LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS
BULLETIN
November 8/16
Compiled
& Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The
Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
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Bible Quotations For Today
Holy Father, protect them in your
name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 17/09-13/:'I am
asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf
of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in
them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am
coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me,
so that they may be one, as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them
in your name that you have given me. I guarded them, and not one of them was
lost except the one destined to be lost, so that the scripture might be
fulfilled. But now I am coming to you, and I speak these things in the world so
that they may have my joy made complete in themselves."
Let us consider how to provoke one
another to love and good deeds
Letter to the Hebrews
10/19-25/:"Since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of
Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain
(that is, through his flesh), and since we have a great priest over the house
of God, let us
approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts
sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has
promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love
and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but
encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Titles For
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on November 07-08/16
Lebanon must find a way to escape the resource curse/Nasser Saidi/Gulf
Times/November 07 2016
Michel Aoun’s real obstacle is not Syria or Israel, but Lebanon itself/Faisal
Al Yafai/The National/November 07/16
Bassil: Aoun was Hezbollah’s Ally… Now he is Ally of All Lebanese/Thaer
Abbas/Asharq Al Awsat/November 07/16
Can Lebanon’s Old Guard forge new social contract/Week in Review/Al
Monitor/November 07/16
Lebanese tech sector needs more than potential/Michael Karam/The
National/November 07/16
Hariri gets down to Cabinet formation/Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star/November
07/16
Saudi Arabia losing ground to Iran/Author Bruce Riedel/Al Moniter/November
07/16
Michel Aoun in Iranian Media: from Warlord to Man of Peace/Amir Taheri/Asharq
Al Awsat/November 07/16
The Re-Emergence of the Christians in Lebanon? (Interview With
Joseph Hakim)/Joseph Puder/FrontPage/November 7, 2016
Turkey's Increasingly Unfree Press/ Robert Jones/Gatestone Institute/November
07/16
The Consequences of Inaction/Barry Shaw/Gatestone Institute/November 07/16
Inside Germany's No-Go Zones: Part I - North Rhine-Westphalia/Soeren
Kern/Gatestone Institute/November 07/16
Are Palestinians #Ready4Peace/by Nir Boms and Asaf Romirowsky/The Washington
Examiner/November 07/16
What if we all got to choose the president of America/Peter Harrison/Al
Arabiya/November 07/16
Everyone agrees with fighting ISIS, but then what/Mshari Al Thaydi/Al
Arabiya/November 07/16
Letter from America, which will never be the same again/Samar Fatany/Al
Arabiya/November 07/16
Nations united in condemning Israeli settlements/Yossi Mekelberg/Al
Arabiya/November 07/16
Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on on November 07-08/16
Zarif Meets Aoun, Says President Election 'Victory for All Lebanese'
Iran's foreign minister is first to meet Lebanon's new president
Zarif Says Zakka Detention 'U.S.-Iranian Problem' as Family Urges Repatriation
Geagea to Berri: Your Concerns are Highly Valued but... 'Some Love Kills'
Kataeb Vows 'Cooperation' with Aoun, Urges National Unity Govt.
Jumblat Says 'No Government' without 'Shiite Duo'
Mashnouq Says France Preparing for 'Paris IV Conference' to Back 'New Tenure'
Hariri Says New President, Govt. 'Opportunity to Revitalize Ties' with Gulf
Lebanon must find a way to escape the resource curse
Aoun Receives Assad Envoy who Emphasizes 'Deep' Ties
Michel Aoun’s real obstacle is not Syria or Israel, but Lebanon itself
Bassil: Aoun was Hezbollah’s Ally… Now he is Ally of All Lebanese
Thaer Abbas/Asharq Al Awsat/November 07/16
Can Lebanon’s
Old Guard forge new social contract?
Lebanese tech sector needs more than potential
Hariri gets down to Cabinet formation
Lebanese president vows to uproot corruption
Saudi Arabia losing ground to Iran
Michel Aoun in Iranian Media: from Warlord to Man of Peace
The Re-Emergence of the Christians in Lebanon? (Interview With Joseph Hakim)
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin
For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on November 07-08/16
Clinton, Trump in Frenzied Final
Push for Votes
ISIS deploys Raqqa car bombs as SDF closes in
Top Iraqi Kurdish official: ISIS deployed drones with mustard gas
U.S.-Backed Forces Push Closer to IS 'Capital' Raqa
Russia Says Still Holding Off on Aleppo Strikes
Russia again Denies any Children Killed in Syria School Strike
Turkey Warns U.S. against Demographic Change in Raqa
Young Syrian Named Journalist of the Year by World's Press Watchdog
Syria Daily Dismisses Raqa Fight as 'Media' Operation
Hundreds Forced out of Iraq's Kirkuk after IS Attack
Iraq Forces Retake Key Town on Mosul Southern Front
Khameniei aide distorts Iraqi Kurds’ identity, rejects independence
Iran: 23 Girls and Boys Arrested for Attending A "Mixed- Gender Party
Abdullah Alami discloses about the Iranian regime
The Deputy Terrorist Qods Force Commander Confessed to Iran's Meddle in Syria
OIC Meeting Condemns Anyone (Iran Regime) Who Supports and Smuggles Ballistic
Missiles and Weapons for Houthi Militias
Iran Regime Prevents Treatment of a Female Political Prisoner
Israel says ‘no’ to Middle East peace conference in Paris
Jerusalem mayor warns against settlement demolition
Gaza Christians Being Forcibly Converted; World Uninterested
Egypt's oil minister makes rare trip to Iran for oil talks after Saudi
suspension
Links From Jihad Watch Site for on November 07-08/16
NYC:
Undercover journalist in full burka allowed to vote as Huma Abedin
Blackburn,
England: Muslims order non-Muslims not to trick-or-treat in their neighborhood
Germany:
Muslima praises jihadis on TV talk show
Merkel
orders EU to turn back boats full of Muslim migrants
In
UNESCO, Palestinians claim ownership of Dead Sea Scrolls
Iraqi
Christians: Obama abandoned us to the Islamic State
Hamas-linked
CAIR “warns” Muslims of FBI questioning over al-Qaeda threat
UK
MPs report claims many political Islam movements share British values
The
Left Has Become the New Right
Raymond
Ibrahim: Obama’s ‘Traditional Muslim Bias’ against Christians
Latest Lebanese Related News published on November 07-08/16
Zarif
Meets Aoun, Says President Election 'Victory for All Lebanese'
Naharnet/November 07/16/Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held talks Monday in Baabda with
newly-elected President Michel Aoun as part of an official visit to Lebanon that
will also include meetings with other top Lebanese officials. “I seized this
opportunity to extend the warmest congratulations to President Aoun on his
assumption of the presidency, in my name and in the name of Iranian President
Hassan Rouhani and all Iranians,” Zarif said after the meeting at the Baabda Palace
which was also attended by caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. “We
welcomed the fact that the presidential election in Lebanon was held without any
foreign interference. Lebanon's
success in holding the presidential vote after two and a half years of vacuum
is a victory for all Lebanese,” Zarif underlined. He said his visit is aimed at
“developing and boosting bilateral ties at the political and economic levels.” “Iran and Lebanon
have two main enemies – the takfiri enemy and Israel
– and this issue is an element for unity between Iran
and Lebanon,”
Zarif added. “President Aoun's oath of office reflected his deep political
vision that identified the risks that are threatening all countries in the
region,” Iran's
top diplomat went on to say. Following talks with Bassil at the Foreign
Ministry later in the day, Zarif thanked "the Lebanese state, especially
the Foreign Ministry, over the brotherly support that it has showed for the
Islamic Republic of Iran at all international forums."Bassil for his part
thanked Iran for "its
support and assistance for Lebanon
and for its repeated assertion that the domestic issues in Lebanon must be
resolved among the Lebanese.""Lebanon is facing two major threats
-- the racist Israeli threat and the Daeshi (Islamic State group) threat. We
thank Iran for its
assistance in the resistance against Israel
and for all the support it has offered to Lebanon," Bassil added.
"We have political ties with Iran that are being reflected at
the international forums where we exchange political support... Lebanon and Iran share the same political
stance on the region's crises, which is that they must resolved through
political solutions," the caretaker FM added. Zarif is accompanied by an
Iranian delegation comprising around 45 economic and political figures, Lebanon's
National News Agency said. He is also scheduled to meet with Speaker Nabih
Berri, caretaker Prime Minister Tammam Salam, PM-designate Saad Hariri and a
number of officials and spiritual leaders, NNA said. “My visit to Lebanon at the head of a political-economic
delegation is aimed at planning for a better future in the ties between the two
countries,” said Zarif upon his arrival at Beirut's
Rafik Hariri International
Airport. “We will stand
today and tomorrow by Lebanon
and we will seek to expand cooperation between the two countries,” he added.
“The resilience of Lebanon,
its people and its resistance and the resilience of the peoples of the region
will inflict an awful defeat on the terrorists and the extremists,” Zarif went
on to say. As Safir daily reported Monday that the Iranian
minister would convey a congratulatory message to Aoun from the Iranian
president. The visit carries political significance seeing as Zarif is
among the first foreign officials to visit Lebanon after Aoun's election,
knowing that Rouhani was among the first leaders who congratulated Aoun on his
election. Furthermore, As Safir quoted unnamed diplomatic sources as saying
that some international delegates are to visit Lebanon soon, including a
high-ranking Chinese delegation. Last week, Aoun, who is allied to Iran-backed
Hizbullah, was elected as Lebanon's
13th president, which ended around two and a half years of presidential and
political vacuum. Hariri, who is close to Iran's
regional rival Saudi Arabia,
was designated on Thursday to form a new cabinet. Hariri's key endorsement and
crucial support from Hizbullah and the Lebanese Forces had largely contributed
to Aoun's election. Hariri's nomination and Aoun's election have raised hopes
that Lebanon
can begin tackling challenges including a stagnant economy, a moribund
political class and the influx of more than a million Syrian refugees.
Iran's foreign minister is first to meet Lebanon's new president
Reuters 07 November/16/Iran's
Mohammad Javad Zarif on Monday became the first foreign minister to meet
Lebanon's new president, a move that underscored Tehran's tussle for influence
in Beirut with its regional arch rival Saudi Arabia.A Christian leader and
close ally of Lebanon's Iran-backed Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah who was
elected president last week, Aoun also met an envoy sent by Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad earlier in the day. Iran, which welcomed Aoun's election
as a victory for Hezbollah, is a political and military ally of Assad in the
Syrian civil war. Assad's troops are supported by Iran-backed militias and
Hezbollah fighters from neighboring Lebanon. Sunni Saudi Arabia and
Shi'ite Iran also back opposing factions in Yemen,
Iraq and Bahrain and broke diplomatic ties earlier this
year after Riyadh's execution of a Shi'ite
cleric and a subsequent attack by protesters on its embassy in Tehran. Speaking on arrival at Beirut airport, Zarif, who was accompanied by a high
profile political and economic delegation, said he hoped to expand ties with Lebanon. Former
army commander Michel Aoun was elected by the Lebanese parliament as president
last Monday, ending a 29-month presidential vacuum. Aoun then asked Sunni
Muslim leader Saad al-Hariri to start consultations to form a new government of
which Hariri would be prime minister. The empty presidency was a symptom of an
underlying political struggle between rival factions in Lebanon, which has been made worse by the war in
neighboring Syria.
It has paralyzed decision-making, economic development and basic services, and
raised fears for the country's stability. The deal to appoint Aoun as president
and Hariri as prime minister has underscored Hezbollah's dominant role in Lebanon. It has
also demonstrated a diminished position for Hariri's main regional backer,
Sunni Saudi Arabia, which seems more focused on confronting Iranian influence
elsewhere in the region. Under Lebanon's
sectarian power-sharing system, worked out upon independence and confirmed
after a bitter 15-year civil war, the president must be a Maronite Christian,
the prime minister a Sunni and the speaker of parliament a Shi'ite. Syrian
envoy Mansour Azzam, who is head of presidential affairs, greeted Aoun on
behalf of Syria's Assad,
saying he hoped Aoun's election would contribute to stability in Lebanon and in
the region. Azzam said there would be "no new page" in Syria-Lebanon
relations and they would continue in a balanced way. Aoun's meetings with Iranian
and Syrian dignitaries came on the same day as Prime Minister-designate Hariri
said Lebanon's
new administration was a chance to revive ties with the Gulf Arab countries. "The
formation of the government is a chance to renew the emphasis on Lebanon's Arab identity and return momentum and
heat to Lebanon's relations
with its brethren in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)," Hariri said
after meeting GCC ambassadors to Lebanon. (Reporting
by Lisa Barrington. Additional reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin.;
Editing by Angus McDowall and Richard Balmforth)
Zarif
Says Zakka Detention 'U.S.-Iranian Problem' as Family Urges Repatriation
Naharnet/November 07/16/The
detention in Iran of Lebanese citizen and U.S.
permanent resident Nizar Zakka is a “U.S. Iranian problem,” Iranian Foreign
Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said during an official visit to Lebanon on Monday, as the man's family urged
that he be repatriated to Lebanon.
“What happened with Mr. Zakka is not a problem between Iran and Lebanon, seeing
as the problem was the violation of the applicable laws in Iran by a foreigner,
and the problem is actually between the United States and Iran,” Zarif said in
response to a reporter's question.After being detained for around a year
without trial over spying allegations, Zakka was sentenced to 10 years in
prison and a $4.2 million fine on September 20. “The sentence that was given to
Nizar Zakka more than a month ago is an unjust ruling and it should not apply
to a Lebanese citizen,” Zakka's family said in a statement it issued on the
occasion's of Zarif's visit earlier in the day.“He has
not been allowed to meet with the Lebanese consul in Tehran throughout the entire period of
detention. Furthermore, the consul and the family have not been allowed to see
the verdict's text or the charges,” it added. Describing newly-elected
President Michel Aoun as “the father of all Lebanese who has promised that no
Lebanese citizen will be aggrieved during his tenure,” the family urged the
president to “ask the Iranian state to end injustice and to repatriate Lebanese
citizen Nizar Zakka so that he can be tried under the Lebanese law.”Stressing
its “full confidence in his innocence,” the family also called on Speaker Nabih
Berri and Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri to exert efforts in this
regard.Amnesty International has said Zakka had only two court hearings before
the ruling and received only limited legal assistance. The closed-door tribunal
handles cases involving alleged attempts to overthrow the government. Supporters
say Judge Abolghassem Salavati heard Zakka's case. Salavati is known for his
tough sentences and has heard other politically charged cases, including one in
which he sentenced Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian to prison. A
prisoner swap in January between Iran
and the U.S.
freed Rezaian and three other Iranian-Americans. Zakka, who lives in Washington and holds resident status in the U.S., leads the
Arab ICT Organization, or IJMA3, an industry consortium from 13 countries that
advocates for information technology in the region. Zakka disappeared Sept. 18,
2015, during his fifth trip to Iran.
He had been invited to attend a conference at which President Hassan Rouhani
spoke of providing more economic opportunities for women and sustainable
development. On November 3, Iranian state television aired a report saying he
was in custody and calling him a spy with "deep links" with U.S.
intelligence services. It also showed what it described as a damning photo of
Zakka and three other men in army-style uniforms, two with flags and two with
rifles on their shoulders. But that turned out to be from a homecoming event at
Zakka's prep school, the Riverside Military Academy
in Georgia,
according to the school's president. It's unclear what prompted Iranian
authorities to detain Zakka. The Associated Press reported in May that Zakka's
IJMA3 organization had received at least $730,000 in contracts and grants since
2009 from both the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International
Development, USAID. Zakka's supporters have written Secretary of State John
Kerry stating that Zakka traveled to Iran "with the knowledge and
approval of the U.S. State Department, and his trip was funded by grants"
from it. Neither American nor Lebanese officials, who the U.S. says are responsible
for providing consular assistance to Zakka, have publicly acknowledged Zakka's
work with the U.S. government. In a statement, the State Department said in
September that it was "troubled" by Zakka's reported sentence and
demanded his immediate release. "We reaffirm our calls on Iran to respect
and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, cease any arbitrary or
politically motivated detentions and ensure fair and transparent judicial
proceedings in all criminal prosecutions," the statement said.
Geagea
to Berri: Your Concerns are Highly Valued but... 'Some
Love Kills'
Naharnet/November 07/16/Lebanese
Forces chief Samir Geagea responded Monday to Speaker Nabih Berri's complaints
that he is allegedly inciting some political parties to shift to the opposition
with regard to the government formation. “My dear friend
Speaker Nabih Berri. I very much value your concern (for the Lebanese
Forces) these days namely that you have saved no opportunity to mention us
but... some love kills,” said Geagea sarcastically via twitter, using a
well-known expression from Arabic literature. Earlier Berri had said that
Geagea was “encouraging some parties” including Berri's AMAL Movement “to shift
to the opposition so he can have the whole space for himself in the new
government. But it has slipped his mind that national unity at the moment
requires the formation of a unity government on sound and fair grounds.”Later
on Monday, Geagea tweeted that his "utmost concern at the moment is the
success of the new presidential tenure.""I will do all I can to
achieve that," he added. The process of forming a new cabinet is underway
after the designation of PM-designate Saad Hariri to form one. Hariri was
designated Thursday three days after the election of President Michel Aoun. Hariri
held unbinding consultations with lawmakers in order to agree on a new
government and on the distribution of portfolios.
Kataeb
Vows 'Cooperation' with Aoun, Urges National Unity Govt.
Naharnet/November 07/16/The Kataeb
Party announced Monday that it is ready to “cooperate” with President Michel
Aoun on the implementation of the platform that he announced in his oath of
office. Congratulating Aoun on his election, the party stressed “its support
for the president and its readiness to cooperate to achieve the key points that
were mentioned in the oath of office and that have to do with sovereignty,
independence, restoring the State's prestige, administrative reforms, and
devising a modern and fair law for parliamentary elections.” In a statement issued
after its weekly meeting, Kataeb's politburo also congratulated Saad Hariri on
being named Prime Minister-designate, urging the political parties to
“facilitate the formation of a national unity government.” It said a unity
cabinet is “necessary” to “secure a unifying start for the new tenure, prepare
for the upcoming parliamentary polls, and facilitate the reactivation of the
work of state institutions.”Kataeb did not vote for Aoun in the presidential
elections, citing his ties with Hizbullah, Iran and Damascus.
The party has however nominated Hariri for the premiership. “We will deal
positively with PM-designate Hariri and we will maintain communication,” Kataeb
Party chief MP Sami Gemayel said after consultations with Hariri on Friday. He
also revealed that Hariri asked the Kataeb bloc to take part in the government
and that the bloc promised to study the matter. Aoun's election and Hariri's
appointment have raised hopes that Lebanon can begin tackling
challenges including a stagnant economy, a moribund political class and the
influx of more than a million Syrian refugees. In a sign that Hariri's task
ahead might not be easy, Hizbullah's MPs declined to endorse him for the prime
minister post, even though his nomination was all-but-assured. Hariri is likely
to struggle with his government's policy statement, which will have to make
reference to Israel, as well
as the war in Syria,
both potential flashpoints with Hizbullah. The process of forming a government
could take months, with horsetrading likely to revolve around the distribution
of key posts like the finance, defense and energy ministries.
