English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 13/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.august13.20.htm
News Bulletin Achieves Since
2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible Quotations For today
If the owner of the house had known at what
hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint
Luke 12/35-40/:’‘Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit; be like those
who are waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet, so that
they may open the door for him as soon as he comes and knocks. Blessed are those
slaves whom the master finds alert when he comes; truly I tell you, he will
fasten his belt and have them sit down to eat, and he will come and serve them.
If he comes during the middle of the night, or near dawn, and finds them so,
blessed are those slaves. ‘But know this: if the owner of the house had known at
what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.
You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.’
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August
12-132/2020
Blast Damage Cost Tops $15 Billion, Aoun Tells Spain King
Brazil Govt. Sends Humanitarian Aid Mission to Beirut
Lebanon Buries More of Blast Victims as World Mobilizes
Beirut Blast Conspiracy Tales Abound on Social Media
Beirut Blast: Who Knew What, When?
EU FMs to Discuss Lebanon Situation in Friday Meeting
Macron Warns Iran against 'Interference' in Lebanon
France Seeks Cooperation from Iran, Russia on Lebanon
Geagea Says LF Won't Quit Parliament without Allies, Urges 'Neutral Govt.'
Maas Meets Aoun, Says Germany Ready to Help but Reforms Needed
Port Explosion Revives US Plans to Sanction Lebanese Officials
Top German Diplomat: Lebanon Needs 'Reboot', Far-reaching Economic Reforms
France to Submit Draft-Resolution to SC for More Effective UNIFIL Mission
US team to Qatar to probe its alleged finance of Hezbollah - report/Bejamin
Weinthal, Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/August 12/2020
Lebanon’s Military Judiciary Takes Over Investigations Into Port Explosion
Lebanon Economy Minister Says Has Flour to Last Four Months
600 Lebanese Heritage Gems Ravaged, UNESCO Mobilizes
The Beirut Disaster: What A Fair Historian Might Say!/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al
Awsat/August, 12 2020
The Mullahs and Hezbollah, Lords of Drug Smuggling/Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone
Institute/August 12/2020
Turkey vies with Saudi Arabia as ‘protector of Lebanon’s Sunnis’/The Arab
Weekly/August 13/2020
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
August 12-132/2020
Iran arrests five Iranians for spying for foreign states:
judiciary
US Seeking to Renew Arms Embargo on Iran
Iranian Hardliners in Parliament Reject Rouhani's Nominee for Trade Minister
IDF strikes Hamas terror targets in Gaza in response to explosive balloons
Israel Calls for PA Prisoners' Affairs Administration to be Designated as
Terrorist
Tunisia’s Free Destourian Party Announces Resuming Talks to Form Govt
Tunisia Takes Measures to Avoid Same Fate of Beirut Port
Iraq, International Coalition Discuss Future of Relations
US Lifts Restrictions on Americans' Financial Dealings With Sudan
Libyan-American Meeting Discusses Solution that Excludes Turkey
More Than 170 Dead in Yemen Floods
Titles For The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 12-132/2020
The pandemic hasn’t hit Syria hard yet. When it does, it’ll
be a disaster./David Adesnik/The Washington Post/August 12/2020
Sociopath provides a window into his soul/Michael Rubin/The Washington Examinar/August
12/2020
China: Military Experts Urge Beijing to Prepare for War with U.S./Lawrence A.
Franklin/Gatestone Institute/August 12/2020
The Conundrum of Israeli-Arab Citizenship/Mordechai Nisan/Middle East Forum
Quarterly
How the US Will Try to Extend the Arms Embargo on Iran/Eli
Lake//Bloomberg/August, 12 2020
China Has Another Reason to Wear Face Masks/David Fickling/Bloomberg/August, 12
2020
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 12-132/2020
Blast Damage Cost Tops $15 Billion, Aoun Tells Spain King
Naharnet/August 12/2020
The massive blast at Beirut port on August 4 caused more than $15 billion in
damages, President Michel Aoun said Wednesday.
"Preliminary estimates of the losses suffered following the port explosion top
15 billion dollars," he was quoted as telling Spain's King Felipe in a phone
call, in a message on the presidency's Twitter account.
Brazil Govt. Sends Humanitarian Aid Mission to Beirut
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 12/2020
Brazil's government sent a humanitarian mission to Lebanon on Wednesday in the
wake of the Aug. 4 explosion in Beirut that injured thousands.
Former President Michel Temer, whose parents were Lebanese, was leading a group
of 13 people that includes politicians, military personnel and businessmen in
delivering the aid to the Middle Eastern nation. The group departed on two
Brazilian Air Force planes from the international airport in São Paulo state,
with 6 tons of medicine and health equipment. There are enough supplies to
attend to as many as 40,000 people for a month, Antonio Bermudez, the Air
Force's commander, said at the ceremony.
The shipment includes antibiotics, corticosteroids, painkillers, bandages,
syringes and catheters. There are also over 100,000 surgical masks and 300
ventilators, according to Brazil's Defense Ministry. They were donated by
Brazil's Health Ministry and the Lebanese community in Brazil. Brazil is home
more than 10 million people of Lebanese descent. "We can give our collaboration
for the internal pacification of that country," Temer said. He later addressed
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro: "They are applauding what you and the
Brazilian government are doing for Lebanon."Temer has been an unofficial adviser
to Bolsonaro, who succeeded him in January 2019. The aid mission to Lebanon
marks Temer's return to public life, having avoided the spotlight since he left
office with single-digit approval ratings.
Lebanon Buries More of Blast Victims as World Mobilizes
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 12/2020
Lebanon buried more of its dead Wednesday from the huge explosion at Beirut port
that disfigured the city, toppled the government and deepened a painful economic
crisis. Top foreign diplomats kept streaming into traumatized Lebanon to show
solidarity over its worst peacetime disaster and push for reforms to curb the
corruption blamed for causing it. Survivors and volunteers were still sweeping
rubble-strewn streets a week after a large depot of industrial chemicals blew up
in an explosion so powerful it was dubbed "Beirutshima" on social media. The
official death toll from the colossal blast that evoked memories of the
Hiroshima atom bomb blast rose to 171, while 6,500 were injured and 300,000 left
temporarily homeless. Beirut's main fire station, located a stone's throw from
the devastated port, held an emotional funeral for one of the 10 comrades it
lost in the conflagration. "May God be with you, our hero," firefighters cried
as they saw off the coffin of their lost friend Joe Noun during their fourth
such ceremony since the August 4 disaster. Ten firefighters are confirmed to
have died, and six more are still among the missing, including three members of
the same family. Their relatives have been waiting, in their mountain village of
Qartaba, for their return. "In one piece or several, we want our sons back,"
Rita Hitti told AFP. The three missing young men are her son, nephew and
son-in-law.
- Direct aid -
Lebanese and foreign emergency response teams were still searching the dusty
"ground zero" where the explosion pulverized buildings and left a water-logged
43-meter-deep crater where a quay and warehouses once stood. The human error
that sparked the kind of wholesale devastation usually associated with a major
earthquake has sparked public rage, matched only by the speed at which officials
are seen to be passing the buck. Inquiries made by AFP, and the public comments
of Lebanon's top officials, reveal that the hazard posed by the ammonium nitrate
depot had been known for some time at every echelon of the state before the
deadly catastrophe. Around 100 of the wounded were recently still listed in
critical condition and it was feared the death toll could yet rise as Beirut's
hospitals, only half of which are operational, kept treating the casualties.
Among those killed was a diplomat from Germany, whose top diplomat Heiko Maas
arrived in Lebanon Wednesday for a short visit of support. In a social media
message before flying out he stressed the need for "profound economic reform,"
echoing calls made by French President Emmanuel Macron last week during a
high-profile visit to disaster-stricken Beirut.
When Maas got off the plane, he announced a one million euro donation directly
to the Lebanese Red Cross, in line with a pledge that emergency aid should
bypass a government that has lost the trust of the people.
- Jockeying -
Angry protesters demonstrated for a third night running Tuesday to demand the
wholesale ouster of a ruling political elite they see as directly responsible
for the port tragedy. Mock gallows and nooses have become the symbols of the new
wave of protests, which have rekindled a revolutionary street movement that had
lost steam in recent months amid economic hardship and the coronavirus pandemic.
Under intense domestic and foreign pressure, Prime Minister Hassan Diab
announced his government's resignation on Monday. Many citizens bitterly laughed
off his efforts to cast himself as a champion of the fight against corruption.
Some saw it as a victory and a sign that continued pressure could force change
in a country which has been ruled by the same cartel of former warlords and
their relatives since the 1975-1990 civil war. Others feared that the
resignation of Diab's government could herald the return of old faces, such as
former prime minister Saad Hariri. According to the al-Akhbar daily newspaper,
Nawaf Salam, a former judge at the International Court of Justice, is the
favored successor of some of Lebanon's top foreign partners, including France.
However Salam is not an acceptable choice for Iran-backed Hizbullah, which
wields most power in Lebanon, the paper said. A return of Saad Hariri, who
resigned under pressure from the street late last year, would be a red rag to a
bull for the rejuvenated protest camp. Parliament was due to convene on Thursday
to approve the state of emergency, which would give security forces heightened
powers to curb the street demonstrations.
Beirut Blast Conspiracy Tales Abound on Social Media
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 12/2020
Within hours of the Beirut mega-blast, conspiracy theories on what caused the
disaster in the Lebanese capital spread like wildfire on social media. The
August 4 detonation of an abandoned shipment of ammonium nitrate in Beirut
port's Hangar 12, after an initial blast and fire, cost more than 170 lives,
injured thousands and left hundreds of thousands temporarily homeless. Images
and videos were posted within minutes on social media of the atomic bomb-like
explosion and its apocalyptic aftermath across the Mediterranean metropolis.In
the absence of clear-cut answers and pending the results of an official
investigation, some postings have served to feed disinformation.
Missile attack? -
A video showing a missile in the sky was quickly touted as proof of an attack by
Lebanon's former wartime enemy and neighbor Israel. But verification by AFP
shows the missile image was digitally pasted into the video, after several
earlier postings of the same footage which showed no such projectile. A separate
posting of a rocket crashing into another site in Beirut port is marked as
"filmed by thermal camera". But a filter was found to have been added to the
footage and a missile inserted. To back up the finger-pointing at Israel, with
which Lebanon technically remains at war, online videos allegedly show a drone
dropping an unidentified object over the port, seconds before the blast. It has
been authenticated but with no connection to August 4, and linked in fact to
Israeli drones over south Lebanon days earlier, according to several local
media.
A photograph of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holding a map of
Beirut to indicate the port has been added to the mix. But the picture dates
back to September 2018 and shows Netanyahu at the U.N. General Assembly
condemning alleged "secret sites" of Hizbullah.
He was pointing at a zone near Beirut international airport, several kilometers
(miles) away from the port. The Beirut blast created a crater 43 meters (140
feet) deep, according to a Lebanese security source, citing an assessment by
French experts in pyrotechnics. But doctored photographs have cropped up on
social media among the abundance of shots of actual widespread destruction
across Beirut. One shows rows of totally burnt-out "imported cars" -- an image
in fact taken in eastern China's Hebei province after a 2015 blast at a chemical
warehouse.
The crater it left behind is falsely identified as the scene at Beirut port.
Among other rigged photos suggesting international solidarity with Beirut have
been fake images of Cairo pyramids and Tunis clock tower lit up in the colors of
the Lebanese flag.
Beirut Blast: Who Knew What, When?
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 12/2020
Up until the eve of the deadly Beirut blast, Lebanese officials exchanged
warnings over a dangerous chemical shipment in the port, but did nothing despite
experts' fears it could cause a massive conflagration. On August 3, a day before
a huge stock of ammonium nitrate exploded and ravaged swathes of Lebanon's
capital, the public works minister received a letter. It came from the Supreme
Defense Council and alerted him to a large quantity of ammonium nitrate -- a
dual-use chemical compound used mainly as a fertilizer -- stocked in a warehouse
at the port.
"I was informed 24 hours before the explosion, when I got a letter from the
Supreme Defense Council," Michel Najjar, now a caretaker minister after his
government resigned over the blast on Monday, told AFP.
The letter was dated July 24 and took 10 days to reach Najjar because many
government offices were closed due to coronavirus lockdown measures and the Eid
al-Adha Muslim holiday. The minister asked his adviser to get in touch with
Beirut Port general manager Hassan Qureitem, who was arrested after the
disaster, and request that he send all relevant documents.
Having ignored warnings over the potential danger of the ammonium nitrate from
State Security, one of the top security agencies in the country, the port
authorities took action a day after the minister's adviser called.
They sent a technical team to warehouse 12 at the port to plug a hole in the
southern wall that was leaving the highly volatile -- but also highly valuable
-- chemical compound exposed. According to a security source, the maintenance
work may have started a fire that triggered the cataclysmic explosion that shook
the entire nation at 6:08 pm (1508GMT) on August 4. According to health ministry
figures, at least 171 people were killed and around 6,500 injured by the blast
that disfigured Beirut.
'Wasn't me'
The worst peacetime disaster in Lebanon's recent history was man-made, sparking
public rage that touched off frantic buck-passing among state officials. On July
20, President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister Hassan Diab received a letter from
State Security warning them of the threat posed by the ammonium nitrate. The
vessel carrying the compound had set off from Georgia in 2013 and, although
Lebanon was not its final destination, the dangerous cargo was seized when the
ship encountered technical problems in the Mediterranean. Aoun told reporters on
Friday he had passed on the letter to the Supreme Defense Council, which in turn
sent it to the public works ministry. "I am not responsible, and dealing
directly with the port is not among my prerogatives, there's a chain of command
that should know its duties," he said. "Several governments and officials came
and went, and the relevant authorities at the port warned them" about the
ammonium nitrate, said Aoun, a main hate-figure in the protests staged in the
capital since the blast. Najjar drove the same idea home and said "several
exchanges have taken place between the judiciary, State Security and port
management" over the chemical cache.
- Highly flammable -
The ammonium nitrate was stored in a warehouse reserved for confiscated goods.
