of the UN charter, which allows the council to enforce the measure through military force or sanctions. Britain and Russia have raised concerns that Libya's chemical stockpile could fall into the hands of IS jihadists, who hold the key coastal city of Sirte and are active in other parts of the country. Libya joined the UN convention on eliminating chemical weapons in 2004.

Netanyahu offers condolences on death of Abbas’ brother
AFP, Jerusalem Saturday, 23 July 2016/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas Friday to offer condolences on the death of his brother, an Israeli official said. Abbas’s brother Omar died in Qatar on Thursday, with the funeral taking place on Friday. He had been suffering from cancer, according to Israeli media reports. The official, in the Israeli prime minister’s office, told AFP that Netanyahu’s telephone call to Abbas was “only to offer condolences.”No other topics were discussed, he said. Palestinian state media confirmed the call. Relations between the two men are frosty, with Netanyahu accusing Abbas of libelling the Jewish people last month after he suggested some rabbis had called for Palestinian wells to be poisoned. Abbas and Netanyahu shook hands at a climate summit in Paris in November, but held no significant talks. The last substantial public meeting between Abbas and Netanyahu is thought to have happened in 2010, though there have been unconfirmed reports of secret meetings since then. The last talks between Israel and the Palestinians collapsed in April 2014 despite intense American diplomatic efforts. US Secretary of State John Kerry, the architect of those talks, was meant to meet Abbas in Paris on Friday evening, but the meeting was cancelled following news of the Palestinian president’s bereavement. Addressing journalists in Vienna before flying to Paris, Kerry said the meeting would take place towards the end of July. “I talked to him last night... he and I will meet somewhere shortly after the period of mourning,” Kerry said. Israel has called for direct peace negotiations without preconditions, but the Palestinian leadership prefers a multilateral approach, saying Israel’s leadership has failed to abide by previous agreements.

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on July 23-24/16

How We Honor Muslims Who Stand Up to Terror
Robert Satloff/The Washington Institute/July 23/16
At a time when examples of Islamist terrorism and intimidation appear with numbing frequency, efforts to recognize the extraordinary heroism of many ordinary Muslims are more important than ever.
Nice, on France's Mediterranean coast, now joins a long list of cities, on four continents, where Islamist terrorists have perpetrated gruesome attacks, mercilessly killing hundreds of innocents. And those are just where some of the highest-profile outrages have occurred, the ones that attract headlines. The fact that millions of people, mostly other Muslims, survive under the daily brutality of violent Islamists in large parts of Syria, Iraq, Libya, Gaza, Nigeria and elsewhere is so routine as to barely be newsworthy.
Most people recognize that Islamist terrorists who kill and maim in the name of God do not represent the other billion-plus Muslims in the world today. But still, there is a widespread, if not always articulated, view that huge percentages of Muslims are enablers, cheerleaders or at least passive shoulder-shruggers at what the terrorists do. No doubt a certain number are -- probably fewer than feared but more than one would hope.
This is why what took place last Friday, just across the Mediterranean, on the grounds of the Italian Embassy in Tunis, is so important. That is where people of various faiths, nationalities and ethnicities came together to consecrate a "Garden of the Righteous" to honor the memory of Muslims who risked -- and in some case, gave -- their lives to save others from the horror of terror.
The concept of a Garden of the Righteous draws from the example of the sacred space at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to victims and heroes of the Holocaust, dedicated to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during humanity's darkest hour. More than 26,000 people -- men and women of all faiths (and none at all) -- have so far been recognized. Given that this constitutes but a tiny percentage of non-Jews who had the opportunity to protect Jews during their hour of need, the honorees showed a particularly unique brand of courage displayed by ordinary people doing extraordinary deeds.
Taking this idea and applying it to Muslims who risked or gave their lives in the face of terror is the brainchild of the Italian historian Gabriele Nissim, founder of the Milan-based organization Gariwo, which stands for Gardens of the Righteous Worldwide. For years, Nissim and his colleagues have worked to tell the stories of "righteous" -- not just those who saved Jews but those who, more generally, put themselves in harm's way on behalf of "the other" -- as a way to open new channels of understanding among peoples chained by conflict.
Several years ago, I was privileged to speak in front of 500 enthusiastic Italian high school students at a Gariwo conference highlighting brave women and men who crossed ethnic lines to save "the other" at atrocious times throughout the last century, from the Armenian genocide to the Balkan Wars. My own contribution was to talk about Arabs who saved Jews during the Holocaust.
To his great credit, Nissim has taken this idea out of Europe and brought it to Tunis, deep in the heart of an Arab Muslim society that is on the front lines of the great civilizational battle raging between enlightenment and fanaticism. In 2011, Tunisia was the first Arab country to throw off its ossified, autocratic leadership in the much-too-optimistically named Arab Spring. Ever since, it has labored to protect its nascent democracy from both the allure of Islamist politicians promising simplistic answers to complex problems and the brutal violence of Islamist terrorists keen to bring the whole country to its knees.
Working with the brave Tunisian human rights activist Abdessattar Ben Moussa, winner of the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize, and the forward-thinking diplomats in the Italian foreign ministry, Nissim and his colleagues have created a sacred space on Arab soil where people of goodwill, from around the world, can honor Muslims whose courage transcends faith, nationality and ethnicity.
Who are these remarkable Muslims? Of the honorees, the earliest story is from the Nazi occupation of Tunisia in 1943, when Khaled Abdul Wahab, a wealthy nobleman, protected nearly two dozen Jews on his farm outside the seaside town of Mahdia and risked his life to prevent a German officer from raping a young Jewish woman.
The most recent story is from Bangladesh, where Faraaz Hussein, a young Muslim man, could have saved himself during the recent ISIS attack in Dhaka by reciting Quranic verses but instead demanded the release of his non-Muslim friends and heroically died alongside them.
These stories are moving and inspiring; in a world in which Islamist terror is a fact of numbing frequency, they also remind us of the extraordinary heroism of many ordinary Muslims. Eventually, when a peaceful Tunisia emerges from its current travails, it will be a welcome step to move the garden from the secure, fenced-in grounds of the embassy to public space, on sovereign Tunisian soil. And when it does, the organizers should make sure there is room for many more honorees than the inaugural five.
That is because stories of Muslims facing down hate and terror, especially perpetrated by violent Islamists who claim to speak in their name, are both important to tell and more common than we realize.
**Robert Satloff is executive director of The Washington Institute and author of Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands.

