English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 04/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
You cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves
Matthew 23/13-15: “‘But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.””

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 03-04/2020
Hassan: Lockdown Could be Extended
Beirut Hospital Director Restores Some Faith in Public Sector
MoPH announces additional results of returnees' PCR tests
Health Ministry: 177 new corona cases
US Ambassador: We respect Lebanon with all its components
Kubis via Twitter: Quite a message delivered by the resignation of Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti
Greenpeace MENA condemns start up of unit 1 of Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant
Geagea lauds Hitti's decision to resign
Report: France Conveys ‘Assurances’ to Hizbullah
Often on Brink, Lebanon Headed toward 'Collapse'
Lebanese FM Nassif Hitti resigns amid economic crisis
Lebanese FM Quits Over Slow Reforms, Aoun Adviser Takes Over
Charbel Wehbe Named Lebanon's New Foreign Minister
Hariri Assassination: The Day that Rocked Lebanon
Who are the accused in Rafic Hariri murder trial?
Lebanon: from Hariri assassination to verdict
Audio/Mapping Hezbollah's Worldwide Activities

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 03-04/2020
Suspected Boko Haram militants kill 16 in northern Cameroon
One Person is Dying of COVID-19 Every Seven Minutes in Iran
WHO Chief: There May Never be a 'Silver Bullet' for COVID-19
Former Pope Benedict XVI Reportedly 'Extremely Frail'
Israel Fears European Sanctions if Trump Loses Elections
12 pro-regime, 6 rebel fighters killed in Syria clashes: monitor
Iran says it detains leader of California-based exile group
Merkel and German city urged to help stop executions of Iranian protesters
Turkish brig.-gen. executed for revealing Qatari funding of jihadists
Iran Will Expand Nuclear Program and Won’t Talk to U.S., Ayatollah Says
Israel Army Says Killed 4 Planting Bombs at Syria Border
 

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 03-04/2020

Is IED incident a dangerous escalation on Israel, Syria border?/Seith J.Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 03/2020
Israel Defense Force (IDF) thwarts attack along Syria border fence/Jerusalem Post/August 03/2020
Palestinians' Chief Negotiator or Chief Liar?/Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute/August 03/2020
Making the Palestinian Cause Political Again/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 03/2020
Why Big Nations Have Been Brought Low by the Pandemic/Mihir Sharma/Bloomberg/August 03/2020
 

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 03-04/2020

Hassan: Lockdown Could be Extended
Naharnet/August 03/2020
Health Minister Hamad Hassan lamented on Monday that public health procedures to counter the spread of COVID-19 are not being respected, warning that the period of lockdown could be extended if the present general mobilization was assessed negatively. The Minister said that people are not taking the preventive measures and lockdown rules seriously. He said the scientific committee could advise a lockdown extension for another 15 days if general mobilization results were assessed negatively. He also suggested cutting the number of arrivals at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport to less than 2000 travelers. Hassan extended his condolences over the death of a health worker at state-run Rafik Hariri University Hospital who had contracted coronavirus.

Beirut Hospital Director Restores Some Faith in Public Sector
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 03/2020
Dr Firass Abiad was a little-known Beirut hospital director until the coronavirus pandemic propelled him into the spotlight and restored at least some faith in Lebanon's much-maligned public sector. At a time when the country has also been mired in its deepest economic crisis in decades and rocked by runaway inflation and violent street protests, Abiad has emerged as a comforting voice of reason amid the chaos. Before the COVID-19 crisis hit, his Rafik Hariri University Hospital was synonymous with labour strikes over unpaid wages and regarded as a last resort for the neediest patients who have no health insurance.
But since the first coronavirus case was reported in Lebanon in February, Abiad's hospital has taken centre-stage in battling a disease that has infected 4,885 people and cost 62 lives across the country. His prolific Twitter feed has since become a point of reference for Lebanese for its near daily updates and commentary on the pandemic. On a typical recent workday, 52-year-old Abiad inspected an outdoors testing centre and then checked in via video call with his staff, wearing full protective gear inside the coronavirus ward. Playing down his newfound celebrity, a local equivalent of that surrounding US top infectious diseases specialist Anthony Fauci, the American University of Beirut (AUB) graduate spoke to AFP in measured tones."I'm only doing what should be expected of all public sector employees," said the gastrointestinal and bariatric surgeon, who has headed the hospital since 2015.
The spotlight should instead be on his team, he argued, and on a rare functioning institution "in a country that lacks them".
- Twitter 'influencer' -
The virus struck as Lebanon is mired in its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war and authorities appear paralysed by endless political deadlock over ever deteriorating public services. As power cuts peaked at around 15 hours a day in July and fuel for the hospital's generators started to run out, Abiad was forced to close down two of its six operating theatres and postpone surgeries. But just one tweet from him was enough to spark a flurry of donations. In a country long stymied by entrenched sectarianism and cronyism, Abiad has been held up as an example of a public sector employee who puts the interests of others first. After images circulated online last month of a crowd of people queueing to be tested at the hospital, Abiad swiftly acknowledged the need for better social distancing. Activist Dona Maallawi, 29, praised Abiad's no-nonsense communication style, saying "he issues near daily updates about the situation, without embellishments but rather with clear knowledge of the details". The hospital director himself says he finds such praise "annoying" and despairs at such low expectations of the public sector. In between his duties, Abiad takes to Twitter to dispense advice on how to avoid a worst-case scenario that would overwhelm Lebanese hospitals, correcting any misinformation with tact and diplomacy. With little other reliable commentary available, local media scramble to translate his mostly English posts into Arabic. Christophe Martin, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Lebanon, said Abiad had become an "influencer". "He is today one of the very few Lebanese citizens working in the public domain that truly and honestly works for (its) best interests," he said. "One needs to just read his threads on Twitter to realise how much intelligence, reflection he brings in his overall communication."
- 'Treating the poor' -
Abiad said his move five years ago from the prestigious and well-equipped AUB medical centre to an underfunded state hospital was no easy choice. But he saw it as his "duty" to take on the running of the ICRC-backed Rafik Hariri hospital, as it was "the main one treating the working class and the poor".
As daily cases hit a new record of 224 on Friday, even after authorities had re-instated a partial lockdown, he urged Lebanese on Twitter to take the spike "very seriously". "Measures have to be enforced with no exceptions," he warned. "The public has to comply for its own good. If we falter, it will be a very steep fall."Speaking to AFP, he urged better equipped and more numerous private hospitals to shoulder their share of the burden, despite their fears it might mean even more unpaid bills by the state. The father of three fears renewed pressure on the health sector during a possible autumn rise in cases -- but remains optimistic about Lebanon pulling through if adequate measures are taken. Until then, Abiad said, he would take comfort in the solidarity among his staff and the everyday "small wins".

MoPH announces additional results of returnees' PCR tests
NNA/August 03/2020
The Ministry of Public Health, on Monday, announced the results of PCR tests that were conducted on August 1/8/2020 and 2/8/202, at Beirut airport, which were all found virus-free.

Health Ministry: 177 new corona cases
NNA/August 03/2020
The Public Health Ministry indicated on Monday that 177 new coronavirus cases have been registered today, thus raising the cumulative number of infected cases to-date to 5062 cases. 159 cases were locally detected and 18 among returnees.

US Ambassador: We respect Lebanon with all its components
NNA/August 03/2020
US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, on Monday reiterated the US administration's respect to Lebanon "with all its components." The US diplomat's words came during a meeting with Syriac Catholic Patriarch, Ignatius Joseph III Younan. "We always seek to spread the truth and build bridges of cooperation," Shea added, expressing full support for all shades of freedom. Moreover, US ambassador did not fail to express her solidarity with the Lebanese people, hoping that Lebanon will eventually restore its prosperity.
For his part, Younan expressed support for the principle of active neutrality in Lebanon.

Kubis via Twitter: Quite a message delivered by the resignation of Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti
NNA/August 03/2020
The United Nations Secretary-General's special representative in Lebanon, Jan Kubis, said via Twitter: "Quite a message delivered by the resignation of Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti ! Will this cry of deep frustration move #Lebanon to finally work on reforms, on measures taking care of the Lebanese, sinking every day deeper into poverty and desperation?"

Greenpeace MENA condemns start up of unit 1 of Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant
NNA/August 03/2020
Greenpeace MENA issued a statement condemning the start-up of unit 1 of the Barakah Nuclear Energy Plant, located in the Al Dhafrah Region of Abu Dhabi - the first nuclear plant in the region. "It is a wasteful investment in the wrong technology that will only deplete the scarce water resources of the Emirates," the statement read. Julien Jreissati, program manager at Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa, said, "Nuclear energy is not the energy of the future, and definitely not the solution. With it we are leaving our future generations with nothing but a toxic legacy of radioactive and dangerous nuclear waste."

Geagea lauds Hitti's decision to resign
NNA/August 03/2020
Lebanese Forces leader, Samir Geagea, on Monday resorted to twitter to laud Lebanon's Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti's decision to resign. "First, I salute minister Hitti for his transparency and sincerity. In Lebanon, we rarely come across a minister who resigns out of his own personal convictions,"Geagea tweeted. "Secondly, it was quite evident through the minister's resignation letter that the political forces that are currently running the country will eventually turn it into a failed state," Geagea's tweet added. He also commended Hitti's testimony, saying that it emanated from practical experience that lasted for more than 6 months - void of any direct and narrow political interests.Geagea concluded his tweet by saying that the situation in Lebanon will not be remedied for as long as "Hezbollah" and the "Free Patriotic Movement" and their allies are ruling the country.
 