Jumblat
Says 'No Government' without 'Shiite Duo'
Naharnet/November
07/16/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat has announced that
“there can be no government without the Shiite duo,” in reference to Hizbullah
and Speaker Nabih Berri's AMAL Movement. In an interview with the London-based,
Saudi news website Elaph, Jumblat also said that “Saudi
Arabia still cares about Lebanon.”On Friday, Hizbullah chief
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced that his party will not join the new
government should Berri refrain from taking part in it, noting that the
parliament speaker is authorized to negotiate over “portfolios and shares” on
behalf of the two parties. And calling for the formation of a national unity
government and “the cooperation of all forces,” Nasrallah pointed out that
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri “has said that he will exert efforts in
this direction.”
“After having facilitated the
designation of a new premier, we are also keen on facilitating the formation of
the new cabinet, but positivity, cooperation and non-exclusion are needed,”
Nasrallah stressed. Berri has hinted that he might join the ranks of the
opposition if he was not satisfied with the ministerial portfolios that will be
offered to his movement. The speaker had also criticized the horsetrading that
preceded Hariri's endorsement of Free Patriotic Movement founder Michel Aoun
for the presidency. Aoun was elected Lebanon's 13th president last
Monday while Hariri was named PM-designate on Thursday. In a sign that Hariri's
task ahead might not be easy, Hizbullah's MPs declined to endorse him for the
prime minister post, even though his nomination was all-but-assured. Hariri is
likely to struggle with his government's policy statement, which will have to
make reference to Israel, as
well as the war in Syria,
both potential flashpoints with Hizbullah.The process of forming a government
could take months, with horsetrading likely to revolve around the distribution
of key posts like the finance, defense and energy ministries.
Mashnouq
Says France Preparing for 'Paris IV Conference' to
Back 'New Tenure'
France
is preparing for an international donors conference aimed at supporting Lebanon
economically in light of the election of a new president and the formation of a
new government, caretaker Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq announced on
Monday. “The French have informed (Prime Minister-designate Saad) Hariri that
they have started efforts aimed at holding a Paris IV conference as part of
material and moral support for the new tenure,” Mashnouq tweeted.The Paris III
Conference was held in 2007 in the wake of the devastating 2006 war between
Israel and Hizbullah that destroyed huge parts of Lebanon's infrastructure.
Hariri's nomination and the election of Michel Aoun as president after two and
a half years of presidential and political vacuum have raised hopes that Lebanon can
begin tackling challenges including a stagnant economy, a moribund political
class and the influx of more than a million Syrian refugees. The process of
forming a government could take months, with horsetrading likely to revolve
around the distribution of key posts like the interior, defense, finance and
energy ministries.
Hariri
Says New President, Govt. 'Opportunity to
Revitalize Ties' with Gulf
Naharnet/November 07/16/Prime
Minister-designate Saad Hariri announced Monday that the election of a new
president in Lebanon and the formation of a new government represent an
opportunity to “revitalize” Lebanon's ties with the Arab Gulf states. “The
assumption of the presidency by His Excellency General Michel Aoun and the new
government that is being formed represent an opportunity to stress Lebanon's
Arab identity and revitalize Lebanon's ties with its brothers in the Gulf
Cooperation Council countries,” said Hariri during a meeting at the Center
House with the ambassadors of the Gulf states.
“The Lebanese have unanimously welcomed President Aoun's oath of office
and all its clauses, including those related to Lebanon's Arab ties which are based
on respect for the Arab League charter, especially Article 8 that stipulates
non-interference by the member states in the affairs of each other,” Hariri
added. In his oath of office last Monday, Aoun also vowed to endorse “an
independent foreign policy based on Lebanon's highest interest and respect for
international law,” while pledging to protect Lebanon from "the fires
burning across the region."Turning to economy, Hariri said the GCC
countries constitute a “vital economic space for Lebanon, because they provide
job opportunities for the Lebanese, markets for their exports, sources of
direct investments in Lebanon and are essential for tourism in Lebanon.”“The
Gulf governments and development funds are, as well, the first source of
assistance and facilitated financing for projects of reconstruction and
development in Lebanon,”
he added. “All Lebanese know this truth and feel proud and grateful to their
Gulf brothers for their support. They rely on the continuation of these sincere
fraternal relations at a time when they regain hope in the reactivation of all
their constitutional institutions and in the formation of a government that
will start to address the urgent crises afflicting Lebanon,” Hariri went on to
say. Ties between Lebanon
and the Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia,
were strained under Tammam Salam's government due to tensions between Riyadh and Iran-backed
Hizbullah. Saudi Arabia has
congratulated Aoun on his election despite the unstinting support he received
from Hizbullah, which Riyadh
blacklisted as a "terrorist organization" in March. Saudi Arabia's relations with both Hizbullah and
its ally Iran have
deteriorated sharply this year amid deep differences over the conflicts in Syria and Yemen
and the unrest in Bahrain.
Earlier this year, the kingdom halted a $3 billion program of military aid to Lebanon to
protest what it said was "the stranglehold of Hizbullah on the
state."It also urged its citizens to leave Lebanon and avoid travel to the
country. Several other Gulf states have also issued travel
warnings.
Lebanon must find a way to escape the resource curse
Nasser Saidi/Gulf Times/November
07 2016
http://www.gulf-times.com/story/520295/Lebanon-must-find-a-way-to-escape-the-resource-cur
After two and a half years without
a president, Lebanon’s
Parliament has elected Michel Aoun to the post. Now, Lebanon can turn its
attention to oil and gas production, with policymakers’ expectations running
high – verging on irrational exuberance – that an energy windfall will
jumpstart the country’s economy, which has suffered from poor political and
economic governance and the spillover effects from Syria’s civil war.
Lebanon’s potential hydrocarbon
wealth could indeed transform the country, as well as providing a model for
other Middle Eastern energy producers to follow. But policymakers must be
mindful of four major risks. For starters, oil and gas prices are volatile, and
fossil fuels in general have an uncertain future. Oil and gas prices have
declined by some 60% since June 2014, and it is unlikely that they will recover
over the medium term.
We are in the age of oil’s “new
normal,” defined by plentiful alternative energy sources.
Second, the size of Lebanon’s
recoverable energy reserves is uncertain. Equally important, even under the
most optimistic scenarios, the country’s capacity to manage oil and gas
extraction, production, and distribution is uncertain as well.
Third, ongoing territorial
disputes in the region – and the absence of agreed maritime borders with Cyprus, Israel
and Syria
– creates legal uncertainty about who owns and may exploit certain oil and gas
blocks.
Fourth, Lebanon’s leaders must deal with
its dysfunctional politics and dismal governance, which are likely to frustrate
any attempt to manage its natural resources transparently and sustainably.
So, can Lebanon escape the curse of the
“devil’s excrement” that has afflicted many of its Middle Eastern neighbours?
The International Monetary Fund’s
estimate of Lebanon’s
potential oil and gas revenues optimistically assumes that production will
start in 2021, reach full capacity by 2036, and continue until 2056. In this
scenario, once production starts, resource revenues would constitute about 2.8%
of Lebanon’s
non-oil GDP, and would account for about 9% of government revenues at peak
production, before gradually declining.
But even if oil and gas blocks are
auctioned off almost immediately, in 2017, and then successfully explored, the
resulting revenues would not arrive until 2022 at the earliest. Manna from
heaven is not about to fall on Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Lebanon’s new
leadership must address the government’s dismal fiscal predicament, including a
2016 budget deficit amounting to 8.1% of GDP and government debt totalling 144%
of GDP – one of the highest public-debt ratios in the world. This means that Lebanon must
undergo strong fiscal adjustments sooner, rather than later, and that any
future oil and gas revenues will have to be heavily discounted.
But Lebanon’s governance is the more
critical issue, because the country must now build a foundation to manage its
fossil-fuel wealth properly. The main lesson from other resource-rich countries
is that, in the absence of good governance – strong institutions, the rule of
law, effective regulations – Lebanon’s energy windfall will likely lead to more
corruption, as special interests and politicians try to capture the rents for
themselves.
With Lebanese politics
persistently in a quagmire, the new leadership must establish a sound fiscal
regime and a robust governance framework to ensure transparency in energy
exploitation and production, fiscal sustainability, and intergenerational
equity. It can do so if it follows the right roadmap. First, to guarantee that Lebanon’s
natural resources are prudently managed, the government should formally join
the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. The EITI would require
government agencies and companies to disclose information relating to
hydrocarbon extraction and production. This would include contracts and
licenses; details about how blocks – and exploration and production rights –
are auctioned and awarded; revenue figures, to ensure that companies comply
with the “Publish What You Pay” principle; environmental-impact studies
(offshore and onshore); and reports on how the government allocates its
revenues.
Second, Lebanon should formally adopt the
Natural Resource Charter. The Charter’s 12 precepts to guide stakeholders’
decision-making should be integrated into relevant legislation and regulations
by the Lebanese government, Parliament, applicable regulatory agencies, and
civil-society actors such as the Lebanon Oil and Gas Initiative.
Third, Lebanon
should establish an independent energy regulator, by making the Lebanese
Petroleum Administration independent from the ministry of energy and water and
widen its mandate to manage Lebanon’s
natural resources. Separation and independence from the ministry is needed to
protect natural-resource management and decision-making from political
interference.
Finally, Lebanon should
adopt a legal framework for setting long-term constraints on fiscal policy. In
particular, government expenditure should be determined by an estimate of
permanent income (including the sustainable contribution from resource
revenues), while cyclical revenue would be saved in a sovereign-wealth fund.
Similar to Chile and Norway’s
well-known precedents, such a rule would stipulate that all energy-price
windfalls automatically be saved, and that government spending be determined by
cyclically adjusted tax revenues and a share of energy revenues.
The stakes for Lebanon are
high. A troubled country in a tumultuous region, it could transform itself if
it soundly and efficiently manages its prospective oil and gas wealth. Or it
could succumb to the curse, which would entrench the country’s waste, nepotism,
corruption and inequality.
Lebanon’s oil and gas wealth
belongs to all of its citizens, current and future. If the new leadership bases
its decision-making on a national consensus – and under a governance framework
that ensures transparency, disclosure, and accountability – the curse will be
cast off. And others in the region might see such success as worthy of
emulation. – Project Syndicate/Mohamed Bin Rashid Global Initiatives
*Nasser Saidi, former chief
economist of the Dubai International Financial
Center, is a former vice governor of
the Bank of Lebanon and has served as Lebanon’s minister of the economy
and industry. He is the author, most recently, of the OECD report Corporate
Governance in the Mena Countries.
Aoun
Receives Assad Envoy who Emphasizes 'Deep' Ties
Naharnet/November 07/16/Newly
elected President Michel Aoun received at the Presidential Palace on Monday
envoy of Syrian President and Minister of Presidential Affairs Mansour Azzam,
the state-run National News Agency reported.
The envoy was accompanied by
Syrian Ambassador to Lebanon Ali Abdul Karim Ali, it added. Azzam conveyed a
congratulatory message from Syrian President Bashar Assad to Aoun on his
election. He also emphasized the “deep” ties between Syria
and Lebanon.
Later during the day, Aoun received Head of the Lebanese-Syrian Higher Council
Nasri Khoury. Last week, Aoun was elected as Lebanon's 13th president, which
ended around two and a half years of presidential and political vacuum.
Prime Minister-designate Saad
Hariri's key support had contributed to the election of Aoun.Hariri was
designated on Thursday to form Lebanon's
cabinet.
Michel
Aoun’s real obstacle is not Syria or Israel, but Lebanon itself
Faisal Al Yafai/The
National/November 07/16
A long-awaited election comes to
an end. In a fractious and divided country, a name from the past is on the
ballot again. But for millions of voters, one candidate is too controversial to
consider. Some suggest they should be jailed rather than become head of state.
If that sounds like the US election, it also applies to Lebanon’s
equally divisive search for a president, which finally ended last week after
two years when Michel Aoun was appointed president.
That Mr Aoun is a deeply
controversial figure has been amply discussed over the past few days. Less
considered has been what sort of president he might make – and in particular
what he, and the new prime minister Saad Hariri, will do in power.
In his first speech after becoming
president, Mr Aoun sought to strike a balanced tone. He knows, of course, that
the economy and security are uppermost in the minds of Lebanese. The spillover
from the Syrian civil war has battered the economy and placed considerable
strain on public services such as schools. Other services such as electricity
and rubbish collection are also irregular, for reasons other than the Syrian
war.
The question is,
can Mr Aoun and Mr Hariri work together, when they continue to have significant
differences?
Take one issue, that of Syrian
refugees. There are approximately one million refugees in the country – per
capita Lebanon
has more refugees than any other country.
Mr Aoun first said that the
refugees needed to make "a swift return" and warned there could be no
solution in Syria that did not guarantee their return – a clear sign that his
government does not intend to allow them to stay into the long and perhaps not
even the medium term. Some reports have spoken of deportation.
But Mr Hariri later said he would
"provide mechanisms to face the burdens of the Syrian displaced
people", suggesting that the refugees would at least remain for the
foreseeable future, and that government expenditure would facilitate their
stay.
Such swift disagreement does not
bode well. But it also points to a much more serious point. In his inauguration
speech, Mr Aoun promised Lebanon
would "manage our own affairs" and would "no longer be linked to
any other foreign country". That rhetoric will be much harder to translate
into reality.
Lebanon’s tragedy, of course, has
always been its geographical position and its neighbours. Too small to be
independent, too big to be ignored, Lebanon’s prosperity is always far
too dependent on what happens in the east and south.
Relations with Syria are now
more complex than they have been for some time, and Mr Aoun and Mr Hariri
increase the complication. Mr Aoun is known to be close to the regime and to
its Lebanese ally Hizbollah. Mr Hariri, during his first term as prime minister,
took a hardline stance against Hizbollah, and, naturally, against Damascus, who have been
implicated in the assassination of his father. Even if he has moderated his
stance in the years since, it is unlikely he will ever be fully trusted by the
Assad regime.
But with Mr Aoun as president,
relations with Damascus are bound to improve –
something that will profoundly dismay Syrian refugees in Lebanon and
those who support the rebels.
At least, though, the new
president and prime minister will not have to worry about Israel.
Benjamin Netanyahu would certainly love nothing better than to get rid of
Hizbollah, particularly as the group is stretched thin in Syria, but Israel’s prime minister is afraid
of starting a war and losing it. Hizbollah, meanwhile, needs no other
distractions. As long as the politics in Tel Aviv and the Dahiyeh remain as
they are now, there should be no new war.
Lebanon’s Political Blocs Compete Over ‘Sovereign’
Ministerial Portfolios
Nazeer Rida/Asharq Al
Awsat/November 07/16
Beirut – Ongoing consultations to form the
new Lebanese government have highlighted local competition between the
different political blocs over the sovereign portfolios, which include the
ministries of interior, finance, defense and foreign affairs. Those key
ministries are usually allocated to the country’s four major political
confessions, including the Maronite, Greek Orthodox, Sunni and Shiite sects. Media
reports said that the Sunnis’ share in the government will be allocated to the
bloc of Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, while the Shiite share will be
dedicated to Speaker Nabih Berri. Unconfirmed reports added that the two other
key ministries will be part of President Michel Aoun’s share, while the
Lebanese Forces party – a key Christian supporter of Aoun – will not have its
share in the sovereign portfolios.
Lebanese Forces (LF) MP Fadi Karam
said that the agreement with Aoun was based on national partnership, adding
that his bloc wanted to have “efficient” positions in the country. In a radio
interview, Karam said that the Lebanese Forces were seeking to get a sovereign
portfolio in order to assume a greater responsibility within the government. Disagreements
over the distribution of key portfolios are likely to delay the formation of
the new Cabinet. The head of the Democratic Gathering bloc, MP Walid Jumblatt,
has earlier voiced his concern over this matter, as he was quoted by the local
media saying: “It is important to facilitate the formation of the government
and avoid requests that are impossible to meet”. In comments to Asharq al-Awsat
newspaper, Lebanese legal expert, Dr. Wassim Mansouri, said that the sovereign
portfolios are not stated in the Lebanese Constitution, but have become a
customary rule in the political life. The Constitution does not distinguish
between a ministry and another and considers all ministers to be equal, he
added. Mansouri explained that the importance of the finance ministry lies in
the fact that the minister signs “99.99 per cent of Cabinet decisions”. He
added that the foreign affairs minister is Lebanon’s official spokesperson
abroad, while the defense ministry defines the country’s defense policy and the
interior ministry monitors internal security, parliamentary elections and other
key duties.
Hariri began on Friday
consultations with the parliamentarians to form the new cabinet, after being
nominated to the post by 112 out of 126 members of parliament.
Bassil:
Aoun was Hezbollah’s Ally… Now he is Ally of All Lebanese
Thaer Abbas/Asharq Al
Awsat/November 07/16
Beirut-Lebanon’s Foreign Minister
Jebran Bassil expressed his country’s desire to restore relations with Saudi Arabia,
asserting that both states would witness better days.
In an interview with Asharq
Al-Awsat, Bassil who is the son-in-law of Lebanon’s President Michel Aoun and
his right hand man, said the head of state’s position vis-à-vis the Arab world
is more than positive.
“Aoun believes that Lebanon cannot
exist without its Arab identity, and without its Arab neighbors and normal
relations with Arab states,” Bassil said.
Asked to comment on the Gulf
dismay from the position taken by Lebanon
at the Arab League after the attack on the Saudi embassy in Tehran
and its consulate in Mashhad, Bassil said: “We
cannot build on a mistake that was committed in the past.”
He asserted that Lebanon’s
government and its foreign ministry had not violated the protocol of the Arab
League and had never left the rule of staying away from the policy of axes.
The Foreign Minister said that
Aoun “was Hezbollah’s ally when he was the leader of the Change and Reform
parliamentary bloc. But after his election, Aoun became the ally of all the
Lebanese.”
Bassil admitted that the so-called
Hezbollah belongs to the groups that are currently interfering in Syria. “There
is a problematic situation that requires a complete withdrawal of all parties
currently present in Syria.”
He said the country should be left
for Syrians who should unilaterally end the current military situation, fight
terrorism and establish a regime that pleases them.
The president’s son-in-law said
the slogan of Lebanon’s
new era should be a respect for the Constitution and laws.
“The image of Lebanon should
be that of a state acting independently in its local decisions and foreign
policy,” Bassil told the newspaper.
When asked whether the shift of
alliances witnessed in Lebanon
in the past few months could be interpreted as a coup in the political scene,
Bassil said: “A coup happens when you use force.”
He said the change in alliances
happened because the image of Lebanon
was “fake.”
“Today there is a very normal
image reflecting the desire of Christians to see Michel Aoun as the president
of the Republic,” he added.
Bassil asserted there was no deal
between Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri and Aoun at the expense of any
other Lebanese faction, saying the country’s political parties are required to
fully cooperate with the authorities to secure the success of the new era.
“There is a national
understanding,” he said, adding that “time will prove that we had not agreed in
advance on the next Army Commander or the Central Bank governor.”
However, Bassil stated that his
party had asked Hariri to respect the National Charter and the norms of
representation. “There was a deficiency in all state positions including the
government. We asked that this deficiency be handled without harming the
representation of any party.”
