English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 19/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.august19.20.htm
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2006
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Bible Quotations For today
Verses telling the Story of Zechariah the
Priest & His Wife Elizabeth, John the Papist’s Parents
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint
Luke01/01-25/:”Since many have undertaken to set down an orderly account of the
events that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed on to us by
those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, I too
decided, after investigating everything carefully from the very first, to write
an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the
truth concerning the things about which you have been instructed. In the days of
King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the
priestly order of Abijah. His wife was a descendant of Aaron, and her name was
Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according
to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children,
because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years. Once when he
was serving as priest before God and his section was on duty, he was chosen by
lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the
Lord and offer incense. Now at the time of the incense-offering, the whole
assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel
of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah
saw him, he was terrified; and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him,
‘Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife
Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and
gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight
of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he
will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel
to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before
him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children, and the disobedient to the
wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’Zechariah
said to the angel, ‘How will I know that this is so? For I am an old man, and my
wife is getting on in years.’The angel replied, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the
presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good
news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in
their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things
occur.’ Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah, and wondered at his
delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he could not speak to them, and
they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to
them and remained unable to speak. When his time of service was ended, he went
to his home. After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months
she remained in seclusion. She said, ‘This is what the Lord has done for me when
he looked favourably on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my
people.’”
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 18-19/2020
Lebanon's Ministry of Health: 421 new coronavirus infection cases
Lebanon Reimposes Lockdown, Curfew amid COVID-19 Spike
STL Says No Evidence Hizbullah, Syria Leaderships Tied to Hariri Murder
Spokesman for UN Secretary-General on STL: Judgement in Hariri’s case reflects
international community’s commitment to justice
Hariri: Hezbollah must cooperate and the tribunal has shown a high level of
credibility
Hariri Urges 'Punishment' of 'Murderers', Calls on Hizbullah to Make Sacrifices
Disappointment and Satisfaction in Tariq al-Jedideh after STL Verdicts
Aoun: We Have to Accept What Will be Issued by STL
Berri: After STL ruling we must adhere to the Lebanon that martyr Hariri
believed in
'Vision from Hell': Losing an Eye to the Beirut Blast
Hariri Assassination: The Day that Rocked Lebanon
Hajjar on STL Verdicts: Mustaqbal Wants Truth Not Revenge
Lebanon: From Hariri Assassination to Verdict
Saudi Embassy Denies Remarks Attributed to Bukhari about Hizbullah
Statement by Global Affairs Canada on Special Tribunal for Lebanon’s verdict in
Ayyash et al. case
FPM supporters rally along Baabda Palace road
Aoun receives Ambassador Foucher, discusses arrangements for President Macron’s
upcoming visit to Lebanon
Youtube Vidio Panel on Lebanon From The FDD
15 years on, Rafik Hariri's killers still at large/The National Editorial/August
18/2020
Rafik Hariri killing: son of former Lebanon PM ‘will not rest’ until punishment
done as Hezbollah member convicted/Callum Paton/The National/August 18/2020
Blast hits Beirut's beloved Le Chef hard/Khaled Yacoub Oweis/The National/August
18/2020
Factbox: Heavily-armed Hezbollah is Lebanon's most powerful group/Reuters/August
18/2020
Lebanon badly needs an independent civil service/Sami Mahroum/The
National/August 18/2020
Why Macron's Lebanon visit has garnered mixed reviews/Colin Randall/The
National/Aug 18, 2020
Why we must steer clear of the Lebanon aid trap/It’s time for Uncle Sam to draw
the line/Jonathan Schanzer and Tony Badran/FDD/August 18/2020
Aoun’s interview with Italian daily: Lebanese judiciary responsible for deciding
on Beirut Port explosion
Le Liban, le fascisme chiite et la seconde implosion du Moyen Orient/Charles
Elias Chartouni/August 18/2020
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published
on August 18-19/2020
Iran, Turkey, Ben Rhodes, Tlaib United in Criticism of UAE-Israel
Deal
Israel Mossad head and UAE national security adviser discuss security
cooperation
Six major events in Oman-Israel relations: Timeline
Pompeo to visit UN headquarters to submit complaint on Iran nuclear deal:
Diplomats
Egypt’s parliament passes law shielding sex crime victims’ identities
Rebel soldiers holding Mali president, PM: Official
Democratic state AGs to sue Trump administration over postal changes
Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous
sources published on August 18-19/2020
Tensions in Gaza and on Israel’s Northern Border –
What Next?/Jacob Nagel/Jonathan Schanzer/August 18/2020
Palestinians part of intl. system despite rejecting every peace plan/Jonathan
Schachter/FDD/August 18/2020
Joe Biden Will Be America’s Most Pro-Kurdish President/Aykan Erdemir and Philip
Kowalski/FDD/August 18/2020
US intelligence indicates Iran paid bounties to Taliban for targeting American
troops in Afghanistan/Zachary Cohen/CNN/August 18/2020
US intelligence indicates Iran paid bounties to Taliban for targeting American
troops in Afghanistan/Zachary Cohen/CNN/August 18/2020
Trump: Christians Treated ‘Horribly, Beyond Disgracefully’ in Middle East
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute./August 18/2020
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 18-19/2020
Lebanon's Ministry of Health: 421 new coronavirus infection
cases
NNA/August 18/2020
The Ministry of Public Health announced 421 new cases of coronavirus infection,
bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 9,758.
Lebanon Reimposes Lockdown, Curfew amid COVID-19 Spike
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2020
Lebanese authorities on Tuesday announced a new lockdown and a nighttime curfew
to rein in a spike in coronavirus infections. The new measures will come into
effect on Friday morning and last just over two weeks, the interior ministry
said, adding that they would not affect the clean-up and aid effort following
the devastating August 4 Beirut port blast. A statement issued by the ministry
said the nighttime curfew would begin at 6pm and be lifted at 6am. It added that
the sectors that will be exempted from the lockdown are public institutions,
security forces, health and medical facilities, emergency workers, foodstuff and
essential factories, wholesale foodstuff markets, hotels, gas stations, banks
and financial institutions. Restaurants, cafes, sweets
shops and bakeries will meanwhile be allowed to offer takeaway and delivery
services between 6am and 5 pm.
Grocery shops, butcheries and shops that sell fish and poultry will also be
allowed to operate from 6am to 5pm.
STL Says No Evidence Hizbullah, Syria Leaderships Tied to
Hariri Murder
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 18/2020
Judges at a U.N.-backed tribunal said Tuesday that there was no evidence the
leaderships of Hizbullah and Syria were involved in the 2005 suicide truck bomb
assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Sketching the complex political backdrop for the assassination, Presiding Judge
David Re of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon said that in the months before his
death, Hariri was a supporter of reducing the influence of Syria in Lebanon and
that of Hizbullah in Syria. He said judges who studied reams of evidence in the
trial of four Hizbullah members accused of involvement in the bombing were "of
the view that Syria and Hizbullah may have had motives to eliminate Mr. Hariri,
and some of his political allies."But he added that there was no evidence that "Hizbullah
leadership had any involvement in Mr. Hariri's murder, and there is no direct
evidence of Syrian involvement in it." Re was speaking as he delivered the final
judgments in the trial. The court was not expected to rule on either Hizbullah
or Syria -- but on the four named Hizbullah suspects -- as the tribunal can only
accuse individuals, not groups or states. The verdicts were delayed by nearly
two weeks as a mark of respect for victims of another devastating explosion --
the detonation of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut's port.
The Aug. 4 blast killed around 180 people, injured more than 6,000, left a
quarter of a million with homes unfit to live in and plunged a nation already
reeling from economic and social malaise even deeper into crisis. Re started the
hearing with a minute's silence to start the hearing to honor victims of the
blast and their families as well as those made homeless by the port blast. He
was reading a summary of the written judgment that runs to more than 2,600 pages
with some 13,000 footnotes.
Guilty verdicts could compound tensions in the tiny country. Hariri was
Lebanon's most prominent Sunni politician at the time of his Feb. 14, 2005,
assassination, while the Iran-backed Hizbullah is a Shiite Muslim group. The
trial centered on the alleged roles of four Hizbullah members in the suicide
truck bombing that killed Hariri and 21 others and wounded 226 people.
Prosecutors based their case largely on data from mobile phones allegedly used
by the plotters to plan and execute the bombing.
Without the phone data there would be no case against the four suspects, Re
said, as he began explaining the complex investigation into the telecom networks
prosecutors say the suspects used. Re said that the telecom evidence in the case
was "almost entirely circumstantial."
However, another judge, Janet Nosworthy, later said that judges had ruled that
four different networks of mobile phones "were interconnected and coordinated
with each other, and operated as covert networks at the relevant times."
During the trial, which started in 2014 and spanned 415 days of hearings, the
tribunal in Leidschendam, near The Hague, heard evidence from 297 witnesses.
Initially, five suspects were tried, all of them Hizbullah members. Charges
against one of the group's top military commanders, Mustafa Badreddine, were
dropped after he was killed in Syria in 2016. The remaining suspects are Salim
Ayyash, also known as Abu Salim; Assad Sabra, Hassan Oneissi, who changed his
name to Hassan Issa and Hassan Habib Merhi. They are charged with offenses
including conspiracy to commit a terrorist act. If they are convicted, hearings
will be held at a later date to determine their sentences. As the U.N.-backed
court has no death sentence, the maximum sentence is life imprisonment.
None of the men is ever likely to serve time as Hizbullah has vowed not to hand
over any suspects. Prosecutors and defense lawyers can appeal the verdicts.
The assassination was seen by many in Lebanon as the work of Syria, a charge
Damascus denies and which the judges now say was not borne out by evidence in
the trial. Some Lebanese see the tribunal as an impartial way of uncovering the
truth about Hariri's slaying, while Hizbullah -- which denies involvement --
calls it an Israeli plot to tarnish the group. Hariri's son Saad, himself a
former prime minister, is attending the day-long delivery of the judgment and
was one of four victims present in the courtroom for the hearing.
Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah last week insisted on the innocence of
the suspects regardless of the verdicts. "For us it will be as if they were
never issued," he said of the verdicts.
Abed Itani, a supporter of the Hariri family in the Beirut neighborhood of Tariq
al-Jedideh, said: "We have been waiting for the truth for 15 years and God
willing today the truth will be made public. All what we want from the world and
the Lebanese state is for those who carried out this explosion to be punished in
accordance with justice."
Spokesman for UN Secretary-General on STL: Judgement in Hariri’s case reflects
international community’s commitment to justice
NNA/August 18/2020
Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the United Nations Secretary-General, on
Tuesday delivered the following remarks in the wake of the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon’s verdict: “The Secretary-General takes note of today’s delivery by the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) of the judgement in which Mr. Salim Jamil
Ayyash was convicted in relation to the 14 February 2005 attack in Beirut that
killed former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and 21 others, and injured
226 more. In the same judgment, the three other accused, Mr. Hassan Habib Merhi,
Mr. Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Mr. Assad Hassan Sabra were found not guilty. The
Secretary-General’s thoughts are with the victims of the 14 February attack, and
their families. The judgement in the case is a reflection of the international
community’s commitment to justice for the terrible crimes committed on that day.
The Secretary-General expresses his deep appreciation for the dedication and
hard work of the judges and staff involved in this case throughout the years.
The Secretary-General notes the independence and impartiality of the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon and calls upon all to respect the decision of the Tribunal.
The Secretary‑General also calls on the international community to continue to
support the independent judicial proceedings that remain before the STL.
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is an independent court of law established at
the request of the Government of Lebanon, with a clear mandate from the United
Nations Security Council.”—UNIC
Hariri: Hezbollah must cooperate and the tribunal
has shown a high level of credibility
NNA/August 18/2020
After reading a press statement in Leidschendam, following the pronouncement by
the Special Tribunal for Lebanon of its judgment in the case of the
assassination of martyr Prime Minister Rafic Hariri and his companions, Former
Prime Minister Saad Hariri answered the journalists' questions:
Question: Did you accept the decision of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, at a
time when the court says that it has no answers about who bought the explosives
and other things, and in light of all this ambiguity?
Hariri: The tribunal convicted Salim Ayyash and said that his responsibility was
proven. There is no doubt that there is a lot of information that the tribunal
could not obtain due to the situation that Lebanon was going through. Basically,
it is not the court's job to press political accusations, as it is an
international court that has credibility and bases its verdicts on evidence.
There were four accused, one of them was convicted and the other three were
acquitted. This is the strength and credibility of this court. Some believed
that the tribunal had issued in advance verdicts against the four suspects, and
perhaps more, and that the decision was already in the drawers of the United
Nations. No, the tribunal has proven that it has great credibility.
Question: The court said that the assassination was political and that it took
place two weeks before a Bristol meeting. What does this indicate?
Hariri: We know what happened then and we used to say it every day. But the
issue is different when a tribunal says this. There is a difference when Saad
Hariri or someone else says these words and when the president of the tribunal
says that this crime took place. Rafic Hariri was assassinated because he was
against the Syrian regime's policy and wanted to get the regime out of Lebanon.
We all said this, but when the tribunal says it, it proves that everything we
said in the past was true.
Question: The judge said that there is no evidence that the leadership of
Hezbollah and Syria were involved in this assassination. Isn't Mustafa Badr El
Din a leader in Hezbollah? Is it a stamp of innocence to Hezbollah and Syria?
Hariri: Read the tribunal’s decision and listen to what its president said. He
spoke in politics about the reasons that led to this assassination, especially
the last Bristol meeting in which former ministers Ghattas Khoury and Ahmed
Fatfat participated, and since then the decision was issued to assassinate him.
This is what the tribunal said. I am not here today to explain what the tribunal
did, and what it did not do. In 2005 the Lebanese demanded justice and truth,
and the tribunal today said its word. It is our duty as a family and Lebanese to
accept the tribunal’s decision, and this does not mean that things are over.
There are still the cases of Marwan Hamade and others, and no one knows what
will be issued regarding them.
Question: How do you describe what happened today?
Hariri: Many presidents and prime ministers have been assassinated in Lebanon,
and we never got to the truth. Perhaps everyone's expectations were much greater
than what the tribunal came out with, but I think that the tribunal came out
with satisfactory results, and we accepted them. We believe that many other
things are unknown yet, and if they are known and disclosed, they would support
the ruling issued today by the Special Tribunal. For example, if we know the
eight people who used the eight phone numbers, this would solve everything.
Question: What if Hezbollah refuses to hand over Ayyash?
Hariri: I believe that coexistence is the basis, and if we want this
coexistence, every party must admit its mistakes. The country cannot rise if
everyone lies to the other. We have to be honest with each other so that we can
move to the next phase of nation building. Hezbollah must cooperate on this
issue and I think the tribunal has shown a high level of credibility and that it
is not politicized. Question: Don't you think that the tribunal’s fear of
politicization was a major reason for indicting one person. The explosion wiped
out the entire convoy of Prime Minister Hariri, so how can this great crime be
confined to Ayyash alone?
Hariri: If the tribunal had accused many people, they would have said that it is
politicized. Today they accused one person and they still say that it is
politicized. For me, as Saad Hariri and as a Lebanese citizen who wanted this
international tribunal to do the work and put everything we have in politics so
that this tribunal would succeed, I see that the tribunal issued a judgment that
we must accept and move forward.-- Hariri Press Office
Hariri Urges 'Punishment' of 'Murderers', Calls on
Hizbullah to Make Sacrifices
Naharnet/August 18/2020
Ex-PM Saad Hariri said Tuesday he accepted a special tribunal's verdict over the
2005 murder of his father, former prime minister Rafik Hariri.
"The court has ruled, and in the name of the family of the late prime
minister Rafik Hariri and on behalf of the families of the martyrs and victims,
we accept the court's ruling," he said outside the court.
"Today, we have all discovered the truth," added Hariri, who attended the
heavily secured court for the judgement. "The verdict sends a message to the
killers that the era of political crimes is over," the ex-PM added.
The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon on Tuesday found Salim Ayyash, a
member of Hizbullah, guilty over Hariri's murder, but cleared three other
suspects after a years-long trial. Ayyash, 56, was convicted in absentia by the
Netherlands-based court over a huge suicide bombing in Beirut that killed the
Sunni billionaire politician and 21 other people.
Judges said there was not enough evidence to convict Assad Sabra, 43, Hussein
Oneissi, 46, and Hassan Habib Merhi, 54, over the blast, which changed the face
of the Middle East. The judges also said there was no evidence to directly link
Syria -- the former military overlord in Lebanon -- or Hizbullah's leadership to
the attack. Hariri on Tuesday said the verdict
demonstrated the court's objectivity and "high credibility," as only one of four
suspects was found guilty, when court critics, including Hizbullah, had expected
a wholesale guilty sentence from what they have called a "politicized"
court.Even though the court did not link Hizbullah's leadership to the attack,
Hariri said he still believed the Iran-backed movement was responsible.
"Today, the party that should make sacrifices is Hizbullah," he said.
"It is clear that the network responsible is from its ranks," he added,
saying that the perpetrators thought they could dodge justice and punishment
because of Hizbullah's protection. "We will not rest until the punishment is
carried out," Hariri said.
