LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS
BULLETIN
January 14/17
Compiled
& Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The
Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins17/english.january14.17.htm
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Bible Quotations For Today
John
performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.’And many believed in him there
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John
10/40-42/:"He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John had
been baptizing earlier, and he remained there. Many came to him, and they were saying,
‘John performed no sign, but everything that John said about this man was true.’And many believed in him
there."
Children ought not to lay up
for their parents, but parents for their children
Second Letter to the Corinthians 12/11-16/:"I have been a fool! You forced
me to it. Indeed you should have been the ones commending me, for I am not at
all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a
true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, signs and wonders
and mighty works. How have you been worse off than the other churches, except
that I myself did not burden you? Forgive me this wrong! Here I am, ready to
come to you this third time. And I will not be a burden, because I do not want
what is yours but you; for children ought not to lay up for their parents, but
parents for their children. I will most gladly spend and be spent for you. If I
love you more, am I to be loved less? Let it be assumed that I did not burden
you. Nevertheless (you say) since I was crafty, I took you in by deceit."
Titles
For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on January 13-14/17
Sinking the First Accomplishment/Ahmad El-Assaad/January
13/17
Question: "How can I take control of my thoughts/GotQuestions.org/January
13/17
The Return of Islam’s Child-Soldiers/Raymond Ibrahim/January 13/17
Egyptian patriotism: Critics vs sycophants/Mohammed Nosseir/Al Arabiya/January 13/17
Assad linked to Syrian chemical attacks/Reuters, United Nations Friday, 13
January 2017
Trump and the media: It will be a running battle/Abdulrahman
al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/January
13/17
Tempering Expectations for the Paris Conference/Ghaith al-Omari/The Washington
Institute/January 13/17
Enemies as ‘thieves’, Iran’s battle within/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/January
13/17
Classroom of the future with mindset of the past/Ehtesham
Shahid/Al Arabiya/January
13/17
Paris meeting marks end to Obama's failed Mideast diplomacy/Associated Press/Ynetnews/January 13/17
Obama's Betrayal of Israel/Guy Millière/Gatestone
Institute/January 13/17
America’s Failure – and Russia and Iran’s Success – in Syria’s Cataclysmic
Civil War/Joshua Landis/Syria Comments/January 12/17
Palestinians: A Strategy of Lies and Deception/Bassam
Tawil/ Gatestone
Institute/January 13/17
Titles For Latest
Lebanese Related News published on January 13-14/17
Sinking the First Accomplishment!
Aoun: Relations with Saudi Arabia, Gulf Normalized,
Troubled Page Folded
Israel Raids on Hizbullah, Syria Targets since 2013
Mashnouq: Aoun's Rhetoric
in KSA Realistic and Responsible
Saqr Indicts Two Suspects Linked to IS
Ministerial Panel on Refugees Holds Positive Meeting, to Issue Paper on
'Priorities'
Bassil Hails Gulf Visit, Says Interfering in KSA
Affairs 'Unacceptable'
General Security Busts Cell of Four Members on Terror Charges
Gunfire Erupts in Arsal after Syrian Shot and Wounded
Jarrah Says Cellphone,
Internet Fees to be Cut in a 'Calculated Manner'
RPGs, Medium Caliber
Machineguns Fired at ISF as Captagon Depot Raided
Six Palestinians Turn Themselves in to Lebanese Army
Moussa: Hybrid Electoral Laws Stand Best Chance
Airport's Bird-Attracting Ponds Removed as Flight Safety Experts Give Ideas
Kanaan maintains serious efforts underway to reach
agreement over election law
Geagea, Shorter tackle domestic, regional developments
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous
Reports And News published on January 13-14/17
Syria Says Israeli Strikes Hit near Airport West of Capital
Intelligence officer killed in Damascus blast
Workers Enter Rebel Area to Restore Damascus Water
Turkey Says Russia Accord Will Prevent Warplane Clashes in Syria
Iraqi forces reach Nineveh govt building in Mosul
Turkish court arrests 2 Uighurs in relation to
Istanbul attack
Egypt Says 10 IS Militants Killed in Gunfight
With Eye on Trump, Paris Meeting to Push for Mideast Peace
Turkey Says U.S. to be Invited to Syria Talks, Moscow Declines to Confirm
Israel Fears Fresh U.N. Initiative after Paris Conference
Palestinians Seek Putin Help to Block U.S. Embassy Move
U.S. Embassy Jerusalem Move 'Assault' on Muslims, Mufti Warns
Cyprus Talks Stumble as Greece Says No Solution Unless Turkish 'Occupation'
Ends
Iran: Thousands of People Staged a Protest in Front of the Regime's Parliament
Iranian Dissident News Outlet Seeks Financial Support as People, Government
Clash Over Access to Information
Why Rafsanjani's Death Offers the US a Unique
Opportunity to Reshape Its Iran Policy
Iran: Interpreting the Conflict Between Rival Bands in Rafsanjani's
Funeral
Latest Lebanese Related News
published on January 13-14/17
Sinking the First Accomplishment!
Ahmad El-Assaad/January 12, 2017/President Michel Aoun’s first foreign visit constituted an advanced step
towards getting Lebanon out of the crisis caused by Hezbollah with the Gulf
countries, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Qatar at their forefront. It is
clear that this particular issue is on President Aoun’s
priority list, given its grave negative impact on Lebanon and its economy, and the
interests of the Lebanese expats in these countries. President Aoun is trying hard to mend what was broken between the
Gulf and Lebanon,
the former being a destination for the Lebanese youth seeking job
opportunities. Plus, it is a source of tourism, and investments, which boost
the Lebanese economic growth rates and create jobs for the Lebanese at home.
What we fear most is that Hezbollah will destroy everything that’s been built
with the wag of a finger, accompanied by some offensive words, as usual. It has
never been known to pull any punches, so much so that one of its officials
chose the day of the President’s visit to Saudi Arabia to renew the party’s
attacks against it. Hezbollah has acted irresponsibly in the past, where he
didn’t give any consideration to national interest, but instead acted upon the
Iranian regime’s desire to attack the Kingdom. As for today, after all of the
efforts exerted by President Aoun to rebuild the
burnt bridges, it is unacceptable for Hezbollah to do it again, completely
flouting the interest of Lebanon
and the Lebanese. And if it does, it would be as if sending a blow to President
Aoun at the very beginning of his mandate, sinking
his first accomplishment.
Aoun: Relations with Saudi Arabia, Gulf Normalized,
Troubled Page Folded
Asharq Al-Awsat/ASharq Al Awsat/January 13/17
Beirut – Lebanese President Michel Aoun said on
Thursday he was relieved concerning the outcome of his visits to both Saudi
Arabia and Qatar, adding that the direct and indirect outcome of the visit will
soon appear and will serve the interest of both countries and people. Aoun said during a chat with reports aboard the plane, on
his way back to Beirut, that “Relations with
Gulf countries, and Saudi
Arabia at the forefront, have been restored.
The Lebanese will witness more Gulf activity in Lebanon than before.”The
President expressed delight that all the issues of mutual Lebanese, Saudi, and Qatar interest
had received “full and clear support”, and will be followed-up via mutual
ministerial visits between both countries. “Lebanon is taking big and swift
steps towards recovery and progress. It is gradually re-establishing its
original status at the Arab, regional, and international scenes,” the President
said. During a television interview broadcasted on Thursday, Aoun also said that the misunderstanding with some Gulf
countries has been cleared out, adding that a new chapter was opened. Aoun said his election as president is a “triumph to the
Lebanese axis,” underlining that Lebanon is outside the frames of
axes building its friendship with everyone. “Every war has an end, the wiser we
are, the quicker we end it,” he said. When asked about the so-called Hezbollah,
Aoun said the party was now involved in regional
conflicts and is now part of the regional-international crisis. The president
said the issue is far more important than Lebanon’s
capacity to address, because it involves the United
States, Russia,
Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Concerning his
position regarding the Taef Accord, Aoun said he never asked for the amendment of this accord
and had never rejected it. “My position was clear in the letter I sent then to
President Francois Mitterand to specify the timetable
of the Syrian army withdrawal from Lebanon, something that only
happened after 15 years and which proves that we were right in our estimations.”Aoun said “the forthcoming parliamentary
elections will be held on the basis of a new election law,” adding “the
proportionality law provides the representation of all the citizens.”
Speaking
about the issue of providing aids to the Lebanese army including the Saudi
military aid, Aoun said that this matter is under
consultation amongst the concerned ministers, but no final decision has yet
been taken due to the presence of some standing matters.
Israel Raids on Hizbullah,
Syria Targets since 2013
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Syria's army accused Israel of carrying out missile strikes early Friday
on an airbase near Damascus -- the latest in a series of attacks in recent years.Israel often targets positions linked to Lebanon's Hizbullah, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Here is a recap of notable strikes:
-- 2013 –
- January 30: Israeli planes hit a surface-to-air missile site and
military complex near Damascus
suspected of holding chemical agents. A U.S.
official says Israel feared
the transfer of weapons from Syria
to Hizbullah.
- May 3: A raid near Damascus
targets Iranian weapons destined for Hizbullah, a
senior Israeli official says.
- May 5: A raid hits a scientific research center in Damascus,
a weapons depot and an aircraft unit, according to a diplomat in Beirut. The Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights says 42 soldiers are killed.
– 2014 --
- February 25: A Lebanese security source says two Israeli raids hit a Hizbullah target on the Lebanon-Syria border. The
Observatory calls the target a Hizbullah
"missile base."
- June 23: Israel
stages retaliatory air raids on Syrian army positions following an attack from Syria.
- September 23: Israel
downs a Syrian fighter jet as it tries to cross the Golan ceasefire line.
- December 7: Syria's
army accuses Israel of
striking two regime-held areas in Damascus
province.
-- 2015 –
- January 18: Six Hizbullah fighters and an
Iranian general are killed in an Israeli strike on the Syrian side of the
Golan. Hizbullah retaliates several days later by
killing two Israeli soldiers.
- July 29: An air strike on a government-held village on the Syrian side
of the Golan kills two Hizbullah militants and three
pro-regime fighters, the Observatory says.
- August 20: Israel
launches strikes on 14 Syrian army positions on the Golan in response to
rockets fired on Israel's
northern Galilee region. One person is killed,
the Syrian military says.
- August 21: An Israeli strike on the Syrian side of the Golan kills
five, Syrian state television says.
- December 19: Hizbullah figure Samir al-Quntar dies in an
Israeli raid near Damascus,
the group says later. Quntar had spent almost 30
years in Israeli prisons.
-- 2016 –
- April 11: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admits that Israel has attacked dozens of weapons convoys in
Syria
that were destined for Hizbullah.
- September 13: Israeli aircraft strike Syrian army positions for the
fourth time in nine days after a projectile fired from Syria hits the
Israeli-held zone of the Golan. Israel
denies a Syrian claim to have downed an Israeli warplane and a drone.
- December 7: Several Israeli missiles smash targets near the Mazzeh airbase outside Damascus, a week after a similar attack in
the Sabbura area west of the capital.
-- 2017 –
- January 13: The Syrian army says Israeli missile strikes have again
targeted the Mazzeh base. The Observatory says they
hit ammunition depots.
Mashnouq: Aoun's Rhetoric in KSA Realistic
and Responsible
Naharnet/January 13/17/Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq stated that
President Michel Aoun's rhetoric during his Gulf trip
to Saudi Arabia and Qatar was “realistic and responsible,” he told LBCI TV
station in an interview. Masnouq hailed the outcome
of Aoun's trip and said: “It was more than serious.
For the first time, the Gulf people have heard some realistic and responsible
words. Meaning, the President did not complain or convey unrealistic
statements.” For his part, “King Salman bin Abdul
Aziz made some important and touching talk in the presence of President Aoun,” added Mashnouq.
Furthermore, “Aoun said he would guarantee that Hizbullah does not carry out any military operation inside Lebanon.”
Turning to the issue of Hizbullah's involvement in
the war in Syria, the
Minister said that Aoun has assured that Hizbullah's involvement in Syria does not come with the
State's consent. Aoun had noted in an interview with
Al-Arabiya television that Hizbullah's
arsenal of arms “has become part of the Middle East crisis, which involves the U.S., Russia,
Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.” On the halted Saudi
grant for the Lebanese army, Mashnouq said: “The aid
program was halted for political reasons, its
reactivation requires a political price. Aoun has
vowed that he will shoulder the responsibility of (introducing) a new policy in
Lebanon.”
Saqr Indicts Two Suspects Linked to IS
Naharnet/January 13/17/State Military Prosecutor
Judge Saqr Saqr charged two
people on Friday with having links to the Islamic State extremist group, the
state-run National News Agency said on Tuesday. One of the suspects, a Syrian
national already in custody, helped in recruiting individuals in favor of the IS, and inciting them to carry out terror
attacks.
Ministerial Panel on Refugees Holds
Positive Meeting, to Issue Paper on 'Priorities'
Naharnet/January 13/17/Prime Minister Saad Hariri presided Friday over a meeting for the
ministerial committee on refugees, during which the conferees discussed
preparing a paper on the government's policy towards the issue of Syrian
refugees. “Several aspects were discussed in this regard, including the impact
of the refugee crisis on the economic, developmental, social and infrastructure
situations in addition to other points,” State Minister for Refugee Affairs Moein al-Merehbi announced after
the meeting. “This paper would be presented to the relevant parties in any
upcoming conference and it defines the Lebanese government's priorities
regarding the pressing issues,” Merehbi added. Describing the meeting as “very good,” the minister said “all
conferees were in agreement on all the aspects of the issue.”“Should efforts continue in the same spirit, we hope that
within one month we will be able to reach a work paper that the committee would
refer to Cabinet for implementation,” Merehbi added.
He said the committee also tackled the issue of “Syrian individuals or firms
illegally competing with Lebanese citizens through opening businesses that are
not related to the construction and agriculture sectors or the other unskilled
professions permitted under the Lebanese law.”Lebanon is home
to more than one million registered Syrian refugees -- equal to about a quarter
of the country's 4.5 million people. It's the highest refugee population
in the world per capita. Lebanon
says that another half a million Syrians live in the country as well,
unregistered, and officials say their presence has generated a severe burden
that Lebanon
can no longer handle alone. More than two-thirds of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in
extreme poverty, according to a United Nations study.
Bassil Hails Gulf Visit, Says Interfering in KSA Affairs
'Unacceptable'
Naharnet/January 13/17/Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil said the
presidential visit to Saudi Arabia has cleared the atmospheres between the two
countries, in light of assurances that none of the two sides wish to interfere
in the affair's of the other, al-Mustaqbal daily
reported Friday. The trip to Saudi Arabia
has removed the “blur” between the two countries, said Bassil,
adding “King Salman bin Abdul Aziz told us that KSA
does not want to interfere in Lebanon's
affairs nor shall anyone interfere in his own.”“On
our part, we hereby assure that the Lebanese don't wish nor are they allowed to
interfere in Saudi Arabia's
affairs,” emphasized Bassil. The minister stressed
that what happened previously with Saudi Arabia was a “mere misunderstanding.”In the near future, Lebanon will
witness an increase in the influx of Gulf tourists and a rise in Gulf investments,
he declared. President Michel Aoun and an
accompanying delegation of ministers, concluded a
4-day trip on Thursday that included Saudi Arabia
and Qatar.
The President held talks with Saudi King Salman bin
Abdul Aziz and Qatar's Emir
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani in Doha.
The ministers held talks with their Gulf counterparts and a number of
agreements were signed. The trip was assessed as promising in terms of
improving Lebanese-Gulf ties mainly with Saudi Arabia. Ties with Riyadh were tense last
year after SA halted a $3 billion military aid program for the Lebanese army
over what it said was the dominance of Hizbullah
movement.
General Security Busts Cell of Four
Members on Terror Charges
Naharnet/January 13/17/The General Security arrested
four Lebanese nationals suspected of forming a cell having links to a terror
group, and working in its favor, the Directorate of
General Security said. The General Security said the cell was comprised of
H.N., A.Z., M.F. and M.H.F. During interrogations with H.N., who is also known
by his nickname Abou Yazid,
he confessed to having links to a terror group and of recruiting a number of
youths, including the ones mentioned above, in favor
of the organization. They have all confessed to the charges. H.N. has also confessed
to broadcasting the beliefs of the organization through internet and social
media outlets, in a bid to attract the youth and urge them to join the ranks of
the organization. He had been preparing to move to Syria's
Reqqa, via Turkey, to join and fight along the
ranks of the organization. The suspects were later referred to the related
authorities. Efforts continue to arrest all parties involved.
Gunfire Erupts in Arsal after Syrian Shot and Wounded
Naharnet/January 13/17/Syrian national Amir Durra was
wounded on Friday when unknown assailants opened fire at him in the Bekaa border town of Arsal,
state-run National News Agency reported. He was transferred to the al-Rahma field hospital, it said. “The sounds of gunfire are
still being heard in the town and the reasons are still unknown,” the agency
added. Militants from the Islamic State and the rival jihadist group Fateh al-Sham Front are entrenched in mountainous areas in Arsal's outskirts and along the undemarcated
Lebanese-Syrian border. The Lebanese army regularly shells their posts while Hizbullah and the Syrian forces have engaged in clashes
with them on the Syrian side of the border. The two groups overran the eastern
border town of Arsal
in 2014 before being ousted by the army after days of deadly battles. The
retreating militants abducted more than 30 Lebanese soldiers and policemen of
whom four have been executed and nine remain in IS' captivity.
Jarrah Says Cellphone, Internet
Fees to be Cut in a 'Calculated Manner'
Naharnet/January 13/17/Telecommunications Minister
Jamal al-Jarrah announced Friday that cellphone and internet fees will be slashed in a
“calculated and non-arbitrary manner,” noting that “a team of experts has been
formed to study this file in a thorough way.”Commenting
on the “Switch Off Your Line” protest that took place on Sunday, during which
hundreds of thousands of subscribers reportedly switched off their lines to
push for cheaper cellphone and internet services, Jarrah pointed out that he has not yet been able to study
all the files of the ministry seeing as he is a new minister in a new Cabinet.
He however promised protest organizers and dismayed subscribers that he will
meet with their representatives next week to brief them on the recommendations
of the team of experts, “which is sparing no time to study means to improve the
quality of services and slash the fees.”Despite an
inadequate quality of services, mobile call and internet fees in Lebanon are
known to be among the highest in the world.
RPGs, Medium Caliber Machineguns
Fired at ISF as Captagon Depot Raided
Naharnet/January 13/17/An Internal Security Forces
unit came under heavy gunfire Friday during a raid on a Captagon
warehouse in the Baalbek neighborhood of al-Kayyal, the ISF said. “After the Bekaa
anti-drug bureau obtained information about the presence in Baalbek's al-Kayyal area of a depot containing machines, raw material
and precursors for manufacturing Captagon pills, a
force from the bureau raided the warehouse and came under heavy gunfire from
light- and medium-caliber machineguns as well as
rocket-propelled grenades, which prompted it to respond in kind,” an ISF
statement said. “The attackers eventually fled the scene as the depot was
encircled with help from a Lebanese army force, Judicial Police patrols and
units from the regional police department and the ISF Intelligence Branch,” the
ISF added. Around 400,000 Captagon pills were seized
in the depot in addition to four truckloads of raw material, precursors,
metallic heads and various types of spare parts that are used in the
manufacturing of narcotic pills, the statement said. A 51-year-old Lebanese and
a 49-year-old Palestinian were arrested in the operation as a probe got
underway under the supervision of the relevant judicial authorities, the ISF added.
