English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 25/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.august25.20.htm

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Bible Quotations For today
Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 17/24-26/:”Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. ‘Righteous Father, the world does not know you, but I know you; and these know that you have sent me. I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 24-25/2020

Lebanese Doubt Official Coronavirus Toll, Health Ministry Defends Results
Lebanon's Rai Calls For Raids on Illegal Weapons Depots
US Seeking to Reduce Number of UNIFIL Troops, Stop Hezbollah Violations
457 New Virus Cases and 3 Deaths in Lebanon
Army Finds 'Hydric Acid' Stock at Beirut Port
Aoun asks Regional Director of International Organization for Migration for assistance returning refugees to safe areas in Syria
President Aoun, Italian Defense Minister discuss Lebanon’s great needs after Beirut Port explosion
Guerini in Beirut: Italy will provide Lebanese people with necessary aid
Berri meets Godot and GS’s Ibrahim, receives further cables of support
Wazni to Sign Forensic Audit Contract of Central Bank
Qatar Envoy Expected in Beirut
Italian Minister Meets Aoun, Vows Support for 'Lebanese People'
Helpers Tend to Shock and Trauma after Beirut Disaster
Suspects Linked to Kaftoun Crime Detained in Refugee Camps
Army chief, Italy’s Defense Minister discuss Italian aid
Beirut airport security: Fabricating rumors harms Lebanon's reputation
Jumblat Holds Talks with Hariri at Center House
After Beirut Blast, Foreign Workers Beg to Go Home
Occupation… Electronic Justice and the Mirage of an International Community/Sam Menassa/Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper/August, 24/2020
Lebanese businesses rebel against lockdown/Najia Housari/Arab News/August 24/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 24-25/2020

Trump-dominated Republican Convention renominates US president for second term
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, says Berlin hospital
Pompeo: We’ll supply UAE with arms without hurting Israel’s advantage
Pompeo, Netanyahu Hopeful More Arab States Will Forge Israel Ties
Syria Constitution Talks Halted after 3 Test Positive for COVID-19
Turkey’s Erdogan hosts large Hamas delegation with wanted terrorist
Iraq’s Kadhimi Offers Condolences to Late Activist Reham Yacoub’s Family, Vows to Prosecute Killers
UK Foreign Minister to Meet Israeli, Palestinian Leaders to Press for Dialogue
US Officials Tour the Middle East after Israel-UAE Agreement
Hamas Urges Mideast Leaders to Press Israel Over Gaza Blockade
Hamas Awaits Egypt’s Response to Its Demands

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 24-25/2020

Checkmating Iran is a Strategic Imperative/Charles Elias Chartouni/August 24/2020
New Sultan on the Block/Mohanad Hage Ali/Carnegie MEC/August 24/2020
Appeasement: The European Sickness/Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute/August 24, 2020
The Islamic Republic of Iran: A Criminal Enterprise, Not a State/Peter Huessy/Gatestone Institute/August 24, 2020
The UAE-Israel announcement proves the folly of warming to Iran/Michael Oren/CNN/August 24/2020
The Harshness of Living without a State/Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper/August, 24/2020
The unintended lessons of the UAE-Israel deal/Jerry Sorkin/The Arab Weekly/August 24/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 24-25/2020

Lebanese Doubt Official Coronavirus Toll, Health Ministry Defends Results
Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper/August, 24/2020
After Lebanon reached a daily average of 600 COVID-19 cases, voices emerged doubting the accuracy of such numbers while political parties and public institutions increased preventive measures and banned social gatherings.
On Sunday, former MP Ismail Sukkarieh said that “even the Coronavirus in Lebanon is lebanonized,” accusing the state and its ministries of corruption. “The recent reports about the lack of trust in the PCR tests drive several question marks about the accuracy of (COVID-19) numbers,” he said.
Sukkarieh’s statements prompted a response from the Health Ministry, particularly in view of certain news and videos circulating on some social media sites about the delay, inaccuracy, and commercial approach of PCR laboratory testing.
“Conducting laboratory tests in some areas at a time when the daily examinations exceed the numbers that the laboratories could absorb, leads to a delay in issuing test results,” the Ministry said in a statement.
It added that a positive test result followed a few days later by a negative result, may be scientifically due to a laboratory recovery of the patient. It should also be noted that the scientific percentage of false negative results may reach sometimes 30%, while false positive results are scientifically rare.
“Doubting some laboratory results does not serve the public interest, especially under the current circumstances, and we call upon everyone to bear individual and social responsibility, and we stress on mandatory home quarantine for a period of 10 days, regardless of the PCR test result,” the Ministry said.
The pandemic outbreak in Lebanon drove official institutions and political parties to take preventive measures, including the banning of social gatherings. On Sunday, an Internal Security Forces patrol in the Bcharre district stopped a wedding party at a hotel in the area.
Also, caretaker Justice Minister Marie-Claude Najem and President of the Higher Judicial Council Judge Suhail Abboud issued a joint decision to suspend sessions in courts and judicial departments until the morning of Sept. 7.
For his part, head of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, indicated in a statement that "due to the severe circumstances that the country is going through regarding the coronavirus pandemic, the Party leader preferred to attend the Mass service in memory of the Lebanese Resistance's martyrs, which will be held at LF's general headquarters in Maarab on Sunday, September 6, in the absence of a crowd." On Aug. 18, the Interior Ministry announced a partial lockdown, which is set to end on 7 September. Most businesses, gathering spots, and private and public spaces are closed, and a daily curfew is being imposed between 6 pm and 6 am. Those measures drove a wave of objections from affected sectors, particularly restaurants and bars. Also, merchants in the city of Nabatiyeh, in South Lebanon, demanded Sunday a permit to open their shops amid the dire economic situation and the increase of the dollar exchange rate. On Sunday, the Health Ministry announced that 507 new Coronavirus cases have been reported, thus bringing the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 12,698.