It also held "gun powder, fireworks and pots of paint," all of them highly
flammable products, a security official told AFP. State Security had launched an
investigation into the contents of the warehouse in January. Its report seen by
AFP said that "dangerous substances used to manufacture explosives" were stored
in the warehouse and that "liquid substances of the nitroglycerin type was
seeping" from the premises. The State Security report also warned that a breach
on the southern side of the warehouse exposed the dangerous cache to theft. It
quoted a chemistry expert, who had visited the site, as warning that "these
substances, if they caught fire, will cause a huge fire that could almost
destroy the port." In its letter, State Security stressed that the port
authorities were guilty of "negligence" and failing to comply with safety
standards and procedures. Head of Customs, Badri Daher, who was arrested after
the blast, released before being detained the text of a letter he had sent to a
judge in December 2017. In this letter, he renewed a request to export or
re-sell the ammonium nitrate, which no one else seemed to want to do. According
to a security source, the General Security agency had warned of the hazard posed
by the cargo in a letter sent in 2014 to the president, the prime minister and
the ministers of interior and public works.
EU FMs to Discuss Lebanon Situation in Friday Meeting
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 12/2020
European Union foreign ministers will hold an extraordinary meeting on Friday to
review the situation in Belarus, Lebanon and the eastern Mediterranean, foreign
policy chief Josep Borrell announced."We will discuss urgent issues and address
the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Belarus presidential elections
as well as developments in Lebanon," Borrell tweeted Wednesday.
Macron Warns Iran against 'Interference' in Lebanon
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 12/2020
French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday warned Iran against any
interference in Lebanon after the gigantic blast last week that has prompted a
political crisis in the country. In telephone talks with President Hassan
Rouhani, Macron emphasized the "necessity for all the powers concerned... to
avoid any outside interference and to support the putting in place of a
government which can manage the emergency," the Elysee said. Lebanon's
government under Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned this week following days of
demonstrations demanding accountability over the explosion at the Beirut port
last week that devastated entire neighborhoods of the city. Iran wields huge
influence in Lebanon through Hizbullah which was strongly represented in the
outgoing government and has an alliance with the faction of President Michel
Aoun. The explosion on August 4, which left 171 people dead, has been blamed on
a vast stock of ammonium nitrate allowed to rot for years at the port despite
repeated warnings. Macron, who was the first world leader to visit Beirut after
the explosion, has taken the lead role in coordinating the international
response and at the weekend chaired a virtual aid conference that drummed up
more than 250 million euros ($295 million) in pledges.
'Avoid escalation'
The French president has also sought to play a lead role in efforts to keep
alive the 2015 deal by world powers on the Iranian nuclear program, after U.S.
President Donald Trump in 2018 walked out of the accord. Analysts say that the
deal has essentially been on life support since Trump's move, with Iran taking
escalatory measures in retaliation by ramping up its nuclear program. Macron
told Rouhani he wanted to "preserve the framework" of the accord and work
towards calming tensions in the region. m"In this regard, he called on Iran to
take the necessary steps to avoid any escalation of tensions," the Elysee said.
Their talks came as the U.N. Security Council is set in the coming days to
roundly reject a U.S. resolution to extend a U.N. arms embargo on Iran, due to
opposition from veto-wielding China and Russia. France and its European allies
themselves also back an extension of the embargo but Iran has angrily countered
that the move is a key part of the nuclear deal. The ban on selling weapons to
Iran is set to be progressively eased from October under the terms of Resolution
2231, which blessed the Iranian nuclear deal. In June, Britain, France and
Germany said they opposed lifting the U.N. arms embargo, arguing it would "have
major implications for regional security and stability."
France Seeks Cooperation from Iran, Russia on Lebanon
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 12/2020
French President Emmanuel Macron spoke Wednesday to the leaders of Russia and
Iran and urged them to cooperate with the rest of the international community to
restore stability in Lebanon. While Iran and Russia are important power players
in the region and have offered Lebanon aid since last week's devastating
explosion, neither participated in an international donors' conference Sunday
organized by France and the U.N. to help rebuild Beirut. Macron visited Beirut
in the wake of the blast and offered broad support for the former French
protectorate. Speaking with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, whose country
backs Lebanon's Hizbullah, Macron said the region's major powers should avoid
interfering or escalating tensions in Lebanon as it forms a new government,
according to Macron's office. And speaking with Russian President Vladimir
Putin, Macron suggested that Russia should support Lebanon via collective
efforts at the U.N. Security Council instead of through bilateral aid.
Geagea Says LF Won't Quit Parliament without Allies, Urges
'Neutral Govt.'
Naharnet/August 12/2020
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Wednesday announced that the LF’s 15
lawmakers will not resign from parliament without their allies in al-Mustaqbal
Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party.
“Any resignations that would not lead to toppling the current legislature would
be a lost effort. If we do such a move, we would be strengthening the current
ruling authority instead of weakening it,” Geagea said at a press conference.
“If their majority rises to 95 seats, they would have the ability to modify the
electoral law, amend the constitution the way they want and elect a president
from the first round,” the LF leader explained. He revealed that, on Monday, the
LF was about to reach an agreement on the resignations with Mustaqbal and the
PSP.“We even discussed the details of the resignation announcement, but,
unfortunately, it turned out that the government was prepared to resign, and
Mustaqbal and the PSP preferred to wait instead of resigning,” Geagea said.
He however added that the LF will keep pushing for ousting parliament and
organizing early elections, calling on Mustaqbal and the PSP to endorse his call
for resigning. “If they don’t want to resign by tomorrow, I will urge the
resigned MPs to withdraw their resignations prior to tomorrow’s session, or else
they would enter into effect. I especially urge the Kataeb Party, and I have
communicated with its leader MP Sami Gemayel about that… because we can make an
impact inside parliament during this stage,” Geagea went on to say.
And noting that the LF will not take part in Thursday’s parliamentary session,
the LF chief said: “We demand an international panel of inquiry, and if this
demand is not achieved, we will submit a petition demanding an international
probe and the shortening of parliament’s term.”Geagea also said that “shortening
parliament’s term, reconstructing areas affected by the blast, the issue of
neutrality proposed by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and reforms, reforms,
reforms should top the agenda of the new government.”Asked about the possibility
of the formation of a national unity government, Geagea said: “We are not with
national unity governments, seeing as they are neither governments nor
national.”
As for the possibility of nominating ex-PM Saad Hariri to lead the new
government, the LF leader said: “We’re with a totally new, totally independent
and totally neutral government.”
Maas Meets Aoun, Says Germany Ready to Help but Reforms Needed
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 12/2020
Germany stands ready to help Lebanon with reconstruction and further investment
after last week's massive explosion, but any support will be linked to economic
reforms and an end to pervasive corruption in Lebanon, Germany's foreign
minister said Wednesday. Heiko Maas spoke after a tour of Beirut's devastated
port, where thousands of tons of ammonium nitrate exploded Aug. 4, obliterating
the facility, killing at least 171 people and wounding thousands in the capital
city. It still was not known what caused the fire responsible for igniting the
ammonium nitrate. But documents have emerged in the wake of the explosion that
show the chemicals had been improperly stored in the city's port for more than
six years, apparently with the knowledge of top political and security
officials. "The dimension of devastation and destruction is almost inconceivable
for people living in Germany, and therefore it was also so important for the
German government to help quickly," Maas said. He said he brought 4 million
euros to the Red Cross and the United Nations because Germany wants the money to
arrive where it is needed and "not for it to disappear in dark channels of which
there are unfortunately way too many in Lebanon."
"Other than that we hope that the responsible politicians have understood the
sign of the times. The rage of the people is understandable," Maas said. The
minister later held talks with President Michel Aoun in Baabda. The explosion
has fueled outrage and protests against top political leaders and led to the
resignation of the government Monday. The Cabinet is now in a caretaker
capacity. Ahead of his arrival in Beirut, Maas said Lebanon needs a "strong
reboot" and far-reaching economic reforms to rebuild trust with its citizens.
Germany has pledged 20 million euros (about 23 million dollars) in immediate
help after the explosion that tore through the Lebanese capital with such
intensity that it created a tremor felt in neighboring Cyprus. Thousands of
buildings in the heart of Beirut were destroyed and around 300,000 people were
left homeless.Maas said he would hold talks in Beirut to see how the money can
quickly get to the people who need it. He said he would also talk to the
nation's political leaders and representatives of civil society about the future
of Lebanon.
"I think everyone in Lebanon has to recognize that things cannot continue like
this, this country needs big reforms," he said.
Port Explosion Revives US Plans to Sanction Lebanese
Officials
New York – Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Last week’s explosion that shattered the Lebanese capital revived US draft-laws
aimed at imposing sanctions on Lebanese officials for corruption and links with
Hezbollah.
For months, US lawmakers and officials have been preparing draft-laws and
proposals to impose sanctions on Lebanese officials and political parties
because of their direct links with Hezbollah, which is classified as a terrorist
organization in the United States, or because of their involvement in corruption
and extensive violations of human rights.Thirteen Republican members of the
Congress submitted a 111-page draft-bill to impose the largest sanctions yet on
Iran, including designating the Houthis in Yemen as a terrorist group, stopping
aid to Lebanon, and punishing former Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and
parliament Speaker Nabih Berri. The proposal confirms the hawkish trend within
the Republican Party, said Ryan Bohl, an analyst at Stratfor, an intelligence
company. But he expected that these sanctions would not be passed immediately
due to the opposition of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to cut off aid to
Lebanon. “It seems unlikely that it will pass, especially with the approaching
elections in November, and the unwillingness of the Democrats to appear as if
they were creating external tensions,” he said.
The Republican Study Committee prepared a paper recommending the punishment of
the Iranian regime and its Lebanese agents or Lebanese leaders allied with
Hezbollah, in addition to stopping the aid allocated to the Lebanese army. The
paper listed the names of Hezbollah supporters, including former Health Minister
Jamil Jabak, MP Jamil al-Sayyed and former Foreign Minister Fawzi Salloukh.
Subsequently, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz and Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin submitted
a bill to combat Hezbollah and withhold 20 percent of US military aid to the
Lebanese army “unless the Lebanese President (Michel Aoun) can prove that he is
taking the necessary steps to end the influence of Hezbollah and Iran over the
Lebanese army.”Sen. Mike Johnson considered that there was “no good reason to
continue providing aid to Lebanon, after Hezbollah, one of Iran’s proxies in the
Middle East, took control of the country.”
Top German Diplomat: Lebanon Needs 'Reboot', Far-reaching
Economic Reforms
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Lebanon needs a “strong reboot” and far-reaching economic reforms to rebuild
trust with its citizens, Germany's foreign minister said ahead of his trip
Wednesday to Beirut, following last week's massive explosion at the city's port
that killed at least 171 people and wounded thousands. Heiko Maas said he was
traveling to the Lebanon's capital Beirut to “find out about the situation and
consequences of the explosion and express our condolences and support.”
He landed a few hours later in Beirut and was scheduled to tour the destroyed
port and meet with members of local NGOs, as well as the country's president.
Germany has pledged 20 million euros (about 23 million dollars) in immediate
help after the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion that tore through the Lebanese
capital with such intensity that it created a tremor felt in neighboring Cyprus.
Thousands of buildings in the heart of the Beirut were destroyed and many more
left homeless. The explosion was the result of thousands of tons of ammonium
nitrated that were stored in the city's port for more than six years, apparently
with the knowledge of top political and security officials, The Associated Press
reported.
Maas said he would hold talks in Beirut to see how the money can quickly get to
the people who need it. He said he would also talk to the nation's political
leaders and representatives of civil society about the future of Lebanon.
"The country now needs a strong reboot and far-reaching economic reforms. It’s
the only way Lebanon can create a good future for its youth. It’s the only way
to build the needed trust,” he stressed.
France to Submit Draft-Resolution to SC for More Effective
UNIFIL Mission
New York- Ali Barda/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
France is expected to circulate a draft resolution to extend operations of the
United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) before its mandate expires on
Aug. 31. Western diplomatic sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that France distributed
to the rest of the four permanent members (the United States, Britain, Russia,
and China) a draft resolution aimed at extending UNIFIL’s mission, after
including amendments to its mandate, allowing the forces to implement “more
effectively” the provisions of UNSC Resolution 1701, especially with regards to
preventing the presence of weapons and militants in its area of operations
between the Blue Line and the Litani River. Speaking on condition of anonymity,
the sources said that the proposed amendments fell under Chapter VI of the
United Nations Charter, as stipulated in Resolution 1701, which was issued by
the Security Council in the summer of 2006 to end the war between Israel and
Hezbollah. These amendments “were discussed with both the Lebanese and Israeli
sides, through the permanent missions in New York, as well as with the capitals
of the concerned countries,” the sources noted, specifying that the
consultations had taken place with the now-resigned government headed by Hassan
Diab. The members of the Security Council held a closed meeting on Tuesday to
discuss the implementation of Resolution 1701 and the extension of UNIFIL’s
mandate. Participants heard two briefings, one by the UN Special Coordinator in
Lebanon Jan Kubis on the latest developments, and the second by the UN
Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix on the
situation in the UNIFIL area of operations. The renewal of the force’s mandate
is expected on August 27. Prior to the meeting, the permanent French
representative to the international organization, Anne Gueguen, said: “Everyone
is aware of the seriousness of the situation (in Lebanon) and the absolute
necessity to meet the aspirations and needs of the Lebanese people.” She
stressed the urgent need for the formation of a new government “as soon as
possible”, provided that it “is able to prove to the Lebanese people its ability
to face the current major challenges, in the wake of the explosions.”Gueguen
added that the UNIFIL “is an essential element to achieve stability because
Lebanon is facing such an acute crisis.”The presence of the international force
constitutes “a strategic asset for the security of both Lebanon and Israel,” she
remarked.
US team to Qatar to probe its alleged finance of Hezbollah
- report
Bejamin Weinthal, Jonathan Spyer/Jerusalem Post/August 12/2020
"We will continue to closely work together to stop the financing of terrorist
organizations like Hezbollah," says US.
A team of US government officials traveled on Wednesday to Qatar amid intense
international coverage of the monarchy’s alleged role in financing the Lebanese
terrorist movement, Hezbollah.
The Saudi Arabia government-owned news outlet Al Arabiya reported on Wednesday
that “the United States has sent a team to Qatar to investigate” an allegation
that “Doha is funding Lebanese Hezbollah militia according to Al Arabiya
sources."
information very seriously and top government officials headed to Qatar and
spoke with the Qatari government about this case and it is possible that the US
will take action in the next hours or several days,” an Al Arabiya correspondent
reported citing unnamed sources.
“This is a major issue for Americans, especially since Hezbollah is on the US
terrorist list,” the correspondent added.
The US State Department announced on Wednesday that the “Coordinator for
Counterterrorism Ambassador Nathan A. Sales is traveling to Doha, Qatar on
August 12 to thank that nation for its commitment to combating global terrorism
and its dedication to a robust partnership with the United States on
counterterrorism and security.”