The minister added: “We cannot be
in a position where one party not having enough people to represent gets three
ministers in the cabinet, and parties with 60 to 70 percent of representation
get two ministers.”
Bassil expected the new government
to be formed swiftly. “There is an important optimistic drive that would help
its formation,” he said.
Asked whether Lebanon was ready to
draft a new electoral law and hold the parliamentary elections, the Foreign
Minister said: “The next law should get the approval of all political
parties…We should be ready to agree on a law during a period of two or three
months and hold parliamentary polls on time.”
Concerning the relations with
Speaker Nabih Berri, Bassil said Berri is an essential part of the state and it
will be normal to include him in the political process.
“We will only deal positively with
him, and our hands are extended for cooperation,” he added.
Can
Lebanon’s
Old Guard forge new social contract?
Week in Review/Al Monitor/November
07/16
Michel Aoun, the leader of the
Free Patriotic Movement and Lebanon’s new president, has done what many might
have considered impossible until the moment it happened — gaining the
acquiescence of Hezbollah to form a new Lebanese government with Saad Hariri as
prime minister.
Lebanese citizens hope for greater
accountability, independence and distance from foreign conflicts after Michel
Aoun engineers breakthrough by forming a new government.
As this column noted last week,
Hariri’s return as premier reverses a decline in his political fortunes. Hariri
now has the chance to recast the Future Party and the March 14 movement with a
perhaps less heavy Saudi hand, and, aspirationally, to form a government that
will avoid factional paralysis and, finally, offer a vision and agenda
responsive to the needs of the Lebanese people.
Hariri’s success will ultimately
depend on Aoun. Although Hariri received 110 votes from Lebanon’s 127
parliamentarians Nov. 3, the vote only took place at all because Hassan
Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s secretary-general, allowed it to happen. And Nasrallah
agreed as a result of Aoun’s deft diplomacy. Despite Hezbollah’s opposition to
Hariri, Nasrallah said on Nov. 4, the day after the vote, that he had made
“possible facilities for his nomination.” He added, “We are not the negotiating
side. Only [parliament] Speaker [Nabih] Berri is entitled to negotiate about
forming the new government on our behalf.” Berri, who heads the Shiite Amal,
had been a key holdout to the Aoun-Hariri deal but announced his support for
Hariri’s bid after a meeting with Aoun on the day of the parliament’s vote on
Hariri.
Ali Hashem reports that Aoun, in
his speech to the parliament after taking the oath as president Oct. 31, set
the tone for a new course in Lebanese politics: “For the first time in years,
Aoun seemed cautious while reading his speech. It seemed clear that Aoun the
president is not the same as Aoun the party leader, as he was keen to reassure
different political factions and address their concerns. While he stressed the
importance of political stability, Aoun said his country is currently sitting
amid land mines and surrounded by the fires raging in the region. He said his
priority is to prevent any sparks from those fires from spreading to Lebanon. Lebanon, he
insisted, must stay out of regional conflicts and follow an independent foreign
policy in accordance with its interests. Yet in the same speech, Aoun confirmed
that Lebanon ‘will not spare
any kind of resistance in the struggle with Israel to liberate occupied
Lebanese territories’ and ‘will resort to pre-emptive deterrence in dealing
with terrorist threats.’”
Hashem adds that “Lebanese Forces
Party leader Samir Geagea, a longtime rival of Aoun who recently became an
ally, saw the speech as 'promising.'”
Aoun of course does not have
universal support, even among Lebanon’s
Christian leaders. Sami Gemayel, the head of the Ketaeb (Phalange) Party,
opposed Aoun’s deal with Hezbollah. Hashem writes that Gemayel’s opposition is
shared by those who would seek to stem the influence of Hezbollah, and by
extension Iran,
in Lebanese politics. In an interview with Al-Monitor in December 2013, Gemayel
blamed Hezbollah for bringing the war in Syria
to Lebanon, adding that “if Lebanon was
neutral, we had more chances of being spared than we have today.”
Aoun, while an ally of Hezbollah
for more than a decade, is also recognized as a fierce Lebanese nationalist and
patriot who battled Syrian occupation troops and was forced to flee to France in 1990, returning to Lebanon in 2005
as an ally of Hezbollah and key power broker in Lebanese politics.
In an interview with Al-Monitor in
2013, Aoun explained that Lebanon
had been “paralyzed” by the Syria
war. His approach as president will likely seek to prevent further spillover of
the conflict to Lebanon.
In his acceptance speech as president, Aoun said that any eventual solution to
the war must include the resettlement of more than 1 million Syrian refugees in
Lebanon,
whose population is only 4 million.
The test of Aoun’s political
choreography will ultimately depend on actions rather than words. More than two
years ago, this column described the early threads of a new Lebanese pulse
based upon “a new social contract based upon national, not sectarian or
factional priorities.” In April 2014, we observed that “the factionalization
and fragmentation along political and religious lines may, finally, be
blurring. The mere sensing by their respective bases that sudden alliances are
being formed across this divide has caused people from each side to drop their
old and bygone political slogans and try to find a middle ground. Lebanese
citizens may be finding cause and uniting around a new agenda.”
A few months earlier, in February
2014, we had highlighted a plan by Aoun to assimilate Hezbollah’s forces into
the Lebanese military as part of a broader regional choreography following a
calming of the situation in Syria and a concurrent reduction of tensions on the
Lebanese-Israeli border. “This deal could be picked up again,” we wrote, “at
the right time, and might facilitate progress on development of energy reserves
in the eastern Mediterranean, where cooperation is stymied in part because Lebanon and Israel do not have relations.”
It is only fitting that Lebanon could
provide a spark for a new regional compact based on governance, accountability
and independence. As we wrote in April 2014, “Lebanon may benefit from an
immunity to the sectarian virus, as its own experience with such polarization
has led to endemic disappointment with that same rhetoric and false hopes, and
an approach to politics that has betrayed its own people and left them with the
feeling of being abandoned and powerless in the shadow of agendas that are not
theirs. That Lebanon
could lead in this new social contract should not be a surprise. Lebanon did its
time with its own bloody 15-year sectarian regional war, and still was able to
recover and re-establish its cosmopolitan flair. There is a lot to build on.
The failures and dashed expectations of the uprisings in Egypt and Syria, which
quickly fell prey to regional and ideological agendas and violence, and
Lebanon’s own tragic past, could make it an incubator for a new approach to
governance that would allow Lebanon to realize its potential, rather than fall
victim to the rhetoric and false promise of what was once known as the Arab
Spring.”
Lebanese
tech sector needs more than potential
Michael Karam/The
National/November 07/16
Someone, I forget who, once told
me "everything before the ‘but’ is meaningless". Here’s the
"before" bit: In the same week that Lebanon ended its two year
political impasse by nominating Michel Aoun, an 81-year-old former army
commander, as president and appointing Saad Hariri, the Saudi-born billionaire
businessman, as the next prime minister, it welcomed two Apple legends – Steve
Wozniak, the co-founder of the US$250 billion tech company, and Tony Fadel, an
American-Lebanese whizz-kid who essentially invented the iPod.
Mr Wozniak and Mr Fadel headlined
the Lebanese Central Bank’s "Accelerate" conference, billed rather
optimistically as the biggest tech gathering in the Mediterranean and themed
under the strapline "Innovation: Intrapreneurship v Entrepreneurship".
(If, like me, if you are wondering what "intrapreneurship" is,
Wikipedia defines it as "the act of behaving like an entrepreneur while
working within a large organisation", which sounds like every Lebanese
public sector worker.)
So the conference was held in a
mood of optimism not felt in the country since the ill-fated Bashir Gemayel was
elected president in 1982. Which was probably just as well.
"Accelerate" would have been planned at least a year ago if the
conference organisers had to book such stellar names, and it would have taken
some of the shine off the three days had the event tried to sell the dynamism
of a country that after two years, still couldn’t nominate a president.
As it was, Messrs Wozniak and
Fadel inspired everyone, delivering their "nothing is impossible if you
believe it can happen" shtick and it all fitted in with the bullish mood.
And yes, Lebanon does indeed have a massive pool of talent that is aching to
make its mark in a vibrant and fast-paced global industry, but – and here is the
"but" that negates everything that has gone before – the reality is
that Lebanon is still poorly placed to milk this talent, because the state and
its buddies in the banking sector have consistently failed to create a genuine
business-friendly environment. It is a situation that doesn’t look like
changing any time soon, even though Mr Aoun is seen as the nation’s saviour.
Diplomats who visited Baabda
Palace to congratulate Mr Aoun on his victory, have said that as well as
rooting out corruption and strengthening the state institutions, he wants to
fix the economy, but when asked politely just how he was going to do the
latter, the new head of state was apparently unable to build on his initial
soundbite.
To be fair, few Lebanese leaders
have done better, but to those Lebanon
watchers who like me are naive enough to still believe in details and concrete
pledges, the feeling is that once the celebrations are over, nothing much will
change. Sure, the real estate market might pick up and some of the Arab tourists
may return, but unless there is a seismic shift in how the government works,
sectors such as Lebanon’s
nascent tech efforts are unlikely to take off.
But – and here’s a second
"but" – if, as some of the more optimistic businessmen have pointed
out, Mr Aoun, who is admittedly the first head of state since president Gemayel
to control a sizeable parliamentary bloc (he is the founder and former leader
of the Free Patriotic Movement) and prime minister Hariri really can put aside
their decade-long differences and work together, then there is every chance
that a strategy to revive the moribund economy may just materialise.
This is because Mr Aoun’s
supporters are mainly middle- class professionals who have loyally supported
the obstinate and often unpredictable former army commander, even when he
signed his infamous "understanding" with Hizbollah in 2006. They will
expect his technocrat ministers to deliver the goods.
In the same vein, Mr Hariri, the
son of the late former prime minister Rafik Hariri, is
trying to win back lost support within Lebanon’s Sunni merchant class and
his Future Movement has put prosperity as a priority ever since it emerged as
one of the triumphant forces that led the 2005 Cedar Revolution.
Back at the conference, the mood
was about talent and potential. Mr Fadel was convinced Lebanon is a thriving incubator for tech
companies, declaring that he was in Lebanon "to find great
start-ups to help because I can see that there are some good companies and
talent here".
Of that there is no doubt.
**Michael Karam is a freelance
writer who lives between Beirut and Brighton
business@thenational.ae
Hariri
gets down to Cabinet formation
Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star/November 07/16
BEIRUT: Armed with an overwhelming
local, regional and international support, Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri
Sunday got down to the challenging nitty-gritty of forming a national accord
Cabinet after wrapping up two days of “positive” consultations with rival
political factions.
Meanwhile, President Michel Aoun,
addressing thousands of supporters who gathered outside the presidential palace
in Baabda to congratulate him on his election as head of state, vowed to build
a strong state and stamp out rampant corruption in the public administration.
“Hariri is striving to form a
30-member Cabinet representing all the parties in line with his pledge to set
up a national accord government,” a political source told The Daily Star.
Hariri met Sunday night with
Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea, with whom he discussed the ongoing attempts
to form a new government, his office said.
Hariri met with Aoun at Baabda Palace
Saturday to brief him on the outcome of two days of consultations with various
parliamentary blocs on the formation of a new government. The head of the
Future Movement, who did not speak to reporters after meeting Aoun, sounded
optimistic about forming a government.
“The atmosphere was positive.
There was a lot of cooperation between me, Speaker Nabih Berri and his
excellency the president,” Hariri told reporters in Parliament Saturday after
meeting with Hezbollah’s 13-member Loyalty to the Resistance bloc, and his
33-member Future bloc, in addition to some independent MPs on the second and
final day of consultations on the Cabinet formation
He said that demands by rival
parties to be allotted sovereign ministerial portfolios were normal during
these consultations. The sovereign ministerial portfolios include the Defense,
Interior, Finance and Foreign Affairs ministries.
Expressing hope that a new
government could be formed before Independence Day on Nov. 22, Hariri pointed
out that political parties would be represented in proportion to the size of
their parliamentary bloc.
Rival politicians have called for
facilitating the Cabinet formation.
“What matters is facilitating the
Cabinet formation and avoiding demands that are impossible to meet,” MP Walid
Jumblatt, head of the 11-member Democratic Gathering bloc, tweeted Sunday.
Hezbollah MP Hasan Fadlallah
demanded that obstacles not be put in the way of forming a national unity
government.“We call for opening a new page in Lebanon
and for some [politicians] to re-formulate their national speeches to conform with the next stage,” he said.
LF deputy chief MP George Adwan
said his party and the FPM were in agreement on sharing sovereign ministerial
portfolios. “We are demanding a sovereign ministry, a public services ministry
and a technical ministry such as Telecommunications,” Adwan said in a TV
interview.
In addition to gaining a sweeping
mandate from internal parties to form a new government, Hariri has also
received the support of the international community.
Hariri met Saturday night with the
International Support Group for Lebanon,
which includes U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag, the head of
the European Union delegation to Lebanon Ambassador Christina Lassen, and the
ambassadors of the United States,
China, Russia, Italy,
Britain, France and Germany as well as the Arab
League’s Assistant Secretary-General Abdel Rahman Solh.
“We had an excellent meeting with
Prime Minister-[designate] Saad Hariri. We discussed his vision for the
country, the formation of a government of national accord, and his priorities
in areas like the economy and elections,” Kaag said in a statement after the
meeting.
“We looked at a more effective
management of the refugees’ situation in the country and all the ways in which
the international community, in particular the International Support Group, can
help Lebanon, President Aoun and Prime Minister-[designate] Hariri succeed in
their shared vision. It is a message of support and looking together at what
more can be done and how it can be done,” she added in the statement released
by Hariri’s media office.
Meanwhile, in his first address
from Baabda Palace
since his election by Parliament as Lebanon’s 13th president on Oct.
31, Aoun said that it had never been his intention to be a head of state, but
to build a strong nation by bolstering national unity.
“A strong nation needs a strong
state to run it and a strong state is built according to a Constitution that is
respected equally by all politicians,” Aoun told thousands of supporters waving
Lebanon’s flag who gathered
at the entrance of Baabda
Palace.
“From now on, no head will violate
the Constitution,” he said, drawing cheers from the crowd.
Declaring that he has many
projects to improve electricity and water supplies and exploit the country’s
offshore gas and oil reserves to reduce public debts estimated at more than $70
billion, Aoun said: “Corruption will be uprooted and the environment will
return to being clean whatever the cost.”
He also promised to preserve the
country’s independence, sovereignty and freedom. “We will not be subservient to
any other country,” he said. “We will manage our own affairs and deal with
others in a friendly manner. Our independence and sovereignty don’t mean
hostility with other states.”
Aoun’s supporters began their
rally early Sunday morning. Men, women and children of all ages took to the
streets en route to Baabda
Palace. A large banner
reading the “People’s Palace” had been erected on the palace grounds. The
ecstatic crowd interrupted Aoun several times while he spoke.
Aoun said he would seek to improve
the livelihoods of the people, and ensure that law enforcement and security
agencies are just and impartial. “Our hopes are high and there’s will,” he
said.
“We have met in this square
before, during difficult times ... we lost martyrs and others went missing ...
but we will continue on the path and build the future,” said Aoun, flanked by
six of his most loyal men.
“The road ahead of us is long ...
The first steps are the formation of a government, the approval of an electoral
law and holding elections on time,” Caretaker Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil
told reporters at Baabda
Palace.
Lebanese president vows to uproot corruption
By Associated Press November 6 at
6:15 AM
BEIRUT
— Lebanon’s
newly elected President Michel Aoun has vowed to uproot corruption and strive
for nation-building in the deeply divided country. Aoun spoke Sunday before thousands of
supporters who gathered at the presidential palace in Baabda in southeastern Beirut.
The 83-year-old has been a central
figure in Lebanese politics for decades. He was elected by parliament as
president on Monday. “A strong nation needs a strong government
to administer it,” he said. “Corruption will be uprooted,” he added, drawing
cheers from his supporters waving red, white and green Lebanese flags. Aoun was elected
president following a 29-month presidential vacuum. Many Lebanese hope his
election would breathe new life into state institutions that have been
paralyzed for nearly three years.
Copyright 2016 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Saudi Arabia losing ground to Iran
Author Bruce Riedel/Al
Moniter/November 07/16
Saudi
Arabia is losing influence throughout the Fertile
Crescent to its rival Iran.
While Riyadh's position versus Tehran has been in decline for some time, the
trend is accelerating. Saudi setbacks are partly due to factors outside its
control, but also due to inherent weaknesses in Saudi capacities.
Saudi influence in the region has
been on the decline for a number of reasons, and the kingdom has now suffered
another setback in Lebanon
with the election of President Michel Aoun, an ally of Hezbollah.
The kingdom has had a friendly
regime in Iraq since Saddam
Hussein invaded Kuwait a
quarter century ago and threatened to keep marching into Saudi Arabia's oil-rich Eastern Province.
But for most of the 1980s, Saudi Arabia
and Iraq were close partners
in containing the revolutionary wave from Iran. King Fahd provided Saddam
with tens of billions of dollars in aid during the Iran-Iraq War; without Saudi
financial help, Iraq
would have collapsed. Fahd also rallied the other Gulf states to help Saddam and promoted Saddam as a
power to work with in Washington.
In 2003, King Abdullah thought the
American decision to oust Saddam without having another Sunni strongman to
succeed him was rash and dangerous. The Saudis were certain Iran would fill
the vacuum. Riyadh was especially suspicious of
the role Ahmad Chalabi played in the planning process of President George W.
Bush's administration for postwar Iraq. The Saudis believed Chalabi
was an Iranian agent.
Riyadh has been very reluctant to deal with
any of the Shiite governments that have been in power since the invasion. The
Saudis delayed opening an embassy for years and appointing an ambassador. Last
month, they reassigned their ambassador out of Baghdad after reports of assassination plots.
No replacement has been chosen and the post is likely to remain empty.
The Saudis support the war against
the Islamic State in Iraq
and Syria
but they worry its defeat will only be the next stage for further Shiite and
Iranian domination of the Iraqi polity. Riyadh
has little faith in Iraqi politicians who promise not to pursue sectarian
agendas.
Although Saudi Arabia is
today a bitter enemy of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the kingdom used to
be a close ally of his father. In 1990, Damascus
sent troops to defend the kingdom against Saddam and together the two settled
the Lebanese civil war (at the expense of Gen. Michel Aoun). In 2000, the Saudi
ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar, helped Assad consolidate power when his
father died. Saudi support convinced the Alawite generals that Assad would be a
strong ruler.
The assassination of Rafik Hariri
ended Saudi support for Assad. When the 2011 revolution began in Syria, the
Saudis quickly began to assist the Sunni forces. Saudi aid was not carefully
targeted and much went into the hands of jihadi elements. As intelligence chief
in 2011, Bandar oversaw the assistance and his priority was getting rid of
Assad. If some weapons got into the wrong hands, that was the price of business.
The Iranian, Hezbollah and Russian
interventions in the civil war have thwarted Saudi objectives. Assad is more
firmly in power now than a year ago. Syria
is more dependent on Iran
and Hezbollah than ever before.
Now the Saudis have suffered another
setback in Lebanon.
