English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 12/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also
Luke 12/33-40: Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. “Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them awake, blessed are those servants! But know this, that if the master of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 11-12/2020
Lebanon Registers Record Number of Daily COVID-19 Cases
Lebanon’s Judiciary Continues Investigations Into Port Explosion
Lebanese Call for Downfall of President, Other Officials over Beirut Blast
Lebanese Demand Change after Government Quits over Beirut Blast
Netanyahu, Ashkenazi hint Hezbollah behind Beirut blast
French MP demands that France designate Hezbollah a terror organization
Lebanon’s Opposition Pushes for Early Elections
Lebanese Family Restless as It Awaits Missing 'Heroes'
Week after Deadly Blast, Lebanon Crisis Deepens
A Week after Blast, Beirut Pauses to Remember the Dead
Shoukri Meets Aoun: Egypt Stands by Lebanon during Crisis
Aoun signs decree referring explosion crime to the Judicial Council
Aoun Promises 'Grieving Lebanese' to Unveil Facts of Port Blast
Jordan FM Meets Leaders, Says Lebanon Can Ask Jordan for Any Assistance
Lebanese Parliament Speaker Does Not Mourn Resigned Govt.
Sami Gemayel meets Shukri: Roadmap to get out of crisis, international investigation committee to determine responsibilities
Shoukry visits Hariri: We are providing food and medical aid and are ready to help in the investigations
UNESCO commits to rehabilitate damaged schools, support education sector in aftermath of Beirut explosion
Berri chairs Development and Liberation bloc meeting, welcomes Egyptian and Jordanian Foreign Ministers
Strong Lebanon Bloc praises international and Arab support, Paris Conference: We will spare no effort to facilitate birth of government
Jumblat Urges 'Emergency Govt.', Says Doesn't Have PM Nominee
Lebanese gov't resignation: In Hezbollah's shadow, does it even matter?/Seith J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
Lebanese gov't resignation: In Hezbollah's shadow, does it even matter?
Seith J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
Inside the Struggle Between Israel and Hezbollah/Shimon Shapira/The Tablet/August 11/2020
Meet Michel Aoun, Hezbollah's puppet president in Beirut/Tom Rogan/Washington Examiner/August 11/2020
Lebanon Needs Transformation, Not Another Corrupt Unity Government/Hanin Ghaddar/Foreign Policy/August 11/2020
Who Owned the Chemicals that Blew up Beirut? No One Will Say
Lebanon Blast: Political Game Changer or Hollow Blow?
Why Did Lebanon Let a Bomb-in-Waiting Sit in a Warehouse for 6 Years?/Faysal Itani/The New York Times/August 11/2020
Hezbollah Will Not Escape Blame for Beirut/Hussein Ibish/Bloomberg/August 11/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 11-12/2020

Iran exporting over twice as much oil as US estimated - report
Iran says five Iranians spying for Israel arrested in recent months
Russia, Turkey Resume Joint Patrol Near Aleppo
Germany, France, Italy to Apply EU Sanctions for Libya Arms Embargo Violations
Iraq PM Pressures Political Blocs to Hold Early Elections
GERD Dam Talks Adjourned for a Week
Egypt-Gaza Crossing Opens for First Time in Months

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 11-12/2020

Jihadi Murderers Feign “Reform” and Fool the Establishment/Raymond Ibrahim/August 11/2020
The Battle of Hagia Sophia: Erdogan’s Conquest of the Turkish Republic/Aykan Erdemir/FDD/August 12/2020
China’s Plan To Buy Iran Won’t Go So Smoothly/Alireza Nader/The National Interest/August 11/2020
Why Turkey needs a new crisis with Greece in Mediterranean/Seith J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 11/202
Seven Deadly Unknowns Drive Dollar's Downward Spin/John Authers/Bloomberg/August, 11/2020
The Palestinian War on History/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/August 11, 2020
Is the New York Attorney General Selectively Investigating The NRA?/Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/August 11, 2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 11-12/2020

Lebanon Registers Record Number of Daily COVID-19 Cases
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Lebanon on Tuesday announced a record daily number of over 300 COVID-19 infections and seven deaths from the virus as the country grapples with the aftermath of the Beirut port explosion that rocked the capital and overwhelmed hospitals. The country's tally now stands at 7,121 COVID-19 cases and 87 deaths since February, according to health ministry data. Even before the blast there had been a recent surge in infections. The Aug. 4 explosion killed at least 171 people, injured some 6,000 and damaged swathes of the capital, leaving some 300,000 without habitable housing. Hospitals, many of which were damaged and their staff injured, were flooded with wounded. World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jarasevic told a United Nations briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that the displacement of so many people risks accelerating the spread of COVID-19. The WHO on Aug. 7 issued an appeal for $15 million to cover emergency health needs in Lebanon, where the healthcare sector had already been strained by shortages of medical supplies and medicine due to a deep financial crisis. "The emergency in Beirut has caused many COVID-19 precautionary measures to be relaxed, raising the prospects of even higher transmission rates and a large caseload in coming weeks," the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in an Aug. 10 report.It said at least 15 medical facilities, including three major hospitals, sustained partial or heavy structural damage from the blast. An assessment of 55 primary healthcare centers in Beirut showed only 47% could still provide full routine services.

Lebanon’s Judiciary Continues Investigations Into Port Explosion
Beirut - Youssef Diab/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
The judicial and security investigations into the Beirut Port explosion are following several paths. State Prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat started interrogating some of the arrested people, including security officials. He questioned for two hours on Monday the State Security Chief, Major General Tony Saliba, before releasing him pending further investigations. Meanwhile, sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Director General of the Internal Security Forces (ISF), Major General Imad Othman, “will not be subject to any judicial investigation or accountability for what happened in the port, given that the ISF has neither authority over the port nor security checkpoints in any of its areas.”Lebanon’s judiciary has not made a decision to arrest new suspects in the case. A senior judge told Asharq Al-Awsat that there were currently 19 detainees, after two people were released pending investigations. He expected that more people will be arrested when further information is available. “The pace of the investigation will accelerate as soon as the technical teams finish their work at the crime scene, especially when the reports of the French bomb experts, who are working with the Lebanese expert bodies, are completed,” the judge noted. On whether current and former ministers will be subject to interrogation, the judicial source replied: “The investigation will include everyone who had an authority over this file and was aware of the presence of these materials in the port.”
Tremendous political pressure is being exerted on Oueidat, the judge revealed, especially with regards to the arrest of the Customs Director General Badri Daher. He stressed that the campaigns would not prevent the judiciary from “proceeding with its mission to uncover the truth and prosecute those responsible for the tragedy.”In parallel, the Administrative, Security and Military Investigation Committee set up by the Supreme Defense Council is yet to issue its findings, despite the expiration of the five-day deadline given to it by the Council. Well-informed sources said that the committee’s investigations were separate from those conducted by the judiciary, stressing that its mission would be difficult, especially after the arrest of Daher, one of its most prominent members, by a judicial order.”

Lebanese Call for Downfall of President, Other Officials over Beirut Blast
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Angry and grieving demonstrators on Tuesday read aloud the names of at least 171 people killed in last week’s explosion at Beirut port and called for the removal of Lebanon’s president and other officials they blame for the tragedy. Gathered near “ground zero”, some carried pictures of the victims as a large screen replayed footage of the mushroom cloud that rose over the city last Tuesday after highly-explosive material stored for years detonated, injuring some 6,000 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. “HE KNEW” was written across an image of President Michel Aoun on a poster at the protest venue. Underneath, it read: “A government goes, a government comes; we will continue until the president and the parliament speaker are removed.” Reuters reported that the president and prime minister were warned in July about the warehoused ammonium nitrate, according to documents and senior security sources.Aoun, who has pledged a swift and transparent investigation, tweeted on Tuesday: “My promise to all the pained Lebanese is that I will not rest until all the facts are known.”Residents of Beirut were still picking up the pieces as search operations continued for 30 to 40 people still missing and security forces fired tear gas at stone-throwing protesters in the fourth such day of unrest. “Our house is destroyed and we are alone,” said Khalil Haddad. “We are trying to fix it the best we can at the moment. Let’s see, hopefully there will be aid and, the most important thing: hopefully the truth will be revealed.”
Lebanese have not been placated by Monday’s resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government and are demanding the removal of what they see as a corrupt ruling class they blame for the country’s woes. “We will not forget until nooses are erected (for the leaders),” said one man at Tuesday’s demonstration after he read out some of the victims’ names shown on the screen.
Endemic corruption
Diab, announcing his cabinet’s resignation, blamed endemic graft for the explosion, the biggest in Beirut’s history and which compounded a deep financial crisis that has ravaged the currency, paralyzed the banking system and sent prices soaring.
“I said before that corruption is rooted in every juncture of the state but I have discovered that corruption is greater than the state,” he said, blaming the political elite for blocking reforms. Talks with the International Monetary Fund have stalled amid a row between the government, banks and politicians over the scale of vast financial losses.For many Lebanese, the explosion was the last straw in a protracted crisis over the collapse of the economy, corruption, waste and dysfunctional government. The blast left a crater more than 100 meters across on dock nine, the French ambassador said on Twitter following a visit to the site by French forensic scientists supporting an investigation into the disaster. The Beirut port mirrors the sectarian power system in which the same politicians have dominated the country since the 1975-90 civil war. Each faction has its quota of directors at the port, the nation’s main trade artery.
“It’s a good thing that the government resigned. But we need new blood or it won’t work,” said silversmith Avedis Anserlianin in front of his demolished shop. Diab formed his government in January with the backing of the Iran-backed Hezbollah party and its allies, more than two months after Saad Hariri quit as premier amid anti-government protests against corruption and mismanagement. Aoun is required to consult with parliamentary blocs on who should be the next prime minister, and is obliged to designate the candidate with the most support. The presidency has yet to say when official consultations will take place.
Forming a government amid factional rifts has been daunting in the past, but it could prove especially difficult now to find someone willing to be prime minister. World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jarasevic said eight international medical teams were on the ground to support overwhelmed health facilities, under strain even before the blast due to the financial crisis and a surge in COVID-19 cases. Officials have said the blast could have caused losses of $15 billion, a bill Lebanon cannot pay. Ihsan Mokdad, a contractor, surveyed a gutted building in Gemmayze, a district a few hundred meters from the port.
“They’re all a bunch of crooks,” he said. “I didn’t see one member of parliament visit this area.”

Lebanese Demand Change after Government Quits over Beirut Blast
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Angry Lebanese said the government’s resignation on Monday did not come near to addressing the tragedy of last week’s Beirut explosion and demanded the removal of what they see as a corrupt ruling class to blame for the country’s woes. A protest with the slogan “Bury the authorities first” was planned near the port, where highly explosive material stored for years detonated on Aug. 4, killing at least 163 people, injuring 6,000 and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. Prime Minister Hassan Diab, announcing his cabinet’s resignation, blamed endemic graft for the explosion, the biggest in Beirut’s history and which compounded a deep financial crisis that has collapsed the currency, paralyzed the banking system and forced up prices. “I said before that corruption is rooted in every juncture of the state but I have discovered that corruption is greater than the state,” he said, blaming the political elite for blocking reforms. Talks with the International Monetary Fund have stalled amid a row between the government, banks and politicians over the scale of vast financial losses. “It does not end with the government’s resignation,” said the protest flyer circulating on social media. “There is still (President Michel) Aoun, (Parliament Speaker Nabih) Berri and the entire system.”For many Lebanese, the explosion was the last straw in a protracted crisis over the collapse of the economy, corruption, waste and dysfunctional government. The Beirut port mirrors the sectarian power system in which the same politicians have dominated the country since the 1975-90 civil war. Each faction has its quota of directors at the port, the nation’s main trade artery. “It’s a good thing that the government resigned. But we need new blood or it won’t work,” silversmith Avedis Anserlian told Reuters in front of his demolished shop. Aoun is required to consult with parliamentary blocs on who should be the next prime minister, and is obliged to designate the candidate with the most support. Forming a government amid factional rifts has been daunting in the past. Now with growing public discontent and the crushing financial crisis, it could be difficult to find someone willing to be prime minister. Meanwhile, residents of Beirut continued to pick up the pieces as search operations for those still missing went on. Officials have said the blast could have caused losses of $15 billion, a bill Lebanon cannot pay.Ihsan Mokdad, a contractor, surveyed a gutted building in Gemmayze, a district a few hundred meters from the port.

Netanyahu, Ashkenazi hint Hezbollah behind Beirut blast
Lahav Harkov/Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
UNIFIL is a ‘half-empty vessel,’ Foreign Minister Ashkenazi warns ahead of UNSC discussion of renewing its mandate.
The massive explosion in Beirut shows Hezbollah uses of Lebanese civilians and cities to cover for their terrorist actions, Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi told 12 ambassadors of UN Security Council member states at Israel’s northern border on Tuesday. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ashkenazi tied the massive explosion in Beirut to Hezbollah’s weapon stores in civilian areas of Lebanon.
Netanyahu spoke to French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday, saying: “In order to avoid disasters like the one at the Beirut Port, we have to confiscate the explosives and missiles that Hezbollah has hidden in civilian population centers in Lebanon.”It would be a “big mistake” for Hezbollah to try to distract from the situation in Lebanon by attacking Israel, the prime minister added.
Netanyahu also praised Macron’s leadership on the international response to the Beirut blast, repeating Israel’s offer to provide humanitarian aid.
Ashkenazi made thinly-veiled hints that the Iranian-backed terror group was responsible for the blast and that the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the Beirut Port may have belonged to the terrorist organization. Israel has long held that Hezbollah controlled the port. “Israel cannot remain apathetic to Hezbollah’s attempts to harm Israeli sovereignty and citizens,” Ashkenazi warned 12 ambassadors of UN Security Council member states at Israel’s northern border on Tuesday. “Hezbollah is acting in urban and populated territories and using Lebanese citizens as human shields as we saw in the unfortunate event last week, in which hundreds of innocent Lebanese civilians were injured,” he said.

French MP demands that France designate Hezbollah a terror organization
Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
He said that with regard to the letter, Macron gave him a courteous but evasive answer, "dodging the heart of the subject."
French-Israeli member of the French National Assembly, Meyer Habib, categorically stated that France "must" designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization, via his social media channels on Monday. The call comes on the backdrop of the explosion that detonated more than 2,500 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, devastating Beirut and triggering public outrage - resulting in the deaths of at least 163 people, the injuries of more than 6,000 and the destruction of swathes of the Mediterranean capital. Habib penned the letter to French President Emmanuel Macron a year ago, requesting that the French leader denounces the organization and designates the movement as a terrorist entity. Following the public outcry and outrage from the Lebanese people - who Habib adds, "say it loud and clear," that the disaster was a direct result of the heavily armed Iran-backed Shi'ite Hezbollah movement's grip over the country - Habib decided to revamp his position and resend the letter.
"My letter recalls the facts, all the facts, including that Hezbollah has a lot of French blood on its hands and that our country was even one of the first victims," Habib said on Facebook. He said that with regard to the letter, Macron gave him a courteous but evasive answer, "dodging the heart of the subject."
Therefore, he is now reiterating his request to the National Assembly's Foreign Affairs Committee, "France must declare Hezbollah terrorist organization and remove the artificial distinction between armed and political branch, like Germany!"
Following Macron's visit to Beirut hours after the blast, the French president told US President Donald Trump that the US sanctions targeting Iran-backed Shi'ite group Hezbollah are playing into the hands of those they are meant to weaken, including Iran, an Élysée official said on Saturday.
Washington has sought to choke off Hezbollah's funding worldwide, with sanctions among a slew of steps against Tehran since Trump withdrew last year from a 2015 international nuclear deal with Iran. Oil-rich Gulf Arab states, which have long channeled funds into Lebanon’s fragile economy, had refrained this time from providing financial assistance, alarmed by the rising influence of Hezbollah.
"He told him that in the case of Lebanon, the fact is that the policy of pressure or abstention from the United States and some Gulf countries could actually play into the hands of those they are targeting, Iran and Hezbollah," the official said.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah praised solidarity and aid pouring in from around the world, including the visit by Macron. He said this presented an opportunity for Lebanon, already deep in financial crisis.
The same Hezbollah leader threatened in the past to destroy Israel by causing a massive explosion in the port of Haifa using ammonia tanks that he said would be like a “nuclear” explosion, the same chemicals that ignited the Beirut blast.
"In the interest of the Lebanese people, to allow them to reopen the reins of their collective destiny, it is the most concrete, bravest and strongest gesture" to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization, Habib concluded.
If France were to move forward with placing the terrorist distinction on Iran-aligned Hezbollah it would join the list of more than a dozen countries and groups of nations that have done the same – including Israel, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, the Arab League and the European Union.
*Reuters and Seth J. Frantzman contributed to this report.

Lebanon’s Opposition Pushes for Early Elections
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Lebanon’s opposition forces are holding intensive discussions to push for shortening the parliament’s term, organizing early parliamentary elections and forming a neutral government. In this context, a delegation from the Democratic Gathering bloc, headed by MP Taymour Jumblatt, conducted visits on Monday to Speaker Nabih Berri and the head of the Lebanese Forces Party, Samir Geagea. The delegation also reportedly communicated with former Prime Minister Saad Hariri. In remarks following the meeting, Geagea said: “We are hours away from a major step, and the government’s resignation will not change anything.” He also called for “early parliamentary elections based on the current electoral law.”“We listened to the (Democratic Gathering) delegation, and things are moving at a rapid pace; we will hear good news in the next few hours on these bad days,” Geagea added. For his part, MP Akram Chehayeb called for early parliamentary elections to bring about a new authority in the country. “The country is kidnapped and has become a hostage of the regional axes… It can no longer bear the consequences of an authority that is linked to a specific axis,” he said following the meeting with the LF leader.
Chehayeb noted that the delegation agreed with Geagea on many points, adding that they would communicate with Hariri in the hope of reaching a position that would pave the way for early parliamentary elections. During the meeting with Berri, Taymour Jumblatt called for an international investigation to uncover the circumstances of the Beirut explosion. “We do not trust the local investigation. We demand the end of the government of death and starvation and the formation of a neutral cabinet. We also demand that the parliament’s term be shortened and a non-sectarian law be adopted to allow the youth in the squares to reach parliament,” he stated. “After decades of wars, death and devastation, the Lebanese have the right to live in dignity and safety in their country,” Jumblatt concluded.

Lebanese Family Restless as It Awaits Missing 'Heroes'
Naharnet/August 12/2020
Three firefighters. One Lebanese family. The same restless wait. Rita Hitti has not slept a wink since the Beirut port blast, when her firefighting son, nephew and son-in-law went missing. "In one piece or several, we want our sons back," she told AFP from the Hitti family's home in the mountain town of Qartaba, north of Beirut."We have been waiting for the remains for six days," she added, dark circles under her eyes. Najib Hitti, 27, Charbel Hitti, 22 and Charbel Karam, 37, all relatives, left together in one firetruck to douse a port blaze believed to have sparked the August 4 mega-blast that killed 160 people and wounded at least 6,000 others across town. They were among the first rescuers at the scene. They have not been heard of since. Near the entrance to their Qartaba home, the three men are praised as "heroes" in a huge banner unfurled over a wall. The double exposure shot shows them in the foreground dressed sharply in suits. In the background, the blast's now-infamous pink plume rises above their heads as they try to douse a fire. An eerie calm filled the stone-arched living room, where dozens of relatives and neighbors gathered around Rita, the mother of Najib Hitti. The women were mum, the men whispered between themselves, the young shuffled in and out of the room, quietly. Karlen, Rita's daughter, looked among the most somber, with her husband Charbel Karam, brother Najib and cousin Charbel all missing. Sitting next to her mother on the couch, she fought back tears and did not say a single word.
- 'I know their smell' -
The Hittis' hopes of seeing their loved ones alive have dimmed since the army on Sunday said it had concluded search and rescue operations with little to no hope of finding survivors. The health ministry has said the number of missing stands at less than 20, while the army announced it had lifted five corpses from beneath the rubble. A large blaze was still ripping through the blast site when the Hittis and other relatives of port employees dashed to the disaster zone to check on their loved ones. But they were stopped by security forces. "I told them I would know my boys from their smell," Rita said she told an officer who barred her from the site. "Let me enter to search for them and when I whiff their smell I will know where they are," the mother said she pleaded. Ever since, her hopes have gradually dwindled, but her anger is boiling. Lebanese authorities have pledged a swift investigation but the exact cause of the blast remains unclear. Authorities say it was triggered by a fire of unknown origin that broke out in a port warehouse where a huge pile of highly volatile ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been left unsecured for years. Whatever the cause of the fire was, the popular consensus is that the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of officials in charge of the port as well those who have ruled Lebanon country for decades. "We gave them heroes and they returned them to us as 'martyrs'," Rita said, scoffing at the label officials have used to brand blast casualties. "What martyrs? What were they protecting? The noxious things (authorities) were hiding in the port?" she asked rhetorically.
"They are martyrs of treachery."
- DNA tests -
George, father of Charbel Hitti, also rushed to the blast site to look for his son and relatives after the explosion. "I started to scream their names: Najib, Charbel... I was like a mad man," he told AFP. "We waited until 6 in the morning the next day for clues to what happened," he said. "In the end, I started crying."
He did manage, however, to get one piece of information from a port security official close to the family who was at the scene of the blaze when the firefighting team first arrived on August 4. The security official had told him that the firefighters were trying to break open the door to the ammonium nitrate warehouse because they could not find the keys before the explosion ripped the whole place apart. A week has since passed and George said hopes of finding the three men alive have faded. Assuming they are dead, George said he now wants one thing: "We just want DNA test results that are compatible with those of Charbel, Najib and Charbel," he said. "Imagine. This is everything we now wish for."

