LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
November 23/15

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.november23.15.htm 

Bible Quotations For Today

Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 11/27-32: "A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here".

Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness
Letter to the Galatians 03/01-06: "You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly exhibited as crucified! The only thing I want to learn from you is this: Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? Having started with the Spirit, are you now ending with the flesh? Did you experience so much for nothing? if it really was for nothing. Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? Just as Abraham ‘believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness’,


Question: "What is the importance of Christian baptism?"
GotQuestions.org?/November 22/15
Answer: Christian baptism is one of two ordinances that Jesus instituted for the church. Just before His ascension, Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:19–20). These instructions specify that the church is responsible to teach Jesus’ word, make disciples, and baptize those disciples. These things are to be done everywhere (“all nations”) until “the very end of the age.” So, if for no other reason, baptism has importance because Jesus commanded it.
Baptism was practiced before the founding of the church. The Jews of ancient times would baptize proselytes to signify the converts’ “cleansed” nature. John the Baptist used baptism to prepare the way of the Lord, requiring everyone, not just Gentiles, to be baptized because everyone needs repentance. However, John’s baptism, signifying repentance, is not the same as Christian baptism, as seen in Acts 18:24–26 and 19:1–7. Christian baptism has a deeper significance.
Baptism is to be done in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit—this is what makes it “Christian” baptism. It is through this ordinance that a person is admitted into the fellowship of the church. When we are saved, we are “baptized” by the Spirit into the Body of Christ, which is the church. First Corinthians 12:13 says, “We were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” Baptism by water is a “reenactment” of the baptism by the Spirit.
Christian baptism is the means by which a person makes a public profession of faith and discipleship. In the waters of baptism, a person says, wordlessly, “I confess faith in Christ; Jesus has cleansed my soul from sin, and I now have a new life of sanctification.”
Christian baptism illustrates, in dramatic style, the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. At the same time, it also illustrates our death to sin and new life in Christ. As the sinner confesses the Lord Jesus, he dies to sin (Romans 6:11) and is raised to a brand-new life (Colossians 2:12). Being submerged in the water represents death to sin, and emerging from the water represents the cleansed, holy life that follows salvation. Romans 6:4 puts it this way: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” Very simply, baptism is an outward testimony of the inward change in a believer’s life. Christian baptism is an act of obedience to the Lord after salvation; although baptism is closely associated with salvation, it is not a requirement to be saved. The Bible shows in many places that the order of events is 1) a person believes in the Lord Jesus and 2) he is baptized. This sequence is seen in Acts 2:41, “Those who accepted [Peter’s] message were baptized” (see also Acts 16:14–15). A new believer in Jesus Christ should desire to be baptized as soon as possible. In Acts 8 Philip speaks “the good news about Jesus” to the Ethiopian eunuch, and, “as they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?’” (verses 35–36). Right away, they stopped the chariot, and Philip baptized the man. Baptism illustrates a believer’s identification with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection. Everywhere the gospel is preached, people are to be baptized.

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on November 22-23/15
ISIS is inherently cowardly — to defeat it, hit it hard/By Amir Taheri/New York Post/November 22/15
Some Thoughts on Reforming Islam interpretations and Fighting Terrorism/Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
The Defeat of ISIL and the Revival of Humint/Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
After Vienna and G-20: Paris Attack Haunts Obama’s Final Year/Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
Vienna: The Missing Link between Fighting ISIL and Making Peace in Syria/Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
Is China Heading to a 1930s-Style Crash/Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/November 22/15
Turkey's Oppression Machine/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/November 22/15
Jeb Bush Lies, Says Bashar Assad ‘Executes’ Christians/Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/November 21/15
The five mistakes which brought back terrorism/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
Why I will not apologize for the Paris attacks/Khaled Almaeena/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
Can a single terrorist attack bring down a state/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
America’s latest failure on Syria? The refugee crisis/Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/November 22/15|

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on November 22-23/15
Independence Day Protesters Urge President Election, Voice Social Demands
Report: IS Threatens Holy Spirit University of Kaslik
Report: Hariri to Meet Jumblat in Paris over Presidency after Mustaqbal Talks in Riyadh
Report: Security Measures Tightened at Places of Worship
Civil Aviation Returns to Normal after Russia Ends Maneuvers
Alleged IS Supporters Hack Future TV's Website

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on November 22-23/15
Obama Calls on Russia to Focus on Islamic State Group
Iran Says U.S. Reporter Jason Rezaian Sentenced to Jail
Brussels to Stay at Highest Security Alert Level amid Major Police Operation
3 Palestinians, 1 Israeli Killed in Fresh West Bank Attacks
Israel Seeks to Strip Citizenship of Those who Join IS
Syrian War Likely to Dominate Putin's Visit to Iran
Iran Says Arrests IS-Linked Cell near Iraq Border
Assad: Syria Troops Advancing Thanks to Russia Strikes
Iraqi Freed without Charge in Sweden after Terror Arrest
Kurdish Commander Killed in IS Clashes Buried in Istanbul
France: measures taken against chemical attack
Paris police release photo of 3rd stadium suicide bomber
Brussels to stay at highest security alert level on Monday
Belgium to review maximum alert status for Brussels
Obama: U.S. ‘will not relent’ in ISIS campaign
Switzerland probing 33 people over possible militant links
Russia: 11 allied with ISIS killed in North Caucasus
U.S. religious leaders make forceful appeal to admit refugees

Links From Jihad Watch Site for November 22-23/15
Paris jihad mass murderers changed when they “stopped drinking and started praying”
Five more Syrians stopped at Texas border — 13 in the past week
UK Muslim spent his student loan on a trip to Syria to join the Islamic State
Germany: Muslims were 90 minutes away from carrying out “five bomb” jihad mass murder plot at soccer match
“Nearly impossible” to find jihadists among migrants, Greeks warn
Whistleblowers accuse US military of cooking intel to exaggerate success against the Islamic State and Taliban
Hugh Fitzgerald: Douce France
Archbishop of Canterbury: The way Islamic State distorts Islam “one of the most desperate aspects of our world today”
FBI top dog: Islamic State “urging people not to travel but to stay and kill where you are. We’re not sure exactly what’s going on.”
Poll: 40 percent of millennials want speech censored
“Palestinian” Muslim stabs four Israelis, including 13-year-old girl
Al-Qaeda claims Mali jihad murders: “All praise is due to Allah”
Anonymous: Islamic State planning attacks on Paris churches, Atlanta WWE event Sunday

Independence Day Protesters Urge President Election, Voice Social Demands
Naharnet/November 22/15/Demos organized by syndical, political and civil society groups replaced Sunday the traditional Independence Day military march, which was not held for the second consecutive year due to the continued presidential void. Kataeb Party's student department staged a march from the party's headquarters in Saifi to Beirut's Martyrs Square, where Kataeb's protesters passed by the rallies organized by the We Want Accountability and You Stink civil society campaigns. Kataeb's students then headed to the Gemmayze area. Meanwhile, the Offrejoie civil society group organized a demo from Baabda to Martyrs Square, amid a symbolic participation by a military band from the Lebanese army. Lawyers from the Beirut Bar Association and students from a number of schools took part in the march. In another symbolic move, We Want Accountability activists laid white flowers and Lebanese flags at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the Mathaf area, in the absence of any official ceremony at the site due to the presidential vacuum. Protesters in all the demos carried and shouted several slogans, ranging from the call for electing a new president to issues such as the protracting garbage crisis, corruption, social security, the rent law and the rights of disabled persons.

Report: IS Threatens Holy Spirit University of Kaslik
Naharnet/November 22/15/The Islamic State extremist group issued a threat against a number of world targets, including the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, reported An Nahar daily on Sunday. The threat prompted the university administration to cancel an academic event that was scheduled at the campus on Sunday. An Nahar said that seven targets were announced by the IS. They include three locations in Paris, two in Rome, one in Indonesia, and the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik. A security source told the daily that there are no specific details about the nature of the attack that the IS may make. Lebanese authorities have however been informed of the threat and “they are taking the necessary measures to confront every terrorist act.” “The security forces take every rumor or piece of information seriously,” stressed the source. It complained however of “the lack of a national strategy to confront terrorism given the vacuum in the presidency” and government paralysis. Last week, the IS claimed responsibility for a twin suicide bombing at Beirut's southern suburbs of Bourj al-Barajneh, a Hizbullah stronghold. At least 43 people were killed in the blast, the worst such attack in years.

Report: Hariri to Meet Jumblat in Paris over Presidency after Mustaqbal Talks in Riyadh
Naharnet/November 22/15/Former premier Saad Hariri will meet Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat in Paris after he held talks with senior officials of his al-Mustaqbal movement in the Saudi capital Riyadh, a media report said on Sunday.
“A meeting will be held in Paris in the coming hours between Hariri, Jumblat and (Health Minister Wael) Abou Faour -- who traveled to France at 4:00 pm on a private jet dispatched by Hariri,” LBCI television said. “Talks will tackle the presidential void,” it added. According to information also obtained by LBCI, a meeting over the issue of the presidential vote was held Saturday in Riyadh between Hariri, Mustaqbal bloc chief ex-PM Fouad Saniora, Deputy Speaker Farid Makari, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, and Hariri's advisers Nader Hariri, Ghattas Khoury and Hani Hammoud.
Hariri had on Saturday described the vacuum at the presidential post as “the biggest insult to the Lebanese people on their national day of independence.”According to media reports, the ex-PM held talks last week with Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh, who belongs to the rival March 8 camp. The meeting was held at the Paris residence of Lebanese businessman Gilbert Chagoury, al-Akhbar newspaper said. The country has been in a presidential vacuum since the term of president Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014. Conflicts between the rival March 8 and March 14 camps have thwarted all the attempts made so far to elect a successor.

Report: Security Measures Tightened at Places of Worship
Naharnet/November 22/15/Security forces have heightened their measures at places of worship ahead of upcoming religious occasions, reported the daily An Nahar on Sunday. It said that security measures will intensify their surveillance of mosques and churches on Fridays and Sundays respectively. The Vatican had requested from several countries to takes such precautionary measures ahead of Christmas. The Islamic State extremist group had threatened earlier this week Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Latif Daryan for meeting patriarchs and Shiite clerics. It accused the mufti of collaborating with Hizbullah. The group also issued a threat against moderate Muslim organizations, said An Nahar. Last week, the IS claimed responsibility for a twin suicide bombing at Beirut's southern suburbs of Bourj al-Barajneh, a Hizbullah stronghold. At least 43 people were killed in the blast, the worst such attack in years.

Civil Aviation Returns to Normal after Russia Ends Maneuvers
Naharnet/November 22/15/Transportation Minister Ghazi Zoaiter announced Sunday that Russia ended the naval maneuvers that have affected civil aviation in Lebanon, reported the National News Agency. He said that civil aviation can now go back to normal after the conclusion of the maneuvers that took place in the Mediterranean. Voice of Lebanon radio (93.3) added that civil aviation will return to normal at 11:00 am. Russia had requested on Friday that Lebanon ensure that flights from Beirut's Rafik Hariri International Airport avoid an area over the eastern Mediterranean for the next three days. On Saturday, flights in and out of Lebanon were being forced to take longer routes, with some airlines canceling services after Moscow's request.

Alleged IS Supporters Hack Future TV's Website
Naharnet/November 22/15/Suspected supporters of the Islamic State group managed Sunday to hack into the website of Lebanon's Future TV and post messages supportive of the extremist group. The website was briefly defaced with IS' trademark black and white jihadist flag and an Arabic-language message before its administrators managed to recover it. The message praised the group's militants and supporters in Syria and Iraq for their so-called “steadfastness” in the face of a “five-year assault” by several “global forces.”The hackers boasted that the IS will however emerge victorious through “God's support.”“The Islamic State is a real threat to the masonic world order because it has broken the borders drawn by the Sykes–Picot Agreement, managing to establish a strong state that is bigger than Britain!,” the message adds. The IS has allegedly issued a threat against a number of world targets, including the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik in Lebanon, according to Anonymous, the loosely associated international network of hacktivists. The threat prompted the university administration to cancel an academic event that was scheduled at the campus on Sunday. The locations include three in Paris, two in Rome and one in Indonesia. The developments come in the wake of twin IS suicide bombings in the Beirut southern suburb of Bourj al-Barajneh, a Hizbullah stronghold, and unprecedented coordinated attacks in Paris that have sent shockwaves across the world. At least 43 people were killed and 239 others wounded in the Dahieh attack as the Paris assault left 130 people dead and scores wounded.

Obama Calls on Russia to Focus on Islamic State Group
Associated Press/Naharnet/November 22/15/President Barack Obama says Russia needs to make a strategic decision to go after the Islamic State group, not the moderate opposition forces trying to topple Syrian President Bashar Assad. He says initial military operations by Russia did not add to efforts to deter IS, and in some ways, strengthened it. Obama says he told Russian President Vladimir Putin during a recent conversation that he needs to target those who killed Russian citizens. He says Russia has not officially committed to a transition that would move Assad out of power, but has agreed to a political transition process. Obama commented Sunday at the close of a summit in Malaysia. In the wake of the Paris terror attacks, Obama will host French President Francois Hollande at the White House on Tuesday.