Once the bete noire of the Assads, Aoun is now their man.
Even more, Aoun is the champion of Hezbollah. His election after two years of
political stalemate is another indication of which way the wind is blowing in
the Levant. Saad Hariri will face a difficult
challenge as prime minister in trying to form a government with opposition from
Hezbollah.
Hezbollah has become a major
source of difficulty for Riyadh.
Its success in Syria
and Lebanon
have been at the cost of Saudi interests. The advice and expertise
Hezbollah provides the Houthi rebels in Yemen is another irritation for the
kingdom.
The decline in Saudi influence is
the result of many factors, many outside Riyadh's
control. Demography has worked against the Saudis in Iraq
and Lebanon.
The Sunni minorities are losing the demographic struggle to the Shiites. In
both states, the Sunni political forces are badly divided.
Bush's adventure in Iraq is still
adversely affecting both American and Saudi vital national interests. Yet the Saudis
are also very critical of US President Barack Obama for letting Hosni Mubarak
lose power in Egypt and for
lifting sanctions on Iran.
The Saudis also lack the tools and
instruments to project power that Iran has developed over decades.
There is no Saudi equivalent of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),
which can provide expertise and advisers to groups such as Hezbollah and the
Houthis. There is no Saudi general like Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds
Force in the IRGC with years of experience in covert operations. The Saudis
have good intelligence services but they are not on-the-ground, battle-hardened
practitioners like the IRGC.
Riyadh traditionally has relied on financial
support to project power. With the fall in oil prices, that is harder to draw
on. Saudi Arabia canceled a
multibillion-dollar military aid project for Lebanon in part to save money. The
rivalry is costing both Riyadh and Tehran a fortune, but
there is no end in sight.
Iran will not become the hegemonic
power in the region. It faces many enemies and constraints. Iraqi, Syrian and
Lebanese Shiites do not want an Iranian overlord. But Iran is increasingly the most influential player
in the Fertile Crescent at the expense of Saudi Arabia.
Michel
Aoun in Iranian Media: from Warlord to Man of Peace
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al
Awsat/November 07/16
“A warlord allied to Saddam
Hussein and the Zionist enemy”. “A man of peace who can save Lebanon
from great dangers ahead.”
Are we talking of the same man?
Yes, we are. The man is retried general Michel Aoun who has been sworn in as
the new President of Lebanon. The comments on him come from the media of the
Islamic Republic in Iran
and highlight the difference that the passage of decades could make in the
assessment of friend and foe by an opportunist regional power.
The first comment appeared in the
daily Resalat (Mission) in October 1983 shortly
after the 8th Mechanized Infantry Battalion, a Lebanese Christian unit led by
Aoun, fought Shi’ite Palestinian and Druze militias allied to Syria and Iran in Souk al-Gharb, slaughtering
large numbers.
“The Maronite forces were led by a
man who has sold Lebanon
to the enemy,” the paper claimed.
The second comment came from the
daily Etemad (Confidence) on November 1 as part of an analysis that saw Aoun’s
presidency as “a major setback for the Zionist enemy.”
However, Aoun, or “General” as his
supporters like to call him for short, only really caught the attention of the
Iranian mullahs in 1988 when he set himself up as “Prime Minister” in East
Beirut, claiming supreme authority over Lebanon.
The Tehran
media saw Aoun’s bid for power as a plot by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to
score a point in the region to partly cover the humiliating end of his
eight-year war with Iran
in August 1988.
Having created a branch of the
so-called Hezbollah in Lebanon
in 1982-83, Iran
needed time to train this militia for use as a means of exerting pressure on
communities hostile to the Islamic Republic. Tehran
saw Aoun as a pawn jointly advanced by Israel
and Saddam Hussein to counter Iran’s
plans for the domination of Lebanon
with the help of its Syrian allies.
“It is urgent that Iran prevent the formation of a new
counter-revolutionary base against it in Lebanon,” the daily Jumhuri Islami
commented in July 1989, after the death of Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini, the
founder of the Islamic Republic.
Believing that Syria alone
wouldn’t be able to keep Lebanon on the side, Tehran moved to create a bloc of
its own allies by inviting the leaders of Hezbollah Sobhi al-Tufayli and the
head of the rival Amal Movement Nabih Berri to Tehran for unity talks. To keep
Syria on board, Tehran also divided the Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk
Al-Sharaa for two days of negotiations presided over by FM Al-Akbar Velayati.
Iran’s agenda was clearly spelled
out by Ali Khamenei who had taken over as “Supreme Guide” when he received the
Lebanese Shi’ite leaders and the Syrian diplomat.
“Fighting the Maronites in Lebanon is the same as fighting Israel,”
Khamenei told the meeting.”
Khamenei described the Lebanese
political system as “one of the most regressive in the world” and compared it
with Apartheid in South
Africa.
“In Lebanon,
a Maronite minority unjustly rules a majority, which is twice or three times
larger, and its rule is based on betrayal of Lebanon’s territorial integrity and
independence in the service of Zionist goals and Zionist regime,” Khamenei told
the group.
Reflecting Khamenei’s
instructions, Amal and Hezbollah, backed by Syria, issued a communique pledging
to fight to end what they described as “Zionist occupation”. They specifically
promised to fight “the Michel Aoun clan which is backed by Zionists and the
criminal Iraqi regime.”
“A new vision of Lebanon’s future is born in Tehran ”Jumhuri Islami commented at the time. “In this vision, Lebanon will have a new political system based
on justice and honorable coexistence among all communities, enabling Lebanon to play
its full part in the struggle against the Israeli usurper.”
Aoun, however, continued to resist
Syrian occupation and Iran’s
attempt at expanding its influence in Lebanon. His end draw close when
Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait,
thus turning the Western powers, notably the United Sates, against him. An
alliance that included the US,
Syria and Iran was hard to resist for Aoun and his
isolated band of devotees in their East Beirut
bunkers.
Even the Tehran media grudgingly noted that “the
little general” and his men showed “desperate courage in a battle against
forces many times superior.
President George HW Bush gave the
green light to Syrian leader Hafez Al-Assad to finish off Aoun. Thanks to
French President Jacques Chirac, a friend of Saddam Hussein, Aoun was escorted
safely out of Beirut and into a 15-year exile in
France.
During those years, the Iranian
media remembered Aoun only occasionally, gradually softening its tone as the
exiled general indicated that his fight had been against Syrian occupation of Lebanon not Iranian influence in Lebanon. By the
mid-1990s, Aoun had established reliable links with both Hezbollah and Amal and
held meetings with Iranian Ambassador to Paris Ali Ahani.
Iran has definitely revised its
assessment of Aoun.
Some commentators now consider him
as “our man in Beirut”.
The daily Kayhan, believed to reflect Khamenei’s views, headlined Aoun’s
election as “Hezbollah’s Historic Victory in Lebanon” and ran a photo showing
Aoun being received by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his office.
The paper’s top editorial had this
to say: “Aoun’s election illustrates (the fact) that the Resistance Movement (Muqawamah)
led by Nasrallah is the principal force in ending the political deadlock in
Lebanon even though the movement has refrained from intervening in domestic
political squabbles.”
The daily Etemad, however, cast
Aoun as a symbol of democracy in Lebanon. In a column signed by
Massoud Idrisi, a former ambassador of Iran
to Beirut, the paper claimed: “Democracy took
place in Lebanon,
and the figure who was more popular and had more votes has become president.”
It added: “In Lebanon, the
president has an important role in adjusting the country’s foreign affairs.”
Idrisi then predicted Aoun would
make resolving issues in diplomatic relations with international and regional
powers a priority.
According to Edrisi,
France, the United States, Iran
and Saudi Arabia
are the countries that Aoun will likely attempt to strengthen relations with.
“I think Iranian-Lebanese political ties will be warming further in the coming
days. Aoun is a powerful figure, and he can shape a balance regarding the
influences of Iran and Saudi Arabia inside Lebanon.”
The daily Watan-Emruz (Homeland
Today) speculated that as president Aoun would focus his energies on keeping Lebanon “out of
harm’s way” in a regional ablaze with multiple conflicts and tragedies.
The daily Arman (Ideal) noted
Aoun’s “capacity for endurance” but warned that he has “a tough task ahead.”
“Nothing indicates that the road
ahead in Lebanon
is going to be smooth.”
A similar note of caution came
from the official news agency IRNA. It noted that Aoun, aged 81, is the “most
popular Christian figure in Lebanon”
and claimed that his election is “without a doubt a victory for Hezbollah and
the 8 March coalition.”
Nevertheless, IRNA warned that
Aoun’s election isn’t “the end of political divisions, but the reconfiguration
of forces” in Lebanon.
IRNA’s cautious tone is in order.
In a career spanning three decades, Aoun may have acted as weathervane. But, in
the final analysis, he has remained his own man. That is one quality that
friend and foe would ignore at their peril.
The Re-Emergence of the Christians in Lebanon? (Interview With Joseph
Hakim)
Can they once again become the
dominant political force?
Joseph Puder/FrontPage/November 7,
2016
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/264743/re-emergence-christians-lebanon-joseph-puder
Michel Aoun was elected as
President of Lebanon on October 31st, 2016, ending a two-year vacancy in the
presidential palace. Two years in which Lebanon did not
have a constitutionally functioning government.
This reporter interviewed Michel Aoun in 2003 at the Hudson Institute in
Washington. On that occasion, still in exile, and living
in France, Aoun railed
against the Syrian army occupiers of Lebanon. General Aoun, as the commander of the Lebanese
army, declared “a war of liberation” against the occupying Syrian army in
March, 1989. In October, 1990, the
Syrian army surrounded Aoun’s forces, killing hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and
civilians. Aoun escaped to the French
embassy in Beirut, and was granted asylum in France. He
spent 15 years in exile, and returned to Lebanon
in 2005, following the Syrian army withdrawal from Lebanon.
A Maronite Christian and commonly
known as “the general,” Aoun formed The Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) upon his
return. He called for an end to sectarianism and division in Lebanon. While he was welcomed by the Sunni, Shiite,
Druze and Christian factions as a possible unifier of the anti-Syrian
coalition, within weeks Aoun abandoned the anti-Syrian bloc and allied his FPM
with the pro-Syrian elements. He signed
a Memorandum of Understanding with Hezbollah in 2006, which started a major
alliance with Iran’s proxy
in Lebanon,
and Bashar Assad. The alliance with
Hezbollah remains intact. Ironically
perhaps, Aoun is considered “Iran’s
man in Lebanon” and by
extension “Syria’s
man”.
This reporter asked Joseph Hakim,
a Lebanese native, Orthodox Christian, and President of the International
Christian Union (an organization that seeks to protect the diminishing number
of Christians in the Middle East due to persecution by the Muslim majorities)
to comment on the recent developments in Lebanon.
Joseph Puder: What impact will the
election of Michel Aoun have on the Christians in Lebanon,
and in terms of relations with Israel?
Joseph Hakim: First, let me
describe what led to Aoun’s election.
Following two years of haggling back and forth over 45+ sessions, Saad
Hariri (Sunni-Muslim leader) endorsed Suleiman Frangieh of the March 8 Alliance,
while at the same time abandoning another Christian candidate for the
presidency, Samir Geagea. Geagea, feeling betrayed by Hariri, found common
understanding with Aoun, and endorsed him for president (Lebanese constitution
requires the President of the republic to be a Christian). Hezbollah, the dominant Shiite (terrorist)
group for its part, wasn’t eager to see the restoration of a Christian
presidency and a functioning government.
Hezbollah sought changes to the constitution in which Lebanon’s parliament would be split
into three constituent groups, a third Shiite, a third
Sunni, and a third Christian. Hariri,
fearing a change in the “Taif” Agreement that would reduce Sunni
representation, was assured by Geagea that Hezbollah was not going to accept
Aoun, and thus would be left in the corner.
Hariri agreed, and then Druze leader Jumblatt, realizing that he could
not stand alone against a Christian and Sunni majority, also fell in line for
Aoun. Amal Shiite leader and speaker of
the parliament Nabih Berry,
tried to postpone the vote, but Aoun refused, and the result is now clear.
As a result of Aoun’s election,
the divided Christian leaders have begun dialoguing with one another, healing
the bloody conflict between the various Christian factions that existed since
1988. That conflict was particularly severe between Samir Geagea, leader of the
Lebanese Forces, and Michel Aoun, commander of the Lebanese army. Insofar as relations with Israel, Aoun as president will be pushed by
Geagea, Hariri and Jumblatt to move to the political center,
and lean away from Iran and Syria. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman Abdul
Aziz called Michel Aoun and congratulated him.
A gesture that signifies expectations that Lebanon would move away from Iran. Should Aoun implement the Taif agreement, and
disarm all militias, especially the Palestinians, Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda and ISIS
related Sunni groups, relations with Israel would greatly improve.
JP: How would you create the best
condition for the re-emergence of the Christians in Lebanon as the dominant political
force?
JH: For the first time since the
1980’s, Christian leaders have demonstrated some form of cohesion, when the top
two Christian leaders in Lebanon, Geagea and Aoun have come together, and
promised to work together. This sends a positive message to Christians in Lebanon, the Middle East,
and the diaspora.
The removal of foreign refugees,
be it Syrians or Palestinians, will definitely strengthen the Christians in Lebanon. Given the poor living conditions in the Palestinian
camps in Lebanon, the overcrowding per square meter, the unsanitary state of
the medical facilities and water system, the poor educational infrastructure,
lack of job opportunities, proper hospitalization, and lack of security in the
camps, which are governed by militia mobs, it would be a charitable act to
relocate the Palestinians to Libya. Libya
and other oil-rich Arab states with small populations, large tracts of land,
and oil resources, could use an influx of Palestinians who were once needed in
the Arab Gulf
states, and were kicked out when Arafat sided with Saddam Hussein following his
takeover of Kuwait.
Lebanon cannot afford to support
the Palestinians any longer. Its
resources are strained by the recent influx of hundreds of thousands Syrian
refugees. Moreover, the Palestinians
caused the civil-war in Lebanon,
and pose a threat to the people of Lebanon through acts of
terror. The oil-rich Arab states who spend millions of dollars in Western nightclubs, on
palaces, fancy yachts and cars, could easily fund the Palestinians relocation
to Libya,
through job creation and donations. It
would bring about a brighter future for the Palestinians, and would ease the
burden on Lebanon,
which could then focus on its own internal problems. Lebanese-Christians would
feel more secure, and so would the nation as a whole. Finally, it would provide the Christians with
greater political leverage.
JP: Can Lebanon free itself from
Hezbollah’s military and political control?
JH: If the Palestinian problem were
to be settled, greater unity would emerge in Lebanon among all its confessional
groups, and in the nation as a whole.
That would force Hezbollah to either give up its arms and merge into the
Lebanese army, or do what the Lebanese Forces did in the 1990’s, get rid of its
arms.
JP: What is your assessment of the
future of Middle East Christians in general and Lebanese Christians in
particular?
JH: Lebanese Christians as well as
other Christians living in the region, face a growing militant Islam that is intolerant
of all non-Muslims. This radicalism, which has escalated in the last 50 years is expressed in Al-Qaeda, Wahhabism, Muslim
Brotherhood, Hamas, The Islamic Republic of Iran, and now ISIS.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew,
the “Pope” of the Greek Orthodox Church headquartered in Istanbul, Turkey
pointed out in an August, 2010 interview with CBS News “60 Minutes” that he
feels “crucified” by the Islamist regime of President Erdogan. It is the Islamic sharia laws in the
surrounding nations that makes life for Christians
miserable. In Lebanon
however, things are different. And as long as Christians maintain what’s left
of their power, survival is possible.
To make Lebanon
great again, the western world should commit to an economically viable and
politically stable Lebanon. Investing in gas and water
while engaging the Lebanese diaspora to invest in their homeland is a
prescription for a prosperous and peaceful Lebanon. A successful Lebanon, with a politically active
and influential Christian political leadership will provide hope for other
Christians in the region.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous
Reports And News published on November 07-08/16
Clinton, Trump in Frenzied Final Push for Votes
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump battled for
votes on a frenzied final day of campaigning Monday, telling Americans the
country's fate rides on who they choose as the next U.S. president. Clinton, the
front-running Democrat, aimed to nail down her narrow lead with stops in three
battleground states, as President Barack Obama covered for her elsewhere before
they join up at a star-studded grand finale in Philadelphia. "The choice
in this election could not be clearer," Clinton
said at a rally in Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania. "It really is
between division or unity. Between strong and steady
leadership or a loose cannon."Trump, the
billionaire Republican nominee, set out from must-win Florida
on a five state swing, the culmination of a dramatic run for the presidency as
a right-wing nationalist vowing radical change in America's relationship with the
world. "I want the entire corrupt Washington
establishment to hear the words we are all about to say: when we win tomorrow,
we are going to drain the swamp," he told cheering supporters in Sarasota, Florida.
Chants of "Drain the swamp! Drain the swamp"
rose from the crowd. Despite his outward confidence, the 70-year-old mogul
needs to break through a wall of Democratic support in industrial northern
states like Michigan
to win. Trump, Clinton and Obama all focused precious final efforts campaigning
there and other key states. As she boarded her campaign plane in White Plains, New York
for the day's first rally in Pennsylvania, Clinton admitted that bringing the country together again
after one of the bitterest US
elections ever will require "some work." "I really do want to be
the president for everybody -- people who vote for me, people who vote against
me," she told reporters. In a video message set to air during two
prime-time television shows reaching millions of viewers, Clinton warns, "Our core values are
being tested in this election." "Is America dark and divisive, or
hopeful and inclusive?" she asks as a piano trills in the background.
Two to one
On the eve of the vote, Clinton held a widening
but still close 3.2 percent lead over Trump in a four way race including two
fringe candidates, according to a RealClearPolitics average of national polls. US media
predicted substantial to big wins for the 69-year-old Democrat when electoral
votes are counted. Influential election forecaster FiveThirtyEight gave her a
two to one chance of winning the 270 votes needed to claim the White House.
Under the cloud of an FBI investigation, Clinton
got good news Sunday when James Comey, the agency's director, cleared her again
of criminal wrongdoing in her use of a private email server while serving as
secretary of state. But the damage may already have been done. Her popularity
had dipped and opinion polls tightened after Comey's campaign bombshell
decision eight days ago to reopen the investigation. It gave Trump a windfall
opportunity to recover ground lost while battling accusations of sexual
assault. - Battlegrounds -From Sarasota, Trump
was headed to Raleigh, North
Carolina; Scranton, Pennsylvania; Manchester, New Hampshire; and Grand
Rapids, Michigan for
a flurry of back-to-back rallies. Besides Obama and First Lady Michelle, Clinton will draw on the star power of rockers Bruce
Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi at their final big rally in Philadelphia Monday night. "I ask you to
do for Hillary what you did for me," Obama said at a rally in Ann Arbor, Michigan, the
first of three he is holding for Clinton
on the eve of the vote. "You have the chance to reject a coarse, divisive,
mean-spirited politics that would take us backwards," he said. "The chance to elect our first female president."Clinton
herself was holding rallies in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Grand
Rapids, Michigan,
before ending her day in the closely contested swing state of North Carolina.Her
final appearances had a note of optimism mixed with warnings of the threat
posed by Trump.
