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Bible Quotation for today/Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
John 12/20-32: "Among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’ Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. ‘Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say "Father, save me from this hour"? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.Father, glorify your name.’ Then a voice came from heaven, ‘I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.’ The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, ‘An angel has spoken to him.’ Jesus answered, ‘This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’

Bible Quotation for today/The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
First Letter to the Corinthians 01/18-25: "The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’ Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 13-14/15
The Late Bachir Gemayal: The Grain of Wheat & the Yeast/By: Elias Bejjani/September 14, 2015
Why has Europe gone soft on Syria’s Assad/Raed Omari/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
Boris is wrong: The UK needs to ban the ISIS flag/Dr. Halla Diyab/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
The memoirs of Queen Elizabeth II: From Churchill to Cameron/Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
Don’t count on America being ‘Ready for Hillary’/Dr. John C. Hulsman/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
The secret to Indians’ success in America/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
What the Third Lebanon War will look like/Ron Ben-Yishai/Ynetnews/September 13/15
Is Europe Losing Control Over Its Destiny/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/September 13/15
Solving the European Migrant Problem/Barry Shaw/Gatestone Institute/September 13/15
The Bear Steps In: Russia's Expanding Military Presence in Syria/Jonathan Spyer/The Jerusalem Post/September 13/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on September 13-14/15
The Late Bachir Gemayal: The Grain of Wheat & the Yeast
Treason Criteria & General Lahad's Heroism
Report: European States Seeking Solution to Presidential Crisis
Shehayyeb Welcomes Any 'Constructive' Proposal on Waste
Bid to Assault Customs Chief at RHIA, Police Seize Smuggled Goods
New Campaign Demands Recovery of Privatized Public Properties
Cautious Calm in Ain el-Hilweh after Night Tension

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 13-14/15
Algeria Leader Replaces Powerful Intelligence Chief
Police: Munich at Limit of Capacity Amid Refugee Surge
Clashes Rock Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Germany Reinstates Border Controls over Refugee Surge
Saudi Air Force Pilot Dies in Helicopter Crash
Islamic Body Urges U.N. Force to Help Stem Syria Tide
Clashes near Damascus Kill 80 in Six Days
Probe Report Filed on Saudi Crane Tragedy
Qaida Chief Urges Jihadists to Unite, Confront West
Syria group: Russia expanding major Syrian airport
Germany calls for dialogue with Russia on Syria

The Late Bachir Gemayal: The Grain of Wheat & the Yeast
By: Elias Bejjani
September 14, 2015
John 12:24: "Most certainly I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains by itself alone. But if it dies, it bears much fruit."
On September 14, 1982, on the day Lebanon was celebrating the Day of the Holy Cross, its President-elect, Sheik Bachir Gemayel, passed away into the hands of the Almighty God after carrying the cross of the country to heaven. He was not even 34 years old, but what he achieved for the freedom and dignity of Lebanon places him among the great men who left a stamp of glory on the history of Lebanon.
Bachir, the hero, dreamt of a sovereign, free and independent Lebanon, and his dream became the objective of all free-minded Lebanese men and women. And even as the hands of evil and hatred took him away through a cowardly assassination plot (14/09/82), his dream lives on in the fiber of our people and their conscience for as long as the Cedars of Lebanon tower over the country from their peaks.
Today we remember Bachir in our prayers. We also remember his fallen comrades who gave so much for our beloved country, and we learn from their sacrifice many a lesson. With this 31 remembrance day, our hopes are renewed, our determination is re-energized, and our commitment to the cause is re-confirmed.
Bachir’s bright star was high in the skies of Lebanon and with it the hopes of the Lebanese people. But the joy was killed and the hopes dashed when his star fell from the skies, a martyr to his noble ambitions aiming at building a strong Lebanon, confirmed in its sovereignty and independence.
Bachir believed that "the one Lebanon is the Lebanon of the 10,452 km2, that the Lebanese must win back completely so that it belongs to its sons and daughters in all their communities, creeds, and beliefs". But even as he departed, what he believed in remains in the hearts and minds of all the Lebanese people.
Bachir was raised on the cross of Lebanon on the day we remember the Cross. He was killed in a political act at the intersection of the interests of nations, individuals, and terrorist groups that feared for their own egotistical interests should a unified, free and sovereign Lebanon rise from its ashes. Bachir established the framework and then was unjustly taken from us too soon.
Those same regimes of evil, Syria and Iran, and groups and factions like the terrorists, Hezbollah, continue today to hold the Lebanese people and their country hostage to their greed, hatred, and savage schemes. They have mastered the art of subservience and bowing at the doorstep of the forces of occupation. They are shepherds of doom who have reneged on every pledge they made and abandoned their flock.
They are factions whose job is to drive wedges between the free people of the Land of the Cedars, assassinating their aspirations and hopes in deed, thought, decision and execution. They assassinate Lebanon every morning and every hour of their waking day, killing its sovereignty, its free decision-making, its democracy and culture.
Bachir's venomous assassination still lingers to this day in all its ugliness, its corruption and its neglect. It still lingers in its displacement and emigration, dhimmitude, apostasy, with economic, social, financial, political, security and patriotic decline.
It still lingers with the rule of personal over national interests. It still lingers with the dismemberment of the political parties; the politicization of the judiciary; the truncation of sovereignty with the imposition of foreign interference, and the abandonment of human, religious and ethical values.
Bachir’s dream is here to stay and will never disappear, because it is the dream of a people who want a dignified life, a dream that calls upon unity, sovereignty and peace.
We are today together to remember the martyrdom of Bachir and his 22 comrades, lifting our eyes and hearts in the midst of danger and trouble to the redeemer of suffering humanity, Jesus-Christ, who said "And if I were to rise above the earth, I shall take with me everyone" (John12/32). We ask Him for light, faith, strength, and hope to continue our march forward and lift ourselves, our homeland, and our people to victory, to peace, to righteousness, to freedom and to all that is good in this world. For Bachir is alive in our beings and in our minds.
Sheik Bachir, Lebanon's elected president who was assassinated before assuming his presidential responsibilities was and still is the patriotic blessed yeast that was brewed and produced solid foundations of freedom, sovereignty and independence, as well as perseverance and hope in all Lebanese minds and hearts.
See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jp0_NJaLhb4 .
Terrorists and powers of evil could not destroy the dream that Bachir left for us. Even the gates of hell shall not be able to shake our deeply-rooted faith in peace, love and democracy. Bachir is the grain of wheat and the yeast. Bachir's dream is alive and glowing. As expressed in Galatians 5:9: "A little yeast grows through the whole lump".

Treason Criteria & General Lahad's Heroism
Elias Bejjani/September 13/15
Treason has international, ethical, human and judicial well know and fully recognized criteria. According to this criteria General Antoine Lahad is proudly a hero, while all those ignorant, savage cowardice, mercenaries and Trojan Lebanese politicians, clergymen and journalists in both Lebanon and Diaspora who are attacking Lahad in slender and defaming him after his death do completely fulfill all treason and cowardice criteria. All those mean mercenaries & dwarfs in Lebanon and abroad who are calling General Lahad A traitor & agent should look in the mirror and see who really they are and how ugly and rotten is their dead conscience..

Report: European States Seeking Solution to Presidential Crisis
Naharnet/September 13/15/Discussions are underway in European countries to find a solution to Lebanon's presidential deadlock by proposing the name of a security official who receives consensus, Western diplomatic sources in Beirut said Sunday. The sources told the Saudi Okaz daily that the official should receive the support of Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal movement. If the negotiations succeed, then they would lead to the election of a new president and resolve the remaining political problems that Lebanon is suffering from, they said. Baabda Palace has been vacant since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May last year. The vacuum left the parliament paralyzed and led to huge disputes among cabinet members. Okaz's report came amid efforts exerted by Speaker Nabih Berri to bring the rival parties together.
He chaired the first national dialogue session on Wednesday. The next round of talks are scheduled for next week. The presidential crisis tops the agenda of the all-party talks, which Berri said are aimed at Lebanonizing the solutions for Lebanon's crises.

Shehayyeb Welcomes Any 'Constructive' Proposal on Waste
Naharnet/September 13/15/Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb has expressed readiness to cooperate with all parties to resolve Lebanon's waste crisis after his management plan was rejected by many sides.
In remarks to al-Mustaqbal daily published on Sunday he welcomed any “constructive” proposal that helps the implementation of his plan.The government approved the plan in a marathon session late Wednesday. It calls for reopening the Naameh landfill, which was closed in mid-July, for seven days to dump the garbage that accumulated in random sites in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. It also envisions converting two existing dumps, in the northern Akkar area of Srar and the eastern border area of al-Masnaa, into sanitary landfills capable of receiving trash for more than a year. Civil society activists, who have taken to the streets over the waste crisis, have described the plan as an act of deception. Since the plan's adoption, protests have also erupted in Akkar, the eastern Bekaa Valley, Naameh and the southern city of Sidon. Shehayyeb told al-Mustaqbal that Lebanese and international experts are scheduled next Tuesday to propose the technical measures that will be adopted in managing the waste. Sources close to Shehayyeb told An Nahar daily that the plan's rejection stems from the lack of understanding on its details and the lack of confidence in the political class. The agriculture minister took over the file when Environment Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq suspended his participation in a ministerial committee tasked with resolving the case.

Bid to Assault Customs Chief at RHIA, Police Seize Smuggled Goods
Naharnet/September 13/15/The army arrested on Saturday two Lebanese nationals after an attempt to assault the customs chief at the Rafic Hariri International Airport, the state-run National News Agency reported. Several individuals including, Tarek Hisham al-Sabeaa and another man from the same family, intruded into the office of the customs chief at the airport Samer Diaa and tried to assault him, NNA said. It added that the police airport had seized smuggled merchandise that the persecutors were trying to exchange for shoe insoles. The army arrested the two of the men while the rest managed to escape. The merchandise was confiscated.

New Campaign Demands Recovery of Privatized Public Properties
Naharnet/September 13/15/Change is on the Way, is a new campaign that protesters kicked off on Saturday calling for the recovery of public lands and the free access to beaches that became private property, the state-run National News Agency said. The movement started in Beirut’s Zaitunay Bay waterfront, where protesters took food and drinks to enjoy on the wooden corniche. Banners were raised and some read "This Sea is Ours."Zaitunay Bay is infamous for its high-end restaurants and chic yacht parties and has proven to be a heavy attraction for tourists, locals and Beirut-lovers alike. The move comes as part of a reminder that public properties should be free, in light of the fact that the majority of Lebanon's beaches have been turned into private enterprises.