Week after Deadly Blast, Lebanon Crisis Deepens
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 12/2020
The resignation of the government deepened political uncertainty as Beirut on Tuesday marked one week since the deadly port explosion rocked the capital and shook the nation to its core. The August 4 blast, the country's worst peacetime tragedy which killed at least 160 people and wounded over 6,000, is widely blamed on state negligence and has ignited unprecedented popular rage against the ruling class. Under pressure from all sides, Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced his government's resignation on Monday, even as protesters clashed with riot police near his office for a third consecutive evening of street violence. In his speech, the 61-year-old sought to cast himself as a champion of the struggle against a cartel of corrupt political overlords, despite the fact many Lebanese have long regarded him as their puppet rather than a victim. As the shattered and traumatized capital city licked its wounds, its streets still filled with the sound of broken glass being swept away, people welcomed news of the cabinet's resignation with mixed feelings. Some saw it as a victory for the protest movement that already forced out the previous government last year. Others warned that, given the power of Lebanon's factions and family clans, the same old faces may be back before too long. "It's a long fight that won't end in a month or two," said Hussein al-Ashi, an activist and lawyer defending the resurgent protest camp. "But they are weak, they have never been weaker, even among their own people," he said of the entrenched oligarchy of former warlords running the country. "I am very hopeful ... with what I'm seeing on the street."
Search for next PM
The blast rocked Lebanon at a time when it was already on its knees, having defaulted on its massive debt and seen poverty rise to near third world levels. Some observers argue that the massive extra burden and the deep popular anger over the tragedy will reduce the room for maneuver of Lebanon's politicians, who also face pressure to agree as a condition for foreign assistance. "They will find it very difficult to avoid the kind of structural reforms that the international community has made a precondition for any aid," said political science professor Bassel Salloukh of the Lebanese American University. France has taken the lead of the international emergency response, and President Emmanuel Macron chaired an aid conference that raised a quarter of a million euros. Macron visited blast-ravaged neighborhoods of Beirut two days after the disaster and adopted a tough tone with the Lebanese leaders he met, warning that they needed to strike "a revamped pact with the Lebanese people." For now Diab's team will continue in a caretaker capacity, as Lebanon faces some of its darkest hours, but negotiations were underway for a successor. According to the Al-Akhbar daily newspaper, veteran diplomat Nawaf Salam is favored by Paris, Washington and Riyadh, three of the key outside power brokers in Lebanon. Iran, sponsor of Lebanon's dominant Hizbullah movement, also appeared to be on board with such a scenario, which would see Salam head up a neutral government not hostile to the Shiite group. It was not clear how other factions viewed that solution. The 66-year-old Salam was Lebanon's ambassador to the United Nations for a decade before serving a term as a judge on the U.N.-backed International Court of Justice.
- Food 'catastrophe' looms -
In the blast zone, the increasingly hopeless search for survivors continued. Close to 20 people were still missing, including firefighters who were sent to the fire that preceded the explosion. The blast, which was felt as far as Cyprus, ripped the side off towering grain silos that shielded part of the city from the shockwave but spilled thousands of tons of grain vital to the country's food security. Foreign and Lebanese teams have been camping at "ground zero" near the site of the blast to organize the rescue effort and to restore temporary port infrastructure. Standing next to a U.N. cargo plane Monday, the head of the World Food Program said Lebanon needed all the help it could get because 85 percent of Lebanon's food used to come in through the port. "You are literally looking at a catastrophe in the making right now if we don't get the food moving and this port operational," David Beasley said. He said the plane was bringing in temporary warehousing equipment, cranes and generators to replace what was blown to smithereens by the blast. "Within two weeks, we're going to have that port operational, at least to the extent that we could put bread on the table of the people of Lebanon," he vowed. "Because right now the people of Lebanon are going to run out of bread in about two weeks."

A Week after Blast, Beirut Pauses to Remember the Dead
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 12/2020
The shattered city of Beirut on Tuesday marked a week since the catastrophic explosion that killed at least 171 people, injured thousands and plunged Lebanon into a deeper political crisis. Thousands of people marched near the devastated port, remembering those who died in the worst single blast to hit the country. They observed a minute of silence at 6:08 p.m. local time, the moment on Aug. 4 that thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate exploded in the city's port where it had been stored for more than six years, apparently with the knowledge of top political and security officials. At that moment Tuesday, church bells tolled and mosque loudspeakers recited a call to prayer. Hundreds marched through the streets of Gemmayze carrying portraits of the dead. "He knew," read a poster bearing President Michel Aoun's picture.
Aoun, in office since 2016, said Friday he was first told of the dangerous stockpile nearly three weeks ago and immediately ordered military and security agencies to do "what was needed." But he suggested his responsibility ended there, saying he had no authority over the port.
A candlelight vigil was planned for after dusk Tuesday. The explosion has fueled outrage against top political leaders and security agencies, and led to the resignation of the government on Monday. In the wake of the disaster, documents have come to light that show that top Lebanese officials knew about the existence of the stockpile in the heart of Beirut near residential areas, and did nothing about it. It still wasn't clear what caused the fire in a port warehouse that triggered the explosion of the chemicals, which created a shockwave so powerful it was felt as far away as the island of Cyprus more than 200 kilometres across the Mediterranean.
"From one minute to the next, the world changed for people in Beirut," said Basma Tabaja, deputy head of the International Committee of the Red Cross' delegation in Lebanon. Outgoing Health Minister Hamad Hassan said the blast killed a total of 171 people, with between 30 and 40 still missing. Of the injured, 1,500 needed special treatment while 120 remain in intensive care, he said. The explosion damaged thousands of apartments and offices in the capital. It comes amid an unprecedented economic and financial crisis facing the country since late last year. Efforts to form a new government got underway a day after Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned. His government, which was supported by Iran-backed Hizbullah and its allies, unraveled after the deadly blast, with three ministers announcing they were quitting. Diab's government was formed after his predecessor, Saad Hariri, stepped down in October in response to anti-government demonstrations over endemic corruption. It took months of bickering among the leadership factions before they settled on Diab. Lebanese have demanded an independent Cabinet not backed by any of the political political parties they blame for the mess they are in. Many are also calling for an independent investigation into the port explosion, saying they had zero trust in a local probe. Lebanese officials have rejected an international investigation. The government, in the last decision it made before resigning, referred the case to the Supreme Judicial Council, Lebanon's top judicial body, which handles crimes infringing on national security as well as political and state security crimes. State-run National News Agency said that after the case was referred to the Supreme Judicial Council, state prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat will continue his work as a general judicial prosecutor. NNA said that the investigation will continue by the military police and state prosecution and charges will be later filed to the judicial investigator who is to be named by the outgoing minister of justice. The ammonium nitrate, a chemical used in fertilizers and explosives, originated from a cargo ship called MV Rhosus that had been traveling from the country of Georgia to Mozambique in 2013. It made an unscheduled detour to Beirut as the Russian shipowner was struggling with debts and hoped to earn some extra cash in Lebanon. Unable to pay port fees and reportedly leaking, the ship was impounded.

Shoukri Meets Aoun: Egypt Stands by Lebanon during Crisis
Naharnet/August 12/2020
Egyptian Ambassador Sameh Shoukri announced in remarks after meeting President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace on Tuesday that Egypt is ready to support Lebanon. “We are ready to stand by brethren Lebanese people, and we are confident of the Lebanese' ability to overcome this crisis and face the challenges after the Beirut port explosion.”“A lot of accumulations have caused a lot of suffering. It is necessary to work on the special priorities of the Lebanese people and on reconstruction,” he added. Shoukri noted that efforts have been intensified at various levels to provide aid to the Lebanese. “An air bridge for Lebanon relief and humanitarian aid, as well as a sea bridge for reconstruction has been set up. Egypt stands by the Lebanese people,” he concluded. Shoukry held separate talks later in the day with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat.

Aoun signs decree referring explosion crime to the Judicial Council
NNA/August 12/2020
On the occasion of the passage of a week since the explosion crime which occurred in the Beirut port, the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, tweeted the following: “A week after the disaster, I renew my condolences to the grieving families, and my promise to all the suffering Lebanese is that I will not be quiet, nor will I rest, until all facts are clarified. Referring this crime to the Judicial Council is only the first step for that”.Judicial Council On the other hand, President Aoun signed this afternoon a decree referring the Beirut port explosion to the Judicial Council.-- Presidency Press Office

Aoun Promises 'Grieving Lebanese' to Unveil Facts of Port Blast
Naharnet/August 12/2020
President Michel Aoun on Tuesday marked one week since the catastrophic Beirut blast by pledging to “unveil all the facts” about the unprecedented disaster. “A week after the tragedy, I reiterate my condolences to the grieving families and I promise all bereaved Lebanese that I will not remain silent nor rest before unveiling all the facts,” Aoun tweeted. “The referral of the case to the Judicial Council is only the first step,” the president added. He had earlier in the day signed a decree referring the case to the Council, which is Lebanon’s top judicial body that handles crimes infringing on national security as well as political and state security crimes. The death toll from the massive explosion climbed to 171 on Tuesday. The new figure, up from 160, came exactly one week since the mega-blast ravaged swathes of the Lebanese capital, wounding more than 6,000 and temporarily displacing 300,000 people from their homes.

Jordan FM Meets Leaders, Says Lebanon Can Ask Jordan for Any Assistance
Naharnet/August 12/2020
Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi held talks Tuesday in Lebanon with President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri and caretaker Foreign Minister Charbel Wehbe. He also inspected the Jordanian field hospital in Ras al-Dekwaneh.
Safadi told Aoun that Jordan “puts at Lebanon’s disposal any assistance needed by the Lebanese during this painful period.”He also noted that his country has provided Lebanon with a field hospital and that an aid airlift will carry to Lebanon all the necessary tools and equipment. “The plight is huge and Lebanon will not be alone in facing its repercussions. We are confident that Beirut will rise to regain its vitality, elegance and prestige as a hub for culture,” Safadi added.
 

Lebanese Parliament Speaker Does Not Mourn Resigned Govt.
Beirut - Mohammed Choucair/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
The government of Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab did not have another choice but to resign, according to parliamentary sources that spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat. The sources said that President Michel Aoun contacted Speaker Nabih Berri, with whom he discussed the latter’s call for a parliamentary session to hold the government accountable for its failure to deal with the tragedy that struck Beirut as a result of the devastating explosion. According to the sources, Aoun urged Berri to postpone the session to a later date, because holding it would overthrow the government; but Berri insisted on his position. A number of his visitors quoted him as saying: “We will not feel sorry for its resignation, because it should bear responsibility, instead of washing its hands of its negligence and blaming the parliament.” When Aoun was unable to convince Berri, he suggested that the session be held at the Grand Serail instead of the Baabda presidential palace, because he refused to be the first witness of the government’s resignation, the sources told Asharq Al-Awsat. Diab announced his resignation during a cabinet session at the Grand Serial on Monday evening, without holding prior consultations to discuss the alternatives, which raised concerns over an extended caretaking period. The parliamentary sources saw that the resigned premier has deliberately engaged in a dispute with Berri, without realizing the size of the political dangers involved. They said that Diab gave himself the authority to overstep the speaker and suggest the shortening of parliament’s term. They also accused Diab of trying to ease the popular campaigns against him, by holding the parliament responsible for negligence over the massive explosion in the port of Beirut. Berri affirmed that the direct responsibility lied with the government, which has to bear the impact of the destruction that devastated Beirut, the speaker’s visitors revealed.

Sami Gemayel meets Shukri: Roadmap to get out of crisis, international investigation committee to determine responsibilities
NNA/August 12/2020
Head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, newly-resigned MP Sami Gemayel, met with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, and they discussed recent developments in Lebanon, particularly the port explosion and the resignation of the government.
Discussions touched on ways to overcome Lebanon's difficult phase, according to a statement by Gemayels' media office. The latter stressed "the importance of establishing an international and Arab investigation committee to uncover the truth about what happened in the port, in order for responsibilities to be determined and accountability to be made on this basis."The Kataeb president underlined the need for a "road map for the short, medium and long terms to get out of the crisis."

Shoukry visits Hariri: We are providing food and medical aid and are ready to help in the investigations
NNA/August 12/2020
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri received this evening at the Center House the Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and the accompanying delegation, in the presence of Former Prime Ministers Fouad Siniora and Tamam Salam, former Minister Ghattas Khoury and advisor Basem Shabb.
The meeting focused on the situation in Lebanon in the wake of the explosion in Beirut port last week and discussions continued over dinner. After the meeting, Shoukry said: “I met with Premier Hariri and Prime Ministers Fouad Siniora and Tamam Salam and conveyed to them my warmest condolences for the martyrs who fell in this painful plight in the Beirut port. I would like to take this opportunity to convey to the entire Lebanese people the condolences of all Egyptians and their solidarity with Lebanon. Lebanon is a dear Arab country, Beirut is an essential pillar of the Arab culture and civilization, and has a place in the heart of every Egyptian. I came today to accentuate that Cairo stands by Beirut, that Egypt puts all its capabilities at the disposal of the Lebanese. We continue the air bridge in the framework of the relief support that we provide, and we are working hard to help Lebanon overcome the destruction that occurred and assist it in the reconstruction phase. Our communication will continue to meet all needs in the limits of our capabilities.”He added: “I also came to Beirut to convey the solidarity of President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi with the Lebanese brothers, with all the capabilities of the Egyptian state. In addition to the air bridge that President Al-Sisi directed to transport food, medical aid and Egyptian medical personnel to Lebanon, the Egyptian experience in establishing and repairing ports is present to help the brothers, whether to repair Beirut port or to raise the efficiency of the other ports in Tripoli and Sidon.
I also conveyed to all the Lebanese officials I met Egypt's readiness to provide any support or assistance needed by the Lebanese side in the ongoing investigations or any other technical fields that we can contribute to.”
He continued: “I reiterate that we are looking forward to achieving all the aspirations of the Lebanese people in preserving the stability, sovereignty and unity of Lebanon, and overcoming the many challenges facing it. The challenges are not related only to the explosion but also to previous political and economic defies and the corona pandemic and all this urgently requires a change of direction and upgrading to a new framework that can meet the requirements of the Lebanese people to help them face challenges on the political and economic levels.
We cherish Lebanon as one of the pillars of the Arab culture, and we hope that we will overcome the current crisis through Arab solidarity and we have full confidence that the Lebanese people has the ability and will to overcome this crisis and assume its position in the heart of the Arab world.
Egypt is devoting all its potential and looks forward through its international partners and its communication with credit institutions to provide more support to Lebanon. This will only come through a new approach that restores confidence to Lebanon and its people and prepares a new phase that makes the interest of the Lebanese people prevail. I focused on this during my meetings today with many political leaders. I look forward to continuing this coordination and the support we provide on the basis of the historical relationship between the Egyptian and Lebanese peoples.-- Hariri Press Office

UNESCO commits to rehabilitate damaged schools, support education sector in aftermath of Beirut explosion
NNA/August 12/2020
The Beirut Port explosion that occurred on August 4, 2020, caused widespread damage and casualties. The education sector was heavily impacted, as the explosion led to the partial or complete destruction of about 70 public schools and 50 private schools in Beirut and neighboring areas. Such devastation threatens to disrupt the new academic year and deprive about 55,000 Lebanese and non-Lebanese students enrolled in these schools of their right to education. In the aftermath of the explosion, the Director of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States - Beirut, Dr. Hamed Al Hamami, met with the Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr. Tarek Majzoub, in presence of Director-General Mr Fadi Yarak, to explore the needs of the education sector and discuss UNESCO’s response.
At the request of the Ministry of Education and Higher Education, UNESCO will rehabilitate damaged schools in Beirut and affected areas, and will coordinate the school rehabilitation efforts in Lebanon among education partners to avoid duplication and ensure harmony of interventions.
The Director of the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Education in the Arab States - Beirut, Dr. Hamed Al Hamami, stated: “The rehabilitation of schools damaged by the Beirut explosion is one of the basic conditions for ensuring access to primary and secondary education, and it also contributes to achieving Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG4), that is – students’ access to inclusive and equitable quality education, even in emergency and crisis situations where the provision of educational services may be disrupted”.
In addition to the rehabilitation of schools, and given that a number of schools may opt for distance/remote education due to the COVID-19 pandemic and to the emerging crisis caused by the Beirut explosion, UNESCO will provide technical and financial support for the Ministry of Education and Higher Education to develop remote learning solutions and ensure that all students are equipped with technological devices that enable them to pursue their education remotely. Dr. Hamed Al Hamami said in this regard: “UNESCO’s support will be divided into two parts: one part aims to ensure that all students have access to remote education through providing them with electronic devices and learning kits; and another part aims to ensure the quality of remote education through providing technical support for education planners, curricula developers, and teachers to enable them to develop quality remote education programmes”. It should be noted that UNESCO's support comes within the framework of the "Global Education Coalition" launched by UNESCO at the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, and which aims to facilitate inclusive learning opportunities for children and youth during this period of sudden and unprecedented educational disruption, and to establish approaches to develop more open and flexible education systems for the future. Dr. Al Hamami said: “UNESCO Director-General Ms Audrey Azoulay is closely following the evolution of the situation in Lebanon, especially the impact of the recent explosion on the education sector. UNESCO reiterates its commitment to support Lebanon to overcome the effects of the Beirut explosion. We stand ready to harness all our capacities to ensure that learning never stops and to guarantee all students’ right to education".—UNIC

Berri chairs Development and Liberation bloc meeting, welcomes Egyptian and Jordanian Foreign Ministers
NNA/August 12/2020
The repercussions resulting from the explosion of the Port of Beirut, and the Arab and international positions in support of Lebanon were the focus of the discussions at Ain El-Tineh between Speaker Nabih Berri and the Development and Liberation bloc.
After the meeting, the bloc offered condolences to the families of the martyrs and wished speedy recovery to the wounded. It deemed "what happened in the capital Beirut (...) a calamity that struck every Lebanese house in the core. It is a wound that can only be healed by empowering the judiciary and releasing its hand to uncover all the circumstances surrounding this national disaster.""In this context, the bloc calls on the competent judicial authorities entrusted with the investigation into this file to proceed with it to the end, in order to reach the truth in full and with all transparency, away from any media or political pressures, and inflict just retribution on everyone who is proven to be involved in this tragedy," the statement read. "On the political repercussions left by this disaster and resulting in the resignation of the government, (...) the bloc stresses the need to accelerate the formation of an inclusive government that is able to rescue the homeland and restore the confidence of its people and that of the international and Arab communities," it added. On a different noted, Speaker Berri reviewed the general situation and the latest developments during with the Special Coordinator of the United Nations in Lebanon, Jan Kubis. The Speaker then met Jordan's Foreign Minister, Ayman Safadi, in the presence of Jordanian ambassador Walid Al-Hadid. Safadi conveyed a message of support and solidarity from the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan to Lebanon and its people, hoping it will overcome the ordeal that befell it as a result of the port explosion. Furthermore, Berri welcomed Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shukri, in the presence of Egypt's ambassador Yasser Al-Alawi, and discussed the Egyptian support for Lebanon to overcome the current ordeal.
"Certainly, the next phase requires a lot of effort and sincerity from all political parties to set a new approach that enables Lebanon to face the challenges," the FM said, stressing the need for a new approach that meets the aspirations of the Lebanese people, preserves their capabilities, independence and sovereignty, and removes them from their successive crises. Berri had also called for a session to be held on Thursday the 13 at UNESCO Palace to discuss Decree No. 6792 related to declaring a state of emergency in Beirut.

Strong Lebanon Bloc praises international and Arab support, Paris Conference: We will spare no effort to facilitate birth of government
NNA/August 12/2020
The Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc held its periodic meeting, headed by MP Gebran Bassil, and renewed its condolences to "all the Lebanese and to the families of the martyrs in particular", affirming its adherence to "conducting a strict and transparent criminal investigation into the port crime not only to determine administrative responsibilities, but rather to find out the reasons behind allowing the entrance of this load of ammonium nitrate and its storing in ward 12 throughout this period, and to know whether the quantity that has exploded is similar to that stored, or whether parts of it were used, stolen or exported over the past years, all the while not neglecting the possibility of foul play." The bloc called "on the Judicial Council, which is expected to be formed, to do everything necessary to conduct a rapid, transparent and effective investigation that paves the way for fair trials. Any exclusion from the investigation of any political, administrative, judicial or security official related to the causes or circumstances of the explosion, from the year 2013 until today, will raise question marks of the obliteration of facts and the definition of responsibilities."
The bloc also called for "strict implementation of the Cabinet's decision to declare a state of emergency in the capital, to avoid the recurrence of what was witnessed last Saturday in terms of manifestations and practices that offended the prestige of the State and suggested something like a coup, unacceptably accompanied by a media transgression that exceeded the limits of freedom, violated the principles of morals and values.""What is required is to focus efforts on forming a productive and effective government that focuses its attention on providing solutions to all the crises that the Lebanese are facing financially, economically and socially, as those represent existential risks," the statement read, as the bloc stressed that it would spare no effort to facilitate the birth of a new government. The Strong Lebanon bloc affirmed its satisfaction with "the international support that was mobilized to help Lebanon, starting with the Paris conference and the gracious endeavor of French President Emmanuel Macron, with the support of US President Donald Trump and the heads of many countries of the world, as well as the United Nations institutions." Conferees also shed light on the immense Arab solidarity with Lebanon (...) and all the signs which confirm that a change has occurred in the international approach to Lebanon’s crises, and this forces the Lebanese to meet this change with actions that confirm their solidarity and their will to undertake reforms."

Jumblat Urges 'Emergency Govt.', Says Doesn't Have PM Nominee
Naharnet/August 12/2020
Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat on Tuesday called for forming an “emergency government” and noted that he does not have a favorite candidate for the PM post at the moment. “Things require the formation of a government, call it what you want, that would first address the economic situation and Beirut’s reconstruction, and before anything else, reform,” Jumblat said after meeting Speaker Nabih Berri in Ain el-Tineh. Asked about outgoing PM Hassan Diab, Jumblat answered: “He burned Beirut and he’s the one who toppled himself.”
Noting that he does not have conditions for the formation of the next government, the PSP leader said he does not have a candidate for the PM post. “I spoke extensively with Speaker Berri and, as usual, I will coordinate with him in every step. Today full coordination is needed but the current time is not for nominations,” Jumblat added. “I spoke yesterday with French President Emmanuel Macron and I had the same answer: an emergency government is necessary to pull the country out of crises,” the PSP leader said.

