LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS
BULLETIN
January 17/17
Compiled
& Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The
Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins17/english.january17.17.htm
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Bible Quotations For Today
Then Jesus
said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’When they had brought their boats to shore, they
left everything and followed him.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 05/01-11/:"Once
while Jesus was standing beside the lake of Gennesaret,
and the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he saw two boats
there at the shore of the lake; the fishermen had gone out of them and were
washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon,
and asked him to put out a little way from the shore. Then he sat down and
taught the crowds from the boat. When he had finished speaking, he said to
Simon, ‘Put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’Simon answered, ‘Master, we have worked all night
long but have caught nothing. Yet if you say so, I will let down the nets.’When they had done this, they caught so many fish
that their nets were beginning to break. So they signalled to their partners in
the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both boats, so
that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’
knees, saying, ‘Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!’For
he and all who were with him were amazed at the catch of fish that they had
taken; and so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were partners with
Simon. Then Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be
catching people.’When they had brought their boats to
shore, they left everything and followed him.
I do not mean to imply that we
lord it over your faith; rather, we are workers with you for your joy, because
you stand firm in the faith.
Letter to the Corinthians 01/12-24/:"Indeed, this is our
boast, the testimony of our conscience: we have behaved in the world with
frankness and godly sincerity, not by earthly wisdom but by the grace of God
and all the more towards you. For we write to you nothing other than what you
can read and also understand; I hope you will understand until the end as you
have already understood us in part that on the day of the Lord Jesus we are
your boast even as you are our boast. Since I was sure of this, I wanted to
come to you first, so that you might have a double favour; I wanted to visit
you on my way to
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis
& editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 16-17/17
Council of the European Union Adopts Conclusions on Lebanon/Naharnet/January 16/17/
Israel’s war on Hezbollah’s accurate missiles/Ron Ben-Yishai/Ynetnews/January
16/17
Even Russia understands alleged Israeli strikes in Syria/Alex Fishman /Ynetnews/January 16/17
Aoun insists on new vote law but Berri
skeptical/Hussein Dakroub/he
Daily Star/January 16/17
How was Khomeini tolerant with Christians/Mshari Al Thaydi /Al Arabiya/January 16/17
Outrage over German institute’s hosting of pro-Hamas, Hezbollah
speaker/Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/January
16/17
It doesn’t cost anything to be civil/Khaled Almaeena/Al Arabiya/January 16/17
Syria safe zones are still possible and necessary/Dr. Azeem
Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/January 16/17
Will cronyism lead to Netanyahu’s downfall/Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/January
16/17
Blood, bribery, and the two islands: An Egyptian tale
Amr Khalifa/Middle East
Eye/January 16/17
Is Tolerance a One-Way Street/Douglas Murray/Gatestone
Institute/January 16/17
Crying "Wolf" over Israeli Settlements/Malcolm Lowe/Gatestone Institute/January 16/17
Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News
published on January 16-17/17
Council of the European Union Adopts Conclusions on Lebanon
UN Delegation Visiting UNIFIL to Conduct Strategic Review
Abidjan Professors Hold Lebanese and French Students Captive
Judge Orders One-Week Reopening of Costa Brava Landfill
Sami Gemayel: Temporary Alliances Can't Secure
Correct Christian Representation
Berri Says No Doubt 1960 Electoral Law to Govern
Parliamentary Polls
FPM Warns of 'Popular Rejection, Revolution' if No New Electoral Law
Hizbullah, Mustaqbal Agree
to 'Intensify Communication' over Electoral Law
Kaag, U.N. Team Discuss Elections, Support for New
Ministries with Hariri
Israeli Spy Drone Reportedly Missing in South Lebanon
Mashnouq Says 16 New Bird-Repelling Devices to be
Installed at Airport
Israel’s war on Hezbollah’s accurate missiles
Even Russia understands alleged Israeli strikes in Syria
Aoun insists on new vote law but Berri
skeptical
Hariri to UN country team: Syrian refugees' crisis biggest challenge, we count
on your support
Kanaan maintains law must be respected in case of
'fishy accounts'
Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous
Reports And News published on January 16-17/17
Reports: Istanbul nightclub attacker who killed 39 captured
Iran Regime Ambassador in Iraq: Our Frontline Is Mosul, Lebanon, Aleppo and
Syria
Gunfire Rattles Tehran as Drone Buzzes Over Iranian Capital
Egypt Court Upholds Ruling Barring Islands Transfer to Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia 'Optimistic' about Trump's Rule
France's Ayrault Says Best Response to Trump Comments
is European Unity
Former U.S. officials urge Trump administration to work with Iran opposition
After three executed in Bahrain, a look back into their deadly attack
Bahrain’s foreign ministry summons Iraq’s ambassador
How a Saudi minister responded to Iran’s new envoy in Iraq
Syrian Opposition Groups Welcome Astana Meeting
Severe Drought in the Major Centers of Population in Iran
Houthi Commander Admits: Iran Training Us
Iranian Regime's Parliament Doubled the Budget for Regime's Public Broadcasting
Protests Across Five Major Iranian Cities for Non-Payment of Wages…
UN envoy arrives in Yemen to meet Hadi
UK govt spokesman lauds Saudi role in combating terror
Links From Jihad Watch Site for on January 16-17/17
DNC chair choice: Muslim Brotherhood Congressman vs. enemy of free
speech
Trump:
NATO “obsolete,” Merkel made “catastrophic mistake” in admitting Muslim
migrants
Lynch
fails to condemn jihadists for the “hatred, intolerance and injustice” of which
she accuses Americans
Canada:
Muslim principal instructs that homosexuals are “cursed by Allah”
Canada:
Muslim migrant sexually assaults 14-year-old girl at high school dance
Where
are anti-Trump marchers defending women against abuse by Sharia-adherent
Muslims?
San
Francisco: FBI arrests wife of Orlando jihad mass
murderer
Tunisia:
Security forces deliberately delayed arrival at site of beach jihad massacre
Robert
Spencer in FrontPage: Fort Lauderdale Airport Shooter Converted to Islam Before
He Joined Army
Turkey’s
deputy PM: Istanbul jihad massacre carried out professionally with intelligence
organization involved
Turkey:
Rapid re-Islamization and destruction of secularism
accelerating
College
professors organize national “Teach-In” to challenge “Trumpism,”
“Islamophobia”
UK:
Man who told Muslim convert to “go eat bacon” admits to “racially and
religiously offensive offence”
US
professor says journalists must not call jihad attacks on Israeli soldiers
“terrorism”
Raymond
Ibrahim: Enslaved, Tortured, and Sacrificed: Islam’s Child Soldiers Return
Bill
Warner Moment: The Self-Taught Revolution Against Sharia
Latest Lebanese Related News
published on January 16-17/17
Council of the European
Union Adopts Conclusions on Lebanon
Naharnet/January 16/17/
Twenty-eight European Union foreign affairs ministers who gathered Monday in
Brussels adopted a number of conclusions on Lebanon.
"The Council of the European Union adopted conclusions reaffirming the EU
support to the democratic process in
The Council called on the country to “hold timely legislative elections in
2017” and “ensure a smooth and transparent process.”
The foreign ministers also reiterated the importance of
Below is the full text of the Council conclusions:
“1. The EU welcomes the election of President Michel Aoun
on 31st October 2016 and the formation of a government of national accord under
Saad Hariri’s leadership on 18th December 2016,
putting an end to the long-lasting deadlock of the political institutions. The
EU pays tribute to outgoing Prime Minister Tammam
Salam for his leadership under difficult circumstances.
2. The EU takes note of the Government Declaration and welcomes its ambition to
'restore trust'. On this note, it calls on
3. The EU welcomes the determination of all Lebanese political actors to
continue working with the same constructive spirit and in an atmosphere of
national unity. This is crucial for Lebanon's ability to ensure the proper
functioning of all democratic institutions and address the various political,
security, social and economic challenges the country faces, heavily impacted by
the Syria conflict.
4. The EU reaffirms its commitment to the unity, sovereignty, stability, independence
and territorial integrity of
5. The EU also stresses the importance of
6. The EU fully supports the efforts of the Lebanese authorities and security
institutions in their fight against terrorism and the prevention of
radicalization and welcomes the ongoing cooperation with the EU and is
determined to continue and reinforce it. The EU remains committed to support
the Lebanese Armed Forces.
7. The EU-
8. The EU commends
UN Delegation Visiting UNIFIL to Conduct
Strategic Review
Naharnet/January 16/17/A UN delegation is currently
visiting
Abidjan Professors Hold Lebanese and
French Students Captive
Naharnet/January 16/17/A number of public school
professors in Abidjan protested against the government's failure to pay their
salaries, and have therefore confined several Lebanese and French students at
private schools to pressure the government into meeting their demands, the
National News Agency reported on Monday. Information said the protesters have
beaten up some students and locked them up in lower floors at the schools, NNA
added. Protesters smashed the vehicles of parents who rushed to the school to
save their children. French forces of the French embassy arrived at the scene.
Judge Orders One-Week Reopening of Costa
Brava Landfill
Naharnet/January 16/17/Urgent Matters Judge of Baabda Hassan Hamdan on Monday
ordered a temporary reopening of the controversial
Sami Gemayel:
Temporary Alliances Can't Secure Correct Christian Representation
Naharnet/January 16/17/Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel on Monday lashed out at the political forces over
their failure to approve a new electoral law until the moment, noting that
“temporary alliances” cannot secure “correct Christian representation.”
