LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
August 02/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling-block comes
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 18/06-10:”‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were fastened around your neck and you were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of stumbling-blocks! Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to the one by whom the stumbling-block comes! ‘If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life maimed or lame than to have two hands or two feet and to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into the hell of fire. ‘Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.”’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on August 01-02/2019
Lebanon Marks 74th Army Day
Aoun Marks Army Day: Military Rights are Preserved but Sacrifice is Required
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Statement on Lebanon’s Army Day
Jumblat: Support for Taef Agreement Must Be Proven in Deeds
Berri calls joint committees to convene on August 7
President to army chief: Security is sacred
Riyad Yamak elected head of Tripoli municipality
Hariri receives Jihad Azour, Najib Ouj, Saadeddine Hamidi Sakr and Lebanese Ambassadors to Sweden and Cairo
Bukhari: 10,000 Hajj Visas Issued for Lebanese to Date
LAF Commander: We Must Not Allow Provocative Schemes to Incite Strife
Hezbollah is the Real Government in Lebanon

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 01-02/2019
Syrian media: Israeli missile hits in Quneitra
Syrian state media: Israeli missile hits in Quneitra
UN to investigate attacks on UN-supported facilities in Syria
Moscow Plans to Advance in Idlib on Eve of Astana Talks
Iran is ready for the worst in efforts to salvage nuclear deal: Rouhani
Iran Cuts Zeros from its Currency
Iran President Says Zarif Sanctions Show US 'Afraid' of Top Diplomat
UN Experts: ISIS Aims for Resurgence in Iraq, Syria
Exchange of Fire on Gaza Border Kills Palestinian, Wounds 3 Israel Soldiers
Face to Face with ISIS Sleeper Cells: The Israeli
Partial Dutch Burqa Ban Goes Into Effect
Iraqi Police: ISIS Attack Kills Seven Security Forces
Iraq’s PMF Could Establish a Command Center, Reports
Egypt calls for Palestinian state during Kushner visit
Canada condemns North Korean missile launches

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 01-02/2019
Hezbollah is the Real Government in Lebanon/Eyad Abu Shakra /Asharq Al Awsat/August 01/2019
Syrian media: Israeli missile hits in Quneitra/Ynetnews/Reuters|/August 01/2019
Team Trump Turns to Lindsey Graham to Cut an Iran Deal/The Daily Beast/Erin.Banco/August 01/201
Arrow 3 Missile Test Ties Israel's Hands on Striking Iran - Just as Trump Intended/Azriel Bermant/Haaretz/August 01/2019
Reasons Why Peaceful Resolutions for the Arab-Israeli Conflict Always Fail/Tawfik Hamid/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2019
Middle Eastern Terrorism Coming to the US through Its Mexican Border/Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2019
Turkey Threatens to Reignite European Migrant Crisis/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2019
The UN's Deadly Silence on Iran's Maritime Violations/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2010
Iran’s leaders to blame for country’s financial crisis/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 01, 2019
Facebook Negotiated Its Rules/Matt Levine/Bloomberg/August 01/2019
No-deal Brexit could be exploited by terrorists/Nathalie Goulet/Arab News/August 01, 2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on August 01-02/2019
Lebanon Marks 74th Army Day
Naharnet/August 01/2019
Lebanon marks on Thursday the 74th anniversary of the founding of its military forces. The ceremony is held in the Fayadieh Military Academy, and takes place in the presence of President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Saad Hariri. Aoun laid a wreath at the memorial statue of the Lebanese Army martyrs. The central Army Day ceremony will also see the graduation of several cadet officers and their promotion to the rank of lieutenant.

Aoun Marks Army Day: Military Rights are Preserved but Sacrifice is Required
Naharnet/August 01/2019
President Michel Aoun addressed the military on Thursday in a speech marking Army Day saying that efforts won’t be spared to preserve their rights but also stressing the need for “sacrifices” during difficult circumstances.
The President’s speech said: Lebanon is going through difficult economic and financial circumstances, some of which were imposed by the regional wars and the global economic situation, others were the result of years and years of accumulated mistakes, but we are able to overcome them and save the homeland from its grips if we are determined to do so. The dangers to which the country is exposed are not necessarily purely military ... The economic risks are more severe and more deadly, the most serious of what Lebanon is suffering today, and it affects everyone.
Do we withdraw? Do we leave it to its own fate?
Do we reject a simple sacrifice for trivial gains, we who have sacrificed our blood and lives? Temporary sacrifice is required of all the Lebanese without exception...If we do not all sacrifice today, we rescue losing it all at the table of the international lending institutions and the harsh economic and financial conditions they could impose. At this stage, Lebanon does not benefit from evoking the language and practices of the past, awakening sensitive issues (already addressed) in the Taef Accord. Recalling the language of the past, whether in politics or in administration, harms national life and threatens to slow the growth process... and it must stop immediately ... !!! The Taef Accord, which I committed to implement in my oath of office and the government committed to in the policy statement, constitutes an umbrella for the protection of the National Pact by safeguarding the rights of all and achieving a balance among the various segments of society and its components. Therefore, no practice or position can contradict his spirituality. Rest assured that from my position and in accordance with my responsibilities, I will always respect your rights and your dignity, just like you preserve the dignity of the nation with your sacrifices. Congratulations to the army, to the graduated officers and to the Lebanese.

UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Statement on Lebanon’s Army Day
Naharnet/August 01/2019
On the occasion of Lebanon’s 74th Army Day, UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis today praised the committed professional efforts of the Lebanese Armed Forces in safeguarding the security of Lebanon, its borders and its population, its sovereignty and territorial integrity, and in extending State authority. “With utmost patriotism, sacrifices and sometimes limited resources, the Lebanese army has played a tremendous role in keeping Lebanon and its people safe from the threat of terrorism, landmines, instability or other external or internal threats, including at the borders,” Mr. Kubis said. Noting the undisputed respect for the LAF from all Lebanese communities, the Special Coordinator said the institution has also been playing a key role in promoting and protecting national unity as a guardian of civil peace and coexistence. The Special Coordinator welcomed the efforts of the LAF, as a critical vehicle of the durable extension of State authority, including through its deployment along Lebanon’s northern and eastern borders and gradually in the South. “I recently visited LAF units along the eastern border and was impressed by the important strides taken to enhance border control, with the essential support of international partners,” Mr. Kubis said. The Special Coordinator also noted the professional cooperation and coordination between the LAF and UNIFIL in South Lebanon, as also discussed at the recent UN Security Council meeting and encouraged further steps to ensure the implementation of Security Council Resolution 1701 in its entirety. In follow up to the Rome II conference of March 2018, Mr. Kubis underlined the UN and broader international commitment to continued support to the LAF, either through the International Support Group for Lebanon and other coordination mechanisms or through separate bilateral agreements with donor countries. “In my meetings at the UN Security Council, as well as with a broad range of strategic partners of Lebanon in the security and defence areas, I have noted a shared appreciation of the LAF’s role, responsibilities, and achievements and a commitment to continued support for the LAF,” Mr. Kubis said. In conclusion, Mr. Kubis welcomed proactive steps taken towards increasing the participation of women in the armed forces, as well as ensuring respect for human rights standards and encouraged further progress in that regard.

Jumblat: Support for Taef Agreement Must Be Proven in Deeds
Naharnet/August 01/2019
Progressive Socialist Party chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat congratulated the Lebanese military on Army Day as he voiced hopes that “mentalities” of rival “confrontations” are genuinely dropped.
“The Lebanese army is the country’s armour and protector of civil peace, stability and the entire branches of security agencies,” said Jumblat in a tweet. He added: “I hope that some drop down the mentality of fronts and to show support for the Taef Agreement in deeds not only in words.”“The future is much more important than the rigid past,” he concluded.

Berri calls joint committees to convene on August 7
NNA - Thu 01 Aug 2019
Speaker of the House, Nabih Berri, has called the joint House committees (Finance, Administration, Defense, Interior, Public Works and Energy) to convene in a session on forthcoming Wednesday, August 7 to study proposals related to the construction of Beirut-Bekaa tunnel through BOT model and the formation of development councils for Akkar and Baalbeck.

President to army chief: Security is sacred
NNA -Thu 01 Aug 2019
President Michel Aoun said Thursday that security is sacred and that the Lebanese are not ready to experience instability that has once prevailed for any reason whatsoever. "Lebanon paid a high price form its economy and stability due to the wars of others," he indicated during his meeting at Baabda palace with Lebanese army chief, General Joseph Aoun, and an accompanying delegation of senior officers. "Today, Lebanon enjoys immunity which no force, whether internal of external, can affect," the President stressed. On Qabrshmoun incident, Aoun said: "Politicians are processing this issue, while I am responsible for the laws and the Constitution."He added that the only solution to the current crisis was to task the judicial power with investigating and settling on the issue. Lastly, Aoun highlighted his permanent support for the military institution.

Riyad Yamak elected head of Tripoli municipality
NNA - Thu 01 Aug 2019
Dr. Riyad Yamak has been elected head of Tripoli municipality, National News Agency correspondent reported on Thursday.

Hariri receives Jihad Azour, Najib Ouj, Saadeddine Hamidi Sakr and Lebanese Ambassadors to Sweden and Cairo
NNA -Thu 01 Aug 2019
The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri received today at the Grand Serail the Regional Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund Jihad Azour and discussed with him financial and economic affairs. Prime Minister Hariri received the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation in Yemen Dr. Najib Ouj and Yemeni Ambassador to Lebanon Abdullah Abdul Karim Al-Dais. After the meeting, Minister Ouj said: "The meeting was an occasion to congratulate Prime Minister Hariri on the Lebanese army Day. We talked about the importance of coordination between the Lebanese and Yemeni governments, especially in the economic field, the relationship between the two chambers of commerce, exchanging visits between businessmen in both countries and the reactivation of the protocols and the joint high committees and we also discussed the political situation."Hariri also received the General Secretary of the General Labor Confederation Mr. Saadeddine Hamidi Sakr and discussed with him the economic situation and matters related to the labor union. Prime Minister Hariri also met with Lebanese Ambassador to Sweden Hassan Saleh and Lebanese Ambassador to Cairo Ali al-Halabi.

Bukhari: 10,000 Hajj Visas Issued for Lebanese to Date
Naharnet/August 01/2019
Saudi Arabia Ambassador to Lebanon, Walid al-Bukhari said on Thursday that around 10,000 visas have been issued for Lebanese nationals to perform the holy Hajj rituals to Mecca this year.
“Until this morning, the Hajj visas to Saudi Arabia have reached 20 thousand of which 10 thousand were allocated to Lebanese citizens,” said al-Bukhari speaking from the Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut. On the number of Saudi nationals planning to visit Lebanon this summer, he said: “After lifting travel ban to Lebanon, the number of Saudi vacationers has reached 55 thousand.”

LAF Commander: We Must Not Allow Provocative Schemes to Incite Strife
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 August, 2019
Lebanese Army Commander General Joseph Aoun said that he would not allow the provocative rhetoric to awaken strife in the country. On the occasion of the 74th Army Day, Aoun addressed the soldiers, saying: “Years have passed since the founding of the Military Institution. Yet, we have never let any obstacle frustrate our efforts." "Our focus was on preserving civil peace and coexistence… We will never be moving backwards again; divergence and division will not rule over the Lebanese and we shall not allow provocative schemes and incitements to bring back strife.”Aoun commended Lebanese soldiers as the “true guardians of democracy, who have always stepped up to their duties."Nevertheless, he reminded them that in order for the Army to be successful, soldiers must be team players and not work for “any personal benefit.”The LAF commander pointed out that the Israeli enemy continued to violate the sovereignty of Lebanon by land, sea and air. For decades, many soldiers and civilians have been killed as a result of repeated attacks, he said, adding: “With your efforts and sacrifices, we will continue to confront [Israeli] ambitions and face terrorism.”