"The Lebanese, as of today, will not accept for their country to be a haven for
murderers." "We are known, we speak with uncovered faces and with our true
names. We tell everyone: let no one expect any sacrifice from us anymore. We
have sacrificed the most precious things we have and we won’t abandon Lebanon,"
the ex-PM added. Turning to the devastating and deadly
explosion that rocked Beirut on August 4, Hariri said: "My new demand after the
terrible disaster of Aug. 4 is that truth and justice for Rafik Hariri should
establish for knowing the truth and justice for all the innocents and wounded
who fell in Beirut’s bombing.""We will not give up Beirut’s right," he added.
"Justice and truth are the demand of all Lebanese, so don't push them into a
confrontation," Hariri warned.
Disappointment and Satisfaction in Tariq al-Jedideh
after STL Verdicts
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 18/2020
Some supporters of ex-PM Saad Hariri in the Beirut district of Tariq al-Jedideh
on Tuesday expressed anger and disappointment at the verdicts issued by the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon over Rafik Hariri’s assassination.
"If a police station in Tariq al-Jedideh had investigated this crime, it
would have been a better result," one man, driving away on a scooter, told a
local television station. MTV meanwhile reported that
residents on the streets in Tariq al-Jedideh were split between “those
disappointed by the STL verdict and those saying that they accept the ruling and
do not want strife in the country.”
The U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon had earlier on Tuesday convicted
one member of Hizbullah, Salim Ayyash, and acquitted three others of involvement
in the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri. The STL
said Salim Ayyash was guilty as a co-conspirator of five charges linked to his
involvement in the suicide truck bombing. Hariri and 21 others were killed and
226 were wounded in a huge blast outside a seaside hotel in Beirut on Feb. 14,
2005. However, after a years-long investigation and trial, three other Hizbullah
members were acquitted of all charges that they also were involved in the
killing of Hariri, which sent shockwaves through the Mideast.
None of the suspects were ever arrested and were not in court to hear the
verdicts.The tribunal's judges also said there was no evidence the leaderships
of Hizbullah and Syria were involved in the attack, despite saying the
assassination happened as Hariri and his political allies were discussing
calling for an "immediate and total withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon,"
Presiding Judge David Re said.
Aoun: We Have to Accept What Will be Issued by STL
Naharnet/August 18/2020
President Michel Aoun has called for "accepting" the verdicts that will be
issued by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the case of the 2005 assassination
of Rafik Hariri. "We have to accept what will be issued by the STL, although
delayed justice is not justice," said Aoun in an interview with Italian
newspaper Corriere Della Sera."This crime has greatly affected the life of the
Lebanese and the course of events in Lebanon," he noted. As for the controversy
over his latest stances on peace with Israel, the president said there can be no
peace before Israel ends its occupation of any occupied Lebanese territory. He
also said that hinges on resolving the border disputes, the Palestinian cause
and the issue of refugees.
Berri: After STL ruling we must adhere to the Lebanon that martyr Hariri
believed in
NNA/August 18/2020
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri commented on the ruling issued by the Special
Tribunal for Lebanon in the case of the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri, saying: "Just as Lebanon has lost on February 14, 2005, with the
martyrdom of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, an irreplaceable national figure,
today and after the ruling of the Special Court, it is necessary that we win the
Lebanon that the martyred PM believed in; a unified nation.""Let the Lebanese
showcase reason and kindness, as expressed by Prime Minister Saad Hariri on
behalf of the family of the deceased. Mercy for the soul of martyr Hariri and
for all the martyrs, and may God protect Lebanon," he said.
'Vision from Hell': Losing an Eye to the Beirut
Blast
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2020
A white plume, a huge orange blast and black smoke engulfing him: those were the
last things Rony Mecattaf saw when the Beirut explosion maimed him and his city.
"I have lost my whole lateral vision -- and even maybe my self image,"
the 59-year-old psychotherapist said, blood still oozing from a large vertical
gash that has destroyed his right eye. "When I look at myself in the mirror," he
said, he now has to adjust to a new image, no longer the former "me with two
eyes".The powerful August 4 explosion that killed 177 people and devastated
swathes of the Lebanese capital also left thousands wounded, mostly from flying
shards of glass. At least 400 people suffered ocular
injuries, more than 50 required surgery, and at least 15 were permanently
blinded in one eye, according to data compiled by major hospitals in and around
Beirut. Sitting in his office 10 days after the blast, on a couch usually
reserved for his patients, Mecattaf repeatedly used a tissue to dab the long,
stitched facial wound. "The blast effect," the therapist said drily, gesturing
towards his injury. Mecattaf was sitting on a friend's balcony overlooking the
port when the explosion hurled him across the flat and against the front door as
though he was a "speck of dust". He still doesn't know if it was the door or a
flying fragment of the window that sliced through his eye. Doctors later told
him that the pressure from the colossal blast alone could have literally caused
his eyeball it to explode, making it all the more difficult to repair.
'Stages of loss'
In the chaotic and terrifying hours after the disaster, it took a "series of
angelic interventions" for Mecattaf to finally get onto an operating table, he
said. First a stranger on a tiny moped took him and zipped through the wreckage
like a "madman" to get him to a hospital -- but the clinic was so badly hit it
turned him away. A Christian nun then happened to pull up her vehicle, yelled at
him to get in and drove him to another hospital, which however also turned out
to be out of service because of the blast."The city was a vision from hell,"
Mecattaf said. Finally, his friend arranged for an eye surgery in southern
Lebanon. The operation took at least two hours. His eye could not be saved.
Mecattaf said that nonetheless he was "luckier than most" blast victims, but he
also admitted that losing an eye could feel like grieving for a dead person.
"The five stages of loss or grief, I find there is something very similar here
in what can happen."
- 'Half blind' -
The port explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate caused a blast wave so
strong it shattered an inordinate amount of glass that was still being swept off
the streets two weeks later. With windows shattering more than eight kilometres
(five miles) away, glass-related injuries accounted for a bulk of the 6,500
wounded. In an eye hospital north of Beirut, Maroun Dagher settled into an
examination chair for his third checkup since the disaster. The 34-year-old web
developer said the Beirut explosion "changed everything", with the loss of
binocular vision turning even the simplest tasks into major challenges. Being
able one day to pour Arabic coffee into miniature cups without spilling it would
feel near-miraculous, he said. Dagher's face had been close to a window, just a
city block away from the habourside blast site, when the explosion blew a two-centimetre-long
shard into his left eye. For the first few days afterwards, his pain was "just
physical," he said, but his agony took on a new dimension when he was told his
vision was most likely permanently impaired. Mornings have been especially
difficult since. "I would have dreams that I could see everything and then I
wake up," he said.
"That's when you feel the bad emotions coming out. You just wake up half blind."
'Safest place' -
Syrian construction worker Makhoul Al-Hamad, 43, from the city of Manbij in the
north of his war-torn country, has been living in the same Beirut neighbourhood
since 1995. He used to believe that the capital's Mar Mikhael district was the
"safest place in Lebanon". That is why his daughter Sama, born in Manbij when it
was ruled by the Islamic State jihadist group, came to live with him in 2016
along with her mother and three siblings. She was just one year old at the time,
and had celebrated her sixth birthday a few weeks before the port explosion.
Tragically, Sama was sitting close to a window when the blast also sent shards
of glass flying into her left eye. On the roof of their damaged house, the
wasteland that is now Beirut's port behind her, Sama smiled even though the eye
was completely bandaged. With her retina blown out, doctors have told her
parents she would need reconstruction surgery abroad -- but her father simply
can't afford it. Holding her in his arms, he said: "I wish all the suffering
that befell people had hit me instead, if that would have spared Sama."
Hariri Assassination: The Day that Rocked Lebanon
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2020
The death of Rafik Hariri is to many Lebanese what the JFK assassination was to
Americans four decades earlier -- everybody remembers what they were doing when
the news broke. On Valentine's Day 2005, the former prime minister who embodied
the reconstruction of the country after its 1975-1990 civil war was killed in a
monster bomb attack on his convoy. The blast unleashed a ball of fire in the
hotel quarter of downtown Beirut, shooting debris into the sky and shattering
windows in a radius of nearly half a kilometre (500 yards). A suicide bomber in
a white Mitsubishi truck packed with two tonnes of a potent military explosive
called RDX had strategically positioned himself, waiting for Hariri's motorcade.
He detonated his charge at 12:55 pm, a split second after the passage of the
third car in the convoy, a Mercedes S600 that Hariri was driving himself. The
whole of Beirut heard or felt the blast. Many thought an earthquake had struck.
The smouldering crater dug by the explosion was 10 metres (yards) across. One
body was found 17 days after the blast, such was the devastation caused by the
attack that left 226 people wounded.
The country soon found out that among the 22 dead was the man whose stature at
home and abroad had earned him the nickname of "Mr Lebanon". The unthinkable had
just happened. Hariri was no longer prime minister at the time but still very
much the country's towering political figure and widely tipped to reclaim the
job in upcoming polls. The assassination was not entirely a surprise, however,
and there had been warnings since Hariri had cast himself as the spearhead of a
drive to end Syria's occupation of Lebanon. Earlier in February that year, his
friend then French president Jacques Chirac and then UN envoy Terje Roed-Larsen
had implored Hariri to lay low. Among other foreboding signs, his friend and
former cabinet minister Marwan Hamade had narrowly survived a similar attack on
his convoy in October 2004.
Fifteen years after the end of the civil war, Hariri's assassination became the
watershed in Lebanon's post-conflict history. The public backlash over his
murder precipitated the departure of Syrian forces that had occupied the country
for three decades. That in turn gave Hezbollah, a key suspect in the
assassination of the Sunni Muslim leader, a chance to grow and fill the vacuum.
The Shiite movement is an organisation whose firepower rivals that of the
Lebanese military and it has since evolved to also dominate the country's
political life.
Some of the buildings left standing in the seaside area where the February 14
bomb went off still bear the marks of the explosion. Hariri's supporters
continue to visit the site, where a statue of the portly slain leader was
erected.
Hajjar on STL Verdicts: Mustaqbal Wants Truth Not Revenge
Naharnet/August 18/2020
There are “strict instructions” from al-Mustaqbal Movement to prevent “any
reactions on the ground” over the verdicts that will be issued Tuesday by the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the case of the 2005 assassination of ex-PM
Rafik Hariri, a Mustaqbal MP said. “We won't allow the verdict to drag the
country into any internal troubles,” Hajjar told al-Jadeed TV. “Mustaqbal wants
truth, not revenge,” he said, while noting that “everyone should know that they
can’t have impunity and the post-August 17 era will be different.”He also
pointed out that the the rulings have nothing to do wit the issue of the new
government.
Lebanon: From Hariri Assassination to Verdict
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 18/2020
The special tribunal trying the four suspects accused of the 2005 assassination
of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri is expected to deliver its
verdict on Tuesday.A recap of key developments in the case:
- Assassination -
A massive suicide bomb tears through Hariri's armoured convoy on the Beirut
seafront in February 2005, killing him and 21 other people. Opposition leaders
blame Syria but Damascus denies any role. Lebanon's powerful Shiite movement
Hezbollah is also strongly suspected. Amid a groundswell of protests, Syrian
troops quit Lebanon on April 26 after a 29-year deployment which had peaked at
40,000 troops. Later that year, a United Nations commission says there is
evidence that Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services were involved in the
killing.
- Special tribunal -
In 2007, following a UN Security Council resolution, the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon (STL) is established to try those accused of carrying out the attack.
The anti-Syrian majority in Lebanon celebrate the move, while Hezbollah, ally of
Damascus and Tehran, says it violates Lebanese sovereignty. In March 2009 the
STL opens in The Hague suburb of Leidschendam. The following month it orders the
release of four Lebanese generals held in custody in Lebanon since 2005 without
charge over the assassination.
Suspicion falls on Hezbollah
In July 2010, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah says his party is likely to be
implicated in Hariri's assassination. In November, he warns his group will "cut
off the hand" of anyone who tries to arrest any of its partisans over the
assassination.
The following June, the STL issues an indictment and arrest warrants for four
Lebanese suspects. The interior ministry confirms the suspects are the Hezbollah
members Mustafa Badreddine, Salim Ayyash, Assad Sabra and Hussein Oneissi.
Nasrallah rejects the charges along with "each and every void accusation" by the
court, which he says is heading for a trial in absentia. In August the STL
decides it has enough evidence to try the four Hezbollah members and publishes
the full indictment. In October 2013 the tribunal indicts a fifth suspect over
the assassination -- Hezbollah member Hassan Habib Merhi.
- Trial in absentia -
The trial opens in Leidschendam on January 16, 2014, with the four Hezbollah
members in absentia. According to the prosecution, Badreddine and Ayyash
organised and carried out the attack, while Oneissi and Sabra are accused of
delivering a video to the broadcaster Al Jazeera with a false claim of
responsibility, to protect the real killers. In February the tribunal announces
it is adding the fifth suspect to the trial, Merhi. In May 2016, Hezbollah
announces Badreddine's death in an attack in Syria. Two years later the trial,
in which the STL says more than 300 people have given evidence, enters its final
phase.
Separate indictment ز In September 2019, the tribunal
indicts Ayyash over three other deadly attacks on politicians in 2004 and 2005.
He is charged by a pre-trial judge with terrorism and murder over attacks that
killed the ex-leader of the Lebanese Communist Party Georges Hawi and two
others, as well as wounding several people.Following a huge and deadly blast at
Beirut's port on August 4, blamed on an unsecured store of ammonium nitrate, the
STL postpones the delivery of its verdict, originally due on August 7.
On August 14 Hezbollah says it will ignore the verdict.
Saudi Embassy Denies Remarks Attributed to Bukhari
about Hizbullah
Naharnet/August 18/2020
The Saudi embassy in Lebanon on Tuesday denied as baseless remarks attributed to
Saudi Ambassador Walid Bukhari about the Special Tribunal for Lebanon and
Hizbullah's role in Lebanon's political life. "The ambassador did not speak to
the (Bahraini) newspaper (al-Bilad), which did not verify the report before
publishing it in line with professionalism and journalistic ethics," the embassy
said in a statement. "Whoever assesses the content of the fabricated report
would understand the motive behind its publishing and that the aim is to
question the justice of the international tribunal," the embassy added, noting
that it reserves the right to take legal action. A
tweet on the account of Bahraini daily al-Bilad had earlier quoted Bukhari as
saying that "the political parties in Lebanon must consider the issuance of the
STL verdict in the case of the assassination of the martyr Rafik Hariri a golden
chance to eliminate Hizbullah from the Lebanese political scene."A session to
announce the verdicts in the Hariri case had kicked off earlier in the day.
The court said Tuesday that several Hizbullah suspects are accused of
involvement in the crime, while noting that it does not have evidence to
incriminate the leaderships of Hizbullah and Syria.
Statement by Global Affairs Canada on Special Tribunal for
Lebanon’s verdict in Ayyash et al. case
August 18, 2020 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs
Canada
Global Affairs Canada today issued the following statement:
“Today’s guilty verdict by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon [STL] concerning
Salim Ayyash in the Ayyash et al. case is a significant milestone for justice in
that country. It is the culmination of 11 years of work by dedicated STL
officials and numerous others to pursue accountability following the 2005
assassination of Lebanon’s then-prime minister Rafik Hariri and the killing of
21 others.
“The STL’s decision sends a strong message that those who perpetrate terrorist
acts and threaten international peace and security will be held accountable.
“We acknowledge that this verdict may not bring the closure desired by many in
Lebanon. However, today’s verdict upholds the principle of accountability and
serves as a small but significant step forward in the continued pursuit for
democracy, justice and security in Lebanon. Canada will continue to strongly
support the Lebanese people in these efforts, particularly in the face of
existing challenges, which have been greatly amplified by the devastating
explosions of August 4 in Beirut.”
Quick facts
The Special Tribunal for Lebanon is an independent court, established with the
primary mandate of holding trials for people accused of carrying out the
February 14, 2005, attack, which killed 22 people, including Lebanon’s
then-prime minister Rafik Hariri.
Canada has been a long-standing supporter of the STL, in line with Canada’s
priorities of supporting international law and the fight against impunity for
the perpetrators of serious international crimes.
Since the STL’s inception, Canada has contributed approximately $8 million by
way of direct financial contributions and through the secondment of several RCMP
investigators.
Canada is providing over $365.5 million in international assistance to Lebanon
between 2016-2021 as part of Canada’s Middle East Strategy, and has committed
$30 million in the wake of the explosions of August 4 in Beirut.
FPM supporters rally along Baabda Palace road
NNA/August 18/2020
Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) supporters gathered along the presidential palace
road at the Sayyad Roundabout, in a demonstration in support of the President of
the Republic, Michel Aoun, and in rejection of offenses against the presidency
post and the president in person, our NNA correspondent reported on Tuesday. FPM
supporters set out in a march from outside the FPM’s office in Baabda before
reaching the presidential palace road.