“We remind all parties of their obligations regarding the electoral law and we
raise the alarm over the threat democracy is facing in
Berri Says No Doubt 1960 Electoral Law to Govern
Parliamentary Polls
Naharnet/January 16/17/Speaker Nabih
Berri stressed that the upcoming parliamentary
elections will be held on time based on the 1960 law because “time is short”
for political parties to approve a new law to govern the elections, al-Akhbar daily reported Monday. “The elections will be staged
based on the 1960 law. Political parties do not have any time left to approve
any other law,” Berri told his visitors. Stressing
the need to implement the constitution, he said: “The required election law is
not an issue of a majority supporting one suggestion over another, it is a
matter linked to the necessity to apply the constitution. “The constitution is
very clear. There must be a Senate and a parliament based on national rather
than sectarian basis. So let them implement the constitution, no more no less.” On the proposals to hold the elections based on a
hybrid law, Berri said the discussions have stopped
on this matter, and that the efforts seem to be exerted on endorsing the 1960
law. The Speaker concluded and assured that the parliament's term will not be
extended, he said: “Extending the parliament's teem
again will not happen, not even for one day. Let them all know that.” The
political parties are bickering over amending the current 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.
FPM Warns of 'Popular Rejection, Revolution'
if No New Electoral Law
Naharnet/January 16/17/The political bureau of the
Free Patriotic Movement warned Monday of “popular rejection and revolution”
should the political forces fail to approve a new electoral law. “Failure to
pass a new electoral law that ensures correct representation will impede the
entire political life in the country, because the electoral law is the pillar
of political stability and the main gateway for building the State,” the bureau
said in a statement issued after its monthly meeting under FPM chief and
Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. “In this regard, the conferees urge all parties concerned to
continue the positive, National Pact-conforming course that started with the
election of President Michel Aoun and the formation
of a national unity governance led by PM Saad Hariri
through the approval of a new law and holding the parliamentary vote on time,”
the politburo added. “Any further delay would mean that this
course is being halted and the FPM will not tolerate this and will confront it
through its political and popular strength,” it went on to say. The FPM's
political bureau also cautioned that “some parties' desire to hold the
elections under the 1960 law or seek a third extension of the incumbent
parliament's term will create a justified popular rejection and revolution
which the FPM will spearhead.”
Speaker Nabih Berri
and Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq
have announced that the country is likely headed to parliamentary elections
under the controversial 1960 electoral law due to the parties' failure to agree
on a new law. Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an
electoral law fully based on proportional representation but other political
parties, especially al-Mustaqbal Movement and the
Progressive Socialist Party, have rejected the
proposal, arguing that Hizbullah's weapons would
prevent serious competition in regions where the Iran-backed party has clout. Mustaqbal, the Lebanese Forces and the PSP have meanwhile
proposed a hybrid electoral law that mixes the proportional representation and
the winner-takes-all systems. 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.
Hizbullah, Mustaqbal Agree to
'Intensify Communication' over Electoral Law
Naharnet/January 16/17/Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal Movement announced Monday that they have agreed
to “intensify communication” over the issue of the electoral law. A terse
statement issued after the two parties' 39th dialogue session in Ain el-Tineh said “the conferees discussed the need to speed up
the approval of a new electoral law that meets the aspirations of the Lebanese.”“The outcome of the contacts and the proposed
laws were tackled and the conferees agreed to intensify communication in the
coming days to resolve the obstacles,” the statement added. Speaker Nabih Berri and Interior Minister
Nouhad al-Mashnouq have
announced that the country is likely headed to parliamentary elections under
the controversial 1960 electoral law due to the parties' failure to agree on a
new law. Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an
electoral law fully based on proportional representation but other political
parties, especially Mustaqbal and the Progressive
Socialist Party, have rejected the proposal, arguing that Hizbullah's
weapons would prevent serious competition in regions where the Iran-backed
party has clout. Mustaqbal, the Lebanese Forces and
the PSP have meanwhile proposed a hybrid electoral law that mixes the
proportional representation and the winner-takes-all systems. 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.
Kaag, U.N. Team Discuss Elections, Support for New
Ministries with Hariri
Naharnet/January 16/17/U.N. Special Coordinator for
Lebanon Sigrid Kaag and representatives of other U.N.
agencies in Lebanon on Monday held talks with Prime Minister Saad Hariri over topics related to peace and security,
development, stabilization and human rights. “It was an early opportunity for
us to reiterate and underline the strong commitment of the entire U.N. family
to
“We also discussed with the Prime Minister how we can best support the
strengthening and the building of capacity of some of the new ministries that
have recently been established and this with a view to ensure success. This
includes the Ministry of Refugees, the Ministry for Women and also of course
the Ministry that combats corruption,” Kaag added.
“We discussed the impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon socio-economically,
politically and of course we discussed ways in which we can assist vulnerable
Lebanese communities, and citizens alongside continued provision of support for
the Syrian refugees as well as the Palestine refugees through UNRWA,” the U.N.
official went on to say. Hariri for his part said
Israeli Spy Drone Reportedly Missing in
South Lebanon
Naharnet/January 16/17/An Israeli reconnaissance
drone has been missing since Monday morning in south
Mashnouq Says 16 New Bird-Repelling Devices to be Installed at
Airport
Naharnet/January 16/17/Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq held a meeting
Monday over the situation at Beirut's Rafik Hariri
International Airport and announced that 16 new bird-repelling devices will be
installed to keep seagulls and other birds away from the airport.
“Someone has offered 16 bird-repelling devices and the installation will begin
tomorrow,” Mashnouq said after the meeting. “We will
judge the effectiveness after trying them,” he added. Mashnouq
also described Monday's meeting as “preparatory,” noting that another meeting
will be held Tuesday at the Grand Serail under Prime
Minister Saad Hariri with the aim of “boosting the
level of services and safety measures at the airport.” The meeting was attended
by Public Works and Transport Minister Youssef Fenianos, Airport Security Apparatus chief Brig. Gen.
George Doumit, Electricite
du Liban chairman Kamal
Hayek, and representatives from the army, Internal Security Forces, General
Security and the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. Earlier in the day,
Urgent Matters Judge of Baabda Hassan Hamdan allowed a temporary reopening of the controversial
Costa Brava garbage landfill after he had order its closure over warnings that
birds attracted by the garbage were threatening aircraft safety. 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 in the Naameh area. The
dumps were eventually intended to have waste processing facilities, but that
has not happened. As a result, garbage has piled up in
Israel’s war on Hezbollah’s accurate
missiles حرب
إسرائيل على
صواريخ حزب
الله الدقيقة
التصويب
Ron Ben-Yishai/Ynetnews/January 16/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/16/ron-ben-yishaiynetnews-israels-war-on-hezbollahs-accurate-missiles%d8%ad%d8%b1%d8%a8-%d8%a5%d8%b3%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%b9%d9%84%d9%89-%d8%b5%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%8a/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4907555,00.html
Analysis: All signs indicate that the strike attributed to the IAF in the
Damascus area early Friday was aimed at destroying a shipment of accurate
Iranian surface-to-surface missiles, which threaten most essential facilities
in Israel. This is part of the war between wars, in which the IDF is supposedly
trying to minimize casualties and damage in the next battle with Hezbollah.
All signs indicate that the strike which took place early Friday morning
near the
This can be concluded from the claim that the attacked targets were near
the airport and from the knowledge that Iran transfers the missiles it supplies
to Hezbollah through cargo planes that land in the Damascus area, and mainly in
the military airport which is located not far from the Lebanon border.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and senior
commanders of
They were likely referring to improved Fateh-111 or Fateh-110 missiles,
and maybe even Zelzal missiles that are produced in
The accuracy of these missiles can hit targets within a radius of only
several meters, instead of hundreds of meters with unguided missiles. For this
reason,
According to reports from oppositional sources in
An interesting fact is that the Syrian general staff noted in its
official statement that the strike was carried out by Israel Air Force planes
which circled the
The Syrians are interested in emphasizing the fact that Israel did not
enter their airspace, so that they will not have to explain why the strike
attributed to Israel was carried out successfully without the Syrians targeting
the planes or disrupting their activity. On the other hand, if the strike was
indeed carried out by the IAF,
It’s a known fact that very accurate air-to-surface missiles can be
launched from distances of dozens and even hundreds of kilometers
and hit the target at an accuracy of 1 or 2 meters. There are of course
additional reports from the Syrian opposition about F-35 IAF planes which
attacked for the first time, but it’s safe to assume that even if the IAF did
use planes, the Syrian opposition sources had no way of detecting and knowing
that.
Damaging Hezbollah’s abilities
The Syrian general staff already announced in the past, in the
assassination of murderer Samir Kuntar
in a
The victory in
These may be empty words like in the past, but in light of the recent
successes in the war against the rebels, it’s quite possible that the Syrian
army will try to implement some sort of retaliation, whether in the Golan
Heights or in northern Israel. The IDF is aware of that and is preparing for
such a possibility. One thing is clear: The damage caused by the attack early
Friday near the
Experts say this is part of the war between wars, in which the IDF is
supposedly trying to minimize casualties among the civilian population and
damage the essential facilities in
Even Russia understands alleged Israeli
strikes in Syriaحتى
روسيا تتفهم
خلفية غارات
إسرائيل
الأخيرة داخل
سوريا
Alex Fishman /Ynetnews/January 16/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/16/alex-fishman-ynetnews-even-russia-understands-alleged-israeli-strikes-in-syria%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%89-%D8%B1%D9%88%D8%B3%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%AA%D8%AA%D9%81%D9%87%D9%85-%D8%AE%D9%84%D9%81%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%BA/
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4907674,00.html
Analysis: Unlike previous incidents, the attack that took place in the Damascus
area over the weekend prompted an official Russian representative to say that
‘Israel is naturally fighting organizations jeopardizing its security.’ In
other words, even
In recent weeks,
For a long time, from the moment the Russians deployed in
In the semi-official newspaper of the Putin's regime, Izvestia,
Deputy Chairman of the Duma Committee on
international Affairs Andrei Klimov is quoted as
saying: “
This isn’t a slip of the tongue or pen. It’s an official Russian signal at the
Iranians and Hezbollah, which are currently at odds with the Russians over the
arrangements in
The Syrians are also trying to gain diplomatic capital from this strike. Unlike
in the past, they are pointing at
Since 2006, Hezbollah has been making quite organized multi-year arming and
power building plans. The emphasis in the past few years is on building
strategic systems based on a shift from long-range rockets with large warheads
to accurate surface-to-surface missiles with a range of hundreds of kilometers. They could also be in the form of cruise
missiles or unmanned aerial vehicles produced in
The airstrikes attributed to
Aoun insists on new vote law but Berri
skeptical
Hussein Dakroub/he Daily Star/January 16/17
BEIRUT: President Michel Aoun will accept nothing
short of a new vote law for the next parliamentary elections, official sources
said Sunday, as Speaker Nabih Berri
sounded downbeat about reaching a formula to replace the disputed 1960 majoritarian system.