Cautious Calm in Ain el-Hilweh after Night Tension
Naharnet/September 13/15/There was cautious calm in the southern Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh on Sunday morning, hours after tension that was caused by grenade attacks. The state-run National News Agency said eight grenades were tossed in the camp's different neighborhoods. Gunmen also opened fire without causing casualties. he joint security forces worked on opening an investigation to hold accountable the parties responsible for the tension, said the agency. It added that Palestinian officials expressed fear over the return of gunbattles to the camp that lies near the city of Sidon. Several people were killed last month when Fatah Movement gunmen and Islamists clashed at the camp. Ain el-Hilweh is an impoverished, overcrowded camp home to some 61,000 Palestinians, including 6,000 who fled the war in Syria.

Algeria Leader Replaces Powerful Intelligence Chief
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Algerian leader Abdelaziz Bouteflika has replaced his powerful intelligence chief, the presidency said on Sunday, in the latest move in a shake-up of the security forces. The presidency said in a statement that General Mohamed Mediene, better known as Toufik, had been replaced by his deputy General Bachir Tartag after heading the DRS intelligence service for 25 years. Bouteflika replaced Mediene "in line with the constitution" and using his prerogatives as president and defense minister, the statement said, confirming information given to AFP by a security source. It said Mediene had "retired", but provided no further details. The 76-year-old had never appeared in public, but on Sunday his picture was published for the first time by a local newspaper, En-Nahar, showing him in a suit and tie. General Toufik was the last serving general from among a line of top officers behind a crackdown against the radical Islamic Salvation Front after the FIS swept to victory in elections in the early 1990s. The army stepped in to stop the vote, prompting an insurrection among Islamists and the start of a brutal civil war that lasted nearly a decade and killed 200,000 people. During that time, the DRS rose as a powerful agency and its head, Mediene, became one of the most powerful men in the oil-rich North African country. The announcement of his replacement came a day after Bouteflika's chief of staff confirmed the arrest last month of the former head of counter-terrorism. Abdelkader Ait-Ouarabi, a close ally of Mediene and better known as General Hassan, had previously been the DRS chief and embodied the army's fight against Islamist groups for two decades. The daily al-Watan revealed the arrest of General Hassan at the end of August, saying he was detained at his home and taken to Blida military prison south of Algiers.
State within a state
General Hassan's arrest came several weeks after the sacking of three security chiefs including two considered close to Mediene -- the head of counter-intelligence and the chief of presidential security. Experts have said the arrest and sackings are part of a behind-the-scenes power struggle between Bouteflika and the powerful DRS. Analysts say recent moves have tilted the balance in favor of the tight circle around Bouteflika and his army chief of staff, Ahmed Gaid Salah, at the expense of a rival faction centered on Mediene. According to political science professor Rachid Tlemcani, "The battle is coming to an end and President Bouteflika has defeated the shadowy power" -- a reference to the DRS. Echoing many, he described the intelligence service as "a state within a state". Over the past 18 months, the DRS had already lost many of its powers -- including the right to carry out judicial probes into corruption -- and some of its responsibilities have been transferred to the army. These developments come as Algeria faces many challenges. More than two decades after the civil war the army continues to be at the forefront of a campaign against jihadists. Armed Islamist groups are still active in the country, where in 2013 a four-day siege by Islamists of the In Amenas gas plant left 38 hostages dead, all but one of them foreigners.
Algeria also faces a financial crisis, compounded by weaker oil prices. Last week the central bank said foreign reserves had fallen by 11.1 percent in the first six months of 2015. The 78-year-old Bouteflika, who has ruled Algeria since 1999, has the power to sack any security official or force him into retirement.

Police: Munich at Limit of Capacity Amid Refugee Surge
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Munich is at the limit of its capacity to welcome refugees arriving en masse in Germany, police warned Sunday, a day after 12,200 asylum-seekers reached the city. "We had a total of 12,200 refugees on Saturday... today we're expecting several hundreds. Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity," said a police spokesman. "Our aim today would be to transport as many as possible out of here, to make place for new arrivals," he said. Munich has become a key arrivals point for refugees travelling to Germany by train through Hungary and Austria. Last weekend, about 20,000 migrants arrived at the city's main railway station. The president of the Upper Bavaria region, Christoph Hillenbrand said he did not know "how we can cope", according to the Bild am Sonntag tabloid which headlined its article "Munich at the brink of collapse". Bavarian public television BR said the city "came very close to a humanitarian disaster", although authorities managed to limit the numbers of people sleeping on mattresses on the floor to just a few dozens, rather than the hundreds as earlier feared. Authorities are mulling whether to open up the Olympiahalle -- a stadium used for the 1972 Olympics and which today serves as a concert hall or sports arena -- as a temporary shelter for the refugees.

Clashes Rock Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque Compound
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Muslims clashed with Israeli police at Jerusalem's flashpoint al-Aqsa mosque compound Sunday hours before the start of the Jewish New Year, the latest violence over access to the site sacred to both faiths. The clashes came with tensions running high after Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon last week outlawed two Muslim groups that confront Jewish visitors to the compound. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he called an Israeli police "attack" at the site, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said authorities must prevent rioting at the compound. Muslim witnesses said police entered the mosque, Islam's third-holiest site, and caused damage. Police only said they closed the doors to the mosque to lock in rioters throwing stones, fireworks and other objects. Authorities have used the same tactic in the past in a bid to restore calm and which has seen them briefly enter.
According to police, the rioters had barricaded themselves in the mosque overnight with the aim of disrupting visits by Jews to the site ahead of the start of New Year celebrations on Sunday evening. Authorities said they raided the compound at around 6:45 am (0345 GMT) to ensure visits to the site could go on as usual. Protesters then targeted police from inside the mosque, according to the statement. "Masked protesters who were inside the mosque threw stones and fireworks at police," it said. "Suspect pipes that could be filled with homemade explosives were also found at the entry to the mosque." Protesters have previously used such pipes to direct the trajectory of fireworks. A Muslim witness accused police of entering the mosque much further than would have been needed to close the doors and of causing damage, saying prayer mats were partially burned.
Far-right minister visits
Authorities cleared people from the site, including members of the Waqf, the Jordanian organization that administers the sensitive compound, a Waqf spokesman said.Far-right Israeli Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel was among Jewish activists who visited the site later, local media reported. "It's the first time that they evacuated all the guards," Waqf spokesman Firas al-Dibs told AFP, adding that two had been wounded by rubber bullets. "The director of al-Aqsa mosque, Omar Kaswani, was injured and arrested."Police said calm later returned to the mosque complex, though clashes continued outside in the narrow alleyways of Jerusalem's Old City, with authorities firing tear gas and stun grenades. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 20 people required hospital treatment.
An AFP journalist saw a number of people being detained and heavy police deployments in the Old City. Several news photographers, including one from AFP, were kicked and hit by Israeli police seeking to push back crowds. Abbas said sites such as al-Aqsa constituted a "red line," adding that "we will not allow attacks against our holy places.""The presidency strongly condemns the attack by the occupier's military and police against the al-Aqsa mosque and the aggression against the faithful who were there," a statement from his office said. Netanyahu said in a statement that Israel would act "to maintain the status quo and order" at the compound, venerated by Jews as the Temple Mount. "It is our responsibility and our power to act against rioters to allow the freedom of worship at this holy place," he said. Jordan condemned what it described as an assault by the Israeli army. Egypt, the only other Arab country to have signed a peace treaty with the Jewish state, also condemned Israeli actions at the compound. Site of frequent clashes Non-Muslims are allowed to visit the compound, but Jews are forbidden from praying or displaying national symbols for fear of triggering tensions with Muslim worshipers. Muslims fear Israel will seek to change rules governing the site, with far-right Jewish groups pushing for more access and even efforts by fringe organizations to erect a new temple. The defense minister's move last week banned the Murabitat and Murabitun groups, which his office said were "a main factor in creating the tension and violence" at the mosque compound. Israel seized east Jerusalem, where al-Aqsa is located, in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognized by the international community. The mosque compound is the site of frequent clashes.In late July, Israeli police entered al-Aqsa as they clashed with Muslims angered by Jews' access to the compound on an annual day of Jewish mourning. The July incident marked the first time Israeli security forces had entered the mosque since November, when clashes with worshipers also erupted.