Report: France Conveys ‘Assurances’ to Hizbullah
Naharnet/August 03/2020
France has reportedly conveyed “assurances” that the ruling in the murder trial of ex-PM Rafik Hariri will not be followed by international procedures against Hizbullah, and that France has played a major role to make that possible, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Monday. Quoting diplomatic sources, the daily said: “Paris has assured Hizbullah that ruling in the assassination case of Hariri will not be followed by an international course or effects against the party, and that Paris has played a fundamental role in this field.”The sources added that France has in return asked Hizbullah to show “lenient” positions and stop media campaigns against the Gulf States, reported al-Joumhouria. According to the sources, Paris will also work to control the behaviour of Bahaa Hariri, the son of the slain ex-PM, so that anti-Hizbullah regional powers do not invest that in their own interest. It added that the new French ambassador will continue the task of direct contact with Hizbullah, and an expert assistant will assist in this matter. A UN-backed tribunal will give its verdict Friday on the 2005 murder of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri. The suspects are four alleged members of Hizbullah. They are on trial in absentia at the court in the Netherlands over the huge Beirut suicide bombing that killed Sunni billionaire Hariri and 21 other people.

Often on Brink, Lebanon Headed toward 'Collapse'
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 03/2020
Power cuts that last up to 20 hours a day. Mountains of trash spilling into streets. Long lines at gas stations. It may seem like a standard summer in Lebanon, a country used to wrestling with crumbling infrastructure as it vaults from one disaster to another.
Only this time, it's different, Every day brings darker signs Lebanon has rarely seen in past crises: Mass layoffs, hospitals threatened with closure, shuttered shops and restaurants, crimes driven by desperation, a military that can no longer afford to feed its soldiers meat and warehouses that sell expired poultry.
Lebanon is hurtling toward a tipping point at an alarming speed, driven by financial ruin, collapsing institutions, hyperinflation and rapidly rising poverty — with a pandemic on top of that. The collapse threatens to break a nation seen as a model of diversity and resilience in the Arab world and potentially open the door to chaos. Lebanese worry about a decline so steep it would forever alter the small Mediterranean country's cultural diversity and entrepreneurial spirit, unparalleled in the Middle East.In the past, Lebanon has been able to in part blame its turmoil on outsiders. With 18 religious sects, a weak central government and far more powerful neighbors, it has always been caught in regional rivalries leading to political paralysis, violence or both. Its 1975-90 civil war made the word "Beirut" synonymous with war's devastation and produced a generation of warlords-turned-politicians that Lebanon hasn't been able to shake off to this day.
Since the war ended, the country has suffered a Syrian occupation, repeated conflict with Israel, bouts of sectarian fighting, political assassinations and various economic crises, as well as an influx of more than a million refugees from neighboring Syria's civil war. The presence of the powerful Shiite group Hizbullah — a proxy army for Iran created in the 1980s to fight Israel's occupation — ensures the country is always caught up in the struggle for supremacy by regional superpowers Iran and Saudi Arabia. But the current crisis is largely of Lebanon's own making; a culmination of decades of corruption and greed by a political class that pillaged nearly every sector of the economy. For years, the country drifted along, miraculously avoiding collapse even as it accumulated one of the world's heaviest public debt burdens. The sectarian power-sharing system allotted top posts according to sect rather than qualifications, which in turn allowed politicians to survive by engaging in cronyism and patronage for their communities. "One of the problems in Lebanon is that corruption has been democratized, it's not sitting centrally with one man. It's all over," says Marwan Muasher, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "Every sect has a sector of the economy that it controls and draws money from, so that it can keep their sect happy," he said in a recent talk organized by the Center for Global Policy.
The troubles came to a head in late 2019, when nationwide protests erupted over the government's intention to levy a tax on the WhatsApp messaging app, seen as the final straw for people fed up with their politicians. The protests touched off a two-week bank closure followed by a run on the banks and then informal capital controls that limited dollar currency withdrawals or transfers. Amid a shortage in foreign currency, the Lebanese pound has shed 80% of its value on the black market, and prices for basic food items and other goods have seen a meteoric rise. Savings have evaporated, plunging many into sudden poverty. Lebanon's fall "represents an epic collapse with a generational impact," wrote Maha Yehia, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center.
The pillars that long sustained Lebanon are crumbling, including its trademark freedoms and role as a tourism and financial services hub, and wiping out its middle class, she wrote in a recent analysis. Left on its own, Lebanon could within months reach a point where it can no longer secure needs for its citizens like fuel, electricity, internet or even basic food. Already, there are signs of the country being pushed toward a hunger crisis. Fears of a breakdown in security are real. The purchasing power of an ordinary soldiers' salary has declined in dollar terms from around $900 to $150 a month. Public sector employees have similarly seen their salaries wiped out. Unlike in previous crises when oil-rich Arab nations and international donors came to the rescue, Lebanon this time stands very much alone. Not only is the world preoccupied with their own economic crises, traditional friends of Lebanon are no longer willing to help a country so steeped in corruption, particularly after the state defaulted on its debt in April. Moreover, the country is led by a Hizbullah-supported government, making it even more unlikely that Gulf countries would come to the rescue.
Lebanon's only hope is an IMF bailout, but months of negotiations have led nowhere.
The French foreign minister, on a recent trip to Beirut, could not have been clearer that there would be no assistance for Lebanon before credible reform measures are taken. "Help us to help you!" he repeated. The words appear to have fallen largely on deaf ears. Lebanese politicians can't agree on the size of the government's losses, much less carry out reforms to end the corruption from which they profit. A complete breakdown of Lebanon threatens the wider region, potentially leading to security vacuums that could be exploited by extremists. Writing in Washington-based The Hill newspaper, Mona Yaacoubian, senior adviser to the vice president for Middle East and Africa at the U.S. Institute of Peace, said a total meltdown in Lebanon could also provoke new refugee flows to Europe and add yet more turmoil to the arc of instability stretching from Syria through Iraq, with negative implications for U.S. allies in the region. Given the stakes, the United States cannot afford to ignore Lebanon's impending collapse, she argues. "Lebanon is rapidly spiraling toward the worst-case scenario: a failed state on the eastern Mediterranean."

Lebanese FM Nassif Hitti resigns amid economic crisis
The New Arab Staff/August 03/2020
Power cuts that last up to 20 hours a day. Mountain
Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti on Monday submitted his resignation to the country's premier, citing the government's "lack of willingness for reforms".In a statement distributed to local media, the foreign ministry quoted Hitti saying Lebanon was becoming a "failed state".
"Lebanon today is not the Lebanon we loved, that we wanted to be a beacon and model, it is slipping to become a failed state - God forbid," Hitti said. The absence of an effective will to implement real structural reform – a key demand for a potential bailout by the international community – was also a reason for Hitti's resignation. "I resigned from my duty as foreign minister, hoping that the government and those who manage the state re-evaluate many of the policies and practices, and give priority to citizens and the nation over all other interests and contradictions," Hitti said.
In a stark metaphor, Hitti said Lebanon was a sinking ship as its leaders did not unite for the interest of the Lebanese people, but intsead sought their own. Lebanon is grappling its worst economic crisis since the end of the 15-year civil war that ended in 1990. After defaulting on its $1.2 eurobond debt in March, the government entered talks with the International Monetary Fund seeking $10 billion in financial assistance. But negotiations have since stalemated.  Hitti was appointed as foreign minister as part of Prime Minister Hassan Diab's government in January. According to MTV Lebanon, his potential replacement is Charbel Wehbe – a former ambassador to France and an advisor to President Michel Aoun.
 

Lebanese FM Quits Over Slow Reforms, Aoun Adviser Takes Over
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 3 August, 2020
Lebanon named the president's diplomatic adviser as new foreign minister on Monday after Nassif Hitti quit the post, blaming a lack of political will to enact reforms to halt a financial meltdown which he warned could turn Lebanon into a failed state. Foreign donors have made clear there will be no aid until Beirut makes changes to tackle state waste and corruption - roots of the crisis, which poses the biggest threat to Lebanon's stability since a 1975-1990 civil war. "Given the absence of an effective will to achieve structural, comprehensive reform which our society and the international community have urged us to do, I have decided to resign," Hitti said in a statement. President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab accepted the resignation and appointed Charbel Wehbe, Aoun's diplomatic adviser since 2017, as foreign minister, said two decrees read out by the cabinet's secretary general.
Wehbe, 67, is a former secretary general of the foreign ministry. Hitti, a former ambassador to the Arab League, was appointed in January when Diab's cabinet took office with the support of the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement and its allies. "I took part in this government to work for one boss called Lebanon, then I found in my country multiple bosses and contradictory interests," Hitti said. "If they do not come together in the interest of rescuing the Lebanese people, God forbid, the ship will sink with everyone on it." He also had differences with Diab and was frustrated at being sidelined, sources close to the ministry told Reuters. Diab appeared to criticize France's foreign minister for tying aid to reforms and a deal with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) when visiting Beirut last month. A spokesperson for Diab's office told Reuters the cabinet was now focused on moving ahead with a forensic audit of the central bank and "a wide range of other reforms".Talks with the IMF, which the heavily indebted state entered in May after a sovereign default, are on hold. Two members of Lebanon's negotiating team have quit in protest at the handling of the crisis. Hopes of an IMF deal have been hamstrung by a row over the scale of vast financial losses between the government, the banking sector, and lawmakers from the main parties.