Six Palestinians Turn Themselves
in to Lebanese Army
Naharnet/January 13/17/Six wanted Palestinians turned
themselves in on Friday to the army intelligence department of the South to
settle their situations, state-run National News Agency reported. Four are from
the al-Rashidiyeh refugee camp and two others are
from the Ain el-Hilweh camp, NNA said. One of the
fugitives was wanted on multiple arrest warrants while three others were wanted
over shooting incidents, the agency added. Dozens of Palestinian fugitives have
turned themselves in to Lebanese authorities in recent months to settle their
situations as part of an agreement with the Lebanese security agencies. By
long-standing convention, the Lebanese army does not enter the twelve
Palestinian refugee camps in the country, leaving the Palestinian factions
themselves to handle security. That has created lawless areas in many camps,
and Ain el-Hilweh has gained notoriety as a refuge
for extremists and fugitives. But the camp is also home to more than 54,000
registered Palestinian refugees who have been joined in recent years by
thousands of Palestinians fleeing the fighting in Syria. More than 450,000
Palestinians are registered in Lebanon
with the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA. Most live in squalid
conditions in 12 official refugee camps and face a variety of legal
restrictions, including on their employment.
Moussa: Hybrid Electoral Laws Stand Best Chance
Naharnet/January 13/17/Member of Parliament Michel Moussa, said on Friday that the hybrid electoral laws that
mix proportional representation and the winner-takes-all systems, stood the
best chance among other submitted election law drafts. “Delay in ratifying a
new electoral law is due to some existing political disputes over the matter,”
said Moussa in an interview to VDL (93.3) radio
station. Moreover, the lawmaker ruled out any possible extension of the
Parliament's term, “unless it's a technical one after
agreement on a new electoral law.”Political parties
are bickering over amending the current 1960 election law which divides seats
among the different religious sects. Hizbullah has
repeatedly called for an electoral law based on proportional representation but
other political parties, especially al-Mustaqbal
Movement, have rejected the proposal and argued that the party's controversial
arsenal of arms would prevent serious competition in regions where the
Iran-backed party is influential. Mustaqbal, the
Lebanese Forces and the Progressive Socialist Party have meanwhile proposed a hybrid
electoral law that mixes the proportional representation and the
winner-takes-all systems. Speaker Nabih Berri has also proposed a hybrid law. The country has not
voted for a parliament since 2009, with the legislature instead twice extending
its own mandate.The 2009 polls were held under an
amended version of the 1960 electoral law and the next elections are scheduled
for May 2017.
Airport's Bird-Attracting Ponds Removed as
Flight Safety Experts Give Ideas
Naharnet/January 13/17/Prime Minister Saad Hariri presided Thursday over an emergency meeting
aimed at addressing the risks posed by the presence of a large number of
seagulls around Beirut's Rafik Hariri International
Airport. The meeting was
attended by the ministers of environment and transport, the head of the Council
for Development and Reconstruction, the Cabinet's secretary-general, Middle
East Airlines' chairman, and Hariri's adviser on developmental affairs. “This
cell will meet daily if necessary to resolve this problem,” Public Works and
Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos
announced after the meeting. “We have sought help from foreign experts and
several ideas have been proposed to protect the environment, planes and flight
safety,” Fenianos added. Among the solutions
suggested by experts were the use of pyrotechnics, flare pistols, percussion
bombs, auditory repellents and chemical repellents, the minister said.
Moreover, Fenianos announced that authorities have in
recent days removed four large holes at the airport that were collecting water
and attracting birds.The minister also said that the
committee recommended addressing the issues of sewage water and violations on
al-Ghadir River's banks as well as the presence of
poultry, pigeon, turkey and cow farms near the airport.
“Four new auditory repellents have been installed, as promised, at Beirut's airport and the
results today were very good. However, these measures are not enough seeing as
they can only keep the birds away for one or two months and there is a need to
reinforce these measures,” Fenianos added. Asked
about the mouth of al-Ghadir River,
the minister said “specific measures” will be taken by the CDR in the coming
days to address the problem. A judge had on Wednesday ordered the temporary
closure of the Costa Brava rubbish dump near the airport "because of the
presence of birds" attracted by the garbage. Costa Brava was opened in
March last year as one of three "temporary" tips intended to provide
an interim solution after the closure of the main landfill receiving waste from
Beirut. The
dumps were eventually intended to have waste processing facilities, but that
has not happened. As a result, garbage has piled up in Costa
Brava, on the coastline close to the airport runways, reaching
nine meters in some places. Environmentalists have for months warned that the
dump is attracting rodents and increasing numbers of birds. In August, the
Lebanese pilots' union warned of the possibility of the birds being sucked into
airplane engines. A permanent solution for the waste produced by Beirut and its
surroundings has yet to be found, months after the Naameh
landfill was shuttered. The issue is one of many outstanding challenges for Lebanon's new
government, which was formed on December 18 after two and a half years of
political deadlock.
Kanaan maintains serious efforts underway to reach agreement
over election law
Fri 13 Jan 2017/NNA - Secretary of the Change and Reform bloc, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, told OTV channel on Friday that his group was
exerting serious efforts on a daily basis to make a breakthrough as to reaching
agreement over a new election law. Kanaan, who
maintained that endorsing an election law was a priority, indicated that there
was progress on the level of talks among Christians in that respect.
"There is no problem in the hybrid proposals on-the-table and which can be
amended." "There can be agreement with MP Walid
Jumblatt on determining the national and
constitutional ceiling for all components, starting with the Druze
community," he said.
Geagea, Shorter tackle domestic, regional developments
Fri 13 Jan 2017/NNA - "Lebanese Forces" leader, Samir Geagea, met on Friday at
his Mehrab residence with British Ambassador to
Lebanon, Hugo shorter, with talks featuring high on the domestic and regional
developments.
Latest LCCC Bulletin For
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 13-14/17
Syria Says Israeli Strikes
Hit near Airport West of Capital
Associated Press/Naharnet/January 13/17/Syria on
Friday accused Israel of firing rockets that hit near a major military airport
west of Damascus, triggering a fire, and warned Tel Aviv of repercussions
without specifying whether it would retaliate for the attack, the third such
incident recently according to the Syrian government. In a statement carried on
the official news agency SANA, the military said
several missiles were launched just after midnight from an area near Lake Tiberias that fell in the
vicinity of the Mezzeh military airport on the
western edge of the capital. It did not say whether there were any casualties.
Residents of Damascus
reported hearing several explosions that shook the capital. The Mezzeh airport compound located on the southwestern
edge of the capital had been used to launch attacks on rebel-held areas near Damascus and has come
previously under rebel fire. The Syrian army statement said Israel through
its attacks was assisting "terrorist groups" fighting the Syrian
government. "The Syrian army command and armed forces warn the Israeli
enemy of the repercussions of this blatant attack and stresses it will continue
its war on terrorism," the army statement said. It was the third such
Israeli strike into Syria
recently, according to the Syrian government. On Dec. 7, the Syrian government
reported Israel
fired surface-to-surface missiles that also struck near Mezzeh
airport. A week earlier, SANA said Israeli jets
fired two missiles from Lebanese airspace toward the outskirts of Damascus, in the Sabboura area. The Israeli military has declined to comment
on those incidents, and there was no immediate comment on Friday's reported
attack. But Israel is widely
believed to have carried out a number of airstrikes in Syria in the past few years that have targeted
advanced weapons systems, including Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and
Iranian-made missiles, as well as positions of the Lebanese Hezbollah group in Syria. The
Shiite group has sent thousands of its fighters to Syria to support President Bashar Assad's forces in the country's civil war, now in
its sixth year. Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman recently reiterated his government's
position to not get involved in the Syrian war.
Intelligence officer killed in Damascus blast
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Friday, 13 January
2017/News websites affiliated with al-Assad regime, based in Lattakia, Homs, Tartus and
Damascus, reported the death of Colonel Munther Salah Haider, an officer in the
military intelligence, who was killed in the bombing that hit the Kafr Sousa municipality in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on
Thursday. Sources close to the Syrian regime affirmed that the suicide bombing
targeted the famous security and intelligence center, Kafr
Soussa, which includes the headquarters of several
security, intelligence and police agencies. The attack resulted in the death of
several military personnel including Colonel Haider
and national defense officer Haytham
Ismail, famed for taking a picture with President Bashar
al-Assad, and also appearing in a short video with the President during his
visit to eastern Ghouta in Damascus. Ismail had asserted that meeting
the al-Assad had given him great moral support. Colonel Haider
was a resident of the Oued Ed Dahab
valley in the Syrian province
of Homs. It is still
unknown whether the blast targeted him personally, due to his rank in the
intelligence wing of al-Assad. However, no party has claimed responsibility for
the bombing that resulted in the death of 8 to 11 people. Social
media pages loyal to the Assad regime, paid tribute to the dead Colonel, noting
that he has been promoted posthumously to Brigadier.
Workers Enter Rebel Area to Restore Damascus Water
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Syrian government workers entered a formerly rebel-held area near Damascus on Friday to
begin restoring water to the capital after weeks of shortages, state media
reported. A local governor said a deal had been reached for the army to take
control of the area northwest of the capital and work was underway to restore
the water supply as soon as possible. Mains water from the Ain al-Fijeh spring in the Wadi Barada region has been cut since December 22, after
fighting damaged key pumping infrastructure, leaving 5.5 million people facing
shortages. "We have halted military operations in Ain al-Fijeh and started reconciliation with the militias
there," said provincial governor Alaa Ibrahim,
speaking to reporters from an area near the spring. "God willing, the pipe
will be fixed within three days... rapid measures will be taken to get water to
Damascus
tomorrow," he added. Ibrahim said that any rebel fighter in Wadi Barada willing to give up
his weapon would do so, adding that those who refuse or belonging to former
al-Qaida affiliate Fateh al-Sham would be offered
passage to opposition-held Idlib province on buses
arriving later Friday. "All of Wadi Barada will be secured within hours," he added.
"Water will not be cut off to the city of Damascus again." The Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, confirmed that repair crews had
reached the Ain al-Fijeh spring and that the Syrian
flag had been raised in the area. The government has struck a series of deals
with formerly opposition-held areas, often requiring rebels to hand over their
weapons in return for a halt to fighting. The opposition criticizes this as a
"starve or surrender" tactic, saying they are forced into deals by
government sieges and heavy bombardment. Earlier Friday, the army had advanced
in Wadi Barada, taking the village of Baseema under
heavy fire, the Observatory said. Government forces have battled rebels in Wadi Barada for weeks, and
President Bashar Assad personally pledged that the
area would be recaptured. The government accuses rebels, including Fateh al-Sham, of deliberating cutting water to the
capital. But the opposition says pumping infrastructure was damaged in government
strikes and denies Fateh al-Sham is present in the
region. The fighting has threatened a fragile nationwide truce brokered by
regime ally Russia and rebel
backer Turkey
in place since December 30.
Turkey Says Russia
Accord Will Prevent Warplane Clashes in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Turkey on Friday said an accord with Russia
to coordinate their air forces in Syria
will prevent clashes between its warplanes and those of Russia and also
the regime of Bashar Assad. Ankara
and Moscow have since the onset of the Syrian
conflict in 2011 stood on opposite sides of the civil war, with Russia backing Assad and Turkey calling
for his ouster. But joint coordination efforts have intensified after Turkey and Russia
patched up diplomatic relations strained by the shooting down of a Russian
warplane over Syria
by Turkish forces in November 2015. Turkish Defense
Minister Fikri Isik
confirmed Russian statements that Moscow and Ankara had agreed to coordinate their air forces in Syria.
"The accord made with Russia
includes coordination. Within this, the appropriate coordination will be made
to ensure Turkish aircraft do not come into confrontation with those of Russia or the regime in Syria," he
said, quoted by the Anadolu agency. Ankara
has always vehemently denied any secret contacts with the Assad regime during
the Syria
conflict. However, Turkish officials have on occasion acknowledged that Assad
is a player who cannot be ignored in Syria and could potentially stay on
in a post-war transition. Russia
and Turkey have spearheaded
a shaky ceasefire in Syria,
which Moscow and Ankara
hope will lead to Syria
peace talks in Kazakhstan
beginning on January 23. Both countries are active on the ground in Syria. Russia has been there since September 2015 to
bolster Assad, and Turkey
launched an incursion against jihadists and Kurdish militia on the border area
in August 2016. Moscow said Thursday Russia and Turkey signed an agreement spelling out
mechanisms to "coordinate" their air forces in Syria when
conducting strikes "on terrorist targets."
Iraqi forces reach Nineveh
govt building in Mosul
Reuters, Washington Friday, 13 January
2017/Iraqi forces fighting ISIS in Mosul reached
the Nineveh province governance building and
raised the Iraqi flag there on Friday, a senior US defense
official said. Elissa Slotkin,
the acting assistant secretary of defense for
international security affairs, also told a Pentagon briefing on the fight
against ISIS that a US
liaison team is in talks with Turkey
about helping its forces near al-Bab in Syria and has
provided air support and surveillance in the past. “We are engaged on an hourly
basis with the Turks on counter-ISIS campaign in Syria,” Slotkin
said. “We have a liaison team that’s resident in Ankara. They are engaging every single day on
the full spectrum of coalition support to the campaign.”
Turkish court arrests 2 Uighurs in relation to Istanbul
attack
Reuters, Ankara Saturday, 14 January 2017/Two
Chinese nationals of Uighur origin were arrested on Friday for suspected links
to the mass shooting in an Istanbul
lounge on New Year's Eve, state-run Anadolu agency
said. Two suspects, Omar Asim and Abuliezi
Abuduhamiti, who are Chinese citizens, were remanded
in custody on charges of being members of an armed terrorist organization, and
aiding in 39 counts of murder. Turkish authorities last week said the man who
killed 39 people in an attack on an Istanbul
lounge was probably an ethnic Uighur. ISIS has claimed responsibility for the
attack, saying it was revenge for Turkish military involvement in Syria. Anadolu news agency also said 35 people had been detained
so far in relation to the attack. Uighurs were among those detained, local media reports said. The Uighurs are a largely Muslim, Turkic-speaking minority in
far western China with
significant diaspora communities across Central Asia
and Turkey.
The suspect, who authorities have not named, shot his way into exclusive Istanbul lounge Reina and
opened fire with an automatic rifle, throwing stun grenades to allow himself to reload and shooting the wounded on the ground.
Among those killed in the attack were Turks and visitors from several Arab
nations, India and Canada.
Egypt Says 10 IS Militants Killed in Gunfight
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Egyptian security forces killed 10 militants linked to the Islamic State
group during a raid Friday on one of their hideouts in the Sinai Peninsula, the
interior ministry said. Members of the group opened fire at the security forces
as they approached the hideout in an abandoned house in the North
Sinai provincial capital of El-Arish, a ministry statement said.
The gunmen were linked to a militant leader from Ansar
Beit al-Maqdis who formed
groups that attacked security forces, the ministry said. Ansar
Beit al-Maqdis is the name
used by the group before it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist
organization in November 2014. The attacks include a car bombing on Monday at a
checkpoint near El-Arish that killed eight policemen and a civilian, the
ministry said. The group also assassinated two other policemen, and kidnapped
and killed an engineer, the ministry said. IS claimed responsibility for the
checkpoint attack on Tuesday, during which the interior ministry said the
police shot dead five assailants. Jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers
and policemen since the military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 unleashed a bloody crackdown on his
supporters. Most of the attacks have taken place in the north of the Sinai
Peninsula, which borders Israel
and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, though attacks have reached Cairo.
With Eye on Trump, Paris Meeting to Push
for Mideast Peace
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Around 70 countries and international organizations make a new push for a
two-state solution in the Middle East at a conference on Sunday, just days
before Donald Trump takes office vowing unstinting support for Israel.
The Paris meeting aims to revive the moribund
Israeli-Palestinian peace process, amid fears of fresh violence if Trump
implements a pledge to recognize the contested city of Jerusalem
as Israel's
capital. But neither Israel
nor the Palestinians will be represented in Paris, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu has dismissed it as a "rigged" conference, insisting that
only bilateral talks can bring peace. On his farewell tour, U.S. Secretary of
State John Kerry will join foreign ministers from around 40 countries and
representatives from the U.N., EU, Arab League and other organizations in
calling for a two-state deal. The meeting is also expected to back a U.N.
resolution last month condemning Israeli settlement building in occupied
Palestinian territory. The U.N. Security Council adopted the resolution after
the Obama administration -- in a parting shot at Netanyahu -- took the rare
step of abstaining from the vote. Netanyahu called the resolution
"shameful" and has also lashed out at the Paris meeting. On Thursday he called the
gathering "a rigged conference, rigged by the Palestinians with French
auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel stances."
"This pushes peace backwards," he said, calling it "a last gasp
of the past."The Palestinians, who are trying to
rally opposition to a contentious promise by Trump to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, have lauded the multilateral
initiative. "The bilaterals have not ended
occupation even though we have been engaged in bilateral talks for the last 26
years," said senior Palestinian official Mohammad Shtayyeh.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
will meet French President Francois Hollande in the
coming weeks to be briefed on the conference outcome, French diplomats said.
Netanyahu declined a similar invitation, they added.
'More occupation'
Writing in Le Monde newspaper on Thursday, Foreign
Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said France was not
trying to impose a solution on the Israelis and Palestinians but wanted to halt
an "infernal cycle of radicalization and violence."Palestinians
were seeing "their future state melt away" as Israel
continued expanding its settlements, "resulting in more occupation,"
he said. Israelis meanwhile were subjected to "nearly daily violence by
those who "harness frustrations to promote an agenda of hatred," Ayrault added. Peace efforts have been at a standstill
since a U.S.-led initiative collapsed in April 2014. Hardline
Israeli lawmakers, including some from Netanyahu's Likud party, have said
Trump's win represents an "historic opportunity" to end chances of
Palestinian statehood. Trump, who opposed December's U.N. vote, has said
"there's nobody more pro-Israeli than I am" and has named a
hardliner, David Friedman, as his ambassador to Israel. French diplomats said they
had sounded out Trump's transition team about the Paris conference, but that they were "reticent."In his Le Monde
article, Ayrault said the international community had
a "responsibility to reiterate this obvious fact: in no way can a
unilateral decision be compatible with the two-state solution."It
was not clear whether he was referring to the possible move of the U.S. embassy in Israel.
'A charade' -
Israel
has said it fears the conference could produce measures that could be put to
the Security Council before Trump is sworn in on January 20. The French have
insisted they have no plans for follow-up action."If
there are no consequences, if nobody is listening, if they are repeating the
same thing they said over and over again, it amounts to a charade," Nathan
Thrall, senior Middle East analyst at the
International Crisis Group said, dismissing the conference as "inconsequential."The French have rejected the
criticism.
The prospect of a radical shift in America's Middle East policy under Trump,
one French diplomat said, made it all the more important to "send a
message" in favor of peace.