Germany Reinstates Border Controls over Refugee Surge
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Germany said it was reinstating border controls on Sunday as Europe's top economy admitted it could no longer cope with a record influx of refugees. The announcement came on the eve of a key EU meeting on the crisis, with interior ministers set to lock horns over a controversial plan to spread migrants across the continent. Despite an outpouring of public sympathy for the plight of the refugees, many of whom are from Syria, several eastern European countries have already warned they will oppose any binding quotas on absorbing asylum seekers. As Germany struggled to cope with a stream of migrants pouring in from Austria, the interior minister announced the immediate reintroduction of temporary border controls, apparently backtracking on Chancellor Angela Merkel's earlier decision to throw open the country's doors to Syrian refugees. The move effectively suspends Germany's participation in the bloc's borderless Schengen system, one of the cornerstones of the European integration project since it was created in the 1990s. "The aim of this measure is to stop the current influx to Germany and to return to an orderly process," Thomas de Maiziere said, as the city of Munich recorded an influx of 63,000 asylum seekers in two weeks. Asylum seekers must understand "they cannot chose the states where they are seeking protection," he told reporters. The announcement was quickly welcomed by Hungary's hardline Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whose own country is building a fence along its border with Serbia to keep migrants out. "We have great understanding for Germany's decision and we voice our full solidarity," he told Bild newspaper. "We understand that this decision was necessary in order to defend Germany's and Europe's values." In the wake of Berlin's move, the Czech Republic said it would take similar action on the border with Austria. The measures came as tragedy struck again off the coast of Greece, with 34 more migrants -- among them babies and children -- drowning when their overcrowded wooden boat capsized in high winds.
It won't work'
As the continent scrambles to respond to the biggest movement of people since World War II, sharp divisions have emerged among the European Union's 28 member states. While Germany and France back proposals to help "frontline" states Italy, Greece and Hungary, European Commission plans for sharing 160,000 new arrivals in a quota scheme are facing resistance from member states Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Romania. Czech Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka insisted his country would never accept compulsory quotas, saying the system "won't work", while Slovakia said it would try to block against any such binding measures at Monday's meeting. Hungary, which reported a new record in migrant arrivals -- 4,330 on Saturday -- was working around the clock to finish a controversial anti-migrant fence on its frontier with Serbia by Tuesday, when tough new laws will take effect that mean anyone crossing the border illegally can be deported or even jailed.
End of Schengen
Under EU rules, the first country of entry is required to deal with an asylum seeker's request for protection, but Germany had waived the rule for Syrian refugees. While earning praise for its welcoming stance, Germany's local authorities buckled under the sudden surge of migrants at the end of an exhausting and often perilous journey. In Munich, overwhelmed local authorities said they were stretched to capacity, with more than 13,000 migrants arriving in the city on Saturday alone. "Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity," said a Munich police spokesman. Merkel, whose country is taking in the lion's share of new arrivals, bluntly warned last month that the passport-free Schengen zone of 26 countries was under threat. "If we don't arrive at a fair distribution then the issue of Schengen will arise -- we don't want that," she said. The image of hundreds of German police mobilizing to carry out border checks piles on the pressure ahead of Monday's emergency meeting of interior ministers on the divisive EU proposal to introduce compulsory quotas for refugees. "The German decision of today underlines the urgency to agree on the measures proposed by the European Commission in order to manage the refugee crisis," the EU said. In Greece, on the frontline of the massive surge of people trying to reach Europe, the coastguard said 34 people -- including four babies and 11 young children -- perished when when their boat capsized off the Aegean island of Farmakonisi. The latest tragedies follow the death of a Syrian toddler whose lifeless body was photographed washed up on a Turkish beach last week, becoming a heart-wrenching symbol of the plight of refugees fleeing war. Merkel herself had called Saturday on Athens to make more effort to protect the EU's external borders. But Greece's interim Prime Minister Vassiliki Thanou branded the criticism "unacceptable."The Organization of Islamic Cooperation was also due to discuss the crisis Sunday. While Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey are housing millions of refugees from Syria, many wealthy Gulf states are facing increasing scrutiny over their apparent reluctance to take in people fleeing the conflict. The International Organization for Migration said Friday that more than 430,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean to Europe this year, with 2,748 dying en route or going missing.

Saudi Air Force Pilot Dies in Helicopter Crash
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Saudi Arabia's military blamed a "technical error" for a helicopter crash that killed a pilot during a training mission on Sunday. The air force machine went down in the Taif area, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) from the border with Yemen. A defense ministry statement said the pilot was on a "routine training trip."Since March 26, a Saudi-led Arab air coalition has been bombing Iran-backed Huthi rebels in Yemen, while also assisting local anti-rebel forces on the ground. Coalition helicopters have joined the fight. In late August, two pilots died when a coalition Apache gunship crashed in Saudi Arabia's Jazan district along the border. Huthi rebels said they had shot down an Apache in the same region. On Sunday, anti-rebel forces in Yemen began a major offensive aimed at pushing the Huthis out of Marib province and eventually moving on the capital Sanaa which the Huthis seized last year.

Islamic Body Urges U.N. Force to Help Stem Syria Tide
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/The United Nations should consider a peacekeeping force for war-ravaged Syria to help curb the surge of refugees which is destabilizing the region and beyond, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation said Sunday. An emergency meeting of the 57-member group called on the U.N. Security Council to urgently consider creating "a multi-dimensional U.N. peacekeeping operation in Syria as a prelude to restoring security and stability in the country." It also called for more to be done to find a rapid political solution to the Syrian conflict. The OIC, which calls itself the collective voice of the Muslim world, blamed the humanitarian crisis on "the war crimes committed by the regime in Syria." More than four million Syrians have fled their country where President Bashar Assad is battling various rebels including the Islamic State group which has carried out widespread atrocities. The migration from Syria has created a crisis in Europe, where Germany alone is expected to receive 800,000 asylum-seekers from Syria and elsewhere this year. "The meeting stressed the common responsibility of all nations, particularly OIC member states, to open their doors to the Syrian refugees as a mark of Islamic compassion and solidarity," a closing statement from the meeting said. The OIC noted that more than half of its member states are not signatories to the U.N. Convention on Refugees, and urged them to sign. No Gulf state has acceded to the convention which sets standards for the treatment and rights of those fleeing to a new country. Gulf Arab states have been among the most ardent opponents of Assad, providing funds and weapons for rebel groups fighting him. At the same time, Saudi Arabia and its neighbors last year joined a U.S.-led military coalition bombing IS extremists in Syria. The OIC further "urged all countries to refrain from extending military support to the Assad regime." That call comes as Washington accuses Moscow of a military build-up in Syria, where Russia has backed Assad against the uprising of more than four years. The OIC said Syria's neighbors who have taken refugees have borne "a huge portion" of the humanitarian burden and the international community should give them more support.

Clashes near Damascus Kill 80 in Six Days
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/At least 80 rebels and regime fighters have been killed in six days of clashes northeast of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said Sunday. The deaths came in clashes that began on Tuesday when two prominent Islamist rebel groups launched simultaneous attacks on three areas outside the capital. The Jaish al-Islam and Faylaq al-Sham attacks have focused on the areas of Harasta, Dahiyat al-Assad and the region around Adra prison, the monitor said. "Clashes since September 8 have killed 46 rebels and 41 regime forces, including from pro-regime militias," said Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman. On Wednesday, Jaish al-Islam also began an assault on Adra prison, Syria's largest and where many opposition figures have been held. It briefly captured two buildings in the women's section of the prison, but was subsequently forced back. In Damascus city meanwhile, the Observatory said one person had been killed and 10 wounded in rebel fire on the Bab Tuma district. Rebel forces including Jaish al-Islam regularly fire rockets into Damascus from rear bases on the city's outskirts. The regime frequently carries out deadly air strikes on the rebel-held areas outside Damascus, often killing dozens of civilians at a time. More than 240,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government demonstrations.

Probe Report Filed on Saudi Crane Tragedy
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Two days after a crane collapse killed 107 people at Mecca's Grand Mosque in Saudi Arabia, the region's governor on Sunday filed an investigative report, official media said. Prince Khaled al-Faisal "has submitted today the results of the investigation," the Saudi Press Agency said. Faisal sent the findings to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef for presentation to King Salman, it said, without disclosing any contents. Salman vowed Saturday to reveal what caused the crane to topple into a courtyard of the Grand Mosque, where hundreds of thousands of Muslims have converged ahead of the hajj pilgrimage later this month. "We will investigate all the reasons and afterwards declare the results to the citizens," Salman said after visiting the site, one of Islam's holiest. Prince Faisal ordered a probe as soon as the tragedy struck. The investigative committee was headed by Hesham al-Faleh, an adviser to Prince Khaled, who was under orders to submit the findings urgently. Nationalities of most of those killed have still not been revealed but they included Indians, Indonesians and a Thai. Among the 238 injured were Iranians, Turks, Afghans, Egyptians and Pakistanis. The crane which collapsed during a thunderstorm with extremely high winds was one of several working on a multi-billion-dollar expansion of the mosque to accommodate mounting numbers of faithful.

Qaida Chief Urges Jihadists to Unite, Confront West
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 13/15/Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri called for jihadists to close ranks and take the battle to Western cities, especially in the United States, in an Internet audio message posted Sunday. "I call on all mujahedeen (Islamist fighters) in districts of Iraq and Syria to collaborate and help each other," said Zawahiri, who opposes last year's declaration by the Islamic State group (IS) of a "caliphate" straddling the two Arab states. Al-Qaida's chief, who is in hiding, said the decision on the caliphate had been taken "in secret and without consultation."He singled out five areas of cooperation: ending inter-jihadist clashes, a halt to campaigns calling for rivals to be eliminated, the creation of an independent religious tribunal to resolve differences, a general amnesty and collaboration in treating the wounded, sheltering refugees and stocking food supplies. Such cooperation had become even more urgent because "the enemy has intensified its crusade against Islam."To counter the campaign, Zawahiri called for Muslims "to take the war into the West's cities and against their installations, especially in the United States."He urged jihadists living in Western countries "to identify their targets... and find the means to attack, avoiding spies and moving into action."Al-Qaida's Syria affiliate, al-Nusra Front, allied with other Islamist rebel groups, has been locked in deadly clashes with IS for control of territory in the north and around Damascus.

Syria group: Russia expanding major Syrian airport
By The Associated Press, Beirut/Sunday, 13 September 2015/A Syrian group says Russian forces are expanding the tarmac of a major airport in Syria’s coastal province of Latakia, a stronghold of President Bashar Assad and his minority sect. The head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdurrahman, says Sunday that witnesses, including officials inside the airport, describe the development as planned to ensure larger planes can land in the airport that houses a military base. The witnesses tell the Observatory no Syrian military or civilian officials are allowed near the tarmac. Abdurrahman said Russian planes arrived in recent weeks carrying military equipment and hundreds of Russian military advisers. The Associated Press reported there were plans to build a military base there. U.S. President Barack Obama expressed concern about increased Russian military activity in Syria.