Iran Says U.S. Reporter Jason Rezaian Sentenced to Jail
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Iran on Sunday confirmed that it had sentenced Iranian-American Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian to an unspecified prison term following his conviction last month on charges including espionage. "The verdict includes a prison term," judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejeie was quoted as saying by the official IRNA news agency. He did not specify the length of the sentence. Rezaian has been in jail in Iran for more than a year and had stood trial on charges of espionage along with other crimes against national security -- charges thought to carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison."The verdict for Jason Rezaian has been issued but not officially communicated" to his lawyer, said Mohseni Ejeie.
"I cannot announce the details."Rezaian's employer said it had no more information about the report. "We're aware of the reports in the Iranian media, but have no further information at this time," the Post's foreign editor Douglas Jehl said in a statement. "Every day that Jason is in prison is an injustice. He has done nothing wrong," said Jehl. "Even after keeping Jason in prison 488 days so far, Iran has produced no evidence of wrongdoing. His trial and sentence are a sham, and he should be released immediately," he added. Rezaian, 39, was arrested in July 2014 at his home in Tehran where he had been working as a correspondent for the American newspaper for two years. He has appeared four times since May behind closed doors before Tehran's Revolutionary Court, a special tribunal that presides over politically charged cases or those relating to national security. Mohseni Ejeie announced on October 11 that a verdict had been "issued" and that it could be appealed after being delivered. The Iranian authorities have since refrained from formally announcing the verdict. Washington Post executive editor Martin Baron said in October that the "vague and puzzling" statement from the Iranian judiciary "only adds to the injustice" surrounding the Rezaian case. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on October 17 that Iran was trying to resolve the case against the Iranian-American reporter "from a humanitarian point of view." But he stressed that the "charges are serious." The treatment and trial of the journalist has drawn condemnation from his family, employer, the U.S. government and press freedom groups. The United States has repeatedly called for Rezaian to be freed. Earlier this year, Iran urged the United States to release 19 Iranians detained on sanctions-related offenses but ruled out any prisoner swap with Rezaian. The journalist was arrested along with his wife Yeganeh Salehi, and a photographer. Salehi and the photographer were later released on bail.

Brussels to Stay at Highest Security Alert Level amid Major Police Operation
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Brussels will remain at the highest possible alert level on Monday with schools and metros closed over a "serious and imminent" security threat in the wake of the Paris attacks, the Belgian prime minister said, shortly before a major police operation got underway in the capital. "Various operations are underway" in connection with the "terrorist threat," police said. Media reports said policemen were conducting an operation at the La Grand-Place square in Brussels as a "curfew" was declared in three streets in the center of the capital. "A restaurant has been reportedly evacuated in central Brussels," Al-Arabiya television said. Other media reports said Brussels residents were told to shelter in place until further notice and to "move away from windows." Al-Arabiya later reported that "gunshots" were heard in the cordoned off area in central Brussels. Armed police and troops have been patrolling the near deserted streets of the tense capital all weekend after the government raised the terror alert to the highest level of four in a city of one million that is also home to the NATO and European Union headquarters. Following a meeting of the national security council on Sunday, Premier Charles Michel said the shutdown of the metro system would be extended and all schools would be closed over concerns that jihadists were planning a repeat of the Paris gun and suicide bombing attacks that claimed 130 lives on November 13. "What we fear are similar attacks, with several individuals in several places." Michel said the rest of the country would remain on security alert level three, meaning an attack is considered possible and the threat credible. "The threat is considered serious and imminent," he told reporters. He said he was aware the situation was "very difficult for everyone." "We are doing everything possible to return to normal life," he said, adding that officials would review the situation again on Monday. The historic Grand Place in central Brussels, usually bustling, was virtually empty at the weekend, with business badly hit in the run-up to Christmas as anxious residents heeded government warnings to stay at home.
Michel made no direct mention of the manhunt under way for several suspects linked to the carnage in Paris, including Salah Abdeslam who is thought to have slipped past French security forces after taking part in the attack, which has been claimed by the Islamic State (IS) group. With the world on edge over the jihadist threat, U.S. President Barack Obama said the most powerful tool in the fight against IS was to say "that we're not afraid." He added that he would go ahead with a visit to Paris for U.N. climate talks in December and called on other countries to show similar resolve.
As well as Obama, French President Francois Hollande is to meet world leaders in coming days including Russian President Vladimir Putin, Germany's Angela Merkel and Britain's David Cameron to discuss the IS threat. The U.N. Security Council on Friday authorized nations to "take all necessary measures" to fight jihadist violence after a wave of attacks, including the downing of a Russian aircraft in Egypt with the loss of 224 lives and the storming of a luxury hotel in Mali that left 19 dead. Putin said the Mali attack, in which six Russians died, showed "terrorism knows no borders" and must be confronted "with the broadest international cooperation."Moscow announced separately it had killed 11 IS-linked fighters in its volatile North Caucasus region. In a still jittery Paris meanwhile, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said a chemical or biological attack "was among the risks" faced but that all possible precautions had been taken. He added that French jets would be able to launch air strikes on IS targets in Syria and Iraq from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier in the eastern Mediterranean starting Monday. Belgium and its capital are no strangers to Islamist violence. Four people were shot dead at the Brussels Jewish museum last year, and in January security forces killed two suspects linked to the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris. In Turkey, police arrested a Belgian of Moroccan origin, Ahmet Dahmani, 26, who reportedly scouted targets for the Paris attacks, in which gunmen and suicide bombers hit bars, restaurants, a rock concert and the national football stadium. The suspected ringleader of those attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, died in a massive police raid in Paris on Wednesday along with his cousin Hasna Aitboulahcen, reportedly a one-time party girl who turned to radical Islam about six months ago. Abaaoud was a notorious Belgian jihadist thought to be fighting in Syria, and his presence in Europe has raised troubling questions about a Europe-wide breakdown in intelligence and border security. Questions remain too over the role played by Abdeslam -- who used to run a bar with his brother Brahim in Brussels.Brahim died when he blew himself up outside a bar in Paris.
Family urges fugitive to surrender
A third brother, Mohamed Abdeslam, told RTBF television Sunday he believed Salah had changed his mind at the last moment and had not gone through with his attack. Mohamed Abdeslam said the family wanted Salah to give himself up. "That way he can give us the answers we seek, our family and the families of the victims," he said. "We would rather see Salah in prison than in the cemetery."

3 Palestinians, 1 Israeli Killed in Fresh West Bank Attacks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Attacks involving knives and a car-ramming in the occupied West Bank on Sunday left an Israeli woman dead, while all the assailants were killed when security forces and civilians intervened. Three attacks, including one by a teenage girl, were the latest in a nearly two-month wave of violence that had shown signs of subsiding last week before a new series of assaults took place on Thursday. With the violence defying international efforts to restore calm, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry is to travel to Israel and the West Bank to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday.On Sunday, Netanyahu reiterated that the attackers appeared to be acting on their own, posing a challenge to security forces. "This is not terrorism by organizations," he said at the start of a cabinet meeting. "This is terrorism by individuals, occasionally with kitchen knives, who are incited mainly by social media. It is very difficult to hermetically prevent the arrival of such knife-wielding, or other, terrorists to this or that place."He said "citizens must be on maximum alert."No Israelis were reported seriously injured in the first two attacks, but the third led to the death of 20-year-old Hadar Bukris, who was taken to hospital with major stab wounds to her head and chest.
Teenage attacker
Sunday's first attack saw a 16-year-old Palestinian girl who tried to stab an Israeli civilian run over by a Jewish settler and then shot dead by soldiers. The Israeli military said in a statement that the attack was at a junction south of Nablus. Palestinian security officials confirmed the alleged attacker had died of her wounds and identified her as Asheraqat Qatanani from Askar refugee camp near Nablus. A Jewish settler in the area, Gershon Mesika, told army radio he hit the assailant with his car before a soldier shot her. Later, a Palestinian driving a taxi tried to run over civilians and then charged at them with a knife before a civilian shot him dead, police said. The statement provided no further details on the civilian. A hospital spokeswoman said a 51-year-old Israeli was lightly injured when hit by the taxi. Also in the West Bank, near the Gush Etzion block of settlements south of Jerusalem, the young Israeli woman was stabbed and the Palestinian attacker was shot dead by security forces afterwards, police said.Israel's Shin Bet security agency identified the attacker as Issam Thawabteh, 34, from Beit Fajjar near Bethlehem. The wave of violence since October 1 that has left 89 dead on the Palestinian side, including one Arab Israeli, as well as 16 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean. Many of the Palestinians killed have been alleged attackers.
'Focus on Hebron'
Violence shattered a nearly week-long lull on Thursday when knife, gun and car-ramming attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank killed five people, including an American, three Israelis and a Palestinian. It was one of the deadliest days since the violence first erupted in October. On Friday, dozens of Palestinians were wounded by Israeli fire in clashes in the West Bank and along the Gaza Strip border, while on Saturday, police arrested a Palestinian who allegedly stabbed four Israelis in the southern city of Kiryat Gat. The Shin Bet on Sunday identified the alleged assailant as Mohammad Tarda, 18, from a village near southern West Bank city Hebron. Netanyahu said he had ordered security forces to "coordinate their efforts in the Hebron district, from which most or all of the attacks are originating."The army said they had arrested eight Palestinians in the Hebron area overnight. Palestinian security forces said 16 were arrested, and residents said many roadblocks were set up at exits from the city and at villages in the area. Kerry's trip will be his latest attempt to ease tensions, having met Netanyahu in Washington this month and in Berlin in October.
He also met Abbas in Amman last month as well as Jordan's King Abdullah II, and endorsed a plan to install security cameras around the flashpoint Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. Clashes in September between Israeli police and Palestinians at the highly sensitive compound, sacred to both faiths and which Jews revere as the Temple Mount, preceded the current wave of violence. U.S. officials said they were not expecting to strike any new agreement on a return to peace talks during Kerry's visit, and would simply try to walk the parties back from the immediate violence.

Israel Seeks to Strip Citizenship of Those who Join IS
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he is seeking to have Arab Israelis stripped of their citizenship for joining the Islamic State group to fight in the Syrian conflict. Last week, Israeli police said six Arab Israelis were arrested on suspicion of planning to travel to Syria to join IS in a case sparked by a man's paraglider journey. On October 24, a 23-year-old entered Syria illegally on a paraglider from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, prompting an investigation by Israeli security forces. Israeli authorities say about 45 Israeli Arabs have joined the ranks of IS in recent months, with some having been killed. Ten who returned to Israel were arrested. "I have asked the attorney general to advance steps to revoke the citizenship of those who join ISIS," Netanyahu said on Sunday, using another acronym for IS. "Whoever joins ISIS will not be an Israeli citizen. And if he leaves the borders of the state, he will not return," he said at the start of a cabinet meeting. "I think this lesson is becoming increasingly clear throughout the international arena and it is fitting that we lead this effort as well." Concern over foreign fighters traveling to and from Syria to fight with IS has risen in the wake of the November 13 Paris attacks. Arab Israelis are those who remained in Israel after its 1948 creation and account for more than 17 percent of the country's population.

Syrian War Likely to Dominate Putin's Visit to Iran
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit Tehran Monday for talks sure to sharpen attention on his alliance with Iran in Syria after the Islamic State group's deadly attacks in Paris. The trip coincides with a major summit in Iran's capital of gas exporting countries, but Putin's meeting with Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is likely to dominate. An escalation in fighting in Syria, where Russia has propped up President Bashar Assad against IS and Western-backed rebels, most recently with air strikes, has pulled it closer to Iran which is coordinating pro-Assad fighters on the ground. Russia is also emerging as a long-term arms partner for Iran, despite the countries having a complicated history over territory, oil, business and communism. The former Soviet Union was the first state to recognize Iran as an Islamic republic after the 1979 revolution, but Moscow later provided Saddam Hussein with weapons during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. A long-delayed delivery of an advanced missile defense system, the S-300, is due from Russia by the end of 2015, years after Iran paid for the contract. Moscow said the recent nuclear deal between Iran and the P5+1 group -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany -- would allow the deal to be completed. But Iran and Putin's support of Assad has come under greater scrutiny since IS claimed responsibility for killing 130 civilians in the gun and bomb attacks in Paris, shortly after the jihadists said they blew up a Russian airliner in Egypt, killing 224. The United Nations passed a motion Friday calling for action against IS after the Paris atrocities which have sparked fears of similar attacks elsewhere in Europe. Monday's trip is Putin's first to Iran since 2007. Talks will focus on "issues in bilateral relations, including atomic energy, oil and gas and military-technical cooperation", his top foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said Friday. The fighting in Syria, where more than 250,000 people have died since 2011, shows no signs of ending.
Assad future a stumbling block
The U.N. Security Council on Friday authorized countries to "take all necessary measures" to fight IS in a France-sponsored resolution that won backing from the five permanent members, including Russia. Moscow's aim of an international coalition made up of Iran, Jordan and other regional and Western countries against IS is coming up against a deadlock over Assad's future, which recent peace talks in Vienna failed to break. The United States and Sunni Arab countries, most vocally Saudi Arabia, plus Turkey, all want Assad to go, and have said the Russian air strikes were aimed at destroying "moderate rebels" fighting the Syrian president since 2011. Iran, however, has backed Russia's intervention, and says only the Syrian people, not outside powers, can choose to dump Assad in elections following a ceasefire. Although Iran and Russia have not always seen eye to eye, both are now interested in limiting U.S. influence in the Middle East. Moscow recently announced opening a $5 billion credit line for Iran and help for Iran's struggling banking sector is also expected. Russian companies are eying business opportunities after sanctions on Iran are lifted, expected in the next two months as the nuclear deal reaches its "implementation" stage. Several leaders from a dozen gas producing countries -- who together hold 67 percent of proven reserves -- will be at Monday's summit. Iran's President Hassan Rouhani, with whom Putin will also hold talks, is hosting seven presidents, including Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela, Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

Iran Says Arrests IS-Linked Cell near Iraq Border
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Iranian security forces have arrested members of a jihadist cell linked with the Islamic State group near the country's western borders with Iraq, the head of the Revolutionary Guards said Sunday. Quoted by the ISNA news agency, General Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iranian security forces were monitoring attempts by militants to "create insecurity" in Iran. "IS has multi-layered support networks. One such network was identified in Kermanshah province (in western Iran) and its members were arrested," Jafari told reporters. He provided no details on how many people were arrested or when the arrests took place. "The rest of the groups are also on our intelligence radar and they will be dealt with as necessary," Jafari said. Iran, the major Shiite power in the Middle East, is heavily involved in conflicts in Syria and Iraq against IS, primarily Sunni Muslims who denounce Shiites as apostates. The Revolutionary Guards Corps, which is independent of the army, has advisory missions in Iraq and Syria at the invitation of the Baghdad and Damascus governments. Jafari said the chances were small of jihadists being able to carry out major attacks in Iran like those that left 130 dead in Paris earlier this month. "With our security precautions, it is unlikely that Daesh could perform large actions in Iran," he said, using an Arabic name for IS. "Of course, they might carry out small actions, but they cannot create insecurity in Iran as they do in other countries." Asked about Russia's launching of air strikes in Syria in late September, Jafari said "Russia was the first regional power that realised the threat" from IS. "They understood this danger quicker than the Westerners," he said. "Of course, every country that feels the danger of this threat... can join this fight and a union is forming among countries faced with the danger" of IS. His remarks came on the eve of a visit to Tehran by Russian President Vladimir Putin that is expected to be dominated by discussion of Syria and efforts against IS.

