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Bible Quotations For Today

You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 23/29-39///24,1-2: "‘Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, and you say, "If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets." Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation. ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you, desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord." ’ As Jesus came out of the temple and was going away, his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. Then he asked them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly I tell you, not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.’

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ
Second Letter to the Corinthians 11/01-09: "I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I promised you in marriage to one husband, to present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by its cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you submit to it readily enough. I think that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles. I may be untrained in speech, but not in knowledge; certainly in every way and in all things we have made this evident to you. Did I commit a sin by humbling myself so that you might be exalted, because I proclaimed God’s good news to you free of charge? I robbed other churches by accepting support from them in order to serve you. And when I was with you and was in need, I did not burden anyone, for my needs were supplied by the friends who came from Macedonia. So I refrained and will continue to refrain from burdening you in any way.

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 26-27/15
Jihad: "All the Fault of the West!"/Lars Hedegaard/Gatestone Institute/December 26/15
Russians and Iranians together in the same trench/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
How ‘Islamic’ is ISIS? This debate does not matter/Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
2015, a year of milestones of horrors in the Middle East/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
On Muslim issues, Democrats find an unlikely ally: George Bush/The Associated Press/December26/15
Have Arab women broken any barriers in 2015/Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
Analysis: Will 2016 be the year of Kurdistan/Sethh. J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post December 26/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on December 26-27/15
Report: Diplomats trying to talk Hezbollah out of taking revenge on Israel for Kuntar killing
Report: European Diplomats Warn, Israeli Retaliation against Hizbullah "Serious"
Report: Fate of Presidency Faces Two Options before Mid January
Army Refers Detained Terrorists to Judicial Authorities
Armed Clashes between Families in Baalbek Renew Overnight
Families Use RPGs, Machineguns in Baalbek Armed Clash
Jumblat Warns of Imminent Corruption 'Scandal' in Telecom Sector
Anti-Riot Police Steps in after Conflict Erupts between Security Forces and Yaaqoub Relatives

Report: Diplomats trying to talk Hezbollah out of taking revenge on Israel for Kuntar killing
Jerusalem Post/December 26/15
International diplomats are working feverishly with Lebanese officials in an effort to prevent a revenge attack against Israel by Hezbollah following the killing of one of its top commanders in Damascus, Samir Kuntar, earlier this week, according to a report which appeared Saturday in the Kuwaiti daily Al Qabas. The report cites European sources as saying that “Lebanese officials are aware that the threats made by the Netanyahu government are very serious.” In a speech on Monday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened Israel with revenge over Kuntar’s killing in an air strike in Syria on Saturday. “Samir is one of us and a commander of our resistance and it is our right to retaliate for his assassination in the place, time and a way we see appropriate. We will exercise this right, God willing,” he said. “We have no doubt or question that Israel is the one which assassinated Samir Kuntar, its planes fired precise missiles on an apartment [he was in],” Nasrallah said in a speech aired on the group’s al-Manar TV station. A number of Syrians were also killed in the attack. “We, in a firm and definite way, hold the Zionist enemy responsible for assassinating him,” Nasrallah said. “Samir Kuntar’s blood will give the Palestinian youth more determination,” said Nasrallah, according to al-Manar’s website, referring to the ongoing terrorism in Israel. Israel has warned Hezbollah against attempting any attacks on its soldiers or communities in the North following the Kuntar killing. “Hezbollah is likely to be more careful because it knows that Israel will respond directly to any incident by entering the Syrian and Lebanese fronts,” the European source was quoted as saying by the Kuwaiti newspaper. The official speculated that Iran may have ordered Hezbollah to stand down and refrain from responding given the delicate and complex geopolitical situation in the region. While Jerusalem made no formal comment about Saturday’s killing in Syria of Lebanese Druse terrorist Samir Kuntar, various ministers and MKs were not shy Sunday about expressing their satisfaction, without in any way acknowledging any Israeli responsibility. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who often uses the opening of weekly cabinet meetings to comment on hot topics on the national agenda, made no mention Sunday of Kuntar’s killing. Hezbollah and Syrian state media accused Israel of assassinating the Hezbollah leader in an air strike in Damascus.The pro-Hezbollah Lebanese newspapers Al-Akhbar and As-Safir had pictures of Kuntar on their websites. “How will Hezbollah respond to the assassination of Kuntar and when?” read the headline on As-Safir. “I am not confirming or denying anything to do with this matter,” onstruction Minister Yoav Galant told Israel Radio, adding: “It is good that people like Samir Kuntar will not be part of our world.”National Infrastructure, Energy and Water Minister Yuval Steinitz, however, said on his way to the cabinet meeting that while he usually does not react to “such rumors or reports,” Kuntar was “known to be a very brutal terrorist.”“He killed a civilian family, including a baby, many years ago and he’s still involved in terrorism,” Steinitz said of the terrorist whose brutal attack in Nahariya in 1979 killed four Israelis, including a four-year old girl. “So if something happened to him, I think that no civilized person can be sorry.”
Kuntar is a “despicable person,” Steinitz said. “It is possible that the Finnish intelligence service acted here, I have no idea, I know only what I see in the media.”Israel released Kuntar in a deal with Hezbollah in 2008 for the bodies of Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, IDF reservists who were killed and had their bodies taken in a 2006 cross-border attack that led to the Second Lebanon War.

Report: European Diplomats Warn, Israeli Retaliation against Hizbullah "Serious"
Naharnet/December 26/15 /European countries have informed Lebanese authorities that Israel's threat to retaliate if Hizbullah carried out an operation to avenge the assassination of Samir al-Quntar “is very serious”, the Kuwaiti al-Qabas daily reported on Saturday. “The Israeli government’s threats against Lebanon if Hizbullah carries out an operation to revenge for the assassination of al-Quntar are serious threats,” a European report said. Diplomats told Lebanese decision-making officials that Israel cares not whether Hizbullah carries out the attacks in Golan, the Shebaa farms or at any other location, and that Israel will retaliate anyway. The European report said that the general mobilization in Israel at the current phase is much more sensitive than it was before the July 2006 war, and that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government seems more willing to wade a major war against Lebanon, according to the daily. Last week, Hizbullah vowed to respond to the killing in a suspected Israeli air strike near Damascus of one of its top militants, al-Quntar. The movement's chief, Hassan Nasrallah, said after the controversial militant's funeral in Beirut that Hizbullah reserves "the right to respond to this assassination at the time and place of our choosing." Israel has welcomed news of Quntar's death without claiming responsibility for the air strike that killed him, allegedly with four missiles fired from Lake Tiberias in northern Israel.

Report: Fate of Presidency Faces Two Options before Mid January
Naharnet/December 26/15/The developments in the controversial file of Lebanon's presidency face two options before the end of January that could either leave the post vacant until some constitutional amendments are made in favor of Hizbullah or elect Marada chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the post, al-Anba daily reported on Saturday. “The presidential developments in Lebanon are in front of two options before mid January. Hizbullah will not allow the election to happen until constitutional amendments that fall in its favor are made,” an unnamed March 14 ministerial source told the daily. “Otherwise, Franjieh would be elected but not before the scene in Syria and the region clarify, and MP Michel Aoun becomes convinced of the need to withdraw from the presidential race and Hizbullah gives up on its constitutional ambitions,” the source stated on condition of anonymity. An initiative emerged lately by al-Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri suggesting the nomination of Marada chief MP Suleiman Franjieh for the presidency to end the presidential dealock. The nomination has been met with reservations from the Kataeb Party, the Free Patriotic Movement and the Lebanese Forces. MP Michel Aoun is the March 8 camp candidate and an ally of Hizbullah. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. Conflicts between the rival March 8 and March 14 camps have thwarted all attempts aiming at ending the nineteen-month vacuum.

Army Refers Detained Terrorists to Judicial Authorities
Naharnet/December 26/15/The Army Intelligence referred on Saturday six detainees to the judicial authorities for having links to the terrorist cell led by jihadist Mohammed al Satem, the army said in a statement. “The army referred six detainees of the terrorist cell led by fugitive Mohammed al-Satem to the judiciary. The cell had plans to establish, in collaboration with another group in Khirbet Daoud, a security zone to target and control army positions in a bid to facilitate the entry of Islamic State members from Syria to Lebanon to establish an emirate in the area of Akkar,” the statement added. The army confiscated from their houses large quantities of weapons, military ammunition, grenades, narcotics and electronic parts.

Armed Clashes between Families in Baalbek Renew Overnight
Naharnet/December 26/15/Fierce armed clashes renewed overnight between the Jaafar and Shuqeir families after a Friday dispute that damaged two houses and several cars in Baalbek, the state-run National News Agency reported on Saturday. Friday's dispute between the two families escalated into an armed clash involving the use of shoulder-fired rockets and machineguns in al-Sharawneh neighborhood in Baalbek. The dispute started between young men from the Jaafar and Shuqeir families before members of the Wehbe family intervened in favor of the Shuqeir family, NNA said. The fighting damaged two houses and several cars and the army has since contained the incident, the agency added. “The clash erupted after a young man from the Jaafar family crashed his speeding car into a car belonging to H. Shuqeir,” NNA had said.

Families Use RPGs, Machineguns in Baalbek Armed Clash
Naharnet/December 26/15/A dispute between two families escalated into an armed clash involving the use of shoulder-fired rockets and machineguns in a Baalbek neighborhood on Friday, state-run National News Agency reported. The dispute started between young men from the Jaafar and Shuqeir families before members of the Wehbe family intervened in favor of the Shuqeir family, NNA said. The fighting damaged two houses and several cars and the army has since contained the incident, the agency added. “The clash erupted after a young man from the Jaafar family crashed his speeding car into a car belonging to H. Shuqeir,” NNA said.