According to the US State Department Statement, “Ambassador Sales will meet with
Attorney General Ali Bin Fetais al-Marri and other senior government officials
to discuss Qatar’s role as a strong partner in combating the financing of
terrorism, including implementation of its new Anti-Money Laundering/Countering
the Financing of Terrorism (AML/CFT) legislation. Ambassador Sales will also
discuss Qatar’s active participation in the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS.”
The Jerusalem Post has reported extensively on a dossier alleging that Qatar
provided military hardware and cash to Hezbollah. Jason G., a private security
contractor, who penetrated Qatar’s military and intelligence system as a part of
an apparent sting operation, furnished the dossier to the Post. German
intelligence officials have verified the dossier as relevant and useful,
according to German media reports.When asked if the Al Arabiya report is
accurate, a State Department spokesperson told the Post: “The State Department
noted recent press allegations of a Qatari role in funding the Lebanese
Hezbollah. We see the allegations as inconsistent with Qatar’s strong commitment
to combating global terrorism and dedication to a robust partnership with the
United States on counterterrorism and security."
The spokesperson added that "our close ties with Qatar are indispensable for
maintaining security in the gulf region, and we will continue to closely work
together to stop the financing of terrorist organizations like Hezbollah.”
Multiple Post queries to the Qatar’s government in Doha and its embassies in
Belgium, Germany and the US were not immediately returned.
The State Department statement said that “Qatar is one of the United States’
closest military allies in the region. Al-Udeid Air Base is home to the Combined
Air Operation Center, which hosts 18 nations and is responsible for all
coalition air operations in the Middle East and Central Asia. More than 8,000
American military personnel are housed at Al-Udeid Air Base, and another 200,000
transit the base annually.”
US allies in the Gulf region, however, classify Qatar as a major sponsor of
terrorism. In 2017, Saudi Arabia, Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE),
Bahrain and other countries imposed an economic blockade on the tiny oil-and-gas
rich Gulf state over its alleged support of jihadi terrorism and its close ties
with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Lebanon’s Military Judiciary Takes Over Investigations Into
Port Explosion
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
The Military Court received the investigation case in the Beirut port explosion
to conduct interrogations and issue arrest warrants against the suspects, until
a forensic investigator is appointed over the matter and the case is returned to
the Judicial Council. In parallel, the State Prosecution gave instructions to
the security forces to handover the detainees who are held pending
investigation, to be referred to the Government Commissioner to the Military
Court, Judge Fadi Akiki, to press charges against them and refer them to the
Military Investigation Judge for questioning.
Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that the military court received the case and that
Akiki began studying the preliminary investigations and would press charges
against the detainees and all the individuals who would be found involved,
whether premeditatedly or due to their negligence.
Judicial sources also told Asharq Al-Awsat that the military judiciary
investigations were temporary until a judicial investigator is appointed after
the resigned government decided to refer the case to the Judicial Council.
While sources believed that the referral to the Judicial Council was aimed at
blocking the way to the demands for an international investigation committee,
which is rejected by the President Michel Aoun and Hezbollah, other observers
noted that the Council taking over the issue would mean that the case was a
“threat to the country’s internal security a disruption of civil peace.”
Lebanon Economy Minister Says Has Flour to Last Four Months
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Lebanon has 32,000 tons of flour in addition to 110,000 tons that has arrived or
will arrive in the coming two weeks, the economy minister said on Wednesday.
"This means we have enough for four months," Raoul Nehme said in a tweet. The
World Food Program is also sending 17,000 tons of flour as a first batch of a
50,000-ton supply plan. A UN report on Tuesday said Lebanon only had six week's
supply. "We don't have a stock crisis or a bread crisis!" Nehme tweeted. A
Reuters report on Friday found the Lebanese government, unlike many wheat import
dependent nations, had not kept a strategic stockpile of wheat and all the
private stocks of the grain held in the Beirut grain silo at the port were
destroyed in the blast that rocked the city on Aug 4. Nehme said on Friday his
ministry had planned to create a government reserve of 40,000 tons of wheat but
those plans had not materialized ahead of the blast.
The Lebanese government resigned on Monday but President Michel Aoun asked the
government to stay in a caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed.
600 Lebanese Heritage Gems Ravaged, UNESCO Mobilizes
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
An estimated 8,000 buildings have been damaged by the horrific blast that shook
Beirut last week, including hundreds of the city’s Levantine villas. The numbers
are rough estimates, as the Ministry of Culture continues to update the
international bodies concerned with cultural heritage.
UNESCO held an online meeting with the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the
UNESCO, the General Directorate of Antiquities and organizations concerned with
cultural heritage, to coordinate efforts aimed at protecting cultural sites and
Beirut’s landmarks that have been damaged or destroyed by the blast, and
determine how the international community can best support Lebanon. Ernesto
Ottone Ramirez, UNESCO’S Assistant Director-General for Culture Sector, Director
of the UNESCO World Heritage Center Mechtild Rossler, and Lazar Alundo, its
Director for Culture and Emergencies, stressed UNESCO’s commitment to “standing
by Lebanon and protecting its threatened heritage in Beirut.” They pointed out
that UNESCO and its partners moved immediately for this purpose. The UNESCO
office in Beirut stressed that this meeting is the first in a series of
meetings. The Director-General of Antiquities, Sarkis El-Khoury, gave a
presentation to survey the damage. It showed that most of the damaged buildings
date back to the Ottoman era and the French mandate, and are modern
architectural heritage sites, especially in the districts of Gemmayze, Mar
Mikhael and Ashrafieh, as well as in Zuqaq Al-Blat and Mina Al-Hosn. Up to 600
buildings may have been affected and the estimated cost of repairing and
restoring them will not come out to less than 300 million dollars. The Permanent
Representative of Lebanon to UNESCO, Ambassador Sahar Baassiri, thanked the
agency for its quick response.
She went on to say that "saving the heritage in Beirut that is under threat
today is not an initiative for Lebanon only, but rather an (initiative that
will) save part of humanity's heritage for us and future generations." UNESCO’s
partners - ALEF Fund, ICCROM, ICOMOS, Regional Center for World Heritage (based
in Bahrain), International Committee of the Red Cross and Blue Shields - also
gave their input. All participants expressed their commitment to support Lebanon
and help it protect its damaged heritage gems, and stressed the “importance of
achieving the mission in steps, starting with the most urgent, especially
buildings with destroyed roofs or foundations, which need to be fixed before
winter starts.”
The Beirut Disaster: What A Fair Historian Might Say!
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August, 12 2020
If one of us were to role play and become a historian, what might this historian
say about the Beirut disaster?
At first, after shedding light on the disaster’s humanitarian and economic
dimensions, he would situate it in the particular Lebanese context during which
it took place. He will find that it crowned a bankrupt approach for managing
politics and the economy, and it took place a few months after a colored
revolution that had tried and failed to push corrupt political class aside. He
will also emphasize that the aforementioned class was represented, at the time
of the crisis, by its worst faction and most inane and unappealing, namely, the
Aounists, who promised a “strong reign” and then ended up overseeing the weakest
period of governance the country had known in its hundred years of existence.
As a footnote at the bottom of the page, the historian would add: It is true
that Michel Aoun represented the majority of the frustrated Christians of the
country when he became president, unlike the weak presidents who preceded him,
but he seems to have ended up among them, because the residents of the capital’s
most devastated areas (the port, Gemmayzeh, Mar Mikhael, Ashrafieh ...),
Christian neighborhoods, hold him responsible for what happened to them.
The historian will surely comment about the symbolism in much of the people’s
reactions. He will refer to the fact that the curse words that had been almost
exclusively directed at Gebran Basil, the president’s son in law, were now being
directed at the president himself. As for the biggest taboo that had been
broken, it was the mock-hanging of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nassrallah
in the public square: until that moment, daring to mention Nasrallah had been a
life-threatening debasement of sanctity. This was broken. "Sayyed Hassan
Nasrallah" became just “one of them,” though he is the most dangerous among
them.
The historian will focus on this major transformation and its significance: Even
those who exonerate Hezbollah of direct responsibility for the disaster
realized, or most of them did, that the state’s collapse is founded on its
abandonment of its monopoly on maintaining security, its most critical function,
in favor of Hezbollah. It is with this division in particular where the path
towards disintegration, the tragic climax of which we saw at the Port of Beirut,
began. He will add, to remind his reader of the period which shortly preceded
the blast, that Hezbollah had been the most prominent and effective protector,
during the October Revolution, of the regime responsible for the disaster.
However, our historian will leave us with two unresolved questions: On one hand,
will the Lebanese manage to produce a cross-sectarian political force that can
in turn create an alternative form of governance, thereby preventing Lebanon
from ending itself as a nation and a state? On the other hand, do the Lebanese
understand that, until further notice, the most powerful thing they possess is
what remains of their friendships with the rest of the world, friendships that
they ought, from here on out, to avoid wasting away with “resistances” and
getting involved in conflicts that they do not have the capacity for?
In another footnote, on another page, the historian will add that the disaster
showed the truth in what had been said, decades ago, by a Lebanese politician
who saw that "Lebanon's strength lies in its weakness."
It may have been noticed that the historian does not mention the prime minister,
Hassan Diab, or his ministers, nor does he refer to the government’s fate or the
early resignations of some of its ministers. Furthermore, the Lebanese disaster
has a regional context as well, a context that the historian calls “a succession
of regional tragedies”: It came after two disastrous regional developments that
induce nothing but deep sense of pessimism: In Syria, since 2011, its ruler,
Bashar al-Assad, has been capably killing his people and displacing them on a
massive scale. That experience demonstrated how little value human life held
especially since it did not hamper the persistence of Assad’s presidency, and no
accountability is forthcoming.
In Iraq and Syria, starting from 2013-2014, ISIS has been present. It seized
vast territory in both countries and established an unprecedentedly barbaric
regime. The movement has been dealt with major and fundamental military defeats,
but the causes that brought it to life have not yet been addressed. It continues
to be dealt with, in its ups and downs, as a mere military event.
This, in general, is bad news. Its negative implications may be limited if aid
is obtained to restore some of what had collapsed in Beirut and relieve some of
the victims' families pain. However, it raises issues for Lebanon, and thus for
the region as well, which remain to be contemplated and addressed. As for the
conclusion that our historian presents in the form of a question, it is the
following: "How long will the lives of the people in this region remain cheap,
how long will they continue to be killed by oppressive regimes and petty leaders
who rely on kinship and sectarian ties and keep their citizens preoccupied with
major ideological conflicts meant to further undermine the value of their
lives?"
The Mullahs and Hezbollah, Lords of Drug Smuggling
Majid Rafizadeh/Gatestone Institute/August 12/2020
ماجد رافيزادا: الملالي وحزب الله هم لوردات تهريب المخدرات
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/89433/%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a7-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85%d9%84%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a-%d9%88%d8%ad%d8%b2%d8%a8-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%87-%d9%87%d9%85-%d9%84%d9%88%d8%b1/
"Presumed to have been issued by Iranian religious leaders, the
fatwa reportedly read: We are making drugs for Satan — America and the Jews. If
we cannot kill them with guns, we will kill them with drugs." — Matthew Levitt,
Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God, Hurst Publishers,
2013.
According to an FBI report, declassified in November 2008, "Hizbullah's
spiritual leader... has stated that narcotics trafficking is morally acceptable
if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of the war against the enemies
of Islam."
The international community, the United Nations, and specifically its Office on
Crimes and Drugs, remain totally silent on Hezbollah and Iran's large-scale drug
trafficking across the world.
When governments or organizations that operate under the legitimacy of a state
engage in smuggling drugs, the negative consequences can be devastating for
other nations. The Iranian regime and its proxy Hezbollah appear to be
increasing their efforts to smuggle illicit drugs to other countries,
particularly in the West.
A Lebanese man, Ghassan Diab, was recently extradited from Cyprus to the United
States for charges linked to laundering drug money for the militant group
Hezbollah. According to the US Department of Justice, Diab is alleged "to have
conspired to engage in, and actually engaged, in the laundering of drug proceeds
through the use of the black market peso exchange in support of Hezbollah's
global criminal-support network".
Italian authorities announced on July 1, 2020 that they had seized 15.4 tons of
counterfeit Captagon pills produced in Syria, a country reportedly the largest
producer and exporter of the Captagon (fenethylline). The seized 15.4 tons of
counterfeit Captagon pills are worth an estimated $1.3 billion. Captagon, a
super-charged amphetamine, is banned in many countries due to its addictive
nature. Reportedly, the seized drugs were so carefully hidden that the airport
scanners did not detect them, according to Commander Domenico Napolitano of the
Naples financial police. It was the interception of calls made by some criminals
that assisted the local police in seizing the drugs.
Greek authorities, in July 2020, also seized a large haul of Captagon pills,
also from Syria and worth more than half a billion dollars. The Greek financial
crimes unit said:
"It is the largest quantity that has ever been seized globally, depriving
organized crime of proceeds that would have exceeded $660 million (587.45
million euros)."
Why has Syria become the epicenter of producing illegal drugs and exporting them
to other countries including the West? Possibly because Iran and Hezbollah exert
significant influence in Syria and there is scarcely any credible international
organization monitoring what is happening in Syria, a lapse that makes it
difficult to these kinds of detect criminal activities.
Cash-strapped Iran and Hezbollah are desperate for money. Sanctions imposed by
the Trump administration on the Iranian regime have hit the mullahs and their
proxies hard. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani recently admitted that, as Iran's
currency, the rial, continues to lose its value, the Islamic Republic is
encountering the worst economic crisis since its establishment in 1979. Based on
the latest reports, US sanctions have also caused Iran to cut funds to its
militias in Syria. Iran's militants are not receiving their salaries or
benefits, making it extremely difficult for them to continue fighting and
destabilizing the region. Feeling the pressure of sanctions on Iran, Hassan
Nasrallah, the leader of Iran's proxy, Hezbollah, has also called on his group's
fundraising arm "to provide the opportunity for jihad with money and also to
help with this ongoing battle."
The relationship between Hezbollah, and Iran, specifically the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in smuggling drugs dates back to early 1980s.
According to the book Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon's Party of God
by Matthew Levitt:
"Following the establishment of Hizbullah in the early-1980s-recruiting heavily
from key Bekaa Valley tribes and families — it benefited from a religious edict,
or fatwa, issued in the mid-1980s providing religious justification for the
otherwise impure and illicit activity of drug trafficking. Presumed to have been
issued by Iranian religious leaders, the fatwa reportedly read: We are making
drugs for Satan — America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, we
will kill them with drugs."