Germany calls for dialogue with Russia on Syria
By Staff writer, Al Arabiya News/Sunday, 13 September 2015/German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that Berlin and other western European powers need to work with Russia as well as the United States to solve the crisis in Syria as number of refugees reach a new record in Hungary and Munich declares reaching its limit. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier met with his Russian, French and Ukrainian counterparts in Berlin on Saturday evening and said afterwards he saw growing support for creating an international contact group to solve the Syrian conflict. Earlier, a delegation source said Steinmeier and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov had a lengthy exchange about Syria on the sidelines of the meeting, with both agreeing to support the U.N. Syrian envoy, Staffan de Mistura’s plan to create a Syrian contact group.
De Mistura has invited warring parties to take part in U.N.-led working groups to address matters including political and constitutional issues, and military and security issues. Russia had called on Friday for cooperation with the United States to avoid “unintended incidents”, as it stages naval exercises off the coast of Syria, where U.S. officials believe Moscow is building up forces to protect long-term ally President Bashar al-Assad.
Munich at limit of capacity . Munich is at the limit of its capacity to welcome refugees arriving en masse in Germany, police warned Sunday, a day after 13,000 asylum-seekers reached the city. “Given the numbers from yesterday, it is very clear that we have reached the upper limit of our capacity,” said a police spokesman. “Our aim today would be to transport as many as possible out of here, to make place for new arrivals,” he said. The police spokesman had earlier given a figure of 12,200 asylum-seekers arriving on Saturday, but government sources later said the actual number was 13,015. Munich has become a key arrivals point for refugees travelling to Germany by train through Hungary and Austria. Last weekend, about 20,000 migrants arrived at the city’s main railway station. The president of the Upper Bavaria region, Christoph Hillenbrand said he did not know “how we can cope,” according to the Bild am Sonntag tabloid which headlined its article “Munich at the brink of collapse.”Bavarian public television BR said the city “came very close to a humanitarian disaster,” although authorities managed to limit the numbers of people sleeping on mattresses on the floor to just a few dozens, rather than the hundreds as earlier feared.
Authorities are mulling whether to open up the Olympiahalle -- a stadium used for the 1972 Olympics and which today serves as a concert hall or sports arena -- as a temporary shelter for the refugees. In a sign that authorities were running out of options, regular passenger trains will be cleared out to transport refugees instead. One such train linking Munich to Berlin will be affected Sunday, Hillenbrand said, adding that passengers would have to rebook their trains. Other regular services will be requisitioned on Monday, as the southern German city seek to rapidly transport refugees onwards to other locations across the country in other to free up space for new arrivals. The army said it had mobilized some 600 soldiers on Saturday to help manage the migrant inflow.
Migrants arrives hit new record. Meanwhile, the number of migrants entering Hungary has hit a new one-day record, police said Sunday, as the country prepares to impose a controversial new law to stop the influx.
A total of 4,330 migrants entered the country on Saturday, outstripping the previous one-day record of 3,601 set on Thursday. Hungarian authorities said they feared a new surge of arrivals on Sunday. Almost all the migrants are heading towards Germany via Austria. Austrian police said some 6,700 crossed the Austria-Hungarian border at Nickelsdorf on Saturday before heading north toward Germany. They predicted similar numbers for Sunday. Hungary is trying to seal its border with Serbia to stop thousands of migrants and refugees traveling up from Greece and the Balkans. (With Reuters and AFP)

Why has Europe gone soft on Syria’s Assad?
Raed Omari/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
Europe has unmistakably softened its posture on Bashar al-Assad recently, with leaders of key countries in the refugee-plagued bloc coyly acknowledging the beginnings of unified policy on Syria.
Given the shock of the non-stop influx of refugees, Europe's longstanding narrative on Syria has shifted from being anti-Assad to something of a grey area – neither in favor, nor against, the embattled president.
For the Europeans, ISIS is now the embodiment of all terror in Syria. And in the European rhetoric, a regime change is no longer a necessity.
The refugee crisis is a key reason behind the abrupt paradigm shift. The Europeans are concerned about a possible – and, for some, inevitable – demographic impact given the non-stop influx of refugees.
Because of this, European leaders have begun calculating other options to address Syria’s four-and-a-half-year conflict, especially given that its consequences have reached the shores of the European bloc, which already had its share of geopolitical and economic problems. The new position on Syria has not been announced as a unified policy of the European Union – but takes the form of remarks made by individual countries’ leaders that all, in a way or another, mean the same.
All change on regime change
For the UK Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, Assad could remain in office for six months with his “eventual” departure within a transition process agreed with the Russians and Iranians. Hammond was also quoted as saying that regime change is not the direct aim of possible UK strikes on Syria, which would be intended to disrupt ISIS’ hold on Raqqa.
Austria’s Foreign Minister Sebastian Kurz has called on European leaders to be “pragmatic” on Syria, urging the West to collaborate with Assad in defeating ISIS. The EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker is also urging for a “pragmatic” approach in responding to the refugee crisis, and has shied away from even alluding to Assad’s brutality as the reason behind the Syrian refugee crisis, linking the large numbers of asylum seekers to ISIS’ cruelty.
The Europeans are wrong in their conviction that ISIS alone is the embodiment of all terror in Syria.
Such statements certainly signal a departure from the West’s official posture on the conflict in Syria which, for almost five years, advocated regime change and accused Assad of committing war crimes against his own people. Since the early beginnings of the Syrian war, the departure of Assad seemed to be an irreversible demand for the British and French – but things have changed considerably, probably as a result of the recent refugee dilemma and new developments on the ground in Syria, paramount of which was the news about Russia sending in troops and weapons.
Refugees from ISIS territory
What contributed to Europe’s emerging conviction that Assad's brutality is, so to speak, less brutal than that of ISIS is the fact that most of the thousands of Syrian and Iraqi asylum seekers come from territories held by the militant organization. Very few refugees are coming to Europe from Assad’s Damascus – but from Raqqa, Aleppo, Kobani and other Syrian districts where ISIS is active.
No matter what the Assad regime is, for the Europeans – and, to a lesser degree, the Americans – it is easier to communicate and deal with, compared to ISIS. The Syrian regime has its institutions and can be brought to negotiating tables – unlike ISIS.
Iran ties
And let us not forget that Europe, after the signing of the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers, is not the same Europe as it was before. The bloc is pinning hopes that the deal could open doors for more economic cooperation between oil-rich Iran and EU member states. Shortly after the deal was signed, some European leaders flew to Tehran, sending a signal to the U.S. about their eagerness to lift the sanctions and begin a new chapter of economic cooperation. For the Europeans to continue their anti-Assad position – which in a way also means they are against the Ayatollah’s regime – has consequences on the Iran deal and, consequently, the envisioned economic cooperation with Iran.
It is however Russia’s stubborn position on Syria and its unaltered support of the Syrian regime that is, in my opinion, a major factor behind Europe’s softening of its anti-Assad rhetoric. In order to avoid angering the Russians in ‘nearby’ Ukraine, the Europeans decided to calm them in ‘far away’ Syria – which also proved to be very close.
Whilst ISIS’s brutality and threat are undeniable and should be a source of concern, the Europeans are wrong in their conviction that ISIS alone is the embodiment of all terror in Syria.

Boris is wrong: The UK needs to ban the ISIS flag
Dr. Halla Diyab/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
London Mayor Boris Johnson has publicly stated that he opposes a ban on the ISIS flag on the streets of the UK – despite the string of atrocities against British citizens carried out by the jihadist group and those inspired by it. He made the statement in July, days after British police allowed a man and little girl to fly the ISIS flag outside parliament. Speaking on LBC Radio, Johnson explained that banning the flag is not necessary and is something that would require specific legislation, adding that “we live in a free country”.The morning radio show provoked diverse reactions, including some people who felt that banning the ISIS flag is a national obligation given the UK’s stance on the extremist group. There is more to the ISIS flag than a piece of cloth. Although neither the text on the flag, nor the flag itself is unique to ISIS, it has recently grown to symbolize the group. It is ISIS’ identifiable symbol, an emblem of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s so-called caliphate.
Hijacking an Islamic symbol
The white banner at the top reads “there is no God but Allah” – part of a declaration of faith used in Islam known as the shahada, or ‘testimony’. Underneath, black writing that roughly translates as “Mohammed is the messenger of God” is enclosed in a white circle that resembles the Prophet’s seal. The ISIS flag should not be allowed to fly in the UK or anywhere else. By employing such imagery, ISIS hijacks an important Islamic symbol in an attempt to manipulate the faith and its followers, and make people more susceptible to the group’s extreme narrative. Flying or wearing the flag is an emblematic sign of allegiance and endorsement of ISIS and its principles. There is also a trend of ISIS supporters using the flag on their social-media profiles – which is highly significant, given the importance of the online sphere in recruiting. Allowing the flag to fly in the UK therefore permits a physical sphere for the recruitment process to continue, granting ISIS supporters a public platform and outreach program to publicize its jihadist ideas to the most vulnerable Muslims within British communities. The flag also invokes ISIS’ brutal beheadings of British hostages Alan Henning and David Haines as well as the massacre of the thirty British holiday tourists in Tunisia.
Territorial expansion
So allowing the public display of the flag can only be traumatic for the friends and families of those lost in these tragedies. To many, banning the ISIS flag and other symbols representing the group would be a mark of respect to the many innocent British people whose lives were tragically ended by ISIS and those inspired by it. As much as the ISIS flag is a reminder of the atrocities committed by the group, against innocent British people and many others, it also distorts and twists an important symbol of the Islamic faith. Those who do not have a basic knowledge of Islam, and are unable to comprehend the importance of the words used on the flag, can easily be led to link the scriptures with the brutal actions of ISIS. Islamic script also features on the black flag of Syrian terrorist group Al-Nusra Front. Hostages in the 2014 siege in Sydney were forced to hold up this flag in the window of the café where they were held captive, for all the world to see. By displaying such flags at the scene of these atrocities, jihadist groups attempt to mark their territorial expansion. They are waving it triumphantly over the land they seek to conquer. Dabiq, ISIS’ online propaganda magazine, even featured a photoshopped image of the ISIS flag flying over the Vatican – another symbolic gesture pointing toward ISIS targeting European cities.
It is evident that allowing people to wave the ISIS flag in the streets of London helps the group’s aim of terrorizing the country. And surely those who endorse ISIS’ narrative should not avoid prosecution, just because the UK is a free country, with freedom of speech?
Because those very freedoms are undermined by everything ISIS stands for – all the more reason that the flag should not be allowed to fly in the UK, or anywhere else.