Lebanon's Rai Calls For Raids on Illegal Weapons Depots
Beirut- Nazeer Reda/Asharq Al Awsat/August 24/2020
Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Rai escalated Sunday the intensity of his statements against Hezbollah’s arms, without directly naming the party as he called for “carrying out raids on all weapons and explosives caches and warehouses spread illegally between residential neighborhoods in cities, towns, and villages.”The Patriarch pointed out that citizens' lives do not belong to any person, faction, party, or organization. His statements, during Sunday Mass service at the patriarchal summer retreat of Diman, came amid growing distancing between Bkirki and the Shiite party, in the absence of any public contacts between the two sides, at least since Rai called for Lebanon’s neutrality last month. Hezbollah is considered one of the main parties to possess large military capacities used in its conflict with Israel. However, those arms remained a contentious issue.
Since 2006, core political actors held several dialogue tables to reach a consensus on a National Defense Strategy to face Israeli aggressions. However, no results were reached in this regard as talks over the party’s full monopoly on the possession of arms led to political tension between Hezbollah and some Lebanese political parties, which call for restricting weapons in the hands of the Lebanese Army. For the first time since he was appointed Patriarch in 2011, Rai tackled on Sunday the file of raiding arms depots. “Some Lebanese areas have been transformed into fields of explosives [and] we do not know when they will explode or who will detonate them,” Rai said. Amid Hezbollah’s silence about Rai’s calls, Maronite sources close to the matter denied that Bkirki plans to break its relations with the Party. The sources told Asharq Al-Awsat: “Rai does not break relations with anyone. The Patriarch is interested in reaching all Lebanese constituencies within the constants of respect for sovereignty and independence.”Although the sources did not deny the presence of disagreements on the weapons of Hezbollah, they said: “We reached a delicate phase that affects the fate of Lebanon.”
The same sources explained that the arms file is a contentious issue that overpasses the Lebanese makeup. “In light of regional developments and the change of international balances, the Patriarch cares to remove all pretensions around the arms file and to safeguard neutrality,” the sources said.

US Seeking to Reduce Number of UNIFIL Troops, Stop Hezbollah Violations
New York- Ali Barda/Asharq Al Awsat/August 24/2020
France distributed a draft resolution to members of the Security Council, authorizing the extension of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) until the end of August 2021, in order to continue the implementation of UNSC Resolution 1701.
The French draft resolution included amendments that diplomats described as “balanced”, to counter the pressure exerted by the United States to introduce changes to the mandate of the international forces.
The US is seeking to reduce the number of UNIFIL troops by a third and extending their mandate for six months instead of a full year, in addition to granting the international mission more powers to prevent militants and illegal weapons from circulating in its area of operations between the Blue Line and the Litani River. Asharq al-Awsat obtained the second draft of the resolution, which was distributed to the council members after three rounds of negotiations.
“Until the last round of negotiations, the US negotiator was insisting on three amendments: reducing the UNIFIL troops from 15,000 to 10,000, decreasing the extension period from 12 months to six months, and preventing (Hezbollah) from continuing its violations of Resolution 1701,” a diplomat told Asharq Al-Awsat.UNIFIL’s current mandate expires on August 31. Contrary to the US desire, the French negotiators distributed the second draft of the 29-paragraph draft-resolution, which “extends the current mandate of the UNIFIL until August 31, 2021,” welcomes “the expansion of coordinated activities between UNIFIL and the Lebanese army, and calls for increased cooperation without compromising the UNIFIL mandate.”It also reiterated the Security Council’s call on the Lebanese government to “submit a plan to increase its naval capabilities as soon as possible… with the aim of reducing the naval force of UNIFIL and transferring its responsibilities to the Lebanese Army.”A new paragraph was added to the draft stating that the Council welcomed the report of the Secretary-General (of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres) regarding the assessment of the continuity of UNIFIL resources and its options to improve the efficiency and coordination between UNIFIL and the Office of the United Nations Special Coordinator in Lebanon, taking into account the maximum number of forces and the civilian component within the UNIFIL. The draft resolution called for “an increase in international support for the Lebanese army and all the state’s security institutions” and denounced “all violations of the Blue Line.”It also urged all parties “to respect the cessation of hostilities, to prevent any violation of the Blue Line, and to cooperate fully with the United Nations and UNIFIL.”While the Security Council welcomes the “constructive role played by the tripartite mechanism” between Lebanon, the United Nations, and Israel in “facilitating coordination and de-escalating tensions”, it encourages “UNIFIL, in close coordination with the parties, to implement measures to further enhance the capabilities of the tripartite mechanism, including the establishment of additional sub-committees,” according to the French draft resolution.