Hezbollah is the Real Government in Lebanon
إياد أبو شقرا: حزب الله السلطةالحقيقية في لبنان
Eyad Abu Shakra /Asharq Al Awsat/August 01/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77060/%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%af-%d8%a3%d8%a8%d9%88-%d8%b4%d9%82%d8%b1%d8%a7-%d8%ad%d8%b2%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%87-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b3%d9%84%d8%b7%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d9%82%d9%8a%d9%82/
The Lebanese government has been disabled for a while due to a concocted crisis, the intentions behind which go much further exploiting the deaths of two young men in the village of Qabr Shmoun, in Mount Lebanon’s Aley District.
The true intentions are to undermine, and bring down, a redundant ‘compromise cabinet’ through making the position of Prime Minister Saad Al-Hariri untenable; leading to either impose presidential rule through pro-Hezbollah President Michel Aoun, or to a political ‘vacuum’ that only Hezbollah can fill.
Either way, then, Hezbollah is the party most interested in undermining the current fragile compromise, bringing down the cabinet, and fomenting internal strife within Lebanon’s sectarian communities. Contrary to Hezbollah media denial a few days ago, this party is indeed the ‘orchestrator’, coordinator, and commander-in-chief behind the crisis. As for its henchmen, whether Christians, Druze or others, they are nothing but pawns in a dangerous game that is pushing Lebanon to a political and sectarian ‘inferno’ created by Iran as part of its raising the tempo of concluding the deal of its regional influence.
The incident in which the two men were killed, occurred around a month ago as the Lebanese Foreign minister Gibran Bassil – who is also the president of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), President Aoun’s son-in-law, as well his ‘heir apparent’, was conducting his political tours in the country.
Throughout his tour, Bassil’s speeches have included unrelenting strong attacks on his ‘adversaries’, who also happen to be the FPM’s partners in the cabinet. Politically, those attacks were intended not only to outbid all others about defending the Christians’ right but also insisting on the Christians regaining the upper hand. This message is conveyed through insinuating that his adversaries within the Christian community have either sold cheap those ‘rights’ or are ‘weak’ enough to lose out to Muslim competitors; thus, making them unworthy of claiming the honor of defending the Christians!
Bassil has not only been repeating this negative and destructive message in the Christian heartland, but also carried it to mixed districts, such as Aley and Al-Shouf, in a direct and audacious provocation to the Druze, and their principal political umbrella, the Progressive Socialist Party. In one of his provocative speeches, Bassil recalled the battles that Aoun – a former army chief - fought against the PSP during the Lebanese ‘Mountain War’, just hours before his scheduled visit to Kfar Matta, which was witnessed a massacre committed against its Druze community in the late 1980s.
Given the expected popular reaction against the said speech, Bassil decided to cancel his scheduled visit. However, his ‘host’, a Kfar Matta-Druze minister, who was recently brought into the cabinet by Hezbollah, Aoun and the Syrian regime, insisted on what he viewed as his right to invite the FPM leader. But as the latter’s convoy reached the village of Qabr Shmoun it was surprised by the blocked road ahead, so some hot-headed young men from the convoy began shooting at the crowd to disperse then and open the road. This led to the exchange of fire and the death of two young men who were with the minister’s convoy, as well as among the locals.
The political exploitation of the incident began immediately. Pro Hezbollah – Aoun Druze called on referring it to the ‘Judiciary Council’, which is a special and final resort tribunal set for major national security crimes. The Hezbollah – Aoun camp’s attempt has been to divide the Druze and legally blackmail the PSP and its leader Walid Jumblatt, as they have kept calling for the ‘Judiciary Council’ before any proper initial investigation, or even handing over their people accused of taking part in the shooting.
The situation is looking very much like turning what should be a purely legal process into a war of political exclusion and sectarian intrigue. In this war Hezbollah and its ally, the Syrian regime, want to settle old scores with Walid Jumblatt, one of the leaders of the March 14th uprising in 2005.
Lebanon today, in fact, since the assassination of Rafic Al-Hariri and others, is living an uneasy political and security period, whereby it is impossible to ensure any fair trial. Just as a reminder, because it was impossible to ensure a proper investigation, and later a trial, the Lebanese government had to resort to international justice through a special tribunal that would handle Al-Hariri’s assassination as well as other crimes deemed connected to it. Hezbollah, however, refused to cooperate with the tribunal, and later refused to hand over party member accused of links with the assassination.
It is fair to say that Lebanon has inherited two problems from the 1975 – 1990 Lebanese War: weapons, and a sectarian exclusionist ‘war culture’; and although it was possible to formally ‘rebuild’ the disagreements on the country’s national identity, fate, coexistence and legitimacy persisted. In addition to these disagreements, the country’s legitimacy means little when one sectarian faction enjoys the exclusive right to keep a private army that is more powerful than the state’s army, and uses it inside Lebanon and abroad without its government’s permission. Moreover, this faction confesses that its political and religious allegiance lies with another independent UN-member state that provides it with all kinds of funding and support.
The ‘Taif Accords’ of 1989, which ended the Lebanese War, instituted constitutional reforms based on a no victor-no vanquished equation. It was endorsed by almost all major political and sectarian leaderships; however, the hard-line Christian faction, led by the then army chief General Michel Aoun, openly refused to endorse it, claiming that it deprived the Christians of their ‘rights’ and marginalized them.
On the other hand, Aoun’s ‘open’ opposition later found a tacit ally that was as opposed to the ‘Taif Accords’, and willing to undermine, although for reasons not connected with the Christians’ ‘rights’. That ally was the Damascus – Tehran axis represented by the Assad regime in Syria and the regime of Vali e Faqih and Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) in Iran.
The security apparatus of the Assad regime, that controlled Lebanon between 1976 and 2005, was the de facto ‘nanny’ for the sectarian Shi’ite IRGC-linked militia that became … Hezbollah. As that security apparatus invented artificial Christian leaderships which were nothing but ‘fronts’ that covered the on-going work to effect a profound change in Lebanon’s political chemistry, it weakened the traditional Christian leaderships through imprisonment, exile, marginalization, assassination, as well penetrating their parties. It, later on, struck a deal with Aoun, before his return from exile in Paris, to sabotage the March 14th camp and join hands with Hezbollah.
The speech of Hezbollah’s Secretary-General last week, in which he touched on the government crisis and the Qabr Shmoun incident was exceptionally interesting. He fully endorsed the positions of Jumblatt’s enemy, while claiming that he was not interfering in Druze affairs. He then continued covering Aoun and Bassil’s stances within the cabinet, including Bassil’s stopping the hiring of 900 state employees despite fulfilling the requirements of the Civil Service Council, simply because the foreign minister noticed that there were more Muslims than Christians among the 900 candidates!
Well, Hezbollah is Lebanon’s de facto government.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 01-02/2019
Syrian media: Israeli missile hits in Quneitra
Ynetnews/Reuters|/August 01/2019
The state news agency says the attack in Syria's Golan Heights that hit a village caused only material damages and there were no reports of casualties. An Israeli missile hit a village in the Quneitra countryside in Syria's Golan Heights near the frontier between the two countries on Thursday, Syrian state media said. State news agency SANA described it as "an Israeli attack" that caused only material damages. The Al Majd Hadith TV channel reported that Hezbollah militants were seen in the area sometime before the strike. Although Israeli strikes in the war-torn country have reportedly become a common occurrence, daytime attacks are rare. It remains unclear whether the area was attacked from the air or via a surface-to-surface missile. During Syria's eight-year war, Israel has carried out strikes in Syria which it says have targeted regional arch rival Iran and Tehran's ally Hezbollah. The Arabic-language Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper reported on Tuesday that Israeli warplanes bombed Iranian-linked targets in Iraq and Syria in July. The sources told the London-based newspaper that on July 19, Israel carried out an attack on the base of an Iran-linked paramilitary group in the northern Salahuddin province of Iraq. Asharq Al-Awsat also attributed an attack on the Daraa province on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights last week to Israel, as part of the same efforts to disturb Iranian entrenchment in the area.

Syrian state media: Israeli missile hits in Quneitra
Reuters, Beirut/Thursday, 01 August 2019
An Israeli missile hit a village in the Quneitra countryside in Syria’s southwest near the frontier between the two countries on Thursday, Syrian state media said. State news agency SANA described it as “an Israeli attack” that caused only material damages. During Syria’s eight-year war, Israel has carried out strikes in Syria which it says have targeted regional arch rival Iran and Tehran’s ally Hezbollah.

UN to investigate attacks on UN-supported facilities in Syria
Reuters, United Nations/Thursday, 1 August 2019
The United Nations will investigate attacks on UN-supported facilities in northwest Syria, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres announced on Thursday, two days after two-thirds of the Security Council pushed for such an inquiry. Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Belgium, Peru, Poland, Kuwait, the Dominican Republic and Indonesia delivered a demarche - a formal diplomatic petition - to Guterres on Tuesday over the lack of an inquiry into attacks on some 14 locations.The United Nations will investigate attacks on UN-supported facilities in northwest Syria, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says, two days after two-thirds of the Security Council pushed for such an inquiry.
“The investigation will cover destruction of, or damage to facilities on the de-confliction list and UN-supported facilities in the area,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement, adding that it will “ascertain the facts of these incidents and report to the Secretary-General.”“The Secretary-General urges all parties concerned to cooperate with the board once it has been established,” Dujarric said. The locations of the UN supported facilities and other humanitarian sites like hospitals and health centers had been shared with the warring parties in a bid to protect them. However, the United Nations has questioned whether it made them a target. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, backed by Russia, began an offensive on the last major insurgent stronghold three months ago that the United Nations says has killed at least 450 civilians and displaced more than 440,000 people. Russia and Syria have said their forces are not targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure and questioned the sources used by the United Nations to verify attacks. Syria has also told the United Nations that more than a 100 sites “have been out of commission since being taken over by terrorist groups.”An array of insurgents have a foothold in northwestern Syria. The most powerful is the extremist Tahrir al-Sham, the latest incarnation of the former Nusra Front which was part of al Qaeda until 2016. The Security Council has been deadlocked on Syria with Russia and China - two of the body’s five veto powers along with Britain, France and the United States - shielding Assad’s government from any action during eight years of war.

Moscow Plans to Advance in Idlib on Eve of Astana Talks
Moscow - Ankara - Raed Jaber and Saeed Abdulrazek/Thursday, 01 August, 2019
Syrian regime forces intensified their bombing of areas in northwestern Syria as Russia introduced its special forces to make advances at any cost in the countryside of Latakia on the eve of the Astana meetings. The Assad regime’s move came after the Syrian opposition announced foiling two attacks in the countryside of Hama and Latakia provinces last Tuesday. The special Russian forces admitted on Wednesday taking part in the attacks on the countryside of Latakia. “Our air forces effectively support the infantry units, and already offered more than 100 air sorties in the direction of the hills of Kabihah,” the Russian forces posted on social media. The Russian military also said that its highly trained infantry units plan to advance on the hills at any cost. Last April 30, Syrian government forces backed by allied militia and Russian air power launched an offensive against opposition factions in northwestern Idlib province, as well as parts of the neighboring provinces of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 2,860 people have been killed in the fighting since late April, including more than 824 civilians, around 1,000 opposition fighters, and more than 900 members of regime forces. This came one day before the launch of the 13th round of the Astana Process of Syrian peace talks, which will take place Aug. 1-2 in Nur-Sultan, amid low expectations of any progress. Lebanon and Iraq are invited to attend for the first time as observers. Meanwhile, reports saying that the UN Secretary-General's Syria envoy, Geir Pedersen, is not going to attend the talks in Nur-Sultan, have limited chances for announcing the Constitutional Committee for Syria.

Iran is ready for the worst in efforts to salvage nuclear deal: Rouhani
ReutersThursday/01 August 2019
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Thursday that his country’s officials were ready for the worst as they tried to salvage their nuclear deal with world powers, but he was sure they would eventually prevail.
“We have a hard battle ahead, but we shall surely win,” Rouhani said on live television. Iran faces an uphill battle as US sanctions were reimposed after Washington withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal.