Turkey Says U.S. to be Invited to Syria
Talks, Moscow Declines to Confirm
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Washington will be invited to fresh Syria
peace talks being organized by Moscow and Ankara this month, Turkey's
foreign minister said, but Russia
declined to confirm the invitation on Friday. On the ground meanwhile, Syria accused Israel
of bombing a key airbase near the capital Damascus
before dawn, condemning the incident as a "desperate attempt to support
terrorist organizations." Despite backing opposite sides in the Syrian
conflict, Russia and Turkey have worked closely in recent weeks to broker a
nationwide ceasefire that is meant to pave the way for January 23 peace talks
in the Kazakh capital Astana. In the past, Washington
has played a key role in attempts to bring Syria's
warring parties to the negotiating table, but it has been notably absent from
the cooperation between Ankara and Moscow. Turkish Foreign
Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu,
whose country, like Washington, backs Syria's rebels, nonetheless insisted Thursday
that U.S.
officials would be invited. "The United
States should be definitely invited, and that is what we
agreed with Russia,"
he said. "Nobody can ignore the role of the United States. And this is a
principled position of Turkey,"
he added. But the Kremlin, a key ally of President Bashar
Assad's government, declined to comment on Cavusoglu's
statements. "I cannot say anything about this for now," Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. He added however that Russia is "interested in the broadest possible
representation of the parties who have a bearing on the prospects of a
political settlement in Syria."
U.S.
to take back seat
Last month, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov
expressed hope that the next American administration would "join the efforts
so that we can work in the same direction harmoniously and collectively."
The Astana talks are scheduled to begin just three days after president-elect
Donald Trump is inaugurated. In recent months, Washington
has been largely absent from international discussions about Syria, and
experts say Trump is unlikely to focus on the conflict. "For the new
American administration, it's not a priority to play a role in resolving the
Syrian crisis," said Imad Salamey,
head of the political science department at the Lebanese American
University. "I think
that with Trump in the White House, leadership will stay in the hands of Russia, but they will demand guarantees,
particularly on Israel's
security and the reduction of Iran's
role," he told AFP. Invitations to the talks have yet to be sent out, and
the format of the discussions remains unclear. A source close to the Syrian
government said it expected the meeting to open with a session including all
the invited parties but most of the discussions would take place directly
between the government and rebels under Russian and Turkish supervision.
Syria accuses Israel of strikes
Ankara and Moscow
laid the groundwork for the talks with a nationwide truce that began on
December 30 and has brought quiet to large parts of the country. Fighting has
continued, however, in the Wadi Barada
region outside the capital, which is the main water source for Damascus. Supply from the area has been cut
since December 22 after clashes damaged infrastructure, leaving 5.5 million
people in Damascus
and its suburbs without water. The government has vowed to retake the area, and
was advancing on the ground on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
said. The Syrian army meanwhile accused Israel of carrying out missile
strikes on the Mazzeh airbase outside the capital
early on Friday. "In a desperate attempt to support terrorist
organizations, Israeli enemy aircraft launched missiles from the north of Lake Tiberias (the Sea of Galilee) at 00:25 am (2225 GMT
Thursday)," a military source told the state SANA news agency. "The
Syrian armed forces warns the Israeli enemy of the repercussions of this
blatant aggression, and insists on continuing the war on terrorism to eliminate
it," the source added. The Israeli army had no comment on the strikes when
contacted by AFP earlier on Friday. Syria
has accused Israel
of carrying out several strikes on its territory and the two countries
technically remain at war. More than 310,000 people have been killed in Syria since the
conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
Israel Fears Fresh U.N. Initiative after Paris Conference
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Israel's U.N. ambassador on Friday raised concern over what he said were
moves at the Security Council to adopt a new measure to build on the Paris
Middle East conference. Sweden's
Ambassador Olof Skoog, who
holds this month's presidency of the Security Council, said however that there
were no immediate plans for council action. "We are witnessing an attempt
to promote a last-minute initiative before the new U.S. administration takes
office," Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said in
a statement. "Supporters of the Palestinians are looking for further
anti-Israel measures at the Security Council."The
council is planning to meet on Tuesday to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, its first meeting since the adoption of a resolution demanding an end
to the construction of settlements on Palestinian territory. Asked about
discussions on council action, Skoog said "I
don't think that's correct." "Let's see where we are next Tuesday,
the main event now is Sunday's conference in Paris." Around 70 countries and
international organizations meet in Paris
on Sunday to reaffirm support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, just days before Donald Trump takes office. The Paris
meeting aims to revive the moribund Israeli-Palestinian peace process, amid
fears of fresh violence if Trump implements a pledge to recognize the contested
city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the Paris meeting as "a rigged conference,
rigged by the Palestinians with French auspices to adopt additional anti-Israel
stances."Israel
reacted with fury after the United States refrained from using
its veto at the council, allowing the anti-settlements resolution to be adopted
by a vote of 14-0.
Palestinians Seek Putin Help to Block U.S. Embassy Move
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to help
stop the United States
moving its embassy to Jerusalem,
a top Palestinian official said Friday. Saeb Erekat said he had passed on the message from Abbas to Putin during a visit to Moscow during which he met Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov. "The letter asks
President Putin to do what he can about the information we have that
President-elect Donald Trump will move the embassy to Jerusalem, which for us
is a red line and dangerous," Erekat said. On
Friday the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem used his sermon at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound to say the embassy move would
represent an "assault" on Muslims across the globe. According to
Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official and
Fatah central committee member, the Palestinian leadership has been informed by
diplomatic contacts that Trump could call for the move in his inauguration
speech on January 20. The Palestinians regard east Jerusalem
as the capital of their future state, while Israel proclaims the entire city as
its capital. The city's status is one of the thorniest issues of the
decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel
occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem
in 1967. It later annexed east Jerusalem
in a move never recognized by the international community.
U.S. Embassy Jerusalem Move 'Assault' on
Muslims, Mufti Warns
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Jerusalem's Grand Mufti on Friday branded plans by President-elect Donald
Trump to move the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem an
"assault" on Muslims across the globe. "The pledge to move the
embassy is not just an assault against Palestinians but against Arabs and
Muslims, who will not remain silent," Muhammad Hussein said in a sermon at
al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem's
Old City. On Tuesday, Palestinian leaders
called for Friday prayers at mosques across the Middle
East this week to protest Trump's campaign pledge. There have been
warnings that the move would constitute recognizing Jerusalem
as Israel's capital and
could inflame tensions in the Middle East and
possibly sink what remains of peace efforts. "The transfer of the embassy
violates international charters and norms which recognize Jerusalem as an occupied city," Hussein
said in his sermon, avoiding mentioning Trump by name. The Palestinians regard
east Jerusalem as the capital of their future
state, while Israel
proclaims the entire city as its capital. The city's status is one of the
thorniest issues of the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel occupied the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1967. It
later annexed east Jerusalem
in a move never recognized by the international community. Mohammad Shtayyeh, a senior Palestinian official and Fatah central
committee member, said on Tuesday that the Palestinian leadership had been
informed by diplomatic contacts that Trump could call for the move in his
inauguration speech on January 20.
The Palestinians have added the issue to the agenda of a meeting of foreign
ministers from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation on January 19 in Malaysia, he
added.
Cyprus Talks Stumble as Greece Says No
Solution Unless Turkish 'Occupation' Ends
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
13/17/Hopes for a peace deal in Cyprus stalled Friday over a decades-old
dispute, with the rival sides at loggerheads over the future of Turkish troops
on the divided island. A week of U.N.-brokered talks in Geneva between Greek
Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades
and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci sparked
optimism that an agreement to reunify the island could be at hand. But any
settlement will require an agreement on Cyprus's
future security, with key players Greece,
Turkey and former colonial
power Britain
needing to sign on. The eastern Mediterranean island has been divided since
1974, when Turkish troops invaded in response to an Athens-inspired coup
seeking union with Greece.
And a key sticking point remains the presence of some 30,000 Turkish troops in
the north of the island. Ankara
and Akinci have insisted that some Turkish military
presence is essential for Turkish Cypriots to feel safe in a prospective united
country. Anastasiades on Friday restated his position that a timeline must be agreed for those troops to
eventually withdraw. And Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias said there can be no solution to the four-decade
division of Cyprus
while Turkish "occupation" troops remain."A
just solution (to division) means, first of all, eliminating what caused it,
namely the occupation and presence of occupation forces," Kotzias said, according to a ministry statement as he left Geneva. But Turkish
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared that a full withdrawal of Turkish troops
from northern Cyprus
was "out of the question."He said in
televised remarks that Athens and Greek Cypriots
still have "different expectations" from their Turkish and Turkish
Cypriot counterparts on resolving the Cyprus problem. U.N. envoy Espen Barth Eide cautioned that
discussions on security had just begun and that the subject was
"emotional" for all sides. He insisted that efforts to end one of the
world's longest running political crises would not be derailed over a temporary
war of words.
'Cannot create winners and losers'
Despite the roadblocks ahead, Anastasiades said the
two sides were "on a path that creates hope" and that compromise was
key. "A solution cannot create winners and leave losers (in its wake). If
we want it to be viable and durable, all must understand, Greek and Turkish
Cypriots alike, that a fine balance must be struck," he told reporters in Geneva. Earlier in the
week, the rival sides tackled thorny domestic questions like the composition of
a unified government and land swaps. In another first, they exchanged maps late
Wednesday detailing their visions of how internal boundaries should be redrawn.
Turkish Cypriot leaders have agreed in principle to return some of the land
they have controlled since the failed 1974 coup. The Greek Cypriot government
said that the maps met the terms agreed during previous negotiations
that foresees the Turkish Cypriot zone amounting to a maximum of 29.2
percent of the island, although disputes remain and a final version has not
been agreed. New U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres,
who hosted the conference in Geneva
on his first foreign trip at the helm of the world body, said a final deal was
"close" but warned against expecting a "quick fix."
Iran: Thousands of People Staged a Protest in Front of the
Regime's Parliament
NCRI Iran/Friday 13 January 2017/ On January 11, 2017, more than 2500 retirees
of the Steel Industries staged a protest in front of the regime’s Parliament.
Protesters had come from various provinces to participate in the rally. They
had set up a huge banner in front of Parliament reading “We simply want our
right”, “We retirees of the Steel Industries want to be amalgamated in state
pension”. Protesters demand cancellation of self-administered pension plan of
Steel Industries and its transfer to state controlled pension plan, payment of
outstanding and unpaid claims including salaries and health benefits of
pensioners. Simultaneously, 300 employees of Agriculture Insurance Fund
protested in front of the Parliament and demanded that their employment status
be determined.
In Boroujerd too, on January 11, workers of Saman Tiles factory rallied in front of the Social Security
department for the fifth time this month. Workers want their outstanding
salaries to be paid. The workers have so far staged 20 rallies but have not
received a response from the regime’s agents.
Iranian Dissident News Outlet Seeks
Financial Support as People, Government Clash Over
Access to Information
NCRI Iran/Friday 13 January 2017/On Friday, a popular satellite television
network run by volunteer Iranian expatriates began its 21st public campaign to
raise funding for its annual operations. The network, known in Farsi as Simay Azadi and in English as
Iran National Television, reaches an audience inside Iran via satellite receiver
equipment that is illegal to own or operate in the country. In spite of this
restriction, millions of Iranians reportedly defy the ban, even re-acquiring
such equipment after mass confiscation efforts by government authorities. This
defiance reflects a broader conflict between the Iranian public and the
regime’s attempts to control the flow of information. Various websites and
social media networks including Facebook and Twitter
are also banned by Iran’s
hardline theocracy but are routinely accessed by a
young and tech-savvy population via virtual proxy networks. The prominence of
satellite receiver equipment also gives Iranians access to other non-government
news sources, but INTV presents itself as being uniquely a voice for the
Iranian people, insofar as it expresses the viewpoints of an organized
resistance movement and gathers news with the help of that movement’s
intelligence networks inside of Iran.
An INTV press release announcing this weekend’s pledge drive appealed to donors
to support the network’s role as an alternative to the state media outlets that
are virtually the only sources of information functioning openly inside the
country, numerous outlets are shuttered by the government in any given year.
The political imprisonment of journalists is also commonplace, resulting in the
Committee to Protect Journalists consistently ranking Iran as one of
the worst purveyors of this sort of repression. The website Journalism is not a
Crime identifies more than 50 reporters who are currently serving prison
sentences in Iran.
And this number does not account for the numerous political activists who have
been jailed either partly or entirely because of their contribution to news
gathering by dissident outlets like INTV.
INTV reports that many members of its network have been not only imprisoned but
also tortured and in some cases executed for their work, including the coverage
of banned political protests and the conditions of the Iranian prison system.
The network’s press release adds that “political prisoners in Iran regularly
use [INTV] to reveal news from inside prisons and to convey their resistance
against the authorities’ brutality.” Previous pledge drives have suggested
strong public interest in support these sorts of projects. INTV is known to
receive donations both from inside Iran and from Iranian expatriate
communities; and those donations reportedly range from 10 dollars to hundreds
of thousands. Similar success is expected from the current pledge drive, which
runs through Sunday, because the network’s viewership has been steadily
increasing in recent years. INTV reports that its core staff
works entirely on a volunteer basis, and that donations collected during the
pledge drive will be used in the gathering of original news and to cover the
costs associated with maintaining its 24-hour satellite broadcast and its
website, IranNTV.com. It is noteworthy than on the homepage of Simaye Azadi there is a special
tab in English labeled ‘Free Iran Telethon’ for those
interested in donating.
Why Rafsanjani's
Death Offers the US a Unique Opportunity to Reshape Its Iran Policy
NCRI Iran/Friday 13 January 2017/The following is an insightful article
analyzing the current political situation in Iran after the death of
Rafsanjani, written On Jaunary 13, by Alireza Jafarzadeh, the deputy
director of the Washington office of the National Council of Resistance of
Iran. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the
founding fathers of the Iranian regime, died last week on January 8. He served
as President, Speaker of Parliament, Deputy Commander of the Armed Forces, head
of the Assembly of Experts--the 88-member body of clerics tasked with
nominating the Supreme Leader, and head of the Expediency Council, a body
adjudicating disputes over legislation between the parliament and the Guardian
Council.
A defining chapter for the regime has now come to an end and a new uncertain
chapter has opened.
Rafsanjani, one of the two pillars of the ruling theocracy, had always been the
regime's number two, acted as its balancing factor and played a decisive role
in its preservation.
“Now, the regime will lose its internal and external equilibrium,” opposition
leader Maryam Rajavi said,
suggesting the clerical regime is “approaching overthrow.”
Rafsanjani’s death presents a historic moment for the
incoming U.S. administration
to adopt a more effective policy that strategically curbs Iran’s
multi-faceted terrorist and nuclear threats and the suppression of its own
citizens.
Though portrayed by some in the West as a “pragmatist” or “moderate,” during
his long career of nearly 40 years, Rafsanjani was responsible for suppression
at home, terrorism abroad, and the regime’s quest for nuclear weapons.
The Iranian clandestine nuclear weapons program jump-started and moved forward
under Rafsanjani and he intensified cooperation with countries like North Korea.
In an interview published by the regime's official state news agency IRNA on
October 27, 2015, Rafsanjani acknowledged that during his time as Parliament
Speaker and President, both he and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
sought ways to obtain a nuclear bomb.
"Our basic doctrine was always a peaceful nuclear application, but it
never left our mind that if one day we should be threatened and it was
imperative, we should be able to go down the other path," Rafsanjani said.
Rafsanjani was an ardent supporter of the theocracy’s most fundamental
principles and strategic policies. In that respect, he embodied no worthy
divergences with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei.
A quarter century ago, Rafsanjani exclaimed with unfailing conviction at every
turn that “in all affairs, the pivotal role of the velayat-e
faqih (supreme leader) must be accepted as
fundamental.”
He even coined phrases like “the pole holding up the regime’s tent” to explain
the pivotal role of Khamenei. Without it, everything
would crumble, which means that the velayat-e faqih must be preserved at any cost.
He was not a reformer, just as his protégée, current president Hassan Rouhani is not.
During his presidency, tens of thousands of political prisoners were massacred
in summer 1988. In 1994, the Jewish community center building in Buenos Aires was bombed,
resulting in 85 deaths. Argentina
then issued an arrest warrant for Rafsanjani, accusing him of personally
ordering the attack. The
FBI concluded that Tehran masterminded the
bombing of Khobar
Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996, resulting in
the deaths of 19 American servicemen.
In 1997, a Berlin court ruled that a secret
committee, made up of Khamenei, Rafsanjani, and
several of his ministers, had ordered the 1992 assassinations of Kurdish
dissidents at a Berlin
restaurant.
During Rafsanjani’s tenure as president, more
dissidents were assassinated abroad than any other time in the life of the
Islamic Republic, including the April 1990 assassination near Geneva of Prof. Kazem Rajavi, the representative
of the opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Switzerland,
the 1993 assassination in Rome of NCRI’s
representative Mohammad Hossein Naghdi,
and the 1996 assassination in Istanbul of Ms. Zahra Rajabi,
NCRI’s representative on refugee affairs.
In a sharp departure from the previous administrations’ search for the unicorn
of “moderates” in Iran, the incoming Trump administration must lead an
international effort to further contain, isolate and pressure the world’s
largest state-sponsor of terror by adopting a principled and firm policy towards
the murderous rulers of Tehran, while reaching out to the Iranian people and
their organized opposition who seek a secular, democratic and non-nuclear
republic in Iran.
Alireza Jafarzadeh, the
deputy director of the Washington office of
the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is credited with exposing Iranian
nuclear sites in Natanz and Arak in 2002, triggering International Atomic
Energy Agency inspections. He is the author of "The Iran Threat"
(Palgrave MacMillan: 2008). His email is Jafarzadeh@ncrius.org.
Iran: Interpreting the Conflict Between
Rival Bands in Rafsanjani's Funeral
NCRI Iran/Friday 13 January 2017/The consequences of Rafsanjani’s
death appeared much sooner than expected during his funeral, turning the
ceremony into a battle scene between the rival bands. While the Rafsanjani-Rouhani
band chanted “these too many people are here for their love for Akbar”, Khamenei’s responded “these too many people are here for
their love for leader”. Menawhile, the fed-up crowd, ”, taking advantage of the gap between the two bands, were
chanting “Dictator, Dictator”, “Our state television, our shame”, and
“political prisoners should get released.” The unrest went far beyond Tehran, so that people in Mashhad
chanted “Down with Khamenei” in addition to the mutual
rhetoric between the two bands. The conflict between the two rival bands began from the
first hour following Rafsanjani’s death. Regarding
his burial place, there was first speaking of Qom,
and even Mashhad was mentioned at some point,
but eventually Rafsanjani’s body was to be buried
next to Khomeini’s tomb which shows behind-the-scene conflicts.
Also a number of news agencies belonging to Khamenei’s
band reported at first that Khamenei attended Rafsanjani’s house and offered condolences to his family,
but the report was removed from their websites within hours and was denied
altogether later.
In his message for Rafsanjani’s death, Khamenei refused to use the word ‘Ayatollah’, a title
commonly used by state radio and television for Rafsanjani. Instead, Khamenei referred to Rafsanjani only as ‘Hojatoleslam’, which is lower in rank compared to
Ayatollah, according to Mullahs’ hierarchy. Khamenei
didn’t point in his message to Rafsanjani’s special
relations with Khomeini, either, and only mentioned Rafsanjani’s
‘opulent intelligence and rare intimacy in the past years’, which was somehow
equivocally referring to the taunts of his own agents, accusing Rafsanjani of
being imbecile, amnesiac and absentminded.
The answer is that the Mullahs’ regime is one with dual texture and structure,
a disparate mix of an ultra-reactionary, middle-aged head called ‘vilayat-e faqih’ and a
capitalism-dependent body with deep conflict of interests. This contrast was
shown in confrontation between Rafsanjani and Khamenei
in which Rafsanjani represented the dependent, capitalist section. With Rafsanjani’s death, neither has this section vanished, nor
has it renounced its interests. As a result, regime’s inherent duality is still
in place without being dissolved. Ironically, with the death of Rafsanjani, as
someone who with his Mullah personality could somehow mitigate the conflict of
interests, this contradiction is more than ever colored
with conflict, and this is the same factor that has frightened the regime, with
their fear being reflected in state media, particularly in those close to Rafsanjani’s band.