Assad: Syria Troops Advancing Thanks to Russia Strikes
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/Syrian government troops are advancing on "nearly every front" thanks to Russian air strikes that began in September, President Bashar Assad said in an interview released Sunday. The embattled president also said he favored new peace talks to be hosted in Moscow, but stressed that the Syrian conflict could not be resolved without "defeating terrorism." In the interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix television, Assad said the situation in Syria had "improved in a very good way" since Russia began air strikes on September 30. "Now I can say that the army is making advancement in nearly every front... in many different directions and areas on the Syrian ground," he said, speaking in English. Russia is coordinating its air strikes with Damascus, unlike the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State group, which Assad and his government criticize as ineffectual. The army has made minimal progress on the ground, according to groups monitoring the war, though the Russian strikes have reportedly boosted morale among government troops and supporters. Moscow has also sought a leading role in a political resolution to the conflict, participating recently in high-level talks in Vienna with other world powers in a bid to create a framework for peace. Talks there earlier this month produced a framework for the creation of a transitional government, a new constitution and elections within 18 months. But there was no agreement on the fate of Assad, whom the opposition and their backers want gone, but allies such as Iran and Russia say should be allowed to run in new elections if he wants.
'Defeating terrorism'
Assad said it was "my right" to run in new elections but it was "too early" to say if he intended to. "(It) depends on how my feeling is regarding the Syrian people. I mean, do they want me or not?" "You cannot talk about something that's going to happen maybe in the next few years," he said. Assad said he backed Moscow's efforts to organize new dialogue between the regime and opposition in a "Moscow 3" conference, but insisted a political solution could only be achieved with the defeat of "terrorism.""We need to make the dialogue, but the concrete steps should follow at least a major defeat of the terrorists and the government takes control of a major area that has been captured by the terrorists," he said. The Syrian leader said it would take "maximum of two years" to produce a new constitution and hold a referendum on it. Assad's government considers all those who oppose his regime "terrorists," and has framed the conflict that began with anti-government demonstrations in March 2011 as a "war on terror". He accuses the West and other backers of the opposition of sponsoring extremism, and said the West had exploited a photograph of a young Syrian refugee child, Aylan Kurdi, found dead on a Turkish beach. "That photo was used as propaganda by the West," he said, accusing opposition backers of driving Syrians abroad by sponsoring "terrorism" and levying sanctions on Syria. "This boy and... other children suffered and died and are being killed because of the Western policies in this world, in this region," he said.

Iraqi Freed without Charge in Sweden after Terror Arrest
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/A young Iraqi man detained in Sweden this week on suspicion of plotting a terror attack was released without charge Sunday, but intelligence officials warned of an ongoing jihadist threat. Mutar Muthanna Majid, 22, was arrested at a center for asylum seekers in the northeastern town of Boliden on Thursday, with Europe on edge in the wake of the attacks in Paris last week that left 130 people dead. Majid was questioned by the Sapo intelligence service in Stockholm and freed on the orders of Sweden's deputy terrorism prosecutor after 60 hours in custody. Magistrate Hans Ihrman said Majid was "no longer under suspicion" of the offenses for which he was arrested. While media revealed Majid's identity and published his photo, investigators had increasingly cast doubt on the idea that he fitted the profile of an attacker. He posted regular Facebook updates detailing his movements and activities. "There were uncertainties about his identity and it took a while to confirm it through official records," Sapo said in a statement Sunday, adding that the false alarm illustrated "the dilemma which all intelligence agencies face, forced to act on partial information". Sweden on Wednesday raised its national terror threat status to "high", the second-highest level on a five-point scale, and Sapo said the level remained unchanged following Majid's release. Sweden has not seen an Islamist attack since 2010 -- when a man blew himself up on a shopping street in Stockholm, injuring two people -- but authorities believe the country could be targeted by the Islamic State jihadists that claimed responsibility for the Paris carnage. The government has introduced a package of measures to combat terrorist financing and the planning of attacks.

Kurdish Commander Killed in IS Clashes Buried in Istanbul
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/November 22/15/A Turkish Kurd fighter who commanded a unit battling Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria was buried Sunday in Istanbul two months after his death in clashes, amid anger over the delay in bringing his body home. Thousands of supporters filled the Gazi district of Istanbul -- a Kurdish and left-wing stronghold -- to pay their last respects to Aziz Guler who commanded a Kurdish unit known as the United Freedom Forces (BOG) inside Syria, an AFP photographer reported. According to Turkish media reports, Guler was killed in clashes with IS jihadists on September 21 in northern Syria. Kurdish activists had angrily accused the Turkish authorities of deliberately refusing to give permission for his body to be returned over the border, resulting in the two-month delay. Mourners at the funeral shouted slogans against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well as "Aziz Guler will never die!" and "We promise Aziz there will be a revolution!"Some waved flags with the face of the jailed leader of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Abdullah Ocalan while others brandished pictures of Guler -- a left-wing activist -- with the hammer-and-sickle and red and yellow Kurdish colors. MPs from the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) also attended the funeral, reports said. The Turkish government has been deeply troubled by the activity of armed Kurdish militias in northern Syria, fearing they will try and carve out an autonomous region that could try and unite with Turkey's own Kurdish minority. There are several militia units supporting the anti-IS campaign of the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) which Turkey considers to be an arm of the PKK. The HDP and Kurdish activists meanwhile have bitterly accused the government of not assisting in the repatriation of slain fighters and failing to fully counter the threat of the IS jihadists.

France: measures taken against chemical attack
Staff writer, Al Arabiya News Sunday, 22 November 2015/French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Sunday that a chemical or biological attack “was among the risks” but that all possible precautions to avoid one had been taken, Agence France-Presse reported. He said French authorities were not ruling anything out in the wake of the Paris attacks even though it was “very complicated” for anyone to use chemical weapons and “all the precautions have been taken to avoid this kind of risk.” The minister also warned that rival sides in chaos-ridden Libya must reach a deal to create a new unity government in order to stop ISIS from taking over. “There must be an intra-Libyan accord between these two rival factions, or else Daesh will win,” Jean-Yves Le Drian told Europe 1 radio, using the Arabic acronym for ISIS. The minister’s comments came after a Turkish security source told Reuters that there were multiple chances to stop the men who attacked Paris. The source said in January, Turkish authorities detained one of the suicide bombers at Turkey’s border and deported him to Belgium. Brahim Abdeslam, Turkish authorities told Belgian police at the time, had been “radicalized” and was suspected of wanting to join ISIS in Syria, a Turkish security source told Reuters. Meanwhile, Le Drian said French aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle sent to help operations against ISIS militants in Syria will be “operational” from Monday and “ready to act.” France has intensified its aerial bombing in Syria since ISIS militants attacked a concert hall, cafes and restaurants and a stadium in Paris, killing 130 people and wounding hundreds.

Paris police release photo of 3rd stadium suicide bomber
AFP, Paris Sunday, 22 November 2015/French police on Sunday released a photo of the third of three suicide bombers who blew themselves up outside France's national stadium during the November 13 Paris attacks. Investigators had said Friday that the assailant turned up among refugees on the Greek island of Leros on Oct. 3, along with another attacker who remains unidentified.

Brussels to stay at highest security alert level on Monday
AFP, Brussels Sunday, 22 November 2015/The top security alert in force in Brussels to prevent a repeat of the bloody Paris attacks will remain in place Monday in face of a continued “serious” threat, Belgian Premier Charles Michel said. “The threat is considered serious and imminent,” Michel said Sunday, a day after the authorities raised the alert level in the capital from three to four. The city’s metro system will stay closed and all schools will be shut on Monday, he said following after a meeting of the national Security Council to review the situation.

Belgium to review maximum alert status for Brussels
Reuters, Brussels Sunday, 22 November 2015/Belgian security officials were set to review on Sunday whether to keep Brussels on maximum alert, leaving the public to wonder whether the blanket metro closure and cancellation of events could continue into the working week. Prime Minister Charles Michel has advised the public to be alert rather than panic-stricken, but also said the raised security level on Saturday was due to the “serious and imminent” threat of Paris-style coordinated attacks. Belgium’s crisis centre, a body that advises the government on security measures, said on Sunday the alert status remained at four, the highest level, for Brussels, with the rest of the country on three, meaning a possible and probable threat. Intelligence, police and judicial officials would review the status during the course of the day. The national security council, including top ministers, was expected to convene on Sunday afternoon to determine what measures to take or retain. Belgium has advised the public to avoid crowds in the capital, and closed the metro system, museums, cinemas and shopping centres. Clubs and venues have cancelled events. That said, Brussels on Sunday morning resembled most other Sundays, with the normal limited number of shops, such bakeries and small supermarkets open, and many churches in the largely Catholic country still holding services. However, larger markets were shut. Belgium has been at the heart of investigations into the Paris attacks after links to Brussels, and the poor district of Molenbeek in particular, emerged. Two of the Paris suicide bombers, Brahim Abdeslam and Bilal Hadfi, had been living in Belgium. Fugitive suspected militant Salah Abdeslam, Brahim’s 26 year-old brother, slipped back home to Brussels from Paris shortly after the attacks.

Obama: U.S. ‘will not relent’ in ISIS campaign
By The Associated Press Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Sunday, 22 November 2015/President Barack Obama vowed Sunday that the United States and its international partners “will not relent” in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, insisting the world would not accept the extremists’ attacks on civilians in Paris and elsewhere as the “new normal.”“The most powerful tool we have is to say we are not afraid,” Obama said as he wrapped up a nine-day trip to Turkey and Asia that was shadowed by terror attacks. The president also pressed Russian President Vladimir Putin to align himself with the U.S.-led coalition, noting that ISIS has been accused of bringing down a Russian passenger jet last month, killing 224 people.
“He needs to go after the people who killed Russian citizens,” he said of Putin.
The president spoke in Malaysia shortly before departing for Washington. His trip also took him to the Philippines and Turkey, where he met with Putin on the sidelines of an international summit. While Russia has stepped up its air campaign in Syria, Obama said Moscow has focused its attention on moderate rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad, a Russian ally. He called on Russia to make a “strategic adjustment” and drop its support for Assad, insisting the violence in Syria cannot be stopped as long as Assad is in office. “It will not work to keep him in power,” Obama said. “We can’t stop the fighting.”Nearly five years of fighting between the Assad government and rebels has created a vacuum that allowed ISIS to thrive in both Syria and Iraq. The militant group is now setting its sights on targets outside its stronghold, including the attacks in Paris that killed 130 people and wounded hundreds more. French President Francois Hollande is due to meet with Obama at the White House on Tuesday to discuss ways to bolster the international coalition fighting ISIS. Hollande then heads to Russia for talks with Putin. The discussions about a military coalition to defeat ISIS come amid parallel talks about a diplomatic solution to end Syria’s civil war. The violence has killed more than 250,000 people and displaced millions, sparking a refugee crisis in Europe. Foreign ministers from about 20 nations agreed last week to an ambitious yet incomplete plan that sets a Jan. 1 deadline for the start of negotiations between Assad’s government and opposition groups. Within six months, the negotiations are to establish a “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian” transitional government that would set a schedule for drafting a new constitution and holding a free and fair U.N.-supervised election within 18 months.
Thorough
The Paris attacks have heightened fears of terrorism in the West and also sparked a debate in the U.S. about accepting refugees from Syria. It’s unclear whether any of the terrorists in the Paris attacks exploited the refugee system to enter Europe, though Obama has insisted that’s not a legitimate security threat in the United States. “Refugees who end up in the United States are the most vetted, scrutinized, thoroughly investigated individuals that ever arrive on American shores,” Obama said.Still, the House passed legislation last week essentially blocking Syrian and Iraqi refugees from the U.S. Democrats in large numbers abandoned the president, with 47 voting for the legislation. Having secured a veto-proof majority in the House, supporters are now hoping for a repeat in the Senate, while Obama works to shift the conversation to milder visa waiver changes that wouldn’t affect Syrian refugees. Obama has focused his ire on Republicans throughout the trip, harshly criticizing GOP lawmakers and presidential candidates for acting contrary to American values. He took a softer tone Sunday, saying he understands Americans’ concerns but urging them not to give into fear. He said ISIS “can’t beat us on the battlefield so they try to terrorize us into being afraid.”Speaking dismissively of ISIS’s global prowess, Obama said, “They’re a bunch of killers with good social media.”The president also paid tribute to Nohemi Gonzalez, a 23-year-old from California who was killed in the Paris attacks, and Anita Ashok Datar, a 41-year-old from Maryland who died in Friday’s terror attack in Mali. He said the women reminded him of his teenage daughters and his late mother. “It is worth us remembering when we look at the statistics that there are beautiful, wonderful lives behind the terrible death tolls we see in these places,” he said.