“President Aoun will not accept that the upcoming
parliamentary elections be held under the current law. He insists on a new vote
law,” a source at
“The president has stated this position during his meetings with various
politicians because he considers that the current [1960] law does not ensure
true representation.”
The source quoted Aoun as saying that he supported
“any vote law that might be agreed on by the country’s various political
components.”
However, Berri accused some political factions, whom
he did not name, of seeking to impose the 1960 law as a “fait accompli” to foil
attempts aimed at agreeing on a new system ahead of elections scheduled for
May.
Asked to comment on proposed hybrid vote laws, Berri
was quoted as saying by visitors at his Ain al-Tineh
residence: “There is no longer discussion on any majoritarian
formula [or a hybrid law]. It seems that work is focused on the 1960 [law] to
impose it as a fait accompli.”
On how he will deal with Aoun if Parliament fails to
endorse a new vote law, Berri said: “It has become
known that I and the president are in agreement before and after the
presidential election. The problem is not here, but somewhere else. The problem
lies with those who are cooking the 1960 dish.”
The speaker said he “fully understands” MP Walid Jumblatt’s concerns over calls for a proportional vote law,
and reiterated his opposition to any new extension of Parliament’s mandate,
which has been extended twice in 2013 and 2014.
Berri, who has called for two legislative sessions
this week to discuss and approve a 47-item agenda, said he hoped that
Parliament’s legislation would move into high gear following prolonged
paralysis caused by the 29-month presidential vacuum that ended with Aoun’s election as president on Oct. 31.
He also hoped that the 2017 draft state budget, which had been referred by
Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil
to the Cabinet, would be approved by the ministers soon so that it can be sent
to Parliament. Berri added that the draft budget
contains important matters, including the wage-hike bill for civil servants and
school teachers.Berri called over the weekend for
morning and evening legislative sessions to be held Wednesday and Thursday to
discuss and approve 47 items, including 24 urgent bills, on the agenda.
Information Minister Melhem Riachi
also called for a new vote law to rectify what he termed “Christian
representation” in the next Parliament.
In an interview with a radio station, Riachi, one of
three ministers representing the Lebanese Forces in the new government,
underlined the need to “lift injustice from the Christians through an electoral
law that is fair to all the parties.”
“We don’t want anyone to treat us unjustly, nor do we want to do the same with
anyone. The problem is to rectify Christian representation, but not at the
expense of the other sects,” he said, adding that the LF had reached “a
compromise law” with the Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party to
“correct representation in Parliament, particularly Christian representation.”
Rival factions are seeking to reconcile two different hybrid electoral laws.
One proposal was made by Berri’s bloc, which calls
for half of Parliament’s 128 members to be elected on the basis of proportional
representation and the other half on the current 1960 winner-take-all system.
The other hybrid proposal, presented by the Future Movement, the LF and the
PSP, calls for 60 MPs to be elected on the basis of proportional
representation, and the remaining 68 MPs on a winner-take-all system.
Hezbollah reiterated its support for a vote law based on full proportional
representation with
“The formula that achieves justice and effectiveness in parliamentary
representation is the one that adopts full proportionality with a single
district or enlarged districts,” MP Mohammad Raad,
head of Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc, said during a memorial ceremony in the
southern town of
He said politicians who are prolonging discussions on proposed electoral laws
with the aim of returning to the 1960 law are “committing a crime against the
country.”
Separately, the Cabinet is set to meet under Prime Minister Saad
Hariri at the Grand Serail Wednesday to discuss some
32 items, the most important of which is one related to the country’s potential
offshore oil and gas reserves.
The Cabinet will follow up discussions on the amendment of the financial system
of the Lebanese Petroleum Administration, the
The six-member LPA is mainly tasked with supervising the licensing of the
offshore oil and gas exploration.
Hariri to UN country team: Syrian
refugees' crisis biggest challenge, we count on your support
Mon 16 Jan 2017/NNA - Prime Minister Saad Hariri
received this afternoon at the Grand Serail UN
Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag in the
presence of her deputy, UN Coordinator for humanitarian issues Philippe Lazzarini and the UN Country Team, a statement by Hariri's
press office indicated on Monday.
At the onset of the meeting, Premier Hariri said: "I would like to welcome
you today at the Grand Serail. I am very happy to
meet all of you. In the past few years,
We elected a president, we have a government and we have a parliament convening
this week. We have 384 draft laws that are delayed and I hope that about 80
laws will be approved this week and the ball is also going to roll on the other
laws hopefully."
He added: "While the whole world was busy with many other priorities, the
International Support Group for
For me, the Syrian refugees' crisis has been substantial and this is the most
challenging and critical point for
Five years ago, our population was of 4.5 million and today we are at six
million. As you know, we view the UN agencies as our principle partner and
count on your support to address these challenges.
One of the first steps is to have a comprehensive mapping of the presence of
Syrian refugees and their impact on
The UNIFIL is not present today because they are busy with their strategic
mission, but I will be seeing them tomorrow. I want to thank them for their
commitment to
He continued: "Promoting an advanced sustainable development, including
balanced regional development and prosperity for all Lebanese, remains a key
priority for my government.
He concluded: "Thank you for the support you provided
For her part, Kaag said after the meeting:
"I had the honor, together with colleagues from
the UN family, and together with my Deputy, Mr. Philippe Lazzarini
to meet with Prime Minister Saad Hariri and members
of his team. It was an early opportunity for us to reiterate and underline the
strong commitment of the entire UN family to
We used the opportunity to have a very frank and open discussion as always on
the areas of cooperation and support for
We discussed a number of priorities this year, including the timely
conduct of parliamentary elections. We certainly also hope for a relevant quota
of women to be represented. We looked at an agenda for the prevention of
violent extremism, knowing
We also discussed with the Prime Minister how we can best support the
strengthening and the building of capacity of some of the new ministries that
have recently been established and this with a view to ensure success. This
includes the Ministry of Refugees, the Ministry for Women and also of course
the Ministry that combats corruption.
There is an ongoing, unfinished business that we will continue to work
for, which is the progress towards implementing Security Council Resolution 1701,
with a broader view to continue to shield Lebanon from all threats, to preserve
Lebanon's territorial integrity and to enhance its security.
Last and not least, we discussed the impact of the
It has been a very exciting discussion with the Prime Minister. It is the
first of many. He is very clear that he means business and he wants to achieve
results and we are precisely on message and very much share that vision and we
are keen to achieve lasting results for
Kanaan maintains law must be respected in case of 'fishy
accounts'
Mon 16 Jan 2017/NNA - Head of the Finance and Budget House committee, MP
Ibrahim Kanaan, indicated, in a statement on Monday,
that the law and the Constitution must be respected when the state faces a case
of "fishy accounts," adding that they cannot be okayed by the Parliament.On the USD 11 billion's pending issue since the
term of Fouad Siniora's
government, Kanaan indicated that the sum was part of
a set of violations, which he said they are being reviewed by the Court of
Audit and the Parliament.The lawmaker has maintained
that the there was a legal course for the state budget, "which begins by
including basics of reform to rectify the flaws of the past."
Latest LCCC Bulletin For
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 16-17/17
Reports: Istanbul nightclub
attacker who killed 39 captured
ISTANBUL (AP) January 16/17/ — A gunman suspected of killing 39 people during a
New Year's attack on an Istanbul nightclub has been caught in a police
operation, Turkish media reports said early Tuesday. The suspect was captured
in a special operations police raid on a house in
Iran Regime Ambassador in Iraq: Our
Frontline Is Mosul, Lebanon, Aleppo and Syria
NCRI/Monday, 16 January 2017/Senior adviser to Qassem
Soleimani commander of the IRGC terrorist Quds Force, Iraj Masjedi, who has recently been appointed as Iranian
regime’s ambassador in Iraq said Mosul, Lebanon, Aleppo and Syria is the
regime’s frontline.
According to state-run Mehr news agency on
January 13, IRGC Brigadier General Iraj Masjedi, who was speaking on the anniversary of the killing
of another Pasdar (IRGC Revolutionary Guard) in
Syria, said: “Yesterday the frontline of our fighters was Abadan, Khorramshahr, Mehran and… and now
the frontline is Mosul, Lebanon, Aleppo and Syria.”Earlier,
in June 2016, he had said that fighting in
Gunfire Rattles
The Associated PressظTEHRAN,
It wasn't clear who owned the drone, which he described as a quadcopter. That suggests it may have been operated by a
local hobbyist or aerial photographer rather than a foreign government. The
purpose of its flight also wasn't clear.The drone
escaped — apparently intact — as Gen. Alireza Elhami, deputy chief of
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
16/17/Egypt's
Saudi Arabia 'Optimistic' about Trump's
Rule
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
16/17/U.S. ally Saudi Arabia is "optimistic" about Donald Trump's
impending presidency, Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir
said Monday, hailing Trump's stern line on arch-Saudi rival Iran and promise to
defeat the Islamic State group. "When we look at the Trump
administration's view as articulated -- wanting to restore
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January
16/17/European unity is the best reply to remarks by US President-elect Donald
Trump that cast doubt on the continent's future, especially after Brexit, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Monday. "The best response to the
interviews given by the
Former U.S. officials urge Trump
administration to work with Iran opposition
Published January 15, 2017 FoxNews.com
Eric Shawn exclusive: Calls for a new Iran policy
EXCLUSIVE: Nearly two dozen former top U.S. government officials have urged
President-elect Donald Trump to work with Iran's opposition once in office,
according to a letter obtained by Fox News.