Lebanese gov't resignation: In Hezbollah's shadow, does it even matter?
Seith J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
On the one hand, the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab and other, such as the Hezbollah-backed Health minister, appears to show the government is being held to account.
Lebanon’s government resigned in the wake of a massive explosion that has killed over 160 people and wounded thousands more, leaving another 90,000 or so with ruined homes. It is a massive disaster that comes after other problems Lebanon was already facing, such as an economic crisis, COVID-19 and the stranglehold Hezbollah has on the country.
On the one hand the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab and other, such as the Hezbollah-backed health minister, appears to show the government is being held to account. It is after all the government that failed to do anything about a warehouse full of dangerous chemicals. Reports now indicate they were warned as recently as July. They were also warned by the US four years ago and they’ve known about this problem since the ammonium nitrate arrived in 2013. Judges had even looked into the warehouse where the chemicals were stored, most recently in January 2020.
Diab has only been in charge since January. He was tapped by President Michel Aoun last year after the former Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned in October. He had backing from Hezbollah, the Shi’ite Amal Movement, the Free Patriotic Movement and others. He was opposed by the anti-Hezbollah parties. But what has changed? Hariri’s resignation last year was unimportant. He had already resigned once in November 2017 while allegedly being coerced in Saudi Arabia to leave the government. What real effect does the prime minister have? Hariri accomplished little in his years in office. President Aoun is an aging former general from the civil war era.
He is a Christian and in Lebanon’s sectarian political order one’s religion matters entirely in terms of who gets what in offices. For instance the Shi’ite speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri has been speaker since 1992 and is part of the Amal Movement.
Berri and Aoun, born in 1938 and 1935 respectively are the old faces that run Lebanon. Aoun came to power in 2016 after Hezbollah successfully held the appointment of a new president hostage. The last president of Lebanon was Michel Suleiman, who served until 2014. But the president is not as powerful as the office once was prior to the Taif Accords that ended the Civil war in 1990. For instance the system shifted from one that is more similar to former colonial power France, with a strong president appointing a prime minister, to a more powerful prime minister.
The more powerful prime minister is Sunni and this is supposed to reflect demographic realities where the Christians are believed to be less than fifty percent of the population. Lebanon doesn’t do a census because it would tip over the careful sectarian balance written into these agreements.
But all the gerrymandering and careful sectarian logic, which has almost no parallels in the world, means that Lebanon is largely ungovernable. That is one reason a warehouse full of chemicals was kept at the capital’s port. It is why a massive extralegal terrorist group like Hezbollah is able to de facto control southern Lebanon, stockpile 150,000 missiles, conduct Lebanon’s foreign policy and military policy and has a role at the port and airport. So why would it matter if the Hezbollah-picked prime minister leaves. He is the fall guy, the scapegoat, and he will be replaced with some other boring technocrat who will do Hezbollah’s bidding. There are many young voices in Lebanon who are tired of the aging leadership, the rule by clans and the presence of Hezbollah. But like in other countries, they don’t have much say. For instance in Iraq a young movement also rose up against a similar paradigm.
Iraq’s Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi resigned last year after protesters were killed on his watch. But he was ineffectual and no one will remember him. The power behind the throne in Iraq is Hadi al-Amiri, the Shi’ite Badr organization leader. Besides him there is the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Sistani. And then, like Lebanon, there are sectarian politics such as a Sunni speaker of parliament, a Kurdish president and the various Kurdish parties.
Diab is out. Hezbollah is still there. The protesters may be angry but they won’t have much influence. The region is still led by these men who came of age in the 1950s, men like Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Aoun and Berri. Consider the fact that the formative years of these men was the 1950s when Gamal Abdel Nasser ruled Egypt and spoke via radio to the region. Most of them are placeholders, clinging to office, but with no real vision or desire to do anything. There’s no evidence that a new prime minister, a new health minister supported by Hezbollah, will do more than the last one. Given the realities of Lebanese politics where sectarian parties, many run by powerful families, control everything, the chance of change is slim.
 

Lebanon's leaders were warned in July about explosives at port - documents
Reuters/August 11/2020
As protests over the blast raged in Lebanon on Monday, Diab's government resigned, though it will remain as a caretaker administration until a new cabinet is formed.
Lebanese security officials warned the prime minister and president last month that 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored in Beirut's port posed a security risk and could destroy the capital if it exploded, according to documents seen by Reuters and senior security sources.
Just over two weeks later, the industrial chemicals went up in a massive blast that obliterated most of the port and swathes of the capital, killed at least 163 people, injured 6,000 and destroyed 6,000 buildings, according to municipal authorities.
A report by the General Directorate of State Security on events leading up to the explosion included a reference to a private letter sent to President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab on July 20.
While the content of the letter was not in the report seen by Reuters, a senior security official said it summed up the findings of a judicial investigation launched in January which concluded the chemicals needed to be secured immediately.
The state security report, which confirmed the correspondence to the president and the prime minister, has not previously been reported.
"There was a danger that this material, if stolen, could be used in a terrorist attack," the official told Reuters.
"At the end of the investigation, Prosecutor General (Ghassan) Oweidat prepared a final report which was sent to the authorities," he said, referring to the letter sent to the prime minister and president by the General Directorate of State Security, which oversees port security.
"I warned them that this could destroy Beirut if it exploded," said the official, who was involved in writing the letter and declined to be named.
Reuters could not independently confirm his description of the letter.
The presidency did not respond to requests for comment about the July 20 letter.
A representative for Diab, whose government resigned on Monday following the blast, said the PM received the letter on July 20 and it was sent to the Supreme Defence Council for advice within 48 hours. "The current cabinet received the file 14 days prior to the explosion and acted on it in a matter of days. Previous administrations had over six years and did nothing."
The prosecutor general did not respond to requests for comment.
'DO WHAT IS NECESSARY'
The correspondence could fuel further criticism and public fury that the explosion is just the latest, if not most dramatic, example of the government negligence and corruption that have already pushed Lebanon to economic collapse.
As protests over the blast raged in Lebanon on Monday, Diab's government resigned, though it will remain as a caretaker administration until a new cabinet is formed.
The rebuilding of Beirut alone is expected to cost up to $15 billion, in a country already effectively bankrupt with total banking system losses exceeding $100 billion.
Aoun confirmed last week that he had been informed about the material. He told reporters he had directed the secretary general of the Supreme Defence Council, an umbrella group of security and military agencies chaired by the president, to "do what is necessary."
"(The state security service) said it is dangerous. I am not responsible! I don't know where it was put and I didn't know how dangerous it was. I have no authority to deal with the port directly. There is a hierarchy and all those who knew should have known their duties to do the necessary," Aoun said.
Many questions remain over why the shipment of ammonium nitrate docked in Beirut in late 2013. Even more baffling is why such a huge stash of dangerous material, used in bombs and fertilizers, was allowed to remain there for so long.
The letter sent to Lebanon's president and prime minister followed a string of memos and letters sent to the country's courts over the previous six years by port, customs and security officials, repeatedly urging judges to order the removal of the ammonium nitrate from its position so close to the city center.
The General Directorate of State Security's report seen by Reuters said many requests had been submitted, without giving an exact number. It said the port's manifest department sent several written requests to the customs directorate up until 2016 asking them to call on a judge to order the material be re-exported immediately.
"But until now, no decision has been issued over this matter. After consulting one of our chemical specialists, the expert confirmed that this material is dangerous and is used to produce explosives," the General Directorate of State Security report said.
HAZARDOUS MATERIAL
The road to last week's tragedy began seven years ago, when the Rhosus, a Russian-chartered, Moldovan-flagged vessel carrying ammonium nitrate from Georgia to Mozambique, docked in Beirut to try to take on extra cargo to cover the fees for passage through the Suez Canal, according to the ship's captain.
Port authorities impounded the Rhosus in December 2013 by judicial order 2013/1031 due to outstanding debts owed to two companies that filed claims in Beirut courts, the state security report showed.
In May 2014, the ship was deemed unseaworthy and its cargo was unloaded in October 2014 and warehoused in what was known as Hangar 12. The ship sank near the port's breakwater on Feb. 18, 2018, the security report showed.
Moldova lists the owner of the ship as Panama-based Briarwood Corp. Briarwood could not immediately be reached for comment.
In February 2015, Nadim Zwain, a judge from the Summary Affairs Court, which deals with urgent issues, appointed an expert to inspect the cargo, according to the security report.
The report said the expert concluded that the material was hazardous and, through the port authorities, requested it be transferred to the army. Reuters could not independently confirm the expert's account.
Lebanese army command rejected the request and recommended the chemicals be transferred or sold to the privately owned Lebanese Explosives Company, the state security report said.
The report did not say why the army had refused to accept the cargo. A security official told Reuters it was because they didn't need it. The army declined to comment.
The explosives company's management told Reuters it had not been interested in purchasing confiscated material and the firm had its own suppliers and government import licenses.
From then on, customs and security officials wrote to judges roughly every six months asking for the removal of the material, according to the requests seen by Reuters.
Judges and customs officials contacted by Reuters declined to comment.
A number of customs and port officials have since been detained as part of the investigation into the blast.
'BAD STORAGE AND BAD JUDGMENT'
In January 2020, a judge launched an official investigation after it was discovered that Hangar 12 was unguarded, had a hole in its southern wall and one of its doors dislodged, meaning the hazardous material was at risk of being stolen.
In his final report following the investigation, Prosecutor General Oweidat "gave orders immediately" to ensure hangar doors and holes were repaired and security provided, a second high-ranking security official who also requested anonymity said.
On June 4, based on those orders, state security instructed port authorities to provide guards at Hangar 12, appoint a director for the warehouse and secure all the doors and repair the hole in the southern wall, according to the state security report and security officials.
The port authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
"The maintenance started and (port authorities) sent a team of Syrian workers (but) there was no one supervising them when they entered to fix the holes," the security official said.
During the work, sparks from welding took hold and fire started to spread, the official said.
"Given that there were fireworks stored in the same hangar, after an hour a big fire was set off by the fireworks and that spread to the material that exploded when the temperature exceeded 210 degrees," the high-ranking security official said.
The official blamed port authorities for not supervising the repair crew and for storing fireworks alongside a vast deposit of high explosives.
Reuters could not determine what happened to the workers repairing the hangar.
"Only because the hangar faces the sea, the impact of the explosion was reduced. Otherwise all of Beirut would have been destroyed," he said. "The issue is all about negligence, irresponsibility, bad storage and bad judgment."
 