This concern will inevitably occur to all regime’s forces, especially now that
Rafsanjani is gone, forcing them to detach from the regime out of distress, at
a time when regime is surrounded by social, economic and regional crises. A
concern for which there’s no answer, since this is an expired regime which has
no future. A fact Rafsanjani was very well aware of and fell to the ground
fearing the regime’s prospect. By the way, was this the same fear that took his
life?
In his message, Khamenei also pointed to
‘disagreements and differences in religious approaches’ between himself and
Rafsanjani.
Khamenei also didn’t mention the common term
‘goodness is all we know of him’ while reading the funeral prayer, a move
widely reflected in cyber space which forced the regime to deny the news
regarding the repeat of the funeral prayer, pointing out that the prayer was
fully read by Khamenei. With such an outward praise as “with the
lack of Rafsanjani, I don’t know anyone that …” Khamenei
actually sent a message to Rouhani not to have high
hopes of taking Rafsanjani’s place in the expediency
council or other entities, since the media close to Rouhani
are saying that Rouhani is the only one who can and
must replace Rafsanjani.
Thus, it becomes clear that, contrary to what some in Khamenei’s band are promising themselves, Rafsanjani’s death has not only not reduced regime’s
contradictions and conflicts and will not lead to more solidarity and unity
within the regime, but with lack of someone who could harness the ‘extremisms
of both rival factions’, these contradictions will get out of control and
follow a progressive path.
What is really frightening the regime, is not the very conflicts and contradictions
within the regime, but their social repercussions, since the fed-up people are
seeking the slightest gap in the regime to, similar to what they did in 2009,
take to the streets and sweep away the regime with all its manifestations. The question that
arises here is that, regarding the conflict between rival bands, when one side
is beheaded, the war will normally be over in favor
of the other side. But how is it that here with Rafsanjani eliminated, not only
the war is not over but it is aggravating as well?
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis
& editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 13-14/17
Question: "How
can I take control of my thoughts?"
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/13/how-can-i-take-control-of-my-thoughts/
GotQuestions.org?
Answer: Many Christians struggle with this issue, especially in our highly
technological world, but taking control of our thoughts is essential. Proverbs
4:23 states, "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring
of life." The “heart” includes the mind and all that proceeds from it.
Someone said that every sin we commit, we commit twice, once in our thoughts
and again when we act upon those thoughts. It is easier to rid our lives of sin
if we attack it at this fundamental thought level rather than waiting for it to
become rooted in our lives by our actions and then try to pull it out.
There is also a difference between being tempted (a thought entering into
the mind) and sinning (dwelling upon an evil thought and wallowing in it). It
is important to understand that when a thought enters our mind, we examine it
based upon God's Word and determine if we should continue down that path or
reject the thought and replace it with another thought. If we have already
allowed a habit to form in our thought lives, it becomes more difficult to
change the path of our thoughts, even as it is hard to get a car out of a deep
rut and onto a new track. Here are some biblical suggestions for taking control
of our thoughts and getting rid of wrong thoughts:
1. Be in God's Word so that when a sinful thought enters our mind (a
temptation), we will be able to recognize it for what it is and know what
course to take. Jesus in the wilderness (Matthew 4) responded to each of
Satan's temptations with Scripture that applied to the direction He knew His
mind should take instead of beginning down the path of the sinful thought. When
tempted to meet His physical need (turn stone into bread), He recited the
passage about the importance of relying upon God. When tempted to serve Satan
in order to obtain the glory of the world, He brought up the passage that says
we are to serve and worship God alone and speak of the glory that belongs to
Him and those who are His. When tempted to test God (to see if God was really
there and would keep His promises), Jesus responded with passages that stress
the importance of believing God without having to see Him demonstrate His
presence.
Quoting Scripture in a time of temptation is not a talisman, but rather serves
the purpose of getting our minds onto a biblical track, but we need to know the
Word of God AHEAD of time in order to accomplish this. Thus, a daily habit of
being in the Word in a meaningful way is essential. If we are aware of a
certain area of constant temptation (worry, lust, anger, etc.), we need to
study and memorize key passages that deal with those issues. Looking for both
what we are to avoid (negative) and how we are to properly respond (positive)
to tempting thoughts and situations—before they are upon us—will go a long way
to giving us victory over them.
2. Live in dependence upon the Holy Spirit, chiefly through seeking His
strength through prayer (Matthew 26:41). If we rely upon our own strength, we
will fail (Proverbs 28:26;Jeremiah 17:9; Matthew
26:33).
3. We are not to feed our minds with that which will promote sinful
thoughts. This is the idea of Proverbs 4:23. We are to guard our hearts—what we
allow into them and what we allow them to dwell on. Job 31:1 states, "I
have made a covenant with my eyes; Why then should I look upon a young
woman" (NKJV). Romans 13:14 states, "But put on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill its lusts." Thus,
we are to avoid periodicals, videos, websites, conversations and situations
that will set us up for a fall. We should also avoid spending time with those
who would encourage us down these wrong paths.
4. We are to pursue hard after God, substituting godly pursuits and
mindsets for sinful thoughts. This is the principle of replacement. When
tempted to hate someone, we replace those hateful thoughts with godly actions:
we do good to them, speak well of them, and pray for them (Matthew 5:44).
Instead of stealing, we should work hard to earn money so we can look for
opportunities to give to others in need (Ephesians 4:28). When tempted to lust
after a woman, we turn our gaze, praise God for the way He has made us—male and
female—and pray for the woman (for example: "Lord, help this young woman
to come to know you if she does not, and to know the joy of walking with
you"), then think of her as a sister (1 Timothy 5:2). The Bible often
speaks of "putting off" wrong actions and thoughts but then
"putting on” godly actions and thoughts (Ephesians 4:22-32). Merely
seeking to put off sinful thoughts without replacing those thoughts with godly
ones leaves an empty field for Satan to come along and sow his weeds (Matthew
12:43-45).
5. We can use fellowship with other Christians the way God intended.
Hebrews 10:24-25 states, "And let us consider how we may spur one another
on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are
in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you
see the Day approaching." Fellow Christians who will encourage us in the
changes we desire (best if of the same gender), who will pray for and with us,
who will ask us in love how we are doing, and who will hold us accountable in
avoiding the old ways, are valuable friends indeed.
Last and most important, these methods will be of no value unless we have
placed our faith in Christ as Savior from our sin.
This is where we absolutely must start! Without this, there can be no victory
over sinful thoughts and temptations, and God’s promises for
His children are not for us, nor is the Holy Spirit’s power available to
us!
God will bless those who seek to honor Him with
what matters most to Him: who we are inside and not just what we appear to be
to others. May God make Jesus’ description of Nathanael true also of us—a man
[or woman] in whom there is no guile (John 1:47).
The Return of Islam’s Child-Soldiers
Raymond Ibrahim/January 13/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/13/raymond-ibrahim-the-return-of-islams-child-soldiers/
Past and present, Muslim militants continue relying on the same inhumane
tactics to terrorize “infidels.” The devastating effects of one of these
occurred last August in Turkey:
a child “recruited” by the Islamic State blew himself up in a suicide attack
that left at least 51 people—mostly fellow children—dead.
This child was one of countless, nameless, faceless children seized, beat, and
indoctrinated in Islam, until they become willing “martyrs” and executioners.
Known as the “cubs of the caliphate,” they are graduates from “schools
[established by ISIS] to prepare hundreds of
children and teenagers to conduct suicide attacks.” The Islamic State is fond
of showcasing these abducted children turned criminals.
A few days ago, it posted a video of these “cubs,” most who appear to be about
10 years of age, walking around an abandoned amusement park, where they
savagely execute hostages tied to rides. One child, reportedly only four years
old, shoots five rounds into a tied up victim while screaming “Allahu Akbar!” (see image above).
Another little boy slits the throat of his victim next to a kiddie train before
planting the knife in his back. Last November ISIS
posted another video of four children—one Russian, one Uzbek, and two
Iraqis—executing civilians.
One Christian clergyman explained the Islamic State’s strategy: “They dislocate
the families, they take the newborn babies, and they put them in Islamist
families,” where they are indoctrinated in jihad, or
what is called in the West, “terrorist activities.”
Children who’ve managed to escape ISIS say they were repeatedly beat and fed
“endless propaganda,” including that they must kill their non-Muslim parents:
“We weren’t allowed to cry but I would think about my mother, think about her
worrying about me and I’d try and cry quietly,” one little boy said.
Seizing and indoctrinating children for the jihad is hardly limited to ISIS. Over the last three years, Boko
Haram, the Islamic jihadi
group terrorizing Nigeria, has kidnapped, enslaved, beat and indoctrinated more
than 10,000 boys—some as young as 5 years of age, and many from Christian
backgrounds—into becoming jihadis/terrorists.
“They told us, ‘It’s all right for you to kill and slaughter even your
parents,’” said a former captive who witnessed a beheading on the day he was
enslaved. Other boys held down the victim and explained: “This is what you have
to do to get to heaven.”
Girls were kept in a separate camp and raped, often by captive boys, as a way
to show the latter the boons of becoming warriors for Allah (the deity that
permits his slaves to enslave and rape “infidel” women). An escaped girl,
Rachel, now 13 and pregnant by rape, told of how dozens of boys from her
village tied up a kidnapped man and beheaded him. They told the younger
children watching not to “have feelings about it.” “If you go there [Boko Haram training camps], you
can see 12-year-olds talking about burning down a village,” said another
escaped girl, adding “They have converted.”
A boy, now 10, served as babysitter for infants and toddlers kidnapped or
conceived by rape: “The children, none older than 4, watched jihadist
propaganda videos and rehearsed a game called ‘suicide bomber’ where they
ripped open sacks of sand strapped to their torsos.”
These Nigerian children, some as young as 6, have been used to terrorize neighboring Cameroon,
a Christian majority nation. During a jihadi raid,
more than 100 screaming boys suddenly appeared—barefoot, unarmed, or swinging
only machetes—and ran toward a military unit which gunned them down. As Col.
Didier Badjeck explained, “It’s better to kill a boy
than have 1,000 victims. It’s causing us problems with international organizations,
but they’re not on the front lines. We are.”
Another report, published just days ago, tells of more experiences from
abducted boys and girls, and how Boko Haram showed the former to “have fun” with the latter,
including by “learning to subdue a struggling victim during sexual assault.”
One escaped 16-year-old girl said, “I was raped almost on a daily basis by
different men. When they became fed-up with me, they asked the little boy, who
has often watched them do it, to take over.”
But it’s not just ISIS and Boko Haram
who seize, enslave, beat and indoctrinate boys for jihad (and girls to “make it
up” to the boys). This practice is also taking place in Yemen, Somalia
and even “moderate” Mali.
Indeed, a cursory Internet search reveals the extent of this phenomenon.
In 2012, 300 Christian children were abducted and forcibly converted to Islam
in Bangladesh.
After convincing impoverished Christian families in Bangladesh to spend what
little money they had to send their children to study at supposed “mission
hostels,” Muslim conmen would “pocket the money” and “sell the children to
Islamic schools elsewhere in the country ‘where imams force them to abjure
Christianity.’” The children are then instructed in Islam and beaten. After
being fully indoctrinated, the once Christian children are asked if they are
“ready to give their lives for Islam,” presumably by becoming jihadi suicide-bombers.
Why are Islamic jihad groups resorting to this tactic of enslaving and
indoctrinating children into becoming jihadis? Most
Western analysts believe this is a reflection of weakened, desperate groups:
“The growing trend for ISIS to use child soldiers as suicide bombers,
particularly in Iraq,
has been suggested as a sign of how stretched their resources are in the region,”
noted one report.
Or it could suggest that ISIS, Boko Haram, etc., are simply
following another page of the jihadi playbook. For
over a millennium, Muslim caliphates specialized in seizing and enslaving tens
if not hundreds of thousands of young non-Muslim boys, converting them to
Islam, and then beating, indoctrinating, and training them into becoming jihadis extraordinaire.
The most famous of these were the Ottoman Empire’s
janissaries—Christian boys who were seized from their homes, converted to and
indoctrinated in Islam and jihad, and then unleashed on their former families.
As the author of Balkan Wars explains, “Despite their Christian upbringing,
they became fanatical Muslims and earnestly maintained their faith as warriors
of Islam. This cruel practice of what today can be defined as the ‘brain
cleansing’ of the Christian populations of the Ottoman
Empire is perhaps the most inhuman Turkish legacy.”
That Turkey
is now suffering from the effects of this system—such as when a child suicide
bomber killed 51 people in the name of jihad—may be called “ironic.”
Western analysts would not be oblivious to this “new” jihadi
tactic—optimistically portraying the reliance on children as proof that jihadi groups have “stretched their resources”—if they had
Islamic studies departments that actually disseminated facts instead of
pro-Islamic myths and propaganda. As with all unsavory
aspects of Islamic history, the institution of child slave soldiers has been
thoroughly whitewashed. Although young, terrified boys were seized from the
clutches of their devastated parents, the academic narrative is that poor
Christian families were somewhat happy to see their boys taken to the caliphate
where they would have a “bright future” as “soldiers and statesmen.”
The price of the modern West’s inability to comprehend Islam’s medieval tactics
is not just ignorance concerning the nature of the enemy, but ignorance
concerning his victims as well—in this case, countless, nameless children. As Mausi Segun, a human rights
activist discussing the plight of Boko Haram’s child jihadis put it:
“There’s almost an entire generation of boys missing. My guess is that a large
majority of them will die [as forced jihadis] in the
conflict.” And they will die completely unknown in the West—just another victim
group to be sacrificed on the altar of political correctness, lest Islam’s
reputation be besmirched.
Egyptian patriotism: Critics vs sycophants
Mohammed Nosseir/Al Arabiya/January
13/17
“Stability and frequent praise of the ruler will move us forward.”
Astonishingly and sadly, many Egyptians strongly believe in this false notion
and abide by it strictly. This often goes hand-in-hand with the condemnation of
all critics, who are automatically categorized as disloyal citizens. Egyptian
rulers tend to surround themselves with people who make them comfortable, who
constantly eulogize and applaud their ideas. They are thus placing themselves
in a position that makes listening to critics who oppose their ideas very
difficult.
Egyptians enjoy receiving compliments! Indeed, who does not like to be
continually admired for their work? Admirers, however, do not develop nations,
especially when most of these are beneficiaries of the state. Sadly, many
rulers surround themselves with their favorite
devotees, regarding all critics as enemies. Rulers who enjoy being complimented
should also listen to those who disagree with their policies; they should
evaluate all ideas according to their substance and potential for
implementation – not the identity of their initiators.
Because our leaders always want someone to endorse their perspectives, they
tend to surround themselves with more sycophants and to distance themselves
from critics. The result, unfortunately, is that the Egyptian state has fenced
itself in behind a barrier of many sycophants who consistently and continuously
praise all decisions made by state leaders.
Good rhetoric
The more their praise is couched in good rhetoric, the
closer these sycophants are able to get to the state’s decision-makers. Sycophants
are, in fact, a group of mediocre and lazy citizens who have nothing of
substance to offer our country, aside from flattering the government (if this
sin can be considered a virtue). Some argue, quite sincerely, that patriotism
is about supporting the ruler and the state – even if one is aware, well in
advance, that their policies are not beneficial; blind support of the ruler is
always needed, regardless of his policies.
According to this logic, a nation that stands united behind a single course of action
is more successful than one that has diversified opinions; thus, justification
of the ruler’s decisions and policies is always required. This line of thought
obviously completely disregards the role of opponents and critics, and even
brands them as traitors and betrayers. The hypothesis of critics and sycophants
is also applied to relations between Egypt and other nations. Countries
that make remarks or comments concerning the political or economic path that Egypt is
pursuing are commonly perceived as enemies, even when these remarks are a
sincere product of goodwill. If the Egyptian state doesn’t have enough sympathy
and tolerance to listen to those of its own citizens who differ with its polices, it obviously won’t listen to the advice of
other nations, some of which is even regarded as conspiratorial, part of a plot
against our nation.
New ideas
As an emerging country, Egypt needs more people who have
new ideas and who are strongly committed to the implementation of these ideas.
The sycophants who are currently dominating the entire political scene cannot
offer a single new idea. At present, our country is torn between people who
exaggerate and amplify the benefits and merits of our government’s actions and
policies and others who are substantially undermining the same; neither party
is helping Egypt
to progress. If we assume that the two sides have valid opinions (which I
personally doubt), then we are in the truly unenviable position of not being
able to differentiate between that which benefits our country and that which
harms it. Egyptians who don’t believe that that their country is on the right
track must be given proper room to express their concerns. They are not the
state’s enemies; they simply perceive things from a different perspective, based
on their experiences. Rulers are the ones who can either open or close the
“sycophant / critic channels”.In Egypt, and probably in many Middle
East countries, we definitely need to prompt rulers to open up
wider opportunities to their critics. Additionally, rulers need to admit that
they cannot be right or wrong all the time. Establishing a constructive debate
of ideas between ruling regimes and their critics is a vital step for all
nations.
Assad linked to Syrian chemical attacksالأسد مسؤول
عن
استعمال
الأسلحة
الكيماوية
Reuters, United Nations Friday, 13 January 2017
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/13/reuters-assad-linked-to-syrian-chemical-attacks/
International investigators have said for the first time that they
suspect President Bashar al-Assad and his brother are
responsible for the use of chemical weapons in the Syrian conflict, according
to a document seen by Reuters.
A joint inquiry for the United Nations and global watchdog the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had previously
identified only military units and did not name any commanders or officials.
Now a list has been produced of individuals whom the investigators have
linked to a series of chlorine bomb attacks in 2014-15 - including Assad, his
younger brother Maher and other high-ranking figures - indicating the decision
to use toxic weapons came from the very top, according to a source familiar
with the inquiry.
The Assads could not be reached for comment but
a Syrian government official said accusations that government forces had used
chemical weapons had “no basis in truth”. The government has repeatedly denied
using such weapons during the civil war, which is almost six years old, saying
all the attacks highlighted by the inquiry were the work of rebels or the ISIS.
The list, which has been seen by Reuters but has not been made public,
was based on a combination of evidence compiled by the UN-OPCW team in Syria
and information from Western and regional intelligence agencies, according to
the source, who declined to be identified due to the
sensitivity of the issue.
Reuters was unable to independently review the evidence or to verify it.
The UN-OPCW inquiry - known as the Joint Investigative Mechanism (JIM) -
is led by a panel of three independent experts, supported by a team of
technical and administrative staff. It is mandated by the UN Security Council
to identify individuals and organizations responsible for chemical attacks in Syria.
Virginia Gamba, the head of the Joint
Investigative Mechanism, denied any list of individual suspects had yet been
compiled by the inquiry.
“There are no ... identification of individuals being considered at this
time,” she told Reuters by email.
The use of chemical weapons is banned under international law and could
constitute a war crime.
While the inquiry has no judicial powers, any naming of suspects could
lead to their prosecution. Syria
is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), but alleged war
crimes could be referred to the court by the Security Council - although splits
among global powers over the war make this a distant prospect at present.
“The ICC is concerned about any country where crimes are reported to be
committed,” a spokesman for the court said when asked for comment. “Unless Syria accepts
the ICC jurisdiction, the only way that (the) ICC would have jurisdiction over
the situation would be through a referral by the Security Council.”