The Movement’s supporters deemed President Aoun as the protector of Lebanon and
the country’s constitution sovereignty and stability, hailing him as being the
initiator of the anti-corruption march and the demand for the long aspired
reforms.
Aoun receives Ambassador Foucher, discusses arrangements for President Macron’s
upcoming visit to Lebanon
NNA/August 18/2020
President Aoun met the French Ambassador to Lebanon, Bruno Foucher, today at the
Presidential Palace, and discussed with him the results of the French
President’s visit to Beirut a few days ago. The discussion also tackled the
points that were raised during President Macron’s meetings with Lebanese
politicians and officials, in addition to arrangements of his upcoming visit to
Lebanon, early next September.
Head of the Constitutional Council:
President Aoun then received Head of the Constitutional Council, Judge Tannous
Meshleb, and deliberated with him issues related to the Council’s work.
Former Minister Pakradouni:
The President met with former Minister, Karim Pakradouni, and discussed with him
general conditions and recent developments.—Presidency Press Office
Youtube Vidio Panel on Lebanon From The FDD
فيديو لحلقة نقاش من مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديموقراطية حول لبنان عنوانها: أزمة لبنان
المركبة: فساد ودمار واقتصاد على حافة الإنهيار
المشاركون الحلقة هم جويس كرم وجونسن شاكنسر وطوني بدران
وجيمس ريكاردز
Lebanon’s Compounding Crises: Corruption, Destruction, and an
Economy on the Brink of Collapse/FDD/Auust 16/2020
Panelists (clockwise from top left):
Joyce Karam, Washington Correspondent, The National
Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research, FDD
Tony Badran, Research Fellow, FDD
James Rickards, Advisor, FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power
AUGUST 17, 2020
https://youtu.be/OyLu44UDhwc
SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES INCLUDED BELOW.
About
The recent devastating explosion in Beirut – apparently an accident resulting
from an unmonitored 2750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate sitting for six years
at the country’s largest port – is just the latest example of the corruption and
mismanagement of the Lebanese government. Citizens are voicing their anger,
echoing the massive protests of 2019 stemming from a lack of public services.
Lebanon’s government has now resigned in response to what former Prime Minister
Diab called a “disaster beyond measure.”
In the midst of this, a new report by FDD advisor James Rickards reveals that
Lebanon has an estimated $93 billion in debt, possibly making a financial
collapse imminent, and traditional rescue plans all but impossible to deploy.
Discussions with the IMF – focused on the massive restructuring that would be
necessary were Lebanon to receive financial support – are deadlocked.
Complicating matters is that Lebanon’s strongest political and military faction
is Hezbollah, a designated terrorist organization that answers to the Islamic
Republic of Iran. Hezbollah’s illicit and corrupt activity is a primary cause of
Lebanon’s economic and political tailspin.
The COVID-19 pandemic, and the accompanying worldwide economic slowdown, will
not make solutions easier to find. Lebanon’s Compounding Crises: Corruption,
Destruction, and an Economy on the Brink of Collapse explores these critically
important and difficult crises facing Lebanon, and what should come next to help
the Lebanese people.
Aoun’s interview with Italian daily: Lebanese judiciary
responsible for deciding on Beirut Port explosion
NNA/August 18/2020
President Michel Aoun asserted that “There is a closed investigation into the
issue of the Beirut Port explosion, which is being conducted by the Judicial
Council, a Council concerned with examining important cases and the supreme
authority in the country. No one involved can remain hiding. We are morally
obligated not to drop any possibility, including external interference or local
reasons, even if we are convinced that it was an accident that occurred due to
the lack of caution of concerned parties operating in the port. We must
therefore investigate all hypotheses, in order to cut off any interpretations or
accusations of concealing facts”.
The President also stated that “Early parliamentary elections could be
conducted, but according to a law that guarantees respect for peoples’ choices,
and a parliamentary consensus must be obtained to shorten the Parliament’s term.
No time can be specified for that, and we hope that within a year we will reach
a request from the Parliament to shorten its mandate, but it is a decision which
is not up to me, but up to the Speaker of Parliament and MPs, as they are the
legislative authority in the country”.President Aoun stressed that “As long as
the Israeli occupation of Lebanese lands remains, in addition to other problems,
including land and sea borders, and the Palestinian clause from which Lebanon
receives refugees, unresolved, peace cannot be established with Israel”.
As for the expected verdict which will be issued by the International Tribunal
in the crime of assassinating former Premier, Rafic Hariri and his companions,
President Aoun stressed that “We must wait for the verdict to build on what is
required, and if people knew the guilty, they wouldn’t have resorted to court.
We must accept what will come from the International Tribunal, even if “Late
justice is no justice”. This crime has greatly affected the lives of the
Lebanese, and the course of events in Lebanon”.
The President’s stances came during an interview with the Italian newspaper,
Corriere Della Serra, at Baabda Palace, published today.
Interview Text:
President Aoun was firstly asked about his response to what is said that
Lebanese official refusal and some parties to the international investigation
into the explosion was due to fear of the ineffectiveness of the previous
administration, or the involvement of “Hezbollah” in this matter, and that local
investigation would conceal these facts. The President replied stressing that
“There are corrupt people in successive Governments and outside of them, so
before the crime occurred at the Port, we signed a contract with an American
company to conduct a forensic audit. The important issues are the highest
judicial authority in the country, and no one involved can remain hiding”.
Regarding the reason for his insistence not to abandon the hypothesis of an
external intervention in the explosion (The ward couldn’t be hit by a missile
for example), despite UNIFIL Commander confirmation after his contacts with
Israel and Lebanon, that any military action had occurred and that it was an
industrial accident. President Aoun said: “Many of the Lebanese, who gave their
testimonies about the explosion, said that they heard the roar of warplanes
before the explosion went off. Therefore, we are morally obligated not to drop
this possibility, and to investigate even if we are convinced that it was an
accident which occurred due to the lack of caution by concerned authorities at
the port. Therefore, we must investigate all hypotheses, in order to block any
interpretations or accusations of concealing facts”.
In response to another question, the President denied what was said that this
part of the Port contains weapons belonging to Hezbollah, which was behind the
magnitude of the explosion, asserting that “Ammonium nitrate materials have been
present in the Port since 2014, and everyone who works in the Port knows this.
There are many stories circulating. Although Hezbollah doesn’t need to store its
weapons in the Port, the ongoing investigations will uncover all matters and
determine responsibilities”.
In response to those demanding his resignation, the resignation of officials,
and a radical change in the Lebanese political regime, President Aoun explained
that he was “More radical than them and suffered many problems with the
Parliament, the majority of which do not comply with these demands. When I was
heading a parliamentary bloc, I submitted several reform bills. Some of which
were passed, including recent election law, and I hope that popular pressure
will lead to the passage of more reform laws. But we have to return to calm and
get out of the atmosphere of emotions that currently possesses angry people, so
that we can work”.
Elections & peace with Israel:
Asked about the period during which new early elections are expected according
to a new law, President Aoun said “We must run in the elections, but according
to a law which guarantees respect for the people’s choices, and a parliamentary
consensus must be reached on shortening the Parliament’s mandate in order to
hold early elections. We hope that within a year, we will reach a request from
Parliament to shorten its mandate, but it is not my decision, it is the decision
of the Parliament Speaker and Representatives, for they are the legislative
authority”.
Clarifying what he said about the possibility of peace with Israel if the
problems were overcome, the President assured that “I didn’t say a peace
agreement with Israel. There are numerous problems, including the existence of
occupied Lebanese land and non-demarcated land and sea borders, in addition to
the Palestinian issue. Lebanon is still receiving Palestinian refugees”.
In response to a question concerning elusive peace with Israel, the President
replied that “The date for peace couldn’t be determined in advance and related
to the development of events, and as long as the Israeli occupation of Lebanese
land continues, and other problems are not resolved, then peace cannot be
established with Israel”.
Concerning his relationship with Hezbollah, President Aoun indicated that he
made an understanding with the party in 2005, “But after the Israeli war in
2006, it was my duty to stand with the party. I am Lebanese and not Israeli, and
the party is Lebanese. We may disagree with Hezbollah on internal issues, but
when Israel intends to occupy parts of Lebanon and kill the Lebanese Hezbollah
on Lebanese soil, every Lebanese citizen must stand by the party against
aggressors”.
The President was then asked about the protester demands to disarm Hezbollah,
where he replied “Israeli fiery speeches that always threaten to strike
Hezbollah and Lebanon put it in a place of concern and it has gone through many
confrontations with Israel on Lebanese soil. When the conflict is resolved, the
party hands its weapons as a gift to the Lebanese army. From 15 years to
present, there has been no problem between Hezbollah and the Army or civilians,
except for the 7th of May 2008 incident, which was due to an attempt to hit the
party internally by cutting off its internal communications network”.
Regarding his position on the peace treaty between the UAE and Israel in light
of a great Iranian isolation, the President believed that he “Couldn’t impose
his opinion on an independent country that applies its vision and political
desire with others, regardless of my opinion on it. There is an Arab decision to
remain united to solve the problems with Israel within the Arab Peace
Initiative”.
As for the expected verdict from the International Tribunal for the
assassination of former Prime Minister, Rafic Hariri, and what international
observers expect from the involvement of the Syrian Government and Hezbollah in
the crime, the President considered that “It is a hypothetical question, and we
have to wait for the verdict to build on the merits, and if the people knew of
the guilty, they wouldn’t have resorted to the court. We must accept what will
come from the International Tribunal, even if late justice is no justice. This
crime has greatly affected the lives of the Lebanese and the course of Lebanese
events”.
Separation of religion from politics:
Regarding his position on separating religion from politics and public life,
President Aoun indicated that it is his project, but there are different customs
and traditions among the Lebanese people, and “We have a program to move from
the current situation to the civil state, but it requires a different
administrative organization, new laws and personal statuses, and this is our
program”.
Regarding European aid to Lebanon, President Aoun expressed his thanks to
Europe, the United States and other countries for what they had provided, and to
France for holding the international conference to aid Beirut and the Lebanese
people. The President asserted that he requested that the aid fund be under the
supervision of the United Nations, and “We still need other things besides food
aid, and people must be helped”.
President Aoun concluded the interview by answering a question about the severe
economic and financial crisis and its cause, stressing that “The crises came
together, including the Syrian war and the repercussions of the massive
displacement to Lebanon, which led to a population density of 600 people per
square kilometer and its cost to date amounted to 45 billion dollars, and the
results of the war had an economic impact on Lebanon and limited exports to
abroad through Syria and other matters, at a cost of about 20 billion dollars,
in addition to the suffocating economic crisis that resolved, and suffering from
the impact of the Corona virus. All these events together were the direct cause
of a financial crisis. And stifling economy, to which was also added the
catastrophic explosion in the port of Beirut and its severe impact”.—Presidency
Press Office
Le Liban, le fascisme chiite et la seconde implosion du
Moyen Orient
Charles Elias Chartouni/August 18/2020
شارل شرتوني: لبنان والفاشية الشيعية والانهيار الثاني للشرق الأوسط
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/89584/charles-elias-chartouni-le-liban-le-fascisme-chiite-et-la-seconde-implosion-du-moyen-orient-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%86%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%88%d8%a7/
L’explosion du port de Beyrouth a révélé au grand jour les visées meurtrières du Hezbollah, la vassalité d’un gouvernement fantoche qui dissimulait mal la mainmise de ce parti, et la transformation du Liban en plateforme opérationnelle desservant la politique de déstabilisation régionale de l’Iran, le
démantèlement
insidieux de l’État libanais, la mise en place d’une politique du colonisation
interne qui projette le remodelage de la géographie humaine du pays, et la
création d’un promontoire pour gérer l’économie souterraine opérant mondialement.
Nous ne sommes plus dans le cadre d’un conflit politique s’articulant autour
d’enjeux politique, économique ou social, nous sommes dans un scénario de
subversion politique et stratégique qui vise à détruire la raison d’être du
pays, son étayage institutionnel et ses équilibres structurels. Les propos tenus
par les clercs chiites, la doxa prévalant en milieu chiite, et les relents
génocidaires des menaces professées à l’endroit des chrétiens libanais, par
Hassan Nasrallah ( le chef du Hezbollah ), sont loins d’être équivoques. Il est
impossible de se mettre à la recherche d’une solution négociée à des différends
politiques majeurs, dès lors que les enjeux et l’ordre des priorités sont
décalés et font l’objet de définitions concurrentes.
L’approche de ce conflit bute désormais sur des enjeux qui remettent en question
la raison d’être du pays, la crédibilité des institutions politiques, les enjeux
existentiels de survie et des droits fondamentaux de la communauté chrétienne,
et le déclassement de la crise économique et ses effets hautement délétères. La
politique d’obstruction du Hezbollah et ses acolytes est délibérément mise en
place afin d’accélérer le rythme de désintégration du conglomérat institutionnel
et politique et l’effondrement économique du pays. Nous sommes là face à une
entreprise de subversion délibérée qui s’est servie des simulacres
institutionnels d’un État fictif, et des coalitions opportunistes qui lui
servaient de relais. Le soi disant président de la république, Michel Aoun, est
un quisling instrumentalisé dans le cadre d’une stratégie de noyautage et de
mise en orbite de la communauté chrétienne, qui préluderait une politique
d’expulsion sciemment mise au point dans le cadre d’une stratégie de
remplacement démographique qui avance sur multiples fronts, comme cela est
attesté ( Beyrouth Sud, Est, Centre, Kesrouan, Jbeil, Bekaa ... ).
l’explosion meurtrière du port de Beyrouth a permis de dévoiler les enjeux d’une
militarisation diffuse du milieu urbain moyennant l’entreposage de produits
chimique à usage militaire et de grande létalité, la stratégie des boucliers
humains dont le Hezbollah s’est servi de manière continue comme latitude
manœuvrière et en vue de promouvoir sa stature communautaire ( les victimes du
village de Cana ), et la nouvelle étape de prédation urbaine qui vise à détruire
l’écologie urbaine de Beyrouth et faire avancer la stratégie de colonisation des
secteurs chrétiens de la ville, comme cela a été amplement attesté par l’arrivée
immédiate des agents immobiliers, et dans le prolongement d’une politique de
colonisation de l’ensemble du grand Beyrouth et ses agglomérations péri-urbaines.
Le jeu institutionnel est désormais un faux semblant qui vise à dissimuler une
stratégie de conquête qui se drape de subterfuges juridiques creux qui renvoient
aux enjeux d’une politique d’occupation, et aux théâtres opérationnels d’un
Moyen Orient éclaté.
L’affrontement est désormais frontal entre deux scénarios, celui de la
reconstruction d’un Liban hypothétique qui se dissipe à vue d’œil, et ceux d’un
bouleversement géostratégique que laissent profiler les nouvelles guerres
régionales en gestation. Nous ne sommes plus dans le registre juridique et
institutionnel d’une entreprise réformiste et de reconstruction, nous sommes
dans le cadre stratégique d’un remaniement géopolitique qui amorce la seconde
étape de l’implosion du Moyen Orient. Les enjeux géostratégiques ne font plus
mystère et tout le reste n’est que théâtre des ombres.
15 years on, Rafik Hariri's killers still at large
The National Editorial/August 18/2020
Hezbollah cannot be allowed to wreak havoc upon the country unchallenged and
unpunished. Fifteen years after the assassination of their former prime
minister, the people of Lebanon have yet to attain any sense of closure. The
Special Tribunal for Lebanon, an international tribunal formed to serve justice
for the killing of Rafik Hariri, has found that only one out of the four
suspects, all of whom were Hezbollah operatives, is guilty.The tribunal stated
that there was insufficient evidence to conclude Hezbollah’s leadership and its
ally, the Syrian regime, which occupied Lebanon at the time, were involved in
the assassination.
This long-awaited verdict, which cost nearly $1 billion to produce, was unable
to bring a conclusive end to this ordeal. Justice and accountability for a
heinous crime that permanently altered Lebanon’s destiny will not be fully
served. Although one of Hariri’s killers has been found guilty, he will never
set foot in jail. Salim Jamil Ayyash, the convicted member of Hezbollah, remains
at large because the militant party refused to hand him or any of the other
accused over to the tribunal.
There is little chance that Ayyash will be arrested by authorities in Lebanon,
where Hezbollah holds great influence. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan
Nasrallah, and Syrian President Bashar Al Assad, refused to answer any questions
from investigators.
This underwhelming verdict comes at an overwhelming time for Lebanon. The
country has yet to recover from a devastating blast that rocked Beirut on August
4. A poorly stored stockpile of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate caught fire and
exploded, killing 220 people and injuring thousands more while demolishing huge
sections of the city. High ranking officials, including President Michel Aoun, a
close ally of Hezbollah, admitted to knowing the chemical was stored at the
port.
An investigation into the blast was meant to reveal its findings within five
days. It has been two weeks, yet no information has emerged. Many Lebanese are
now asking for an international investigation into the blast, as they do not
trust the corrupt political class that allowed the explosion to happen to
investigate itself. If the Hariri investigation is
anything to go by, the Lebanese should not expect results anytime soon.