 Inside Turkey's Failed Coup: What Happened? Why? What Next?
Soner Cagaptay and James F. Jeffrey/Washington Institute/July 22, 2016
Two experts discuss how the coup was thwarted, what Erdogan will do next, and how the nascent purges might shift Ankara's relations with Washington.
On July 20, Soner Cagaptay and James Jeffrey addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Cagaptay is the Beyer Family Fellow and director of the Turkish Research Program at the Institute. Jeffrey is the Institute's Philip Solondz Distinguished Fellow and former U.S. ambassador to Turkey. The following is a rapporteur's summary of their remarks.
SONER CAGAPTAY
For most people who were born in Turkey or study the country, the most difficult image to see during last week's events was Ankara -- a city that had not been attacked or occupied since the fifteenth century -- being bombed by Turks. Ultimately, the July 15 plot proved to be a counterfeit coup. Although it was meant to look like a full-fledged coup carried out by the military's top brass, it was in fact a factional uprising within the military. Only about 20 percent of the country's generals were involved; they hoped to harness enough critical mass among top officers to subsequently mount a full coup, but they lacked widespread support. Their only significant backing came from the air force and gendarmerie -- there was no real support in the army, which comprises 65 percent of the armed forces. In fact, their nefarious plot began to unravel when the commander of the 1st Army went on television and declared, "This is not a coup."
The plot failed in part because it was poorly conceived. For example, it was carried out at 10:00 p.m. when everyone was out in the streets, instead of well after midnight when coups are generally executed. When the plotters realized that Turkish intelligence had discovered their plans, they launched the coup prematurely, which led to its unraveling
The plan also failed because the forces supporting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan were too powerful. An assassination attempt against him was, thankfully, unsuccessful because intelligence informed him of the plot. He was also able to connect with the masses and galvanize them to action. The plotters took over TRT, a state-run television channel that is not among the country's most-watched networks. Erdogan responded by going on CNN-Turk over FaceTime and calling on his supporters to flood the streets. Meanwhile, the national police remained loyal to him and prevented the gendarmerie from leaving their barracks, enabling armed pro-government groups to outnumber pro-coup forces. Moreover, social media was abuzz with anti-coup messaging, and the mobilization of pro-Erdogan masses demonstrated the victory of the digital age over an analog coup. Ironically, Erdogan was saved by the very social media outlets he has been trying to ban.
The coup would have been bad for Turks no matter how it turned out. To be sure, a successful plot would have been worse -- Turkey would have become a more oppressive country run by generals, perhaps even descending into civil war. Yet even with an apparent Erdogan victory, Turkey will still become more oppressive. In the wake of this attack against the constitutional order, the president now has carte blanche to crack down on the opposition. Since 2003, he has built a cult of personality as a kind of authoritarian underdog, portraying himself as a victim who is forced to take action against those conspiring to undermine his authority. Now this conspiracy theory has legs -- in the eyes of Erdogan and his supporters, opposing the president really does mean plotting a coup.
In some respects, Erdogan's response to the plot will likely resemble the U.S. response to al-Qaeda. Yet he will probably wind up casting too wide of a net, targeting liberals, civil society institutions, and democratic opposition factions that were not linked to the coup -- this despite the fact that all Turkish political parties and media outlets, along with many NGOS and the TUSIAD business lobby, stood against the plot from the beginning. (Although Erdogan has perhaps recognized this loyalty -- the head of the main opposition party was recently invited to appear on TRT for the first time in six years -- he still maintains his divisive "us vs. them" rhetoric.)
Going forward, Erdogan will use this opportunity to expand his power, seeking to become head of government in addition to his current capacity as head of state. This would allow him to become the most powerful person in Turkey since Kemal Ataturk. But even as the new Ataturk, he would only be embraced by half the country, so the risk of domestic instability will be high in the coming months.
Turkish relations with the United States could become more complicated as well. The two biggest bilateral issues will be the Gulen Movement and NATO membership.
On the first issue, Erdogan believes the movement -- whose leader, Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, lives in the United States as a permanent resident -- is completely behind the coup plot. Ankara will therefore press hard for his extradition, and Washington will need to give the request thorough and swift consideration. At the same time, Erdogan must not link this issue to military cooperation against the Islamic State -- if he tries to present the United States with an ultimatum, it will backfire.
As for NATO, the current mood in Ankara is very dark, nervous, and angry, with some even claiming that the United States was behind the coup because Gulen lives there. Thus, for the first time in recent memory, some Turks are seriously questioning their country's NATO membership. If Washington does not convince Turkey of its commitment to cooperate on Gulen, Ankara could quickly pivot toward Russia -- a sobering thought given that Erdogan is scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin the first week of August.
JAMES JEFFREY
By far, the number-one victor in the aftermath of the coup attempt is Erdogan. He has gained enormous power within the part of the population that supports him and achieved legendary status by evading assassination. The steps he takes now will be motivated by a dual desire to prevent additional conspiracies and further expand his control.
Three potential scenarios may help explain Erdogan's post-coup approach. First, the Gulen Movement is widespread in the police and judiciary and may be just as extensive throughout the bureaucracy -- it is difficult to determine the extent of the cult-like, impenetrable network. Accordingly, the government might have a real rationale for rounding up as many people as it has. A second alternative is that the movement was involved in the coup, but the government is spreading its net very wide in order to purge everyone who has opposed Erdogan. A third scenario is that Gulen was not involved, and Erdogan simply views the coup attempt as a "gift from heaven" (as he described it the day after) that gives him the excuse he needed to purge the bureaucracy and expand his power.
Whatever the case, Ankara's response will create major problems for relations with the United States. Turkey is already a polarized society, and this split will widen it further. Internal turbulence will drive down Turkey's economic standing in the short term, and as rule of law and judiciary independence are called into question, the economy's long-term prospects will suffer as well. Human rights violations will further strain bilateral relations, and Washington will be compelled to condemn Erdogan's violations of democratic freedoms.
Yet the situation would have been worse if the military power grab had succeeded. Unlike the 1980 coup, even people who oppose Erdogan's government did not want military intervention. Furthermore, half of the population strongly supports him and would have resisted if the military had come to power. The resulting scenario would have looked less like the 1980 coup and more like the Syrian civil war.
So far, the Obama administration has handled the situation well, but every day will bring new challenges. Turkey is important for regional stability and international peace, but the U.S. government has limited options at the moment. Washington will have to be very open and frank in publicly standing up for its values, but instrumentalizing this stance and convincing Turkey to listen will be more difficult. Turkish society has a long tradition of blaming Washington for its problems, but persistent conspiracy theories about American involvement in the coup could push the United States too far.
The most immediate issue is the question of Gulen's extradition. In general, the U.S. extradition process has three steps: (1) the administration reviews the request to ensure it meets bilateral treaty requirements, (2) U.S. courts process the case in accordance with the American legal system, and (3) the person is sent to the requesting country to stand trial in its legal system. The challenge that Washington faces in Gulen's case is that Turkish authorities have been playing fast and loose with the authority of their court system, undermining the legitimacy of extradition requests. And even if the request is legitimate on paper, U.S. courts and administration officials will have to weigh whether Gulen would truly receive a free trial if he is sent to Turkey. From a policy perspective, the administration would likely be better off swallowing its concerns, sending this case to the courts, and letting the judicial system reach a decision. In this delicate phase of relations with such an important ally, realpolitik must guide the handling of such matters.
This summary was prepared by Oya Aktas.