"We don't have to accept a
dark and divisive vision for America,"
she told the crowd in Pittsburgh.
"Tomorrow you can vote for a hopeful, inclusive, big-hearted America."
Brexit plus
The world has looked on aghast as
Trump's sensationalist reality television style became a driving force
propelling him toward the most powerful political post in the world. Asian and
European exchanges, which had been rocked by news of the FBI probe, surged
Monday morning and Wall Street rose as Clinton's
position strengthened. But Trump is predicting a ballot upset, or "Brexit
plus, plus, plus" as he put it Sunday, referring to the poll-defying
British vote to exit the EU. "If we
win, the corrupt politicians and their donors lose. If they win, the American
people lose big league," he told his followers in Sarasota. This is it, folks. We will never
have another opportunity. Not in four years, not in eight years. It will be over,"
he said. "Our failed political establishment has delivered nothing but
poverty at home and disaster overseas. They get rich making America poor.
It's time to reject a media and political elite that's bled our country
dry."
ISIS deploys Raqqa car bombs as SDF closes in
Reuters, Beirut
Monday, 7 November 2016/ISIS militants have set off five car bombs targeting
US-backed Syrian armed groups attacking Raqqa, a source said on Monday, saying
the fight to drive ISIS from its stronghold
city would “not be easy.”
The operation by the Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF), including the Kurdish YPG militia, that began on
Saturday aims to encircle and ultimately capture Raqqa, adding to the pressure
on ISIS as it faces a major assault in Iraq. ISIS has also drawn heavily
on suicide car bombs in its efforts to fend off the assault on Mosul by Iraqi forces. The attack so far
appears focused on areas north of Raqqa near the town of Ain Issa, 50 km (30 miles) away. The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights, an organization that reports on the war, said the
SDF forces had so far captured a number of ISIS
positions, but there had been “no real progress.”The Kurdish source said a
number of villages had been captured. “Daesh is resorting to attacks with car
bombs to a great degree,” the source said.The SDF has been the main partner on
the ground in Syria for the US-led coalition against ISIS, capturing swathes of
northern Syria with coalition air support. Planning for the Raqqa assault has
been complicated by factors including the concerns of neighboring Turkey, which does not want to see any further
expansion of Kurdish influence in northern Syria. Additionally, Raqqa is a
predominantly Arab city, and Syrian Kurdish officials have previously said it
should be freed from ISIS by Syrian Arab
groups, not the Kurdish YPG.
Top
Iraqi Kurdish official: ISIS deployed drones
with mustard gas
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English
Monday, 7 November 2016/ISIS has deployed drones strapped with explosives,
long-range artillery shells filled with chlorine and mustard gas and highly
effective snipers, a top Iraqi Kurdish security official told Reuters in an
interview on Sunday. Masrour Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Regional
Government’s Security Council, said ISIS deployed these drones so far during the
three-week operation to recapture Iraq’s
second largest city Mosul.
Barzani said Iraqi forces are expected to face much fiercer resistance from
ISIS in the next phase of the battle for Mosul,
including booby traps that can blow up entire neighborhoods. “The fight against
ISIS is going to be a long fight,” he said. “Not only militarily but also economically, ideologically.”
Barzani said Iraqi forces have made quick progress clearing out ISIS fighters
from eastern Mosul
after Kurdish peshmerga units broke through its first lines of defense. “As
they are getting more desperate, expectations are that they might fight more
fiercely as you close in,” he added. The official said “there are many
different IEDs (improvised explosive devices)” ISIS
puts in various locations. He added: “So in one house they are putting one IED
and trying to hide it. And once it explodes then the entire neighborhood
explodes.”The Mosul campaign is the most
critical land battle in Iraq
since a US-led coalition toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.(With
Reuters)
U.S.-Backed
Forces Push Closer to IS 'Capital' Raqa
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/A U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed
closer to Raqa in Syria
while Iraqi forces seized a key town near Mosul
as offensives advanced Monday against the two Islamic State group strongholds.
After announcing the launch of the long-awaited assault on Raqa on Sunday, the
Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance said it had moved south towards the
city despite fierce jihadist resistance. South of Mosul, Iraqi forces retook Hamam al-Alil from
IS, a key objective in their three-week advance on the city. Iraqi forces said
they found a mass grave in the area containing around 100 decapitated bodies.
Raqa and Mosul are the last major cities in Syria and Iraq under the jihadists'
control. Their capture would deal a
knockout blow to the self-styled "caliphate" IS declared in
mid-2014.The U.S.-led coalition that launched operations against IS two years
ago is providing crucial backing to the offensives, with air strikes and
special forces advisers on the ground. SDF spokeswoman Jihan Sheikh Ahmed told
AFP that the alliance's forces had advanced on two fronts towards Raqa amid
heavy fighting.SDF fighters had pushed at least 10 kilometers (six miles) south
towards the city from the towns of Ain Issa and Suluk, she said. In both cases
the SDF was still some distance from Raqa -- on the Ain Issa front at least 30
kilometers (20 miles) away. "The offensive is going according to
plan," said Ahmed, adding that the SDF had captured at least 10 villages.
'Fight will not be easy'
An SDF commander said IS was
fighting back with its favorite tactic of sending suicide bombers in
explosives-packed vehicles against advancing forces. "IS is sending car
bombers but coalition planes and our anti-tank weapons are limiting their
effectiveness," the commander said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
After taking Abu Ilaj north of Raqa, SDF fighters dug trenches and piled
sandbags at the entrance to the village. "In every area that we advance we
are digging trenches with tractors and bulldozers to protect the front line, to
prevent the jihadists from getting in and to stop car bombs," one fighter
said. The SDF says some 30,000 of its fighters are taking part in operation
"Wrath of the Euphrates" which aims
to surround and isolate IS inside Raqa before assaulting the city itself.
Officials have warned that the battle is likely to be long and difficult.
"As in Mosul,
the fight will not be easy and there is hard work ahead," U.S. Defense
Secretary Ashton Carter said. "But it is necessary to end the fiction of
ISIL's caliphate and disrupt the group's ability to carry out terror attacks
against the United States,
our allies and our partners," Carter said, using an alternative name for
IS. Driving IS from both cities has been the endgame since the U.S.-led
coalition launched air strikes against it in summer 2014, shortly after the
jihadists seized large parts of Syria and Iraq. Some 50 U.S. military
advisers are involved in the Raqa operation, particularly to guide air strikes,
according to an SDF source. Near Mosul,
federal police, army and elite interior ministry forces established full
control over Hamam al-Alil, the last town of note on the way to the city from
the south, AFP reporters said. It lies on the west bank of the Tigris river, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) southeast of the
edge of Mosul.
Life quickly resumed in Hamam al-Alil, with some residents reopening shops and
others bathing in the town's sulfur springs.
Mass grave found
However, police said they found a
mass grave Monday at an agricultural collage west of Hamam al-Alil. The Joint
Operations Command said "Iraqi forces found... 100 bodies of citizens with
their heads cut off". Fighting also continued east of Mosul,
with Kurdish forces advancing into the town of Bashiqa and the elite Counter Terrorism
Service battling IS in the city's suburbs. "Up to seven neighborhoods are
under the control of counter-terrorism forces, and they are now completely
securing them and clearing them of pockets of terrorists present inside the
houses," CTS spokesman Sabah al-Noman
told AFP. A peshmerga statement said late Monday its forces were in Bashiqa and
had "begun house-to-house clearances."The Mosul offensive has advanced faster than
expected, but the battle for Raqa is more complicated. Unlike in Iraq where the coalition has a state-controlled
ally in federal forces, in Syria
its ground partner is comprised of local militias, including some rebel groups
that have battled President Bashar Assad's regime. The domination of the SDF by
the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) has also raised deep concerns in Turkey, which
considers the YPG a "terrorist" group linked to the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Aid groups have voiced concerns for civilians
trapped in both Mosul
and Raqa, warning they may be used as human shields. More than 34,000 people
have been displaced since the Mosul
operation began on October 17, the International Organization for Migration
said on Monday. A U.S.
government official put the number at "just over 33,000 people." More
than a million people are believed to be in Mosul. Raqa had a population of some 240,000
before 2011 but more than 80,000 people have since fled there from other parts
of Syria.
Russia Says Still Holding Off on Aleppo Strikes
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/Russia on Monday said its air force was
continuing to hold off on strikes against war-ravaged Aleppo,
after rebels snubbed Moscow's offer to quit Syria's second
city. "The ceasefire in the
operation of the Russian air force is continuing," Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov told journalists. Russia
has halted air strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo since October 18, after international
condemnation over its ferocious bombardment of the city. President Vladimir
Putin ordered an additional 10-hour "humanitarian pause" on Friday
that saw Syrian forces on the ground halt fire to allow rebels and civilians to
quit Aleppo.
But rebels scorned the offer to leave with their weapons, and civilians stayed
put in the devastated eastern part of the city. Peskov said that the decision
by Putin to keep holding fire remained dependent on rebels in the city
refraining from any concerted attacks on government-held territory. "If
the rebels don't resort to offensive actions, to a campaign of aggression, then
the president considered it expedient for now to continue the regime, under
which the Russian air force does not strike eastern Aleppo," he said. Russia is meanwhile beefing up its firepower in
the Mediterranean Sea off Syria
by dispatching its only aircraft carrier and warships to bolster its forces.
Russia
again Denies any Children Killed in Syria School Strike
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/The Russian army on Monday denied any children
were present in a school in Syria's
Idlib province where 28 people were killed in an October airstrike blamed on Moscow. Russia has denied having any role in air strikes
that the UN children's agency UNICEF said killed 22 students and six teachers
at the school in the village of Hass in northwest Syria on October 26. "No
proof, even indirect, that children were present in the building," army
spokesman Igor Konashenkov said in a statement. UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon said at the time that the attack on the school in the rebel-held
province could amount to a war crime and urged a thorough investigation. On
Sunday, Human Rights Watch repeated the war crime accusation, provoking
Monday's angry response from the spokesman who said the group's statement
"does not hold water". Moscow has been
conducting a bombing campaign in Syria in support of long-time ally
Syrian leader Bashar Assad since September 2015. More than 300,000 people have
been killed since Syria's
war devolved from a widespread protest movement against Assad's rule in March
2011 to a multi-front war between rebels, jihadists, Kurds and regime forces.
Turkey Warns U.S.
against Demographic Change in Raqa
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/Turkey on Monday warned the United States not to allow demographic changes
in the Syrian city of Raqa
after Kurdish-Arab forces launched a U.S.-backed operation to capture the
jihadist bastion. Turkish forces are conspicuously absent from the operation,
even though they are present in northern Syria in their own incursion in
support of pro-Ankara Syrian rebels against Islamic State (IS) jihadists.Deputy
Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said Raqa -- like Aleppo, the divided main city
of northern Syria, and Mosul in Iraq "belonged to the people" who
lived there before conflict erupted. "Changing the demographic structure
will in no way make any contribution to making peace," he told reporters
in televised comments. Ankara had previously expressed alarm that
the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) leading the offensive were dominated by the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units
(YPG) militia. It considers the YPG to be an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers'
Party (PKK) which has waged an insurgency against Ankara for more than three decades. Turkey has said
it would stay out of any operation involving the YPG. Turkey fears an
influx of Kurds to Raqa will change the ethnic composition of the Arab-majority
area close to its border. Ankara also largely
looked on from the sidelines at the U.S.-backed Iraqi operation to retake Mosul from the jihadists,
expressing alarm over the potential roles of anti-Ankara Kurdish fighters and
Shiite militia. As the Raqa offensive
started on Sunday, chairman of the U.S.
joint chiefs of staff, General Joseph Dunford visited Ankara for previously
unannounced talks with his Turkish counterpart. Brett McGurk, the U.S. envoy for
the coalition battling the jihadists, said the visit was to keep "close
close contact with our Turkish allies" over the offensive. Kurtulmus said
"legitimacy" after the eventual ousting of IS was a key issue for the
United States in Mosul and Raqa.
"Legitimacy is not provided by armed terrorist groups. I think in the end
the United States
will have to understand this.
"Every step taken by non-Arab elements is not in the interests of
the United States."
Young
Syrian Named Journalist of the Year by World's Press Watchdog
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/Syrian freelance journalist Hadi Abdullah on
Monday won one of the world's top press awards for reporting from some of the
most perilous zones in his country's five-year-old war. Reporters without
Borders (RSF) said it was awarding the 29-year-old Syrian the RSF-TV5 Monde
prize, the second year running that the honor has gone to a Syrian. bdullah
"has unhesitatingly ventured into danger zones, where Western journalists
are no longer willing to go, to film and interview civilians," RSF said.
Abdullah, who was briefly abducted in January by the al-Nusra Front jihadist
group, "has had frequent brushes with death," the press freedom group
added. His cameraman was killed and Abdullah himself was seriously injured when
a bomb exploded in the place where they staying. The award will be presented in
Strasbourg
Tuesday on the sidelines of the World Forum for Democracy, a meeting organized
by the Council of Europe. Abdullah will address the meeting via a video
message. In 2015, the award went to Syrian journalist Zaina Erhaim for her
reports from the besieged city of Aleppo.
RSF announced it was giving its "media of the year" prize to the
Chinese website 64Tianwang, where citizen-journalists "take considerable
risks to inform their fellow citizens" and are subjected to
"systematic repression by the Chinese authorities." In the category
of citizen-journalists, RSF honored Lu Yuyu and Li Tingyu, a couple arrested in
June "for having documented strikes and demonstrations by citizens across China.""We
are very happy to award the prize to journalists and media that have
demonstrated professionalism and courage in countries where journalists often
risk their lives to do their work," RSF Secretary-general Christophe
Deloire said. RSF ranks China
and Syria
176th and 177th on its assessment of 180 countries for press freedom.
Syria Daily Dismisses Raqa Fight as 'Media' Operation
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November
07/16/The Syrian al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the government, on
Monday dismissed a new assault on the Islamic State group's Syrian stronghold
of Raqa as a "media" operation. The daily said the fight, led by the
Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was intended to "focus
American public opinion on the 'war on terror' and show the seriousness of the
current administration in the fight against the terrorist group Daesh (IS)."
Citing what it described as a "Western diplomatic source in Paris," the
newspaper said the SDF lacked the capacity to fight IS "even if they were
backed by Washington and Paris with all their power." The daily said the
operation's "sudden announcement" was intended to "cover up the
inability of the U.S. to
make quick and qualitative progress in cooperation with the Iraqi army in Mosul," citing the
same source. It also said the operation was timed to coincide with the U.S.
presidential elections, which take place Tuesday, especially "with the
scandals surrounding the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton."The SDF is
a key ally of the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS in Iraq
and Syria, where it does not
coordinate its strikes with the government in Damascus. President Bashar Assad's government
accuses the U.S.-led coalition of failing to tackle IS in Syria, and alleges
that Washington and other supporters of rebel groups fuel "terrorism"
in the country.
Hundreds
Forced out of Iraq's Kirkuk after IS Attack
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November
07/16/Hundreds of families have been driven out of the Iraqi city of Kirkuk in apparent
retaliation for a recent attack by the Islamic State group, Amnesty
International said on Monday. Authorities in the Kurdish-controlled city demolished
the homes of hundreds of Arab residents and ordered them to leave Kirkuk in the wake of the
attack on October 21, the London-based rights group said. Those displaced
include an estimated 250 families who had fled to Kirkuk,
which lies in an oil-rich area around 240 kilometers (150 miles) north of Baghdad, from other areas in Iraq. An additional 190 families
were said to have been displaced from nearby villages by Kurdish Peshmerga and
Asayesh forces. Amnesty said those forced from their homes were told to return
to their places of origin or moved to camps, after being suspected of helping
IS coordinate its attack. Three days of clashes left at least 46 people dead,
mostly members of the security forces. The governor of Kirkuk province, Najmeddin Karim, told AFP at
least 81 jihadists were killed while several others were detained. Amnesty's
report quoted residents as saying homes were demolished on October 25, a day
after Karim announced the attack was over. Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty's deputy
director for research in Beirut,
said destroying homes without military necessity amounts to "a war
crime". "Forcibly evicting and displacing Sunni Arab residents of Kirkuk is unlawful and
cruel. "Kurdish authorities must immediately put
an end to unlawful destruction of civilian property and forced
displacement," Maalouf said. The brazen raid on Kirkuk
appeared to be an attempt by IS to divert attention from Mosul, where a major offensive is under way
to retake the city from the jihadists.
Iraq Forces Retake Key Town on Mosul
Southern Front
Agence France
Presse/Naharnet/November 07/16/Iraqi forces retook a key town from the Islamic
State group Monday, a crucial objective on the southern front of the offensive
to wrest back the city of Mosul. Federal police, army and elite
interior ministry forces established full control over Hamam al-Alil, the last
town of note on the way to Mosul
from the south, AFP reporters said. It lies on the west bank of the Tigris river, about 15 kilometers (nine miles) southeast of Mosul. Iraqi forces have
already entered Mosul
from the east and were moving close to the city limits from the north on Monday
but have some distance to cover on the southern front. Life quickly resumed in
Hamam al-Alil, an AFP cameraman reported, with some residents re-opening shops
and other bathing in the town's sulfur springs. Hussein Khalaf al-Juburi, 73,
was ecstatic.
"If I say I'm happy, it's not
enough. It's more than happiness, more than joy. I thank the brave heroes who
saved us from these tyrannical and corrupt groups," he said. The Islamic
State group "has no connection to Islam," he said. Soldiers could be
seen helping some displaced civilians with their bags. The recapture of the
town clears the way for Iraqi forces to push further north and move to within striking
distance of the southern neighborhoods of Mosul.
An officer with the federal police said clearing operations would continue
around Hamam al-Alil before all the forces regroup to conquer the last stretch
before Mosul.
The next phase is "to clear the other villages around the town and then
move forward towards Mosul
to liberate it, God willing," Colonel Amjad Mohammed told AFP. Mosul's southern approach
is home to the international airport, a vast military area and a large base
that Iraqi forces were forced to flee with IS took
over the city in June 2014.
Khameniei
aide distorts Iraqi Kurds’ identity, rejects
independence
Staff Writer, Al Arabiya English
Tuesday, 8 November 2016/Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, a top military aide
to Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reminded the Iraqi
Kurds of their Aryan origin and their Iranian roots, urging them not to forget
that they are indebted to Iran. Safavi said that the Iraqi Kurds are helping
the Saudi consulate in Iraq
to supply weapons to Iranian anti-revolutionary forces and he warned them in
this regard as they should know that they owe their existence to Iran. However,
he did not present any proof about it. He said that they should be grateful to Iran because back in the era of the Shah in the
seventies, Iran has received
the family of the current ruler of the Kurdistan region Massoud Barzani after
signing the Algeria
agreement with Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein that led to the rupture
between Tehran
and the Kurds leader Mullah Mustafa Barzani. Masoud Barzani,
is an Iraqi Kurdish politician who was elected President of the Kurdistan
Region in Iraq
by the Kurdistan National Assembly. There are about 9 million Kurds in Iran; Iran
has the second largest Kurdish community after Turkey. The recent Iranian major
general’s remarks stem from the growing concern of Iran
regarding the military moves of the Iranian Kurds towards the Kurdistan region
in Iraq.