Yesterday’s verdict came after 15 years of waiting, and a decade since the
tribunal was set up, and the result has now left Lebanese wondering whether
justice will ever be served.
The people’s ability to air their grievances over this situation is now also
under threat. A state of emergency was introduced in Beirut after the blast. It
expired yesterday and will be renewed for a month, in contravention of Lebanese
law, which stipulates that a state of emergency can only be renewed for 8 days
after approval from the Cabinet and Parliament. The
state of emergency grants the army greater power, limits gatherings in public
spaces and allows for media censorship. If these rules are applied, people
asking for the STL verdict to be enforced may find themselves silenced. Human
rights organisations have called out Lebanon’s security apparatus for using
excessive force on demonstrators since a mass protest movement began last
October.
Hezbollah has already killed one of Lebanon’s greatest post-war statesmen. It
cannot be allowed to wreak havoc upon the country unchallenged and unpunished.
Those who have the blood of Hariri, and other patriots killed in the aftermath
of his assassination, on their hands must be held accountable. The terrorist
entity that protects them must face the consequences of its actions if Lebanese
are to have a safe and prosperous future for them and their children.
Rafik Hariri killing: son of former Lebanon PM ‘will not
rest’ until punishment done as Hezbollah member convicted
Callum Paton/The National/August 18/2020
UN-backed tribunal convicted Salim Ayyash of the 2005 killing and acquitted
three co-defendants.
Saad Hariri, the son of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, said he
“will not rest until punishment is served” after an international tribunal
convicted a Hezbollah member for his father’s 2005 killing.
Following the conviction of Salim Ayyash at the Special Lebanon Tribunal in the
Netherlands on Tuesday, Mr Hariri, also a former Lebanese prime minister, said
he had accepted the court’s verdict but wished to see justice done.
"Hezbollah is the one that should make sacrifices today," he said. "I repeat: we
will not rest until punishment is served."
Ayyash, the lead conspirator in the 2005 assassination was convicted of all
charges against him.
The UN-backed tribunal also said it established clear evidence he was a member
of the militant group Hezbollah. His co-accused – Hassan Habib Merhi, Hussein
Hassan Oneissi and Assad Hassan Sabra – were acquitted on all charges.
Before the verdicts were read by Judge David Re, the court knocked down a key
pillar of the prosecution’s case, explaining that three suspects could not be
sufficiently linked to a fake claim of responsibility following the bombing.
“The prosecution has therefore not proved its case beyond reasonable doubt
[against three suspects’] participation in the false claim of responsibility for
the attack on Hariri,” Judge Janet Nosworthy said. Despite Ayyash’s links to the
militant group, the court said there was no evidence the leadership of the
militant group Hezbollah and the Syrian government were involved in the
assassination of Rafik Hariri, a tribunal judge delivering the verdict on the
2005 murder said.
“The trial chamber is of the view that Syria and Hezbollah may have had motives
to eliminate Hariri and some of his political allies,” Judge David Re,
presiding, said.
“However, there was no evidence that this Hezbollah leadership had any
involvement in Hariri’s murder, and there is no direct evidence of Syrian
involvement in it,” he said. The hearing on delivering verdicts in the trial of
four members of the powerful militant group over the 2005 killing of Rafik
Hariri began in the Netherlands on Tuesday. Lebanon has waited 15 years for some
kind of justice following Hariri’s death, although the trial began in 2014. The
tribunal in Leidschendam, near The Hague, heard from 297 witnesses and spanned
415 days of hearings.
Key to the evidence used by the UN-backed court in judging the case is mobile
phone communications during the planning of the suicide bombing.
Ayyash, the court said, used a mobile phone that was key in the bomb blast that
killed Hariri. Judge Janet Nosworthy said judgment could open the door for
compensation to be paid to the victim from a national court.
“Terrorism remains one of the most serious and heinous crimes,” she said.
“Direct and indirect victims suffered harm.”
Twenty-one people were killed alongside Hariri and 220 injuredafter an explosion
tore through the politician’s armour-plated car on Beirut’s corniche.
The four men – Ayyash, Hassan Habib Merhi, Hussein Hassan Oneissi and Assad
Hassan Sabra – are suspected of being members of the Iran-backed militant group
Hezbollah. They were tried in their absence after the powerful Shiite
organisation vowed never to hand them over.
A fifth suspect, Mustafa Amine Badreddinne, described as a key figure in the
plot and a veteran Hezbollah member with close ties to the group’s leadership,
was killed in Syria in 2016. The attack on Hariri, Lebanon’s preeminent Sunni
politician, sent shock waves through Lebanese society.
Anger, as more than a million protesters took to the streets, was focused on
Hezbollah and its ally Syria. Syrian troops had maintained a strong presence in
Lebanon for three decades, a legacy of the country’s bitter civil war.
Months before his death, Hariri had ended his premiership over Syria’s continued
influence on Lebanon.
He had clashed with Syrian President Bashar Al Assad over the prolonged
intervention. The outpouring of public outrage over Hariri’s death forced the
withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon.
Justice in the courts over the assassination, however, has been limited.
Hearings will be held at a later date to determine Ayyash's sentence. As the
UN-backed court has no death sentence, the maximum sentence is life
imprisonment.
None of the men is likely to serve time because they remain in hiding.
Prosecutors and defence lawyers can appeal against the verdicts. The verdicts
were delayed by nearly two weeks as a mark of respect for victims of another
explosion – the detonation of nearly 3,000 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored at
Beirut’s port. The blast killed about 180 people, injured more than 6,000, left
a quarter of a million with homes unfit to live in. Lebanon, a nation suffering
economic and social malaise, was plunged deeper into crisis. The verdict in the
Netherlands has the potential to reignite anger in Lebanon, where many have
pointed fingers at Hezbollah over the explosion on August 4.
Blast hits Beirut's beloved Le Chef hard
Khaled Yacoub Oweis/The National/August 18/2020
But the son of the restaurant's founder says they will not be broken.
When veteran restaurateur Charbel Bassil parked his 29-year-old Volvo in Beirut
two weeks ago, he did what he always does before getting out of the car.
His father Francois, founder of Le Chef restaurant in the East Beirut district
of Gemayzeh, had taught his son to crank down the windows in case of an
explosion.
The grey station wagon, parked off Rue Gouraud, the main street in the district,
suffered less damage than nearby cars when the huge explosion hit the port on
August 4, killing at least 177 people.
Mr Bassil used the car to rush his two Syrian workers, Fayez and Fahed, to
hospital. Fayez was in a coma in intensive care for days, and he is still in
hospital, awaiting possible surgery.
On the way to the hospital, the 51-year-old restaurant owner picked up two more
injured people from Rue Gouraud.
“There was not much glass inside the Volvo because I always keep the windows
open,” Mr Bassil told The National.
The disaster is testing resilience at Le Chef, one of Beirut’s most venerable
dining institutions. Its fortunes in the past five decades have echoed Lebanon’s
turbulent history of war and peace.
The explosion was so close to Gemayzeh and of such magnitude that it forced Le
Chef to close for the first time since Francois Bassil opened the restaurant on
May 1, 1967. His two brothers, the foul and fatteh specialist Antoun and the
waiter Boutros, were his partners. When it was operational, Le Chef was so well
run that its home-style food was ready to serve almost as soon as Mr Bassil
would shout the order into the elevated kitchen.
Its delivery service was also popular among office workers and elderly people
who could not cook for themselves. Relatively low prices attracted salaried
workers, but artists and members of the intelligentsia and high-paid
professionals also liked the food and the ambience of the restaurant with its
wooden panels and a large painting hanging on one of the walls.
Le Chef's elder generation all died of natural causes in the past decade, except
for Mr Bassil’s uncle Boutros. He was run over by a car driven by a thief
escaping a robbery in the Bassil home village of Daraoun, in Mount Lebanon.
Mr Bassil still lives in Daraoun, which overlooks the Bay of Jounieh, and is
near the famed Maronite basilica of Harissa. Francois Bassil left Daraoun to
work as a chef in Iraq, before the 1958 revolution forced him to return to
Lebanon.
Like his father did, Mr Bassil processes the supply chain through his
computer-like mind to ensure every ingredient used is fresh.
He speaks fluent English and French, and seems to have picked up from Le Chef’s
clientele every other language on Earth. His brother Paul replaced Francois
Bassil as the chef. The rest of the staff are a cousin, Collette, and a
neighbour, Michelin, who handles the cash register, as well a team of mostly
Syrian and Bangladeshi workers.
As hostile sentiment and violence against Syrian refugees increased in Lebanon
in the past 15 years, Le Chef remained immune.
Fayez rose from being a busboy to assistant chef, and Mr Bassil relies on Fahed
to run Le Chef when he is away.
Mr Bassil said that until recently, people from all sects stopped by the
restaurant to tell him that his father, Francois, hired them at Le Chef. They
were thankful, because “without him they would not have had experience to go
work in the Gulf”, he said.
At the outset of the Lebanese civil war in 1975, Francois Bassil used his
connections to hide his Muslim staff at the police station farther down Rue
Gouraud, until they managed to flee to safety. “Killings started according to
the religion stamped on one’s ID, and my father feared for his Muslim workers,”
Mr Bassil said. Sectarianism, he said, “is not good
for business”.
High inflation and the collapse of the Lebanese pound that started last year
forced Le Chef to raise prices. Activity was restricted to the delivery business
for two to three months this year because of the coronavirus. When the port
explosion occurred a little after 6pm local time, there were only two customers
at Le Chef.
One was unhurt and the other, who was sitting at the window, managed to walk by
himself to a clinic in Gemayzeh. It was off-peak hours. But business has been
very slow in general since the economic crisis started last year. Mr Bassil laid
off five mostly Syrian workers out of his 12 permanent staff. When the port
explosion occurred, a little after 6pm, there were only two customers at Le
Chef. One was unhurt and the other, who was sitting at the window, managed to
walk by himself to a clinic in Gemayzeh. But business has been very slow in
general since the economic crisis started last year. Mr Bassil laid off five
workers, mostly Syrian, from his 12 permanent staff. Local purchasing power has
declined sharply and tourists who usually make Le Chef a prime destination in
Beirut have stopped coming.
Le Chef had gained renown beyond Lebanon’s borders. Russel Crowe donated $5,000
(Dh18,364) to repair it, in memory of celebrity cook Anthony Bourdain, who spoke
glowingly about the small restaurant.
The fund-raising page has garnered more than $18,000 in donations since the
explosion. Mr Bassil said the economic collapse “alone was disastrous – then
came the coronavirus and the explosion".
“I inherited from my father and uncles the love of the people,” he said.
“We will continue.”
Factbox: Heavily-armed Hezbollah is Lebanon's most powerful
group
BEIRUT (Reuters)/August 18/2020
Four suspects belonging to Lebanon’s armed Shi’ite movement Hezbollah have been
tried in absentia by the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon for the 2005
murder of former prime minister Rafik al Hariri. The verdict is due on Tuesday.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran and is a close ally of Syria, has denied any
role in the 2005 bombing. Here is some background on the group:
TRIBUNAL:
* Hezbollah’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, has accused the tribunal of
serving a political agenda — to undermine Hezbollah — and has said it is a tool
of its enemies in the United States and Israel.
* None of the four suspects named have been detained by Lebanese authorities.
Hezbollah has said they will not be. The indictment said the suspects were
linked to the attack largely by circumstantial evidence gleaned from phone
records. Hezbollah said the accusations are fabricated.
HISTORY:
* Founded in 1982 by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah (Party of God)is the
most powerful group in Lebanon thanks to a heavily armed militia that fought
several wars with Israel. It grew stronger after joining the war in Syria in
2012 in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
* It is both a political movement and guerrilla army, drawing its support from
among Lebanon’s Shi’ite population. The group and its allies helped form
Lebanon’s current government.
* Hezbollah’s arsenal has been a major point of contention. The group says its
arms are needed to deter Israel and, more recently, to guard against Islamist
insurgents in Syria.
* Hezbollah has been designated a terrorist organisation by the United States,
Canada, Germany, Britain, Argentina and Honduras as well as the U.S.-allied,
mainly Sunni Muslim Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, the
United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait. The EU classifies Hezbollah’s military
wing as a terrorist group, but not its political wing.
* Shadowy groups, which Lebanese security officials and Western intelligence say
are linked to Hezbollah, launched suicide attacks on Western embassies and
targets and kidnapped Westerners in the 1980s. A suicide bombing destroyed the
U.S. Marine headquarters and French military barracks in Beirut in 1983, killing
241 US servicemen and 58 French paratroopers. One group, Islamic Jihad, was
thought to be led by Imad Moughniyah, a senior Hezbollah military commander
killed — possibly by Israel — in 2008 in Syria.
* Argentina blames Hezbollah and Iran for the bombing of a Jewish community
centre in Buenos Aires in which 85 people died in 1994 and for an attack on the
Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 that killed 29 people. Both deny any
responsibility.
* Bulgaria accuses Hezbollah of a bomb attack that killed five Israeli tourists
in the Black Sea city of Burgas in 2012.
GOVERNMENT:
* 2005: Hezbollah entered Lebanese politics more visibly after Syrian troops
left Lebanon and a coalition of anti-Syrian factions took power following an
election which gave Hezbollah 14 seats in the 128-seat parliament.
* 2006: Hezbollah and its allies quit a government led by Western-backed prime
minister Fouad Siniora over the governing coalition’s refusal to give the
opposition effective veto power.
* 2008: Hezbollah clashed with domestic foes and briefly seized west Beirut.
After mediation, rival leaders signed a deal to end 18 months of political
conflict.
* 2011: Syria’s civil war lead to years of political paralysis in Lebanon. In
January, the first government of Saad al-Hariri, Rafik al-Hariri’s son, was
toppled when Hezbollah and its allies quit over the U.N.-backed tribunal. Six
months later, Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced a government dominated by
Hezbollah and its allies.
* 2016: Hariri struck a deal making Hezbollah ally Michel Aoun president, and
him premier. Hariri’s ties with Riyadh, furious at Hezbollah’s expanding role,
hit a nadir in 2017.
* 2018: Hezbollah and allies won a parliamentary majority.
* 2019: Protests broke out against an economic crisis. Hariri quit in October.
Hezbollah and its allies backed Hassan Diab as premier. Diab’s government that
took office in January 2020 resigned over a catastrophic Aug. 4 Beirut port
blast.
CONFLICTS
* U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, sponsored by the United States and
France and adopted in 2004, called for all Lebanese militias to be disbanded and
disarmed. Hezbollah is the only militia to keep its arms since the civil war.
* 2012: Hezbollah fighters deployed in Syria played a major role in beating back
a rebellion against Assad.
* 2006: Hezbollah fighters entered Israel and kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and
killed others, sparking a war that killed 1,200 people in Lebanon, mostly
civilians, and 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
* Hezbollah fought for years against Israeli forces occupying south Lebanon
until the Israeli withdrawal in 2000.
*Compiled by Beirut bureau, Editing by William Maclean
Lebanon badly needs an independent civil service
Sami Mahroum/The National/August 18/2020
The politicisation of the country's public servants has brought with it
nepotism, corruption, incompetence and indifference.
When asked why did he not act upon information he had received about the
ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut’s port that later blew up much of the city
centre, the Lebanese President Michel Aoun answered that “the port lies outside
[his] jurisdiction”. That answer echoes a sentiment prevalent among most present
and former holders of public office in Lebanon. Whenever pushed into a corner by
questions about their ineptitude, Lebanese officials answer: "Ma khallouna (they
wouldn’t let us)” has been repeated so much that it has invited a great deal of
sarcasm and cynicism among Lebanese. It is a common joke to refer to the entire
political class as the “Ma Khallouna” party, and politicians have only
themselves to blame. In 1959, Lebanon created a Civil
Service Council tasked with professionalising public administration and
neutralising it from political bickering. The problem began in 1989, when
Lebanon’s political leaders met in the Saudi Arabian city of Taif to form a new
national pact that would put an end to the 15-year civil war. The resulting Taif
Agreement stipulated, among other things, the elimination of sectarianism from
politics and public sector jobs, though for an interim period this would exclude
“the top-level jobs and equivalent jobs which shall be shared equally by
Christians and Muslims without allocating any particular job to any sect”.What
was supposed to be a short-term exemption in a phased plan of eliminating
sectarian politics became instead an entrenched political tradition. To this
day, Lebanon’s top jobs are allocated with sectarian power-sharing in mind (and,
in violation of the spirit of the Taif Agreement, particular jobs are allocated
to specific sects).
As a consequence, civil service appointments have also become political
appointments that bypass the Civil Service Council. This process accelerated
further over the past 15 years, as competing political forces fought over civil
service appointments across the state apparatus – including the Port of Beirut.
The politicisation process manifests itself not only in recruitment but also in
management procedures such as dismissal, promotion and transfer to another
positions.
The Lebanese civil service has by now become a complex web of what political
scientists call “principal-agent” relationships.