A letter signed by 23 former officeholders calls on
Trump to consult with the Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran
(NCRI). The group has called for free elections and freedom of religion in
IRAN DISSIDENTS SEEKING MEETING WITH TRUMP
While the Iranian government calls the group terrorists, the NCRI’s network of supporters in
"
The letter's signatories include former
Last month, Fox obtained a letter to Trump from a group of Iranian
dissidents that urged the president-elect to follow through on his campaign
promise to revisit the nuclear deal between Iran and six global powers,
including the U.S.
"I think what's being offered here is to say, 'Look, there is an
opposition in Iran,'" former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton told Fox
News. "It's a lot of different pieces, like all opposition movements [and]
a lot of the groups don't get on well together, but let's be clear: There is an
alternative to the ayatollahs."
The Trump transition team has not given any official response to the
letter, and it's unclear whether Trump has any plans to take a meeting with
Earlier Sunday,
**Fox News' Eric Shawn and Ben Evansky
contributed to this report.
After three executed in
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 16 January
2017/Three inmates were executed in
The accused had planted a bomb and lured police officers into a trap
where one of the suspects then detonated the device from a distance using a
mobile phone. Al Shehi was working in
Bahrain’s foreign ministry summons Iraq’s ambassador
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 16 January
2017/Bahrain ministry of foreign affairs has summoned on Monday Iraq’s
ambassador of Iraq to the kingdom. Ambassador Ahmed Naif
Rasheed Al-Dalimi was
summoned after
How a Saudi minister responded to Iran’s
new envoy in Iraq
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 16 January
2017/Saudi minister of state for the Gulf region Thamer
Al-Sabhan slammed Iran's recent appointment of an
envoy in Iraq and its statement calling for shutting down the Saudi consulate
in Iraq. "
Syrian Opposition Groups Welcome Astana Meeting
NCRI/Monday, 16 January 2017/The Syrian opposition negotiating high commission
announced their support for the Astana talks in Kazakhstan, Al-Arabiya reported on January 15, 2017. At the same time,
Syrian combatant organizations in
Severe Drought in the Major Centers of
Population in
NCRI/Monday, 16 January 2017/According to the head of the National Drought and
Disaster Management of Meteorological Organizations, some %84 of
On Friday, January 13, state-run ISNA news agency quoting Shahrokh
Fateh, head of the national meteorological
organization, wrote: “Based on the SPEI index (internationally recognized
system for measuring drought), in the past twelve months ending in December,
there are mild to severe droughts in many parts of the country.”According
to ISNA, “some %33 of the area of the country has mild drought, %41 has
moderate drought, %10 has severe drought, and %0.2 has very severe drought.”In his interview, Fateh
described as worrying the “severe and extreme drought” in areas that are known
to as the source of providing water to the country and important centers of
population including
Houthi Commander Admits:
NCRI/Monday, 16 January 2017/Al Arabiya English
Sunday, 15 January 2017 reported that newly recruited Houthi
fighters parade before heading to the frontline to fight against government
forces, in Sanaa. A Houthi
militia leader has confessed that both
Iranian Regime's Parliament Doubled the
Budget for Regime's Public Broadcasting
NCRI/Monday, 16 January 2017/With 130 votes in favor,
Iranian regime’s parliament doubled the budget for regime’s public broadcasting
on Sunday January 15. The money dedicated by the government to regime’s public
broadcasting is 3.5 percent of the national budget which, considering the
current rise, will reach nearly 3000 billion tomans
(1 billion dollars) from a previous amount of 1500 billion (500 million
dollars). In Sunday’s session of regime’s parliament, Ahmad Salek,
regime’s MP from
Protests Across
Five Major Iranian Cities for Non-Payment of Wages…
NCRI/Monday, 16 January 2017/Last weekend, protests broke out across major
cities in
Sunday, January 15
Arak- Central Iran
Hepco Co. workers were protesting five months of
unpaid wages and demanding to be paid their outstanding wages and benefits.
This was the sixth day of their rally.
Sari- Northwestern Iran
Kindergarten teachers rallied in front of the Education Ministry’s office,
demanding to be officially hired. This was not the first of their protests and
it will not be the last.
Maybod -
Workers from Ehsan Ceramic Company were also
protesting outstanding wages and rallied outside the office of
This was their second strike; the first was a three-day sit-in inside the
factory, a few months ago. Sefid-dash- Char,
Steelworkers from Energy-Gostar protested the unjust
firing of many workers and two months’ unpaid salaries.
A spokesperson for the workers said: 'The company's
excuse is not receiving the raw material, so they had to let a number of
workers go. This was unjust since the workers were not even paid their previous
salaries.”
This was their second consecutive day of protest.
Parents of elementary school children who have been left without a teacher for
two months are protesting the lack of a substitute teacher.
The children have been going into class, without a teacher for two months,
since the previous teacher suffered an accident and was made bedridden.
The school has refused to hire a substitute and told the parents to wait until
the original teacher is back to full health.
Saturday, January 14
Maybod -
Street
Orumiah,
Residents of Shahed suburb gathered to protest the
lack of essential utilities like water, gas and electricity in their
neighbourhood and also the lack of schools and drugstores.
Kangavar,
They said that the lack of response from the Government has made them fear for
their jobs.
UN envoy arrives in
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 16
January 2017/The UN envoy to
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Monday, 16
January 2017/The UK government spokesman for the Middle East and North Africa,
Edwin Samuel, lauded
Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis
& editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 16-17/17
How was Khomeini
tolerant with Christians?كيف
كانت نظرة
الخميني
لليهود
والمسيحيين
Mshari Al Thaydi /Al Arabiya/January 16/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/2017/01/16/mshari-al-thaydi-al-arabiya-how-was-khomeini-tolerant-with-christians/
It’s normal nowadays to read WhatsApp messages,
Twitter posts or watch programs about old fatwas
(religious edicts) for Salafist Sunni clerics calling
on people to accuse others of heresy or infidelity or prohibiting something
that’s today become one of the easiest things.
This is ordinary as all old legacies are full of such outdated issues. In the
past, they were matters which involved bloodshed.
The jurisprudential dogmatic legacy in Islamic heritage blogs - we talk about
Sunnis considering they are the majority of Muslims - is full of practices that
are currently rejected and they base their talk on old books, but present them
as if they’ve just discovered them and circulate them on social media and
satellite television.
However, it’s unacceptable to limit the issue to Islam, Sunnis or Salafism - as actually each legacy suffers from a crisis in
the current era.
In “modern” Shiite jurisprudence, Khomeini’s mouthpieces present themselves to
the West as civilized and friendly people to Christian sentiment
To be more specific, they always give an example about
Ashari Sufi Islam and say it is moderate Islam versus
Wahhabi Salafist Islam.
Although such a statement is not based on solid facts, let us review modern
examples that examine this claim.
Observing controversy
In Egypt’s al-Azhar, the symbol of Ashari Islam, as it’s claimed, one can observe a lot of
controversy about radicalism in al-Azhar’s
educational curricula to the extent that Doctor Abdel Hay Azab,
president of
In
In “modern” Shiite jurisprudence, Khomeini’s mouthpieces present themselves to
the West as civilized and friendly people to Christian sentiment. These
flirting statements are said to eastern Christians. According to Iraqi
researcher Doctor Rasheed al-Khayoun
in an article published in al-Ittihad newspaper,
Khomeini himself talks about the people of the dhimma,
i.e. Christians and Jews, in his book Tahrir al-Wasilah (Commentaries on the Liberation of the
Intercession).
On dealing with Christians and Jews, Khomeini says: “They cannot modernize a
temple or ring bells. It’s disliked to salute them. It’s said it’s prohibited
to salute them and if they salute one by saying ‘peace,’ the response must be
limited to ‘upon you,’ as it’s disliked to complete the salutation and say
‘peace be upon you.’ When meeting them, the salutation should be: ‘peace be upon he who followed the right path.’ They must be driven
to the narrowest paths. Their construction must not be higher than Muslims’ buildings..etc.”
The point is that the comprehensive view is a moral value in addition to being
a duty. May God protect everyone’s consciences.
**This article was first published in Asharq al-Awsat on January 16, 2017.
Outrage over German institute’s hosting
of pro-Hamas, Hezbollah speaker
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/January 16/17
The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in the city of Halle sparked
international criticism because the pro-Hezbollah and allegedly antisemitic activist Norman Finkelstein is slated to hold
talks on academia and Gaza on Monday and later in January.
“Finkelstein is not a scholar or academic. He is a polemicist who misuses
sources and violates accepted standards of academic integrity," Harvard
law professor Alan Dershowitz told The Jerusalem Post
on Sunday. "That is why he was fired ( or not
renewed) at universities at which he taught. It would be scandalous for the
Planck Institute to lend its academic imprimatur to so non-academic a person,”
he argued.
Dershowitz added:”Let
me add that the Planck Institute would never seriously consider inviting an
anti-Palestinian polemicist with a comparable lack of academic standing. He is
invited because of his anti-Israel and borderline antisemitic
polemics, not despite them."
Finkestlein told the Post that "
”I am proud that our student organization has given a proper answer and
showed thus that young people can be more clever and have more political ‘Gefühl’ [feeling] as MPI representatives," Privorozki said. "I hope only, that we do not do any
advertising for Norman Finkelstein.”
The
Finkelstein is banned for ten years from entering the Jewish state
because of his support for Hezbollah—a US and EU classified terrorist organization.