The list seen by Reuters could form the basis for the inquiry team’s
investigations this year, according to the source. It is unclear whether the
United Nations or OPCW will publish the list separately.
‘Highest levels’
The list identifies 15 people “to be scrutinized
in relation to use of CW (chemical weapons) by Syrian Arab Republic Armed
Forces in 2014 and 2015”. It does not specify what role they are suspected of
playing, but lists their titles.
It is split into three sections. The first, titled “Inner Circle
President” lists six people including Assad, his brother who commands the elite
4th Armored Division, the defense
minister and the head of military intelligence.
The second section names the air force chief as well as four commanders
of air force divisions. They include the heads of the 22nd Air Force Division
and the 63rd Helicopter Brigade, units that the inquiry has previously said
dropped chlorine bombs.
The third part of the list - “Other relevant Senior Mil Personnel” -
names two colonels and two major-generals. Hamish de Bretton-Gordon,
an independent specialist in biological and chemical weapons who monitors Syria, told
Reuters the list reflected the military chain of command. “The decisions would
be made at the highest levels initially and then delegated down. Hence the
first use would need to be authorized by Assad,” said de Bretton-Gordon,
a former commander of British and NATO chemical and biological defense divisions who frequently visits Syria for
professional consultancy work.
The Syrian defense ministry and air force could
not be reached for comment.
Chlorine barrel bombs
Syria joined the
international Chemical Weapons Convention under a US-Russian deal that followed
the deaths of hundreds of civilians in a sarin gas
attack in Ghouta on the outskirts of Damascus in August 2013.
It was the deadliest use of chemicals in global warfare since the 1988 Halabja massacre at the end of the Iran-Iraq war, which
killed at least 5,000 people in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Syrian government, which denied its forces
were behind the Ghouta attack, also agreed to hand
over its declared stockpile of 1,300 tons of toxic weaponry and dismantle its
chemical weapons program under international supervision.
The United Nations and OPCW have been investigating whether Damascus is adhering to
its commitments under the agreement, which averted the threat of US-led
military intervention.
The bodies appointed the panel of experts to conduct the inquiry, and its
mandate runs until November. The panel published a report in October last year
which said Syrian government forces used chemical weapons at least three times
in 2014-2015 and that ISIS used mustard gas in 2015.
The October report identified Syria’s 22nd Air Force Division and 63rd
Helicopter Brigade as having dropped chlorine bombs and said people “with
effective control in the military units ... must be held accountable”.
The source familiar with the inquiry said the October report had clearly
established the institutions responsible and that the next step was to go after
the individuals.
Washington
on Thursday blacklisted 18 senior Syrian officials based on the UN-OPCW
inquiry’s October report - some of whom also appear on the list seen by Reuters
- but not Assad or his brother.
The issue of chemical weapons use in Syria has become a deeply political
one, and the UN-OPCW inquiry’s allegations of chlorine bomb attacks by
government forces have split the UN Security Council’s veto-wielding members.
The United States, Britain and France
have called for sanctions against Syria,
while Assad’s ally Russia
has said the evidence presented is insufficient to justify such measures.
A Security Council resolution would be required to bring Assad and other
senior Syrian officials before the International Criminal Court for any
possible war crimes prosecution - something Russia would likely block.
Trump and the media: It will be a
running battle
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/January 13/17
During the entire tenure of Bill Clinton, he was in constant conflict with the
US media over allegations about companies in his home state, back when he was
governor. Afterwards, his relationship with Monica Lewinsky overshadowed all
the major achievements of his presidency. The same happened to President Barack
Obama, whose rivals kept on claiming that he was not born in the United States
and therefore cannot be president. There are some who
even claimed that he is a Muslim, and subsequently, the media kept mentioning
these stories for years.Like other former presidents,
Donald Trump is being hounded by the media. He is being besieged with
accusations that he has some sort of shady relations with the Russians. It
seems that these stories will go on in the media and will keep the public
opinion engaged.
An easy target
Trump’s problem with the media might be due to him being explicitly open and
unreserved, and this is what made him an easy target. He believes that the more
offensive he is, the less likely they might attack him. But the results have
just been the opposite. His media advisers have tried to convince him to
disregard the media so that he wouldn’t be dragged into the traps, but
apparently he has not been trained enough to control himself. This is what the
media is currently about. However, in terms of the charges that are being
fabricated, they do not seem logical, just like the accusations Obama faced
that he had falsified his birth certificate. The United States shows great interest
in research and investigation and it is impossible to commit such falsification
and escape the scrutiny of competent authorities. The same applies to what is
now being written against Trump, his relations with the Russians and the
blackmailing file. They all are silly stories that aim to embarrass him in
front of his supporters.
I expect Trump to face, more than any former president, difficult years with
the media and civil society organizations involved in women and environmental
issues, among others. The civil society is not on good terms with him on many
social issues. They have a strong presence and have organizations that are
capable of launching broad and long-term campaigns.
It is impossible for a candidate to run for presidency - similarly to those who
run for high positions - and be involved in hostile activities without getting
caught in the authorities’ radar. The president, who is the most important man
in the circle of decision taking, does not have absolute power: he shares the
power with the legislative authorities that can disable his policies if he fails
to convince them. I expect Trump to face, more than any former president,
difficult years with the media and civil society organizations involved in
women and environmental issues, among others. The civil society is not on good
terms with him on many social issues. They have a strong presence and have
organizations that are capable of launching broad and long-term campaigns.
The traditional media outlets are not the most aggressive and imperious,
although the CNN got fully engaged in the fight against Trump. The emergence
and spread of social media outlets and their news website are responsible for
the spread of forged news and irresponsible campaigns. This is an important
story and I will be tackling it again after the statement of Facebook regarding its intention to reorganize the current
media arena.
*This article was first published on Jnauary 13,
2017, in Aaharq Al-Awsat.
Tempering Expectations for the Paris Conference
Ghaith al-Omari/The
Washington Institute/January 13/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/13/dr-majid-rafizadehal-arabiya-enemies-as-thieves-irans-battle-within/
The meeting's main outcomes will probably disappoint ardent supporters and
detractors alike, but the parties should not dismiss the potential progress
offered by its more modest, concrete recommendations.
On January 15, representatives from around seventy countries and international
organizations are expected to convene in Paris
for the second of two international conferences organized under the French
"Middle East Peace Initiative." The meeting is unlikely to live up to
the Palestinians' exaggerated hopes or Israel's inflated concerns, but it
may still produce modestly useful outcomes.
TEMPERING THE INITIATIVE
The French initiative was launched in January 2016 by
then-foreign minister Laurent Fabius to
"preserve...the two-state solution." While initially lacking
substantive details, the proposal foresaw two international conferences. Fabius also indicated that if the effort failed, Paris would recognize a
Palestinian state. Despite France's
subsequent reversal of this position and a slew of statements lowering
expectations, Fabius's initial tone defined the parties'
reactions.
The Palestinians enthusiastically supported the initiative, as it reinforced
their push toward internationalizing the conflict. It became a central feature
of their diplomatic efforts and public messaging, with senior Palestinian
Authority officials such as Saeb Erekat
calling it "the only thing in town" last March. Yet Israel strongly
rejected it out of concern that such internationalization could prejudice
direct negotiations. At a joint press conference with French premier Manuel Valls in May, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu stated,
"Peace is not achieved in international UN-style conferences, nor through international diktats." He then offered to
meet with PA president Mahmoud Abbas
for direct talks instead. For its part, France began to temper the initial
high goals expressed by Fabius, defining more modest
objectives for its initiative -- namely, to refocus attention on the two-state
solution and create incentives for the parties to return to negotiations.
These objectives informed the work of the first international conference, held
in Paris on
June 3, 2016. Secretary of State John Kerry attended that meeting, along with
foreign ministers from Europe, key Arab countries (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
Jordan), and elsewhere, but the Palestinians and Israelis did not participate.
Maintaining a muted tone, the post-conference communique
"reaffirmed that a negotiated two-state solution is the only way to
achieve an enduring peace" and recalled relevant international
resolutions, with an emphasis on the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative. It also
reflected language previously endorsed by the Quartet (i.e., the UN
secretary-general, the EU, the United States,
and Russia)
expressing alarm that "actions on the ground, in particular continued acts
of violence and ongoing settlement activity, are
dangerously imperiling the prospects for a two-state
solution."
The only operative aspect of the communique related
to "providing meaningful incentives to the parties to make peace."
The conference also established three working groups: one on civil society,
headed by Sweden; one on
Palestinian governance and capacity building, headed by Germany; and one on economic incentives to
encourage a return to peacemaking, headed by Norway and the EU.
THE JANUARY 15 MEETING
The second conference will be held in Paris this Sunday, and
while the parties are not officially participating, Abbas
will be in the city that day. French officials have again sought to moderate
expectations, indicating that they will not be presenting new ideas but rather
"trying to keep the subject on the agenda and not letting it down because
there are other crises in the world." Similarly, President Francois Hollande stated on January 12 that he is "realistic on
what this conference can achieve. Peace will only be done by the Israelis and
Palestinians and by nobody else."
The conference's final statement will likely echo the June 3 communique in reiterating international resolutions and
urging the parties to reaffirm by word and deed their commitment to the
two-state solution. The one notable development emerging since last summer is
the recently adopted UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which called on
states "to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory
of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967." The
extent to which this and other aspects of the resolution are included in the communique will no doubt be hotly debated. Yet while
Secretary Kerry will attend the meeting, the principles he outlined in his
December 28 speech will not be included in the communique.
Much of the public debate this weekend will likely revolve around issues
relating to Resolution 2334 and similar facets of high diplomacy. Both sides
have already expressed their position on the resolution, so the conference is
unlikely to affect their stance or behavior.
In contrast, the practical ideas and incentives developed by the three working
groups will get less public attention, but they might present opportunities for
actual progress. Recently, Palestinian-Israeli security cooperation has allowed
for modest yet concrete gains on the ground, such as increasing Palestinian
access in the West Bank and facilitating Israel's transfer of withheld funds
to alleviate the PA budget crisis. Further incentivizing these measures and
devising new ones along similar lines would have a positive impact on the lives
and attitudes of Palestinians and Israelis. Highlighting the importance of
civil society engagement and formulating policies to support such activities
would also help counter recent negative trends, such as the antinormalization
movement among Palestinians and the delegitimization
of peace-oriented NGOs in Israel.
Finally, bringing attention to issues of Palestinian governance and capacity
could help reignite international interest in reform and institution-building,
thereby improving the Palestinians' negative view of their own governing
structures and creating solid foundations for a state once a peace deal is
reached.
CONCLUSION
The Paris
meeting will probably disappoint its most ardent enthusiasts and detractors
alike. As French officials have been consistently stating, their initiative is
not meant to be transformative, but is rather intended to preserve the
two-state solution and create incentives that move the parties closer to direct
negotiations.
Israel
will object to the conference's outcomes in principle, as it opposes the very
idea of internationalization. It will also reject any specific criticism of its
policies, particularly on settlements. But Israel's deepest concern -- that
the conference will seek to impose a solution -- will not come to pass.
The Palestinians will probably celebrate the meeting as a victory, though the
actual outcomes will fall considerably short of the high expectations they have
built. PA officials will go back home to a highly skeptical
public with little to show for what was billed as a central pillar of
Palestinian diplomacy over the past year.
Yet once the dust of messaging spin settles and everybody has staked out their
diplomatic positions, the parties and the international community would be well
advised to take a closer look at the more modest yet concrete recommendations
that might be ignored by the headlines, but which have the potential to create
positive effects in reality. At a time when negotiations are off the table, the
incoming Trump administration can immediately engage some of the practical
measures suggested by the Paris
conference. These steps might not bring about peace, but they can help bring a
measure of stability and create conditions more conducive to the eventual
resumption of peacemaking.
*/*Ghaith al-Omari, a
senior fellow at The Washington Institute, previously served in various
advisory positions with the Palestinian Authority.
Enemies as ‘thieves’, Iran’s battle within
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/January 13/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/13/dr-majid-rafizadehal-arabiya-enemies-as-thieves-irans-battle-within/
Iran’s Persian-language newspapers widely covered a recent speech delivered by
the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
to university students in Tehran. Some of Khamenei’s
remarks were classic in the sense that they were anchored in showing the
importance of advancing Iran’s
1979 revolutionary values. Intriguingly, Khamenei put
great emphasis on comparing Iran’s enemies to thieves, which highlights several
of Khamenei’s tactical shifts and recent concerns
regarding the continuing rapprochement with the international community,
particularly the West. Iran’s
Press TV stated: “The Leader compared the enemy to a thief who would seek to
burglarize a house but pretends that the reason for its enmity is the defensive
weapon held by the householder.”
Monopolistic economic concerns
Iran
is rapidly reintegrating into the global financial system, which is bringing
billions of dollars of additional revenues to the Iranian government. For
example, Tehran
has significantly increased its oil exports roughly 300 percent in a year, from
1 million barrels per day (bpd) to approximately 4 million bpd. Tehran is also trading in
other industries including in mining and metals.Iran’s
oil exports to Asian countries rose by nearly 92 percent, according to its
state news outlets. Iran’s
oil sales to Turkey
and other European nations has increased as well. The country is
currently the third largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum
Exporting Countries (OPEC). Khamenei is reiterating
the core pillar of Iran’s
foreign policy which is anchored in amplifying and exaggerating the threat of
the “enemy”However, Khamenei
desire is to keep business with the West at bay. In other words, one of the
main concerns of Khamenei and his gilded circle, the
senior cadre of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), is that Western companies might push to enter
Iran’s
market. The entrance of Western businesses into Tehran’s market will endanger the economic
monopoly that the Iranian government holds over the market. Iran’s major
domestic companies and manufacturers (including in cars, cell phone services,
furniture, clothing etc.) are either owned by the Supreme Leader or the IRGC.
As a result, from Khamenei and IRGC’s
perspectives, the entrance of larger foreign companies into Iran’s market
will be robbing them off their total share of the market.
The more closely held the domestic economic system of Iran is,
the more Khamenei and the IRGC can benefit from
maintaining their monopoly and profits over the market. It is in Khamenei and the IRGC interests to keep Iran’s economy
a state economy rather than a private one.As Khamenei himself stated: “Today, the geometry defining the
arrogant powers’ confrontation with the Islamic Republic is directed toward
robbing the Iranian nation of its material and spiritual power and conviction.
In turn, we should preserve and strengthen that power day by day.”Revolutionary, cultural and religious concerns
By calling the enemies “thieves”, Khamenei is also
revealing his concerns about Western cultural infiltration which would take
away the Iranian youth from pursuing the Islamic Republic’s 1979 revolutionary
principles. This is crucial considering approximately 60 percent of Iran’s
population is under the age of 30.In fact, for Khamenei,
cultural infiltration is more dangerous than an economic one. In a meeting with
IRGC commanders, Khamenei ordered the IRGC to halt
such infiltrations and added: “Economic and security infiltration are less important
than intellectual, cultural and political infiltration; however, various
officials especially the IRGC should prevent the infiltration powerfully… The
enemy has the false hope of putting an end to the revolution and thinks about
political-cultural infiltration… Identifying the enemy’s conspiracies,
strengthening the revolutionary spirit and constantly moving toward realizing
the causes will foil such plots.”Finally, Khamenei is also sending a message that Iran will not
fundamentally alter its foreign policies. Khamenei is
reiterating the core pillar of Iran’s
foreign policy which is anchored in amplifying and exaggerating the threat of
the “enemy”. This allows Khamenei and the IRGC to
expand Iran’s hard power, use the nation’s wealth for military capabilities,
suppress domestic opposition by labeling them as
foreign conspirators cooperating with the “enemies”, diverting attention from
domestic economic problems to the “enemies”, as well as blaming the
"enemies" for the government’s inefficiency in addressing domestic
issues.
Classroom of the future with mindset of
the past
Ehtesham Shahid/Al Arabiya/January 13/17
An academic startled me with the following quote not so long ago.
“Some expatriate educationists come to this part of the world solely to build
and sustain a career and not to develop a cadre that can replace them,” he said
on the sidelines of an education conference. I knew this to be the case in most
industries but wasn’t sure the field of education could be one of them. This is
why the more I hear about fancy subjects such as “dismantling the myth of
creativity” or “innovation in the classroom”, the more
skeptical I get about what really lies beneath,
especially in the private sector.
Do these studies genuinely improve the standards of education or just gimmicks
to make a quick buck? Do they really benefit the recipients of these services?
Are they really as tailor-made for local needs as they are projected to be?
Every other day studies come out claiming to be wonder-drugs in improving the
quality of education. There are reports on professional development of teachers
and even on the future of public education.
Yet they don’t seem to add up or, at the least, they don’t seem to be making a
material difference to the way education is being imparted. This is the case
here and in other parts of the world.
Unfortunately, commercialization of education has led to the development of a
consumer-like culture where one gets services based on the amount of money
spent. That simply goes against the spirit of universal education goals that
most governments and organizations vouch for. Unfortunately, commercialization
of education has led to a consumer-like culture where one gets services based
on the amount of money spent. That simply goes against the spirit of universal
education goals
Classroom of the future
One can’t help but admit though that some voices make
more sense than the others. One of them – classroom of the future – relates as
much to pedagogy as to behavioral aspects related to
education. It seems to have a definitive view of where things ought to be
rather than what they are. But what really is the classroom of the future?
According to Sandrine Cardinale, Business Director at
Steelcase Education EMEA, it refers to new age classrooms which are much more
empathetic to the evolving needs and learning styles of modern students.
According to Cardinale, the biggest shift is from the
traditional setting of rows of fixed table, chairs and lecterns. “Instead, the
classroom of the future presents a flexible ecosystem with a variety of working
spaces which fully capitalize on the benefits of active learning and better
utilize space”. It is obvious that the idea is to make every seat adaptable and
mobile and integrate new technology to meet the expectations of 21st century
students. However, the obvious question is how far are we from making this the
norm?
This is where it gets tricky. According to Cardinale,
in the Arab world, classrooms and learning styles remain predominantly
traditional, with ROTE learning used widely across the region. “The classroom
of the future encourages a combination of digital and analog learning, and is
instrumental in encouraging a higher level of collaboration and interactive
sessions, movement and creativity,” says Cardinale.
Much as one agrees with the premise that integration of technologies help in
supporting pedagogical strategies, and that problem-based learning, team work,
and debate can engage students better, I still maintain that one cannot
re-orient the system by just knocking off a few rows of seats. It would be like
putting the cart before the horse and/or repeating our past mistakes.
At the end of the day, the environment we create is more critical to imparting
education than the classroom we build.
Paris meeting marks end to Obama's failed Mideast diplomacy
Associated Press/Ynetnews/January 13/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/13/associated-pressynetnews-paris-meeting-marks-end-to-obamas-failed-mideast-diplomacy/
Analysis: With Secretary of State John Kerry admittedly only attending the
conference out of a sense of obligation and real expectations for a
breakthrough in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians coming
from the conference all but nonexistent, Obama's forays into peacemaking in the
Middle East end in defeat. With a shift in policy expected from the incoming
Trump administration, both sides of the conflict are bracing for changes.The Obama administration's eight years of
unsuccessful Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy will come to a crashing end this
weekend, with chances for a Mideast peace deal at perhaps their lowest ebb in a
generation. A Paris
peace conference attended by Secretary of State John Kerry isn't expected to
produce any tangible progress.