Iran Cuts Zeros from its Currency
Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 01 August, 2019
The government in sanctions-hit Iran on Wednesday approved a plan to remove zeros from the rial and rename the currency. "The cabinet today agreed on a bill to eliminate four zeros from the currency and that 'toman' will be our national currency," government spokesman Ali Rabiei told reporters in Tehran.
The value of the Iranian rial has hit low after record low since last year. The currency was trading at about 37,000 to the dollar three years ago, but it slumped to around 180,000 last year. That was after US President Donald Trump announced the United States was unilaterally withdrawing from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposing biting sanctions. At the time, long queues were seen outside exchange offices, before the Iranian government took drastic measures by arresting unlicensed dealers and freezing the accounts of speculators. Currently the rial is trading at around 120,000 to the US dollar on the street, while the official rate is 42,000. This means anyone without a bank card has had to virtually abandon coins and carry around thick wads of banknotes in their purses or wallets just to make everyday purchases. In a bid to simplify transactions, Iranians have long referred to their currency as the toman and chopped off a zero -- a unique system that is a source of confusion for foreign visitors. The Iranian government has now acknowledged this with its latest move, which needs to be forwarded to parliament for final approval. "This will make the national currency more effective," said the spokesman Rabiei. "It will be more in line with common practice in society... the rial is not used that much. "Coins will once again come into circulation," he added. The International Monetary Fund has forecast Iran's economy to shrink by 6.0 percent this year due to sanctions and rising instability in the Middle East.

Iran President Says Zarif Sanctions Show US 'Afraid' of Top Diplomat
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 01/2019
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani said Thursday that a US decision to impose sanctions on Mohammad Javad Zarif showed Washington is afraid of the top diplomat. "They are afraid of our foreign minister's interviews," Rouhani said in a televised speech, referring to a recent round of interviews Zarif gave to foreign media in New York. "It is completely clear that the foundations of the White House have been shaken by the words and logic of an informed, devoted and diplomatic individual," he said. "They are doing childish things now. Maybe there's no better way to describe (the sanctions) but childish," Rouhani said on a visit to the northwestern city of Tabriz. "Our enemies are so helpless that they have lost the ability to act and think wisely." Rouhani was speaking after Washington announced it was designating Zarif under sanctions that would freeze any of his assets.
"Zarif implements the reckless agenda of Iran's supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei), and is the regime's primary spokesperson around the world," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. "The United States is sending a clear message to the Iranian regime that its recent behaviour is completely unacceptable."

UN Experts: ISIS Aims for Resurgence in Iraq, Syria
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 01 August, 2019
ISIS leaders are aiming to consolidate and create conditions for an "eventual resurgence in its Iraqi and Syrian heartlands," UN experts said in a new report to the Security Council this week.The panel of experts said that the process is more advanced in Iraq, where ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and most of the militant group's leadership are now based following the fall of the so-called "caliphate" that he declared in the two neighboring countries. In Syria, where the last ISIS stronghold was toppled in March, the ISIS covert network is spreading and sleeper cells are being established at the provincial level, mirroring what has been happening in Iraq since 2017, the report said. As for al-Qaeda, the panel said the extremist group "remains resilient" though its immediate global threat is not clear, with its leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, "reported to be in poor health and doubts as to how the group will manage the succession."The report said "the most striking international developments" during the first six months of 2019 include "the growing ambition and reach of terrorist groups in the Sahel and West Africa," where militants from ISIS and al-Qaeda are collaborating to undermine fragile countries. "The number of regional states threatened with contagion from insurgencies in the Sahel and Nigeria has increased," said the experts, who monitor UN sanctions against both extremist groups. In a video message in late April, al-Baghdadi said ISIS "still aspires to have global relevance and expects to achieve this by continuing to carry out international attacks," the panel said.
Looking ahead, the experts said ISIS "will reinvest in the capacity to direct and facilitate complex international attacks when it has the secure space and time to do so." The panel added, "The current abatement of such attacks, therefore, may not last long, possibly not even until the end of 2019." The panel said up to 30,000 foreign extremists and others who traveled to the so-called "caliphate" that ISIS established in parts of Iraq and Syria may still be alive, "and their future prospects will be of international concern for the foreseeable future."Outside Syria and Iraq, the experts said, ISIS and al-Qaeda are contending "for dominance and international relevance." They said that in Afghanistan, concerns remain about short-term and long-term threats posed by groups affiliated with both ISIS and al-Qaea as well as "foreign terrorist fighters who have established themselves on Afghan territory."

Exchange of Fire on Gaza Border Kills Palestinian, Wounds 3 Israel Soldiers
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 01/2019
A Palestinian crossed into Israel from Gaza and shot at troops, setting off a firefight in which he was killed and three Israeli soldiers were wounded early Thursday, the army said. An Israeli tank targeted a Hamas military post after the incident which began at around 2:00 am, Israel's military said. It said an army officer was moderately wounded and two soldiers were lightly injured by gunfire from the Palestinian, who entered Israel from the border fence in the Khan Yunis area of the southern Gaza Strip. Israel's military believes he was a member of the Islamist movement Hamas but had acted alone, said army spokesman Jonathan Conricus. He was armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and grenades, according to Conricus. He threw at least one grenade and was killed by Israeli soldiers who were scrambled to the area in response, Conricus said. "Our current assumption is -- and this doesn't look likely to change -- is that he did not act, he was not sent, on an attack mission, but rather that he did this attempted attack on his own," the spokesman told journalists. Hamas, which rules Gaza, did not give an immediate comment but a security source in the strip also said the gunman was a member of the movement. There has been tension along the Gaza border since regular protests and clashes erupted there in March 2018. At least 297 Palestinians have since been killed in Gaza or the border area by Israeli fire, the majority during demonstrations and clashes. Seven Israelis have also been killed. The protests have declined in intensity recently after a truce brokered by UN officials and Egypt. Under the truce, Israel agreed to take steps to ease aspects of its blockade on Gaza. Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since 2008.

Face to Face with ISIS Sleeper Cells: The Israeli
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Wednesday, 31 July 2019
An Israeli ISIS member gave an interview to Al Arabiya, shedding light on his journey from Tel Aviv to Syria and his disillusionment with the group. Al Arabiya’s Rola al-Khatib interviewed Sayyaf, an ISIS member in Syria who holds an Israeli passport and was captured in the group’s former Syrian stronghold Deir Ezzor. The 30-year-old, who claimed he grew up in Tel Aviv as an Arab with an Israeli passport, said he came to Syria and joined ISIS in 2015. “They used to say that it’s an honest state. It follows the steps of the Prophet,” said Sayyaf, explaining how the group’s early statements appealed to him.
However, his opinion later turned against ISIS after being imprisoned and witnessing the group’s brutality. Now, Sayyaf describes Israel as “a democratic country,” and criticizes the group he once thought of as an “honest state.”“In the Islamic State [ISIS], they would differentiate between the Syrian and the Iraqi, or the Muhajir [foreigner] and the Iraqi, and that’s what destroyed the state.”
The road to Syria
As an Israeli passport-holder, Sayyaf faced difficulties joining ISIS in Syria from the very beginning. “The road wasn’t easy,” recounted Sayyaf. From Tel Aviv, he went first to Turkey for several days, before eventually reaching Syria’s Tell Abyad via Turkey’s Sanliurfa. “Any person I have any problems with, could go to the security forces and tell them that I’m Israeli. I would get imprisoned immediately,” Sayyaf said. According to him, the initial reason he wanted to go to Syria was to “help the Syrian people because they were oppressed,” adding that he also “wished to see what this Islamic caliphate, which everyone dreamed of, was like. However, Sayyaf said that ISIS imprisoned him for being Israeli: “Imagine, after three years of being in the state, they imprison you and tell you: You’re Israeli.”“I used to feel ashamed of calling it [a state] that’s following the Prophet’s steps,” he added. “They wanted to record my voice speaking against Israel,” Sayyaf said, adding that he refused to do this because he didn’t “want to cause Israel or [his] family any trouble.”“My family and my people are there, and Israel didn’t do anything for me to want to harm it,” he added. When asked why he joined ISIS and wanted an “Islamic state” but did not resist the Israeli occupation back home, Sayyaf declined to answer.
Role in ISIS
During his early days with ISIS, Sayyaf attended Sharia [Islamic law] classes and military courses. He was then sent to the Syrian province of Hama, parts of which were formerly ISIS strongholds. Due to an old head injury, he was unable to be out in the sun – so he became a nurse.
Sayyaf said he originally went to Syria to work as a nurse. “I founded a rescue team to help the injured from strikes. Whenever there was a strike, I’d be there.”The reporter asked him whether he carried a gun during his three years at ISIS. “I carried a gun. Every person in the state, whether they’re a nurse, or working in the oil field, they need to carry a gun,” Sayyaf said. According to him, Syrian regime soldiers and captives used to come for treatment. He also treated ISIS members who were injured. Sayyaf married a Syrian woman while he was a member of ISIS and had two children, but hasn’t seen them since his last imprisonment by the Free Syrian Army.
Killings under ISIS
Sayyaf said he decided to start a family in Syria because in his first year with ISIS “nothing was clear.” Eventually, though, he came to the conclusion that ISIS “was not following the Prophet’s steps.”“Many of us, not only me, were opposed to the slaughtering style. There are children, there are pregnant women,” he said. “The state’s [ISIS] policy was a failure.”According to him, the biggest failure of ISIS “was in the leadership,” including leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the “people of Bucca, the Iraqis who were around him.”The reporter asked Sayyaf about the videos ISIS released of them killing innocent civilians, to which he said: “In the videos, I didn’t see civilians. Most of the people they killed were with the regime, they used to write it. I didn’t see them write: This is a civilian.”“Look, I think they’re liars,” he added. ‘The group might be done, but its cells are not’Sayyaf said that although ISIS was defeated, “its cells are not.”In March, ISIS faced imminent defeat in its final enclave as hundreds of fighters and their families surrendered and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said the battle was as good as over. “The group might be stronger today than before,” according to Sayyaf. “There is no country that can control them.”
“Their [ISIS members’] belief is the core reason.” Sayyaf claimed this belief drives ISIS’ terrorist attacks in Europe and the world. Sayyaf concluded the interview by addressing the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and saying he wishes to return to his country, Israel.

Partial Dutch Burqa Ban Goes Into Effect
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 01 August, 2019
The Netherlands banned the wearing of face-covering veils, such as burqas or niqabs, in public buildings and on transport from Thursday as the law on the garment came into force. According to the Dutch government’s main advising body, only 200 to 400 women are estimated to wear a burqa or niqab in the country of 17 million people. The legislation was passed by the Dutch Upper House of parliament in June 2018 after more than a decade of political debate on the subject. The far-right politician Geert Wilders had proposed the face-covering veil ban back in 2005. "From now on the wearing of clothing which covers the face is banned in educational facilities, public institutions and buildings, as well as hospitals and public transport," the Dutch interior ministry said in a statement. It added that it was important in such public places to be recognized and seen, which besides the burqa, also bans a face-covering motor helmet, ski-mask or hood. A person could be fined 150 euros ($165). However, the public transport sector said it would not stop to make a woman in a burqa get off as it would cause delays. And hospitals also said they would still treat people regardless of what they are wearing. The Dutch law does not ban the wearing of a burqa on the street, unlike France's ban which took effect in 2010. Belgium, Denmark and Austria have similar laws.

Iraqi Police: ISIS Attack Kills Seven Security Forces
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 01 August, 2019
At least seven members of Iraq’s security forces were killed and 16 wounded overnight in two separate attacks by ISIS, police said on Thursday. Three members of the paramilitary Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) and two policemen were killed in an attack in the Sayed Gharib area north of Salahuddin province’s Dujail district, 50 km north of Baghdad, late on Wednesday, police said, Reuters reported. Meanwhile, a mortar attack against Kurdish forces in Kola Jawi village of Sulaimaniya province’s Kalar district at midnight killed two members of the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government’s Asayish internal security forces and wounded 14, an Asayish source said. However, ISIS has not claimed responsibility for either attack. According to Reuters, Iraq declared victory over ISIS, which once held large swathes of the country, in December 2017.

