LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 28/15

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.october28.15.htm 

Bible Quotation For Today/For what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 13,18-23/"Hear then the parable of the sower. When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what is sown in the heart; this is what was sown on the path. As for what was sown on rocky ground, this is the one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet such a person has no root, but endures only for a while, and when trouble or persecution arises on account of the word, that person immediately falls away. As for what was sown among thorns, this is the one who hears the word, but the cares of the world and the lure of wealth choke the word, and it yields nothing. But as for what was sown on good soil, this is the one who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and yields, in one case a hundredfold, in another sixty, and in another thirty."

Bible Quotation For Today/o the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practising self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.
First Letter to the Corinthians 07,01-03.08-14.17.24/:"Concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman. ’But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practising self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion. To the married I give this command not I but the Lord that the wife should not separate from her husband = (but if she does separate, let her remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband), and that the husband should not divorce his wife. To the rest I say I and not the Lord that if any believer has a wife who is an unbeliever, and she consents to live with him, he should not divorce her. And if any woman has a husband who is an unbeliever, and he consents to live with her, she should not divorce him. For the unbelieving husband is made holy through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is made holy through her husband. Otherwise, your children would be unclean, but as it is, they are holy. However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God called you. This is my rule in all the churches. In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain with God."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 27-28/15
Another round of Hezbollah - Future Movement tension/Myra Abdallah/Now Lebanon/October 27/15
Saudi Writer Calls For Collaboration Between Jewish And Muslim Diasporas In Europe To Combat Attacks On Freedom Of Worship/MEMRI/October 27/15
NSC opens office to oversee Iran deal implementation/Laura Rozen/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
What will Erdogan do if AKP fails again/Kadri Gursel/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
The death of Yitzhak Rabin's legacy/Ben Caspit/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
Why Kerry is prioritizing Syria over Israeli-Palestinian peace/Laura Rozen/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
Is Russian intervention in Syria pushing 'moderate jihadis' toward Islamic State/Metin Gurcan/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
Ending a Century of Palestinian Rejectionism/Daniel Pipes/Washington Times/October 27/15
Sweden: It Is Considered Racism Only If the Victims Are Not White/Ingrid Carlqvist/Gatestone Institute/October 27/15
Turkey Is on the Path to Rogue Dictatorship/Daniel Pipes/National Review Online/October 26/15
Turkey's Thugocracy/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/October 27/15
Debate In Saudi Arabia Following Saudi Clerics' Call For Jihad Against Russian Forces In Syria/N. Mozes/MEMRI/October 27/15
Donald Trump: If Saddam and Qaddafi still ruled/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
A New World Order is emerging from the Middle East/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
Very quietly, Iraq is ceasing to exist/Dr. John C. Hulsman/Al Arabiya/October 27/15A
Russian roadmap for the political transition in Syria/Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
Palestinian Media Watchdog: ‘Abbas Should Be Imprisoned for Murder/Ruthie Blum/The Algemeiner/October 27/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on October 27-28/15
Hizbullah-Mustaqbal Dialogue Urges Activation of Work of Govt., Parliament
Change and Reform May Attend Cabinet, Says Return to Constitution Not Always Useful
Another round of Hezbollah - Future Movement tension
Parliament Bureau Fails to Agree on Legislative Session Agenda
Terror Suspects Held in South, Bekaa as House of Shaker's Brother Raided
Geagea: We Urge Cabinet to Implement Shehayyeb's Plan as Soon as Possible
Report: Aoun Reiterates Commitment to 'Legislation of Necessity' ahead of Parliament Bureau Meeting
Fatfat: Salam Made Bold Proposal on Garbage Crisis
Report: LF-FPM Sign Draft-Law on Restoring Lebanese Nationality for Expats

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 27-28/15
Carter Says U.S. to Boost Anti-IS Attacks in Iraq, Syria
2 Palestinians Killed after Stabbing Israeli Soldier in West Bank
U.N. Says Syria Humanitarian Crisis Worsening
Moscow Grills Foreign Diplomats over Syria Civilian Death Reports
Egyptians return to vote as election run-off begins
Abbas asks EU to help calm surging violence
Israel air raid hits Gaza in response to rocket fire
ISIS executes three in Palmyra, destroys ancient columns
Iran’s Rowhani expects sanctions to be lifted by end of year
Defense chief: U.S. to boost anti-ISIS attacks in Iraq, Syria
France hosts Syria talks with allies on Tuesday
Egyptians return to vote as election run-off begins
Turkish police detain 30 ISIS suspects in raid
Saudi warns investors in Egypt after double homicide
An intolerable unimaginable heat forecast for Gulf
Saudi Arabia shuts down alcohol factories
Saudi aid official wants Yemen ceasefire
Obama calls Saudi king to discuss regional developments
Kuwait Emir urges reforms as income drops 60 percent
Donald Trump wishes Saddam, Qaddafi still ruled

Links From Jihad Watch Site for October 26-27/15
Denmark denies citizenship to Muslim who wants to replace democracy with Islamic law
Muslim preschool girl holds knife, says “I want to stab a Jew”
20,000 Israelis sue Facebook for “Palestinian” jihad incitement
Yemen: Jihadists storm supermarket, take hostages to give “final warning” against mingling of men and women
Al-Shabaab faction pledges loyalty to the Islamic State after murdering 150 Christian students
“Palestinian” Muslim cleric brandishes explosives belt during sermon: “Oh people of the West Bank, kill them!”
Islamic State ties foes to ancient Palmyra columns and blows them up
South Korea: Five Muslims, “Islamic State sympathizers,” arrested with bomb-making material
New Glazov Gang: Stealth Jihad vs. America
Australian media covers up fact that man with meat cleaver who smashed cafe windows called himself “messiah of Islam”
U.S., Saudis to bolster support for “moderate Syrian opposition”

Hizbullah-Mustaqbal Dialogue Urges Activation of Work of Govt., Parliament
Naharnet/October 27/15/Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal movement stressed during their twentieth dialogue session on Tuesday the need to activate the work of the paralyzed government and parliament and continue the implementation of the security plan in all regions. The session was attended by Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq after media reports said he could be replaced by another Mustaqbal representative. The minister had waged a fierce verbal attack on Hizbullah earlier this month, fueling speculation that his relatively good ties had worsened with the rival party. “The conferees stressed their insistence on clinging to dialogue and maintaining it,” said a terse joint statement issued after the Ain el-Tineh talks. “They underlined the need to create an appropriate atmosphere for activating the work of the government and parliament in order to address the political, economic and social issues,” the statement added. The two parties also called for “enhancing security in all Lebanese regions and continuing the measures that were agreed on in this regard.”Mashnouq had accused Hizbullah of failing to facilitate the implementation of the security plan devised for the Bekaa region.

Another round of Hezbollah - Future Movement tension
Myra Abdallah/Now Lebanon/October 27/15
Relations between Future Movement and Hezbollah have been strained since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Certain periods have been more stable than others, but never less tense. The dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement kicked off in December 2014. Back then, officials from the two parties stressed the importance of the talks in securing and maintaining a minimum of stability in Lebanon. In the beginning, the dialogue was seen as a very positive step for future relations between the two parties. Later, it became clear that harmony and productivity between Hezbollah and the Future Movement were not prominent characteristics of the dialogue. Its agenda changes continuously and has reached no agreements after numerous sessions. On top of this, Interior Minister Nouhad Machnouk and Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah continue to trade accusations in fiery speeches.
“There are two reasons for the current tension between Future Movement and Hezbollah,” analyst Kassem Kassir told NOW. “The first reason is related to the internal situation of the Future Movement: Minister Machnouk was facing an internal campaign and needed to restore [his image] inside the party. Machnouk was accused of coordinating with Hezbollah and he had this [public statement against Hezbollah] as a reaction. The second reason is more external — the situation between Saudi Arabia and Iran that reflected a tension between the Future Movement and Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
Analysts NOW spoke to say that the main reason behind the tension is Machnouk’s statement after being accused of establishing ties with Hezbollah. Future Movement MP Ahmad Fatfat, however, said that the tension is strictly related to Hezbollah’s position in paralyzing the cabinet and the security plan. “The main reason behind the current tension is that Machnouk offered [on behalf of the Future Movement] many potential solutions while Hezbollah refused to offer any practical solution,” he told NOW. “The dialogue had two major goals: decreasing the Sunni-Shiite tension through executing the security plan and finding a solution for the presidential vacuum. On one hand, the security plan was only successful in the north and Beirut while Hezbollah made sure it failed in Dahiyeh and Baalbek; and on the other hand, they did not offer any solution related to the presidential elections.”
Concerns have been raised that Future Movement ministers might resign from the cabinet, but analysts say it’s unlikely. “I do not think that Future ministers will resign from the cabinet,” Kassir told NOW. “Resignation is senseless at this point. The current cabinet is filling in the blanks of the presidential vacuum. If this cabinet resigned, another one couldn’t be formed during the absence of a president. Besides, Future Movement is in charge of two important ministries — the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of interior — and it won’t let them go.” Likewise, analyst Ibrahim Bayram said that the Future Movement is very attached to this cabinet in particular. “This is the fourth cabinet since the assassination of Rafik Hariri and all the previous ones already failed. Resigning from this cabinet would make the Future Movement lose their power — [resigning] is not in its interests.”
Not resigning from the cabinet, however, does not mean that the dialogue will continue. In fact, after personal accusations between Machnouk and Hezbollah MP Hussein Hajj Hassan, Machnouk stated that he might not attend the next dialogue session. He still hadn’t decided as of Friday morning, though this is not necessarily indicative of Future’s position as well. “In their last statement, Future bloc members stated that they are attached to the cabinet and the dialogue at the same time,” Bayram told NOW. “Machnouk might not assist the dialogue’s sessions anymore. Taking into consideration that he is one of the three main participants of the dialogue, alongside Samir al-Jisr and Nader Hariri, if he decided not to attend he could become a scapegoat [for other Future members] and by that, his rivals inside the party will have been able to win over him.”
“Most probably, the dialogue will continue,” said Kassir. “All political parties are admitting that the dialogue is useless, yet they are still participating in the dialogue sessions.”
“After this tension, I think the situation between the two parties will calm down again,” Bayram told NOW. “However, their relationship will always be tense on a political level. Hezbollah is accused of assassinating the founder of Future Movement — the situation can never be better than that.”

Change and Reform May Attend Cabinet, Says Return to Constitution Not Always Useful
Naharnet/October 27/15/The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc hinted Tuesday that its ministers are willing to attend any cabinet session that would be exclusively dedicated to the garbage crisis, while stressing that it will not bow to political pressures.“We agreed in cabinet on a full distribution of the municipalities' income and the problem is not in the landfills,” the bloc said after its weekly meeting in Rabieh, in a statement recited by former minister Salim Jreissati. “If a cabinet session on the garbage crisis is to be held, our ministers will attend to present our solutions and not under the verbal pressures of the other parties,” the bloc noted. Prime Minister Tammam Salam has announced that he will not call a cabinet session before all parties represented in the government agree on the implementation of an emergency waste management plan devised by Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb and a team of experts.
The plan calls for waste management to be turned over to municipalities in 18 months, the setting up of “sanitary landfills” in Akkar, the Bekaa and Bourj Hammoud, and the reopening for seven days of the controversial Naameh landfill. On Sunday, streets in parts of the country turned into rivers of garbage as heavy rains washed through mountains of trash that have piled up during the waste collection crisis that erupted in July. Political bickering, the refusal of various municipalities to accept Beirut and Mount Lebanon's trash and the objections of some residents and civil society activists have prolonged the crisis. The crisis started after the government shut down the country's main landfill in Naameh without finding an alternative. Separately, Jreissati said Aoun briefed the bloc on the deliberations of the national dialogue session that was held Monday. He told conferees during the session that “neutrality is not a state, but rather a response to an event, and that it cannot be a permanent policy adopted by the State,” Jreissati said. “How can we dissociate ourselves from the problem of terrorism, the refugee influx, the terrorist cells or the fallout from the earthquakes that are taking place on our borders,” he quoted Aoun as saying. “The other topic of dialogue was resorting to the people and General Aoun tackled it from a constitutional and National Pact point of view,” the ex-minister added. “When the institutions fail to play their role, people become the alternative and the source of authorities,” he said. “The return to the Constitution does not always contribute to finding efficient solutions and the solution would be resorting to the people,” Jreissati added, referring to Aoun's recent proposals on electing a president by a popular vote or organizing early parliamentary polls. Jreissati noted that Aoun told the conferees during dialogue that “proportional representation is the best electoral system.”

Parliament Bureau Fails to Agree on Legislative Session Agenda
Naharnet/October 27/15/The parliament bureau held a meeting on Tuesday in an attempt to agree on the agenda of the upcoming legislative session. Deputy Speaker Farid Makari stated after the meeting however that the concerned forces failed to agree on an agenda. A new meeting for the bureau will be held next week, he added. Tuesday's meeting was held at Speaker Nabih Berri's residence of Ain el-Tineh. It was attended by MPs Marwan Hamadeh, Ahmed Fatfat, Michel Moussa, Antoine Zahra, and Serge Torsarkissian. A dispute emerged after the talks on whether to include the draft-law on restoring the nationality of Lebanese expatriates. Lebanese Forces MP Antoine Zahra told reporters: “The LF and Free Patriotic Movement insist on including the parliamentary electoral law on the agenda of the legislative session after the draft-law on the nationality is included.” “The LF's participation at the legislative session hinges on whether the parliamentary electoral law is on its agenda,” he stressed. Mustaqbal MP Torsarkissian criticized this position however, saying that attention should be directed at resolving the country's trash disposal crisis. “What use is the nationality law if the Lebanese people in the country are immigrating?” he asked. Shouldn't conditions in Lebanon be improved for the expatriates to return to their country? wondered the MP. Earlier on Tuesday, the LF and FPM signed an agreement on the nationality draft-law.

Terror Suspects Held in South, Bekaa as House of Shaker's Brother Raided
Naharnet/October 27/15/Two terror suspects were arrested Tuesday in the southern coastal cities of Sidon and Tyre as security forces raided the house of a brother of singer turned fugitive Islamist Fadel Shaker in a Sidon suburb.“General Security intelligence agents raided a cafe in the Sidon area of al-Dalaa and arrested its owner R. S. on charges of having ties to terrorist groups,” state-run National News Agency reported. The General Security also raided a house in Tyre and arrested Palestinian national A. A. “over his ties to a group working for the benefit of the Islamic State group,” NNA added. Earlier in the day, an army intelligence force raided the house of Fadi Shmandar, a brother of Fadel Shaker, in the Sidon suburb of Abra. Shmandar was not home at the time of the raid. A pistol and ammunition were seized at the house, NNA said. The agency noted that Nayef Q., a relative of fugitive Islamist cleric Ahmed al-Asir, lives in the same building. In the evening, the army announced the arrest of Syrian national Mohammed Nassif in the Bekaa town of al-Labweh “on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist group operating in the outskirts of the town of Arsal.”

Geagea: We Urge Cabinet to Implement Shehayyeb's Plan as Soon as Possible
Naharnet/October 27/15/Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea criticized on Tuesday the state's failure to resolve the country's trash disposal crisis, wondering why Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb's plan has not been implemented yet. He asked during a press conference: “Why haven't we implemented the plan if it has garnered the approval of the majority of sides?”“It may not be the best proposal, but it is the best we have to work with at the moment,” he remarked. “How is it that a state authority has to acquire the permission of everyone in order to take any step?” asked Geagea after the plan was met by refusals by various municipalities that oppose the dumping of waste in their regions. He therefore urged Prime Minister Tammam Salam and the concerned officials to implement the plan “as soon as possible because the situation has become unbearable.”Lebanon has been suffering from a trash disposal crisis since July with the closure of the Naameh landfill. Politicians have failed to find an alternative to the landfill, resulting in the pile up of garbage on the streets of the country. The heavy rain on Sunday brought with it flooded streets coupled with waste, as experts warned of the health and environmental impact of the crisis.

Report: Aoun Reiterates Commitment to 'Legislation of Necessity' ahead of Parliament Bureau Meeting
Naharnet/October 27/15/Speaker Nabih Berri, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, Free Patriotic Movement chief MP Michel Aoun, and Change and Reform bloc MP Ibrahim Kanaan had held talks on Monday ahead of a meeting aimed at preparing the agenda of the upcoming legislative session, revealed al-Joumhouria newspaper on Tuesday. It said that the talks were held ahead of Monday's national dialogue talks. The preparatory meeting is set for Tuesday. Aoun had stressed during the meeting his commitment to the “legislation of necessity”. Khalil and Kanaan later held talks on Monday night to follow up on the day's discussions and to “reach a joint vision of the legislation of necessity.”Al-Joumhouria said that the gatherers had devised a draft that includes a number of projects and proposals that will be addressed during the parliamentary bureau meeting. Political parties had intensified their talks over the past week in preparation for the parliamentary bureau meeting that is expected to tackle the agenda of an upcoming legislative session. The session is set to be held in November.