At a time when President-elect Donald Trump's administration is promising a
fundamental shift toward Israel,
the State Department said Kerry was only participating in the French-hosted
event to ensure America's
interest in a two-state solution to the conflict is preserved. The blunt
statement reinforced the dwindling hopes for a diplomatic breakthrough. Kerry
"feels obliged to be there because we have an interest in advancing a
two-state solution, and we also have an interest in ensuring that whatever
happens in this conference is constructive and balanced," department
spokesman Mark Toner said.
No one expects a plan to emerge that could lead to new Israeli-Palestinian
negotiations. While more than 70 countries are attending, though neither Israel nor the Palestinians, the US is primarily
focused on shielding the Jewish state from unfair criticism and ensuring
concerns about Palestinian incitement to violence aren't ignored. But the
administration may find its voice ignored. While the US
received credit from close allies in Europe and elsewhere for abstaining from a
December UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the
West Bank and east Jerusalem,
America's
partners have grown tired with its leadership on the peace process. Obama's
efforts in 2009-2010 and 2013-2014 both failed.
But Kerry and other administration officials fear an even worse scenario
emerging: the incoming Trump administration moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem,
and ending Washington's
longstanding opposition to Israeli settlements on land claimed by the
Palestinians.
The embassy relocation would be the symbolic gesture. Trump and his choice to
be ambassador to Israel have
telegraphed the commitment, which would ostensibly recognize Jerusalem
as Israel's
capital after decades of insisting that the city's status must be determined by
direct negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. A shift on settlements
could prove more dramatic, making a Palestinian state all but impossible to
cobble together.
Kerry's biggest decision in Paris
may be a political one: whether to sign the concluding document if it includes
a specific warning to Trump against moving the embassy. The Palestinians, Arab
nations and others are pushing the issue, fearing the US move could
spark a new conflagration in an already inflamed region. French officials say
the warning could be in the document. Kerry's signature would be a shot across
the bow of Trump's foreign policy and further undercut President Barack Obama's
promises for a smooth transition of power. Republicans and even many Democratic
lawmakers reacted angrily to the administration's UN vote in December and a
subsequent speech by Kerry on the Israeli-Palestinian impasse. The House of
Representatives even condemned the Security Council resolution. Israel is bracing for a new US policy. On
Friday, the West Bank settlers' council said
it will send a delegation to Trump's presidential inauguration next week after
receiving an invitation.
In his Senate confirmation hearing this week, Trump's choice to succeed Kerry
as secretary of state, former Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson,
voiced support for a two-state solution. But he said it may be unrealistic. The
sides haven't even negotiated indirectly since the process Kerry led collapsed
in 2014. Given the stalemate and the US
changes that may be coming, even preserving the concept of two states—Israel and Palestine—living
side-by-side and in peace could prove difficult. Nevertheless, the Paris conference aims to
make that a priority.
In a clear message to Israel
and the Trump administration, the dozens of countries attending are expected to
reiterate their opposition to Israelis settlements and call for Palestine's establishment
as "the only way" to ensure peace in the region.
A draft of the final communiqué statement obtained by The Associated Press
urges Israel
and the Palestinians "to officially restate their commitment to the
two-state solution." It tells Israel that no changes to its
pre-1967 borders will be recognized if the Palestinians aren't in agreement.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ruled out a return to Israel's 1967
lines, and many members of his coalition oppose Palestinian independence. He
also has derided the Paris
get-together, claiming it is "rigged" against his country.
Obama's Betrayal of Israel
Guy Millière/Gatestone Institute/January 13/17
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9755/obama-betrayal-israel
President Obama's decision not to use the US veto in the UN Security
Council and to let pass Resolution 2334, effectively sets the boundaries of a
future Palestinian state. The resolution declares all of Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem -- home to the Old City,
the Western Wall and the Temple Mount -- the most sacred place in Judaism --
"occupied Palestinian territory," and is a declaration of war against
Israel.
Resolution 2334 nullified any possibility of further negotiations by
giving the Palestinians everything in exchange for nothing -- not even an
insincere promise of peace.
The next act is the Orwellian-named "peace conference," to be
held in Paris
on January 15. It has but one objective: to set the stage to eradicate Israel.
In this new "Dreyfus trial," the accused will be the only
Jewish state and the accusers will be the OIC and officials from Islamized, dhimmified, anti-Israel Western states. As in the Dreyfus
trial, the verdict has been decided before it even starts. Israel will be
considered guilty of all charges and condemned. A draft of the declaration to
be published at the end of the conference is already available.
The declaration rejects any Jewish presence beyond the 1949 armistice
lines -- thereby instituting apartheid. It also praises the "Arab Peace
Initiative," which calls for returning of millions of so-called
"refugees" to Israel,
thus transforming Israel
into an Arab Muslim state where a massacre of Jews could conveniently be
organized.
The declaration is most likely meant serve as the basis for a new
Security Council resolution on January 17 that would recognize a Palestinian
state inside the "1967 borders," and be adopted, thanks to a second US abstention,
three days before Obama leaves office. The betrayal of Israel by the
Obama administration and by Obama himself would then be complete.
The US Congress is already discussing bills to defund the UN and the
Palestinian Authority. If Europeans think that the incoming Trump
administration is as spineless as the Obama administration, they are in for a
shock.
Khaled Abu Toameh
noted that the Palestinian Authority sees Resolution 2334 as a green light for
more murders and violence.
Daniel Pipes recently wrote that it is time to acknowledge the failure of
a "peace process" that is really a war process. He stresses that
peace can only come when an enemy is defeated.
Resolution 2334 and the Paris
conference, both promoted by Obama, are, as the great historian Bat Ye'or wrote, simply a victory for jihad.
The Middle East is in chaos. More than
half a million people have been killed in the Syrian war and the number is
rising. Bashar al-Assad's army used chemical weapons
and barrel bombs against civilians; Russia has bombed schools and
hospitals.
Syrians, Christians, Yazidis, Libyans, Yemenis
and Egyptians all face lethal treats. Iranian leaders still shout "Death
to Israel" and
"Death to America"
while buying nuclear equipment with money from lifted sanctions. Turkey is
sliding toward an Islamist dictatorship, and unable to stem attacks against it.
The only democratic and stable country in the region is Israel, and
that is the country U.S. President Barack Obama, in the final weeks of his
term, chooses to incriminate. His decision not to use the US veto in the
UN Security Council, to let pass Resolution 2334, effectively sets the
boundaries of a future Palestinian state. The resolution also declares all of
Judea, Samaria and East Jerusalem, home to the Old City,
the Western Wall and the Temple Mount -- the most sacred place in Judaism --
"occupied Palestinian territory," and is a declaration of war against
Israel.
UNSC Resolution 2334 nullified any possibility of further negotiations,
by giving the Palestinians everything in exchange for nothing -- not even an
insincere promise of peace. US Secretary of State John Kerry's speech five days
later confirmed Obama's support for the resolution. Kerry, like US Ambassador
to the UN Samantha Power, used the existence of Jewish towns and villages in
Judea and Samaria
as a pretext to endorse the position of Palestinian leaders, who want to
ethnically cleanse Jews from these areas. But this was just a prelude.
The next act is the Orwellian-named "peace conference," to be held
in Paris on
January 15. It has but one objective: to set the stage to eradicate Israel.
Organized by François Hollande, a failed French
President who will leave power in four months, it was supported from the start
by the Obama administration. Israeli Defense Minister
Avigdor Lieberman called it "the new Dreyfus
trial." The accused will be the only Jewish state and the accusers will be
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and officials from Islamized, dhimmified, anti-Israel Western states. As in the Dreyfus
trial, the verdict is known before it starts. Israel will be considered guilty of
all charges and condemned to what its accusers hope will be the beginning of
its end.
Is Barack Obama planning another betrayal of Israel
at next week's Paris
"peace conference," organized by French President François Hollande? Pictured: Obama and Hollande in Washington,
May 18, 2012. (Image source: White House)
Some commentators have compared what will happen in Paris
to the 1942 Wannsee Conference in Nazi Germany, because the aim seems clearly to be the
"final solution" of the "Jewish problem" in the Middle East. A draft of the declaration to be published
at the end of the conference is already available. It affirms unreserved
support for the "Palestinian Statehood strategy" and the principle of
intangibility (that the borders cannot be modified) of the "1967
borders," including East Jerusalem, the Old City
and the Western Wall.
The draft declaration rejects any Jewish presence beyond these borders --
thereby instituting apartheid -- and praises the "Arab Peace
Initiative," which calls for returning millions of so-called
"refugees" to Israel,
and thus the transforming of Israel
into an Arab Muslim state -- where a massacre of the Jews could conveniently be
organized.
The declaration is most likely meant to be the basis for a new UN
Security Council resolution that would endorse the recognition of a Palestinian
state in the "1967 borders" as defined in the declaration. The new
resolution could be adopted by a second US abstention at the Security
Council on January 17, three days before Obama leaves office. The betrayal of Israel by the
Obama administration and by Obama himself would then be complete.
On January 20, however, Donald J. Trump is to take office as President of
the United States.
Trump sent a message on December 23: "Stay strong Israel, January
20th is fast approaching!" He added explicitly that the U.S. "cannot continue to let Israel be
treated with such total disdain and disrespect."
On January 5, the US House of Representatives approved a text harshly
criticizing Resolution 2334. Congress is already discussing defunding the UN
and the Palestinian Authority. If Europeans and members of UN think the
incoming Trump administration is as spineless as the Obama administration, they
are in for a shock.
Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens recently wondered if the
creation of a Palestinian state would alleviate the current Middle
East chaos. His answer was that it would not, and that the
creation of a Palestinian state would be seen as a victory for jihadists. He
also noted that the Palestinian Authority still behaves like a terrorist
entity; that an Israeli withdrawal from Judea and Samaria would encourage Hamas
and lead to the creation of another terrorist Islamic state in the West Bank,
and that an Israeli withdrawal is something that most Palestinians do not even
want:
"[A] telling figure came in a June 2015 poll conducted by the
Palestinian Center for Public Opinion, which found that a majority of Arab
residents in East Jerusalem would rather live as citizens with equal rights in
Israel than in a Palestinian state."
Khaled Abu Toameh, an
Arab journalist who has never yet been wrong, noted that the Palestinian
Authority sees Resolution 2334 as a green light for more violence, murders and
confrontation. He added that if presidential elections by the PA were held
today, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh would win by a
comfortable margin.
In another important article, Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes writes
that it is time to acknowledge the failure of a "peace process" that
is really a war process. He stressed that peace can only come when an enemy is
defeated. He predicts that for peace to come, Israel must win unambiguously, and
the Palestinians pass through "the bitter crucible of defeat, with all its
deprivation, destruction, and despair."
Jihadi indoctrination, as well as the financial
aid given to Palestinian terrorists, have been paid
for by the United States, France,
and other Western European nations. That too should stop.
Resolution 2334 and the Paris
peace conference, both promoted by Obama, are, as the great historian Bat Ye'or wrote, simply victories for jihad.
**Dr. Guy Millière, a professor at the University of Paris,
is the author of 27 books on France
and Europe.
© 2017 Gatestone Institute. All rights
reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the
Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced,
copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone
Institute.
America’s Failure – and Russia and
Iran’s Success – in Syria’s Cataclysmic Civil War
Joshua Landis/Syria Comments/January 12/17
Joshua Landis is head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University
of Oklahoma and publishes the influential blog “Syria Comment.” He is, perhaps,
the nation’s foremost expert on Syria.
He has been consistently right about the events of the last five years. When
most Washington policy-makers were predicting that Syrian President Basher
al-Assad would fall, Landis warned that he would hang on to power. While
liberals and conservatives were calling for military intervention in Syria to
overthrow Assad, Landis advised caution.
In this interview, he assesses the Obama administration’s policy in Syria and the prospects facing the new Trump
administration as Russia and
Iran consolidate their hold
over the Northern tier of the Middle East. It
is, in my opinion, the clearest and most comprehensive analysis of why the United States failed to get its way in Syria and what
it should do now. – John Judis
Judis: What’s your assessment of the Obama
administration’s intervention in Syria. How has it gone? Is it a success or a failure?
Landis: You know, I think that in one important respect, it’s a success.
That’s because he kept his foot on the brakes and resisted what he has called
“the playbook” of foreign policy circles in Washington,
which is to get sucked into these civil wars in the Middle
East. There is no way that the United States was going to solve
the Syria Problem in any constructive way – and just keeping us out of it to
the extent he did was a boon.
Everyone wanted us to solve their Syria
problem, whether it was Lebanon
or Israel or Turkey or Iraq, because they couldn’t figure
out how to do it themselves. Saudi Arabia, the Gulf countries, they all had
different visions of who we should be helping and what kind of Syria would come
out of the other end of the meat grinder. And had the United States
gotten in there, it would not have made a better sausage. We’ve seen that
regime change has been a bad idea.
Obama’s Call for Regime Change
Judis: But Obama did intervene. In 2011, he
called for Syrian President Basher al-Assad to step down. Didn’t saying that appear to commit the United States to do something about
it?
Landis: It did, and it was a mistake. Obama’s statement that Assad had to
step aside was an aspirational statement. He never
intended to commit America
to carrying it out. It is easy to understand why he said it. The whole world
was looking at America
during the early days of the Arab Spring to see what its policy would be. America was
torn about the meaning of the Arab Spring uprising. Both the
media, western pundits, and Arab activists in the Middle
East had convinced the Western world that the Arab Spring was
about democracy.
They said it was 1848, it was Paris
1968, it was the fall of communism in 1990.* The
metaphors could go on and on. Journalists were grasping for every metaphor and
similar episode in Western history to demonstrate that the Arab people were
finally rising up against their bad governments to demand democracy and be more
like the West. In his remarkable 1991 book The Third Wave Samuel Huntington
argued that the modern world had seen three moments of liberalization and
democratization. Western observers and Arab liberals alike hoped that the
uprising, which they named a “Spring” to confirm their
aspiration, would herald in a fourth wave.
The only problem is that the Arab uprisings were not primarily about
democracy or even liberalism. Democracy was not a central demand voiced in the
slogans of the demonstrators. “Dignity” or “karama”
in Arabic and “freedom” or “hurriya” were central
words used from Tunisia to Syria; so were
phrases such as “down with the regime,” and “get out, Bashar.”
Demonstrators were unanimous in wanting to get rid of the oppressive and
corrupt dictators that ruled over them. The benefit of these general demands
was that Islamists, who wanted a caliphate or Sharia
law, could use them as readily as liberals who shared western values.
“The only problem is that the Arab uprisings were not primarily about
democracy or even liberalism. Democracy was not a central demand voiced in the
slogans of the demonstrators.”
Judis:I remember
Obama’s speech at the State Department in May 2011 when he extolled the Arab
Spring and said “it will be the policy of the United States…to support
transitions to democracy.”
Landis:[The administration] bought into this
notion that they should put their shoulder to the wheel of regime change in
order to help be a midwife to this democracy movement. The problem was that it
was not a democracy movement. It was a change movement. People wanted dignity
but it was a very disorganized and chaotic movement. The trouble is that in
each of the Arab countries, once you destroy the very fragile state structures
that have been assembled since World War I and the dismantling of the Ottoman Empire, you don’t get a George Washington
bringing together the 13 colonies. You get fragmentation and lots of warlords
and emirs.
Nationalism is not a strong enough identity to bind the people of Libya, Yemen,
Syria, or Iraq together. Or the Palestinians, for that matter. Instead, subnational and supranational identities emerged among the
people of each country to undermine common national sentiment. Loyalty to clan, village, region, tribe and religion have bedeviled the Arab uprisings. This is why the opposition
movements in Libya or Syria have been
so fragmented. It is why thousands of militias formed in Syria. The US was
powerless to unite them.
This is what America
faced in Iraq
when it destroyed Saddam’s regime. And it’s what happened in Libya. In Libya, western
politicians argued that the opposition was sufficiently united for us to throw
our weight behind it. We convinced the United Nations Security Council to
declare it the legitimate government, based on this false assumption, and to
shift all the money that belonged to Gadhafi’s state
to the Libyan opposition. Of course, the opposition was not united. We just
wanted it to be. It was a bunch of propaganda. And that’s the same propaganda
we fell for in Iraq
with [Ahmed] Chalabi.
Judis: So in the sense of seeing America’s role
in the region as promoting democracy and regime change, the Obama
administration was continuing what George W. Bush did in the region.
Landis: Our national religion is democracy. When in doubt, we revert to
our democracy talking points, which is what Obama did. It is a matter of faith.
He didn’t know what the hell was going on in Syria. I was invited to participate
in a number of CIA confabulations and policy “think-out-of-the-black-box”
hoedowns during the first months of the uprising. The intelligence community
was unanimous in predicting that Assad would fall quickly. People were lost.
Everyone was simply projecting their own interests and pet theories onto the
uprisings. It was only natural that our aspirations would overtake fact-based
analysis. We didn’t have many facts. The situation was moving so fast. We were
facing unprecedented changes, so it was easy to get caught up in imagining all
sorts of transformations.
Obama also felt pressure from domestic interest groups and Middle Eastern
allies to get out in front of Assad’s fall. In Egypt,
Obama had been criticized for backing [Hosni] Mubarak until the eleventh hour;
he didn’t want to make the same mistake in Syria, and he didn’t have to.
Unlike Egypt, Syria had been a thorn in America’s side.
It had been an enemy since opposing the United
States’ decision to support the creation of a Jewish
state in Palestine.
Thus, Washington supported several coup
d’états in Syria
beginning in 1949. When successive coup attempts in 1956 and 1957 failed, Damascus veered squarely into Moscow’s sphere of influence, never to come
out of it. Syria’s military
is entirely armed and trained by Russia. The U.S. has imposed sanctions on Syria since the
1970s. For its part, Syria
has consistently supported America’s
enemies: Hezbollah, Palestinian groups, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. To
add insult to injury, Assad actively opposed America’s
occupation of Iraq.
For these reasons, Obama’s decision to demand that Assad step aside was a
no-brainer.
The only problem was that no one in Washington had any real understanding of the
Syrian opposition. They couldn’t name one opposition group that had any support
in the country. There were lots of demonstrations and plenty of popular energy
demanding change, but Assad still had the army, air force, and intelligence
agencies on his side. Their upper ranks were packed with sympathizers, who
would not defect. He has lots of teeth and the willingness to use them. There
were lots of reasons to think that he was going to survive for a long time and
to doubt Western assertions that he had lost his “legitimacy.”
Everyone wanted to speak about the “Syrian people,” but there was no
“Syrian people” who speak with one voice. Syrians are deeply divided along
religious, ethnic, class and regional lines. Anyone who had lived in Syria for a
significant amount of time understood that lots of Syrians would support Assad
to the death, especially if they felt that Islamists might come to power. I had
written several articles about the Syrian opposition before 2011, and the conclusion
that I had come to was that they were hopelessly divided and back-biting. They
hated each other and would never agree among themselves on an alternative to
Assad. The liberal, pro-Western class in Syria was small. It would be
quickly destroyed between the hammer of Islamist groups and the anvil of
Assad’s security apparatus.
President Barack Obama delivers his Middle East speech at the State
Department in Washington,
Thursday, May 19, 2011. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)
Would Arming the Rebels Have Helped?
Judis: So by setting up the Syrian National
Council in August 2011 as a transition to a new Syrian regime, were Obama and
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton fostering illusions?
Landis: Yes. We were gambling that we could create a unified Syrian opposition.
And Syrian opposition people were telling us that Syria
was not like Iraq or Lebanon — that
the Syrian trading mentality was one of compromise and moderation, and that
Syrian Islam was moderate as well, dominated by Sufis and opponents of Salafism. Extremism would not prevail, they insisted. Syria would
neither radicalize nor fragment.