*This article can be viewed in arabic on AlArabiya.net
Iran: 23 Girls and Boys Arrested for Attending A "Mixed- Gender Party"
Monday, 07 November 2016/NCRI - On
Friday, November 4, Iranian regime’s police chief in Dezful (Khuzestan
province) announced that 11 girls and 12 boys were arrested in connection with
a “private mixed - gender party” held in a garden in Dezful. He said these boys
and girls on the eve of Arbaeen (a religious ceremony in Iran) committed
“norm-breaking” by holding a mixed-gender ceremony. According to the state-run
Mehr news agency, Ali Elhami, the police chief in Dezful stated on Friday:
“Last night we received a news that 11 girls and 12 boys committed
‘norm-breaking’ by renting a garden in Ben-Jafar county in Dezful and holding a
dance party.”“Following preliminary investigation, this morning the police arrested
these people upon a judiciary order,” he added. “Dezful law enforcement acted
on the judiciary order and sealed this garden and arrested 11 girls and 12 boys
for participating in the illegal event that violated sharia law,” Ali Elhami
said and added “the owner of the garden who already committed a crime by
renting the garden to these people was also identified and arrested and his
garden was sealed.” Earlier, the head of the so-called “promotion of virtue and
prevention of vice” headquarters in Dezful told the news agency: “In the first
five months of 2016, some 400 people have been arrested for breaking norms in
recreational and resort areas in Dezful.”Iran's clerical regime officials
refer to “mixed-gender, night parties” as one of the “social damages
(pathologies)” and an example of "cultural aggression.”
Abdullah
Alami discloses about the Iranian regime
Monday, 07 November 2016/NCRI -
The member of the Saudi Economy, Abdullah Alami published an article in the
Qatari Newspaper of Al-Arab and wrote: "the president of the National
Council of the Iranian Resistance (NCIR),Maryam Rajavi
discloses facts about the Iranian regime. Maryam Rajavi says that Houthi
militias fired Mecca
with missiles with Khamenei's order and under the supervision of Qods Force.
She also stressed that firing Mecca
was actually a declaration of war against all Muslims in the world and
naturally, this incident was condemned by all the entities in the world except
the Iranian regime. All are aware that Tehran
supports the Houthis, Hezbollah,Iraqi militias and the
separatist movements with arms and weapons to strengthen the anarchy and
political instability in the region. The Assistant General Coordinator of the
military headquarters of Khatam al-Anbiya,the
Commander Salar Abnoush endeavors to defend the so-called Islamic Jurist by
establishing a new IRGC around the world. This plan is not surprising and the
Iranian regime is a police entity that rules and it supports the terrorist
organs financially in order to spread chaos and terror in the region. What
encourages Tehran
to carry out these infringements? And what is the impact of economic sanctions
imposed by the west?
Iran's oil exports to Asian
countries have increased by 92 percent in August 2016 in comparison to the same
period in 2015.
The economic development would
benefit Tehran
to financially supplies the military equipment as well
as its development. There are many available indicators. In the recent period,
the military officials of the Iranian regime introduced their plans for
developing the military organs and they named themselves as Fatehan (the
conquerors) brigade. In addition to that, Iranian military officials have
threatened not to recognize the borders. Their main task is actually to defend
the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist in Iran.
What happened to the international
monitoring? Tehran
has knowingly evaded the trivial supervision and it stealthily builds its
military and intelligence arsenals. As the evidence emerges, Iran's goal is
to develop ballistic missiles and to provide the terrorist organs with
training, information, communication and the financial support. The next step
will be revealed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander, Colonel Mahdi
Hadavand and by the commander of Fatehan Brigade. Mahdi Hadavand stipulated
that the Resistance forces including the Iranian and foreign ones will be
trained and thus Tehran
continues to provoke the conflicts and civil wars as well as supporting the
gangs and thugs of the region. The strategy of the Iranian regime is
transparent and this regime will play a major role in making all decisions for
holding talks with the west. The official spokesman of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan
said that this movement has a very good relation with the Iranian regime.
Therefore, is any more evidence required to prove that Iran is
supporting the terrorism continuously?"
The
Deputy Terrorist Qods Force Commander Confessed to Iran's
Meddle in Syria
Monday, 07 November 2016/NCRI -
The Deputy Commander of the terrorist Qods Force affiliated with IRGC referred
to the Iranian regime's involvement in the Syria's Civil War as well as the
participation of the regime in slaughtering the people. He called this year as
the year of destiny for the regime and said:"in the current year, destiny
only determines the result of this Civil War in Syria. This war requires commanders
who can impose the will of the Iranian regime to the enemies." On Saturday
5th November 2016, ISNA News Agency affiliated with the Mullahs' regime
reported that the Deputy Qods Force Commander, Esmail Qaani uttered these
remarks at the commemoration of one of the commanders of IRGC in Syria, Hossein Hamedani , in the Military University of Imam Hossein. Esmail
Qaani called the Syrian Civil War as a fundamental battle for the regime. He
implicitly addressed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Forces and those who were
deployed to Syria
that this war requires very strong and firm people who attend on the
battlefield and fight with all of their dignity.
He also admitted that the regime
is stuck in a swamp of Syria and added:"of course this war will
continue and it will not simultaneously end with the incidents of Iraq and Syria since this war is based on
identity and existence and it will continue. Today the Syria needs the
commanders who can impose the will of the Islamic Republic of Iran to their
enemies. It is actually a significant character that each commander of the
Assad's regime should have."
These comments were of the most
explicit ones on the position of Iran
in the conflicts of Syria.
The Deputy Commander of Qods Force implicitly acknowledged that the plans of
the Syrian regime have been failed and said:"the enemies made an effort to
break our will. We could not fulfill the IRI's will unless our commanders
resisted. I appreciate the commander Hossein Hamedani who did not withhold any
attempt to fight with the enemies in the Syrian war. By the time he was
appointed as the commander of the Advisory Forces in Syria,
the situation in Syria was
so critical that an airplane was targeted with a shell while landing at Damascus Airport. The Takfiris Forces fired the
presidential palace with shells and they have marched until the back of the
Iranian Embassy in Syria."Several
media outlets, including the Guardian, reported that Hossein Hamedani was
killed in Aleppo
in October 2015 and this incident indicates the growing support of the IRI for
the Assad's regime. Previously, the Commander of Qods Force, Brigadier General
Qasem Soleimani issued a statement to Basij and IRGC forces and asked them not
to pay attention to some criticism which has been expressed to his policies as
well as the role of IRGC in Syria
and other regions. Khamenei personally directs the operations of Qods Forces
outside the borders and the Iranian regime avoids releasing any information to
people on the number of death tolls and the amount of money spent on the war.
Nevertheless, the statement of the Commander of Qods Force, as well as the
remarks of his Deputy Esmail Qaani, signify that Iran's meddle in the Syrian Civil
War is even criticized by some military commanders and political authorities in
the country.
OIC
Meeting Condemns Anyone (Iran
Regime) Who Supports and Smuggles Ballistic Missiles and Weapons for Houthi
Militias
Monday, 07 November 2016/ NCRI -
In an urgent meeting of Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at
ministerial level held at the organization’s secretariat headquarters on
Saturday October 5, the Executive Committee of OIC in its closing statement
strongly condemned anyone who is supporting the Houthi militias. The meeting
was held to review and asses the ballistic missile launch toward Mecca by the Houthi
militias. In their closing statement, the participants at the OIC meeting
announced, including:
1. The meeting in the strongest
terms condemns Houthi militias and Saleh forces and anyone who supports them
and provides them with weapons, bullets and missiles for the purpose of
targeting Mecca.
2. The meeting emphasizes the
statements issued by member and non-members states and regional and international
organizations that strongly condemn this aggression aimed at undermining
security and stability in the Holy Land and thwarting all efforts to end the
conflict by peaceful means in Yemen.
3. The meeting emphasizes the
support of member states for Saudi
Arabia in the fight against terrorism and
against anyone who tries to cause damage or target its religious sanctities.
4. The meeting emphasizes that
anyone who supports the Houthi militias and Saleh forces and provides weapons
and smuggles ballistic missiles and weapons for them is considered to be a
fixed partner in violation of the Islamic sanctities and also a clear side in
sectarian sedition and a major sponsor of terrorism, and the continuation of
their work will lead to instability and disruption of safety of Muslim world
and makes a mockery of the sanctities.
5. The meeting calls on all member
states and the international community to adopt serious and effective measures
to prevent such violations from occurring or recurring in the future and hold
accountable anyone who continues to smuggle these weapons and provide support
and training for this coup group.”
Iran Regime Prevents Treatment of a Female Political
Prisoner
Monday, 07 November 2016./NCRI - According to reports, Iranian regime officials
prevented treatment of political prisoner Lavin Karimi in Hamedan prison. This
university student, who has developed stomach problems due to severe torture
inflicted on her during interrogation, is now suffering from stomach bleeding.
Prison doctors have emphasized that she has to receive medical treatment
immediately but one of the torturers, called Rajabi, has told Lavin that the
Intelligence Ministry does not allow her out of prison and the prison cannot do
anything. The political prisoner, Lavin Karim, 26, a university student in
bachelor of management, was arrested on August 15, 2015 in her father’s home in
the city of Saghez (Northwest Iran) and sentenced to five and half years in
prison. But following objection by her lawyer, the verdict was reduced by the
regime’s appeal court to three years imprisonment and exile to Hamadan prison.
Israel says ‘no’ to Middle East peace conference in Paris
Reuters, Jerusalem
Monday, 7 November 2016/Israel on Monday formally rejected France’s invitation to take part in a Middle
East peace conference in Paris
later this year, saying it was a distraction from the goal of direct
negotiations with the Palestinians. At a meeting in Jerusalem
with Israel’s acting
national security adviser and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s diplomatic
adviser, French envoy Pierre Vimont was informed that Israel wanted
nothing to do with the effort to revive talks that last broke down in 2014.
“(They) told the French envoy in a clear and unequivocal manner that Israel’s position to promote the peace process
and reach an agreement will only come through direct negotiations between Israel and the
Palestinian Authority,” Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. Vimont, who
later met Palestinian officials for talks in Ramallah, made no comment
following the discussions but the French foreign ministry has said it still
plans to hold the conference before the end of the year. Saeb Erekat, a senior
Palestinian official, said Vimont had made clear at the meeting that France
would issue invitations to the conference in December.Nabil Abu Rdainah, a
spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said: “We are in favor of
holding the conference and we welcome it regardless of whether Israel
participates or not.”France
has repeatedly tried to breathe new life into the peace process this year,
holding a preliminary conference in June where the United Nations, European Union, United States and major Arab
countries gathered to discuss proposals without the Israelis or Palestinians
present. The plan was to hold a follow-up conference before year-end with the
Israelis and Palestinians involved and see whether the two sides could be
brought back to negotiations. The last, US-backed talks ended in failure in
April 2014. Israel, which regards the United States as the chief broker in the
Middle East, has long maintained that only direct negotiations with the
Palestinians can lead to peace and sees France’s efforts as a diversion.“Any
other initiative, including this one, will only distance peace from the region,”
Netanyahu’s office said, adding that it expected France “not to promote a conference
or a process that is contrary to (our) official position.”
Israel says an international
conference will also give Abbas a platform on which to grandstand, rather than
engaging directly with the Israelis. The Palestinians say they cannot resume
talks with Israel
until it suspends the building of settlements on occupied land the Palestinians
seek for an independent state and meets previous commitments, including the release
of prisoners. Despite two US attempts to resolve the conflict during Barack
Obama’s presidency, talks have stalled over issues including settlements and
Palestinian political divisions. While most of the so-called “final status”
issues are clear to both sides, critics say there will be little chance of a
breakthrough without genuine US
pressure on Israel
to halt settlement building and without the Palestinians overcoming the
internal splits between Hamas and the Fatah party. Many analysts believe the prospect
of a two-state solution to the conflict is now beyond reach, with no signs of Israel ending its nearly 50-year occupation of
the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which the
Palestinians want for their own capital.
Jerusalem mayor warns against settlement demolition
AFP, Jerusalem Monday, 7 November 2016/Jerusalem’s
Israeli mayor Nir Barkat has warned that Palestinian homes built without an
Israeli permit in the city’s annexed east could be
demolished if authorities dismantle a wildcat Jewish settlement. Barkat was
reacting to a ruling by Israel’s
Supreme Court ordering the evacuation and demolition by December 25 of the
Amona outpost, where around 40 families are living on private Palestinian-owned
land near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
His comments came in a letter addressed to the government’s legal council --
seen Monday by AFP -- in which he says the demolition of Amona “could have
implications for similar cases in Jerusalem, where Arabs have illegally built
on private or municipal land.”“There should not be one law for Jews and another
for Arabs,” wrote Barkat, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s
ruling right-wing Likud party. Ir Amim, an Israeli NGO opposed to Israeli
settlements in east Jerusalem,
where more than 200,000 Israelis now live, denounced the mayor’s comments.
“These are outrageous remarks by someone trying to promote his political career
on the backs of the people of Jerusalem,”
Ir Amim head Yehudit Oppenheimer told AFP. She said Barkat was hoping to become
a national leader of Likud, and “therefore he thinks everything is
permitted.”“Since the start of the year, 166 illegally-built Palestinian
structures in east Jerusalem
have been demolished by the authorities, twice the figure in the same period
last year,” she added. NGOs say many Palestinians are forced to build illegally
because Israeli authorities refuse to give them building permits. The
international community considers all Israeli settlements in east Jerusalem and
the West Bank illegal whether they are authorized by the Israeli government or
not. They are viewed as illegal under international law and major stumbling
blocks to peace efforts as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part
of their future state.
Gaza Christians Being Forcibly Converted; World Uninterested
Ryan Jones/Israel Today/Monday,
November 07, 2016 |
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/30439/Default.aspx?utm_source=news&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=*%20Daily%20Newsletter&utm_content=3019
You’d think a story like this
would be making major headlines, given the amount of attention that’s afforded
every other aspect of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But the forced
conversion of Christians to Islam by Gaza’s
Hamas rulers just doesn’t seem to interest Western power brokers.
And that should be a wake-up call
for any and all advocating a two-state solution. Arab media commentator Raymond
Ibrahim brings the story after surveying Arabic-language media, where the
plight of Gaza Christians seems to be covered far more regularly.
“…we hear of the kidnapping of
Christians and the coercion of them to embrace the religion of Muhammad,” reads
one Arab media report cited by Ibrahim. It goes on to note that in mid-October,
Christians in Gaza held a rally against the abduction and forced conversion of
their children, and that the coastal enclave's most senior Christian leader,
Archbishop Alexios, confirmed that “Christians who converted to Islam did so
under threats, coercion, compulsion and force.”That was just three weeks ago.
Did you hear anything about it in your media? Of course not.
Because Hamas didn’t want you to, and the Western journalists on the ground
here happily comply with the Islamists so they can keep their jobs, and their
heads. Makes you wonder what else is being left out of or misrepresented in
mainstream media reports.
Even so, those whose job it is to
know what’s going on in the world can’t be unaware of the situation. Which begs
the questions: Where is the outcry from world leaders? Where is the special UN
Security Council session condemning this behavior? Where are the human rights
organizations that are always ready to jump all over Israel at the slightest hint of
misconduct?
Egypt's oil minister makes rare trip to Iran for oil
talks after Saudi suspension
REUTERS/Yiannis
Kourtoglou/November 06/16
Tarek El Molla,
Egypt's Minister of
Petroleum and Mineral Resources, is seen during a
meeting with Cypriot Foreign Minister Ioannis Kasoulides at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs in Nicosia,
Cyprus August
31, 2016. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou
Egyptian Petroleum Minister Tarek
El Molla was on his way to Iran
on Sunday to try to strike new oil deals, sources close to his delegation said
at Cairo airport, after Saudi Arabia
suspended its oil agreement last month.
After that suspension, Egypt voted in favor of a Russian-backed U.N.
resolution on Syria in
October that excluded calls to stop bombing Aleppo,
which Saudi Arabia
strongly opposed. Saudi Arabia
has showered Egypt with
billions of dollars in aid since 2013, when President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi
ousted elected Mohammed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood and banned the Islamist
movement, which Riyadh
opposes.
The Saudi deal was for 700,000
tonnes of oil products a month for five years under a $23 billion deal between
Saudi Aramco and the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) to be paid
off over 15 years. Molla is set to meet several senior Iranian officials to
discuss the possibility of securing oil supplies from Tehran, one source, who accompanied Molla to
the airport, said.
His visit to Iran, Saudi Arabia's
main regional rival, may signal a further rift between Egypt and its
top benefactor. Molla said last month it was unclear when the Saudi oil
deliveries would resume and Saudi
Arabia has provided no reason for their
suspension. Egypt has since
worked to secure new energy sources, signing a memorandum of understanding last
week with Azerbaijan's
state oil company SOCAR for up to 2 million barrels of crude oil. The EGPC last
week signed a farm-out agreement with Kuwait Energy Plc giving Egypt's state oil buyer a 20-percent
participating interest in its Siba field in Iraq.
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on November 07-08/16
Turkey's
Increasingly Unfree Press
Robert Jones/Gatestone Institute/November
07/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9274/turkey-press-freedom
The international media was shaken
by the October 31 police raids in Turkey, on both the Cumhuriyet
daily newspaper and on the homes of its editors and writers.
"The law on abandoned
properties was an excuse to seize other people's property, and Armenian assets
in particular became the main basis of the republican regime. The property of
the murdered Armenians was Turkified, along with Greek
and Jewish properties." — Alin Ozinian, journalist.
It seems that throughout Turkish
history, the Turks have not been able to take a single step without committing
crimes against the non-Muslim citizens of their country.
The international media was shaken
by the October 31 police raids in Turkey, on both the Cumhuriyet
daily newspaper and on the homes of its editors and writers.
Reporters Without
Borders (RSF) declared that it is "appalled by the accelerating extinction
of media pluralism in Turkey,"
and referred to Cumhuriyet ("The Republic") as "the latest
victim of 'never-ending purge' of Turkish media."
Raids on Cumhuriyet's offices and
the arrests of its journalists are attacks on freedom of speech. More tragic is
that Cumhuriyet was established in 1924 as a result of the victimization of the
Armenians in Turkey.
Cumhuriyet, originally an Armenian
business -- the "Matosyan Printing House" -- was seized in 1924 from
Vahan Matosyan, an Armenian businessman who had to leave Turkey for Switzerland because he did not feel
safe in the face of the Turkish government's genocide against its Christian
population.
Cumhuriyet's founder, Yunus Nadi,
also a lifelong writer for the newspaper, had before that written for Rumeli, a
publication of the Ottoman Turkish Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), the
group that committed the 1915 Armenian genocide.
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder
of modern Turkey and a close
friend of Nadi, supported his effort to establish a new newspaper in
Constantinople (Istanbul)
to propagate and defend the principles and policies of the republic. The
newspaper was named Cumhuriyet by Ataturk himself.
The physical annihilation of
Armenians was followed by the seizure of their properties.
"A series of laws and
decrees, known as the Abandoned Properties Laws, were issued in the Ottoman and
Turkish republican periods concerning the administration of the belongings left
behind by the Ottoman Armenians who were deported in 1915," according to
the Turkish scholar, Umit Kurt.