Iranian refugee kills 9 in Munich mall. ‘No motive”
DEBKAfile Special Report July 23, 2016/For seven hours the authorities of the leading European power were paralyzed over how to handle the massacre of nine Germans at he Olympia shopping mall of Munich by an 18-year old Iranian German Friday night, July 22 without uttering the words “Islamic” or “jihadist” – or even “terror.” The gunman, who killed himself far from the crime scene, gained German citizenship after arriving from Iran two years ago. He too has not been named. At stake was Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-arms policy for Middle East refugees. And so a city of 1,5 million was sent into panic by muddled, stammering statements, which for hours refrained from defining the mall attack, locked the entries against the media and refused to specify the number of casualties.. French President Francois Hollande bluntly said it for them. It was a terrorist attack, he said Saturday morning, July 23.
Young people and "adolescents" are among the 9 dead, and children are among the 16 injured. Hundreds of police Saturday searched an apartment believed to have been the shooter’s home.
This was how the episode unfolded, according to debkafile’s initial report Friday night:
With still no official figure on casualties in the shooting spree Friday night, July 22, in the Olympia mall, Munich’s largest shopping center. However medical staff are being rushed to the city from across the state of Bavaria, indicating a casualty emergency of major proportions and multiple deaths.
Munich police now believe that three gunmen were involved and are on the run, but refrain from defining them as jihadist terrorists.
Large numbers of people fled the shopping center at the heart of Germany’s third city, while shopkeepers hid in barricaded stores and eateries.
Following the Olympia mall shooting, sirens were activated in a number of Munich districts warning people that their city was under terror attack which has all the hallmarks of a jihadist atrocity against a soft target.
The public was urged to stay off the streets and away from crowd centers. All Munich transport systems were closed down amid reports of a second shooting at the nearby Marienplatz Metro station at the heart of the capital of Bavaria. The central railway station was evacuated and closed down.
debkafile’s counterterrorism sources report that the gunmen were armed with pistols as well as automatic rifleswhixh were planned to maximize casualties.
It's the second attack in Germany in less than a week. On Monday, a 17-year-old Afghan wounded five people in an ax-and-knife attack on a regional train in Bavaria. The attacker claimed by ISIS as its “fighter” was shot and killed by police.
The mall is next door to the Munich Olympic stadium, where the Palestinian terrorist group Black September took 11 Israeli athletes hostage and eventually killed them during the 1972 Olympic Games.

Donald Trump is a unique threat to American democracy
Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post/By Editorial Board July 22/16
DONALD J. TRUMP, until now a Republican problem, this week became a challenge the nation must confront and overcome. The real estate tycoon is uniquely unqualified to serve as president, in experience and temperament. He is mounting a campaign of snarl and sneer, not substance. To the extent he has views, they are wrong in their diagnosis of America’s problems and dangerous in their proposed solutions. Mr. Trump’s politics of denigration and division could strain the bonds that have held a diverse nation together. His contempt for constitutional norms might reveal the nation’s two-century-old experiment in checks and balances to be more fragile than we knew.
Any one of these characteristics would be disqualifying; together, they make Mr. Trump a peril. We recognize that this is not the usual moment to make such a statement. In an ordinary election year, we would acknowledge the Republican nominee, move on to the Democratic convention and spend the following months, like other voters, evaluating the candidates’ performance in debates, on the stump and in position papers. This year we will follow the campaign as always, offering honest views on all the candidates. But we cannot salute the Republican nominee or pretend that we might endorse him this fall. A Trump presidency would be dangerous for the nation and the world.
Why are we so sure? Start with experience. It has been 64 years since a major party nominated anyone for president who did not have electoral experience. That experiment turned out pretty well — but Mr. Trump, to put it mildly, is no Dwight David Eisenhower. Leading the Allied campaign to liberate Europe from the Nazis required strategic and political skills of the first order, and Eisenhower — though he liked to emphasize his common touch as he faced the intellectual Democrat Adlai Stevenson — was shrewd, diligent, humble and thoughtful.
Donald Trump painted a dark picture of America during his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention, but some of his doomsday stats are rather dubious. The Post's Fact Checker examined 25 of his key claims. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)
In contrast, there is nothing on Mr. Trump’s résumé to suggest he could function successfully in Washington. He was staked in the family business by a well-to-do father and has pursued a career marked by some real estate successes, some failures and repeated episodes of saving his own hide while harming people who trusted him. Given his continuing refusal to release his tax returns, breaking with a long bipartisan tradition, it is only reasonable to assume there are aspects of his record even more discreditable than what we know.
The lack of experience might be overcome if Mr. Trump saw it as a handicap worth overcoming. But he displays no curiosity, reads no books and appears to believe he needs no advice. In fact, what makes Mr. Trump so unusual is his combination of extreme neediness and unbridled arrogance. He is desperate for affirmation but contemptuous of other views. He also is contemptuous of fact. Throughout the campaign, he has unspooled one lie after another — that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated after 9/11, that his tax-cut plan would not worsen the deficit, that he opposed the Iraq War before it started — and when confronted with contrary evidence, he simply repeats the lie. It is impossible to know whether he convinces himself of his own untruths or knows that he is wrong and does not care. It is also difficult to know which trait would be more frightening in a commander in chief.
Given his ignorance, it is perhaps not surprising that Mr. Trump offers no coherence when it comes to policy. In years past, he supported immigration reform, gun control and legal abortion; as candidate, he became a hard-line opponent of all three. Even in the course of the campaign, he has flip-flopped on issues such as whether Muslims should be banned from entering the United States and whether women who have abortions should be punished . Worse than the flip-flops is the absence of any substance in his agenda. Existing trade deals are “stupid,” but Mr. Trump does not say how they could be improved. The Islamic State must be destroyed, but the candidate offers no strategy for doing so. Eleven million undocumented immigrants must be deported, but Mr. Trump does not tell us how he would accomplish this legally or practically.
What the candidate does offer is a series of prejudices and gut feelings, most of them erroneous. Allies are taking advantage of the United States. Immigrants are committing crimes and stealing jobs. Muslims hate America. In fact, Japan and South Korea are major contributors to an alliance that has preserved a peace of enormous benefit to Americans. Immigrants commit fewer crimes than native-born Americans and take jobs that no one else will. Muslims are the primary victims of Islamist terrorism, and Muslim Americans, including thousands who have served in the military, are as patriotic as anyone else.
[Fareed Zakaria: America would be Trump’s banana republic]
The Trump litany of victimization has resonated with many Americans whose economic prospects have stagnated. They deserve a serious champion, and the challenges of inequality and slow wage growth deserve a serious response. But Mr. Trump has nothing positive to offer, only scapegoats and dark conspiracy theories. He launched his campaign by accusing Mexico of sending rapists across the border, and similar hatefulness has surfaced numerous times in the year since.
In a dangerous world, Mr. Trump speaks blithely of abandoning NATO, encouraging more nations to obtain nuclear weapons and cozying up to dictators who in fact wish the United States nothing but harm. For eight years, Republicans have criticized President Obama for “apologizing” for America and for weakening alliances. Now they put forward a candidate who mimics the vilest propaganda of authoritarian adversaries about how terrible the United States is and how unfit it is to lecture others. He has made clear that he would drop allies without a second thought. The consequences to global security could be disastrous.
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Most alarming is Mr. Trump’s contempt for the Constitution and the unwritten democratic norms upon which our system depends. He doesn’t know what is in the nation’s founding document. When asked by a member of Congress about Article I, which enumerates congressional powers, the candidate responded, “I am going to abide by the Constitution whether it’s number 1, number 2, number 12, number 9.” The charter has seven articles.
Worse, he doesn’t seem to care about its limitations on executive power. He has threatened that those who criticize him will suffer when he is president. He has vowed to torture suspected terrorists and bomb their innocent relatives, no matter the illegality of either act. He has vowed to constrict the independent press. He went after a judge whose rulings angered him, exacerbating his contempt for the independence of the judiciary by insisting that the judge should be disqualified because of his Mexican heritage. Mr. Trump has encouraged and celebrated violence at his rallies. The U.S. democratic system is strong and has proved resilient when it has been tested before. We have faith in it. But to elect Mr. Trump would be to knowingly subject it to threat.
Mr. Trump campaigns by insult and denigration, insinuation and wild accusation: Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy; Hillary Clinton may be guilty of murder; Mr. Obama is a traitor who wants Muslims to attack. The Republican Party has moved the lunatic fringe onto center stage, with discourse that renders impossible the kind of substantive debate upon which any civil democracy depends.
Most responsible Republican leaders know all this to be true; that is why Mr. Trump had to rely so heavily on testimonials by relatives and employees during this week’s Republican convention. With one exception (Bob Dole), the living Republican presidents and presidential nominees of the past three decades all stayed away. But most current officeholders, even those who declared Mr. Trump to be an unthinkable choice only months ago, have lost the courage to speak out.
The party’s failure of judgment leaves the nation’s future where it belongs, in the hands of voters. Many Americans do not like either candidate this year . We have criticized the presumptive Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, in the past and will do so again when warranted. But we do not believe that she (or the Libertarian and Green party candidates, for that matter) represents a threat to the Constitution. Mr. Trump is a unique and present danger.

