LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN

September 19/16

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For Today
Among Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them
Whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all.

Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 10/35-45./:"James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to Jesus and said to him, ‘Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you.’
And he said to them, ‘What is it you want me to do for you?’And they said to him, ‘Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.’But Jesus said to them, ‘You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?’They replied, ‘We are able.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized; but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.’When the ten heard this, they began to be angry with James and John. So Jesus called them and said to them, ‘You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.’

It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops
Second Letter to Timothy 02/01-10/:"Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus; and what you have heard from me through many witnesses entrust to faithful people who will be able to teach others as well. Share in suffering like a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No one serving in the army gets entangled in everyday affairs; the soldier’s aim is to please the enlisting officer. And in the case of an athlete, no one is crowned without competing according to the rules. It is the farmer who does the work who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in all things. Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, a descendant of David that is my gospel, for which I suffer hardship, even to the point of being chained like a criminal. But the word of God is not chained. Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, so that they may also obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus, with eternal glory."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 18-19/16

Is Lebanon heading towards a constituent assembly?/Mohamed Kawas/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16
Speculation in Lebanon about Hariri retiring from /Shadi Alaa al-Din/The Arab Weekly/Septemb
What do Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have in common/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16
ELAPH interviews Phares about his visit to Egypt/Elaph/September 19/16
Lebanon's Hatred of Israel, A Symptom of Dysfunction/Fred Maroun/Gatestone Institute/September 18/16
Iran seeks to complete the crescent/Eyad Abu Shakra/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
Iranians against Khamenei’s mistakes/Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
UN refugee summit: Time for action, not words/Aurelie Ponthieu/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
It is about more than Saudizing jobs in mobile outlets/Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
Scorched earth and scorched souls/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
The "Great Turkish Purge": Guilty Without Trial/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/September 18/16
Iran seen provoking tensions with US at sea/Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published on on September 18-19/16
Qassem Urges Mustaqbal to 'End Hesitation', Says Hizbullah Ready to Vote for Aoun
Mufti to Jumblat at Mukhtara Mosque Opening: Your Safety is Part of Country's Safety
Berri Says Hizbullah, AMAL Will Attend Cabinet Sessions
Report: Huge U.S. Spy Aircraft Flies Off Lebanon for Third Time
Raad: We Would've Acted Differently Had We Sensed a Threat from Other Camp
Qahwaji's Term May be Extended before September 24
Akkar Woman Dies of Wounds Sustained in Ksara Blast
Abou Faour: Protests Can't Elect a President, Hizbullah Exerting Major Efforts
Zahra Urges 'Advocates of Sovereignty Project' Not to 'Offer More Concessions'
Hajj Hassan Urges 'Some Parties' Not to 'Aggravate Crisis', Mustaqbal Not to 'Turn Its Back'
Khalil: Some Leaders Trying to Drag Lebanese into Strife
Future weighing Aoun endorsement: LF official
Is Lebanon heading towards a constituent assembly?
Speculation in Lebanon about Hariri retiring from politics
What do Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have in common?
ELAPH interviews Phares about his visit to Egypt
Lebanon's Hatred of Israel, A Symptom of Dysfunction

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on September 18-19/16

8 Injured in Minnesota Mall Stabbing in Attack by 'IS Soldier'
NY Blast Injures 29, Governor Says No Link to Global Terror
Syria Truce Teeters on Brink after U.S.-Led Raid Kills Regime Troops
U.S.-Led Raid 'Intentional' but Syria Committed to Truce, Says Assad Adviser
First Air Strikes on Syria's Aleppo since Truce
Obama, Netanyahu to Meet in New York
Israel PM Defends U.S. Aid Package in Face of Criticism
Israel Arrests Arab Party Officials in Funding Probe
Egyptian Researcher Ahmad Abdou Maher Criticizes Ancient Islamic Jurisprudence: 'Idiocy And Insanity'
Mike Freer MP: We must not turn a blind eye to Iran’s executions and abuses/National Council of Resistance of Iran/Sunday, 18 September 2016
Two Saudi Policemen Shot Dead in Mainly Shiite City
Merkel Braces for Populist Gains in Berlin Elections
India Blames Pakistan Militants for Kashmir Attack that Killed 17
Libyan Loyalist Bid to Retake Oil Ports Fails
Al-Sisi, Trump to meet for first time in New York visit

Links From Jihad Watch Site for on September 18-19/16
Canada: Machete attack on cop in Calgary mall, shots fired in Grand Prairie mall
Arabic note found with NYC bomb, witnesses saw Arab with suitcase just before blast
Islamic State says Minnesota mall stabber was a “soldier of the Islamic State”
CAIR worries about “backlash” after Minnesota mall jihad, governor calls for “religious tolerance”
Minnesota mall jihad stabber’s favorite book was…the Qur’an
NY governor contradicts NY mayor, says Chelsea blast was terrorism, but says no evidence of international terrorism
Muslims celebrate NYC bomb: “The lions of the Caliphate roar in New York, we cause you pain inside your house”
New Jersey: Military race canceled after pipe bomb explodes and other bombs found
NYC: Pressure cooker bomb resembling one used in Boston Marathon jihad massacre found 4 blocks from IED explosion
NYC: IED explosion wounds 29, Muslims cheer on Twitter, de Blasio says “intentional,” but not “terrorism”
Minnesota: Muslim stabs 8 in mall, made references to Allah and asked potential victims if they were Muslim
Video: Hillary’s Islamization of America — a Mark Christian Moment
France: Muslim migrants gang-rape woman near Eiffel Tower
Israel: Four jihad terror attacks within hours leave five Israelis injured

Links From Christian Today Site for on September 18-19/16
At least 29 injured in 'intentional' New York City explosion

Manhattan bomb explosion today at 23rd Street and Sixth Avenue in Chelsea; 29 injured

Suicide bomber kills at least 25 in Pakistani mosque

What 'turn the other cheek' means (and doesn't) in an age of terrorism
Emergency UN meeting after US-led forces strike Syrian troops
Al Shabaab attacks Somali town near Kenyan border, kill seven troops
'Kung Fu' nuns bike Himalayas to oppose human trafficking
Revelation 4: A warning to the compromising church
The Christian obsession with celebrity has got to stop

Latest Lebanese Related News published on on September 17-18/16

Qassem Urges Mustaqbal to 'End Hesitation', Says Hizbullah Ready to Vote for Aoun
Naharnet/September 18/16/Hizbullah deputy chief Sheikh Naim Qassem on Sunday called on al-Mustaqbal Movement to “end its hesitation” and agree to back Free Patriotic Movement founder MP Michel Aoun's presidential bid, noting that Hizbullah's MPs would immediately end their boycott of the electoral sessions in order to vote for Aoun. “The days have proved that there is a specific path for the presidency. Those who want to elect a president have only one route to take and it leads to General Michel Aoun,” Qassem said. “The global and regional powers, the Security Council and the Arab League will not be able to alter this course. They have been trying for two years to no avail,” Hizbullah number two added. He also stressed that the developments in the region, “whether negative or positive, will not be able to change this course in Lebanon.” “Delaying the election of the president will not change the equation and it will only produce further vacuum, paralysis and harm to people's interests,” Qassem warned. “We advise al-Mustaqbal Movement, which is currently obstructing the election of a president, to end its hesitation... This would be in the interest of the country and also in their interest,” the Hizbullah official added. “Should an agreement be reached over General Aoun's election as president, we are ready to attend a parliamentary session aimed at electing a president and we will vote for him no matter how much the session might be imminent,” Qassem noted. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Mufti to Jumblat at Mukhtara Mosque Opening: Your Safety is Part of Country's Safety
Naharnet/September 18/16/Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan stressed Sunday that the safety of Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat is “part of the country's safety,” days after reports surfaced about assassination plots against the Druze leader. “The grand mission for which The Teacher Kamal Jumblat was martyred was the mission of Arab belonging, which we pledge that we will continue. We have been and we shall remain Muslim and Christian Arabs as long as Mukhtara's mosque and church remain,” said Daryan during a ceremony to inaugurate the Shakib Arslan Mosque in Jumblat's hometown Mukhtara. Daryan also expressed regret over “the obstruction of the work of parliament, government and national dialogue meetings,” although he highlighted the importance of “seeking change.”Commenting on the reported assassination plots against Jumblat, Daryan told the PSP leader: “Your safety is part of the country's safety and the attempt to assassinate you is a criminal plot targeted against the country's safety, stability and security.”Former “premier (Saad) Hariri fears for you the same as he fears for the country, seeing as you are his companion and the companion of martyr premier Rafik Hariri,” Daryan added. “You will remain free and Lebanon will remain free,” the mufti added. Jumblat for his part said the inauguration of the mosque in Mukhtara is aimed at emphasizing that “Islam is a religion of moderation and coexistence.”

Berri Says Hizbullah, AMAL Will Attend Cabinet Sessions
Naharnet/September 18/16/Speaker Nabih Berri has warned Prime Minister Tammam Salam against “contributing to” the cabinet's paralysis, noting that the ministers of his AMAL Movement and its ally Hizbullah will attend the cabinet's upcoming sessions. “I support holding the sessions if there is a legal quorum and this is what is stipulated by the Constitution, which some parties are interpreting according to their whims and interests,” Berri told An Nahar newspaper in remarks published Sunday, in an apparent jab at the Free Patriotic Movement which is boycotting cabinet and national dialogue meetings. The cabinet “is required to sign the decrees that it has been issuing,” the speaker added, pointing out that “the ministers are yet to put their signatures on the resolutions of the session that was boycotted by the ministers Jebran Bassil and Elias Bou Saab.”Addressing Salam, who is currently in New York for international meetings, Berri cautioned that “if PM Salam does not call for sessions, he would be contributing to paralyzing or even executing the cabinet.”The speaker has long defended Salam's government, warning that it has no “alternative.”“We and Hizbullah support the continued presence of the government and it will stay. How can we form another government in the absence of a president?” he asked. The FPM, which has the biggest Christian bloc in parliament, has suspended its participation in cabinet sessions and national dialogue meetings over accusations that other parties in the country are not respecting the National Pact.
The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state based on Christian-Muslim partnership. The FPM's boycott of cabinet meetings was initially linked to the thorny issue of military and security appointments. The movement has long voiced reservations over the government's decision-taking mechanism in the absence of a president. Addressing Salam, FPM chief Bassil has recently warned that “the son of late PM Saeb Salam must pay great attention when he says that the government is respecting the National Pact when it convenes in the presence of ministers representing only six percent of a main component of the country (Christians).”Bassil has also warned that the country might be soon plunged into a “political system crisis” if the other parties do not heed the FPM's demands regarding Muslim-Christian “partnership.”Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh has hit back at Bassil over the issue of Christian representation, saying Marada and the other Christian parties in the cabinet “represent a lot more than six percent.”

Report: Huge U.S. Spy Aircraft Flies Off Lebanon for Third Time
/Naharnet/September 18/16/A huge U.S. surveillance aircraft of the Boeing P-8A Poseidon type has been spotted flying off the Lebanese and Syrian coasts for three times in three weeks now, a media report said on Sunday. “On August 30, a spy plane of the same type flew near the Russian Hmeimem airbase on Syria's coast,” the pro-Damascus, Beirut-based al-Mayadeen television reported. “What's new in the movement of the aircraft, which likely took off today from the U.S. base in Italy's Sicily, is that it flew in a straight line once it reached the area off the Lebanese coast before changing its course in a half-circle motion in an area between Sidon and Jounieh,” al-Mayadeen said. “It then flew in a straight line towards the Syrian coast before changing its course anew in a full circle motion above the marine area between Hama and Latakia,” the TV network added. According to the U.S. Navy, Boeing and other sources, the P-8A is armed with missiles, mines, torpedoes, bombs, and a High Altitude Anti-Submarine Warfare Weapon system. The older P-8 type conducts anti-submarine warfare, anti-surface warfare, shipping interdiction and an electronic signals intelligence (ELINT) role. This involves carrying torpedoes, depth charges, Harpoon anti-ship missiles, and other weapons. It is also able to drop and monitor sonobuoys.

Raad: We Would've Acted Differently Had We Sensed a Threat from Other Camp
Naharnet/September 18/16/Loyalty to Resistance bloc chief MP Mohammed Raad noted Sunday that Hizbullah “would have acted differently” had it sensed “a threat to turn the tables” from the rival camp. “When we defend Lebanon against takfiri terrorism, we are defending all of Lebanon's components, but unfortunately there is still a camp in Lebanon that is betting on its support for Daesh (Islamic State group) and al-Nusra Front in order to boost its position in power,” Raad said. “We would have acted differently had we sensed a threat to turn the tables from these parties. Everyone must be reassured that these parties do not pose a threat to Lebanon, especially that we are keen on national partnership,” Raad added. “The Resistance will remain alongside the army in order to protect Lebanon. It will remain like this until we make sure that the army has the capabilities and assets that can create balance with the assets of its enemies,” the Hizbullah lawmaker went on to say. “Only then we would discuss the level of coordination and understanding with the army, but now we will remain the supporters of the army in its defense of Lebanon and protection of the country against the takfiri terrorists and the Zionist enemies. If we don't do this, our fate will be at stake,” Raad warned.

Qahwaji's Term May be Extended before September 24
Naharnet/September 18/16/A decree extending Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji's term might be issued in the next few days, in coordination with the ministers of AMAL Movement and Hizbullah, a media report said on Sunday. “The Free Patriotic Movement's threat to resort to street protests and its continued bocyott of cabinet sessions are expediting the decision to extend Qahwaji's term,” Lebanese ministerial sources told the Kuwaiti al-Seyassah newspaper. The extension decree might be issued before Prime Minister Tammam Salam's return from New York on September 24, the sources added. “There is a difficulty to hold a cabinet session before the end of the month, the date of General Qahwaji's term expiry, which will necessitate taking the extension decision to avoid any vacuum in the military institution,” said the sources. The sources also stressed that there is an agreement over the step between Salam and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel in addition to “the majority of ministerial components, including the ministers and Hizbullah and AMAL Movement.” The FPM has recently announced its boycott of cabinet and national dialogue meetings over accusations that the other parties in the country and not respecting the 1943 National Pact, which stipulates Christian-Muslim partnership. The movement's boycott of cabinet was initially linked to the thorny issue of military and security appointments. The movement has long voiced reservations over the government's decision-taking mechanism in the absence of a president. The defense minister had recently postponed the retirement of Higher Defense Council chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Kheir after no consensus was reached over three candidates that he had proposed, angering the FPM which says that it opposes term extensions for all senior officers. Qahwaji's tenure has been extended twice since 2013 despite the objections of the FPM, which says it rejects term extensions for any senior military or security official.

Akkar Woman Dies of Wounds Sustained in Ksara Blast
Naharnet/September 18/16/Khaldiyeh Chidiac, a 55-year-old resident of the Akkar town of Miniara, died Sunday of wounds sustained in the August 31 blast in Zahle's Ksara area, state-run National News Agency reported. The bombing had killed an elderly Syrian woman and left at least ten people injured. The explosive device, which was placed in a trash bin at a busy roundabout, was targeted against buses carrying AMAL Movement supporters to a rally commemorating Imam Moussa al-Sadr in the southern city of Tyre. The blast went off shortly after the passage of AMAL convoys near the roundabout, hitting buses coming from Akkar instead. General Security has announced the arrest of a cell comprising Lebanese and Syrian militants over involvement in the attack.