Switzerland probing 33 people over possible militant links
AFP, Geneva Sunday, 22 November 2015/Switzerland has active criminal proceedings against 33 individuals over suspected ties to militant groups, but only three people are currently in custody, the attorney general’s office said Sunday. Some of those cases have been opened in the last two to three months, but the most serious involves a cell of possible militants uncovered in the Canton of Schaffhausen last year, said Andry Marty, a spokesman for Swiss Attorney General Michael Lauber. “In total there are currently 33 ongoing criminal proceedings against suspected supporters and/or members of extremist Islamist organizations,” Marty told AFP in an email, confirming details given by Lauber in an interview with the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper. Local media have previously reported that the case in Schaffhausen, in Switzerland’s far north on the German border, involved Iraqi nationals who may have been in Switzerland illegally and could have been preparing an attack. Marty provided no details of the allegations, but confirmed that three people involved in the Schaffhausen case remained incarcerated. Switzerland’s Sunday papers were dominated by the rising anxiety that has spread across Europe in the wake of the Paris attacks last week that killed 130 people, and an ongoing anti-terror lockdown in Brussels. Local Geneva lawmaker Vincent Maitre called for police to receive special terrorism response training. He lamented that police in Geneva carry 9mm weapons, which he described as “water guns” compared to the “weapons of war used by terrorists”, according to newspaper Le Matin Dimanche.

Russia: 11 allied with ISIS killed in North Caucasus
The Associated Press, Moscow Sunday, 22 November 2015/Russia’s counter-terrorism agency says it has raided the hideout of armed militants in the North Caucasus and killed 11 of them. The National Anti-Terrorist Committee said the militants were part of a group whose members had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group. An Islamic insurgency has long simmered in the predominantly Muslim North Caucasus republics of southern Russia. The region, which includes Chechnya and Dagestan, has recently become a fertile ground for ISIS propaganda and recruitment. Russia has intensified its airstrikes against ISIS in Syria in retaliation to the bombing of its passenger plane in Egypt. The Russian agency said the raid was conducted Sunday morning near Nalchik, the capital of the Kabardino-Balkaria republic, and the militants were killed after opening fire on law enforcement officers.

U.S. religious leaders make forceful appeal to admit refugees
By By Rachel Zoll, The Associated Press Sunday, 22 November 2015/In rare agreement across faith and ideological lines, leaders of major American religious groups have condemned proposed bans on Syrian refugees, contending a legitimate debate over security has been overtaken by irrational fear and prejudice. Top organizations representing evangelicals, Roman Catholics, Jews and liberal Protestants say close vetting of asylum seekers is a critical part of forming policy on refugees. But these religious leaders say such concerns, heightened after the Paris attacks a week ago, do not warrant blocking those fleeing violence in the Middle East. “The problem is not the Syrian refugees,” said Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami, who noted how his state has welcomed a large number of Cuban refugees over the years. “This is falling into the trap of what the terrorists wanted us to become. We shouldn’t allow them to change who we are as a people.”About 70 percent of all refugees admitted to the U.S. are resettled by faith groups, according to the U.S. State Department office for refugees. The bulk of the work is done by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services. World Relief, the humanitarian arm of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Church World Service, representing Protestant and Orthodox groups, are each responsible for about 10 percent. The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society and Episcopal Migrant Ministries also handle several thousand cases. The Rev. Russell Moore, head of the public policy agency for the conservative Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant group, said screening is crucial and “we should insist on it,” but he said evangelicals should not “demagogue the issue as many politicians are doing right now.” “Evangelicals should be the ones calling the rest of the world to remember human dignity and the image of God, especially for those fleeing murderous Islamic radical jihadis,” Moore said. Lawmakers and more than half of U.S. governors, mostly Republicans, have said they were worried Islamic extremists may try to take advantage of the U.S. refugee process. Some governors are refusing Syrian refugee settlement in their states for now. They point to a passport found near the body of one of the Paris suicide bombers that had been registered along the route asylum seekers are taking through Europe. It’s not clear how the passport ended up near the attacker. On Thursday, the U.S. House voted by a veto-proof majority to pass legislation which in effect would suspend admissions of Syrian and Iraqi refugees. Stephan Bauman, president of World Relief, called the bill “without rational basis” and “a huge disservice.”“Differential treatment, with no clear justification, amounts to discrimination on the basis of nationality,” Bauman said.
Reform Judaism, the largest American Jewish movement, joined the American Jewish Committee, an influential policy group, the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights organization, and the Orthodox Union, in opposing any halt in resettlement. Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Michael Curry, said, “we will not let the nightmare” of terrorism “keep us from carrying out the words of Jesus who told us to be a neighbor to those in need.”Bishop Scott Jones, head of the United Methodist Great Plains Conference, said 35 Methodist congregations in Kansas and Nebraska have offered to sponsor Syrian refugees. “We need to stand by them against the jihadist movement,” Jones said Friday. Some of the faithful are more openly struggling to find the right balance between national security and compassion. Refugees already go through a comprehensive vetting process that can take as much as three years, including biometric screening, fingerprinting and additional classified controls. Some lawmakers are now demanding even tougher assessments. Still, a Pew Research Center survey last September, conducted soon after President Barack Obama announced an increase in the number of Syrian refugees the U.S. would accept, found just 31 percent of white evangelicals favored the increase, compared to 51 percent of the general public, in the lowest approval level for any Christian group. The Rev. Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, said new immigration policies are needed because “Islam is not a peaceful religion” and “our nation’s security is at stake.”“We cannot allow Muslim immigrants to come across our borders unchecked while we are fighting this war on terror,” Graham said in a Facebook post. Still many, faith leaders who share those security concerns are condemning the tone of the current discussion. The Orthodox Union said “we encourage a sensible process of reviewing and enhancing security,” with the goal of “getting to yes” on admitting asylum seekers. But the group said, “Neither partisan politics nor xenophobia can have a place in that debate.” The Arizona Muslim Community, which helps resettle Syrian refugees in suburban Phoenix, planned a public picnic Sunday in Scottsdale for more than a dozen refugees, hoping to improve understanding of the families’ plight. Catholic Charities in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, has reported threats against a Syrian refugee family the agency assisted. Sister Donna Markham, president of Catholic Charities USA, said her office has received “very disturbing mail coming to us from people who are very angry that we are trying to extend help to these people.”“It’s tragic,” she said.

ISIS is inherently cowardly — to defeat it, hit it hard
By Amir Taheri/New York Post/November 22, 2015 |
If we use as a metaphor the Russian matryoshka nesting dolls, the Paris killers represented the smallest of the dolls. The bigger doll within which they were nested is the network of radical Islamist groups that have struck roots throughout France and, indeed, in all Western democracies. That second doll is nested within a third one which is often called “the Muslim community” in non-Muslim societies.
The third doll may not even know what is nesting inside it but, perhaps without wanting it, provides the sociological depth needed for radical groups. In Maoist terms, it amounts to the water in which the militant “fish” thrive. That is done by creating suburbs and chunks of downtowns that have a certain Islamic je ne sais quoi about them with shops and restaurants that serve no alcoholic drinks, women in the mandatory hijab, men with ISIS-approved beards and no moustaches, and mosques that are for political propaganda rather than religious rites and discussions.
Hollande and leaders of other major powers targeted, including the United States, Russia and China, can deal with the two smaller dolls. Through new legislation as well as a more serious educational effort, the community could be made aware of the danger it poses as a human shield for terrorists by constantly cultivating a form of apartheid based on religious misconceptions.
Communities themselves can do more. Islam has no mechanism for excommunication, but it is incumbent on every Muslim to make it clear he does not share the beliefs and deeds of any other Muslims if those are in conflict with his. This could be done in simple, visually effective, ways by discarding the type of hijab now associated with Khomeinists, Taliban and ISIS.
The next doll, the radical sleeper cells in Western cities, could be detected and uprooted by properly working within the law.
It may come as a surprise to some, but France does not have a special unit to combat terrorism; it has a unit to deal with “grand banditry” and “organized crime.” But terrorism is a particular kind of threat, especially terrorism built on a religious matrix.
In 1996, the G-7 summit in Lyon, presided over by France’s then-President Jacques Chirac, approved 45 measures to combat terrorism. The fact is that none of those were put into effect. Also in the 1990s, France spearheaded a global debate on how to fight terrorism, mainly by seeking joint action through the United Nations. However, the whole process was bogged down in the conflict about how to define terrorism with the sick cliché that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.”
Twenty years and so many atrocities later, in more than 30 countries on every continent, it is perhaps time for France and the European Union to persuade the UN to provide the international framework needed to combat terrorism based on the principle that one man’s terrorist is every man’s terrorist.
Cowardly sickos
The doll that represents ISIS is, paradoxically, the easiest to face and defeat. Provided that its victims, among them almost all Western democracies, really want to do it.
Initially, ISIS appeared as a spectacular success because it managed to “conquer” territory as large as the United Kingdom. But it did so largely because it faced no opposition. It moved into Raqqa after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops had fled, many think because he wanted them to leave. ISIS then moved into Mosul and Ramadi, in Iraq, again because local units of the Iraqi army, feeling no loyalty to a Shiite-dominated government in Baghdad that discriminated against Arab Sunnis, didn’t see why they should fight.
In fact, ISIS has fought two major battles, over Kobane in Syria and Sinjar in Iraq, and lost both to a coalition of Kurdish fighters.
This is not surprising. ISIS patterns its military strategy on that of the Prophet Mohammed that is to say organizing “ghazva” (raids) against soft targets. The Muslim warrior has always been known as the Ghazi, a man who takes part in a ghazva. However, a ghazva is regarded as religiously licit only if the ghazis are more than 50% sure of victory. Otherwise they should return and wait for a better day. That is what the Prophet himself did in his only attempt at ghazva against the Byzantines.
Waging at least one annual ghazva became an almost religious obligation for Islamic caliphs and rulers from the 8th century onwards. And for a long while the ghazis enjoyed a number of advantages. They could decide the time and place for launching their raid as well as which target to choose, thus always having the initiative. Their enemies were forced merely to react, often long after the event.
It took the Persians and the Byzantines almost two centuries to learn the trick. They understood that, if facing no resistance, the ghazi moves rapidly ahead, like a knife in butter; but would come to a halt if he hit something hard on his way. In Persia, the Buyids decided to use the tactic against the Arabs, by becoming “counter-ghazis.” The ghazva knife was blunted and several Iranian provinces never fell to the Islamic “holy warriors.” It was not until 1071 that the ghazis, this time Turks not Arabs, managed to defeat the Byzantines at the Battle of Manizkert.
Continuing the tradition, ISIS goes where it is easy to go and flees from where it is difficult to resist. It just moved into Palmyra because nobody wanted to stop it. Next, it tried to enter Suwaida and amassed a large number of fighters and weapons for the ghazva. The city in southwest Syria had the advantage of being home to the Druze minority, providing ISIS with a tempting target. (Islamists regard the Druze as heretics who must be put to death.)
“If we use as a metaphor the Russian matryoshka nesting dolls, the Paris killers represented the smallest of the dolls.”
ISIS carried out two probing attacks on two Druze villages in Al-Huqf close to the Jordanian border in May and June 2015, cutting the heads of five “miscreants.” Druze fighters then came in from Suwaida and engaged ISIS in a mini battle, killing 11 of them. ISIS quietly withdrew.
ISIS understood that the Druze would not quietly go to slaughter as had done the peace-loving Yazadis in Iraq. As Druze fighters poured into Suwaida for the showdown, ISIS realized that the cost-benefit of the projected ghazva was not worth the effort. The caravan of ghazis had to make a U-turn back to Palmyra and Raqqa.
ISIS is not a classical terrorist organization. It is an enemy of humanity. Thus, despite what President Obama says about merely “containing and degrading” it, it must be defeated and destroyed.
So far ISIS has been relatively successful because it has not hit anything hard on its way. The homeopathic airstrikes, reluctantly ordered by Obama, have boosted ISIS’s narrative of Islamic victimhood without doing much real damage.ISIS has simply factored in the attacks as part of the daily hazards, especially because its agents all the way are capable of warning about the approach of bombers over their cellular phones.
ISIS has been in control of the rhythm and tempo of this war, even choosing the cadence of the mini battles it fights.
If Hollande manages to create a new coalition, the aim should be to wrest the initiative away from ISIS. That means turning a low-intensity war into one of medium intensity with wider and more frequent airstrikes and raids by Special Forces to destroy ISIS’s logistics and cancel its territorial contiguity. This could be done only if the local militias, many of them allied to ISIS because of fear or in exchange for arms and money, are confident that the major powers seek ISIS’s “defeat and destruction,” regardless of how long that might take.
In his message to Congress, Obama asked for permission to take action in Syria but insisted that he was not looking for something “unendurable,” (sic) presumably meaning a short campaign. Last month, Kerry corrected that by inventing a word of his own, “multi-year,” that is how long he thinks fighting ISIS would take.
There are plenty of people who want to fight ISIS in Syria and Iraq: the Kurds, the Turkmans, the Druze and the less obnoxious Islamist groups such as Ahrar al-Shaam (Freemen of the Levant), Jibhat al-Nasr (The Victory Front), not to mention Sunni Arab tribes on both sides of the border.
Many areas ISIS operates in are held by emirs who could be persuaded to switch sides. With their help, ISIS territory could be turned into a patchwork of conflicting authorities vulnerable on all sides. ISIS’s decision to masquerade as a state, a “caliphate,” may be its chief attraction for Western “volunteers for martyrdom” in search of an Islamic dream. But in military terms, this could be ISIS’s Achilles’ heel because it offers a range of easy targets for airstrikes. Why these are not hit remains a mystery, at least to this writer.
It was precisely by raising the intensity of a low-intensity war that US Gen. David Petraeus managed to destroy al Qaeda in Iraq. An adapted version of that strategy could help us get rid of ISIS. But that requires US leadership.
Head of the snake
Finally, we have the largest doll in which all others are nested: Islam itself.
Islam, having started as a religion, has atrophied into a matrix for diverse and often conflicting political ideologies. Lacking a hierarchical structure, it has become a generic brand, unable to propose a coherent ethical and moral discipline for its adepts, who could become mystic Sufis or cold-blooded mass murderers.
Also because it has had no living theology for at least 200 years, contemporary Islam is incapable of offering a religious approach, let alone an analysis, of the key issues of the modern world.
No Western leader, as President Obama and Hollande have done, can say of the attacks: “This is not Islam.” Many Muslims, quite a few in fact, think otherwise. It would be more prudent for French leaders not to pose as arbiters of what is and what is not Islam.
Neither Hollande nor any other outsider could tackle the problems of the biggest doll. That is something that Muslims themselves must do.
http://nypost.com/2015/11/22/isis-is-inherently-cowardly-to-defeat-it-hit-it-hard/