Jumblat Warns of Imminent Corruption 'Scandal' in Telecom Sector
Naharnet/December 26/15/Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat warned Friday that the country is “about to witness a new, resounding scandal in the telecommunications sector.”“Against the backdrop of the call for tenders of the mobile network operators, Telecom Ministry officials in coordination with some ministers, advisers and political leaders have started their activities in this regard and they're about to pounce on this lucrative sector to benefit from its revenues,” Jumblat said in a press release, describing the alleged schemers as “predator wolves.”“Some of those who weep daily over the presidential void and demand the election of a president are in a hurry to finalize the deals before the election of a new head of state,” Jumblat charged. He noted that a call for tenders that was supposed to be held in recent weeks was postponed in a “mysterious and very suspicious manner.” “As the contracts of the current operators Alfa and MTC Touch near their expiry date, the suggested solutions that are being circulated behind the scenes do not reflect any transparency,” Jumblat said. The reports indicate that “this key source of income that generates major revenues for the treasury is about to witness a new wave of distribution of shares and cronyism,” the PSP leader warned. “The ideal solution is not in giving the sector to advisers and individuals who are close to certain leaders or ministers without any legal justification … but rather in quickly conducting a serious call for tenders that would allow real competition, in order to develop the sector and achieve a better level of services and fees,” Jumblat went on to say.

Anti-Riot Police Steps in after Conflict Erupts between Security Forces and Yaaqoub Relatives
Naharnet/December 26/15/A conflict erupted on Saturday between relatives and supporters of detainee ex-MP Hassan Yaaqoub and the security forces in Dahr al-Baydar over the backdrop of road blocking protests demanding his release. Relatives of Yaaqoub had blocked the road early on Saturday demanding that he is set free. Security forces reopened shortly after that. Anti-riot police and army troops reinforcement were called in, said LBCI. An arrest warrant for the already detained Yaaqoub was issued on Monday in connection with the abduction of Hannibal Gadhafi, the high-rolling son of late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. The former lawmaker was arrested on December 18 and he has denied any involvement in the kidnap operation. Hannibal Gadhafi, who resided in Syria, was kidnapped on December 11 in Lebanon's Bekaa valley near the Syrian border, but was freed by police hours later. Earlier this week, Lebanese authorities charged Hannibal Gadhafi with withholding information about the disappearance of revered Shiite cleric and founder of the AMAL Movement Moussa al-Sadr, who vanished in Libya in 1978 along with two companions. A security source has told AFP that investigators discovered that Yaaqoub had orchestrated an elaborate scheme to seize Gadhafi from Syria and bring him to Lebanon. Yaaqoub is the son of Sheikh Mohammed Yaaqoub – one of the two companions who disappeared with al-Sadr in Libya in 1978. The Libya visit was paid upon the invitation of then Libyan ruler Moammar Gadhafi – Hannibal's father. The three were seen lastly on August 31. They were never heard from again. The Lebanese judiciary had indicted Moammar Gadhafi in 2008 over al-Sadr's disappearance, although Libya had consistently denied responsibility, claiming that the imam and his companions had left Libya for Italy.

Netanyahu sends a 'very merry Christmas' greeting to Israel's Christians
Jerusalem Post/December 26/15/ Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reached out to Christians on Friday to deliver a special Christmas greeting from Jerusalem. "From Jerusalem I wish Israel's Christian community, and Christians everywhere, a very joyous Christmas and a happy new year," said Netanyahu in a video message. "I am proud to say that Israel is one of the few countries in the Middle East, maybe the only country in the Middle East, where Christians are truly free to practice their faith openly, freely, to celebrate Christmas and other Christian holidays."Despite the increase in violent attacks in recent months, Christmas celebrations took place across the country, mostly without incident. Netanyahu referred to The State of Israel as "a beacon of liberty in a Middle East," and assured Israel's Christian minority that religious freedom and expression remains a sacred part of Israel's democratic narrative. "It is my fervent hope, my fervent prayer, that 2016 is marked by greater security and freedom for all Christians across the Middle East. I wish all our Christian friends a very merry Christmas."

ISIS releases 25 Assyrian Christians in Syria
The Associated Press, Beirut Friday, 25 December 2015/An Assyrian group says Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants have released 25 more Assyrian Christian hostages they had held captive in Syria for 10 months.The 25 Christians were part of about 230 Assyrian Christians that were captured by the extremist group after it overran Assyrian communities on the southern bank of the Khabur River in the northeastern Syrian province of Hassakeh. The Stockholm-based Assyrian Human Rights Network said the 25 arrived in the Christian town of Tal Tamr on Friday. It said the released included 16 children and their mothers. It says the release brings the number of Assyrian hostages that have so far been released to 148. Osama Edward, the network’s director, said the release was the result of mediators who negotiated between the church and ISIS.

Washington Post reporter jailed in Iran allowed family Christmas visit
AFP, Washington Saturday, 26 December 2015/Jason Rezaian, the Washington Post journalist who has been held by Iran’s government for nearly 18 months, was allowed a rare visit with relatives for several hours on Christmas Day, the daily said Friday. The Iranian-American reporter, convicted of espionage by a secretive Iranian court and serving an unspecified prison sentence, marked his 500th day in the notorious Evin prison earlier this month. “This is the first time in the year that I have been visiting him in Evin prison that I could spend an extended time there and bring him his first home cooked meal in months,” his mother Mary Rezaian said in an email to the newspaper. “We had a wonderful time together reminiscing of holidays past.”Rezaian’s wife Yeganeh Salehi, an Iranian citizen who works for a newspaper based in the United Arab Emirates, also attended. Rezaian, 39, was born in the United States and holds dual nationality. He was arrested in July 2014 at his home in Tehran, where he had worked for the Post for two years. Salehi was also arrested, but she was released on bail. The Washington Post’s executive editor, Martin Baron, said he and staff were pleased with Iran’s “act of basic humanity” in allowing Rezaian to spend time with family. But Baron reiterated the Post’s call for their colleague’s release. “We encourage his jailers in Iran to follow up by doing all that justice and decency require: Release Jason from prison and allow him a return to life as a free man who can spend time with his family where and whenever he pleases,” he said.

Scores Injured as Powerful Quake Jolts Afghanistan, Pakistan
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 26/15/
A 6.3-magnitude earthquake centered in the Hindu Kush jolted Afghanistan and Pakistan, damaging homes and leaving dozens of people injured just two months after a killer quake rattled the same mountainous region. The tremor late Friday hit at a depth of 203.5 kilometers (126 miles), the U.S. Geological Survey said, sending people fleeing shaking buildings into a bitterly cold night and prompting fears of aftershocks. The epicentre of the quake, which was felt as far away as New Delhi, was in the remote Afghan province of Badakhshan, close to the Pakistani and Tajik borders. A pregnant woman was killed when a boulder fell on her house in Peshawar and up to 50 others were left injured in the northwestern Pakistani city, officials said. Initial information suggested at least 45 houses were damaged in Badakhshan where communication with remote, mountainous villages is typically slow, and 12 people were injured in the Afghan province of Nangarhar. USGS had initially reported the quake's magnitude at 6.2. In October, a 7.5-magnitude quake in the same region ripped across Pakistan and Afghanistan, killing nearly 400 people and flattening buildings in rugged terrain. For many in Pakistan, October's quake brought back traumatic memories of a 7.6-magnitude quake that struck in October 2005, killing more than 75,000 people and displacing some 3.5 million. Afghanistan is frequently hit by earthquakes, especially in the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies near the junction of the Eurasian and Indian tectonic plates. In Nepal a quake in April and a strong aftershock in May killed more than 8,900 people.
Iraqi Forces in Fierce Battles with IS in Ramadi
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 26/15/Iraqi forces on Saturday clashed with diehard jihadists from the Islamic State group defending the former government complex in the heart of the city of Ramadi. After a major push on Tuesday that broke IS defenses around the city center, government forces have been slowed by snipers, booby traps, roadside bombs and suicide attackers. While initial hopes of a quick victory have faded, Iraq's elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) and the army have advanced steadily through the devastated capital of Anbar province. They reached a key intersection in the Hoz neighborhood home to the government complex, whose recapture would go a long way towards ensuring a full recapture of Ramadi. "There are fierce battles pitting members of the Daesh (an Arab acronym for IS) organisation against the Iraqi forces there now," said Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a police captain. He said the latest fighting had left at least two members of the Iraqi security forces dead and nine wounded. At least three were killed on Friday, according to several senior officers and local officials. The figures they provide for IS casualties are high, with at least 23 killed on Friday alone.The number of IS fighters hunkered down in central Ramadi was estimated at the start of the operation five days ago at no more than 400. "You have the 8th Iraqi army and CTS... and they're all pushing forward," said Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition which has been supporting Iraqi forces in Ramadi with daily air strikes. "CTS have made more progress, they're several hundred meters (yards) closer to the government complex," Warren said. The advance by the government forces has also been hampered by the possible presence of dozens of families trapped in the combat zone and used by IS as human shields. Government forces held off months of IS assaults in Ramadi until May 2015, when the jihadists blitzed their opponents with massive suicide car bombs and seized full control of the city. That defeat was Baghdad's worst in the war against IS, and a victory now would provide a welcome boost to the much-criticized federal forces.