Iraq’s PMF Could Establish a Command Center, Reports
Baghdad - Fadhel al-Nashmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 01 August, 2019
Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) wants to establish its own command center with the privileges that could make the forces an equal to the ministries of defense and interior, according to reports. Earlier, head of PMF Falih al-Fayyadh sent a letter to Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi requesting an extension to the order calling on the forces to integrate into the Iraqi Army. A PMF commander, Moein al-Kazemi, said in press statements that the majority of the forces’ leaders support the idea of maintaining the PMF’s current formation. However, security expert Hisham al-Hashemi confirmed the desire to establish a command center, noting that top commander Abu Mahdi al-Mohandes had suggested the same idea to former Prime Minister Haider Abadi in August 2018. But Abadi rejected his proposal, which prompted Mohandes to repeat his demand to Abdul Mahdi’s government. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Hashemi said that the success of the command center will make the forces an armed body similar to the ministries of defense and interior. He noted that if the PMF succeeded in establishing the command, they will be able to set up a military academy. Hashemi indicated that the two months deadline requested by Fayyadh means the PMF is not yet ready to respond to the PM’s order, and the infrastructure of the training camps allocated by the government to the forces are incomplete. Some members and commanders of the PMF believe those camps are not suitable and tracked by the US and Israeli air forces. The expert also said that the extension request is caused by the rejection of factions to meet in joint camps, which means they will have to reveal all their combat capabilities and military equipment.  In other news, former MP Salem Juma Khodr sent a letter to Iraq's President, Head and Prime Minister of Kurdistan Region, and head of PMF calling on them to provide him with protection from PMF commanders Saad and Waad al-Qadu. Khodr also sent copies of the letter to the US and British Embassies, international organizations concerned with human rights, and other officials in Nineveh. Khodr said that on July 30, and while he was in his village, a PMF unit arrived and cordoned off the area following orders from the Qadu brothers which could have led to his assassination. The Qadu family did not deny or confirm the allegations and accusations of the former MP. Khodr and Qadu brothers, who belong to the same Shiite sect, are competing for influence in large areas in Nineveh, an informed source in Nineveh said.

Egypt calls for Palestinian state during Kushner visit
The Associated Press, Cairo/Thursday, 1 August 2019
Egypt’s president has reiterated his support for the creation of a Palestinian state during talks with White House envoy Jared Kushner. Kushner is visiting the region to rally support for the administration’s efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. President Donald Trump’s administration has not endorsed a two-state solution, which has long been seen internationally as the only viable path to peace. Egypt issued a statement Thursday saying President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told Kushner that Egypt supports efforts aimed at resolving the conflict “on the basis of a two-state solution and the creation of Palestinian State with East Jerusalem as its capital.” Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is promoting the economic component of a yet-unreleased peace plan.The Palestinians have cut ties with the White House, saying Trump’s policies are unfairly biased toward Israel.

Canada condemns North Korean missile launches
July 31, 2019 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
Global Affairs Canada today issued the following statement:
“Canada unequivocally condemns North Korea’s latest launch of short-range ballistic missiles. This most recent provocative act by North Korea, coupled with the launches of short-range ballistic missiles on two occasions in May, and again on July 25, risks undermining the diplomatic process under way since 2018.
“These missile launches violate successive United Nations Security Council resolutions and are a direct threat to international peace and security.
“Canada calls on North Korea to comply with its international obligations and take concrete steps toward the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programs. Diplomacy represents the only path to security, stability and prosperity for all people in the region.
“Canada supports efforts, at both the international and regional level, to restrain North Korea’s dangerous actions and reinforce security in the Asia-Pacific region.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 01-02/2019
Team Trump Turns to Lindsey Graham to Cut an Iran Deal
The Daily Beast/Erin.Banco/August 01/2019
President Trump wants a new deal with Iran to replace the nuclear agreement he pulled out of, and he’s turning to one of his most hawkish confidants to help do it. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is working in close coordination with senior Trump administration officials who focus on Middle East policy to find an alternative to the Obama administration’s Iran deal, four people with knowledge of the efforts tell The Daily Beast. Part of that effort includes fielding ideas from outside actors, including foreign officials, two of those sources said. Graham’s developing role in the Trump administration’s Iran strategy comes as the State Department, Department of Defense, and other government agencies try to manage the delicate relationship between Washington and Tehran.  The two countries have engaged in tit-for-tat escalations over the last several months, feeding fears on Capitol Hill that the two countries are on a crash course that could likely end in a direct military conflict. The situation has worsened in recent weeks, with the Trump administration accusing Iran of attacking tankers in the Gulf of Hormuz, which it heavily patrols.
Why Would Iran Start a Tanker War?
Despite the growing tensions between the U.S. and Iran, the Trump administration and officials in Tehran have signaled they are willing to meet and negotiate with each other. But neither side is ready to take the plunge just yet. Iran policy experts, some of whom worked with the former Obama administration, said Tehran will not engage in talks about a revised nuclear deal unless the U.S. rolls back at least some of its sanctions on the country. And with the Treasury Department's recent sanctioning of Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, the chances of negotiations moving forward anytime soon seem unlikely, those sources said. In the meantime, though, Trump administration officials, and now apparently Graham, are actively working to put together plans for a new nuclear deal.
Graham has been one of the most outspoken senators on Iran. In June, following a classified briefing on tensions between Washington and Tehran, Graham said the U.S. was “closer” to a military confrontation. “This is a provocative regime that shoots its own people down in the street, that threatens the existence of the state of Israel. This is an enemy of mankind, and if you are not willing to take this enemy on, you will regret it,” Graham said. Now, though, it appears Graham is keen on finding a new deal that the U.S. can bring to the negotiating table. It is unclear how far along the team is in crafting a proposal, but Graham did travel to Israel earlier this month to meet with officials about the situation with Iran. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Wednesday, Graham said he had spoken to Trump about his ideas for a new nuclear deal several times and that the president was contemplating them. The senator said the U.S. should ask the Iranian regime to agree to a so-called 123 Agreement—a key, legally binding commitment that requires countries doing nuclear deals with the U.S. to sign on to nonproliferation standards. The U.S. has entered into those agreements with more than 40 countries.
“I told the president: Put the 123 on the table with the Iranians. Make them say ‘no,’” Graham told The Daily Beast. “I think the Iranians will say no. And I think that will force the Europeans’ hands.”
The U.S. should also require Iran to sign on to the “gold standard,” a pledge not to enrich and reprocess nuclear fuel, Graham said. Enrichment and reprocessing are key steps on the way to a nuclear weapon. “If countries want to have their own nuclear industry, that’s fine. I’m not against that. But countries can do that without enrichment and reprocessing, without making their own fuel,” Graham said. “The problem the Trump administration has is how do you make a flawed deal better? We need to extend a new deal that cannot be manipulated in the future. If the [State Department] has a better plan, then fine, but I think this is a good option.”
Graham said all countries in the Middle East should agree to both 123 Agreements and the “gold standard.” “It’s reasonable for the entire region,” he said. “Except for Israel. I’m not talking about Israel. They’re in their own sort of… category.”Graham, too, wrote an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal earlier this month with Gen. Jack Keane, a member of IP3, a firm that worked with Trump advisers to export U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia. The senator said he wrote the opinion piece with Keane because the two had discussed the idea of proposing Iran a 123 Agreement. Keane and IP3 have been pushing for a U.S. nuclear comeback by way of nuclear exports to the Middle East. “The U.S. could begin supplying fuel rods for nuclear reactors throughout the Arab world. Dozens of nations already operate under similar nuclear frameworks,” the op-ed said. “Under this proposal, Iran could become a legitimate nuclear-power nation with all the benefits of following international rules. But under no circumstances would it be permitted to enrich nuclear material for the purpose of building a weapon.”
Asked about Graham’s work on Iran, the State Department said: “The U.S. is seeking a deal with Iran that comprehensively addresses the regime’s destabilizing behavior—not just its nuclear program, but also its missile program, support for terrorist proxies, and malign regional behavior,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “We want Iran to behave like a ‘normal nation.’”Graham’s involvement comes at a time when Rand Paul, another Republican who regularly advises Trump, is working behind the scenes to influence the administration’s policy toward the Islamic Republic. The Kentucky senator proposed his own plan, first reported in Politico last month, to become a diplomatic emissary to Iran, with the president signing off on Paul’s mission.
According to Politico, Paul personally made this pitch to Trump while playing a round of golf at the president’s club in Sterling, Virginia. Two sources with knowledge of the situation tell The Daily Beast that Paul had been warming Trump to the idea starting at least two weeks before they played that round of golf. Further, a spokesman for Paul said that the senator “has had multiple conversations with [Secretary of State Mike] Pompeo on this issue” in recent weeks, including on the emissary proposal. When Trump and Paul were on that golf course together discussing Iran and diplomacy, Graham was there with them. However, the two Trump allies have vastly divergent approaches to the region. According to those who’ve spoken to the president about each senator, Trump has repeatedly joked about all the countries Graham wants the U.S. military to invade, and conversely has privately praised Paul as someone who “won’t let” America start “World War III.” It is unclear whether the president will even attempt to have the two men work together on Iran policy. When asked by The Daily Beast if he was coordinating with Paul on the issue, Graham chuckled and simply said, “No.” After an extended pause, he added, “I’m not sure what he’s doing.”

Opinion/ Arrow 3 Missile Test Ties Israel's Hands on Striking Iran - Just as Trump Intended
أزريل برمنت/هآرتس: التطور الهائل في قدرة انظمة ردع الصواريخ الإسرائيلية-الإميركية عطل مبررات أي ضربة استباقية على إيران
Azriel Bermant/Haaretz/August 01/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77183/%d8%a3%d8%b2%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%a8%d8%b1%d9%85%d9%86%d8%aa-%d9%87%d8%a2%d8%b1%d8%aa%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%b7%d9%88%d8%b1-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%87%d8%a7%d8%a6%d9%84-%d9%81%d9%8a-%d9%82%d8%af%d8%b1/
Israel's missile defenses, developed in partnership with the U.S., are now so effective that it will be far harder to justify a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities
On 28 July, Israel and the United States announced with great fanfare that they had carried out a successful series of tests of the advanced Arrow 3 missile defense system in Alaska.
Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that the tests "were successsful beyond any imagination…Today Israel has the ability to act against ballistic missiles that could be launched against us from Iran or anywhere else."
Boaz Levy, a senior official in Israel’s aerospace industries, went even further, claiming that the successful tests would mean that Israelis "would now be able to sleep better at night."
This should be good news. For many years, U.S. officials have claimed that their funding, development and deployment of missile defenses are not just designed to protect allies, but also a means to enhance stability and disincentivize the use of military force. They are intended to dissuade an adversary from attacking a potential victim state, since its missile threat will be devalued - while the aggressor will still be exposed to retribution.
From this perspective, Iran would have a tremendous amount to lose if it were to directly attack an Israel that is well protected by its missile defenses. It was surely not coincidental that the Arrow-3 announcement was made just days after Iran had tested its Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile.
However, Netanyahu and his defense officials should be careful not to exaggerate Israel’s missile defense capabilities, present and future.
Netanyahu’s rhetoric echoes that of President Trump, who claimed earlier this year that the goal of U.S. missile defenses is to "detect and destroy any missile launched against the United States - anywhere, anytime, anyplace."
Effective missile defenses should complicate the planning of Israel’s adversaries, but there is no such thing as a hermetic missile defense system.
To be sure, the Iron Dome defense system has been widely viewed as a great success in intercepting rockets from Gaza in 2012 and 2014, as well as during more recent rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas. Missile defense has become a core element of Israel’s approach in defending the country, alongside offensive capabilities and passive defense.
The main threat to Israel’s cities in a future war scenario comes from the large missile forces in the hands of Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Israeli military planners have therefore placed an increasing emphasis on the development of multiple layers of defensive capabilities in facing missile and strategic threats from its enemies. Systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and the Arrow 3 are viewed in Israel as a means to protect key strategic installations and Israeli population centers as well as to enhance stability and de-escalation efforts.
From an Israeli perspective, however, these systems are also of great psychological importance in view of their potential to strengthen the morale of the Israeli public in a situation of crisis or war. Iron Dome was key to strengthening the resolve of the Israeli public during the 2012 and 2014 conflicts.
However, in a scenario of war with Iran or Hezbollah, the threat facing Israel is more complex and acute. During Israel’s military confrontations with the Palestinians in Gaza, many of its interceptors were not utilized, since the Iron Dome system was able to detect that a large proportion of enemy rockets would not reach population centers.
But if Israel were to face a war on numerous fronts, with its adversaries firing hundreds of ballistic missiles a day, the onslaught would be enough to saturate even the most effective missile defense system.
There is also a concern that Iran could add ballistic missile warheads and decoys at a significantly lower cost than Israel could add missile defense interceptors. Israel will have to prioritize the location of its missile defense systems. Safeguarding strategic and military installations will surely be a higher priority than the protection of population centers. Israel will not have the luxury of defending all of its locations at the same time.
Yet some of Israel’s defense officials are now suggesting that the advances in missile defense capabilities give Israel the upper hand in the race to counter Iran’s missile development. According to U.S. intelligence assessments, Iran would be most likely to deliver a nuclear weapon by means of a ballistic missile.
Thus Israel could find itself facing a curious paradox. If Israel’s missile defenses are really that effective, can it still justify a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities?
Such a strike would surely lead to a wider war in the Middle East, something that the Trump administration appears desperate to avoid, in spite of its tough sanctions policy against Iran and the high-octane rhetoric.
In theory, vulnerable U.S. allies that have effective defense systems should be under less pressure to use military force against the missile threats of their adversaries.
Under the Obama administration, cooperation with Israel on the development and funding of the Arrow-3 system, and the funding of Iron Dome, was viewed not only as a way to support a key ally, but also as a means to reducing the likelihood of war.
It is possible that the Trump administration, like its predecessor, could see the U.S. missile defense cooperation with Israel as a means to discourage pre-emptive action against Iran which could drag the United States into a wider war.
*Dr. Azriel Bermant is a lecturer in International Relations at Tel Aviv University. His latest book is "Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East" (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Twitter: @azrielb