457 New Virus Cases and 3 Deaths in Lebanon
Naharnet/August 24/2020
Lebanon recorded 457 new coronavirus cases and three deaths over the past 24 hours, the Health Ministry said on Monday evening. The new cases raise the country’s overall tally to 13,155, among them 3,684 recoveries, while the fatalities raise the death toll to 126. The Ministry added that 268 people were admitted into hospitals over the past 24 hours, including 76 into intensive care units. 5,735 PCR tests were meanwhile conducted, among them 1,241 at Beirut airport. While the residency places of 149 infected individuals are still being investigated, 56 cases were recorded in the Baabda district, 46 in Beirut, 39 in Tripoli and 26 in Northern Metn.

Army Finds 'Hydric Acid' Stock at Beirut Port
Naharnet/August 24/2020
The Lebanese Army said on Monday that its troops found several containers of "hydric acid" (dihydrogen monoxide) in the disaster-hit Beirut port, ensuring that the chemical was handled safely and according to “scientific” means.
The Lebanese Army-Orientation Directorate said in a statement that its troops scanned Beirut port between “August 12 and August 22 and found 25 containers" storing the material. It assured that “safe, and scientific” steps have been taken to address the chemical material. Hydric Acid, aka Dihydrogen Monoxide, is a colorless and odorless chemical compound which can be found in the atomic components of explosive and poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid. It is also a major component of acid rain. The army statement added that another 54 containers storing other (unspecified) materials were found. “A leak constitutes danger,” warned the army, noting that necessary measures were taken. Precautionary measures and comprehensive surveys are ongoing at the port and are carried out by specialized teams of the Army Engineering Regiment in cooperation with a team of French experts in the port, said the statement. The army assured the chemicals were safely handled according to scientific means in coordination with the port’s related authorities.2,750 tons of the ammonium nitrate stored for six years at Beirut port exploded on August 4 flattening large parts of the capital, killing more than 180 people and leaving at least 300,000 homeless.

Aoun asks Regional Director of International Organization for Migration for assistance returning refugees to safe areas in Syria
NNA/August 24/2020
The President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met the Regional Director of the International Organization for Migration of the Middle East and North Africa, Mrs. Carmela Godot, today at the Presidential Palace.
President Aoun asked Godot for help to return the displaced Syrians to areas in Syria which have become safe, and presented the repercussions which Lebanon bears as a result of displacement since the 2011 war until today. The President also considered that this return removes a great burden from Lebanon, which also suffers a series of crises, including the economic crisis, the Corona pandemic, and the heavy human and material losses resulting from the Beirut Port explosion.
In addition, President Aoun pointed that in addition to the presence of more than 1.5 million Syrians and around 500,000 Palestinian refugees, the Beirut explosion lead to the displacement of 300,000 citizens from their homes and properties were damaged in neighborhoods close to the Port, and these neighborhoods must be provided with the necessary and rapid assistance, in addition to providing shelters pending the restoration of the damaged homes.
The President also expressed appreciation for the organization’s efforts, calling for intensified work to return the displaced Syrians to their homeland.
For her side, Mrs. Godot conveyed the condolences for the victims of the Beirut Port explosion, from the Chairman of her organization, Mr. Antonio Vitorini, to President Aoun, stating the activities that the organization intends to undertake to help those affected in coordination with the Lebanese state and UN organizations. Mrs. Godo indicated that she had launched an urgent appeal to help 50,000 affected individuals in Lebanon, and requested financial assistance worth 10.3 million Dollars.
Moreover, Mrs. Godot discussed the organization’s achievements in transferring Syrian to other countries, indicating that 120,000 Syrians have been resettled in third countries, and efforts will be continuous to help those who applied to move to a third country, who number around 3,000.
Accompanying Mrs. Godot were: Senior Advisor to the Organization’s General Director, Mr. Othman Belbeisi, Acting Director of the Organization’s Office in Beirut, Mr. Ahmed Mukhtar, and the Organization’s Relationship Coordinator, Ms. Tala Al-Khatib. And on the Lebanese side: former Minister, Salim Jreisatti, Director General of the Lebanese Presidency, Dr. Antoine Choucair, and advisers: Brigadier General, Paul Matar, Mr. Rafic Chelala and Osama Khashab, attended the meeting.
Sri Lanka Ambassador:
President Aoun received the Ambassador of Sri Lanka to Lebanon, Mrs. Shani Calyaneratne Karunaratne, who conveyed her country’s condolences to the victims of the Beirut Port explosion. The Sri Lankan Ambassador announced that her country had provided 1675kg of Ceylon Tea for those affected by the recent explosion, considering that such assistance expresses the friendship between the Lebanese and Sri Lankan peoples.
Condolences:
President Aoun received a condolence cable from the Ugandan President, Royer Museveni, condoling the victims of the Beirut Port explosion, and expressing hope for a speedy recovery for the wounded, stressing the support of Uganda for Lebanon and its people.—Presidency Press Office