Erdogan warns against Mideast sectarian divisions
By Staff writer, Al Arabiya News Saturday, 26 December 2015/The full interview with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by Al Arabiya News Channel presenter Mountaha al-Ramahi, will be aired on Sunday at 16:00 GMT (19:00 KSA). Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has told Al Arabiya News Channel that the Middle East is suffering from sectarian plots to divide the region.In a preview of the interview with the leader, to be aired fully on Sunday, Erdogan demanded that countries in the region come together to address this plot to stir sectarianism. Al Arabiya News Channel presenter Mountaha al-Ramahi interviewing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. He said there were “disagreements” between Turkey and Iran over regional issues. “There are disagreements between Turkey and Iran, but I do not want these disparities to affect good neighborly relations ... sectarianism should not prompt us to become enemies, Islam must be our reference. “There are intentions in the world to divide us and we need to join our efforts and come together. Look at what is happening in Iraq, Syria, Palestine and Libya ... we have to overcome these problems and if we manage to do so, the Islamic world will be more powerful,” Erdogan added.
Turkish presence in Iraq
On the Iraq crisis, the president said that Turkish forces currently training Iraqis in the Bashiqa Camp near Mosul, came at the request and knowledge of Iraqi authorities. However, he did not say whether these stationed forces will withdraw. “Iraqi-Turkish relations are good. We tackled developments in Iraq during [Iraqi Prime Minister] Haidar al-Abadi’s visit to Turkey,” he said. “When ISIS entered Iraq, the Iraqis asked for our help and we told them we were ready. We asked them to assign a suitable site to set up our base and so they did. It all began at the end of last year, and in March, we were allocated the Bashiqa area.”He added: “The Iraqi defense minister visited the training camp, but it seems that the developments in Syria have affected the situation in Iraq. Syria, Iran, Iraq and Russia have formed a quartet alliance in Baghdad and asked Turkey to join, but I told President [Vladimir] Putin that I cannot sit alongside a president whose legitimacy is distrustful.”The full interview with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by Al Arabiya News Channel presenter Mountaha al-Ramahi, will be aired on Sunday at 16:00 GMT (19:00 KSA).

Turkish PM cancels meeting with pro-Kurdish HDP
Reuters, Ankara Saturday, 26 December 2015/Turkey’s prime minister on Saturday cancelled a planned meeting with the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, saying its politics was rooted in violence, as government forces pursued a major security operation in the country’s mainly Kurdish southeast. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was due to meet the leaders of all three opposition parties in parliament to discuss planned constitutional reform. “Recent statements by HDP officials reflect a politics that benefits from violence and tension. There is no longer any point in sharing the same table with this attitude,” the prime minister’s office said in a statement.

Record 12,000 candidates register for Iran’s February election
Reuters, Dubai Saturday, 26 December 2015/Almost 12,000 candidates have registered for Iran’s February parliamentary election, state television said on Saturday, breaking participation records at a time of political uncertainty in the Islamic Republic. President Hassan Rouhani, a centrist who won election by a landslide in 2013 and championed Iran’s July nuclear deal with world powers, is hoping his supporters can take control of the 290-seat assembly and end years of dominance by conservative factions.A supportive legislature could give Rouhani a stronger mandate to push through domestic reforms to increase social and political liberties -- an area where his efforts have so far been checked by the judiciary and security forces. But hardliners have warned of potential “sedition” at the polls, a word used to describe reformist protests following disputed presidential elections in 2009 that touched off a wave of repression and arrests. Rouhani and his powerful ally, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, are hoping to win a majority by cashing in on the popularity they gained from the deal to restrain Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for a lifting of sanctions crippling the economy.Several former ministers from the cabinets of two ex-presidents, the reformist Mohammad Khatami and the conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are among the candidates. The Guardian Council, an unelected judicial body that vets candidates on technical and ideological grounds, is likely to disqualify several thousand of them before voters go to the polls on Feb. 26. To pass the vetting procedure, candidates must have a Masters degree and support the principles of the Islamic Republic. Grounds for disqualification include rejecting Islam or having links to banned political parties. Around 5,200 candidates signed up for the last parliamentary elections in 2012, but more than a third were disqualified, leaving around 3,400 candidates on polling day. Elections to the Assembly of Experts, an 88-seat clerical body that will select Iran’s next clerical Supreme Leader, will be held on the same day; 801 candidates including Rouhani and several of his prominent allies have signed up.

Turkish civilians stuck in urban war zone in southeast
The Associated Press, Istanbul Saturday, 26 December 2015/Tens of thousands of civilians in southeast Turkey have been caught in the middle as government forces and Kurdish militants battle it out in urban areas - violence that has shattered hopes of reviving peace talks. Turkish security forces launched a large-scale operation last week hoping to rout militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, and say more than 180 of them have been killed. Thousands of troops and tanks have been sent to crush pockets of resistance across mainly Kurdish districts, where PKK fighters and youth have set up trenches to keep them at bay. Flashpoints have been under a 24-hour curfew since mid-December. While there have been repeated clashes and long curfews since the collapse of peace talks in July, many in the region had hoped the talks would resume after a November election gave a decisive majority to the Justice and Development Party founded by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Instead, the fighting has gotten worse. “If things continue like this, we will become just like Syria,” says Mehmet Salih Bagata, a lawyer in the southeastern town of Cizre, the scene of the heaviest clashes and the highest reported fatalities since authorities stepped up military operations. The leader of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party, which made history when it entered parliament in June but lost seats in the November vote, has attempted to mediate the conflict with the PKK, repeatedly urging both sides to “silence their arms.”Residents of Cizre say they are fast running out of food and water, and rights abuses have been rife. Shops have been shuttered for 11 days as a result of the government curfew. The fighting means many are stranded at home or in basements and those in need of medical attention cannot reach hospitals.“People are waiting and hoping for the peace process,” said Cihan Sariyildiz, a pharmacist in Cizre. The situation is similar in the southeastern town of Silopi, near the border with Syria and Iraq, where residents are struggling to survive the round-the-clock curfew, fighting and power cuts. One lawmaker said more than 11 civilians have been killed in Silopi since Dec. 14, when the curfew was imposed to aid security operations. She says the fighting is so intense that families are unable to bury their dead. “There are military tanks everywhere in Silopi but people are still living here,” says Aycan Irmez, a lawmaker with the Peoples’ Democratic Party. “We cannot sleep day or night because of the constant shelling or gunfire.” Ankara - along with the European Union and the United States - considers the PKK a terrorist organization. It fought a three-decade conflict with the rebels that killed tens of thousands of people and traumatized the nation.
While Turkey has developed strong ties with the Kurds of Iraq, it views their brethren in Syria with distrust, a dynamic that complicates international efforts to fight Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) extremists. In the eyes of the Western anti-ISIS coalition, both Syrian and Iraqi Kurds have proved reliable allies worthy of weapons and backup. As the offensive in Turkey’s southeast kicked off, a senior government official told reporters that Kurdish youth were waging an insurgency inspired by the fighting in Syria’s border city of Kobani, where Kurds have established de facto autonomy and repelled a brutal siege by ISIS militants. The official accused the Kurdish rebels in Turkey of using residents as human shields by shooting at security forces from inside homes and of preventing residents from fleeing during military operations. He insisted the government was trying to prevent civilian casualties and rights violations, including investigating possible human rights abuse after an image on social media in October showed a corpse tied to a security vehicle being dragged along a street in southeast Turkey. Speaking on customary condition of anonymity, he said a return to the peace process was possible only if “not one single armed militant remains inside Turkey.”Many Kurds feel the current violence is beginning to eclipse that of the 1990s. Unlike then, they say, tanks are now shelling militants entrenched in residential areas of Cizre and Silopi. Armed clashes have also rocked Nusaybin, Dargecit, Varto and Diyarbakir’s historic Sur neighborhood.
“The government was using light weapons in the beginning but now it’s using heavy weapons,” says Abdullah Ekinci, a human rights activist who left Cizre with his family just before the start of security operations. “You cannot use tanks in civilian areas. The government is using disproportionate force.”
He estimates that more than half a million people are stuck in lockdown areas across the southeast. Many families, especially large or poor ones, do not have the luxury of leaving. The two sides have changed tactics and appear determined to fight to the death, Ekinci said, a strategy that has set the stage for rising civilian casualties and human rights violations. He faulted the PKK for placing bombs under barricades and for endangering civilians. “Both parties are violating human rights right now,” he said.

Evacuation of Syrian ISIS militants from Damascus delayed
Reuters, Beirut Saturday, 26 December 2015/A U.N.-sponsored deal to evacuate more than 2,000 ISIS militants and other militants from rebel-held parts of south Damascus has been delayed, a monitor of the war said on Saturday, after a rebel commander was killed. Coaches has been due to give the fighters safe passage to Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS in northern Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah’s TV station said. But the deal fell through after Zahran Alloush, through whose territory the convoy was due to pass, was killed in an air strike on Friday, the broadcaster - Manar - said. The UK Observatory for Human Rights, an independent monitor that tracks violence across Syria, said in a statement the evacuation had been expected on Saturday but was delayed as there was now no secure territory for the militants to pass through. The TV report said coaches that had arrived on Friday to pick up the fighters and at least 1,500 family members had turned back. If it went ahead, the evacuation would be a success for the government of President Bashar al-Assad, increasing its chances of reasserting control over a strategic area just 4 km (2.5 miles) south of the center of the capital. It also highlights increasing efforts by the U.N. and foreign governments to bring about local ceasefires and safe-passage agreements as steps towards the wider goal of ending Syria's civil war, in which more than 250,000 people have been killed in nearly five years of fighting. The rebels’ capitulation was forced by a government siege over several years that squeezed the flow of food and humanitarian aid, starving many people to death in what rights group Amnesty International has described as a war crime.