Reasons Why Peaceful Resolutions for the Arab-Israeli Conflict Always Fail
Tawfik Hamid/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14634/arab-israeli-conflict-reasons
The cause of the problem is NOT the land. After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, several Arab nations were created by fiat. The Arab world accepted this without any problem, as these were Muslim-majority countries. Rejecting the state of Israel was related to the fact that it is a Jewish rather than a Muslim country.
In this manner, despite the clear discrimination against non-Muslim minorities in most of the Arab and Muslim world (denying equal rights in church construction, for example), many in the Arab world point the finger only at Israel when they talk about discrimination.
The European Union is currently funding a study into Palestinians textbooks, brought about by the findings of the non-governmental organization IMPACT-se, which found in May that "the new Palestinian school [material] for the 2018–19 academic year... was 'more radical than those previously published.'" ... Meanwhile, no one is being educated for peace.
When we add onto all that the sad reality that Palestinian politicians are using the conflict to get billions of dollars in donations, we can understand why this conflict has so far not been solved.
The rejection of the 1947 UN Partition Plan by the Arab nations, and their declaration of war against Israel rather than their acceptance of peace, was the first clear indication that the Arabs' desire was never to provide a state for the Palestinian people, but rather has been from the beginning to erase Israel from the map. Pictured: An Arab Legion platoon on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in 1948.
We must salute Jared Kushner's attempt to bring a peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. That said, the Palestinians' unsurprising rejection of the peace offer requires some scrutiny, especially the true causes of the perennial failure to achieve lasting peace.
Without understanding them, every attempt to solve this conflict, every attempt to make true peace in the Middle East, will always fail.
As an insider with a background as both a Muslim and an Arab, please allow me share with you some insight into the problem.
1. The Arab-Israeli conflict is not about borders. It is about the existence of the state of Israel.
In 1947, the United Nations Partition Plan -- Resolution 181 -- gave the Palestinians and Arabs control over most of the Holy Land. The rejection of the plan by the Arab nations, and their declaration of war against Israel rather than their acceptance of peace, was the first clear indication that the Arabs' desire was never to provide a state for the Palestinian people, but rather has been from the beginning to erase Israel from the map. This destructive intent is memorialized in the Hamas Charter, which unashamedly asks for the eradication of the State of Israel. This intent is also aligned with the Iranian leaders' continuous entreaties to destroy Israel. An evaluation of relevant social media commentary in the Arab world demonstrates a genuine desire by many -- if not most -- of the Arab population to see the destruction of Israel and the killing not just of all Israeli Jews but of all Jews:
Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar: I heard Allah's Apostle [Muhammad] saying, "The Jews will fight with you, and you will be given victory over them so that a stone will say, 'O Muslim! There is a Jew behind me; kill him!' " -- Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Book 56, Number 791
2. The cause of the problem is NOT the land
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, several Arab nations were created by fiat. The Arab world accepted this without any problem, as these were Muslim-majority countries. Rejecting the state of Israel was related to the fact that it is a Jewish rather than a Muslim country. In fact, on several occasions I have asked Arab Muslims (including raising the point on Aljazeera TV) [See: 40:44 - 41:04] whether they would continue fighting Israel if its entire population converted to Islam. The answer is a unanimous "NO." My answer to that is always, "Then the problem has nothing to do with the land, as many claim, but with the Jewishness of the State of Israel."
3. Delusional way of thinking
Delusions are defined as fixed beliefs that contradict reality. This way of thinking among many in the Arab world impedes any peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict. For example, many in the Arab world strongly believe that the Jews are the cause of the economic collapse of nations. This idea is belied by the fact that when the Jewish community was a viable component of Egypt prior to 1952 revolution, the Egyptian economy was in far better condition than it was after President Nasser expelled the Jews from the country. Any rational person can see that if the Jews were the cause of the economic collapse of nations, the economy of Egypt should have improved significantly after they were kicked out of the country. Delusional people do not see (nor do they want to see) such logic
4. Inability of the Arab mind to admit its wrongdoings
Many in the Arab world falsely believe that Israel expelled all Arabs. In fact, there are nearly two million Israeli Arabs who live in Israel as citizens, making up 20% of the population. Many in the Arab world tend to ignore that it was the Arabs who expelled the Jews -- in a humiliating way -- from countries such as Egypt, Iraq and Algeria. Arabs' failure to admit their own mistakes and crimes against their Jewish communities adds another obstacle to peaceful resolutions to the problem.
5. Conspiracy theories
Analysis of the Arab and Muslim media and honest evaluation of comments on social media in the Arab and Muslim world show that Arab street tends to believe that any problem that occurs in the Arab world must be an "Israeli conspiracy," or, at very least, "It can't be the Arabs' fault!" For example, When, for example, sharks attacked several tourists at Egypt's Red Sea coast in 2010, many Arabs, including officials, originally accused Israel of planning the attack. Shortly after that, Saudi Arabia detained a vulture on "charges" of spying for Israel. When rats were accused of being trained by Israelis to drive Arabs from the Old City of Jerusalem, the award-winning journalist Khaled Abu Toameh drily noted , "It is not clear how these rats were taught to stay away from Jews, who also happen to live in the Old City."
Such terrible self-deception, which must stem from a feeling of supremacy (or inadequacy), and the shifting of blame for all problems in the Arab world onto Israel instead of admitting one's own wrongdoings, have reached pathological and self-destructive levels in the Arab world.
6. Psychological projection
Psychological projection is a mental mechanism in which people defend themselves against unconscious impulses that they might consider unflattering or forbidden, by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who has wishes that he does not want to admit to, will accuse other people of having them, such as greed, bigotry or sexual urges that might frighten him -- as a way of shifting the blame.
In this manner, despite the clear discrimination against non-Muslim minorities in most of the Arab and Muslim world (denying equal rights in church construction, for example), many in the Arab world point the finger only at Israel when they talk about discrimination.
It would be hard not mention in this context that the only place I have found discrimination in Israel was by Muslims, at the Al-Aqsa Mosque, where non-Muslims are not permitted to enter. (Sadly, because non-Muslims are seen as unclean). By contrast, I -- with my Muslim background -- was freely allowed to visit the Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem without any objection from the Israeli authorities.
7. Unprecedented levels of antisemitism
Nothing better illustrates the level of antisemitism in the Muslim world more than the statement of Soad Saleh when she justified Muslims raping Jewish women to humiliate them. Soad Saleh is a well-known scholar at Al-Azhar University, the most reputable Islamic university in the world. She is actually considered by many in the Arab street to be "moderate"!
Not a single well-known Islamic scholar stood up against her evil views. She remains in her position at Al-Azhar University and was not punished at all.
Such barbaric views are not limited to people like Soad Saleh. Unfortunately, careful evaluation of social media comments on issues related to the Arab-Israeli conflict shows beyond doubt that these beliefs are widespread in the Arab world.
It would be extremely difficult -- perhaps impossible -- to reach any peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict without first addressing this unrepentant antisemitism in the Arab and Muslim world.
8. Lack of Pragmatism
Another factor that impedes any peaceful solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is a general lack of pragmatism in the Arab world. For example, despite the many economic benefits to Egypt from the peace treaty with Israel (such as the return of the Sinai Peninsula and renewed access to the Suez Canal, both of which were a boon to trade and tourism), many Egyptians and the Arab of other nations still reject and refuse to follow the peaceful path of President Anwar Sadat. Arab resistance to peace with the Jewish people, despite the economic gains that resulted from the Camp David Accords, was clearly demonstrated when tens of thousands of Egyptians attacked and burned the Israeli Embassy in Cairo.
This kind of unpragmatic approach to the problem will always be an obstacle to solving the conflict only via economic incentives.
9. Ideological Factors
The strong ideological belief held by many Muslims that they MUST fight the Jews before the end days, and kill all of them, is another major obstacle to achieving true peace in the Middle East. It is important to note that such a belief is mainly based on a Hadith of Prophet Mohamed rather than the Quran itself.
10. Lack of Reformed Understanding of Islam
Traditional interpretations of Islam tend to limit the verses that speak positively about Jews to the past and on the contrary generalize the verses that were critical of the Jews in specific situations.
For example, many Muslims see the following verse as limited to the past: "Children of Israel, remember My favor which I have bestowed upon you and that I preferred you over mankind" (Quran 2: 122). By contrast, the verse that has been used to call all Jews "pigs and monkeys" was actually limited only to specific group among the Children of Israel who refused to obey the Torah in a particular situation at a particular time and place. Without going into sophisticated theological analysis, the main point is that if such verses are understood in a different way so that the first verse is not limited to the past and the second one is seen in it its historical context, Arab-Israeli relations would be much better today.
11. Education
While a bias against Jews starts at home -- it is not as if this view appears only on the first day of school -- children are fed a curriculum in much if the Arab and Muslim world that reinforces these prejudices. Saudi textbooks, for instance, while recently banning all influence of the Muslim Brotherhood, have not yet done the same for anti-Jewish, anti-Christian or anti-Sufi bias.
A Saudi textbook from 2016-2017, for instance, on Hadith (the sayings and actions attributed to the Prophet Muhammad), "baselessly alleges that Zionism aspires to world domination and a 'global Jewish government.'" (Now that is projection: world domination is what Salafi Islam aspires to; Judaism does not).
Palestinian textbooks are basically no different. The European Union is currently funding a study into Palestinian textbooks, brought about by the findings of the non-governmental organization IMPACT-se, which found in May that "the new Palestinian school [material] for the 2018–19 academic year... was 'more radical than those previously published.'"
"Most troubling," the NGO reported, "there is a systematic insertion of violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects in a more extensive and sophisticated manner..."
Meanwhile, no one is being educated for peace.
When we add onto all that the sad reality that Palestinian politicians are using the conflict to get billions of dollars in donations, we can understand why this conflict has so far not been solved.
*Dr. Tawfik Hamid, the author of Inside Jihad: How Radical Islam Works, Why It Should Terrify Us, How to Defeat It, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
© 2019 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.