Columnist Luma Simms called Israel the "last hope" for Middle East Christians.

the Algemeiner/Lea Speyer/July 22, 2016/Arab Christians must come to understand that Israel represents their “last hope” to be saved from annihilation by jihadists in the region, a Middle Eastern Christian columnist wrote Thursday in an op-ed published by the online news magazine The Federalist.
According to Luma Simms — who grew up in Ba’athist Iraq — Middle Eastern Christians must overcome widespread anti-Jewish indoctrination that is rampant in Arab lands.
“Anyone who claims that the Arab world — Muslim and Christian — is not pathologically antisemitic is delusional. This is the elephant in the room in the Arab Christian subculture; the secret sin no one wants to bring to the light,” she wrote.
It is this “secret sin” — which Simms calls “a blight upon the people of my heritage” — that prevents Arab Christians from reaching out to Israel for help as they suffer at the hands of radical Islamic jihadists.
Antisemitism has deep roots in the Middle East, Simms wrote, recorded as far back as the biblical Book of Esther outlining the genocidal plans of Persian vizier Haman against the Jewish nation. Islamic rulers adopted the idea of Jews as the “scapegoat” for their problems and this antisemitism “trickl[ed] down to minority groups living in Islamic dominated lands.”
Middle Eastern antisemitism in unique, Simms contends, saying it “goes beyond garden-variety envy. It is the belief that Israel is behind every evil in the world and especially the evil that befalls the Arab world. Therefore, it ought to be destroyed!”
The Arab world’s failure to recognize Israel as a Jewish state — with the exceptions of Jordan and Egypt — is a consequence of this unique form of antisemitism, Simms said, adding:
Because for Arab countries to acknowledge a Jewish state would require that they acknowledge Jewish people as people, as human persons. Their antisemitism does not allow them to do this. Antisemitism in the Arab bosom sets the relationship between the Arab and the Jew in what Austrian-German Jewish philosopher Martin Buber called the ‘I-It’ relationship, rather than the ‘I-You.’ They cannot recognize the state because they cannot recognize the people; they cannot recognize the people because they have established a relationship with them not as human persons but as an ‘It,’ as object rather than subject.
Simms expressed her hope that Arab Christian culture — which she believes is acting under a type of Stockholm Syndrome — will “break this spell” of antisemitism. “But hope is running out — Christianity may not survive in the Middle East,” she wrote, adding:
Israel is the last hope for Arab Christians; it’s as simple as that…Helping them, doing good to the Christians in the Arab world, would require Israel overcoming her neighbors’ antisemitism, even of those Christians who will not ask for help because of their prejudices. Arab Christians…feel caught between Muslim interests on one side and Israeli interests on the other. They are bitter. They are a weak minority, always overlooked…Their bitterness makes them miss an important ally: Israel. As the genocide of Middle Eastern Christians continues, the only hope of an Arab Christian remnant — a remnant that would keep and pass on its beliefs, traditions, and customs — is through help from the state of Israel. It is the humanitarian thing to do.
Praising Israel for its “humane treatment of her enemies,” Simms hailed the Jewish state’s decision to set up field hospitals near its borders where the IDF can discreetly treat those injured by conflict in bordering Syria.
Israel, for its part, must remember its own history and the many attempts to wipe the Jewish people off the map, Simms argues, writing:
Remember, Israel, that you were enslaved, persecuted, and almost exterminated. Remember that some wanted to destroy you from the face of the earth. Even now many of your neighbors want to annihilate you. What better way to do good to some of your enemies and save yourself at the same time than by forging an alliance with Arab Christians?
Concluding her article, Simms called on the Jewish state to “rise up and lead that region of the world.”
“Let it always be said: In the dark age of ISIS, when desolation and despair covered the Arab world, Israel was the house of light,” she wrote. “Like the prophet Jonah whom God commanded to go to Nineveh and offer redemption to the Assyrians, may Israel go and redeem Assyria — redeem the Nineveh plains once again.”g an email to sos@international.gc.ca.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2016/07/22/columnist-says-israel-last-hope-for-arab-christians-before-total-annihilation/