"Genocide not only means
physical annihilation... what is important is the complete erasure of the
traces of the Armenians from their ancient homeland.
"Between 1895 and 1922,
Ottoman Armenians suffered massive loss of life and property as a result of
pogroms, massacres, and other forms of mass violence....
"It consisted of a series of
genocidal strategies: the mass executions of elites, categorical deportations,
forced assimilation, destruction of material culture, and collective
dispossession....
"The expropriation and
plunder of deported Armenians' movable and immovable properties was an
essential component of the destruction process of Armenians."
"The newly-established
republican regime was based on the suffering of Armenians, their stolen
property, and their rights and possessions," wrote the journalist Alin
Ozinian. "The law on abandoned properties was an excuse to seize other
people's property, and Armenian assets in particular became the main basis of
the republican regime. The property of the murdered Armenians was Turkified, along with Greek and Jewish properties."
The Censorship of Cumhuriyet
Even after Armenian and other
Christian citizens of the Ottoman Empire were exterminated or forcibly
deported, the young Republic
of Turkey never showed
much tolerance toward differing political opinions.
The Republican People's Party
(CHP), which founded the Turkish republic in 1923 and ruled it until 1950
without free elections, closed down or censored several newspapers, magazines
and journals with different political inclinations. It also banned many foreign
newspapers and other publications. Many journalists were arrested and then
executed by "independence tribunals" -- an act which terrorized
dissident media representatives and authors in Anatolia.
During Ataturk's rule as Turkey's first
president from 1923 to 1938, at least 130 newspapers, magazines and books were
forbidden. During the rule of Prime Minister Adnan Menderes (1950-1960) of the
Democrat Party, 161 were banned.
Cumhuriyet was also subjected to
the censorship during the first government of Turkey.
Ayse Elif Emre Kaya, a scholar,
wrote a comprehensive article about the many other closures of Cumhuriyet:
"The newspaper was closed
down with the decision of the cabinet council, for reporting in contradiction
to the general policies of the state, for the first time on October 29, 1934
for 10 days, as the government was disturbed by the attitudes of Cumhuriyet at
a period when foreign policy became a sensitive issue. Due to the same reason,
the newspaper was closed down again in 1940 for three months. On July 12, 1941,
it was closed down for two days and in December of the same year, it was closed
down for one day, for reporting in contradiction to the foreign policy of the
state."
The newspaper was also exposed to
closures and censorship many other times, as well -- particularly after the
Turkish coup d'état of September 12, 1980.
"Cumhuriyet was closed down
for 41 days, four times, and was exposed to investigations 28 times, from the
first day of the coup to March 12, 1984."
Continued Denial of Historical
Truths
The Republic
of Turkey, founded in 1923, did not
provide all peoples in Anatolia with equal
rights. Between 1913 and 1923, it carried out the genocide against Armenians,
Anatolian Greeks and Assyrians, and seized their properties.
The Turkish regime has never
tolerated a free exchange of ideas or dissident opinions, and has often exerted
censorship on people and publications that dare to think differently.
Today, under the Islamic
government of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), Cumhuriyet is exposed to
pressures once again.
It is high time that the more
"secular" Turks -- the "dissidents" who claim to oppose the
oppression of the current Turkish government -- faced up to the history of
extreme oppression by the founding government of Turkey, which happens to be
the political party they still support, the CHP.
It seems that throughout Turkish
history, the Turks have not been able to take single step without committing
crimes against the non-Muslim citizens of their country.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All
rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or
any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior
written consent of Gatestone Institute.
The
Consequences of Inaction
Barry Shaw/Gatestone
Institute/November 07/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9189/consequences-of-inaction
The reality is that the actors who
are replacing a once powerful and influential America
are malevolently reshaping both the Middle East and Asia
in their own image.
"I announce my separation
from the United States...
I've realigned myself in your ideological flow, and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there
are three of us against the world -- China,
Philippines and Russia." —
Philippines President
Rodrigo Dutere, in a speech to China's
leaders in Beijing,
Oct. 20, 2016.
Statements that relations were
"steady and trusted" by US Assistant Secretary of State, David Russel
did nothing to hide the fact that America's
self-imposed impotence is being felt in Asia.
Action, including inaction, has
consequences. We have seen this in the failure of the US to respond
to:
Syria's effective genocide of its
own people;
Russia's
unhindered aggression in the Ukraine,
Crimea, Syria and in the oil-rich Arctic
circle;
China
building military islands in the South China Sea
in an apparent attempt to control international maritime routes
ISIS's
metastization into 18 countries in three years;
Iran,
now billions of dollars richer, stepping up its aggression into Yemen,
continuing work on its offensive military program, and holding new Americans
hostage for ransom;
North
Korea continuing to develop its nuclear weapons for both
itself and Iran;
Turkey now
threatening adventures in both and Syria
and Iraq, where it will
probably be thwarted respectively by Russia
and Iran.
Most recently, on October 9th,
12th and 15th, missiles were launched against US Navy ships off the coast of Yemen. They
were launched by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and were deliberately fired at
American warships.
These attacks followed one aimed
at the HSV Swift on October 1. The missiles were all identified by the US Naval
Institute as being Chinese-produced C-802 anti-ship missiles, sold to Iran, and now being fired at United States vessels by proxy fighters of Tehran.
Then, Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan responded to Iraqi demands that Turkey
withdraw its troops from northern Iraq
by telling Iraqi Prime Minister, Haider al-Abadi at the Eurasian Islamic
Council meeting in Istanbul:
"It's not important at all
how you shout from Iraq.
You should know that we will do what we want to do. First, know your place. The
army of the Republic
of Turkey had not lost
its standing so as to take orders from you!"
This is the direct consequence of
a deal done between the US State Department and Erdogan whereby the US is
allowed to use the Turkish airbase at Incirlik in return for Washington turning
a blind eye to Turkish actions against the Kurds. Turkey
has been allowed to trespass into Iraq
and Syria by the US
Administration, under the pretext of adding Istanbul
to an Obama coalition of nations fighting ISIS.
However, facts on the ground clearly show that Turkey has disproportionately been
targeting Kurds rather than Islamic State. Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish
fighters, who were fighting ISIS in northern Syria, on October 20.
Egypt
and Russia held a week-long
joint military exercise in Egypt
at the end of October. That followed renewed Russian supplies of military
equipment to Cairo after Obama's refusal to
restock the government of Egypt's
Abdel Fattah el-Sisi with US-made weapons and equipment. The US had apparently been upset when in 2013
el-Sisi overthrew the Morsi-led government, backed by the Muslim Brotherhood,
with whom the US
would apparently and incomprehensibly like to be allied.
Philippines
President Rodrigo Dutere announced his country's separation from the United States on October 20, by declaring that
he has realigned it with China
as the two nations agreed to resolved their South China Sea dispute. Dutere made his remarks in Beijing on an official visit to which he brought two hundred
business people, saying in his address to China's
leadership: "I announce my separation from the United States... I've realigned
myself in your ideological flow, and maybe I will also go to Russia to talk to Putin and tell him that there
are three of us against the world -- China,
Philippines and Russia."
Statements that relations were
"steady and trusted" by US Assistant Secretary of State David Russel
did nothing to hide the fact that America's
impotence is being felt in Asia.
Back to Iran, where a top admiral, Ali Fadavi, said that
the US lacks the power to
confront Iran
militarily. He backed that up by having four Iranian naval speedboats
harass US naval ships in the Persian Gulf.
Alon Ben David, chief military
correspondent for Israeli TV Channel 10 News, wrote that American foreign
policy is turning Iran into
a world power by allowing it free range to act in Syria
and Yemen, and even having
the Obama Administration allow Iran
to supply and support a Shi'ite militia taking part in the battle for Mosul.
The acts of global aggression are
all the result of an American policy to do little or nothing to stop other
actors from strutting the global stage in a dangerous
and shifting world.
Many countries evidently believe
that America's role in recent years has been one of damaging everything it
touches -- or does not touch -- leaving them nervously sitting on the
sidelines, criticizing what they perceive as the mistakes of others. The
reality is that the actors who are replacing a once powerful and influential America are malevolently reshaping both the
Middle East and Asia in their own image.
The result has not been a more
peaceful world but one in which the vacuum left by America vacating
strategically important areas is rapidly being filled by troublesome
power-players that leave countries once dependent on US protection feeling
increasingly vulnerable.
The consequences of inaction can
only soon be damaging to US
interests at home as well as abroad.
*Barry Shaw is a Senior Associate
for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All
rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or
any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior
written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Inside
Germany's
No-Go Zones: Part I - North Rhine-Westphalia
Soeren Kern/Gatestone
Institute/November 07/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9279/germany-no-go-zones-nrw
"In Berlin
or in the north of Duisburg
there are neighborhoods where colleagues hardly dare to stop a car -- because
they know that they'll be surrounded by 40 or 50 men." These attacks
amount to a "deliberate challenge to the authority of the state -- attacks
in which the perpetrators are expressing their contempt for our society."
— Rainer Wendt, President of the German Police Union.
"Once
Duisburg-Marxloh was a popular shopping and residential area. Now clans
claim the streets for themselves. The police are powerless. The descent of the
district is nightmarish." — N24 Television.
Police say they are alarmed by the
brutality and aggression of the clans, who are said to view crime as leisure
activity. If police dare to intervene, hundreds of clan members are mobilized
to confront the police.
A 17-page report prepared for the NRW State
Parliament revealed how Lebanese clans in Duisburg
divide up certain neighborhoods in order to pursue their criminal activities,
such as robbery, drug dealing and extortion.
"Further data collection is
not legally permissible. Both internally and externally, any classification
that could be used to depreciate human beings must be avoided. In this respect,
the use of the term 'family clan' is forbidden from the police point of
view." — Ralf Jäger, Interior Minister, North
Rhine-Westphalia.
Two police officers stopped a
driver who ran a red light. The driver got out of the car and ran away. When
police caught up with him, they were confronted by more than 50 migrants. A
15-year-old attacked a policeman from behind and began strangling him,
rendering him unconscious.
Mass, unvetted immigration from
Africa, Asia and the Middle East is turning parts of Germany into no-go zones —
lawless areas where the state has effectively lost control and where native
Germans, including the police, increasingly fear to come.
German authorities steadfastly
deny the existence of such areas, but confidential police reports, testimonies
from police on the ground and anecdotal evidence from local citizens all
confirm that parts of major German cities have descended into pockets of
lawlessness where criminal migrants have usurped control of the streets from
German police.
Observers say the problems are
being exacerbated by the German government, which has relocated hundreds of
thousands of asylum seekers and refugees into these areas.
The newspaper, Bild, and the
newsmagazine, Focus, among others, have identified (here, here and here) more
than 40 "problem areas" (Problemviertel) across Germany. These
are areas where large concentrations of migrants, high levels of unemployment
and chronic welfare dependency, combined with urban decay, have become
incubators for anarchy.
In an article entitled
"Ghetto Report Germany,"
Bild describes these areas as "burgeoning ghettos, parallel societies and
no-go areas." They include: Berlin-Neukölln,
Bremerhaven-Lehe/Bremen-Huchting, Cologne-Chorweiler, Dortmund-Nordstadt,
Duisburg-Marxloh, Essen-Altenessen, Hamburg-Eidelstedt,
Kaiserslautern-Asternweg, Mannheim-Neckarstadt West and Pforzheim-Oststadt.
The problem of no-go zones is
especially acute in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany's most populous state.
According to the Rheinische Post, NRW problem areas include:
Aachen, Bielefeld, Bochum, Bonn,
Bottrop, Dorsten, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Euskirchen, Gelsenkirchen-Süd,
Gladbeck, Hagen, Hamm, Heinsberg, Herne, Iserlohn, Kleve, Cologne, Lippe,
Lüdenscheid, Marl, Mettmann, Minden, Mönchengladbach, Münster, Neuss,
Oberhausen, Recklinghausen, Remscheid, Rhein-Erft-Kreis, Rhein-Sieg-Kreis,
Solingen, Unna, Witten and Wuppertal.
In Duisburg,
spiraling levels of violent crime perpetrated by migrants from the Middle East and the Balkans have turned parts of the city
into de facto "no-go zones" for police, according to a confidential
police report that was leaked to Der Spiegel.
The report, produced by NRW police
headquarters, warns that the government is losing control over problem neighborhoods
and that the ability of police to maintain public order "cannot be
guaranteed over the long term."
Duisburg,
which has a total population of around 500,000, is home to an estimated 60,000
mostly Turkish Muslims, making it one of the most Islamized cities in Germany. In
recent years, however, thousands of Bulgarians and Romanians (including Sinti
and Roma "gypsies") have flocked to Duisburg, creating a volatile ethno-religious
cauldron.
According to Der Spiegel:
"There are districts where
immigrant gangs are taking over entire streets for themselves. Native residents
and business people are being intimidated and silenced. People taking trams
during the evening and nighttime describe their experiences as 'living
nightmares.' Policemen, and especially policewomen, are subject to 'high levels
of aggression and disrespect.'
"In the medium term, nothing
will change. The reasons for this: the high rate of unemployment, the lack of
job prospects for immigrants without qualifications for the German labor market
and ethnic tensions among migrants....
"Experts have warned for some
time that problem neighborhoods could become no-go areas. The president of the
German Police Union, Rainer Wendt, told Spiegel Online years ago: 'In Berlin or
in the north of Duisburg there are neighborhoods where colleagues hardly dare
to stop a car — because they know that they'll be surrounded by 40 or 50 men.'
These attacks amount to a 'deliberate challenge to the authority of the state —
attacks in which the perpetrators are expressing their contempt for our
society.'"
Duisburg's
Marxloh district, one of the most problematic in Germany,
has been described as "a memorial to Germany's failed integration
policy." More than half of the district's 20,000 inhabitants are migrants.
They come from than 90 different countries. More than half the residents in
Marxloh live on welfare.
In a story entitled,
"Duisburg-Marxloh: How a German Neighborhood Became a No-Go Zone,"
N24 Television described the decline of the area:
"Once
Duisburg-Marxloh was a popular shopping and residential area. Now clans
claim the streets for themselves. The police are powerless. The descent of the
district is nightmarish.
"Police will enter some parts
of Marxloh only with reinforcements. Several patrol cars are needed to respond
even to commonplace rear-end collisions. Too often, they are surrounded by an
aggressive mob, spat upon and threatened. Last year, police were deployed to
Marxloh more than 600 times with four or more patrol cars. This summer, the
neighborhood descended even deeper into a spiral of violence. Family clans
claim streets for themselves. Citizens hardly dare to go outside at night. In
the smallest matter, violence is kindled."
A leaked police report revealed
that Marxloh's streets are effectively controlled by Lebanese clans which do
not recognize the authority of German police. They have taken over entire
streets to carry out illegal business activity. New migrants from Bulgaria and Romania are adding to the problems.
According to Die Welt, Marxloh's streets serve as invisible boundaries between
ethnic groups. Residents speak of "the Kurdish road" or "the
Romanian road."
Police say they are alarmed by the
brutality and aggression of the clans, who are said to view crime as leisure
activity. If police dare to intervene, hundreds of clan members are mobilized
to confront the police. A local woman interviewed by Deutschlandfunk radio said
she was afraid for her safety: "After dark I would not stand here because
there are a lot of conflicts between foreigners, especially between Lebanese
and Turks."
The Rheinische Post recently
published a photo series entitled, "On the streets of Marxloh by
night." A photo caption reads: "Normal
citizens cannot be seen on the streets at night. Marxloh seems to have died out."
Another caption: "At night, Romanian residents dance on the streets, the
sound system in the car supplies loud music."
A 17-page report prepared for the
NRW State Parliament revealed how Lebanese clans in Duisburg divide up certain neighborhoods in order
to pursue their criminal activities, such as robbery, drug dealing and
extortion. These groups do not recognize the authority of the police. Their
members are males between the ages of 15 and 25 and "nearly 100%" of
them are known to police. The prevailing offenses are physical assault, theft
and robbery.
The report described the situation
in Duisburg's
Laar district, where two large Lebanese families call the shots. "The
streets are actually regarded as a separate territory. Outsiders are physically
assaulted, robbed and harassed. Experience shows that the Lebanese clans
"can mobilize several hundred people in a very short period of time by
means of a telephone call."
Peter Biesenbach of the opposition
Christian Democrats (CDU) said: "If this is not a no-go area, then I do
not know what is." He has called for an official study to determine the
true scope of the criminal clans in NRW.
NRW Interior Minister Ralf Jäger
of the Social Democrats (SPD) rejected that request because such a study would
be politically incorrect:
"Further data collection is
not legally permissible. Both internally and externally, any classification
that could be used to depreciate human beings must be avoided. In this respect,
the use of the term 'family clan' is forbidden from the police point of
view."
In nearby Gelsenkirchen, Kurdish and Lebanese clans are
vying for control of city streets, some of which have become lawless zones that
are increasingly off limits to German authorities. In one incident, police were
patrolling an area in the southern part of the city when they were suddenly
surrounded and physically assaulted by more than 60 clan members.
In another incident, two police
officers stopped a driver who ran a red light. The driver got out of the car
and ran away. When police caught up with him, they were confronted by more than
50 migrants. A 15-year-old attacked a policeman from behind and began
strangling him, rendering him unconscious. Massive amounts of police
reinforcements and pepper spray were needed to restore order.
In a statement, Gelsenkirchen
police warned: "Unfortunately, police officers and other emergency
responders have increasingly been subject to hostility, insults and even
violent attacks in Gelsenkirchen."
Senior members of the Gelsenkirchen police recently
held a secret meeting with representatives of three Arab clans in an effort to
"cultivate social peace between Germans and Lebanese." According to a
police report about the meeting that was leaked to the local media, the clans
informed Police Chief Ralf Feldmann that "the police cannot win a war with
the Lebanese because we outnumber them." The clan members added:
"This applies to all of Gelsenkirchen,
if we so choose."
When Feldman countered that he
would dispatch police reinforcements to disrupt their illegal activities, the
clan members laughed in his face and said that "the government does not
have enough money to deploy the numbers of police necessary to confront the
Lebanese." According to the police report, German authorities should not
harbor any illusions about the actual balance of power: "The police would
be defeated."
Local politician Gregor Golland
has called for the police to be better equipped to contend with this
development: "As criminal parallel societies gain the upper hand, our
police need to be better equipped — on a permanent basis."
Another leaked police report
revealed that the clans are the "executive body of an existing parallel
legal system to self-adjudicate matters between large Kurdish and Lebanese
families in the western Ruhr area." These
clans "despise the police and German courts" and "settle their
matters on their own terms."
The Frankfurter Neue Presse, in an
article entitled, "Neighborhoods in NRW: No-Go Areas and Parallel
Societies," reports that Kurdish, Lebanese and Romanian clans have divided
up the Gelsenkirchen districts of Bismarck, Rotthausen and Ückendorf, and
around the central station. In these areas, the clans "claim individual
streets for themselves." These are municipalities with a very high proportion
of foreigners and migrants. Because of the exorbitant youth unemployment, these
areas are pits of hopelessness and dread which the native German population has
long since abandoned.