A
“It is a scandal that the historical revisionist and
The Antifa wrote on Friday that the Finkelstein
lecture is a “denial of the antisemitic terror of
Hamas.”
The group said that MPI and Finkelstein will “demonize
Antifa said Finkelstin
compared Hezbollah’s resistance with the resistance against the Nazis.
Marie-Claire Foblets, the managing director at
the MPI’s Department of Law & Anthropology, told
the Post, ”Norman Finkelstein's parents from
She added ”It would be all but scientific to use
one single definition of antisemitism in the
contemporary world context, there is a lively discussion, not only among
scholars but also in larger public circles and debates, on how to appropriately
apprehend the phenomenon of contentious, deterministic thinking about identity,
‘otherness’ and religious, ethnic and cultural diversity, in the past and now.”
She said MPI will host Finkelstein as a visiting scholar for the period
of 16-30 January 2017.
Dr. Efraim Zuroff,
the chief Nazi-hunter at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, told the Post that the
fact that “MPI trotted out Norman Finkelstein’s parents biography to prove he
is not an antisemite means you know they are on thin
ice.” He said Finkelstein “unfairly singles out
He said The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance adopted a modern
definition of antisemitism and 31 countries,
including
Zuroff noted that the MPI had close ties to the
Nazi movement and was involved in war atrocities. The concern is that the MPI
is breathing new life into an old lie and allowing antisemitism
to flourish as a new form, he added.
Deidre Berger, the head of the
"Mr. Finkelstein's extreme positions," she continued, "on
the Mideast can only damage the ability of students to form balanced and
reflective positions on German-Israeli relations today. It is incomprehensible
that a serious academic institution would invite such a controversial speaker
to allegedly discuss issues of social justice, knowing that Mr. Finkelstein's
preferred topics are vicious and unqualified attacks on both the Jewish state
of Israel and organized Jewry."
"Bringing Norman Finkelstein to a campus under the pretense of discussing free speech serves the sole purpose
of fueling exaggerated criticism of
The executive director of the 40,000 member Scholars for Peace in the
"Clearly MPI has not done their homework. While Finkelstein's
parents are indeed survivors, Finkelstein has made an entire career as a Jew
who willingly collaborates with neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and antisemites."
"In fact, when The New York Times reviewed his book, titled
"The Holocaust Industry," it described it as ‘a novel variation on
the antismitic forgery, 'The Protocols of the Elders
of Zion.' [The Holocaust Industry] verges on paranoia and would serve antisemites around the world."’
Dr. Romirowsky also stressed
Finkelstein’s support for Hezbollah.
Finkelstein has written previously that "the honorable
thing now is to show solidarity with Hezbollah, as the
Christina Beck, the head of communications at MPI, said: "We know
that Norman Finkelstein is a controversial scholar. He has many detractors, but
also many supporters.”
She cited Raul Hilberg, the founder and dean of
Holocaust scholars, who said of Finkelstein: “I will say… that I am impressed
by the analytical abilities of Finkelstein. He is, when all is said and done, a
highly trained political scientist who was given a Ph.D. degree by a highly
prestigious university… It takes an enormous amount of academic courage to
speak the truth when no one else is out there to support him… I would say that
his place in the whole history of writing is assured, and that those who in the
end are proven right triumph, and he will be among those who will have
triumphed, albeit, it so seems, at great cost.”
Privorozki, the head the
He said “Prof. Foblet’s answer includes no
arguments. The question is: are Hezbollah and Hamas antisemitic?
Do they try to kill Jews only because they fight for an independent Arabic
state? Do they want to have an independent Arabic state near the state of
It doesn’t cost anything to be civil
Khaled Almaeena/Al Arabiya/January 16/17
I have written several times both in English and Arabic about the lack of
civility in our approach to daily life.
The list of complaints can go on and on. What makes me return to this subject
is an incident that I observed yesterday in which a driver parked his car right
in the middle of the road. Workmen from a company repairing the road requested
him to park it 10 meters away. Their request was met with a series of
unnecessary expletives. The workmen could only shake their heads in disbelief.
This reminded me of many similar incidents that I have witnessed over the
years. I also used to receive letters at the newspaper complaining about the
treatment meted out to workers by the companies that employed them. “Is it
because we are expatriates?” enquired one writer.My
answer to him was no. Rudeness and insulting behavior
are rarely selective. It’s a question of how you were brought up and the
environment you live in. It does not have anything to do with position or power
nor with religiosity. It stems from within.
It comes from ingrained empathy and caring for others and the desire to treat
them in the same way that you would want to be treated.
Rudeness and insulting behavior are rarely selective.
It’s a question of how you were brought up and the environment you live in. It
does not have anything to do with position or power nor with religiosity
Negative behavior. I am not so naïve as to believe
that we can erase this negative behavior from our
society. Modern day pressures have caused many people stress that translates
into a bad attitude and a cynical view of others. And, of course, it is easy to
target those who are lesser privileged than us be they Saudis or expatriates.
However, we should not confront these people by shouting or arguing, but
through reason and logic and a smile. In some cases, it may not work, but it
might prevent a fallout which could lead to a fist
fight and a broken nose! A Saudia ticket counter
agent once told me how a customer went on a rampage screaming at him and
telling him, “I work for so and so; I can have you transferred you from here in
a second!”The agent said that if he had not been an
employee, he would have given the man a bloody nose as his insults became
personal. “But,” he said, “I kept my cool and calmed him down knowing that what
he wanted was against the regulations.”It’s good that
he maintained his cool. We will never know what may have occurred if he had
answered back. I would, therefore, advise against
confronting these rude people who do not know how to be civil.
Just walk away. It’s not worth it …
**This article was first published in the Saudi
Gazette on January 16, 2016.
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/January
16/17
Now that
Two most powerful actors
On top of that, the two most powerful actors in this conflict, Assad and
President Putin of
It is thus for both these reasons, humanitarian concern and self-preservation,
that the West must make sure none of this comes to pass. The abuse of the Syrian
people in
It is thus for both these reasons, humanitarian concern and self-preservation,
that the West must make sure none of this comes to pass. The abuse of the
Syrian people in
And if that were to happen, most Syrians would simply have to seek refuge in
other countries. Could we then blame them for wanting to come to
The how of implementing such Safe Zones has already been discussed extensively. We have a number of options that could be
pursued. The main thing standing in the way is political will. The West does
not have the stomach to do this because they think their electorates will not
suffer any more military intervention in the
Will cronyism lead to Netanyahu’s
downfall?
Yossi Mekelberg/Al Arabiya/January 16/17
It would be rather extraordinary if the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu could stay in office or escape indictment, if only even half of the
recent allegations against him are proven true.A day
does not go by without exposés in the print and electronic media that cast
further doubt on both his judgement and his personal character. The most recent
allegations suggest behaviour that ranges from sheer decadence to what seems to
be a dangerous abuse of power in order to consolidate and prolong his stay in
power.
Stories about the Netanyahu’s taste for the good life on the verge of profligacy, have been circulating since his first term as
prime minister back in the late 1990s. His habit of consuming expensive cigars
and of his wife’s apparent liking of high-end pink champagne, might have
escaped public interest had these indulgences not been allegedly presents from
wealthy businessmen friends with economic interests in
What makes these allegations a source of police investigation is that some of
these economic interests fall directly under Netanyahu’s ministerial
responsibilities. It is also the expense of these presents, to the tune of more
than $100, 000 over the years, which raises suspicion among even of the most
impartial of observers.It suggests more than just a
gesture of good friendship and helping the couple to alleviate their daily
stress from a very demanding job through drinking and smoking. Even if this
affair does not lead to prosecution, in a country with more than a fifth of the
population living under the poverty line, including third of the country’s
children, this excess may be regarded as insensitive and repugnant. It is
further evidence of a politician who is detached from the daily lives of his
country’s citizens and has been in power for way too long.
Surprising revelations
Yet, this scandal pales in comparison to the more
surprising revelations arising from a conversation, initiated and recorded by
Netanyahu, with his sworn enemy Arnon (Noni) Mozes, the publisher of the
Yedioth Ahronth daily and Ynet.
According to what has been published so far in the Israeli press, the
transcript of this meeting suggests that the two discussed that in exchange for
the newspaper refraining from taking an overly critical stance against
Netanyahu, the latter would abuse his position to allow for the newspaper to
increase its market share.
Certainly all involved are presumed innocent until proven otherwise, but even
if there is only a grain of truth to this story, it can only be regarded as a
blatant attempt by a political leader to exchange favours with a business
enterprise, an action which conveys corruption at its very core. For the
unsuspecting wider public that has witnessed open hostilities between these two
protagonists for the past year, this is quite an astonishing turn of events.
His fall from grace and power may be the result of personal failures relating
to hedonism on the one hand, and his paranoia over the way he is treated by the
media on the other, instead of resulting from his failed premiership
The existence of the recording was revealed only last week, exposing that these
two gentlemen’s conversations oscillated from recrimination and threats to
tantalising each other with favours. The crux of their feud is a struggle
between an economic empire, trying to preserve its market share in the media
business, and a prime minister who in his quest to stay in power as long as
possible seems to have lost a sense of purpose and with it his moral compass.
For the Mozes family, who owns this massive media
conglomerate dating back to the 1930s, releasing all brakes to pulverize
Netanyahu was more a matter of economic self-interest rather than driven by a
robust ideology.
Unless Netanyahu supported a bill that would end the free distribution of
competitor newspaper, Israel Hayom, which is Netanyahu’s
mouthpiece financed by his American billionaire supporter Sheldon Adelson, the battle between that two would continue.
Ostensibly Netanyahu was happy to sacrifice Israel Hayom
for the sake of Mozes’ and his media outlet’s
support. Both are coming out of this story as not exactly motivated by the
greater good for their country but as self-serving,
and having potentially crossed the line of legality.