Fatfat: Salam Made Bold Proposal on Garbage Crisis
Naharnet/October 27/15/Mustaqbal bloc MP Ahmed Fatfat revealed that Prime Minister Tammam Salam had made a “bold proposal” to end the country's ongoing garbage disposal crisis, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Tuesday. He told the daily: “The premier was asked to adopt the current trash plan and resort to the army and security forces to implement it.”“He said however that this step is out of the question until real government partnership is achieved,” added the MP. Real partnership is accomplished when all parties of government attend sessions “not simply to record their attendance, but to offer proposals,” continued Fatfat. “How is it that we can have a landfill for the northern region of Akkar and not one for the Bekaa, South, and Mount Lebanon?” he wondered. Lebanon has been suffering from a trash disposal crisis since July with the closure of the Naameh landfill. Politicians have failed to find an alternative to the landfill, resulting in the pile up of garbage on the streets of the country. The heavy rain on Sunday brought with it flooded streets coupled with waste, as experts warned of the health and environmental impact of the crisis.

Report: LF-FPM Sign Draft-Law on Restoring Lebanese Nationality for Expats
Naharnet/October 27/15/Lawmakers from the Lebanese Forces and Free Patriotic Movement signed on Tuesday a draft-law on allowing expatriates to regain their Lebanese nationality, reported various media. Earlier, al-Joumhouria newspaper had said that draft-law will be the “fruit of the Declaration of Intent” signed between the two sides in June. They hope that their ongoing contacts would lead to including parliamentary electoral laws on the agenda of the parliamentary bureau. The bureau is scheduled to convene later on Tuesday to address the agenda of an upcoming legislative session.
The LF and FPM had intensified over the past week their contacts in order to reach a joint vision over the agenda of the legislative session. The two sides are pushing for including the parliamentary electoral law and the law on restoring nationality on the agenda of the legislative session.

Carter Says U.S. to Boost Anti-IS Attacks in Iraq, Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 27/15/Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday said the United States will ramp up attacks on Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq, with additional air strikes and even direct action on the ground. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carter said he expects more actions like the one last week that freed dozens of captives but left an American commando dead in Iraq. "We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Carter said. He did not elaborate on what he meant by "direct action on the ground." The Obama administration opposes committing U.S. ground forces to Syria, but currently some 3,500 US forces are in Iraq in a "train and advise" capacity to support local forces as they fight IS jihadists.
Carter's statement appears to be a doubling-down of comments he made last week following the raid in which U.S. Special Operations forces and Kurdish peshmerga troops stormed an IS-run prison near Hawijah in northern Iraq, freeing some 70 captives who were facing imminent execution. Following the raid, in which Master Sergeant Joshua Wheeler became the first American serviceman to die in action in Iraq since 2011, Carter said he expected "more of this kind of thing."Carter told senators that the United States is now focusing its efforts on the IS stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria and will boost support for rebel groups fighting the jihadists. "We expect to intensify our air campaign, including with additional U.S. and coalition aircraft, to target ISIL with a higher and heavier rate of strikes," Carter said, using an alternate acronym for IS. "This will include more strikes against ISIL high-value targets as our intelligence improves," he added.
The three 'Rs'
Additional raids and a focus on Raqqa are two components of an anti-IS strategy Carter described as being centered on the "three Rs" -- raids, Raqqa and Ramadi. Ramadi is the capital of Iraq's Anbar province and has been held by IS forces since May this year. Local Iraqi forces, supported by U.S. air power, are trying to retake it. "We are willing to continue providing more enabling capabilities and fire support to help our Iraqi partners succeed," Carter said. In Syria, the Pentagon is dropping ammunition to rebel groups in the north in a new program that replaced a failed attempt to build a rebel army to fight IS. Defense officials hope the recipients of the ammunition will pressure IS fighters in Raqqa. Carter's pledge to intensify strikes comes as the U.S.-led coalition in fact has been hitting fewer targets in Syria in recent months.
Pentagon officials insist the diminished tempo reflects a lack of decent targets, and has nothing to do with Russia launching its own bombing campaign a month ago. The conflict in Syria has killed more than 250,000 people since it broke out in March 2011, sparked by a bloody crackdown on protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad. Carter testified alongside General Joe Dunford, who is America's top general and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Republicans react
Their comments about the situation in Syria elicited howls of disapproval from Republican lawmakers, who say the United States should be doing more to protect civilian populations in Syria and supporting the overthrow of Assad. Russia is bombing in support of the Assad regime -- though Moscow claims it is targeting IS and other "terrorists" -- and Iran has sent advisers and troops to Syria to help the government. Dunford said the "balance of forces" is currently in Assad's favor. "The (U.S.) strategy has completely fallen apart," Senator Lyndsey Graham said. "Russia, Iran and Hizbullah are going to fight for their guy and we are not going to do a damn thing to help the people who want to change Syria for the better by getting rid of the dictator in Damascus."He went on to call the U.S. approach in Syria "half-assed" at best. Several lawmakers asked why the United States isn't setting up no-fly zones or protective buffer zones in Syria. Carter and President Barack Obama are reluctant to undertake such a commitment because of massive costs and the greater risk to U.S. personnel. Imposing no-fly zones has only gotten more complex as a proposition since Russia entered Syria's war a month ago.

2 Palestinians Killed after Stabbing Israeli Soldier in West Bank
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 27/15/Two Palestinians stabbed and moderately wounded an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank before being shot dead on Tuesday, the army said. "The soldier was stabbed when forces at the scene approached two suspects at the junction. As the forces approached, the suspects attacked a soldier, stabbing and wounding him moderately," said a statement from the army. "Forces responded to the attack with immediate fire." The soldier was taken for treatment in moderate condition, the army said, later confirming the two attackers were dead.

U.N. Says Syria Humanitarian Crisis Worsening
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 27/15/Syria's humanitarian crisis is worsening, with some 13.5 million people now in need of aid, including six million children, the U.N. aid chief said Tuesday. Stephen O'Brien, the U.N. humanitarian affairs under secretary-general, told the U.N. Security Council that there had been an increase of 1.2 million people in need of aid over the past 10 months. Of the 680,000 migrants that have crossed the Mediterranean this year, over 50 percent are Syrian. "They have a right to asylum without any form of discrimination," he said. Some 6.5 million Syrians are displaced inside the country and 4.2 million have fled abroad in what O'Brien described as "one of the largest displacement crisis of modern times."More than 240,000 people have died in the war, now in its fifth year.

U.N. Chief Condemns Saudi Air Strikes on Yemen MSF Hospital
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 27/15/U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday condemned air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition on a hospital run by the MSF medical charity in Yemen and called for an end to the fighting. The hospital in the northern city of Saada was hit late Monday, but MSF (Doctors Without Borders) said there were no casualties. Ban said he "condemns the air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition that hit the Hayadeen Medical Hospital, run by Medecins Sans Frontieres," in a statement from his spokesman. Ban noted that several people were injured and the facility was destroyed by the air strikes. He called for a prompt investigation, and recalled that hospitals and medical personnel are protected under international law. "The Secretary-General calls on all parties to the conflict in Yemen to immediately cease all operations, including air strikes," the spokesman said.Yemen has slid deeper into chaos since the Saudi-led coalition launched air strikes in March to push back an advance by the Iran-backed Huthi rebels. Nearly 5,000 people have been killed in the bombing campaign and 80 percent of the population is in dire need of humanitarian aid.

Moscow Grills Foreign Diplomats over Syria Civilian Death Reports
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 27/15/Moscow on Tuesday angrily ordered foreign military attaches in the country to confirm or refute "outrageous" Western media reports that Russian air strikes have caused civilian deaths in Syria. Deputy defense minister Anatoly Antonov contacted the military attaches of several Western countries as well as Turkey, Saudi Arabia and NATO over international media coverage of the four-week-old bombing campaign, the defense ministry said. "We are accused not only of hitting the 'moderate' opposition but also civilian targets such as hospitals and also mosques and schools," a ministry statement quoted Antonov as saying. "As a result of this, according to Western media reports, non-combatants are allegedly being killed," Antonov said, denouncing the reports as "anti-Russian smears.""Today we invited the U.S., British, French, German, Italian, Saudi, Turkish and NATO military attaches to provide an official explanation of the substance of the statements made, or to refute them," he said. "This particularly concerns the outrageous accusations in a number of English-language media outlets of alleged strikes on hospitals," Antonov said. If Russia "is not presented with evidence or official refutations, we will consider that these anti-Russian smears are part of an information war against Russia," Antonov said. He added that he expected to hear back from the attaches in "a few days." Russia has denied accusations by the Syrian opposition that its strikes have caused civilian deaths. Russian air strikes in Syria have killed at least 446 people, more than a third of them civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said last Friday. The Syrian-American Medical Society, which operates several facilities in Syria, said Thursday that nine Russian air strikes have hit hospitals or field clinics. Russia began its air campaign in Syria on September 30 in support of its ally President Bashar Assad. The campaign has been criticized not only for causing civilian casualties but also for targeting non-jihadist rebel groups more often than the Islamic State group or al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front.

Egyptians return to vote as election run-off begins
AFP, Cairo Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Egyptians returned to polling stations on Tuesday as a first round run-off got underway in a parliamentary vote after a low turnout during the first round of voting earlier last week. The first round of vote held in 14 of Egypt’s 27 provinces last week garnered a voter turnout of just 26.6 percent and there was no immediate sign that more voters were casting their ballots on Tuesday. One polling station in the capital’s central district of Dokki saw 20 people vote in the hour after polling opened at 9:00 am (0700 GMT), a polling officer said. Only four candidates were elected in the first round of voting. The second round across 13 remaining provinces will be held on November 22-23. A run-off, if necessary, will be held on December 1-2. The previous general election held in late 2011, months after the ouster of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, saw a turnout of 62 percent.
The subsequent parliament, dominated by Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood, was dissolved in June 2012, days before the election of Mohamed Mursi as the country’s first freely elected civilian leader. Mursi was deposed a year later by then army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after mass street protests against his sole year in power. Sisi’s supporters expect the new 596-member parliament to rubber-stamp his decisions, while experts say it will largely work on its own agenda. “People are disappointed after so much political turmoil. The political system must take steps to encourage voting,” engineer Abdel Rahman Suweid said after casting his vote in Dokki.

Abbas asks EU to help calm surging violence
AFP, Brussels Tuesday, 27 October 2015/The European Union’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini met Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas late on Monday to discuss “concrete steps” to calm the surge of violence between Israelis and Palestinians. “We have a meeting tonight to discuss the ways EU can contribute to a de-escalation,” Mogherini said in brief comments before a working dinner. The EU’s diplomatic chief said she hoped the pair would discuss “concrete steps on the ground, including difficult ones, that can strengthen the Palestinians on an everyday basis”.The European Commission is the biggest provider of financial aid to the Palestinians, providing more than $6.19 billion to Abbas’ Palestinian Authority since 1994. Mogherini, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Berlin on Thursday, admitted there was “a certain degree of frustration” in Europe over the peace process, which collapsed in April 2014 amid bitter recriminations.
Abbas repeated his criticism of what he said was Israel’s “non-respect” for the rules at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound which is at the center of the recent wave of violence. “The situation in Palestine is extremely serious and grave and may even deteriorate. This is my fear,” he said. “The main reason is the feeling of disappointment (among) the young generation,” who feel there is “no hope,” Abbas said. Palestinians are wary of Israel of seeking to change the status-quo that allows Jews to visit, but not to pray there. Israel denies it has, or plans to, violate the rules. Stabbings and violent protests have become daily occurrences since simmering tensions over the compound boiled over in early October, leaving scores dead. Abbas urged a revival of peace negotiations, calling for Israel to halt settlement-building in the West Bank and prevent “incursions” on the al-Aqsa compound.

Israel air raid hits Gaza in response to rocket fire
By Staff writer Al Arabiya News Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Israel carried out an air strike against two Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip after a rocket was fired onto its territory on Monday night, the military said."In response to this evening's rocket fire, the IAF (Israeli Air Force) targeted two Hamas terror sites in Gaza," the military said on its Twitter account. It said the rocket had landed in an open area in the southern region of Shaar HaNegev, which borders Gaza, without causing any injuries.

ISIS executes three in Palmyra, destroys ancient columns
Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Agencies/The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant group executed three people in Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra by binding them to three historic columns and blowing them up, a monitoring group said Monday. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIS on Sunday “tied three individuals it had arrested from Palmyra and its outskirts to the columns... and executed them by blowing up” three columns. Since taking the city in May, ISIS have already destroyed many of its statues and two of its temples. In July, ISIS released a video showing a mass execution taking place in Palmyra's ancient amphitheater.

Iran’s Rowhani expects sanctions to be lifted by end of year
Reuters, Dubai Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Iranian President Hassan Rowhani said on Tuesday he expected nuclear sanctions against Tehran to be lifted by the end of the year, state news agency IRNA reported. “According to our plans, the oppressive sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran will be lifted by the end of 2015,” IRNA quoted Rowhani as saying during a ceremony to welcome the new Spanish ambassador to Tehran. In accordance with the historic nuclear deal struck between six world powers and Tehran, Iran will dramatically reduce its uranium enrichment program, surrender or dilute most of its highly enriched fuel and open its nuclear sites to inspectors from the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.''

Defense chief: U.S. to boost anti-ISIS attacks in Iraq, Syria
AFP, Washington Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Defense Secretary Ashton Carter on Tuesday said the United States will ramp up attacks on militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, with additional air strikes and even direct action on the ground. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carter said he expects more actions like the one last week that freed dozens of captives but left an American commando dead in Iraq. "We won't hold back from supporting capable partners in opportunistic attacks against ISIL, or conducting such missions directly, whether by strikes from the air or direct action on the ground," Carter said.He did not elaborate on what he meant by "direct action on the ground," and the Obama administration opposes committing U.S. ground forces to Syria. Carter said the United States would focus its efforts on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria and boost support for rebel groups fighting the jihadists. "We expect to intensify our air campaign, including with additional US and coalition aircraft, to target ISIL with a higher and heavier rate of strikes," Carter said, using an alternate name for ISIS. "This will include more strikes against ISIL high-value targets as our intelligence improves," he added.Carter's pledge to intensify strikes comes as the U.S.-led coalition has in fact been striking fewer targets in Syria in recent months. Pentagon officials insist the diminished tempo reflects a lack of decent targets, and has nothing to do with Russia launching its own bombing campaign a month ago.

France hosts Syria talks with allies on Tuesday
AFP, Paris Tuesday, 27 October 2015/France will host a meeting on the Syria crisis with Western and Arab allies later on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said. The "working dinner" at the French foreign office will include "the main partners engaged with France in dealing with the Syrian crisis: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, Germany, the United States, Italy and Britain," said Fabius in a statement.

Egyptians return to vote as election run-off begins
AFP, Cairo Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Egyptians returned to polling stations on Tuesday as a first round run-off got underway in a parliamentary vote after a low turnout during the first round of voting earlier last week.
The first round of vote held in 14 of Egypt’s 27 provinces last week garnered a voter turnout of just 26.6 percent and there was no immediate sign that more voters were casting their ballots on Tuesday. One polling station in the capital’s central district of Dokki saw 20 people vote in the hour after polling opened at 9:00 am (0700 GMT), a polling officer said. Only four candidates were elected in the first round of voting. The second round across 13 remaining provinces will be held on November 22-23. A run-off, if necessary, will be held on December 1-2. The previous general election held in late 2011, months after the ouster of longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, saw a turnout of 62 percent. The subsequent parliament, dominated by Islamists led by the Muslim Brotherhood, was dissolved in June 2012, days before the election of Mohamed Mursi as the country’s first freely elected civilian leader. Mursi was deposed a year later by then army chief Abdel Fattah el-Sisi after mass street protests against his sole year in power. Sisi’s supporters expect the new 596-member parliament to rubber-stamp his decisions, while experts say it will largely work on its own agenda. “People are disappointed after so much political turmoil. The political system must take steps to encourage voting,” engineer Abdel Rahman Suweid said after casting his vote in Dokki.