Abou Faour: Protests Can't Elect a President, Hizbullah Exerting Major Efforts
Naharnet/September 18/16/Health Minister Wael Abou Faour has stressed that “the election of the president must take place in parliament, not in street protests.”Denying that Lebanon is going through a “National Pact crisis,” the minister said “no sect is seeking to dominate another.”“There is a political crisis resulting from a host of political demands for an influential political group, some of which are rightful,” Abou Faour added. “However, the main National Pact flaw is the vacancy of the presidential post,” the minister noted. Lamenting that “the presidential void will likely protract for another long period,” Abou Faour cautioned that “popular protests will not achieve anything and might complicate things further.” “The Free Patriotic Movement does not need to prove the strength of its popular representation and we have all tried the game of resorting to street protests,” the minister added.
“Hizbullah, like all forces, is keen on stability and it is exerting major efforts to restore the government's political quorum,” Abou Faour stated. “Prime Minister Tammam Salam is giving a chance to these efforts and he does not want an escalation out of his keenness on institutions and his assessment of the threats, and we support him in this responsible approach,” the minister added. The FPM, which has the biggest Christian bloc in parliament, has suspended its participation in cabinet sessions and national dialogue meetings over accusations that other parties in the country are not respecting the National Pact. The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state based on Christian-Muslim partnership. The FPM's boycott of cabinet meetings was initially linked to the thorny issue of military and security appointments. The movement has long voiced reservations over the government's decision-taking mechanism in the absence of a president. Addressing Salam, FPM chief Jebran Bassil has recently warned that “the son of late PM Saeb Salam must pay great attention when he says that the government is respecting the National Pact when it convenes in the presence of ministers representing only six percent of a main component of the country (Christians).”Bassil has also warned that the country might be soon plunged into a “political system crisis” if the other parties do not heed the FPM's demands regarding Muslim-Christian “partnership.” The FPM has also announced that it will resort to street protests to press for its demands. Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh has hit back at Bassil over the issue of Christian representation, saying Marada and the other Christian parties in the cabinet “represent a lot more than six percent.”

Zahra Urges 'Advocates of Sovereignty Project' Not to 'Offer More Concessions'
Naharnet/September 18/16/Lebanese Forces bloc MP Antoine Zahra has warned those he called “the advocates of the sovereignty project” against “offering further concessions.”“These concessions are reflecting negatively on the entire country and on the state and its institutions as well as the economy,” Zahra said. “The LF is seeking to fill the presidential void, which is causing paralysis and aggravated violation of the Constitution's stipulations,” the lawmaker noted. “The first step towards all solutions is the election of a president and ending the vacuum. This is the only way to revive institutions, not the threats to topple the government,” Zahra added, in an apparent jab at the Free Patriotic Movement, the LF's new Christian ally. “The election of a president ends all these bravados,” the MP noted. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014 and Hizbullah, FPM founder MP Michel Aoun's Change and Reform bloc and some of their allies have been boycotting the parliament's electoral sessions, stripping them of the needed quorum. Al-Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri, who is close to Saudi Arabia, launched an initiative in late 2015 to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency but his proposal was met with reservations from the country's main Christian parties as well as Hizbullah. Hariri's move prompted LF leader Samir Geagea to endorse the nomination of Aoun, his long-time Christian rival. The supporters of Aoun's presidential bid argue that he is more eligible than Franjieh to become president due to the size of his parliamentary bloc and his bigger influence in the Christian community.

Hajj Hassan Urges 'Some Parties' Not to 'Aggravate Crisis', Mustaqbal Not to 'Turn Its Back'
Naharnet/September 18/16/Industry Minister Hussein al-Hajj Hassan of Hizbullah has noted that “Lebanon has entered a new phase and a new course,” urging “some parties” not to “aggravate the crisis,” in an apparent reference to Hizbullah's ally the Free Patriotic Movement. Hajj Hassan also called on al-Mustaqbal Movement not to “turn its back” to the other parties in the country. The situation requires Mustaqbal to “liberate itself from the grip of the dominating Saudi decision that is vetoing solutions in the region, including in Lebanon,” the minister added. “Lebanon needs real, purposeful, profound, constructive, responsible and honest dialogue, not dialogue aimed at passing time,” Hajj Hassan stressed. “The dialogue that is being sponsored by Speaker Nabih Berri is one of the most important elements for Lebanon's salvation,” the minister added, hoping the suspended dialogue sessions will resume after “resolving the new crisis.” “There are serious efforts by the keen parties in order to reach this result,” Hajj Hassan noted. “We are witnessing a real crisis that erupted due to realistic reasons and legitimate demands from the Free Patriotic Movement and we hope the contacts and efforts will lead to exits and solutions in this regard,” the minister went on to say. Hizbullah has recently showed solidarity with the FPM by boycotting a cabinet session that was held in the absence of the movement's ministers – Jebran Bassil and Elias Bou Saab. The FPM, which has the biggest Christian bloc in parliament, has suspended its participation in cabinet sessions and national dialogue meetings over accusations that other parties in the country are not respecting the National Pact. The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state based on Christian-Muslim partnership. The FPM's boycott of cabinet meetings was initially linked to the thorny issue of military and security appointments. The movement has long voiced reservations over the government's decision-taking mechanism in the absence of a president. Addressing Prime Minister Tammam Salam, FPM chief Jebran Bassil has recently warned that “the son of late PM Saeb Salam must pay great attention when he says that the government is respecting the National Pact when it convenes in the presence of ministers representing only six percent of a main component of the country (Christians).” Bassil has also warned that the country might be soon plunged into a “political system crisis” if the other parties do not heed the FPM's demands regarding Muslim-Christian “partnership.”The FPM has also announced that it will resort to street protests to press for its demands. Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh has hit back at Bassil over the issue of Christian representation, saying Marada and the other Christian parties in the cabinet “represent a lot more than six percent.”

Khalil: Some Leaders Trying to Drag Lebanese into Strife
Naharnet/September 18/16/Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil has warned that “some leaders are trying to drag Lebanese into strife for the sake of their own interests.”“Those who are practicing obstruction in the cabinet and parliament are depriving Lebanon of chances to benefit from the loans and grants that are being offered to it to help it cope with the burden of the Syrian refugee influx, which is the biggest in the world,” Khalil cautioned. “The political situation is in a crisis because some parties always try to take us backwards,” the minister lamented. “We do not believe in animosity among the Lebanese and we believe that what's common among us is much bigger than the differences. Together we can create a better future for this country if we deal responsibly with the various political, security, economic and social challenges,” Khalil added. The Free Patriotic Movement, which has the biggest Christian bloc in parliament, has suspended its participation in cabinet sessions and national dialogue meetings over accusations that other parties in the country are not respecting the National Pact. The 1943 National Pact is an unwritten agreement that set the foundations of modern Lebanon as a multi-confessional state based on Christian-Muslim partnership. The FPM's boycott of cabinet meetings was initially linked to the thorny issue of military and security appointments. The movement has long voiced reservations over the government's decision-taking mechanism in the absence of a president. Addressing Prime Minister Tammam Salam, FPM chief Jebran Bassil has recently warned that “the son of late PM Saeb Salam must pay great attention when he says that the government is respecting the National Pact when it convenes in the presence of ministers representing only six percent of a main component of the country (Christians).”Bassil has also warned that the country might be soon plunged into a “political system crisis” if the other parties do not heed the FPM's demands regarding Muslim-Christian “partnership.”The FPM has also announced that it will resort to street protests to press for its demands.
Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh has hit back at Bassil over the issue of Christian representation, saying Marada and the other Christian parties in the cabinet “represent a lot more than six percent.”

Future weighing Aoun endorsement: LF official
The Daily Star/September 18/16/BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces media officer Melhem Riachi said Sunday the Future Movement was considering endorsing Free Patriotic Movement founder Michel Aoun for the presidency. “We’ve discussed with our Future Movement allies the possibility of them endorsing Michel Aoun for the presidency and they’re now considering it,” Riachi stated during a television interview Sunday with Future TV. The Lebanese Forces backs Aoun for the country’s top post, while Future Movement chief Saad Hariri endorsed his long-time rival Marada Movement chief Sleiman Frangieh for the presidency in February. Hariri’s endorsement shook his alliance with LF head Samir Geagea, who was the Future Movement’s original candidate. The media officer also confirmed that both the Lebanese Forces and Future Movement blame the presidential vacuum on Hezbollah. “We think that Hezbollah can easily persuade Sleiman Frangieh to drop out in favor of Aoun,” Riachi said. “It’s political stupidity for Hezbollah to give up on Aoun when everyone knows he’s their only ally in the region alongside Iran,” he added. Lebanon has been without a head of state since May 2014, when Michel Sleiman’s tenure ended. The post is reserved for a Maronite Christian under Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system.

Is Lebanon heading towards a constituent assembly?
Mohamed Kawas/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16
Beirut - There are rising fears in Lebanon, which has been without a president for more than two years, that its beleaguered gov­ernment fails and there will be no choice but to demand a constituent assembly to change the country’s constitution and its political sys­tem.
Member of Parliament Talal Ar­slan, head of the Druze-dominat­ed Lebanese Democratic Party — which has close ties to Damascus and Hezbollah — was among the latest Lebanese political figures to call for a constituent assembly.
“Lebanon is on the brink of ca­tastrophe,” he said at a news con­ference. He added that a constitu­ent assembly to change a system of rule that was agreed by the 1989 Taif agreement that ended Leba­non’s civil war was the only way to return things to normal in the country.
Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra countered, saying: “What is required is to elect a new president, not hold a constituent assembly.”
But Arslan’s call is not as con­cerning as what can be expected by those who stand behind him, as his statement is expected to be fol­lowed by actions that will seek to force Lebanese politicians to move towards a new settlement along the lines of the 2008 Doha agree­ment. It was this agreement that ended an 18-month political crisis in Lebanon and brought about the election of Lebanon’s most recent president, Michel Suleiman.
Domestically, former prime min­ister Saad Hariri’s Future Move­ment, which leads the March 14 al­liance that rivals Hezbollah’s March 8 alliance, is facing its “worst period” according to diplomatic sources, owing to uncertainty over Hariri’s future as leader and that of construction company Saudi Oger, which he owns.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah called for a con­stituent assembly in June 2012 to build a “real state”, as he put it. This is something that March 14 views as an attempt by Hezbollah to impose a Sunni-Shia-Christian status quo on the Lebanese political system, rather than the Christian- Muslim parity that is enshrined in the Taif agreement constitution.
Arslan’s warnings about the col­lapse of Lebanon’s political system are demonstrated by Hezbollah’s recent behaviour seeking to by­pass the state and impose its will through force of arms and drag­ging the country into the conflict in neighbouring Syria.
Many in Beirut suspect that Hezbollah’s actions during the presidential vacuum — boycotting parliamentary sessions and refus­ing to budge from their support of presidential candidate Michel Aoun — aim to pressure Prime Min­ister Tammam Salam to resign. Given the presidential vacuum and parliamentary paralysis, this could land Lebanon in a constitutional crisis and necessitate the constitu­ent assembly Arslan is calling for.
The March 14 alliance rejects any constituent assembly at this time, saying that the current circum­stances would not allow for a bal­anced debate due to Hezbollah’s ability to bring its arms into play. Hezbollah has a clear agenda of its own that aims to change the status quo in Lebanon and impose a polit­ical system that is more in line with its agenda, as dictated by Iran.
Of course, not everybody agrees. MP Nabil Nicolas of the Change and Reform bloc, which is allied with Hezbollah and headed by Aoun, has blamed Hariri’s Future Move­ment for the impasse, saying that Lebanon has reached a “dead end” and that a constituent assembly is the only way out. The bloc denies that a constituent assembly would benefit any one party over any oth­er.
Lebanon’s media have been ablaze following leaks that appear to reveal that Hezbollah wants to create a vice-presidential post that would be held by a Shia figure who would be in charge of security ser­vices. The post of president would remain for a Maronite Christian, who would be commander-in-chief of the armed forces and also in charge of Lebanon’s foreign affairs, while the prime minister (a Sunni) would oversee government and do­mestic issues. The latest calls for a constituent assembly seem to con­firm the leaks.
Deputy head of Lebanon’s Higher Shia Islamic Council Sheikh Abdul Amir Kabalan, who has close ties to parliamentary Speaker Nabih Berri, called for this a few months ago based on the need to establish a “civil state away from intolerance”.
Berri, who heads the Shia Amal Movement that is part of the Hez­bollah-led March 8 alliance, has said he has no interest in a constit­uent assembly.
This is the same Berri who put forward a “package deal” in June that involved resolving the presi­dency, the government and the electoral law. However, many ob­servers said the “package deal” is a mask for a constituent assembly.

Speculation in Lebanon about Hariri retiring from politics
Shadi Alaa al-Din/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16
Beirut - There has been speculation recently about Future Movement leader and former Lebanese prime minister Saad Hariri de­ciding to retire from politics. Those who are putting forward that opin­ion cite financial troubles faced by Hariri, who owns construction firm Saudi Oger, which is undergoing major debt restructuring. In addition to this, a number of Sunni figures may be better placed to deal with the political situation and enjoy a more harmonious rela­tionship with Saudi Arabia, which has taken a more confrontational position towards Lebanon. The financial crisis surrounding Saudi Oger, which is expected to result in thousands of Lebanese workers losing their jobs, will hurt Hariri’s popularity at home. Hariri’s political position, one that is based on moderation and compromise, is no longer finding major support among Lebanon’s Sunnis, given the various crises the country is facing, not to mention the wider regional situation. Hariri’s traditional posi­tions seem completely unrealistic to many Lebanese.
After his tenure as prime minis­ter, Hariri went into self-imposed exile in Paris, citing domestic se­curity threats. There were many changes in Lebanon while he was absent, something that Hariri does not seem to have realised. Hariri’s return did not revitalise the Future Movement or the March 14 alliance that it leads. Hariri’s opponents, and particularly Hez­bollah, have benefited from the Future Movement’s failures, while Lebanon’s Sunnis have been dis­enchanted by Hariri’s inability to deal with the various crises faced by Lebanon, not least Hezbollah embroiling the country in the Syr­ian conflict. There is rising sectarian extrem­ism in Lebanon and the Middle East as a whole. This has hurt Hari­ri’s position in Lebanese politics in the short term, although that may be reversible in the long term.
One analysis says the political in­transigence in Lebanon is because each side is seeking to strengthen future negotiating positions. Once those negotiations take place, po­litical life in Lebanon would return to a semblance of normality. If that is the case, then Hariri and his policy of moderation and compromise will be indispensa­ble, even if there seems to be a lack of popular appetite for it now. Of course, if Hariri does retire from politics, he will not be around to advocate moderation and compro­mise. Future Movement Member of Parliament Kazem al-Khair said Hariri retiring from public life was “not on the table”, adding that “Hariri is a force on the ground and will never accept giving up his pres­ence and what this represents”.He denied that the crisis sur­rounding Saudi Oger could force Hariri to step back from politics. “The whole world is going through a financial crisis and this is some­thing that all [Lebanese] parties are facing, particularly Hezbollah, which is facing financial problems due to its involvement in the Syrian conflict and the daily death toll and the financial repercussions of this,” he said.
Lebanese political analyst Naufal Daou said that if Hariri did retire, that would strengthen extremism in Lebanon. “Without Hariri, Leba­non’s Sunnis will fall prey to more extremist views,” he said. Daou said Hariri was indispen­sable for Lebanese politics, even for his political rivals. “In spite of all the problems between them, even Hezbollah would prefer Hariri to remain,” Daou said. “Yes, they want him weakened but they also want him because he is the only one who can ease the tensions [in Lebanese politics].”Future Movement MP Ahmed Fatfat said talk about Hariri retiring was part of a wider political cam­paign against him. “The forthcom­ing Future Movement party confer­ence [scheduled for October] and the regional visits being carried out by Hariri and Future Movement ministers confirm that there is no truth to rumours that he is prepar­ing to retire,” he said. Fatfat reiterated Daou’s warnings that a Lebanon without Hariri is a Lebanon that is easy prey for ex­tremism, saying: “This would open the door for rising extremism and political exclusion. Saad Hariri is a national necessity because he leads the only party that can cross the sectarian divides in Lebanon.”