Iraqi forces in fierce battles with ISIS in Ramadi
AFP, Baghdad Saturday, 26 December 2015/Iraqi forces on Saturday clashed with diehard ISIS militants defending the former government complex in the heart of the city of Ramadi, later claiming control over Al-Hoz neighborhood in the western city, Al Arabiya News Channel correspondent reported. After a major push on Tuesday that broke ISIS defenses around the city center, government forces have been slowed by snipers, booby traps, roadside bombs and suicide attackers. While initial hopes of a quick victory have faded, Iraq's elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) and the army have advanced steadily through the devastated capital of Anbar province. They reached a key intersection in the Hoz neighborhood home to the government complex, whose recapture would go a long way towards ensuring a full recapture of Ramadi. "There are fierce battles pitting members of the Daesh (an Arab acronym for ISIS) organization against the Iraqi forces there now," said Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a police captain.He said the latest fighting had left at least two members of the Iraqi security forces dead and nine wounded. At least three were killed on Friday, according to several senior officers and local officials. The figures they provide for ISIS casualties are high, with at least 23 killed on Friday alone. The number of ISIS fighters hunkered down in central Ramadi was estimated at the start of the operation five days ago at no more than 400. "You have the 8th Iraqi army and CTS... and they're all pushing forward," said Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the US-led coalition which has been supporting Iraqi forces in Ramadi with daily air strikes. "CTS have made more progress, they're several hundred meters (yards) closer to the government complex," Warren said. The advance by the government forces has also been hampered by the possible presence of dozens of families trapped in the combat zone and used by ISIS as human shields. Government forces held off months of ISIS assaults in Ramadi until May 2015, when the jihadists blitzed their opponents with massive suicide car bombs and seized full control of the city. That defeat was Baghdad's worst in the war against ISIS, and a victory now would provide a welcome boost to the much-criticized federal forces.

Israeli police shoot dead alleged Jerusalem knife attacker
AFP, Jerusalem Saturday, 26 December 2015/A man tried to stab an Israeli police officer on Saturday near Jerusalem's Old City and was killed, a police spokeswoman said. "Police officers spotted a man who aroused their suspicions and approached him to check," she said, adding that he “pulled out a knife and tried to stab the policeman and was quickly killed by police gunfire." The Palestinian health ministry in the occupied West Bank indicated that the dead man was a Palestinian whose identity was not yet known. A wave of violence since the start of October has claimed the lives of 132 people on the Palestinian side, 19 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean. On Friday, Israeli border guards shot dead a Palestinian woman who tried to ram a car into them in the West Bank, shortly after a Palestinian was killed in clashes with Israeli forces near the border with the Gaza Strip.

ISIS leader Baghdadi to Jews: Palestine will be your graveyard
Reuters/J.Post/December 26/15/ The Islamic State released a taped message on Saturday with a purported speech by it's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in which he threatened the Jewish State."We are getting closer to you day by day," said the message. "Do not think that we have forgotten about you.""God caused the Jews of the world to gather in Israel, and the war against them has become easy. It is the obligation of every Muslim to carry out Jihad,""Jews, you will not enjoy in Palestine. God has gathered you in Palestine so that the Mujahadeen can reach you soon and you will hide by the rock and the tree. Palestine will be your graveyard," he said. The audio message said air strikes by Russia and by a US-led coalition had failed to weaken the group. "Be confident that God will grant victory to those who worship him, and hear the good news that our state is doing well. The more intense the war against it, the purer it becomes and the tougher it gets," Baghdadi added. The authenticity of the message, posted on Saturday on Twitter accounts that have published Islamic State statements in the past, could not be verified. It slammed Saudi Arabia's efforts to set up a coalition of Muslim nations to fight his group.
"If it was an Islamic coalition, it would have declared itself free from its Jewish and Crusader lords and made the killing the Jews and the liberation of Palestine its goal," the message said.

Israel law renews hot debate on army service for ultra-Orthodox
AFP, Jerusalem Saturday, 26 December 2015/When a rabbi showed up at a synagogue in Israeli military uniform, David Croise and others there were not impressed. He denies they assaulted him, but admits they shouted him down. The incident last year led to the arrest of 19-year-old Croise, followed by his detention for around a week for having failed to enlist in the army. “I explained to them that we are Jewish people. We don’t believe in the state,” Croise said before lighting a Hanukkah festival of light candle in front of his home among the narrow streets and stone buildings of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighborhood. “We don’t go to the army,” he added, wearing the wide-brimmed hat and black coat common to the ultra-Orthodox, the strictly religious Jews who abide by a traditional lifestyle. A decades-old debate over whether ultra-Orthodox young men studying at seminaries should perform mandatory military service like the rest of Israel’s Jewish population has flared again. In November, lawmakers passed legislation extending their exemption from duty, reversing a law passed in 2014 that would have seen it expire. But ultra-Orthodox must go to the enlistment office to qualify for exemption - which some refuse to do because of their rejection of the state - and Croise was detained on a technicality.
The issue reverberates strongly in the Jewish state, illustrating the divide between the ultra-Orthodox and their secular or less strictly religious compatriots. An Israeli army soldier of the Shachar Kachol Ultra-Orthodox Jewish unit pray at a synagogue on December 21, 2015 at the Nevatim Air force base in the Negev desert, near the southern Israeli city of Beersheva. (AFP) The ultra-Orthodox currently make up between seven and 10 percent of Israel’s more than eight million population, but are among its fastest-growing communities. At the same time, unemployment is high and 54 percent of ultra-Orthodox families are considered poor. Some see military service as key to integrating them into society - but that’s why many oppose it. “This is exactly what’s threatening the ultra-Orthodox,” said Mordechai Goldman, a consultant on ultra-Orthodox issues and analyst for the Al-Monitor website. “They want to preserve their identity.”‘New intellectual elite’ Military service is required for Jewish Israelis after they turn 18 - three years for men and two for women. Ultra-Orthodox men studying in seminaries, or yeshivas, are exempt. Women from ultra-Orthodox families also do not serve. They are against it for a variety of reasons, with the most extreme believing a Jewish state is not allowed before the coming of the Messiah.
Others argue that yeshiva study is just as important to Israel as military service or that ultra-Orthodox soldiers would be confronted with salty language and other unreligious behavior. The law change followed March elections that led to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu assembling a coalition with only a one-seat majority in parliament.Ultra-Orthodox parties agreed to join on condition that last year’s law, which would have ended the exemption in 2017 and set out criminal penalties, was rolled back. The law had also allowed for civil service in place of military service. The new law extends the exemption by six years, then sets out a three-year period when the defense minister can decide how to move forward. It was the latest move in a debate that dates back to the early days of Israel’s creation in 1948. Founding father of Israel and former Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion granted the exemption due to special circumstances of the era, said Yedidia Stern of the Israel Democracy Institute. It was shortly after the Holocaust, “when the majority of yeshiva students basically disappeared, many rabbis were killed, the whole world of Torah (holy books) was basically destroyed”, he said. His decision was “based on the understanding that it is just for a while to create a new intellectual elite”. Anti-Zionist Ultra-Orthodox Jewish Yoeilish Krois, who is against the military service, lights candles during the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah with his children at his home on December 11, 2015 in Jerusalem's ultra-Orthodox Mea Shearim neighbourhood. (AFP)
At the time, it involved 400 students. Today the number is in the tens of thousands and the population is growing quickly, with ultra-Orthodox families often having large numbers of children. Croise, the 19-year-old from Mea Shearim, is one of 16 siblings. They can kill me’The military has been seeking to encourage the ultra-Orthodox to join. It has created special units, allowing them to continue Torah study and limit interactions with women - a religious requirement. A total of 1,972 ultra-Orthodox joined in 2014, the military says, with the numbers having steadily increased. “It is very hard to go back and to feel that there are people who you grew up with and who don’t want you there anymore,” Ovadia Somech, a 22-year-old who recently joined the military, said of criticism he faces from neighbors when he goes home to his ultra-Orthodox community. “But I’m proud of the fact that I drafted. I went home in uniform to show people,” he said at a base near the northern city of Haifa, a kippa atop his head. Somech, who also has 15 siblings, wants to pursue a career as an electrician. But while the more moderate among the ultra-Orthodox may be tempted to join, opposition remains firm. It is likely to roil politics for years to come. “If they want, they can kill me,” Croise said, insisting he would never join up, something he likened to “a rebellion against God”.