Some Thoughts on Reforming Islam interpretations and Fighting Terrorism
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
Former Special Operations commander for the United States in the Middle East General Michael Nagata once said that he has just begun to understand ISIL’s appeal. “We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea”, he said in describing the current conditions of fighting ISIL.
And Paris tells us that enough time was wasted since 9.11 to really figure out what is going on. At one point down the road, ISIL will be declared “defeated” and sooner or later its Caliph will be killed, no doubt. What will we see then? Politicians bragging about their role in this great “victory” and a general sense of relief. But that is exactly what happened in the case of Al Qaeda. It was declared defeated and Usama Ben Laden was killed. Are we doomed to go into this cycle over and over again every decade? And what does it mean “defeated” exactly?
Something smarter and more comprehensive has to be done or else we will find more of Al Qaeda and ISIL clones emerging after each “victory” party. In other words, it is time to ask: When will we go beyond security and military actions to the real essence of the problem? When will we see that the problem transcends Al Qaeda or ISIL? But what is this “real essence” of the problem? If we go to these commonly known socio-economic roots of terrorism, it will require decades to tackle. Do we still have to go through decades of this barbarism?
We should not dwell long in refuting the populous themes about the “evil nature” of Islam. ISIL and Al Qaeda lecture their audiences in the Middle East and the Islamic world about the “evil nature” of Christianity and Judaism. The energy spent on trying to show the “evil nature” of Islam has no sense. What for? Do they want to convert over one and half billion Muslims? Furthermore, it is dangerous. It will put Muslims in Western societies in a separate social category. And usually this leads to rendering them fertile for extremist recruiting campaigns. Any intentional alienation of a Muslim youth because of his religion is simply a first step in potentially recruiting him by a terrorist group. It is more than merely an ethical or moral offense to any civilized community, it is a practical security threat. It alienates the most effective potential ally in fighting terrorism: The Muslim community itself.
Yet, the question is: Why do Muslims fight ISIL, and extremism in general, so halfheartedly? After all, they are the primary victims. Extremism killed more Muslims than all others combined. And it is the force that destroys their countries, split their societies, defame their religion and deprive their own children of any future.
A vast majority of Muslims were as offended as any human being would be at what happened in Paris. But without an active role by the Muslims everywhere there will be no real victory over terrorism and extremism. What really prevents them from playing that active role?
It is truly a complex issue that Muslims are the object upon which the pain of terror is inflected, and at the same time the subject that inflect this pain. There will be an occasion and a place to examine what appears to be a dual identity which is in fact a false duality, but for the time being it is the short term measures that need to be debated. For we cannot hope for political or economic changes in the Muslim World to occur soon enough to mitigate the threat of terrorism and extremism. In other words, what should be done in the next, say, couple of years?
We will start from the first few lines of the communique of ISIL after the Paris attack. The group cited a Qur’anic verse that says that God attacked His enemies where they did not expect. The verses were used to equate ISIL to God which was supposed to cause outrage from religious establishments in the Islamic World. But the condemnation was lukewarm and soon disappeared. The scholars did condemn the attack. But they carry on afterword doing what they do before. Nothing changes. Sometimes only the place and the date are changed in their repeated texts.
It is these religious establishments, and not the ordinary Muslim anywhere, that are playing a dual-identity game almost instinctively. The problem is that nobody talks about it. They mastered the game to the extent that they are considered in some Western capitals partners in the fight against terrorism, while in fact they not only furnish the ground for extremisms that brings about terrorism in most cases but also block any attempt to shape a reformed view of religion as we will see in a minute.
The alleged “reformist” role of these establishments should be judged by their position on the “Books of Hadith” and interpretation of the Quran which stretched obscure phrases in the Qur’an to unreasonable limits encouraging violence and killing. Books of Hadith include the alleged record of the Prophet’s utterances. Some of these utterances were written centuries after the death of Mohamad to help this or that side in internal wars.
This double game of the official religious institutions in the Islamic countries is not intentional or deliberate. They find it instinctively in their intrinsic interest to preserve the traditional school of thought which is purged of any criticism or independent thinking. They, as representatives of these traditional doctrines, fear that what they represent could be put under the critical eye of reason, so they attack mercilessly those who dare to loudly think of interpretations other than their dead views of religion. We have seen similar episodes in the history of the Christianity.
What is even more dangerous is that if anyone of those scholars try to explore new interpretations to religious texts, he is fiercely attacked by the extremists within and without these official institutions. As any potential reformer owes his place to the common institutional doctrines, he either gives up his courageous attempt in order to preserve his position, or leave his place in disgrace. It is a collectively generated institutional momentum that cannot be attributed specifically to one or few persons.
The other characteristic of the official religious establishments is that it is an important pillar of the political establishment. They legalize its rule and justify its actions. This gives the religious establishment a leverage over the political establishment and provides both with more capacity to empty the ordinary Muslim from any ability to think independently and critically.
The utter poverty of the political life in most of the Islamic societies leaves the citizen, faced with the normal evolution of his daily life’s challenges, no other ideology to frame his grievances and aspiration than the rigid and outdated interpretations of both the recognized Ulamas (scholars) and the semi-official ones who monopolize the explanation of Islam.
This is why an ordinary Muslim, in general, does not fight terrorism. His “thought world”, shaped mainly by the religious common beliefs, senses how ugly terrorism is, but does not have an articulated argument rejecting it. Such an argument cannot be a standalone conviction. It has to be part of a coherent process of thinking independently from the rigid molds formed for him and without a healthy view of the world and his role in it.
Just examining the situation in Egypt may confirm our thought that in fact the guards of the doors to Islam, that is the official and semi-official establishment of Ulamas, are the main culprit for the level of using religion in violence.
It was this establishment that sued a vowed Muslim scholar and Professor at Cairo University, Nasr Hamid Abu Zeid, for apostasy as a punishment for his critical view of dealing with religious texts. The Professor was ruled by a “civil” court in Cairo in the 90’s an apostate and was forced to divorce his wife and to leave Egypt. Exiled and frightened, he died in 2010.
In 2015, another vowed Muslim thinker, Islam Al Behairy, decided to challenge the books of Sunna (the utterances and recorded deeds of the Prophet) through logic and reason. He was attacked fiercely by the “moderate” Al Azhar and his TV talk show was banned. In fact, he was starting to make a difference on how the youth think, and may be that was enough to quickly use all possible tools to shut him up.
Where should the Muslim youth mind go in search for a perspective to understand his grievances and frame his hopes?
It is a vicious circle. Lack of political life is its negative portion and the rigid traditional religious doctrine is its positive. Both parts complete each other to give us an ominous picture.
What to do then?
The assumption that any change should start with changing the political order gave us the current mess in the Middle East. Plans to change regimes and spread democracy were proved ill-advised. This energy should have been directed to selective areas in any society rather than to the whole “order” per se. Some “orientalists”, in London and elsewhere, think that the backward version of Islam’s interpretation could be useful geostrategic tool. This belief is not only stupide, it is also dangerous. Free market and free trade gain their justification due to the failure of all other patterns of development, including the economy of chaos and that of theft and slaughter of the Caliph.
Furthermore, the assumption that formal traditional religious establishments should be partners in reform will take us to the nonsensical seminars and conferences of religious dialogue, a fixed and useless endeavor since 2001 and to the lukewarm condemnations of terrorism by the Ulamas. The discourse of the Ulamas has become silly and meaningless: Islam does not condone violence, Islam is the religion of peace, we reject terrorism and condemn it, etc. etc.
To say that religion is very important in the Middle East is an understatement. Religion is indeed a major key to the region. If this key is left to extremist interpretations or to the current interest-driven religious establishments, no one will be able to dismantle the base of ideas upon which terrorism is constructed. This task has one, and only one point of start – the religious establishment, official and semi-official.
The priority should be given not to political change in the region, but to challenging the monopoly on Islam. The historical weakness of the State left religious ethics as the main cement that keeps order in the society and legitimize whatever power there is. A thorough examination of the history of the State in the region will end the common theories about the reasons of the “exceptional” position that religion occupies in that region. It was no mystery that religion moved to fill the vacuum when the states in Iraq, Syria and Libya collapsed or almost collapsed. In fact, it was not religion per se that filled the vacuum, but the rigid traditional interpretations of it.
The only way left is to assist true reformist Muslim scholars is to create alternative platforms and help them withstand the pressure they will be facing. It is illusive to assume that Islam will be reformed from without. Only Muslim reformer scholars, dispersed all over the place, should be organized and helped build a critical school of thought within the theological structure of Islam. And that is a precondition to really defeating terrorist groups.
Islam could be understood as a religion of peace as much as it could be understood as a religion of war. It is, like any other religion, understood and seen any way one wants to see it based on the interpretations one has. Religion is what we understand it to be in any given time and place. And as our human abilities to understand, interpret and explain change by time and place so do our takeaway from any text. There is no “fixed” and unchanged interpretation of any text that could be valid in all times and places.
And the way Muslims see Islam is a function of their actual circumstances and content of thoughts and perceptions. Both point to violence as spread by the interpretations of the rigid traditional school that is common in most of Muslim countries. It is true and false at the same time to say that Islam has nothing to do with the Paris attack. It depends on the kind of interpretation offered to Islam.
Does that have anything to do with the massacre of Paris? Everything. But understandably, this is not the only tool or reason.
Other tools were tested before to a great success. For example, a movie produced in the early 90’s in Egypt and starred by a famous comedian angered the extremists to the extent of threatening to kill the star. A satire program in Lebanese TV that mocked ISIL was halted suddenly and without explanation.
In the world of youth idealism, systematically presenting a terrorist as a coward and equating his actions of killing unarmed civilians with cowardice should be integrated into the collective consciousness. This image has to be hammered in TV, movies and radio shows until it reaches the point of becoming part of the popular culture.
Until now, we have not seen a coherent and collective plan to fight extremist interpretations of Islam all the while respecting the religion of all Muslims. Maybe now is the time.

The Defeat of ISIL and the Revival of Humint
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
In the wake of the Paris attacks of Nov. 13 and new threats from the ISIL of further attacks in other major cities in Europe and the United States, there is only one option for preventing future massacres. Yes, there is now worldwide agreement for a serious military campaign inside Syria and Iraq to wipe out the command center of what has now become a global “blind terrorist” threat.
However, the new mode of attack by ISIL and allied groups, evidenced in the Paris attacks, the suicide bombings in southern Beirut and the blowing up of the Russian Metro Jet over the Sinai, is no longer primarily confined to the territory of the so-called caliphate along the Iraqi-Syrian border. So long as ISIL and other jihadist groups are going after “soft” targets in major metropolitan areas, and are prepared to die in the course of the attacks, they will succeed in a significant percentage of actions—unless there is a serious revival of the kind of constant, in-depth human intelligence (humint) work, involving law enforcement, intelligence and military services. In the aftermath of the Paris attack, this is the great new challenge facing governments around the world.
This challenge poses serious demands on the relevant security services, while at the same time maintaining civil liberties. The temptation is going to be to trample on individual rights, exploiting the fear generated by blind terrorist attacks against citizens going about their everyday lives, to impose police state rule.
In reality, the resorting to draconian measures is always a losing strategy. It always involves an attempt to find an easy solution to a single threat, while ignoring the much deeper requirements of maintaining public safety and defeating the terrorist threat, without surrendering constitutional protections.
The key is humint.
For many years, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) built up a strong human intelligence team, posted around the world, particularly in the Middle East. When James Clapper took over as the Director of the DIA in 1992, he significantly dismantled DIA’s humint network, eliminating the posts of Defense Intelligence Officer, the regional commanders of the human intelligence gathering apparatus. A retired Air Force General, Clapper preferred relying on technical intelligence gathering methods, reflecting his Air Force career in signal intelligence (he would later serve as the head of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, NGI, responsible for analysis of satellite and other surveillance data.
Clapper’s actions reflected not only a longstanding debate within the American intelligence establishment over the relative merits of technical intelligence versus human intelligence. Clapper also earned a reputation as a fierce bureaucratic infighter. Career Washington bureaucrats have notoriously been opposed to relying on human intelligence gathering, viewing successful field intelligence officers as uncontrollable.
In August 2013, President Obama fired the DIA Director, Gen. Michael Flynn, and his deputy, over DIA’s persistent reporting on the failures of the US counter-terror program, and DIA’s warnings that some of the Obama Administration’s high-profile policies were contributing to the growth of Al Qaeda. Gen. Flynn had rebuilt DIA’s humint program during his tenure, and had provided the Joint Chiefs of Staff with competitive intelligence evaluations that often contradicted those of the CIA and the DNI (Gen. Clapper was named by President Obama as DNI in 2010). Once again, the bureaucratic wars downgraded valuable humint resources.
In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, however, it will become more and more necessary to develop humint skills to penetrate into the terrorist environment and develop effective early warnings of pending terrorist attacks. The Paris investigation has already established that the Islamic State planned the attacks in the Raqqa capital, but relied on cells operating in Belgium, Germany and France to prepare and carry out the attacks. In the final days before the attacks of Nov. 13, communications among members of the cell “went dark.” It was subsequently determined that the cell had switched to a sophisticated alternative communications system, utilizing internet video games to pass messages in the final preparations for the attack.
The human intelligence requirements will also demand a more developed degree of cooperation between national intelligence services and major city police departments around the world, to be truly effective. The New York City Police Department is known throughout the world as a first-class intelligence organization, utilizing precinct-level community police officers in the field to pick up on early warning signs of unusual activities, which are then investigated by the department’s intelligence division, and shared with Federal agencies.
Above all else, the bureaucratic obstacles to effective human intelligence gathering will have to be eliminated—and that is no small task.