What do Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have in common?
Compared to previous presidents, Obama’s foreign policy team seems enamoured with Tehran.
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16
There is very little to indicate that the ceasefire in Syria agreed between the United States and Russia is viable. In my view this agreement, which includes a number of secret terms, is indica­tive of how Washington has caved to Moscow, not just in Syria but in the Middle East as a whole.
It is a damning condemnation of outgoing US President Barack Obama’s foreign policies that, over the past eight years, have seen the rise of Moscow and Tehran as major forces in the Middle East. This is something that was enshrined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. Even though this agreement technically took place between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany), it is ultimately an agreement between Washington and Tehran. The Obama administration only embarked on this agreement after it came to believe that Iran was the most important country in the region and normalising relations with it would ultimately serve US interests. This meant turning a blind eye to Iran’s expansionist regional project, which is based on promoting sectarianism, including even establishing sectarian proxy militias in a number of Arab states.
Given Russia’s and Iran’s military intervention in the Syrian conflict, it is clear that Syria is a victim of the Iran nuclear deal. Compared to previous presidents, Obama’s foreign policy team seems enamoured with Tehran and it has completely failed to understand that there is a delicate balance of power in the region that, if breached, will result in major instability and insecurity across the Middle East. The problem is that the Obama administration has tinkered in this balance of power, and the chaos that is raging across the Middle East is the result. Three Arab states, more than others, have paid the price for the Obama administration’s flawed foreign policy, namely Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.
With each day that passes, Tehran’s grip on Iraq becomes increasingly apparent, as does Washington’s acquiescence to this new state of affairs. Indeed, one could argue that Washington is doing everything in its power to guarantee this. From Tehran’s influence on the politics in Baghdad to the presence of the Popular Mobilisation Forces, Iran has become the biggest player in Iraq. No reasonable person can defend Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime but at the same time no reasonable person can claim that Iraq today — swathes of which are under Islamic State control — is better off. More than any other event, the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 played a pivotal role in changing the balance of power in the region in favour of Iran, particularly as post-war Iraq saw the rise of a dangerous form of sectarianism that quickly swept across the region.
As for Syria, the recent ceasefire agreed by the United States and Russia is the best evidence of just how much Washington has given up for Russia and Iran. Sectarian militias allied to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, remain on the ground in the country ready to defend Syrian President Bashar Assad, who looks more and more likely to be able to hold on to power in one form or another. Under previous negotiation attempts, Assad remaining in power, whether in a transitional capacity or not, was unthinkable. It is clearly Assad’s backers, Iran and Russia, that are running the table in Syria. The United States is also ignoring the role that Iran is playing in Lebanon and the efforts that Tehran is exerting to turn the country into an Iranian protectorate. The country has been without a president for more than two years while its parliament is virtually paralysed by political infighting; meanwhile Hezbollah and its allies are seeking to push for constitutional amendments that would change the ruling system in the country and place more power in their own hands. Hezbollah, which ultimately is nothing more than a sectarian militia, has disrupted political life in the country to push for this dangerous change in Lebanon’s constitution. So what is the common factor between Iraq, Syria and Lebanon? It is the Obama’s administration’s commitment to indulge Iranian transgressions to protect the nuclear deal, no matter the cost. Unfortunately, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon have paid the price for Obama’s hands-off Middle East policies. Ironically, if Washington had played a more active role in the region over the last eight years, there could be no doubt that the Middle East would have been much better off today.
**Khairallah Khairallah is a Lebanese writer. The commentary was translated and adapted from the Arabic. It was initially published in middle-east-online.com.

ELAPH interviews Phares about his visit to Egypt
Saturday, 17 September 2016
Daily liberal and pan Arab Elaph correspondent Jawad el Sayegh interviewed Dr Walid Phares regarding the latter's visit to Egypt this week and his meeting with spiritual leaders in the country. Elaph wrote "the Trump foreign policy advisor, Dr Walid Phares, arrived in Egypt during the Adha feast and held meetings with Minister of Religious Affairs and other spiritual leaders." It quoted Phares stating "this was a private visit as part of a long range work with top Muslim clerics around the world. I have met with Sheikh of al Azhar before." After his return to Washngton, Elaph met with Phares. Here is the link.
Elaph: Given your position as an advisor to Mr. Trump, what did Shaykh Jumaa have to say about Mr. Trump? Does he understand Trump's position relating to Muslims?
Phares: In fact the visit was private and part of a long range engagement with the top Islamic scholars in the world. Previously I had met with Sheikh el Azhar Mohamed al Tayyib in Cairo. This visit to Minister Sheikh Jumaa was a follow up and an update to the previous one. I briefed the minister about the debate regarding Islamic political issues in the United States and he briefed me about the various reforms steps being taken in Egypt and other countries regarding spreading moderate views."
Elaph: Have you discussed US elections?
Obviously US elections were discussed but only with regards the statements made by Mr Trump back in December 2015 and the most recent series of statements made during foreign policy speeches this summer which explained clearly that candidate Trump wants to work with the moderates against the extremists, which is what Egypt is doing right now. Minister Jumaa didn't take any position regarding US elections as these are domestic American affairs. We agreed to continue the dialogue.
Elaph: Does Shaykh Jumaa believe that Al Azhar is able to and has a role in standing up against radicalism? Do you believe that Al Azhar is capable of this?
In fact Shaykh Jumaa is determined to engage in a campaign to promote moderation and counter extremism. He has published important work and is partnering with the Government and schools to reform the curriculum to remove what can brainwash the students minds and help raise younger generations of Egyptians and Muslims, aiming at stability, peace and good relations with all. Sheikh Jumaa and the Azhar institutions are engaged in internal and national dialogues to insure the right reforms to achieve these goals. He seemed to be confident that this path is possible. We both agreed to exchange ideas and information about parallel paths in Egypt and the US. I invited him to address US audiences in the near future so that American Muslim and Americans at large get to know what the top scholarly positions on the world are thinking regarding these challenging issues. I met with other spiritual leaders as well.
Tags: Walid Phares, Elaph, Minister Sheikh Jumaa, Donald Trump's foreign policy advisor, Muslim, Islam, Egypt, Jawad el Sayegh
 

Lebanon's Hatred of Israel, A Symptom of Dysfunction
Fred Maroun/Gatestone Institute/September 18/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8952/lebanon-israel
The animosity of Lebanon towards Israel continues today only because it provides a convenient excuse for Hizballah to maintain a formidable arsenal that it uses to control Lebanon and to help its allies in Syria.
If Lebanon had prevented terrorist attacks from its territory against Israel, not one bullet would have been exchanged between the two countries. Today, Lebanon would be enjoying diplomatic relations with Israel, and the benefits of successful trade.
Lebanon has many problems, including sectarian divisions, Iranian influence, spillover from the Syrian civil war, the weakness of its army, the ineffectiveness of its politicians, and the very existence of Hizballah, but Israel's existence next door is not one of them.
The animosity of Lebanon towards Israel continues today only because it provides a convenient excuse for Hizballah to maintain a formidable arsenal that it uses to control Lebanon and to help its allies in Syria.
Lebanon has a law forbidding its citizens from interacting with Israeli citizens. As Michael J. Totten wrote:
"Lebanese citizens aren't allowed to have any communication of any kind with Israelis anywhere in the world. If citizens of the two countries meet, say, on a beach in Cyprus or in a bar in New York, the Lebanese risks prison just for saying hello."
The Lebanese online news source NOW explains that law in detail. Even a dual citizen (of Lebanon and Canada for example) could be jailed for interacting in the most innocuous way with an Israeli.
The Lebanese delegation, for example, recently refused to share a bus with the Israeli delegation at this year's Olympic Games in Rio, prompting the Israeli minister of culture and sports to describe the incident as, "anti-Semitism, pure and simple, and the worst kind of racism." The incident was, however, hardly surprising, considering the history of Lebanese animosity towards Israel.
Only one of many incidents of pettiness and bigotry
The Olympics incident is unfortunately not unique.
Incidents in the entertainment industry have been just as visible. In Lebanon's only attempt to enter the Eurovision song contest, its contestant Aline Lahoud was forced to withdraw in 2005 after Lebanon would not allow the program to be broadcast because it included a performance by an Israeli. Despite his huge popularity in Lebanon, the Jewish Moroccan-French comedian, Gad Elmaleh, was forced to cancel his performances at a 2009 Lebanese festival due to what Reina Sarkis, a Lebanese psychoanalyst living in France, described as Hizballah's "intellectual terrorism". In June 2010, a boycott targeted the British Rock band Placebo, performing in Lebanon, resulting in a lawsuit by the Lebanese concert promoter against the groups that organized the boycott. Popular Belgian-Italian singer Lara Fabian cancelled a concert in Lebanon in 2012, after she was the target of threats for supporting Israel.
Such incidents have occurred in academia as well. In March 2010, Palestinian scholar Sari Hanafi, a professor at the American University of Beirut, was verbally assaulted at the university by a crowd of nearly 300 for having worked with two Israeli scholars on a book, even though the book was critical of Israel.
Even Miss Lebanon 2014, Saly Greige, was implicated in this type of incident in 2015, when a photo of her was taken with Miss Israel, Miss Japan, and Miss Slovenia. Lebanese Tourism Minister Michel Pharaon launched a probe into what was considered an incident of national significance. Greige was allowed to keep her crown only after she made the implausible claim that the picture was taken against her will.
Lebanon has a law forbidding its citizens from interacting with Israeli citizens. When Miss Lebanon 2014, Saly Greige (second from left), was photographed together with Miss Israel, Doron Matalon (left), at the 2015 Miss Universe contest in Miami, the Lebanese government launched a probe into what was considered an incident of national significance.
Religious officials are not immune either. In May 2014, Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi of the Maronite Church faced heavy criticism from politicians, and threats from Hizballah media mouthpieces, for his decision to accompany the Pope to Jerusalem. This was despite the fact that Maronite clergy are legally permitted to travel to Israel for ministry duties.
An unjustified hatred
Lebanon has no valid justification for its hatred towards Israel. The tiny "Shabaa Farms," on the border with Israel, which is only 22 square kilometers in size, is often cited as a reason, but Syria also claims that same piece of land. Moreover, Israel is reported to be willing to evacuate it if it were to come under the control of UN peacekeepers. The "Shabaa Farms" is an excuse, not a reason.
Lebanon has suffered significant human and material losses as a result of its two wars with Israel after 1949; that would certainly be reason for animosity towards Israel, if it were not that Lebanon was mainly responsibility for both wars.
The first Israel-Lebanon war in 1982-1985 was an attempt by Israel to stop attacks against its citizens by Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). If Lebanon had better controlled the actions of the PLO on its own territory, that war would never have occurred.
The second Israel-Lebanon war in 2006 was an attempt by Israel to stop attacks against its citizens by the Lebanese Shi'ite militia, Hizballah. If Lebanon had disarmed Hizballah when it disarmed other militias after the 1975-1990 civil war, the second Israel-Lebanon war would never have occurred, either.
Lebanon, which has a weak army, might be considered a victim of circumstances beyond its control, but that is not the case. Lebanon has contributed immensely to its circumstances.
Lebanon chose to be part of the Arab coalition that rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan and attacked Israel in 1948, thus creating the Palestinian refugee problem. Lebanon still chooses to keep Palestinians in camps with limited rights rather than to integrate them into Lebanese society, thus fostering Palestinian grievances and a desire for "revenge". Lebanon also chose to allow the Palestinians in the country to form their own armed militias, which were a catalyst in the Lebanese civil war and resulted in PLO attacks on Israel.
Lebanon has yet to try reaching a permanent peace with Israel. Israel had hoped to sign a peace treaty with Bashir Gemayel, who was elected president of Lebanon in 1982, but who never became president because he was assassinated soon after his election. His older brother, Amin Gemayel, who was elected in his place, reached a limited agreement with Israel in May 1983 that fell far short of a full peace agreement, and obviously did not stop Hizballah attacks against Israel.
Lebanon's provocations
In addition to failing to stop attacks, successive Lebanese governments have even encouraged hatred and violence against Israel.
In May 2008, Lebanon's newly elected president, Michel Suleiman, praised Hizballah's fight against Israel. In July of that same year, the Lebanese government gave a hero's welcome to Samir Kuntar, the cold-blooded murderer of an Israeli father and his three young children. Kuntar was welcomed in person by the three most important officials in the Lebanese government: President Michel Suleiman, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, and parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri. Kuntar became a Hizballah commander and was later killed in Syria by an IDF operation.
Lebanese governments have even made anti-Israel aggression their policy. In 2009, the cabinet issued a policy statement recognizing Hizballah's "right to use arms against Israel," despite the objections of some ministers who insisted that Hizballah's "substantial arsenal ... undermines the authority of the state".
Again, in 2014, Lebanon's government issued a policy statement claiming that "Lebanese citizens have the right to resist Israeli occupation and repel any Israeli attack".
Anti-Israel rhetoric also permeates the unelected civil service. In 2013, while discussing the influx of Syrian refugees into Lebanon, caused by the murderous Syrian regime and ISIS terrorists, Abbas Ibrahim, director-general of Lebanon's General Security Department, insisted that, "Lebanon's one and only enemy is Israel".
Even some Christian politicians engage in such hateful speech. In 2015, Emile Lahoud, a former president of Lebanon, appeared on Iran's Press TV, where he declared, "All our troubles come from Israel through the US." The previous day, Michel Aoun, a former Lebanese Army Commander, declared on the same show his support for Hezbollah, calling Israel the "enemy".
A divided Lebanon with no real autonomy
Despite Lebanon's official encouragement of Hizballah, many Lebanese politicians would like Hizballah disarmed, and they have been saying so for a long time. They usually however also reaffirm Hizballah's right to fight Israel, therefore undermining their own message.
Before he became Lebanon's prime minister in 2009, following the assassination of his father, Saad Hariri expressed concerns about Hizballah's arsenal. It was suspected at the time that his father, Rafik Hariri, had been assassinated by Hizballah, a suspicion later confirmed by a UN-backed tribunal. The young Hariri's term ended in January 2011, due to pressure by Hizballah. In March 2011, tens of thousands of Lebanese demonstrators demanded that Hizballah be disarmed, chanting, "The people want the fall of arms", but in June a new Hizballah-dominated government was announced.
Lebanese politicians discussed Hizballah's arsenal again in 2012, because some felt that "many Lebanese have grown increasingly suspicious of Hezbollah's weapons".
In March 2013 and again in June 2013, Ziad Al-Kadri, a young parliamentarian in Hariri's Sunni party, criticized Hizballah, accusing it of "seeking to make of Lebanon a liquidation field to settle regional scores".
In August 2013, Lebanese Christian leader Samir Geagea, chairman of the Lebanese Forces (the organization once led by Bashir Gemayel), reacted to an anti-Israel speech by Hizballah's leader, accusing him of "dragging the country into war against the wishes of its leaders".
Lebanon has had a national unity government since February 2014 that includes members of Hizballah and members of Hariri's party, but in January 2016, then Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi, a member of Hariri's party, resigned. This followed Saudi Arabia's cancellation of a deal worth $4 billion in support of the Lebanese army. The Saudi move resulted from Lebanon's failure to support Saudi Arabia against Iran, the sponsor of Hizballah. Rifi said that Hizballah "is an armed party that is dominating the government's decisions".
In February 2016, Saad Hariri, who no longer resides in Lebanon, accused Hizballah of wanting to transform Lebanon into an "Iranian province". The status of Lebanon as Iran's cannon fodder was confirmed in July, when Hossein Salami, the second-in-command of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), said, "In Lebanon, more than 100,000 Qasem missiles are ready for launch ... ready to wipe out one malevolent and black spot from the political geography forever".
Lebanon's lack of autonomy was also confirmed by Marwan Hamade, a former Lebanese cabinet minister, and an ally of Rafik Hariri, who said that Lebanon had wanted to negotiate peace with Israel, but that all dialogue was blocked by Syria. Hamade said that, "While Hariri and his block wished to normalize and demilitarize Lebanon after Israel's 2000 withdrawal from southern Lebanon, Hezbollah and Syria wanted the opposite".
Lebanon's real problems
The rift between pro-Hizballah factions and anti-Hizballah factions is growing and is tearing Lebanon apart. Lebanon's parliament has been unable to compromise on a new president after Michel Suleiman's term expired in May 2014. Since the three most senior positions in Lebanese politics are constitutionally divided between a Christian president, a Sunni prime minister, and a Shiite parliamentary speaker, the stalemate means that for over two years, Christians have had no representative at that level.
However, Lebanon's political dysfunction goes far beyond a constitutional crisis, and it affects the daily lives of Lebanese people. The New York Times reported
"With a new government dominated by allies of Hezbollah... censorship has been on the rise... Lebanon's Sunni Muslims — traditionally moderate — have been increasingly challenged by extremists, including Salafi mullahs in Sidon and Al Qaeda in the northern city of Tripoli ... Christian groups have also been joining the call for censorship".
This has led "a parade of artists to leave the country." The dysfunction even affects public health; garbage was not collected in Lebanon for almost a year, from July 2015 until March 2016, when a temporary solution was finally implemented.
In May 2016, popular Lebanese journalist Nadim Koteich revealed his support for Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights, by tweeting that the war-ravaged Syrian city of Aleppo would have been better off under Israeli occupation. Koteich's daring tweet (later deleted) demonstrates that despite Hizballah's stranglehold on Lebanese politics, the irrational anti-Israel position of Lebanon is opposed by many of its people.
It is very likely that some of the nine athletes in the Lebanese Olympic delegation are not anti-Semites and would even welcome interaction with Israeli athletes. However, they also know the power of Hizballah and the consequences of challenging its authority.
The difficulties of Lebanon are much larger than the question of whether or not its athletes should avoid Israelis. The occupation by Israel of a disputed piece of land, the "Shabaa Farms" that is 0.2% of the size of Lebanon, hardly warrants the existence of an independent militia that is more powerful than the Lebanese army and that has undue and disproportional influence over the country.
If the Arab states, among them Lebanon, had not attacked the newly-independent Jewish state in 1948, and if Lebanon had prevented terrorist attacks from its territory against Israel, not one bullet would have been exchanged between the two countries. Today, Lebanon would be enjoying diplomatic relations with Israel, and the benefits of successful trade.
**Fred Maroun, a left-leaning Arab based in Canada, has authored op-eds for New Canadian Media, among other outlets. From 1961-1984, he lived in Lebanon.
© 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