We Ignore Iran’s Words and Actions at Our Deathly Peril
Pini Dunner/Algemeiner.com/July 22, 2016
This week marked the first anniversary of the Iran nuclear deal. Last year at around this time, many of us were engaged in the effort to thwart the deal; yet, despite our valiant efforts, the deal went through and officially took effect in January. Secretary of State John Kerry proclaimed this week that the agreement had “lived up to its expectations,” and asserted that Iran’s nuclear program had been effectively halted in exchange for sanctions relief.
Kerry’s statement coincided with the alarming revelation that a previously unseen secret document will allow key restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program to ease years before the 15-year accord expires. The document was a secret letter submitted by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency at the same time the deal was signed, and it outlines Iran’s plans to expand its uranium enrichment program in just under 10 years. Although not officially part of the signed agreement, the letter was tacitly approved by all of the six powers that negotiated the deal with Tehran.
This diplomatic sleight of hand was treachery, plain and simple — a shocking and deceptive ploy that turns the weak agreement we all suspected it to be into something that is even worse than that. In their haste to clinch a diplomatic coup, international negotiators gave away a lot more than was ever revealed, enabling Iran to turn itself into an existential threat in less than a decade. What were they thinking? It defies explanation — particularly since Iran is now threatening to renege on the deal if the other parties don’t adhere to their side of the bargain, namely sanctions relief and international investment. What an absolute mess.
As if this is not enough, two weeks ago the deputy chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hossein Salami, warned that his country has more than 100,000 missiles aimed and ready to fire at Israel, and added that “if the Zionists [sic] make a wrong move, all the occupied territories will come under attack from dedicated fighters and the territories will be liberated.” And when he says “all the occupied territories” he means the whole of Israel, not just Judea and Samaria. Meanwhile, last week, in rallies across Iran attended by tens of thousands of people, Israeli and American flags were burnt amid chants of “Death to Israel!” and “Death to America!”
In 1954, at a White House luncheon with President Eisenhower, Sir Winston Churchill is reported to have told his host with reference to the Cold War, “To jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.” He presumably meant that any kind of negotiations, however interminable and inconclusive, were always the better option if the other option was military hostilities. While that might or might not be true, in the decades that have followed, this idea has been taken much further, and is now interpreted to mean that one should ignore enemy rhetoric, and never rise to any kind of verbal bait, as in the end no matter how violent they are, words are not missiles, and threats are not acts of war. Let them “jaw-jaw” all they want, the argument goes, because in the end who cares what they say, as long as we are not at war.
This week’s Torah portion exposes just how foolish this approach is. The narrative describes how Balak, King of Moab, summons the notorious soothsayer Bil’am ben Be’or to assist him in defeating the Jews before they overrun his country. Bil’am was no military strategist, nor was he in command of an army of crack mercenaries. It seems his only weapon was a powerful mouth, as Balak bluntly tells him: “for I know — that which you bless will be blessed, and that which you curse will be cursed.”
Ultimately Balak’s plan never materializes. God intervenes and prevents Bil’am from cursing the Jews, and we are left wondering whether Bil’am’s curses were quite as dangerous as Balak thought they were. The medieval commentators struggle to explain the curse phenomenon, and opinions range from those who think curses work, and that Bil’am’s were particularly effective, to those who think that Bil’am was a wily charlatan who used clairvoyant skills to identify people who were about to have a stroke of bad luck, so that when their luck turned, everyone would assume his curses had caused their downfall.
Maimonides addresses the whole issue quite differently in his Guide to the Perplexed. As far as he is concerned, curses have no real power, but one is nonetheless forbidden to curse. He explains that speech has the power to cause such terrible pain, that cursing is one of only three prohibitions not involving an action that can lead to a punishment of lashes. Although this idea is itself very powerful it fails to explain why God prevented Bil’am from uttering curses, and instead turned his words into blessings. On possible solution is that Maimonides understood that violent rhetoric, while seemingly harmless in and of itself, is always a precursor to physical violence, and is therefore the very gravest of sins. Without a demagogue to whip up emotions, no soldier would ever go to war, and no army would ever be victorious. The benefit of Bil’am’s curses were not in their effectiveness as curses, but in their ability to encourage the Moabites into battle against the invincible Jews, in the belief they could win.
When “jaw-jaw” threatens “war-war,” it is no longer just “jaw-jaw.” If Iran encourages its people to chant ‘Death to America” and Death to Israel,” you can be sure that as soon as they have the chance, both Israel and America, and numerous other countries, will be targeted. And with this week’s revelation regarding the accelerated threat from Iran’s nuclear program, we had better wake up before it’s too late.

France: After the Third Jihadist Attack
Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/July 23/16
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8522/france-jihadist-attack