President Obama bought into the aspirational
talking points about Assad’s likely fall as well as the desire to support
democracy, human rights and opposition to dictators, but he was adamantly
opposed to involving the US
in another regional civil war without a clear exit strategy. He put his foot on
the brakes as soon as it became clear that Assad wasn’t going to go quickly. He
refused any demand that the U.S.
spend real money. We may have ponied up several
billion dollars a year for Syria
between humanitarian, non-lethal, and military support to the opposition, but
we were not going to do an Iraq,
where we were spending $5 billion dollars a week.
Judis: Hillary Clinton’s argument was that if
we had armed the so-called moderate rebels in 2012, as she and David Petraeus advocated, the results would have been different.
Landis: Syrian rebels were going to radicalize regardless of American
largesse or arms. The notion that the United States could shape the
Syrian opposition with money is spurious. Many activists and Washington think
tankers argue that the reason the radicals won in Syria
is because they were better funded than moderate militias; Gulf
states sent money to radicals while the United States and Europe
starved moderates. No evidence supports this. Radicals got money because they
were successful. They fought better, had better strategic vision and were more
popular. The notion that had Washington
pumped billions of dollars to selected moderate militias, they would’ve killed
the extremists and destroyed Assad’s regime, is bunkum.
Judis: Yes, that’s the argument that Clinton was still making
in some form last year.
Landis: That logic was pie in the sky. There’s nothing to support that
logic. If we look across the Middle East, every time a regime has been
destroyed, whether in Iraq, Libya, Yemen or Afghanistan, there has been a grace
period of three to six months during which the whole society is, in a sense, in
shock and has hunkered down to see what regime change would bring. Will the
Americans magically provide substitute state structures and services?
Then when they realize that the U.S. is clueless and chaos
prevails, they begin to get organized. Islamists push aside civic groups
preferred by the U.S.
because they are willing to fight. They’ve got an ideology and a plan. They
have good fighters and a deep back bench. Al-Qaeda and other radical groups
have been fighting to overthrow the regional order and its secular regimes for
decades. Assad managed to corner the market on secular nationalism and notions
such as the separation of church and state. Moderate nationalist elements among
the opposition failed to put forward a compelling vision of an inclusive, non-Sharia-based Syria that would treat religious
minorities and non-Arabs as equals. None of the opposition groups championed
secularism. Islamists won the ideological battle for hearts and minds and the
black flag of Islam was quickly raised above that of the Syrian tricolor among the dominant opposition groups.
America
did try to organize the “moderates.” America failed not because it
didn’t try, but because its moderates were incompetent and unpopular. As soon
as they began taking money and orders from America, they were tarred by
radicals as CIA agents, who were corrupt and traitors to the revolution. America was
toxic, and everything it touched turned to sand in its hands.
It pursued three different strategies to build a moderate opposition in Syria and each
failed more spectacularly than the one before it. Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton did everything she could to get 97 nations together as the Friends of
Syria and begin to offer diplomatic and financial support to the Syrian
opposition at conferences and international meetings. She sought to mold the opposition into something that America and the
West could get behind. Something moderately liberal, open minded and
nationalist. With the help of Qatar,
she nurtured the emergence of the Syrian National Council to act as the
political representatives of the opposition. In each of their several
elections, the Muslim Brothers won because they were the best organized. America would
find an excuse not to recognize its leadership. America’s effort to shape and
promote a military strategy for the opposition failed even more spectacularly.
It promoted the construction of a Supreme Military Council in 2012 to act as
the military counterpart to the Syrian National Council.
“Syrian rebels were going to radicalize regardless of American largesse
or arms. The notion that the United
States could shape the Syrian opposition
with money is spurious.”
The Supreme Military Council of the Free Syrian Army was led by a Chief
of Staff named Salim Idris,
a portly defector from the Syrian Army with zero charisma. He oversaw multiple
warehouses jammed with equipment supplied by various intelligence agencies that
he could dole out to the moderate militias in an effort to purchase their
loyalty and theoretically bind them together under his leadership. He never
gained any authority over the swarm of militias he helped to outfit. When
radical Islamist militias decided that he wasn’t generous enough, they marched
on his warehouses and plundered them. They took all equipment and everything
that had been supplied by the United
States. They stripped the men guarding the
warehouses down to their skivvies, hogtied them, and left them rolling on the
floor.
Not one Free Syrian Army militia came to his defense;
instead, they mocked his misfortunes on social media. Idris
had to hightail it back to Turkey,
where he blamed… who? Washington.
Idris fell back on the same tired excuses that Syrian
activists had practiced for their own failure: Washington wasn’t generous enough. But the
truth was just the opposite. Washington
had given him too much materiel and it was now in the hands of al-Qaeda and
friends. In Iraq, where the U.S. was infinitely more generous in arming
bumbling “moderates,” we all know the shameful story of how ISIS stripped Iraq’s American
trained brigades of hundreds of tanks, Humvees and
artillery pieces with hardly a shot fired.
That was a terrible embarrassment for the CIA and for the United States.
And so they came up with a new strategy, which was to contact scores of militia
leaders in Syria
directly. We built them up for quite some time, until March 2015, but those
guys, most notably the Hazm Movement and Jamal Maarouf’s, the Syrian Revolutionaries Front, got crushed by
Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria and Ahrar al-Sham, a Salafist ally of
Nusra. Once again, America’s proxies either joined the
jihadists and other Islamist groups or they abandoned the battle field and left
arms to be gobbled up by the radicals. Critics argued that the U.S. was
effectively arming al-Qaeda, even if unintentionally.
The final major effort by Washington
to help the rebels was an official Department of Defense
“train and equip” project, for which 1.5 billion dollars were earmarked. We
decided we were going to bring individuals out of Syria
that could be properly vetted, train and armed training camps situated in Jordan and Turkey. These brigades would be
controlled directly by Americans. But we only trained and equipped 65 guys in Turkey, and
when we sent them back, they were destroyed! The commander of our vetted troops
defected to al Qaeda with arms and with many of the best trained men. So all
three strategies for uniting, arming, equipping, and training anti-Assad rebels
failed miserably.
The radicals won not because America ignored the moderates and
starved them. They won because they had better fighters, who were more
committed and better led by seasoned fighters who had a vision of the sort of
society and government they wished to build. They dominated the battlefield.
That’s why ISIS swept through the area Eastern Syria
in 2014 and gobbled up most of Sunni Iraq without firing a shot. Islamism
proved to be the only ideology capable of uniting Syrians on a national level,
binding rebels together from north and south of the country.
The so-called moderates were simply local strongmen who gathered around
themselves cousins, clan members and fighters from their village and the
village next to theirs. But go two or three villages away, and they were viewed
as foreigners and troublemakers, who were venal and predatory. They were
warlords. Few could gather more than a thousand men around them. Most a lot less. They didn’t have an ideology and couldn’t
articulate a vision for Syria.
This is why America’s
effort to unite the Free Syria Army amounted to a hill of beans. Syrian society
is fragmented. Assad and ISIS both deploy lots of coercion, corruption and clientelism to hold their states together, whether they
profess ideologies of secular nationalism or Islamic Caliphalism.
America
cannot buy its way to success in such an environment.
Syrian rebels attend a training session in Maaret
Ikhwan, near Idlib, Syria.
The training is part of an attempt to transform the rag-tag rebel groups into a
disciplined fighting force. (AP Photo/Muhammed Muheisen)
Obama and the Red Line
Judis: Even those who didn’t favor arming the rebels in 2012 might still say that when
Obama laid down the “red line” on Assad’s use of poison gas in 2012 and then
failed to follow through a year later with an air attack against the regime,
the United States lost an opportunity to cripple the regime and force some kind
of compromise.
Landis: The people who were filled with hope that America would somehow destroy the Assad regime
and put Syria
back together constantly projected their wishes onto Obama. He was saying from
the beginning that he was not going to get involved, that America would not lead in Syria. And he
constantly iterated on the redline that the United States
would do some punitive strikes but would not try to change the balance of power
in the civil war. What he did say he was going to do was uphold the
internationally accepted norm that chemical weapons and weapons of mass
destruction should not be used, and he did that.
Judis: So Obama was being consistent when he rejected
air strikes and opted instead for negotiating with the Russians and Syrians?
Landis: Totally. If he had not negotiated with the Russians and Assad to
get those things out of the battlefield, if he had instead chosen to bomb 200
Syrian soldiers and blow up some sites of chemical weapons in a punitive raid,
it might have had no effect. Or if, let’s say, he had destabilized the Assad
regime and it had fallen, by that time the radical militias were the dominant
militias and they would’ve taken Damascus!
You would’ve had 1000 different militias grabbing chemical weapons from the
various places they were hidden and stored around Syria. The whole Middle
East would be a giant silo for saran gas and nerve agents of every
kind! It would’ve been a disaster. So Obama’s achievement of getting rid of
those chemical weapons was a great boon to the Syrians, to the Middle East more generally, and to the West.
Judis: Since then, has the administration’s
strategy has been implicitly to leave Assad in place and to concentrate instead
on defeating ISIS?
Landis: Yes, because it became increasingly clear that if Assad were
destroyed, radicals would likely take over. You could possibly have al Qaeda,
or later ISIS, take Damascus.
Had a major Middle Eastern capital fallen to either, what a disaster it would
have been. At least in Iraq,
we have been able to build up the Iraqi army to retake Mosul,
a city less than half the size of Damascus.
In Syria,
who could we arm? We are finding it difficult to retake Raqqa
from ISIS, a dusty provincial capital of a few
hundred thousand people. Would the U.S.
army try to retake Damascus
alone? Would it try to reconstitute the Syrian Army to serve as a partner?
Imagine the embarrassment of such a solution. Were ISIS to have ensconced
itself in Damascus, Lebanon
would surely have fallen and Jordan
would’ve been up against it. Talk about dominoes.
“The U.S.
doesn’t know what the cause of jihadism is. Washington doesn’t know
how to get rid of the conditions that produce dictators. Every time we remove a
dictator, we spread chaos and multiply jihadists.”
Saudi diplomats, Syrian activists and many analysts in Washington
insist that to destroy ISIS, the U.S. must first destroy Assad. They
argue that by leaving Assad in place, the rest of the Middle East is going to
fall apart because Assad created ISIS. This is
spin. Assad did release most Islamists from his jails in 2011 and several made
their way into ISIS’s ranks, but they are chicken
feed compared to the top cadres of ISIS who
were released from American-run jails. Caliph Baghdadi himself was held in Iraq’s Camp Bukka.
He, of course, is the leader of ISIS. One
might also point to the two Moroccans released from Gitmo
who made their way to Syria,
started militias and killed hundreds of innocent Syrians. Using the
released-from-prison criteria, one should sooner argue that ISIS was created by
the United States
than Assad. I haven’t heard anyone in D.C. arguing for the destruction of the
American government as a solution to ISIS.
The fact of the matter is that radical Salafist
ideology has spread from one corner of the Middle East
to the other. It is a dominant force in many places where Assad is unknown.
Violent regime-change has been a primary cause of the spread of radical Islamic
groups, and should not be a viewed as a solution to it. Certainly, bad
government, anemic economic growth, oppression and
dictatorship must be contributing factors to the popularity of radical
ideologies, but the U.S.
doesn’t know what the cause of jihadism is. Washington doesn’t know
how to get rid of the conditions that produce dictators. Every time we remove a
dictator, we spread chaos and multiply jihadists. The answers that Washington has come up with for combating terror and
dictatorship in the Middle East have failed.
We should stop trying the same old things – regime-change chief among them.
Trump and The Russian Playbook in Syria
Judis: What about the Russian role in Syria? They
brought their air force to bear in September of 2015.
Landis: Indeed. Russia
escalated as soon as they sensed that Assad might fall. So did Iran. Not only
does Russia have a major
naval base in Tartus and an historic alliance with Syria, but more than that, Syria is the last redoubt of Russian’s major
presence in the Middle East during the Cold
War. After the fall of communism in 1990, Russia was forced to retreat from
the region, but [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is rebuilding. He sees Syria as the key to a much larger sphere of
influence to the south of Russia.
Syria is centrally located, it sits on the border with Israel and gives Russia
a cockpit to rebuild a new security structure in the northern Middle East that
extends from Iran to Lebanon.
Putin has become a major player on the world stage because of his dominant role
in Syria.
He has leveraged his position there to negotiate with [Secretary of State John]
Kerry over 30 times in Geneva
and other places.
Russia also has a good
argument behind its strategy in Syria.
Putin believes that Middle Eastern societies are not ripe for democracy. He has
stated that America’s
policy of democracy promotion has caused spread chaos and jihadism.
He believes that the Middle East needs strong men just as surely as Russia does. Russia knows
how to administer that. Whether it’s Erdogan in Turkey, Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or the monarchy of Saudi Arabia,
he believes that strong state authority is necessary. Getting rid of the
corrupt dictatorial class will not give birth to a Jeffersonian
democracy. He has accused America
of spreading chaos and radicalism. Putin has said that he is not going to let America do that in Syria
because over three thousand Chechen and other Russian citizens are fighting in Syria. He fears
that if they come home, they will attack Russians and spread mayhem.
Judis: So what does Donald Trump do now?
Landis: It’s not easy to make sense of Trump’s foreign policy in the Middle East from the few little one-liners that he’s
gotten off. But let me try. He is not a democracy promoter, and he probably
shares Putin’s belief that democracy doesn’t fit the region. He doesn’t have a
high regard for Muslims altogether. He’s an isolationist. In some ways he’s a
throwback to the America Firsters of the 1930s. He
only believes that the United
States should intervene if it is directly
threatened.
“Trump has looked at the Russian playbook and pronounced it smart!
Trump’s critique resonated with the American people, who warmed to it. They are
tired of paying for misguided foreign adventures.”
He is also against regime-change. He formulated his critique of Middle
East policy from what happened in Libya,
which gave him an easy way to take pot shots at Clinton. He proclaimed Libya was a
disaster. What Clinton
did in destroying a dictator – even one as nasty as Qaddafi – was to make the
situation worse. Regime change was a disaster, he stated.
Judis: Didn’t Trump actually start by attacking
Jeb Bush and his brother’s invasion of Iraq, highlighting its disastrous
consequences? That happened in 2015 in the primary.
Landis: He was initially reluctant to criticize the whole Bush legacy,
but he warmed up to the task and then he really let it rip. He stated that Iraq had turned
into the “Harvard of jihadism.” He was restating the
Russian critique, in a sense. He concluded that America shouldn’t do regime change.
It should recognize that strongmen are necessary to keep order. In a sense he’s
taken the Republican party back to its
pre-neoconservative days. One can hear undertones of [former UN Ambassador] Jeane Kirkpatrick in his statements. During Ronald Reagan’s
presidency, she argued that there are some dictators that are better than other
dictators.* In his case, the others are the Islamists.
Therefore we should have stuck with Gadhafi, Saddam
and Assad.
He also suggested that we should let the Russians take care of Syria. They’re
killing ISIS. Let’s team up with them, and
leave Assad in power. He may be a terrible dictator but he’s better than the
alternatives. So Trump has looked at the Russian playbook and pronounced it
smart! Trump’s critique resonated with the American people, who warmed to it.
They are tired of paying for misguided foreign adventures. Even [Senator Ted]
Cruz, who was following the Bush handbook, reversed himself! Almost all the
Republicans started making the Trump argument. It was an amazing about-face.
Judis: So do you expect he will continue to
look to the Russian playbook when he becomes president?
Landis: The trouble is that Trump doesn’t have any isolationists around
him. There hasn’t been an isolationist party in America since the 1930s and so he
has no isolationist cadres to draw from. We see him drawing from a lot of tough
generals for his cabinet. Although they are not neocons,
they are certainly in favor of a more robust American
foreign policy. They are not isolationists. They are universally anti-Iran;
most seem to be anti-Russian as well, despite Trump’s proclivities, so it’s
hard to know what he’s going to do.
President Reagan jokes with former United Nations Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick during the playing of the National Anthem
in this Feb. 11, 1988 file photo at the Conservative Political Action
Conference in Washington.
(AP Photo/Doug Mills)
Iranian-Russian dominance
Judis: What kinds of choices does Trump have in
Syria?
Landis: Many people want to force Russia
and Iran out of Syria – at
least, that is what they suggest. The only way to do that would be to fire up
the rebels. We should not do that. The rebel strategy has failed. We need to
come to terms with that. But let me take a different tack in explaining the realities
for Washington.
What we see happening in the Northern Middle East today is the
construction of a new security architecture that is dominated by Iran and Russia. This has happened in large
part because of America’s
miscalculation in Iraq.
When we destroyed Saddam’s Sunni supremacy in Iraq
and helped Shiites to power, we opened the way to the formation of a “Shiite Crescent”
stretching from Iran to Lebanon.
Our stated talking point is that Iran
is an aggressive and malevolent power that is forcefully trying to assert
itself across the Middle East; it must be
contained. But our military strategy is diametrically opposed to our stated
goal of containment. Our military strategy has been to help the spread of
Shiite and Iranian power. We have poured arms and money into the Iraqi army
that is dominated by Shiites. We are bombing ISIS
which is the most capable part of the Sunni rebellion. We have thwarted every
attempt to overthrow the pro-Iranian government in Baghdad. Russia
is doing the exact same thing in Syria. To combat Sunni extremism
and terrorism, the US and Russia have aligned themselves with Iran. They are
using Shiite dominated militaries and militias to destroy ISIS
and al-Qaeda.
In Iraq, in order to
roll back ISIS and al-Qaeda which are targeting Americans and Europeans, the United States
has no alternative but to ally itself with these Iranian backed militias. They
have fire in their bellies to destroy ISIS.
Several weeks ago, Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend who commands Coalition Forces in Iraq praised the rapid progress of Iraq’s Shiite militias that have been trained by
Iran,
claiming that they had “advanced more rapidly than we expected and they’ve done
a good job.”
The Iraqi army that America
had trained and equipped was designed to be loyal to an Iraqi constitution and
nation that few believe in. It crumbled in the face of ISIS.
America did not understand
the nature of military power in the Middle East
which is based on traditional loyalties, which means defending your sect and
your clan and your village or proverbial tribe. The local Shiite militias
believe that if they don’t kill ISIS they will
be wiped out by them, which they will be. They are not driven by religious fervor, but by communal loyalties around a shared religious
culture. In some respects, religion is the new ethnicity in the Middle East. With the collapse of secular dictators that
have held sway since World War II, religious identities have become ever more
bound up in national identities.
Judis: But the Sunni countries are not going
along with this change in power relations.
Landis: The Syrian civil war, like that in Iraq, quickly became a sectarian
war as each side tried to mobilize support along religious lines. Both sides
fear that the other will carry out ethnic cleansing or genocide. The
geo-strategic competition between Iran
and Saudi Arabia
has only exacerbated this polarization along religious lines. Each regional
power has funded or trained sectarian militias. But along the geographic arch
stretching from Iran to Lebanon,
Shiites are winning out, and it is making Sunnis apoplectic. It seems to them
as if the world is being turned upside down.
The Arab world was always a Sunni world. The Ottoman
Empire was a Sunni Empire. The Shiites were the dirt farmers and
officially discriminated against. To have the underprivileged rise and become
the dominant force in politics in Iraq,
Syria and Lebanon is
shocking. To many it seems to defy a divine order. In Iraq, many
Sunnis confronted the new reality with denial. They refused to recognize that
Shiites made up the majority of Iraq’s
population. Many Shiites were accused of being Persians and not true Iraqis.