Middle Eastern Terrorism Coming to the US through Its Mexican Border
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14632/terrorism-mexico-border
In May, Abu Henricki, a Canadian citizen of Trinidadian origin, told researchers with the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism that ISIS sought to recruit him and others to penetrate the US-Mexican border through routes originating in various Central American locations.... Other Trinidadians, he said, were also being approached to "do the same thing."
The idea that Islamic terror groups are operating in Mexico and eyeing—and exploiting—the porous US-Mexico border is not a hypothetical; unfortunately, it appears to be a fact. At least 15—though likely many more—suspected terrorists have already been apprehended crossing the border since 2001. One suspected terrorist who crossed the border, an ISIS supporter, already launched a terrorist attack in Canada that nearly killed five people.
The only question left is how much more evidence, and how many more attacks—and with what greater severity—are needed before this problem is addressed?
The idea that Islamic terror groups are operating in Mexico and eyeing—and exploiting—the porous US-Mexico border is not a hypothetical; unfortunately, it appears to be a fact. Pictured: The fence along the US-Mexico border, seen from Sunland Park, New Mexico.
A captured Islamic State fighter recently related how, in an effort to terrorize America on its own soil, the Islamic terror group is committed to exploiting the porous US-Mexico border, including through the aid of ISIS-sympathizers living in the United States.
"Whatever one thinks of President Donald Trump's heightened rhetoric about the US-Mexico border and his many claims that it is vulnerable to terrorists, ISIS apparently also thought so," according to the Government Technology and Services Coalition.
In May, Abu Henricki, a Canadian citizen of Trinidadian origin, told researchers with the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism that ISIS sought to recruit him and others to penetrate the US-Mexican border through routes originating in various Central American locations.
"The plan came from someone from the New Jersey state of America," Henricki confessed.
"I was going to take the boat from Puerto Rico into Mexico. He [N.J. resident] was going to smuggle me in.... They [ISIS] wanted to use these people [sympathizers living in the U.S.] because they were from these areas."
Other Trinidadians, he said, were also approached to "do the same thing."
"Our intent was not to support any political agenda," the nonpartisan International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism said.
"We don't want this to be used for fearmongering... That said, it would be erroneous — and detrimental to our safety and security — to outright downplay the potential terrorist threats emanating from our borders, similar to the Bush administration casting aside initial warnings about al-Qaeda plots with the result of American citizens eventually suffering the 9/11 attacks."
More importantly, the notion that Islamic terrorists might infiltrate by way of the U.S. southern border is not a hypothetical. It has already happened. In 2017, for instance, Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, originally from Somalia, launched what police in Edmonton, Canada labeled a terrorist attack. Sharif stabbed a police officer and then intentionally, it seemed, rammed his vehicle into four pedestrians. Sharif had an ISIS flag in his vehicle; he entered the United States by illegally crossing the US-Mexican border.
Furthermore, according to a November, 2018, report from the Center for Immigration Studies:
"From only public realm reporting, 15 suspected terrorists have been apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border, or en route, since 2001.
The 15 terrorism-associated migrants who traveled to the U.S. southern border likely represent a significant under-count since most information reflecting such border-crossers resides in classified or protected government archives and intelligence databases.
Affiliations included al-Shabaab, al-Ittihad al-Islamiya, Hezbollah, the Pakistani Taliban, ISIS, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami Bangladesh, and the Tamil Tigers.
At least five of the 15 were prosecuted for crimes in North American courts. One migrant is currently under Canadian prosecution for multiple attempted murder counts. Of the four in the United States, one was prosecuted for lying to the FBI about terrorism involvement, one for asylum fraud, one for providing material support to a terrorist organization, and one for illegal entry, false statements, and passport mutilation."
Europe offers a similar account. As the 2018 National Strategy for Counterterrorism of the United States of America report states:
"ISIS has been innovative and determined in its pursuit of attacks in the West. The group has exploited weaknesses in European border security to great effect by capitalizing on the migrant crisis to seed attack operatives into the region. For instance, two of the perpetrators of the 2015 ISIS attacks in Paris, France, [which killed over 130 people] infiltrated the country by posing as migrants."
The US-Mexico border is so alluring that long before ISIS came onto the scene, other Islamic terrorists were eying it—including as a potential gateway to smuggle anthrax into America in order to kill 330,000 Americans—and operating in it.
Examples are many. In 2011, federal officials announced that FBI and DEA agents disrupted a plot to commit a "significant terrorist act in the United States," tied to Iran with roots in Mexico. Months earlier a jihadi cell in Mexico was found to have a weapons cache of 100 M-16 assault rifles, 100 AR-15 rifles, 2,500 hand grenades, C4 explosives and antitank munitions. The weapons, it turned out, had been smuggled by Muslims from Iraq. According to the report, "obvious concerns have arisen concerning Hezbollah's presence in Mexico and possible ties to Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTO's) operating along the U.S.-Mexico border."
Such "concerns" might have been expected, considering that a year earlier it was reported that,
"Mexican authorities have rolled up a Hezbollah network being built in Tijuana, right across the border from Texas and closer to American homes than the terrorist hideouts in the Bekaa Valley are to Israel. Its goal, according to a Kuwaiti newspaper that reported on the investigation: to strike targets in Israel and the West. Over the years, Hezbollah—rich with Iranian oil money and narcocash—has generated revenue by cozying up with Mexican cartels to smuggle drugs and people into the U.S."
As far back as 2006, "Mexican authorities investigated the activities of the Murabitun [a Muslim missionary organization named after a historic jihadi group that terrorized Spain in the eleventh century] due to reports of alleged immigration and visa abuses involving the group's European members and possible radicals, including al-Qaeda."
The idea that Islamic terror groups are operating in Mexico and eyeing—and exploiting—the porous US-Mexico border is not a hypothetical; unfortunately, it appears to be a fact. At least 15—though likely many more—suspected terrorists have already been apprehended crossing the border since 2001. One suspected terrorist who crossed the border, an ISIS supporter, already launched a terrorist attack in Canada that nearly killed five people.
The only question left is how much more evidence, and how many more attacks—and with what greater severity—are needed before this problem is addressed?
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of the new book, Sword and Scimitar, Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2019 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.

Turkey Threatens to Reignite European Migrant Crisis
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14624/turkey-threatens-migrant-crisis
"We are facing the biggest wave of migration in history. If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience." — Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu.
"Turkey is fully committed to the objective of EU membership... The finalization of the Visa Liberalization Dialogue process which will allow our citizens to travel to the Schengen area without a visa, is our first priority." — Statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, May 9, 2019.
"This doesn't mean that I have anything against the Turks.... But if we begin to explain it — that Turkey is in Europe — European school students will have to be told that the European border lies in Syria. Where's common sense? ... Can Turkey be regarded a European country culturally, historically, and economically speaking? If we say that, we want the European Union's death." — Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
If the EU approves the visa waiver, tens of millions of Turks will gain immediate and unimpeded access to Europe's passport-free zone. Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and "many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe."
Turkey has threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe unless Turkish nationals are granted visa-free travel to the European Union. Turkey currently hosts an estimated 3.5 million migrants and refugees — mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. Many of these people presumably would migrate to Europe if given the opportunity to do so. Pictured: The Adiyaman refugee camp in Turkey. Turkey has threatened to re-open the floodgates of mass migration to Europe unless Turkish nationals are granted visa-free travel to the European Union. The EU agreed to visa liberalization in a March 2016 EU-Turkey migrant deal in which Ankara pledged to stem the flow of migrants to Europe.
European officials insist that while Turkey has reduced the flow of migrants, it has not yet met all of the requirements for visa liberalization. Moreover, EU foreign ministers on July 15 decided to halt high-level talks with Ankara as part of sanctions over Turkish oil and gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.
In an interview with Turkish television channel TGRT Haber on July 22, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu said that Turkey was backing out of the migrant deal because the EU had failed to honor its pledge to grant Turkish passport holders visa-free access to 26 European countries. "We have suspended the readmission agreement," he said. "We will not wait at the EU's door."
A day earlier, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu accused European countries of leaving Turkey alone to deal with the migration issue. In comments published by the state news agency Anadolu Agency, he warned: "We are facing the biggest wave of migration in history. If we open the floodgates, no European government will be able to survive for more than six months. We advise them not to try our patience."
The migration deal, which entered into force on June 1, 2016, was hastily negotiated by European leaders desperate to gain control over a crisis in which more than one million migrants poured into Europe in 2015.
Under the agreement, the EU pledged to pay Turkey €6 billion ($6.7 billion), grant visa-free travel to Europe for Turkey's 82 million citizens, and restart accession talks for Turkey to join the EU. In exchange, Turkey agreed to stop the flow of migrants to Europe as well as to take back all migrants and refugees who illegally reach Greece from Turkey.
Turkey currently hosts an estimated 3.5 million migrants and refugees — mainly Syrians, Iraqis and Afghans. Many of these people presumably would migrate to Europe if given the opportunity to do so.
Responding to Çavuşoğlu's remarks, EU spokesperson Natasha Bertaud insisted that Turkey's continued enforcement of the EU-Turkey deal remains a condition for visa liberalization.
Turkish officials have repeatedly accused the EU of failing to keep its end of the bargain, especially with respect to visa liberalization and accession to the EU.
Under the agreement, European officials promised to fast-track visa-free access for Turkish nationals to the Schengen (open-bordered) passport-free zone by June 30, 2016 and to restart Turkey's stalled EU membership talks by the end of July 2016.
To qualify for the visa waiver, Turkey had until April 30, 2016 to meet 72 conditions. These include: bringing the security features of Turkish passports up to EU standards; sharing information on forged and fraudulent documents used to travel to the EU, and granting work permits to non-Syrian migrants in Turkey.
European officials say that although Turkey has fulfilled most of their conditions, it has failed to comply with the most important one: relaxing its stringent anti-terrorism laws, which are being used to silence critics of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Since Turkey's failed coup on July 15, 2016, more than 95,000 Turkish citizens have been arrested and at least 160,000 civil servants, teachers, journalists, police officers and soldiers have been fired or suspended from various state-run institutions.
Responding to the purge, the European Parliament on March 13, 2019 called for EU accession negotiations with Turkey to be suspended. "While the EU accession process was at its start a strong motivation for reforms in Turkey, there has been a stark regression in the areas of the rule of law and human rights during the last few years," according to the adopted text.
Turkey was first promised EU membership in September 1963, when it signed an "Association Agreement" aimed at establishing a customs union to pave the way for eventual accession to the EU. Turkey formally applied for EU membership in April 1987 and membership talks began in October 2005.
Turkey's EU accession talks stalled in December 2006 after the Turkish government refused to open Turkish ports and airports to trade from Cyprus. Since then, talks have continued on and off, but the process has been stalled due to political opposition from France and Germany, among others.
If Turkey were to join the EU, it would overtake Germany to become the EU's largest member in terms of population. Consequently, the EU's largest member state would be Muslim. Some European officials have warned that Turkish accession would cause Europe to "implode" and be "Islamized."
Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said that Turkey has no place in the EU. In a February 2016 interview with the French news channel iTélé, he expressed sentiments that presumably are shared by many Europeans:
"Turkey has no place in Europe. I have always adhered to this position, it is based on common sense. This doesn't mean that I have anything against the Turks. We need them, they are our allies in NATO. But if we begin to explain it — that Turkey is in Europe — European school students will have to be told that the European border lies in Syria. Where's common sense?
"It's not just that. What's the idea behind Europe? Europe is a union of European countries. The question is very simple, even in a geographical sense, is Turkey a European country? Turkey has only one shore of the Bosporus in Europe. Can Turkey be regarded a European country culturally, historically, and economically speaking? If we say that, we want the European Union's death."
On May 9, 2019, Erdoğan said that Turkey was committed to joining the EU. A statement released by the Turkish Foreign Ministry noted:
"Turkey remains committed to its objective of EU membership and continues its efforts in this respect.... Our expectation from the EU is to treat Turkey on equal footing with other candidate countries and to remove political barriers on the way of negotiations which is supposed to be a technical process...
"Although our accession negotiations are politically blocked, Turkey decisively continues its efforts for alignment with the EU standards. In the meeting today, we have set out the current developments in Turkey and agreed on the steps to be taken in the forthcoming period.
"The finalization of the Visa Liberalization Dialogue process which will allow our citizens to travel to the Schengen area without a visa, is our first priority."
Even if Turkey complies with all of the EU's demands, it seems unlikely that Turkish nationals will be granted visa-free travel anytime soon. On July 15, EU foreign ministers formally linked progress on Turkish-EU relations to Cyprus. A measure adopted by the European Council on July 15 states:
"The Council deplores that, despite the European Union's repeated calls to cease its illegal activities in the Eastern Mediterranean, Turkey continued its drilling operations west of Cyprus and launched a second drilling operation northeast of Cyprus within Cypriot territorial waters. The Council reiterates the serious immediate negative impact that such illegal actions have across the range of EU-Turkey relations. The Council calls again on Turkey to refrain from such actions, act in a spirit of good neighborliness and respect the sovereignty and sovereign rights of Cyprus in accordance with international law....
"In light of Turkey's continued and new illegal drilling activities, the Council decides to suspend ... further meetings of the EU-Turkey high-level dialogues for the time being. The Council endorses the Commission's proposal to reduce the pre-accession assistance to Turkey for 2020."
European officials may be justified in taking a hardline stance against Turkey, but Ankara is well positioned to create chaos for the European Union if it chooses to do so. Indeed, Europe appears to be trapped in a no-win situation.
If the EU approves the visa waiver, tens of millions of Turks will gain immediate and unimpeded access to Europe's passport-free zone. Critics of visa liberalization fear that millions of Turkish nationals may end up migrating to Europe. The Austrian newsmagazine, Wochenblick, reported that 11 million Turks are living in poverty and "many of them are dreaming of moving to central Europe."
Others believe that Erdoğan views the visa waiver as an opportunity to "export" Turkey's "Kurdish Problem" to Germany. Markus Söder, the head of the Christian Social Union, the Bavarian sister party to German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, warned that millions of Kurds are poised to take advantage of the visa waiver to flee to Germany to escape persecution at the hands of Erdoğan: "We are importing an internal Turkish conflict. In the end, fewer migrants may arrive by boat, but more will arrive by airplane."
On the other hand, if the EU rejects the visa waiver, and Turkey retaliates by reopening the migration floodgates, potentially hundreds of thousands of migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East could once again begin flowing into Europe.
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
© 2019 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.