Bearing in mind that neither the political system nor the media are held in
high esteem in
One political storm after another
In the eleven years of his premiership, over the last 20 years, the Netanyahus encountered an ample number of embarrassing
allegations ranging from very bizarre of behavior to
the most recent that suggested compromising the good of the country for the
sake of his and his cronies’ vested interests. For all these years they managed
to ride one political storm after another, many of which suggested that the
Israeli prime minister cannot tell the difference between his private matters
and ones of the state.
Yet, interestingly enough his fall from grace and power may be the result of
personal failures relating to hedonism on the one hand, and his paranoia over
the way he is treated by the media on the other, instead of resulting from his
failed premiership.
Had he harnessed all his efforts to improve the lives of ordinary Israeli
citizens, and not only his own, and dare I say, advanced peace with the
Palestinians, he would have enjoyed wider public support regardless of the
media’s position.
It would be naïve to expect Netanyahu to relinquish power quietly and accept
that time is up for him in government. Unless there is an indictment he will
most likely fight for his political survival and freedom.
He does not belong to those who repent or apologize that easily, and he and his
allies know that there is far from a ready-made alternative either in
opposition, coalition or even in his own party. Nevertheless, one has a hunch
that this is one scandal too many, even for the greatest survivor in Israeli
politics.
Blood, bribery, and the two islands: An
Egyptian tale
Amr Khalifa/Middle East
Eye/January 11/17
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/blood-bribery-and-two-islands-egyptian-tale-1244884098
In April of 2016 with zero political debate, Abdel Fattah al-Sisi decided to surrender two Red Sea islands, Tiran and Sanfir, to the country’s primary political and economic
patron, Saudi Arabia.
Widespread anger and the largest demonstrations to take place since Sisi took power occurred on 15 April, with a second round
of demonstrations and preventative arrests 10 days later.
Weeks later, the State Council (SC) – the judicial body that oversees any legal
action taken against the government - voided the Sisi-Saudi
agreement on 21 June. But immediately afterwards, the State
Lawsuits Authority appealed the decision.
Naively, the Sisi regime thought perhaps that
reaction to the islands sale would boil over in a day or two. Wrong again: just
on Wednesday, multiple opposition groups announced demonstration to coincide
with a final ruling on the islands by the
“The Egyptian judiciary is independent,” Sisi has
said on multiple occasions. Yet facts have consistently belied such assertions
and the so-called Marriott Cell - involving Al Jazeera
journalists Peter Greste and Mohamed Fahmy - is but one example of many.
With a 16 January final State Council verdict on the islands fast approaching,
it is becoming crystal clear that the regime is exerting massive amounts of
pressure on the council.
The struggle over the islands turns out to be the tip of the iceberg in a
battle between
The treasure trove
Three days after Christmas, Ahmed Gamal El Labban, director of the State Council purchasing department
in charge of allocating paper, ink and computers to the country’s courts, received
a knock at his door.
Given the timing with the islands appeal in court, close watchers were left
scratching their heads with respect to the timing and public nature of this
'bribery' case
The Administrative Control Authority (ACA), a body of mostly retired police and
army officers which oversees public agencies, had arrived to investigate his
home, a source who is a high-ranking official in the State Council told Middle
East Eye.
At Labban’s house, they reportedly discovered an Ali
Baba-sized trove: $4m, 24 million Egyptian pounds, two million Euros and one
million Saudi rial, real estate deeds, vehicles and
gold.
Rather than report the news, the pro-government Egyptian press relayed the
story as if it were handed a fact sheet written by a regime diehard. El Youm 7 reported that what was found resembled Ali Baba’s
cave, certainly not reporting, but editorialising and mirroring the government
position.
But given the timing with the islands appeal in court, close watchers were left
scratching their heads with respect to the timing and public nature of this
“bribery” case.
As it turned out, El Labban was a partner in a
foreign currency exchange centre, something that was well-known among court
judges and administrative employees. "I knew he was the owner of an
exchange company,” said a deputy to one of the judges in the court’s private
council.
In fact, “many of State Council employees, sent abroad, exchanged currency from
El labban himself,” contended our supreme
court source.
With minimal investigation, the ACA could have confirmed these facts. Further,
without asserting guilt or innocence of the suspect, the media should have
highlighted that many involved in currency trade often shifted those funds from
offices to their homes to avoid confiscation.
But in reality, the state had actually “begun an orchestrated effort to ruin
the reputation of the State Council,” said the source. Sure enough, when the
news of the trove found at Labban’s house hit the
wires, it wasn’t described as a potential personal corruption case but
“corruption at the SC”.
In the battle between the executive and the judiciary, this was only act one.
Many in the State Council quickly became nervous about the impact that the
developing scandal could have on judges, according to the source. Bluntly, the
source said, the central question was: is the Sisi
regime arm twisting the most powerful council in the nation through an implicit
quid pro quo: we let go of this case if you let go of the islands verdict?
If there were any doubts that this was a politicised investigation, they were
now falling to the wayside
Despite the ACA’s promises to the State Council that their investigation would
stop with Labban, shortly after his house was searched, State Security Prosecution went after the State
Council’s general secretary Wael Shalaby
in connection with the alleged racket linked to Labban.
If there were any doubts that this was a politicised investigation, they were
now falling to the wayside. But why target Shalaby?
“Shalaby was extremely, extremely close to circles of
power…he was the direct cause of salary increases received by judges” because
of his intimate relationship with Sisi, said the
source. During his tenure, State Council offices increased from seven to 21,
according to the source.
Being in such a sensitive position can be a double-edged sword: on the one
hand, you become a black box of secrets. On the other hand, secrets can be
deemed a danger to the few roaming the hallways of power. “He was the man of
the regime,” the source said.
Until he was not.
A night at Al Masa
According to the source, the State Council’s private council, which consists of
the seven oldest – and, by extension, most powerful members - deliberated and
upon hearing a phone conversation supplied by the ACA which implicated, but did
not confirm any crime committed by the judge, “pressured” Judge Shalaby to resign.
Why would Judge Shalaby head into the lion’s den
willingly?
After his resignation, events turned quickly. Behind the scenes, the State
Council asked for a gag order which would have shut down all of the reporting
on the Shalaby case, but it was refused.
“A gag order is not a legal decision but a political one,” the source said.
“They had used gag orders on far smaller matters touching anyone in the
judiciary.”
By law, Shalaby would lose his judicial immunity at
midnight and could then be arrested. He didn’t head home. Instead, he headed
for "Al Masa", an armed forces-run hotel
near
Why would he head into the lion’s den willingly?
No one, including the highly placed source who knew Shalaby,
can say with certainty what occurred at the hotel. But it’s very possible that
negotiations - maybe say a clean sheet in return for silence about everything
he knows - initiated either by Shalaby or by a high
army official may have taken place. Many such deals have been struck in
similarly unconventional places.
Whatever happened at Al Masa did not go well. The ACA
had been intent on arresting Shalaby earlier, but was
stymied by his immunity and the State Council. But by 2am, the source said, an
arrest warrant was issued for the judge.
“As you know this nation has only one voice, and any contrary voice’s fate is
known,” darkly explained the State Council source.
That night, Shalaby called his family: "Don’t
worry about me, this will pass over in a day or
two." He was wrong.
Connect the dots
After 40 hours of investigation into the Shalaby case
by the ACA and members of the district attorney’s office, the judge was dead.
“My client hanged himself using a scarf he was wearing,” his lawyer told the
press.
Labban is now in jail, Shalaby
is dead, and the State Council is besmirched with allegations of corruption
News of Shalaby’s apparent suicide leaked quickly
and, with the horrible reputation of government security forces regarding
prisoner deaths, theories were numerous.
“The ‘suicide’ of Wael Shalaby,
despite any questions that may have surrounded him, is not to be believed by
any mind," the source said. ‘”If they had material proof of Wael’s ‘suicide’, they would have made it public.”
Labban is now in jail, Shalaby
is dead, and the State Council is besmirched with allegations of corruption.
“SC has its fair share of corruption just as does every institution” in
It’s worth mentioning the case of Hisham Geneina, former head of the Accountability State Authority
(ASA), here.
Last year, after Geneina publicly stated that
corruption in Egyptian state institutions over four years totaled
$68bn, he found himself embroiled in well-publicised legal case against him -
one he termed politicised.
The regime vilified Geneina for highlighting
corruption, but when the regime sought to attack the State Council, it used the
very accusation to sully the reputation of the venerable institution.
Interestingly, later this month and likely not coincidentally, the State
Council is scheduled to rule on whether Geneina can
return to his former post.
The
After the 2013 military takeover, 75 judges gathered in a
And now we find ourselves looking at the case of the
At stake is a judicial body fighting for its independence, indeed its very
survival, against a muscular regime looking for hegemony.
In focusing on the islands alone, many are transfixed by an emotional tree, but
miss the forest: judicial independence.
**Amr Khalifa is a
freelance journalist and analyst recently published in Ahram
Online, Mada Masr, The New
Arab, Muftah and Daily News
Is Tolerance a One-Way Street?
Douglas Murray/Gatestone Institute/January 16/17
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9753/toleranceWhen
just about every other magazine in the free world fails to uphold the values of
free speech and the right to caricature and offend, who could expect a group of
cartoonists and writers who have already paid such a high price to keep holding
the line of such freedoms single-handed?
Most of the people who said they cared about the right
to say what they wanted when they wanted, were willing to walk the walk -- to
walk through
If President Hollande and Chancellor Merkel had
really believed in standing up for freedom of expression, then instead of
walking arm-in-arm through Paris together with such an inappropriate figure as
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas,
they would have held up covers of Charlie Hebdo and
said: "This is what a free society looks like and this is what we back:
everyone, political leaders, gods, prophets, the lot can be satirised, and if
you do not like it then you should hop off to whatever unenlightened hell-hole
you dream of."