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on on September 18-19/16

8 Injured in Minnesota Mall Stabbing in Attack by 'IS Soldier'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/An Islamic State group "soldier" carried out the wave of stabbings at a mall in the U.S. state of Minnesota that wounded eight people, a jihadist-linked news agency said Sunday. "The executor of the stabbing attacks in Minnesota yesterday (Saturday) was a soldier of the Islamic State who carried out the operation in response to calls to target citizens of countries belonging to the crusader coalition," Amaq news agency said. IS has repeatedly called for lone-wolf attacks on countries in the U.S.-led coalition targeting the jihadist group with air strikes in Syria and Iraq, with France and Belgium bearing the brunt of such actions. U.S. police said an off-duty officer shot dead a suspect who had stabbed and wounded eight people in a shopping mall in Minnesota on Saturday night. He "made some references to Allah", said Blair Anderson, police chief in the city of St. Cloud, and "asked at least one person if they were Muslim before he assaulted them."The motivation remained unclear, Anderson stressed to journalists. "Whether that was a terrorist attack or not, I'm not willing to say that right now because we just don't know." Anderson said the assailant at the Crossroads Center mall in St. Cloud, some 70 miles (110 kilometres) northwest of Minneapolis city, was wearing a private security uniform. The suspect had a history of minor traffic violations, he said, adding that police did not currently have reason to believe the attack was connected to any other incident. The stabbings came as 29 people were wounded in a bomb attack on a busy New York neighbourhood Saturday.

NY Blast Injures 29, Governor Says No Link to Global Terror
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/A bomb that exploded in New York wounding 29 people and causing significant damage was under investigation Sunday as an act of terror, although officials say there is no overseas link. The blast tore through Chelsea, one of the most fashionable district of Manhattan packed with bars, restaurants and luxury apartment buildings, late Saturday at around 8:30 pm local time (0130 GMT Sunday). Police later discovered a second bomb four blocks away, which was safely defused and taken away for analysis. The attack put New York on full alert, just one day before world leaders are due to gather in the city for the U.N. General Assembly. It came as a jihadist-linked news agency claimed that an Islamic State group "soldier" carried out a stabbing attack in a shopping mall in Minnesota that left eight people injured also late Saturday. Local police said the attack "made some references to Allah," but the motivation of the attack was unclear. The attacker was shot dead by an off-duty police officer. In New York, police and law enforcement have sealed off the traffic for five blocks around the scene and dozens of officers were out in force Sunday. An AFP photographer said there was lots of debris, including rubble and glass on 23rd Street, where the explosion happened. "Whoever placed these bombs, we will find and they will be brought to justice," New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters at the scene. "A bomb exploding in New York is obviously an act of terrorism, but it's not linked to international terrorism. In other words, we find no ISIS connection, et cetera," said Cuomo in reference to the Islamic State extremist group based in Iraq and Syria.
No further threat
"But a bomb going off is generically a terrorist activity. That's how we'll consider it. And that's how we will prosecute it," he added. An extra 1,000 state police and National Guard will deploy to airports, bus terminals and subway stations to reassure New Yorkers returning to work on Monday that the city is up and running, he said. "We have no reason to believe at this time that there is any further immediate threat," Cuomo said. He said that while there was no evidence of an international terror link "at this time," it was still "very early in the investigation."
The explosion outside a building on 23rd Street, between Sixth and Seventh Avenues, caused "significant" property damage with glass and shrapnel "everywhere," the governor said. While the two devices planted in Manhattan appear to be similar, at this stage they seem to be different than a pipe bomb that exploded in the neighboring state of New Jersey on Saturday, he said. The New Jersey blast occurred in Seaside Park during a Marine Corps charity run and caused no injuries. There were up to four timed explosives but only one detonated, Al Della Fave, a spokesman for the Ocean County prosecutor, told CNN.
Trump, Clinton wade in
Of the 29 people who sustained injuries in New York, 24 were taken to hospital with various degrees of scrapes and abrasions from glass and metal, said Fire Department commissioner Daniel Nigro. Witnesses living three blocks away told AFP they heard a large boom from their fifth floor apartment, followed by the sound of sirens. New York lauds itself as the safest big city in the United States. Violent crime has become rare in Manhattan and stringent security checks the norm in many areas since the 2001 al-Qaida hijackings destroyed the Twin Towers. The explosion in New York, the country's largest city, its financial and entertainment capital as well as home to the two presidential candidates, could impact America's divisive presidential election. "I would like to express my warmest regards, best wishes and condolences to all of the families and victims of the horrible bombing in NYC," Republican nominee Donald Trump tweeted Sunday. On Saturday, way before officials confirmed the cause of the explosion, Trump said it had been a bomb. His Democratic rival Hillary Clinton immediately took swipe at her opponent, although later also used the word "bombings" to refer to what had happened in New York and New Jersey. New York Mayor Bill De Blasio said that police, law enforcement and the city's "anti-terror capacity in particular" was on full alert. The city routinely goes on extra security alert following attacks in other American cities or in Europe, and police claim to have foiled multiple alleged terror plots since September 11, 2001 when nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Syria Truce Teeters on Brink after U.S.-Led Raid Kills Regime Troops
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/Syria's ceasefire was hanging by a thread on Sunday, after tensions escalated between Moscow and Washington over a U.S.-led coalition air strike that killed dozens of Syrian soldiers battling jihadists. The truce saw violence drop across Syria for several days after it came into force Monday, but fighting has since erupted on several fronts and besieged civilians are still waiting desperately for promised aid deliveries. The ceasefire's co-sponsors, Russia and the United States, have traded accusations over the fraying deal, with relations strained even further after the U.S.-led raid killed scores of Syrian soldiers on Saturday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 90 soldiers were killed in the strike. Damascus ally Moscow put the death toll at 62. The Syrian army said the raid had allowed Islamic State group fighters to gain ground around the key eastern airbase of Deir Ezzor, but a military source said government forces were back on the offensive Sunday. "The army has retaken most of its positions on Jabal Therdeh with Russian and Syrian air support," the source said, referring to a hilltop overlooking the base. Retaking them is vital to prevent IS using them to fire on army aircraft taking off from or landing there. On Sunday, IS said it shot down a Syrian warplane near Deir Ezzor. Syrian state news agency SANA confirmed a plane had been shot down there and its pilot killed, but did not say who was responsible. The base and adjacent government-held neighborhoods of Deir Ezzor city have been under siege since 2012 and have been dependent on resupply by air.
'Bad omen' for ceasefire
Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said Russian warplanes pounded IS positions around Deir Ezzor late Saturday as fierce clashes broke out between IS and forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. At least 38 jihadist fighters were killed and clashes were ongoing, Abdel Rahman told AFP. Hours after the coalition strike on Saturday, the Pentagon admitted U.S.-led pilots may have hit Assad's forces but said that they "believed they were striking a Daesh (IS) fighting position." The statement said coalition forces "would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit." Australia, which said it was one of several coalition countries whose aircraft took part, offered its "condolences to the families of any Syrian personnel killed or wounded."A statement by Russia's foreign ministry on Sunday said it was "deeply concerned" about the incident. "The actions of the pilots -- if they, as we hope, were not taken on orders from Washington -- fall between criminal negligence and direct pandering to IS terrorists," it said. It again called on Washington to force Syrian rebels to sign on to the truce, warning that "otherwise, the realization of Russia-U.S. agreements... could be put in danger."An emergency U.N. Security Council meeting called by Moscow to discuss the attack ended early on Saturday after an exchange between the US and Russia reminiscent of Cold War-era verbal jousting. U.S. ambassador Samantha Power said Washington regretted the loss of life, but that Moscow's request for the meeting was a "stunt."And Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin accused the U.S. of violating agreements that it would not target Syrian army positions.He called the strike a "bad omen" for the U.S.-Russia deal on halting the war in Syria, which has killed more than 300,000 people since it erupted in March 2011. "These strikes endanger everything that has been done so far by the international community" to end the war, foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
Fighting on multiple fronts
The truce agreement came into force September 12, with the Britain-based Observatory reporting a drop in violence across all major fronts in the country where IS was not present. But fighting began to build up again late last week, including in the central provinces of Homs and Hama, and the rebel-held eastern suburbs of Damascus. The front line remained quiet in divided second city Aleppo, but civilians have yet to see any aid deliveries -- a key component of the truce deal. The head of Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to al-Qaida, said late Saturday that "neither we nor rebel groups will allow the siege of Aleppo to continue." In an interview broadcast by Al-Jazeera television, Abu Mohamed al-Jolani said negotiations were under way for anti-regime groups to band together in a single organization. Such a merger would throw a major wrench in the U.S.-Russia deal, which foresaw cooperation between the two world powers against jihadist groups, including Fateh al-Sham as well as IS, if the truce holds for a week.

U.S.-Led Raid 'Intentional' but Syria Committed to Truce, Says Assad Adviser
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/A senior adviser to President Bashar Assad Sunday accused U.S.-led coalition forces of carrying out an "intentional" strike against Syrian soldiers, but said Damascus remained committed to a fragile truce. In a phone interview from the Syrian capital, Buthaina Shaaban told AFP that Assad's government "believes that the strike was intentional." "None of the facts on the ground show that what happened was a mistake or a coincidence," she said. On Saturday, the U.S.-led air coalition bombed a Syrian army position near the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, killing as many as 90 soldiers. Syrian government forces have been battling an Islamic State group offensive near Deir Ezzor since last year. "Everything was calculated and Daesh knew about it... Even Russia reached the terrifying conclusion that the United States is colluding with Daesh," Shaaban added, using the Arabic acronym for IS. "When Daesh advanced, the raids stopped."She said that since the U.S.-led intervention began in Syria in 2014, "we have been saying that this is not against Daesh, that they are not striking Daesh." Syria's army late Saturday said the raid had allowed IS to gain ground around the key Deir Ezzor airbase.The coalition admitted that it may have hit the Syrian army, but said it believed it was targeting an IS position there. The fallout has strained a teetering ceasefire deal between the U.S. and Russia aimed at helping to end Syria's five-year war. Shaaban said on Sunday the truce was still in place.
"We are committed to the truce. The truce is continuing until its expiration. Maybe it will be extended, maybe there will be another agreement," she said. Last week, the Syrian army announced that it would observe a freeze on fighting until midnight on Monday September 19. Damascus believes Saturday's raid may signal divisions within the American administration on deepening U.S.-Russia cooperation under the truce deal, Shaaban said. "What is worrying is its (the strike's) effect on the U.S.-Russia agreement. I believe that some elements in the United States do not want this deal," she said."There is a side that agrees with the Russians and another side that rejects the agreement. This makes it seem to us that the White House wants this agreement while the Pentagon rejects it."