Inside the Struggle Between Israel and Hezbollah
Shimon Shapira/The Tablet/August 11/2020
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/struggle-israel-hezbollah
With ongoing Iranian backing, the Lebanese terror group is more determined than ever to deliver offensive blows inside Israeli territory
At the basis of the struggle between Israel and Hezbollah stands Iran, which views Lebanon as part of the territory of the Islamic Republic. The Islamic empire seeks to establish itself among the Shiite populations of the region while denying any importance to the national component, instead granting these populations collective expression in the form of movements, parties, and organizations whose task is to challenge the nation-states in which they operate and to shape them by building a fighting Islamic society that is exclusively loyal to the leader of Iran.
Lebanon was the Islamic empire’s first target. Over the past decade it has fallen like a ripe fruit into Iran’s hands. Through Hezbollah, Iran has taken control of the institutions of the Lebanese state and turned it into a failed state whose stability has collapsed amid severe economic and political corruption that threatens its demise.
The Hezbollah movement was founded in the summer of 1982 by Iran, which intended it to be the spearhead of the states exporting the Islamic Revolution to the Arab and Islamic world. The Shiite movement Amal, which was founded in 1975 by the Iranian Imam Musa Sadr and his Iranian assistant, Dr. Mostafa Chamran, was not prepared to replace its loyalty to the Lebanese state with loyalty to Islamic Iran. Musa Sadr was murdered in Libya in August 1978 with the encouragement of associates of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. It was decided in Tehran to set up a new Islamic movement that would lead the Islamic Revolution in Lebanon according to the revolutionary precepts of the Islamic Republic.
Khomeini assigned the mission of establishing the new movement to his longtime associate Ali Akbar Mohtashemi Pur. Considered an expert on the Levant, he arrived in August 1981 to serve as Iran’s ambassador in Damascus. One of the first tasks of the new Iranian ambassador was to invite for a meeting the Shiite clerics who recognized the Wali al-Faqih (the Rule of the Jurisprudent) principle and played key roles in the life of the Shiite community in Baalbek. Those who came to Damascus included Subhi Tofaili, who was the imam of the Imam Ali Mosque and eventually the first secretary-general of Hezbollah (1989-1991); Abbas Musawi, who was head of the hawza named after Imam Almantazer—the most important madrassa in Lebanon, to which the Lebanese students came who were expelled from Iraq with the Baath Party’s rise to power—and served as Hezbollah’s second secretary-general (1991-1992); and Mohammed Yazbek, who was the senior instructor at the madrassa. This was a seminal meeting in which the Iranian ambassador told the Lebanese clerics of Iran’s intention to establish a new Shiite Islamic movement, one that would unite all the pro-Iranian Lebanese elements who until then had operated independently and without any joint coordination with Tehran.
Khomeini appointed Ali Khamenei, who was then president of Iran, as his liaison to the new movement in Lebanon, thereby indicating the great importance he assigned to the undertaking there. This meeting laid the cornerstone for the establishment of Hezbollah.
The command staff of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Lebanon was in charge of building the new movement’s organizational and military framework. Their first act was to remove the white flags that the residents of Baalbek and its vicinity had hung on their houses to signal surrender to the Israeli forces that invaded Lebanon in 1982 to force out the PLO, and to replace them with red flags of jihad and war.
The first two commanders of the Revolutionary Guard, Ahmad Motevaselian and his replacement Mansour Koochak Mohseni, served in their posts a short time. The first, on July 5, 1982, a few days after his arrival in Lebanon, was kidnapped on his way from Baalbek to Beirut and executed by the Christian Lebanese Forces along with the Iranian official representative in Beirut and two escorts; his replacement, also a few days after he was appointed, was returned to Iran along with most of the Revolutionary Guard force. In Lebanon, Ahmad Kna’ani remained to command the forces, but he too ended his tenure after a short time.
Hossein Dehghan was appointed the fourth Revolutionary Guard commander in Lebanon and was responsible for building Hezbollah’s training camps in Janata in the Baalbek area. The training lasted about three months, with about 180 taking part in each course. The conditions for acceptance were straightforward: Up to age 25 and absolute loyalty to the Wali al-Faqih. Abbas Musawi, who was recruited in the first group, recounted:
When I trained in the first course of the Revolutionary Guards I thought I had come to the true Islam … The school of the Revolutionary Guards is the one that turned Muslim youth into youth who aspire to die a martyr’s death and so we were not surprised at all when a Muslim youth in Lebanon ... laughed to death as he carried a heavy load of explosives. This is the school of the Revolutionary Guards. The art of the Shahada and the art of the conflict with the Israeli enemy exist thanks to the Revolutionary Guards and thanks to the blood of the members of the Revolutionary Guards.
Under Hossein Dehghan’s command, a central headquarters was built for the Revolutionary Guard and for the Lebanese volunteers, operating in the Imam Ali Mosque in Baalbek. In September 1983 the Revolutionary Guard seized control of the Sheikh Abdullah base, which was the main base of the Lebanese army in the Baalbek region.
Three young clerics—Abbas Musawi, Ahmad Yazbak, and Hassan Nasrallah—marched at the head of a mass procession to the camp and conducted the Friday prayers there. The young clerics advised the commander and soldiers of the camp to “be at the disposal of the people and to disobey the orders and the instructions given at the White House and in Tel Aviv.” The Lebanese commander and his staff were removed from the camp. On its gate its new owners hung a clearly visible banner on which they proclaimed their objective: “The liberation of the Sheikh Abdullah camp by the Hezbollah masses, a first step toward liberation from Phalange rule.” The Sheikh Abdullah camp became the Imam Ali camp and the main headquarters of the Revolutionary Guard and the military force of Hezbollah, and from it the violent operations against the West and Israel proceeded.
The first baptism of fire for Khomeini’s supporters in Lebanon involved an attempt to stop the advance of the Israeli army, which was moving toward Beirut in the Khalde area. A group of young Shiites, numbering fewer than 50 fighters, ambushed the Israeli forces. Among the Shiites were also Amal and al-Dawa supporters, and they acted in cooperation with Palestinian organizations. Given the limited ability to hit the Israeli armor hurtling toward the conquest of Beirut, the military achievements were not especially impressive. Nevertheless, the fighters managed to take over an Israeli armored vehicle and to transport it to a victory parade at their base.
The Battle of Khalde is considered the founding myth of the “Islamic resistance,” and its fighters were lauded for their heroism. They were led by three men who would soon set up the military and operational force of Hezbollah: Imad Mughniyeh, Mustafa Badreddine, and Ali Deeb, who, for his heroism in the battle, was given the operational nickname Abu Hassan Salameh by Yasser Arafat after Ali Hassan Salameh of Fatah—a renowned operative who was assassinated by Israel. Mughniyeh and Badreddine were wounded in the battle, the former lightly and the latter seriously, losing the ability to walk steadily.
The three first got to know each other in the Fatah training bases during the latter half of the 1970s. Ali Deeb, the military instructor for the other two, had come of age in Fatah. The commander of the camp who received Imad Mughniyeh was Anis Nakash, who was recruited by Iranian intelligence and sent to Paris in 1980 to assassinate Shapour Bakhtiar, the last prime minister of Iran under the shah. When the Islamic Revolution broke out a few months earlier, Nakash had introduced Mughniyeh to representatives of Iranian intelligence in Beirut. In the new Islamic embassy, Mohamed Salah Husseini, an Iraqi of Iranian origin who was the liaison between Khomeini and Arafat and knew Mughniyeh well, was appointed the envoy of the Revolutionary Guard in Beirut.
The mother of Imad Mughniyeh, who was born in 1962, prayed that her son would be a man of religion and would learn in the prestigious madrassas of Najaf. He took Fiqh (jurisprudence) lessons already at the age of 10, and in his youth spent much time in the mosque of Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.
Imad Mughniyeh, however, saw his mission as the armed struggle against Israel. In 1980 Fadlallah survived an assassination attempt. Envoys of Iraqi intelligence tried to kill him because of his involvement in the Iraqi Dawa Party’s subversion against the Saddam Hussein regime. Subsequently Mughniyeh, together with a small group that he formed, set up a security unit to safeguard him, and indeed he would become the central spiritual figure of Shiite radicalism in Lebanon and the author of a concept of the use of force in Shiite Islam.
In 1980 Mughniyeh accompanied Fadlallah and a delegation of Lebanese clerics on a first visit to revolutionary Iran. He became an integral part of the operational branch of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.
When the first commander of the Revolutionary Guard was kidnapped in Lebanon in July 1982, it was Imad Mughniyeh who brought the bad news to the Iranian Embassy in Beirut. A short time later Mughniyeh proposed to his replacement in Baalbek, Mansour Koochak Mohseni, to kidnap the president of the American University in Beirut, David Dodge, as a bargaining chip for the kidnapped Iranians (it was not yet known that they had been killed). Dodge was kidnapped by Mughniyeh and brought to Baalbek, and from there transferred to Damascus and to Tehran. This was the first kidnapping, but not the last, that Mughniyeh carried out in the service of Iran.
On Nov. 11, 1982, at 7:20 a.m., a huge explosion was heard at the headquarters of the Israeli military governor in Tyre. The building collapsed upon its occupants. 76 soldiers and members of the General Security Service were killed as well as 15 Lebanese who were staying in the building. A military investigatory commission headed by Gen. Meir Zorea found that the disaster was caused by an explosion of gas canisters in the building.
The facts were otherwise. A white Peugeot 504 driven by a suicide bomber named Ahmad Qassir broke through the gate of the camp and blew it up. This marked the first time a suicide operation was carried out in Lebanon. It was planned in minute detail by Mughniyeh. He recruited the bomber and used the car of his friend Ali Deeb, in which a large quantity of explosives was hidden. The explosives were provided by Fatah.
Before the PLO forces left Beirut in September 1982, Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) ordered that some of their weapons supplies and explosives be transferred to Mughniyeh, whom he knew from the days when Mughniyeh trained in Fatah. According to Mughniyeh’s official biography, he joined the elite unit known as Force 17 while Abu Jihad was head of Fatah’s military wing. Abu Jihad, like Arafat, gave preferential treatment to the young Shiite who showed such devotion to the jihad against Israel and the West.
Imad Mughniyeh had not known Ahmad Qassir. A family member of the suicide bomber put them in touch with each other. There was a need for legal permission to carry out the operation—it could not be executed without a fatwa from a supreme religious authority, as Ayatollah Hassan Tarad later recounted:
Lebanon was liberated through acts of self-sacrifice [istishad] only. And the only one who gave his blessing to them was Imam Khomeini … He sent me a letter in which he wrote that he was the muqallid [emulator] of Imam Khomeini, he had made a decision to perform istishhad and to attack the enemy. And I answered him [positively] on the basis of the ruling of his Marja’ Taqlid [religious authority], Imam Khomeini.
For several days, Mughniyeh observed the Israeli headquarters and studied its routines, how its guarding schedule was run, and, particularly, at which hours the largest number of soldiers were in the camp. During the two days before the operation, in her country house in Teir Daba near Tyre, Mughniyeh’s mother hosted her son and Ahmad Qassir, feeding and lodging them. A day before the operation, Mughniyeh ordered his mother and the other family members to leave the village and go to their home in Beirut. Mughniyeh and Qassir went on their way. The former closely monitored the successful performance of the operation. The identity of Ahmad Qassir was concealed for two and a half years to avoid harm to his family. His mother thought he had gone to Beirut and disappeared there.
When his identity was made public, Ahmad Qassir became a hero in Lebanon and in Iran. In its official bulletin, al-Ahed, Hezbollah published huge pictures of the young Shiite, in which his image arose from the ruins of the Israeli military headquarters. At the home of Qassir’s family in Dir Qanon al-Nahar, a remote village in southern Lebanon, a certificate of honor arrived from the commander of the Islamic ummah. The certificate bore a portrait of Imam Khomeini and the symbol of the Islamic Republic, with praises for their son’s deed. In Tehran a monument was inaugurated to this hero of Islam, with his portrait etched on it and descriptions of his glory in Arabic and Farsi.
Later the Qassir family was accorded honor and glory in Hezbollah as well. The brother of the “first shahid,” Muhammad Jafar Qassir, rose high in the Hezbollah command hierarchy and was in charge of the deliveries of Iranian weapons from Syria to Lebanon; another brother, Hassan Qassir, married Hassan Nasrallah’s daughter and was one of the close intermediaries to the Revolutionary Guard leadership.
Imad Mughniyeh himself won glory in Tehran. He had shown impressive operational ability while managing to maintain total anonymity. Up until the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah carried out 12 suicide operations against Israeli targets in Lebanon. The videos of the suicide bombers reading their wills before going on their missions were sent to Tehran. Imam Khomeini requested to see them; he watched every one of them and was deeply affected. Throughout its lengthy stay in Lebanon, Israel did not succeed in thwarting these operations.
Imad Mughniyeh’s success in Tyre led him to plan and implement suicide bombings in Beirut, the most severe of which struck the American Embassy in April 1983 and the Beirut headquarters of the Marines and of the French paratrooper force in October 1983. The order to blow up the headquarters arrived from Tehran, and Mughniyeh acted in total secrecy. He set up an operational unit that used the name “Islamic Jihad” and operated outside the organizational framework of Hezbollah and in direct coordination with the intelligence and operational organizations of the Revolutionary Guard. On Oct. 24, 1983, two suicide bombers were sent on the last missions of their lives. The two headquarters were blown up within a short time of each other. When the international forces left Beirut in defeat, Mughniyeh was received as a hero in Tehran.
In 1985 Israel withdrew to the security zone in southern Lebanon. Abbas Musawi was appointed military commander of the Islamic resistance in the South. Hezbollah’s struggle to drive Israel out of Lebanon intensified, and Hezbollah’s military force improved. New military frameworks were built, and Hezbollah fighters were trained in Iran where they learned methods of combat and use of weapons. Hezbollah commanders and fighters participated in warfare at the front with Iraq, with special emphasis on conquering fortified targets. A special War Media Unit was set up; its role was to film military successes, particularly if the Hezbollah flag was raised on a position that had been conquered even for a moment.
On Feb. 16, 1992, Israel assassinated Abbas Musawi as he was visiting the town of Jibchit where an annual memorial was being held for Ragheb Harb, a Shiite imam who led the struggle against Israel in southern Lebanon. The move was ill-considered. Behind it stood the head of Military Intelligence, Gen. Uri Sagi, and Chief of Staff Lt Gen. Ehud Barak. The recommendation from the assessment of intelligence was to monitor Musawi’s visit and collect intelligence that would make it possible to kidnap him when he came to the memorial ceremony the following year, and then trade him for air force navigator Ron Arad, who was held captive by Hezbollah and transferred to the Revolutionary Guard.
Hezbollah’s answer was lethal, and it crossed two red lines: That same day, the group launched dozens of rockets into Israeli territory all along the border area from Kiryat Shmona to Nahariya. It was the first time Hezbollah had fired rockets into Israel; up until then it had taken care to fire them only into the security zone. On March 17, 1992, a car driven by a Lebanese Shiite suicide bomber exploded at the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires. This marked the first time Hezbollah had attacked an Israeli target outside of Israel. The operation was planned and executed by Imad Mughniyeh and Iranian intelligence.
More than two years later, on the night of June 2, 1994, the Israeli air force attacked a Hezbollah training camp in Ain Dardara near Baalbek while about 150 Hezbollah recruits were sleeping. It was a severe blow. More than 40 Hezbollah members were killed, the highest number of Hezbollah casualties in a single Israeli operation. Six weeks later, on July 13, 1994, came the revenge. It, too, happened outside of Lebanon and again in Buenos Aires. This time as well, behind the planning and execution stood Imad Mughniyeh, with assistance from the Iranian intelligence branch in Argentina. In both operations Hezbollah made clear that a heavy blow against it would lead to a revenge strike that would breach the rules of the conflict in Lebanon. Argentina was chosen because of the operational infrastructure that Mughniyeh had built there with the help of Iranian intelligence, which made use of a pro-Hezbollah Lebanese Shiite population.
On April 11, 1996, in the wake of Hezbollah’s rocket fire into Israeli territory and its repeated violations of the understandings reached between the sides, Israel launched a large-scale campaign in Lebanon known as Operation Grapes of Wrath. It included devastating strikes on infrastructures of the Lebanese state and very heavy use of firepower, including airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Beirut.
An operational foul-up brought about a mistake on Israel’s part. A barrage, intended to enable the rescue of an Israeli force that had been attacked, instead fell beside a U.N. compound in which Lebanese civilians had taken refuge. Hezbollah reported inflated figures of 102 civilians, including women and children, killed and 100 wounded, including four U.N. soldiers. After the United States and Syria drafted a document of understanding stipulating that Israel and Hezbollah would not attack, with missiles or any other weapons, civilians on either side, Israel ended the campaign.
On the night of Sept. 5, 1997, a special Hezbollah force ambushed a commando force of Shayetet 13 of the Israeli navy that had landed near the village of Ansariya to plant explosive devices that would kill a Hezbollah operative. The outcome was fatal. Eleven fighters, including the force’s commander, Lt. Col. Yossi Korkin, were killed.
In Israel, several investigatory commissions were formed to uncover the reason for the failure. The first commission, headed by Gen. Gabi Ophir, concluded that the Israeli force had encountered a chance ambush by Hezbollah that caused the explosive devices some of the Israeli fighters carried on their backs to detonate. The commission’s conclusions emphasized the incidental nature of ambush; no one believed that Hezbollah had had prior information on the arrival of the Israeli elite force.
In September 1998, as he marked a year since the Ansariya operation, Hassan Nasrallah hinted that Hezbollah did have prior intelligence information about the Israeli force’s arrival, but refused to reveal what it was. This was part of a psychological war that Hezbollah waged, which was planned and refined by Mustafa Badreddine.
In August 2010, Nasrallah disclosed the intelligence information. This was about five years after the assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, which Hezbollah was accused of perpetrating. Nasrallah denied this entirely and accused Israel of the murder instead. To buttress his claim, he elaborated on intelligence information, including with regard to Israel’s technological capabilities, that Hezbollah and the Lebanese intelligence services had gathered on Israel’s clandestine activity in Lebanon.
Nasrallah revealed that Hezbollah had managed to intercept transmissions of aerial photographs, taken by Israeli drones, of a number of targets in southern Lebanon near Ansariya. He said the pictures were transmitted directly to an operations center in Israel and were not encoded as Israeli intelligence had thought. The Iranians provided Hezbollah with the appropriate equipment, and it was used by Hezbollah members who had studied in technical schools and institutes in Lebanon. Foremost among them was Hassan Laqqis, a close friend of Nasrallah who oversaw Hezbollah’s technological development.
The transmissions were intercepted by Hezbollah in real time and deciphered. They indicated the destination that Israel planned to reach. Mustafa Badreddine deployed his forces in ambushes for several weeks because the date of the operation was unknown. The ambush was an important operational achievement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the time, “One of the worst tragedies that has ever befallen us. We lost some of our best soldiers. There have been some tragedies in the past, but I have never seen this type of tragedy.”
The Mughniyeh assassination told Nasrallah that he needed to immediately change his modus operandi. The blow was indeed very severe to Hezbollah as an organization, which most probably has still not recovered.
In 1998 Khamenei appointed Qassem Soleimani commander of the Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guard. He replaced Ahmad Vahidi, who had played a key role in planning the bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires together with Imad Mughniyeh; Vahidi was later appointed deputy defense minister and then defense minister of Iran.
Soleimani came to Lebanon from the front with Iraq to meet Hassan Nasrallah for the first time; the two had not known each other previously. One of the first decisions they made was to combine the two roles, that of the security commander and that of the military commander, which Mughniyeh and Mustafa Badreddine had held separately, with each of them directly subordinate to Nasrallah, into a single position that was called “jihad assistant of Hassan Nasrallah.” This position was given to Mughniyeh, who thereby became the commander of all of Hezbollah’s military and security affairs.
Mughniyeh, Badreddine, and other commanders also took part in that first meeting between Nasrallah and Soleimani. Nasrallah attested to the emergence of “spiritual harmony as if we had already known each other for decades.” Soleimani made Lebanon a secondary headquarters, and he would regularly come to Beirut every two or three weeks and stay there for days. Sometimes he would go to southern Lebanon to meet with the fighters at the front.
The relations between the Iranian commander and Nasrallah and his staff went beyond work relations and turned into personal friendships, particularly with Mughniyeh; Soleimani was hosted at his home and got to know his family well. This strongly influenced the extent of the aid that Hezbollah began to receive from Iran. From 1985 to 1998, the year in which Soleimani was appointed to command the Quds Force, the ties between Hezbollah and Iran developed slowly, in line with military capabilities and Hezbollah’s limited manpower for military missions. When Soleimani and Mughniyeh were chosen for their posts in 1998, the doors opened wide and increased military assistance began to flow from Iran to Hezbollah.
At the end of 1999, Hassan Nasrallah—accompanied for the first time by 50 of Hezbollah’s field commanders, headed by Imad Mughniyeh—went to meet with Khamenei and the top Iranian leadership. “At that time we did not think that Israel would withdraw from Lebanon in 2000,” Nasrallah attested. “We were not sure, and we assumed it was not likely that Israel would withdraw in 2000 without setting preconditions.”
Hezbollah’s assessment was that Israel would not retreat under military pressure, fearing that this would have a strategic significance beyond the Lebanese arena that would lead to the emergence of a new regional reality. Nasrallah presented this reasoning to Khamenei and said Hezbollah would need more time for additional operations that would bring about an Israeli withdrawal without preconditions.
Khamenei, Nasrallah noted, bore down and asked why Hezbollah held that view. After lengthy explanations by Nasrallah and his comrades for why Israel would not withdraw, among other things so as not to create a precedent regarding the Palestinians of withdrawing under fire outside the framework of negotiations, Khamenei recommended that his guests seriously reconsider their stance. He demanded that they continue the military activity and plan the future in such a way that Israel would withdraw from Lebanon, while taking military, public-advocacy, and diplomatic measures.
“We were surprised to hear these words,” Nasrallah remarked. “Because we all believed that Ehud Barak, who had now won the elections, would not fulfill his promise to withdraw because the conditions he had supposedly set for Lebanon and for Hezbollah had not been met. It appeared to us not smart and not logical.”
After the official meeting, the Hezbollah delegation was invited to Khamenei’s house for the evening. Nasrallah, Mughniyeh, and the field commanders stationed at the front with Israel, wearing uniforms and keffiyehs, looking like Iranian fighters at the front, entered a large hall in which prayers were conducted with Khamenei presiding. When the prayers concluded, he turned to bless the guests. He asked his escorts to move aside and turned to Nasrallah: “I am here to listen to you.”
At that moment one of the Hezbollah commanders drew close to Khamenei and kissed his hand. The emotion was great and profound, and some of the tough field commanders began to cry; others did not manage to stay on their feet. Slowly they approached Khamenei; one kissed his hand, and when he bent to kiss Khamenei’s feet, the leader of Iran did not let him. He drew back and asked Nasrallah to seat them and calm them down so that a conversation could be held with them. Khamenei made statements in Persian, and Nasrallah translated them into Arabic. “You will win, the victory is closer than people think.” Because Nasrallah had said it was unlikely that Israel would withdraw under these circumstances, he pointed to him and added, “Every one of you will see the victory with his own eyes and you will win.”
In May 2000 Israel withdrew from Lebanon to the international border, without conditions. This was the first time Israel had withdrawn from Arab territory under fire and without a ceasefire agreement or any diplomatic arrangement. Hassan Nasrallah became a national hero in Lebanon and in the Arab and Islamic world. He was perceived as the successor of Gamal Abdel Nasser and Saladin. In Tehran Nasrallah was received as the hero of Islam. The imam smiled upon him. The Hezbollah military commanders, headed by Imad Mughniyeh, who accompanied Nasrallah at the beginning of 2000, became symbols of Islam’s victory over Israel.
The images that Hezbollah’s propaganda outlets transmitted showed the flight of the Israeli forces and the convoys of families of South Lebanon Army members who crowded together beside the border fence and asked to enter Israel. Hezbollah flags were displayed all over southern Lebanon. Although Israel withdrew to the international border, Hezbollah did not recognize the new line because Israel retained the Shebaa Farms area, which had been under Syrian sovereignty. The area remained in dispute and served as a pretext to continue the jihad against Israel.
Several months after the Israeli withdrawal, Nasrallah went to meet with Khamenei in Tehran. The Iranian leaders were delighted at the victory, Nasrallah noted. “We talked about the future and Khamenei told me that Israel had 25 years left in which to exist.” Nasrallah took these words very seriously and tried to explain the ludicrous rationale behind them.
In October 2000 Hezbollah kidnapped three Israeli soldiers who had been patrolling the security fence along the Lebanese border. Nasrallah waited for an Israeli response that was not long in coming, but he was soon surprised by its feebleness. As he saw it, the Israeli response bore no relation to the truculent threats and warnings its leaders had voiced before and after the withdrawal. Nasrallah was reinforced in his belief that Israeli society was made out of spiderwebs and that its leaders were in a state of shock. He listened in amazement to voices in Israel saying “restraint is strength.” And he rubbed his eyes in wonder at the sight of Israeli soldiers getting pelted with stones hurled across the fence and taking shelter in special cages designed to protect them.
Ali Khamenei allowed Hezbollah to take a further step when he approved its joining the new Lebanese government, formed after the Syrian forces’ departure from Lebanon in the wake of the Hariri assassination in 2005. Hezbollah sent two ministers to serve in the new government, primarily to safeguard its military force; it remained the only party in Lebanon that had its own army. Hezbollah exploited the political rules of the game to seize control of Lebanese state institutions, and Lebanon turned into a failed state, in which Iran replaced Syria as the arbiter of the country’s fate.
On July 12, 2006, Hezbollah carried out a second successful kidnapping, this time capturing two Israeli soldiers. Mughniyeh personally planned and commanded the operation. Nasrallah expected an Israeli response similar to that of October 2000. This time, however, the Israeli response was of a different magnitude.
In the first half hour of the war that Israel launched, its air force jets destroyed Hezbollah’s long-range missile stockpiles and removed its ability to strike deep within Israel. Hezbollah retained medium- and short-range missiles, which it fired at the Israeli home front. For the first time, targets were hit in Haifa and other cities in northern Israel. Hezbollah aimed missiles at strategic targets in Haifa Bay. They missed, but took a toll in life and property in other places.
Israel reacted with great force and destroyed Hezbollah’s headquarters in Dahieh, its social institutions, and the home and offices of the Lebanese Ayatollah Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, a close associate of the leader of Hezbollah. Nasrallah was surprised; he stated, with rare regret, “If I had known what the Israeli response would be I would not have kidnapped the two soldiers.” But he was encouraged by the fact that the Iranian leader stuck by him. On the first day of the war, Khamenei announced his support for Hezbollah and emphasized the need to resist and fight Israel. Nasrallah rejected the conditions that Israel posed for a ceasefire: The freeing of the two kidnapped soldiers, Hezbollah’s disarmament and transformation into a political party alone, and the deployment of an international force on the border with Israel.
Qassem Soleimani came to Lebanon to help manage the war. Because Beirut and the means of access to it were under bombardment and Israel had destroyed bridges and roads leading to the Lebanese capital, Nasrallah tried to convince him to remain in Damascus. Imad Mughniyeh went to Damascus and brought the Quds Force commander to Dahieh. During the war, Soleimani stayed in close proximity to Nasrallah and Mughniyeh. The three conducted the war from a joint operations room whose location Israel did not manage to discover. Soleimani’s presence, Nasrallah recounted, played a supportive, morale-boosting, spiritual and psychological role.
During the first week of the battles Soleimani left Beirut to meet with Khamenei in Iran. The imam convened all of the top Iranian leadership for a consultation in Mashhad, which was attended by past and present defense ministers as well as all of the past and present Revolutionary Guard commanders.
Soleimani gave a firsthand account of the course of the war: “My report was a sad, bitter one,” he said, and emphasized that his assessment did not reflect any hope for a Hezbollah victory. “The war was different; it was a technological and precision war. The targets were chosen with precision and the objective was to attack not only Hezbollah but also the whole Shiite community,” Soleimani commented. After him Khamenei spoke. He said Soleimani’s report was true and the war was indeed difficult, and compared it to the Battle of the Trench (Khandaq), also known as the Battle of the Confederates (627 CE). He described the situation of the Muslims and the Prophet Muhammad’s band in the battle, as well as the spirit of the fighters, and concluded by saying he believed that the victory in this war in Lebanon would be like the victory in the Battle of the Trench.
“I was daunted,” Soleimani acknowledged. Khamenei’s words did not jibe with the military situation on the ground, and Soleimani was worried. Khamenei drafted a letter to Nasrallah, and Soleimani was asked to bring it to Beirut.
In his letter, the leader of Iran detailed how he viewed the war and, more important, its outcomes. Khamenei’s message included an Iranian justification for the kidnapping of the two Israeli soldiers, which was very important for Nasrallah, who was facing harsh criticism for it. Khamenei described the kidnapping as “a hidden divine blessing” because it prevented a surprise attack on Hezbollah. Khamenei had expected the war to be very vexing, frustrating, and threatening to Hezbollah’s existence; yet he demanded patience of Nasrallah because, by the war’s end, “you will be victorious and you will become a regional power to the point that no other power will be able to confront you.”
Nasrallah was skeptical. He told Soleimani that surviving the war would be his great achievement. In the course of the war, Nasrallah, Mughniyeh, and Soleimani went from place to place out of fear of an Israeli strike. Nasrallah removed his robe and turban and went about in a track suit.
Yet, in Hezbollah’s terminology, the Second Lebanon War was naser ilahi kabir—a great divine victory. It was fraught with “divine intervention,” with miracles and wonders, and Shiite imams and angels played an active part in it, supporting the jihad fighters and vanquishing the enemy. A widespread legend told of a Hezbollah fighter at Bint Jbeil who fired missiles at the enemy and, when the allotment of missiles ran out, left the place and hid. However, he and his commanders were surprised to discover that the missile launcher marvelously continued to launch missiles by itself for a long time and to strike the enemy.
After 33 days of fighting, a ceasefire was announced and Nasrallah declared a divine victory; he survived the war. In Israel, a state investigatory commission was established to examine the course of the war, and the feeling among the public was that the military and the leadership had failed. A finger of blame was pointed at Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, all three of whom were new to their positions when the war erupted.
Hezbollah Chief of Staff Imad Mughniyeh, now regarded as the commander of both victories—the 2000 withdrawal and the 2006 war—did not rest on his laurels. A short time after the war ended, he set up teams to analyze the development of the war, draw military lessons, and prepare for the next war. The main conclusions focused on the need to exploit what Hezbollah perceived as the Israeli weak point, namely, the civilian front. This required renewing and strengthening the missile arsenal so as to strike strategic targets deep within Israel and fracture Israeli society from within.
In light of this conclusion, along with the understanding that Hezbollah’s ground forces had operated satisfactorily, it was decided to form additional elite units, equipped with advanced weapons, that would have both defensive and offensive capabilities. Thus the special force was established that eventually was called Radwan (Mughniyeh’s operational nom de guerre). It was built from elite units and numbered about 5,000 carefully chosen fighters who were sent for commando training in Iran.
Qassem Soleimani, who spent the entire duration of the war in Lebanon and reported on a daily basis to Khamenei, won approbation in Iran for his role in Hezbollah’s “divine victory.” He was now in charge of renewing Hezbollah’s missile supply, including filling the storerooms with long-range missiles. He saw an urgent need to surround Israel from north and south with missile batteries that would enable Hezbollah and the Palestinian organizations in Gaza, particularly Palestinian Islamic Jihad, to strike the Israeli home front.
From Soleimani’s military perspective, the Second Lebanon War had altered the Israeli strategy that David Ben-Gurion had established at the country’s inception, which was based on preemptive offense and on attacking and waging the war in the enemy’s territory. Now, in his view, that had been changed to a defensive strategy.
In February 2008, Hezbollah was dealt a severe blow. In a joint operation that was attributed to Israel and the United States, Imad Mughniyeh was killed in Damascus. He was in the midst of the process of drawing lessons from the Second Lebanon War. Minutes before he was killed, he parted from Soleimani, together with whom he had met with Ramadan Abdullah Shalah, leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and planned the continuing armed struggle against Israel from the Gaza Strip.
No actor took responsibility for the assassination. However, senior intelligence and espionage officials, as well as fame-hungry politicians in Israel, briefed familiar journalists on very secret operational details. Everyone wanted their moment of glory.
The Mughniyeh assassination told Nasrallah that he needed to immediately change his modus operandi, hide, and set up shop in a bunker from which he threatened in televised speeches to get revenge on Israel in whatever way possible. The blow was indeed very severe to Nasrallah, who had known Mughniyeh since before 1982, and to Hezbollah as an organization, which most probably has still not recovered. Upon his death, Imad Mughniyeh became a symbol of Shiite heroism and was compared to military commanders who had fought alongside the Prophet Muhammad, to Imam Ali, and to his son Imam Hussein.
Since the assassination, no one of comparable profile and abilities has arisen to replace Imad Mughniyeh. Hezbollah’s operational apparatus abroad managed to carry out a few attacks against Israeli targets outside of Israel (in Thailand, India, and Bulgaria), but they were not of Mughniyeh’s operational magnitude. Mustafa Badreddine, Mughniyeh’s successor, himself was assassinated in May 2016 near the airport in Damascus when he was commander of Hezbollah forces in Syria. Hassan Nasrallah accused the Sunni rebels of the assassination, but the circumstances of Badreddine’s death remain unclear to this day.
Israel’s then-chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, turned an accusing finger in a surprising direction, when he affirmed reports that said Badreddine was assassinated by Soleimani with the approval of Nasrallah. Similar reports claimed that the trigger of the weapon that killed Badreddine was pulled by Ibrahim Hussein Jizani (“Nabil”), who was head of Nasrallah’s personal security detail. Other reports said the commander of Hezbollah forces in Syria had refused to comply with the orders of the commander of the Iranian Quds Force.
Soleimani had demanded an increase in the number of Hezbollah fighters in Syria. This, along with the patronizing treatment of the Hezbollah fighters by the Iranian commanders, who were not always in the battlefield, sparked resentment. Hezbollah’s heavy losses in Syria, which reached a peak (during 2013-2019) of about 2,000 dead, including commanders from the group’s founding generation, and about 8,000 wounded, provoked anger among the Shiite community, which was further inflamed by the leading opponent of Hezbollah, Subhi al-Tufaili—one of the organizations founders—who ruled that whoever was killed in Syria was not considered a shahid because he had not fought and been killed in the jihad against Israel. He ruled furthermore that the fighting against the Muslims in Syria was a violation of sharia law.
There is no doubt that the years of the campaign in Syria, despite the heavy casualties, had a formative effect on Hezbollah’s battle capability and afforded it confidence in its military capabilities. At the beginning of 2011, and during the revolt in Syria, Hezbollah formulated an operative plan for the conquest of the Galilee. The mission was assigned to the Radwan forces, which began to train for the possibility that, in case of a war with Israel, they would cross the border and seize control of settled areas within Israel.
About 5,000 of the Radwan fighters were sent to Iran for rounds of training under Iranian instructors. According to a source close to Hezbollah, five battalions were set up in Hezbollah, each with a thousand fighters, and each battalion was assigned a specific territory to take over in northern Israel. Each battalion studied and became familiar with the special topographical conditions of the area it was responsible for and trained to conquer it. While the war in Syria interrupted the preoccupation with this plan, it also, as noted, enabled the Radwan forces to accumulate highly valuable battle experience for the future.
Hezbollah’s plan to conquer the Galilee was not abandoned because of the campaign in Syria. On the contrary, Nasrallah repeated several times his threats to take over the Galilee if and when a war broke out with Israel. Hezbollah also invested great engineering effort in digging tunnels from Lebanon into Israel.
In December 2018, Israel uncovered six of these tunnels. Lt. Gen. Eizenkot remarked that Hezbollah had a “grandiose plan” for a surprise underground infiltration of 5,000 fighters into Israeli territory amid a barrage of fire. Eizenkot disclosed that Israel had already become aware of Hezbollah’s plan in 2014. All six of the tunnels were blown up, and Hezbollah lost an important operational capability. Nasrallah, however, did not shelve his plan to seize control of parts of the Galilee in the next war.
The war in Syria revealed the extent of Iran’s involvement in transferring strategic weaponry, some of it game-changing, to Hezbollah. Most of the Iranian effort involved transferring long-range missiles to Hezbollah and developing their precision capabilities. At first, factories for the precision-guided-missile project were built in Syria, but they were discovered and bombed by Israel and so were relocated to Lebanon, where they were also soon discovered. Israel made clear that it viewed the precision of Hezbollah’s missiles as a red line and would not allow such missiles to be produced or transferred to Hezbollah.
In August 2019, two drones penetrated the very heart of Hezbollah, the Dahieh neighborhood of Beirut. The objective was to strike a critical ingredient of the precision-guided-missile project. According to The Times of London, “The targeted facility was used to store high-end industrial planetary mixer, a component in high-grade precision missiles’ propellant.” The drones identified the facility and destroyed it.
In July 2020, the Jerusalem Post reported that Hezbollah has at least 28 missile-launch sites in populated areas of Beirut that are under its control. These include private homes, medical centers, industrial zones, and offices. The sites are involved in the launching, storing, and production of medium-range Fateh-110 missiles and are part of Hezbollah’s precision-guided-missile project.
Hezbollah is believed to have 600 Fateh-110 missiles with ranges of up to 300 kilometers, among them more advanced missiles of the Zulfiqar model with ranges of up to 700 kilometers. Overall Hezbollah is believed to have 130,000 missiles and rockets with ranges of 10 to 500 kilometers, also dispersed in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley in bunkers that are next to schools, clinics, hospitals, soccer fields, as well as the Iranian Embassy in Beirut and the Lebanese Defense Ministry.
The struggle between Hezbollah and Israel is currently at full throttle. Hezbollah, with Iran’s help, is working to build long-range capabilities that will allow it to strike precise targets in the Israeli home front. Israel is resolved to prevent Hezbollah from gaining that capability. Even though both sides want to avoid a war, the conflict between them could go out of control if one side makes a miscalculation. Meanwhile Hezbollah is also building a capability to use special forces to seize lands in the Galilee. This marks a basic change in Hezbollah’s approach to war, which until now primarily built deterrent and defensive capabilities and now is also dealing intensively with offense and with taking the next war to Israeli territory.