Jihad: "All the Fault of the West!"
Lars Hedegaard/Gatestone Institute/December 26/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7114/jihad-fault
As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West.
First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to "infidel" societies. Well before mid-century, the number of Muslims in Denmark will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.
In the United States, a House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, has been sponsored that would censor one of the few countries left with freedom of speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), would criminalize all criticism of Islam, worldwide.
Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion – or more accurately, Islamic ideology, which knows no distinction between religion and politics – is on the ascendant.
It was not supposed to have happened this way. In 1995 a number of EU member states signed the Schengen Agreement, integrated into European Union law in 1999. The signatory powers promised to abandon their internal border protection in exchange for a promise by the EU authorities that they would police Europe's external borders. Then the EU authorities, while demanding that the Schengen states keep their borders open, spectacularly failed to honor their part of the agreement. There can be little doubt that the EU packed up, walked out and left its populations to their own devices.
Sadly, their policies have achieved the exact opposite of what they claimed to strive for. Instead of tolerance, we have witnessed division and irreconcilable enmity between cultures and ethnicities that often have nothing in common except a desire to squeeze as much out of the public coffers as they can. Instead of "inclusion," Europeans have seen exclusion, low-intensity warfare, terror, no-go zones, rape epidemics, murder and mayhem.
Governments, parliamentary majorities and the stars of academia, the media and the commanding heights of culture cannot have failed to notice that their grand multicultural, Islamophile game did not produce the results they had promised their unsuspecting publics. Yet to this day, most of them persist in claiming that unfettered immigration from the Muslim world and Africa is an indisputable boon to Europe.
Recently, in the wake of the so-called "refugee crisis," some of these notables have thrown out the script and are expressing concern that immigration is out of control. European governments are still allowing millions of so-called refugees to cross all borders and settle anyplace. According to the EU agency Frontex, charged with protecting Europe's external borders, more than a million and a half illegals crossed Europe's frontiers between January and November 2015.
Thousands of migrants cross illegally into Slovenia on foot, in this screenshot from YouTube video filmed in October 2015.
Right now there is an ever-widening gap between the people and their rulers. In a conference recently organized by the Danish Free Press Society to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the famous Muhammed cartoons, the British political analyst, Douglas Murray, noted that the European populations are reacting to decades of lies and deception by voting for political parties which, just a few years ago, were vilified as "racist" and "fascist." Marine Le Pen, of the National Front party, has emerged as a strong candidate in France's 2017 presidential election.
Perhaps the most momentous political earthquake in Europe was the recent 180-degree about-face by the Danish Social Democratic Party. Only a few years ago, it was a staunch proponent of Muslim immigration, and hammered away at anyone daring to deny the "cultural enrichment" brought about by the spread of Islam.
The leader of Denmark's Social Democratic parliamentary group, Henrik Sass Larsen MP, on December 18 wrote:
"The massive migration and stream of refugees now coming to Europe and Denmark are of a magnitude that challenges the fundamental premises of our society in the near future... According to our analysis, the stark economic consequences of the current number of refugees and immigrants will consume all room for maneuver in public finance within a few years. Non-Western immigrants have historically been difficult to integrate into the labor market; the same applies to the Syrians that are now arriving. The more, the harder, the more expensive... Finally, it is our analysis that given our previous experience with integrating non-Western people into our society, we are facing a social catastrophe when it comes to handling many tens of thousands that are soon to be channeled into society. Every bit of progress in terms of integration will be put back to zero. ... Therefore our conclusion is clear: We will do all we can to limit the number of non-Western refugees and immigrants coming to the country. That is why we have gone far -- and much farther than we had dreamed of going... We are doing this because we will not sacrifice our welfare society in the name of humanitarianism. For the welfare society ... is the political project of the Social Democratic Party. It is a society built on the principles of liberty, equality and solidarity. Mass immigration -- as we have seen in, for example, Sweden -- will undermine ... our welfare society."
Clearly, the Danish Social Democratic Party -- the architect of Denmark as we have known it -- has understood that there is political capital to be defended. It seems finally to have realized that it cannot persist in whittling away its accomplishments if it wants to keep its dwindling share of the votes.
One may speculate that if the Social Democratic Party means what it says, it might have an impact among Social Democratic and Socialist parties in other European countries.
However, as Douglas Murray also pointed out, Westerners suffer from the notion that regardless of how many jihadis, murderers and terrorists claim that their actions are motivated by their love of Allah, they cannot possibly mean it. There must be some other underlying "root cause" that the men of violence are not aware of, but which well-meaning Westerners are keen to tell them about: old Western imperialism, centuries of humiliation, racism, Israel, the Crusades, poverty, exclusion, the Muhammad cartoons, etc. And, of course, that it is all the fault of the West!
As long as we in the West are not prepared to take Muslims at their word when they claim to be waging bloody jihad because it is their religious obligation, we have no chance of repelling the current onslaught on the West. The latest sighting of this shift was just this week, in the form of a U.S. House of Representatives bill, H. Res. 569, to censor one of the few countries left with free speech. The bill, in accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to implement UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, would criminalize, worldwide, all criticism of Islam. [1]
As long as the authorities are unwilling to protect their own populations from being overrun by foreigners, many of whom seem prepared to do them harm, we are likely to see the natives take protection into their own hands. On December 16, for instance, there was a violent protest in the small Dutch city of Geldermalsen, as the local authorities were trying to set up an asylum center behind the backs of the local population. No doubt the authorities were taken aback by the activism.
Western societies are based on an implied contract between the sovereign and the people: The sovereign -- the king, the president, the government -- promises to uphold law and order, protect his people from violence and foreign encroachment and apprehend and punish criminals. In exchange, the citizens promise not to take the law into their own hands. It follows that if the state fails to uphold its part of this social bargain, then the right -- indeed the obligation -- to protect oneself, one's family, neighbors and the community, returns to the citizens.
There was also the recent spate of asylum-house burnings in Sweden. According to the Danish-Swedish website, Snaphanen, there have been 40 occasions during the past six months in which buildings intended to house asylum seekers have mysteriously burned to the ground -- without anyone being hurt or killed. None of the perpetrators has been caught; no one has claimed responsibility. It all appears organized quite well.
Will citizen activism save Europe? Probably not. Vast areas are too far gone to be saved. Sweden is a broken country, as pointed out by Ingrid Carlqvist in several articles at Gatestone. By 2020, Germany may have 20 million Muslim residents.
We are probably beyond the point where effective change can be obtained by politics in the old sense, for the simple reason that central authorities are not strong enough to make their writ run throughout their national territories. This will spell the end of Europe as we know it, and people who cannot leave, or who choose to stand and fight, will be left to their own devices -- and quite possibly entirely new modes of social organization.
First to go will be the welfare states. Shrinking native populations cannot generate enough taxes to accommodate masses of immigrants with so few skills as to be effectively unemployable, or who do not want to contribute to "infidel" societies.
What might post-European Europe look like? Think of Northern Ireland in the time of the Troubles or of ex-Yugoslavia during the civil wars of the 1990s.
When states break down, people's first concern will be security. Who can and will protect my family and me?
For a long time in Europe there has been talk of "parallel societies" -- in which the state ceases to function as a unitary polity -- due to the cultural, religious and politico-judicial separation of non-Muslims and Muslims into incompatible and antagonistic enclaves.
There appears to be a growing realization among Danish demographers that third-world immigrants and their descendants, with or without citizenship, will constitute the majority of the Danish population before the end of the century.[2] A sizable segment of this third-world population will be Muslim, and well before the middle of the century, the number of Muslims will be large enough irreversibly to have changed the composition and character of the country.
Will Muslim non-integration spell the end of the secular state as we have known it? Probably. Religion -- or more accurately, Islamic ideology -- which knows no distinction between religion and politics, is on the ascendant as the constitutive principle among Danish Muslims. As Muslim institutions grow stronger, the Islamic court, or "din," is bound to become even more powerful as the organizing principle of the Muslim parallel societies.
How will the old Danish, and nominally Christian, population react to this metamorphosis? To a large extent, that will depend on what organizing principle will determine the character of the Danish parallel society. Two possibilities stand out: "Danishness" and "Christianity." "Danishness" would probably entail a society founded on a nationalistic or ethnic myth, whereas "Christianity" might be more ethnically inclusive and stress society's Judeo-Christian and humanistic roots.
In either event, it is difficult to see how the secular state could survive, because the parallel societies will not be free to define themselves or determine their political systems or modes of governance. They will constantly be forced to maneuver in response to "the other's" long-term objectives and immediate actions -- as has been seen, for example, in Bosnia, Kosovo, Lebanon, Northern Ireland and the Basque provinces.
Under these conditions, the modern system of sovereign territorial states is likely to break down. We can only guess at what will replace it.
Lars Hedegaard, a Danish historian, journalist and author, established the Danish Free Speech Society in 2004.
[1] In accordance with the 10-year plan of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to implement U.N. Resolution 16/18 and criminalize all criticism of Islam worldwide, a group in the U.S. House of Representatives has sponsored H. Res. 569, in condemnation of violence, bigotry and "hateful rhetoric" toward Muslims in the U.S. This bill comes on the heels of Attorney General Loretta Lynch's post-San Bernardino attack statement to the Muslim American community that she will prosecute anyone guilty of anti-Muslim speech. Passage of this legislation will be the death knell for the First Amendment and the end of any and all discourse and education about the threat posed by the global jihad.
[2] See, for example, the calculations of the Copenhagen University demographer Hans Oluf Hansen, Berlingske Tidende, August 21, 2005.
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Russians and Iranians together in the same trench
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
It’s true that this is the third time in months I have written about the alleged dispute between the Russians and the Iranians. I still find it hard to believe news about this rift and instead believe it is fabricated, with the purpose of masking Russia’s intervention in Syria to ease widespread anger from many Arab states against the Russians. Yesterday, Arab media echoed news of the dispute, this time from Baghdad, which is typically a reliable news center due to its multiple affiliations. But there is still nothing that proves, with accuracy, that tensions exist between both countries. If anything, evidence on the ground suggests that Russia and Iran’s military and political forces are sharing the same trench. It seems to me that conflict-of-interest rumors between both countries are either wishful thinking, or a part of Moscow’s propaganda push
On Syrian battlegrounds, the work is comfortably divided. There are no Russian ground forces and no Iranian air forces, making them complementary armies. Even if disagreements over day-to-day battles existed, this would be expected of any war. These disagreements reportedly included forcing Iranian military leaders to relocate some of their units from certain areas, as well as Russian aircrafts mistakenly bombing Iranian-allied militias. It seems to me that conflict-of-interest rumors between both countries are either wishful thinking, or a part of Moscow’s propaganda push that has been in motion since Russia got involved in the war alongside the Iranians to save Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Solid ties
There is a solid relationship between the two governments. Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have visited Tehran three weeks ago if there was a dispute. It was his first visit in eight years, during which he met the Supreme Leader who offered him an old copy of the Quran. Putin pledged to President Hassan Rowhani exports worth $5 billion, and the two governments signed agreements, including military deals. It is difficult to believe that there is a dispute when their relationship appears to be strong. The news from Iraq about the supposed rift between the two allies now has no value and most likely, the truth is quite the opposite. Iraq, not Syria, is the country located at the center of high tensions between international and regional powers. The Americans are fighting in Ramadi, Russians are advancing in the northeast, Iranians in Baghdad and the south, Turks in the Kurdish region and around Mosul, while ISIS is tunneling more trenches in Mosul and several cities in the western provinces. Washington has announced it will deploy troops on Iraq's border with Syria, as well as supporting Sunni tribes in Anbar, which indicates an escalation of the conflict between the many axes of power.
Although nothing is impossible in politics, it’s difficult to believe that there is a dispute between the Russians and the Iranians. The reiteration of this rumor is merely a cooked up recipe for psychological warfare.