The memoirs of Queen Elizabeth II: From Churchill to Cameron
Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
Think back to Truman, Churchill and Stalin. Think back to the time of the Korean war. This was when a young 25-year-old princess acceded to the throne of Britain, a dying imperial power some 63 and a half years ago. Queen Elizabeth II has officially become Britain’s longest serving monarch overtaking her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria. Since then the Queen has made 270 official visits to 128 countries making her comfortably the most widely travelled head of state in history. (Queen Victoria never got beyond Europe) Only King Rama IX of Thailand has served longer as Head of State. Barack Obama is her 12th U.S. President, Vladimir Putin her 11th Russian/Soviet leader and Francis is her seventh Roman Catholic Pope. Has any other monarch or head of state had anything like her extraordinary breadth of experience? So my humble proposal is that it is time that the Queen throws all tradition and protocol out of the palace window and pens a considered or even better a no-holds memoir. After all most world leaders write memoirs so why not her. For sure, it will not happen, but imagine it for a second.She reportedly keeps a diary so would it be such a stretch to transform it even though she reportedly told inquirers, “Mine’s not for publication”. Indeed her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria kept an extraordinary diary and you can now read online the 40,000 pages of her journals.
Treasure trove
An honest account would be a treasure trove surely of detail about major historic personalities and wise reflections. Would it not be fascinating to hear what she genuinely thinks after six decades plus of meeting the world’s leaders? Every one of her 12 Prime Ministers had to brief her on events on a regular basis. What did she make of Churchill - the real view not the official blurb. Did she really not like Margaret Thatcher that much? The Queen has met each and every one of the 12 American Presidents in power since the end of World War II except Lyndon B, Johnson so what did she make of them? What did she think of George W Bush saying on the White House lawn that she had been on the throne since the 18th century? ‘W’ then winked at her. Should we expect people in the 21st century to take on almost lifelong roles under such demanding circumstances? Her public profile is austere if anything bland, but those who know her privately nearly all agree she has a terrific sense of humor. This could be unlocked for a great page-turner avoiding the distant, stiff, detached language of her annual Christmas address. There are so many questions to be asked (including what she really thought about being given a bull elephant by the President of Cameroon and did she really like the American TV series Kojak?) What were her genuine views about Princess Diana? How has she coped with a mass media that has shifted from referential to intrusive? Queen Elizabeth II has a unique vantage point. Her reign started at a time of austerity with rationing after the world war; there was the Suez crisis, the Cold War, Vietnam, South Africa and the downfall of the apartheid, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break of the Soviet Union. In her time, women have risen to the highest offices. The world has become smaller with mass air travel, satellite TV, the Internet and social media. In Britain she has overseen the decline of empire but also the demise of the aristocracy replaced by a new celebrity class. Back in 1952 Britain was a fairly homogenous white Christian country but today is a rich multicultural society with communities from across the globe. Given the extraordinary pace of change in the modern day world Britain has been transformed far more than during the entire Victorian era.
She also saw the extraordinary transformation in the Gulf region over these decades from her visit state visit in 1979. The Queen has ensured that the links between the British and Gulf Royal families have always been strong, a role kept up by Prince Charles in particular.
She often established a wonderful personal rapport with other leaders. There was the story confirmed to me by the late King himself that the Queen drove King Abdallah of Saudi Arabia through the grounds of her estate in Balmoral in Scotland. For a start, he had never been driven by a woman before, a shock in itself. But the Queen also drove too fast for him and he had to ask her to slow down. Was this on purpose? Most people in Britain would say she has been an asset to the country. The Republican movement exists but the fact that it has never gathered huge momentum is to a large extent a shrewd understanding by the Queen that she must stand above politics and not be a figure of controversy. No doubt this instinct means she will publish nothing but what a pity.
Lifelong roles
But should we expect people in the 21st century to take on almost lifelong roles under such demanding circumstances? Pope Benedict set a precedent by retiring as Pope. The King of Spain also abdicated last year as did the Queen of the Netherlands the year before. As yet the Queen has not done so although she has cut back on her previously hectic schedule. But she is a woman who has never known normal life – it is privileged but also no longer private. The media scrutinize every action, every gesture and every photo. Celebrities have their moments of fame often fleeting but ever since the age of then when her father became King she has been on a pedestal to be watched and monitored. As Queen, she has had to always appear to act properly at all times. Is it not time though that the monarch be allowed down from the ivory tower? Could she be allowed to reveal some of her true self for posterity? Surely someone who has seen, experienced and heard so much could enrich our understanding of this era. Rather than leave her barricaded behind the walls of her palaces and castles, before it is too late she should be invited to contribute her experiences and what she has learnt. We know so little of what she truly thinks. Perhaps we could ask of her this one final duty, not to leave the scene without some contribution to our understanding of the last 60 years. A memoir would give a fascinating insight into the life of someone who had a ringside view of so much of the 20th century’s defining moments.

Don’t count on America being ‘Ready for Hillary’
Dr. John C. Hulsman/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
While Donald Trump has shot across the summer political sky like a meteor, the other major story of the season has—at least internationally—largely gone unremarked upon: the surprising difficulties of Hillary Clinton. The odds-on favourite (again) for the presidency has run into a series of problems, from the self-inflicted wound of her email server scandal, to her regal disdain toward speaking with the press. While still the overwhelming frontrunner to win the Democratic nomination, the sense that Secretary Clinton would easily waltz into the White House has been upended. Her campaign’s tone-deaf slogan, ‘Ready for Hillary,’ provides the central clue as to what has gone wrong up until now. Her campaign’s tone-deaf slogan, ‘Ready for Hillary,’ provides the central clue as to what has gone wrong up until now. It conjures up feelings of entitlement (it is up to America to accept that Mrs. Clinton ought to be president), that it is her rightful turn to ascend to power, that just don’t sit well in the Republic of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. In a presidential contest that began with yet another Bush and yet another Clinton as the frontrunners, the country seems dissatisfied with accepting it is merely another oligarchy. This yearning for change—a quality neither Secretary Clinton nor Governor Bush embodies in the least—explains the summer ascent of both Trump on the right, and avowed socialist Senator Bernie Sanders on the left. While neither will win, they are the first salvoes in the war to find a true, viable candidate who is not part of the old caste.
No electoral colossus
Secretary Clinton opens the door to such yearnings, for the simple fact remains she is just not that good at running for office. Despite her undoubted competence, ferocious work ethic, and mastery of the issues, Secretary Clinton is a pale shadow of her husband on the campaign trail, who along with Ronald Reagan, John Kennedy, and Franklin Roosevelt, was an electoral colossus of the twentieth century. In contrast, Secretary Clinton is passionless, programmatic, and seems to look upon campaigning as a dutiful child looks upon eating vegetables: something that must be done, but not without any great joy. That innate lack of enthusiasm is infectious. Unlike former President Clinton, his wife is respected by many, but loved by a very few. That leaves her open to defeat. Thirdly, with the never-ending scandal involving her use of a private email server while Secretary of State, Mrs. Clinton has already made a big mistake, with significant political repercussions. While she is unlikely to face charges (as frankly she should) for mishandling classified documents on her personal server, the whole episode plays to America’s worst fears about her. Yet again a Clinton has bent the rules, seeing them as for other, smaller, people. Yet again, Mrs. Clinton has tried to control the overall narrative about her dealings with the world, determining which emails are worthy of sharing with government investigators, and which are her private concern, an unedifying inversion of standard government practice. Worst, of all, yet again, a Clinton had blamed the rest of the world for a mistake that is clearly her fault alone. This plays into an unhealthy settled narrative about Secretary Clinton, bringing back memories of all that was bad about her husband’s presidency, without all that was good.
Political damage
While criminal damage is likely to be avoided, the political damage has already set in. A Quinnipiac survey of July 30 found that only 37% of Americans consider Mrs. Clinton honest and trustworthy, compared with 52% who think that of Jeb Bush. Fully 57% consider Mrs. Clinton downright untrustworthy. Her unfavourable ratings are now the worst they have been in her 23-plus years in national office. This then is a vulnerable candidate. Given her formidable campaign war chest, and her vast organisational advantage, it remains the case that Hillary Clinton is the pre-eminent favourite to win the Democratic nomination, while stirring up limited enthusiasm in the more general electorate. The key political question remains as to whether she is capable of holding together the Obama coalition of students, White liberals, Hispanics, and African-Americans, which so recently revolutionised American politics. Her joyless slog to the nomination suggests this will be harder than seemed the case. Will African-Americans, with President Obama off the ticket, vote for her in the overwhelming numbers needed to secure victory? Will students, traditional laggards at the polls, bother to vote for anyone at all, given the relative lack of enthusiasm Secretary Clinton fails to inspire? Will pivotal independents, who so often determine American political elections and who are turned off by her sense of entitlement, decide to support Mrs. Clinton? If the answer is no to any of these questions, Secretary Clinton is far less of a sure thing than she seemed at the start of the campaign. The coupled rise of Donald Trump and relative fall of Hillary Clinton are bookends of the same American political phenomenon: American presidential politics is entering an unsettled time, where a volatile electorate seems to be desperately looking for new faces with new answers to the country’s ills. Perhaps beyond everything else, it is this yearning for change that is the biggest single obstacle standing in Secretary Clinton’s path to the White House. Whatever the case, don’t assume America is “Ready for Hillary.”

The secret to Indians’ success in America
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/September 13/15
You rarely hear bad news about Indians in the United States. In fact, you rarely hear about them in general. Recent studies have focused on communities that arrived from India as they constitute a large number of the population, and it turns out that the Indian community is one of the richest, and the most efficient and influential. The common image of the poor Indian man is the complete opposite of the image of Indians in the United States, as it turns out that Indians there are one of the richest Asian immigrant communities. The yearly income is $88,000 per household. He who wants to overcome his circumstances and difficult times must pay full attention to education, and I mean quality education. The sweeping majority of them have university degrees, and most of these degrees are in scientific majors. This is why they are among the best at getting hired, and why they are better off. In addition, they are new immigrants as two thirds of them are born outside the United States, so they are not like other deep-rooted groups such as the Jews and Europeans.
Quality education
The secret to their success lies entirely in education. Poverty and the weak capabilities of the Indian government has not prevented the provision of quality education. This is why most of them attained the right to emigrate to a country such as the United States. They are considered before immigrants from other countries because they specialize in fields required by the job market. Therefore, they are granted residency, given jobs, and later attain American citizenship. Some Indians there are now high-profile politicians as well. Two U.S. states are governed by men of Indian descent, and a candidate of Indian descent is running for the Senate post in California next year. More than 40,000 Indian immigrants work as doctors, as is the case in other vital fields. The moral is that he who wants to overcome his circumstances and difficult times must pay full attention to education, and I mean quality education. Education is the only medical prescription we can agree on when it comes to social and economic solutions. Although all countries provide free public education, only a few of them provide quality education that produces people capable of developing their society.
us tolerance