What does that mean? A “principal-agent” relationship is one in which someone
(the principal) engages another person (the agent) to carry out a task on their
behalf and, in doing so, delegates a certain amount of decision-making authority
to the agent. In democratic systems like that of Lebanon, this relationship
exists between citizens and politicians on the one hand, and politicians and
civil servants on the other. Citizens entrust politicians to deliver certain
goods and services, and politicians entrust civil servants to help them deliver
these goods and services.
The principal-agent relationship, however, can give rise to something political
scientists call the “principal-agent problem”. It may seem fairly obvious,
especially in corrupt countries: agents have their own interests, and can be
selfish. The deep and extensive politicisation of the civil service in Lebanon
has created an excessive form of this problem whereby multiple principals and
multiple agents compete against one another, at the expense of public good.
Two days after the blast at the port, the French President Emmanuel Macron made
a hasty visit to Beirut to call for a new political order for the country. The
IMF, the EU, the US and other donor countries and institutions have made
economic reforms a condition for the provision of financial assistance to
Lebanon. But neither economic nor political reforms will be effective if the
principal-agent problem of Lebanon’s public administration is not addressed.
What the Republic of Lebanon urgently needs is what the 19th-century German
sociologist and philosopher Max Weber called “neutral competence” – professional
civil servants who are responsive to the public and not to politicians.
That means that the starting point for Lebanese recovery has to be the
implementation what was actually agreed in the Taif Agreement more than 30 years
ago, by making all appointments to the civil service apolitical and subject to
administrative procedures and technical skills only. Public services in many
countries today are assessed through numerous performance indicators, which make
it possible to hold civil servants accountable and ensure they are directly
responsive to public feedback.
Luckily, there are some good experiences from which Lebanon can learn. In Dubai,
public sector institutions are evaluated directly by the public through an
annual Dubai Customer Happiness Index. Elsewhere in the UAE, government agencies
and departments are assessed and evaluated through professional administrative
procedures, following the so-called Government Excellence Model; excellence
awards and prizes are handed out annually to top performers. Political
intervention becomes necessary only to ensure public service responsiveness to
public expectations.
What was supposed to be a short-term exemption in a phased plan of eliminating
sectarian politics became instead an entrenched political tradition
Recruitment of top civil servant jobs in Lebanon need to change immediately to
become independent of political manipulation. In France, the top 800 positions
in public administration are pulled from professional bodies and elite training
schools, especially from the National School of Administration. In the UK,
recruitment is organised autonomously by each authority in a decentralised
procedure according to merit. Even where they are political appointments, as is
the case in the US, checks and balances are put in place, such the requirement
for approval of all presidential appointments from Congress.
In countries with weak governance systems like Lebanon, the politicisation of
civil service recruitment and management has brought with it nepotism,
corruption, incompetence and indifference. Add to that the principal-agent
problem that exists between some members of the political class and foreign
governments and the conditions that led to the horrific explosion at Beirut’s
port became self-evident.
*Sami Mahroum is a senior fellow at the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy
and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut and a professor
at the Free University of Brussels
Why Macron's Lebanon visit has garnered mixed reviews
Colin Randall/The National/Aug 18, 2020
A European statesman who has been busy on the global stage has struggled to win
hearts and minds in France.
France’s determined thrust to lead the global response to the horrific
explosions in Beirut has quickly been followed by escalating French-Turkish
tension in the eastern Mediterranean. It is little wonder that fresh and
sometimes hostile attention is now being focused on the French President
Emmanuel Macron’s approach to foreign policy – and his intentions.
In the latest intensification of belligerence between Paris and Ankara, Turkey’s
Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has accused France of acting like a “big shot”
in the dispute between his country and Greece over hydrocarbon exploration. Mr
Macron has stepped up French naval presence, saying that Turkey not only
violates the sovereignty of Greece and Cyprus but bears “criminal
responsibility” in the Libyan conflict, reneging on commitments made at the
Berlin conference in January by re-importing extremist fighters from Syria.
But the immediate issue, when considering Mr Macron’s diplomatic strategy,
remains his swift reaction to the double blast of ammonium nitrate that
inflicted death, injury and massive destruction in Beirut.
Within two days of the catastrophe, he flew to the city once known as “the Paris
of the Middle East”, breaking his summer holiday in what was seen by many
Lebanese as a gesture of solidarity and support.
The visit, in which the French President mingled with crowds – shaking hands and
even lowering his mask – in a city ravaged by Covid-19 amid deepening economic
crisis and rampant corruption, won much praise from admirers.
Three days later, he hosted a videoconference in which countries pledged aid of
more than €250 million, a modest but useful emergency package.
Few politicians act without having an eye on the political implications. France
has significant economic interests in Lebanon, where the oil giant Total is
heavily involved in offshore gas exploration.
Even so, it is not difficult to imagine the furore Mr Macron would have faced
had he simply got on with a welcome break at the superb presidential retreat of
the Fort de Bregancon, close to the Mediterranean resorts of Le Lavandou and
Bormes-les-Mimosas. There would have been a resurgence of allegations of
arrogance, a lack of empathy with the problems of ordinary people, not least
those of a country where France was the colonial power from 1920 to 1944.
Yet the President’s struggle to win the hearts and minds of French voters, many
of them bitterly disappointed by his performance since being swept to power in
2017, was reflected in a barrage of criticism from political enemies, as well as
some observers with roots in the Mena region and wider Muslim world.
Some critics suggested that the visit to Beirut smacked more of “post-colonial
theatre” and political showboating than genuine compassion.
In France, the far left and far right once again demonstrated that their
differences are nuanced rather than absolute.
Jean-Louis Melenchon, leader of the left-wing France Insoumise, declared:
“Lebanon is not a French protectorate.” Scoffing at the presidential visit, he
referred to months of street protest and effectively urged the Lebanese to
ignore Mr Macron and “protect the demands of their people’s revolution”.
From the extreme right National Rally, led by Mr Macron’s most dangerous rival,
Marine Le Pen, came withering denunciation of an ”unwelcome and inappropriate”
publicity stunt.
The party’s spokesman, Julien Sanchez, accused the President of lecturing the
Lebanese government, an action he likened to the US President Donald Trump
demonstrating with the "gilets jaunes" – anti-government yellow vest protesters
– on the Champs-Elysees in Paris.
Inconveniently for this analysis, the UN joined the clamour for fundamental
change in Lebanon. Protests against the government resumed in Beirut and less
than a week after the explosions, the prime minister Hassan Diab and his entire
cabinet resigned.
Among those who regard France’s colonial history with dismay, or worse, opinion
was mixed in debate on the sincerity of France’s response.
An online petition, calling unrealistically for a 10-year French mandate,
attracted a respectable 61,000 signatures, though it was unclear how many
respondents were in Lebanon or from the Lebanese diaspora.
In a Facebook discussion, complaints about French interference were balanced by
the view of a “cautiously optimistic” US-Pakistani academic, Saleem Ali,
professor of energy and the environment at Delaware University: “France has
shown more willingness than others to at least consider Lebanon’s complexity.
But we will need to monitor their interventions carefully given their terrible
legacy in Africa.”
Prof Ali will have been thinking of such former French possessions as Algeria,
and its bloody fight for independence. But if France shares with European
neighbours a history of colonialism that is difficult to defend, Mr Macron has
gone some way towards atonement.
In December last year, he went a step further than in previous declarations,
which had already admitted that colonialism was a “crime against humanity”. Gone
were attempts to refrain from “sweeping away all of the past” or descending into
a culture of self-guilt.
Mr Macron’s tendency to crave the approval of all may be paying nominal
dividends. His approval rating in one recent poll rose by several points to 50
per cent. His Mediterranean holiday has had other interruptions. He also has to
deal with the impact on France’s coronavirus-hit tourism industry of Britain’s
muddled decision – as the country with Europe’s worst record on handling the
pandemic – to impose quarantine restrictions at the height of summer.
But as the UK’s influence in Europe appears at risk of waning, its economy
threatened by not only Covid-19 but the impact of an entirely possible no-deal
Brexit, Mr Macron may be eyeing a bigger prize.
On Thursday, another powerful European figure, the German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, the de facto president of the European Union, is due at Bregancon to
meet Mr Macron. It could be that France’s head of state sees himself, not her,
as the natural leader of Europe, a statesman who can represent the continent’s
interests, stand up when necessary – and depending on the outcome of the US
presidential election – to Washington and deal fairly and effectively with the
Middle East and Africa. Like so many French presidents, he could end up being
more effective and respected on the international stage than in his own country.
*Colin Randall is a former executive editor of The National and writes from
France and Britain
Why we must steer clear of the Lebanon aid trap/It’s time for Uncle Sam to draw the line
Jonathan Schanzer and Tony Badran/FDD/August 18/2020
A quiet debate has erupted inside the United States bureaucracy in the aftermath
of the August 4 explosion at the Beirut Port that reportedly killed more than
200, injured at least 6,000, and left many more homeless. Nearly everyone in the
U.S. government wants to help this tiny and embattled country on the
Mediterranean Sea. But exactly how to help is where opinions diverge.
Lebanon’s latest crisis, resulting from the bizarre detonation of a reported
2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate that sat unclaimed and uncontrolled for
six years in a warehouse at the Beirut Port, is actually just one of several
compounding crises that must be defused.
First, Lebanon is now descending into a deep and disastrous financial crisis. A
new report issued by Foundation for Defense of Democracies, authored by renowned
economist James G. Rickards, reveals that Lebanon is a staggering $93 billion in
debt. This includes $67 billion in bank debts, $22 billion in debts accrued by
the Central Bank, and another $4 billion from Eurobonds that the country
recently failed to repay. The country’s financial collapse is the result of
greed, corruption and gross mismanagement by the country’s political elite.
The financial collapse of Lebanon is made worse by global financial challenges
associated with the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, which has all but dried up
remittances from Lebanese expatriates working in the Arab Gulf state, Africa or
Latin America. Lebanon has little to no fresh currency coming in, which will
make the purchase of imports (for food and other products) that much more
difficult.
As U.S. officials grapple with possible solutions to Lebanon’s financial
collapse, they will be hamstrung. Sending funds comes with great risk. The
Iran-backed terrorist group Hezbollah has its tentacles everywhere. If fact, the
Beirut Port (where the recent explosion took place) is long suspected to be
exploited by Hezbollah for illicit trade and smuggling. It remains unclear
whether the explosion was connected to Hezbollah weaponry in some way.
Regardless of whether Hezbollah was directly implicated in the explosion, we
know it is implicated in the country’s corruption and kleptocracy. Two banks
over the last decade have been shuttered for harboring Hezbollah cash. And based
on evidence cited by the U.S. Treasury, many more banks could likely meet a
similar fate.
In the meantime, Hezbollah continues to stockpile weapons in preparation for a
war with Israel. Estimates suggest that the group has an estimated 150,000
rockets stored throughout the country – often in a way that poses great risk to
the population often in high-density population areas.
More recently, Israeli officials have warned that Hezbollah has been hoarding
precision-guided munitions (PGMs), which the Israelis call “game changers” that
they have vowed to destroy. These PGMs can evade Israel’s high-tech missile
defense and strike targets within a few yards of where they were intended to
hit. The Israel Defense Force has thus issued clear warnings that a pre-emptive
war is increasingly possible.
Thus, for the United States and other potential donor states, a financial rescue
for Lebanon comes with even greater risk. Why would anyone want to invest funds
in a country that could be destroyed in the coming months in a war with
Hezbollah?
Currently, French President Emmanuel Macron is leading an effort to rally the
international community to help Lebanon. He has thus far managed to scrape
together pledges for an estimated $295 million. This sum is relatively small and
clearly reflects the international community’s reluctance to pour money
unconditionally into a country with a terrorism problem whose political class
has run the country into the ground, with no clear plan for reform.
Macron, to be fair, is calling for the Lebanese to make some reforms. However,
he is asking the corrupt politicians who ruined the country to enact those
reforms through the formation of a “national unity government,” which would
include Hezbollah. The likelihood of a positive outcome from the continuity of
this Hezbollah-led order is zero.
If anything, the Lebanese ruling elite is likely to leverage the international
recognition it would receive through this effort to perpetuate its rule and
continue to run the system that has run Lebanon to the ground. In fact, Macron
is calling on the US to “reinvest” in this Hezbollah-led order and to rethink
U.S. sanctions policy. This is not in the U.S. interest.
It is important for the U.S. not to fall into the trap laid by Macron and the
Lebanese elite. What began as a discussion about providing discrete humanitarian
aid has recently begun to slip. Officials are now talking about more ambitious
reconstruction efforts and broader development aid. A recent U.S. State
Department delegation to Lebanon reportedly made an offer to rebuild the Beirut
port. This is a red flag.
U.S. policy needs a clear direction. It certainly makes sense to call for a new
government responsive to the people on the streets who are justifiably demanding
the departure of the entire political class. Moreover, it makes sense to impose
sanctions on Hezbollah and its allies, not to mention the corrupt cronies of all
sects and political affiliations that have driven the country into the ground.
But we cannot do so while pumping money into the so-called “state institutions”
of Lebanon. Those institutions are part of the problem. Even the Lebanese Armed
Forces, which is funded by the U.S. taxpayer, has been beating up protesters in
the street.
It’s time for Uncle Sam to draw the line. The French initiative is not in the
American interest. Nor will any other effort to send cash to Lebanon if what
comes next is a national unity government of Hezbollah and the corrupt sectarian
barons.
*Jonathan Schanzer is the senior vice president for research at the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and author of “State of Failure: Yasser Arafat,
Mahmoud Abbas, and the Unmaking of the Palestinian State.” Tony Badran is a
research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies focusing on Lebanon
and the Levant. Follow Jon and Tony on Twitter @JSchanzer and @acrossthebay
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 18-19/2020
Iran, Turkey, Ben Rhodes, Tlaib United in Criticism of UAE-Israel Deal
Seth Frantzman/The Jerusalem Post/August 18/2020
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani condemns the UAE's "treacherous act" in an
August 15 speech.
Iran's regime has led the charge in opposing bilateral peaceful relations
between Israel and the United Arab Emirates. It has been joined by Turkey, which
threatened to sever relations with Abu Dhabi, and a few other voices, such as
former deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, who played a role in the
Obama administration. The paucity of voices opposing
the agreement have brought together an increasingly small chorus that is
obsessively critical of Israel or which is aligned with the increasing extremism
of Ankara and the regime in Tehran.
Ebrahim Raisi, Iran's head of the judiciary, slammed the UAE deal on Saturday.
He said US influence in the region was weakening in the face of the power of
Iran's "Islamic system" and that "the UAE has got in touch with the child
killers," a reference to Israel. "We do not consider the link between UAE and
Israel as a link with the people of the UAE, only the ignorant rulers of the
country." Iran highlighted Palestinian opposition to
the UAE agreement, showing photos of Palestinians insulting the crown prince of
the UAE and saying, "the road to Jerusalem is paved with the blood of our
martyrs."
Hamas also slammed the move by Israel, the US and the UAE, claiming that
relations and normalization with Israel were a red line and a betrayal of
Palestinians. A Hamas representative told Tasnim News in Iran that the deal was
a betrayal of the "first prayer place" of Muslims, referring to Jerusalem and
al-Aqsa mosque. Pro-Iranian former Iraqi Prime
Minister Nouri al-Maliki also condemned the move as a betrayal of Islam.
Pro-Iranian militia leaders from Asaib Ahl al-Haq also slammed the deal. This
theme of "betrayal of Islam" was common among the Muslim Brotherhood and Iranian
regime voices and allies, linking both Tehran and Ankara.Turkey's presidential
spokesman and adviser Ibrahim Kalin also spoke to US National Security Advisor
Robert O'Brien about Ankara's concerns over the UAE-Israel deal. Turkey is a
supporter and host of Hamas. In that context the pro-government Anadolu in
Turkey claimed that many groups in the Middle East had critiqued the UAE-Israel
deal. However, in a region of hundreds of millions, the news agency could only
find a few voices to quote in Kuwait, Yemen and Morocco. The report says that
the Islamic Constitutional Movement, an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood,
critiqued the deal in Kuwait. In addition, Yemen's al-Islah Party was quoted as
calling the deal a "historical crime."
Former Obama advisor Ben Rhodes
In the US, Rhodes and Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) were some of the only
high-profile voices that appeared critical of the peaceful connection. Rhodes
was a standout as one of those who amplified criticism by downplaying the deal.
"This agreement enshrines what has been the emerging status quo in the region
for a long time (including the total exclusion of Palestinians)," wrote Rhodes.
"Dressed up as an election eve achievement from two leaders who want Trump to
win." The election is several months away. Rhodes also retreated another
criticism of the deal which noted it could lead to drone sales.
Tlaib was harsher, saying she wouldn't celebrate "Netanyahu for stealing
land he already controls" and slamming "devastating apartheid."US Ambassador to
Israel David Friedman said Rhodes was wrong about how easy the deal was and
noted it had not been accomplished during the previous administration.
Rhodes is a frequent critic of both Israel and the UAE. On August 11 he
compared Israel to authoritarian regimes such as Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Egypt
and Zimbabwe. He frequently calls Israel's leadership "racist."