Meet Michel Aoun, Hezbollah's puppet president in Beirut
Tom Rogan/Washington Examiner/August 11/2020
On Monday, Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced the resignation of his government. President Michel Aoun will once again be responsible for brokering an agreement on an acceptable replacement. Unfortunately, the geriatric Aoun is to Lebanon what Nazi collaborator Marshall Philippe Petain was to France: a proud military leader and patriotic nationalist, now turned pathetic puppet of hostile sectarians. In Lebanon's case, that hostile force is the Lebanese Hezbollah. Hezbollah holds itself up as a national defense adjunct to the military, but it is actually a sectarian militia. The "Party of God" cares nothing for the national interest and everything for the expansion of Iranian-anchored Shiite theocracy. As Aoun now moves to find a new prime minister, he'll have Hezbollah's interests foremost on his mind. That means a new prime minister who refuses to undertake necessary reforms and who instead maintains the status quo. It's a recipe for continuing public fury and the rising threat of another civil war. The need for reform was encapsulated by last Tuesday's explosion in the Beirut port. Only a truly dysfunctional government would have allowed a factory filled with ammonium nitrate to sit for years alongside so many civilians. But the explosives are just one example of the problem here. Attested by Lebanon's grave economic crisis, the political class has utterly failed the people. Using government ministries as personal piggy banks, they have plundered the nation's resources. The tragedy here is that Aoun could now use his power to serve the nation. With his Free Patriotic Movement party's 18 parliamentary seats, the highest share of any party, he could demand the support of Hezbollah and its ally, Amal, for serious reform. Aoun could dangle the threat of seeing those parties replaced in government absent that support.
The opposite seems to be happening. The president has ruled out an international investigation into the port explosion, likely fearing that any objective inquiry will bring to light endemic corruption. Nor does Aoun's son-in-law and party leader, Gerbran Bassil, seem interested in listening to the protesters and moving against the rotten top ranks.In turn, we should expect the next prime minister to be another puppet and the protesters to keep coming onto the streets in increasing numbers and fury.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/michel-aoun-stays-on-as-hezbollahs-puppet-president-in-beirut
 

'I Don't Want to Die': Blast Traumatizes Beirut Children
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
"I don't want to die." Those were the first words Hiba's six-year-old son screamed after the massive explosion at Beirut port sent shards of glass flying around their house. The blast a week ago that temporarily displaced 100,000 children, according to a UN estimate, was so mighty it had the magnitude of an earthquake.The mental shock it caused among Beirut's youngest was just as powerful. When the boy saw blood on his feet, "he started screaming: 'Mom, I don't want to die'," Hiba recalled. "What is this life? Coronavirus and an explosion!," her son told her after the blast. "Imagine that!" said the mother. "A child only six years old asking this question."The 35-year-old mother of two, who asked to withhold the names of her children and their family name, said her entire building shook when the catastrophe struck on August 4. Her son, who was sitting on a living room couch just across from her, was speckled with shards of glass from a blown-out window. "The shattered glass whirled around us," Hiba said, a scene described by countless survivors. For a few seconds, her son sat motionless and unscathed on the couch.
She then dragged him out of the room, the boy barefoot on a carpet of splintered glass that cut bloody gashes into his feet. "My son now twitches in panic every time he hears a loud sound," she said.
'Bottling up emotions'
Hiba's son was not the only one left traumatized. His infant sister, born just 16 days before the explosion, lost consciousness for 20 minutes. "It took a lot of time before she began to wake up and start crying," said Hiba, so shocked herself that she has struggled to breastfeed her since. She said she now keeps her son in his room, surrounded by his toys, instead of in the living room where the television broadcasts scenes of grief and devastation all day long.
"I don't know if he is bottling up his emotions," Hiba said. "But I'm trying to spend a lot of time with him in case he needs to talk." The explosion that gutted swathes of the city killed at least 160 people and left 6,000 people physically wounded.
Children are among the casualties and the UN children's agency UNICEF has warned that "those who survived are traumatized and in shock".
In a video widely shared on social media showing plumes of smoke rising from the harbourside, the almost playful voice of a child can initially be heard in the background, saying "explosion, explosion". When the impact from the massive blast hits him, the same child also screams, in English: "Mom, I don't want to die."On Lebanese TV, the mother of a three-year-old girl killed in the blast gave an emotional testimony in which she shared her feeling of guilt about having tried to raise a child in a dysfunctional country. "I want to apologize to Alexandra," she said, "because I did not take her out of Lebanon."
 'Anxiety, night terrors'
The Save the Children charity has warned of a severe strain on children's mental health as a result of the blast. "Without proper support, children might face long-term consequences," it said in a statement.
Anne-Sophie Dybdal, the charity's senior child protection advisor, warned of "anxiety, trouble sleeping, attacks of night terror"."The impact on children can be very deep," she said. Child psychologist Sophia Maamari said traumatized children may also develop separation anxiety that could make them fear even going to the bathroom without one of their parents. Loud bangs may trigger fears of another blast and some children could go temporarily mute or tend toward self-isolation, the psychologist explained.
Maamari advised that parents should make their children feel like they are allowed to be scared by telling them that they too were frightened by the explosion.
This is one tip Noura picked up online when she was looking for information on how to handle her two traumatized children, aged three and four. The 34-year-old mother said she had described to her kids in detail how she was gripped by fear and panic.
Her older son immediately responded to her admission by saying: "It was a big bam." Her youngest did not respond until the next day. "I was very scared too," she said the little boy whispered into her ear as soon as he woke up.

Lebanon Needs Transformation, Not Another Corrupt Unity Government
Hanin Ghaddar/Foreign Policy/August 11/2020
If the United States lets France take the lead, the Lebanese people will get more political paralysis, cosmetic reforms, and Hezbollah control of state institutions.
The massive explosion in Beirut last Tuesday, killing at least 160 people and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless, triggered a political moment as another explosion did 15 years ago: the targeted blast that killed then-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Then, as now, grief quickly turned to anger. In 2005, the outraged Lebanese rose up to demand fundamental political change, not cosmetic reforms, and they are taking to the streets once again today. But there is a key difference. In 2005, the White House was willing and able to play a nimble and ultimately effective role helping local activists translate raw emotion into new elections and a new government. Yet today Washington is content with taking a back seat to an energetic but ambivalent French president—an arrangement that will almost certainly not produce the change most Lebanese yearn for.
The French are pushing for a reconciliation among all parties, with some kind of national unity government that would only maintain the status quo and offer a scapegoat—such as Hassan Diab’s government, which resigned en masse yesterday—to calm the streets. Yet the Lebanese need a more drastic solution. The government’s resignation will not change the system as long as the same political elites maintain their power and control over other institutions.
Lebanon was already in the middle of an unprecedented economic and political crisis when the twin blasts hit. It’s a crisis so severe that it has already begun to trigger hyperinflation and hunger in country that weathered 15 years of civil war without experiencing such economic devastation. And it is being kept alive by the greed of a political class that refuses even the most modest reforms demanded by an International Monetary Fund that actually wants to give the country money.
France seems to be taking the lead for now, as illustrated by French President Emmanuel Macron’s symbolic visit to Beirut last week followed by his quick move to kick off Sunday’s international donor meeting. Countries have already pledged over 250 million euros (approximately $300 million).
As much as humanitarian aid is vital to help the Lebanese stand back on their feet, accountability is much more significant in the long term.
As other countries follow in France’s footsteps, it is worth keeping two things in mind: First, the Beirut port explosion was not a natural disaster, and it should not be treated as such. Therefore, as much as humanitarian aid is vital to help the Lebanese stand back on their feet, accountability is much more significant in the long term, and this is exactly what Lebanese protesters in the streets are calling for.
Second, the Lebanese people no longer trust their government, whose incompetence was one of the possible causes of the explosion. Therefore, assistance should not by any means go through government institutions or political organizations and charities.
The deeply corrupt political system will prevent aid from reaching the people who need it.The deeply corrupt political system will prevent aid from reaching the people who need it. A number of local and international nongovernment organizations—such as the Lebanese Red Cross—have already been offering relief and assistance on the ground from day one. They were the first responders and have a good infrastructure and knowledge of the situation on the ground. If aid goes through these organizations, the likelihood that it will reach the right beneficiaries is much higher.
If Lebanon’s government is asking for international assistance, then it should accept an international investigation. The United States could take the lead on these two policy questions while coordinating with the French on a humanitarian initiative.
France has been trying to strike a difficult balance: mobilize the international community to support Lebanon while exerting pressure on Lebanese political leaders to implement reforms to allow more aid to be sent.
But Macron made clear in his press statement at the end of his Beirut visit that he would not craft a political solution for Lebanon and that it was up to the Lebanese to construct it, giving an opportunity for both the political elite to compromise and for the protest movement to reorganize and prepare for the next elections.
But the Lebanese elite won’t budge without pressure, and the authorities won’t hesitate to use violence to suppress the protests. For many Lebanese, this is a Catch-22 situation that can only be overcome if the authorities are pressured as they were in 2005—by a robust U.S. presence in the region and a very clear message from the United States to the Lebanese authorities—when the government was forced to resign and early elections were organized. Unfortunately, there’s no sign of an international initiative in this direction.
Only an international investigation would achieve real accountability and justice. Lebanese President Michel Aoun has already refused this suggestion, as expected. Not only could an international investigative team hold many in the political establishment accountable, but it could also reveal Hezbollah’s control, presence, and storage facilities at the city’s port—even if the group had nothing to do with the 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate stockpiled at the port.
Although it is early to tell if the ammonium nitrate belonged to Hezbollah, there are many factors suggesting the group is responsible. It has control over a major part of the port, including the area where the explosion took place and where Hezbollah had temporarily stored its missiles since approximately 2008.
Not much has changed in the last four decades. According to a 1987 CIA report on Lebanon’s ports, “most operations in Lebanon’s ports are illegal and beyond the reach of the government.” Although the report was focused on Palestinian factions during the Lebanese Civil War and the role of the Syrian regime, the dynamics of control have benefitted Hezbollah, which seems to have inherited both the Syrian regime’s and the Palestinian factions’ control of Lebanon’s ports.
It’s not a secret that Hezbollah has access and control over all of Lebanon’s points of entryIt’s not a secret that Hezbollah has access and control over all of Lebanon’s points of entry: the Syrian-Lebanese borders, the airport, and the port. Nor is it a secret that Hezbollah has been smuggling weapons through the port to store in Lebanon and transfer to Syria.
And it’s no secret that Hezbollah and its allies have put their people in many of the port’s sensitive positions. Indeed, in July 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Hezbollah security official Wafiq Safa for acting on behalf of the group. The Treasury said Safa, as the head of Hezbollah’s security apparatus, “has exploited Lebanon’s ports and border crossings to smuggle contraband and facilitate travel” on behalf of the group. According to the report, Hezbollah “leveraged Safa to facilitate the passage of items, including illegal drugs and weapons, into the port of Beirut, Lebanon” and “specifically routed certain shipments through Safa to avoid scrutiny.”
There are many questions an impartial investigation could answer: Why were Dutch and French rescue teams kept away from the port for hours the second day after the explosion? Why was the ammonium nitrate stored at the port? Who left it there for six years, despite warnings of the risk? What exactly caused the explosion? The Lebanese authorities will not be able to answer these questions on their own.
In 2005, many Lebanese opposition parties rushed to accuse the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and Hezbollah for Hariri’s assassination. Back then, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah accused Israel and didn’t hesitate to thank the Syrian regime after its army withdrew from Lebanon, in a gesture that was understood as an act of defiance against the international community and local opposition.
Fifteen years later, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is ready to announce its verdict on Aug. 18 against four Hezbollah members. Hariri’s accused killers will almost certainly be convicted in a few days, and that was only possible because the international community pushed for an international investigation and helped establish the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. As the events in Beirut develop, a similar opportunity presents itself today.
Hezbollah is clearly worried. The party has accused state institutions and state employees rather than Israel this time. Accordingly, Hezbollah and the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese government appear to have decided that to survive this, some employees will have to be sacrificedHezbollah and the Hezbollah-affiliated Lebanese government appear to have decided that to survive this, some employees will have to be sacrificed, including the country’s customs chief, Badri Daher, who was appointed by Gebran Bassil, Hezbollah’s main ally in Parliament.
The Trump administration should take advantage of this situation. Washington has lately been focused on applying maximum pressure on Iran; therefore, it would make sense to recognize that the horror and tragedy of the Beirut blast presents an opportunity to trim the sails of Iran’s most effective regional proxy, Hezbollah.
There are many hard-power reasons for Washington to get more deeply involved in Lebanon right now: to burnish its regional leadership credentials, to beat the Chinese and Russians to it, and to ensure supply lines into Syria. But taking advantage of the moment to give the Lebanese a chance to create a new political system in which Hezbollah is cut down to size is certainly high on the list. There are several things the U.S. government can do to achieve that objective.
First, it must grasp that this is a 2005 moment. The old anti-Hezbollah March 14 coalition is not an alternative because corruption exists across both coalitions and the Lebanese protesters’ demands—with their main slogan, “All of you means all of you”—target every sectarian and corrupt politician no matter their political position on Hezbollah.
Lebanon’s people are demanding a total replacement of the system—a new kind of Taif Agreement—the accord negotiated in Saudi Arabia in September 1989 to provide “the basis for the ending of the civil war and the return to political normalcy in Lebanon.” Today, the tragedy in Lebanon requires a new agreement that would lead to real change and an end of the sectarian system.
Second, Washington should make sure that humanitarian aid does not go through any state institutions, including the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF).Washington should make sure that humanitarian aid does not go through any state institutions, including the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). The United States has been assisting the LAF since 2006 for clear security objectives, but the LAF in turn has used brutal force against protesters during the recent demonstrations. Security assistance could continue, as long as the LAF does not use it to suppress protesters, but humanitarian assistance should go through local and international NGOs that are doing a much better job at relief efforts.
Third, the United States and its allies must push for an independent and transparent investigation of Lebanon’s port explosion. If the U.S. policy is to contain Iran and its proxies, then this is a golden opportunity. Holding Hezbollah accountable for perhaps killing hundreds of Lebanese and injuring thousands could push the Lebanese people—and Western public opinion in general—to reject Hezbollah’s grip on the country.
Fourth, there must be an investigation into the LAF’s use of violence against protesters. The 2005 Cedar Revolution happened because the army’s leadership took a decision to protect the protesters, who were peaceful. The army today seems to have decided to protect the authorities and punish the victims. The U.S. government needs to send a clear message to the LAF that if it does not protect the protesters as they did in 2005, assistance will stop.
The U.S. government should take the lead in pushing for genuine change rather than following Macron’s lead.Finally, the U.S. government should take the lead in pushing for genuine change rather than following Macron’s lead. The French president might be satisfied with a national unity government. However, this idea reminds the Lebanese people of the first national unity government that was forced on the Lebanese after the events of May 2008.
At the time, Hezbollah took over Beirut and the Druze mountains and used its weapons against the Lebanese people and pushed the March 14 coalition to effectively give up power to Hezbollah through the national unity government—launching a process that allowed the group to take over most political, military, and security institutions. Another national unity government today would maintain Hezbollah’s power over state institutions.
What Lebanon needs instead is a new beginning—a new political and social contract that eliminates sectarianism and establishes accountability through judicial reforms. This can only happen through a new electoral law that entails proper representation and an end to the confessional system, as well as early elections, which would produce a new parliament, a new government, and a new president.
Lebanon also needs the truth—and the accountability that follows—to overcome this tragedy.
**Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/08/11/lebanon-beirut-needs-transformation-not-another-corrupt-unity-government-france-macron/?fbclid=IwAR0P2GYY1JDv9_Z03lHunBrFN_8yJ_5JsQt4SPs6ojxFRy-GhoNUYhy8ynY

Who Owned the Chemicals that Blew up Beirut? No One Will Say
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
In the murky story of how a cache of highly explosive ammonium nitrate ended up on the Beirut waterfront, one thing is clear -- no one has ever publicly come forward to claim it. There are many unanswered questions surrounding last week's huge, deadly blast in the Lebanese capital, but ownership should be among the easiest to resolve.
Clear identification of ownership, especially of a cargo as dangerous as that carried by the Moldovan-flagged Rhosus when it sailed into Beirut seven years ago, is fundamental to shipping, the key to insuring it and settling disputes that often arise.
But Reuters interviews and trawls for documents across 10 countries in search of the original ownership of this 2,750-ton consignment instead revealed an intricate tale of missing documentation, secrecy and a web of small, obscure companies that span the globe. "Goods were being transported from one country to another, and they ended up in a third country with nobody owning the goods. Why did they end up here?" said Ghassan Hasbani, a former Lebanese deputy prime minister and opposition figure. Those linked to the shipment and interviewed by Reuters all denied knowledge of the cargo's original owner or declined to answer the question. Those who said they didn't know included the ship's captain, the Georgian fertilizer maker who produced the cargo and the African firm that ordered it but said it never paid for it. The official version of the Rhosus' final journey depicts its voyage as a series of unfortunate events.
Shipping records show the ship loaded ammonium nitrate in Georgia in September 2013 and was meant to deliver it to an explosives maker in Mozambique. But before leaving the Mediterranean, the captain and two crew members say they were instructed by the Russian businessman they regarded as the ship's de facto owner, Igor Grechushkin, to make an unscheduled stop in Beirut and take on extra cargo.
The Rhosus arrived in Beirut in November but never left, becoming tangled in a legal dispute over unpaid port fees and ship defects. Creditors accused the ship's legal owner, listed as a Panama-based firm, of abandoning the vessel and the cargo was later unloaded and put in a dockside warehouse, according to official accounts.
The Beirut law firm that acted for creditors, Baroudi & Associates, did not respond to requests to identify the cargo's original legal owner. Reuters was unable to contact Grechushkin. The empty ship eventually sank where it was moored in 2018, according to Lebanese customs.
The Rhosus' final movements are under fresh scrutiny after the ammonium nitrate caught fire inside the warehouse and exploded last week, killing at least 158 people, injuring thousands and leaving 250,000 people homeless.
Among the still-unanswered questions: who paid for the ammonium nitrate and did they ever seek to reclaim the cargo when the Rhosus was impounded? And if not, why not? The cargo, packaged in large white sacks, was worth around $700,000 at 2013 prices, according to an industry source.
Uninsured
Reuters inquiries have raised numerous red flags. Under international maritime conventions and some domestic laws, commercial vessels must have insurance to cover events such as environmental damage, loss of life or injury caused by a sinking, spill or collision. Yet the Rhosus was uninsured, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The ship's Russian captain, Boris Prokoshev, said by phone from his home in Sochi, Russia, that he had seen an insurance certificate but could not vouch for its authenticity. Reuters was unable to obtain a copy of the ship's documents.
The Mozambican firm that ordered the ammonium nitrate, Fábrica de Explosivos Moçambique (FEM), was not the cargo owner at the time because it had agreed to only pay on delivery, according to its spokesman, Antonio Cunha Vaz.
The producer was Georgian fertilizer maker Rustavi Azot LLC, which has since been dissolved. Its owner at the time, businessman Roman Pipia, told Reuters he had lost control of the Rustavi ammonium nitrate plant in 2016. UK court documents show that the firm was forced by a creditor to auction off its assets that year.
The factory is now run by another firm, JSC Rustavi Azot, which also said it could not shed light on the cargo owner, according to the plant's current first deputy director, Levan Burdiladze. FEM said it had ordered the shipment through a trading firm, Savaro Ltd, which has registered companies in London and Ukraine but whose website is now offline. A visit to Savaro Ltd’s listed London address on Monday found a Victorian terraced house, with a locked and barred door, near the fashionable bars of Shoreditch. No one responded to knocks on the door.
Reuters contacted UK-registered Savaro Ltd director Greta Bieliene, a Lithuanian based in Cyprus. She declined to answer questions. A source familiar with the inner workings of Savaro's trading business said it sold fertilizer from ex-Soviet Union states to clients in Africa.
Ukraine-based businessman Vladimir Verbonol is listed as director of Savaro in Ukraine, according to Ukrainian corporate data base You Control. Reuters was unable to contact Verbonol for comment.
The Russian
As grief and anger over the blast turn to civil unrest in Beirut, there are signs the Lebanese government's promised investigation has already turned its sights back to the Rhosus and Grechushkin, the man the crew considered as its owner.
A security source said Grechushkin was questioned at his home in Cyprus last Thursday about the cargo. A Cypriot police spokesman said an individual, whom he did not name, had been questioned at the request of Interpol Beirut.
The Rhosus arrived in Beirut in November 2013 with a leak and in generally poor condition, captain Prokoshev said. It had already been beset with problems.
In July 2013, four months before docking in Beirut, the ship was detained for 13 days by port authorities in Seville, Spain, after multiple deficiencies including malfunctioning doors, corrosion on the deck area and deficient auxiliary engines were found, according to shipping data. It resumed sailing after inspection firm Maritime Lloyd issued a cargo ship safety construction certificate, which would have involved a survey of the ship, the data showed.
Teimuraz Kavtaradze, an inspector at Georgia-based Maritime Lloyd, which does not rank among the most prominent and widely-used inspection firms, said he could not confirm whether or not the firm had provided any inspection documents to port officials in Seville. He said he was working for Maritime Lloyd in 2013 but that other staff and the management had since changed. Seville port officials were not immediately available for comment. Paris MoU, a body of 27 maritime states under whose authority the detention was carried out, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Moldova, where the Rhosus is registered, lists the owner of the ship as Panama-based Briarwood Corp, a certificate of ownership seen by Reuters shows. Reuters was not immediately able to identify Briarwood Corp as a Panamanian registered company. Panama’s maritime authorities did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The ship's charterer, Teto Shipping Ltd, is based in the Marshall Islands and was dissolved in 2014, according to International Registries, which says it provides shipping registry services to the Marshall Islands.
The captain passed Reuters an email address that they had been using for Teto Shipping, but requests for comment to the same address went unanswered. The captain said he regarded Grechushkin and Teto as the same entity.