How ‘Islamic’ is ISIS? This debate does not matter
Abdullah Hamidaddin/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
In recent weeks, there has been much debate about how "Islamic" the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is. Some people falsely claim it represents “pure” Islam, while others insist ISIS is totally out of line with the teachings of the Prophet Mohammad, and should not be considered Muslim. But this debate does not really matter - we should be asking more important and relevant questions. The discussion does not have any practical relevance. Deciding whether ISIS is Muslim does not change the way it perceives itself, or the way its sympathizers perceive it. As important, the discussion does not influence the attitude of non-sympathizing Muslims toward ISIS. Muslims and non-Muslims alike reject it because of its actions, not because of its alignment or misalignment with Islam. Even if the question had practical relevance, there is no way to answer it definitively. Anyone familiar with religious scripture knows that its interpretation is by nature inconclusive. This does not mean we stay silent while others insist ISIS and Islam are one and the same. We should deconstruct their motives instead of responding to their line of argument.
The right question
The question that matters is: How did that question become so important in the first place? Two reasons stand out. The first is that Islam and Muslims have come to be treated as a monolith. According to that logic, saying ISIS is Muslim means every Muslim is a potential terrorist, which impels Muslims to respond. Our response to those saying ISIS is Muslim should be: So what? ISIS being Muslim means nothing and is without consequence.
The debate over ISIS and Islam is really about identity, not theology
The second reason is that when it comes to identity politics, Islam has come to be treated as the primary and defining identity for Muslims, regardless of all the other identities one has. Thus a French Muslim woman, an American Muslim black man and an Arab Muslim are all first and foremost Muslim, then everything else. What this implies is that any Muslim would feel an affinity and sympathy with any Muslim. This is of course not the case. Each of us has multiple identities - religion is but one of them, and is not always the primary one. An alternative logic would consider that a French Muslim has more affinity with a French atheist than with an Indonesian Muslim. All of this may sound abstract, but such are issues of identity. The debate over ISIS and Islam is really about identity, not theology.

2015, a year of milestones of horrors in the Middle East
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2015/12/26/hisham-melhemal-arabiya-2015-a-year-of-milestones-of-horrors-in-the-middle-east/
Another annus horribilis in the Middle East is about to end. It is that time of year when you look back at 2015 in astonishment at the tragedies that befell the region, and ahead at 2016 with trepidation at the inevitable agonies awaiting us. After decades of trying to understand ( and occasionally trying to explain) the political, cultural and economic dynamics that have been pushing the region towards greater fragmentation, and in the process speaking like a Cassandra, anticipating mostly gloom and doom in the future, I see no reason to change now. If anything the long term trends in the region point to more implosions, including in areas that have been relatively immune so far, and more human suffering and the attendant political and social chaos.
For the Arabs specifically, I see diminishing control of their destiny, with other regional and international actors assuming greater roles in determining where the region is going. This will be felt mostly, but not exclusively, in Syria and Iraq. The other conflicts in Yemen and Libya will continue to rage in varying degrees of intensity, their resolutions becoming harder because of breakdown of state authority, regional involvement and an expanding physical space that is being filled by ISIS and al-Qaeda. The oil price slump of this year, which has impacted every economic sector, and led governments throughout the region to cut spending, will remain in 2016 and beyond and the gloom that came with it will linger on for the foreseeable future. In 2015 Syria’s war, because of its refugees and the influx of foreign fighters, became an international problem. And once again we were reminded that a handful of dedicated terrorists organized and /or inspired by ISIS could terrorize and suspend normal life in European capitals like Paris and Brussels, and deepen the politics of fears in the United States.
Historic milestones
In 2015, we have seen historic milestones of horrors. Some estimates put the death toll in Syria’s wars over 300,000 casualties. Syrians who left or driven out of their exceed 4.5 million, and 7.6 million internally displaced. The International Organization for Migration said recently that more than a million refugees and migrants went to Europe this year, half of them were Syrians. More than 3700 of the refugees drowned in the deceptive waters of the Mediterranean that swallowed their rickety boats supplied by equally deceptive smugglers. Scores died on those long European treks crossing newly erected boundaries or suffocated in trucks in the heat of last summer.
One should say good riddance to an inheritance of woes, but the bridge we will take to 2016 is the bridge of sighs, that will very likely put us, once again on the road to perdition
The world discovered ISIS, in June 2014 when its trucks and jeeps laden with hordes of Jihadists breached the defenses of Mosul, and occupied Iraq’s second largest city. But 2015 was the year of ISIS par excellence. A self-proclaimed Caliphate straddling large swath of Syria and Iraq with a fake Caliph clad in black and in hiding, has been doing battle with an international coalition led by the United States, and still retains considerable fighting prowess. The Islamic State was dealt some military setbacks in 2015, and eventually will be defeated by force of arms, but it will remain a formidable dark power in 2016 and beyond, in part because both regional and international actors either don’t consider ISIS their most dangerous enemy, or because they are unwilling to send ground troops to defeat it.
Given the sectarian and ethnic cleansing taking place in Syria and Iraq, in which both governments and their (Shiite) militias, along with ISIS and other (Sunni) jihadists have been implicated, as well as the destruction of infrastructure, cities, hospitals and schools makes it practically impossible to resurrect a Syria and an Iraq that resemble what used to be on the eve of destruction. What was built over the centuries and obliterated in the last few years – from old residential neighborhoods, ancient souks, schools, Churches and Mosques may not be restored, or ever rebuilt. And who will finance the reconstruction of Syria, estimated at $300 billion?
President Obama’s milestone in 2015, in fact his biggest milestone in the Middle East in his seven lean years there, was the nuclear deal with Iran. One could make the case that the agreement will prevent Iran from developing a nuclear device for 15 years, but the biggest flaw in the negotiations and the overall approach of the Obama administration towards Iran, was his abject failure to attempt to rollback, or at least deter and check Iran’s regional ambitions and the proxy wars it has been waging in Syria and Iraq and to a lesser extent Yemen. During the height of the Cold War, when the U.S. was holding summit meetings with Soviet leaders and signing ‘Salt’ and ‘Start’ nuclear agreements, American Presidents, Republican and Democrats kept hammering them on their human rights violations inside the Soviet Union, and rolling back their gains or deterring them in the proxy wars raging in Asia, Africa and Central America. We all knew the names of the Soviet dissidents and their particular struggles. President Obama was never forceful in defending the human rights of Iranians, particularly during the ‘Green Revolution’ of 2009, and he was very tepid in challenging Iran’s regional destructive activities.
Obama’s revisionist history
Russia’s military intervention in Syria is one of the consequences of President Obama’s dithering on Syria. The administration is hoping that the recent U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing a ‘peace process’ to end Syria’s civil war, after a transitional period of 18 months, could lead to another round of negotiations in Vienna, in the context of a fragile cease-fire. Publicly, Secretary John Kerry appeared to have given Moscow a significant concession when he stated that ‘the United States and our partners are not seeking so-called ‘regime change’, as it is known in Syria. What we have said is that we don’t believe that Assad himself has the ability to be able to lead the future Syria..’. The eagerness of Secretary Kerry for a resolution to Syria’s wars, his willingness to compromise and his deep belief in the power of diplomacy are not enough to guarantee that his efforts on Syria will not end disastrously like his efforts to revive the other ‘peace process’ between the Palestinians and Israelis.
President Obama’s stated objectives in Syria; a post-Assad and a more inclusive regime in Damascus, and defeating ISIS are clear, but the means to implement such objectives are still limited, tentative and incoherent. As recently as last June the President admitted that ‘we don’t yet have a complete strategy’ to defeat ISIS. In recent weeks and in major speeches and interviews the President has been insisting that his revamped strategy – intensifying the air campaign, greater coordination with Kurdish and Syrian Arab armed groups, and the insertion of dozens of American special forces- is working, and urging strategic patience. But a Syria/Iraq strategy that does not include the willingness to deploy relatively significant American ground forces to clean up the Euphrates valley in Syria of ISIS strongholds, then turning these liberated areas to Syrian opposition groups, means that ISIS and the Assad regime will continue their depredations against the Syrian people, long after Obama has vacated the White House and began writing revisionist Syrian history in his memoires.
Arabs in the shadows of their neighbors
One is hard pressed to point out positive developments in the region in 2015. From Libya in the west to Yemen in the East, you see a long trail of blood and tears, where Arabs continue to kill Arabs with abandon, with little help from their regional and international friends, and with no end in sight. My essays in this space throughout the year reflected these tragic realities, occasionally asking questions such as what is the matter with Egypt? And how could the political and intellectual classes in majority Arab states allow their societies to disintegrate into warring sects and tribes? A theocratic regime in Tehran is shaping the future course of countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, by influencing and manipulating the Shiite communities in those states to serve its regional ambitions. An increasingly Islamist (Sunni) government in Turkey is competing with Iran for political and strategic interests in Iraq and Syria. In January 2012 when I published an article in Foreign Policy, titled ‘Arabs in the shadows of their neighbors’ things were not as disquieting as they are now.
Egypt has all but dropped its old mantle of regional leadership. It is barely capable of influencing tiny Gaza, let alone the Levant and beyond. Its large and sluggish armed forces are pre-occupied in fighting a low intensity and nasty Islamist insurgency in Sinai that occasionally visits Egypt’s large cities inflicting military and civilian casualties. The government’s crackdown on all forms of political dissent has deepened the sense of gloom in the country. Before the civil war in Yemen, devolved into a regional conflict involving the two powerful countries in the Gulf, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, the country was slowly becoming a failed state. This ancient land with its distinct cultural heritage which was once known as "Arabia felix" could face disintegration if the war does not end soon with a political arrangement that is acceptable to its main constituents and its immediate neighbors.
Of Palestinian knife men…
The Israeli government, in the face of a hapless Palestinian Authority, continues to incorporate more and more Palestinian lands in the West Bank and making the creation of a viable Palestinian state all but impossible. The absence of a promising framework for a peaceful resolution is dragging the occupied and the occupier to another inconclusive, ugly and nihilistic round of bloodletting. In recent months a wave of ‘face to face’ violence swept the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel, in which hundreds of mostly civilian Palestinians and Israelis including babies were killed. In October and November 94 Palestinians have been killed in shootings and clashes with Israeli soldiers and Israeli settlers (a notorious firebombing of a Palestinian home by settlers burned a married couple and their 18 year-old baby). Rights groups including Amnesty International have accused Israel of using excessive force, and that the killing of some Palestinians amounted to ‘extrajudicial execution.’ Palestinians killed16 Israelis in random knife stabbings, gun attacks or were rammed by vehicles driven by Palestinians. An ugly unforgiven mood hovered over Palestinians and Israelis. There were the usual accusations that both sides trade in such nasty times; the wages of occupation, the sins of incitements and the overall demonization of the other. The fact remains that the occupied/occupier dichotomy will not be broken by Palestinians knifing Israelis at random, nor will Israel’s overwhelming military preponderance and expropriation of Palestinian lands extinguish the Palestinian’s yearning for independence. The perpetuation of the current impasse, will further undermine the diminishing constituencies of peace among Palestinians and Israelis, and continue to dehumanize both the occupier and the occupied.
… And Jewish dagger men
Both Arabs and Jews have long collective memories. The Palestinian knife men, should remind Israelis of the ‘Sicarii Jews’ who along with the Jewish Zealots fought to expel the Romans in the years preceding the destruction of Jerusalem. Josephus, the Jewish-Roman historian who opposed the Jewish rebellion used the term ‘Sicarii Jews’ in a pejorative way, and labeling them as extremist religious minority that wanted to drag the Jews to a nihilistic rebellion against what they termed as ‘the Kingdom of arrogance’. The word Sicarii is Latin and was given to these young Jews because of the small dagger (sicae) they concealed under their garments. These Jewish Zealots waged a campaign of terror, in the first century AD, mostly in broad daylight and during festivals, stabbing not only their Roman enemies, but also fellow Jews who were deemed collaborators with the occupiers. According to Josephus, these Jewish dagger men would mingle with the crowds before they pull their daggers to stab their victims to death before they flee the scene of the murder. They were so brazen that they assassinated the high priest Jonathan, and murdered an imperial servant, ‘an act which resulted in lamentable consequences’.
(These tactics were perfected in the 11th and 12 centuries, but this time by Muslim dagger men in Northern Persia and Western Syria by the cult of the ‘assassins’, from the Arabic الحشاشون Hashashoon but properly known as the Nizari Ismailis, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.
These ‘assassins’ dispatched their enemies in suicide attacks against their prominent Sunni enemies in Persia (they expected to be hacked to death) and their Sunni and Crusaders enemies in Syria. They were so brazen that they tried twice to assassinate the famed Muslim leader Salah al-Din Yusuf Ibn Ayyub known in the West as Saladin).
Looking back at 2015, one should say good riddance to an inheritance of woes, but the bridge we will take to 2016 is the bridge of sighs, that will very likely put us, once again on the road to perdition.