In January he compared UAE to other countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela,
China and Russia and said in September 2018 that the US was outsourcing policy
in Yemen to Saudi Arabia and the UAE. He tweeted in August 2019 about the "depth
of corruption of US policy in the Middle East due to Saudi/UAE efforts."He
constantly slams the UAE over "paid speaking opportunities" and influencing US
policy, as well as harming the Iran deal. A search of Rhodes tweets show he
rarely critiqued Qatar, reserving his criticism for the UAE.
Qatar's Al-Jazeera network was also at the forefront of attacking the UAE deal.
It ran a story on how its ally Turkey might suspend ties with the UAE. Turkey
also has relations with Israel. It also ran two op-eds attacking the deal as
cementing "Israel's war on the Palestinians." It claimed Palestinians
"unanimously" rejected the deal. The main voices
against the UAE-Israel agreement were thus a small collection of countries and
groups. Iran and Turkey were the loudest countries against the agreement, while
Iran's affiliates in Iraq and among Turkey's allies in the Muslim Brotherhood,
also slammed the deal.
*Seth Frantzman is a Ginsburg-Milstein Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum
and senior Middle East correspondent at The Jerusalem Post.
Israel Mossad head and UAE national security adviser discuss security
cooperation
Agencies/Tuesday 18 August 2020
The head of Israel’s foreign intelligence service Mossad, Yossi Cohen, met the
national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates during a visit to the
country, the UAE’s state news agency WAM said on Tuesday. “The two sides
discussed prospects for cooperation in the security field, and shared
perspectives on regional developments and issues of common interested, including
both countries’ efforts to contain COVID-19,” WAM said. Cohen’s trip marked the
first visit to the UAE by an Israeli official after the announcement last week
by US President Donald Trump that the two countries had agreed to normalize
relations. As part of the deal, Israel agreed to suspend the annexation of
occupied West Bank territories, although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
the plan was not off the table in the long run. The Israel-UAE deal is only the
third such accord Israel has struck with an Arab country, and raises the
prospect of similar deals with other pro-Western Gulf states. Trump said leaders
from the two countries would sign the agreement at the White House in the coming
weeks.
Six major events in Oman-Israel relations: Timeline
Emily Judd, Al Arabiya English/August 18/2020
While Israel and Oman currently do not have diplomatic relations, foreign
ministers of the two countries spoke over the phone on Monday about peace in the
Middle East, following a landmark agreement between Israel and another Gulf
country, the United Arab Emirates.
It wasn’t the first bilateral discussion between the two countries.
Here is a timeline of six public meetings between Israeli and Omani officials:
1994: Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin visits Sultan Qaboos in Oman
In the first official visit of an Israeli prime minister to a Gulf country,
Yitzhak Rabin traveled to Oman on Dec. 27, 1994 at the invitation of the
country’s then-ruler Sultan Qaboos bin Said.
Rabin said the purpose of the visit was “to strengthen, to give backing for the
continuation of the peace process,” according to the New York Times report.
Rabin’s aide Shimon Sheves described the meeting as “an important opening to
Arab countries not bordering Israel,” the report said.
1995: Oman’s foreign minister attends Rabin’s funeral in Jerusalem
Following the assassination of Rabin in November 1995, Oman’s foreign minister
Yusuf bin Alawi attended the funeral in Jerusalem.
Earlier that year, Alawi met with then-foreign minister Shimon Peres in June in
the United States.
1996: Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres visits Sultan Qaboos in Salalah
After the establishment of a trade agreement between Israel and Oman earlier
that year, Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres met Sultan Qaboos in the Omani
city of Salalah on April 1, 1996.
Upon arrival at the Salalah airport, the Israeli flag and national anthem
greeted Peres, according to the Associated Press report.
The two leaders reaffirmed their commitment to a “just, comprehensive, and
permanent peace in the Middle East,” the report said.
2008: Oman’s FM holds talks with Israel’s FM
Oman’s foreign minister Alawi met and held talks with Israel’s foreign minister
Tzipi Livni, in Qatar on April 14, 2008.
It was the first public meeting between foreign ministers of the two countries,
according to the BBC.
Both ministers were in Qatar for a forum in the capital city of Doha.
2018: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Sultan Qaboos in Oman
Netanyahu, accompanied by his wife, visited Sultan Qaboos in October 2018, in a
visit Netanyahu described as “very moving.”
The two leaders issued a joint statement saying that the two sides “discussed
ways to advance the Middle East peace process and discussed a number of issues
of common interest to achieve peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Two months after the visit, Netanyahu announced that the Sultan had granted
Israel’s El Al airlines permission to fly over its airspace.
2020: Israeli and Omani foreign ministers discuss Mideast peace in phone call
Omani Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Yousuf bin Alawi spoke to Israel’s
Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi on Monday, according to Oman's foreign ministry.
The call came after the UAE announced its historic peace agreement with Israel
on Thursday. Former US Ambassador to Oman Richard Schmierer told Al Arabiya
English he believes Oman “will support and try to advance the step taken by the
UAE in its decision to seek normal relations with Israel.”
Pompeo to visit UN headquarters to submit complaint on Iran nuclear deal:
Diplomats
Reuters/Tuesday 18 August 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will likely travel to New York on Thursday to
seek a return of all UN sanctions on Iran and meet with UN Secretary-General
Antonio Guterres, diplomats and a UN official said.
To trigger a return of the sanctions, the United States will submit a complaint
to the 15-member UN Security Council about Iran's non-compliance with the
nuclear deal, even though Washington quit the accord in 2018.Pompeo will likely
meet with Indonesia's UN Ambassador Dian Triansyah Djani, the Security Council
president for August, to submit the complaint, diplomats said. Pompeo is also
due to meet with Guterres, a UN official said. In response to what the United
States calls its "maximum pressure" campaign - a bid to get Iran to negotiate a
new deal - Tehran has breached several central limits of the 2015 deal,
including on its stock of enriched uranium. But diplomats say the sanctions
snapback process will be tough and messy as Russia, China and other countries on
the Security Council challenge the legality of the US move given that Washington
itself is no longer complying with what Trump called the "worst deal ever" and
has imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran. The United States had threatened to
use the sanctions snapback provision in the nuclear deal after losing a bid in
the Security Council on Friday to extend an arms embargo on Tehran, which is due
to expire in October.
Once Washington submits its complaint about Iran to the Security Council, the
body has 30 days to adopt a resolution to extend sanctions relief for Tehran or
else the measures will automatically snapback. The United States would veto any
attempt to extend the sanctions relief. The US mission to the United Nations did
not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Egypt’s parliament passes law shielding sex crime victims’ identities
Reuters/Tuesday 18 August 2020
Egypt’s parliament on Tuesday gave its final approval to a law protecting the
identity of victims of sexual harassment and assault, aimed at encouraging women
who fear social stigma to report such crimes. The measure was proposed by the
government after a rare public debate about sex crimes, which followed a social
media campaign that led to the arrest of a suspected sex offender. A new article
added to the Criminal Procedure Law would ban investigative authorities from
disclosing information about victims in such crimes, except to defendants or
their lawyers.
It will take effect once approved by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
“When we observed that there is a reluctance to report specific crimes... and
that some of the victims feared for their reputation from being named in such
crimes, the government submitted a bill to encourage citizens to report these
crimes,” Justice Minister Omar Marwan told parliament on Sunday.
A woman checks on her phone an Instagram account for reporting allegations of
sexual harassment and misconduct against Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a 22-year-old
Last month the public prosecutor charged Ahmed Bassam Zaki, a university
student, with indecent assault of at least three women. He had been the target
of a campaign on Instagram from an account that included postings by women
accusing him of sex crimes. He is being held pending investigation.
The case drew widespread attention from media, religious figures and women’s
groups. Campaigners say a deep-rooted bias in the conservative, Muslim-majority
nation means women often face more blame for behavior deemed provocative than
men face for sex crimes.
Rebel soldiers holding Mali president, PM: Official
AFP/Tuesday 18 August 2020
Mali’s President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and Prime Minister Boubou Cisse are both
being held by rebel soldiers, a senior government official confirmed to AFP on
Tuesday. “The prime minister and the president were driven by rebel soldiers to
Kati in armoured vehicles,” said Boubou Doucoure, who works as Cisse’s director
of communications. He added that both men were now at Kati, a town near the
capital Bamako which hosts an important military base.
Soldiers arrested both political leaders in the capital late Tuesday afternoon
after launching a mutiny and seizing control of the Kati base earlier in the
day.
Democratic state AGs to sue Trump administration over
postal changes
Reuters/Tuesday 18 August 2020
Several Democratic state attorneys general said on Tuesday they will sue
President Donald Trump’s administration in a bid to block Postal Service changes
that may affect mail-in voting in the November US presidential election.
A lawsuit led by Washington state will argue that the Postal Service, headed by
a Trump ally, implemented the changes illegally and without following procedures
required by federal law.
“We will ask the court to block these destructive new policies and fully and
immediately restore the postal service, so that Americans can cast their ballots
with confidence this November and know their votes will be counted,” Connecticut
Attorney General William Tong said.
Attorneys general from Washington state, Pennsylvania and Connecticut planned
conference calls on Tuesday to discuss the legal challenge. New York’s attorney
general said she would soon be suing the administration as well.
“The integrity of our elections is fundamental to our nation’s democracy and we
won’t allow anyone to undermine them, not even the president of the US,” New
York attorney general Letitia James said.
Democrats and other critics have accused the Republican president of trying to
hobble the Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting.
Trump said last week he was against Democratic efforts to include funds for the
Postal Service and election infrastructure in coronavirus relief legislation
because he wanted to limit mail-in voting during the coronavirus pandemic.
US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is scheduled to testify on Friday before the
Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, spokesmen for
the committee and the Postal Service said.
The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August
18-19/2020
Tensions in Gaza and on Israel’s Northern
Border – What Next?
Jacob Nagel/Jonathan Schanzer/August 18/2020
Tensions are once again escalating on the border between the Hamas-controlled
Gaza Strip and Israel. What started with explosive-laden balloons has given way
to the firing of rockets and even riots at the Israel-Gaza border fence. Once
again, such activity is disrupting the lives of Israeli communities near the
border. And once again, Israeli officials appear to lack sufficient and decisive
answers. This round, however, exhibits some unique characteristics that require
a deeper analysis.
Israel is in a midst of a potential political crisis. The country may be headed
to a fourth round of elections in less than two years. Among other things, the
coalition is at odds over the government’s budget. The COVID-19 crisis,
meanwhile, continues to hinder the Israeli economy, with unemployment now
hovering around 20 percent. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are eager to
implement a new five-year plan that would revolutionize their existing force
posture. However, implementation is impossible without a stable government and
budget.
The recent explosive balloons sent into Israel from the Gaza Strip have the IDF
on high alert. Israel’s leaders have threatened to respond with force to any
provocation, but Hamas appears undeterred for now. Hamas, in fact, appears
poised to escalate further. The group’s more militant leaders, particularly
Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, seek to weaken their political rival Khaled
Mashal in advance of elections in Gaza. The terror group also seeks to exploit
the current political environment in Israel, pushing the Israeli government to
coordinate with the government of Qatar to increase long-term funding and aid to
Gaza (perhaps through 2021) in exchange for quiet.
The Hamas calculus has a certain logic to it. Israel’s top priorities remain
Lebanon (with Iran always in the background) and Syria. However, Israel’s
leaders are unlikely to allow Hamas to dictate the rules of the game. The IDF,
if pushed, has vowed to respond decisively, even if the attacks are low-tech.
There is little difference between an explosive balloon and a missile. Should
the balloons inflict casualties, the Israeli public will demand a harsh
response. In fact, there is a growing sentiment in Israel, especially after the
recent uptick in Hamas attacks, that the IDF must reestablish deterrence by way
of a decisive message to Hamas.As a defensive measure, the IDF has deployed a
tactical laser system to shoot down the balloons. Some believe this is overkill.
However, the laser deployment is not a significant departure from deploying Iron
Dome to neutralize crude rockets fired by Hamas. The relatively safety afforded
by these defensive systems could provide the Israeli leadership with some time
and space to respond in a way that is designed to reestablish deterrence but
also contain a wider conflagration.
But using lasers against the balloons may not go far enough. Targeting the
balloon operators could be one way of reestablishing deterrence – and would not
be dissimilar from Israel’s longstanding policy of targeting Hamas operatives
that fire missiles. Still, by targeting the balloon squads, there exists the
potential for escalation – something the IDF seeks to avoid.
On Israel’s northern border, the situation is more complicated. The Iran-backed
terror group Hezbollah has recently attempted to exact revenge for Israel’s
reported military strike that killed one of its operatives in Syria. Thus far,
Hezbollah’s efforts have been thwarted.
The August 4 explosion at the Beirut Port further complicated the situation.
Speculation continues to fly about Hezbollah’s possible involvement in
stockpiling the ammonium nitrate that killed more than 200 Lebanese and left
thousands homeless.
Even as protestors take to the streets to vent their anger at Hezbollah, the
group’s military posture vis-à-vis Israel has not changed. If anything,
Hezbollah’s leadership may mistakenly believe that Israel would not reciprocate,
due to the delicate political situation in Lebanon after the explosion
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his cabinet seek to disabuse
Hezbollah of this notion and have reiterated Israel’s longstanding policies.
First, Israel has zero tolerance for Iranian or Hezbollah military forces on
Syrian soil. Moreover, Israel has zero tolerance for Hezbollah’s terrorist
activity anywhere on Israel’s northern border. Finally, Israel has declared zero
tolerance for advanced weapon systems, such as precision-guided munitions, in
the hands of Hezbollah. The IDF continues to vow that there will be a harsh
response if Hezbollah crosses any of these red lines.
The state sponsor of both Hezbollah and Hamas is, of course, Iran. The Islamic
Republic could dispatch either group to attack Israel at any time. But Tehran
appears to be treading carefully as it waits to see whether a possible removal
of President Donald Trump from the White House could alter the “maximum
pressure” policy that has sent Iran’s economy into a tailspin. Those economic
woes have been compounded by the COVID-19 crisis and the resulting global
recession.
The Iranians would probably prefer to keep Hezbollah’s weapons arsenal intact
for a future conflict with Israel. But Hamas is less of a strategic asset. It is
for this reason that the IDF is keeping a close eye on its southern border. From
the IDF’s perspective, all of Iran’s proxies should fear a conflict.
Israel is now actively weighing its options to negate the various attacks coming
out of Gaza – from rockets and riots to explosive balloons. Egypt could play an
important role and has sent a delegation to Gaza to mediate. UN envoy Nickolay
Mladenov is also looking to play a role. Should they fail, Israel would once
again be on its own. Even with tensions rising on its northern front, the IDF
may have no choice but to reestablish deterrence and quiet by military means.
*Brigadier General (Res.) Professor Jacob Nagel is a senior fellow at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a visiting professor at the
Technion Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. He previously served as acting
national security advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Jonathan
Schanzer is senior vice president for research at FDD and a former terrorism
finance analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. They both contribute to
FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). For more analysis from
Jacob, Jonathan, and CMPP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Jonathan on Twitter @JSchanzer.
Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based,
nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Palestinians part of intl. system despite rejecting every
peace plan
Jonathan Schachter/FDD/August 18/2020
Most Israelis, including the prime minister, seek a negotiated end to the
conflict, with an end to all claims. This is the outcome to which both sides
committed in the Oslo Accords.
Last week’s announcement about the normalization of relations between Israel and
the UAE appears to have put annexation plans on ice. But the debate was
revealing. The hand-wringing in America about annexation struck a stark contrast
to Israelis and Palestinians, who have been more concerned about the second wave
of COVID-19. When they do discuss the conflict, few if any believe renewed
negotiations right now would bear fruit. The two sides are simply too far apart.
Most Israelis, including the prime minister, seek a negotiated end to the
conflict, with an end to all claims. This is the outcome to which both sides
committed in the Oslo Accords.
Yet, nearly 27 years after the iconic handshake on the White House lawn, many
Palestinian leaders still dream of Israel’s demise. Official clergy, Palestinian
Authority media, government-issued textbooks, and diplomats all speak of
Israel’s destruction. The Palestinian Authority’s strategy over the last decade
has been to try imposing a solution on Israel without negotiating, compromising,
or ending historic claims, which extend beyond the vaunted 1967 lines. Even the
Palestinians’ repeated calls for international conferences and the establishment
of a state through UN resolutions are intended to perpetuate the conflict, not
end it.
Of course, it would be poor form to adopt such a belligerent position
explicitly. In English (and French), the Palestinians’ spokespeople speak
primarily and passionately of ending Israel’s “occupation” of the West Bank.
Sympathetic Western audiences have earnestly adopted and parroted this message
to the point that it now holds little meaning.