Charbel Wehbe Named Lebanon's New Foreign Minister
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 03/2020
Former ambassador Charbel Wehbe was on Monday appointed as Lebanon’s new foreign minister, replacing Nassif Hitti who resigned earlier in the day.

“President (Michel) Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab have signed a decree accepting the resignation of Minister Nassif Hitti and a decree naming (ex-)ambassador Charbel Wehbe as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants,” the Presidency said. The announcement followed a meeting between Aoun and Diab at the Baabda Palace. According to Foreign Ministry Secretary-General Hani Chemaitelli, who spoke to reporters on Monday, Wehbe had been nominated for the post during the negotiations to form the current government.
Wehbe had served as acting secretary-general of the ministry during Jebran Bassil’s tenure. Following his retirement as a diplomat, he moved to the presidential palace where he served as President Aoun’s diplomatic affairs adviser.
Hitti resigned in protest at the government's handling of the spiraling economic crisis, warning that if there is no will to reform "the ship will sink."He charged that the government has shown no will to initiate changes demanded by the International Monetary Fund. "I participated in the government under the logic of serving one boss, which is Lebanon," the 67-year-old veteran diplomat added. "But I found that in my country there are many bosses and contradictory interests. "If they don't unite in the interest of the Lebanese people ... then the ship, God forbid, will sink with everyone on board," he added, warning that Lebanon risked becoming a "failed state."Hitti's resignation comes after France's top diplomat Jean-Yves Le Drian during a visit last month scolded Lebanon's leadership for failing to take the necessary measures to save the country from collapse.
The outgoing Lebanese foreign minister too called on government officials to "reconsider many of their policies and practices so that the nation and its citizens are given priority over all other considerations."
The government, which defaulted on its sovereign debt for the first time in March, has pledged an ambitious raft of reforms and two months ago entered into talks with the IMF. However, the negotiations have stalled, with two top members of the government's own team resigning, allegedly in frustration at the administration's lack of commitment to reform. The government says it needs more than $20 billion in external funding, which includes $11 billion pledged by donors at a Paris conference in 2018 that was never delivered over lack of reforms. Hitti's resignation shows "that Lebanon is in a state of total confusion," said Hilal Khashan, a professor at the American University of Beirut. "This government of so-called technocrats has to always refer back to those who put it in office before it can act on any matter," he said, meaning that it "is not autonomous."
Hitti started his career at the Arab League, where he worked in the office of the then secretary general and later headed the mission in Paris. Local Lebanese media cited several reasons for his resignation, including reports that he was displeased with the way Lebanese officials were encroaching on his prerogatives and mishandling diplomatic ties. Hitti was reportedly sidelined from a meeting between Le Drian, Diab and several cabinet ministers and was displeased with the manner in which the premier handled the official visit. General Security chief Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim also visited a number of Gulf countries last month in a diplomatic mission usually reserved for the foreign minister.

Hariri Assassination: The Day that Rocked Lebanon
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 03/2020
The death of Rafic Hariri is to many Lebanese what the JFK assassination was to Americans four decades earlier -- everybody remembers what they were doing when the news broke. On Valentine's Day 2005, the former prime minister who embodied the reconstruction of the country after its 1975-1990 civil war was killed in a monster bomb attack on his convoy. The blast unleashed a ball of fire in the hotel quarter of downtown Beirut, shooting debris into the sky and shattering windows in a radius of nearly half a kilometre (500 yards). A suicide bomber in a white Mitsubishi truck packed with two tonnes of a potent military explosive called RDX had strategically positioned himself, waiting for Hariri's motorcade. He detonated his charge at 12:55 pm, a split second after the passage of the third car in the convoy, a Mercedes S600 that Hariri was driving himself. The whole of Beirut heard or felt the blast. Many thought an earthquake had struck. The smouldering crater dug by the explosion was 10 metres (yards) across. One body was found 17 days after the blast, such was the devastation caused by the attack that left 226 people wounded. The country soon found out that among the 22 dead was the man whose stature at home and abroad had earned him the nickname of "Mr Lebanon". The unthinkable had just happened. Hariri was no longer prime minister at the time but still very much the country's towering political figure and widely tipped to reclaim the job in upcoming polls. The assassination was not entirely a surprise, however, and there had been warnings since Hariri had cast himself as the spearhead of a drive to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Earlier in February that year, his friend then French president Jacques Chirac and then UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen had implored Hariri to lay low. Among other foreboding signs, his friend and former minister Marwan Hamade had narrowly survived a similar attack on his convoy in October 2004. Fifteen years after the end of the civil war, Hariri's assassination became the watershed in Lebanon's post-conflict history.
The public backlash over his murder precipitated the departure of Syrian forces that had occupied the country for three decades. That in turn gave Hezbollah, a key suspect in the assassination of the Sunni Muslim leader, a chance to grow and fill the vacuum. The Shiite movement is an organisation whose firepower rivals that of the Lebanese military and it has since evolved to also dominate the country's political life.Some of the buildings left standing in the seaside area where the February 14 bomb went off still bear the marks of the explosion. Hariri's supporters continue to visit the site, where a statue of the portly slain leader was erected.

Who are the accused in Rafic Hariri murder trial?
The New Arab Staff & Agencies/August 03/2020
A UN-backed court is to deliver its judgement on Friday on four suspected Hezbollah members tried in absentia for former Lebanese premier Rafic Hariri's murder in a 2005 Beirut car bombing. The Lebanese Shia movement does not recognise the Netherlands-based Special Tribunal for Lebanon, denies all the accusations and has refused to hand over the accused. A massive bomb tore through Hariri's armoured convoy as he drove home for lunch on Valentine's Day 2005, killing him and 21 other people including seven of his bodyguards, as well as wounding 226 others.
Here are those indicted:
Mustafa Badreddine
The alleged mastermind, Hezbollah commander Mustafa Badreddine is believed to have died in Syria in May 2016 while providing military support to the Damascus regime. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in July that year overturned its decision to try him in absentia, finding sufficient evidence to establish his death. Badreddine joined the Hezbollah movement newly created by Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards after Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. He was jailed in Kuwait for attacks on the French and US embassies in 1983. His release was among the demands of Shiite militants who hijacked two airliners, before he was freed in the chaos caused by Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
Salim Ayyash
Salim Ayyash, 56, has been accused of leading the team that carried out the bombing. His whereabouts, like the three others awaiting the verdict, remain unknown. Charges against Ayyash include "committing a terrorist act", "intentional homicide" of Hariri, "intentional homicide of 21 other people", and attempting to kill 226 more, according to the STL website. In a separate case, the tribunal in 2019 also charged him with terrorism and murder over three other deadly attacks on Lebanese politicians in 2004 and 2005.
Hussein Oneissi, Assad Sabra
Hussein Oneissi, 46, and Assad Sabra, 43, allegedly sent a fake video to the Al-Jazeera news channel claiming responsibility on behalf of a non-existent group. Oneissi and Sabra are accused of "being an accomplice to the felony of committing a terrorist act", as well as accomplices in the "intentional homicide" of Hariri, in the "intentional homicide of 21 other people", and in attempting to kill 226 more. The court in 2018 threw out a bid to acquit Oneissi, saying that while much of the evidence was circumstantial, it was still in theory sufficient to produce a conviction. Much of the prosecution case has relied on mobile phone records that allegedly show the suspects conducting surveillance of Hariri until minutes before the explosion. The defence has argued the evidence was "theoretical" and that the defendants had "no motive" to carry out the crime.
Hassan Merhi
Hassan Merhi, 54, is accused of general involvement in the plot. He is charged with the same crimes as Oneissi and Sabra.

 Lebanon: from Hariri assassination to verdict
The New Arab Staff & Agencies
The special tribunal trying the four suspects accused of the 2005 assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafic Hariri delivers its verdict on August 7.
A recap of key developments in the case:
Assassination
A massive suicide bomb tears through Hariri's armoured convoy on the Beirut seafront in February 2005, killing him and 21 other people.
Opposition leaders blame Syria but Damascus denies any role. Lebanon's powerful Shia movement Hezbollah is also strongly suspected. Amid a groundswell of protests, Syrian troops quit Lebanon on April 26 after a 29-year deployment which had peaked at 40,000 troops. Later that year, a United Nations commission says there is evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were involved in the killing.
Special tribunal
In 2007, following a UN Security Council resolution, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) is established to try those accused of carrying out the attack. The anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon celebrate the move, while Hezbollah, ally of Damascus and Tehran, says it violates Lebanese sovereignty. In March 2009 the STL opens in The Hague suburb of Leidschendam. The following month it orders the release of four Lebanese generals held in custody in Lebanon since 2005 without charge over the assassination.
Suspicion falls on Hezbollah
In July 2010, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah says his party is likely to be implicated in Hariri's assassination. In November, he warns his group will "cut off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest any of its partisans over the assassination. The following June, the STL issues an indictment and arrest warrants for four Lebanese suspects. The interior ministry confirms the suspects are the Hezbollah members Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Assad Sabra and Hussein Oneissi. Nasrallah rejects the charges along with "each and every void accusation" by the court, which he says is heading for a trial in absentia. In August the STL decides it has enough evidence to try the four Hezbollah members and publishes the full indictment. In October 2013 the tribunal indicts a fifth suspect over the assassination - Hezbollah member Hassan Habib Merhi.
Trial in absentia
The trial opens in The Hague suburb on January 16, 2014, with the four Hezbollah members in absentia. According to the prosection, Badreddine and Ayyash organised and carried out the attack, while Oneissi and Sabra are accused of delivering a video to Al Jazeera with a false claim of responsiblity, to protect the real killers. In February the tribunal announces it is adding the fifth suspect to the trial, Merhi.