President Aoun, Italian Defense Minister discuss Lebanon’s great needs after Beirut Port explosion
NNA/August 24/2020
President of the Reoublic, General Michel Aoun, on Monday received Italian Defense Minister, Lorenzo Guerini, who expressed the condolences of the Italian Government and people, to the victims of the Beirut explosion, and wished speedy recovery for the wounded.
Minister Guerini affirmed Italian stand next to the Lebanese in the current ordeal, considering that the assistance it provides and will continue to provide is the evidence of friendship between the two states and peoples, “Which is getting stronger year after year”.
Moreover, Minister Guerini presented Italian aid through “Cedar Emergency” program carried out by the military ship “San Giusto” of the Italian Navy and Army, which carried on board a field hospital to be installed on the campus of the Lebanese University in Hadath, with a unit for removing rubble in the Engineering Regiment of the Italian Army. This will help remove blackfillin the Port area, in addition to a unit of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapon specialists. Guerini also affirmed that Italy is ready to meet Lebanon’s requests to secure the necessary assistance for the Lebanese who were affected by the explosion.
For his side, President Aoun welcomed Minister Guerini and his accompanying delegation, thanking Italian support in this delicate circumstance, noting also the Italian participation in the UNIFIL forces in the South, to maintain security and stability in implementation of Resolution 1701. The President considered that the Italian initiatives towards Lebann have always been and will remain a shining clear evidence of deep-rooted Lebanese-Italian relations, presenting the difficulties that Lebanon has faced and still is facing, defining the needs as great and huge at all levels and not only limited to the four priorities identified by the Paris Conference in the medical health, educational and food sectors, in addition to rehabilitation of the Port. In addition, President Aoun explained the challenges that Lebanon is working to address, which are divided between its economic and financial crises and the repercussions of Corona pandemic, the Syrian displacement, in addition to the Palestinian refugees in the country. The President called on Italy to work to help Lebanon to facilitate the return of displaced Syrians to their country, especially after stability has been achieved in large Syrian areas.
Minister Guerini was accompanied by a delegation including: Italian Ambassador toBeirut, Nicoletta Bombardieri, Diplomatic Adviser, Ambassador Massimo Marotti, Counselor at the Embassy in Beirut, Roberta de Lecce, Head of the Military Studies Office,Gianfranco Annunziata, Military Attaché Colonel Jacopo Rollo, and First Secretary at the Embassy,Marco de Sabatino. The Lebanese delegation included: former Minister, Salim Jreisatti, Director General of the Presidency of the Republic, Dr. Antoine Choucair, and advisors, Brigadier General Paul Matar, RaficChelala and Osama Khashab.
Minister Guerini’s Statement:
“Since the first days of this great incident, Italy has provided tangible assistance to the Lebanese people, like other countries of the international community. The Italian Air Force sent numerous equipment to help the Lebanese people, and I mean health aid, not just military aid. The Italian state also sent a number of firefighters and representatives of the Italian Ministry of Defense.As an indication of the continuity of the aid provision, in the past few days a ship carrying equipment for establishing a field hospital has arrived at Beirut Port, which can also deal with cases infected with COVID-19. Individuals from the Italian military hospital and other personnel working under the specialized Ministry of Defense have also arrived, working in the field of removing rubble as well as in the field of reconstruction.
I would like to express the feelings of solidarity, friendship and brotherhood that unite Italy and Lebanon, and of course we will continue to do everything in our will to help the Lebanese people and state and to respond to all the demands and needs that the Lebanese Government will present to the Italian Government. I would also like to point out that Italian Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, will visit Lebanon in the next few days, and this is further evidence of the sympathy of the Italian people and the Italian state with the Lebanese people, and the participation of the Italian state in the reconstruction efforts. This is what I emphasized again during my meeting with President Aoun. The rapprochement between our two countries is also felt through the participation of Italy in the UNIFIL forces, and through the cooperation between the Italian armed forces and the Lebanese army. We, as Italian armed forces, have been in Lebanon for 38 years, and we carry out many tasks with the Lebanese army.Finally, I wish to express condolences to the families of the victims who died in the massive explosion in the Beirut port, and my wishes for a fast recovery for the injured”.--Presidency Press office