According to this orthodoxy, regardless of its origins in a defensive war and
irrespective of Palestinian intransigence, Israel’s occupation lies at the heart
of the conflict. An extension of this argument is that Israel’s military
strength makes it uniquely able to take risks for peace, but the fact that it
doesn’t makes it responsible not just for the conflict, but for its
continuation. This logic feeds an even more dangerous assertion that the
disparity in power between the sides is itself an obstacle to peace and should
be addressed through a mix of pressure on Israel and positive gestures to
“boost” the Palestinians.
The problem with this view is that the conflict burned for decades before there
was a single Israeli soldier in the West Bank or a single settlement beyond the
Green Line. Narrowly focusing on the occupation is like a doctor treating one
symptom while ignoring the underlying disease.
The result is a dynamic where the Palestinian leadership plays for time.
Rejecting efforts to resolve the conflict ensures that the status quo of
Israel’s military (and civilian) presence in the West Bank will continue, while
international pressure to end that presence and to impose a solution grows. In
short, the Palestinians have no incentive to negotiate.
A 2016 diplomatic initiative is illustrative. The French foreign minister
announced that if efforts to reach a deal through an international conference
failed, France would recognize a Palestinian state. This doomed the effort
before it started. Why would the Palestinians make a deal if they could achieve
their goals without one?
Strange as it sounds, the Palestinians hold real power. Israel cannot
unilaterally declare the conflict over, but the Palestinians can. They, along
with the Arab League, declared war in the first place, with the explicit goal of
destroying Israel. Ignoring this has led to a “Bizarro-World” dynamic. Israel
repeatedly has extended its hand and offered to create a Palestinian state, but
it always comes under immense international pressure to offer more. The
Palestinians reject every overture for peace, but are the darlings of the
international system. The insanity continues.
These days, it is trendy to blame Donald Trump’s plan for the Palestinians’
refusal to talk peace. They are understandably mad: the plan (flawed as it may
be) deprives the Palestinians of their peace veto.
But Trump is hardly alone in stoking Palestinian intransigence. Barack Obama was
arguably the most sympathetic president to Palestinian statehood, and the
Palestinians spurned his efforts, too. But rather than punish them for walking
away, his administration helped engineer a UN resolution designed to skew future
negotiations in the Palestinians’ favor. For the Palestinians, rejectionism
pays.
For professional peace processors and prognosticators, the January release of
the Trump plan, the subsequent debate about possible unilateral Israeli steps,
and the prospect of a new president next year have provided an opportunity to
re-package their tired and timeworn orthodoxy to counter a polarizing president.
Task forces and working groups are forming now (often without a whiff of
political diversity), conveying an urgency shared by virtually no one living in
the Middle East.
Countless Zoom calls will undoubtedly focus on ways to pressure Israel, even
with annexation tabled. It’s a safe bet that few, if any, will propose putting
pressure where it belongs, on the side that began the conflict and that can end
it.
*Jonathan Schachter, a nonresident senior fellow at the Chicago Council on
Global Affairs, was the foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu. Jonathan Schanzer is senior vice president for research at the
Foundation for Defense of Democracies, follow him on Twitter @JSchanzer.
Joe Biden Will Be America’s Most Pro-Kurdish President
Aykan Erdemir and Philip Kowalski/FDD/August 18/2020
The real test of Biden’s pro-Kurdish sentiments will be whether the need to
maintain pragmatic cooperation with Ankara and Baghdad will ultimately force him
to temper his commitment to the Kurds that the mountains are not their only
friends.
I don’t like Kurds,” President Donald Trump said, according to former national
security adviser John Bolton. Twice now, Trump has ordered the withdrawal of
U.S. troops from northeast Syria, leaving Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies to
fend for themselves, despite the heavy sacrifices they made while fighting the
Islamic State.
Polls indicate that if elections were to take place today, voters would likely
replace Trump with the most pro-Kurdish politician ever to occupy the White
House. During fifteen years as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee—including two terms as chairman—Joe Biden demonstrated a special
concern for the Kurds, especially those in Iraq, a country he visited
twenty-four times as vice president. One Kurdish-American activist has written,
“If Kurds are your concerns, he will make a good president.”
Kurds are most definitely a concern for the Turkish government, which has spent
decades fighting an insurgency led by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which
the United States designates as a foreign terrorist organization. Even though
Biden called the PKK “a terrorist group plain and simple” and compared it to the
Islamic State, the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and its loyal
media have responded with a blend of hostility and paranoia, including
groundless accusations in 2016 that Biden is an advocate for “PKK-loving
academics.”
This combination of conspiracy theories and smear campaigns is standard fare for
Erdogan, yet it demonstrates that Biden’s concern for the Kurds will have
consequences for his foreign policy. Although Jonathan Guyer of The American
Prospect has criticized Biden’s foreign policy for being a “blank slate, onto
which often-conflicted advisers from the national-security establishment will
project actual policies,” Biden’s Kurdish policies have the potential to stand
as a clear exception—providing an example of an enduring commitment behind his
decisionmaking. If and when Biden takes office, his concern for Kurds will be
put to test as it will clash with Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Iraq, which not only
have sizable Kurdish populations and a history of internal conflict but also
entrenched fears of Kurdish autonomy or statehood.
THE WAR IN IRAQ
Although Biden was an enthusiastic supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, he
voted against the 1991 Gulf War, a conflict he said would be a “terrible mistake
that this country would regret for decades to come.” Still, he came to regret
what he perceived as President George H.W. Bush’s reluctance to drive Saddam
Hussein out of power, disparaging his “bizarre concern to maintain Iraq’s
territorial integrity” and allowing the Iraqi strongman to retake non-Sunni Arab
majority areas of the country, leading to the “massacre [of] tens of thousands
of Kurds and Shiites.”
Biden’s concern for the Kurds was one of the main arguments he provided for his
vote authorizing the invasion of Iraq, which became a substantial liability in
both of his campaigns for the Democratic nomination. On the Senate floor, he
reminded listeners that Saddam “has brutally repressed Iraqi civilians—the Kurds
in the North, then the Shias in the south, and then the Kurds again.” Biden was
also concerned that if Saddam were to “get his hands on nuclear weapons” he
“could fuel a new spasm of aggression against his neighbors or the Kurds in the
mistaken belief that we would be deterred.” Although Biden wanted to protect
Kurds from Saddam’s wrath, he was also worried about the potential chaos the
Iraqi strongman’s downfall could bring, which in turn would “invite the Kurds to
seize valuable oil fields; the Turks to cross the border in an effort to prevent
a Kurdish state from arising.”
Biden’s strongest show of support for Iraqi Kurdish aspirations came in December
2002, when the senator visited the region with fellow Senator Chuck Hagel.
Crossing over into Iraqi Kurdistan from the Turkish border, Biden’s tour
culminated with a speech addressed to the Kurdistan Parliament in Erbil, where
after a warm reception, the locals told him, “what every Kurdish child learns
is: The mountains are our only friend.” Biden, who saw Iraqi Kurdistan as “the
Poland of the Middle East,” all but pledged Washington’s support for the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), saying “the mountains are not your only
friends.”
While Northern Iraq benefitted from regime change, the rest of the country fell
into chaos, confirming Biden’s fears. The war became increasingly unpopular in
the United States, yet withdrawal would risk turning Iraq over to Sunni
extremists aligned with Al Qaeda. Along with Leslie Gelb, the president emeritus
of the Council on Foreign Relations, Biden proposed the devolution of power to
three regional governments—Sunni Arab, Shiite Arab, and Kurdish. Biden framed
his plan as an acceptance of realpolitik, claiming that the “Iraqi Constitution,
in fact, already provides for a federal structure and a procedure for provinces
to combine into regional governments” and further opining that things were
“already heading toward partition: increasingly, each community supports
federalism, if only as a last resort.” One of Biden and Gelb’s justifications
for this type of federalism was that “the Kurds will not give up their
15-year-old autonomy,” which ruled out any return to a centralized government.
In September 2007, while Biden was running for president, the Senate voted 75-23
to express approval for his plan to federalize Iraq. Biden and Gelb pushed back
against accusations that they sought to partition Iraq, while pointing to Bosnia
as an example of how federalism could enable a peace agreement. The two
predicted, “If the United States can’t put this federalism idea on track, we
will have no chance for a political settlement in Iraq and, without that, no
chance for leaving Iraq without leaving chaos behind.” The Senate’s approval,
even though it was purely symbolic, would prove to be the highwater mark of the
Biden-Gelb plan. Biden dropped out of the race for the Democratic nomination
after the Iowa caucuses and, after Barack Obama chose him as a running mate,
adopted Obama’s call for a rapid withdrawal from Iraq.
THE OBAMA YEARS
As president, Obama tapped Biden to oversee the administration’s policy in Iraq.
According to James Jeffery, U.S. ambassador to Baghdad between 2010 and 2012,
Biden visited Iraq twenty-four times while paving the way for the U.S.
withdrawal. The vice president also had weekly phone calls with key Iraqi
political figures. Jeffrey reflected, “it often felt as if the vice president
was the Iraqi desk officer.” Biden had a genuine enthusiasm for Iraq, whereas
Obama left the impression that he wanted nothing to do with the country.
Jeffrey, who now serves as the Trump administration’s special envoy for Syria,
credits Biden for investing in the personal dimension of diplomacy. “While his
relationship with [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki] was often rocky,”
Jeffrey wrote, “he developed very warm relations with the Kurds, including
former Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and KRG President Masoud Barzani.” The
friendship between Biden and Barzani goes back nearly twenty years. According to
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security advisor under Obama, Biden even learned
the names of all of Barzani’s grandsons.
While the rise of Islamic State exposed the risks of a withdrawal, Jeffrey
describes Biden as a voice of restraint who appreciated the value of keeping at
least several thousand U.S. troops in Iraq. Yet Obama ensured that no troops
would remain behind, and Biden deferred.
Once the Islamic State became a threat Obama could not ignore, the
administration established strong military ties with both the KRG in Iraq and
the Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG) in Syria. This interaction with
Syrian Kurds marked a significant change for Biden, who had dealt with Kurds
almost exclusively in an Iraqi context. Soon, the U.S. relationship with the YPG
would ensure that Biden also had to reckon with Turkish-Kurdish tensions.
Despite his personal relationship with KRG President Barzani, Biden never lent
support to Barzani’s campaign for KRG independence from Iraq. Instead, Biden
called for “close cooperation between the Government of Iraq and the Kurdistan
Regional Government (KRG) as they take steps to strengthen political unity and
economic stability.”
In Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a multiethnic force bringing
together the Kurdish-led YPG, Arabs, Syriac and Chaldean Christians, and Yazidis,
provided the main ground forces in the fight against Islamic State, while the
United States provided air power and other high-end capabilities. Despite the
importance of the YPG-led SDF to the anti-Islamic State coalition, Biden
accommodated Turkish fears of Syrian Kurdish autonomy, warning the YPG to avoid
creating a “separate enclave on the Syrian-Turkish border” and urging it to
withdraw to the east of the Euphrates or risk having U.S. aid cut off. On other
hand, Biden refused to call the YPG a terrorist group because of its links to
the PKK, much to Turkey’s dismay. Ankara also resented Biden’s observation in
2014 that Turkey and other U.S. allies “poured hundreds of millions of dollars
and tens, thousands [sic] of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against
Assad,” including Sunni jihadists.
This was more than enough to persuade Erdogan’s government that Biden was
unacceptably pro-Kurdish and therefore anti-Turkish. Ankara had reached the same
conclusion when Obama picked Biden as his running mate in 2008; Turkish media
slammed Biden as an “enemy of Turkey,” not only for being pro-Kurdish but also
pro-Greek and pro Armenian, referring to him as “the impertinent senator.” In
2016, Turkey’s pro-government media added the charge that Biden was an advocate
for “PKK-loving academics,” a baseless claim that mainly illustrates the kind of
smear tactics that the Erdogan government employs even against leaders of fellow
NATO member states.
In contrast, Biden remained on very good terms with Masoud Barzani and the KRG,
whom he and Obama hosted at the White House in 2015. During Biden’s final trip
abroad as vice president, Barzani referred to him as “a friend of the Kurdistan
nation” when they met at the Davos World Economic Forum.
THE TRUMP INTERREGNUM
The limits of Washington’s support for the KRG became apparent when Baghdad
launched a brief military offensive to retaliate for Barzani’s decision to hold
a referendum on Kurdish independence from Iraq. Biden did not criticize the
Trump administration’s passivity, although this may only have reflected the
tradition of former presidents and vice presidents remaining mostly silent on
political affairs. However, in late 2017, Biden did comment he wished the United
States “could have done more for the Kurds.” When asked why he did not do more
as vice president, he responded “Turkey.” This echoes his 2007 warning to Iraqi
Kurdish leaders against pursuing independence, since “You will be eaten alive by
the Turks and the Iranians, they will attack you, there will be an all-out war.”
Biden offered more full-throated support of America’s Kurdish partners in
October 2019, when Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from parts of Syria’s
northern border gave Turkey and its Syrian Islamist proxies a green light to
launch an offensive against the SDF. Biden wrote that Trump “sold out the Syrian
Democratic Forces—the courageous Kurds and Arabs who fought with us to smash
ISIS’s caliphate—and he betrayed a key local ally in the fight against
terrorism.” Antony Blinken, a senior foreign policy advisor for Biden’s
presidential campaign, also bemoaned the lack of American presence in Syria and
the abandonment of the Kurds.
THE OTHER KURDS
While Biden clearly supports those Kurds who have been Washington’s partners
over the years, his public remarks do not indicate that he has grappled with the
dilemma of the Kurds as a people, divided geographically between four sovereign
states and politically between a wide array of interlocking factions. In this
sense, Biden’s greatest blind spot concerns the Kurds of Iran. Biden has never
spoken up in their defense despite Tehran’s oppression; the only time the Obama
administration dealt with an Iranian-Kurdish issue was in 2009 when it named the
anti-regime Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK), an affiliate of the PKK, as a
terrorist organization. Given his previous support for federalism in Iraq, Biden
may sympathize with Iran’s Kurdish population, whose political parties
overwhelmingly support federalism in Iran. Yet any support for the Iranian
Kurds, or human rights in Iran more broadly, may depend on the firmness of
Biden’s commitment to reverse Trump’s maximum pressure strategy and rejoin the
2015 nuclear deal.
Similarly, if Biden is determined to advocate for the Turkish, Syrian, and Iraqi
Kurdish communities, he will have to navigate Washington’s complex relations
with Ankara and Baghdad, along with a hostile regime in Damascus. To succeed,
Biden would have to persuade Ankara and Baghdad to perceive him as a partner
capable of helping with their respective Kurdish problems as opposed to a
suspect Kurdophile who needs to be restrained until the end of his mandate. This
may prove difficult especially given the Turkish government’s knee-jerk reaction
to anything it perceives as strengthening the idea of Kurdish self-rule in the
region. Ultimately, the real test of Biden’s pro-Kurdish sentiments will be
whether the need to maintain pragmatic cooperation with Ankara and Baghdad will
ultimately force him to temper his commitment to the Kurds that the mountains
are not their only friends.
*Aykan Erdemir is a former member of the Turkish parliament and senior director
of the Turkey program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Aykan
on Twitter @aykan_erdemir. Philip Kowalski is a research associate of the Turkey
program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Philip on Twitter @philip_kowalski.
US intelligence indicates Iran paid bounties to Taliban for
targeting American troops in Afghanistan
Zachary Cohen/CNN/August 18/2020
Washington (CNN)US intelligence agencies assessed that Iran offered bounties to
Taliban fighters for targeting American and coalition troops in Afghanistan,
identifying payments linked to at least six attacks carried out by the militant
group just last year alone, including a suicide bombing at a US air base in
December, CNN has learned.
"Bounties" were paid by a foreign government, identified to CNN as Iran, to the
Haqqani network -- a terrorist group that is led by the second highest ranking
leader of the Taliban -- for their attack on Bagram Air Base on December 11,
which killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, including four US
personnel, according to a Pentagon briefing document reviewed by CNN.
The name of the foreign government that made these payments remains classified
but two sources familiar with the intelligence confirmed to CNN that it refers
to Iran.
The US killed a key Iranian general in Iraq less than a month after the Bagram
attack but after a lengthy process involving several agencies to develop options
aimed at countering Iran's support for militant groups in Afghanistan. The
decision was made in March not to take specific action as officials did not want
to jeopardize the peace process with the Taliban, according to multiple sources
familiar.
The revelation that Iran might have paid the Taliban follows the controversy
over Russian bounties for attacks on American troops, an issue that has been
consistently downplayed by the Trump administration in recent weeks.
Russia has denied the allegation.
The lack of public condemnation of Iran or the Taliban and the decision not to
pursue a diplomatic or military response also highlights the administration's
apparent desire to protect peace talks with the Taliban -- which culminated in
an agreement that was signed in February -- at all costs with the goal of
helping Trump fulfill his long-stated campaign promise of removing American
troops from Afghanistan.
Sophisticated attack rattled officials
The attack at Bagram, which is regarded as the most prominent US military
installation in Afghanistan, was highly sophisticated and rattled officials
working on Afghanistan matters because it highlighted vulnerabilities of some of
the American compounds, according to one source involved in the Taliban peace
efforts.