Turkish police detain 30 ISIS suspects in raid
AFP, Ankara Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Turkish police detained around 30 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) suspects in a dawn raid on Tuesday, a day after a deadly shootout with a group of them, local media reported. Police launched simultaneous operations against ISIS cell houses in the conservative central Anatolian city of Konya, the Dogan news agency reported, adding that the operation was ongoing. On Monday, two policemen and seven ISIS suspects were killed in a gun battle in the Kurdish majority city of Diyarbakir in the southeast of the country. Turkey, gearing up for elections on Sunday, has launched a hunt for ISIS extremists after blaming the group for a massive twin bomb attack in the capital Ankara this month that killed 102 people. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday vowed to press ahead with operations against all "terrorists" including ISIS and members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). Long criticized by its Western allies for not doing enough to stem the rise of the extremist group, Turkey launched air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria after a deadly bombing on a border town in July. But most of the firepower was concentrated on PKK fighters based in northern Iraq, rupturing a 2013 truce between Ankara and the rebels.'

Saudi warns investors in Egypt after double homicide
By Ismaeel Naar Al Arabiya News Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Saudi Arabia has warned its citizens in Egypt to follow official protocols and communicate with embassy personnel when conducting financial dealings in Egypt following the killing of a Saudi woman and her daughter. The Saudi embassy in Cairo released a statement earlier last week calling on Saudis in the North African country to be cautious in their financial dealings inside Egypt and to consult the embassy before investing. “It is imperative that people take this not as a warning against financial dealings but more so to take precautions when dealing with real estate purchases here and to keep an open communications with the embassy,” the head of Saudi’s embassy in Egypt’s press office told Al Arabiya News. “The statement released earlier last week should be taken as an advice following the murder of a Saudi women and her Kuwaiti daughter,” he added.
A 61-year-old Saudi woman and her 27-year-old daughter were found killed and thrown into a well in Upper Egypt’s Samalout city of Minya, according to a statement released by the Egyptian Ministry of Interior on Oct. 10. Initial investigations showed that an Egyptian male suspect, who had allegedly worked for his victims in Saudi Arabia, convinced the Saudi mother to buy an apartment in the Egyptian capital, as reported by Al Arabiya News. The woman and her daughter went to Cairo on Aug. 27 and were scheduled to return to Kuwait in September before they went missing. The village where they were found is 240 km from Cairo. When asked about the pending investigations into the killings, the head of the Saudi embassy press office said: “We cannot officially comment on the investigations as they are ongoing, but the proper procedures and protocols are currently being taken

An intolerable unimaginable heat forecast for Gulf
By AP, Washington Tuesday, 27 October 2015/If carbon dioxide emissions continue at their current pace, by the end of century parts of the Gulf will sometimes be just too hot for the human body to tolerate, a new study says.
How hot? The heat index — which combines heat and humidity — may hit 165 to 170 degrees (74 to 77 Celsius) for at least six hours, according to numerous computer simulations in the new study. That’s so hot that the human body can’t get rid of heat. The elderly and ill are hurt most by current heart waves, but the future is expected to be so hot that healthy, fit people would be endangered, health experts say. “You can go to a wet sauna and put the temperature up to 35 (Celsius or 95 degrees Fahrenheit) or so. You can bear it for a while, now think of that at an extended exposure” of six or more hours, said study co-author Elfatih Eltahir, an MIT environmental engineering professor. While humans have been around, Earth has not seen that type of prolonged, oppressive combination of heat and humidity, Eltahir said. But with the unique geography and climate of the Gulf and increased warming projected if heat-trapping gas emissions continue to rise at current rates, it will happen every decade or so by the end of the century, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change. This would be the type of heat that would make deadly heat wave in Europe in 2003 that killed more than 70,000 people “look like a refreshing day or event,” said study co-author Jeremy Pal of Loyola Marymount University. It would still be rare, and cities such as Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha wouldn’t quite be uninhabitable, thanks to air conditioning. But for people living and working outside or those with no air conditioning, it would be intolerable, said Eltahir and Pal. While Mecca won’t be quite as hot, the heat will likely still cause many deaths during the annual hajj pilgrimage, Eltahir said. “Some of the scariest prospects from a changing clime involve conditions completely outside the range of human experience,” Carnegie Institute for Science climate researcher Chris Field, who wasn’t part of the study, wrote in an email. “If we don’t limit climate change to avoid extreme heat or mugginess, the people in these regions will likely need to find other places to live.”Said Dr. Howard Frumkin, dean of the University of Washington school of public health, who wasn’t part of the research: “When the ambient temperatures are extremely high, as projected in this paper, then exposed people can and do die. The implication s of this paper for the Gulf region are frightening.”
But if the world limits future heat-trapping gas emissions — even close to the amount pledged recently by countries around the world ahead of climate talks later this year in Paris — that intolerable level of heat can be avoided, Eltahir said.

Saudi Arabia shuts down alcohol factories
Saudi Gazette, Riyadh Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Saudi Arabia’s National Anti-Drugs Committee has shut down four alcohol factories in different cities across the country.The committee’s general secretary Abdulilah Al-Shareef said the factories were in Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Al-Kharj. Alcoholic drinks produced in these factories were mixed with Dettol hygiene solution to change their color into something less distinguishable and were dosed with addictive chemicals similar to the ones in amphetamine drugs. The official added 56 percent of arrested drug dealers in Saudi Arabia are Saudi and 35 percent of them do not consume any drugs. Most drug addicts in the Gulf Kingdom are between the ages of 20 to 30. Riyadh had the highest drug addiction cases.

Saudi aid official wants Yemen ceasefire
Reuters, United Nations Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Saudi Arabia would like to see a ceasefire in Yemen to allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid, but it does not trust the Houthi militias to abide by such a truce, the head of a Saudi center that coordinates humanitarian assistance for Yemen said on Monday.
The Iranian-allied Houthis and forces loyal to former Yemen President Ali Abdullah Saleh seized the capital, Sanaa, a year ago. The Saudi-led coalition began bombing them in March in a bid to restore President Abdrabbu Mansour Hadi’s authority. A Saudi soldier stands guard as servicemen on a Saudi military cargo plane prepare to unload aid at the international airport of Yemen's southern port city of Aden. (Reuters) “From our previous experience the ceasefire was not acknowledged and it was violated,” Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, general supervisor of the five-month-old King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre, told reporters. “If there is a ceasefire it has to be a realistic ceasefire.”Several attempts at a humanitarian truce have failed with the warring parties blaming each other for violations.The United Nations has designated Yemen as one of its highest-level humanitarian crises, alongside emergencies in South Sudan, Syria and Iraq. It says more than 21 million people in Yemen need help, or about 80 percent of the population.
In a bid to increase commercial shipments to Yemen, U.N. aid chief Stephen O’Brien said the United Nations had come up with its mechanism to inspect any suspicious vessels approaching Yemen’s ports but was still trying to raise the $8 million needed for it to be operational.

Obama calls Saudi king to discuss regional developments
By Staff writer Al Arabiya News Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Saudi King Salman received a phone call from U.S. President Barack Obama on Tuesday, the Saudi state news agency SPA said. The leaders discussed "bilateral relations, the situation in the region, in addition to developments in the regional and international arenas,” SPA said.

Kuwait Emir urges reforms as income drops 60 percent
By AFP Tuesday, 27 October 2015/Kuwait’s ruler called on Tuesday for officials in the oil-rich state to seek alternative revenue sources and reduce public expenditure after state income dropped 60 percent due to a sharp slide in crude prices. Addressing parliament at the beginning of its new term, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah urged citizens to understand the new measures. “The decline in global oil prices has caused state revenues to drop by around 60 percent while spending remained without any reduction leading to a huge deficit,” the emir told lawmakers.He called for “speedy actions to adopt serious and fair measures to complete economic reforms... and reduce public expenditures.” “Any delay would only increase the budget deficit and make the cost (of reforms) higher,” the emir said. Oil prices have lost around 60 percent of their value since June 2014, hitting the coffers of energy-dependent countries like Kuwait. Oil income accounted for about 94 percent of Kuwait’s revenues during the past 16 years, when the emirate posted a budget surplus and piled up massive fiscal reserves of around $600 billion. The reserves are invested mostly abroad by the country’s sovereign wealth fund. The International Monetary Fund said in a report last week that under existing conditions, the reserves would be enough to last Kuwait for the next 23 years. But Sheikh Sabah said the government should avoid tapping the sovereign fund to finance the budget shortfall.

Donald Trump wishes Saddam, Qaddafi still ruled
By AFP, Washington Monday, 26 October 2015/The world would be a better place if dictators such as Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi were still in power, top Republican U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump said in comments aired Sunday. The billionaire real estate tycoon also told CNN's "State of the Union" talk show that the Middle East "blew up" around U.S. President Barack Obama and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, his biggest Democratic rival in the race for the White House. "100 percent," Trump said when asked if the world would be better off with Saddam and Qaddafi still at the helm in Iraq and Libya. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein speaking during a 1997 address marking the 76th anniversary of the Iraqi forces (File photo Reuters) Both strongmen committed atrocities against their own people and are now dead. Saddam, the former Iraqi president, was toppled in the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq and was executed in 2006. Qaddafi-- who ruled Libya for four decades -- was ousted and slain in October 2011 amid a NATO-backed uprising. "People are getting their heads chopped off. They're being drowned. Right now it's far worse than ever under Saddam Hussein or Qaddafi," Trump said. "I mean, look what happened. Libya is a catastrophe. Libya is a disaster. Iraq is a disaster. Syria is a disaster. The whole Middle East. It all blew up around Hillary Clinton and around Obama. It blew up."
Calling Iraq the "Harvard of terrorism," Trump said the country had turned into a "training ground for terrorists.""If you look at Iraq from years ago, I'm not saying he (Saddam) was a nice guy. He was a horrible guy but it's better than it is now," Trump said. He also said the United States should have taken Iraq's oil, saying it was now being bought by China, and also going to Iran and ISIS."They have plenty of money because they took the oil because we were stupid," he said of ISIS. "I said take the oil when we leave."
'Trump doctrine'
Trump said his foreign policy strategy would be centered around beefing up the U.S. military. "All I know is this: we're living in Medieval times ... We're living in an unbelievably dangerous and horrible world," he said. "The Trump doctrine is simple," he added. "It's strength. It's strength. Nobody is going to mess with us. Our military will be made stronger." Trump on Sunday also went after his Republican rival Ben Carson, who has surged past him in the closely watched, early-voting state of Iowa. According to a Bloomberg/Des Moines Register poll out Friday, Carson claims 28 percent support from likely voters in the Republican Iowa caucus, compared to 19 percent for Trump. It was the second poll in two days that had Carson knocking Trump off his perch in Iowa, an intensely fought-over state because it votes first in the lengthy U.S. nominating contests. "Ben Carson has never created a job in his life (well, maybe a nurse)," Trump tweeted of the retired pediatric neurosurgeon, a fellow political newcomer. "I have created tens of thousands of jobs, it's what I do." But Carson, who has cemented his support among Christian evangelicals, shrugged off Trump's darts in an interview with Fox News Sunday, saying, "I refuse to get into the mud pit." "He is who he is. I don't think that's going to change. And I am who I am. That's not going to change either," he said of Trump.
Surprise over Carson gains
In his interview with CNN, Trump acknowledged he was "surprised" by Carson's advance, calling an Iowa event he was at several days ago a "love fest.""I like Ben but he cannot do with trade like I do with trade. He can't do a lot of things like I do," Trump said, adding that Carson was also "very, very weak on immigration" and a "low energy person."A new CBS News 2016 "Battleground Tracker" poll out Sunday showed Trump and Carson tied in Iowa at 27 percent, with Trump holding onto double digit leads over the doctor in South Carolina and New Hampshire.The poll was based on 3,952 interviews done October 15-22, with the margins of error varying per state -- 6.5 percent in Iowa, 6.6 percent in New Hampshire and 5.3 percent in South Carolina.Alleging that President Barack Obama has "divided this country," Trump said that, in contrast, he would bring about bipartisanship. "I get along with everybody. I will be a great unifier for our country," he told CNN.

Saudi Writer Calls For Collaboration Between Jewish And Muslim Diasporas In Europe To Combat Attacks On Freedom Of Worship
MEMRI/October 27, 2015 Special Dispatch No.6199/Saudi columnist Hamad Al-Majed, who is also on the board of directors of the King 'Abdullah bin 'Abdulaziz International Centre for Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue (KAICIID), wrote in his September 2, 2015 column in the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat about possible cooperation between Muslims and Jews in the Westagainst the anti-Muslim campaign led by extremist right-wing Christians, and in light of Jewish fears that they will be the targets of a similar campaign. Al-Majed wondered whether such collaboration, which would benefit both diaspora communities, was feasible, or whether the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would interfere with actualizing such an idea.
The following are excerpts from his column: "For the first time in my 14 years of wandering among Western and [North and South] American countries... and attending conferences and workshops on [interfaith] dialogue, I have heard of the Jewish diaspora's fears about the murky future of its religious freedoms, as expressed by some of its leaders to some leaders of the Muslim diaspora in the West. "This fear stems not from new laws that directly target the freedoms of the Jewish diaspora, as happened to the Muslim diaspora when minaret construction was banned in Switzerland and the hijab was banned in France. It stems from [their concern that] the same laws that have targeted the Muslim diaspora in the West [may be applied to Jews]. Several Jewish leaders in the West have realized, as one prominent European Muslim leader told me... that anyone who bans the niqab will [in the future] ban the hijab, and eventually the Jewish yarmulke as well. [They also realized that] the ban on constructing minarets in Switzerland could be followed by restrictions on Jewish synagogues. Likewise, there is fear of a ban on [halal and] kosher meat for Muslims and Jews, on the pretext of hygiene. Several Jewish rabbis have also expressed fears of a ban on circumcision, based on the argument that the methods and implements used do not meet obligatory medical guidelines. "These rabbis also argue that the issue of bans could snowball with time. [They claim] that the long-term goal [of these bans] is not [to address]medical concerns but to harm the freedoms of religious minorities – Muslims, Jews, and others. [Such targeting] might also include public rituals, such as praying in public places on Fridays and holidays... as well as a ban on certain prayer times, and the list goes on and on... "Based on this new data and the shared challenges [faced by Muslims and Jews], the following questions arise: Will the leaders of the Muslim diaspora in the West have to take the unusual and unprecedented step of collaborating with the leaders of the Jewish diaspora... so that joint Muslim-Jewish action will help the Muslim diaspora end the racist action by the extreme rightwing and constitute a preemptive measure protecting the Jewish diaspora [as well]? Will Muslims benefit from the unrivalled powerful and influential Jewish lobby, and will the Jews benefit from the large number of Muslims and their many institutions and centers? Or will the eternal Arab-Israeli struggle over Palestine cast its heavy shadow on such a connection, such that each group will confront the extreme Christian right in its own way and with its own means?"

NSC opens office to oversee Iran deal implementation
Laura Rozen/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
The US National Security Council is joining the State Department in establishing a new office to oversee implementation of the Iran nuclear deal, to be headed by NSC Director for Nonproliferation Paul Irwin, a veteran of the US nuclear negotiating team, US officials tell Al-Monitor.
The new directorate signals the White House plans to play a lead role in the critical implementation phase of the landmark nuclear deal. It comes as the Obama administration has also tapped several veterans of the US-Iran nuclear negotiating team to play a continued role interacting with the Iranians on implementation issues. Among them, State Department senior arms control adviser James Timbie, and top State Department Iran sanctions coordinator Christopher Backemeyer, who, along with Irwin, were key members of the US team with firsthand experience negotiating the deal with the Iranians.
“The NSC is standing up a new directorate which will be focused on the implementation of the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action]” a senior US administration official told Al-Monitor in response to a query. “Successful implementation of the JCPOA is one of the president's top priorities and the new directorate will ensure continued focus on the issue,” the official said. “The new Implementation Directorate will be coordinating and working closely with Ambassador [Stephen] Mull's team at the State Department.” Irwin, a former NSC director of nonproliferation involved in the past two years of talks, is expected to have a number of staff working below him in the new directorate, and will work closely with Mull’s shop as well as with Timbie at State. Because of their experience with the Iranians, Timbie and Backemeyer will continue to participate in the State Department's interactions with the Iranians, sources said. The State Department last month announced former US Ambassador to Poland Stephen Mull to serve as the lead coordinator for Iran nuclear deal implementation, leading a small team at the State Department. Mull joined Ambassador Tom Shannon, who has been nominated to succeed Wendy Sherman as undersecretary of state for political affairs, at talks on implementing the deal in Vienna last week with Iran, the European Union and five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany. The deal entered its official “adoption” phase Oct. 18, 90 days after the UN Security Council passed a resolution endorsing the deal. Iran must take multiple agreed steps — including reduce the number of centrifuges at Natanz to 5,000, reduce its stockpile of low enriched uranium to 300 kilograms and remove the core of its uncompleted Arak plutonium reactor. When the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verifies those steps have been taken, the parties are expected to announce “implementation day” when the United States and European Union will lift nuclear-related sanctions. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a letter last week, said Iran will not ship out the bulk of its LEU stockpile to Russia or remove the Arak calandria until the IAEA issues a report on past suspected military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program. The IAEA has agreed to produce the report by Dec. 15.