In May 2016, Hezbollah announces Badreddine's death in an attack in Syria. Two years later the trial, in which the STL says more than 300 people have given evidence, enters its final phase.
Separate indictment
In September 2019, the tribunal indicts Ayyash over three other deadly attacks on politicians in 2004 and 2005.
He is charged by a pre-trial judge with terrorism and murder over attacks that killed the ex-leader of the Lebanese Communist Party Georges Hawi and two others, as well as wounding several people.
 

Audio/Mapping Hezbollah's Worldwide Activities
Kash Patel, Juan Zarate, and Matthew Levitt/The Washington Institute/August 3, 2020
Watch a live webcast debuting a powerful new interactive tool charting Lebanese Hezbollah's history of terrorist plots, attacks, logistics, and financial activities as well as counterterrorism actions against the group.
Recently, Washington Institute senior fellow Matthew Levitt completed Lebanese Hezbollah Select Worldwide Activity, the first-ever publicly available, interactive map and timeline of Hezbollah-related plots, attacks, logistics, financial activities, counterterrorism actions, and more. Designed for intelligence analysts, law enforcement, policymakers, academics, and students alike, each of the digital interface's hundreds of entries includes a range of features, from photos and videos to primary source documents, geographic/thematic linkages, and widgets linking to recent news and in-depth analysis.
To mark the project's launch, the Institute hosted a virtual Policy Forum with Dr. Levitt, Kash Patel, and Juan Zarate. Levitt shared the map, showcasing Hezbollah's geographic reach, temporal evolution, and illicit financial and criminal enterprises. Patel and Zarate offered their own insights on the map and the group's worldwide activities.
Kash Patel serves as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council. Previously, he served as director for multilateral affairs on the council's International Organizations Directorate, focusing on global sanctions regimes, as well as senior counsel for counterterrorism at the House Select Committee on Intelligence, where he was a key aide to Rep. David Nunes *(R-CA).
Juan Zarate is the global co-managing partner and chief strategy officer for K2 Intelligence/Financial Integrity Network and chairman of the Center on Economic and Financial Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Previously, he served as deputy national security advisor for combatting terrorism (2005-2009) and assistant Treasury secretary for terrorist financing and financial crimes.
*Matthew Levitt is the Fromer-Wexler Fellow at The Washington Institute and director of its Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence. Author of the 2013 book Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God (Georgetown University Press), he previously served as deputy assistant secretary for intelligence and analysis at the Treasury Department.
www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2649759561945448

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 03-04/2020

Suspected Boko Haram militants kill 16 in northern Cameroon
DOUALA/Reuters/August 03/2020
Suspected militants from Islamist group Boko Haram killed at least 16 people and wounded seven early on Sunday in a grenade attack on a camp for displaced people in northern Cameroon, a local official said. The assailants threw a grenade into a group of sleeping people inside the camp in the village of Nguetchewe, district mayor Medjeweh Boukar told Reuters. The camp is home to around 800 people, he said. The village is located close to the Nigerian border. Boukar was informed by residents that 16 had died. A security official earlier said 15 had died. The wounded were taken to a nearby hospital, they said. “The attackers arrived with a woman who carried the grenade into the camp,” Boukar said, adding that women and children were among the dead. Over the past month there have been twenty incursions and attacks by suspected Islamist militants, Boukar said. Boko Haram has been fighting for a decade to carve out an Islamic caliphate based in Nigeria. The violence, which has killed an estimated 30,000 people and displaced millions, has frequently spilled over into neighbouring Cameroon, Niger and Chad. In June last year, around 300 suspected Boko Haram militants swarmed onto an island on Lake Chad in Cameroon’s far north and killed 24 people, including 16 Cameroonian soldiers stationed at military outposts. Reporting by Josiane Kouagheu,; Writing by Edward McAllister; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and John Stonestreet.

One Person is Dying of COVID-19 Every Seven Minutes in Iran
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 3 August, 2020
One person is dying from COVID-19 every seven minutes in Iran, state television said on Monday, as the Health Ministry reported 215 new deaths from the disease and state media warned of a lack of proper social distancing. Health Ministry spokesman Sima Sadat Lari was quoted by the state TV as saying the 215 deaths in the past 24 hours took the combined death toll to 17,405 in Iran, and the number of confirmed cases rose by 2,598 to 312,035. State television showed several Iranians in a busy Tehran street without wearing face masks or social distancing. Some experts have doubted the accuracy of Iran’s official coronavirus tolls. A report by the Iranian parliament’s research center in April suggested that the coronavirus tolls might be almost twice as many as those announced by the health ministry. The report said that Iran’s official coronavirus figures were based only on the number of deaths in hospitals and those who had already tested positive for the coronavirus. British broadcaster BBC reported on Monday that, based on data from an anonymous source, the number of deaths in Iran might be three times higher than officially reported. Iranian health authorities denied the report and said there had been no cover-up. With COVID-19 deaths surging since restrictions were eased in mid-April, Iranian authorities have said measures to curb the spread of COVID-19 will be reimposed if health regulations are not observed. Since last month, wearing face masks in public places and covered spaces has been mandatory.
Iran’s National Coronavirus Combat Taskforce was expected to announce later on Monday whether nationwide university entrance examinations, with over 1 million participants, will take place in August. Many Iranians have called on social media for the examinations to be postponed.

WHO Chief: There May Never be a 'Silver Bullet' for COVID-19
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 3 August, 2020
The World Health Organization warned on Monday that while there were strong hopes for a COVID-19 vaccine, there might never be a "silver bullet" for the coronavirus that has infected millions around the world. "There is no silver bullet at the moment and there might never be," director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news briefing from the UN body's headquarters in Geneva. The number of coronavirus cases recorded worldwide topped 18 million on Monday. Six months after the WHO declared a global emergency, the virus has killed more than 687,000 people since it first emerged in China late last year, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources. Fresh clusters have been reported in countries that had previously brought their outbreaks under control, forcing governments to reimpose lockdown measures despite worries over further economic fallout.

Former Pope Benedict XVI Reportedly 'Extremely Frail'
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 3 August, 2020
Former pope Benedict XVI became seriously ill himself after returning to the Vatican from a visit to his sick brother in Germany in June, according to a report in the Monday edition of the German Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. Benedict, 93, is suffering from erysipelas of the face, a virus that causes a facial rash and episodes of severe pain, the newspaper reported, citing the former pope's biographer Peter Seewald. "According to Seewald, the Pope emeritus is now extremely frail," the report says. "His thinking and his memory are quick, but his voice is hardly audible." Seewald reportedly visited Benedict in Rome on Saturday to present him with his biography. "At the meeting the emeritus Pope, despite his illness, was optimistic and declared that if his strength increased again he would possibly take up his pen again," the paper said. Benedict visited his sick brother Georg in Germany in June, marking his first trip out of Italy since his shock resignation in 2013. Georg Ratzinger died just two weeks later, aged 96. The former pontiff, whose original name is Joseph Ratzinger, now lives in a small former monastery inside the Vatican. He has largely stayed out of the public eye since he became the first pope in 600 years to resign, citing health reasons. A traditionalist in the Catholic Church, he was replaced by the reformist Pope Francis.

Israel Fears European Sanctions if Trump Loses Elections
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 3 August, 2020
Officials in Tel Aviv have expressed concern over a letter signed by 15 European countries and the European Union, deeming it an introduction to punitive measures against Israel. Such measures could become a reality if US President Donald Trump loses the electoral battle, they said. The EU and 15 European countries on Thursday renewed their opposition to Israeli plans to advance construction plans in areas of Jerusalem beyond the Green Line. They expressed their “grave concerns regarding the advancement of settlement construction in Givat Hamatos and potentially in the E1 area,” according to the letter addressing Israel’s Foreign Ministry. “Settlements are illegal under International Humanitarian Law,” it stressed, adding that any further settlement construction in this strategically sensitive area will have a devastating impact on a contiguous Palestinian State, as well as severely undermining the possibility of a negotiated two-state solution in line with internationally agreed parameters. The 15 countries that signed the letter were France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden. This was the second letter sent to Israel by the Europeans after sending a similar one in May to reject the annexation plan. In July, foreign ministers from 11 European countries demanded the EU provide a quick list of possible actions to stop Israel from annexing parts of the occupied West Bank. In a letter addressed to the EU foreign policy chief, the top officials asked for the potential “legal consequences” for Israel over its annexation move. It was signed at the time by foreign ministers of Belgium, Ireland, Italy, France, Malta, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Finland.
Israel’s development in E1, an area between East Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, and Givat Hamatos, a neighborhood in East Jerusalem, would severely undermine the territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged days before general elections in March to advance plans to build thousands of homes in both areas. He also vowed to start annexing parts of the West Bank slated under Trump’s peace plan, a promise that was similarly denounced by the EU and many European states.
 