Lebanon Blast: Political Game Changer or Hollow Blow?
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Last week's cataclysmic explosion has ripped Beirut apart but was it strong enough to topple the entrenched ruling class whose greed and incompetence are blamed for it? The masters of Lebanon's political pie-sharing game have not changed in decades: warlords from the 1975-1990 civil war who traded their fatigues for suits. Many Lebanese want their reviled leaders to bite the dust over the August 4 explosion, which killed at least 160 people and disfigured the capital. Under pressure from all sides, Prime Minister Hassan Diab announcd his government's resignation on Monday but it remains to be seen whether new faces are brought in or the usual suspects brought back, AFP reported.
New system?
Authorities say the blast was triggered by a fire of unknown origin that broke out in a port warehouse where a huge pile of highly volatile ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been left unsecured for years. Whatever the cause of the fire is, the popular consensus is that the blame rests squarely on the shoulders of the officials in charge of the port. The disgust that had fuelled nationwide protests last year demanding a complete overhaul of the political system turned to fully-fledged rage and thirst for revenge. Lebanon president Michel Aoun acknowledged the need to "reconsider" the country's governance. In his resignation speech, Diab said he wanted to join the people in holding decades-old rulers accountable, saying: "Their corruption created this tragedy." The two men's attempts to distance themselves from the political elite failed to convince many ordinary Lebanese, who saw nothing more then an exercise in buck-passing and self-preservation. Hilal Khashan, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, said the fallout from the blast was a potential "game changer" because the street would accept nothing less than radical change. He said the resentment towards established parties could finally create a space for the emergence of "new political formations".
Square Zero
Jeffrey G. Karam assistant professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, was less hopeful. "It is almost impossible to consider and even imagine that the blast will sweep away the ruling political class," he told AFP. "The ruling class will absorb the shock, anger, frustration and actually exploit the blood in the streets," he said. It will "promise short-term solutions to simply manufacture consent and some sense of normalcy," he predicted. Karam said one possible scenario moving forward is the formation of a so-called national unity government that includes representatives of all the country's main political parties, some under the guise of technocratic nominees. This would mean "we're back to square zero." Diad suggested early polls before resigning but a fresh vote would just return the same elite if the electoral law is not thoroughly reviewed. "Our political class is immune to human tragedy, especially given that almost all of them are warlords," Karam said. "Unfortunately, a few hundred blast victims will not trigger a mass scale response from the political elite."
Outside rescue?
According to AFP, Foreign sponsors were long the main lifeline for Lebanon's economy and the financiers of the patronage networks of its rival political parties but the money flow has dried up in recent years. The blast rocked Lebanon at a time when it was already on its knees, having defaulted on its debt and seen poverty rise to near third world levels. Despite the economic emergency, Lebanon's barons were resisting the reforms demanded by Western donors but the extra burden and popular anger generated by the port blast will further reduce its room for manoeuvre. On the first visit by a head of state to Lebanon since the explosion, French President Emmanuel Macron last week called for a "new political order". An emergency international conference he organized for blast victims on Sunday raised a quarter of a billion dollars he vowed would bypass the government. LAU political science professor Bassel Salloukh argued that this kind of outside pressure was a potent weapon to change what he described as a "zombie political system"."The August 4 explosion changes everything: the political elite have no more maneuvering room," he said. "They will find it very difficult to avoid the kind of structural reforms that the international community has made a precondition for any aid," he added. "Will that uproot the political system? No, but it forces them to make the kind of concessions they have long resisted."

Why Did Lebanon Let a Bomb-in-Waiting Sit in a Warehouse for 6 Years?
Faysal Itani/The New York Times/August 11/2020
My first summer job was at the port of Beirut. It was the late ’90s and I was just a teenager. I spent muggy months entering shipping data as part of an ambitious new program to move the port from analog to digital log keeping. It was as unglamorous as you would expect from a bottom-rung job in the bowels of a Middle East bureaucracy. But despite the heat and the monotony, there was optimism.
The port was critical infrastructure in an economy rejuvenating after 15 years of civil war. Digital log keeping was part of the future — and an attempt to introduce much-needed order and transparency to a recovering public sector. This was, after all, the same port that had been rendered unusable during the civil war by sunken vessels and unexploded ordnance, save for one area controlled by a militia.
The Lebanon that emerged from that rubble is gone, gradually choked by a cynical political class. On August 4, it was finished off. The port of Beirut was blown up in an explosion that killed at least 150 people (and counting), wounded more than 5,000 and destroyed blocks of the city. Lebanon now faces a new type of catastrophe for which decades of war and political instability were poor preparation.
By all appearances the port disaster did not involve the usual suspects — Hezbollah, Israel, terrorism or the government of neighboring Syria. The truth seems to be both duller and more disturbing: Decades of rot at every level of Lebanon’s institutions destroyed Beirut’s port, much of the city, and far too many lives. It is precisely the banality behind the explosion that captures the particular punishment and humiliation heaped on Lebanon.
So far, Lebanese officials are in agreement about what happened, though it’s likely that more than one “official” account will emerge. After all, this is Lebanon, a country deeply divided by politics, religion and history. But here is what we know as of now, according to reporting by credible Lebanese media: Some 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate unloaded from a disabled vessel in 2014 had been stored in a port warehouse. Then on August 4, a welding accident ignited nearby fireworks — which caused the ammonium nitrate to explode.
Ports are prime real estate for political, criminal and militia factions. Multiple security agencies with different levels of competence (and different political allegiances) control various aspects of their operations. And recruitment in the civilian bureaucracy is dictated by political or sectarian quotas. There is a pervasive culture of negligence, petty corruption and blame-shifting endemic to the Lebanese bureaucracy, all overseen by a political class defined by its incompetence and contempt for the public good.
It’s unclear what combination of these elements let a bomb-in-waiting sit in a warehouse for almost six years, moved fireworks next to it and allowed irresponsible work practices to be carried out nearby. But the catastrophe, while exceptionally severe, is the result of business as usual in Lebanon. The country is familiar with explosions, and it is just as familiar with disasters caused by failures of public services: a garbage crisis that dates back to 2015, an environmental catastrophe in 2019 and power outages this year that last up to 20 hours a day.
The consequences of Beirut explosion will be even more serious than the immediate casualties and property damage. The main grain silo, which holds some 85 percent of the country’s cereals, was destroyed. Even more, the port will no longer be able to receive goods. Lebanon imports 80 percent of what it consumes, including 90 percent of its wheat, which is used to make the bread that is the staple of most people’s diets. About 60 percent of those imports come through the port of Beirut. Or, at least, they did.
The timing couldn’t be worse. An economic crisis has devastated Lebanon for several months. The country’s currency has collapsed, a problem that is itself a result of years of mismanagement and corruption. Hundreds of thousands of people can no longer buy fuel, food and medicine. As Lebanese have seen their savings wiped out and their purchasing power disappear, a new vocabulary appeared among even my optimistic Lebanese friends and family. To describe the country, they began using words like “doomed” and “hopeless.”
And the coronavirus crisis has placed greater pressure on the health sector. After yesterday’s explosion, hospital staff were reportedly treating injuries in streets and parking lots. The explosion may well put Lebanon on the path to a food and health catastrophe not seen in the worst of its wars.
Lebanon’s political class should be on guard in the weeks ahead: Shock will inevitably turn to anger. But I fear that old habits die hard. These politicians are well practiced in shifting the blame. I don’t expect many — if any — high-level resignations or admissions of responsibility. The government resigned on Monday and few lawmakers have quit.
Will there be a revolution? An uprising of anger? Any revolutionary impulse has to compete with tribal, sectarian and ideological affiliations. For that matter, so do the facts: Even if a single official version of the port incident is presented (and even if it is true), some will not believe it. Paradoxically, our distrust of our politicians makes it harder to unite against them.
These are real obstacles. Yet there has never been more urgency for reform and accountability, beyond the likely scapegoating of midlevel officials. It is difficult to imagine such a concerted, sustained national movement because it has never materialized. But hunger and a collapse in health care may change that.
Lebanon — and the Lebanese — will need a rapid influx of external aid to stave off a critical food shortage and public health catastrophe. It seems to be coming, from countries across the Middle East and around the world. But this will not arrest the country’s decline. Emergency aid will only magnify public humiliation and helplessness. The port explosion made clear that Lebanon is no longer a country where decent people can live secure and fulfilling lives.
As I watched videos of Beirut engulfed in smoke and checked in with my friends and family, I found myself thinking for the first time in a while of that summer when I worked at the port. The digitization project was completed, but parties who disliked the transparency it brought found ways to work around it.
Today, it’s irrelevant, of course. The port is destroyed. As for the Lebanese, they will be far more consumed by survival than progress.
*Faysal Itani is a deputy director at the Center for Global Policy and adjunct professor of Middle East politics at Georgetown University.

Hezbollah Will Not Escape Blame for Beirut
Hussein Ibish/Bloomberg/August 11/2020
As if the Lebanese haven’t suffered enough. For months, they have been caught between an economic meltdown, crumbling public services and a surging pandemic. Now they must count the dead and survey the extensive damage to their capital after two giant explosions on August 4.
The blasts, especially the second, were so huge they were reportedly heard and felt in Cyprus. At least 150 have been killed and thousands injured. A large expanse of the port and its immediate neighborhood lies in smoking ruin; miles away, streets are full of shattered glass.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s now resigned government says the explosions were caused when careless welding ignited about 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate, a highly combustible material used as fertilizer and for bomb-making. By comparison, Timothy McVeigh used about 2.4 tons of the same chemical in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. The 2015 disaster in the Chinese city of Tianjin was caused by the explosion of 800 tons of ammonium nitrate.
The equivalent of 1,100 Oklahoma City-size bombs could indeed account for the devastation and the reddish mushroom cloud that plumed gaudily over the Beirut port. But it doesn’t mean Lebanese will simply accept that the explosion was an unavoidable, force majeure event.
Assuming the official account holds up, the disaster again exposes the rot that is destroying the country — an especially corrosive mix of corruption, ineptitude and malign intentions.
The ammonium nitrate was apparently seized in 2013 from a Moldovan-flagged ship traveling from Georgia to Mozambique. But someone — who, we don’t yet know — brought it into Beirut; instead of returning, auctioning or disposing of it, the port management inexcusably allowed it to be stored there for years. There are no prizes for guessing who in Lebanon might be interested in keeping such vast quantities of explosive material close at hand. The US Treasury and Israel both believe Hezbollah controls many of Beirut’s port facilities.
Diab, whose government was entirely dependent on political support from Hezbollah and its Maronite Christian allies, has vowed to hold those responsible to account. More than likely, some minor officials will be fingered for permitting improper storage of highly dangerous material.
Iran-backed Hezbollah, with its large and well-armed militia as well as its political hold on the prime minister, has nothing to fear from the state. But it will not escape public opprobrium: Most Lebanese will assume the ammonium nitrate belonged to the militia, for use in Syria and against Israel.
Why the chemicals exploded is another matter, rich with possibilities of conjecture. In the court of public opinion, the usual suspects will be rounded up from the ongoing shadow war between Iran and Hezbollah on one side and Israel on the other. President Donald Trump, who can be relied upon to make everything worse, speculated it was a deliberate attack. This will be picked up and amplified by conspiracy theorists in the Middle East.
But suspicions of Hezbollah’s culpability would have intensified had the United Nations special tribunal for Lebanon issued its verdict in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The verdict was postponed to later this month over the port blast. Four Hezbollah members are being tried in absentia for the assassination. The men are in hiding, and have not been seen in years; even if they are found guilty, no one expects them to be handed over. Hariri, remember, was killed in a massive blast.
A guilty verdict would increase domestic pressure on Hezbollah, its allies and the government. When Lebanese have finished mourning their dead, anger will return — the kind that fueled the massive street demonstrations that brought down Diab’s predecessor last October.
Even without the Beirut blasts, the timing of the verdict would have been awkward for Diab, who is struggling to negotiate an economic bailout with the International Monetary Fund: Among the hurdles is Hezbollah’s resistance to the necessary reforms.
Hezbollah finds itself uncomfortably positioned as the principal backer of the resigned government that presided over a thoroughgoing collapse of the Lebanese state and society. It will not easily shake off blame for the Beirut blast, or for the Hariri assassination. Even in this country that has suffered so much and for so long, the latest of Lebanon’s tragedies will not soon be forgotten, nor its perpetrators forgiven.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 11-12/2020

Iran exporting over twice as much oil as US estimated - report

Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
TankerTrackers has found that Iran has conducted maneuvers with foreign tankers many times to transfer and export millions of barrels of oils and bypass US sanctions. Despite harsh US sanctions, Iran is continuing to export over 600,000 barrels a day, over twice as much oil as a recent Congressional report estimated, according to NBC News. The NBC report, based on data from TankerTrackers.com, a company that tracks oil exports, brought up the case of the Indian tanker Gissel. The tanker left Pakistan in April and seemed to begin a standard journey up the Persian Gulf. Tracking data then showed the ship making a U-turn near the Straits of Hormuz and coming to a stop in the Gulf of Oman. However, satellite images showed that the ship was not at the marked location. TankerTrackers used satellite imagery to find Gissel off the coast of Lavan Island, over 100 miles away from the marked location. While off the coast of Lavan Island, the Gissel met up with an Iranian oil tanker, which transferred an estimated one million barrels of crude oil to the Gissel. The Gissel continued on to deliver the oil to China. TankerTrackers has found that similar maneuvers have been used by Iran many times to transfer and export millions of barrels of oils and bypass US sanctions. While a June report by Chinese customs says that no Iranian oil was imported that month, a source told Radio Farda that the oil was delivered as Indonesian oil. A recent congressional report estimated that Iranian oil exports had dropped 90% since 2018, falling from 2.5 million barrels a day to 227,000 barrels a day, according to NBC News. TankerTrackers findings show that exports have instead fallen by about 76%. The Islamic Republic's crude production has halved to around 2 million barrels per day (bpd), but Iran has stated that it intends to continue to develop its oil industry despite sanctions.
*Reuters contributed to this report.

Iran says five Iranians spying for Israel arrested in recent months
Reuters/August 11/2020
Shahram Shirkhani spied for British intelligence services and tried to recruit some Iranian officials for Britain's MI6 agency, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmali said. Iranian authorities have arrested five Iranians on charges of spying for Israel, Britain and Germany, convicting and handing down prison sentences on at least two of them, the judiciary said on Tuesday. Addressing an online news conference, judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Esmaili named one of the five as Shahram Shirkhani, saying he had spied for Britain and tried to recruit some Iranian officials for the British MI6 espionage service. He added that Shirkhani had passed on sensitive information about banking and Defence Ministry contracts, and had been convicted and received a prison sentence. Masoud Mosaheb, the co-chairman of the Iranian-Austrian Friendship Society, was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment for sharing information on Iran's "missile and nuclear projects" with Israel's Mossad and the German intelligence service, Esmaili said.The Austrian Foreign Ministry said efforts to achieve the release of Mosaheb, an Iranian-Austrian dual national, continued unabated and at the highest level.
"Since the person detained in Iran is an Austrian-Iranian dual citizen ... Iran does not allow the monitoring of legal proceedings, visits to prison or access to trial and medical records," the ministry said in a statement to Reuters.
Iran does not recognize dual nationally. Austrian media reported that Mosaheb, 72, had been imprisoned in Iran since January 2019. Esmaili gave no details on the other three detainees, but indicated that they were working in state bodies. "We had the arrests in the foreign, defense and energy ministries as well as in the Atomic Energy Organisation," Esmaili said. Separately, the Intelligence Ministry said in a statement "a number of spies related to foreign intelligence services were identified and arrested.""They sought to spy on sensitive and vital centers in the economic, nuclear, infrastructure, military and political areas for the CIA, the Mossad and some European countries," said the statement read on TV.There was no immediate indication whether these individuals were the same ones referred to by Esmaili. Several explosions and fires have occurred around Iranian military, nuclear and industrial facilities in the past months, from a blast at the underground Natanz nuclear facility to a blaze at a military and weapons development facility. Some lawmakers suggested that the explosion in Natanz was caused by a "security breach," Iranian media reported in July.
In an article in early July, state news agency IRNA addressed what it called the possibility of sabotage by enemies such as Israel and the United States.

Russia, Turkey Resume Joint Patrol Near Aleppo
Ankara- Saeed Abdulrazek/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Turkish forces and the Russian military police has conducted a joint patrol in the countryside of Ain al-Arab, in the eastern countryside of Aleppo. The patrol included four Russian and Turkish vehicles that roamed a number of villages, as Russian helicopters flew in the air. The last joint patrol conducted in the region was on July 27. Meanwhile, Turkish forces and opposition factions clashed with Syrian regime forces in Idlib, as other areas in Aleppo controlled by Turkey witnessed tension. The Turkish forces attacked the regime forces in Hantoteen village of Idlib countryside, and the regime factions bombed San and Deir Sunbul villages in the southern countryside of Idlib.The Turkish forces and its affiliated factions also targeted positions of the regime units in Jabal al-Zawiya in the southern countryside of Idlib. In turn, regime forces bombed areas in al-Bara, Kansafra, and al-Mouzra.
In addition, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported that regime forces fired tens of rockets and artillery shells targeting places in Deir Sonbo, Kansafra, al-Hallouba, the vicinity of al-Bara, al-Fterah, Sfuhen, Fulayfel in the southern countryside of Idlib, Duwayr al-Akrad, al-Sarmaniyyah in Sahl al-Ghab in north-western Hama, and areas in Jabal al-Akrad in the northern countryside of Latakia. Meanwhile, two members of the Turkish-backed “Sultan Murad division” were killed and others wounded in clashes with Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on the frontline of Tal Tamer in al-Qamishli countryside.
On Friday, Turkey withdrew part of its military reinforcement and proxy factions from the frontlines of Um Ushbeh and Bab al-Khair in Abu Racine countryside. However, the forces and guard posts deployed along the frontline with SDF remained in place.


Germany, France, Italy to Apply EU Sanctions for Libya Arms Embargo Violations
Brussels - Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Germany, France, and Italy are moving forward with a plan to apply EU sanctions to those they deem responsible for the in-flow of weapons in Libya despite its arms embargo. The three EU member states have prepared a list of individuals and companies claimed to be in direct violation of the embargo. The list included two Libyan nationals and three foreign companies, according to German press agency (dpa). They have agreed on a list of companies and individuals providing ships, aircraft or other logistics for the transport of weapons, in violation of a United Nations embargo that has been in place since 2011. In mid-June, the three EU countries warned they would apply sanctions on those violating the UN embargo. "We are prepared to consider a possible use of sanctions if infringements against the land, sea and air embargo continue," the countries wrote in a joint statement, without naming a state or entity which could be the target of the measure. The EU recently started its own patrols of the Mediterranean Sea off Libya’s coast under “Operation Irini.”