The entire world press has internalised what happened at Charlie Hebdo and instead of standing united, has decided never to
risk something like that ever happening to them again.
For the last two years, we have learned for certain that any such
tolerance is a one-way street. This new submission to Islamist terrorism is
possibly why, in 2016, when an athlete with no involvement in politics,
religion or satire was caught doing something that might have been seen as less
than fully respectful of Islam, there was no one around to defend him.
The 7th of this month marked two years to the day since two gunmen walked
into the offices of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo
in
So two years on is a good time to take stock of the situation. How did
that go? Did all those "Je Suis" statements
amount to anything more than a blip on the Twitter-sphere? Anyone trying to
answer such a question might start by looking at the condition of the journal
everyone was so concerned about. How has it fared in the two years since most
of its senior editorial staff were gunned down by the
blasphemy police?
A
Not well, if a test of the magazine's wellbeing is whether it would be
willing to repeat the "crime" for which it was attacked. Six months
after the slaughter, in July 2015, the new editor of the publication, Laurent Sourisseau, announced that Charlie Hebdo
would no longer publish depictions of the Prophet of Islam. Charlie Hebdo had, he said, "done its job" and
"defended the right to caricature." It had published more Muhammad
cartoons in the issue immediately after the mass murder at their offices and
since. But, he said, they did not need to keep on doing so. Few people could
have berated him and his colleagues for such a decision. When just about every
other magazine in the free world fails to uphold the values of free speech and
the right to caricature and offend, who could expect a group of cartoonists and
writers who have already paid such a high price to keep holding the line of
such freedoms single-handed?
Now, at the second anniversary of the atrocity, one of the magazine's
most prominent figures, Zineb El Rhazoui,
has announced that she is leaving the magazine. El Rhazoui,
who has been described as "the most protected woman in
Of course, El Rhazoui is an unusual person. And a scarce one in twenty-first century
And ditto the leaders. If President François Hollande
and Chancellor Angela Merkel had really believed in standing up for freedom of
expression, then instead of walking arm-in-arm through Paris together with such
an inappropriate figure as Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud
Abbas, they would have held up covers of Charlie Hebdo and said: "This is what a free society looks
like and this is what we back: everyone, political leaders, gods, prophets, the
lot can be satirised, and if you do not like it then you should hop off to
whatever unenlightened hell-hole you dream of. But
Instead, in the two years since those gestures, European society went
quiet. Of course, there have been regular opportunities to display the modern
idea of virtue, often using Charlie Hebdo as the
punching bag. Since being alerted to the existence of the magazine by the
gunmen, the censorious types who now fill our societies (and who probably do
not even buy or read magazines) nevertheless regularly send out social media
messages objecting to things to which they have been alerted within the
magazine.
So it is that a rude and satirical magazine has found itself repeatedly
judged by the humourless morality police of our day and often deemed to be
insufficiently reverential about various world events. A Charlie Hebdo cartoon about the Cologne New Year's Eve sexual
assaults was deemed in poor taste. Elsewhere, the publication's response to an
earthquake in
Meantime, we are in a situation, as the British author Kenan Malik said of the period
after the Satanic Verses affair, of having "internalised" the
atrocity. The entire world press -- perhaps especially, in free countries --
has internalised what happened at Charlie Hebdo, and
instead of standing united has decided, quietly and in the privacy of their own offices, never to risk something like that ever
happening to them again. This new submission to Islamist terrorist demands is
possibly why, in 2016, when an athlete with no involvement in politics,
religion or satire was caught doing something that might have been seen as less
than fully respectful of Islam, there was no one around to defend him. Even the
British Prime Minister, Theresa May, asked in the House of Commons to stand up
for the right of an athlete not to have his career destroyed because of one
fleeting, drunken joke, equivocated:
"This is a balance that we need to find. We value freedom of
expression and freedom of speech in this country -- that is absolutely
essential in underpinning our democracy.
"But we also value tolerance to others. We also value tolerance in
relation to religions. This is one of the issues that we have looked at in the
counter-extremism strategy that the Government has produced.
"I think we need to ensure that yes it is right that people can have
that freedom of expression, but in doing so that right has a responsibility too
-- and that is a responsibility to recognise the importance of tolerance to
others."
For the last two years, we have learned for certain that any such
tolerance is a one-way street. Our societies had been walking up it. But from
the other direction came the Kalashnikov brigade who only had to fire once; in
the face of it, the whole civilised world chose to U-turn and run back the
other way. Allah's blasphemy police would be foolish not to push the advantage
that such capitulation gives their cause over the months and years ahead.
**Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst,
is based in
© 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.
Crying "Wolf" over Israeli
Settlements
Malcolm Lowe/Gatestone Institute/January 16/17
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/9778/israeli-settlements
"Illegality in international law" applies neither to the
Israeli settlements that existed prior to Oslo II nor to any continued
subsequent Israeli building that was confined to the official boundaries of
those settlements (including Jerusalem in its entirety) on the day when Oslo II
was signed, on September 28, 1995.
In negotiations over the final status, on the other hand, the
Palestinians are not excluded from demanding a total Israeli withdrawal to the
ceasefire lines of 1949, but
Almost all of
In practice, no final status can be achieved unless both Parties abandon
their claims to the whole former territory of the British Mandate, accept each
other's minimal existential needs, and acknowledge the long-established current
realities.
In a familiar fable ascribed to Aesop, a shepherd boy finds fun in making
all the villagers run out in alarm by crying "Wolf!" After this
happens several times, the villagers ignore him, so when a wolf really appears,
it can devour the sheep undisturbed.
A similar result was the consequence of the international attitude to the
settlements that Israeli governments created in the so-called "
Reporting on such cases, the BBC routinely remarked that "settlements
are illegal under international law although
In fact, as an earlier article explained, almost all of
Legal Limits of Settlement Activity
The argument of the earlier article can be briefly summarized. Critics of
Now, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians began as a civil war
under the British Mandate for
It was only in 1988 that the PLO first envisaged the possibility of
negotiating with
The outcome, in short, is that "illegality in international
law" applies neither to the Israeli settlements that existed prior to Oslo
II nor to any continued subsequent Israeli building that was confined to the
official boundaries of those settlements (including
So much in principle. In practice, no final
status can be achieved unless both Parties abandon their claims to the whole
former territory of the British Mandate, accept each other's minimal
existential needs, and acknowledge the long-established current realities. Such
was the content of the well-known letter of President George W. Bush to Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon (April 14, 2004).
Crying "Wolf"
In 1995, some young residents from the legal settlement of Ofra decided to cross a valley and create upon the yonder
hill an "outpost" that became known as "Amona."
The outpost was doubly illegal: besides being located outside any legal settlement,
it was built on land owned by residents of three nearby Palestinian villages,
whereas Israel's Supreme Court already ruled in 1979 that Israeli settlements
could be built in the West Bank only on "state land" (land without a
private owner) or on land with an Israeli owner. The then government of Menachem Begin adopted a resolution to obey the ruling in
all future settlement activity. Subsequent governments continued that policy.
Because of sporadic attempts by settlers to create illegal settlement outposts,
the government of Ariel Sharon in 2005 commissioned a Summary of Opinion on
such attempts and on the efforts of the various governments to demolish such
buildings.
Already by 1997, the Israeli government acknowledged the illegality of Amona and made its first attempt to demolish the outpost.
The Supreme Court demanded its demolition several times in successive years and
Israeli governments agreed, only pleading for more time. Proceedings were
delayed also by a claim by the settlers that they had purchased some of the
land, but in 2014 the purchase documents were found to be forged, whereupon the
Supreme Court decreed a final date for the evacuation and demolition of Amona (December 25, 2016). After so many legal
investigations, moreover, it cannot seriously be doubted that the land belongs
to Palestinian individuals.
The Israeli government, this time, has not merely agreed to evacuate Amona but has ordered the necessary preparations by the
police, the border guards and the army. But it is now confronted by the broader
issue: there are numerous other outposts that fall into the same or a similar
category, for which the evacuation of Amona creates a
legal precedent. The reactions of those in power to this issue have been
grossly contradictory.
On the one hand, the government has acquiesced in supporting an
originally private bill in the Knesset to legalize all the other cases in which
Israeli settlers have illegally built houses on land owned by Palestinian
individuals. The mechanism of this so-called "Regulation Law" is that
the State of Israel will pay compensation to the owners from the state's
coffers for compulsory purchase of the land, enabling the settlers to go on
living where they are. On the other hand, Mayor Nir Barkat of
What neither Barkat nor Netanyahu took notice
of is that the "Regulation Law" will precisely impede the demolitions
that they have committed themselves to. The Supreme Court cannot interpret the
law as applying merely to cases in which Jews have illegally built on land
owned by Arabs, but only as applying irrespective of the ethnicity of the two
parties.
The Regulation Law is likely, in any case, to be struck down in its
entirety by the Supreme Court. Both the government's legal advisor and the
Knesset's legal advisor have warned that the bill is manifestly
unconstitutional, while the former has added that he will be unable to defend
it before the Supreme Court. For maybe the first time, foreign governments
began to cry "wolf" justifiably. But they did so ineffectually
because of their endless previous false calls and because of their own
incomprehension, for the most part, that this case differs fundamentally from
all preceding cases.
The bill provides for generous compensation to the landowners. But this
is irrelevant in the Palestinian context because landowners who accept
compensation will face all the sanctions that Palestinians apply to alleged
collaborators: dismissal from jobs, houses burned down, assassinations,
stigmatization of their children in education and throughout Palestinian
society, etc.