After Vienna and G-20: Paris Attack Haunts Obama’s Final Year
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
The Obama Administration, in the aftermath of the Paris attacks of Nov. 13, is preparing for a worst-case scenario of a decade or more of frequent blind terror attacks, carried out by a wide range of groups, from jihadists to ethnic separatists to neo-fascists. Given the shift to global terrorist strikes by the Islamic State in recent weeks, top Obama security officials believe that the U.S. and allies could be engaged in global warfare against the group for years to come.
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
There is, however, an alternative that has been put on the table by Secretary of State John Kerry, who reported back from the Nov. 14 Vienna meeting on the future of Syria that a breakthrough is possible, and this could be a last chance for a ceasefire and transition in Syria that can accelerate the demolishing of ISIL. Kerry’s assessment may be overly optimistic, but it has received the endorsement of the National Security Council. The question now is whether or not it can actually materialize.
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
While some details of the plan for a ceasefire by Jan. 1, 2016, a transitional council working on a new constitution, United Nations monitors to monitor and secure the ceasefire, and eventual elections, have been made public, following the Vienna meeting, a number of crucial features of the agreement have been kept from the public. The United States and Russia have agreed that Jordan will play a crucial role in identifying which Syrian rebel factions are to be included in the transitional government, and which are to be kept out due to their jihadist profile, even if they are not part of the Islamic State or Nusra Front. Jordan’s King Abdullah II is both a close and trusted ally of the United States and a personal friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Jordan’s intelligence services have a strong intelligence gathering capability throughout the region, including inside Syria.
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
Pentagon officials further encouraged Kerry’s optimistic assessments, going in to the Vienna meetings, by reporting that ISIL had been delivered a series of recent damaging blows by the U.S.-led coalition, including the killing of “Jihadi John,” the intensification of targeted U.S. bombings of key command and communication modes, due to much-improved intelligence, and the disruption of ISIL communications systems by cyber-attacks. In tandem with the U.S. cyber operations, Israeli signal intelligence agencies managed to break into Islamic State communications grids in Sinai. Since Vienna, American bombings have successfully targeted some key ISIL logistical points, including the destruction of an estimated 100 oil trucks that have been vital to ISIL’s black market revenue stream. That bombing alone is estimated to have cost the Islamic State $10 million in lost revenue.
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
U.S. intelligence estimates that ISIL has a reserve of $2 billion in cash, gold and other commodities, from a combination of black market operations and the looting of homes in areas conquered by the Islamic State. By cutting into the ISIL revenue stream, it is anticipated that their ability to maintain global blind terror operations can be reduced over time.
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
Immediately after the Paris attacks, the United States deepened intelligence sharing with France, providing the French Air Force with ISIL targets to hit within 24 hours of the Paris bloodbath. French Air Force attacks on Raqqa reportedly did significant damage to the Islamic State’s self-proclaimed “capital.”
French authorities rounded up over 800 witnesses and suspects in the 48 hours following the Nov. 13 attacks. Most of those detained were interrogated about suspected terror cell members and released.
On Sunday, Nov. 15, former CIA Deputy Director Mike Morrell gave a television interview in the United States, in which he declared that Syrian President Bashar Assad was a big part of the problem, but “could be part of the solution.” This statement was a signal from the Obama Administration to the Russians that they were prepared to make some limited compromises on the timetable for Assad’s departure. Any genuine ceasefire will require that all outside parties who have been arming both the Syrian government forces and the various rebel factions will dry up that support by the Jan. 1 target date.
While the prospects of the package agreed to in Vienna being in place by Jan. 1 are slim, the shock of the Paris attacks does represent a dramatic change in the political climate. One thing that Obama and Putin share in common with other world leaders, from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to British Prime Minister David Cameron is the fact that a replay of Paris on the streets of any one of their countries could lead to a major political crisis. Obama’s legacy would be greatly damaged, as would Putin’s credentials as a strong-man leader. Cameron and Merkel could face a political revolt that results in their removal from power altogether. Ironically, the Paris attacks have created a new sense of urgency that something dramatically different has to be attempted.

Vienna: The Missing Link between Fighting ISIL and Making Peace in Syria
Middle East Briefing/November 22/15
US Secretary of State is indeed a phenomenal man. He simply does not get tired or give up. He has always been under pressure from all quarters: The White House, age, stubborn allies and foes, enormously complicated problems, dangerous global trends and relentless attacks from critics. Yet, this man stood tall and never questioned his profound and humane optimism. Even when one disagrees with him, there is always a deep respect and appreciation for his rare qualities.
But hoping for real substance to be added, by time, to the shell of the timetable reached in Vienna to end Syria’s civil war seems to be a far shot, even for a man of the unique caliber of John Kerry.
“We are weeks away from the possibility of a big transition for Syria. We have found a common ground agreement on principles and established a concept to a negotiation with Iran and Russia at the table, which is unique in the last four and half years”, Kerry said while with France’s President Francois Hollande November 17.
Diplomats from 17 countries met in Vienna November 14 and agreed on a timetable for a political process in Syria. According to the plan, Syrian government and opposition representatives are to gather in a UN sponsored talks planned to begin January first. The talks will aim to draw yet another process to draft a new constitution within six months then holding new elections. A ceasefire call by the UN will come into effect upon the start of this process.
Upon carefully examining the final communique of Vienna-2, we find that it is merely rephrasing the Geneva-1 communique of 2012. The only addition is the timeframe which is clearly specified in Vienna. Could only adding a clear timetable to Geneva1 make a difference? Or is there something we are missing?
What Kerry described as a “concept” for negotiations with Iran and Russia may be a reference to the way the able diplomat divided the cake of concessions between the parties. The exchange went along the following lines:
* Saudi Arabia is to sort out the opposition in as less divisive way as possible in coordination with UN envoy Stafan de Mistura, Washington, Doha and Ankara.
* Certain components of Nusra Front may not be considered terrorist in and of themselves. Joining Al Qaeda in one loose and operation oriented front did not lead them to adopting the terrorist group’s views and ideologies.
* Ahrar Al Sham is to be represented by the most “moderate” wing of its leadership
* The Arabs and Turks were pressured to apply an early ceasefire instead of their previous position that a ceasefire is impossible before knowing the final result of the process and if it really achieved the objectives of the opposition.
* Russia and Iran were pressured to drop the condition that they pick who represent the opposition.
* Russia and Iran have also been moved from their previous stand that the proposed ceasefire does not have to start the minute the process starts but at one point more or less close to that.
* Russia and Iran were told that breaking the ceasefire, if it happens, should be seen in a flexible manner. They agreed that if the ceasefire is broken by a certain brigade carrying the banner of an organization which participates in the talks, this should not lead automatically to demanding the expulsion of the whole group from the diplomatic process. Syria’s opposition is not a regular army.
* Russia agreed to play the role of the guarantor of any commitments given by Bashar Al Assad.
The whole process seems to have moved now from scattered bits and pieces to a more or less defined frame. But, by itself, this does not mean much. The result of Vienna will depend mainly on the practical steps taken after the Vienna meeting is adjourned. Those steps will show if it is possible to sculpt a solution out of the bits and pieces available.
Two points merit to be raised in this context. 1-The role of Assad during the 18 months transitional period. 2-The regional competition.
Let us take a closer look at the first point-Assad’s role.
For Putin and Tehran, Assad is the representative of the internationally legal Syrian State which invited the two parties into Syria. His status guaranteed that the Russian and Iranian intervention remains within the boundaries of international law, even only in formality.
The Syrian State is extremely centralized around the person of the President. While it is not impossible to conceive of a State structure which is less centralized, this will put in question in both Moscow and Tehran whether they will be allowed, in any new situation, to remain in Syria.
No global or regional power can, with certainty, guarantee to the two powers a future presence in Syria if Assad is to leave. And even if such guarantees are offered, it is hard to imagine Tehran and Moscow considering them assuring enough or long term enough to make a radical changes in their policies on Syria. The issue will remain, in Iranian and Russian minds: Transitional to what?
The second question which is related to the regional power play as a genuine component of the crisis. From the first point it becomes obvious that the bottom line is to find not only a “Syrian” common ground, but also a regional one. As it looks now, this seems to be very difficult indeed, despite Kerry’s optimism.
Clearly, peace in Syria will take time to achieve. What should not take time however is fighting ISIL. How could the two requirements be combined? In other words, is it practically doable to pour cold water on the regime-opposition fighting lines while pouring hot water on ISIL positions?
The answer is somehow included in the Vienna-2 communique though illicitly in a way. The mentioned ceasefire must be looked at as the central point of the whole diplomatic endeavor in its current phase. In other words, the process should be looked at in two different levels. One is the totality of the communique, the second is by separating it into two paths: What occurs around the negotiating table and what happens on the ground.
While the course of diplomacy will undoubtedly encounter the ups and downs characteristic to similar processes, the events on the ground should be manipulated to direct all arms against ISIL, while talks carry on in their designed course.
For this to happen, both the regime and the opposition have to respect the ceasefire, which should be treated as the central point in all what is produced in Vienna. Therefore, the UNSC should draw the limits of the ceasefire and attach disrespecting it to specific punitive measures. Flexibility in looking at breaking the cease fire must be allowed only in a minimum time and cases.
Let us imagine what may transpire in January first. Delegations meet around de Mistura table with all the relevant parties. Shouting matches and endless hours of give and take on each small detail are reported. Storming out in anger and returning back after pressures is detected every now and then. All the normal stuff known in similar forums is to be expected.
Yet, what really counts is what happens on the ground. And the central question is how to move what happens on the ground towards one sole target: ISIL while the negotiations take their track?
If all the warring parties agree not to fight each other, they will together fight ISIL. This will happen almost spontaneously. You can count on ISIL established stupidity to cause that even if the opposition tried to avoid it. And this will not only help in substantially increasing the capacity to fight the terrorist group, but may also help reduce tension in the de Mistura club and on the ground alike.
The de facto partition of Syria will take place and partitioning lines will be guarded by UN forces. This plan was in the making for some time now and we referred to it repeatedly in previous posts. While the partition of Syria could remain for some time, it may allow some space to work on the regional dimension of the crisis. But the new phase, if ever it materializes, will bring new challenges. Administering the opposition ruled regions, hosting back the refugees or at least stopping the departure of civilians, fighting ISIL and bringing security and order to most of Syria are just some of these challenges. Hopefully, a serious push to reunite Syria will succeed within a reasonable timeframe.
Secretary Kerry will have to remain hands on all the time. The 18 months transitional period in Syria extends beyond the time limit of the current administration. It may be worth a while to consider appointing Kerry as a Special Presidential Envoy for Syria after his term.
This may not be good news to the tired John Kerry. But it is worth the effort to save Syria and help end the barbaric army called ISIL. At the end, Kerry would have guaranteed a place in history and in the Nobel peace prize records. For there will be no other person that would have deserved it more than this legendary diplomat.