According to an FBI report, declassified in November 2008, "Hizbullah's
spiritual leader... has stated that narcotics trafficking is morally acceptable
if the drugs are sold to Western infidels as part of the war against the enemies
of Islam."
In other words, by smuggling drugs to the West, Hezbollah and Iran also aim at
killing "infidels" and damaging Western countries. The United States is not
immune from Hezbollah's and Iran's drug-related criminal activities.
Iran and Hezbollah have also been increasing their cooperation with Latin
American drug cartels, and some Latin American governments, such as Venezuela,
appear to be more than willing to provide safe haven for Islamists to carry out
their criminal and drug-related activities. The Washington-based Center for a
Secure Free Society published a paper titled "Canada on Guard: Assessing the
Immigration Security Threat of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba." It stated that
Venezuela has granted many passports to radical Islamists. These passports could
easily be used for travel to North America or Europe.
The international community, the United Nations, and specifically its Office on
Crimes and Drugs, remain totally silent on Hezbollah and Iran's large-scale drug
trafficking across the world.
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a business strategist and advisor, Harvard-educated
scholar, political scientist, board member of Harvard International Review, and
president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He has
authored several books on Islam and US foreign policy. He can be reached at
Dr.Rafizadeh@Post.Harvard.Edu
© 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.
Turkey vies with Saudi Arabia as ‘protector of Lebanon’s
Sunnis’
The Arab Weekly/August 13/2020
Ankara sees economic opportunity with Beirut seaport being out of commission.
Turkey’s Vice President Fuat Oktay, right, and Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut
BEIRUT - Observers in Lebanon pointed out the total absence of any Saudi
political role in Lebanon after the Beirut explosion at a time when Turkey was
quick to present itself as a political and economic actor in the country.
Ankara sought to take advantage of declining Saudi interest in Lebanon and of
Iran's wariness about being conspicuously present in a setting drawing a lot of
Western attention.Observers pointed out that Turkish President Recep Tayyip
Erdogan reacted quickly to the Beirut disaster and dispatched to the Lebanese
capital Turkish Vice-President Fuad Oktay as his personal emissary, accompanied
by Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and a number of Turkish officials,
confirming Ankara’s keenness on being perceived as a major player in the
Lebanese scene.
Riyadh did not hide its dissatisfaction with political developments in Lebanon,
even before the explosion. It had stopped providing economic aid to the country
and downgraded its diplomatic mission in Beirut.
According to senior Saudi officials, Riyadh believes that the Lebanese state has
completely fallen under Hezbollah’s sway, which prevents Saudi Arabia’s presence
in Lebanon, whether politically or in investment matters.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan did not hide his country's
concern over Hezbollah’s hegemony in Lebanon.
“The party has precedents in the use of explosive materials in a number of Arab
and European countries,” Prince Faisal said during his participation at the
donors’ online summit initiated by France last Sunday.
Saudi writer Khaled al-Sulaiman encapsulated his country's stance towards
Lebanon by saying that “thorny bushes should not be watered.”
“This time Saudi Arabia has had a different position, an open and transparent
position for Lebanon and for the international community: Saudi Arabia will not
continue to pay Hezbollah’s bills, and the Lebanese have to assume their
responsibilities towards their country, and the international community must
assume its responsibilities towards Hezbollah’s mischief internally and
regionally,” he wrote in an article in the Saudi daily Okaz.
However, Riyadh’s choice to withdraw from Lebanon because of its opposition to
Hezbollah opens the door to Turkey’s expanding role in the country, as Ankara
seeks to position itself as the “protector of the Sunnis.”
A Lebanese observer close to Riyadh said that “Saudi humanitarian aid came
generously, but politics was absent.”
Political sources monitoring Turkish moves in Lebanon think that Ankara is
seeking at the present time to fill the Arab void in the country in light of the
deep crisis afflicting Hezbollah as an arm of Iran.
These sources confirmed that Turkey has a certain presence in Lebanon, but fails
to realise that this presence does not mean that the Sunnis are loyal to it.
A prominent Lebanese politician described Turkish presence in Lebanon as rather
sizable and important in light of the presence of a number of charities
supported by Ankara, especially in Tripoli, the capital of northern Lebanon.
Prior to the deadly blast at Beirut port, there had been a political debate
between two Sunni political figures over who is loyal to Saudi Arabia and who is
loyal to Turkey in Lebanon.
Asas Media, a website administered by former interior minister close to Saudi
Arabia, Nihad al-Machnouk, has accused former Lebanese security director and
Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi of working with Turkish intelligence to take
control of northern Lebanon.
Rifi responded violently to Machnouk, describing him as someone who kept moving
“from an intrigue to the other, and only the employer changes.”
Machnouk and Rifi at some point competed for Saudi attention when the Saudi
fortunes of the former Lebanese prime minister and head of the Future Bloc Saad
Hariri declined.
Sunni politicians believe that Turkey is seeking to achieve wide encroachment
into Lebanon and to “represent the Sunni community” by sponsoring several
Islamic societies and investing in the restoration of old buildings, with a
special focus on those reminiscent of the Ottoman era.
A Lebanese politician, queried by The Arab Weekly on Ankara’s growing role in
Lebanon, stressed the need to “distinguish between the appreciation that the
Lebanese Sunnis, especially in Tripoli, hold for Turkey and being loyal to it,”
noting that Lebanon’s Sunnis generally sympathise with anyone opposing the Assad
regime in Syria.
He explained that the Sunnis in general are allergic to anyone who deals with
Syrian President Bashar Assad in light of their bitter experience with the
Syrian regime, due to its sectarian (Alawite) nature. This sectarian nature
appeared specifically in Tripoli, where the Alawites, during the period of the
Syrian tutelage over Lebanon up to 2005, turned into something like masters of
the city, despite the fact that they formed only a small minority in it.
Political sources indicated that the Turkish vice president's visit to Beirut
immediately after the departure of French President Emmanuel Macron was a clear
attempt to find a balance with France and present Turkey as a protector of Sunni
Muslims in Lebanon, just like France’s role as protector of the Lebanese
Christians.
Furthermore, Turkey did not waste the economic opportunity represented by the
port of Beirut being out of commission. Oktay was quick to suggest the port of
Mersin in southern Turkey as an alternative to the port of Beirut.
Oktay stressed that “Turkey will go with Lebanon to the end.” He pointed out
that his visit to Lebanon should be taken as “blank check” for “various types of
assistance to the brotherly Lebanese people.”
A political observer told The Arab Weekly that Oktay’s words “caused discontent
in many circles, including the Sunni community, which has a vested interest in
saving Beirut’s port and fixing it as quickly as possible. (Oktay’s statements)
revealed Turkish opportunism.”
Still, the fact remains that the new map of large ports in the Eastern
Mediterranean reveals the size of the opportunity Ankara sees to control trade
with Lebanon.
With the Beirut seaport out of service and the limited capacity of the port of
Tripoli for receiving large container ships makes Mersin port one of the main
candidates as a handling port, especially with the international ban on Syrian
ports, and the impossibility of access to alternative Israeli ports.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 12-132/2020
Iran arrests five Iranians for spying for foreign states: judiciary
Parisa Hafezi/DUBAI (Reuters)/August 12/2020
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 recognise 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, defence 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 centres 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.
Additional reporting by Alexandra Schwarz-Goerlich in Vienna; Writing by Parisa
Hafezi; Editing Angus MacSwan, William Maclean
US Seeking to Renew Arms Embargo on Iran
London, New York- Asharq Al-Awsat and Ali Barda/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Diplomats have warned that the nuclear deal between Tehran and major countries
would be more vulnerable if the UN Security Council voted this week on a US
proposal to extend the arms embargo on Iran. In Tehran, the Iranian Foreign
Ministry quickly denied an Iranian news agency report that revealed the
possibility of reducing US sanctions in preparation for the start of US-Iranian
talks under the auspices of Germany and Britain. The United States on Tuesday
circulated a revised resolution that would extend a UN arms embargo on Iran
indefinitely, seeking to gain more support in the 15-member Security Council,
amid strong opposition by Russia and China. US Ambassador Kelly Craft said the
new draft “takes council views into account and simply does what everyone knows
should be done — extend the arms embargo to prevent Iran from freely buying and
selling conventional weapons.”“It is only common sense that the world’s #1 state
sponsor of terror not be given the means of unleashing even greater harm on the
world,” she said in a statement. Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
announced that the United States would present this text despite strong
opposition from China and Russia. However, diplomats at the United Nations said
that the current version of the text faces such strong opposition that it is
unlikely that Washington will be able to obtain the nine votes necessary to pass
it, as Moscow and Beijing will use their veto right. AP reported that the new
draft stated that the arms embargo, notwithstanding its Oct. 18 expiration,
“shall continue to apply until the Security Council decides otherwise.” It says
that full implementation of the arms embargo “is essential to the maintenance of
international peace and security.”Meanwhile in Tehran, the Iranian ILNA news
agency quoted a "source with knowledge of the matter” as saying that Germany and
Britain have expressed their opposition to US proposals that include the
extension of the arms embargo on Iran. According to the sources quoted by the
agency, the three European signatories to the nuclear agreement (France,
Germany, and Britain) discussed the US proposals, adding that Germany, with the
agreement and support of Britain, presented a proposal on the temporary
abolition of the sanctions that have an economic impact on the lives of
Iranians, in preparation for a “comprehensive round of talks on the outstanding
issues between Iran and the US,” which would include discussions with Saudi
Arabia on regional issues.But less than an hour later, the spokesman for the
Iranian Foreign Ministry, Abbas Mousavi, rebuffed the ILNA report in its
entirety. The agency, which is close to the reformists, is affiliated with
circles supporting the nuclear deal and President Hassan Rouhani’s foreign
policy. “Such statements are fabricated and baseless news and their purpose is
unclear,” Mousavi said in comments on Tuesday.
Iranian Hardliners in Parliament Reject Rouhani's Nominee
for Trade Minister
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Iranian hardliners in parliament on Wednesday voted against President Hassan
Rouhani's nominee for trade minister in the first showdown between the rival
camps since the house resumed work in May. According to the parliament's
website, lawmakers rejected Hossein Modares Khiabani's nomination for minister
of trade and industries. Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the
vote was 140-104 against the nominee. There were 254 lawmakers at the session
and 10 abstained. The parliament has 290 seats. The vote marked the first
serious confrontation between the newly elected house, dominated by
conservatives and the bloc of supporters of the relatively moderate Rouhani, The
Associated Press reported. Under the law, Rouhani must introduce new nominees to
his cabinet in the next three months. Rouhani in May dismissed the trade and
industry minister at the time, Reza Rahmani, as Iran faced an unprecedented
economic downturn amid intense pressure from the US after President Donald Trump
pulled the country out of Iran’s nuclear with world powers and reimposed
sanctions on the country. Khiabani, 52, had since been the acting trade
minister. Iran is also grappling with the largest and deadliest outbreak of the
coronavirus in the Middle East, with more than 331,000 confirmed cases and at
least 18,800 deaths.
IDF strikes Hamas terror targets in Gaza in response to explosive
balloons
Jerusalem Post/August 12/2020
The attacks are in response to the launching of incendiary balloons into Israel
from Gaza over the past several days. IDF fighter jets, helicopters and tanks
attacked a number of Hamas terrorist targets in the Gaza Strip in the early
hours of Wednesday morning, the IDF Spokesperson said. During the attack, a
military compound, underground infrastructure and observation posts were
targeted. The attack was carried out in response to the launching of incendiary
balloons into Israel from Gaza over the past several days. "The IDF considers
all terrorist activity against Israeli territory to be very serious and will
continue to act as necessary against attempts to harm Israeli citizens," the IDF
said. "The terrorist organization Hamas bears responsibility for what is
happening in and out of the Gaza Strip, and will bear the consequences of
terrorist acts against Israeli citizens." The balloon units warned that they
would continue the launch of incendiary and explosive balloons on Wednesday in
response to the IDF strikes on Tuesday night. During the strikes, a missile that
was fired from an IDF helicopter towards Gaza fell next to a cowshed in a town
in the Eshkol Regional Council in southern Israel. The missile did not explode
and sappers arrived at the scene to handle the explosive. Slight damage was
caused to the cowshed. The IAF is investigating the incident. Earlier on
Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz both
warned Hamas, the terrorist group in charge of the coastal enclave, that Israel
would respond if incendiary balloons were still launched into Israel from the
Strip. “In the South, Hamas is continuing to enable explosive balloon attacks to
be launched into the State of Israel. We are not prepared to accept that and
have closed the Kerem Shalom border crossing as a result,” Gantz said during his
tour of Home Front Command. “They would do well to stop violating Israel’s
safety and security. If that doesn’t happen, we will need to respond, and
forcefully.”“There will be a heavy price to the balloon terror,” Netanyahu said.
“We will act and exact a heavy price. We’ve done it in the past. Remember that,
because we will do it again now.“Hamas and Islamic Jihad will see the harsh
results of these calamities.”
Anna Ahronheim, Lahav Harkov and Tovah Lazaroff contributed to this report.
Israel Calls for PA Prisoners' Affairs Administration to be
Designated as Terrorist
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
A number of political right-wing figures in Israel and the US are pressuring
both the US administration and the Israeli government to declare the Palestinian
Commission of Detainees Affairs a terrorist organization. The campaign was
launched by a right-wing Israeli organization "Palestinian Media Watch" which
sent direct messages to US President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Benny Gantz. The organization has been
working for more than 30 years against the Palestinian Liberation Organization
and the Palestinian Authority (PA), claiming that they are running anti-Jewish
policies, approaches and practices that support terrorism. It played a central
role in the campaign against paying salaries to Palestinian detainees serving
sentences in Israeli prisons, as well as to the families of the deceased. The
Israeli government adopted this approach earlier and decided to deduct the
salaries from Palestinian tax funds, which led to crisis between the Israeli
government and the PA, after which the Palestinian Finance Ministry refused to
receive the remaining amount. The campaign was led by the US Republican
Congressman, Doug Lamborn, who is the head of the Israeli lobby in the Congress.
In a letter to Trump on Thursday, Lamborn called for designating the commission
and its director Qadri Abu Bakr, as "sponsors of terror" because of their direct
involvement in providing monthly payments to prisoners and their families.