12 pro-regime, 6 rebel fighters killed in Syria clashes: monitor
The New Arab Staff & Agencies/August 03/2020
The forces loyal to Assad had launched an attack with artillery and heavy gunfire
Jihadists and allied rebels in northwestern Syria on Monday killed at least 12 pro-regime fighters, thwarting their advance, a Britain-based war monitoring group said. Another 17 pro-regime fighters were wounded while on the jihadist-led side six fighters died, said the Britain-based group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The forces loyal to President Bashar-al Assad had launched an attack with artillery and heavy gunfire in Syria's last major opposition bastion, said the war monitor.  But the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alliance, headed by ex-leaders of Syria's former al-Qaeda affiliate, and their allies reportedly thwarted the advance. Four HTS and two other rebel fighters were killed in the clashes in a rural area of Latakia province, the monitor said. The HTS-led alliance also controls large areas of Idlib province and slivers of territory in neighbouring Aleppo and Hama.
The region they hold is home to some three million people, nearly half of whom have been displaced from other parts of the country. Syria's nine-year-old war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced nearly half of the country's pre-war population. The rebel-held area is a regular target of attacks by regime forces and their Russian and Iranian allies. A Russian-backed government offensive between December and March displaced nearly a million people in the region.A Moscow-backed ceasefire agreement in March has reduced violence in the area, but shelling and air strikes by the regime and its backers continue. Russian air strikes on the town of Binnish in Idlib province killed three people from the same family on Monday, according to the Observatory.

Iran says it detains leader of California-based exile group
AP/August 03/2020
Iran on Saturday said it detained an Iranian-American leader of a little-known California-based militant opposition group for allegedly planning a 2008 attack on a mosque that killed 14 people and wounded over 200 others.
Iran’s Intelligence Ministry also alleged Jamshid Sharmahd of the Kingdom Assembly of Iran planned other attacks around the Islamic Republic amid heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. over its collapsing 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.
It was unclear how the 65-year-old Sharmahd, whom Iran accused of running the opposition group’s Tondar militant wing, ended up detained by intelligence officials. The Intelligence Ministry called it a “complex operation,” without elaborating. It published a purported picture of Sharmahd, blindfolded, on its website.
Iranian Intelligence Minister Mahmoud Alavi later appeared on state TV, saying Sharmahd had been arrested in Iran, without elaborating.
Requests for comment sent by email to the Glendora-based Kingdom Assembly of Iran were not immediately answered and a telephone number for the group no longer worked. The U.S. State Department, which mentioned how Sharmahd earlier had been targeted for assassination in a recent report called “Outlaw Regime: A Chronicle of Iran’s Destructive Activities,” acknowledged reports of his detention.
“The Iranian regime has a long history of detaining Iranians and foreign nationals on spurious charges,” the State Department said in a statement. “We urge Iran to be fully transparent and abide by all international legal standards.”
Iranian state television broadcast a report on Sharmahd’s arrest, linking him to the 2008 bombing of the Hosseynieh Seyed al-Shohada Mosque in Shiraz. It also said his group was behind a 2010 bombing at Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s mausoleum in Tehran that wounded several people.
The report also alleged without providing evidence that Tondar, or “Thunder” in Farsi, plotted attacks on a dam and planned to use cyanide bombs at Tehran’s annual book fair. State TV later aired footage of Sharmahd interspersed with footage from the moment of the 2008 explosion at the Shiraz mosque. Sharmahd’s face appeared swollen and the style of the footage resembled one of what a rights group has identified as over 350 coerced confessions aired by the broadcaster over the last decade.
The Intelligence Ministry has not said what charges Sharmahd will face. Prisoners earlier accused in the same attack were sentenced to death and executed.
The Kingdom Assembly of Iran, known in Farsi as Anjoman-e Padeshahi-e Iran, and Tondar seek to restore Iran’s monarchy, which ended when the fatally ill Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi fled the country in 1979 just before its Islamic Revolution. The group’s founder disappeared in the mid-2000s.
Iranian intelligence operatives in the past have used family members and other tricks to lure targets back to Iran or friendly countries to be captured. An alleged Iranian government operative who allegedly tried to hire a hit man to kill Sharmahd disappeared in 2010 before facing trial in California, likely having returned to Iran.
A 2010 U.S. diplomatic cable from London later published by WikiLeaks shows that a Voice of America commentator said that same operative earlier had been in contact with him. British anti-terror police later warned the commentator that he “had been targeted by the Iranian regime,” the cable said.
The two cases marked “a clear escalation in the regime’s attempts to intimidate critics outside its borders, and could have a chilling effect on journalists, academics and others in the West who until recently felt little physical threat from the regime,” the cable said.
Sharmahd last appeared in an online livestream video on Dec. 29, according to his group’s website, speaking in Farsi while sitting in a black chair in front of a black background.
“We are not only seeking the liberation of the homeland, but we are also moving towards a special direction, and that is to be Iranian,” Sharmahd said at one point in the video. “Because we have heard that once upon a time some people were living in the region who were able to build an empire.”
While overshadowed by other exiled opposition groups, Iran reportedly brought up the Kingdom Assembly multiple times while negotiating the terms of the 2015 deal, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi reacted to the news by criticizing the U.S. for allowing Sharmahd and others to live in America.
The U.S. “must be responsible for supporting terrorist groups which are inside of this country and carry out and lead terrorist acts against the Iranian people,” state TV quoted Mousavi as saying.
A statement attributed to Tondar claimed the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010 by a remote-control bomb, though it later said it wasn’t responsible. Suspicion long has fallen on Israel for a string of assassinations targeting scientists amid concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, which the West fears could be used to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran long has maintained its program is for peaceful purposes.
Sharmahd’s reported arrest comes as tensions remain inflamed by President Donald Trump’s 2018 decision to unilaterally withdraw America from the nuclear deal. A series of incidents last year were capped by a U.S. drone strike in January killing a top Iranian general in Baghdad. Iran responded by launching a ballistic missile attack on U.S. soldiers in Iraq that injured dozens.
*Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Merkel and German city urged to help stop executions of Iranian protesters
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/August 03/2020
"We also call on Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Chancellor Angela Merkel to show their solidarity with the democratic protests by publicly receiving Iranian opposition members."
A prominent German-Iranian dissident on Thursday urged the mayor of the southwestern German city of Freiburg, which has a city partnership with Isfahan, Iran, to exert pressure on the Iranian authorities to stop the executions of five pro-democracy protesters.
“I call on Martin Horn, the mayor of Freiburg, the sister city Isfahan, to put pressure on the Isfahan city administration and judiciary to save the lives of the Isfahan citizens at risk of execution for freedom and democracy,” Kazem Moussavi wrote on Facebook.On Friday, German NGO Stop the Bomb, which seeks to end Iran’s nuclear-weapons program and improve human rights in the Islamic Republic, called on Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Bundestag to apply pressure on the clerical regime of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to halt the executions.
According to an article in the local newspaper Badische Zeitung last Thursday, Horn said: “We will also contact the Isfahan City Council. I will make it clear that the city of Freiburg is committed to human rights and fundamentally opposes the death penalty.”
The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) wrote: “Death sentences against five men arrested in Isfahan Province, central Iran, in connection with nationwide protests during December 2017-January 2018, have been upheld by the Supreme Court, a source with knowledge about the case told the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) on July 30, 2020, despite reports of false confessions extracted under torture and serious evidence contradicting the men’s guilt.”“Executions are increasingly being used in Iran to quash dissent and intimidate the people into silence,” CHRI executive director Hadi Ghaemi said. “Without evidence of guilt or due process, these executions are effectively state murder with impunity.”The death sentences were imposed on Mehdi Salehi Ghaleh-Shahrokhi, Mohammad Bastami, Abbas Mohammadi, Majid Nazari and Hadi Kiani.
Stop the Bomb spokeswoman Ulrike Becker said: “The situation in Iran is critical, and those who are fighting for their freedom in Iran urgently need the solidarity and attention of the democratic world. Only public pressure helps to save the lives of those affected. Germany, which maintains good relations with the regime in Iran, is particularly called upon.”“The Federal Government and Parliament should condemn the planned executions in a clear, public and unambiguous manner,” she said. “In addition, sanctions should be imposed on all judges and judicial officials involved: The US government demonstrated that this is possible.“We also call on Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and Chancellor Angela Merkel to show their solidarity with the democratic protests by publicly receiving Iranian opposition members, as the Swedish Foreign Ministry did today. Only demonstrative solidarity and political pressure can save the lives of prisoners in Iran and also protect all other critical voices.”The Freiburg city authorities and University of Freiburg have faced intense criticism over the last 12 years for appeasing Iran’s antisemitic regime.
After former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami visited Freiburg in 2008, the Central Council of Jews in Germany slammed the municipal authorities for welcoming him, accusing them of “pure appeasement” politics toward the Iranian regime. Khatami, who has defended a French Holocaust denier, was invited by the University of Freiburg to deliver a lecture on “Dialogue between the Islamic and Western World.”