Is China Heading to a 1930s-Style Crash?
Gordon G. Chang/Gatestone Institute/November 22/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6932/china-crash
One statistic summarizes the situation: in Q3, there was $460.6 billion of net capital outflow. No economy can survive outflows of that size. The Chinese economy has never made sense, but confidence held it together. Now, the confidence is gone.
There are indications that China's economic growth rate is, in reality, close to zero. Take the most reliable indicator of Chinese economic activity, the consumption of electricity.
China's Communist Party has been closing off the Chinese market to foreigners, recombining large state enterprises back into formal monopolies, increasing state ownership of enterprises, and shoveling more state subsidies to favored market participants.
Just about everyone correctly agrees that a new round of structural economic reform could restart growth.
"On conservative growth projections, China's economy could well be bigger than the sum of all the G7 economies in real terms within the next decade," writes Peter Drysdale, the editor of the popular East Asia Forum website.
Not everyone is as optimistic as Drysdale, but the general view is that China will work through a transitory period and enter a new phase of growth powered by consumer spending.
Are China's economic problems merely temporary -- a year or two at most -- as the majority view suggests?
Perhaps, but there are also reasons to believe the country will have to endure prolonged hardship, either two or so decades of recession and stagnation or, more probably, a sharp 1930s-style crash followed by years of deep contraction.
Today, the Chinese economy is in far worse shape than most economists and other analysts think. China's economy could not have been growing at the 6.9% pace reported by Beijing's National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) for the third calendar quarter of this year or at the 7.0% rate claimed for each of the first two quarters.
It is more likely to have been the 4% that Willem Buiter, Citigroup's chief economist, recently suggested, and perhaps the 2.2% that people in Beijing were privately talking about a few months ago. And maybe it is even less than that.
There are, after all, indications that China's economic growth is, in reality, close to zero. Take the most reliable indicator of Chinese economic activity, the consumption of electricity. For the first nine months of the year, electricity consumption increased by only 0.8% according to China's National Energy Administration.
Defenders of NBS's gross domestic product (GDP) numbers argue the economy has shifted from energy-intensive manufacturing to services, so electricity is no longer indicative of economic trends. That, however, sounds like an excuse.
In any event, previous criticisms of the electricity numbers have been exaggerated, and Premier Li Keqiang, now China's economic czar, said in 2007 that official economic growth statistics were "man-made" -- unreliable -- and that he looked to electricity figures when he wanted to know what was really going on.
Yet even if electricity is no longer as indicative as it once was, there are other statistics confirming the sharp deterioration of the economy. For instance, imports -- a sign of both manufacturing and consumption trends -- fell 15.7% in the first ten months of this year in dollar terms. October, when they dropped a worse-than-expected 18.8%, was the 12th-straight month imports have fallen, and that equals the record from 2009.
Another disturbing sign is found in price data. In Q3, nominal GDP growth of 6.2% was less than the officially reported real growth of 6.9%, indicating deflation.
Deflation is never a good sign, and China looks as if it is now caught in the trap of falling prices. That means a 1930-style adjustment -- a crash, in common parlance -- is increasingly possible. And maybe even likely.
The problem for China's leaders is that nothing they have been doing in the past year to stimulate growth has been working. Six reductions in benchmark interest rates since last November and five reductions of the bank reserve-requirement ratio since February, for instance, have had no noticeable effect.
This monetary stimulus is unproductive because there is a lack of demand for money. Banks do not want to lend, and potential borrowers do not want to borrow. Central government technocrats can create money as if there is no tomorrow -- M2, the broad gauge of money supply, was up 13.5% in October -- but few see a need to invest available cash. So creating money this year has not resulted in growth.
At the same time, two other government tactics have come a cropper. First, the reckless promotion of stock price rises, beginning during the fall of last year, was intended to create a wealth effect. The campaign, however, led to the dramatic collapse in equity prices in June. Beijing, incredibly, had not learned its lesson, and in recent months engaged in another round of government cheerleading. Chinese officials, however, should realize that a rise in prices without an improvement in fundamentals can only lead to another horrible bust.
Second, the still-inexplicable devaluation of the renminbi beginning August 11 has not helped either. The move caused a global run on the currency, and Beijing still has not changed sentiment even if it has, through extraordinary means, temporarily stabilized the situation.
Just about everyone correctly agrees that a new round of structural economic reform could restart growth, but such change has become exceedingly unlikely because:
powerful vested interests are blocking it;
there is now a perception in Beijing that reform will reduce growth at first and China cannot afford any dip;
President Xi Jinping's idea of change is regressive.
Since coming to power as China's leader, Xi has been reversing Deng Xiaoping's policy of "reform and opening up." He has, for instance, been closing off the Chinese market to foreigners, recombining already large state enterprises back into formal monopolies, increasing state ownership of enterprises, and shoveling more state subsidies to favored market participants.
Xi has also strangled his country's financial markets in order to keep share prices high and currency values elevated. For example, this summer his government restricted stock-index futures because it considered these derivatives a source of downward pressure on stock prices, but the restrictions killed activity. China's stock-index futures market, the world's largest in mid-June when the slide began, was devastated, with transactions down 99% by September.
Even when Beijing has summoned the gumption to announce reforms, there has been more show than substance. For instance, late last month the People's Bank of China, the central bank, announced it was eliminating the caps on deposit rates, but officials are now informally dictating to commercial banks the deposit rates they may offer.
Let us not be surprised by the end of liberalization in China. Xi Jinping's signature initiative, encapsulated by the phrase "Chinese dream," contemplates a strong state, and a strong state does not sit easy with the notion of market-oriented reform. Unfortunately for Xi, also the Communist Party's general secretary, there are no solutions that are possible within the political framework he will not change.
Therefore, Xi's government has fallen back on fiscal stimulus to create growth. Fiscal spending was up 36.1% in October, according to the Finance Ministry. This follows increases of 26.9% in September and 25.9% in August. In the first ten months of this year, fiscal spending was up 18.1% while revenue rose only 7.7%.
No analyst is cheering the new spendathon. Just about everyone knows China does not need another "ghost city." And everyone is concerned about the debt that has been created to fuel growth. McKinsey Global Institute puts the country's debt-to-GDP ratio at a worrisome 282% at the end of June 2014, but the number is surely higher than that now, perhaps in the vicinity of 350% once all hidden obligations are counted and GDP is accurately assessed.
And even with this extraordinary spending, growth has been anemic -- if there has been any growth at all. Beijing's problem at the moment is that there is deep pessimism about the prospects for the economy. One statistic summarizes the situation: in Q3, there was $460.6 billion of net capital outflow, as documented by Bloomberg. No economy -- not even one the size of China's -- can survive outflows of that size.
The Chinese economy has never made sense, but confidence held it together. Now, the confidence is gone, and Beijing does not know how to get it back. Therefore, money is gushing out of the country.
"Deep winter will continue," said Liu Dongliang, a China Merchants Bank economist, to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. Chinese leaders, not willing to open up their political system so they can reform the economy, should expect the weather to remain cold a very long time.
*Gordon G. Chang is the author of The Coming Collapse of China, a contributor to Forbes.com, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Turkey's Oppression Machine
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/November 22/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6890/turkey-oppression-machine
The law stated that the homes and workplaces of those non-Muslims who could not afford the tax would be sequestered.
Under the AKP rule, Turkey's dwindling Jewish community, now at around a mere 17,000, as well as other non-Muslims, have come under systematic intimidation from government politicians and bureaucrats. These non-Muslim minorities are also often the targets of racist attacks.
It was 1942 when, one day, Hayim Alaton, a Jewish yarn importer in Istanbul, received two payment notices from the tax office: He was asked to pay 80,000 liras in total -- a fortune at that time. He ran to the tax office to object, but was told to pay the whole amount within 15 days. It was the infamous Wealth Tax, passed on Nov. 11, 1942 and it remained in effect for a year and a half until it was repealed on March 14, 1944.
The Wealth Tax exclusively targeted Turkey's non-Muslims at a time when 300,000 Orthodox Greeks and 100,000 Jews were living in Istanbul (where total population was one million). The law stated that the homes and workplaces of those non-Muslims who could not afford the tax would be sequestered. Alaton was able to pay no more than 11,000 liras. That was the start of "black years," as Alaton's son, 15 years old at that time, would later recall.
Before long, the Alaton's home and store were sequestered. The merchandise in the store and the goods in stock were sold at auction. Every item in the Alaton home, including kitchen utensils, bed frames and lamps were seized and sold too. The family of six was left only with mattresses. In later days, Alaton was taken from his home and sent to a tent camp in Istanbul where he was kept for two months. There were no meals, so his children would bring him whatever food they could find. One day the 15-year-old Ishak went to the camp and saw his father's tent empty. The Turkish authorities had put Alaton, along with many others, on a train bound for the town of Askale, in eastern Turkey, where the non-Muslims would be forced to perform physical labor, in this instance, cutting stones on a hill. Alaton would stay in the forced-labor camp for two hard winters and one summer.
The family would not hear from him for a year. During that time, the bodies of 20 laborers at Askale were sent home. Ishak recalls his father's return: "One evening, there was a knock on our door and an aged, wretched beggar stepped in. We wondered who he was and looked at him with curiosity. When he started to speak, we knew from his voice that he was my father."
By that time, the family business had gone bankrupt and Alaton, in the grip of a crippling depression, could not leave home. He died running a small store where he sold a small inventory of imported goods.
In a 2011 interview, Hayim Alaton's son, Ishak, who, after turbulent years in his youth, would found one of Turkey's most successful industrial conglomerates, would praise Turkey's ruling Islamists, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) by saying "the AKP has taken many positive steps to improve the situation of non-Muslim minorities."
Unfortunately, that was a premature conclusion, as the younger Alaton would learn four years later.
Under the AKP rule, Turkey's dwindling Jewish community, now at around a mere 17,000, as well as other non-Muslims, have come under systematic intimidation from government politicians and bureaucrats. These non-Muslim minorities are also often the targets of racist attacks.
Now 90, Ishak Alaton, although widely respected as "a man of wisdom" by the Turks -- Jews, Christians and Muslims alike -- is under scrutiny on charges of supporting terror.
An Ankara prosecutor is inspecting claims that Alaton has provided financial and moral support to what the state bureaucracy calls "the parallel structure" -- a movement led by an influential U.S.-based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen. Gulen and his movement were staunch AKP allies until the end of 2013, when the two engaged in an all-out war. The Gulenists accuse Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the AKP of autocratic rule and corruption, and the Turkish government has declared the Gulenists a terror organization that aims to topple the government.
Ishak Alaton (left), a 90-year-old Turkish Jewish industrialist, is being investigated on charges of "supporting terror," for providing financial and moral support to Fethullah Gulen (right), a U.S.-based Muslim cleric who is a political rival of Turkey's president.
The charges against Alaton are based on his 2013 biography, "Unnecessary Man," and were leveled after a former colleague of Alaton's filed a criminal complaint against him. Some passages in the book refer to Alaton's support for the Gulen movement schools outside Turkey, particularly one in Moscow. The probe has been ongoing for about a year.
This is the passage from the biography that the prosecutors may be thinking is an evidence of the 90-year-old man's support for terror:
"This [Gulen] movement is a great educational movement. It educates people. It changes people's outlook on life and makes them into better equipped, worldly people. The Gulen movement is involved in educational efforts. I've seen the outcome of such efforts with my own eyes. Once in Moscow we, as a company, participated in the establishment of such a school. We managed to acquire the land from the Moscow municipality and the school began there. The Russian officials asked us, 'What are they trying to do? We don't know them, what do you say?' [My business partner] Uzeyir Garih and I vouched for them, we told them [the Russians], 'Don't worry, let them build the school.'"
When it comes to persecution Turkey's state machinery never changes.
** Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Jeb Bush Lies, Says Bashar Assad ‘Executes’ Christians
Raymond Ibrahim/PJ Media/November 21/15
In a CNN interview this week, presidential candidate Jeb Bush said that only Middle East Christians should be granted refugee status in the U.S. (a point I argued for two months prior to the Paris terrorist attacks which prompted Bush’s statement). In the midst of an otherwise good interview, however, Bush made a bizarre assertion:
There are a lot of Christians in Syria that have no place now. They’ll be either executed or imprisoned, either by Assad or by ISIS.
“Executed or imprisoned” by Assad? This is an absurd and patently false assertion.
Bashar Assad — Jeb Bush’s “executor” of Christians — inspects one of countless Christian churches intentionally desecrated or destroyed by U.S. sponsored “freedom fighters.”
Not only have Christian minorities long been protected under the secular regime of Assad — himself a member of a religious minority — but many Christian refugees who fled the jihad in Iraq (which Jeb’s brother George uncorked) fled to Assad’s Syria for sanctuary. As Russian President Vladimir Putin once correctly opined: “People are running away not from the regime of Bashar Assad, but from Islamic State, which seized large areas in Syria and Iraq, and are committing atrocities there. That is what they are escaping from.”
This is not the first time that Jeb Bush, in the midst of making sound comments, revealed his true views on the Middle East. A few weeks earlier, he said: “We need to be part of the strategy to deal with taking Assad out and taking ISIS out.”
Note the consistent order: Bush always mentions Assad before ISIS, perhaps suggesting that he sees the secular Syrian president as a greater evil than the Islamic State. Yet it is the latter that has committed the worst atrocities of the 21st century, including raping and slaughtering Christians who refuse to renounce Christ for Islam.
Look to what Syrian Christians themselves say regarding who is persecuting them. Head of the Syrian church, Patriarch Ignatius Aphrem II — who has personally witnessed the slaughter, crucifixion, and rape of his flock — said:
If the West wants to do something about the present crisis, the most effective thing would be to support local governments [Assad and allies], which need sufficient armies and forces to maintain security and defend respective populations [such as Christians] against attacks. State institutions need to be strengthened and stabilized. Instead, what we see is their forced dismemberment being fueled from the outside.
As far back as 2011, when war came to Syria, Christians said they were supportive of the Assad regime because “Christian service has flourished remarkably in Syria. We regard Syria as a model Arab country when it comes to freedom of worship … Syrian Christians are very aware of what happened to Christians in Iraq, including the estimated 500,000 Christian refugees who fled to Syria during the Iraq war.”
Even Obama once admitted that “We know that President Bashar al-Assad protected Christians in Syria.”
Yet here is Jeb Bush, justifying war in Syria by claiming that Assad is “executing” Christians. This is eerily reminiscent of another Bush’s characterizations of another Arab autocrat. George portrayed Saddam Hussein, a dictator who was in fact a protector of Christian minorities, as Satan incarnate. We saw how that ended: with the loss of American blood and treasure and the birth of ISIS.
In short, it’s clear that Jeb Bush’s foreign policy will be a repeat of George W. Bush’s: overthrowing secular Arab regimes in order to bring “freedom” and “democracy” to the Middle East, even though this is the one policy that has done more than anything to give rise to the Islamic State. Where secular Arab dictators go, brutal Islamic jihadis fill the vacuum.
Again, for more sober foreign policies, one must turn to leaders like Putin. While addressing those nations that, under the guise of the “Arab Spring,” supported “rebels” that were actually jihadi terrorists, the Russian president declared before the United Nations:
Instead of the triumph of democracy and progress, we got violence, poverty and social disaster — and nobody cares a bit about human rights, including the right to life. I cannot help asking those who have forced that situation: Do you realize what you have done?
Whether he realizes it or not, it’s clear that Jeb Bush plans on continuing to “force the situation” that led to the rise of ISIS and some of the worst atrocities of modern history — especially against Christians, whom the presidential candidate says he wants to help.