First Air Strikes on Syria's Aleppo since Truce
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/Four air strikes hit rebel-held parts of Syria's Aleppo on Sunday, a monitor said, in the first raids on the battered city since a truce took effect. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said several people were wounded but could not immediately give details about casualties or identify who carried out the A halt to fighting around Aleppo and the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid were key components of the fragile truce, which began on Monday evening. While the front lines had remained calm, civilians in the besieged eastern quarters had yet to receive promised food assistance. The estimated 250,000 people in the eastern half of the city have been living under government siege since early September. Rebel groups -- which have yet to formally sign on to the truce -- have regularly pledged to break the encirclement. The head of Fateh al-Sham Front, which changed its name from al-Nusra Front after renouncing its ties to al-Qaida, said late Saturday that opposition fighters would do all they could to end the encirclement. Abu Mohamed al-Jolani said "neither we nor rebel groups will allow the siege of Aleppo to continue." More than 300,000 people have been killed since Syria's conflict erupted in March 2011 with protests calling for the ouster of President Bashar Assad.

Obama, Netanyahu to Meet in New York
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/U.S. President Barack Obama will meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu next week in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, the White House said Sunday. Obama and Israel's prime minister will have a bilateral meeting Wednesday, with discussion topics likely to include the need for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict "in the face of deeply troubling trends on the ground," White House spokesman Josh Earnest said in a statement.

Israel PM Defends U.S. Aid Package in Face of Criticism
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended a new $38 billion U.S. defense aid package against criticism Israel could have negotiated a larger sum had he not angered the White House.Speaking at the start of a cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said the deal was the "largest assistance agreement that the United States has ever provided to any country in its history."He said it "proves the depth of the relationship, and the strength of relations, between Israel and the United States." Netanyahu hit back at political opponents who argue the country should have received a larger package in compensation for the new threats Israel says it faces due to the nuclear accord with its arch-foe Iran. The Israeli premier was a strong opponent of the deal between Tehran and major powers led by Washington, and his campaign against it included an address to the U.S. Congress in March last year. President Barack Obama's administration was angered by the address, which it saw as interference in the country's internal affairs by a foreign leader. For Netanyahu's critics, he should have moved on from his campaign against the accord sooner and quickly begun negotiations on the new decade-long defense aid package. Former prime minister Ehud Barak was among those criticizing Netanyahu, saying his "reckless conduct has... undermined Israel's security." "Israel will receive $3.8 billion a year -- an important contribution to our security but far less than what could have been obtained before the prime minister chose to blatantly interfere with U.S. politics," Barak wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece. Labor opposition lawmaker Shelly Yachimovich said that "Netanyahu himself told heads of the security establishment to count on $5-6 billion a year, of which $3.8 (billion) are left." "This is a result of arrogant conduct, failing to read the map, and campaign considerations," she wrote on Twitter. On Sunday, Netanyahu said "I would like to make it clear: we were never offered more. "We were not offered more money, not even one dollar, and we were never offered special technologies. These are distortions and fabrications of interested parties."He said such comments also showed "ingratitude to our greatest and best friend, the United States."The United States and Israel signed the deal in Washington on Wednesday. It covers the period from 2019 to 2028 and will see Israel receive $3.3 billion per year in foreign military financing -- up from $3.1 billion currently -- and $500,000 in funding for missile defense. Officials from both sides have been keen to stress the enduring bond between the two countries and the central role the military alliance plays in securing the Israeli people in an unstable Middle East region. Obama and Netanyahu have had tense relations, but the two men were determined to put their differences aside and finalize the aid package. Israel relies heavily on U.S. defense aid. Its total defense budget amounts to some $16 billion, excluding the U.S. aid.

Israel Arrests Arab Party Officials in Funding Probe
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/Israeli police have arrested more than 20 officials and activists from a leading Arab political party as part of an investigation into its financing, authorities said on Sunday. The party, Balad, denounced the move as an attempt to silence Israel's Arab minority, which accounts for 17.5 percent of the country's eight million population and is largely supportive of the Palestinian cause. Balad is especially critical of Israeli policies and one of its members of parliament, Haneen Zoabi, has frequently angered Israeli officials. No MPs were among those arrested.More than 20 suspects, including officials and activists in the Balad party, among them lawyers and accountants" were detained, police said. The arrests were "on suspicion of fraud in connection with funds received that were used to finance the party's activities."The arrests followed a state comptroller investigation. Members of Balad were accused of creating a mechanism that for years misrepresented "the origin of millions of shekels" obtained from within Israel and abroad, police said. Authorities did not provide further information on the alleged sources of the financing. The suspects were to face remand hearings later on Sunday. Balad called the charges "arbitrary" and a means to intimidate the party, stressing all its political and financial dealings were within the law. "This is a dangerous escalation and another stage in the political persecution of the Arab minority and political movements," it said in a statement. It said the arrests were cover for "silencing Balad" and harming its ability to act as "the spearhead in the struggle against repression and discrimination."Balad, an acronym for National Democratic Assembly, is part of the Joint List, a coalition of Arab Israeli parties in parliament. The Joint List holds 13 of the 120 seats in parliament, of which three are held by Balad, and is the third largest bloc in the legislature. Balad's three MPs triggered outrage among Jewish Israelis earlier this year when they met relatives of Palestinians who authorities say were killed while carrying out attacks. In response, parliament passed a controversial law in July allowing the expulsion of MPs deemed guilty of racial incitement or supporting armed struggle against Israel. Analysts have said the law will be extremely difficult to put into practice as any expulsion would require the support of 90 of the 120 MPs. Balad founder and then MP Azmi Bishara fled Israel in 2007 amid allegations he advised Hizbullah and directed its rocket fire against Israel during the Lebanon war of the previous year.

Egyptian Researcher Ahmad Abdou Maher Criticizes Ancient Islamic Jurisprudence: 'Idiocy And Insanity'
MEMRI/September 18/16/Former British boxer Anthony Small, who now goes by the name Abdul Haqq, posted a video on his YouTube channel on September 6, in which he mocked the British people for rejoicing at Anjem Choudary's prison sentence. "Millions of your tax money were used to arrest him... and now you're happy, overjoyed that he's going to sit with free food and shelter, at the cost of your hard-earned tax money," he laughed. "As the pages of history turn, your own reign, your own kingdom, your own history will be forgotten." The future, said Small, "is one of brightness, one of domination of the religion of Islam." In a previous sermon by Small, delivered in London in 2013 following the killing of Pakistan Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a U.S. drone attack, he said that this approach will never stop the jihad (see MEMRI TV Clip No. 4062). Anthony Small: "I'm amazed that there are British citizens, hard-working British taxpayers, happy, rejoicing on the Internet, social media platforms, at the conviction of Anjem Choudary. Now, why am I so amazed? Because you are happy at the fact that one of your arch-enemies, your - the person you hate with such venom - has had tens, hundreds, millions of pounds of your tax money spent on him. Your hard-working tax money – because you're not lazy, are you? Surely all of Ukraine is not coming over here stealing your jobs because you're lazy. No, no, of course you're not. You're hard-working taxpayers, tax money, has been used to follow this individual, bug his house, plant spies amongst his ranks, arrest him, charge him, take him through trial. It's not free - you think it's all free! Take him to trial, convict him, and now you're happy. All rejoice at the fact that he's now going to sit for a number of years, receiving free food, clothing and shelter at the cost of your hard-earned tax money. But you guys are laughing. That's why I love not-so-Great Britain, because you guys just, you guys can just see a bright side of anything. You guys... See, it doesn't matter. The cup with you guys, as they say, the cup is always half full."
 

Mike Freer MP: We must not turn a blind eye to Iran’s executions and abuses
National Council of Resistance of Iran/Sunday, 18 September 2016
In the week the United Kingdom upgraded its diplomatic presence in Iran to having a full Ambassador, the Iranian regime sentenced a British woman, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, to five years imprisonment, British lawmaker Mike Freer has pointed out. This follows a series of arrests of British-Iranian dual nationality citizens, pointed out Mr. Freer, Member of Parliament from the Conservative Party. “What has received less publicity is the ongoing program of executions undertaken by the regime. Whilst the West banks progress we turn an apparent blind eye to the bloodletting used to suppress opposition,” he wrote on Sunday for Conservative Home.
He added:August 2016 saw Hassan Rouhani’s supposedly moderate regime carry out a new spate of executions, including the mass execution of 20 members of a minority group.
Condemnation followed from many directions, including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, who criticised the Iranian authorities and expressed “doubts about the fairness of the trials, respect for due process and other rights of the accused.”
This same month newly published audio recordings have emerged of meetings between Iran’s most senior clergymen in August 1988. In the recording the late Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri is heard accusing the leaders of Iran’s ‘death commission’ of “the greatest crime committed during the Islamic Republic, for which history will condemn us, has been committed by you…”The late Ayatollah was referring to the massacre of tens of thousands of political opponents of the Iranian regime, including thousands of members of the People’s Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI). Tehran’s use of executions as a form of suppression of its population’s desire for democracy has continued from 1988 to the present day. Supposedly moderate Presidents have come and gone, but one thing that has never changed is the systematic use of executions. Looking at the individuals who formed the ‘death commission’ leads us to a worrying conclusion: that in reality, although the puppet’s head may change from election to election, those pulling the strings in Iranian politics have remained.
Four men made up the commission that led the massacres in 1988. Today three of those men remain senior figures within the Iranian regime. Mostafa Pourmohammadi is Iran’s Minister of Justice, Hossein-Ali Nayyeri Iran’s head of the Supreme Disciplinary Court for Judges, and Ebrahim Raeesi among the regime’s most senior clerics and the head of the Astan Qods-e Razavi foundation (a multi-billion dollar religious, political and economic conglomerate and one of the most important political and economic powerhouses in the clerical regime).
This week the leader of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), Iran’s largest coalition of opposition groups, called on the international community to bring about justice for those massacred in 1988 through the international prosecution of the masterminds of the 1988 massacre. I join her in that call. Included in that list alongside Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Hossein-Ali Nayyeri, and Ebrahim Raeesi must be Ayatollah Khamenei Iran’s current Supreme Leader and a public supporter of the 1988 massacres.
It is time to take decisive steps sending a clear message to the leaders of Iran that executions which take place without a fair trial, respect for due process or without the individual’s rights being preserved will not be accepted by the international community. Have we sacrificed human rights for progress on decommissioning centrifuges? It is important that in today’s climate, where Hassan Rouhani is hailed as a moderate and a man the international community can work with, that we do not simply address the man but rather the establishment in Tehran. Entry into the international community and the benefits that brings must come at a cost for Iran and not simply be a right of way. Bringing about international prosecutions against the perpetrators of the 1988 massacre is not only something we should have done many years ago, but it will show Tehran that breaches of international protocols will not be accepted if the regime wishes to play a greater part in the international community. **Mike Freer is MP for Finchley and Golders Green.

Two Saudi Policemen Shot Dead in Mainly Shiite City
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/Unidentified gunmen killed two Saudi policemen in the mainly Shiite eastern city of Dammam late on Saturday, the interior ministry said, describing it as a "terrorist attack."The two officers were patrolling in a police car when they came under fire at around 11:30 pm (2030 GMT), a ministry spokesman told the official Saudi Press Agency.They were both pronounced dead on arrival in hospital. The spokesman did not specify who it held responsible for the shooting but there have been previous attacks on police in mainly Shiite areas of the oil-rich east of the kingdom this year. In January four police were killed in attacks. The Shiite minority in Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia has long complained of discrimination and there has been sporadic unrest since the suppression of a Shiite-led uprising in neighboring Bahrain sparked a wave of protests in 2011.

Merkel Braces for Populist Gains in Berlin Elections
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/German voters went to the polls in Berlin Sunday in a regional election where the anti-migrant AfD party hoped to capitalize on anger against Chancellor Angela Merkel's welcome to refugees. The rightwing populist Alternative for Germany has mobilized xenophobic and anti-Islam sentiment to win opposition seats in nine out of 16 states in Germany and is especially strong in the ex-communist east. Fresh gains for the AfD -- especially in hip and multicultural Berlin, where it has been polling up to 14 percent -- would spell another setback for Merkel, a year ahead of national elections. Germany took in one million asylum seekers last year, and over 70,000 came to Berlin, with many housed in the cavernous hangars of the Nazi-built former Tempelhof airport, once the hub for the Cold War-era Berlin airlift. Merkel -- who was booed this week by rightwing activists shouting "get lost" -- later conceded it was hard to reach "protest voters" who have turned their backs on mainstream parties. Polls opened at 0600 GMT under clear blue skies and were to close at 1600 GMT, with some 2.5 million people to chose both a new city-state parliament and 12 local district assemblies.
Merkel's center-right Christian Democrats (CDU) has a national majority but in Berlin serves as junior coalition partner to Mayor Michael Mueller's center-left Social Democrats (SPD), traditionally the strongest party in this city of 3.5 million.As Mueller has rejected a new coalition with the CDU, Merkel's party may be cast out of the Berlin government altogether with the SPD likely to team up with the ecologist Greens and the far-left Die Linke party.
Poor but sexy'
In a city famously dubbed "poor but sexy" by its previous mayor, the openly-gay bon vivant Klaus Wowereit, the election campaign has been dominated not just by migrant policies but also widespread frustration over poor public services. With little industry and an above-national average jobless rate of 10 percent, Europe's techno party capital is chronically broke and known for its crumbling schools, late trains and shambolic city offices. Often seen as an amusingly chaotic exception in otherwise orderly and punctual Germany, Berlin became a national laughing stock for a grand BER airport project that is now five years behind schedule and three times over budget. More seriously, thousands of refugees were left waiting for days and weeks last year at Berlin's then hopelessly overwhelmed central migrant registration center, with many sleeping in the dirt outside. Casting his ballot early on Sunday, police officer Tobias Ludley, 27, said he worried about indebted Berlin's cash-strapped public services, as well as its "little building site," the BER. But he also voiced concern about the AfD, a party he labeled "the wolf in sheep's clothing"."The AfD is appealing to people who otherwise wouldn't vote, the protest voters," he said expressing concern the party could gain ground in a city which was normally "a shining example of multiculturalism". Another voter, Franziska Ersil, 38, who works in advertising, agreed that "many big-city problems just aren't being solved.""We worry about education, a housing shortage, and the fact that they just can't get a handle on the refugee crisis... that a multicultural city like Berlin can't adequately welcome, house and integrate them. "There are many intelligent people among the refugees and we should be using their potential or it will be a missed opportunity."
Misanthropic, racist
The top candidate meant to fix the mess is the SPD's Mueller, 51, who took over mid-term from Wowereit almost two years ago and is now seeking a popular mandate. His main opponent is the CDU's Henkel, 52, who is running on a law-and-order platform that has seen mass police raids against anti-capitalist squatters and promises to crack down on drug dealers and to equip police with stun guns. As the election has neared, AfD's rise has come to the fore with Henkel saying: "I can't stand a party that tolerates racists in its leadership."The AfD, breaking a taboo in post-war German politics, has an openly anti-immigration platform, similar to France's National Front or far-right populists in Austria and the Netherlands. It has also tapped into popular frustration with the CDU and SPD, who rule Germany in a "grand coalition." Mueller issued a passionate plea for voters to reject politicians with a "worldview that is misanthropic and racist through-and-through.""Berlin overcame the Wall and shoot-to-kill orders and learned the right lessons from a cruel history of suffering, persecution, terror and war," he wrote.