Iraq PM Pressures Political Blocs to Hold Early Elections
Baghdad – Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
Talks are ongoing in Iraq to hold early parliamentary elections, scheduled by Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi for June 6, 2021.
During the past two days, President Barham Salih met with Kadhimi and former PM Haidar al-Abadi to discuss the polls. Statements from these meetings gave little details, but underscored the need to hold the elections in secure conditions and limit the possession of weapons in the hands of the state. However, one recent development has raised questions over the possibility of holding the polls on time. The parliament was supposed to meet for an extraordinary session to address the polls, but it was never held. The parliament is faced with the challenge of approving a new electoral law, which is a point of contention between the political blocs. Anti-government protests are demanding that several electoral districts be introduced in the polls to allow the election of new figures to the legislature. Traditional political forces, however, are still placing obstacles in amending the law. Many are demanding that each province be divided into two electoral districts, not several ones, in order to ensure that their candidates retain power. The Kurds, meanwhile, believe that holding elections in contested areas will not guarantee them fair representation. They fear that their seats will be won by non-Kurdish figures. MP Hussein Arab told Asharq Al-Awsat that amendments have been proposed to the current electoral law. The proposals include having one parliamentary seat for each electoral district, or having one electoral district for each province or having four parliamentary seats for each electoral district.
He predicted that the elections will be held on time if the electoral law is approved. The Independent High Electoral Commission has already kicked off its preparations to hold them on the scheduled date. Former MP Haidar al-Malla appeared more skeptical. He told Asharq Al-Awsat that it would be difficult to hold the polls according to the PM’s date, citing four conditions that should be met first. He said the electoral law should meet the demands of the popular protests, the stage must be set for the electoral commission to perform its tasks, efforts should be exerted to prevent thugs from manipulating the elections and causes of low turnouts must be addressed. The PM’s aide for electoral affairs, Hussein al-Hindawi, said the old electoral law will be adopted should parliament fail to approve a new one.
He slammed the old law, saying it had failed to secure free, fair and transparent elections. He urged parliament to approve a new one that is based on the constitution, which safeguards the principles of justice, equality, democracy and freedom of voting and that says that the people are the source of authority.
The electoral law must not be based on the division of shares and achieving personal interests at the expense of national ones, he added in televised remarks. Hindawi said Kadhimi’s choice to stage the elections in June 2021 was an appropriate and realistic date and efforts should be exerted to ensure they are held as envisioned.

GERD Dam Talks Adjourned for a Week
Cairo, Khartoum - Mohamed Nabil Helmy, Mohammed Amin Yassine/Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
African Union-sponsored negotiations on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) have been stalled with a new postponement. Egypt and Sudan haven’t yet announced any progress in the contentious issues, mainly the binding agreement on the dam’s filling and operation that Cairo and Khartoum seek to endorse. Addis Ababa, however, insists on discussing guidelines on the dam’s operation. The results of Monday’s negotiations are still ambiguous. While Sudan confirmed its participation through a statement on its official news agency, Cairo hasn’t yet announced its position on resuming negotiations that were suspended last week. This comes in light of Egyptian and Sudanese rejection of an Ethiopian proposal on the dam’s filling and operation, considering it contrary to the African Union Bureau Summit agreement concluded in July. “A meeting at the level of ministers of the three countries took place on Monday, during which Sudan asked to postpone the next meeting for one week for internal consultations,” Sudan’s Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources said in a statement. This request comes in line with the recent developments in the negotiations, the exchanged letters among the parties participating, and the need to expand internal consultations before resuming talks, the statement explained. Last week, Cairo and Khartoum suspended their participation in talks after a new proposal by Addis Ababa on the negotiations. According to Cairo, the new proposal “does not include any rules of operation or elements that reflect the agreement’s legal imperative.” Khartoum, for its part, said the proposal “raises serious concerns and a major development that threatens the continuation of negotiations.”
Egypt’s former Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Mohamed Nasr Eldin Allam told Asharq Al-Awsat that he does not expect negotiations to make any significant progress, especially in light of Egypt and Sudan’s rejection of Addis Ababa’s attempts to evade a legal agreement and a mechanism for resolving disputes. Allam said the course of talks will either be resolved by an intervention of a party that may resolve the outstanding issues among the three countries, or by referring the whole issue to the UN Security Council and involving the international community to assume its responsibilities towards these serious threats to international peace and security.Since 2011, the three countries have been negotiating to reach an agreement on filling and operating the Renaissance Dam – however, they failed to seal a deal. Egypt and Sudan aspire to reach a comprehensive deal on GERD including its management but Ethiopia rejects this, while Egypt considers that it has a ‘historic right’ in the river by virtue of deals signed in 1929 and 1959. Meanwhile, Ethiopia relies on a signed agreement in 2010 that approves implementing irrigation and dams’ projects at the river. Both Egypt and Sudan refused this agreement. “As the prime minister said, the corruption is bigger than the state. They’re all a bunch of crooks. I didn’t see one MP visit this area. MPs should have come here in large numbers to raise morale,” he said.

Egypt-Gaza Crossing Opens for First Time in Months
Asharq Al-Awsat/Tuesday, 11 August, 2020
The only crossing between Gaza and Egypt opened on Tuesday for 72 hours, allowing people to leave the Palestinian enclave for the first time since the novel coronavirus outbreak began. The Rafah crossing in southern Gaza was closed in March, as Hamas sought to guard against a major virus outbreak in the densely-populated territory with weak health infrastructure. Rafah was opened for three days in April, but only to allow Gazans stranded abroad to return home. The crossing re-opened for limited two-way movement on Tuesday, AFP reported. Gaza's interior ministry spokesman Iyad Al-Bazam said people who hold foreign passports, foreign residency permits or emergency medical needs "will be allowed to leave". Hundreds of Gazans had assembled before dawn at a waiting room preparing to exit, AFP reporters said. Gaza resident Hatem al-Mansi told AFP he needed medical care, but voiced concern about infection risks in Egypt, which has registered 95,000 COVID-19 cases, compared to just 81 in Gaza. "There is a fear of being infected with COVID-19 in cars or buses in Egypt," he told AFP. "In Gaza, we don't have that problem."Gaza, under an Israeli-enforced blockade since 2007, was uniquely protected against the coronavirus since access was already tightly controlled before the outbreak. But the dire economic conditions and a poor healthcare system, partly caused by the blockade, also made Gaza especially vulnerable to the virus.Hamas has maintained tight restrictions throughout the pandemic. Anyone returning from Egypt will be placed in a dedicated quarantine facility for three weeks, said the head of infection control at Gaza's health ministry, Rami Al-Abadala. "Every returnee will be given a mask and will be tested upon entry," he said. A large contingent of police, doctors and nurses were stationed at Rafah early Tuesday to accomodate the returnees.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 11-12/2020
Jihadi Murderers Feign “Reform” and Fool the Establishment
Raymond Ibrahim/August 11/2020
Jihadis continue to tell infidels what they wish to hear, and the latter continue to eat it up—to their own, often fatal, detriment.
This is one of the findings of a July 22, 2020 study titled “Prisons and Terrorism” in Western Europe (the second such publication of a decade-long project begun in 2010). Published by Kings College London’s International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR), it finds that “‘False compliance’ seems to have become more widespread, especially among jihadist prisoners, though its true extent is unknown. This can be a major issue in relation to risk assessment and release arrangements.”
The ICSR report documented several examples of jihadi prisoners pretending to have reformed and “de-radicalized.” One of the two Muslims who beheaded 85‑year‑old Catholic priest Jacques Hamel in his church in France in 2016 had twice earlier been apprehended for trying to go to Syria and fight for the Islamic State. All he had to do, however, was tell the judge what he wanted to hear: “I am a Muslim who believes in mercy, in doing good, I’m not an extremist … I want to get back my life, see my friends, get married.” Based on these words, the judge released him, and soon thereafter this “Muslim who believes in mercy” slaughtered the elderly priest.
After being imprisoned for his involvement in a bombing plot, Usman Khan—who “was considered a success story of an extremist turning their life around,” to quote the report—was released early. Not long thereafter he too went on a stabbing rampage that killed two and injured three on London Bridge.
Similarly, “many of the 40 female inmates in Fleury‑Mérogis prison in Paris have joked about how they tricked the judge or magistrate—by eating pork, for example, which is forbidden in Islam—to receive more lenient sentences.”
Sadly, the only ones learning from the interaction between Muslim prisoners and European authorities are the terrorists themselves:
From their perspective, prison is also an opportunity to understand how the authorities operate, and—in a sign of their growing awareness of counterintelligence and countersurveillance—jihadists have actively looked to pass their time in prison without incident or arousing the suspicions of the authorities.
Relatedly, the incarcerated terrorists “see prison as a test of their commitment to the cause and a place to recover from Islamic State’s battlefield losses and the wider upheaval in the jihadist scene.”
The ICSR report goes on to invoke the word taqiyya—Islam’s premiere doctrine of deceit:
[O]ffenders may try to ‘game’ a risk assessment if they are in contact with other inmates who have already participated in the process. Part of this involves knowing what to say to tick the right boxes. Much of this is seemingly the use of what is referred to as taqiyya, which is a (mostly) Shiite concept used to describe deception and dissimulation to hide one’s true intentions…. [T]he true scale of taqiyya may be greater than commonly understood… Yet the assumption that jihadists are more willing to engage in deception than non‑terrorist prisoners can pose a conundrum, whereby anything less than admitting to holding jihadist ideas and intentions is thought of as a form of taqiyya.
It is, admittedly, somewhat surprising, refreshingly so, to see a normally politically correct Western think tank even use the term taqiyya. For example, after “Islam’s Doctrines of Deception”—an article that Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst (a defense intelligence agency founded in 1898) had commissioned me to write on taqiyya—was published in September 26, 2008, its (since fired) editor called me in a panic: his superiors were outraged that he had allowed such an article to appear; part of their “damage control” was to publish another article refuting mine.
The great “crime” of my article was that it went against academic orthodoxy on taqiyya, which has long insisted that the doctrine permits Muslims to deceive others only when their lives are under threat. My article argued what the ICSR report is now saying—12 years later: that the application of taqiyya is hardly limited to life threatening situations and is often employed in any way that can be seen as helping Muslims against non-Muslims.
As for the typical (and wrong) caveat offered by the ICSR, that “taqiyya … is a (mostly) Shiite concept,” this is not true—as evidenced by the simple fact that the prison subjects in ICSR’s own study are overwhelmingly if not entirely Sunni. As Dr. Sami Nassib Makarem, the foremost authority on taqiyya, wrote in his seminal book, Al-Taqiyya fi’l Islam (“Taqiyya in Islam”):
Taqiyya is of fundamental importance in Islam. Practically every Islamic sect agrees to it and practices it … We can go so far as to say that the practice of taqiyya is mainstream in Islam, and that those few sects not practicing it diverge from the mainstream … Taqiyya is very prevalent in Islamic politics, especially in the modern era.
Taqiyya was associated with Shiites because, historically, they had more reason to employ it, being minorities surrounded by hostile Sunni majorities. Today, however, Sunnis in the West are the primary Muslim minorities surrounded by their historic enemies—infidels—and thus they, no less than Shia, employ taqiyya. At any rate, it is good that modest portions of the establishment are finally beginning to acknowledge the role of taqiyya in modern day terrorist activities. (For those interested in more detailed expositions on Islam’s doctrines of deceit, see here, here, and here.)
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Sword and Scimitar, is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute, and a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

The Battle of Hagia Sophia: Erdogan’s Conquest of the Turkish Republic
Aykan Erdemir/FDD/August 12/2020
This will set a dangerous precedent, emboldening supremacists not only in Turkey but also in the Middle East and North Africa.
Turkey’s Islamist president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has a reputation for turning challenges into opportunities. At a time when electoral support for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) has hit rock bottom in the polls, Erdogan pulled off his most daring trick to date by converting Istanbul’s sixth-century Byzantine church Hagia Sophia into a mosque. As the Turkish president and his ultranationalist allies celebrate the move as the latest in a series of Turco-Muslim conquests in the region, they are fundamentally transforming the Turkish state’s relationship to its citizens. This will set a dangerous precedent, emboldening supremacists not only in Turkey but also in the Middle East and North Africa.
In announcing the July 10 ruling of an administrative court that paved the way for transforming Hagia Sophia’s status from a museum into a mosque, Erdogan said that the building’s conversion would gratify “the spirit of conquest” of Mehmet II, the Ottoman sultan who captured Constantinople from the Byzantines in 1453. Erdogan’s ultranationalist coalition partner Devlet Bahceli echoed the Turkish president the next day by proclaiming that the course of the Turco-Muslim conquest, “which has been going on for 567 years, has entered a new phase.”
Turkey is unique among NATO’s thirty member states for having a government that continues an active campaign of conquest against its own population and their worship halls. Ironically, it was this very dichotomy between Muslim conquerors and their conquered subjects that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Turkey’s founding father, was trying to abolish as he built a secular republic from the ashes of a failed empire. His 1934 transformation of Hagia Sophia from a mosque into a museum was the most symbolic expression of this new spirit, as Muslims, Christians, and others would enjoy access to this monument on an equal footing as former imperial subjects turned equal citizens of a burgeoning republic.
Sadly, the republic failed to deliver fully on its promises, neither securing freedom for nor freedom from religion for all its citizens. Although the Turkish constitution has enshrined the principle of secularism and equal citizenship regardless of ethnicity or religion, the country’s Sunni Muslim majority remained a privileged caste, as religious minorities learned to live with the de facto hierarchies imposed on them by a sinister sectarianism that permeated the entire political spectrum and government bureaucracy.
The idea of equal citizenship, nevertheless, has remained a powerful principle that Turkey’s religious minorities and their pro-secular Muslim allies could time and again turn to for demanding rights and pushing back against discrimination. The Turkish republic, with all its shortcomings, continued to inspire others in majority Muslim countries to challenge sectarian hierarchies and demand the building of secular polities. One of the biggest impacts of Erdogan’s conversion of Hagia Sophia and deployment of the trope of conquest will be to turn back the clock of secularism and equal citizenship in the very country where this ideal started most forcefully in the Muslim world.
This radical rupture in consciousness was best expressed by Elpidophoros, the archbishop of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America—and a native of Istanbul—as he warned that “a mentality of the conqueror, and claiming conqueror’s rights . . . changes the relationship of the state to its citizens.” He added, “I am a Turkish citizen myself, and I don’t want the state to have the mindset of the conqueror, because I am not a conquered minority. I want to feel in my own country as an equal citizen.”
Archbishop Elpidophorous and his fellow Greek Orthodox citizens in Turkey, who now number less than two thousand, are not the only ones who feel subordinated. Many pro-secular Muslims, whether they are religious or not, feel that with his latest stunt, Erdogan has also relegated them to a conquered minority. The simple act of supporting Ataturk’s Hagia Sophia decision and opposing Erdogan’s conversion suffices to demote a citizen to the status of a subject that needs disciplining if not punishment. A deputy leader of the AKP, for example, accused such people of acting like “the Byzantines among us,” insinuating they are traitors. Similarly, Bahceli referred to them as “remnants of the Byzantines” and the “clandestine Byzantine lobby’s Westophile native collaborators.”
The Erdogan government’s Hagia Sophia policy and rhetoric have not only intimidated and marginalized Turkey’s religious minorities and pro-secular Muslims but also emboldened the Turkish president’s Islamist support base. Three days after Hagia Sophia’s conversion, an Islamist weekly owned by a pro-government media group called for reinstating the caliphate abolished in 1924 by none other than Atatürk, reinforcing the pro-secular opposition’s long-running accusations about Erdogan’s hidden agenda to bring back the Ottoman Empire. Although an AKP spokesperson was quick to deny any plans to change the regime’s “democratic and secular” qualities, Turkey’s pro-secular opposition saw this as a potential step Erdogan might take once he feels the time is right.
To make matters worse, Erdogan’s messaging emboldens not only his loyal followers at home but other Islamists around the world. A Jordanian professor, in declaring his support for Erdogan’s conversion of Hagia Sophia on a Muslim Brotherhood channel, claimed that Ataturk was a crypto-Jew and added, “If we liberate Palestine tomorrow, will we leave the Jewish synagogues intact? No! We will uproot them, along with their people, and throw them into the sea. Allah willing, it will be soon.” In addition to the Muslim Brotherhood, Erdogan’s conversion of Hagia Sophia also received messages of endorsement from a motley crew, including Hamas and Iran, notorious for their use of terrorism to advance their respective Islamist agendas.
The inspiration for the Jordanian professor’s statement is likely the Turkish president’s promise a week earlier during his announcement of Hagia Sophia’s conversion that “the resurrection of Hagia Sophia heralds the liberation of the al-Aqsa Mosque” in Jerusalem. Erdogan, in his usual opaque style, when it comes to such delicate matters, left it vague as to what this act of liberation would entail.
The first Friday prayer Erdogan held at Hagia Sophia on July 24, however, showed the limits of the appeal of Erdogan’s conquest rhetoric beyond his Islamist circle. Despite the fact that he invited a long list of notables from around the world, including Pope Francis, there were no world leaders, Muslim or Christian, who agreed to partake in his spectacle. It did not take long for the Turkish president to realize that his Hagia Sophia policy and rhetoric were a public relations disaster, further undermining his tarnished image. On July 28, Erdogan’s communications director tweeted in Greek the steps Erdogan’s Turkey has taken “to preserve cultural and religious diversity,” sharing a video of Greek Orthodox individuals and other minorities who declare how good everything is in Turkey. This was reminiscent of the 2018 statement that Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities issued denying that they faced any oppression in the country, echoing similar statements Iran’s Jewish citizens need to issue on a regular basis.
Erdogan’s propaganda machine will without a doubt continue to disseminate sound bites praising how perfect interfaith relations are in Turkey. These window-dressing attempts, however, cannot undo the lasting damage the Erdogan government’s Hagia Sophia policy and rhetoric has done to the idea of equal citizenship in Turkey and elsewhere in majority Muslim countries. The world still remembers vividly the recent destruction and forced conversion of religious minority sites in Iraq and Syria by jihadists armed with a conquest mentality. The last thing the volatile region and its vulnerable minorities need is fueling of supremacist sentiments and setting extremism into motion.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director of the Turkey Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Aykan on Twitter @aykan_erdemir.

China’s Plan To Buy Iran Won’t Go So Smoothly
Yet Washington should be worried about an enhanced Chinese presence in Iran.
Alireza Nader/The National Interest/August 11/2020
A prospective twenty-five-year agreement between Communist China and the Islamic Republic of Iran has become immensely controversial in Iran, with many ordinary Iranians viewing it as a sell-out of Iran’s sovereignty. To be sure, Tehran and Beijing have yet to formally sign the deal, and the leak of a draft text to Western media likely represents a trial balloon to gauge public reaction. Still, officials such as President Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif have described the treaty as a major win for a cash strapped and isolated regime, depicting Beijing as a valuable strategic partner for Tehran.
Yet from what we know, the treaty is not a win for the Islamic Republic. Rather, the regime is merely trying to demonstrate that it is doing something to resolve Iran’s economic crisis.
The details of the agreement between China and Iran remain murky. According to some reports, China will invest heavily in key industries in return for access to Iran’s abundant energy and mineral resources. Yet several rumors about the pact have enraged a population deeply resentful of the regime. In particular, reports of the regime “renting” Iranian islands such as Kish to Beijing have sparked major criticism on social media and Persian language television broadcasts outside of the country. The Persian hashtag “the selling of Iran is forbidden” is currently trending on Twitter.
Washington should be wary of China’s attempts to gain a possible military foothold in Iran. But the popular backlash against the treaty also provides the U.S. a major opportunity to undermine the regime and boost America’s popularity among the Iranian public.
Communist China is widely resented within Iran’s deeply nationalistic society. Iranians are mindful of historic attempts by European powers and Russia to dominate their country. China’s latest reported attempts to gain control over Iranian industry and natural wealth have thus struck a major nerve in the Iranian psyche.
But resentment of China is nothing new. Iranian pro-democracy activists blame Beijing for helping the regime repress the 2009 Green Revolution by providing surveillance technology and anti-riot equipment.
Iranians also blame China for the disastrous Covid-19 pandemic in their country. Reports suggest that the pandemic spread directly to Iran from China through Iran’s Mahan Airlines, a company controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Likewise, Chinese religious scholars in the holy city of Qom may have carried the virus to Iran.
The regime attempted to keep the pandemic a secret for months to protect its financial and diplomatic interests with China, thus sparking popular outrage. The author has spoken to several Iranians who report rising anti-Chinese sentiment in major Iranian cities, including mob violence against Chinese nationals in Tehran.
The regime’s strategy in courting China is likely to backfire. The economic dividends will prove to be minimal, as most Chinese companies have overwhelmingly complied with U.S. sanctions and are likely to do so in the future. At the same time, Tehran’s courting of Beijing is likely to fuel the fire of rebellion against regime authorities.
Nevertheless, Washington should be worried about an enhanced Chinese presence in Iran. Beijing has sought and built strategic military outposts in strategic countries such as Djibouti, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. It is not hard to imagine Chinese ambitions to gain a permanent military foothold in the Persian Gulf, especially to compete with U.S. military superiority.
Washington should thwart Chinese ambitions through sanctions and public diplomacy. The United States should impose secondary sanctions against any Chinese companies that trade with or invest in Iran in violation of U.S. law. The United States should also highlight the colonial and imperialist nature of the agreement through its public messaging to Iranians and Persian language broadcasts. Washington should be clear that U.S. relations with a post-Islamic Republic Iran will be based on mutual respect and partnership, contrary to the colonial and imperialist mentality of the Chinese Communists.
Iranians seeking freedom from the dictatorial Islamic Republic still look to the United States as a source of inspiration. China, instead, represents repression and exploitation.
*Alireza Nader is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institute focusing on foreign policy and national security. Follow him on Twitter @AlirezaNader.