The five mistakes which brought back terrorism
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
In May 2011, millions of people across the world witnessed the end of al-Qaeda organization, or to be more accurate, the end of the organization's leader, Osama bin Laden, who was killed during a skillful intelligence operation. Bin Laden's body was wrapped in sheets and iron chains and buried at sea. Whatever he had symbolized also ended with his death and al-Qaeda, which had terrified the world, was also buried with him.
All significant figures within the organization were either killed or detained. For example, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-Yemeni imam who was one of the most dangerous senior recruiters for the organization, was killed four months after the operation targeting Bin Laden.
Indeed, most of the organization's masterminds and senior figures were killed, such as field commander Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, military operations planner Abu Layth al-Libi, chemical weapons expert Abu Khabab al-Masri and finance chief Saeed al-Masri. Even Bin Laden's driver, guard and son were killed. Many al-Qaeda operatives were also held at Guantanamo Bay.
Terrorism was neither about leaders or their motives but about an ideology motivated by preachers, media personalities, teachers and strong believers in extremism
What was believed to be a motive behind terrorism – the U.S. military presence in Iraq – was also believed to have come to an end when they withdrew.
I think the problem here is related to diagnosing the initial problem. Terrorism was neither about leaders or their motives but about an ideology motivated by preachers, media personalities, teachers and strong believers in extremism, who are more dangerous than Bin Laden and Zarqawi. These people are capable of producing alternative leaderships and organizations, under different slogans and in different areas.
They invented Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi as an alternative to Bin Laden, and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) as an alternative to al-Qaeda. Syria has become a new battlefield and Bin Laden's videos were replaced by taking to Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp. They have become more dangerous.
The war has gone back to square one, however terrorists nowadays are distinguished from their predecessors. They have now not only grown in size but also have more experts and are more influential. They brought down a Russian plane using a bomb estimated to contain 1 kilogram of explosives and carried out a series of terrorist attacks in Paris. A terror branch in Nigeria crossed the borders to Mali and seized a hotel taking hostages. Then ISIS claimed it executed a Chinese hostage and threatened the United States with imminent operations. All these terrorist acts which horrified the world were committed in less than a month.
How terrorism thrives
I think there is a number of mistakes when it comes to understanding “new” terrorism. The first mistake is believing that a terrorist organization collapses with the murder of its leaders. The second is believing that declared excuses are the motive for terrorism - particularly by linking these excuses to liberation plans of the past; for example, claiming that the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would bring about an terrorism. Historically speaking, al-Qaeda was born six years before the Iraq invasion and it further expanded after the U.S. withdrawal.
The third mistake is believing that the solution is to withdraw from crisis areas, like what happened in Vietnam. The U.S. withdrew its troops from Iraq and refused to enter Syria. The fourth mistake is getting involved in the sectarian game by supporting Shiites or Sunnis against one another. The fifth and most important mistake is taking a lenient approach to extremist ideologies, which is a major problem and the source of the power of terrorism.
After Adolf Hitler committed suicide and following the burning of his body, the war's winners did not just raise the flag of victory over Berlin but they also banned Nazi ideology. They prohibited teaching it or marketing it and also prevented those who are in any way related to it from practicing any social activities.
Today's extremist Islam is also fascist, and it resembles Nazism which is based on the concepts of discrimination and elimination. Like Nazism, extremist Islam is based on absolute loyalty to an ideology and to hatred and hostility against others, whether Muslims or not. If you want to eliminate al-Qaeda, ISIS and al-Nusra Front, you have to go after the ideology. Without doing so, we can expect the next century to be filled with anarchy and terrorism.

Why I will not apologize for the Paris attacks
Khaled Almaeena/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
The Paris attacks that killed 130 people and injured hundreds of others are still capturing headlines. They also occupy the top spot in social media the world over.
The attack came days after suicide bombers blew up about 40 people in a Beirut suburb and before that a Russian plane was blown up over Sinai killing more than 200 people. ISIS claimed responsibility for all of these murderous acts.
I received several phone calls from Western journalists asking for the Saudi point of view on these murderous attacks to which my reply was that all of us condemn these inhumane and ugly acts which do not serve any purpose, but on the contrary malign our society and our religion.
One caller asked if we will apologize. I almost screamed at him. Apologize for what?! Are we responsible for the actions of mysterious groups that destroy and kill? Are we responsible for all the evil acts being committed and falsely attributed to Islam?! I am not going to apologize, I said.
I stand with the entire world in condemning the wanton, ruthless and mindless destruction of innocent human lives, but please do not ask me to apologize for something for which I am not responsible
Let an international investigation be conducted and the findings made public. I am not a believer in conspiracy theories, but since the 9/11 attack until now many questions remain unanswered. How is it that after every major incident a passport is found intact? As if people walk the streets with their passports in their pockets and the passports are made of nonflammable material that is resistant to fires and bomb attacks.
In New York, it was a Saudi passport; in Paris it was a Syrian passport which later was found to be a fake and there were 11 passports with the same name and number!
Selective grief
We have had enough of preachers of hate and ignorant politicians inciting animosity against Muslims and ranting anti-Islamic rhetoric that is racist and full of hate. Enough of ignorant people going on the rampage uttering jingoistic chants forgetting the complicity of their own governments in creating Al-Qaeda and ISIS-like organizations and propping up dictatorships in the region, dismantling armies and social order and creating vacuum that led to strife.
I stand with the entire world in condemning the wanton, ruthless and mindless destruction of innocent human lives, but please do not ask me to apologize for something for which I am not responsible. Have the Jews apologized for Netanyahu’s daily massacre of Palestinians? Have the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi apologized for the brutal holocaust inflicted on the Muslims of Myanmar? Has Indian Prime Minister Modi apologized for the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat or the lynching of people alleged to have eaten beef? Have Bush, Blair, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Bremer apologized for the death of a million Iraqis?
While the world rises up in arms against the cowardly murders of the innocent in Paris, no one protested when over a 100 Turks were blown to bits by ISIS in Ankara.
This selective grief is not palatable to me and to many around the world. These acts are carried out by people who are supposedly Muslims, but are mostly managed by shadowy groups operating under the umbrella of Western agencies. They do not represent us. I am not guilty, and therefore, I will not apologize!

Can a single terrorist attack bring down a state?
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
Traditionally we think that the aim of terrorism is to inspire terror in civilian populations and governments through acts of violence in order to create the conditions whereby a society and its government change some policy or other in accordance to the perpetrators’ world view. But it seems that such an understanding of terrorism might be too clever by half. It assumes that the terrorists have some kind of stake in the survival and continuation of the society or government they are attacking. Sometimes this is the case. But when it comes to the kind of millenarian nihilists that you have in ISIS, that most certainly doesn’t apply. And why bother to get a government to see things your way, when you can simply destroy the entire apparatus of state and use the ensuing chaos as an excellent opportunity to recruit new members to your cause and expand you reach and power.
Tunisia was considered the Arab Spring’s success story, and the only country that has produced a stable and plausibly democratic government in the aftermath of the wave of rebellions that has swept over the Arab world. But just as we speak, its ruling party is about to implode and the conflict between the remnants of the Ben Ali government and those who led the uprising looks likely to flare up once again.
The new terrorism is now aiming for the state. How many of the artificial states in the Middle East will survive the coming years, we can only wait and see.
The immediate reason for this is that the current president of Tunisia, Beji Caid Essebsi, has just promoted his son to the position of vice-president of his party, Nidaa, and that the Essebsi are becoming uncomfortably close to the Islamist political forces in Tunisia, something that the majority of the staunchly secular Nidaa party members are bitterly opposed to. A protest against what many see as the establishment of dynastic power within the Nidaa party has been broken by a violent response from the Essebsi faction, and their opponents now look set to form a splinter party. This would remove Nidaa from its position of parliamentary dominance, and effectively hand over power to the Islamist opposition.
Game of thrones
But the fundamental problem is not the game of thrones that Tunisian politicians are playing with each other. It is what is fueling this game and their ambitions: popular discontent and a sense of imminent danger to the new political order established in the wake of the Tunisian Arab Spring. And that was caused by the really poor performance of the economy recently. Which can, in this country so reliant on tourism, be traced back to the terror attacks in March and the infamous Sousse attacks in June where 30 Britons were killed.
Tourism accounted for 6.5% of GDP in the country, and employed as much as 11.5% of the working population. And most of that has all but dried up overnight, after the attacks. Politicking is one thing. And a stable and economically successful society can generally safely ignore the foibles of power-grabbing politicians. But a volatile society on the edge of economic breakdown is another proposition altogether. And people can be expected to take up arms and fight for whatever cause they think will aid them, as they have done only so recently with the Arab Spring in 2010.
In this case, a single attack has ended up putting an enormous strain on a fragile state, and right now we can but hope and pray that the situation does not degenerate any further. And we will need to do the same with Egypt, where the recent suspected terror attack on the Russian tourist plane returning from Sharm el-Shaikh looks set to kill the tourism industry there.
Some observers noted that this was exactly the strategy that Osama bin Laden originally pursued by targeting the World Trade Centre in the 9/11 Attacks. Whether you believe that or not is rather besides the point, though. What matters is that targeted terror attacks on key economic sectors, especially economic sectors that are so susceptible to these kinds of attacks such as the tourism industry, are enough to destabilize an economy. And that in turn is enough to break a fragile state. In the wake of the Arab Spring, many, many states in the Middle East are fragile and susceptible to such simple, strategic attacks. And for ISIS and other similar or affiliated groups, the calculation is simple: why bother mounting long, dragged out guerrilla campaigns against trained militaries in the region, when you can achieve a much more profound effect with a single, calculated strike against a soft target? The new terrorism is now aiming for the state. How many of the artificial states in the Middle East will survive the coming years, we can only wait and see.

America’s latest failure on Syria? The refugee crisis
Brooklyn Middleton/Al Arabiya/November 22/15
More than two dozen United States governors have capitalized on the recent horrific acts of terrorism in Paris to announce their states will not admit a single Syrian refugee. Amid the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II, the politicians have seized this moment to evade any moral responsibility for even one of the millions of Syrians in need. Their knee-jerk reactions are devoid of any meaningful strategy and in total contradiction with domestic security assessments. Ultimately, their actions over the last week have marked an ugly new chapter in the U.S.’s failing of the Syrian people. Not too long ago, when several tiny bodies washed ashore in Libya, I wrote that it underscored DC’s failure to confront the humanitarian toll of the conflict and efficiently resettle a reasonable number of refugees. The outrage and ineffable sadness the world experienced as the photograph of Aylan Kurdi circulated appears to have proved ephemeral.
The list of recent reprehensible remarks made by U.S. politicians regarding Syrian refugees is not short. Among them include Louisiana state senator David Vitter, who claimed via blog post that he had “notify” President Obama’s administration that a Syrian refugee living in his state had “gone missing.” He added, “There is an unmonitored Syrian refugee who is walking around freely, and no one knows where he is.” His repugnant statements were not based on even remotely credible claims; The Advocate reported that the Syrian man in question had moved to another state to be with his family after filing the correct paperwork to do so. Meanwhile, David Bowers, mayor of Roanoke, Virginia, demanded that local agencies halt assistance to Syrian refugees. In a written statement he said, “President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt compelled to sequester Japanese foreign nationals after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and it appears that the threat of harm to America from ISIS now is just as real and serious as that from our enemies then.”
Should the West open its arms to Syrians, it counteracts ISIS’s own propaganda that the West seeks to destroy Muslim lives
The “real and serious threat” then was not a threat at all but instead irrational fear that eroded our morality and prompted a horrendous period of U.S. history. Citing such a time as aspirational for the current fight against terrorism is extremely worrisome. It is these types of remarks that prompted the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum to issue a statement urging the U.S. to “avoid condemning today’s refugees as a group.” Further noting that, “It is important to remember that many are fleeing because they have been targeted by the Assad regime and ISIS for persecution and in some cases elimination on the basis of their identity.”
Denying ISIS propaganda wins
If one is not moved by the moral impetus to act, they should certainly be moved by how utterly unsound the politicians’ core argument for refusing to resettle refugees is: The assertion that militants or their sympathizers would go through a formal and extensive vetting process – exposing their networks and registering their identities with multiple U.S. security agencies – lacks basic reason. Politicians’ failure to accept this very key point should trigger concerns about their apparent inability to think rationally in a moment of perceived crisis. Welcoming Syrian refugees is also strategic; it denies ISIS multiple propaganda wins as each fleeing Syrian marks one additional person ISIS was unable to persuade or force to live under its brutal rule. Moreover, should the West open its arms to Syrians, it counteracts the militant group’s own propaganda that the West seeks to destroy Muslim lives – the value of that is significant. That said, even if resettling Syrian refugees had no strategic value, doing so would be no less imperative.
Foreign fighters’ - who have flocked to fight alongside terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq - pose a serious security risk to the West; this is not a new issue brought forth by the terrorist attacks in Paris. In November 2014, the Meir Amit Intelligence & Terrorism Center indicated that at least 13,000 foreigners were currently fighting alongside ISIS, with at least 3,000 of those believed to be from the West. In the year since, the inability to prevent foreigners from journeying to war-torn Syria and Iraq has led to a sharp increase in the overall number of foreign fighters engaged in conflicts, with current figures indicating the number has climbed to approximately 30,000. The Paris attacks and the deadly Brussels Jewish museum shooting - underscore the threat of foreign fighters’ return to Europe - not vetted refugees who are flocking such horror.
The laziest argument in support of failing to admit Syrian refugees to the U.S. is that which cites the failures of other countries, including Arab states, to do the same. The failure of many Gulf states to formally resettle Syrian refugees is indefensible. But the repeated citing of this as an attempt to distract from our own failures is equally so.
What U.S. political leaders should be doing at this very moment is drafting a plan to settle a specific number of at risk refugees by a specific date; they should be meeting with their local Muslim, Jewish, and Christian community leaders to discuss how to not only plan for the arrival of these families but how to serve as a resource for them in the years to come. And most importantly, they should attempt to actually present initiatives addressing both ISIS and the murderous Assad regime, in an effort to help end the conflict in Syria – the root of this crisis. These politicians’ press releases and bellicose statements ultimately only highlight their total inability to both reasonably assess security matters and act rationally. There is a moral obligation to admit Syrian refugees to the U.S.; if U.S. politicians act to prevent this, the ghosts of the Syrian conflict should haunt them personally and will haunt them professionally for the years to come.