Guerini in Beirut: Italy will provide Lebanese people with necessary aid
NNA/August 24/2020
Italian Defense Minister, Lorenzo Guerini, on Monday kicked off an official visit to Beirut, during which he will meet with President of the Republic, Michel Aoun, Caretaker Minister, Zeina Akar, and Lebanese Army Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Aoun. Guerini is also scheduled to inspect the Italian hospital at the Lebanese University's Hadath campus and tour “San Giusto" ship which is anchored in the port of Beirut. “Italy expresses its sorrow for the double explosion that ripped through Beirut,” the Italian minister said upon his arrival, adding that his country stands by the Lebanese people in this ordeal by providing them with the necessary assistance.  Guerini also saluted the recovery efforts of the army Lebanese in the wake of the horrid blast.

Berri meets Godot and GS’s Ibrahim, receives further cables of support
NNA/August 24/2020
House Speaker, Nabih Berri, on Monday welcomed at his Ain El Tineh residence the Regional Director of the International Organization for Migration of the Middle East and North Africa, Carmela Godot. Speaker Berri also met with General Security Chief, Major General Abbas Ibrahim, with whom he discussed the general situation in the country. Maj. Gen. Inrahim left without making any statement. On the other hand, Berri continued to receive further cables of condolences and support for Lebanon from heads of international parliaments and figures.

Wazni to Sign Forensic Audit Contract of Central Bank
Naharnet/August 24/2020
Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni is expected to sign a contract to hire specialists to conduct forensic audit of Lebanon’s central bank accounts to determine how massive amounts of money were spent in the nation plagued by corruption, media reports said on Monday. The move might send positive signals about Lebanon’s commitment to transparency demanded by the West, especially France, amid requirements the audit expands to include all official departments and institutions, added the reports. The government had in July agreed to hire a New York-based company Alvarez & Marsal to conduct a forensic audit. Two other companies, KPMG and Oliver Wyman, were to be contracted to do traditional accounting audits of central bank accounts. The government had been calling for a forensic audit into the central bank’s accounts since March following the country’s first ever default on paying back its massive debt. Bailout talks between the government and the International Monetary Fund have failed to make progress since they started in mid-May.

Qatar Envoy Expected in Beirut
Naharnet/August 24/2020
Qatar is expected to dispatch its foreign minister to Beirut this week as part of diplomatic flurry flocking into Lebanon for assistance after the colossal Beirut blast early in August. Qatari Foreign Minister Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is expected to arrive in Beirut within two days to meet with senior Lebanese officials, al-Joumhouria daily reported Monday. The Minister had earlier expressed Qatar’s readiness to provide assistance for Lebanon after the catastrophic explosions. Qatar was among the first responders with the country flying field hospitals and medical aid to Beirut, to ease pressure on Lebanon's strained medical system after the explosions. Support from Gulf and world countries poured into Lebanon after the explosions that flattened large parts of the capital, killing more than 180 people and leaving thousands homeless.

Italian Minister Meets Aoun, Vows Support for 'Lebanese People'
Naharnet/August 24/2020
Italian Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini held talks Monday at the Baabda Palace with President Michel Aoun, during which he stressed that “Italy will stand by the Lebanese people in the new plight it is facing.”The minister also demonstrated the assistance offered by Italy through its military ship San Giusto, which carried a field hospital to Lebanon in addition to a debris removal unit and experts in chemical, biological, radioactive and nuclear weapons. Itay is “ready to meet Lebanon’s requests as to the necessary assistance for the Lebanese affected by the port blast,” the minister told the president. Aoun for his part thanked Italy for the support and lauded its participation in the UNIFIL peacekeeping force. “The needs are huge at all levels and are not only limited to the four priorities specified by the Paris conference regarding the medical, health, educational and food sectors in addition to the reconstruction of the city of Beirut,” the president told the Italian visitor.