In turn, a group of the right-wing and center Knesset members sent a similar
letter to Netanyahu and Gantz, saying: “It should not be, that while other
nations around the world, especially our friend the United States, are making
efforts to eradicate this phenomenon of terror payments, Israel will continue to
keep quiet.” The letter was signed by MKs: Matan Kahana of Yamina party, Oded
Forer of Yisrael Beiteinu and Elazar Stern of Yesh Atid-Telem. The
parliamentarians said that they would put the issue on the Knesset's agenda
soon, however, Netanyahu and Gantz did not comment on the matter.
Tunisia’s Free Destourian Party Announces Resuming Talks to
Form Govt
Tunis- Al Mongi Al Saidani/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August,
2020
Tunisia’s Prime Minister-designate Hichem Mechichi began on Tuesday his second
round of negotiations to form the new government. He met with representatives of
Ennahda Movement, Heart of Tunisia (Qalb Tounes), and the Democratic Bloc, which
represents the People’s Movement, the Democratic Current Party, and al-Karama
coalition.According to sources who took part in Tuesday’s meetings, Mechichi was
briefed on the composition of the expected government coalition and the parties
interested in participating in the next government.
In his first round of talks, Mechichi aimed at assessing the situation in
general, including the necessary reforms in the economic and social fields.
During its meeting last weekend, Ennahda movement stressed its adherence to form
a “national unity government that responds to the results of the parliamentary
elections.” Its position, however, contradicts with Mechichi’s. The
Premier-designate affirmed on Monday that he would form a purely technocratic
government, whose members are able to work in harmony to achieve its agenda.
Mechichi also explained that he wanted to deal with the parliament as an
institution rather than a group of parties, noting that he would ask for support
to implement an economic and social salvation program.
Head of the opposition Free Destourian Party Abir Moussa, who rejects the
presence of Ennahda movement in the government coalition, said she is willing to
meet with Mechichi on Wednesday. Regarding the new round of talks with the
designated prime minister, Head of Ennahda’s parliamentary bloc Noureddine al-Bhiri
affirmed that negotiations are ongoing.
Bhiri pointed out that his meeting with Mechichi helped clarify his intention to
form a technocratic government. Meanwhile, some observers believe the next
government will have to choose between solutions due to the deep differences in
the level of political views of the parties participating in the talks.
The first is supporting the new coalition and granting it a vote of confidence,
in accordance with a clearly defined agenda. While the second solution lies in
not granting it a vote of confidence and, instead, hold early elections, for
which some parties, like Ennahda Movement, are highly prepared.
Ennahda’s parliamentary bloc has earlier announced forming a coalition of 120
deputies, which would later provide it with political influence in the
parliament and allow it to take parliamentary and governmental decisions.
Tunisia Takes Measures to Avoid Same Fate of Beirut Port
Tunis - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
The Tunisian government announced it was taking precautionary measures in
transporting and storing dangerous materials to limit the risk of an explosion
similar to the Beirut port blast a week ago. The government called for utmost
vigilance and caution during the storage, disposal and transportation of
dangerous materials. On August 4, an unsecured stock of ammonium nitrate
exploded in Beirut’s port killing more than 160 people and injuring 6,000 more.
The blast demolished entire neighborhoods of Lebanon’s capital in seconds. In a
statement carried by the German News Agency, the Tunisian government stressed
vigilance in law enforcement, while monitoring standards in granting licenses
for transportation and storage of dangerous materials. The cabinet also
announced the formation of a national committee in charge of transport and
storage of dangerous chemical products. The committee, which will include
representatives from various relevant sectors, was tasked with delivering a
report within three weeks. The cabinet meeting decided to activate the joint
local committees so as to control the transport and storage of the dangerous
products. Comparisons between the two countries have been drawn due to heavy
bureaucracy and the disruption of services at ports, which increased fears of an
explosion in Tunisia similar to the Beirut blast.
Iraq, International Coalition Discuss Future of Relations
Baghdad - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qasim al-Araji discussed with the Deputy
Commander of the International Coalition Forces, Gerald Strickland, the future
of the relationship between the two parties, and Iraqi ISIS militants.
Strickland reviewed the volume of air, intelligence and advisory support for the
Iraqi security forces, and the importance of continuous coordination in
protecting the border with Syria. A statement issued by Araji’s media office
said that the two officials also addressed the issue of Iraqi families in camps
east of the Euphrates in Syria. The adviser also addressed the importance of
international support, especially in training, equipping and arming the military
and security forces. He thanked the international community for its partnership
in fighting ISIS and eliminating terrorism, stressing that the Iraqi government
is keen on maintaining such relations. Araji indicated that Iraq is looking
forward to the help of the international community in finding non-military
solutions to regional crises which will have a greater impact on stability and
consolidating peace on the region.
Head of Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies and security expert Moataz
Mohieddin said that after the fall of ISIS, most of its leaders escaped to al-Hol
camp under the control of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), noting that the camp
became a hotbed for the terrorist organization.
Mohieddin explained to Asharq al-Awsat that for over 30 years, the camp housed
Iraqi refugees who fled the Gulf War, and then it became a shelter for Iraqis
after the US-led invasion in 2003. Al-Hol is one of three main camps established
on the Iraqi-Syrian border, but ISIS targeted this area in particular because it
is a vast oasis that is easily accessed, said Mohieddin. He pointed out that the
circumstances helped make this camp comfortable for refugees, such as the
humanitarian and financial aid sent by the Turkish and US government through
European organizations, which made the camp hospitable for ISIS terrorists.
Mohieddin said the Iraqi government is not prepared to decide on areas in the
Nineveh plains to host some militants or their Iraqi families. He added that the
coronavirus pandemic also made it impossible to transfer the families from the
camp in Syria to Nineveh under the supervision of the Iraqi and Kurdish
authorities. However, the expert noted that the situation may have changed and
US and European officials insist on transferring ISIS families from the camp,
especially Iraqis, to the Nineveh plain, although it may now be more difficult
due to the Turkish forces' incursion into many of these areas.
US Lifts Restrictions on Americans' Financial Dealings With
Sudan
Washington- Hiba/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
The United States Treasury Department announced on Tuesday lifting restrictions
on Americans' financial dealings with Sudan. “US persons are no longer
prohibited from engaging in transactions with respect to Sudan or the Government
of Sudan that were previously prohibited by the Sudanese Sanctions Regulations,”
a treasury statement read. However, it kept Sudan on its list of State Sponsors
of Terrorism (SST), with maintained restrictions on export and re-export and
sanctions on individuals and entities in connection with the conflict in Darfur.
In terms of export controls, the statement noted that US and non-US persons need
to obtain any licenses required by the Department of Commerce’s Bureau of
Industry and Security (BIS) to export or re-export to Sudan certain items that
are on the Commerce Control List (CCL), such as commodities, software, and
technology. It further stressed that an Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)
license is required for certain exports or re-exports to Sudan or any other
entity of agricultural commodities, medicine, or medical devices. Meanwhile, a
general license in the Terrorism List Governments Sanctions Regulations (TLGSR)
authorizes US persons to engage in all financial transactions with respect to
stipends and scholarships covering tuition and related educational, living, and
travel expenses provided by Sudan’s government to its nationals who are enrolled
as students in an accredited educational institution in the United States. In
this context, some observers pointed out that this step will help Sudan overcome
the economic and financial difficulties it has been facing due to the US
restrictions imposed on transactions.
It would also pave the way for Sudan to be removed from the US SST list, they
added. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has repeatedly indicated that the State
Department hopes to remove Sudan’s designation, which severely impedes
investment to Sudan. He said in July that the ousting president Omar al-Bashir
following mass protests and the nearly year-old government of a civilian prime
minister, Abdalla Hamdok, marked "an opportunity that doesn't come along often."
“There's a chance not only for a democracy to begin to be built out, but perhaps
regional opportunities that could flow from that as well,” he stressed. In
mid-May, the US State Department’s list on “Countries Certified as Not
Cooperating Fully With US Counterterrorism Efforts” didn’t include Sudan, which
was considered a major development analysts saw as a significant step in
improving bilateral relations. Sudan had been severely affected once listed in
the SST, but its relations with the US improved following talks held between
Hamdok and US officials in 2019. Back then, Hamdok obtained promises from state,
treasury, and defense officials, as well as US Congress senior figures to delist
Sudan.
Hamdok also announced in December that his government is willing to reach a
settlement with families of the victims of the 1998 bombings of the US embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania and of the USS Cole in 2000.
Libyan-American Meeting Discusses Solution that Excludes Turkey
Cairo – Khaled Mahmoud/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Speaker of the east-based Libyan parliament Aguila Saleh revealed after talks
with the American Ambassador efforts to transform Sirte city into the
headquarters of a new authority in the North African country. Saleh had met with
Ambassador Richard Norland in Cairo for talks on the Libyan crisis.
He said that Sirte can be transformed from a hotspot for tensions between the
rival Libyan National Army (LNA), headed by Khalifa Haftar, and Government of
National Accord (GNA), headed by Fayez al-Sarraj, into a new administrative city
that can run the country. He said an agreement was needed by local, regional and
international powers to ensure the success of the proposal. Asharq Al-Awsat was
the first to report about such a proposal, which also calls for eliminating
Turkey’s military presence and the pullout of its mercenaries and pro-GNA
militias. Saleh’s initiative stemmed from the Cairo Declaration that was
unveiled by Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi in June. In a statement
after the meeting, Saleh stressed that the solution to Libya’s crisis “must
exclude the Turkish presence.” Sirte must be secured by Libyan agencies until
parliamentary elections are held. The LNA will carry out its duties outside the
city. Moreover, he said that the GNA was not part of any dialogue because his
parliament does not recognize it. A new authority should instead by formed, one
that enjoys legitimacy and can reach a new political solution away from Turkish
meddling, he suggested.
At this, he urged Sarraj to step down from his position and clear the way for
fresh new faces that can steer Libya towards stability. “Turkey knows it is
waging a losing battle. It cannot enter Sirte and the US will inform Ankara of
the futility of the war in Libya,” Saleh stressed. On oil revenues, he said they
will not go to militias and mercenaries in the form of salaries. The revenues
will be “frozen” and they will not be transferred to the central bank until a
new authority is formed.
The speaker also denied disputes between him and Haftar. Saleh has emerged as a
key international figure, at the expense of the LNA commander, as he attempts to
reach a solution to the crisis.
“Our aim is to cleanse Libya from mercenaries and militias. We do not abandon
the LNA in such important missions. We need its support to preserve Libya’s
sovereignty,” he stated. The US embassy in Libya, meanwhile, said in a
statement: “With our Egyptian partners, Ambassador Norland welcomed the momentum
generated by the June 6 Cairo Declaration and underscored US support for all
responsible Libyan leaders seeking a peaceful resolution to the conflict that
restores Libya’s sovereignty, promotes economic reforms and prevents further
foreign escalation.”It said talks between the ambassador and Saleh focused on
the parliament’s “efforts to promote a demilitarized solution for Sirte and al-Jufra,
enable the National Oil Corporation to resume its vital work while ensuring that
oil and gas revenues are managed transparently, and improve governance leading
to credible and peaceful elections.” “Norland expressed support for the
speaker’s aspirations and those of all responsible Libyan elements, for a Libyan
solution to end the conflict and ensure a stable and prosperous future for the
Libyan people,” read the statement.
More Than 170 Dead in Yemen Floods
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 12 August, 2020
Flash floods triggered by torrential rains have killed at least 172 people
across Yemen over the past month, damaging homes and UNESCO-listed world
heritage sites, officials said. The destruction has dealt a new blow to a
country already in the grips of what the United Nations describes as the world's
worst humanitarian crisis after years of war between the Yemeni government,
backed by Saudi Arabia, and Iran-allied militias. In the mainly government-held
province of Maarib east of the capital, 19 children were among 30 people killed
by the floods, a government official said. In the province's displaced persons
camps, 1,340 families saw their tents and belongings swept away, the agency in
charge of them said.
In Lahij province in the government-held south, seven people were drowned when
their vehicle was swept downstream, a government official told AFP.
Another four people were killed on the road connecting the southern provinces of
Hadramawt and Shabwa, the official added. In the insurgent-held north, the
floods killed 131 people and injured 124 between mid-July and August 7, the
rebel health ministry said. They destroyed 106 homes and buildings and heavily
damaged another 156, the rebel ministry added. UNESCO expressed sadness at the
flood damage to historic buildings in the cities of Sanaa, Zabid and Shibam that
are on its world heritage list.
The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 12-132/2020
The pandemic hasn’t hit Syria hard yet. When it does, it’ll be a disaster.
David Adesnik/The Washington Post/August 12/2020
Infections are rising in a country that’s unprepared for the coronavirus.
Syria has barely suffered from covid-19, according to official data from the
country’s Health Ministry. Testing has confirmed 1,255 infections, of which 52
were fatal, as of Monday. The country’s caseload, both total and per capita,
hovers near the bottom of global rankings. Until mid-July, Syria reported fewer
confirmed cases than Taiwan, the benchmark for effective management of the
pandemic. There is ample reason to distrust the numbers published by Bashar
al-Assad’s regime, yet health authorities in areas outside of Assad’s control
have reported similarly low figures. In northeast Syria, where U.S.-aligned
Kurdish forces govern an estimated population of 3 million, there have been only
34 cases and a single fatality. In the northwest, where roughly 4 million
Syrians live under the control of Turkish proxies and Islamist militias, there
were no confirmed cases until July 9; the current figure is 40.
All of these numbers are likely to be understatements, perhaps by an order of
magnitude or more, yet it’s clear that there was no major outbreak in Syria
during the first months of the pandemic. Still, the fuse of a covid explosion in
the country may already be lit.
Low as it may be, the official caseload has tripled since the beginning of July.
On social media, Syrians are sharing obituaries for relatives and friends lost
to the virus. A medical worker told NPR that hospitals are being overwhelmed
while staff lack personal protective equipment. He said the regime warns doctors
not to share information and intelligence officers watch the hospitals. “We are
all scared, all the time,” he said, referring to hospital staff.
Yet prominent Syrian physicians and front line doctors have begun to speak up.
Nabog al-Awa, the dean of the medical faculty at the University of Damascus,
said 100 coronavirus patients are arriving at hospitals daily, but the number of
new infections is far higher, since only the sickest go to hospitals. A mortuary
official reported that 40 patients die of covid-19 each day in Damascus alone.
Ahmed Habas, a physician serving as deputy director of health for Damascus,
posted calculations on his Facebook page indicating there have been 112,500
infections in the capital and surrounding areas. He later took down the post,
explaining that he did not want to spread fear or spur criticism of the Ministry
of Health.