“With the collapse of secular dictators that have held sway since World
War II, religious identities have become ever more bound up in national
identities.”
The derogatory language used by much of opposition to refer to Shiites
and Alawites in Syria reveals how sectarian the
struggle has become. Militia leaders do not view Shiites as true Muslims;
rather, they accuse them of being “Arfad” or
“rejecters,” who denounce the founding fathers of true Islam. And because they
have the wrong religion, they are commonly seen to also have the wrong
ethnicity. A common epithet for Shiites in Syria is “Majous,”
which can translate to “Magi” in English. It is used to suggest that Shiites
are crypto-Persians and not true Arabs.
Hezbollah is almost universally referred to in opposition videos coming
out of Syria,
not as “The party of Allah,” as its name would correctly be translated, but as
“The Party of the Devil,” or “Hezbolshaitan.” Shiites
are frequently described as “najis” or “filth.” This
is a term from the Qu’ran that carries religious
significance as impure. A number of rebel leaders in Syria
have publically called for purifying Syria of the Shiite filth that
defiles it and of driving the Alawites into the sea.
Of course, some of this rhetoric can be dismissed as simple propaganda meant to
whip up fighting spirit.
All the same, this conflict over religious identity has become integrated
with a conflict over national power. This is a dangerous situation because it
can so easily result in ethnic cleansing and even genocide. We have witnessed
similar ethnic and religious conflicts taken to extremes in Central Europe
during World War II when six million Jews that were destroyed in the name of
nationalism and when an estimated 35 million people were ethnically cleansed.
Judis: And why are the Shiites winning out? Is
it all because of America’s
inadvertently helping them against their enemies?
Landis: Yes, Shiites are winning in the northern Middle
East. They are winning for four reasons. When western intelligence
agencies initially predicted that Sunni rebels would win, they made the common
mistake of viewing Syria
as a discrete country bounded by impermeable borders. They assumed that because
Sunni Arabs make up 70 percent of the Syrian population and Alawites
only 12 percent, Sunnis would win. The Syrian struggle, even if it turned into
a war of attrition, would favor Sunnis who had larger
numbers.
But this turned out to be a mistaken calculation because the entire
region became a battlefield. If we count the sectarian balance of the Arabs who
live between the Mediterranean Sea and the
Iranian border, Shiite Arabs predominate. The Shiite Arabs of Lebanon, Syria and Iraq exceed the Sunni Arabs of the
same region in numbers, even if only slightly. I would argue that this is part
of the explanation for why the Sunnis are losing today. Shiites have greater
numbers.
Hezbollah and Iraqi support for Assad has also been crucial to the
survival of the Syrian Arab Army. This is not to mention the critical support
of Shiite Iran, which has been overwhelming. All believe that if the Shiites
allow the Sunnis to cut their “Shiite
Crescent” in two by destroying Assad’s hold on Syria and
imposing a Sunni ascendency there, they will all be greatly weakened. They
cannot allow their Gulf, Israeli, and Turkish enemies – not to mention the
“West” defeat them. This is the “conspiracy” that Assad and the others constantly
refer to.
In Syria,
the regime, by turning the revolt so quickly into an armed conflict, has been
able to cement the loyalty of the urban elites. Upper-class urban Sunnis have
stuck by the regime. They had to weigh the benefits of sticking with their Alawite praetorian guard, whom they disdain, against
backing rural Islamist militias, whom they fear. Western sanctions failed to
persuade the wealthy to abandon the regime and join the predominately rural
poor. In Aleppo, the industrial city of Syria, the rich
saw that rebels would show them no mercy. Over a thousand factories in the
suburbs and industrial outskirts of Aleppo
were ransacked and stripped by militias in the early months of the armed
conflict. Wealthy urbanites were taken as hostages and their stuff robbed. As
the old adage has it, “the wealthy don’t like revolutions.”
When the Sunni militias embraced Salafi-jihadism , that precluded
whole-hearted Western support and ultimately caused Obama and others to turn
away from them. As the the United States has
retreated from its role as policeman of the world to concentrate on the regions
of priority to it, powerful countries are again reasserting zones of influence.
In this case, Iran and Russia are
claiming the Syria-Iraq-Lebanon corridor. This “Shiite Crescent,”
for lack of a better term.
Judis: But isn’t it dangerous to allow Russia and Iran to spread their authority?
Landis: Analysts in Washington are
telling us that the United
States must destroy this new Iranian-Russian
arc of influence. The problem is that, with America’s
help, Iran and Russia have
consolidated their power in the region.
The only way to destroy it would be to fire up the Sunni insurgencies
that are now largely destroyed. This would be a mistake. Not only would it fail,
but it might also lead to the ethnic cleansing of Sunni populations if passions
are not cooled and stability restored.
Judis: And does the recent agreement among the
Russians, Turks, and Syrians signal further movement toward Assad reconquering Syria
and Russia
consolidating its place in the region?
Landis: Yes, it does. Only last week Turkey,
Russia and Iran issued a joint statement to the effect that
everyone must respect Syria’s
sovereignty. With this statement, one must conclude that Turkey is prepared to throw in the towel on the
Syrian opposition in exchange for Assad helping to thwart the emergence of an
independent Kurdish state in Northern Syria.
Trump’s Choices in Syria
Judis: So what does this mean for a Trump
presidency?
Landis: The question is whether Trump should resign himself to this new
security architecture — to the fact that Iran and Russian are going to be
the dominant players in the northern region. I think he has to concede this
role to Russia.
First, Syria
has always been a Russian client. Second, President Obama has already made this
decision. When the Russians jumped into the Syrian war in 2015, Obama declared
that the United States would
not fight a proxy war with Russia
for Syria.
The moment he said that I knew that the Syrian rebels were finished. The
writing was on the wall. Only U.S.
escalation could have stopped Assad’s military from making a comeback.
The present critique among some think tankers in Washington
is that Assad is too weak to reconquer Syria, so the United
States will have to step in, particularly if it wants to
defeat ISIS quickly. They argue that Syria is a land
of many different social and cultural environments. The Century Foundation, the
New America Foundation, and the Center for a New American Security have
published policy papers advocating in one way or the other that the United States
keep special forces on the ground and reinforce
regional rebel groupings. They envision carving out autonomous areas that would
give the U.S. leverage and
presumably force both the Russia
and Assad to the negotiating table. They refuse to say that they are for
partitioning Syria.
Instead, they talk about a framework of autonomous regions. But in the end, it
is all pretty much the same thing. It’s about retaining control over areas of Syria to give the US leverage.
Assad is on his way to reconquering Syria one
village after another. The insurgencies that are still there cannot hold up
against an army that has Russian backing. For America to give Syrian rebels hope
that they can hold would be a deception. It would simply extend the killing and
prolong the civil war.
The coalition around America
including the Gulf states and Turkey
have poured over $20 billion into Syria to arm the rebels. If they
hadn’t injected that money, Assad would’ve won a lot more quickly. Fewer
Syrians would have been killed. And many fewer Syrians would have fled their
homes.
Judis: So let’s return to Trump. What can he
do?
Landis: Trump ultimately needs to bite the bullet just as Obama did and
resist getting sucked into a very fragmented society and civil war. The
Russians and Assad are going to re-impose the Assad state over Syria. That is
of course a very brutal reality, but at this point, the majority of Syrians
probably want stability and security. They are willing to bow their head to any
authority that can offer it. America
is not going to change that reality so it shouldn’t keep the embers of this
revolution alive.
The dilemma for the next administration will be how to position itself vis-a-vis Assad’s Syria. Should it simply turn its
back on Syria and force Russia and Iran to rebuild it? Should it
continue to impose crushing sanctions on the regime? This might be emotionally
satisfying. We could preserve our taking points, which are that Syria should be
a democracy and that we do not support dictatorships.
I just attended a conference at the Baker Institute where the attitude of
many analysts was to let Russia
and Iran choke on Syria. Let’s
see if we can turn it into a swamp for them, seemed to be the prevailing
attitude. They want to punish Iran
and Russia.
But this condemns the Syrians to prolonged deprivation and would ensure that
many refugees never go home.
“The dilemma for the next administration will be how to position itself vis-a-vis Assad’s Syria. Should it simply turn its
back on Syria and force Russia and Iran to rebuild it? Should it
continue to impose crushing sanctions on the regime?”
Alternatively, we could try to achieve some modest goals by offering
sanction relief. After all, America
will not be a big player in Syria.
It renounced that role. What could the United States hope to achieve? One
possibility would be to get Red Cross observers into the prisons in Syria to
catalogue prisoners and alleviate the worst abuses we know are taking place
there. We could help with education. Any future hope of rebuilding civil
society and democracy in Syria
will come through education. What about helping to preserve and rebuild the
historic downtowns destroyed in Aleppo and Homs? What about world
heritage sites, such as Palmyra?
Should the U.S.
try to do these things, all of which would require some level of engagement
with the Assad regime? Or do we keep our “hands clean” and say, “screw Syria?”
That is our choice. It is not a good choice, but I think there is only one
correct answer. The sooner we come to terms with our inability to change the
regime in Syria,
the sooner we will be able to do some good, even if it is modest. Syrians have
experienced enough suffering and deprivation.
http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/americas-failure-russia-irans-success-syrias-cataclysmic-civil-war-joshua-landis/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Syriacomment+%28Syria+Comment%29
______________________________________
* In 1848, anti-monarchical revolutions swept through Europe. They were
put down, but were the precursor in several countries to parliamentary
government. In 1968, a revolt against Charles de Gaulle’s presidency began
among college youth and spread to the working class, eventually leading to de
Gaulle retiring.
* In 1979, Jeane Kirkpatrick wrote an
influential essay, “Dictatorships and Double Standards,” in which she argued
that the United States
should not hesitate to back an authoritarian regime if the alternative were a
communist one.
Palestinians: A Strategy of Lies and
Deception
Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute/January 13/17
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9762/palestinians-a-strategy-of-lies-and-deception
Abbas here lied twice.
First, it is a lie that he is prepared to return to the negotiating table with Israel. In the
past few years, Abbas has repeatedly rejected Israeli
offers to resume the stalled peace negotiations.
Abbas's chief negotiator, Saeb
Erekat, claimed this week that his boss was ready to
resume the peace talks with Israel
in Moscow....Indeed, Abbas had "earlier" voiced his readiness to meet
with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow.
But Abbas once again outlined his preconditions for
such a summit... This means that Abbas has not
abandoned his preconditions for resuming the peace talks with Israel. The
timing of Erekat's announcement in Moscow
is clearly linked to the Paris
peace conference. It is part of the Palestinian strategy to depict Israel as the
party opposed to the resumption of the peace talks.
Abbas has in the past reluctantly condemned some of
the terror attacks against Israel.
But these statements were made under duress, after being pressured by the US or EU.
In fact, his "condemnations" are nothing but political pablum, a sop to the West.
The Palestinian terrorist who rammed his truck into a group of young Israeli
soldiers last week was doing exactly what his president urged Palestinians to
do.
The Germans and French should not believe Abbas when
he says that he condemns truck terror attacks in their countries. The scenes of
Palestinians celebrating carnage in Jerusalem
should serve as a wake-up call to the international community. The message of the call? That the overall
Palestinian strategy – like the jihad strategy - is built on lies. Both
continue to feature terror as one their main pillars.
What members of the international community do not seem to understand is
that... [t]he terrorist who rammed his truck into a German Christmas market did
not carry out his attack in outrage at a German settlement or a checkpoint. The
terrorist who mowed down French people celebrating Bastille day
was not protesting French "occupation." Abbas
and his cohorts, like the terrorists in Europe,
are part of just one big global jihad against all "infidels" –
including them.
The Palestinian Authority and its leader, Mahmoud Abbas, still believe that they can fool all of the people
all of the time. This has always been the Palestinian strategy: nothing new
here. Yet one likes to think that world leaders and decision-makers in the West
will eventually - perhaps today? – wake up to the fact
that the Palestinians are playing them for fools.
Last week's terror attack in Jerusalem,
where a Palestinian tourist rammed his truck into a group of soldiers, killing
four and wounding scores of others, rips the mask off of Abbas
and his PA leadership in Ramallah. By either failing or consciously refusing to
condemn the terror attack, they expose their cowardice, but, equally
importantly, that terrorism directed against Jews is just fine by them.
How differently Abbas plays his cards when the blood
spilled is not Jewish: seldom has he missed an opportunity to condemn terrorist
attacks around the world.
Only one week prior to the most recent Jewish bloodbath in Jerusalem,
Abbas was a frontrunner for lamenting the New Year
terror in Istanbul, Turkey, in which 40 people were
killed and dozens wounded. In a letter to his Turkish
counterpart, Abbas categorically condemned the attack
and made it clear that he stood with the Turkish people against terrorism.
http://www.alquds.com/articles/1483288088493838500/
When the Russian ambassador to Turkey
was gunned down, Abbas was
also quick to raise his voice, saying that the murderous act was in violation
of international and human laws and values. He repeated his rejection of
"all forms of terrorism and violence."
Abbas also did not wait long to denounce last month's
terror attack in Jordan
against Jordanian policemen and tourists. He said that he and the Palestinians
stood with Jordan
against "this blind terrorism."
Additionally, Abbas was among the first leaders to
issue statements criticizing the truck-ramming attacks in Germany and France. Again, he told the leaders
of France and Germany that he
and the Palestinians were strongly opposed to this form of "black
terrorism." These are only a handful of the recent examples of Abbas's repudiation of terror attacks against Jordanian, French,
German and Turkish nationals. Such statements are designed to win the sympathy
of the international community and depict the Palestinians as a people opposed
to terrorism and violence. Abbas has been saying –
and lying - for a long time, that he and his people are partners in the war
against terror.
Yet, when it comes to Jews, Abbas and his PA
leadership sing a different song. For them, terrorism targeting Jews and
Israelis is an "act of resistance" that, far from being denounced,
ought to be praised.
Abbas's refusal or failure to condemn the Jerusalem terror attack
should not come as a surprise. This is not the first time that he and his PA
leadership signal to the Palestinians that terrorism is fine as long as it is
directed against Israel.
The failure to condemn the Jerusalem
terror attack lays bare Abbas's true intentions and
double-talk.
A few days before the attack in Jerusalem,
Abbas met in his Ramallah office with dozens of
Israeli "peace activists," including academics and politicians.
Here's what Abbas had to say to his Israeli guests:
"We want to achieve peace through negotiations. We reject other methods
and won't allow anyone to resort to them. We always announce that we are
opposed to terrorism, extremism and violence in any place in the world."
Abbas here lied twice. First, it is a lie that he is
prepared to return to the negotiating table with Israel. In the past few years, Abbas has repeatedly rejected Israeli offers to resume the
stalled peace negotiations. He has also turned down invitations made by Israeli
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu to discuss jumpstarting the peace process.
Abbas's chief negotiator, Saeb
Erekat, claimed this week that his boss was ready to
resume the peace talks with Israel
in Moscow. Erekat said that Abbas had
"earlier declared his readiness to take part in these talks in Moscow."
Indeed, Abbas had "earlier" voiced his
readiness to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow. But Abbas
once again outlined his preconditions for such a summit: a cessation of
settlement construction and an Israeli commitment to "abide by signed
agreements."
This means that Abbas has not abandoned his
preconditions for resuming the peace talks with Israel. The timing of Erekat's announcement in Moscow
is clearly linked to the Paris
peace conference. It is part of the Palestinian strategy to depict Israel as the
party opposed to the resumption of the peace talks. Moreover, it is part of the
strategy to get the Russians to replace the US as the main broker in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If Abbas were sincere about resuming the peace talks
with Israel, he does not
need to travel to Moscow
to meet with Netanyahu. The distance between Ramallah and Jerusalem is much shorter. But Abbas is not interested in direct talks with Israel. He
wants the Russians and other international parties to be involved as part of
his effort to isolate Israel
and subject it to international pressure. In short, Abbas
wants to impose a solution on Israel
and not reach any agreement through direct negotiations.
Second, it is a lie that Abbas is opposed to violence
and terrorism "in any place in the world". His refusal to condemn
most of the terror attacks in Israel
says it all. Apparently, for Abbas, "any place
in the world" does not include Israel. Otherwise, he would have
rushed to denounce the Jerusalem truck massacre
just as he condemned the truck terror attacks in Germany
and France.
In Abbas's view, however, those truck attacks are
different from the one used by a Palestinian to mow down Jews in Jerusalem. The latter had
Jews in its murderous sights, and that is fine.
Abbas's meeting with the Israeli delegation is part
and parcel of his strategy to bamboozle the public. In inviting Israelis and
others to Ramallah, Abbas aims to incite them against
their government and dupe them into thinking that he not what he really is: a
wolf in sheep's clothing.
But how do we know that Abbas has not magically
turned into a partner for peace? Just check the message he sends to his own
people. One week before the Jerusalem
terror attack, Abbas's ruling Fatah faction
celebrated its 52nd anniversary by glorifying mass murderers and terrorists
with Jewish blood on their hands. His supporters seized the occasion to remind
Palestinians that Fatah was the first party to launch a terrorist attack
against Israel, and that it
remains committed to the option of an armed struggle against Israel.
Perhaps this is the right time to remind the international community (and some
Israelis) that it was Abbas who, two weeks before the
current wave of terrorism against Israel,
declared that he welcomes "every drop-off blood spilled in Jerusalem" and
accused Jews of desecrating with heir "filthy feet" Islamic holy
sites.
The Palestinian terrorist who rammed his truck into a group of young Israeli
soldiers last week was doing exactly what his president urged Palestinians to
do. Since Abbas made his inflammatory statement, his
spokesmen, media and mosques have also stepped up their anti-Israel rhetoric in
a way that has led to an upsurge in terror attacks against Jews.
Abbas has in the past reluctantly condemned some of
the terror attacks against Israel.
But these statements were made under duress, after being pressured by the US or EU. Even
then, his "condemnations" have been vague and laconic, leaving plenty
of room for ambiguity. Instead of referring specifically to a particular terror
attack, Abbas would typically repeat his famous
cliché that he is opposed to 'all forms of terrorism regardless of the identity
of the perpetrators or victims." In fact, his "condemnations"
are nothing but political pablum, a sop to the West.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/4871/abbas-terror-attacks
Some would argue that Abbas
is afraid of condemning anti-Israel terror attacks because he fears backlash
from the Palestinian street. If so, Abbas can only
blame himself: This is what happens when you condone terrorism, and glorify
terrorists and financially reward their families. This is what happens when you
conduct a decades-long campaign of poisonous incitement against Israel in the
media and mosques. You can no longer condemn terrorism because you yourself
will be condemned.
The Germans and French should not believe Abbas when
he says that he condemns truck terror attacks in their countries. The scenes of
Palestinians celebrating carnage in Jerusalem
should serve as a wake-up call to the international community. The message of the call? That the overall
Palestinian strategy – like the jihad strategy - is built on lies. Both
continue to feature terror as one their main pillars.
What members of the international community do not seem to understand is that
there is no "good terrorism" (against Jews) and "bad terrorism
(against Europeans). The terrorist who rammed his truck into a German Christmas
market did not carry out his attack in outrage at a German settlement or a
checkpoint. The terrorist who mowed down French people celebrating Bastille day was not protesting French "occupation." Abbas and his cohorts, like the terrorists in Europe, are part of just one big global jihad against all
"infidels" – including them.
**Bassam Tawil is a scholar
based in the Middle East
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