The UN's Deadly Silence on Iran's Maritime Violations
د. مجيد رافيزادا/معهد كينستون: سكوت الأمم المتحدة المميت على تعديات ومخالفات إيران البحرية
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/August 01/2010
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77195/%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7-%d9%85%d8%b9%d9%87%d8%af-%d9%83%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%b3%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86-%d8%b3%d9%83%d9%88%d8%aa-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a3%d9%85/
Tehran is clearly violating international law, specifically the internationally-agreed UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).... The theocratic establishment of Iran is a signatory to this UN convention but has long refrained from ratifying it.
Wherever silence prevails, rogue states thrive. In the instance of Iran, the silence of the international community has been earsplitting. Moreover, any destructive behavior left unchecked is being passively reinforced; if the international community continues its silence while their unruly pet violates UN resolutions and maritime laws, they can only expect such violations to become the norm.
The UN needs to hold the Iranian leaders accountable and take appropriate measures against Iran's aggression in the Gulf. If the UN fails to do this, other nations would be stupid not to take the cue deliberately to disobey existing international laws -- possibly leading to a major war.
On June 13, 2019, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Iran for the attack on two oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman, saying, "This assessment is based on intelligence, the weapons used, the level of expertise needed to execute the operation, recent similar Iranian attacks on shipping and the fact that no proxy group operating in the area has the resources and proficiency to act with such a high degree of sophistication."
In recent times, nothing has exemplified the double standards of the international community more than its laid-back response to the illicit activities and recklessness of Iran in international waterways during the last few months.
Bizarrely, the international community and its ever-so-willing apologists cronies in the mainstream media seem more interested in chasing shadows with their constant criticism of Israel, while slyly ignoring the main culprit, Iran, which continues to jeopardize safety, peace and security in the region and worldwide.
In May 2019, for instance, four tankers were attacked close to the port of Fujairah off the coast of the United Arab Emirates, in what was a violation of their territorial space. Within a month, on the June 13, two ships – the Japanese Kokuka Courageous and the Norwegian Front Altair -- crossing the Gulf of Oman were sabotaged with explosives. One went up in flames; the other was left to be towed away.
A few weeks later, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) released a video showing commandos in black ski masks and military fatigues descending from a helicopter to seize a British oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians would on go to shoot down an American drone over International waters. All of these provocations have somehow seemed to be slipped under the radar by the UN and other powers that be.
Tehran is clearly violating international law, specifically the internationally-agreed UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Section two of UNCLOS, for instance, in "Duties of States bordering straits" (Article 44) states:
"States bordering straits shall not hamper transit passage and shall give appropriate publicity to any danger to navigation or overflight within or over the strait of which they have knowledge. There shall be no suspension of transit passage."
The theocratic establishment of Iran is a signatory to this UN convention but has long refrained from ratifying it. If violations by the Iranian government such as those above are disconcerting, even more unsettling are their threats completely to shut the Strait of Hormuz.
This is not be the first time the Iranian leaders are making such dangerous threats. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, in fact, the regime has frequently threatened to block or cause serious damage to the shipment of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.
Threatening to block one of the world's most critical maritime passages has been a core pillar of Iran's foreign policy. Almost four decades of the Islamic Republic reveals that the theocratic establishment has historically threatened to choke off the Strait of Hormuz whenever it fails to achieve or further advance its revolutionary, ideological, and political objectives through other means, including interference and interventions in the domestic affairs of other nations.
Wherever silence prevails, rogue states thrive. In the instance of Iran, the silence of the international community has been earsplitting. Moreover, any destructive malign behavior left unchecked is being passively reinforced; hence, if the international community continues to keep silent, while their unruly pet violates UN resolutions and maritime laws, they can only expect such violations to become the norm.
Picture a scenario in which Israel is the country committing these violations; by now, we would perhaps be struggling to keep up with the long list of resolutions against the Jewish state. The UN needs to hold the Iranian leaders accountable and take appropriate measures against Iran's aggression in the Gulf. If the UN fails to do this, other nations would be stupid not to take the cue deliberately to disobey existing international laws -- possibly leading to a major war. I hope this day never comes.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 2019 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.
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14626/iran-maritime-violations