What will Erdogan do if AKP fails again?
Kadri Gursel/Al-Monitor/October 27/15/Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political acumen is beyond dispute. It is already working wonders to spin the potential failure of his Justice and Development Party (AKP) in the Nov. 1 polls as a victory.In an Oct. 17 speech, Erdogan made it known he will claim a personal victory even if the AKP repeats its June 7 failure to win a parliamentary majority, as expected. Lashing out at opposition leaders for refusing to visit his newly built palace, often called the “illegal palace” for its dubious construction, he said, “May stones as big as the ‘illegal palace’ fall down your heads. ... Sooner or later, you’ll come — like lambs. You can’t help but come.”What could leave opposition leaders as helpless as lambs and make them go to the presidential palace? Becoming coalition partners or receiving the mandate to form the government, of course. The head of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Kemal Kilicdaroglu, must have also sensed he could be invited to the palace after the elections, for two days later he responded in kind: “Don’t you worry. He’ll give us the mandate willy-nilly.” So, what election result could make Erdogan acquiesce to the AKP entering into a coalition? If Turkey were a functioning democracy, the answer would be as simple as the AKP’s failure to win a parliamentary majority to form the government on its own. Yet, from the aftermath of the June 7 polls we know things don’t work that way. Although parliamentary arithmetic dictated a coalition government, Erdogan used his political clout to prevent its formation, taking Turkey to fresh elections in a bid to win back his one-party government. Hence, the result that could finally make Erdogan acquiesce to a coalition would be one that convinces him he has exhausted all his political tools and cannot pull it off, no matter what he tries. And this could happen only if the AKP gets less than the 40.8% it garnered June 7. Such an eventuality is likely to force Erdogan to seek a coalition between the AKP and the far-right Nationalist Action Party (MHP). He might have agreed to this formula after June 7 — of course, seeking early elections at first opportunity — had MHP leader Devlet Bahceli not put forward some tough preconditions. If a coalition becomes inevitable after Nov. 1, the MHP is Erdogan’s preferred choice.

The death of Yitzhak Rabin's legacy
Ben Caspit/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
Israel will mark the 20th anniversary of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination at the annual commemoration rally held at Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on Oct. 31. Former US President Bill Clinton is scheduled to speak at the event as is Israeli President Reuven Rivlin. The person who won’t be there is former Israeli President Shimon Peres.The resounding absence of Peres, Israel’s ninth president, symbolizes a transformative process in Israeli society over the last 20 years. The Israel of Rabin and Peres, of the Oslo Accord and the peace process, of optimism and hope is, alas, no longer. Israel 2015 — the Israel of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Education Minister Naftali Bennett and former Minister Avigdor Liberman — is an insular, unyielding, distrustful and sober state. Even the pursuit of a peace process is practically considered illegitimate. Oslo has become a four-letter word, and the current wave of terror is bringing out the basest instincts and rattling already tense nerves. Democracy is being weakened, radical elements are gainning strength and the fundamental values of the Jewish state are under constant attack.
In the first decade after Rabin's assassination, which occurred Nov. 4, 1995, the remnants of the Israeli peace camp fought over the “Rabin legacy.” Today, this legacy has been so thoroughly rewritten that little of importance remains from it. In the past, Rabin’s legacy stood for striving for peace and reconciliation between Israel and its neighbors from a position of military and inner strength. Today, a large majority of the Israeli public feels that there is no such thing as the Rabin legacy. That Peres will not be present at the main rally marking Rabin’s assassination has been met with almost total silence. Peres — who stood at Rabin’s side in the last minutes of his life, who sang the “Song of Peace” with him during the closing moments of the rally they attended that Nov. 4, who brought Rabin around to the Oslo process, who tried to continue along Rabin’s path but was halted — will make do this year with more marginal events commemorating the assassination. Peres has been pushed from center stage this year, as have the peace agreements signed by Rabin and the hope that Rabin tried to restore to the people.
At the end of the day, the camp opposed to Rabin, parts of which actively participated in the incitement against him in the last months of his life, was the camp that won. It took control of state leadership in the person of Benjamin Netanyahu, who won the elections conducted less than a year after Rabin's assassination, in May 1996. Afterward, in 2000, came the second intifada, which drowned hope. Now, the Israeli right has also taken control of the nation's collective memory. A representative of the right, President Rivlin, and even a representative of the religious Zionism that spawned Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir, will be at the Rabin Memorial Rally in the form of the moderate Rabbi Yuval Cherlow. Rabin’s “way of peace” will have no representative. Until now, Peres had addressed every memorial rally for Rabin. This year, however, several members of the Israeli Youth Movement Council, which organizes the event, rejected him. They felt that Peres’ presence would lend political overtones to the rally. Thus, the circle has been closed. The right wing's victory in Israel is complete. The way of peace has taken its last breath, along with Rabin.
It is important to remember, however, that the resounding defeat of the Israeli peace camp came about thanks to a partner: the murderousness of some Palestinians as reflected in the wave of suicide attacks that overwhelmed Israel after the Oslo Accord. This led to the rise of the right and the public's loss of trust in the possibility of achieving a real reconciliation with the Palestinians. Years after that came the “Arab Spring,” which turned the entire Middle East into a chaotic jungle where the only thing uniting its diverse components was hatred of Israel. With the current state of affairs, Israeli society has reacted to its environs with its conditioned, characteristic reflex. Rabin must certainly be turning in his grave. Only minutes before Amir’s three bullets in Rabin’s back put an end to the prime minister’s life, Rabin had been singing the “Song of Peace.” Since his departure, the sound of that song has been muted, just like calls for the hoped-for peace.
Since Rabin's assassination, a debate has been waged in Israel about what would have happened had Rabin not been killed. Each side has its own theory. The right is convinced that Rabin would have lost the elections to Netanyahu anyway, and nothing would have changed substantively. The left is convinced that Rabin would not have allowed terror to continue to run amok and would not have hesitated to suspend the peace process until acts of terror had been suppressed. Rabin was a pragmatic, security-oriented leader, a famed chief of staff for the Israel Defense Forces who opted for diplomatic negotiations, not out of love or esteem for the Arabs, but out of a sober, realistic assessment that such an agreement was in Israel’s best interest. In contrast to Peres — the hopeless optimist who dreamed of a “new Middle East” and nurtured relations of mutual trust with Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat — Rabin had no illusions. His handshake with Arafat in September 1993 on the White House lawn at the signing of the Oslo Accord almost cost him his health. Rabin’s dwindling adherents are convinced that he would have curbed terror, called Arafat to order, won the elections and completed the peace process.
Unfortunately, this debate can never be settled, and each side continues to stand by its version of “what if.” Meanwhile, what has been determined is the situation on the ground. Although some debate continues, the right has won this one. Peres is still convinced that the “way of peace won out.” He says that Netanyahu recognized the Oslo Accord when he carried out the withdrawal from Hebron in 1997 and when he signed the Wye River Memorandum in 1998. The ultimate proof to Peres is Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar Ilan speech, in which he accepted the principle of a two-state solution. The right, with its conviction in Greater Israel, had added its signature to the two-state principle. All that remains now, Peres believes, is to translate the speeches and agreements into reality on the ground. At the moment, however, reality is being uncooperative.
Right wingers grimace at Peres’ words, and there are many reasons for this. When the Oslo Accord was signed, some 110,000 Israeli settlers lived in Judea and Samaria. Today, there are about 400,000. According to the right, this situation is irreversible. No power in the world can evacuate such a large number of settlers. Everyone still remembers the harsh images from the 2005 Gaza disengagement, implemented by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, during which some 8,600 Jews were evicted from their homes. As the end of 2015 approaches, Israelis and Palestinians are joined at the hip in a way that makes it impossible to disentangle the intricate Gordian knot that connects them. The number of supporters of the two-state solution on both sides is steadily decreasing with time. In Israel and the Palestinian territories, the “one-state” concept has gained traction, albeit in two different forms, a Palestinian and an Israeli version. Only Peres continues to have hope, in the depths of his heart, for a miracle, that someone like a modern-day Alexander the Great will emerge with a huge sword to cut the Gordian knot. Perhaps it is because of this that he is on the margins and will observe from the outside the gathering commemorating his partner Rabin, who was murdered by a Jew in one of the most successful political assassinations of the modern era.
**Ben Caspit is a columnist for Al-Monitor's Israel Pulse. He is also a senior columnist and political analyst for Israeli newspapers, and has a daily radio show and regular TV shows on politics and Israel. On Twitter: @BenCaspit

Why Kerry is prioritizing Syria over Israeli-Palestinian peace
Laura Rozen/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
Washington — US Secretary of State John Kerry returned Oct. 25 from a five-day trip to Europe and the Middle East focused on advancing a diplomatic process for Syria that is seen as an increasingly urgent priority for some of the United States' closest allies in Europe and the region. While Kerry also met with Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian leaders on the trip and proposed measures to try to restore calm, diplomats and current and former officials saw little chance of the United States embarking on a new Israel-Palestine peace push because chances for progress are seen to be so limited and because the urgency of ending the 4½-year-old Syrian war, countering the threat posed by the Islamic State and stemming the Syrian refugee influx have become top national security priorities, especially for Europe.Syria, for the US, for Europe … is the next priority,” Ghaith al-Omari, an expert on Palestinian issues at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al-Monitor Oct. 26. “Syria has become such a central point [especially] for the Europeans, I don’t see any oxygen for dealing with anything else.”“On the Israel-Palestinian front, I don’t see any potential for any progress between [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu on the one hand and [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud] Abbas on the other,” Omari said. “There is no sense if you start anything that these two leaders will play ball.”
of urgency,” Kerry told reporters after a meeting with the Russian, Saudi and Turkish foreign ministers in Vienna Oct. 23. He said there will likely be a bigger follow-up meeting as early as Oct. 30 in Paris, which will include more parties. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed that Egypt and Iran, among others, be included in follow-up talks. “Our position first of all is to get the Syrians to sit down at the negotiating table and, second, to establish a reliable and representative support group in which many more countries would take part than have done so today,” Lavrov told reporters after the Vienna meeting Oct. 23. “We have singled out Iran and Egypt as they can have an impact on the situation. Their absence does not promote this process.”Iranian officials did not yet respond to queries whether they expected to attend the Paris meeting. Lavrov spoke with Iran Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif about the Syria consultations on Oct. 24 and Oct. 26, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. Oman’s foreign minister also held a rare meeting with Sryia’s Bashar al-Assad in Damascus Oct. 26 on how to advance a political process for ending the conflict. A likely consideration would be if Saudi Arabia accepts being in multilateral talks on Syria that would include Iran, or if there are alternative ideas for working around the impasse — for instance, holding talks with some of the parties in different rooms.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, speaking in Cairo on Oct. 25, said there had been some progress in narrowing positions between the parties on their visions for a Syria process.
“I believe that there has been some progress, and positions have moved closer on finding a solution to the Syrian crisis, but I cannot say that we have reached an agreement,” Jubeir said at a press conference with the Egyptian foreign minister in Cairo Oct. 25. “We still need more consultations … to reach this point.”While there seems to be growing momentum for a Syria political track, the Israeli-Palestinian issue has largely been relegated to the back burner. Kerry, speaking in Jordan Oct. 24, announced that Israel had accepted Jordanian King Abdullah’s proposal to install cameras on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount as one measure to try to reduce tensions. Netanyahu, in a statement that evening, reiterated that Israel was not seeking to change the status quo at the site, under which Muslims could pray there but non-Muslims could visit. Whether such measures will be sufficient to reduce the violence remains to be seen.
Ilan Goldenberg, a former aide to former State Department Middle East peace envoy Martin Indyk, said the US administration does not see opportunities for a major Israel-Palestine peace push, but would need to take steps even for the more limited goal of trying to prevent a new major outbreak of violence.
There is “not a grand plan right now for a big move to a new [Israel-Palestine peace] process,” Goldenberg, now with the Center for New American Security, told Al-Monitor Oct. 26.
There is a sense “on all sides … right now, there is no opening for serious [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations, but American policy should be to try to take effective steps to preserve [a two-state] solution for later on,” he said. Even that more limited policy goal would likely require “a series of steps to deter and prevent the worst outcomes and another major cycle of violence, the collapse of the Palestinian Authority and the types of settlement activity that would make it impossible later on to pursue a two-state solution.”Regarding some reports alleging that Kerry may have discouraged a meeting between Netanyahu and Abbas, Goldenberg said he wasn’t aware if that was the case, but noted the two men don’t like or trust each other, and nothing good was likely to come out of such a meeting. “They have only met a few times, and they don’t like each other,” he said. “From past experience … the US has been hesitant about putting them together.”“I doubt there is such a thing,” Omari said, referring to a proposed Netanyahu-Abbas meeting. While “Netanyahu always talks [about how] he is willing to meet Abbas ‘anytime, anywhere,’ [Abbas] is not too keen on a meeting [that would be] used by Netanyahu to say things are fine, when they are not. It would be politically costly, if there are no deliverables. Lose, lose.”

Is Russian intervention in Syria pushing 'moderate jihadis' toward Islamic State?
Metin Gurcan/Al-Monitor/October 27/15
Over the past two years, military operations in Iraq and Syria have shown the Islamic State to be an effective and lethal offensive war machine. In Al-Monitor in October 2014, I stressed that the effectiveness of IS' tactical offensive capabilities was due to its preservation of operational momentum at all costs and at every level. With Russia’s military intervention and high-paced operations with the Syrian army, the current issue is whether this situation might be changing. International news is laden with optimistic reports and forecasts that IS' offensives are losing momentum, that the tactical military scene is one of stalemate and that with the much-anticipated siege of Raqqa, the end of IS could actually be near.Many military analysts, however, are warning against underestimating IS' defensive capacity. In “The Islamic State Digs In,” Jessica Lewis McFate does so by examining the situation in Mosul this year. According to McFate, Russian military intervention in Syria and its intention to expand its theater of operations toward Iraq might end up strengthening IS.
Can Kasapoglu, a security analyst with the Istanbul-based Center for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies, also believes the defensive potential of IS should not be overlooked. He told Al-Monitor, “First of all, I don't see [IS] as the primary objective of the current Russian-backed Syrian offensive. Nevertheless, in such a case, we would have to monitor the terrorist group's key tactical hybrid capabilities that could render the regime's as well as the Russians' armor and close-air-support superiorities ineffective. Put simply, given [IS'] advanced military planning, I don't see them maneuvering captured tanks and armored vehicles in open terrain when facing Russian Su-25 aircraft and Hind gunships.” In short, IS would probably depend on advanced, shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank guided missiles, which it has demonstrated it can use proficiently. Its unpredictable methods, especially suicide bombings, could be effective in striking key lines of communication and the rear areas of any offensive launched against it.
Kasapoglu further asserted, “Geopolitically, the major aim of an IS defensive campaign would probably be on pulling the regime, and the Russians, into deeper territory to require logistical support, to reduce air platforms' on-station times and to create targets of opportunity due to overstretched lines of communication.”To grasp how IS might defend itself in Syria, Al-Monitor spoke in Istanbul with representatives of Syrian “moderate jihadi” groups and Salafi noncombatants who sympathize with IS. Russia’s military intervention appears to have motivated it to formulate two basic approaches. The first is to concentrate its forces at Raqqa and defend the town to the end, as it has in Mosul. Raqqa's importance lies in its spiritual value, as the capital of the Abbasid caliphate before Baghdad, and even more so in its position as the geostrategic junction where all roads in Syria meet. According to Istanbul-based opposition figures, this posture is preferred in particular by the Arab nationalists and former Baathist cadres in IS.
Proponents of the second approach believe it would be a strategic mistake to concentrate forces at Raqqa and instead suggest expanding the front to avoid being overwhelmed and overrun. An expanded front would offer enemy planes fewer concentrated targets and would force the enemy to extend its supply lines, enabling IS fighters to hit behind enemy front lines. Chechen, Turkish, Uighur and Uzbek fighters are advocating this approach. Some of them also back supporting moderate jihadis, such as Ahrar al-Sham, Liwa al-Tawhid, some Army of Conquest factions, the Islamic Front and Turkmen Salafi groups fighting at Aleppo and Latakia. Other factions have more grandiose goals and question why some 2,000 IS fighters — mostly from Central Asia, Chechnya, Turkey and Turkistan — were killed in a place such as Kobani, which holds little strategic value. They advocate taking the jihad to Central Asia, Russia and Uighur territories and even to Europe and America. In short, the mistake of massing fighters as in Kobani to fight along a static front line made IS fighters easy targets for aerial bombardment.
Among those who favor an expanded front line by giving priority to supporting jihadis at Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Idlib and Latakia is Muslim Shishani, the Chechen leader of the Jund al-Sham, a group of soldiers of Caucasian origin fighting around Latakia. Shishani told Al Jazeera Turk, “Many Caucasian brothers who were in [IS] want to leave and move to the Latakia region. Fronts [such] as Raqqa and Aleppo will have no significance in a ground war against the Russians. The real war will be on [the] Tartus-Latakia front line. Jihad must be moved to that area.”Those adhering to this mindset obviously subscribe to a more expanded defensive concept. One moderate jihadi, Murat K., who requested that his full name not be used, said the Russian intervention is turning the IS-led jihad into a global one. Murat coordinates a charity organization in Istanbul for the families of moderate jihadis fighting in Syria. “Foreign fighters in IS are openly saying that the mistake of Kobani must not be repeated. We have to unite with other groups in Syria and spread jihad to the entire world, above all, Russia,” he said. This and similar statements illustrate one hard truth: Russia's intervention and its bombing of non-IS targets is encouraging jihadi groups to identify with IS. In other words, Russia is promoting the formation of a massive, Sunni jihadi coalition under the IS umbrella in Syria and Iraq. Osman A. is former director of an Istanbul-based nongovernmental organization providing humanitarian assistance to Syrians of Sunni origin. According to him, Saudi Islamist scholars have already declared jihad against Russia, and Al-Azhar in Cairo will soon issue a similar declaration. Russian intervention has erased the distinction between global and local jihads, he claimed. Ahmet, who asked that his full name not be revealed, is a Chechen moderate jihadi who fought in Syria but returned to Istanbul because of health problems. He shared his perspective with Al-Monitor, asserting, “We are awaiting the US reaction to Russia’s approach of putting [IS] and all moderate jihadi groups into one basket and labeling them terrorists. It is obvious that the US is still confused about the issue and can’t decide what to do. If the US declares all moderates terrorists, as Russia does, and takes them on militarily, then everyone will unite under the [IS] banner.”Will IS decide to defend Raqqa to the end or to take the war to Aleppo, Hama, Homs, Idlib and Latakia or to expand the fight to the wider world by uniting moderate jihadis? The IS leadership has not yet decided which course to take because it first wants to see if the United States will stand with Russia. If IS can defend Raqqa against a Russian offensive, aid moderate jihadis in western Syria and then spread conflict outside Syria, its ideology could emerge as the dominant force, even if militarily degraded, triggering a global Sunni mobilization in support of it.