Successive French governments have built a trap; the French people, who are in it, are thinking only of how to escape. The situation is more serious than many imagine. Whole areas of France are under the control of gangs and radical imams.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated what he already said 18 months ago: "France is at war." He named an enemy, "radical Islamism," but he was quick to add that "radical Islamism" has "nothing to do with Islam." He then repeated that the French will have to get used to living with "violence and attacks."
The French are increasingly tired of attempts to exonerate Islam. They know perfectly well that all Muslims are not guilty. But they also know that all those who committed attacks in France in recent years were Muslims. The French have no desire to get used to "violence and attacks." They do not want to be on the losing side and they feel that we are losing.
Nice, July 14, 2016: Bastille Day. The evening festivities were ending. As the crowd watching fireworks was beginning to disperse, the driver of a 19-ton truck, zig-zagging, mowed down everyone in his way. Ten minutes and 84 dead persons later, the driver was shot and killed. Dozens were wounded; many will be crippled for life. Dazed survivors wandered the streets of the city for hours.
French television news anchors quickly said that what happened was almost certainly an "accident," or when the French authorities started to speak of terrorism, that the driver could just be a madman. When the police disclosed the killer's name and identity, and that he had been depressed in the past, they suggested that he had acted in a moment of "high anxiety." They found witnesses who testified that he was "not a devout Muslim" -- maybe not a Muslim at all.
President François Hollande spoke a few hours later and affirmed his determination to "protect the populace."
Prime Minister Manuel Valls repeated what he already said 18 months ago: "France is at war." He named an enemy, "radical Islamism," but he was quick to add that "radical Islamism" has "nothing to do with Islam." He then repeated what he emphasized so many times: the French will have to get used to living with "violence and attacks."
The public reaction showed that Valls convinced hardly anyone. The French are increasingly tired of attempts to exonerate Islam. They know perfectly well that all Muslims are not guilty. They also know that, nevertheless, all those who committed attacks in France in recent years were Muslims. They do not feel protected by François Hollande. They see that France is attacked with increasing intensity and that radical Islam has declared war, but they do not see France declaring war back. They have no desire to get used to "violence and attacks." They do not want to be on the losing side and they feel that we are losing.
Because the National Front Party uses more robust language, much of the public votes for its candidates. The National Front's leader, Marine Le Pen, will undoubtedly win the first round of voting in the presidential election next year. She will probably not be elected in the end, but if nothing changes quickly and clearly, she will have a very good chance next time.
Moderate politicians read the public opinion polls, harden their rhetoric, and recommend harsher policies. Some of them might demand harsher measures, such as the expulsion of detained terrorists who have dual citizenship and the detention of people that praise attacks. Some have even called for martial law.
Calm will gradually return, but it is clear that the situation in France is approaching the boiling point.
The recent attacks served as an accelerant. Four years ago, when Mohamed Merah murdered soldiers and Jews in Toulouse, the population did not react. Most French did not feel directly concerned; soldiers were just soldiers, and Jews were just Jews. When, in January 2015, Charlie Hebdo cartoonists were slaughtered, an emotional reaction engulfed the country, only to quickly vanish. A huge demonstration was organized in the name of "freedom of speech" and the "values of the republic." Hundreds of thousands claimed, "Je Suis Charlie" ("I am Charlie"). When, two days later, Jews were murdered again in a kosher grocery store, hardly anyone said "I am a Jew."
Those who tried to speak of jihad were promptly reduced to silence. Not even a year later, in November, the Bataclan Theater bloodbath did not lead to protests, but was a deeper shock. The mainstream media and the government could no longer hide that it was an act of jihad. The number killed was too overwhelming; one could not just turn the page. The mainstream media and the government did their best to downplay anger and frustration and to emphasize sadness. Solemn ceremonies with flowers and candles were everywhere. A "state of emergency" was declared and soldiers were sent into the streets.
But then the feeling of danger faded. The Euro 2016 soccer championship was organized in France, and the French team's good performance created a false sense of unity.
The Nice attack was a wake-up call again. It brutally reminded everyone that the danger is still there, deadlier than ever, and that the measures taken by the authorities were useless gesticulations. Memories of the previous killings came back.
Attempts to hide that Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the terrorist in Nice, was a jihadist fooled no one. Instead, it just created more anger, more frustration, and more desire for effective action.
Days before the Nice attack, the media reported that the parliamentary inquiry commission report on the Bataclan Theater attack revealed that the victims had been ruthlessly tortured and mutilated, and that the government had tried to cover up these facts. Now the entire public discovered the extent of the horror, adding fuel to the fire.
France seems now on the verge of a revolutionary moment; it would not take much to cause an explosion. But the situation is more serious than many imagine.
Whole areas of France are under the control of gangs and radical imams. The government delicately calls them "sensitive urban zones." Elsewhere they are bluntly called "no go zones." There are more than 570 of them.
Hundreds of thousands of young Muslims live there. Many are thugs, drug traffickers, robbers. Many are imbued with a deeply rooted hatred for France and the West. Recruiters for jihadists organizations tell them -- directly or through social networks -- that if they kill in the name of Allah, they will attain the status of martyrs. Hundreds are ready. They are unpinned grenades that may explode anywhere, anytime.
Although possessing, carrying and selling weapons are strictly regulated in France, weapons of war circulate widely. And, of course, the Nice attack has shown once again that a firearm is not necessary to commit mass murder.
Twenty-thousand people are listed in the government's "S-files," an alert system meant to identify individuals linked to radical Islam. Most are unmonitored. Toulouse murderer Mohamed Merah, the murderers of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, and many of the terrorists who attacked the Bataclan Theater were in the S-files. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, the terrorist who acted in Nice, was not.
France's intelligence chief said recently that more attacks are to come and that many potential killers wander freely, undetected.
Doing what the French government is doing today will not improve anything. On the contrary. France is at the mercy of another attack that will set the powder keg ablaze.
Doing more will lead to worse before matters get better. Regaining control of many areas would entail mobilizing the army, and leftists and anarchists would certainly add disorder to disorder.
Imprisoning whoever could be imprisoned in the name of public safety would imply more than martial law; it would mean the suspension of democratic freedoms, and even so, be an impossible task. The jails in France are already full. The police are outnumbered and showing signs of exhaustion. The French army is at the limit of its capacity for action: it already patrols the streets of France, and is deployed in Africa and the Middle East.
The French army is at the limit of its capacity for action: it already patrols the streets of France and is deployed in Africa and the Middle East. Pictured above: French soldiers guard a Jewish school in Strasbourg, February 2015. (Image source: Claude Truong-Ngoc/Wikimedia Commons)
Successive governments have built a trap; the French, who are in it, are thinking only of how to escape.
President François Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls bear all the guilt. For years, many in France supported any movement that denounced "Islamophobic racism." They passed laws defining criticism of Islam as a "hate crime." They relied more and more on the Muslim vote to win elections. The most important left-wing think tank in France, Terra Nova, which is considered close to the Socialist Party, published several reports explaining that the only way for the left to win elections is to attract the votes of Muslim immigrants and to add more Muslims to the France's population.
The moderate right is also guilty. President Charles de Gaulle established the "Arab policy of France," a system of alliances with some of the worst dictatorships in the Arab-Muslim world, in the belief that France would regain its lost power thanks to this system. President Jacques Chirac followed in the footsteps of de Gaulle. President Nicolas Sarkozy helped overthrow the Gaddafi regime in Libya and bears a heavy responsibility for the mess that followed.
The trap revealed its lethal effects a decade ago. In 2005, riots across France showed that Muslim unrest could lead France to the brink of destruction. The blaze was extinguished thanks to the appeals for calm from Muslim organizations. Since then, France has been at the mercy of more riots.
The choice was made to practice appeasement. It did not stop the rot gaining ground.
François Hollande made hasty decisions that placed France at the center of the target. Seeing that strategic interests of France were threatened, he launched military operations against Islamist groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Realizing that French Muslims were going to train and wage jihad in Syria, he decided to engage the French army in actions against the Islamic State.
He did not anticipate that Islamist groups and the Islamic State would hit back and attack France. He did not perceive the extent to which France was vulnerable -- hollowed out from within.
The results put in full light a frightening landscape. Islamists view the landscape and do not dislike what they see.
On their websites, they often quote a line from Osama bin Laden: "When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, they will naturally want to side with the strong horse."
They appear to think that France is a weak horse and that radical Islam can bring France to its knees in a pile of dust and rubble. Time, they seem to think, is on their side as well -- and demography. Muslims now make up about 10% of the French population; 25% of teenagers in France are Muslims.
The number of French Muslims who want Islamic sharia law applied in France increases year after year, as does the number of French Muslims who approve of violent jihad. More and more French people despise Islam, but are filled with fear. Even the politicians who seem ready to fight do not take on Islam.
Islamists seem to think that no French politician will to overcome what looks more and more like a perfect Arab storm. They seem to feel that the West is already defeated and does not have what it takes to carry the day. Are they wrong?
*Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris, is the author of 27 books on France and Europe.
 