India Blames Pakistan Militants for Kashmir Attack that Killed 17
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/Gunmen hurling grenades killed 17 soldiers in a raid on an army base in Indian Kashmir Sunday, with India blaming Pakistan-based militants for the worst such attack in the disputed region for over a decade. The militants broke into the base near the de facto border with Pakistan before dawn and lobbed grenades at tents and barracks housing soldiers, before opening fire with automatic weapons, the army said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi vowed to punish those behind the "cowardly" and "despicable" hours-long attack near the town of Uri that also left four militants dead and scores of soldiers injured. "We strongly condemn the cowardly terror attack in Uri. I assure the nation that those behind this despicable attack will not go unpunished," Modi said in a series of tweets. No one has so far claimed responsibility, but Home Minister Rajnath Singh said he was disappointed with "Pakistan's continued and direct support to terrorism and terrorist groups". "Pakistan is a terrorist state and it should be identified and isolated as such," Singh said on Twitter, adding that the militants "were highly trained, heavily armed and specially equipped."
The raid was likely to further sour ties between the nuclear-armed neighbors given the high death toll and heightened tensions in the Indian-administered region following weeks of deadly clashes between residents and security forces. India regularly accuses its arch-rival Pakistan of arming and sending rebels across the heavily militarized border that divides Kashmir between the two countries, to launch attacks on its forces. Islamabad denies the claims. Sunday's attack was one of the bloodiest on soldiers since an armed rebellion against Indian rule erupted in 1989. Militants killed 30 soldiers and their families in a suicide attack in Kaluchak in the Himalayan region in 2002. Most of the soldiers died Sunday after their tents and other housing caught fire during the raid on the brigade headquarters near the border known as the Line of Control (LoC), said Ranbir Singh, the army's director-general of military operations. Lieutenant-General Singh blamed Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad, saying he had already expressed "serious concerns" to his Pakistani counterpart. "The killed terrorists, they were all foreign terrorists and as per the initial reports, they belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad," Singh told a briefing. India blamed the same group for an audacious attack in January on an Indian air force base in the northern state of Punjab that left seven soldiers dead.
Deadly civilian unrest
The Muslim-majority region is currently in the grip of deadly civilian unrest that has lasted for more than two months. Protesting residents are clashing almost daily with security forces in the worst crowd violence since 2010. At least 87 civilians have been killed and thousands injured in the protests against Indian rule, sparked by the killing of a popular rebel leader in a gunbattle with soldiers on July 8. The government has been coming under growing pressure over the level of casualties and over the security forces' use of shotguns loaded with pellets which can blind demonstrators. Thousands of angry demonstrators defied a curfew on Saturday in Kashmir to attend the funeral of a schoolboy whose body was found riddled with pellets, sparking fresh clashes.The Indian government accuses Pakistan of stoking the unrest in the region. On Sunday residents of Uri town saw smoke billowing from the nearby base and heard continuous rounds of heavy gunfire that lasted several hours, while army helicopters circled overhead. Twenty-eight injured soldiers were airlifted to a military hospital in the region's main city of Srinagar, four of them in critical condition, an army officer said. Kashmir has been divided between India and Pakistan since the two gained independence from British rule in 1947. Both claim the territory in full and have fought two wars over the region. Rebel groups which have been fighting Indian troops in Kashmir since 1989 seek either independence for the region or its merger with Pakistan. Soldiers have been deployed in Kashmir for decades and currently number around 500,000. Tens of thousands of people, mostly civilians, have died in the fighting.

Libyan Loyalist Bid to Retake Oil Ports Fails
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 18/16/A counter-attack by fighters loyal to Libya's U.N.-backed unity government aimed at retaking key eastern oil ports was repelled on Sunday by forces from a rival administration. The operation came as three members of forces loyal to the Tripoli-based Government of National Accord were killed further west in a resumed offensive against Islamic State group holdouts in Sirte. The GNA is the centerpiece of U.N. efforts to restore stability in Libya and forge a central authority capable of tackling the twin scourges of IS and rampant people trafficking across the Mediterranean to Europe. But it has struggled to impose its authority amid opposition from a rival administration based in Libya's remote east. Oil is Libya's key asset, and revenue from crude exports is vital if the GNA is to rebuild an economy and infrastructure ravaged by violence since the 2011 uprising that killed veteran strongman Moammar Gadhafi. Last week, forces led by controversial military strongman Khalifa Haftar seized Ras Lanuf, Al-Sidra, Zuwaytina and Brega in the so-called "oil crescent" along the coast. They later handed the ports over to the National Oil Corporation, which said on Thursday that crude exports would resume "immediately" from Zuwaytina and Ras Lanuf. The NOC says it is loyal to the GNA, but also to the internationally recognized parliament based in the east which supports Haftar's forces and has refused to give the GNA its vote of confidence.
Early Sunday, pro-GNA forces launched an offensive aimed at retaking al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, but after several hours of fighting Haftar's forces said they launched a counter-attack and repelled the loyalists. "We repelled the attack and we are chasing them in the region," said Muftah al-Muqarief, who heads oil guards loyal to Haftar, adding that "some" assailants had been captured. There was no independent confirmation from the oil crescent region of the fighting and the situation on the ground. A Haftar spokesman, Mohamad Ibset, said earlier that guards loyal to the GNA had attacked.
Tanker withdrawn for safety
And Ali al-Hassi, a spokesman for the loyalist oil guards, said: "We attacked al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf, and Haftar's forces are trying to hit us with their warplanes."The counter-attack is a new blow to the unity government and NOC efforts to resume exports. "We ask the combatants to avoid taking actions that could damage our vital national infrastructure," NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement. "Our national recovery depends on these ports being open and our oil flowing freely."The NOC said Maltese-flagged tanker the Seadelta, which was due to load crude oil at Ras Lanuf for Italy, had to be "withdrawn to a‎ safe distance offshore" because of the fighting. Meanwhile firefighters were trying to extinguish a blaze at al-Sidra, where another storage tank already damaged in January fighting was set alight during Sunday's clashes. Libya, with Africa's largest oil reserves estimated at 48 billion barrels, has exported only a few tankers of crude in recent months.The GNA, created last year as a U.N.-brokered power-sharing government, still needs a vote of confidence from the rival parliament based in the east. Haftar, who sees himself as Libya's savior after driving jihadists out of most of second city Benghazi, is the most powerful backer of the rival administration in the east. Days after the ports fell under his control, the east-based parliament promoted him to field marshal from his previous rank of general. Also on Sunday, pro-GNA forces renewed attacks on IS holdouts in Sirte after a two-week lull. "Our forces are using heavy artillery to target the positions where Daesh (IS) holdouts are cowering," they said in a statement. A field hospital on the outskirts of Sirte said three members of the loyalist forces were killed on Sunday. More than 450 members of the loyalist forces have been killed and around 2,500 wounded since the operation began in May. Pro-government forces have said the situation at Misrata Central Hospital where doctors have been overwhelmed by casualties is also delaying the final push in Sirte. Italy has said it will set up a military field hospital in Misrata, following a request from the GNA.

Al-Sisi, Trump to meet for first time in New York visit
Menan Khater/Daily News/September 18/16
The Egyptian president will arrive in New York on Sunday to attend the 71st UN general assembly
President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi is expected to meet US republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the sidelines of his visit to New York, state news agency MENA reported.
Al-Sisi will arrive in New York on Sunday afternoon to attend the 71st debate of the United Nations (UN) general assembly.
Besides this, the Egyptian president is also expected to hold a set of bilateral meetings with his counterparts from France, Jordan, Palestine, and the UK, as well the US democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Hassan Nafaa, political science professor at Cairo University, told Daily News Egypt that before this, Egypt did not attend the general assembly on a regular basis—Al-Sisi is keen to attend every year for reasons related to the internal situation in Egypt. “It is linked to the regime’s objective to defend its legality,” Nafaa said.
This is the third time Al-Sisi will attend the general assembly since his appointment in 2014. Despite the variety of meetings he participated in and bilateral talks he held, the Egyptian president did not get to meet his US counterpart Barack Obama on any of those visits, nor on any separate visits.
According to Nafaa, this is the result of a strain in formal diplomatic relations between the US and Egypt. However, for this year’s visit, meeting Obama should not be a concern as he will leave office by the end of this year, Nafaa said.
“Obama will already be resigning by the end of this year, so what counts is building diplomatic relations with upcoming presidents,” Nafaa said.
He added: “Al-Sisi’s meeting with Trump is a must if he will meet Clinton. It would be a diplomatic mistake if he chose to only meet Clinton, and would also show prejudice on his part towards the candidates.”
The 71st general assembly is currently taking place at the UN headquarters in New York, while the debate will start on Monday, bringing together more than 190 country leaders from member states to discuss a wide range of ongoing international issues of common concern.
Al-Sisi has set a potential meeting with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. According to political researcher on Palestine Mohamed Goma’a, the discussion is expected to focus on the succession of Abbas and the enforcement of the Arab Peace Initiative—Egypt recently decided to mediate between Israel and Palestine in order to put the initiative into effect.
A high-level summit on refugees and migrants will lead the general assembly week on Monday. Al-Sisi is expected to participate in this meeting and give a speech. The president is also expected to address the general assembly on Tuesday.
According to UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon, compelling all participating countries to acknowledge the rights of refugees and migrants during this year’s assembly is one of the key challenges.
Ban said in a statement on Sunday: “The challenges are enormous, but we should not forget the benefits. With the right approach, refugees and migrants can bring benefits to both their adoptive societies and their home countries.”
 

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on on September 18-19/16

Iran seeks to complete the crescent
Eyad Abu Shakra/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
Two significant developments, both connected to conflict raging between Iran’s creeping influence and the remaining defenders of Arab identity, took place in the Arab Mashreq region last week.The first is the undisguised attempt of demographic changes in the environs of the Syrian capital Damascus and the completion of what was concealed in and around the city of Homs. The second was the aborted Yemeni Houthi tour of friendly countries run by Iran’s followers in the Middle East. These two developments confirm what Jordan’s King Abdullah II called “the Shiite Crescent,” soon to be affirmed by Egypt’s ex-president Hosni Mubarak when he openly accused Arab Shiites of having sectarian loyalty to Iran. However, it must be said, that Shiite loyalty and claimed love for the descendants of the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in this particular case are merely a veil of convenience concealing a vengeful Persian nationalistic project that has nothing to do with Islam and runs contrary to Muslim unity and interests. Under the watchful eyes of the international community – as represented by the UN – the uprooting and driving out of the populations of towns and suburbs that circle Damascus in the Ghouta region, Barada River Valley and Qalamoun Mountains is gathering pace, while on the northern frontiers with Turkey de facto borders are being drawn to separate Turkish and Kurdish dominated areas. In both cases, this is being played out against a background of clear agreement between Washington and Moscow on temporary ceasefires under the excuses of delivering emergency supplies to besieged people and defining “terrorist groups” in order to distinguish them from “the moderate opposition” while totally ignoring the regime’s air raids and the blatant military intervention of Iran, directly and indirectly through its sectarian militias from Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Blatant action
What I mean is that what was a few months ago a secretive course of action has now become a declared local, regional and international policy. I believe that the freezing of Syria’s southern front (namely in the provinces of Daraa and Quneitra), allowing the opposition to advance in the province of Hama, and the ongoing geographic and demographic demarcation along the Syria – Turkey borders are undeniable facts on the ground that can only be explained by the existence of at least preliminary maps for the boundaries and frontiers of a future Syria, which at best would be a federal state whereby Iran, Turkey and the Kurds would probably enjoy their own fiefdoms at the expense of Sunni Arabs. Under the watchful eyes of the international community – as represented by the UN – the uprooting and driving out of the populations of towns and suburbs that circle Damascus ... is gathering pace
With regards to the Houthi tour that began by visiting Iraq, it has merely confirmed the obvious. It has highlighted the Policy of Axes which Iran has succeeded in imposing on the region against international silence. There is little doubt that the Houthis today are nothing more than Tehran’s hand in southern Arabia.
The deposed president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, who is currently the Houthis’ main local ally and backer, had left them to grow and expand their influence and thanks to his smart manipulation, they managed to rule and dominate Yemen for decades. Saleh always believed in pitting one Yemeni faction against another in a dangerous balancing game.
Exploitation
Indeed, I surmise that his plan was to intentionally exploit the Houthi phenomenon against the Sunni Islamist Yemeni Reform Rally and the Leftist Socialists of former South Yemen and later against al-Qaeda. However, within a few years it seems that he realized, as he was passing through their mountain strongholds in northern Yemen, that those who he once believed to be his puppets and a card he could play in the Yemeni political game were now Tehran’s fifth column, whose affinities and loyalty were toward Iran. This led to the 2004 war in which their leader Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi was killed.
Thus, it can be said that Saleh was fully aware of the connections between the Houthis and Iran before 2011. He is surely even more aware of it now that he has decided to join them in a dangerous sectarian conflict with regional bearings. To wrap up, the initial planned tour of Iraq, Lebanon and Iran – before it was aborted after the stop in Baghdad – and the Iraqi financial aid given to the Houthis point out that the Persian Crescent under a Shiite guise is now complete as it has reached southern Arabia.
**This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on Sept. 17, 2016.

Iranians against Khamenei’s mistakes
Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
The statements made by Iranians who came to Saudi Arabia from other countries to perform Hajj confirmed that Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s practices and statements have not served the interest of his battle against Saudi Arabia. There is a difference between the Iranian people and the Iranian regime. Moderate voices expressing the necessity of improving relations with Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries are being suppressed. Those who oppose the Iranian regime inside Iran cannot get their voices to be heard. Therefore, Arabs and Muslims do not learn of the disasters which happen inside Iran.
There is only one voice in Iran, and all opinions which do not think that clashes with neighbors are useful to the Iranians are being suppressed. The result of this unilateral and dictatorial voice has been the regional isolation of Iran. As a result, Iran has only one role left: supporting more than 70 militias in the region, safeguarding violence and supporting terrorism. Saudi Arabia embarrassed the Iranian regime and cornered it. Earlier this month, Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef responded to Khamenei’s criticism over the Saudi kingdom’s ability to manage the pilgrimage and said: “The comments made by Iranian media outlets and some Iranian officials lack credibility and objectivity. They know - before anyone else - that the kingdom had previously accommodated Iranian pilgrims with all the same facilities as all other pilgrims.” His response echoed within Iran, according to an Iranian analyst who opposes the regime. Activists inside Iran spoke out against Khamenei who insists on being hostile toward Saudi Arabia, a country which has not moved toward rivalry or confrontation but stood in defense of the Gulf against flagrant aggression. There are many Iranian voices against Khamenei because he has engaged the Iranian people in rivalry with neighboring countries - a rivalry which they have nothing to do with. **This article was first published in Okaz on Sept. 18, 2016.