Ending a Century of Palestinian Rejectionism
Daniel Pipes/Washington Times/October 27, 2015
[N.B.: WT title: "A century of Palestinian hatred of Jews: Repudiating the first mufti's hostility to decency is the only way forward"]
Palestinians are on the wrong track and will not get off it until the outside world demands better of them.
News comes every year or two of a campaign of violence spurred by Palestinian political and religious leaders spreading wild-eyed conspiracy theories (the favorite: Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is under threat). A spasm of unprovoked violence against Israelis then follows: rocket attacks from Gaza, car-rammings in Israel proper, stone-throwing in the West Bank, street stabbings in Jerusalem. Eventually the paroxysm peters out, only to start up again not too much later.
Amin al-Husseini remained at the heights of power for decades. He represented "Palestine" at the Bandung Conference in April 1955, praying (bottom) along with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (top, in head covering), Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt (middle, facing camera), and Imam Ahmad of Yemen (right, facing camera).
True, these bouts of violence bring some gains to the Palestinians; in the United Nations, in faculty lounges, and on the streets of Western cities they win support against Israel. Each round ends, however, with the Palestinians in a worse place in terms of dead and wounded, buildings destroyed and an economy in tatters.
Further, their immoral and barbaric actions harden Israeli opinion, making the prospect of concessions and compromise that much less likely. The cheery Israeli hopes of two decades ago for a "partner for peace" and a "New Middle East" long ago gave way to a despair of finding acceptance. As a result, security fences are going up all over, even in Jerusalem, to protect Israelis who increasingly believe that separation, not cooperation, is the way forward.
It may be exhilarating for Palestinians to watch UNESCO condemn Israel for this and that, as it just did, but its actions serve more as theater than as practical steps toward conflict resolution.
Whence comes this insistence on self-defeating tactics?
It dates back nearly a century, to the seminal years 1920-21. In April 1920, as a gesture to the Zionists, the British government created a region called "Palestine" designed to be the eventual "national home for the Jewish people"; then, in May 1921, it appointed Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) as mufti of Jerusalem, a dreadful decision whose repercussions still reverberate today.
Husseini harbored a monstrous hostility toward Jews; as Klaus Gensicke puts it in his important 2007 study, The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis, Husseini's "hatred of Jews knew no mercy and he always intervened with particular zeal whenever he feared that some of the Jews could escape annihilation." Toward this end, he initiated an uncompromising campaign of rejectionism – the intent to eliminate every vestige of Jewish presence in Palestine – and used any and all tactics toward this foul end.
The Dome of the Rock pre-mufti, about 1875. Note the general abandonment and disrepair.
For example, he can be largely held responsibility for the Middle East's endemic antisemitism, having spread the antisemitic forgery Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the blood libel, and Holocaust denial throughout the region. His other legacies include making Jerusalem into the flashpoint it remains today; spreading many of the anti-Zionist conspiracy theories that afflict the Middle East; and being one of the first Islamists to call for jihad.
He encouraged and organized unprovoked violence against the British and the Jews, including a three-year long intifada in 1936-39. Then he worked with the Nazis, living in Germany during the war years, 1941-45, proving so useful that he earned an audience with Hitler. Nor was this a courtesy visit; as Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu correctly pointed out on Oct. 20, Husseini had a central role in formulating the Final Solution that led eventually to the murder of six million Jews.
Husseini tutored his then-young relative, the future Yasir Arafat, and Arafat faithfully carried out the mufti's program for 35 years, after which his apparatchik Mahmoud Abbas keeps the legacy alive. In other words, Husseini's rejectionism still dominates the Palestinian Authority. In addition, he spent the post-war years in Egypt, where he influenced the Muslim Brotherhood whose its Hamas spin-off also bears his hallmark rejectionism. Thus do both principal Palestinian movements pursue his murderous and self-defeating methods.
Only when the Palestinians emerge from the cloud of Husseini's dark legacy can they begin to work with Israel rather than fight it; build their own polity, society, economy, and culture rather than try to destroy Israel's; and become a positive influence rather than the nihilistic force of today.
And how will that happen? If the outside world, as symbolized by UNESCO, stops encouraging the Palestinians' execrable behavior and impeding Israeli defenses against it. Only when Palestinians realize they will not be rewarded for homicidal conduct will they stop their campaign of violence and start to come to terms with the Jewish state.
**Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the Middle East Forum. © 2015 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.

Sweden: It Is Considered Racism Only If the Victims Are Not White
Ingrid Carlqvist/Gatestone Institute/October 27/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6760/sweden-victims-racism
Translation of the original text: Sverige: Vita offer betraktas inte som rasism
Translated by Maria Celander
"Then he stuck his sword in my friend's belly. One student started screaming but we all still thought it was a prank." — Student, quoted in Expressen.
After the double murders at IKEA, there were no such discussions. We have yet to hear anyone condemn the racist motive of the IKEA murderer, Abraham Ukbagabir. When questioned by the police, he said that he had chosen his victims because they "looked Swedish."
What does Sweden's Prime Minister hope to achieve by condemning all violence from Swedes, but ignoring all violence from immigrants?
Just last week in Sweden, six would-be housing facilities for asylum seekers were set ablaze.
There is the risk that as Swedes become more and more convinced that no one speaks for them, they may feel an increasing need to take matters into their own hands.
"Once the lid blows in Sweden, it will happen with much larger force." — Hans Davidsen-Nielsen, editorial columnist for the Danish daily, Politiken.
On Thursday, October 22, Sweden was shocked by yet another act of madness apparently connected to multiculturalism.
Anton Lundin Pettersson, 21, dressed in a black coat and Darth Vader helmet, and armed with a sword and a knife, entered the Kronan school in Trollhättan and started killing. By the time the police shot him down, he had killed one person and wounded three others severely. One of the wounded later died in the hospital.
In many respects, the attack was similar to the one in the Västerås IKEA on August 10 -- random people killed because of the color of their skin. In IKEA, whites were killed by a black assailant; at the school, blacks were killed by a white assailant.
The reaction, however, was completely different. After IKEA, there was dead silence. But this school attack is all over the news. A white perpetrator killing black victims is apparently considered far worse than a black perpetrator killing white victims.
Like most schools in Sweden, the doors of the Kronan school, which has many Somali students, are open to the public. A few minutes after 10 am, Anton Lundin Pettersson, a native Swede with no criminal record, took a knife and a sword into Kronan, and began attacking people. Pettersson's first victim was a teaching assistant, Lavin Eskandar, 20, who according to witnesses, tried to protect students but was attacked. He managed to stagger out into the schoolyard before he collapsed and died.
As Pettersson continued his tour of the school, he seemed particular in his choice of victims. One student, thinking Pettersson was dressed for Halloween, even persuaded him to pose for a picture with her two friends on either side. Expressen, a daily, interviewed two students who were in one of the classrooms Pettersson visited. One girl described the horror:
"We saw him through the glass wall and thought it was a prank. He knocked on the door. My friend opened it. He walked into the classroom and checked us all out. Then he stuck his sword in my friend's belly. One student started screaming but we all still thought it was a prank. When we saw the blood spurt, we ran to the side. There is a small room next to the classroom, so everyone ran there."
The police arrived quickly. Two minutes later, they located Pettersson, and when he tried to attack them, they opened fire. Pettersson, hit in the chest, died in the hospital a few hours later.
The next day, the police held a press conference. In security camera footage, Pettersson can be seen marching in school halls. He left light-skinned students alone but attacked blacks. One of the victims, Ahmed Hassan, 15, died in the hospital. Two other victims, a 15-year-old student and a 41-year-old teacher, are hospitalized with severe injuries; according to reports, their condition is now stable.
Even though there is no one to bring to justice, the police are continuing their investigation, to try to establish his motive.
The police also said at the press conference that they had found a suicide note of sorts in the murderer's apartment. The exact wording has not been made public, but according to the police, the letter makes it clear that Pettersson wanted to stop immigration, and that "he did not feel that Sweden is being governed correctly." Policeman Niclas Hallgren said the letter indicated that the act was planned:
"It says that the perpetrator intends to go to the location in question and carry out the attack. It says that this will be done and that the end result may be the death of the perpetrator. ... We know that the perpetrator was prepared to end his life there and then, but I cannot go into details about how he saw this happening."
Although everyone has condemned the attack, the internet is also crowded with people questioning the huge difference on how the "establishment" has been reacting. After the IKEA murders, the Swedish government did not make a single public statement, not even to mourn the family's loss. But as soon news broke of the school attack, Prime Minister Stefan Löfven dropped everything and went to Trollhättan to condemn the slaughter, calling it "a black day for Sweden."
Newscasts and television debates were devoted to the attack, and focused on the racist motive. After the double murder at IKEA, there were no such discussions. We have yet to hear anyone condemn the racist motive of IKEA killer, Abraham Ukbagabir, a migrant from Eritrea.
When he was indicted last week, it was revealed that Ukbagabir told police he chose his victims, Carola and Emil Herlin, because they "looked Swedish." According to the forensic psychiatric evaluation, Ukbagabir is "completely self-absorbed and views other people only as a means to meet his own goals."
The double murder he committed was apparently an act of revenge. According to the police report, he said he had felt unfairly treated -- he thought he would get to stay in Sweden. He viewed Sweden as his homeland and "if an enemy disturbs you, you have no choice but to defend yourself." The rejection, he told the police, had made him feel like a criminal, and he was angry, offended and disappointed.
After Abraham Ukbagabir (left), a migrant from Eritrea, murdered two people in an IKEA because they "looked Swedish," Prime Minister Stefan Löfven had nothing to say. After Anton Lundin Pettersson attacked dark-skinned students at a school in Trollhättan, murdering two people, Löfven rushed to the school to condemn the slaughter.
One of the people who reacted strongly to the fundamentally different way these two acts of murder were publicly handled is the blogger Fredrik Antonsson. In a post entitled, "Us and Them," he writes:
"Sweden is in shock. The tragedy in Trollhättan is all over the news... It is all people are talking about, writing about, thinking about ... everyone is trying to understand why. Why? Racism. Intolerance. We can already see the contours of an insane act where... 'us against them' was the primary motive. Another illusion of Sweden gone -- the illusion that this is a safe, protected country where things like this do not happen. Another question spinning around the internet is why [Prime Minister] Stefan Löfven values people differently. It only takes a little googling to realize that the country's Prime Minister is present and compassionate when it suits him, and completely absent when it doesn't feel right to step forward and condemn the unprovoked, racist violence at an IKEA store.... There is, of course, the argument that atrocities at a school are always worse than any other act of meaningless violence. But by his not dealing with Västerås but dealing with Trollhättan, Löfven has now created an image of caring, but selectively."
The question is: What does Löfven hope to achieve with an agenda of condemning all violence from native Swedes, but ignoring violence from immigrants? He and his advisors probably think that acts such as the racist attack at the school in Trollhättan will make Swedes tone down their criticism of immigration policy, and bow their heads in shame because "all Swedes are racists." There is a great risk, though, that the reaction will be the opposite -- that as Swedes become more and more convinced that no one speaks for them, they will feel an increasing need, to take matters into their own hands if they want to change things. Just last week in Sweden, six would-be housing facilities for asylum seekers were set ablaze: on October 13 in Arlöv, October 17 in Ljungby, October 18 in Kungsbacka, October 20 in Munkedal, October 20 in Upplands Väsby and October 22 in Perstorp. Another fire broke out on Friday, October 23, in Eskilstuna. Fortunately, the buildings were all empty, so no one was hurt.
There is now an imminent danger that the school attack and the torched asylum housing facilities may be followed by many other, possibly worse, criminal acts.
After the IKEA murders, hundreds of Swedes wrote emails and letters to the government, demanding that they do something about the violence against native Swedes in Sweden. The replies contained nothing of any value.
According to editorial columnist Hans Davidsen-Nielsen, of the Danish daily Politiken: "Let us not forget that Sweden has a history of political extremism and violence, expressed among other things through the murders of a Prime Minister [Olof Palme] and a Minister for Foreign Affairs [Anna Lindh]. The climate of debate is cruder in Denmark, but once the lid blows in Sweden, it will happen with much larger force."
**Ingrid Carlqvist is a journalist based in Sweden, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute.