Specifically, the Pentagon briefing document noted that a suicide vehicle-borne
improvised explosive devices (SVBIED) was used in the attack. Roughly 10 Taliban
fighters engaged in a firefight with local security forces after the explosion
and were ultimately killed by US airstrikes.
That sentiment was also factored into assessments by US intelligence officials
from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in the days after the attack, according to
documents obtained by CNN.
"Based on the nature of the attack and agreed upon bounties," the December
attack likely met the criteria for reimbursement, the Pentagon briefing
document, which was provided to the Secretary of Defense and chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff just days after the incident occurred, states.
While US intelligence officials acknowledge that the Haqqani Network would not
necessarily require payment in exchange for targeting American troops, the
internal Pentagon document reviewed by CNN notes that the funding linked to the
December 11 attack at Bagram "probably incentivizes future high-profile attacks
on US and Coalition forces."
Iran has long been known to use proxies for conducting attacks throughout the
region but in the months following December's bombing at Bagram, US officials
across several agencies were tasked with investigating Tehran's relationship
with the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and developing specific response
options.
But despite acknowledging that the relationship "poses a significant threat to
US interests," National Security Council officials ultimately recommended in
late March that the administration should not take specific steps toward
addressing the underlying Iran-Haqqani Network nexus as officials concluded that
any response would likely have a negative impact on the peace efforts, according
to an internal memo obtained by CNN.
NSC officials also determined that the Afghan government's ability to focus on
any issue other than the coronavirus outbreak would likely deteriorate,
therefore limiting potential diplomatic options that typically would be
available.
While the Trump administration did not take any specific action after concluding
its internal review of the link between Iran and the Haqqani Network earlier
this year, multiple officials argued that the President has taken a strong
stance toward Tehran for its dealings with the Taliban.
A current administration official and former senior official with knowledge of
the situation told CNN that Iran's link to the Taliban was cited by US officials
as part of the argument for conducting the strike that killed top Iranian
General Qasem Soleimani in January.
Still, the issue of foreign governments encouraging the Taliban to resume
attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan remains a topic of concern for
national security officials, according to a joint intelligence assessment
produced by the CIA, NSA and NCTC just last month. The assessment notes that
Iran reimbursed the Haqqani Network after it conducted at least six attacks
against US and Coalition interests in 2019.
Pentagon spokesman Army Maj. Rob Lodewick told CNN that "the Department of
Defense does not disclose timelines or discussions surrounding internal
deliberations and intelligence briefings," when asked whether top defense
officials were briefed on intelligence related to Iran's involvement in specific
Taliban attacks but did acknowledge Tehran's efforts to undermine the peace
process.
"The administration has repeatedly demanded, both publicly and privately, that
Iran cease its scourge of malign and destabilizing behavior throughout the
Middle East and the world. While the United States, its NATO allies and
coalition partners are working to facilitate an end to 19 years of bloodshed,
Iran's inimical influence seeks to undermine the Afghan peace process and foster
a continuation of violence and instability," he said.
The Iranian government, the NCTC and the NSC did not respond to CNN's request
for comment.
Discussions about a response continued for roughly three months
While working group discussions focused on addressing Iran's payments to the
Haqqani Network continued on for roughly three months after the Soleimani
strike, some officials involved in the process believed efforts to develop
options aimed at countering the relationship were hamstrung by the ongoing peace
talks between the US and Taliban, two sources familiar with the process told
CNN.
"The object of concern was the relationship because it seemed like one that in
any other year would have merited pretty concerted action," a source familiar
with the decision-making process told CNN, noting that options like targeted
sanctions or even a military response against the militant group in Afghanistan
would have otherwise been on the table.
"The overarching element to all of this has been the prioritization of the peace
deal with the Taliban and that, even going back to December 2019, was a
well-known priority in terms of what the US response would be to a potential
incentivized attack backed by a foreign government," the same source said. "On
the peace agreement, prior to its publication and even following its
publication, it was astonishing the degree to which the Department of State and
special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation were in the lead as
opposed to the national security council staff."
While top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
were quick to condemn the December attack at Bagram, there was no mention of any
US injuries in the days and weeks that followed despite knowing shortly after
the incident that four Americans had been wounded, according to the Pentagon
briefing document.
The administration has also never mentioned Iran's connection to the bombing, an
omission current and former officials said was connected to the broader
prioritization of the peace agreement and withdrawal from Afghanistan.
At the time of the December attack on Bagram, peace negotiations between the US
and the Taliban were in a fragile state. Less than two weeks prior, Trump had
announced during a surprise trip to Bagram that talks were going to resume after
a months-long pause.
A State Department spokesperson declined to answer questions about Iran's
purported role in the December 11 attack on Bagram but told CNN that Tehran's
"support to some elements of the Taliban has threatened to undermine the peace
process in Afghanistan."
"Iran has tried to use proxy groups to carry out the Iranian regime's own
nefarious agenda, and it would be a mistake for any faction of the Taliban to
get entangled in Iran's dirty work," they added, noting that the Trump
administration "remains committed to addressing the full range of threats Iran
poses to the US and regional stability. "
**CNN's Vivian Salama, Barbara Starr and Kylie Atwood
contributed reporting
US intelligence indicates Iran paid bounties to Taliban for
targeting American troops in Afghanistan
Zachary Cohen/CNN/August 18/2020
Washington (CNN)US intelligence agencies assessed that Iran offered bounties to
Taliban fighters for targeting American and coalition troops in Afghanistan,
identifying payments linked to at least six attacks carried out by the militant
group just last year alone, including a suicide bombing at a US air base in
December, CNN has learned.
"Bounties" were paid by a foreign government, identified to CNN as Iran, to the
Haqqani network -- a terrorist group that is led by the second highest ranking
leader of the Taliban -- for their attack on Bagram Air Base on December 11,
which killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, including four US
personnel, according to a Pentagon briefing document reviewed by CNN.
The name of the foreign government that made these payments remains classified
but two sources familiar with the intelligence confirmed to CNN that it refers
to Iran.
The US killed a key Iranian general in Iraq less than a month after the Bagram
attack but after a lengthy process involving several agencies to develop options
aimed at countering Iran's support for militant groups in Afghanistan. The
decision was made in March not to take specific action as officials did not want
to jeopardize the peace process with the Taliban, according to multiple sources
familiar.
The revelation that Iran might have paid the Taliban follows the controversy
over Russian bounties for attacks on American troops, an issue that has been
consistently downplayed by the Trump administration in recent weeks.
Russia has denied the allegation.
The lack of public condemnation of Iran or the Taliban and the decision not to
pursue a diplomatic or military response also highlights the administration's
apparent desire to protect peace talks with the Taliban -- which culminated in
an agreement that was signed in February -- at all costs with the goal of
helping Trump fulfill his long-stated campaign promise of removing American
troops from Afghanistan.
Sophisticated attack rattled officials
The attack at Bagram, which is regarded as the most prominent US military
installation in Afghanistan, was highly sophisticated and rattled officials
working on Afghanistan matters because it highlighted vulnerabilities of some of
the American compounds, according to one source involved in the Taliban peace
efforts.
Specifically, the Pentagon briefing document noted that a suicide vehicle-borne
improvised explosive devices (SVBIED) was used in the attack. Roughly 10 Taliban
fighters engaged in a firefight with local security forces after the explosion
and were ultimately killed by US airstrikes.
That sentiment was also factored into assessments by US intelligence officials
from the CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and the National
Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) in the days after the attack, according to
documents obtained by CNN.
"Based on the nature of the attack and agreed upon bounties," the December
attack likely met the criteria for reimbursement, the Pentagon briefing
document, which was provided to the Secretary of Defense and chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff just days after the incident occurred, states.
While US intelligence officials acknowledge that the Haqqani Network would not
necessarily require payment in exchange for targeting American troops, the
internal Pentagon document reviewed by CNN notes that the funding linked to the
December 11 attack at Bagram "probably incentivizes future high-profile attacks
on US and Coalition forces."
Iran has long been known to use proxies for conducting attacks throughout the
region but in the months following December's bombing at Bagram, US officials
across several agencies were tasked with investigating Tehran's relationship
with the Haqqani Network in Afghanistan and developing specific response
options.
But despite acknowledging that the relationship "poses a significant threat to
US interests," National Security Council officials ultimately recommended in
late March that the administration should not take specific steps toward
addressing the underlying Iran-Haqqani Network nexus as officials concluded that
any response would likely have a negative impact on the peace efforts, according
to an internal memo obtained by CNN.
NSC officials also determined that the Afghan government's ability to focus on
any issue other than the coronavirus outbreak would likely deteriorate,
therefore limiting potential diplomatic options that typically would be
available.
While the Trump administration did not take any specific action after concluding
its internal review of the link between Iran and the Haqqani Network earlier
this year, multiple officials argued that the President has taken a strong
stance toward Tehran for its dealings with the Taliban.
A current administration official and former senior official with knowledge of
the situation told CNN that Iran's link to the Taliban was cited by US officials
as part of the argument for conducting the strike that killed top Iranian
General Qasem Soleimani in January.
Still, the issue of foreign governments encouraging the Taliban to resume
attacking US and coalition forces in Afghanistan remains a topic of concern for
national security officials, according to a joint intelligence assessment
produced by the CIA, NSA and NCTC just last month. The assessment notes that
Iran reimbursed the Haqqani Network after it conducted at least six attacks
against US and Coalition interests in 2019.
Pentagon spokesman Army Maj. Rob Lodewick told CNN that "the Department of
Defense does not disclose timelines or discussions surrounding internal
deliberations and intelligence briefings," when asked whether top defense
officials were briefed on intelligence related to Iran's involvement in specific
Taliban attacks but did acknowledge Tehran's efforts to undermine the peace
process.
"The administration has repeatedly demanded, both publicly and privately, that
Iran cease its scourge of malign and destabilizing behavior throughout the
Middle East and the world. While the United States, its NATO allies and
coalition partners are working to facilitate an end to 19 years of bloodshed,
Iran's inimical influence seeks to undermine the Afghan peace process and foster
a continuation of violence and instability," he said.
The Iranian government, the NCTC and the NSC did not respond to CNN's request
for comment.
Discussions about a response continued for roughly three months
While working group discussions focused on addressing Iran's payments to the
Haqqani Network continued on for roughly three months after the Soleimani
strike, some officials involved in the process believed efforts to develop
options aimed at countering the relationship were hamstrung by the ongoing peace
talks between the US and Taliban, two sources familiar with the process told
CNN.
"The object of concern was the relationship because it seemed like one that in
any other year would have merited pretty concerted action," a source familiar
with the decision-making process told CNN, noting that options like targeted
sanctions or even a military response against the militant group in Afghanistan
would have otherwise been on the table.
"The overarching element to all of this has been the prioritization of the peace
deal with the Taliban and that, even going back to December 2019, was a
well-known priority in terms of what the US response would be to a potential
incentivized attack backed by a foreign government," the same source said. "On
the peace agreement, prior to its publication and even following its
publication, it was astonishing the degree to which the Department of State and
special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation were in the lead as
opposed to the national security council staff."
While top administration officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo,
were quick to condemn the December attack at Bagram, there was no mention of any
US injuries in the days and weeks that followed despite knowing shortly after
the incident that four Americans had been wounded, according to the Pentagon
briefing document.
The administration has also never mentioned Iran's connection to the bombing, an
omission current and former officials said was connected to the broader
prioritization of the peace agreement and withdrawal from Afghanistan.
At the time of the December attack on Bagram, peace negotiations between the US
and the Taliban were in a fragile state. Less than two weeks prior, Trump had
announced during a surprise trip to Bagram that talks were going to resume after
a months-long pause.
A State Department spokesperson declined to answer questions about Iran's
purported role in the December 11 attack on Bagram but told CNN that Tehran's
"support to some elements of the Taliban has threatened to undermine the peace
process in Afghanistan."
"Iran has tried to use proxy groups to carry out the Iranian regime's own
nefarious agenda, and it would be a mistake for any faction of the Taliban to
get entangled in Iran's dirty work," they added, noting that the Trump
administration "remains committed to addressing the full range of threats Iran
poses to the US and regional stability. "
*CNN's Vivian Salama, Barbara Starr and Kylie Atwood
contributed reporting
Trump: Christians Treated ‘Horribly, Beyond Disgracefully’ in Middle East
Raymond Ibrahim/Gatestone Institute./August 18/2020
According to President Donald Trump, Christians in the Middle East are being
treated in a manner that is “beyond disgraceful”; Christianity is being “treated
horribly and very unfairly, and it’s criminal.” He said this during his August
13 news conference, in response to the question, “How does the accord today
between Israel and the UAE help struggling and persecuted Christians in the
Middle East?”
Below is the president’s response in full:
Well, I think it’s going to. I think it’s a big start. And you’re right about
that: Christians have been persecuted by some countries in particular in the
Middle East. And I think this is a big start. It’s going to be a very strong
start, very powerful start, and it’s something that I will tell you — I’ve told
David, I’ve told every one of our negotiators: If you look at the way Christians
have been treated in some countries, it’s — it’s beyond disgraceful. It’s — if I
— if I had information and if I had absolute proof — some of the stories that
we’ve heard, which are not easy, which is not easy to get — I would go in and do
a number to those countries like you wouldn’t believe. What they do to
Christians in the Middle East — and it’s — it’s disgraceful. It’s disgraceful.
You’re right. It’s a very big part of the overall negotiation. And as countries
come in — for instance, UAE has agreed very strongly to represent us; I think
they will very well with respect to Christianity, because in the Middle East,
it’s not treated well. It’s not treated well at all. It’s treated horribly and
very unfairly, and it’s criminal what’s happened — and that’s for many, many
years. I think it’s a great question and very un- — it’s a very unfair
situation.
As someone who has been daily following and documenting the phenomenon of Muslim
persecution of Christians for over a decade, I can say that Trump’s description
of and apparent abhorrence for the plight of Christians in the Middle East is
very accurate. Only those who exclusively follow and believe “mainstream media”
reporting—or rather lack thereof—can doubt this.
For example, since July 2011, I’ve been compiling monthly reports titled “Muslim
Persecution of Christians.” Each report—there are currently well over a
hundred—contains a dozen or so atrocities, including the banning, burning, or
bombing of churches; the outright butchery of Christians (especially in
sub-Saharan Africa); murderous assaults or imprisonments of Christian
“blasphemers” and apostates; the abduction, rape, and forced conversion of
Christian girls; and myriad forms of entrenched social discrimination.
Moreover, the majority of those treating Christians in a manner that is, to
quote Trump, “beyond disgraceful … horribly and very unfairly,” are not
professional terrorists but every day Muslims, including governmental
authorities. The issue is systematic and permeates the whole of Muslim society.
Or consider the well documented fact that 38 of the 50 absolute worst nations in
the world in which to be Christian are Muslim. In other words, more than 75% of
the persecution that more than 260 million Christians around the world
experience is at the hands of Muslims.
This leads to the only curious section of Trump’s response: “if I had
information and if I had absolute proof,” he said concerning the “beyond
disgraceful” treatment of Christians, “I would go in and do a number to those
countries [responsible] like you wouldn’t believe.” One wonders what sort of
information or proof he is requesting or whether the good president just got
ahead of himself (which itself is reflective of how strongly he feels about the
subject).
While some may cite this as “proof” that Trump is “all words,” they overlook the
crucial fact that just by acknowledging—to say nothing of vocally condemning—the
persecution of Christians in the Middle East, Trump is helping create awareness
where there was none.
This is especially the case when one compares Trump’s words with those of his
predecessor, Barack Obama. Although the latter was president during the absolute
worst time for Christians in the Middle East—thanks to ISIS, which came to power
under Obama’s tenure—he never acknowledged it. For Obama, the abuse and
slaughter of Christians and the bombing and burning of their churches was—as it
still is for the “mainstream media”—a reflection of “sectarian strife” that has
nothing to do with religion (but rather poverty, inequality, poor education, and
all the other secularly satisfying pretexts).
During, for example, the 2011 Maspero Massacre—when the Egyptian government
slaughtered and ran over with tanks dozens of Christians for protesting the
burnings and closures of their churches—all that Obama could bring himself to do
was call “for restraint on all sides”—as if Egypt’s beleaguered Christian
minority needed to “restrain” itself against the nation’s armed and aggressive
military.
The Obama administration further tried to suppress data concerning the
persecution of Christians in the Middle East and regularly discriminated against
Christian minorities, often in favor of Muslims. Indeed, for at least one former
Nigerian official, the current genocide of Christians in Nigeria finds its
source in “the evil called Barack Obama.”
It is for all these reasons and more that Trump is to be credited for speaking
honestly about the plight of Christians in the Middle East. As president of the
United States, his words go far and wide, and are heard by even the leaders of
the worst offenders. It is for them to decide whether Trump is bluffing or not
about wanting to “go in and do a number” on them “like you wouldn’t believe.”
*Raymond Ibrahim, author of Crucified Again: Islam’s New War on Christians
(2013), is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith
Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior
Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.