Why Turkey needs a new crisis with Greece in Mediterranean
Seith J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/August 11/2020
Turkey set itself on a collision course with Egypt, Greece and Europe over its new claims.
Turkey’s current leadership of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan creates a crisis every month with different countries as a way to fan nationalism and religious extremism at home and distract from mishandling of the economy. Last November Turkey signed a deal with the embattled government of Tripoli in Libya and laid claim to a massive swath of the Mediterranean. Turkey set itself on a collision course with Egypt, Greece and Europe over its new claims. But this is what Ankara wanted and why it continues to go forward this week with new crises on the water.
How does the ‘crisis-of-the-month’ strategy work for Ankara. Every month the leadership chooses either a new invasion of Iraq, or Syria, or to push up against Greece or Egypt or Cyprus, to stir the pot. For instance on June 15 Ankara launched Operation Claw-Eagle, bombing villages across northern Iraq claiming to be “neutralizing PKK militants.” There is no evidence that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) had carried out any recent attacks.
Turkey simply began bombing with F-16s and drones because it needed to keep the military doing something every month. Ever since a July 2016 coup Ankara has been using the military as much as possible to keep it fighting somewhere. For instance it invaded Syria with Operation Euphrates Shield in 2016 and 2017. Then in January 2018 it invaded peaceful Afrin, in northern Syria, causing 160,000 Kurds to flee. Afrin is now a center of human trafficking and ethnic cleansing where minorities have been forced to leave by Turkish-backed Syrian rebel extremists.
After 2018 Turkey then began the invasion of northern Syria’s Tel Abyad in October 2019. Then it signed the Libya deal and began to heat up its roles in Idlib, northern Iraq, Libya and the crisis at sea. Turkey sent drones and soldiers to Libya in December 2019. In April it helped rout the forces of the Libya National Army and Egypt had to threaten to intervene in June and July to stop Turkey. Meanwhile Turkey had fought the Syrian regime in Idlib in February and March and pressured Russia toward a new deal, asking for more S-400 air defense systems. Then Turkey shifted focus to Iraq in June and then to converting the historic Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque. It then said it would “liberate Al-Aqsa” in Jerusalem, perhaps hinting at a new crisis with Israel.
But before targeting Israel, Turkey sought to push its claims in the Mediterranean. This had already caused a domino effect, causing Greece, Egypt, the UAE and France to come together to condemn Turkey’s aggression. Then Greece and Egypt signed a deal on August 6. This deal cuts the Libya-Turkey water deal in half. It also comes after Israel, Cyprus and Greece signed a deal in January for a pipeline and then finalized aspects of that deal in July.
Turkey is sending its navy to sea with drilling and survey ships this week to challenge these deals and put its facts on the ground. Turkey sent the Oruc Reis ship to conduct “survey activity” far in the Mediterranean between Cyprus and Crete. Turkey says it will “defend the rights” of itself and Northern Cyprus, an unrecognized country that Turkey factors into its claims at sea.
Turkey’s far-right nationalist foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is known for tweeting that Europeans are “spoiled racist children, who should know their place” went to Beirut this over the weekend to try to push Ankara’s agenda in the wake of the explosion there and then met Azerbaijan’s foreign minister.
Now he says Greece has not reciprocated Ankara’s calls for discussions. Turkey will thus send ships where it likes. European Union countries, which are afraid of Turkey because they pay Turkey billions of euros to keep refugees from coming to Europe since 2015, have nevertheless critiqued Ankara’s actions in the Mediterranean.
Turkey has sent the Oruc Reis, a large seismic research vessel that looks like a floating whale to conduct “research” at sea. This is a research mission with a lot of military muscle behind it. Turkey issued a “Navtex” to warn countries where the vessel was going and then sent the Oruc Reis, two logistic vessels and three frigates, gunboats and several submarines to sea. To stoke nationalism Turkey’s media shows the box-like research boat surrounded by the pride of Turkish naval ships. It looks to some like a historic naval move, conjuring up memories of the battle of Lepanto and other naval spats with the West and Greece.
Athens is livid. Greece says it won’t accept NATO’s “hands-off approach” and it wants more European countries to do something to stop the provocations. It has already had to sound alarm bells due to Turkey’s harassment of the tiny Greece island of Kastellorizo in the last months. The US State Department, despite many pro-Turkey voices like former Ambassador Jim Jeffrey present, has said it is concerned. There is a lot of naval posturing with Turkish ships sailing near Greek islands off the coast of Turkey, and Greece talking about alerts and putting naval ships to sea. Egypt also had a naval exercise. Turkey says it has new missiles for its ships.
The current crisis at sea looks to be a lot of posturing that will give Ankara’s pro-government press and state media something to write about. Ankara is the largest jailer of journalists in the world so its media is entirely sympathetic to the ruling AK Party. Dissidents in Turkey are often imprisoned for years just for critiquing the government on social media, often labeled “terrorists.” There is no check on the militarist decisions in Ankara, and Ankara knows that weekly military drills or appearing to be challenging Greece, Egypt, Iraq, the PKK, EU, NATO, Syria, the US and basically everyone, makes Turkey’s leadership seem important. This comes as Turkey’s currency continues a disastrous decline and questions are raised about its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
The stories of drilling, where a research ship is sent with a massive naval escort, may be more about distracting from the economic crisis than actually fighting Greece at sea. Ankara’s track record shows that it usually uses Syrian rebels to fight for it in Libya and Syria and only conducts military campaigns against those who can’t shoot back, such as Kurds in northern Iraq, when it comes up against an Egyptian red line in Libya or Russia in Syria, it generally stops. It’s unclear where that red line may be in the Mediterranean. Ankara is trying to find out.

Seven Deadly Unknowns Drive Dollar's Downward Spin
John Authers/Bloomberg/August, 11/2020
What follows is dedicated to Donald Rumsfeld and to Athanasios Vamvakidis, foreign exchange strategist at BofA Securities Inc. Rumsfeld, a former US defense secretary, bequeathed to humanity the endlessly useful concept of “known and unknown unknowns.” It turned out that there were far more unknowns in Iraq than he had suspected. Meanwhile, Vamvakidis is arguing that the market consensus the dollar is in a prolonged downward trend is down to complacency about “seven known unknowns.” This is how he explains his point:
In the short term, we are concerned the consensus is too optimistic on the global economy; too optimistic on a vaccine; too pessimistic on the COVID-19 situation in the US compared with that in Europe; and complacent about the US elections. In the longer term, we disagree with the view that the EU Recovery Fund sets a precedent; we are concerned that the consensus is focused too much on the deterioration of the US debt and is complacent about similar trends in the rest of the world; the consensus expects the Fed to keep policies loose for a long time, but may be missing a possibility that the ECB may need to keep policies loose for even longer.
How many Americans are really unemployed?
There’s no need to allege nefarious intent by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The concept of whether someone has a job or not has arguably never been harder to measure. The rebound in the employment rate owes much to what the BLS itself says could be over-counting, and to a large number of people leaving the “workforce,” meaning that they are no longer looking for work. If we look at employment as a proportion of the total population aged 18 and over, the picture looks much worse.
The measure isn’t ideal, as it includes those who are voluntarily unemployed because they are retired, and so the apparent employment rate will worsen as the elderly make up a larger share of the population. The rises in the 1960s and 1970s were driven more by women moving into the workforce than by a buoyant economy. Even so, the fact that a higher proportion of the population has no paid job than at any time since the war (bar the early months of the pandemic), is disquieting.
How much stimulus will American politicians agree on?
This remains very much unknown, more than a week after the deadline for initial Covid assistance to expire. Donald Trump’s dramatic intervention is unlikely to resolve the uncertainty anytime soon, given the extent of opposition to his executive orders. The key political issue is that the president has ordered continuing payments of $400 per week, down from the original $600, for people rendered jobless — and $100 of this has to come from states. As they are suffering deep revenue shortfalls already, and had been expecting more help, it is highly unlikely that they will pay. That would mean support dropping to $300 per week, which would potentially have a huge impact on consumer spending and defaults. The possibility of job losses would also rise.
The election, less than three months away, adds to the complexity. Republican senators up for re-election in November will be reluctant to face the electorate after failing to reach a deal. And Democrats in the House know that they must not overplay their hand. In past tussles over government shutdowns, Democrats have generally been able to make Republicans take the political blame; in the current febrile atmosphere, they cannot take this for granted.
In short, everyone should know that they don’t know how this will end; the range of possible outcomes is wide.
Just how much difference did the first stimulus make?
There is so much noise that little is clear. But one or two indicators suggest it made a big difference. For one, look at the Michigan Consumer Sentiment survey. It took a drastic hit from the pandemic — but remained well above the lows from the GFC, despite much greater damage to employment. Prompt action to cushion the blow may have had more of an effect on confidence and spending patterns.
While we can never know the counterfactual, it might also have affected attitudes to the job market. This point from Daniel Clifton of Strategas won't have passed Republican senators by — just possibly, these payments might have deterred a few workers from seeking employment:
The sharp drop in unemployment claims [last week] could be a sign that the expiration of the additional $600 per week benefit could lead to improvements in the labor market. Following the financial crisis, just the reduction in the number of weeks eligible for unemployment claims led to significant improvements in job creation. If we continue to see a downtrend in claims, this will embolden Republicans that the high benefit level is impeding the labor market. This may force Democrats off the demand that $600 per week remain in place through 2020 as part of future stimulus negotiations.
Could this effect really be significant? It’s a little hard to believe, though the payments were supposed to have an impact.
Now we come to the critical issue of debt. News of corporate bankruptcies continues to trickle out. Meanwhile, the New York Federal Reserve’s latest report on credit suggests official attempts at forbearance may have made a big difference. Credit-card delinquency continues to rise, but there has been remarkably little impact on the quality of mortgage debt.
The total debt balance actually decreased in the second quarter. Admittedly, the decline was tiny, and owes much to slowing spending. Still, as my Bloomberg Opinion colleague Brian Chappatta points out, credit-card balances fell by $76 billion in the quarter, the biggest drop on record. This suggests that the federal programs made a difference — households not only retrenched spending, but also wisely took advantage of government largesse to reduce outstanding debts. The implication is that the risk of a secondary economic crisis driven by insolvency would be great if Congress and the White House cannot thrash out a deal.
How much worse is Covid-19 in the US compared to Europe?
The answer could be critical for the future of the dollar, which has weakened significantly over the period in which Covid has come under control in Europe. It’s hard to doubt that the pandemic has been less damaging to Europe, though it's questionable whether the gap is as wide as it first appears.
During the president’s notorious interview with Axios, he presented a chart that showed the US leading the world in deaths as a proportion of cases. This isn’t the most relevant or important measure, but the point was correct. This chart from BofA’s Vamvakidis compares the US and euro zone.
How to explain the gap? In part, it is because medics have grown better at keeping Covid patients alive as time goes by, while the great growth in European cases came earlier when the disease was less well understood. It is also possible that the EU did a worse job of protecting the elderly. While there might be something to both these explanations, a more powerful one would be that the Americans are testing more and identifying more cases — and that there are more cases in Europe than is currently realized.
If that is true, the European response to Covid-19 may not be as successful as it appears. If Europe’s disquieting resurgences of Covid turn into a more serious wave over the next few months, it will also knock away a key reason for dollar weakness.
When will the vaccine arrive?
Listening to politicians in the US, one theme recurs. Mitch McConnell, Republican leader in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House, and the president’s economic adviser Larry Kudlow have all referred to providing aid “until we get a vaccine.” The unspoken assumption is that the economy will need some kind of support until a successful vaccine can be identified and mass-produced.
That is a problem. Talking to experts in the field for this piece, many said they were braced for the first four or five vaccine candidates to fail. Those that succeed might need booster or extra shots; and ramping up production is difficult, particularly as supply chains stretch across countries.
Will enough people take it to make a difference?
The faster the vaccine is produced, the greater will be doubts among the public over whether it is safe to take. Hesitancy spreads far beyond the small but growing group of vaccine opponents. It also spreads beyond the US.
A recent poll in Canada found that a third of Canadians would wait, and try to make sure there were no side effects. In the US, a Politico/Morning Consult poll found 64% of Americans saying they were prepared to wait and wanted developers to take their time. In the UK, a poll by YouGov found about 6% of Britons would definitely not get vaccinated, while 10% would “probably not,” and 15% weren’t sure.
Since then, Gallup has published a new poll on the US that suggests coming up with an effective vaccine will be at best only the first battle in a much lengthier campaign to immunize the population.
More than a third of Americans wouldn’t take a vaccine now even if it were free and approved. Remarkably, a majority of Republicans wouldn’t be prepared to take a vaccine. But this isn’t solely about right-wing distrust of government. Non-white Americans, statistically at greater risk from the virus, are also skeptical, with 41% saying they wouldn't take it.
Such numbers are far too high to establish the necessary level of immunity in the population to end the pandemic. They also suggest that opposition to a vaccine is so high that any attempt to make it compulsory would be a political non-starter. Building immunity will be a lengthy campaign.
This looks as though it will make it very hard for the US to bring the pandemic under control. In Europe, where vaccine hesitancy is less widespread, and in Asia the vaccine may have a much greater effect much more quickly.

The Palestinian War on History
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/August 11, 2020
"Every person, irrespective of whether or not they are disabled, should have the opportunity to visit the tomb, which is an important Jewish heritage site... The tomb belongs to us after Abraham bought it with his own money 3,800 years ago." — Former Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett.
These Palestinian leaders continue to deny any Jewish connection to the holy site on the pretext that it belongs exclusively to Muslims. Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki has condemned the elevator plan as an Israeli "war crime" and a "violation of international law."
The winners? The Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who dream of extending their control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. This dream, thanks to the lawless and lethal regime of the Palestinian Authority -- funded by the West -- appears closer than ever.
Palestinian leaders seem more worried about an Israeli plan to install an elevator for disabled people at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron than about a Palestinian upsurge in violent crime. Pictured: People exit the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in Hebron on August 7, 2020.
Palestinian leaders seem more worried about an Israeli plan to install an elevator for disabled people at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and Matriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron than about a Palestinian upsurge in violent crime.
The Israeli government recently approved the construction of a handicapped access elevator at the holy site. "Every person, irrespective of whether or not they are disabled, should have the opportunity to visit the tomb, which is an important Jewish heritage site," said former Israeli Defense Minister Naftali Bennett. "The tomb belongs to us after Abraham bought it with his own money 3,800 years ago."
The 2,000-year-old structure was built by King Herod the Great to house the Cave of Machpela, burial site of the Biblical founding fathers and mothers. The site, divided into separate Muslim and Jewish prayer areas, has only steep staircases for entrances.
The decision to build the elevator came in response to the Israeli Equal Rights for People with Disabilities Law that requires every public structure to be fully accessible to the disabled.
Palestinian leaders, however, do not seem to care about the rights of people with disabilities, particularly when it comes to providing access to Jews who want to pray at one of their holiest sites. These Palestinian leaders continue to deny any Jewish connection to the holy site on the pretext that it belongs exclusively to Muslims.
Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Riad Malki has condemned the elevator plan as an Israeli "war crime" and a "violation of international law." In his opinion, enabling handicapped Jewish worshippers to enter the holy site is part of an Israeli scheme to "forge Palestinian history and heritage."
Hanan Ashrawi, a Christian PLO leader, is also pretending that she is worried about Islamic holy sites. Ashrawi, in a statement published on July 25, also denounced the elevator project and accused Israel of "stealing Palestinian history, holy sites and identity and provoking the feelings of Muslims."
Ashrawi does not seem to be concerned about the dwindling number of her fellow Christians in the West Bank. Evidently, she has not heard of a recent public opinion poll that showed that the desire to emigrate is much higher among Palestinian Christians than among Palestinian Muslims.
The poll found that a "very large minority [of Christians] believe that most Muslims do not wish to see them in the country" and face discrimination when searching for jobs or when seeking Palestinian Authority services.
The Palestinian incitement against the planned elevator also happens to coincide with a dramatic increase in violent crime and scenes of anarchy and lawlessness in the West Bank. It also comes at a time when Palestinians are coping with an increase in the number of people diagnosed with Covid-19 and the economic hardship resulting from restrictions imposed by the Palestinian government to prevent the spread of the disease.
Instead of holding an emergency meeting to discuss ways to alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians during the pandemic, Palestinian leaders are busy inciting violence against Israel over the elevator project for the handicapped.
Instead of taking serious measures to disarm gangsters and militiamen roaming the Palestinian streets and killing and terrorizing Palestinians, the Palestinian leaders are continuing to demand that the International Criminal Court launch a "war crimes" probe against Israel for planning to facilitate access for Jews to pray at a site that is holy for Jews.
In the past two weeks, masked gunmen have reappeared on the streets of Palestinian cities in an open challenge to the Palestinian Authority and its security forces. Palestinian leaders, however, do not seem to be worried about the gunmen, most probably because they belong to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction.
On August 5, dozens of Fatah gunmen took to the streets of Ramallah and its twin city, Al-Bireh, firing into the air from automatic rifles and terrorizing their residents. The gunmen were protesting the fatal shooting of Khalil al-Sheikh, a brother of senior Fatah official Hussein al-Sheikh, during a "family feud."
Two weeks ago, the residents of another Palestinian city, Nablus, underwent a similar experience. Scores of Fatah gunmen took to the streets to protest the killing of one of their commanders by Palestinian security officers.
Both incidents sparked widespread protests among Palestinians, who are now complaining of "anarchy and lawlessness" and are accusing their leaders of failing to tackle the crisis of rising crime and violence.
Palestinian human rights organizations are also complaining about the "chaos of weapons" and are calling on Palestinian leaders to order the PA security forces to confiscate weapons from gangsters and militiamen. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders, however, continue to pretend that the major problem currently facing the Palestinians is Israel's elevator for the handicapped.
Some Palestinians believe that the latest wave of violent crime in the West Bank is a sign of what awaits the Palestinians in the post-Abbas era. They fear that tensions among several Palestinian officials who see themselves as natural successors to Abbas could spill into violence, given that many of them have armed their own followers and private militias.
"There is a state of mobilization among a number of influential people in power who aspire to rule after Abbas, and each one of them has his power and [security] apparatus through which they will try to impose themselves," said Atef Udwan, a Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative council.
"We expect the violence to worsen because matters are not stable. Those who create security chaos in the West Bank do not care about the homeland or the people; they want to achieve personal goals and political influence. The anarchy in the West Bank is a crime that needs to be confronted."
By failing to address the grievances of their people, Palestinian leaders are again proving that their main priorities are preserving their political seats and diverting all rage away from themselves and toward Israel.
For Palestinian leaders, denying Jewish history and heritage is far more important than combating a range of domestic crime that runs wide and deep.
As Palestinians bury the victims of violent crime week after week, Abbas and his officials take step after step to bury their own credibility. The winners? The Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, who dream of extending their control from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank. This dream, thanks to the lawless and lethal regime of the Palestinian Authority -- funded by the West -- appears closer than ever.
*Bassam Tawil, a Muslim Arab, is based in the Middle East.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Is the New York Attorney General Selectively Investigating The NRA?
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/August 11, 2020
If the evidence were to show selective investigation of the NRA, that would be part of a larger problem: the weaponization of our justice system for partisan and ideological purposes.
"Who will guard the guardians?" Who is investigating the decision by the Attorney General of New York to try to shut down the NRA?
Are there governing standards for conducting such investigations or shutting down first amendment-protected organizations? Or does the Attorney General claim the power to pick and choose which charitable organizations to investigate and shut down?
These and other questions should be addressed by the media, by lawyer's groups in New York, by the ACLU and by others interested in the equal application of the law.
The announcement that the Attorney General of New York is investigating the National Rifle Association (NRA) and looking to shut it down raises potentially serious constitutional concerns. Pictured: The NRA's headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia.
The announcement that the Attorney General of New York is investigating the National Rifle Association and looking to shut it down raises potentially serious constitutional concerns. I am no fan of the NRA. Politically, I think it wields too much influence against reasonable gun control, which I support as consistent with the Second Amendment. It is too closely connected with the profitability of gun manufacturers. It advocates positions and supports candidates, even if indirectly, that I believe undercut our safety.
I will never contribute to the NRA and I will generally vote against candidates it supports. But to paraphrase Voltaire, I will strongly defend its right to be wrong. The NRA is entitled under the First Amendment to advocate these views and to petition the government for what it regards as a redress of grievances under the Second Amendment.
To be sure, the Attorney General of New York has the legitimate authority to investigate all eleemosynary, that is charitable, organizations that operate in New York. The key word is all. If the Attorney General of New York is applying precisely the same standards of investigation to the NRA as it applies to all other charitable groups that advocate controversial positions, including liberal and radical ones, then I could not complain about unequal application of the law. And perhaps she is. But some will wonder whether the liberal Democrat who currently holds the position of New York Attorney General has investigated liberal charities with the same vigor that she is going after the conservative NRA.
Even more important, has she sought to totally shut down these organizations rather than reform them? Again, perhaps she has, but if so she should cite precedents. In today's highly politicized atmosphere, the burden is on her to demonstrate equal application of the law to all similarly situated charities, regardless of their political positions. She may be able to satisfy that burden, but she should do it with specific examples, especially of liberal organizations she has tried to shut down and throw out of the state.
If the evidence were to show selective investigation of the NRA, that would be part of a larger problem: the weaponization of our justice system for partisan and ideological purposes. The justice system must always be above partisan politics. It cannot serve as a weapon for either side in the political wars that are being fought by both sides at this highly divisive time.
Again to paraphrase, this time the Romans: "Who will guard the guardians?" Who is investigating the decision by the Attorney General of New York to try to shut down the NRA? Is the media seeking her records of prior investigations of other groups whose leaders may have used charitable contributions for private or mixed charitable-private expenditures? Are there governing standards for conducting such investigations or shutting down first amendment-protected organizations? Or does the Attorney General claim the power to pick and choose which charitable organizations to investigate and shut down?
Today it is the liberal Attorney General investigating the conservative NRA. Tomorrow it may be a conservative Attorney General investigating Planned Parenthood, the ACLU or anti-gun organizations. Does this investigation pass the "a shoe on the other foot test?"
These and other questions should be addressed by the media, by lawyer's groups in New York, by the ACLU and by others interested in the equal application of the law. There may be good answers and if so we are entitled to them.
It would be a mistake for the NRA to pack up its bags and move to Texas, as President Trump has suggested. If it is being singled out because of its political positions, it should stay and fight. Under the so called "castle doctrine" that the NRA advocates, no one or required to leave their home in the face of an intrusion (your home is your castle, hence the term). I for one don't support a wide application of the castle doctrine, but the NRA does. It would create a dangerous precedent if a politically motivated attorney general could force a constitutionally protected advocacy group to leave the state for fear of being selectively investigated.
eaders of any charity have the right to cheat their donors by spending contributions on personal, as distinguished from charitable, expenditures. The line between the two is not always clear, especially when it comes to first class travel and accommodations. But it is precisely because the line isn't clear that objective standards, equally applicable to all, must be articulated and enforced. Absent such standards, the Attorney General has too much discretion to use her considerable powers selectively and unfairly.
The complaint against the NRA alleges some serious matters. And the New York attorney general's office has in fact investigated some liberal charities for comparable misconduct. The question remains whether that office is applying more demanding standards against politically disfavored groups?
Applying uniform standards is particularly important when it comes to First Amendment protected activity. Regardless of what anyone, including me, thinks of the NRA's politics, no one can doubt that its advocacy against reasonable gun control is core First Amendment activity that must be protected by the courts against selective investigations and efforts to shut it down.
*Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law Emeritus at Harvard Law School and author of the book, Guilt by Accusation: The Challenge of Proving Innocence in the Age of #MeToo, Skyhorse Publishing, November 2019. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
A shorter version of this article originally appeared in the Daily News. It is reprinted here by the kind permission of the author.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.