Turkey Is on the Path to Rogue Dictatorship
Daniel Pipes/National Review Online/October 26/15
Should President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AK Party not win a majority of seats in the Nov. 1 vote, the mainstream media hold that his power will diminish. The headline of a much-circulated Reuters analysis sums up this view: "Erdoğan seen with little choice but to share power after Turkish vote." Agence France-Presse predicts that winning less than half the seats "would again force [the AKP] to share power or call yet another election." Almost identically, Middle East Online sees this situation forcing the AKP "to share power or organise yet another election." And so on, almost invariably including the words "share power."
The Supreme Election Board (Yüksek Seçim Kurulu) oversees voting in Turkey; will it be forced to rig the election on Nov. 1?
But what if Erdoğan chooses not to share power? He then has two options. If the results are close, election fraud is a distinct possibility; reports suggest sophisticated software (think Volkswagen) to skew the results.
If the results are not close, Erdoğan can sideline the parliament, the prime minister, the other ministers, and the whole damn government. This sidelining option, which the press ignores as a possibility, follows directly from Erdoğan's past actions. Since he left the prime ministry in August 2014 to become Turkey's president, he has diminished his old office, depriving it of nearly all authority. He turned it over to a professorial foreign-policy theorist with no political base, Ahmet Davutoğlu, and controls him so tightly that Davutoğlu cannot even decide on his own aides (who also double as Erdoğan's informants).
At the same time, Erdoğan built himself a 1,005-room presidential palace housing a staff of 2,700 which constitutes a bureaucracy that potentially can take over the other ministries of state, leaving a seemingly unchanged government in place that behinds the scenes follows orders from the palace.
Turkey's President Erdoğan (l) gives Prime Minister Davutoğlu (r) his marching orders.
Erdoğan will surely sideline parliament as well; not by turning it into a grotesque North Korea-style rubber-stamp assembly but into an Egypt- or Iran-style body consumed with secondary matters (school examinations, new highways) while paying close heed to wishes of the Big Boss.
Then, to complete his takeover, he will deploy his many tools of influence to control the judiciary, the media, corporations, the academy, and the arts. He will also shut down private dissent, especially on social media, as suggested by the many lawsuits he and his cronies have initiated against ordinary citizens who dare criticize him.
At this point, the Hugo Chávez/Vladimir Putin of Turkey, the one who compared democracy to a trolley ("You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off") will truly have arrived at his destination. As a reward, he may even declare himself the caliph of all Muslims.
Returning to the present: The number of AKP seats in parliament hardly matters because Erdoğan will do what it takes, legally or illegally, to become the new sultan. He will not have to "share power," but will seize more power by hook (sidelining parliament) or crook (electoral fraud). Foreign capitals need to prepare for the unpleasant likelihood of a rogue dictatorship in Turkey.
http://www.danielpipes.org/16242/turkey-on-the-path-to-rogue-dictatorship

Turkey's Thugocracy
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/October 27/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6670/turkey-thugocracy
As in 1908-1912, journalists are at the center of the government's rage.
"They [journalists from Turkey's leading newspaper, Hurriyet] had never had a beating before. Our mistake was that we never beat them in the past. If we had beaten them..." — Abdurrahim Boynukalin, Member of Parliament from the governing AKP Party.
Last week, Ahmet Hakan, Hurriyet's popular columnist, who has 3.6 million Twitter followers, was beaten by four men, three of whom happened to be AKP members. Hakan had to undergo surgery. Of the seven men involved in allegedly planning and carrying out the attack, six were immediately released.
The mob confessed to the police that they had been commissioned to beat Hakan on orders from important men in the state establishment, including the intelligence agency and "the chief."
Hundreds of Turkish and Western politicians have publicly condemned the attack on Hakan. Except President Erdogan. Hardly surprising.
In 1908, the Ottoman Empire, under the new name of The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), transformed into an autocratic establishment openly threatening its critics, especially journalists. In 1910, three prominent journalists, Hasan Fehmi, Ahmet Samim and Zeki Bey, who were leading opponents of the regime, were murdered. Several other journalists were beaten by thugs commissioned by the CUP.
In the election three years later, when the party lost its parliamentary majority, its leaders declared that election null and void. Soon mobs, often holding batons in their hands, "guarded" ballot boxes. Miraculously, the CUP vote rose to 94 percent! Victory, however, did not bring good fortune to the party. Its leaders would eventually have to flee the country.
More than a century later, in 2015, Turkey's new autocratic regime, the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since it came to power in 2002. Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan practically declared the polls null and void, as in 1911, and called for renewed elections on Nov. 1. And just as in 1908-1912, journalists are at the center of the government's rage.
On September 6 and 8, 2015, the offices and printing works of Turkey's biggest daily, Hurriyet, were pelted with stones by hundreds of club-wielding fans of Erdogan. Video footage from the September 6 attack shows a Member of Parliament from the governing AKP Party, Abdurrahim Boynukalin, leading the mob. In a fierce speech in front of the newspaper's building, Boynukalin vowed that the Dogan media company [which owns Hurriyet] will "get the hell out of Turkey" when Erdogan will have additional executive powers "whatever the electoral outcome on November 1 will be."
Abdurrahim Boynukalin (center of left image), a Turkish Member of Parliament from the ruling AKP Party, leads a mob in front of the offices of Hurriyet newspaper, September 6, 2015. At right, the shattered windows of the building's lobby, after the mob hurled stones.
Other video footage showed Boynukalin speaking to the same mob that attacked Hurriyet. Referring to Hurriyet columnist Ahmet Hakan [and to Hurriyet's editor-in-chief, Sedat Ergin], Boynukalin says: "They had never had a beating before. Our mistake was that we never beat them in the past. If we had beaten them..."
Well, last week, Hakan was beaten by four men, three of whom happened to be AKP members. The popular columnist, who has 3.6 million followers on Twitter, had to undergo surgery for his broken nose and ribs. Members of the group confessed to the police that they had been commissioned by a former police officer to beat Hakan on orders from important men in the state establishment, including the intelligence agency and "the chief." Of the seven men involved in plotting and carrying out the attack on Hakan, six were immediately released.
It remains a mystery who "the chief" is. It is highly unlikely that police will find any evidence that the attack was ordered by the AKP or by any of its senior members. Nor will any police or intelligence officer be indicted for ordering it.
Pro-Erdogan and pro-AKP vigilantism is increasingly popular among the party's thuggish Islamist loyalists. Columnist Mustafa Akyol writes:
"[I]t is already worrying that the culture of political violence, which has dark precedents in Turkish history, is once again showing its ugly face ... the campaign of hate that is going on in the pro-government media (and social media) inevitably calls for it. Deep down, the problem is that the AKP era, which began as a modest initiative for reform, has recently recast its mission as a historic 'revolution.' Just as in the French Revolution, it demonized the 'ancien régime' and the 'reactionaries' that supposedly hearken back to it. And now, just as in French Revolution, we see these 'Jacobin' ideas taking form in the streets in the hands of the vulgar 'sans-culottes.'"
Since the beginning of the 20th century, Turkey has seen a collapsed empire, the birth of a modern state, a one-party administration, multi-party electoral system, several elections, three military coups, civil strife along political and ethnic lines, oppression by one ideology or another and dozens of political leaders. But one feature of Turkey's political culture persistently remains: Violence.
President Erdogan is probably not too unhappy. He may think that the deeper the political polarization, the stronger his loyalists will feel attached to him. Hundreds of Turkish and Western politicians have publicly condemned the attack on Hakan. Except Erdogan. Hardly surprising.
*Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