Shagaf Faour, a physician working in the covid ward at the Mujtahed public
hospital in Damascus, posted a video on YouTube in which she describes doctors
working for 24 hours consecutively using a single gown and mask. “At the
hospitals we are begging for ventilators for patients, even for one of my
relatives I couldn’t find a place. The situation is horrific,” Faour says.
Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian American pulmonologist and president of the U.S.-based
charity MedGlobal, has been tracking the impact of the pandemic on Syrian
health-care workers. His efforts include counting obituaries for Damascus
physicians, at least 29 of whom have died from coronavirus so far. Sahloul told
me by phone that “fatalities among health-care workers are a leading indicator
of widespread communal infection.”
In March, a paper from the London School of Economics estimated that Syria has
the capacity to treat only 6,500 active cases of covid-19 because the country
has so few intensive care unit beds with ventilators. In April, the scholar
Elizabeth Tsurkov assessed that a lack of qualified medical personnel may be an
even greater bottleneck. Since the outbreak of war in 2011, an estimated 70
percent of health care workers have fled the country, while Russia and the Assad
regime have carried out 537 verified attacks on health-care facilities,
according to Physicians for Human Rights.
The World Health Organization has shown it is not prepared to challenge the
regime’s efforts to conceal information. Annie Sparrow, a physician and
professor of medicine, has chronicled the extent of the WHO’s deference to the
regime, which ranges from purchasing medical supplies for Assad’s Defense
Ministry and remaining silent about the stripping of critical supplies from aid
deliveries for civilians in rebel-held territory to partnering with
organizations under the control of Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf, whom the United
States and European Union sanctioned for his corruption and support of the
regime.
During the pandemic, the WHO office in Syria has dutifully retweeted notices
with the latest official caseload and fatality figures. The WHO serves as one of
two organizational co-authors of the United Nations’ weekly updates on covid-19
in Syria, yet these lengthy documents do not relay firsthand accounts from local
physicians.
The WHO also amplifies public health risks by neglecting the areas outside of
Assad’s control, despite their population of 7 million, compared to 10 million
or so governed by the regime. The WHO began delivering coronavirus-related
supplies to Damascus in February, including five polymerase chain reaction (PCR)
machines necessary for coronavirus tests. Authorities in northwest and northeast
Syria received no PCR machines from the WHO, but eventually procured them from
other sources.
The WHO justified its disparate treatment in political terms, not humanitarian
ones. “The northwest is not a country,” a spokesman said. The northwest has far
less testing capacity than the regime thanks to this lack of support. The Health
Ministry had conducted 12,416 tests as of July 24, compared to 3,704 in the
northwest as of last Friday.
This deficiency is of particular concern, because the northwest is home to 2.7
million internally displaced people — half of them children — many of whom live
crowded together in camps. “You want us to wash our hands?” one aid worker asked
a New York Times reporter. “Some people can’t wash their kids for a week.”
In March, when coronavirus began to spread rapidly in the Middle East, aid
organizations in northwest Syria braced for disaster. “Social distance is a
fantasy in a camp,” warned the country director for Mercy Corps. “The disease
could spread like wildfire.” That did not happen, for reasons that remain
speculative at best, such as the country’s relatively young population.
But then, on July 9, a physician in the northwest tested positive for the virus,
followed by two more on July 11. The outbreak had clearly infiltrated the
region’s overtaxed hospitals. There is a single lab in the region that runs
covid tests, but only a few dozen per day. It has now confirmed 40 cases, yet
the virus could be racing ahead undetected — or it could stall as inexplicably
as it did in March.
While flattening the curve may be nearly impossible in the northwest, Assad’s
government is choosing to maintain a relaxed posture. In May, it lifted lockdown
measures including school closures, travel restrictions and curfews. Last week,
authorities suspended Friday prayers at mosques in Damascus, but is hesitant to
impose restrictions amid a severe economic downturn. The price of food has
doubled over the last six months, while the Syrian pound has lost two-thirds of
its value.
If and when the public health crisis escalates, foreign assistance will be
essential to any mitigation effort. Increasing aid to areas outside of Assad’s
control will be difficult, since Russia has wielded its veto at the U.N.
Security Council to force the closure of border crossings that were once key
conduits for assistance. Via U.N. agencies, the United States and other donors
can send more aid to areas under Assad’s control, yet the regime’s manipulation
of aid is so extensive that it may serve little purpose beyond protecting
favored communities while alleviating Assad’s financial distress. Moscow and
Damascus routinely call for the lifting of U.S. and E.U. sanctions, yet the
sanctions already include comprehensive exemptions for humanitarian trade and
assistance.
Ultimately, millions of Syrians may have to draw on nothing more than grit to
survive yet another catastrophe.
*David Adesnik is research director and a senior fellow at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies. Follow David on Twitter @adesnik.
Sociopath provides a window into his soul
Michael Rubin/The Washington Examinar/August 12/2020
It has now been almost two years since President Trump bestowed the Medal of
Honor on Staff Sgt. Ronald Shurer II. Shurer was a true hero. As Trump’s recount
of his actions show, he scaled a cliff to reach his comrades, who were under
attack by “roughly 200 well-trained and well-armed terrorists.” He was shot in
the head but still managed to rescue most of his team and many of their Afghan
partners. He subsequently joined the Secret Service. That this spring, the
41-year-old lost his life to cancer is a tragedy not only for his family but
also for our nation.
The terrorists to which Trump referred, however, were not mere Taliban. Rather,
they were members of Hizb-e Islami under the command of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Who was Hekmatyar? During the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan,
Hekmatyar grew to become one of the most prominent Mujahedin commanders, famous
not for his prowess on the battlefield — unlike many of his peers, he never
actually scored a victory against the Red Army — but rather for his duplicity.
He repeatedly back-stabbed other Afghan commanders in a mad scramble to the top.
Afghans who knew him as an opponent or even as a friend described him as a
sociopath.
Ordinary Afghan citizens knew him as the “Butcher of Kabul” for shelling the
city repeatedly for no other reason than to ensure promotion to make the murder
stop. He ultimately did become prime minister in 1993 and again in 1996, but he
had destroyed what was left of the country in order to achieve that position. He
was also a man for hire. His instability and unreliability led the United States
to cut him off, but Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence embraced him fully.
Prior to the rise of the Taliban, Hekmatyar was the Inter-Services
Intelligence’s chief proxy; they only shifted resources to the Taliban because
the upstart group was not impeded initially by the human rights baggage that
came with Hekmatyar.
Hekmatyar has repeatedly targeted Americans. His relationship with al Qaeda and
its founder, Osama bin Laden, led the State Department to designate Hekmatyar a
terrorist. After U.S.-led forces entered Afghanistan to help Afghanistan get
back on its feet after decades of civil war, Hekmatyar repeatedly targeted
Americans. His fighters, for example, ambushed a U.S. convoy in August 2005. In
2012, his group claimed responsibility for an attack targeting flight attendants
for a charter company used by the U.S. Embassy. The terrorists Shurer faced
down? Hekmatyar’s group. While the Afghan government subsequently agreed to a
peace deal with Hekmatyar, Afghans victimized by Hekmatyar’s terrorism still
seek justice.
Pakistan continues latent support for Hizb-e Islami to have a Plan B to the
Taliban to pursue efforts to hobble Afghanistan’s recovery. Hekmatyar is
Machiavellian and has also sought an insurance policy lest he become too reliant
on Islamabad. That insurance policy has been Turkey.
This is why, less than a year before Trump bestowed the Medal of Honor on Shurer,
Hekmatyar flew to Turkey on a Turkish air ambulance to seek treatment for an
undisclosed illness in an Istanbul hospital. He was welcomed there by none other
than Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who promised that he would himself
travel to Kabul to celebrate Hekmatyar’s triumphant return. It was not their
first meeting: Photos published in the Turkish press and a video that
subsequently surfaced showed the two met at the height of Hekmatyar’s
Mujahedin-era reign of terror in Afghanistan.
While mayor of Istanbul, Erdogan referred to himself as “the Imam of Istanbul”
and a “servant of Sharia.” While Western diplomats insisted Erdogan had evolved
away from the radicalism of his youth and early career, when Turkish forces
invaded northern Syria, they did so under fatwa, declaring their reason to be
“jihad for the sake of Allah.” More recently, during a May 4 briefing on
COVID-19, Erdogan dismissed the “leftovers of the sword,” a derogatory phrase
that referred to the survivors of massacres perpetrated by the Ottomans and
Turkey against Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian Christian communities. Erdogan also
seeks to utilize his partnership with Hekmatyar to help shape Afghanistan’s
post-war political order.
The U.S. should not let them. The persistence of Erdogan’s relationship with
Hekmatyar illustrates that it was wishful thinking to believe that Erdogan was
ever anything more than a jihadi in a business suit, no matter how many
diplomats projected their hopes of change on him. To trust Erdogan’s word now —
in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Libya, in Somalia, or anywhere else — is to betray
the memory and heroism of Shurer.
*Michael Rubin (@Mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's
Beltway Confidential blog. He is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute and a former Pentagon official.
China: Military Experts Urge Beijing to Prepare for War
with U.S.
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/August 12/2020
Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a
military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S.
presidential election, speculating that "stirring up external frictions,
especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for
his re-election campaign."
The leaders of China's Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by
anyone, including the U.S., to stop China's grab of Hong Kong this year -- 37
years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green
light to keep on grabbing.
China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong
Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base
build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the
Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a "fishing fleet" of 250 vessels showing
up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was
to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25
through August 2.
If China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of
Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S.
militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.
Chinese military expert Wang Yunfei is urging Beijing to prepare immediately for
an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. Wang singled out the
Scarborough Shoal in the Paracel Island Chain as the most likely initial piece
of real estate that the U.S. might seek to seize. Pictured: An aerial view of
part of the disputed Paracel Islands chain in the South China Sea, which China
claims are part of its Hainan Province.
Chinese military journalists are publicly urging the People's Liberation Army (PLA)
to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. One
expert at Zhejiang University's National Institute for South China Sea Studies,
Shi Xiaoqin, claims that the U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke China. They
also suggest the regime reinforce Chinese installations on reefs claimed by
China.
If this analysis gains traction by Chinese political and military leaders, U.S.
military commanders in the South China Sea should plan for the possibility that
China might initiate hostilities in keeping with its doctrine of preemptive
retaliation, a seeming attempt falsely to claim "self-defense."
One writer suggests that the PLA should immediately move fighter aircraft to
Chinese air bases in the Spratly Islands at Fiery Cross, Subi Reef, and Mischief
Reef. He also boldly claims that the augmented presence of U.S. naval and air
assets in the South China Sea is no longer just a show of force by America.
Chen Hu, a Chinese military journalist, also asserts that the U.S. is now intent
on provoking a conflict and is preparing for battle. Chen claims that the return
of B1 bombers to Guam and continued deployment of two U.S. aircraft carrier
groups in the South China Sea, despite the conclusion of military exercises, is
supposedly a sign of Washington's aggressive intent. Chen suggests that recent
U.S. "Freedom of Navigation" maneuvers and the high number of U.S. surveillance
collection missions along the Chinese coast is additional proof of American
attack planning. Former PLA officer Wang Yunfei and naval equipment expert
suggests that flights by American RC-135, E-8c, and RC-12X surveillance aircraft
equate to "pre-battle strategic technical surveillance." As the joke goes from
the children's playground: "It all started when he hit me back."
Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a
military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S.
presidential election, speculating that "stirring up external frictions,
especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for
his re-election campaign."
The leaders of China's Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by
anyone, including the U.S., to stop China's grab of Hong Kong this year -- 37
years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green
light to keep on grabbing.
Wang even lays out his analysis on particular avenues of approach by which U.S.
bombers might attack their Chinese targets. Wang, now a Chinese naval
specialist, writes that the U.S. will probably ship-launch Tomahawk Cruise
against Chinese bases in the South China Sea. He further specifies that the PLA
should deploy China's own aircraft carriers in the south central region of the
sea, as the best strategy to counter any U.S. assault. He adds that China must
also deploy fighter jets and air defense missiles on various Chinese reefs.
Wang singled out the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea's Paracel Island
Chain as the most likely initial piece of real estate that the U.S. might seek
to seize. The Scarborough (Huangyan) Shoal/Reef is claimed by both China and the
Republic of the Philippines. Perhaps one reason why China might expect that
Scarborough Shoal is a likely target is that the U.S. wants to re-cement
military agreements with the Philippines that would allow American military
assets access to Clark Air Force Base, Subic Bay Naval Base and other newer
facilities. U.S. support for Manila's claim to the Scarborough Shoal against
China's might be sufficient to convince the mercurial president of the
Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, to patch up relations with the U.S.
Chinese writer Zheng Hao, who assesses that it is possible that U.S.-Chinese
tensions in the South China Sea could escalate into a "hot war," cites U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's July 13 statement that the South China Sea is
"not China's maritime empire" as indicative of the Trump Administration's
hostile intent. Zheng appears to be especially concerned about the July 7
U.S.-Japan naval exercise, which included an operation by the U.S. aircraft
carrier Ronald Reagan and two warships of the Japanese Maritime Defense Forces.
Zheng laments that the 2018 draft of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea
has not yet been signed by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN)
and China.
One hope to avoid or at least postpone an imminent clash in the South China Sea
is for China and the U.S. to activate the crisis prevention apparatus
established in November 2014. This diplomatic device includes a Memorandum of
Understanding on notification of military activities and rules of behavior
designed to keep air and naval encounters peaceful. So far, there is no public
acknowledgement that either China or the U.S. is employing the crisis prevention
mechanism. One recent sign of efforts by both sides to avoid a military incident
was the Pentagon's August 7 announcement that U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark
Esper and his Chinese counterpart, Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe, held a
90-minute teleconference last week.
China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong
Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base
build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the
Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a "fishing fleet" of 250 vessels showing
up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was
to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25
through August 2. The announcement of this exercise was promulgated by the PLA
and not, as is usual, by the Chinese government's maritime administration. If
China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of
Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S.
militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.
*Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in
the Air Force Reserve.
© 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.
The Conundrum of Israeli-Arab Citizenship
Mordechai Nisan/Middle East Forum Quarterly
Golda Meir (center) congratulates Moshe Sharett after signing Israel's
declaration of independence, May 14, 1948, as David Ben-Gurion (left) looks on.