Turkish brig.-gen. executed for revealing Qatari funding of jihadists
Jerusalem Post/August 03/2020
Brigadier-General Semih Terzi was reported in 2016 to have been one of the organizers behind the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The former head of Turkey’s Special Forces Command Intelligence Division (OKK) ordered that one of the organizers of the 2016 coup be assassinated because he reportedly had knowledge of illicit Qatari funding of jihadi groups in the Syrian civil war, a Turkish colonel who worked for the (OKK) testified in a court proceeding, the Nordic Monitor website reported Friday. “[Brig.-Gen. Semih Terzi] knew how much of the funding delivered [to Turkey] by Qatar for the purpose of purchasing weapons and ammunition for the opposition was actually used for that and how much of it was used by public officials, and how much was embezzled,” Col. Firat Alakus said. Terzi was reported in 2016 to have been one of the organizers behind the failed coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Alakus said the Qatari case was not the only example of how financial graft unfolded after monetary transfers to Turkey for use in the Syrian civil war, Nordic Monitor reported. According to the Sweden-based news outlet, Alakus testified at the Ankara 17th High Criminal Court on March 20, 2019. “Now, Semih Terzi was targeted because of his intimate knowledge of affairs relating to Syria, Your Honor. What is this information? If you want, I can expand on it, some of which is critical,” Alakus said at the court hearing. Terzi “was aware of which public officials were assisting in arms smuggling to Syria and for what purpose,” he said.
“[Terzi’s murder] had to do with a trap devised by Zekai Aksakallı, who did not want such facts to come out into the open,” he added. Lt.-Gen. Zekai Aksakallı oversaw the OKK at the time of Terzi’s assassination and has now become a Syrian civil war “profiteer,” according to Nordic Monitor.
Alakus said: “[Terzi] was aware of who in the government was involved in an oil-smuggling operation from Syria, how the profits were shared and what activities they were involved in.” Terzi was also aware of the Turkish government providing medical care in Turkey to armed radical and jihadist groups disguised as moderate Free Syrian Army troops, he said. Allegations of Turkish officials securing bribes in exchange for providing services to the jihadis were raised in the court testimony. Nordic Monitor obtained the transcript of the hearing. The Jerusalem Post could not independently verify the transcript. Media outlets in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain reported on Alakus’s testimony based on the Nordic Monitor article. One Turkey expert told the Post he believes the legal documents published on the Nordic Monitor website are authentic.
Nordic Monitor is affiliated with Erdogan’s adversary Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic scholar and leader of the Gülen movement. Nordic Monitor describes itself as “a news portal that reports about developments on extremism, terrorism, crime, foreign policy, security and military matters.”
The Post reported Wednesday on the role of Qatar’s ambassador to Belgium and NATO, Abdulrahman bin Mohammed Sulaiman al-Khulaifi, in allegedly seeking to cover up a plan to finance Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist organization.

Iran Will Expand Nuclear Program and Won’t Talk to U.S., Ayatollah Says
Farnaz Fassihi/The New York Times/August 03/2020
In a televised speech, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said that negotiating with Washington over his country’s nuclear program would only help President Trump get re-elected.
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said in a televised address that Iran will expand its nuclear program and will not negotiate with the United States, doubling down on his defiance of the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy.
In a Friday speech for the Eid al-Adha holiday, Ayatollah Khamenei said that entering talks with Washington over Iran’s nuclear program, as President Trump has urged Tehran to do, would only improve Mr. Trump’s chances of being re-elected in November. That, the ayatollah said, was Mr. Trump’s reason for suggesting such talks in the first place.
“He is going to benefit from negotiations,” Ayatollah Khamenei said. “This old man who is in charge in America apparently used negotiations with North Korea as propaganda,” he added — a reference to Mr. Trump’s high-profile nuclear diplomacy on another front, which to date has been mostly fruitless.
Ayatollah Khamenei also said that Iran would maintain its close alliances with militia groups in the region that it uses as proxies, defying another demand from the Trump administration.
The Iranian leader was not the first to connect the possibility of talks with the United States to the presidential election. Last month, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that Iran could make a better deal if it did so before November. “Don’t wait until after U.S. Election to make the Big deal,” he wrote. “I’m going to win. You’ll make a better deal now!”
The United States has continued to tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which have had a crippling effect on the Middle Eastern country’s economy. On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the State Department would expand the sanctions to cover 22 materials believed to be used in Iran’s nuclear, military and ballistic missile programs.
ImageTehran in May. The United States has continued to tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which have had a crippling effect on the Middle Eastern country’s economy.
Tehran in May. The United States has continued to tighten sanctions on Iran over its nuclear program, which have had a crippling effect on the Middle Eastern country’s economy.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Ayatollah Khamenei said that Iran would not try to negotiate its way out of the sanctions and that it would be better off relying on its own industrial development. He said the Americans were targeting his country’s economy in the hope that Iranians would rise up against their government, which the ayatollah dismissed as “pipe dreams.”
Mr. Khamenei said that developing the nuclear program was an absolute necessity for Iran’s future. He dismissed the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and several world powers, which Mr. Trump abandoned in 2018, as “very damaging,” saying that Iran had suffered economic setbacks because of it.
Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is meant exclusively for peaceful purposes, but the United States and other countries believe it is pursuing the capacity to build a nuclear weapon.
The Iranian foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who was in charge of the negotiations for Iran, said as recently as last month in Parliament that the negotiating team had Ayatollah Khamenei’s full support and blessing to reach a deal.
The ayatollah, who recently directed his closest economic advisers to cement a 25-year military and economic partnership with China, said in his speech that European countries involved in the nuclear deal were unreliable, and that their attempts to salvage the pact — such as creating a secure financial channel so that Iran could maintain a limited amount of trade — were “useless games.”
Some Iranian officials and analysts have said that Iran’s strategy was to wait out the remainder of Mr. Trump’s term in hopes of a Democratic victory that could revive the deal, which was reached under President Barack Obama.
President Trump in 2018 after signing the proclamation to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.
President Trump in 2018 after signing the proclamation to withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
“Khamenei has always believed that accommodating to one U.S. demand would bring about another demand and another,” said Sina Azodi, a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington. “For him, every solution would bring about another problem.”
But analysts, entrepreneurs and businessmen inside Iran have warned that the economy risks collapse if the current situation continues.

Israel Army Says Killed 4 Planting Bombs at Syria Border
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 03/2020
The Israeli army said Monday it had killed four men laying explosives at a security fence along the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights, adjacent to Syrian-controlled territory. "They were inside Israeli territory but beyond the fence," military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus told journalists in a telephone briefing. He said an Israeli commando unit lying in wait attacked the intruders shortly after 11 pm Sunday (2000 GMT) with assault rifles and sniper fire backed by air strikes. "Our estimate is that all four were killed," Conricus said in English, adding that there were no Israeli casualties.
Tensions are already high between bitter rivals Israel and Syria. Last month, Israeli army helicopters struck military targets in southern Syria in retaliation for earlier "munitions" fire towards Israel. Israel did not directly blame Syrian forces for the munitions fire, but said it held the Damascus government responsible.
Several Israeli media outlets reported that the military actions were in response to an increased threat from the Iran-backed Lebanese Shiite group Hizbullah, which has a significant presence in Syria. Last month, five Iran-backed fighters were killed in an Israeli missile strike south of Damascus, according to Britain-based monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Conricus said Israeli troops were early Monday searching the area of the incident for clues but that he could not immediately link the overnight attack to the Lebanese group or its sponsors in Tehran. "We do not know at this stage and we cannot confirm a link between this terrorist squad and Hizbullah or Iranians," he said. "We know that there are many different factions operating on Syrian soil." The Syrian Observatory said it was "likely", but it could not be confirmed, that the attackers were from the Syrian Resistance to Liberate the Golan -- a Hizbullah-linked group formed more than six years ago to launch attacks against Israel in the disputed area. Conricus said that Israel's Maglan commando unit had been deployed at the attack site for several days. "We spotted irregular night-time activity in this specific location for the past week and we had a commando unit deployed in the area," he said. He added that for Israeli civilians on the Golan Heights, normal life was uninterrupted during the incident.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 03-04/2020

Is IED incident a dangerous escalation on Israel, Syria border?
Seith J.Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 03/2020
Israel says it holds the Syrian regime responsible. This forms part of a wider context of two years of tensions along the Golan.
The apparent escalation on Sunday night that resulted in a clash on the southern Golan – which Israel says involved a terror squad and an improvised explosive device – is part of a two-week cycle of rising tensions with Hezbollah. It is potentially of the utmost importance because it appears, even as the situation develops, to be part of a cycle going back years in which groups have increasingly sought to threaten Israel from Syria. It is also unclear precisely what happened – because Syrian regime media, Iranian media, Hezbollah media and the usual bandwagon of media linked to the other side of the area where the incident happened were unusually quiet as events unfolded.  Israel says it holds the Syrian regime responsible. This forms part of a wider context of two years of tensions along the Golan. There was rocket fire from Syria in 2018 as the regime increased its hold over southern Syria and defeated the Syrian opposition, and a drone entered Israeli airspace from Syria that February. In addition to a salvo of rockets fired that May, there were also several other incidents of rocket fire in 2019. Hezbollah has also been increasing its operations in Syria, part of the larger Iranian attempt to entrench in the war-torn country. Iran already has a network of bases and trafficking centers for weapons that link Iraq to Lebanon via the T-4 base and Damascus. In addition, Hezbollah operatives were killed in July 2019 and February 2020 in Syria near the Golan, according to foreign media reports. The terrorist group also blamed Israel for a drone strike on a vehicle in April. Then Hezbollah media in recent weeks blamed Israel for a July 20 killing of their operative in Syria. They ratcheted up tensions and then appeared to mock Israel, claiming the Jewish state was on alert and that Hezbollah had somehow outwitted Jerusalem. Media in Iran pushed this narrative as well as Al-Mayadeen and Al-Manar. Nevertheless, tensions have remained high since July 25. An incident that night reported from Syria showed flares in the sky near the Golan. Hezbollah seemed to be climbing down from threats to retaliate against Israel. It claimed responsibility for an incident at Mount Dov, where Israel said it had thwarted an attack on July 27. On Sunday, the pro-Iran media was initially quiet about the incident on the Golan. Why is it not responding? Al-Manar, Al-Mayadeen, Sputnik Arabic, Sana, Fars News and Tasnim all seemed to be reluctant to report the incident on Sunday evening.