Debate In Saudi Arabia Following Saudi Clerics' Call For Jihad Against Russian Forces In Syria
By: N. Mozes*/MEMRI/October 26, 2015 Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No.1197
Introduction
Russia's increasing military involvement in Syria, which constitutes another lifeline for the Bashar Al-Assad regime, is of great concern to Saudi Arabia, which together with Turkey and Qatar is leading the battle against this regime. However, Saudi Arabia is taking a cautious approach on this matter, due to its desire to preserve its relations with Russia, which have warmed over the past year. While the Saudi ambassador to the UN condemned the Russian airstrikes in Syria and called for them to be stopped,[1] in an interview with the London-based Saudi daily Al-Hayat on October 1, 2015, Saudi Foreign Minister 'Adel Al-Jubeir said that despite its disagreements with Russia on Syria and Iran, the kingdom was aiming for closer political and economic ties with it.[2]
In contrast, 55 Saudi clerics, many of them known to be Muslim Brotherhood (MB) supporters, had a much harsher response to the Russian military intervention in Syria. On October 2, several days after Russia began conducting the airstrikes against targets in Syria, the clerics issued a communique[3]calling the Russian offensive a "war crime." They called on "able men" in Syria to "join the ranks of jihad," and warned that this was a "true war against [all] Sunnis" being waged by a "Crusader Shi'ite alliance" and a "Western-Russian coalition with the Safavids [i.e., Iranians] and 'Alawites." According to the communique, the Syrian jihadis defend all Muslims, and therefore Arab and Muslim countries should assist them morally, materially, militarily, and politically.
The following day, the Syrian MB also issued a communique titled "The Syrian People Will Repel the Russian Occupation with Jihad," declaring that defensive jihad was an individual duty for anyone able to bear arms, and announcing that it was making the organization's resources available for this purpose. Similar statements were also made by the Syrian Islamic Council, a body established in April 2014 in Istanbul that comprises 128 Syrian clerics, many of them MB members, as well as by Sheikh Muhammad Kurayyim Rajih, the most senior Syrian Koran reciter and a member of the Syrian Islamic Council.[4] All these statements were made by individuals who are members of or support the MB.
To date, Saudi authorities have issued no official response to the clerics' communique. The sole exception to this was one report in the London-based Qatari daily Al-Arabi Al-Jadidstating that the Saudi Interior Ministry intended to investigate and prosecute the clerics on charges of violating the 2014 anti-terror law that bans Saudis from fighting outside the country andfrom encouragingfellow Saudi citizens to do so.
However, the communique did spark anuproar in the Saudi press and on social media. Several Saudi articles attacked it, terming it a call for Saudis to go and fight in Syria, which constitutes incitement and defiance of the ruler, who has the sole authority to declare jihad. They warned of the serious implications that this would have for national security and for Saudi Arabia's image and relationship with Russia. The conflict in Syria, they noted, is political and not religious, and therefore does not necessitate a jihad war. An especially harsh critique by Mansour Al-Nogaidan called toarrest the clerics and force themto apologize to Russia.
The harsh criticism of the communique may stem from the fact that many of its signatories are supporters of the MB, which is outlawed in Saudi Arabia.
Conversely, others defended the communique, stating that the call for jihad was aimed solely at the Syrians themselves. They also attacked those who opposed the communique. At the same time, it should be mentioned that these calls came primarily from outside Saudi Arabia and on Qatari media; the latter is known for its pro-MB approach.
This report will review the calls for jihad against Russian forces in Syria and the Saudi responses to the clerics' communique.
55 Saudi Clerics: All Able Syrians Should Join The Ranks Of Jihad
The 55 Saudi clerics, many of them known to be MB supporters –including 'Abdallah bin Muhammad Al-Ghunaiman, Nasser bin Suleiman Al-'Umar, 'Ali bin Sa'id Al-Ghamdi – stressed in their communique that this was a war launched by "the Orthodox crusader Russia" against the Muslim Syria. They said Muslims would redeem their faith by sacrificing their lives, and called on Syrian fighters to join the ranks of jihad. They stated: "After nearly five years of unrelenting political and military support for the 'Alawite regime, Russia is now throwing its full weight behind [it] and is intervening directly and militarily to protect the Bashar Al-Assad regime from falling. In light of this most terrible calamity and war crime on the part of an influential country that presumes to be responsible for world justice and peace, we hereby declare the following:
"O Russians, the most extreme among Christians – [there is] nothing new under the sun! 36 years ago the communist Soviet Union invaded the Muslim Afghanistan to support the Communist Party and protect it from falling. And now, its successor, the Orthodox crusader Russia, is invading the Muslim Syria to support the 'Alawite regime and protect it from falling; it must learn a lesson from the fate of its predecessor. The heads of your Orthodox Church have declared [the Russian intervention of Syria] a crusader holy war, just as [George] Bush Jr. did in the past [regarding the American invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq]. Know that Muslims will redeem their faith by sacrificing their lives, souls, and all they hold dear, and just as they expelled you from Afghanistan, they will bring about you humiliating defeat in Syria, Allah willing.
"O, our men in Syria – the calamity afflicting you is severely worsening and your test has lasted a long time... You must fear Allah, repent, and trust in Allah... Know that Russia only intervened to save the regime from certain defeat. Through you, Allah defeated the security [mechanisms] of the regime and its shabiha [militias], followed by its army, and later the Shi'ite Safavid groups from Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Through you, He defeated the Party of Satan [i.e. Hizbullah] and He can defeat the Russians [as well]. Therefore, persevere and endure and remain stationed and fear Allah, that you may be successful' (Koran 3:200)... We call on you to hold on, and we urge the men [of the various groups], [all] able and skilled people in all fields, to stay and not leave Syria, and to take part in building and liberating [it]. We call on the able among you to join the ranks of jihad, for this is your hour... Swiftly join the jihad against the enemy of God and your enemy, and Allah will be with you, and the Muslims will stand behind you as much as they can.The dawn of victory is at hand...
"To Arab and Muslim countries we say: The Western-Russian coalition with the Safavids and 'Alawites is a true war against [all] Sunnis, their lands, and their identities, with no exception. The jihad fighters in Syria are currently defending the entire ummah. Trust in them and give them moral, military, and political support, for if they are defeated... it will be the turn of the remaining Sunni countries, one after the other... O clerics and thinkers – this is a war on Islam... Stress in your words, writings, sermons, and lessons that we must abandon all sources of schism, and warn against them. Unite the ranks and tell people the truth behind the crusader Shi'ite alliances so they can beware it... Encourage people to devote all their efforts and give as much as they can, and to provide material aid, since Syrians are fighting our enemy and defending us against him...
"Allah, please hasten the victory of the people of Syria... and defeat the armies that have conspired against us..."[5]
Other MB Elements: Embarking On Defensive Jihad Is An Individual Duty
The same day (October 2, 2015), the Syrian Islamic Council, a body established in April 2014 in Istanbul that includes 128 Syrian clerics, many of them MB members, also issued a statement, warning that Russia's decision to intervene militarily in Syria "endangers its interests in the region and the entire Muslim world." The council called on the Syrian factions to combat the Russian presence, saying: "The Syrian Islamic Council sees the Russian presence as an occupying force that attacks and kills in order to aid a criminal tyrant against an oppressed people. Therefore, all factions must fight it and expel it from Syria in defeat, with all possible means. Fighting it is the most exalted form of jihad..."[6]
The following day, the Syrian MB also issued a communique titled "The Syrian People will Eradicate the Russian Occupation with Jihad", which stated: "...The Russian military intervention in our Syrian homeland is not another rash action or immature political adventure, for it was officially and unanimously approved by the Kremlin, and was blessed as a holy war by the Orthodox Church, thus turning it into a foreign invasion and the planned occupation of one country by another country that is a permanent member of the [UN] Security Council...
"Our Syrian people! In light of this brazen occupation of our land by the forces of evil, we at the MB stress that embarking on defensive jihad is now an individual duty [fard 'ain] for anyone who can bear arms, and we are therefore making all our organization's resources available for this purpose. We call on all members of the Syrian people and all its tribes, brigades, families, and religions, to act as one, topple the tyrant, and defeat the occupier. The homeland comes first and there is no place for narrow interests. O Muslims throughout the world, you must respond to the [Russian] aggression and defend the oppressed and abused [Syrian people]."[7]
Muhammad Kurayyim Rajih, the most senior Syrian Koran reciter and a member of the Syrian Islamic Council, also called for jihad against Russia, but unlike the statements issued by the Saudi clerics, the Syrian MB, and the Syrian Islamic Council itself, he claimed that the duty of jihad fell on all of the world's Muslims, not just Syrians. He wrote on his Facebook page: "Come to jihad... O Muslims everywhere... The Russians are entering Syria with their destruction, and their jets kill and destroy... This is a war against Islam and Muslim, their countries and property, merely for being Muslim. Jihad is now an individual duty for all Muslims... I hereby declare jihad on all levels to be an individual duty for every Muslim, and call on Muslim clerics to rule that jihad for the sake of Allah is mandatory and to operate in all countries of the world..."[8]
As mentioned, the Saudi establishment did not issue an official response to the communique published by the 55 Saudi clerics.The London-based Qatari daily Al-Arabi Al-Jadid cited a source in the Saudi interior ministry as saying that authorities intended to investigate and prosecute the clerics for violating the anti-terror law,[9]but this report did not appear in any Saudi media outlets.
The communique did, however, spark widespread criticism in Saudi Arabia, mainly on the part of journalists and liberals. Critics argued that,while the explicit call to jihad was specifically addressed to Syrians, the clerics' true intention was to encourage Saudis to go and fight in Syria, which constitutes a violation of the 2014 anti-terror law that bans Saudis from fighting outside Saudi Arabia or encouraging other Saudis to do so without the authorization of the ruler.[10] The critics argue that in effect, the signatories defied the ruler, who has the sole authority to declare jihad.
Saudi journalist 'Abdo Khal, a columnist for the Saudi daily 'Okaz, claimed that the real purpose of the communique was to recruit Saudi youths for the Syrian jihad, but in order to avoid investigations and charges, the signatories addressed their call to Syrians. Khal called on the signatory clerics to prove their sincerity by joining the Syrian jihad themselves instead of dispatching others. He wrote: "... Since the exposure [of the plot that led our sons] to the so-called jihad in Afghanistan, the inciters have specialized in the 'seduction game' and beatify the departure of our youths to warzones by stirring up their religious emotions [with claims] that Islam is in peril. The most recent call meant to stir our youths is the communique issued by the clerics and preachers regarding the Russian aggression in Syria. The communique was phrased in such a way that the signatories cannot be charged or investigated, since it [only] calls on Syrians [and not on Saudis] to mobilize against Russia.
"[However], a close examination of the communique reveals... the intentions of these inciters. It contains several points that show that it is [actually] a call for general Muslim mobilization, and the first to heed such calls are our [own] youths. A large percentage of those who answer such calls are our youths, and previous wars are the best evidence of this, as is the current reality. Since the signatories of the communique wished to avoid a legal inquiry, they stressed that [their call] was addressed [to Muslims] outside Saudi Arabia. In fact, the [specific] address to a particular group confirms that the call to mobilize is intended especially for Saudi youths, and that the signatories wished to avoid [being charged with violating] the 2014 decision [meaning the anti-terror law]...
"Is this [really] jihad and are these really clerics? The basic condition for a declaration of jihad is that it beissued by the lawful ruler. Has there been an official declaration of jihad?... Is this jihad for the sake of Islam? Will the signatories of the communique go to fight in Syria themselves, or are they playing the same old game of pushing [other] people to die in political wars while they belch and rub their hands over their bloated bellies? I challenge them – let one of the signatories go and fight in Syria...
"The new inciters... are firing in our direction once more. The new call for jihad is a new trap to snare the youth. Will [these inciters] escape punishment by the homeland as their predecessors did?"[11]
'Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashed, former editor of the London-based Saudi daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat and former director general of Al-Arabiya TV, said the communique constituted incitement and challenged the authority of the state. He warned of the danger of this call, and wrote: "There is no doubt that the majority in Saudi Arabia and Arab countries in general is furious at the Russian intervention in Syria, since its purpose is to support the Bashar Al-Assad regime, which has carried out the most criminal acts of slaughter in the history of the region. However, encouraging the youths here [in Saudi Arabia] to [embark on] jihad to fight the Russian invaders is a serious development and harms the state; it will cause the youths to go fight the Russians and later fight their own countries, governments, and families... The call to fight in Syria is reminiscent of the history of fighting in Afghanistan, which ideologically changed Saudi Arabia for the worse. Thousands of youths went to fight on behalf of the Americans, and that war ended with the creation of a new era of chaos with the appearance of terrorist organizations that the world suffers from to this day. In Saudi Arabia, there are still ceaseless searches for ISIS and Al-Qaeda cells born of the jihad in Afghanistan...
"Throughout the world, the state [alone] has the authority to declare war, and in Islam, too,this authority rests with the ruler. Therefore calling for war by issuing a communique challenges the legitimacy of state institutions, and constitutes incitement against Saudi Arabia and a violation of international resolutions against incitement to terrorism..."[12]
Saudi Columnist: The War In Syria Is Political, Not Religious, So There Are No Grounds For Jihad
Another argument against the communique was made by 'Okaz columnist Sa'id Al-Surayhi, who said that the war in Syria was not a religious conflict, but rather a political war of citizens against their tyrannical ruler, and therefore there was no reason to declare jihad. He wrote: "The Syrian people rose up against the Bashar Al-Assad regime because it was a tyrannical regime that usurped the people's freedom and exhausted them. The Syrians are [also] fighting against foreign intervention in their country, whether Iranian or Russian, due to its nature as a foreign intervention that damages their nation's independence and occupies their land... We cannot see the Russian intervention in Syria as a Catholic [sic.] war on Islam, but rather as an intervention stemming from international struggles and striving to establish [Russian] influence in strategic areas.
"Therefore, there is no substance to calls and incitement to jihad that have emerged, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly. Just as these calls have harmed the Syrians' struggle against the oppressive regime in their country, they harm their struggle to liberate their nation of any foreign intervention, regardless of its goals or religion."[13]
Saudi Journalists On Twitter: The Communique Has The Spirit Of ISIS
Several Saudi journalists attacked the communique on Twitter. Dr. Turki Al-Hamad, a liberal Saudi journalist and writer, tweeted: "The communique by the 52 [Saudi Clerics]: ISIS in spirit, inciting in content, and sectarian in shape and form..."[14]
Another writer who compared the signatories to ISIS was Saudi journalist Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh, who tweeted: "The implicit inciters for jihad against Russia in Syria affirm my statements: Those who pretend to be devout Muslims [on the one hand] and ISIS members [on the other] are part of the same system; the inciters are the soft arm and ISIS members are the strong arm."[15]
Saudi Liberal: 52 Saudi Fools Incite Terrorism; They Should Be Arrested
Saudi liberal journalist Mansour Al-Nogaidan, who was an extremist in his youth and even spent time in prison for involvement in terrorist activities, harshly attacked the clerics who signed the communique, calling them "fools" and "sheikhs of terrorism" who should be arrested. In statements made to the liberal Saudi website Elaph titled "52 Saudi Fools Incite Terrorism," which were also posted on Al-Nogaidan's Twitter account, he praised Russia and President Putin and called on Saudi Arabia to tighten relations with the Russians. These statements sparked harsh comments from the signatories to the communique.
Al-Nogaidan said: "It is the government's duty to arrest them, prosecute them for supporting terrorism, and force them to apologize to Russia. How is it that for years, they dared to publish their communiques and were not held accountable? [The answer is that] Saudi Arabia is infected with this ideology, which is deeply entrenched in its educational system, mosques, and institutions.
"Honestly, we should realize that Russia is a superpower and that is why Saudi Arabia has signed agreements with it for the coming decades, and we must tighten our relations with Russia, earn its friendship, and forge a strong alliance with Egypt, the UAE, and Russia. We should win the friendship of Russia and Putin, just as the Iranians have... I can while] I cannot trust the sheikhs of terrorism. Sunnis should beware those who toy with them and stop thinking innocently and childishly and realize the disaster that they have brought on themselves and on Syria. We have lost Assad and lost Syria. I fear we will [also] lose the friendship of a superpower like Russia. We were hostile to the Russians for many decades, and committed our gravest error by agreeing to turn our sons into fuel for a war among giants for the benefit of American interests in Afghanistan [and] for the sake of a primitive people whose members kill each other [i.e., the Afghans].Now we must not miss the chance to take part in making history. I do not fear Bashar Al-Assad remaining [in power] at all, but rather the fact that history and the region are being remade today, and we must have our piece of the pie."[16]
Communique Supporters: The Jihad Calls Were Addressed Only To Syrians
Conversely, some defended the communique, claiming it was addressed only to Syrians; these included Saudi columnists for newspapers in Qatar, which supports the MB. They criticized the columnists who condemned the communique such as Al-Nogaidan, arguing that they served Zionist and Iranian interests.
Saudi cleric Dr. Nasser bin Suleiman Al-'Umar, who is a signatory to the communique, tweeted: "The communique by a number of Saudi clerics and preachers regarding Russia and Iran's invasion of Syria outlines a clear religious path to deal [with this invasion] and contains no call to go there [to Syria]. Anyone trying to level false accusations [at the signatories] is failing."[17]
Saudi cleric and journalist 'Essam Ahmad Mudir also claimed that portraying the communique as inciting Saudi youths to jihad is "false and deceptive" and that it contains "no call for non-Syrians to join the jihad [in Syria]..."[18]
'Abdallah Al-Mulhim, who writes for the official Qatari daily Al-Raya, tweeted similarly: "Why spread lies[?]... The communique did not incite our boys to join [the jihad in Syria], but rather called on Syrian jihadis to unite against the invaders. Attacks on the communique serve the Safavid [Iranian] agenda."[19]
Ahmad bin Rashed bin Sa'id, a Saudi journalist and columnist for the official Qatari daily Al-Arab, harshly attacked the opponents of the communique, calling them "mercenaries" of Zionism. He wrote: "A few days ago, 52 clerics and thinkers in Saudi Arabia signed a communique condemning the criminal Russian assault on the Syrian people, which [included] a call for fighting groups in Syria to unite andfor 'able' Syrians 'to join the ranks of jihad.' The communique did not call on non-Syrians to fight... Despite this, the wolves of Israel began howling in their dens and inventing lies regarding this communique, claiming that it called on Saudi youths to pick up arms and join the ranks of ISIS... We do not face 'journalism' [here] but rather information war criminals who fulfill a defined task, [namely] serving Zionist interests and preaching Zionist discourse...
"Only two years ago, it was not customary to tie this stream to Zionism. But today, more and more Saudis speak sternly and vehemently about '[the stream that is] becoming Zionist' due to its treason and hostility towards the ummah. We must naturally continue isolating this stream and exposing it, and not let it escape accountability."[20]
Dr.Ahmad Othman Al-Tuwaijri, a former member of the Saudi Shura Council, who attacked the Saudi regime's decision to include the MB on its list of terrorist organizations,[21]spoke harshly against those who condemned the communique, and especially Mansour Al-Nogaidan, whom he called "drunken," "an extremist," "a fake liberal," and "a former terrorist." In an article in the Saudi e-daily Kol Al-Watan, Al-Tuwaijri said that the signatories to the communique were "moderates" and "a bulwark against extremists." He wrote: "I attributed any importance to Mansour Al-Nogaidan, the former terrorist who currently dons the guise of liberalism... In a state of complete shameful nudity, this drunken fool came out a few days ago and stupidly criticized 52 clerics, preachers, and academics who are among Saudi Arabia's best, calling them 'fools' merely for issuing a communique that condemned the criminal Russian assault on the revolutionary forces in Syria, supported the fighting Syrian people, and demanded that it and the ummah stand against the 'Alawite and Russian tyrants..."
Al-Tuwaijri claimed that Al-Nogaidan "cannot distinguish between jihad, which is the pinnacle of Islam, and terrorism, and thinks that the demand to aid the legitimate jihad of the Syrian people against those who kill it and distance it from its land is a call to support terrorism." He concludedby saying: "This drunken extremist's position on the clerics, preachers, and academics whom he called fools and demanded to prosecute is not surprising in light of his many irresponsible statements, and has a simple explanation... He has hated the wasatiyya [middle path] and moderation, and anyone who represents them, since thedays he carried out terrorism and was an extremist [himself]. This is because the clerics, preachers, and academics he criticized and others like them... with their wasatiyya and moderation, were the biggest bulwark against the old Al-Nogaidan's extremism and the extremism of his extremist colleagues, and they are [also] the greatest bulwark against his current extremism and weak moral fiber..."[22]
*N. Mozes is a research fellow at MEMRI.
Endnotes:
[1]Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), October 2, 2015.
[2]Al-Hayat (London), October 1, 2015.
[3] While the communique has 55 signatories, some sources reported that only 52 had signed it.
[4] The International Union of Muslims Scholars (IUMS), headed by Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, also issued a statement condemning Russian military intervention in Syria and calling to arm the moderate Syrian opposition. The Egyptian MB issued a condemnation of the Russian military intervention as well, but these two bodies avoided calling the struggle against the Russian forces "jihad." Iumsonline.org, ikhwanonline.com, October 4, 2015.
[5] Almoslim.net, October 2, 2015.
[6] Sy-sic.com, October 2, 2015.
[7] Ikhwansyria.com, October 3, 2015.
[8] Facebook.com/KraemRajeh, October 5, 2015.
[9]Al-Arabi Al-Jadid (London), October 6, 2015.
[10] For more on this law, see MEMRI Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No. 1073, Saudi Campaign Against Young Saudis Joining The Jihad In Syria, February 21, 2014.
[11]'Okaz (Saudi Arabia), October 6, 2015.
[12]Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), October 7, 2015.
[13]'Okaz (Saudi Arabia), October 8, 2015.
[14] Twitter.com/TurkiHAlhamad1, October 4, 2015.
[15] Twitter.com/alshaikhmhmd, October 4, 2015.
[16] Elaph.com, October 4, 2015.
[17] Twitter.com/naseralomar, October 4, 2015.
[18] Twitter.com/emudeer, October 4, 2015.
[19] Twitter.com/almol7em, October 4, 2015.
[20]Al-Arab (Qatar), October 14, 2015.
[21] Alkhaleejaffairs.org, February 13, 2015.
[22] Kolalwatn.net, October 11, 2015.
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Special Dispatch - No. 6192 - October 20, 2015
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Donald Trump: If Saddam and Qaddafi still ruled
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
Top Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump likes to stir controversy. On Sunday, he said the world would be a better place if dictators Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi were still in power. Trump’s aim is to keep himself in the headlines, and certainly his controversial statements have kept him at the forefront. However, it is a long time until election day. Whether a dictator is ousted by a foreign power, as was the case with Saddam, or at the hands of their own citizens, as was the case with Qaddafi, or due to death from natural causes, the possibility of chaos erupting afterward is very high. Therefore, chaos was most probably imminent after Saddam’s or Qaddafi’s overthrow. Regimes that last, whether they are democratic or not, are based on sustainable foundations. No one can say that about Qaddafi’s or Saddam’s regimes. The world today is made up either of regimes or individual leaderships. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the regime’s structure continued to exist under a different slogan. However, when Somali President Siad Barre was ousted in the 1990s by an internal rebellion, the entire regime collapsed, and Somalia has remained in chaos ever since.
Cult of personality
Would Libya have been united and stable if Qaddafi had died of a heart attack rather than at the hands of rebels who found him hiding in a drain pipe? I rule that out as the entire regime was solely based on him. The same can be said of Saddam, especially that Iraq was weakened by international sanctions that lasted for 13 years from 1990. This is why when the U.S.-led invasion began, his army melted away in one week.
Even if Saddam had died of natural causes, his regime would have collapsed because he had eliminated most of the leading figures in his inner circle, such as his son-in-law Hussein Kamel, and dozens of others who belonged to his party. After the death of Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, the regime weakened for several years before the revolution erupted. One scream of rebellion in Deraa was enough to ignite protests in Syria. If people had not revolted in 2011, they would have probably done so five or 10 years later. As for Egypt, what kept its unity following the recent revolution there is its army, which has always been the state’s backbone. Former President Hosni Mubarak was merely the head of state, not an absolute leader.
Sustainability
Regimes that last, whether they are democratic or not, are based on sustainable foundations. No one can say that about Qaddafi’s or Saddam’s regimes. The reason for the chaos in Libya is that no one helped its people to establish a reasonable, inclusive regime. The same goes for Iraq, as the Americans underestimated the internal challenges when they disbanded the army, security forces and other state institutions. Yemen was also structured to serve one person: former President Ali Abdullah Saleh. I expect the allied forces, which are pushing back rebels, to work on including all factions in any future political and institutional solution, otherwise chaos will continue. Institutional regimes are capable of surviving, while those based on individuals are subject to collapse regardless of wishes and aspirations

A New World Order is emerging from the Middle East
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
This year is seeing the most drastic reshaping of the geopolitics of the Middle East possibly since WW2. Certainly since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Everything is in flux. Russia and Iran are pushing out the U.S. and NATO in Syria, Iran is already leading the Shiite war effort in Iraq, and the Iraqi government is now considering inviting military assistance from Russia against ISIS as well. This after the hundreds of billions of dollars that the U.S. has spent on the country. Across the entire Fertile Crescent, the U.S. and its allies are being almost entirely marginalized. As are their interests.Further to the South, lay the traditional allies of the U.S. in the region: Israel, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. These alliances still hold – for now. Though there is obviously no love lost between the U.S. and these countries. None of the governments of these countries now trust the U.S. The Egyptian government is still caught up in the ambivalence of the West between its desire for democracy in the region and its desire for stability and for secular governance. The détente between the U.S. and Iran on the Iranians’ nuclear program has led to Saudi alarm. And the Israelis are hunkering down in their metaphorical bunker as the world around them descends into chaos, and the flames of war are starting to spread to the occupied territories.
When the Middle East became destabilized in the wake of the Arab Spring, the others pounced
To the east, Afghanistan is once again in total chaos, with the Taliban emerging as the most likely group to prevail in the country. And Pakistan, formerly the U.S.’s most reliable ally in the region, is being absorbed into the Chinese sphere of influence with the help, once again, of the Iranians. In fact, one could argue, the entire East is being reshaped geopolitically according to the needs of Chinese commerce: pipelines from Russia to China, pipelines from Iran to Pakistan paid for by the Chinese, railways and road infrastructure built by the Chinese in South East Asia in Myanmar to connect them to the deep water port in Kyaukpyu, to the south west with the trade corridor through Pakistan to connect them to the deep water port of Gwadar, and across the whole of Central Asia, as China is rebuilding the Silk Road. Muscling in. Russia, Iran and China are muscling in on the Middle East, and so far it seems that the U.S. and Europe have neither the capacity, nor the will, to do anything about it. The American Century, at least in the Middle East, seems well and truly over. How did it come to this? For one, the U.S. has taken the eye off the ball. Invading Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 could have perhaps worked, on its own. The U.S. was able to bring its allies along, and there was a great deal of good will towards the American war aims at the time. But all that was squandered with the insane decision to also invade Iraq. That war clearly overstretched U.S. forces and allowed Iran, Russia and eventually China to flex their muscles in their regional spheres of influence against U.S. interests. The initial response of the Obama administration to the catastrophic consequences of the Bush-era warmongering was to pursue a more liberal, international law approach to geo-politics. It was the only way that the U.S. could have sustained its status in the international arena. But by then it was already too late. The U.S. had long lost the moral authority to call on other countries to obey international norms, and no longer had the strength to enforce even a semblance of international law. Its rivals had smelled blood and tasted success. And so, when the Middle East became destabilized in the wake of the Arab Spring, the others pounced. And now, China is carving up the East, Russia the Levant, and Iran every country in its neighborhood and around the Jordan River.Just how the situation will look when the dust settles it is impossible to know. But it is almost certain that there will be very little room left for the U.S. or its European allies in the region. And with that, our access to oil and gas will never be safe or secure ever again. Transitioning to alternative sources of energy is no longer just a matter for the Climate Change “hippies”. It should be the highest priority even for the most hawkish neo-conservatives.