Israel promised its Arab citizens "full and equal citizenship." But many Israeli
Arabs openly challenge the principles underpinning Israel's existence. (Photo:
Frank Scherschel)
Issued in the midst of a sustained attempt by the Palestinian Arabs to destroy
it at birth, Israel's 1948 declaration of independence urged them "to
participate in the upbuilding of the state on the basis of full and equal
citizenship and due representation in all its provisional and permanent
institutions."[1] The invitation to these inveterate foes to be fellow citizens
was based on the belief that once their aggression had been defeated, they would
resign themselves to a minority status in the nascent Jewish state.
Seventy-two years on, the fulfillment of this assumption seems as remote as
ever. Not only has Arab integration in Israeli society not led to general
acceptance of the legitimacy of Jewish statehood, but the more affluent and more
established the Arab population has become, the stronger its Palestinian
identification to the point of openly challenging the fundamental principles
underpinning Israel's existence.
This seemingly unbridgeable gulf between Israel's Arabs and Jews raises the need
for a profound redefinition of the concept of citizenship in a way that would
satisfy the Arabs' national identification and protect their civil and religious
rights without enabling them to undo Israel's Jewish national character.
Israel's Arab Citizens and Their Political Leadership
Since Israel's establishment, its Arab citizenry has grown twelvefold—from
156,000 people in 1949 to just over 1.9 million in 2019 although its relative
size has remained virtually unchanged (growing from 18 to 21 percent of the
total population).[2] In line with the declaration of independence's commitment
to "complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants
irrespective of religion, race, or sex," the official, state-financed Arabic
language educational system promoted both literacy and the communal identity and
cohesion of the Arab minority. Some 16 percent of the total university
population is Arab.[3] Arabs constitute 38 percent of the pharmacists in Israel,
a third of the doctors, and 20 percent of the nurses.[4] The number of Arab
members of the Knesset jumped from two in 1949 to eight in 1992 to fifteen in
2020, confirming the general trend of Arab progress and participation in
Israel's public life.
These major advances notwithstanding, opinion polls, despite their fallibility,
offer a more complex picture. Since the late 1970s, and all the more so after
the launch of the Oslo "peace process" in 1993, Israeli Arabs have increasingly
self-identified as Palestinians and revealed their emotional and ideological
distance from the Jewish state. A survey from May 2001 found that 46 percent of
Arabs rejected Israel's Jewish identity, while a 2006 survey claimed that 56
percent of the Arabs were not proud of their Israeli citizenship with twice as
many of the respondents feeling greater attachment to the Palestinian people
than to Israel.[5] A 2012 survey by Sami Smooha of Haifa University found that
70 percent rejected Israel's right to maintain a Jewish majority, preferring a
binational state over a Jewish one,[6] which the Israel Democracy Institute
corroborated in 2017, reporting that 67 percent opposed Israel's Jewish
character.[7] A recent survey from 2020 shows a growing Arab acceptance of their
"Israeli" identity and a decline in their "Palestinian" identification; yet this
finding is compromised and complicated by the majority denying the existence of
a Jewish Temple on Jerusalem's Temple Mount, and by implication—the millenarian
Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel.[8]
Knesset member Azmi Bishara was suspected of passing security information to
Hezbollah during the 2006 war and fled Israel to avoid prosecution. Many Israeli
Arabs do not exhibit patriotic feelings toward the state.
When on March 9, 2020, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz promised to form
a "patriotic government," Knesset member (MK) Ahmad Tibi censured this use of
words as "unfortunate."[9] Israel clearly does not inspire patriotic feelings
among its Arab citizens though most of them have indicated over the years that
they would rather be in Israel—with its educational opportunities, social
benefits, personal and political liberties, and material advances—than
elsewhere.[10] A personal utilitarian consideration coexists with an Arab
nationalist conviction.
Arab students and politicians are as a rule stridently anti-Israel. University
campuses in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa experience boisterous Palestinian
nationalist demonstrations with participants waving Palestinian flags and
denouncing Israel and the Israel Defense Forces.[11] Intellectuals and public
figures from the community issued the Haifa Declaration in 2007 that called for
Palestinian refugees to "return"[12]—the Arab euphemism for Israel's destruction
via demographic subversion. For its part, the "national committee of the heads
of local Arab municipalities in Israel," the effective leadership of the Israeli
Arabs, issued a lengthy document outlining its "Future Vision for the
Palestinian Arabs in Israel." The document rejected Israel's continued existence
as a Jewish state and demanded its substitution by a system that would ensure
Arab "national, historic and civil rights at both the individual and collective
levels."[13] MK Azmi Bishara, founder of the ultranationalist Balad party,
proposed to redefine Israel as a "state of all its citizens"—yet another
euphemism for Israel's transformation into an Arab state in which Jews would
eventually be relegated to a permanent minority. Bishara was later suspected of
passing security information to Hezbollah during the 2006 Lebanon War and fled
Israel to avoid prosecution.
Arab Knesset members have behaved disloyally in a variety of ways.
The Islamic Movement in Israel is religiously and rhetorically militant,
inciting against the state and discrediting any sign of "Israelization" within
the Arab community. The leader of its northern branch, Raed Salah, was
imprisoned for aiding Hamas in 2003 and yet again in 2020 for encouraging and
supporting terror attacks by his followers. The spirit of incitement undoubtedly
contributed to the July 2017 murder of two Druze police officers in Jerusalem by
two Arabs from Umm al-Fahm, Salah's hometown. He also accused Israel of
conspiring to destroy al-Aqsa Mosque and to deny free Muslim worship on the
Temple Mount (even though the Muslim waqf or endowment has administered this
most sacred religious site for the Jewish people since 1967).[14]
For their part, the Arab MKs, speaking as the predominant political class for
the Israeli Arabs, have behaved disloyally in a variety of ways. For example:
Ahmad Tibi served as a political adviser to Yasser Arafat, visited Libyan
dictator Mu'ammar Qaddafi in violation of Israeli law and praised Palestinian
"martyrdom terrorism" against Israel.[15]
Hanin Zoabi joined the armed pro-Palestinian Mavi Marmara ship to Gaza in 2010,
whose "peace activists" violently attacked Israeli soldiers.[16]
Ayman Odeh was scheduled to meet with the presidents of Jewish organizations in
Manhattan in 2015 but refused to enter the appointed room adjacent to the Jewish
Agency offices because of its Zionist mission and the display of the Israeli
flag.[17]
Basil Ghattas was apprehended in 2016 and sentenced to two years in prison for
attempting to smuggle cell phones and SIM cards to incarcerated terrorists whom
he visited.[18]
Jamal Zahalka of the Balad Party pledged solidarity with Hamas and Hezbollah. In
August 2018, in response to the new Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the
Jewish People, he posted a map of Israel covered with a Palestinian flag, later
adding that no Arab would ever recognize a Jewish state.[19]
Yousef Jabareen participated in an anti-Israel, pro-boycott-divest-sanction
event in London in July 2019, declaring that "we [the Arabs] have the
willingness and persistence as the owners of the land."[20]
In May 2018, Mansur Dahamshe, secretary-general of the Hadash Party on the Joint
Arab List, sallied forth in a television debate, saying, "I don't recognize the
legitimacy of the state of Israel" and lambasting it as racist, fascistic, and
apartheid-like.[21]
As Israel marked its 70th Independence Day, Israeli Arabs chanted, "This is our
land. ... We'll continue our struggle at any price."
On "Nakba Day" in 2018, anticipating and countering Israel's Independence Day,
Arabs came to the town of Atlit south of Haifa, chanting, "This is our land. ...
We'll continue our struggle at any price." Palestinian flags fluttered in the
air. In May 2019, Sami Abu Shehadeh, chief executive officer of the Jaffa Youth
Movement, said, "This [Palestine] is our homeland. ... We are the indigenous
community." He added that the Jews had emigrated from Europe and that the
decades after the 1948 war had turned a "bent generation" of Arabs into an
"erect generation."
Israel's ostensible binational and bi-denominational fabric is real. Jews have
their own national history, memory, identity, and experience, possessing a
language, religion, and culture unto themselves. The Jewish state is central to
a collective narrative that has shaped Jews into an extended family with strong
bonds of trust, obligation, and unity. Across the divide are the Arabs, some 83
percent of whom are Muslims,[22] with their own sense of rootedness, faith,
language, and culture. They have been grasping for recovery since their 1948
defeat, forgetting and forgiving nothing and believing that justice demands
returning Palestine to its Arab inhabitants.
Two Peoples, Two Solitudes
At the interstices of society, there are plenty of contacts and exchanges
between Jews and Arabs. They shop in the same malls, work in the same
enterprises, drive on the same roads, eat in the same cafes, and receive medical
treatment in the same hospitals. There are Israeli Jews who feel strongly that
the Arabs are well-meaning fellow citizens who should be more generously
welcomed and integrated into all areas of national life. Other Israelis believe
that any further Arab political gains will radicalize the demand for the
"return" of Palestinian refugees and the nullification of the law of return that
allows Jews to receive Israeli citizenship upon settling in Israel. That said,
it is highly unlikely that friendships and acquaintanceships, for all their
humanity, can mitigate the political polarization separating Jews and Arabs. A
shared citizenship does not guarantee a shared vision of Israel's raison d'être.
Many Israeli Arab citizens prefer to identify as "Arabs in Israel" or as
"Palestinians in Israel."
Polling data have shown a certain symmetry—with a marked degree of mutual
rejection and exclusivity—coloring Jewish views of Arabs and Arab views of
Israel. Surveys have shown a discernible Jewish preference to deny Arabs equal
rights with as much as half of Israeli Jews, according to a 2016 Pew Research
poll, actually favoring Arab transfer or expulsion from the country.[23] The
Israel Democracy Institute reported in 2017 that 58 percent of Jewish
respondents—mostly among those on the political right—support revoking Arab
citizenship due to Arab rejection of Israel's Jewish character.[24]
A revealing anecdote illustrates the Arab position. In the July 2019 Knesset
election for national ombudsman, the center-left candidate was Giora Romm, a
retired army general and former deputy commander of the Israeli Air Force (IAF).
In his civilian career, Romm had made a point of including Arabs in significant
posts. He canvassed parliamentarians, including Arab MKs, asking for their
support in the Knesset vote. But he heard from Arab members that they were
uneasy with his IAF career. He was shaken when he heard this, having assumed
that he would win their support against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
favored candidate. To no avail.
Romm later said that when he flew over Damascus on bombing runs during the 1973
war, he thought he was doing so on behalf of Israel's Arab citizens as well as
Jewish citizens. All Israelis would be safer if his mission succeeded against
the enemy. Now he was discovering that Arab citizens, members of the Knesset no
less, did not value his service to the country but rather identified with the
Syrian enemy. Romm insisted that the subject of Arab Israeli citizenship
demanded a reappraisal.[25]
Citizens or Quasi-Citizens?
Arabs in Israel are often uncomfortable calling themselves Israeli Arabs,
preferring to identify instead as Arabs in Israel or—as has been the case over
the past few decades—as Palestinians in Israel. When they received citizenship
as an automatic right in the wake of the 1948 war, they had a hard time
appreciating what it meant, and in part, for good reason. They enjoyed
political, educational, religious, and cultural freedoms and resources, yet many
were subjected to military rule until 1966 that restricted them in many
practical ways—as when the authorities were ratifying or rejecting mayors and
school principals—in order to ensure they were not agents of subversion or
violence.
The Israeli government exempts Arabs from military service with general approval
of the policy on both sides. Some Bedouins, however, volunteer and do serve, and
Druze (and Circassian) citizens, unlike most Muslim Arabs, transcend their group
identity in bonding with Jews as proud Israeli patriots who serve in the army.
It is perhaps unreasonable to force the Arab citizens to face their Arab
brothers on the battlefield in the defense of the Jewish state. It would be an
agonizing task if Israeli Arabs in the army had to conduct security operations
against Palestinian residents in the West Bank or Gaza.
Hence, the concept of "quasi-citizenship" could offer an appropriate resolution
to this awkward situation—one that accords with the notion of "different logics
of citizenship" for residents unable or unwilling to identify fully with the
state while enjoying civil liberties apart from voting rights.[26] The notion of
citizenship as a continuum would also be consistent with the Middle Eastern
social tradition of "tribal citizenship." Using the term loosely as applied to
Kurds in Iraq, Alawites in Syria, and Kabyle in Algeria, it likewise applies to
the Arabs in Israel, focusing on a collective ethnic-religious profile. The
Western concept of universal suffrage based on "state citizenship" for all has
exceptions in the West as in the cases of Puerto Rico and the U.S. Pacific
island territories. Limitations on full citizenship exist in the case of
co-ethnic communities beyond the nation state borders, as for quasi-citizens of
Russia residing in the Crimea; so too in the case of transnational European
citizenship allowing participation in EU elections, but not in national
elections. British political discourse actually conceived at times of
citizenship and voting rights as two separate items.[27] These various
permutations of citizenship can stimulate thinking on the Israeli conundrum of
the Arabs' status in the country.
Israeli Arabs demonstrate in front of the Haifa court building with Palestinian
flags. Many of Israel's Arab residents do not connect with the ethos of Israel.
For them, it is a foreign country.
Worth mentioning, in addition, is the differentiation between citizens, all of
whom enjoy full rights before the law, and permanent residents denied voting
rights in national elections (as for non-citizen Jews and most East Jerusalem
Arabs). Lacking an authentic identification with the ethos of Israel, this is a
foreign country for many of its Arab residents.
In 2002, Israel revoked citizenship in the mode of felony disenfranchisement
from two Arabs, one of whom affiliated with Hamas, the other with Hezbollah.
Both had shown a "breach of allegiance" as delineated in the law to justify
revocation.[28] MK Avigdor Lieberman proposed in 2010 a succinct slogan—"No
loyalty, no citizenship"—that would obligate all Israelis to pass a loyalty test
or give an oath of allegiance.
In some countries, the principle of birthright citizenship is neither
unequivocal nor categorical.
Arabs in Israel are admittedly not naturalized citizens but native-born who
acquire citizenship at birth without qualifications, conditions, or delay.