Israel Defense Force (IDF) thwarts attack along Syria border fence
A four-man cell crossed the Alpha Line into Israel and was planting bombs on the fence before being hit by air and ground forces.
Jerusalem Post/August 03/2020
As tensions remain high along Israel’s northern borders, IDF troops thwarted an attempt to place explosive devices on the border fence with Syria, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit announced. “A short time ago, an IDF force foiled an attempt to place explosive devices along the border with Syria,” the army said in a statement. “Special forces that were carrying out an ambush near an IDF post in the southern Golan Heights spotted a cell with a number of terrorists planting explosive devices along the border. An IDF force and an aircraft opened fire together on the four-member cell and hit them.”
There were no injuries or casualties to IDF troops. According to IDF Spokesperson Brig.-Gen. Hidai Zilberman, while the military cannot say for certain which group is behind the foiled attack, the IDF considers the Syrian regime responsible for “any action taken from its territory” and will not allow for any violation of Israeli sovereignty. “We don’t know who sent them, there are a lot of players in Syria, some acting for Iran and some not,” he said. “We cannot say right now that this is a Hezbollah attack, but we can’t rule it out either.”
The IDF said that the Northern Command has been on high alert over the past 10 days, bracing for an attack by Hezbollah following the death of an operative in an alleged Israeli airstrike in Syria. Over the past few days, the military identified several suspicious shepherds in the area turning it into a hostile area for the IDF which deployed troops from the elite Maglan reconnaissance unit. The IDF has identified several locations along the Golan Heights where they know Hezbollah collects intelligence on Israel using shepherds in the area to gather intelligence on troop movement.
On Sunday night observers first identified suspicious movement of two shepherds around 8 PM and around 11 PM saw the four-man cell approach the same area and place explosives along the fence. The cell crossed the Alpha Line between Syria and Israel, putting them in Israeli territory but did not cross the border fence, Zilberman said. They were struck and killed by both air platforms and the Maglan force on the ground at the same time. The spokesman told reporters that the foiled attack took place near an abandoned military post in the southern Golan Heights on the Syrian border where the IDF operated the Mazor Ladach (whose name translates into Bandaging Those In Need) field clinic which was opened in August 2017 and closed a year later. The clinic provided medical treatment for the locals from the Syrian Golan Heights, treating some 6,800 Syrians. Following the return of regime forces to the south of the country and the rebuilding of the SAA which was decimated over the course of the ongoing civil war, the influence of Lebanon’s Hezbollah on the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has increased. Last week the IDF thwarted an attack by a Hezbollah cell after they crossed the border – also known as the Blue Line – several meters into sovereign Israeli territory and were identified by the IDF, which opened fire on them causing them to flee back into Lebanon without firing at IDF troops. The IDF remains on high alert along the northern borders for additional attacks by the Lebanese terror group.
Israel has stated that it will not allow Hezbollah to entrench itself on the Golan Heights and according to foreign reports, has carried out several strikes against operatives belonging to the Lebanese terror group in the area.  While Hezbollah used to act against IDF forces in the area of Mount Dov in the contested Sheeba Farms, the group’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has warned that it will act along the entire Lebanese and Syrian border should Israel kill one of its fighters.

Palestinians' Chief Negotiator or Chief Liar?
Bassam Tawil/ Gatestone Institute/August 03/2020
Saeb Erekat's continued lies and fabrications about Israel promote anti-Semitism and embolden terrorists.
As a veteran negotiator, it would be a good idea for him to use his experience to persuade the Hamas terrorists to release the remains of the two soldiers instead of waging a propaganda campaign on behalf of a terrorist who woke up one morning and decided to kill Jews.
With negotiators like Erekat, one can understand why the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been stalled for so many years.
PLO secretary general Saeb Erekat's continued lies and fabrications about Israel promote anti-Semitism and embolden terrorists.
Ahmed Erekat, a 26-year-old Palestinian from the village of Abu Dis, south of Jerusalem, was shot dead by Israeli soldiers on June 23 after ramming his car into an Israeli military checkpoint. One soldier was lightly wounded in the attack.
Footage released by the Israeli authorities leaves no room for doubt that Erekat was on a mission to kill soldiers. The footage shows Erekat deliberately turning his car as he waited in line, driving directly at the soldiers, hitting one female soldier and then crashing into a guard booth. Erekat then got out of the vehicle and started walking towards the soldiers, who fired a number of bullets at him, killing him instantly.
Such terrorist attacks are not uncommon in the West Bank, where Palestinian terrorists have carried out dozens of car-rammings against Israeli soldiers and civilians in the past few years.
This attack, however, caught the attention of the international media because the terrorist happens to be a relative of Saeb Erekat, the former Palestinian chief negotiator with Israel who currently serves as secretary general of the PLO.
Since the car-ramming, Saeb Erekat has been waging a campaign of incitement and lies against Israel. He has accused it of "cold-blooded murder" and now of the "extrajudicial execution" of his cousin.
The senior PLO official is deliberately ignoring the video that clearly shows his cousin using his car in an attempt to kill Israeli soldiers. He is also, perhaps not surprisingly, ignoring the testimonies of the soldiers his cousin tried to kill.
Shani Orr Hama Kados, the soldier struck in the attack, told Israel's Channel 13 that "he looked me in the eye, turned the steering wheel and rammed into me."
Saeb Erekat's ranting over the death of his terrorist relative has attracted the attention of many Israel-haters around the world, some of whom have been repeating the PLO official's libels and lies.
One of them is Nihad Awad, co-founder and Executive Director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Both Awad and CAIR were part of a Muslim Brotherhood-run Hamas support network in the US.
"Israel has murdered thousands of Palestinians," Awad claimed in a June 23 post on Twitter. "Total silence and unwavering support is our [US] government's response."
Awad was responding to a Twitter post by Noura Erekat, another relative of the terrorist, who describes herself as a "human rights attorney and assistant professor at Rutgers University."
"Israeli soldiers shot to kill my baby cousin, Ahmed," she wrote. "Israeli cowards claim it was a car ramming incident – he was on his way to pick up his sister from the salon for her wedding tonight!"
The "human rights attorney" made her false accusation before the Israeli authorities released the video that proves that her cousin had planned to carry out a terrorist attack. Yet like her other relative, Saeb Erekat, Noura Erekat refuses to accept the fact that her "baby cousin" was a bloodthirsty terrorist.
As a former "chief negotiator" with Israel, Saeb Erekat is seen by many Palestinians as a veteran diplomat and politician. As such, one would expect him to be more cautious and restrained when it comes to making serious accusations about any party, particularly Israel.
Saeb Erekat's record, however, shows that this was not the first time that he had made a false accusation against Israel.
In an interview with CNN on April 10, 2002, Saeb Erekat falsely claimed that Israeli troops had killed "more than 500 people" during a counter-terrorist operation in the West Bank city of Jenin. Two days later, he repeated the charge on CNN: "A real massacre was committed in the Jenin refugee camp." He added that 300 Palestinians were being buried in mass graves. On April 15, 2002, Erekat continued his charges: "And I stand by the term 'massacres' were committed in the refugee camps."
The truth is that "hundreds" of Palestinians were not killed during the anti-terrorist Israeli military operation in the West Bank in 2002. The Israeli military confirmed that there were 54 bodies found in Jenin, and Palestinian officials have verified the Israeli numbers. Mousa Kadoura, director of the Palestinian ruling Fatah faction in the northern West Bank, said that 56 Palestinians died in Jenin.
The Washington Times later commented on the false accusations that Israel had committed a "massacre" in Jenin:
"It is not strange that many Jews have started to suggest the world is seeing a resurgence of anti-Semitism. Take, for instance, the so-called 'Jenin massacre.' Remember the screaming headlines and the front-page pictures of devastation as Israeli troops fought their way through the Palestinian refugee camps in early April? Bad as it looked, the evidence is now clear evidence presented to the United Nations, no less that the operation in now justified the accusations of genocide and crimes against humanity that were being flung at Israel. There was no mass murder of Palestinian civilians at Jenin."
Has Saeb Erekat since apologized or retracted his false accusation? No. Not only has Erekat failed to apologize for his fabrications, but he has continued to spread more lies about Israel. One of Erekat's famous lies: "Israel has effectively interfered with and changed the status quo of Christian and Muslim prayer sites and institutions in Occupied East Jerusalem."
"Exactly the opposite is true, given Israel's scrupulous respect for the existing religious practices in Jerusalem, " commented Dr. Eran Lerman, former deputy for foreign policy and international affairs at the National Security Council in the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, on Erekat's lie.
Referring to another claim by Erekat that "Israel has effectively changed Al-Aqsa [Mosque] Status Quo," Lerman noted:
"Here Erekat's shameless campaign of lies, apparently aimed at journalists who will not bother to check the verbiage they are fed, reached new heights. No respect is paid to the Jewish heritage and patrimony on the Temple Mount. Nor has such respect been evidenced on the Mount, where the [Islamic] Waqf has deliberately destroyed archeological evidence of the ancient Jewish temples."
Lerman, commenting on a document published in 2015 by the PLO official's "Negotiations Affairs Department," concluded:
"Saeb Erekat is a unique phenomenon in the Palestinian orbit. For years, he has played the dual role of negotiator-in-chief for Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and propaganda par excellence for the regimes of Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. His record of lies and dissimulations is legion, and seems to be getting worse as he ages. History will yet record his abysmal diplomatic role in the many mistakes of the Palestinian national movement."
Erekat is now using the killing of his relative to step up his incitement and spread more lies about Israel. He is now demanding that Israel unconditionally hand over the terrorist's body to his family. He wants the body so that the family would be able to honor the terrorist by holding a large funeral for him. The former Palestinian "chief negotiator" would, apparently, love to attend the funeral of the terrorist together with Palestinians chanting "Death to Israel."
Erekat is demanding that Israel release the body of a terrorist, while ignoring that his Hamas brothers in the Gaza Strip have been holding the remains of Israeli soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin since 2014. Erekat does not care that the families of the Israeli soldiers have not been able to bury their beloved ones. He is more concerned about the body of a terrorist than about the ongoing suffering of the families of Shaul and Goldin. Saeb Erekat's continued lies and fabrications about Israel promote anti-Semitism and embolden terrorists.
As a veteran negotiator, it would be a good idea for him to use his experience to persuade the Hamas terrorists to release the remains of the two soldiers instead of waging a propaganda campaign on behalf of a terrorist who woke up one morning and decided to kill Jews.
With negotiators like Erekat, one can understand why the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has been stalled for so many years.
*Bassam Tawil, a Muslim Arab, is based in the Middle East.
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Making the Palestinian Cause Political Again
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 03/2020
In descriptions of the Palestinian cause, several terms- concepts were popularized by the “Rejectionist Front” and “Axis of Resistance”, among them: it is a war of existence, not borders. It is a question that the Palestinians do not have the right to settle, as it is of an Arab nationalist nature. It is a struggle that neither an Arab leader nor all Arab leaders combined have the right to end because the masses have the final say. It is a struggle that a single generation cannot solve, for Palestine is owned by a succession of Arab generations. It is a war in which one ought not humanize the enemy...
The struggle, then, is one for existence, and it is being waged against demons who ought not be humanized, as for those directly implicated, they cannot provide a solution to it, nor can a ruler, a group of rulers or even a generation...
Whoever is skeptical about this description should recall that 120 years have passed since the problem began, and there is no guarantee that the next 120 years will solve it.
The fact is, a problem with these characteristics ceases to be a problem: problems are solvable, if not today, tomorrow, and if not under these conditions, then under others. That which is not solvable ceases to be a problem. It becomes a legend.
The description above leaves the Palestinian question far-removed from reality, reason, and, thus, from history. It becomes more akin to legend.
Some might say that the solution exists: the liberation of Palestine and the abolition of the State of Israel, and perhaps its society as well, through armed resistance. But this keeps the problem unresolved, because it is simply not a solution. It is more of a half-backed and costly joke.
The reasons behind this recap, always necessary, of the state that the Palestinian question has come to be in, are at least four, and they all address liberating both the scene and the spectator:
First, liberating the Palestinians from the burden of an unresolvable problem, as the insolubility turns their lives into a group of unresolvable problems, deadly suffering with limited prospects for alleviation.
Second, liberating the Palestinian cause from the ease with which it is exploited. Only when it is presented as a solvable problem will it become possible to prevent its use as a bargaining chip in the hands of regimes that keep promising to "liberate Palestine" and "pray in Al-Aqsa".
Third, liberating the Arab peoples from being blackmailed by an unsolvable problem. This is what we saw, in its clearest form, in the Syrian experience: hitting back at the revolution in the name of fighting Israel and liberating Palestine.
Fourth, liberating politics in the Arab world from the virus that is the prevalent image of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as unsolvable, for this image reinforces the image of sectarian and ethnic divisions as similarly unresolvable.
In fact, the strategy followed by the axis of resistance is: enlarging the rock to avoid throwing it. The cause is given adjectives like singular uniqueness and said to be “the compass”, etc...so that nothing that meets this description happens. Either we liberate and pray in Al-Aqsa, or we do nothing, while shooting at and vilifying all actions that diverge.
What is needed, on the other hand, is a reinvigoration of the Palestinian cause, i.e. liposuction that removes fats of history, divinity and fate from it. All that fat has made its body very obese, unable to move, but its size blocks all other paths.
After that, the cause’s political body, that is, the issues of politics, rights and interests is what should be preserved. If this were to happen, the Palestinian cause could be brought back to reality and history, at the expense of the rejectionist-axis of resistance interpretation, that is, that of Iran and Syria, which have thrived on despair and invested in Israel’s obstinacy and the failure to confront it. Only with such restoration would life be breathed back into the Palestinian cause, turning it once again into a living struggle with living questions: Only thus could various opinions be discussed. Whoever wishes to defend armed confrontation would be able to do so, as well as those who wish to defend reaching a settlement, defend the right of return or claim that the right of return is not possible, etc.... We would be able to disagree about it without hurling accusations of treason and treachery at whoever does not believe in the divinity of the cause. We would take it from the realm of divinity to the realm of politics, from absolute to relative.
Hannah Arendt, a German American political scientist, speaking about the Jewish experience, refers to what she considers “its most powerful myth”. Throughout history, in contrast to all other nations, Jews ‘‘were not history-makers but history-sufferers, preserving a kind of eternal identity of goodness whose monotony was disturbed only by the equally monotonous chronicle of persecutions and pogroms.’’ Arendt believed that this view exonerates the victim of any responsibility, that it extracted problems of Jewish identity and suffering throughout history essentialized Jews as victims. Such a view, Arendt claims, cut off Jewish history from European and world history, and created a state of mind that she defined as ‘‘worldlessness.’’Such a critique is necessary in our case, keeping one of the main differences in mind: allies of the Jewish cause been supporting it since the famous Balfour Declaration, while the allies of the Palestinian cause are lip-service allies who want the cause to support them more than they support it. They only fill it with hot air.