A Brotherhood group ‎behind the Turkey coup
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
Those who rushed to analyze and take stances on the coup in Turkey, now have a second chance to reconsider the situation. It was neither the army as an integral institution that attempted a coup against legitimately-elected President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, nor the secular opposition. The attempted coup was carried out by Fethullah Gulen’s Islamic movement, or the “parallel structure,” as Erdogan calls and accuses the group of trying to seize control. This group is similar in its form, message and organizational structure to the Muslim Brotherhood, even though it is not related to it.
There are hundreds of investigators and security officers in Turkey who are now chasing the group, which is considered to be the largest organized Islamic movement in Turkey and Central Asia. The leader of this group, Sheikh Fethullah Gulen, is accused of plotting this first attempt to seize power through a coup. Erdogan's government has asked the US government to hand over Gulen. After a series of surprising events over the past few days, I see that members of the Muslim Brotherhood, and those who sympathize with political Islam, have to wisely attempt to understand what has happened in Turkey. Whoever betrayed Erdogan and tried to overthrow the legitimate government, belongs to an Islamic politicized group that used some of its secret members who serve as officers and employees in the government or even in the prime minister's office, and relied on a secret organization that includes judges and teachers.
Security investigators probing the coup attempt are not looking for weapons in the offices and houses of the suspects. They are searching for religious books and publications linked to the group's leader, to prove their association to the Islamic group. The investigators ask questions revolving around the relationship of those accused with the group.
According to official news agency Anatolia, they have found religious books belonging to the group. The agency stated that one of the suspects, who is an assistant professor, had in his office at Sakarya University, Fethullah Gulen’s book “Emerald Hills of the Heart.” It is worth noting that the majority of those who were sanctioned are not soldiers but rather from the judiciary or university professors and teachers. Around 30,000 of them were detained, whereas only 9,000 military men were arrested. This huge figure shows that the army is not to blame, but instead, it is the movement itself. The soldiers who were involved are members of Gulen’s group, such as the Deputy Chief of Staff Levant Turkkan who admitted that he has been a member of the movement for years.
Sneaking into the military
Gulen’s group is a Turkish lobbying Islamist movement that is well organized. It is similar to the Muslim Brotherhood present in Arab states, which also depends on the establishment of a parallel state structure competing through social, educational and banking activities to reach out to the roots of communities and control them. Gulen’s supporters, just like the Muslim Brotherhood, become “pious” when prosecuted and work secretly towards change, however, they deny any conspiratorial plot publicly.
Whoever betrayed Erdogan and tried to overthrow the legitimate government, belongs to an Islamic politicized group
Turkish authorities have had doubts for a long time about the intentions of the group. Thus they decided 15 years ago to send Gulen away from Turkey because of a YouTube video showing that he admitted to his followers that he wanted to change Turkey's secular system. Former Turkish President Bulent Ecevit has sought to save Gulen from jail on charges of conspiracy and asked him to travel outside the country. Consequently, Gulen traveled to the United States, where he is currently residing, in the state of Pennsylvania.
Gulen, similar to some biased preachers who claim that angels speak to them, presented himself as a provider of miracles. He says that he memorized the Quran when he was just four years old and that his mother used to wake him up in the middle of the night to continue memorizing it. Gulen was loyal to his project as he spent nearly 40 years serving as an advocate in mosques across Anatolia. He established a giant organization of hundreds of religious schools in Turkey, and extended his educational and charitable activities to Central Asian republics after the fall of the Soviet Union. He has caused a crisis with the government of Kazakhstan, which accused him of organizing plots and conspiracies. Gulen built in Turkey a so-called “parallel structure” that consists of charitable organizations, giant financial institutions, radio and TV stations and newspapers. He gained wide influence to the extent that he has even supported the Justice and Development Party, and then Erdogan, in the penultimate elections. However, the two men disagreed at a later stage and went their separate ways three years ago.
Gulen has succeeded in installing changes into Turkish society, and in creating a large popular base, taking advantage of freedoms and economic openness since the 80s. It turned out that President Erdogan, who knows him well, was right when he expressed his concerns regarding Gulen’s secret group as it apparently succeeded in sneaking into the military, one of the most heavily guarded institutions in Turkey.
**This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on July 23, 2016.

Britain needs a competitiveness shake-up
Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
I love England. Always have and always will. I am never happier than when there is a carpet of snow covering the garden and fields surrounding my country home or while just being out for a stroll with friends along the lush green banks of the Thames watching the swans. Peace, perfect peace!
Great Britain for me is the pinnacle of Western democracies; one of few places on earth where citizens of all backgrounds, races and colours enjoy equal opportunities and fair treatment and where corruption is the exception rather than the rule. Some of the leaders I admire most are British; most notably Sir Winston Churchill, Lady Margaret Thatcher and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II who deserves everyone’s respect for the dignified way she conducts herself. These and many others, including scientists, explorers, inventors, philosophers, artists, writers and entrepreneurs, have made this island nation great. However, it hurts me to say that other countries are surpassing Britain by leaps and bounds in many areas. This summer, for instance, I have noticed a trend permeating almost every profession, which has caused me endless inconvenience – and I am certain that many Britons will sympathize with my frustrations. Everything I needed done, took far longer than it should.
Inefficiencies
The simplest things, which can be achieved within a day or two in my home country, the United Arab Emirates, are invariably an uphill struggle straining my patience. This does not bode well for a country on the brink of exiting the European single market with the aim of opening-up new markets worldwide and gaining a competitive edge. For example, it took me a week just to arrange an eye test and if that was not bad enough, I was told to come back for the results in two weeks! I have heard so many horror stories from friends about the inefficiencies of the National Health Service (NHS), which not so long ago was considered among the best in the world. The powers that be should up their energy so that the UK does not find itself lagging behind other nations. A ‘dirty wards’ scandal broke some years ago over a report stating more than 700,000 patients annually picked up lethal infections due to unhygienic conditions in hospitals. There have been many accusations that hospitals have ageism policies when it comes to offering life-saving operations and specialist care to the elderly. And due to a shortage in funds, last year, the NHS withdrew 25 treatment drugs for cancer.
People have to be assessed by their GP who used to allocate no more than ten minutes per patient before this rule was axed in 2013. They are then referred to a specialist, in cases that require so, and frequently have to wait a few months to get an appointment. There are also long waiting lists for non-life-threatening operations.
Emergency urgency?
I will give you an example of something I witnessed first-hand. My friend had an emergency, so I drove with him to the nearest hospital, which was a university hospital not far away. When we got there we discovered that the Accident & Emergency room was closed. The hospital told us that they could arrange for an ambulance to take us to another hospital, to which we agreed. However, the ambulance took 30 minutes to reach us, and a further 45 minutes to arrive at our destination, plus waiting time to see a health professional. This was an unacceptable lapse of time. Returning to more mundane aspects, my business communications have been negatively affected during my stay because I am without access to the internet at home. Again, I am told to wait up to a week to get it restored. I am not surprised because in the past whenever I have wanted an electrician, a plumber or carpenter they always say they will come “next week”; never today, tomorrow or even this week. And when they do arrive, they glance at the problem, have a cup of tea, and leave saying they will return to do the actual job at hand. Some do; others do not bother or turn up after I have returned to Dubai. They make you feel as though they are doing you a huge favor coming at all and then charge astronomical prices for the time spent. Frankly, I think twice about buying furniture in the UK these days. It is almost quicker to get things flown over from the Emirates. I recently came across a chair I liked and made the mistake of buying it only to be informed that the shop required three weeks to deliver. Why three weeks? Is it that inundated with orders or do delivery men have to carry it on their shoulders all the way to my home? The assistant was unable to give me a reasonable explanation.
Service culture
The service culture was very different when I bought my house decades ago; I did not have to jump through hoops to get it renovated to a high standard. I do not understand when or why this change came about – and more to the point, why the British public puts up with such shoddy service and treatment. I understand that while many Britons are stereotypically known to grumble all the time, many also tend to avoid open confrontations even when they are in the right. I notice this when I invite British friends to restaurants where they are either served poor quality food or something they did not order. Whereas we Arabs would complain loudly and send it back to the kitchen, they tell themselves ‘never mind’ and eat it anyway. The English are naturally polite, which is a good thing, but as long as they refrain from making justifiable complaints, stores and eateries have no incentive to up their standards.
Social equality is one thing, but it seems to me that some Britons resent their jobs and take little pride in their work whatever it may be. Perhaps the media and the cult of celebrity have heightened unreal expectations. Not everyone can be a whizz-kid lawyer, a famous footballer or the winner of Britain’s Got Talent. Not everyone can win the lottery or star in a reality show. But if someone does not strive to do their utmost best when undertaking humbler -but just as worthy- roles, they will never reach the top.In my young days, I felt privileged to have a job and worked long, hard hours to help support my family in various capacities before I started my own business on a shoestring budget in a two-roomed apartment without a typewriter or a telephone. We had no option. We did not look to the state to provide us with a living and we did not come up with a laundry list of excuses not to do this or that.
Our fathers and grandfathers would risk their lives diving for pearls or tending to their herds in temperatures upwards of 40 degrees centigrade. They had true grit and so did the Britons of their era who rolled up their sleeves and got the job done in factories, in the bowels of the earth digging for coal, or fighting in the trenches covered in mud. This generation needs to get its act together. Bosses should demand efficient practices and teach their staff that customers should not be treated as numbers but as individuals each with differing requirements. By the same token, companies should invest in customer service personnel so that callers can get real human beings on the line rather than recorded messages or a call center on the other side of the planet. I would ask my British readers to accept my advice as constructive criticism of a country I consider my second home. Daily life is tough enough without such stressful and unnecessary hiccups. There needs to be a sea change in attitudes and a focus on good practices else the “Great” in Britain will only be mentioned in historical archives. The developing world is forging ahead. The powers that be should up their energy so that the UK does not find itself lagging behind other nations.