Iran’s leaders to blame for country’s financial crisis
د.مجيد رافيزادا: قادة إيران يتحملون مسؤولية الأزمة المالية
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/August 01, 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/77200/%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7-%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a9-%d8%a5%d9%8a%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%ad%d9%85%d9%84%d9%88%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%b3%d8%a4/
Iran’s economy is in a much worse situation than international financial institutions predicted just a few weeks ago. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) reportedin April that inflation could reach 40 percent, while the World Bank indicated in June that Tehran’s gross domestic product (GDP) would shrink4.5 percent this year. That was 0.9 percent worse than its prediction in January. But, thanks to data releasedby the Statistical Center of Iran last week, the picture appears even gloomier.
Among the parameters through which a healthy economy can be measured are its rate of inflation and the price of commodities compared to average salary. According to the Statistical Center of Iran, consumer inflation has reached almost 50 percent — some 10 percent higher than the IMF predicted and 25 times higher than the inflation rate in an efficient economy. Generally, an acceptable inflation rate is about 2 percent.
The astronomical increase in inflation has affected consumer prices in Iran, which have increasedby nearly 60 percent year on year in rural areas. In some sectors, priceshave gone up by nearly 100 percent. For example, the cost of basic foods such as fruit, vegetables and meat have increased more than other commodities. In July, the price of meat had risen by 95 percent in comparison to last year.
In order to better understand how this inflation is actually affecting ordinary people, the average salary and employment rate should be examined.
The average monthly salaryin Iran is about 25 million rials ($200). But it is important to point out that the unemploymentrate has been in the double digits for the last decade. Although Iran has an educated youth population, which constitutesmore than 60 percent of the entire population, more than 30 percent of them cannot find jobs. Also, more than 40 percent of the population, which is approximately 32 million citizens, live below the poverty line.
But, even if we consider those who are fortunate enough to be employed, the overwhelming majority of the population is still struggling to make ends meet. The average rent in urban areas often exceedsthe salaries of many full-time workers, let alone other basic necessities such as food, medicine, transportation, school fees, etc. For example, Darioush, a full-time teacher who has been working in public schools in Tehran for more than 11 years, said: “The average teacher’s salary is around 12 million rials a month. The rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the suburbs of Tehran is about 20 million rials a month. A typical doctor visit will cost you about 1.1 million rials (approximately 10 percent of the salary).”
There are several reasons for Iran’s high inflation. One is the renewed US sanctions on Iran, which are part of Washington’s policy of imposing maximum pressure on the country. After US President Donald Trump last year withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, the US Treasury Department reimposed the primary and secondary sanctions that were lifted under the Obama administration. These include sanctions on Iran’s automotive and shipping sectors, the energy industry, and currency transactions.
But the Iranian regime has been most hurt by the sanctions leveled on its oil sector, with the US’ stated objective being to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero. Iran’s oil revenues and exports have been steadily falling as a result. Before the US took a tougher stance toward the Iranian regime, it was exportingmore than 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd). In June, however, Iran’s oil exports had dropped to approximately 300,000 bpd — a decline of more than 80 percent.
The overwhelming majority of the population is still struggling to make ends meet.
It is worth noting that Iran’s high inflation and crumbling economy has not only been caused by US sanctions, as some policy analysts, scholars and politicians may suggest. The underlying factors are ingrained in Tehran’s political and financial institutions, which are the country’s backbone. In other words, the widespread corruption within the theocratic establishment and across the political spectrum; the mismanagement of the economy by the leadership; embezzlement and money laundering within the banking system; and the hemorrhaging of the nation’s wealth on militias, terror groups and proxies across the region are the major factors contributing to the crisis.
To be more specific, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliates, the Office of the Supreme Leader, and the regime’s cronies are also responsible as they control considerable parts of the economy and financial systems. The IRGCalone controls more than half of Iran’s GDP and owns several major economic powerhouses and religious endowments, such as Astan Qods Razavi in the northeastern city of Mashhad.
The high rate of inflation is ravaging Iran’s economy and hurting the ordinary people. But there is no one to blame other than the Iranian leaders for their widespread corruption, mismanagement of the economy, and expenditure on terror and militia groups across the region.
*Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Facebook Negotiated Its Rules
Matt Levine/Bloomberg/August 01/2019
Apparently Facebook Inc. will pay a $5 billion fine to the Federal Trade Commission for doing some bad privacy stuff, and will agree to take some steps to stop doing so much bad privacy stuff in the future. (There’ll be a committee.) The settlement is not official yet but has been pretty well previewed. I have always found this particular Facebook privacy scandal—it’s the Cambridge Analytica one—sort of puzzling, and the specific terms of the settlement aren’t really public yet, so I don’t propose to get into the substance of it.
But I do want to talk about this article by Tony Romm in the Washington Post, about the negotiations and back story around the settlement, because it is the most illuminating thing I have read about US regulation generally in a long time.
The basic story is that some people at the FTC wanted to push to get a lot more concessions out of Facebook as part of the settlement. “Those included fining Facebook not just $5 billion, but tens of billions of dollars, and imposing more direct liability for the company’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg.” They also included more structural changes in how Facebook deals with user data. But Facebook said no:
Facebook’s team of lawyers, overseen by Colin Stretch, then the company’s general counsel, steadfastly opposed placing Zuckerberg under order, including during meetings with commission negotiators starting last year. The tech giant’s internal briefing materials reflected its willingness to cease settlement talks and send the matter to court, if necessary, to protect their executive from one of the most severe penalties the FTC could levy on him directly. Commission staff at one point sought to include in their order a section that pointed out all the times that Zuckerberg had spoken or posted publicly about Facebook’s privacy commitments. Facebook vigorously battled against that, too.
Facebook leaders further sought to ward off any restrictions on the way they collect data in the first place, another long-sought stipulation by commission Democrats who felt the agency should seek injunctions to change companies’ behavior — not just monitor them for years to come. Privacy watchdog groups, including the Electronic Privacy Information Center, heavily emphasized the need for these “structural remedies” at Facebook for more than a year.
Part of what is going on here appears to be that some people at the FTC thought that Facebook had done some very bad violations of the law (and of a previous FTC consent decree) and that Zuckerberg was personally responsible, while some people at Facebook thought that it hadn’t 1 and he wasn’t. These are legal and factual disputes that I do not propose to evaluate, though I would say that the fact that Facebook was willing to go to court to argue its side, while the FTC wasn’t, suggests that Facebook had at least a decent argument.
But the more important thing that is going on here is that some people—at the FTC and elsewhere—thought that the FTC should mandate big structural changes in how Facebook works, “the way they collect data in the first place,” and Facebook did not. This is not a legal or factual dispute; it’s a policy dispute, and it has nothing to do with the questions of what Facebook did wrong or how responsible Zuckerberg was. Even if Facebook has an airtight case that everything it did with the Cambridge Analytica data was totally allowed under existing law and regulation and consent decrees, the FTC—and “privacy watchdogs,” and Congress, and you—might nonetheless want to require changes in how Facebook collects data.
The United States actually, as a country, has a mechanism to do that. It is called “passing a law.”
Some members of Congress, the body charged with writing legislation, could write a bill saying “social media companies can’t collect data in the following bad ways,” or whatever, and then the other members of Congress could debate it, and when they (and the president) agreed it would be passed and become law, and then there would be new restrictions on the way that Facebook collects data. And if Facebook violated them it would pay even bigger fines, or it would be shut down, or its executives would go to jail, or whatever the law said.
In this process, Facebook would probably have some input into the new rules. Mark Zuckerberg is a US citizen; he can write to his congressperson like anyone else. More realistically, Facebook has a lot of lawyers and lobbyists and campaign-contribution clout, and congresspeople will listen to what it has to say. Facebook also has a lot of relevant expertise, and a responsible lawmaker—even one who doesn’t like or trust Facebook much—would want to consider input from Facebook about how the rules should work. In theory, this is why Congress holds hearings.
But the process wouldn’t be a one-on-one negotiation. It’s not like Congress would say “we want to regulate your data collection practices” and Facebook would say “hmm no we’d rather you didn’t” and Congress would say “okay you have good lawyers we give up.” Facebook’s main leverage against the FTC—“we don’t think we did anything wrong and if you insist on restricting our data collection we will see you in court”—just wouldn’t work to stop Congress from making a law, because it is irrelevant. Congress can make a law about data privacy even if no one has broken any previous laws. In fact that’s the best reason to make a law! “There is a bad thing that is happening, and there is no law against it, so we should make a law against it”: That is a perfectly sensible line of reasoning!
Romm’s article hints at this, but in a little bit of an odd way:
The experience illustrates the challenges facing a 105-year-old agency hamstrung in the kinds of penalties it can pursue by the nation’s lack of a national consumer privacy law. While some lawmakers bemoan the FTC’s inability to punish Facebook, Congress has yet to advance legislation that would give the FTC a stronger hand as it confronts some of the most profitable corporations in the global economy. …
On Capitol Hill, Democrats and Republicans alike reacted to the Facebook deal with outrage, even though over the roughly 480 days that the FTC investigated Facebook, lawmakers had failed to pass a single privacy bill that might have empowered the FTC to be tougher on tech giants.
The idea of passing a law to ban bad stuff is not to give the FTC more power to negotiate stricter settlement conditions. The idea of passing a law to ban bad stuff is to ban the bad stuff. If Congress passed a law restricting social media companies’ data collection practices, then the FTC wouldn’t need to include those restrictions in a consent decree with Facebook, because those restrictions would be in the law. Facebook would be bound by them, not because it agreed to them, but because they would be the law. Twitter and Google and other yet-to-be-invented internet services would also be bound by them, even without agreeing to them, because they would be generally applicable national rules about internet privacy passed by the legislative body in the name of the people, rather than the product of negotiations with one company.
Instead Congress is writing strongly worded letters to the FTC, hoping that the FTC will be able to change the rules for Facebook by litigation or a negotiated consent decree. But Congress can change the rules! By itself! By just writing them! That is its literal and only job!
So why not just do that? I suppose there are the usual sad dumb 4 explanations: Washington gridlock, congressional dysfunction, inertia, hyper partisanship, a lack of technical expertise among legislators, no real agreement on what the rules should be, etc.
But I actually think there’s a deeper and stranger explanation here. 5 Facebook did some things that a lot of people are upset about, some of which (certain sorts of data sharing) probably violated the laws or its earlier consent decrees, and others of which (certain sorts of data collection) didn’t. We want to stop it from doing all those things again, and the most straightforward way to do that is to pass a law saying which things you can’t do. But Americans are biased toward thinking of bad things as being already illegal, always illegal, illegal by definition and by nature and in themselves. If the thing that Facebook did was so bad, then it must have been illegal, so there is no need for a new law against it. At most we need a settlement with Facebook clarifying exactly which things it did were illegal and specifying that it won’t do them again. People are angry at Facebook, and that anger takes essentially punitive rather than legislative forms; we want to regulate Facebook’s future conduct as punishment for its past conduct, not as part of a general law. It is hard to imagine that a company could have done a bad thing without also breaking the law—which makes it hard to write new laws to prevent future bad things.

No-deal Brexit could be exploited by terrorists
Nathalie Goulet/Arab News/August 01, 2019
Terrorism is a major international security issue. While the Treaty on European Union clearly states that national security is a national issue, the EU has also realized the benefits of increased collaboration against a common enemy. In the past five years, the European Parliamenthas increased its security budget, expanded Europol’s access to information, established the Passenger Name Record (PNR), and tackled money laundering head-on to prevent the financing of terrorism. There are also a multitude of databases and tools that Europol has created for the betterment of the entire bloc’s security.
First and foremost is the Europol Information System(EIS), which allows instant and unfettered access to intelligence all throughout the EU. For example, if the Croatian government wants to access French cellphone records of a suspicious individual, it can do so without a lengthy bureaucratic process that would allow perpetrators to duck justice for longer.
In the case of money laundering and terrorist financing, the EIS allows the trail of cash to be followed from country to country. If a suspicious individual is noted making an unusual bank transfer in one member state, the EIS makes that information available to all. The EU takes money laundering very seriously and addresses it with its Anti-Money Laundering Directives (AMLD).
A similar tool to the EIS is the European Criminal Records Information System (ECRIS). Thislogs DNA evidence, fingerprints and the records of convicts across the EU, including third country citizens, and essentially restricts the movement of criminals. This information is also usedin conjunction with the PNR to identify and track the movement of individuals flying both domestically and internationally. When combined with the Schengen Information System immigration database, it creates multiple layers of protection against potentially dangerous travelers. And, when they do get through, the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) makes sure they are brought to swift justice.
The common theme between all these measures is convenience, cooperation, and speed. They have led to the public perception of adequacy in fighting terrorism increasing by 9 percent from 2016 to 2018. This perception change is in response to thousands of arrests and the removal of 45,000 extremist messages from the internet. Current terrorist arrest rates are nearly doublethose of 2014.
Along with France and President Emmanuel Macron’s task force, the UK has been one of the leaders in the charge against terror. For starters, it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council and its intelligence gathering has contributed greatly to the common data sets of Europol. In leaving the EU, the UK will also leave an invaluable security network that it helped build.
Criminals love instability, and nothing brings about instability like times of radical change.
Criminals love instability, and nothing brings about instability like times of radical change. The UK’s controversial vote to exit the EU has brought with it a mounting threat of increased money laundering, especially to fund terrorist organizations. This is not only due to the economic instability that comes with the shift, but also due to the country’s unclear status as a part of Europe’s international networks of policing and intelligence. The EU is about to implementits Fifth Money Laundering Directive to combat shell corporations, the misuse of virtual currencies, and create a public register of corporations and their beneficiaries.
It is unlikely that the UK could follow suit as effectively without the intelligence of Europol. The issue of laundering currently coststhe country £24 billion ($29 billion) per year. Accordingto a UK proposal to maintain a close partnership with Europol, the nation “contributed over 6,000 pieces of information to the Europol serious and organized crime analysis projects… more than any other member state.” It is clearly a symbiotic relationship that both parties will be worse off for losing. In order to curtail that instability and maintain ties with Europol, a divorce deal is necessary.
It is unclear if citizens and voters in the midst of a burning summer understand the severity of the situation and exactly how much is at stake. All of the aforementioned security tools will be lost without a proper exit strategy.
Former Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal included paying €39 billion ($43 billion) to the EU to settle the UK’s debts, as well as a much-needed transition period until at least the end of 2020. This transition period would allowfor the future relationship between the UK and EU to be hammered out after the secession, while leaving the UK under EU law without the ability to vote on EU resolutions, something Brexiteers are not fans of. However, an agreement is crucial due to a myriad of issues, ranging from the status of UK nationals working elsewhere in the EU to the relocation of financial institutions. Essentially, all of these concerns can be answered if a deal is agreed. The EU would essentially taper off the relationship instead of chopping it on Oct. 31.
Under hard-line new PM Boris Johnson, the threat of a no-deal Brexit is higher than ever. Even though May leveraged the no-deal scenario against the EU to the best of her abilities, Johnson’s far-right, cavalier attitude has the future of the UK truly up in the air. May’s resignation came in the wake of three failed attempts to get British MPs on board with her exit plan. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the EU’s insistence on an Irish border backstop, which would keep the entirety of the UK under European customs regulations, including packages sent from the UK to Northern Ireland. This obviously goes against the fundamental goal of the Brexiteers, which is trade and commerce unregulated by the EU. The EU has refused to reopen negotiations without a backstop or a technical backstop solution. Johnson has promised that, regardless of a deal, the UK will complete its exit on Oct. 31.
With only three months to decide the fate of European security, there are several scenarios on the table. In a report entitled “The EU-UK relationship beyond Brexit: Options for Police Cooperation and Judicial Cooperation in Criminal Matters,” the European Parliament outlined what the next course of action could be. Both parties are clear on wanting some sort of relationship, yet the extent is not agreed on. An unprecedented special operational arrangement is the best-case scenario, while a no-deal scenario would leave the UK reliant on Interpol and its own records to solve crimes.
A no-deal scenario would essentially make the UK no different to the EU than, say, Mongolia as far as criminal justice cooperation goes. This lack of cooperation, compounded with the issue of bank headquarters and their anti-laundering experts fleeing the UK, would leavethe country entirely to its own devices on that front. In addition, it would be far more difficult to track the movement of criminal individuals or groups as they move through Europe into the UK. This problem requires an exit deal to open the door for negotiations, and then for those negotiations to carefully weigh politics and ethics in protecting European security.
Brexit should not become a new opportunity for terrorists who are already taking advantage of European solidarity and security breaches. The UK may become somewhat of a breeding ground for European terror. Let’s hope a deal is struck for the sake of our world’s security.
*Nathalie Goulet is a member of the Senate of France, representing the Orne department (Normandy). Twitter: @senateur61.