On Muslim issues, Democrats find an unlikely ally: George Bush
The Associated Press, Washington Saturday, 26 December 2015/
Haunted by Republicans to declare war on "radical Islamic terrorism," Democrats are turning to an unlikely ally: George W. Bush. President Barack Obama, under pressure to be more aggressive on terrorism, regularly cites his predecessor's refusal to demonize Muslims or play into the notion of a clash between Islam and the West. It's a striking endorsement from a president whose political rise was predicated on opposition to the Iraq war and Bush's hawkish approach in the Middle East. As Hillary Clinton put it, "George W. Bush was right." Laying out her plan to fight domestic terrorism, Clinton reminded voters in Minneapolis earlier this month of Bush's visit to a Muslim center six days after the Sept. 11 attacks. She even quoted his words from that day about those who intimidate Muslim-Americans: "They represent the worst of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior." Bush, of course, was not referring to the 2016 Republican presidential field. Clinton certainly was.
Donald Trump has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the U.S. — then enjoyed a bump in the polls. Ben Carson deems traditional Muslims unfit for the presidency. Marco Rubio warns of a "civilizational struggle against radical, apocalyptic Islam," making a distinction, at least, between ordinary Muslims and extremists. Ted Cruz berates Clinton and Obama incessantly for refusing to declare war on "radical Islamic terrorism." Clinton and Obama argue that rhetoric just helps ISIS and likeminded extremists, whose recruitment pitch is based on the narrative of an apocalyptic battle between Islam and the West. The Democrats warned that proposals like Trump's Muslim ban jeopardize national security, drawing a contrast with Bush.
"I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam," Obama said recently. His message to today's Republican leaders: "They should follow his example. It was the right one. It was the right impulse."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton's top challenger for the Democratic nomination, visited a mosque this month in a show of solidarity that evoked Bush's after 9/11. And the Democratic National Committee released an ad contrasting comments by the 2016 GOP contenders with footage of Bush declaring that "Islam is peace."All of that marks a rare departure for a party that has spent the last decade slamming the former president — to much electoral success. After all, even many of the Republican candidates, even if in retrospect, have criticized the war in Iraq, where Islamic State militants now control part of the country and are seeking to export terrorism around the world.
But Bush's example has become particularly poignant for Democrats following recent terrorist attacks in Paris and California that have left people more preoccupied with terrorism than at any time since 9/11. Both Clinton and Obama have sought to deflect the critique that they're too soft on the domestic terrorism threat. "There weren't a lot of policy decisions that I agreed with George W. Bush on, but I was never going to call him weak on terror," said Mo Elleithee, a longtime Democratic Party official who now runs Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service.
Not all Republican candidates have been as harsh about Muslims as Trump has been. Jeb Bush has joined his GOP challengers in describing the enemy as "radical Islamic terrorism." But he's also said the U.S. should follow his brother's lead, arguing in the last GOP debate that "we can't dissociate ourselves from peace-loving Muslims."
During the 2001 mosque visit, one of several occasions Bush denounced anti-Muslim bias, he stood alongside Muslim leaders and quoted the Quran about evil-doers being ultimately defeated. He insisted that intimidation against Muslims in America would not stand.
"The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam," Bush said. The former president has stayed mostly silent throughout the recent debate. His spokesman, Freddy Ford, recently said Bush wouldn't comment on "Trump's bluster" but repeated Bush's insistence that "true Islam is peaceful." Ford declined to discuss what Bush thinks about Democrats quoting him now. Muslim groups have called on Obama to follow Bush's example by visiting a mosque, a move that would be risky for a president who has faced longstanding but false claims that he is a Muslim. White House officials didn't rule out the possibility Obama would visit a mosque, but said there were no imminent plans to do so. "Bush sent a very powerful message to the world and American Muslims that backlash and attacks on this faith community will not be tolerated," said Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. "We would hope President Obama would make a similar gesture."