Is urban terror blinding us to countryside conflicts?
Ehtesham Shahid/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
Acts of terror almost invariably appear to be part of a grotesque cycle these days. As another tragedy unfolds, this time in Munich, we are in for another round of collective horror and condemnation followed by soul-searching, talks of cooperation and then back to stereotyping. At the end of it, we have reduced attention span and emerge even more desensitized. So France’s Bastille Day terror will quickly erase memories of the attack on Ataturk airport in Istanbul, suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia and the targeting of foreigners in the diplomatic quarters of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Believe it or not, they have all happened within the last few weeks. Besides originating in similar regressive mindsets, and being carried out by the usual suspects, there is something else that is common in most of these attacks. They targets major urban centers around the world, where media maintain maximum presence round the clock.
As a result, footages of terrified innocent victims get beamed live across the world and are soon encapsulated and packaged for social media distribution. The scenes of death and destruction grab headlines and travel the maximum distance because they are played out in the middle of happening urban landscapes. Whosoever wants to send whatever message, there is at least no delay in delivering it. It is obvious that the roots of urban terror lie elsewhere, not in the streets of Munich, Paris, Brussels or Istanbul. But wherever they germinate, they don’t get the attention they deserve, which seems to make matters worse.
For instance, we received the firsthand account of the bloodbath at the Ataturk airport but not quite the aftermath of Turkish fighter jets striking Kurdish militant targets in rural areas of the Hakkari province and northern Iraq. This is not to suggest that one led to the other but to drive home the point that we are not paying equal attention to conflicts irrespective of whether they take place. Days after the failed coup in Turkey, the country’s prime minister claimed that the security forces have largely wiped out Kurdish militants from urban areas but would continue to hunt them down in rural areas. While we know what happened following the unsuccessful coup in the streets of Ankara and Istanbul we don’t know much about how the “rural purge” would have panned out as a result.
Away from sight
It is nobody’s case to oversimplify a challenge as complex as terrorism. However, it seems obvious that despite global focus on Syria and Iraq, there are occasions when the world goes blank about military operations or terror strikes in remote areas just because they are not unfolding in front of our eyes.
The scenes of death and destruction grab headlines and travel the maximum distance because they are played out in the middle of happening urban landscapes. There are reasons to believe that some of the worst atrocities carried out in rural areas may not even be known to the world. This has been the case in most conflict zones in the Middle East. So most of us would be aware of the blast that rocked a shrine in Baghdad earlier this month, but don’t know much about the village of Mayda, in the rural eastern Ghouta region outside Damascus, where battle has been raging between rebels and security forces for weeks. Despite the regular body count, we aren’t aware of the scale of tragedy unfolding there. Elsewhere, scores have been killed in clashes in Russia’s restive North Caucasus region as part of the ongoing clashes in a rural area outside the regional capital of Makhachkala, in Dagestan province. Yet they will continue to go below the radar till the time a major terror attack is carried out in one of the big cities.
The moment that happens we will go back to our well-rehearsed grotesque cycle.

On Donald Trump’s acceptance speech of doom
Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/July 23/16
Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention was as surreal as it was horrifying; portraying the current state of affairs in the United States as utterly bleak, the passion Trump showed when vowing to restore “law and order” in January 2017 was matched only by the excitement he showed while slandering immigrants and refugees. He baselessly blamed Hilary Clinton for nearly every single crisis in the Middle East, claiming her legacy is one of “death, destruction and weakness.” But, per usual, he failed to follow up even one of his insults with a solution.
Trump’s strategy to obscure the fact that he has absolutely no understanding of international affairs whatsoever is to regurgitate single lines of basic analysis while vowing that he will be a panacea for the world’s ills. He lambasted President Obama for failing to follow through on his “red line” in Syria, noting that when he drew it “the whole world knew it meant nothing.” His criticism of President Obama on this was particularly absurd given that only one day prior to the RNC, Trump publicly confirmed to the New York Times that he would consider abandoning certain NATO member states should they be confronted with an invasion by Russia, noting – in response to a question about defending the sovereignty of Estonia, Latvia or Lithuania – that he would only come to their defense if the states had “fulfilled their obligations to us.” Trump would never support an intervention sparked by a mass atrocity against civilians in Syria or anywhere else; he has already confirmed he is uncertain he would even defend our own stated allies.
Not original
Further, his criticism of President Obama on Syria is not an original or particularly astute one. Anyone who has watched the bloody Syrian crisis unfold is fully aware that the administration’s handling of it has dealt a blow to US credibility in the region. But there is absolutely no likelihood that Trump would have even considered confronting the Russian-backed Assad regime in Syria, especially given that his adoration of Vladimir Putin is well-documented. Trump’s hideous nationalism predictably punctuated his entire speech yesterday. He reiterated his calls for a ban on immigration from “any nation that has been compromised by terrorism,” and for the construction of a massive border wall. No one is certain what precisely a ban on immigration from nations “comprised by terrorism” would look like - perhaps not even Trump himself; he just knows he wants it and it will make the entire United States safer. It is with this issue, too, that Trump demonstrates a staggering lack of understanding of the current wave of terrorism plaguing the West; will he move to ban people from countries with a disproportionately high number of foreign fighters engaged in battles abroad? Or will he just ban people from countries where ISIS control large swathes of territory? It is likely he doesn’t even know.
Despite how loud and shrill Trump is, his voice will never be anyone’s but his own
Meanwhile, despite that Trump has continuously vilified anyone and everyone who is not like him – especially Mexicans and Muslims - he made a particularly grotesque remark yesterday about a young woman who was killed by a drunk driving undocumented immigrant. He referred to the victim as, “one more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.” It was a despicable remark indicating a trend of violence that there is no such evidence of. We cannot become desensitized to such incendiary rhetoric. Ultimately, the entire speech was predicated on the notion that America remains on the brink of collapse due to nefarious actors abroad and on our own soil. The speech reiterated the fact that Trump has to continue keeping his supporters in a state of manufactured panic or they may begin demanding actual policy outlines. Perhaps the most outrageous lie Trump attempted to tell the US was that he speaks for the American people. “I am your voice,” he twice bellowed. Despite how loud and shrill Trump is, his voice will never be anyone’s but his own.