In an interview with Focus, Arnold
Plickert, the head of the police union in North Rhine-Westphalia, warned of the
emergence of no-go zones in Cologne, Dortmund, Duisburg and Essen. "Several
rival rocker groups as well as Lebanese, Turkish, Romanian and Bulgarian clans
are fighting for supremacy of the streets," he said. "They make their
own rules; here the police have nothing more to say."
Speaking to Deutschlandradio
Kultur, Plickert added: "Even with the smallest traffic accidents or ID
checks, police are quickly surrounded by large groups of young men with a
migration background. Bodily contact, insults and physical assaults are
commonplace."
On October 6, more than 400
residents of the Altenessen district in Essen
met local politicians in a televised "town hall meeting" to discuss
spiraling violence and crime in the area. Residents complained that police
often refuse to respond to calls for help and begged city officials to restore
order. One resident said: "I was born here and I do not feel safe
anymore."
City officials flatly rejected the
complaints. Mayor Thomas Kufen said: "Altenessen is not a no-go area, the
people here are just angry." Police Chief Frank Richter added: "I am
sick and tired of hearing about no-go zones in Essen." He insisted that Essen und Altenessen are
perfectly safe.
In an interview with Der Westen,
Osnabrück Police Commissioner Bernhard Witthaut was asked: "Are there
urban areas — for example in the Ruhr —
districts and housing blocks that are 'no-go areas,' meaning that they can no
longer be secured by the police?" He replied:
"Every police commissioner
and interior minister will deny it. But of course we know where we can go with
the police car and where, even initially, only with the personnel carrier. The
reason is that our colleagues can no longer feel safe there in twos, and have
to fear becoming the victim of a crime themselves. We know that these areas
exist. Even worse: in these areas, crimes no longer result in charges. They are
left to themselves. Only in the worst cases do we in the police learn anything
about it. The power of the state is completely out of the picture."
**Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow
at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for
European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos /
Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.
© 2016 Gatestone Institute. All
rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views
of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or
any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior
written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Are
Palestinians #Ready4Peace?
by Nir
Boms and Asaf Romirowsky/The Washington
Examiner/November 07/16
http://www.meforum.org/6347/are-palestinians-ready-for-peace
Originally
published under the title "Are Palestinians Ready for #Peace?"
Information may be "the
oxygen of the modern age," as Ronald Reagan famously said, but information
technology is a mixed bag. Among other things, it has fueled the rise of global
jihadism as we know it today.
It enabled a nest of tunnel-based
terrorists in Afghanistan
to coordinate the most deadly non-state terrorist attack in history 15 years
ago. More recently, it has populated a new Islamic "caliphate" in Syria and Iraq with volunteers from around
the world.
But there is a silver lining to
the widespread use and abuse of social media in the Middle
East: It can tell us a great deal about the individuals sitting
behind the electronic screens.
Take Hashtag Palestine, the title
of an insightful report by Hamleh, the Arab Center
for Social Media Advancement. The Ramallah based-nongovernmental organization
is dedicated to training individuals and community-based groups to engage in
grassroots social media activism. Its recent report on Palestinian social media
activity in 2015, a year that launched what is now called the Knife Intifada,
is revealing.
Nearly two-thirds of Palestinians
have computer access and half use a smartphone.
Palestinians, like others in the
world, have become active internet users. Nearly two-thirds report having a
computer and half use a smartphone. Young people form the majority of users.
With this level of penetration, the Internet is already playing a significant
social role in their lives.
What has been trending in Palestine? The report
analyses 18 campaigns that tell us something about the Palestinian mood.
The most popular recorded campaign
was "#it_will_not_be_divided," centered on thwarting imagined secret
Israeli plans to divide or even destroy al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, a popular theme of Islamist
leaders who incite violence. Ironically, Israel
and Jordan, which are
custodians of Temple
Mount, recently reached a
new understanding on how to better handle the management of the holy site.
Other hashtags advocate violence
more explicitly, such as #the_intifada_continues, #Palestine_resists and
#the_intifada_of_knives. The #returning_the_martyrs_bodies campaign was
launched by Mohammad Alian, the father of Baha'a Alian, who orchestrated an
attack on an Israeli bus in Jerusalem
last October that killed three.
The #we_are_not_afraid campaign
was launched after 18-year-old Muhannad al-Halabi stabbed to death two Israeli
Jews and critically wounded a woman and a baby next to the Damascus Gate in the
Old City of Jerusalem. As a wave of Palestinian stabbings followed that event,
the campaign called on Palestinians to re-occupy the gate while
"commemorating the martyrs of the popular uprising."
The dominant Palestinian social media
voices are still centered on 'resistance' and 'martyrs.'
A few campaigns mentioned in the
report showed encouraging signs of a different, more introspective discourse.
For example, "Enough with Women's Killings" was launched with the aim
of decreasing the worrying phenomenon of honor killing in Palestinian society.
"The Check Initiative" is a Facebook page offering a critical look at
news and social media, which too often exaggerate and manipulate.
Yet, the report concludes that the
dominant voices were still centered on "resistance," which is to say,
celebration of the "martyrs" of the Knife Intifada. The lack of
campaigns centered on individual rights, freedom, building a better tomorrow
and other non-violent aspirations is telling. That spirit, unfortunately, is as
absent from the Palestinian Internet as it is from the reality on the ground.
Information might indeed be the
oxygen of the modern age, but the surrounding air in Palestine is deeply polluted. A young society with a median age of 19, Palestinians are
being socialized to sanctify struggle over life and liberty by the same
technology that has freed societies elsewhere from reactionary shackles. Until that changes, their future will be grim.
**Nir Boms is a research fellow at
the Moshe Dayan
Center for Middle
East and African Studies. Asaf Romirowsky is the executive
director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East
and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
What if we all got to
choose the president of America?
Peter Harrison/Al Arabiya/November 07/16
When the Americans go to polling stations on Tuesday they
won’t just be electing a new president – they’ll be choosing the most powerful
person in the world. Whoever wins will make decisions that will impact everyone
– not just US nationals – the outcome of Tuesday’s election is indeed of global
interest and concern. But for non-Americans it’s a case of watching and hoping
that the US makes the “right” decision (whatever that might be), and holding
their breath in anticipation of the possibly earth-shaking economic and
geo-political decisions being made by a person only one nation gets to select.
Let’s not underestimate the influence that America has on virtually all our
lives, the choices we make and the products and cultures we consume. Anyone
living in a country where the local currency is pegged to the dollar will see
the value of their income go up or down depending on how the US is doing. America is
everywhere – when we turn on our TVs, the likelihood is we’ll watch something
made there. Buying a soft drink or going for a meal in a fast food restaurant?
They’re all either American or heavily influenced by it.
Foreign policy matters
On foreign policy, it is well documented that Clinton and Trump have very different views on how to
handle America’s
stance. Trump clearly seems to have relations with Russia,
while Clinton
seems to take a more traditional American view on Putin. And with relations at
a new low between the two superpowers, the new president’s stance is key to what direction international relations are taken. Who
knows, may be Trump’s approach to Putin will be the one that puts a halt to the
current Cold War situation spiraling out of control. No other country seems to
hold the same sway as the US
does on how other countries behave, whether it’s those closely allied or others
who seem on a threshold between peace and conflict. Clinton
has voiced support for a no-fly-zone being imposed over Syria. But
former senior military pilots have argued this could spark a Russian-US
conflict if an aggressive Russian military lashed out at US air patrols.
Trump has argued for “safe zone” to be created in Syria, where refugees can ride out
the war, but he has not suggested where it would be or how it would be created
or enforced. For non-Americans it’s a case of watching and hoping that the US makes the
‘right’ decision, whatever that might be. (AP)
No other country seems to hold the same sway as the US does on how
other countries behave, whether it’s those closely allied or others who seem on
a threshold between peace and conflict. And yet given the impact this vast
power has on the world - none of us non-Americans have a say. America is seen
by many as being a very inward looking country, with many of its population
never leaving its lands. Yet these people get to choose the leader who will
make the decisions that impact the world.
Arab world
As I write this, current polls place Clinton and Trump almost too close to call
following further email scandals concerning the Democrat candidate. But in a
recent article by the British daily The Independent - an international vote
would tell a very different story – placing Clinton firmly in the White House with a
landslide victory. A YouGov poll revealed Thursday that nearly half the
population of the Middle East and North Africa
would abstain if they were given a vote in the election. That said Clinton was still a clear
favorite in this poll with the Arab world. So theoretically given all these
factors – and many more – one might be drawn to ask if there were some kind of
wider representation, maybe even global, whether we would be looking at a
different situation.
There are still many who believe that if Al Gore had beaten
George W Bush in the 2000 election, that the invasion of Iraq would not have
happened – who knows how that would have changed the situation we now find
ourselves in. And if the world had its say from the outset, maybe we would be
looking at a very different situation altogether – may be Bernie Sanders would
have prevailed as the Democratic candidate. I wonder though if given the same
choice of Republican candidates if the world would have chosen differently. But
if there were to be a wider ranging poll – how would it be done? In this
entirely make believe situation one can only assume social media would play
some role. The question I leave you with, as we wait in this uncertain time, is
if we were all given the opportunity to have our say in this process – would
the world still be such an unsteady and unpredictable place?
Everyone agrees with
fighting ISIS, but then what?
Mshari Al Thaydi/Al Arabiya/November 07/16
Battles suddenly erupted and military alliances were
established to fight ISIS and annihilate its caliphate in the Iraqi city of Mosul and recently in Syria’s Raqqah. That’s good but
it’s difficult to rule out the electoral propaganda aims of the Obama
administration as it wants to achieve a “quick” and “symbolic” victory to imply
to American voters that it brought them ISIS caliph Baghdadi’s head, like it
did in that cinematic scene when it killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of
Al-Qaeda. The American administration is proceeding at a faster pace during the
last phase of Obama’s term in order to make quick political and military gains.
Part of speeding up UN pressure in Yemen to make the different parties
accept Ismail Ould Cheikh’s plan comes within this context. However what’s more
important than these concerns is that there is a “serious” military battle
being fought against ISIS in Iraq and Syria for the first time with American
support and via air force support, planning, recruiting and intelligence
information. Iraqi troops and Kurdish Peshmerga forces are efficiently
participating in this battle on ground but their participation has been
“contaminated” by the terrorist Popular Mobilization forces’ participation
which is happening amid American carelessness and Iraqi governmental cover.
Turkey
out, Iran
in
Turkey
has been kept out of Mosul’s battle, leaving the
situation to Iran.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi warned the Turkish army of intervening but
said Iranian intervention was “halal” (permitted) because it’s carried out
following the request of the “independent” government in Baghdad. Perhaps, the Turks will pay the
price for their delay to take to the Syrian field, either against ISIS or others. The scenario is now repeating in Syria’s Raqqah.
This can be seen through US Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter’s statement that
the battle there is near. Meanwhile the People’s Protection Units, which is
made up of Kurdish militias and some Arabs, announced that they’ve begun the
battle. According to the militias’ spokesperson Talal Selo, participating in
this battle is “exclusive” to the People’s Protection Units. He frankly stated
that Turkey has been
excluded from participating, adding that the US agreed to that. However, Carter
said in a strange statement: “We will consult with the Turks later”. Raqqah’s
operation has been named Wrath of the Euphrates, which is perhaps in response
to the name Operation Euphrates Shield which the Turks gave to their operations
in north of Syria and west
of the Euphrates. In addition to fighting
ISIS, Turkey’s aim was to
prevent the establishment of a Kurdish entity led by Salih Muslim’s militias
which Turkey only sees as a
Syrian version of the Kurdistan workers’
party.
Excited about fighting ISIS
It’s not only the US which is excited about the
Raqqah battle. France, Britain, and of course Turkey are also enthusiastic about it, as
everyone agrees with fighting ISIS and
defeating it. However the dispute is over who manages the battles and who
manages the situation after the battle’s end. In other words, the war against
ISIS, which is a necessary and legitimate war that everyone agrees on, has
become an excuse for some parties, either on the sectarian or nationalistic
level, to achieve political and field gains.
These gains, whether achieved by the Popular Mobilization
forces in Iraq or by the
militias of People’s Protection Units, are made at Turkey’s expense, and this is
clear.
Perhaps, the Turks will pay the price for their delay to
take to the Syrian field, either against ISIS
or others. It’s difficult for he who arrives late to the party to find a chair
to sit. This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on Nov. 07, 2016.
Letter from America, which
will never be the same again
Samar Fatany/Al
Arabiya/November 07/16
If you are in the USA these days you do not have to
go to a movie or watch a comedy show for entertainment. The elections coverage
on television will provide you with excitement, humor and drama. Both
presidential candidates, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, are providing
R-rated entertainment by exchanging scandalous allegations against each other.
Demeaning language and degrading conduct toward women by Trump is upsetting
many American women and could be an influence in tilting them toward Clinton on Election Day.
They are also worried about the manner in which Trump is “playing the man
card.” Clinton
supporters bank on the cultural change that has taken place over the last
decade which has resulted in women being more welcome in the fields of
business, industry and politics. Women lean toward Clinton because she focuses on family and
child care. She addresses issues, such as equal pay and parental leave. They
will vote for her because she is experienced in world affairs and because they
believe that she will work to keep America safe. On the other hand,
Trump “adheres to a traditional perception of masculinity.” Even though the
revelations of his lewd comments about women were grotesque and shocking and
made even some top Republicans distance themselves
from the campaign, and despite his racist language toward minorities,
especially Muslims and Mexicans, many of his followers have not been dissuaded
and remain ardent supporters. In their desperation, many disgruntled Americans
have put their faith in a man who epitomizes everything they hate about the
system. They are convinced that his defiance will put America back on
track. To them, he is the successful CEO who would provide better business
opportunities and employment for the average American citizen who has suffered
from the control of the rich and the mighty. In their desperation, many
disgruntled Americans have put their faith in a man who epitomizes everything
they hate about the system.
No monolithic groups
Those who like or dislike Clinton and Trump can be found in all parts
of the political spectrum and there are no monolithic groups supporting either
of them. Ultimately, many Americans remain indecisive because they feel that both
candidates are terrible. Clinton
because of her e-mail scandals is considered “crooked” and Trump because of his
divisive language is thought to be “dangerous.”Whatever the outcome on Tuesday,
America
will never be the same again. On a global level it will be a choice of war or
peace.
**This article was first published in the Saudi Gazette on
Nov. 05, 2016.
Nations united in
condemning Israeli settlements
Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/November 07/16
For twenty-four hours last month the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and two issues at its heart, Jerusalem
and the Israeli settlements, were again debated in the UN’s Security Council
and UNESCO. Neither of these debates was expected to bring about an immediate
change or breathe new life into the defunct peace process. However, it was a
clear sign to those who favor the so called status quo that the international
community will not let the issue drift off the public radar, even if it’s not
ready to take decisive measures at this point. In the Security Council the very
title of the debate – Illegal Israeli Settlements: Obstacles to Peace and the
Two-State Solution – left very little to the imagination in terms of what the
member states believe is the main cause of the current impasse. More
controversial was the resolution adopted by the UN’s world heritage
organization UNESCO, which went beyond severely reprimanding Israeli unilateral
actions around the Temple Mount compound in Jerusalem’s
Old City, when it also unnecessarily and
counterproductively seemed to question the historic ties of the Jewish people
to the place.
Israel’s
response to this very public criticism was a routine accusation directed at UN
bodies of being inherently anti-Israeli, ready to exploit every opportunity to
undermine the Jewish state. Worse, the Israeli government was outraged by the
invitation of representatives from the Israeli human rights organisation
B’tselem and the US branch
of Peace Now to speak in the Security Council in New York. Prime Minister Netanyahu and his
ministers could not decide who the greater villains in this show were – the
Security Council that invited them, or the two rather brave, though
controversial, peace activists who accepted the invitation. In truth the
Israeli government can only blame itself and its settlement policy that it has
come to this. By ignoring an almost international consensus
that the continuing occupation of the West Bank
and the expansion of settlements render a peace agreement based on a two-state
solution hypothetical and unviable. Netanyahu and his ministers could
not decide who the greater villains in this show were, the Security Council
that invited them, or the two rather brave, though controversial, peace
activists who accepted the invitation
The veto power
A quick glance at the members of the Security Council
reveals a list far from being instinctively anti-Israeli. The US for one, has
been using its veto power in the Security Council on more than one occasion to
prevent binding resolutions condemning Israeli settlements. This policy remained
intact despite a clash of personalities between President Obama and the
Netanyahu government. However, on the occasion of this debate the American
representative David Pressman expressed Washington’s
deep opposition to the Israeli settlement project and reiterated that for the US these
settlements “…are corrosive to peace,” leading to “a one state reality on the
ground.” This should be an eye opener for the Israelis as it is an observation
from the country’s closest of allies and friends.
Additionally, Putin’s Russia,
whom Netanyahu feels politically quite close to, was not far behind in its
criticism of the Israeli settlements as a barrier to peace. Their envoy to the UN, condemned the illegality of the settlements and the
demolition of Palestinian houses – one of the symbols of the harshness of the
occupation. Since 2006 Israel
has demolished 1,113 Palestinian homes, leaving thousands of people homeless.
It is not surprising therefore, that not a single member of the Security
Council finds mitigating circumstances, let alone justification for Israeli
settlement activity. For Israelis the appearance of the director of B’tselem,
Hagai El-Ad in front of the Security Council probably caused more controversy
and uproar than the discussion of the settlement issue itself. It became more
about the right of an Israeli to ‘wash the dirty laundry’ in public away from
home, than the content of his speech. The calls to harm him physically and
punish his organization reflect more on the state of Israeli society and democracy,
than on the quality of the work of the organization.
‘Injustice of occupation’
The more accomplished a human rights organization is, the
more enemies (and friends as well), it will collect along the way. His call for
the international community to take a proactive role to bring to an end the
Israeli “injustice known as the occupation of Palestine
and Israeli control of Palestinian lives in Gaza,
the West Bank and East Jerusalem…” was bound to upset and divide opinion in Israel.
Nevertheless, considering his surgically precise analysis of the routine
oppressive nature of the situation, who in their right state of mind can
justify the current situation morally or legally, or think it is sustainable?
The never ending occupation has an obvious destructive impact on Palestinian
society, and also swiftly erodes the moral and political fabric of Israel, though
in a different way. Warning against it, as Mr. El-Ad did,
cannot and should not be seen as unpatriotic, but as an act of public bravery,
which serves the long term security and wellbeing of Israelis, Palestinians and
the rest of the international community. A further question that the
Israeli government should ask itself, is how is it that Israel has turned from
being one of the most popular and celebrated countries in the world in 1967, to
one that is constantly criticized for its actions –this despite unimaginable
achievements in so many fields. I would not like to suggest that everything
that Israeli is blamed for in international fora is always correct because it
is not.
UNESCO’s defense of Palestinian and Muslim rights in the
holy places might have been better served by also acknowledging the inseparable
historic ties of the Jewish people. Yet, sympathy towards Israel and its
policies will continue to be a dwindling commodity as long as the settlements
continue to expand, the rights of Palestinians are violated and they endure
daily misery. This is exacerbated by Netanyahu’s government lack of genuine
intention to reach a peace agreement.