Helpers Tend to Shock and Trauma after Beirut Disaster
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 24/2020
When a massive explosion ripped through Beirut this month, Yorgo Younes scurried to flee his building. He saw children crying and adults screaming as they scrambled for safety, one running barefoot over jagged pieces of glass in a state of shock and fear. A clinical psychologist, Younes thought of the toll this moment would exact. "I had a choice either to panic, too, or to do something." Online, Younes and others offered to help those grappling with the shock and trauma of a blast that devastated a people wearied by severe economic turmoil and the coronavirus pandemic and related hardship.
"Already, we were going through a very tough period in Lebanon," he said. "And then came this explosion. It made everyone, in a way, blow up as well." The blast -- caused by the ignition of nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate warehoused at the city's port -- killed nearly 180 people, left many missing, injured thousands more, destroyed homes and shattered a facade of normalcy. After his offer to provide what he describes as "psychological first aid," Younes says he has received dozens of calls and messages seeking help.
People have turned to him with complaints of anxiety, difficulty breathing, insomnia or having nightmares. Some had feelings of survivor's guilt: Why did others lose their lives or homes while they were spared, they wondered. One mother described how her son constantly feared another explosion would hit and was getting jumpy at any noise. Younes usually starts by telling them that their reactions are normal, works to calm them with breathing exercises and provides tips on how to deal with anxiety.
Offers to help navigate the trauma are part of a wider effort by many in Lebanon who, bound by catastrophe, closed ranks to tend to their collective wounds. They opened their homes for strangers or swept up streets strewn with glass and rubble, helping fill what many say is a void left by the state.
"In a moment where we all lost hope, in a way, I don't know how it is that right away we decided we needed to do something," Younes said. "We got back on our feet, and everyone tried to help in the way they know and to offer the skills they have."
Nadine Ghanimeh, a psychotherapist who has also volunteered her services, said she wanted to offer presence and emotional support to those who are struggling.
"My generation knew war for long periods of time" -- the Lebanese civil war started in 1975 and ended in 1990 -- "and we all know how important the human presence is ... at such times," she said. "Once they understand that whatever they are feeling is normal and it will pass with time, this helps."Ghanimeh derives hope from the scenes of solidarity playing out amid the devastation. "In this desolation, you would feel helpless," she said. "Being able to act and do something about it helps both those doing the work and those at the receiving end."
Fatima Ismail, a painter, also turned to social media offering to use art to help people navigate their emotions after the explosion. In a recent Zoom session she hosted, she urged a small group to pour their feelings on paper in the form of a painting, or to visualize painting as she offered guidance. When they finished, Ismail encouraged participants to share their feelings. One wrote that he was happy with the experience. Another said she felt sadness. "How about you scribble this sadness on paper?" Ismail suggested. "The goal...is not to erase the feelings but, simply, to accept the feeling as is," she said.
"Let it take its time, and let it pass," she said, "because tomorrow we will rebuild."

Suspects Linked to Kaftoun Crime Detained in Refugee Camps
Naharnet/August 24/2020
The Intelligence Branch of the Internal Security Forces early on Monday raided the place of residence in el-Amrieh of suspects involved in the Kaftoun crime, and arrested several others in the refugee camps in al-Kwashra, el-Bireh and Kherbet Daoud. Police raided the place of residence of a Syrian refugee in the neighborhood of el-Amrieh in al-Bireh, where an unidentified object exploded killing the suspect, media reports said. The suspect had reportedly resisted the police and gunfire was heard. An unidentified object exploded, but no details were provided whether the suspect had detonated himself. The identity of the suspect was not identified. The ISF also detained several suspects in the outskirts of the towns of Kwashra, Kherbet Daoud and el-Bireh. On Sunday, the Joint Palestinian Security Force at the al-Beddawi refugee camp has handed over Palestinian national Ehab Shahine, suspected of being involved in the Kaftoun crime to the Intelligence Branch of the Internal Security Forces. MTV reported Sunday that the suspects had links in the past to the jihadist Islamic State group. The incident in Kaftoun left three municipal police guards dead -- Alaa Fares, who is the son of the town’s mayor, George Sarkis and Fadi Sarkis. The three victims were also supporters of the Syrian Social National Party. According to reports, the assailants opened fire when the municipal guards asked them why they were roaming the area in a car carrying no registration plates. The gunmen fled on foot after the incident as the town’s mayor said “weapons, hand grenades and electric wires” were found in the deserted car. Media reports meanwhile said that only a pistol equipped with a silencer was found in the vehicle.

Army chief, Italy’s Defense Minister discuss Italian aid
NNA/August 24/2020
Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Monday welcomed at his Yarzeh office, Italian Defense Minister, Lorenzo Guerini, at the head of an accompanying delegation, with whom he discussed the aid provided by the Italian government to help Lebanon counter the repercussions of the Beirut Port explosion.
Maj. Gen. Aoun also received the strategic advisor to the British security cooperation for border control program, retired general Lamb Graeme, accompanied by the British Military attaché assistant in Lebanon. Discussions reportedly touched on the means of cooperation between the armies of the two countries.
The Army Commander also met with the new Beirut Port Director, Bassem al-Kaissi, who thanked the military for its efforts to clear the rubble and restart work in part of the port.

Beirut airport security: Fabricating rumors harms Lebanon's reputation
NNA/August 24/2020
Beirut airport security on Monday issued a statement in which it responded to pictures and rumors that have been recently spread on social media claiming that food aid is being stolen from the cargo hold at Rafic Hariri International Airport.
“It is of paramount importance for the leadership of the airport security apparatus to clarify the following: First: The aid that comes to Lebanon is directly delivered to the Lebanese Army, the Lebanese Red Cross, or to non-governmental organizations (NGO) after the completion of the required legal procedures.
Second: These photos are not taken at Rafic Hariri International Airport.
Third: The fabrication of such rumors only harms the reputation of Lebanon, which can no longer tolerate this amount of fake news.
Therefore, the airport security calls on citizens not to be influenced by such cheap rumors that only aim to create confusion and anxiety among citizens,” the statement added.