The bill also imposes formal limits on eligibility: that the settlers
should have acted in good faith and that the government should have given tacit
approval to their occupation of private land. In the case of Amona, however, "good faith" consisted of
acquiring forged documents and "tacit approval," as the bill
specifies, was the provision of electricity or water from public utilities. In
practice, therefore, lawyers will be able to claim that the requirements of the
bill are satisfied in most or all imaginable cases. For instance, Mayor Barkat's municipal water company is supplying water not
just to the alleged hundreds of Palestinian dwellings on Jewish-owned land but
also to the many more cases where Palestinians have built illegally on land
owned by other Palestinians. All such cases will satisfy the requirement of
"tacit approval."
Originally, the bill included a clause applying it retrospectively to Amona, but this was withdrawn at the demand of the party
headed by Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon. Yet all the
requirements of the law remain tailored precisely to the case of Amona. Since, as just noted, the conditions were so easily
satisfied by Amona, Kahlon
should be even more worried that, for the sake of some forty families in the
West Bank, his ministry will be liable to pay compensation for hundreds or
thousands of cases in Jerusalem and throughout Israel.
In the worst case for Finance Minister Kahlon,
the Supreme Court will strike down the application of the "Regulation
Law" in the West Bank, on the grounds that the Israeli Knesset does not
have the right to legislate there, but permit its application in
A word of explanation: the Supreme Court does allow the application of
Israeli law to
A further anomaly is that the "Regulation Law" regularizes
illegal building by individuals on land owned by another individual, but gives
no protection to illegal building by individuals on land owned by themselves. That is, if individuals own a piece of land and
build on their land without planning permission, they will continue to be
liable to a prosecution that demands that they demolish the building at their
own expense while losing all the money that they invested in the building
project. But if they leave their own land unbuilt and
build on somebody else's land instead, the State of Israel will pay
compensation to the owner in order to let them continue to live there.
Security Council Misjudgements
According to reports, neither Prime Minister Netanyahu nor Defence
Minister Lieberman (in his capacity administrator of Area C) liked the
"Regulation Law" from the beginning; Netanyahu even tried to defer
its consideration repeatedly. So why did these leaders of two parties in the
government coalition ultimately acquiesce?
The answer is that Naftali Bennett, the leader
of a party that largely represents settlers, threatened not to support the
state budget if the government failed to endorse the "Regulation
Law." The Israeli budget law states that if the budget for the coming year
is not passed by a set date, the Knesset has to be dissolved and new elections
held. Given that the government has the support of only 67 out of 120 members
in the Knesset, Bennett's Jewish Home party, with eight members, had the power
to provoke that scenario.
With the budget passed – barely in time – on December 21, attention
turned to fresh attempts to delay the passage of the "Regulation Law"
through the Knesset at least until Donald Trump would enter into the US
Presidency on January 20. Or maybe forever, as Netanyahu may have wanted all
along. This was the point at which
The ambush came in the form of a proposed resolution by
Furious reactions in
Since Resolution 2334 accurately reflects the opinion of practically all
world leaders, including outstanding friends of
Let it be recalled that Theresa May is an outspoken admirer of
It is instructive to read the full speech delivered by Samantha Powers on
behalf of the
First and foremost was the "Regulation Law." In her words:
"Yet rather than dismantling these and other settler outposts, which are
illegal even under Israeli law, now there is new legislation advancing in the
Israeli Knesset that would legalize most of the outposts – a factor that
propelled the decision by this resolution's sponsors to bring it before the
Council."
The second and third were: "The Israeli Prime Minister recently
described his government as 'more committed to settlements than any in Israel's
history,' and one of his leading coalition partners recently declared that 'the
era of the two-state solution is over.'" (The "coalition
partner" concerned was Naftali Bennett,
mentioned above as the prime force behind the "Regulation Law.")
These developments, said Powers, had persuaded the Obama administration
that it could not vote against Resolution 2334, unlike its vote against a
previous such resolution in 2011. A similar statement was made by Obama's
advisor Ben Rhodes, who emphasized: "Netanyahu had the opportunity to
pursue policies that would have led to a different outcome today."
Thus the three factors named by Powers were serious misjudgements made in
The consequences of Resolution 2334 are unpredictable at this stage,
except that it may – to
One is that the new resolution requires the UN Secretary General to
report every three months to the Security Council on the implementation of the
resolution. This prevision may turn the Security Council into yet another UN
circus in which the pillorying of
The other feature is that the new resolution makes much more specific
demands upon the State of Israel in the name of promoting peace. With
deliberate vagueness on the part of its then sponsor, the UK, Resolution 242
spoke merely about "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from areas occupied
in the recent conflict" while recognizing the need for "secure and
recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." It referred
merely to "States in the area" while neither mentioning the
Palestinians by name nor ascribing any rights to the Palestinians as a people,
but merely requiring "a just settlement of the refugee problem." The
so-called "inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war"
was mentioned only in the non-binding preamble.
Resolution 2334 is far more specific in all those regards and others. Its
preamble condemns "all measures aimed at altering the demographic
composition, character and status of the
The text then "Reiterates its demand that
What is to be done? Currently, the only remedy discussed is to hang on
until Donald Trump assumes office as President of the
The alternative is to cancel the "Regulation Law," reinstate
Israel's own legal requirements for building within settlements, refrain from
ostentatious settlement activity and reduce it to levels that do not unduly
provoke friends in other countries. In short, to resume what was the policy of
Israeli governments until mid-2016. Whether the present government can return
to that policy is uncertain. In any case, for the indefinite future, the levels
would have to be lower than before the passage of Resolution 2334.
The Many Manipulated by the Few
The statement of Netanyahu quoted by Powers occurred in an address in
which he was seeking to comfort the settlers of Amona
and persuade them to leave the place without provoking the massive violent
protests that accompanied previous evacuations of outposts. In this he
succeeded – the settlers agreed to leave quietly – but at the subsequent
international cost.
This illustrates a systemic failure of successive Israeli governments: their
agreement to endanger the strategic interests of the whole State of Israel on
behalf of the wishes of some small group of individual citizens – or even just
one. The beginning of this trend was the decision of the joint Labour-Likud
government headed by Shimon Peres in 1985 to release 1150 convicted
Palestinians in exchange for three Israeli prisoners held by the PFLP-GC of
Ahmad Jibril.
There had been previous disproportionate prisoner exchanges, but nothing
comparable to this, which also set the pattern for subsequent exchanges.
Moreover, whereas previously released Palestinians were obliged to go into
exile, this time some 400 were allowed back to their homes. There, two years
later, they formed the core of the First Palestinian Intifada (1987-1993), in
which two hundred Israelis and over a thousand Palestinians died, besides
another thousand Palestinians killed by other Palestinians.
In 2000, Labour Prime Minister Ehud Barak suddenly evacuated all Israeli
troops from
Even more disproportionate, a campaign led by the father of a single
Israeli soldier captured by Hamas led Netanyahu's government of 2011 to
purchase the soldier's release in exchange for 1027 convicted Palestinians,
almost all of whom returned home. Emboldened by its success, Hamas provoked new
conflicts with
For three decades, therefore, Israeli governments of every flavour have
engaged in this kind of reckless behaviour. Much of it could easily be
prevented. For instance, the Knesset could pass a law limiting prisoner
exchanges to a maximum of five live non-Israelis per live Israeli and five
non-Israeli bodies per dead Israeli.
The Amona Income Tax Problem
There is also a problem to which nobody concerned with the illegal
outposts has paid attention, be it the settlers or the Israeli government or
involved NGOs or foreign governments or the various United Nations observers
that prowl around in the area. It is that Oslo II apparently prescribes that
the residents of Amona should have been paying income
tax to the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The earlier article recalled that Oslo II (Article 8 of Annex III)
contains the following provision: "The powers and responsibilities of the
Israeli side for levying and collection of income tax and deduction at source,
with regard to Israelis (including corporations in which the majority of shares
which grant rights to distribution of profits are held by Israelis) in respect
of income accrued or derived in Area C outside the Settlements and military locations,
will be exercised according to the Palestinian tax code and the tax collected
will be remitted to the Palestinian side."
Note that the settlers are not requested to pay their taxes directly to
the PA. The mechanism is that
Nor can any "Regulation Law" abolish the payments due. When
individuals are found to owe back tax money to a government, there may be a
statute of limitations cancelling any debt over (say) seven years old. But the
present case is a debt owed by one government to another, to which no statute
of limitations applies. Repudiation of the debt by
A Better Approach
Given all the above, the "Regulation Law" belongs to the most
ill-conceived initiatives dreamt up by Knesset members. As already noted,
neither the Prime Minister nor the Defence Minister liked that legislative
proposal, but neither possesses the unlimited authority that Begin could
exercise over the members of and voters for his party. Perhaps the problems
mentioned, carefully explained to their own Knesset members, could
help cajole the bolted sheep back into the fold. For Kahlon
it should be easier, since he is faced with paying all the bills.
Even if the "Regulation Law" is wisely abandoned, there remains
a problem that can and should be dealt with. Apparently, existing Israeli law
contains no specific provisions for the case of illegal building by one
individual on land owned by another individual.
A better legislative approach to this problem could include the following
suggestions. First of all, the owner of the land should be recognized as the
owner of anything built upon it by whomever. Second, the landowner – and nobody
else – should be entitled to apply for a retrospective grant of planning
permission. While the application proceeds, the illegal
residents should pay the owner the market rate of rent for such buildings
(maybe plus 50%). If the application succeeds, the owner should be able
to apply for the eviction of the illegal occupants or, if they remain, the
owner should continue to receive the rent. If the application fails, the cost
of demolition and clearing the site should fall upon the illegal builder alone.
While the Knesset can pass such legislation only for
In that way, illegal building would be discouraged, the owners of stolen
land would gain redress, and Kahlon's Finance
Ministry would not need to pay out a single shekel in compensation.
** Malcolm Lowe is a Welsh scholar specialized in Greek Philosophy, the
New Testament and Christian-Jewish Relations. He has been familiar with Israeli
reality since 1970.
© 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.