Why Big Nations Have Been Brought Low by the Pandemic
Mihir Sharma/Bloomberg/August 03/2020
India is now the epicenter of the global coronavirus pandemic. It ranks just behind the US and Brazil in confirmed cases and is growing faster than either. The total rose 20% in just the last week, despite the fact that India is testing less than most of its peers.
It’s looking increasingly likely that India will wind up being the country with the most cases in the world. This is not just a function of its massive population; China, too, has over 1 billion people. It is a reflection of the fact that big, diverse countries are at a disadvantage in dealing with pandemics.
Smaller nations such as New Zealand or Thailand can manage the flow of cases by shutting down their international borders. But internal borders are as porous in India as they are in the US. Imagine, for instance, how impossible it would have been for Europe to flatten its curve if it hadn’t suspended the Schengen agreement and freedom of movement for its 450 million people. Generally, officials in large nations are reduced to playing whack-a-mole: Even if they suppress an outbreak in Kerala or New York, chances are it will pop up somewhere else.
The pressure to “reopen” in such countries is also greater. Large nations do well economically because they have big, interdependent and diverse internal markets. Consequently, they can ill afford to have those supply chains broken for long. Unlike the US, India was quick to impose a proper nationwide lockdown — at great economic and human cost. Yet now the virus is spreading because people have to move across internal borders if the economy reopens even slightly.
That puts a premium on effective government. Keeping close track of such movements and of every little outbreak would require a centralized state with no shortage of spare capacity — ideally one already primed to spy on its own citizens, such as China’s. For better or worse, no other big-nation government has similar abilities.
In the US, the pandemic has made the consequence of decades of misallocation and paralysis tragically clear. The American edifice of government has been hollowed out and its federal structure made unfit for purpose in a partisan and divided age. This ineffectiveness is reflected in data such as the World Governance Indicators, which has seen the US decline steadily over the past two decades.
The world’s largest economy should not have a state that struggles to respond effectively to a crisis, even a once-in-a-century crisis. India’s state, on the other hand, has always been low on capacity. In fact, it’s a standard joke among policy analysts in India that any conversation about what needs to be done ends with the statement, “But we can’t do that anyway.” The Indian state, at every level, is chronically short of managerial resources, of talent, of resources and of time.
Often, if it does one thing well, something else is shorted. Early on in the pandemic, the southern state of Kerala received praise for how well it had limited the spread of the virus through vigorous contact-tracing. But, it turns out, the state devoted so much of its capacity to contact tracing that it failed to ramp up testing. Now state leaders have had to admit that cases are increasing through community spread.
One of the long-term consequences of this crisis will certainly be new thinking about federal states — and a fresh assessment of what in government constitutes “waste” and what is vital excess capacity.
Even in the short term, though, there are quick lessons to learn. Consider one success story in India — the outbreak in the massive Mumbai slum of Dharavi, where “Slumdog Millionaire” was famously set. Early on, it seemed that Dharavi would almost certainly suffer an exponential rise in cases. Instead, an innovative combination of privately staffed fever clinics, repurposed public infrastructure and manpower from non-governmental organizations managed to flatten the curve there.
When the state has insufficient capacity, it needs to strike alliances like this with players in the private sector and non-profits. In fact, that’s one mistake Kerala made: The Communist-run local government waited too long to incorporate the private healthcare sector in its plans, undoing much of its earlier success.
Large countries with under-performing states need to shift approach swiftly. In Brazil, an uncooperative national leadership has already forced communities to turn to local organizations and transnational non-profits for help. Governments are going to have to treat NGOs and companies respectfully, as partners, if they want to have a chance of getting through this.