Jumblat Holds Talks with Hariri at Center House
Naharnet/August 24/2020
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri held talks Monday evening at the Center House with Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblat. “The meeting dealt with the latest political developments and the general situation,” Hariri’s press office said in a terse statement. Jumblat was accompanied by MP Wael Abu Faour and the meeting was held in the presence of Hariri’s adviser ex-minister Ghattas Khoury. Recent media reports have said that the PSP was opposed to Hariri’s return as premier to lead the new government. According to the reports, the Lebanese Forces and the Free Patriotic Movement are also opposed to Hariri’s nomination while Hizbullah and the AMAL Movement are pushing for his return.

After Beirut Blast, Foreign Workers Beg to Go Home
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 24/2020
After struggling first through Lebanon's economic crisis and then the coronavirus pandemic, Ethiopian worker Tarik Kebeda said the deadly blast that ripped through her Beirut home was the final straw. Inside the small house she shares with four friends, she pointed to the window frames covered by sheets, because the glass was smashed out by the August 4 explosion. They had already lost their jobs -- as domestic workers, or in supermarkets or restaurants -- but now their home too is at risk. "I'm scared to sleep here," the 22-year old said, showing the deep cracks running down the bedroom's walls, saying she feared the building "will collapse on top of us". Thousands of foreign workers were already stranded in Lebanon, after months of dollar shortages and then the coronavirus pandemic. Then came the blast in Beirut's port that killed more than 181 people, wounded thousands and devastated swathes of the city. Many say it was just one disaster too many, and now they need to leave. "I love Lebanon, but I don't want to live here anymore," Kebeda said. "There's no more work. How will I eat?"Some foreign workers also say they feel sidelined by aid efforts. In the poor neighbourhood of Karantina, Kebeda's neighbour Hana claimed aid workers sometimes put fellow Lebanese first. Next door, 31-year-old Romane Abera recounted how she hid beneath a parked car to hide from the explosion. "Once, a truck came to distribute food boxes but they said: 'Only give them to the Lebanese'," Hana said.Today her damaged home is barely held up by scaffolding, with hot gusts of summer air sweeping through a huge hole in the wall.
Hammer protest
"I wish Lebanon could go back to how it was before," said Abera, who left behind her baby boy in Ethiopia and recently lost her job. Hundreds of thousands of migrant workers of multiple nationalities --- including at least 250,000 housekeepers and carers -- toil in Lebanon for cash to send home. They enter Lebanon under a controversial sponsorship system called "kafala", which has been repeatedly denounced by rights groups as enabling a wide range of abuses. Under kafala, a worker cannot terminate their contract without the permission of their employer or they will lose their legal immigration status. Many foreign workers have reached breaking point. Outside the Gambian consulate in Beirut, around 30 Gambian women clamoured for help. "We're like slaves," one protester shouted. "We are not treated well, and the racism here is very high." Zeina Ammar, from Lebanon's Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) organisation, urged countries to fund evacuations, and provide travel documents when needed. "We want to go home," they chanted. Some threw handfuls of dirt towards the building, while others hit its door with hammers. "It should be a systematic, unconditional provision of laissez-passer to absolutely everyone in order to save their lives," she said.
'Systematically dehumanised'
After the port blast, Lebanese shared videos online celebrating the courage of migrant workers helping with clean-up efforts in the streets, as well as footage of a housekeeper on August 4 diving to rescue a toddler from an imploding window. But ARM says not enough attention is being given to the migrants who fell victim to the blast. "The official tally of the deceased and the missing remains incomplete, excluding primarily people of non-Lebanese origin," ARM said. "Migrant workers and refugees are systematically dehumanised and marginalised in Lebanon, in life as in death."Outside the Kenyan consulate, dozens of women said they had been holding a sit-in since August 10 to demand their repatriation. Among them, a 21-year-old recounted escaping abusive employers, only to be injured and see her home destroyed in this month's explosion.
The consulate said efforts were underway to fly those who wished back home, but demonstrators complained of inaction. Another woman said her employers had dumped her at the consulate just days after the blast without a passport or the salary she was owed, accusing her of being too ill to work. A fellow protester, 27-year-old Emily, was incensed."Who throws a sick woman on the streets at night?" she asked, with another woman's five-month-year-old baby lying beside her."We just need help to go back home. Only that."
 