Have Arab women broken any barriers in 2015?
Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/December 26/15
For women in the Middle East, 2015 was eventful in terms of achievements, advancements, and efforts of inclusion. Topping the list was Saudi Arabia permitting women to run and vote in the municipal elections for the first time. Saudi divorcees will also now be issued with ID cards, allowing them to act independently of men. Also this year, Egypt convicted a doctor for carrying out female genital mutilation (FGM) – a gruesome procedure that killed 13-year old Sohair al-Bataa. 2015 has proven to be a year where the path for the advancement of women in the region was paved, but the path continues to have a lot of cracks – there is plenty more work to be done in 2016.
A conviction means nothing until it is enforced
The case of Sohair al-Bataa was monumental as it lead to the conviction of an individual who regularly practiced FGM. The Egypt Health Issues Survey, published in 2015, found that 90 percent of Egyptian women aged 15-49 had suffered from female genital mutilation – this means that while this conviction is necessary, it is merely the first in a string of convictions that are necessary to eradicate this dangerous practice. However, even though FGM was outlawed in Egypt in 2008, and despite the doctor being convicted, he is still at large, running his clinic, and performing more procedures, Vice News reported.
Women’s rights are still lacking – the region cannot expect society to change and be more open until legislative changes are made. It is absolutely vital that the judicial system gives Egypt’s society the respect that it deserves. In this particular case, it felt as if the judicial system was giving the international community and parts of society what they wanted to hear: a conviction. Yet the system failed to carry through the incarceration of the doctor, and worse yet, it has failed to pursue other practitioners of FGM. Laws and regulations mean nothing until they are implemented effectively. The paved path needs to be planted and watered. Saudi Arabia’s municipal elections were truly heart-warming to watch. In the first election, a total of 978 women ran in the elections, yet voter turnout left much to be desired. Although 14 percent of the candidates running in the election were women, female voter registration made up a mere 8 percent of the 1.48 million registered voters – out of a country with approximately 20 million registered to vote.
The region is desperately in need of female participation in politics and economics. In order for them to participate in politics, however, there needs to be a greater level of trust. This comes with women being granted their basic fundamental rights, and this isn’t limited to voting.
In order for women to trust governments and agree to participate in politics, they need to feel that they have a hold of their basic fundamental rights. This includes the ability to pass their citizenship on to their children. Right now, only Palestine, Egypt, Morocco, Yemen, Tunisia and Libyan governments allow women to pass citizenship on to their children. Women also need to be given the basic right to work without the consent of their husband, which is an issue in 10 countries in the region. There is no justified reasoning that says that a husband has the right to decide whether or not his wife can freely contribute to the economy and society – it’s a personal decision. Women’s rights are still lacking – the region cannot expect society to change and be more open until legislative changes are made. The year 2015 saw some milestones, but there is plenty more work to do in 2016. The good news is that many, including me, still have faith in Arab governments to do right by women.

Analysis: Will 2016 be the year of Kurdistan?
Sethh. J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post December 26/15
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2015/12/26/sethh-j-frantzmanjerusalem-post-will-2016-be-the-year-of-kurdistan/
Erbil’s Ankawa suburb used to be its own town, but for all intents and purposes it is now part of the sprawling capital of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government. It is home to tens of thousands of Christians, many of them refugees from Mosul and the Nineveh plains. Over a nargileh in a small Christian-owned café, the men said it would likely be their last Christmas in Iraq.“It’s finished here.”Wouldn’t the Nineveh plains be liberated from Islamic State in the coming year? “No, we don’t think so, and anyway, there’s nothing to return to,” the younger proprietor said. For these Christians the future in Iraq may seem dim, but for Kurds the future is looking brighter every day. For those commentators always predicting Kurdish independence, it seems to be a case like all the suitors waiting for Penelope to finally finish weaving a burial shroud in Homer’s Odyssey. So when will the burial shroud of Iraq finally appear, and Kurdistan emerge? The Economist noted that the Kurds of Iraq were “ever closer to independence” in February of 2015, but it cautioned them to “play their cards cleverly.”
In a July interview with Al-Monitor, Masrour Barzani, the son of the president of the KRG and chief of the intelligence services, said that the region was not pushing for forced separation from Iraq but an “amicable divorce.” Iraq was a “failed system” and Kurdistan would be more effective on its own. “We would be able to make our own agreements to purchase our own weapons.”Weapons aren’t the only thing the Kurdistan region’s independence would mean: The KRG wants to export its own oil without going through Baghdad and without having to wait for budgets to pass through Baghdad, which are often snarfed up by the federal government. The Kurdistan region is stable; it doesn’t suffer from the kind of sectarian strife plaguing the rest of Iraq. It has new airports. There is security and safety in the KRG. Malls and shopping centers are rising in Erbil, and in the northern city of Duhok new hotels dot the main highway and a stately new American University campus has bloomed.
On December 21 KRG President Masoud Barzani instructed his Kurdistan Democratic Party, the largest party in Kurdistan, to “find a mechanism” for the preparation of a referendum on independence. “I don’t know whether it happens next year or when, but independence is certainly coming,” he told a meeting of the Atlantic Council in May. Every Kurd I spoke to in the KRG wants independence. This general aspiration was symbolically clear on Flag Day on December 17, when Kurdish flags hung everywhere and people attended patriotic events. The two large parties of the KRG, the KDP and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, want independence. But pragmatism beats rash actions. Surely Kurds are aware that other peoples that sought independence – whether in the case of Palestinians, South Sudan, Kosovo or East Timor – have had a long, hard struggle.
There’s no point to declare independence and then not have anyone recognize it. Beneath the consideration of haste is the consideration of regional strategy. The rise of Islamic State in Iraq weakened the authority of the Baghdad central government and revealed its true face as a Shi’a-dominated polity deeply infiltrated by Iranian influence. Privately, some Kurds admit that in June, when Islamic State appeared in the Sunni cities such as Tikrit and Mosul, they thought it was heading to Baghdad. Iraq would disintegrate, Kurdistan would remain.But Islamic State turned on the Kurds in August, conquering thousands of kilometers of disputed areas in Kirkuk and Shingal, committing a genocide against Kurdish-speaking Yazidis and heading for Erbil. The war on Islamic State may have been initially traumatic, but a year and a half later it has left the KRG united, its political problems seemingly pushed aside.
Now Iran is on the rise in the Middle East, and its allies in Syria and Baghdad form an arc around the KRG. In the old days Sunni Arab parties feared an independent Kurdistan, but now it could be a bulwark against Iran. Similarly, the Turkish government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan sees in the KRG a regional ally, meeting with Masoud Barzani on December 10 and ostentatiously displaying the Kurdish flag. But the plot thickens. The Kurdish-based YPG, the armed forces of the Kurdish region of Syria called Rojava, is considered closer to the Assad regime and Iran. The issue is further complicated by tensions between the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey and the KRG. There is a lot of resentment in some sectors of the KRG against the PKK, which has bases there and which is involved in a struggle with the Turkish state.
They accuse it of occupying villages on the border, which are shelled by Turkey and to which civilians cannot return. They claim it exaggerates its role fighting Islamic State, or that it actively undermines the KRG’s interests. In August the Turkish paper Today’s Zaman accused Abdolreza Rahmani Fazil, the interior minister of Iran, of “visiting the PKK stronghold in Kandil [mountains].”It is a complex puzzle. The mostly Kurdish HDP party in Turkey crossed the electoral threshold in June and November parliamentary elections, even as a major crackdown on the PKK is going on. PKK and HDP are considered to be closely related. The Kurdish-dominated YPG in Syria has accomplished major successes against Islamic State. Even Iranian Kurds are affected by these divisions, aligning in various groups such as PDKI, Komala and PJAK, the latter of which is also thought to be related to the PKK. In some ways the KDP, which also has supporters in Turkey, Syria and Iran, but which dominated the KRG, feels threatened by the Iranian potential to destabilize the area or by a future confrontation with the PKK.
From an outside perspective it seems inexplicable, for instance, how the border between YPG-held areas in Syria and the KRG is not blossoming in trade. Here are two nominally independent Kurdish areas that are not united but divided as much as they might have been under the old regimes of Saddam Hussein and Bashar Assad. On Kurdish Flag Day many Kurds in the KRG were angered by videos allegedly showing YPG fire trucks dispersing Kurdish protesters who were holding a large flag. Why don’t they fly the Kurdish flag in YPG areas? wondered viewers.There is also a feeling that the Western governments have not done enough for the KRG. Why do they insist on always dealing with Baghdad, when they know the level of corruption there? many wonder. Why don’t they see in Kurdistan – with its high level of democratic participation, diverse media and tolerance for diverse communities of Christians and Yazidis, while hosting 2 million Arab refugees – a model for the Middle East? Instead, the West wants to work with Iran and Iraq! So the KRG is reaching out to Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
The Turks even maintain a controversial small military base near Mosul, which is training troops for the eventual liberation of the city. But Kurdish security experts are clear: they do not want Baghdad’s Shi’a militias in Mosul. They don’t want them anywhere near Kurdistan. They also want the Arab refugees to go home to Nineveh and elsewhere. It’s a catch-22. Without the liberation of Mosul and expansion of the Shingal front, no one can go home. Who will take back Mosul, this ripe fruit hanging low on the Islamic State tree, waiting to be plucked? “We don’t sacrifice Kurdish lives for an Arab city,” say many Peshmerga commanders. The fruit that is not picked will rot. Perhaps as long as the KRG can function as an independent state, it can postpone the pitfalls of independence.
Keeping Iran at bay, and the major parties united, and finding a way to export oil, while discussing issues with the YPG, would be essential.

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006 Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to go to the LCCC Daily English/Arabic News Buletins Archieves Since 2006