UN refugee summit: Time for action, not words
Aurelie Ponthieu/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
On Monday, the UN General Assembly will bring together member states for the first ever Summit on Refugees and Migrants. An already-released draft declaration enshrining the outcomes promises a more coordinated, humane and responsive approach to people on the move. However, its lofty aims are contradicted by the practices of many of the states that will participate in New York. Instead of respecting the rights of individuals and upholding pre-existing obligations, far too many governments are adopting ever-more restrictive approaches that seem designed to further harm already-vulnerable men, women and children, and to keep them as far from sight as possible. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) teams see the destructive consequences of this on a daily basis, as we deliver emergency medical care in many of the countries people are fleeing, along the routes they travel, and in countries in which they seek refuge.
Take the stretch of wasteland along the Jordan-Syria border known as “the berm,” where some 75,000 Syrians - 80 percent of them women and children - languish in inhumane conditions just a few kilometers from a war zone.
MSF mobile teams that had been caring for people on the berm in the weeks before the border closed in June treated more than 200 malnourished children and 500 pregnant women, including those with high-risk pregnancies needing close management.
These people are unable to cross a closed border, unable to return home due to the catastrophic war in their country, and unable at present to access basic services to help them survive. What will become of them following the UN Summit on Refugee and Migrants?
How will they fit into this new blueprint? Elsewhere, our teams see refugees and migrants denied any form of safe passage, moving across perilous routes and sometimes dying in the process. In the Americas, for example, some 300,000 people from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala head north every year to escape poverty, rapacious criminal gangs, and violence as fierce as any war zone. They hope to gain asylum in Mexico or move onward to the US.However, Mexico - with American backing - grants legal protection to less than 1 percent of these people, sending most of them back to danger in their home countries. MSF teams in Mexico report that 68 percent of patients have been assaulted while in transit. A third of the women had been sexually abused. Will ratifying states address this situation?
Violence
Globally, many people on the move suffer violence - in many cases, coming atop the violence that caused them to flee home in the first place. Since launching search-and-rescue operations in the Mediterranean, where more than 3,200 people have died in 2016 alone, MSF teams have pulled more than 35,000 people - and increasing numbers of unaccompanied minors - from the sea. Unless numerous governments plan to radically alter their responses and policies on refugees and migrants, this UN gathering will yield little more than feel-good rhetoric and empty promises
MSF medical teams on board rescue boats continue to treat and witness the consequences of physical and psychological violence inflicted on those travelling through Libya. Patients describe brutal encounters with smugglers, border guards and other predators. They have been detained, beaten with rifles, whipped with hoses, robbed, held for ransom or sexually assaulted.
We estimate that 90 percent of those we have rescued have endured some form of violence. Refugees and migrants also face violence on the Serbian border with Hungary, for instance, where a third of our patients report being assaulted, often by state authorities. Will UN leaders provide these people with better and safer alternatives? Or will they continue erecting new walls and ever-crueller forms of deterrence? Six months on from the cynical EU-Turkey deal, all signs indicate that deterrence will continue to be the focus of most states as they attempt to manage the global displacement crisis. Signed by all 28 EU member states in order to block asylum-seekers from European shores, the deal is hailed as a success. This despite the fact that nearly 60,000 men, women and children - most of them fleeing wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan - are stuck in Greece, on prison islands that they cannot leave, or in isolated and under-resourced camps on the mainland. Faced with uncertain futures, arbitrary detention and inadequate conditions, the physical and mental health of many are deteriorating as the days go slowly by.
In May, citing the EU-Turkey deal, Kenya announced the upcoming closure of the world’s largest refugee camp, Dadaab, where 350,000 Somalis driven from conflict, draught and privation have been living in limbo for years, even decades. A household survey conducted by MSF in Aug. 2016 indicated that despite the dreary living conditions, most people would strongly prefer to remain in Dadaab rather than return to Somalia. While keeping hundreds of thousands of refugees in limbo in Dadaab entirely dependent on aid is hardly a solution, forcing them back to Somalia is both inhumane and against the principle of non-refoulement. Will the UN summit accept that their only options are to live in an inadequate camp or be sent back to an active conflict zone? Or will it make concrete change? These are far from the only examples we could cite, and just some of the questions we ask of the world leaders attending the summit. Given this tumultuous state of affairs in which human life and dignity are fast trampled on, we should be encouraged by the language emerging from the summit. However, unless numerous governments plan to radically alter their responses and policies on refugees and migrants, this UN gathering will yield little more than feel-good rhetoric and empty promises, ensuring only the continued suffering of millions.

It is about more than Saudizing jobs in mobile outlets
Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
Sept. 1 saw the end of the deadline to nationalize jobs in shops for selling and maintaining mobile phones and accessories in Saudi Arabia. I expected Labor Minister Mufrej al-Haqbani to celebrate this occasion and great success and accompany the press on a tour in one of the many crowded mobile-phone outlets, where he would hold a press conference among the hundreds of Saudi youths who are present in the market. I was hoping he would hold this conference in one of the shops that were shut down because it violated Saudization rules. This symbolism would have reflected the state’s intent to not back down from this national mission. I was expecting him to announce that the next battle would be in the car-rental sector, as some media reported based on leaked information from the Labor Ministry. We hope this work expands and includes car exhibitions and shops that sell spare parts. All these sectors suit young Saudi men who love commerce, cars and mobile phones, but end up doing nothing due to frustration caused by those who say Saudization of the mobile-phone sector will fail just like it did in the vegetable market, or by those who frown on the idea of working in either of those sectors.
However, the minister did not do any of this. We hope he does so after the Hajj pilgrimage, and informs the Saudi public of statistics and a detailed report of what was achieved and of the gaps exposed by the assigned ministerial teams, such as some foreigners’ attempts to get through the decision by forged Saudization of their businesses.
Some wholesale distributors have refused to provide products to young men who have recently worked in the mobile-phone industry. The teams also exposed price increases. Some malls’ owners have been harmed as some of their shops are no longer rented due to their closure. Other problems are expected due to this process of rectifying a wrong situation that lasted for years, especially since the new situation is still fragile. Crisis
The Saudization of the mobile-phone market sums up a huge crisis in the market and business sector in the kingdom. Global economic media outlets were interested in the strikes by foreign laborers who work in the troubled construction sector, and delayed payments to contractors. However, the issue is much deeper than that. Saudi Arabia is not a small economy that indefinitely depends on foreign labor. Its population has reached 20 million, mostly youths who not only want jobs, but also opportunities to progress and enjoy a good life. However, there are more than 12 million foreigners around them who know everything and even own the labor market under Saudi names. These foreigners have prevented them from developing and gaining experience. This is why some viewed the government’s announcement of a project to Saudize the small mobile-phone market as a test case toward including all business and commerce sectors. This is right and must be done to build a productive economy that can achieve the state’s goal of ending reliance on oil, as called for by Vision 2030. This must also be done to achieve stability by comforting people and giving them a decent life. The key to that is job-creation.
The complication of the issue, especially since prominent Saudi property owners and capitalists have been used to foreign labor for some 40 years now, does not mean abandoning or postponing this goal. Its failure would be a major threat to national stability. There were complications when executing the plan to nationalize the simple mobile-phone market, so how will it be in other sectors? Victory is the only option in this battle.
Solutions
I think the market will correct itself without intervention from the labor and commerce ministries. Following a tour of one of the telecommunications markets in Jeddah, and after conversing with many of those who work in the sector, I realized that the market needs something like a “sheikh of the souq” (sheikh of the market), an old job post that was prestigious when the market was purely Saudi. This job still exists in some professions, such as those related to gold and jewelry. In our era, the sheikh of the souq could be a specialist from the Labor Ministry. The expert must be a researcher, as his job is to monitor market transformations and problems that may arise, and to note the characteristics of certain trades. He can resolve problems by mediating between traders and employees in different government institutions. His reports and notes must be analyzed with the help of a relevant team for the benefit of other fields that the authorities want to nationalize.
Dialogue
I toured the telecommunications market two weeks ago. The market was crowded, and the number of closed shops small. However, many shelves were empty. A young Saudi man who has been in the market for more than 10 years said this was because wholesale traders, many of whom are foreigners, are not supplying new shop owners with products. He added that this problem will resolve itself when traders and owners get to know each other more, or when foreigners are no longer in the wholesales industry. He said these wholesale traders will eventually have to sell their merchandise in the market because they cannot store it for long, as new models of mobile phones are continuously produced. Another young man, Majed al-Majreshi - an expert in buying and selling used mobile phones - told me there is a market in which half the shops are closed. I visited this market and noticed many foreigners who were clearly not customers. They stood between cars and in front of shops. I went back to Majreshi, who owns a shop and manages it himself (I think this is what the Labor Ministry seeks to achieve, and what it must achieve). He said those people lingering around seek to get hold of those who want to sell their old mobile phones. They buy them, then go to a shop that sells used mobile phones. He said these people were in the market since before the Saudization process, but their number has decreased since. These people violate labor and residency laws, and deporting them is the task of the Interior Ministry.
Maintenance is still a problem. A shop owner, who asked me not to reveal his name, acknowledged this. Shops give mobile phones that need maintenance to foreign laborers who work from home. However, Saudi youths have entered this field. Mohammed Felemban goes himself to pick up mobile phones that need fixing from homes and offices, and returns them when he is done. He said this problem regarding maintenance is worrisome. He is an expert in it, but he used to depend on foreign labor to get the job done. He said it is difficult for Saudis to replace foreign labor, and a Saudi who is skilled in maintenance prefers to work by himself as the gains are good, around 50 - 70 percent of the parts’ price. One can thus make 8,000 - 20,000 Saudi riyals ($2,133 - $5,333) per month. This is better than having a job. Felemban also complains of the lack of electronics and telecommunications specialties in universities and vocational training institutes, as they are only available at the College of Telecommunications and Electronics in Jeddah.
Hollow criticism
It is common among many Saudi writers to criticize the state’s attempts to nationalize entry and mid-level positions, and insist on nationalizing senior positions. Some justify this by saying senior positions with a high income are in the industrial export sector. However, I sense a condescending attitude here - he who wants to get to the top of the ladder must start from the bottom. Felemban’s and others’ confessions of a lack of Saudis in the field of maintenance is more proof of the importance of climbing the ladder from the bottom. How can the kingdom establish a manufacturing industry for products that are worthy of export and produced by Saudis - to help end reliance on oil - if Saudis have not yet succeeded in the simpler field of maintenance?
The Saudi capitalist will not give in to the government’s measures. He does not care about the state’s goal to nationalize jobs, or about that strategic plan to establish manufacturing industries that export products. He cares about making profit, cutting costs and satisfying customers. This is why he will be creative in coming up with solutions that serve him, not the aim of nationalizing jobs. For example, he would gather broken mobile phones from customers, ship them to a maintenance center in a Gulf country that is not concerned about nationalizing jobs, get them fixed, then have them shipped back to Saudi Arabia. Confronting this is the task of the labor and commerce ministries. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) must help by convincing our neighbors of the importance of nationalizing jobs, or at least of filling gaps.
Cautious optimism
I left the market feeling optimistic yet cautious, as victory is not complete yet. There are still a few expatriates doing business in the names of Saudis, and foreigners working through forged Saudization, as many of those who work in the market acknowledged. Saudis who work in the market do not want the authorities to back down, as they want to guarantee the continuity of their businesses. Perhaps the presence of a “sheikh of the souq” and inspection tours will reassure them. Transferring the battle immediately to other sectors will let Saudi youths know that the government will not back down, and will silence those who seek to frustrate and burden us with their statements on how previous Saudization attempts failed. On Khaled bin al-Walid street, near the telecommunications market I visited, a number of companies that sell medical equipment have been open there for around two decades now. When I passed by it following my tour of the telecommunications market, I saw dozens of shops that sell medical equipment. This is clearly another case of tassatur - expatriates doing business in the names of Saudis.
This requires another Saudization project. This sector, like the telecommunication and car sectors, is very suitable for Saudis and is a good source of income. It can be a basis to look forward to what is next.
**This article was first published in al-Hayat on Sept. 17, 2016.