What the Third Lebanon War will look like
Ron Ben-Yishai/Ynetnews/Published: 9.13.15/ Israel News
The IDF is preparing for the next confrontation with Hezbollah, which was dangerously close to breaking out in the winter, with new tactics, like creation of artificial cliffs to prevent infiltrations. It's late summer, and all is quiet on the northern front. On the Lebanese side of the border, the extreme heat has driven shepherds and their wards to the shade. Lebanese army and UNIFIL troops take cover at their posts, and Hezbollah's operatives – those who are still in south Lebanon and have not been sent to fight in Syria – collect intelligence on us. The UN Security Council established after the Second Lebanon War that Hassan Nasrallah's people are forbidden to openly move along the border fence, armed, and provoke Israeli soldiers. They are careful to abide by the rules, but they are here, utilizing all the new technology Iran has provided to ensure that the IDF is not entering Lebanese territory. Meanwhile, they prepare "surprises" to hurt Israel during the next conflict – just like Hamas in Gaza. While Hezbollah is deeply submerged in the Syrian quagmire, and despite a substantial interest in avoiding confrontation with Israel, over the past year the organization's leadership has been preparing for the Third Lebanon War as though it will begin tomorrow. This derives mainly from a decision by Nasrallah and members of Iran's Quds Force about a year ago to change the strategy towards Israel. This strategy is aimed at deterring Israel from pinpoint actions the IDF occasionally takes to foil terrorism and strengthening of Hezbollah (known in the IDF as a battle between the wars). Fighting Israel provides Hezbollah with the legitimacy it needs to arm itself in Lebanon and battle in Syria. It was hence decided to treat Lebanon and Syria as a single front against Israel and to respond to any significant attacks attributed to the IDF, even if the result is escalation that leads to destruction and many casualties on both sides. This almost happened in January. An airstrike on senior Hezbollah field commanders, which killed Jihad Mughniyeh and several others, including an Iranian general, was attributed by Hezbollah and Iran to Israel. According to evidence on the ground and intelligence information, a decision was made to carry out a retaliatory attack.
The IDF and Hezbollah both prepared for the possibility that this response could spark a larger conflagration. Major General Aviv Kokhabi, head of the IDF's Northern Command, was in the middle of preparing orders for a possible counterattack when news broke of Hezbollah's retaliation. The organization fired anti-tank missiles from Lebanon at an IDF convoy on its way to Mount Dov, killing two Givati soldiers. Thanks to troops' alertness and speed, much greater loss of life was prevented. The leadership on both sides could therefore decide that the account was more or less settled. But only a minority of the Israeli public realizes how close we were at noon on January 28, 2015 to the outbreak of the Third Lebanon War. Under these circumstances, it's only natural that the commander of the IDF's Sword Battalion, Colonel Alon Madanes, considers the Lebanese border to be a front that is currently quiet, but could boil over within hours. Madanes and his battalion are responsible for the western sector of the border area, which contains 165,000 residents in 55 towns. As we drove along the border fence, I realize that he and the entire Northern Command are preparing for a Third Lebanon War and are working intensively to prepare offensive and defensive actions.
The next war
It's likely that the next war and its results will be decided in many ways by its opening shot and its timing. But in general, the IDF will have to deal with three main problems. The first is firing of high-trajectory projectiles, both more frequent and more accurate than in the past, which will target civilians, military facilities, and essential services throughout Israel. This would involve around 1,200 warheads a day that would wreak destruction and losses until the IDF manages to halt the launches. Damage in the first days of the war or campaign will be much smaller if David's Sling, designed to intercept missiles with a longer range than Iron Dome, is operative by then. But there will still be damage.
The second is attempts by Hezbollah special forces to cross into Israeli territory to conquer towns, kidnap hostage, and block major transportation arteries in the north. This activity will be designed to foil the IDF's tactical plan, particularly any land advance into Lebanese territory, while also attaining a propaganda coup of the likes that enemies of Israel have not achieved since 1948. Nasrallah has hinted since 2011 of his organization's plans to "conquer the Galilee", and recently flat-out stated this goal.
The third is intensive barrages of mortal shells and short-range rockets, with the goal of unleashing mass death and destruction in border-adjacent communities. Hezbollah learned a lesson from Hamas's tactic at the end of Operation Protective Edge, realizing that the warning time given to civilians in border-adjacent communities and to IDF forces deployed in the field does not always permit finding cover. It intends to take advantage of this fact to maximize the number of civilian casualties, in hopes of causing demoralization and mass evacuation of these communities.
The IDF has a solution to these all too real threats. It consists of offensive means and plans, some of which will likely take Hezbollah by surprise, defensive means and plans, and a series of civilian defense measures meant to foil Hezbollah's intensions in all areas.
Make no mistake – the IDF prioritizes the offensive tactics aimed at stopping Hezbollah's rocket fire towards the Israeli home front, and at preventing infiltration into Israeli territory. There will be significant and speedy maneuvering of large IDF forces into Lebanese territory and thousands of targets will be hit throughout Lebanon for many days. This will be the IDF's main effort, but there will also be evacuations of towns.
One of the main difficulties the senior rank of the IDF expects in the next war is mental: How to explain to the Israeli public that Hezbollah could penetrate our territory for a few hours before being chased back. This is the nature of a war in which each side has successes and failures, and the balance sheet is made at the end. Operation Protective Edge proved that the Israeli public is not prepared to accept a situation in which the enemy has any success, even if temporary.
Preparing the public
Another defensive element is what's known as "the obstacle". This is an artificial cliff IDF is digging in mountain slopes next to border-adjacent communities. "The goal is to significantly erode the advantages given to the enemy by the steep, mountainous terrain and thick vegetation," says Madanes. "Hezbollah doesn't need tunnels," he adds, saying he cannot claim with certainty that there are no tunnels crossing into Israel in his sector, but that he believes that the fact that intelligence has yet to expose such a tunnel is encouraging.
Regarding "the obstacle", he is more decisive. "The steep topography and dense vegetation that actually reach the outermost homes in Israeli towns provide the enemy with a hiding place just like the tunnels in Gaza," he continues. "Digging these cliffs will change this situation. It will not only force them to climb several meters on a steep wall, but they will also stand out to observation units against the backdrop of the cliffs' white chalk." Colonel Madanes hopes that the next war will, thanks to incessant preparations by the IDF, will bring much more decisive results in Israel's favor than the Second Lebanon War. He is aware that Hezbollah is gaining important experience in Syria, but believes the gap between the Lebanese organization and Israel's army is only widening to Israel's advantage. "Hezbollah is afraid of us," he says carefully, and after a small hesitation adds: "More than we are afraid of it."