However in some countries—Belgium and Lebanon, for example—the principle of jus
soli (birthright citizenship) is neither unequivocal nor categorical. The
working assumption that a person born in a country naturally identifies with its
ethos, history, language, and culture has been disproven in some places. For
instance, among Muslims born in European countries, some of these native-born
citizens have committed murderous terrorist acts against their non-Muslim
neighbors. Israel, too, has experienced, in addition to acts of treason,
Arab-Muslim violence directed against Jewish fellow-citizens. Some version of
quasi-citizenship reform would accord with the words of the great libertarian
philosopher John Stuart Mill, who advocated universal suffrage with "no persons
disqualified, except through their own default."[29]
The anti-Jewish-state Arab citizenry is a constant and not circumstantial
political-ideological datum. Measures might be taken, nonetheless, to
incentivize loyalty or, alternatively, to exact a price for its absence. For
example:
a military service exemption tax (as functions in Switzerland) for males who
refuse recruitment by deducting a percentage of personal income;
compulsory civilian service for citizens who refuse military service;
a differential scale of child allowance payments by privileging families where
at least one member served in the army or did civilian service.
Israel's Basic Law of Government, Article 7a (1), demands that any party or
person seeking to participate in general elections and contending for
parliamentary representation must recognize Israel "as a Jewish and democratic
state." Nonetheless, the activist, liberal Supreme Court upheld the right of
Arab parties and politicians—as in the case of the Joint Arab List—to run for
election though they manifestly do not accept Israel as a Jewish state. Were the
law to be enforced, many Arab citizens would likely have refrained from voting
as a form of self-disenfranchisement in the 2019 and 2020 elections.
Regarding Israel's ultra-orthodox Jews, the fact that they overwhelmingly do not
perform military service cannot justify revoking their citizenship as this has
nothing to do with rejection of Israel as a Jewish state but with subordination
of practical aspects of civil duties to immersion in religious study—a fact
deemed by Israel's founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion as sufficient
justification for exempting them from military service. While the original
exemption applied to a small number of students (to be substantially expanded
since Likud's rise to power in 1977), this does not obscure the national
identity of the ultraorthodox as Jews living in the state of the Jewish people
rather than a distinct national group rejecting the existence of this very
state.
Conclusion
In a September 2019 post-election meeting with President Reuven Rivlin on the
Joint Arab List's preferences for a future prime minister, MK Tibi unambiguously
stated his and the party's national Palestinian creed: "We did not immigrate
here [unlike the Jews] ...We are the owners of this land."[30] No political
decorum or conventional respect dissuaded Tibi from brazenly brandishing his
Palestinian Arab ideological credentials in the Jewish state and against the
Jewish state—directly to its Jewish president. He was even more blatant after
another round of elections (in March 2020) when the Joint Arab List won an
unprecedented tally of fifteen MKs. In a radio interview, Tibi stated "the Land
of Israel is a [Zionist] colonialist phrase"[31] For this Israeli MK, the
Palestinian narrative was the only legitimate one.
This open defiance underscores the brazen and hypocritical conduct of Israel's
Arab leadership, which seeks to have its cake and eat it too: to subvert
Israel's Jewish identity while enjoying their democratic freedoms and while
deriding any suggestion of making some Arab-Israeli border communities citizens
of a would-be Palestinian state as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The sustained effort of the Palestinian Arab leadership from the 1920s to 1948
to subvert the Jewish national revival rather than to coexist peacefully with
their Jewish neighbors led to the collapse and dispersal of Palestinian society.
In a similar way, the steady radicalization of the Israeli Arabs by their
elected leaders over the past decades might lead to an unbridgeable schism with
their Jewish compatriots—a division whose severity is often beguilingly obscured
by visible signs of social integration in various spheres of life.
**Mordechai Nisan is a retired lecturer in Middle East Studies at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem. He recently authored The Crack-Up of the Israeli Left
(Canada: Mantua Books, 2019).
[1] "The Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel," Provisional
Government of Israel, Tel Aviv, Official Gazette, no. 1, May 14, 1948.
[2] "Population, by Religion," Population: Statistical Abstract of Israel 2019,
no. 70, Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (ICBS), Jerusalem, Sept. 26, 2019.
[3] "Students in Universities, in Academic Colleges and in Academic Colleges of
Education among Persons Aged 18-29, by Sex, Age, Population Group and Degree,"
Population: Statistical Abstract of Israel 2019, no. 70, ICBS, Sept. 26, 2019.
[4] The Times of Israel (Jerusalem), Aug. 24, 2015; Israel21c (San Francisco),
Oct. 31, 2018.
[5] Asher Arian, "Israeli Public Opinion on National Security," Jaffee Center
for Strategic Studies, Tel Aviv University, memo. no. 60, Aug. 2001, p. 19; Uzi
Arad and Gad Alon, "Patriotism and Israel's National Security Survey 2006,"
Institute for Policy and Strategy, Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, "Key
Findings."
[6] Sami Smooha, Lo Shovrim Et ha-Kelim: Madad Yahasei Arvim-Yehudim be-Israel
2012 (Haifa: Haifa University, 2013), p. 14.
[7] Tamar Hermann, Or Anabi, William Cubbison, Ella Heller, and Fadi Omar, A
Conditional Partnership: Jews and Arabs (Jerusalem: Israel Democracy Institute,
2017), p. 64.
[8] Pluralism Index 2020, The Jewish People Policy Institute, in The Jerusalem
Post, Apr. 21, 2020.
[9] "Tibi Meuchzav me-Gantz: ha-Bitui 'Memshala Patriotit' Lo Mutslah," Galei
Zahal (IDF radio, glz.co.il), Mar. 16, 2020.
[10] Daniel Pipes, "The Hell of Israel Is Better than the Paradise of Arafat,"
Middle East Quarterly, Spring 2005, pp. 43-50.
[11] See, for example, The Jerusalem Post, Dec. 29, 2008, Nov. 14, 2019.
[12] "The Haifa Declaration," Mada al-Carmel, Haifa, 2007.
[13] "Ha-Hazon ha-Atidi la-Aravim ha-Falestinim be-Israel," Ha-Vaad ha-Artzi
Shel Roshei ha-Rashuyot ha-Arviyot be-Israel, Nazareth, 2006, p. 9.
[14] Shaul Bartal, "Sheikh Raed Salah and His Endless Struggle against Israel,"
Perspectives, no. 1492, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Ramat Gan,
Mar. 22, 2020.
[15] PA TV (Fatah), Palestinian Media Watch, Jerusalem, Jan. 9, 2011; Efraim
Karsh, "Israel's Arabs: Deprived or Radicalized?" Israel Affairs, Jan. 2013, p.
15.
[16] Arutz Sheva (Beit El and Petah Tikva), May 30, 2014.
[17] The Times of Israel, Dec. 11, 2015.
[18] Middle East Monitor (London), Dec. 22, 2016.
[19] Israel Hayom (Tel Aviv), Aug. 2, 2018.
[20] World Israel News (Lawrence, N.Y.), July 8, 2019.
[21] i24 TV (Tel Aviv), May 27, 2018.
[22] "Population, by Religion," ICBS; "Christmas 2019: Christians in Israel,"
ICBS, Dec. 23, 2019.
[23] The Forward (New York), Mar. 8, 2016.
[24] Haaretz (Tel Aviv), Nov. 7, 2017.
[25] Israel Hayom, July 19, 2019.
[26] For more on this, see Elizabeth F. Cohen, Semi-Citizenship in Democratic
Politics(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
[27] Daniel Naujoks, "Free Rider or Trailblazer? Atypical Citizenship and the
Meaning of Membership," 2014 Citizenship Studies Conference, Wayne State
University.
[28] Shai Lavi, "Punishment and the Revocation of Citizenship in the United
Kingdom, the United States, and Israel," New Criminal Law Review, Spring 2010,
p. 418.
[29] John Stuart Mill, Considerations on Representative Government (Chicago:
Henry Regnery, 1962), p. 169.
[30] Arutz Sheva, Sept. 23, 2019.
[31] Efraim Karsh and Gershon Hacohen, "The Struggle for Israel's Jewish Soul,"
Perspectives, no. 1486, Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Ramat Gan,
Mar. 16, 2020.
How the US Will Try to Extend the Arms Embargo on Iran
Eli Lake//Bloomberg/August, 12 2020
Next week the US will try to get the UN Security Council to do something it has
been trying to get its allies to support for the last year: Extend the UN’s
conventional arms embargo against Iran, which is slated to expire in October.
The resolution will almost certainly fail, but that doesn’t mean America’s Iran
policy has to be a failure. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US
would introduce the resolution on Wednesday, a day before he announced that his
senior envoy on Iran policy, Brian Hook, would be leaving. The UN Security
Council would make an “absolute mockery” of its mission to maintain
international peace and security, Pompeo said, “if it allowed the No. 1 state
sponsor of terrorism to buy and sell weapons freely.”
Pompeo is not wrong. One of the many flaws of the 2015 Iran deal is that it
allowed for the arms embargo to expire in the first place. That concession was
in part at the behest of China and Russia, which were part of the negotiations,
and the two nations are likely to use their veto at the Security Council to
scuttle the resolution. Thus the US strategy to extend the embargo is destined
to fail.
US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft has acknowledged as much.
“Russia and China are going to be who they are,” she told me in an interview
this week at the Aspen Security Forum. “I’m not going to be able to change their
minds. However, what we can do is change the way other countries look to them
and look at them, and that’s what’s important.” In other words, Pompeo’s
strategy in the short term is to shame two great-power rivals at the UN.
But Pompeo has another card to play. If and when the US loses the UN vote to
extend the arms embargo, it could still theoretically impose it — “snap back” is
the diplomatic term — through a provision of the 2015 nuclear deal that
President Donald Trump withdrew from in 2018. As Pompeo told reporters
Wednesday, that is “an option that’s available to the United States, and we’re
going to do everything within America’s power to ensure that that arms embargo
is extended.”
On the surface, it’s a strange maneuver. The snap-back provision of the UN
Security Council resolution that codified the Iran nuclear deal was designed as
a tool for states that were a party to that agreement. As Anthony Blinken, a
former deputy secretary of state and adviser to Joe Biden’s presidential
campaign, said this week at the Aspen Security Forum: “Snap back needs to be
invoked by a participant in the deal.”Others disagree. Richard Goldberg, who
managed the maximum pressure campaign against Iran at the US National Security
Council, told me the UN resolution that codified the nuclear deal “was drafted
precisely to defend the US right to snap back, in any scenario, at any time.” If
Iran is in breach of its commitments, he said, the US has the right to snap back
previous resolutions that were lifted as a result of the nuclear deal —
regardless of whether the US remains a party to that agreement.
Regardless of the legalities of the current or future conventional arms embargo
against Iran, there is a very good chance that Russia and China will move to arm
the Iranians anyway. International law has not stood in the way of these
countries before. China has already begun discussions for closer security
partnership with Iran. For now, Pompeo’s play at the UN is mainly symbolic. As
Craft told me, the rest of the world will see that China and Russia “have blood
on their hands.” But anyone who’s paid attention for the last 75 years probably
knew that already.
The most realistic strategy for the US moving forward — under either Trump or
Biden — will have to be unilateral. It’s foolish to expect the UN to promote
security and peace in the Middle East when two of the permanent members of the
UN Security Council do not have the same interests as the US and its allies in
the region. A better approach is for the US to use its Navy, its allies and its
vast intelligence capabilities to interdict arms shipments to Iran. The US has
used this strategy before, under President George W. Bush against North Korea.
It should consider it again when it comes to Iran.
China Has Another Reason to Wear Face Masks
David Fickling/Bloomberg/August, 12 2020
If residents of China’s steel belt want to know whether to strap on face masks
and avoid outdoor exercise, they could do worse than look to the iron ore price.
That’s because the spread between two varieties of rust often works as a proxy
for the amount of choking particulates spewed out by the country’s steel mills.
Right now, the narrowing of the differential to its tightest in more than three
years is flashing a pollution warning signal.
Unprocessed iron ore is sold in two main sizes. Lump ore is a pebbly mixture
that can be fed directly into blast furnaces, and in China must be imported from
overseas. Typically it commands a steep premium over fines, a more powdery
product that’s easier to come by and must be processed with coke and limestone
in sinter plants before it can be used.
Those sinter plants are where the vast majority of dust is produced in the
steelmaking process, so when environmental restrictions are tight and rigidly
enforced, mill owners will use more lump ore and the lump premium rises. At the
moment, the opposite is the case: At just 5.5 cents a metric ton, the premium
has narrowed by about 80% since the start of March to levels last seen in 2017.
Enforced shutdowns are often imposed in China’s steel belt when pollution gets
bad, but they’re widely flouted, especially when profits are good and the
government is prioritizing heavy industrial stimulus. With those conditions in
place, there’s little reason for mills to buy more lump.
After a coronavirus-induced lull earlier in the year, the country’s steel
industry is churning out metal at record rates to get the economy off its sick
bed. Many businesses are still reeling, with first-half fixed-asset investment
in the dominant manufacturing sector falling 12% from 2019, and wholesaling and
retailing down 31%. Yet steel-intensive engineering sectors are surging.
Spending on new power generation and utilities was up 18% from last year. Even
the immense real estate sector, which accounts for about a quarter of all
Chinese fixed-asset investment, increased 0.6% through June.
That has translated to buoyant conditions for steel mills. In May alone, a
record 92 million tons was produced, more than the US steel industry has made in
any year since 2007. Despite a price surge for benchmark iron ore that last week
prompted the Dalian Commodities Exchange to warn investors about price
volatility and a stockpile of construction rebar that’s running at about twice
average seasonal levels, prices are at their best in 12 months and blast
furnaces are making good money.
The pandemic-induced weakness in the steel sector outside China is also making
it more attractive to pollute. Coking coal, a crucial ingredient in sinter feed,
is at some of its lowest levels in years thanks to sluggish demand from India,
Japan and South Korea. In recent years it’s typically sold for two or three
times the price of iron ore. For the first time since 2014, however, the two
commodities are now touching parity.
So far there’s little sign that Beijing is seeing the pickup in particulate
concentrations that typically accompanies a narrowing in the lump premium. That
may be largely due to prevailing wind directions keeping pollution locked up in
areas of Hebei and Shandong provinces where steelmaking is concentrated.
Over the coming months, steel production is likely to be running full tilt.
China’s summer rains and floods are receding, giving construction workers a
narrow window of opportunity to get building until October rolls around and
winter weather brings more severe, and strictly enforced, steel production curbs
— not to mention a possible revival of coronavirus infections.
Pollution has long dogged China’s industrialization, responsible for 1.1 million
premature deaths in 2015 alone. Better air quality since then has been a key
priority for Beijing, suggesting that quality of life might finally take
precedence over growth at all costs.
Chinese politicians have taken pride in the way they’ve managed to largely
suppress Covid-19 while getting the economy moving again — but if the price of
kick-starting economic growth is a renewed burden of pollution-related
fatalities, it’s going to be a distinctly Pyrrhic victory.