Very quietly, Iraq is ceasing to exist
Dr. John C. Hulsman/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
For the tragic country of Iraq, no news presently is bad news. By that I mean that the headline strategic story at present is that nothing major has changed since ISIS’s stunning advances of last summer. Iraq is now de facto split along organic ethno-religious lines into three very distinct sub-states, roughly corresponding to the old Ottoman Empire sanjak provinces. Worse still for the Abadi government in Baghdad, ISIS is increasingly ensconced as merely another nasty political fact of life in the Middle East; it shows no real signs of going away. Instead, political ossification has set in, making the overturning of this gloomy state of affairs increasingly unlikely.
For the Baghdad government remains irredeemingly weak, largely in the pocket of its Iranian benefactors, and unable to do much on its own. Economically, the central government is a basket case. Export figures for the first seven months of 2015 have crashed, leading to predictions of the budget deficit reaching a cavernous 20%. Since the fall of Saddam, widespread corruption has been a cancer on the Iraqi body politic. On August 7, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most respected figure in the country, called on Prime Minister al-Abadi to take ‘drastic measures’ to fight corruption.
The reform-minded premier responded, doing away with 11 of 33 cabinet positions, cutting three Deputy Prime Ministerial posts, and merging four other ministries. As the doling out of cabinet positions has become a major form of clientelism, such a paring back of the bloated central government must be seen as a step in the right direction. However, despite the Grand Ayatollah’s support and regardless of Abadi’s reformist zeal, the odds remain high that the Prime Minister will prove unable to slay the formidable dragon of corruption.
For the motive force behind the Abadi government remains Iranian brute force. The present Iraqi Interior Ministry is a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard corps; out in the field Shia militias directed by Tehran have proven themselves for more successful fighters than the laughably corrupt and woeful Iraqi army. As long as the armed forces buttressing Baghdad remain so incredibly weak, it is almost impossible to see how the Abadi government is capable of regaining lost Iraqi territory—be it to the Kurds or ISIS—on its own, and for its own purposes.
In contrast, there are no signs that the relatively capable and highly motivated Kurdish Peshmerga are about to be reined in by Baghdad. With the help of American air strikes, the Kurds have managed to repulse ISIS on the ground, regaining most of the territory they had lost in the summer of 2014. Strong enough to turn their backs on Baghdad, the oil revenue deal between the Abadi and Barzani governments has again broken down.
The Kurds, defying Baghdad, have unilaterally been selling their own oil via Turkey. Sales have amounted to more than 450,000 barrels per day (bpd) since May 2015, amounting to direct revenue for the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) of $1.5 billion for July-August 2015. If the Kurds can hang onto the contested and oil-rich city of Kirkuk (and there is absolutely no present challenge to them there), their proposed state would prove economically viable. In all but name, Iraqi Kurdistan has for a long while been independent.
ISIS showing real signs of staying power
And the KRG is not the only sub-state in Iraq in rude health. Far more ominously, ISIS is showing real signs of staying power. After more than a year of American-led coalition bombing, amounting (as of October 2015) to more than 10,600 air strikes, ISIS has yet to feel a dent in its economic chest. The sale of oil, ISIS’s main source of income, is generating revenues of up to $500 million a year.
Nor is ISIS being eradicated on the battlefield. Since bombing commenced in September 2014, the American-led coalition has killed as many as 15,000 ISIS fighters, according to US intelligence estimates. However, during this time the group’s military strength has increased, with there now being as many as 70,000 ISIS fighters overall, including 15-20,000 foreigners. Despite some territorial setbacks in central Iraq, such as the fall of Tikrit and the recent liberation of Baiji, ISIS continues to dominate roughly one-third of the country, an area the size of Britain. There are simply no real signs ISIS is going away.
As a strong adherent of ethical realism, I follow the British parliamentarian and thinker Edmund Burke’s admonition that to do good in the world, it must be viewed as it truly is, warts and all, to then be made better. To do so in Iraq must cause anyone an involuntary shudder. For what one sees is a country definitively split in three parts, with ISIS now merely a fact of life in Mesopotamia. Outgoing and highly capable U.S. Army Chief Ray Odierno, on the eve of his retirement, stated forthrightly (and shockingly to American ears) that Iraq might have to be partitioned. I’d say to the general that the horse has already left the stable; in truth it already is. Iraq has ceased to exist.

A Russian roadmap for the political transition in Syria
Raghida Dergham/Al Arabiya/October 27/15
It is very possible that Russian President Vladimir Putin has developed a consensual framework for a political settlement in Syria that would overcome the Assad Knot, after securing important concessions from the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The first of these is securing acknowledgment of the leading Russian role in Syria and the restoration of Russian influence in the Middle East.
The second is a willingness for military and intelligence cooperation in the war on ISIS, which would ward off the framing of the Russian intervention as a Christian war against Islamic terrorism, before it spreads to the Russian homeland and near-abroad. The third is defusing preconditions requiring Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down at the start of the political transition, in favor of accepting Assad’s gradual exit in parallel with said transition. And the fourth concession is agreeing to shore up regime institutions as part of the solution, compared to previous positions that insisted on fully replacing the regime with the opposition’s framework.
If Vladimir Putin has decided to build on these concessions, then he must have no doubt discussed with Assad – who was summoned to Moscow this week – a roadmap for his departure. This would likely follow a timetable imposed by the transitional process, which in all likelihood will span months, not weeks. This would enable Assad to step down after defeating “terrorism”, as he always states, after bolstering the Syrian state, as these two elements would constitute an “honorable exit” for Assad, compared to defeat and prosecution for his role in precipitating and perpetrating the atrocities in Syria.
Indeed, if Assad’s Moscow visit and meeting with Putin were instead meant to reaffirm solidarity between the two men, the Russian leader would not have immediately contacted the Saudi king and Egyptian president immediately after Assad flew back to Damascus.
Yet all this does not mean that today’s meeting in Vienna between the foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, Saudi, and Turkey will conclude with a public agreement on Assad’s departure. Potentially, Russian proposals may not be acceptable to Turkey and Saudi Arabia, should they be deemed lacking in guarantees. Accordingly, the coming days will prove to be crucial in terms of determining the features of the putative political transition – and names being discussed by the major players could be leaked.
The ‘Assad Knot’
In any case, political realism requires us to be prudent and cautious. For one thing, the Trust Knot is as challenging as the Assad Knot. Furthermore, military battles continue, and could even intensify if the Gulf nations and Turkey sensed Russia could temper concessions while scoring military gains for the Assad regime at the expense of the armed opposition, rather than ISIS. And thirdly, the Iranian dimension of the Russian initiative remains ambiguous; some conjecture that Iran’s role has been undermined by Russia, others believe everything is proceeding in full coordination between Moscow and Tehran to crush ISIS and preserve the regime in Damascus.
It is not yet clear whether the motivation for Putin’s initiative was his realization that there is clear determination to pushback against Russia military operations, as these seek to purge the armed Syrian opposition backed by the Gulf states and the United States. To be sure, the introduction of US-made TOW anti-tank missiles to the Syrian battlefield signaled a shift in the US position: Washington is not going to sit idly by while being blatantly humiliated by a Russian-Iranian alliance as it proceeds to eliminate the moderate Syrian opposition to rescue Assad. That message was communicated unequivocally, and the men in Moscow received it loud and clear.
It is possible that the generals in Moscow were the ones who best understood it, as they recalled what Stinger missiles did to the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, precipitating its collapse. It is possible that it was they who persuaded Putin the best course of action for Russia and its national interests is to avoid sinking in Syria’s quagmires.
The specter of Afghanistan is not an American invention meant to intimidate Russia. It is a bona fide Russian nightmare that those men, who are holdovers from the Soviet era, have not forgotten. Most likely, those generals rushed to alert their president of the need to avoid the reckless kind of arrogance that could cost Russia dearly, a Christian nation with a sizeable Muslim minority surrounded by five Muslim-majority republics. The top brass must have realized that it would be contrary to Russian interests for Moscow to spearhead the global war on “Sunni terrorism”, and concluded that a deal is better than this quandary.
The Russians have not come out in protests against their government’s support for a president rejected by half of his people, and accused of killing hundreds of thousands. The Russians have gave in to nationalism, considering every stance by their government a response to American and European humiliation during the Libyan war. For this reason, they did not thoroughly analyze the repercussions of Russian policy on the Syrian people. But now that Putin has decided to escalate militarily, the specter of Afghanistan has returned, and Russian protests came out against the adventurism of the Russian presidency and the military has sounded the alarm regarding the cost of intervention in the Syrian quagmire.
However, this does not mean at all that Russia will back down militarily in Syria for fear of “Afghanization”. What it means is that Russia seems to be resolved now to develop a political horizon for its military escalation.
The other parties that have protested against Russian military escalation in Syria are ready to work on a political settlement. However, they too have decided to escalate militarily, as part of their efforts to strengthen their negotiating hand.
The best of the two scenarios is for the coming military escalation to proceed in a gradual manner as the political settlement – agreed to by Russia, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the international community – approaches. The worst scenario is for military escalation to continue without understandings or settlements, turning Syria into a worst example than Afghanistan. What is frightening here is that this is quite possible, despite all indications suggesting a deal is coming.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have made demarches towards Russia a while ago, to persuade it that there is no animosity with it but rather that shared interests are many. The only difference is on the fate of Assad in the political settlement and Russian arms exports to Iran. Even in the aftermath of the surprising overt Russian military intervention in Syria, high-level delegations from Saudi and the UAE still visited Russia, to stress what could constitute a basis for political and economic cooperation.
Saudi and Emirati diplomacy continued to pursue a path of persuasion on Syria, and found around President Putin people willing to listen, because the proposals could save Syria from the coming bind. There is also a welcoming attitude towards partnership with Russia when it comes to rebuilding Syria.
Russia’s vision for Syria
Russian-Turkish and Russian-Qatari relations have been affected by two important factors. First: the Islamist organizations, which Moscow deems to be extremist, including the Muslim Brotherhood backed by Ankara and Doha. Russia accused both capitals of also supporting terrorist groups such as ISIS and al-Nusra Front in Syria. Second: the gas pipelines through Syria and Turkey to export the gas of Russia’s number one rival Qatar to Europe, Russia’s backyard.
Most likely, the Russian domination in Syria would be a turning point with regard to gas pipeline projects for both Turkey and Qatar. Now, Ankara has offered some concessions regarding Assad’s role in the transitional phase and regarding entering as a party to the war on ISIS. Ankara has also waved the migrants’ card to get concessions from Europe and Germany, which has a lot of sway with Russia.
Russia and Iran have been allies as far back as their collaboration in Syria began, and there is nothing to confirm the hypothesis about their rivalry in Syria. However, there might be a Russian desire to take charge of the military situation in Syria, ahead of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hezbollah, or the Shiite militias backed by the IRGC. Perhaps Moscow believes the IRGC and its allies pose a fundamental threat to its Syria policy, namely to strengthen the Syrian regime and not undermine it, even if this were at the hands of its allies.
If Iran agrees to Russia’s vision for Syria, then there will be no disputes between them. However, if the IRGC insists on its own vision, Iran will have to ultimately decide whether there is a difference between the moderate presidency and its doves, and the hardliners of the IRGC and its hawks, and by Iran here we mean Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The decision on Syria is extremely important for Tehran, and so is its alliance with Russia, and vice versa. Therefore, there must no doubt be prior coordination between the two countries. Both are vulnerable to becoming implicated in the quagmire in Syria. So if both sides see that the time is right for a deal, even if it requires the gradual departure of Bashar al-Assad, then they could agree to one, in return for many gains that safeguard their joint influence over any future authority in Damascus.
The outstanding issue here is the common enemy of all sides, ISIS. Defeating ISIS might be easy if all military and intelligence efforts converge. ISIS seems like a cocktail of intelligence plots, and could be a destructive and terrifying tool in the Syrian polarization.
The coming days will bring new developments that need to be carefully analyzed, without fanfare or fearmongering. It is a crucial stage in the international negotiations on Syria, and could bode well for Syria.

Palestinian Media Watchdog: ‘Abbas Should Be Imprisoned for Murder’ (INTERVIEW)
Ruthie Blum/The Algemeiner/October 27/15
The international perception of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is that he is weak and ineffectual, said Itamar Marcus, founder and director of Palestinian Media Watch (PMW), an organization that researches Palestinian society through its press and educational curricula.
But in fact, “Everyone in [Abbas’] orbit lauds Palestinians who commit violence against Israelis and Jews as heroes,” Marcus told the The Algemeiner on Monday.
Marcus was responding to general questions about “incitement” — a buzzword ringing throughout the Knesset halls and corridors of Capitol Hill – as well as more specific ones pertaining to individual posts on Palestinian social media pages.
As a result of the persistent calls to violence cropping up on social media, Israeli legal group Shurat HaDin on Monday filed a class-action suit in the U.S. against Facebook after garnering some 20,000 signatures from concerned users who were shocked to see violent antisemitism circulating with no regulation.
Marcus brought up the October 3 murder of Rabbi Nehemiah Lavi and Aharon Bennett, in the Old City of Jerusalem, to illustrate the way in which these kinds of stabbing attacks are being encouraged and glorified. Bennett’s wife Adele and their 2-year-old son were also wounded in the assault.
Muhannad Halabi, the perpetrator of the attack, was egged on by Arab passers-by and shop-keepers as he attacked any identifiable Jews. Though Israeli security forces shot him dead in the middle of the lethal attack, he was posthumously rewarded by having a street named after him, being granted an honorary law degree, delivered “holy soil” from the Al-Aqsa Mosque to his burial site, and referred to as a “heroic martyr.”
In spite of what Marcus sees as both tacit approval and formal support from Abbas for deeds such as Halabi’s, the P.A. president nevertheless continues to portray himself as a victim of Israeli aggression.
“His message to the world, in English, is that he wants peace,” said Marcus, whose reports have been used by lawmakers in the U.S. and in Europe to put conditions on Palestinian aid.
Another monitor of the duplicity practiced by the P.A. is the anonymous pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon, who recently exposed “blood libel” cartoons posted to the Facebook pages of self-described U.N. staff (predominantly teachers) during the current wave of Palestinian violence. This week, the website juxtaposed two memes from a Facebook page associated with Abbas’ ruling Fatah party, one in English and one in Arabic, conveying opposite messages.
The English meme, posted on Sunday, shows Abbas with an outstretched hand alongside the headline: “Abbas looking for peace; Israel inciting further violence.” The text below it reads, “President Abbas has made political efforts to try and restore peace. The world can see the efforts made by him and his party with no positive response from Israel. It’s about time the international community gets behind President Abbas in order to resolve this conflict and push for peace in Palestine Jerusalem [sic].”
But the Arabic meme, posted last Friday, depicts a man whose face is covered in the Palestinian headdress throwing a rock along with a photo inlay of a knife-wielding terrorist and the words “Jerusalem’s rage” underneath as a caption.
Elder of Ziyon asks: “Which one do you believe?”
Beliefs aside, given the recent surge in rock-throwing, stabbing and vehicle attacks against Israelis that began in mid-September, it is clear which one more closely reflects the current reality.
Singing completely different tunes in English and Arabic is nothing new to Palestinian leaders, Marcus said, pointing to Abbas’ predecessor, the late PLO chief Yasser Arafat, “who was a master at the tactic.”
“But don’t take my word for it,” said Marcus. “His own bodyguard said as much to the BBC last year.”
Marcus was referring to an April 2014 interview with BBC Arabic Television, in which Arafat’s bodyguard and lifetime loyalist Muhammad Dayeh – who “suckled love for Arafat from my mother’s milk” – described the art of lying for political reasons.
Asked whether he had witnessed this kind of deception first-hand from his boss and idol, Dayeh replied: “Yes. For example, whenever [a terror attack] was carried out in Tel Aviv, Arafat would go out and say [he condemned it] — of course, after being pressured, first and foremost [by Egyptian] President Mubarak. He would call… and tell him: ‘Brother Arafat, go and condemn it; they’ll screw you.’ [Arafat] would tell him: ‘But Mr. President, I have martyrs. [Israel] destroyed us; they massacred us.’ [Mubarak] would tell him: ‘Brother Arafat, go and condemn [it]. They’ll screw you.’ Brother Arafat would go and condemn it in his special way [by announcing]: ‘I am against killing civilians,’ and that wasn’t true.”
The same goes for Abbas, Marcus told The Algemeiner. “We have documented how he and his leadership have continually called for violence and turned killers into heroes – all the while professing Palestinian victimhood. His role in perpetrating the slaughter of innocent people is no different from that of dispatchers on the ground, who physically supply terrorists with weapons and drive them to the scenes of their crimes.”
Abbas “should be imprisoned for murder,” Marcus said.
http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/10/27/palestinian-media-watchdog-abbas-should-be-imprisoned-for-murder-interview/