Scorched earth and scorched souls
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/September 18/16
Fifteen years after the 9/11 terror attacks, the Arab world is unrecognizable; never-ending scorched earth barely sustaining millions of scorched souls. The United States is still fighting the two longest wars in its history spawned by the terror unleashed on that sunny September day. What we know for sure is that President Barack Obama inherited the two wars from President George W. Bush and he will bequeath them to his successor come January 2017. Osama Bin Laden got his well-deserved comeuppance, but al-Qaeda is still resilient and fighting in a number of crumbling countries on two continents. Bush’s broad “War on Terror” and its various metamorphoses such as the outlandish “Islamo-Fascism” gave way to Obama’s war on the equally vague (Countering) Violent Extremism, then the latest incarnation of the most violent of all violent terror groups, the self-styled Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
A legacy of terror and errors
Fifteen years after America’s first encounter with absolute terror in the era of globalization, and five years into the civil wars in Syria, the US is still scrambling to adopt a coherent strategy to deal with the Syrian regime that pursued a Sherman-like scorched earth approach to the uprising thus turning the conflict into the single most important magnet in the world for the bloody killers of ISIS and the al-Nusra Front. Fifteen years after the beginning of the war in Afghanistan, and 13 years after the invasion of Iraq and following untold Iraqi losses, major American casualties, and tremendous financial costs, the Taliban cannot be defeated and very likely will shape Afghanistan’s future, and Iraq is still tearing itself asunder, with Iran, and not America as the outside power with the most influence in the land between the two rivers. Fifteen years after we got a glimpse of the apocalypse in New York, terror inspired and organized by ISIS and al-Qaeda has become a frequent visitor to European and American cities. Who could have imagined at the beginning of the 21st century that in few a years, large swaths of Syria and Iraq, including ancient cities like Mosul and Palmyra will be occupied and sacked by the hordes of a self-styled Caliphate? Who could have foreseen, that Yazidis, Assyrians and Christians of different ethnic backgrounds will be killed en masse in Iraq and Syria, just as they were killed en masse a century ago?
Misunderstanding
Fifteen years after many Americans asked “why do they hate us”? The answer, if there is a compelling one, is still illusive. Thirteen years after the US invasion of Iraq, many Americans, Iraqis and others in the region are still grappling with the reasons that led to the invasion and wondering why such a traumatic endeavor could be undertaken in such cavalier fashion and why not a single senior American official was held accountable? Fifteen years after 19 angry young Muslim Arabs killed almost 3 thousand US citizens, America’s relations with some Arab states, including ostensible allies are strained and tense. Many Arabs still entertain conspiracy theories about America’s real intentions in the Middle East, and many Americans, judging by opinion polls and support for the Republican candidate Donald Trump fear and distrust Arabs and Muslims. And the candidate of a major party, publicly calls for banning Muslims from the US and advocates still, the theft of oil from Iraq and Libya. So much for American “Public Diplomacy,” the struggle to win Arab hearts and minds and the bygone Bush era promotion of the “Freedom Agenda” in the Arab world along with the naïve belief that elections are the key to the success of such agenda. After those tumultuous years, one can discern American fatigue of things Arab and Muslim, of resentment over the tendency of Arab officialdom (and many intellectuals) to blame outsiders for their failings, to wallow in victimhood and Arab resistance to engage in introspection or self-criticism. Many Arabs believe that when the United States acts as omniscient and omnipresent in the region, invades a country and tries to re-create it, as it did in Iraq, or lead (even from behind) an international coalition to topple the Libyan despot, and when it deploys tens of thousands of troops in the region, then it cannot and should not act as if it did not contribute to the current unraveling of some Arab states. There is a growing sense, in some Arab countries, particularly in the Gulf and in Egypt, that the region may have entered the post-American era.
What went wrong?
Most of the Arab states, particularly those born in the crucible of the First World War and its aftermath, have been afflicted with that malady that has marred the Muslim world for most of its history which is the issue of political legitimacy, or lack thereof, the very prerequisite for good governance. The search for elusive political legitimacy became a dominant feature of Arab politics after formal independence, especially in those states that have suffered from military coups and lacked strong state institutions and had fractured - heterogeneous societies such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Libya and Yemen. The unraveling of these countries was slow, with sudden spasms of violence and low intensity civil strife.
The pressing problems in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen and potentially in Egypt and Algeria will not be very pressing for the new American president, certainly not in the immediate future
One historic milestone that helps explains the current unraveling of the Levant, and to a lesser extent Iraq, is the 1967 Arab defeat in the war with Israel. That monumental shock has jolted the very foundations of the societies of Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan (and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza), leading to political, military, societal and cultural changes that are still felt today. The 1967 defeat hastened the coups of Iraq in 1968 and Libya in 1969; in fact, there is a thin line of causality between these two coups and the current upheavals in the two countries.
The defeat of three Arab states led to the emergence of a militant Palestinian movement, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which presented itself as the revolutionary alternative to the humiliated Arab states. The military attacks conducted by Palestinian factions from bases in Jordan and in Lebanon against Israeli military (and civilian) targets in the occupied West Bank and Northern Israel led to military escalation on both fronts with significant Israeli incursions in 1968 and 1969. Palestinian overreach and violations of Jordanian and Lebanese sovereignties culminated in the extremely reckless decision by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to simultaneously highjack three airplanes to a remote airstrip in Jordan, an act that precipitated a violent Jordanian response that forced the PLO factions in 1970 and 1971 to leave Jordan and establish themselves politically and militarily in Lebanon, a state weaker than Jordan. The unsuccessful limited Syrian intervention on the side of the Palestinians in the bloody September 1970 conflict with Jordan led to the “corrective movement” of Syria’s then-defense minister Hafez al-Assad, thus beginning his harsh 30-year rule.
Never-ending civil wars
There are complex political, demographic and economic reasons behind the Lebanese civil war that began in 1975, but the spark that lit the brittle structure of the Lebanese state was the opposition of some Lebanese parties to the armed Palestinian presence in the country, and the steep price the country was paying because of Israel’s violent reactions which included the deliberate destruction of civilian targets and infrastructure, such as destroying Lebanon’s fleet of civilian carriers at Beirut International Airport in 1968. Lebanon’s civil war raged intensely for two years, until the Syrian military intervention in 1976 contained the conflict. The war was “officially” ended when the combatants signed the Taif agreement in 1989; but in reality what followed Taif were series of truces, some of them would last for few years, but Lebanon has never experienced genuine peace since 1975 and the underlining reasons for the conflict were never addressed. The involvement of the Palestinian factions in Lebanon’s civil war (something advocated by some Lebanese and Palestinian factions) was disastrous to both sides, a development that allowed Syria to further dominate Lebanon and led to Israeli incursions culminating in the devastating invasion of 1982 which ended the armed Palestinian presence in most of Lebanon.
A few months before the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Syria ended four years of grinding low intensity civil strife, in which the Alawite dominated regime fought an armed Sunni Islamist rebellion that threatened the existence of the Assad regime. The violence reached its ugly crescendo in the massacre of at least 10,000 people in Hama in February 1982 and the demolishing of parts of the old city. The sectarianism of that conflict was to be magnified several times almost 30 years later. In the early 1990’s Algeria went through a very bloody and nasty civil war in which both the military dominated government and the Islamist rebellion showed a tremendous proclivity toward using unbridled violence.
One war leading to another
In neighboring Iraq, an ambitious rising despot, Saddam Hussein, fearing the Islamic Revolution in Iran, decided to invade the country that is three times the size and the population of Iraq. The Iraq-Iran war, which began in September 1980 and ended in 1988, became the longest conventional war in the 20th century and claimed the lives of more than half a million people on both sides. Iraq, with tacit and open material and political support from Arab states, the Soviet Union, the US and France, used chemical and biological weapons against Iranian targets. Iraqi propaganda initially played up the old Arab-Persian rivalry then turned to heighten the Sunni-Shiite tension. There is a clear line of causality between the Iraqi invasion of Iran and the country’s current multiple conflicts. The invasion of Iran bankrupted Iraq, which encouraged Saddam Hussein to commit his second historic blunder in a decade and invade Kuwait in 1990, which he saw as the largest nearby bank to rob. Kuwait was liberated in 1991 in an international war led by the United States. Iraq was then subjected to tough sanctions and the US and its allies imposed a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect the Kurds.
The decision by the George W. Bush administration to invade Iraq in March 2003 contributed mightily to the deepening of Sunni-Shiite cleavages and bloodletting that ensued in the following years. The defeat of ISIS and the liberation of Mosul, which are expected in the next few months, will not lead necessarily to a reunified Iraq; on the contrary it could deepen identity politics and cause additional friction between Sunnis and Shiites as we have seen following the liberation of other Sunni majority cities and towns. The Kurds, who occupied the disputed important city of Kirkuk, following ISIS’ occupation of Mosul, will not relinquish the city without a tenacious fight. The Kurds, who have been enjoying self-rule since 1991 will fight to establish their own state. One could say that the train of Kurdish independence has already left the station. When and where it will stop remains to be seen.
The persistence of terrorism
Fifteen years after the two towers of New York were felled as symbols of America’s financial might, terrorism still haunts the United States and Arab states, despite the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the killing of Bin Laden, the restructuring of the American government and the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security and the return of the American military to Iraq. The civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen spawned by initial peaceful uprising, are likely to continue for years, in part because of the pernicious role of proxies.
One of the most disturbing developments in Syria, which is a direct result of President Obama’s colossal, mishandling of the Syrian tragedy and his dithering and contradictory decisions, has been the emergence of Russia as the dominant outside power in the Syrian theatre. Within a year, Russia, which has used massive brute violence against civilians and militants opposed to the Assad regime, has come very close to convince the flailing Obama administration to agree to the priorities of the axis of Russia, Iran, Assad, including keeping Assad in power for the foreseeable future and to the establishment of a Joint Implementation Center to coordinate US-Russian bombing raids against the al-Nusra Front and ISIS.
The complexities of the challenges facing the next American president in the region are daunting. If Hillary Clinton wins, she will pursue the same cautious policies of President Obama, maybe with more vigor and minor changes, but one cannot see major departures. If Donald Trump is elected, he will likely do in Syria what Obama is doing in terms of collaboration with Russia as his new partner, but Trump will do so more enthusiastically. One could see the possibility of a Russian-American condominium in Syria led by Russia if Trump is president.
The pressing problems in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen and potentially in Egypt and Algeria will not be very pressing for the new American president, certainly not in the immediate future. Syria will continue to burn, Iraq and Libya will continue their slow unraveling and Egypt will remain adrift. Looking into the next few years, I only see a never-ending Arab scorched earth barely sustaining millions of scorched souls.

The "Great Turkish Purge": Guilty Without Trial
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/September 18/16
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/8957/turkey-purge
During the month and a half after July 15, the Turkish government aggressively purged more than 100,000 civil servants and arrested tens of thousands.
Anyone can be the target: journalists, academics, teachers, pilots, doctors, businessmen -- even the owner of the small grocery store on the corner, if its owner kept his savings at a bank that the government claims financed Gulen's illegal activities.
Prominent journalist Ahmet Altan and his brother, academic and columnist Professor Mehmet Altan, were detained for questioning. A prosecutor claims that during a recent TV debate, the suspects had given "subliminal messages suggesting a military coup."
"A total witch hunt has been launched..." — Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Social Democrat Party.
In the twelve days ending on July 2, 1934 Germany saw the "Röhm Putsch," a purge in which the Nazi regime carried out political executions in order to consolidate Hitler's absolute hold on power. Hitler moved against the Sturmabteilung (SA), the Nazis' own paramilitary group; hundreds were killed. The regime did not limit itself to a purge of the SA.
Having already imprisoned social democrats and communists, Hitler used the "Röhm Putsch" to move against conservatives. More killings followed, including Kurt von Schleicher, Hitler's predecessor as Chancellor, and von Schleicher's wife. The Gestapo also murdered several leaders of the disbanded Catholic Center Party.
Just a few years later, the Soviets' own purge would be called Yezhovshchina ("Times of Yezhov"), after Nikolai Yezhov, head of the Soviet secret police. From 1936 until 1953, Yezhovshchina not only meant being expelled from the party; it came to mean almost certain arrest, imprisonment, and often execution.
The purge, in general, was Stalin's effort to eliminate past and potential opposition groups. Hundreds of thousands of victims faced charges of political crimes such as espionage, sabotage, anti-Soviet agitation, and conspiracies to prepare uprisings and coups. Most victims were quickly executed by gunfire or sent to the Gulag labor camps, where many died of starvation, disease, exposure and overwork.
Several decades later, the Turks are luckier: no Gestapo, no executions, no summary killings and no labor camps. But the "Great Turkish Purge" brings tragic misfortunes to millions of Turks who are suspected of having allied with Fethullah Gulen, once President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's best political ally, now his worst enemy and the prime suspect behind the failed coup of July 15. Gulen, in self-exile in the United States since 1999, is an Islamic preacher believed to have millions of loyalists in Turkey and more than 150 other countries, where he runs schools and charity work.
During the month and a half after July 15, the Turkish government aggressively purged more than 100,000 civil servants and military personnel, and arrested tens of thousands, including nearly half of Turkey's active-duty admirals and generals. Anyone can be the target: journalists, academics, teachers, pilots, doctors, businessmen -- even the owner of the small grocery store on the corner, if its owner kept his savings at a bank that the government claims financed Gulen's illegal activities.
Turkish police escort dozens of handcuffed soldiers, who are accused of participating in the failed July 15 coup d'état. (Image source: Reuters video screenshot)
Some of Turkey's biggest companies are also under the spotlight. In August, a court appointed trustees to Boydak Holding, on charges of the multibillion-dollar group's alleged ties with Gulen. The family-based group's 42 companies have interests in furniture, textiles, chemicals, marketing, logistics and energy. The group employs a staff of more than 14,000.
In September, 18 companies operating under Koza-Ipek Holding, worth $10 billion, were brought under the control of a state fund. According to a cabinet minister, the Turkish state has so far seized more than $4 billion worth of assets belonging to suspected Gulenists.
On a single day, September 8, Turkey arrested 27 businessmen and 50 military officers. Two days later, prominent journalist Ahmet Altan and his brother, academic and columnist Professor Mehmet Altan, were detained for questioning. A prosecutor claims that during a recent TV debate, the suspects had given "subliminal messages suggesting a military coup."
During the purge, even the simplest universal legal norms are being systematically ignored. In one instance, the wife of the former editor-in-chief of the daily Cumhuriyet was banned from flying to Germany, and her passport was seized. Dilek Dundar's husband, Can Dundar, is on trial on charges of "revealing state secrets," after he ran front-page stories showing arms shipments from the Turkish government to radical fighters in Syria. In another case, a file photo shows 64-year-old Hatice Yildirim in a wheelchair, with police officers around her. The elderly woman was detained because she is the mother-in-law of one of the coup suspects, Adil Oksuz.
As in Germany and the Soviet Union in the 1930s Turkey's purge is spreading to another group of usual suspects: Kurds. On September 8, Turkey suspended more than 11,000 schoolteachers for suspected links with the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group that is on the list of terror organizations of Turkey, the U.S. and the EU. The mass suspension came without a court ruling to determine that all of these people were tried on charges of terror and all were found guilty, with their appeals rejected. No, the schoolteachers were not even on trial when they were informed that they had been suspended. Guilty without trial.
On September 11, Turkey's Interior Ministry appointed trustees to 28 local municipalities across the country's predominantly Kurdish southeast, on the grounds that they allegedly provided support to the PKK and Gulen's network. Elected mayors, too, were suspended without a court ruling that proves they have links with terror groups.
There are warnings, mostly going unnoticed by the ruling party, that the Turkish purge violates basic civil liberties. "If you try to run the country with the feelings of revenge and hatred, then you will cause suffering for many innocent people. This is the point we have reached now. A total witch hunt has been launched in many fields," said Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the main opposition Social Democrat party.
According to Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary general of the Council of Europe (which enforces human rights in the European Court of Human Rights), Turkey must produce clear evidence in pursuing participants in a failed coup, and avoid targeting teachers and journalists simply because they worked for firms run by the Muslim cleric Ankara portrays as its mastermind. Otherwise, Jagland said, Turkey may be challenged in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Times after attempted coups are always turbulent. With the excesses of a witch-hunt, Erdogan is now adding millions to an already long list of Turks who deeply dislike him. Meanwhile, Turkey is getting more and more distant from the utopia of becoming a country of peace and order.
*Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
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Iran seen provoking tensions with US at sea
Claude Salhani/The Arab Weekly/September 18/16
As tensions between Russia and the United States over Syria abated slightly, tensions between Iran and the United States continued to build, risking an all-out confron­tation between the US Navy and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
Naval units of the IRGC have sys­tematically harassed US Navy war­ships in the Gulf at least 30 times since January. This represents a 50% increase when compared to the same time period of 2015. In each case, an Iranian vessel or ves­sels approached the US warships within weapons range.
According to a report by US Navy Commander Jeremy Vaughan, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute think-tank, IRGC boats have approached US vessels at a distance that could have compro­mised the security of the vessels and the sailors and US Marines who serve aboard those ships.
“On at least three occasions, they closed to a distance that could make a collision more likely or could render US ships nearly de­fenceless to a boat packed with ex­plosive charges,” wrote Vaughan, who served on a number of deploy­ments aboard ships in the Gulf.
Recent altercations include Ira­nian IRGC-Navy craft interfering with the USS Nitze, a destroyer, in late August and the USS Firebolt, a coastal patrol boat, in early Sep­tember.
“Incremental erosion by Iranian vessels of the safety zone sur­rounding US ships and a bias by some US commanders towards restraint have thus created a situa­tion in which Iranian warships are operating at distances that would have been in the past, and should be at present, considered impru­dent,” Vaughan wrote.
He said that “quiet and indirect diplomacy” is needed to prevent “an accident or an incident” in­volving US and Iranian naval forc­es that could adversely affect the broader US-Iran relationship.
The US Navy officer said if the trend continues it could set the stage for a wider confrontation be­tween Iran and the United States. If the harassment continues, it is only a matter of time before a confrontation takes place, the out­come of which would drag the re­gion into another Middle East war, endangering the stability of Gulf states and possibly affecting the flow of oil through the Gulf. That, in turn, would have a serious effect on the world’s economy.
The Americans managed to steer the Iranians clear of their armada in the Gulf. However, given the number of incidents, all it takes is one confrontation to get out of hand for the whole situation could escalate.
In 2015, there were 300 close en­counters between the IRGC-Navy and US Navy vessels, culminat­ing in a highly provocative rocket launch near the USS Harry S. Tru­man aircraft carrier, Vaughan wrote.
In January, the IRGC-Navy seized ten riverine command sail­ors who had strayed into its waters and directly overflew the Truman with an unmanned aerial vehicle. In the last month, IRGC-Navy forc­es approached four US warships, drawing so close there was a dan­ger of collision. The USS Squall, a patrol craft, fired warning shots at the Iranians.
“Navy commanders are taught that the use of force in self-defence requires the presence of all three components of the “threat trian­gle”: capability, opportunity and intent, Vaughan said.