Is Europe Losing Control Over Its Destiny?
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/September 13/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6490/europe-control-destiny
The move by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to force European countries to throw open their borders — and to require them to provide migrants with free clothing, food, housing and healthcare for an indefinite period of time — not only represents an audacious usurpation of national sovereignty, it is also certain to encourage millions of additional migrants from the Muslim world to begin making their way to Europe.
"We are not facing a refugee crisis, we are facing a migration crisis... Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe could become a minority interest in its own continent." — Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of Hungary.
"[T]he continent is experiencing a mass movement of people not seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Unlike the end of the war, however, none of the masses currently on the move is European... The control over one's own borders is one of the most important characteristics — and responsibilities — of a modern state. Countries lose control over their destinies and even cease to exist when they lose control over who gets in." — Arthur Chrenkoff, New York Observer.
Statistics show that of the 625,920 people who applied for asylum in the European Union in 2014, only 29.5% were from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
"If you do not like it, just go away." — Czech Republic President Milos Zeman, commenting that no one had invited migrants to his country, but once they arrive, they should respect the rules of his country or leave.
"The lesson for the United States is that reducing our global influence does not increase international peace and security. Quite the opposite. Obama's retreat from the Middle East, whether in the aftermath of Libya, his disinterest in the Islamic State's continuing rise, or his surrender to Iran's nuclear-weapons program, are all part of the larger pattern." — Ambassador John R. Bolton, Fox News Opinion.
"Since Slovakia is a Christian country, we cannot tolerate an influx of 300,000-400,000 Muslim immigrants who would like to start building mosques all over our land and trying to change the nature, culture and values of the state.... If we do not start telling the truth about migration, we will never move from this spot." — Prime Minister Robert Fico, Slovakia.
The European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, has unveiled a controversial plan that would compel EU member countries to accept 160,000 migrants and refugees from the Middle East and North Africa.
The move by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels to force European countries to throw open their borders — and to require them to provide migrants with free clothing, food, housing and healthcare for an indefinite period of time — not only represents an audacious usurpation of national sovereignty, it is also certain to encourage millions of additional migrants from the Muslim world to begin making their way to Europe.
The migration proposal, announced on September 9, would "share" 120,000 migrants currently holed up in Greece, Hungary and Italy with other countries in the European Union. This number is in addition to previous demands by the European Commission that 40,000 Syrian and Eritrean migrants be relocated from Greece and Italy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose open-door immigration policy is partly responsible for fueling the rush of migrants to Europe, has already warned that the European Commission's plan is "merely a first step" and that Europe may have to accept even bigger numbers. German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel said that Germany could take 500,000 migrants annually for "several more years."
Welcome to Germany! At left, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. At right, some of the hundreds of migrants who arrived in Munich on September 12, 2015.
It remains unclear just how many of the migrants arriving in Europe are refugees fleeing warzones, and how many are economic migrants seeking a better life in the West. Statistics show that of the 625,920 people who applied for asylum in the European Union in 2014, only 29.5% were from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
German officials have admitted that 40% of the migrants arriving in the country in 2015 are from the Balkans, including Albania, Kosovo and Serbia, which implies that at least half of those arriving in Germany this year are economic migrants fleeing poverty not war.
Critical observers are describing the migration chaos engulfing Europe in apocalyptic terms: an "unstoppable demographic revolution," a "total Armageddon scenario," and an "exodus of biblical proportions."
What follows is a selection of quotes and commentary from a variety of political leaders and opinion-shapers in Europe and elsewhere about the consequences of untrammeled immigration from the Muslim world.
In Britain, Nigel Farage, the leader of the Eurosceptic UK Independence Party (UKIP), spoke to the BBC Radio 4's Today program. He said:
"The problem we've got is we've opened the door to an exodus of biblical proportions meaning millions and millions of refugees. We've lost sight of what it is to be a refugee. How many millions does Europe want to take? That is the question.
"Genuine refugees have tended to be groups of people, ethnic groups or religious groups who were directly under persecution and were fleeing in fear of their lives. The problem we've got now if you look at the definition of the EU's common asylum policy, it includes anyone fleeing from a war-torn country, and it even includes people fleeing extreme poverty."
British MEP Janice Atkinson, said:
"Nobody voted for illegal immigration. Plenty of people voted to put us here to oppose it. The hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants overwhelming our borders and our capacities to cope are exactly that — illegal. "Let's be clear about another thing: despite what the human rights industry and the massed ranks of taxpayer-funded charities and lobby-groups repeat, this is not a refugee crisis but a massive crisis of illegal immigration which must be resisted for what it is."
English author and journalist Peter Hitchens, in an essay titled, "We won't save refugees by destroying our own country," wrote:
"Actually we can't do what we like with this country. We inherited it from our parents and grandparents and we have a duty to hand it on to our children and grandchildren, preferably improved and certainly undamaged. It is one of the heaviest responsibilities we will ever have. We cannot just give it away to complete strangers on an impulse because it makes us feel good about ourselves...."Thanks to a thousand years of uninvaded peace, we have developed astonishing levels of trust, safety and freedom.... I am amazed at how relaxed we are about giving this away. "Our advantages depend very much on our shared past, our inherited traditions, habits and memories. Newcomers can learn them, but only if they come in small enough numbers. Mass immigration means we adapt to them, when they should be adapting to us...."So now, on the basis of an emotional spasm, dressed up as civilization and generosity, are we going to say that we abandon this legacy and decline our obligation to pass it on, like the enfeebled, wastrel heirs of an ancient inheritance letting the great house and the estate go to ruin? "I can see neither sense nor justice in allowing these things to become a pretext for an unstoppable demographic revolution in which Europe (including, alas, our islands) merges its culture and its economy with North Africa and the Middle East. If we let this happen, Europe would lose almost all the things that make others want to live there."British MEP Daniel Hannon warned that Germany's open-door immigration policy was drawing ever more migrants to Europe. He wrote:
"The belief that Germany is relaxing its policy is bound to lead to a level of migration that surpasses anything seen so far. Refugees and economic migrants will be thrown together in a rush. Some will be trampled, and some boats will be overturned. But many more will reach Italy and Greece. Eventually, the front-line EU states will stop trying to enforce the rules, and will simply wave new arrivals across their territory, tempting even more into attempting the crossing."
The London-based Financial Times lamented the lack of a unified European response to the migration crisis:
"This has been a miserable summer for European ideals. From a bloc founded in the pursuit of peace have emerged frightful images of refugees suffocating on motorway lay-bys, squalid makeshift camps, lifeless toddlers washed ashore, burning asylum centers, serial numbers penned on forearms, the sight of black-clad police pepper spraying families fleeing war. Inundated with asylum seekers, yet lacking the central functions to cope, Europe is divided over what to do. Higher walls? Welcome mats? Is this a national problem or should the burden be shared? British political scientist Anthony Glees accused the German government of rank hypocrisy for demanding that Greece comply with the strict letter of EU law to obtain a financial bailout, but that same German government unilaterally dispensed with EU law to open Europe's borders wide open to hundreds of thousands of migrants from the Muslim world. He said:
"Europe's tectonic plates will move if Germany behaves as a hippie state, guided only by feelings. Prime Minister David Cameron said, quite rightly, in my opinion, that the United Kingdom must act not only with the heart, but also with the head. And the question in the UK is that if Frau Merkel now pursues this policy, a very different policy which it pursued vis-à-vis Greece, where will this end? The UK already intervenes militarily in the fight against the so-called Islamic State. Germany, however, has kept its distance from these things. But then at the same time to say to desperate people in Syria and Iraq, please come to the Federal Republic of Germany, many Britons view this as nonsensical. This will have no end!
"I think it may be that Germany still has historical feelings that are completely absent in Britain. It may be that in 2015, there are still memories of what happened with refugees before the Second World War (1938/1939). But in Britain, where we are currently not only fighting terrorism, not only coping with the problem of economic migrants, but also coping with the humanitarian problem, the German approach seems sloppy and not properly thought through, especially when it comes to Europe when the Germans do not abide by the rules. One may think whatever they might about the Hungarian government, but the rules are there, and if Germany does not comply with the rules, the entire Union is in danger of falling apart.In Brussels, the self-proclaimed capital of Europe, the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, insisted that immigration from Muslim countries would be a solution to Europe's demographic decline. He said:
"Let us not forget, we are an ageing continent in demographic decline. We will be needing talent. Over time, migration must change from a problem to be tackled to a well-managed resource. To this end, the Commission will come forward with a well-designed legal migration package in early 2016."During the so-called State of the European Union address on September 9, Juncker said that there was no difference between Christian, Jewish and Muslim migrants. He said:
"Europe has made the mistake in the past of distinguishing between Jews, Christians and Muslims. There is no religion, no belief and no philosophy when it comes to refugees."Although unemployment is rampant within the European Union, especially among young Europeans, Juncker said: "I am strongly in favor of allowing asylum seekers to work and earn their own money whilst their applications are being processed. Labor, work, being in a job is a matter of dignity...so we should do everything to change our national legislation in order to allow refugees, migrants, to work since day one of their arrival in Europe."
In the Czech Republic, President Milos Zeman said that no one had invited migrants to his country, but once they arrive, they should respect the rules of his country or leave. He said: "If you do not like it, just go away. Someone may consider it appealing to the worst instincts, but this is the same stance that Hungarians share when they are building a fence against Serbia, and Americans who have built a fence on its border with Mexico."
In Denmark, Andreas Kamm, the secretary general of the Danish Refugee Council (Dansk Flygtningehjælp), warned that the current refugee crisis could lead to total collapse of European society. In an interview with the newspaper Jyllands-Posten, Kamm said he believes that Europe is facing "a total Armageddon scenario." He added:
"We are experiencing a historical imbalance between the very high numbers of refugees and migrants and the global capacity to provide them with protection and assistance. We are running the risk that conflicts between the migrants and local populations will go awry and escalate. The answer cannot be that Europe imports surplus populations. We cannot be required to destroy our own society."
Danish Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said: "I'm most indignant over the Arab countries who are rolling in money and who only take very few refugees. Countries like Saudi Arabia. It's completely scandalous."In Germany, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, in an interview with Die Zeit, said: "The migration crisis presents a formidable challenge. It is bigger than any of us have previously thought — socially, politically, economically, culturally.... Now we will get hundreds of thousands of Muslims with an Arab background. According to what I am told by my French colleague, this is a significant difference as far as integration is concerned.... I am being told that between 15% and 20% of the adult migrants are illiterate.
"We must get used to the idea that our country is changing. School, police, housing, courts, health care, everywhere! We also need an amendment to the constitution. And all this has to happen very quickly, within weeks! This will require a huge change in our established way of thinking."In an interview with Politico, Josef Joffe, a normally astute Jewish-German intellectual who is the publisher of the newspaper Die Zeit, seemed completely oblivious to the long-term consequences of importing hundreds of thousands of Muslims to Germany, when he said:
"It is a true miracle. Our poster-boy refugee is now the Syrian doctor who combines educational achievement with moral obligation, given the unspeakable cruelty against civilians in the Syrian war. Germany, like the countries of English settlement, is turning into an Einwanderungsland, a country of immigration, accepting different colors, faiths and origins. So Germany is evolving into a kind of America, where you need not be born as American, but can become one. It is a mental and emotional revolution." In Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán warned of the "explosive consequences" of culture clash between Europe and migrants from the Muslim world. In a September 3 essay published by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Orbán wrote:
"To understand what we must do, we need to grasp the true nature of the situation we are facing. Europe is not in the grip of a 'refugee problem' or a 'refugee situation,' but the European continent is threatened by an ever mounting wave of modern-era migration. Movement of people is taking place on an immense scale, and from a European perspective the number of potential future immigrants seems limitless.
"With each passing day we see that hundreds of thousands have been turning up and clamoring at our borders, and there are millions more intending to set out for Europe, driven by economic motives....
"We must acknowledge that the European Union's misguided immigration policy is responsible for this situation. Irresponsibility is the mark of every European politician who holds out the promise of a better life to immigrants and encourages them to leave everything behind and risk their lives in setting out for Europe. If Europe does not return to the path of common sense, it will find itself laid low in a battle for its fate....
"Let us not forget that those arriving have been raised in another religion, and represent a radically different culture. Most of them are not Christians, but Muslims. This is an important question, because Europe and European identity is rooted in Christianity. Is it not worrying in itself that European Christianity is now barely able to keep Europe Christian? If we lose sight of this, the idea of Europe could become a minority interest in its own continent."
Referring to Hungary's occupation by the Ottoman Empire from 1541 to 1699, Orbán said: "I think we have a right to decide that we do not want a large number of Muslim people in our country. We do not like the consequences of having a large number of Muslim communities that we see in other countries and I do not see any reason for anyone else to force us to create ways of living together in Hungary that we do not want to see. That is a historical experience for us." According to Zoltán Kovács, a spokesman for Hungary's center-right government, the EU's response to the crisis has been a complete failure. He said: "The EU does not differentiate between those who are in real need of help. Genuine refugees are pushed together with economic migrants. We are not facing a refugee crisis, we are facing a migration crisis. People are coming here from a hundred countries around the world. It is completely unacceptable that illegal means of movement are now institutionalized."
In Slovakia, Prime Minister Robert Fico said that 95% of so-called refugees were actually economic migrants:"We won't assist in this folly with arms opened wide with the notion that we'll accept them all regardless of whether they're economic migrants or not. If we do not start telling the truth about migration, we will never move from this spot."
Fico also warned of the consequences of untrammeled Muslim immigration. He said: "Since Slovakia is a Christian country, we cannot tolerate an influx of 300,000-400,000 Muslim immigrants who would like to start building mosques all over our land and trying to change the nature, culture and values of the state."In the United States, Ambassador John Bolton warned that Europe's migration crisis is America's problem too. He wrote: "While Americans may believe that Europe, long disdainful of our own intense debate over border-security problems, is getting what it deserves, we should nonetheless focus on both the potential threats and lessons applicable to us.
"One critical cause of Europe's illegal-immigration spike is the growing chaos across the greater Middle East. This spreading anarchy derives, in substantial part, from Barack Obama's deliberate policy of 'leading from behind' by reducing U.S. attention to and involvement in the region. When America's presence diminishes anywhere in the world, whatever minimal order and stability existed there can rapidly evaporate....
"For years, the central cause of population movements into Europe was economic: North Africans crossed the narrow Strait of Gibraltar or headed to France or Italy. Turks and Arabs entered through Greece and Eastern Europe. Once into the European Union, thanks to the Schengen Agreement, travel barriers are now almost nonexistent, and, as in the United States, illegal aliens can essentially travel freely...."Spreading terrorism, armed conflict and collapsing political authority in the Middle East are now powerful causal factors equaling or exceeding continuing economic disparities. Europe fears being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of people on the move, thereby losing control over decisions on who to admit and who to turn away. These concerns are legitimate, but there are deeper risks as well. Mirroring worries in Washington, there is a serious and rising Islamicist terrorist threat hidden within the tides of people seeking refuge. "The lesson for the United States is that reducing our global influence does not increase international peace and security. Quite the opposite. Obama's retreat from the Middle East, whether in the aftermath of Libya, his disinterest in the Islamic State's continuing rise, or his surrender to Iran's nuclear-weapons program, are all part of the larger pattern. Europe's illegal immigration problem is our problem as well."
Writing for the New York Observer, Arthur Chrenkoff wrote:
"As an unseasonably hot European summer gives way to autumn, the continent is experiencing a mass movement of people not seen since the aftermath of the Second World War. Unlike the end of the war, however, none of the masses currently on the move is European. As hundreds of thousands of people continue to arrive on Europe's doorsteps and throng her roads and railway lines, many conservative commentators see a more apt, and more ominous, historical parallel in the Völkerwanderung or 'wanderings of the peoples' that foreshadowed the fall of the Roman Empire some sixteen centuries ago. Europeans have long historical memories.... "As we reflect on the vivid media images of boats and trains overflowing with desperate humanity, it is important to keep in mind two points: 1) The majority of the 350,000-400,000 immigrants who have arrived in Europe so far this year (these are the known numbers; no one knows how many enter undetected) are not Syrians. In fact, less than a third are, with the rest originating in a miscellany of African, Middle Eastern and South Asian countries. 2) The majority seem to be single, healthy-looking young men, which traditionally suggests economic motives for migration, rather than the fear of death or persecution.
"What is happening in Europe at the moment is not so much, or at least not predominantly, a refugee crisis but a crisis of European immigration policies. Chrenkoff summed it up this way:
"The control over one's own borders is one of the most important characteristics — and responsibilities — of a modern state. Countries lose control over their destinies and even cease to exist when they lose control over who gets in."Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute. He is also Senior Fellow for European Politics at the Madrid-based Grupo de Estudios Estratégicos / Strategic Studies Group. Follow him on Facebook and on Twitter.

Solving the European Migrant Problem
Barry Shaw/Gatestone Institute/September 13/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6491/european-migrant-problem
The problem is that these people do not escape the Middle East. They bring the Middle East with them. Let Europe accept the Christians. Let Muslim Arab countries accept the Muslim Arabs. The problem facing Europe is not only the vast number of migrants flooding the continent. It is that, from past experience, these people do not escape the Middle East. They bring the Middle East with them. The result is enormous strain on the social fabric of the host nations. It becomes increasingly difficult to assimilate the immigrants with the people already there, as governments try to accommodate the overwhelming weight of strangers who do not know their customs and do not speak their languages. Multiculturalism was a dream. It failed. In its place seems to be an emerging nightmare of unmanageable proportions.
Migrants from the Middle East enter Hungary from Serbia, on August 26, by crawling under a temporary razor wire fence erected by the Hungarian government. (Image source: WSJ video screenshot) The migrant problem is becoming a huge destabilizing headache for Europe. It should not be. The most humane solution -- respecting the migrant's ethnic and religious origins, and honoring their basic traditions of faith and language -- might be closer to home, at least for the migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.Had these migrants been Jewish you can be sure that Israel would have taken emergency measures to accept and absorb them into the Jewish State. These migrants are not Jewish, but the Israeli model of large and successful absorption and integration into society could be the template for the migrants, the vast majority of whom are Muslim and speak Arabic. Therein lays the solution.Host countries such as wealthy Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, with vast tracts of barren land, might be persuaded to join the world in accepting Arabic-speaking coreligionists and help them build new productive lives that contribute to the state.

The Bear Steps In: Russia's Expanding Military Presence in Syria
Jonathan Spyer/The Jerusalem Post/September 12, 2015/Send
Originally published under the title "Russia's Military Presence in Syria."
Some of the photos reportedly posted to social media in recent days by Russian soldiers in Syria's Latakia province.
The current increase of the Russian military presence in northwest Syria is a function of the declining military fortunes of the Assad regime. It represents a quantitative, rather than qualitative, change in the nature of the Russian engagement in Syria.
Moscow's goal throughout the conflict has been to keep Syrian President Bashar Assad in power by all means necessary. The ends remain the same. But as the situation on the ground changes, so the Russian means employed to achieve this goal must change with it.
Since the outset of the Syrian civil war, the key problem for Assad has been manpower. Against a Sunni Arab rebellion with a vast pool of potential fighters from Syria's 60 percent Sunni Arab majority and from among foreign volunteers, the regime has been forced to draw ever deeper from a far shallower base.
Pro-regime forces have an edge in military equipment, but face dire manpower shortages.At the outset of the conflict, the Syrian Arab Army was on paper a huge force – of 220,000 regular soldiers plus an additional 280,000 reserves. But the vast majority of this army was unusable by the dictator. This is because it consisted overwhelmingly of Sunni conscripts, whose trustworthiness from the regime's point of view was seriously in doubt. Since then, the army has shrunk in size from attrition, desertion and draft dodging.
The story of the last four years has been the attempt by Assad and his allies to offset the reality of insufficient manpower for the task at hand.
This has been achieved by two means.
First, the regime has chosen to retreat from large swathes of the country, in order to be able to more effectively hold the essential areas it has to maintain with its limited numbers. The abandonment of the country's east and north led to the emergence of the areas of control held by Kurdish, Sunni Arab rebel, and later al-Qaida and Islamic State forces in these areas. A Russian cargo plane being unloaded an air base in Latakia earlier this month. State media said it contained humanitarian goods.
But of course retreating in order to consolidate is a strategy that can be pursued only so far. At a certain point, the area remaining becomes no longer viable for the purpose intended – namely, the preservation of the regime in a form that can guarantee the needs of its Russian and Iranian backers, and the relative security of the ruling elite itself and to a lesser extent of the population which relies on it and upon which it relies.
To offset the arrival at this point, Assad and his friends have striven in ever more creative ways to put sufficient men in the field, and to maintain the edge in military equipment which could hold back the masses of the lightly armed rebels.
There were the hastily assembled Alawi irregulars of the "shabiha." Then an increasing commitment of Iranian regional assets – including the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraqi Shi'ite militia forces. Then there was the Iranian-trained National Defense Forces. In recent months, northwest Syria has witnessed the arrival of "volunteers" from as far afield as the Hazara Shi'ite communities of Afghanistan (paid for by Tehran).
Despite all this effort, the rebels have, since the spring, been pushing westward toward Latakia province.
If the rebels reach Latakia, there is nowhere left to retreat to. The regime and its allies must hold the province or face defeat. The appearance of apparently Russian-crewed BTR-82A APCs on the Latakia battlefield appears to be testimony to Russia's awareness of this – and its willingness to dig deeper for Assad – even if this means the direct deployment of Russian personnel on the battlefield in a limited way.
The apparent deployment of a growing force of the Russian army's 810th Independent Marine Brigade at and around the naval depot of Tartus in Latakia province offers further evidence of this commitment, as well as a pointer to the interests in Syria that Moscow regards as vital.
The bolder claims of Russian Pchela 1T UAVs and even Sukhoi Su-27 fighter jets over the skies of the Idlib battlefield are not yet confirmed.
But the respected Ruslanleviev Russian investigative website found the evidence regarding the APCs and the marines around Tartus to be persuasive. There is a reason why the rebel march toward Latakia cannot simply be absorbed by the regime as a further tactical withdrawal, analogous to earlier retreats from Hasakah, Quneitra, most of Deraa, Aleppo, Idlib and so on.
Latakia province is the heartland of the Syrian Alawi community. It is a place where regime supporters have been able to convince themselves for most of the last four years that here, at least, they were safe.
If the rebels break through on the al-Ghab Plain, and the front line moves decisively into the populated areas of Latakia, this will be over. The loss of Latakia province would render the hope of keeping a regime enclave intact no longer viable. It will raise the possibility of the regime losing its control of Syria's coastline (vital for Assad's Russian and Iranian backers). Russian marines have been deployed to defend the Tartus naval depot. This, in turn, could mean rebel capture of the Tartus naval depot. Hence the deployment of the marines, who, according to information available, have not yet been placed in forward positions facing the rebels. Rather, they are gathered around Tartus for its defense.
So the steady rebel advance in the direction of Latakia is producing a Russian response of a volume and nature not before witnessed on the Syrian battlefield. Russian weaponry and Russian diplomatic support have been the vital lifelines for Assad throughout the last four years. Previous levels of support are no longer enough. So more is being provided. Still, the current indications do not appear to suggest or presage a major conventional deployment of Russian forces. That would go against the known pattern favored by President Vladimir Putin.
Russian assistance, while on the increase, is likely to be limited to an active support role. Rather, Russian assistance, while on the increase, is likely to be limited to an active support role, perhaps extending to the use of some air power, along with behind-the-scenes advisory and training roles and the use of some specialized personnel in combat or combat support roles.
Meanwhile, as the Russians arrive in Latakia, the rebel mopping up of remaining regime enclaves in Idlib province adjoining Latakia is continuing. A force of the Jaysh al-Fatah (Army of Conquest) this week captured the last remaining regime air base in the province, at Abu Zuhour. Jaysh al-Fatah is a union of the northwest's most powerful rebel groups. Prominent among its components is Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian franchise of al-Qaida. This coalition, supported by Turkey and Qatar and armed with advanced weapons by Saudi Arabia, is altering the military landscape of northwest Syria.
In the weeks ahead, the fighting in northwest Hama and Latakia provinces looks set to intensify, with the Sunni rebels seeking to push further toward the coast. Assad's benighted regime, aided by its Russian and Iranian friends, will be throwing everything into the effort to stop them. It remains to be seen if the Russian bear's increased pressure on the scales will prove again sufficient to maintain the balance.
*Jonathan Spyer is director of the Rubin Center for Research in International Affairs and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.

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