Occupation… Electronic Justice and the Mirage of an International Community
Sam Menassa/Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper/August, 24/2020
...Now that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon has finally issued its verdict on the assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri and his companions, no one can continue to turn a blind eye any longer.
A military official in Hezbollah by the name of Salim Ayyash has been found guilty of killing a Lebanese prime minister, a hard fact that cannot be blown off from today onwards, and any scenario that ignores it has no worth in politics, security, law or the balance of international or Lebanese justice.
However, despite this fact, and without getting into its legal dimensions which I will leave to experts, the verdict that came 15 years after the earthquake that had shaken Lebanon in 2005, allowed, because of its form and content, commentators and pundits of the “axis of resistance” to promote what they now consider facts and build on them. Four are most prominent.
First, the verdict acquitted Syria, or, more accurately, the court was unable, with conclusive legal evidence, to confirm its ties to the crime.
Secondly, the verdict acquitted Hezbollah’s leadership, or, more accurately, the court could not find evidence to prove that the party had been involved beyond reasonable doubt.
Third, based on the acquittal of Syria and the impossibility of Hezbollah having carried out an act of this magnitude and seriousness without the former’s knowledge, the commentators hold Israel responsible for Hariri’s assassination and link the crime to the war that broke out afterward in Syria. Their analysis can ever go as far as to also connect it to the explosion at the Port of Beirut.
Fourth, they considered the only person that the court had convicted of the assassination, Salim Ayyash, a bird flying away from it flock.
Without getting into the court’s precision, objectivity and professionalism, it is worth mentioning that the verdict was based on communication network data gathered by a Lebanese Captain, Wissam Eid, who had been assassinated in one of a series of murders that killed off a select group of Lebanese figures opposed to the Assad regime and Hezbollah, and the investigation did not subsequently add anything new to that data.
Given that the Tribunal is an independent judicial body that includes Lebanese and international judges, and is not a United Nations court and does not have the authority to charge states, bodies or parties, this long-awaited ruling reiterated to skeptics the limits of the international community, represented by the United Nations and its agencies.
This came as a shock to the Lebanese, especially in light of the country’s current situation, magnifying their disappointments that stem from many other issues, some old and some new. The most prominent of these issues are chronic political gridlock, the unprecedented economic and financial collapse and the horrors of the Beirut Port blast and its humanitarian and political repercussions, especially the fall of Hassan Diab’s government and the subsequent hard-line position declared by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, with his rejection of any neutral government that can implement the reforms demanded by the international community.
All of this brings us back to the real problem in Lebanon; the Lebanese state that has existed, in theory, since the country’s independence in 1943, is being eaten away to the advantage of an alternative state that is being built. While so-called demands for reform, ending corruption and improving public administration, it has become glaringly apparent, aim to shift attention away from the source of all of these problems. That is, the fact that the country has been under occupation for six decades.
A quick overview of Lebanon’s modern history, from the 1960s onwards, shows us that throughout the period stretching from the Cairo Agreement in 1969 until the explosion at the port, Lebanese crises were being addressed, or sought to be addressed, through attempts at political reform that enhances political participation and economic reform that eliminates corruption and squander.
The same demands are currently being raised by both the local and external parties. The unequivocal reality of the situation, nonetheless, is that the causes of the actual and real crises were and still are the state’s weakness, or even collapse, in the face of foreign presence on Lebanese land and the roles that have been played by the different parties.
At the end of the sixties, it had been manifested in the Palestine Liberation Organization and its domination over factions that benefited from the rifts in the ranks of the Lebanese. At the time, the civil war began with the Two Years War and what had been called the transitory phase of the Arab nationalist and progressive parties’ front, which aimed to reform the regime by curtailing the influence of what had been known as Political Maronitism to ensure greater powers for the premiership, cancel political sectarianism and achieve other objectives.
During the same period, towards the end of President Suleiman Franjieh’s term in 1976 in particular, the constitutional document appeared, another document for reform. After the Israeli invasion and the subsequent Palestinian exit and the entry of Syrian forces in their place, while the Syrian and Israeli troops were still present in the country, the Geneva Conference of 1983 and then the Lausanne Conference of 1984 also called for reforming the political system, as the war had been ongoing.
Later there came the tripartite agreement of 1985 and the Taef Agreement of 1989, which theoretically established the Second Republic through a reform of the political system. After Syria’s exit and the Iranian occupation that took its place through its ally Hezbollah, the Doha Agreement was signed in 2008.
During all these stages, demands for political change and reform or reformulating political participation served as a smokescreen that obscured the reality of the political turmoil and conflicts in Lebanon. The state’s weakness at first, which eventually led to its complete absence due to the various foreign occupiers who have been making the decisions since the 1960s, has allowed for corruption to ravage the country as it does today.
Mismanagement, neglect, chaos and smuggling are rampant. This does not negate the need; indeed, there is an urgent need for reform and good governance. However, we are still being sucked into the same vortex; we are preoccupying ourselves with clothing though the body is dead, with reforms in a country that does not exist. This has pushed some to consider an international management for the Lebanese crisis as the country’s only hope for escaping the abyss.
The Tribunal’s verdict came to affirm that these hopes are a mirage, as it demonstrated the international indifference to Lebanon’s fate despite all the noise around it today.
It also reiterated the international community’s inability to help or save Lebanon at this stage, which cannot be surmounted with any political reform or settlement. If the ruling were such to avoid straining the country further by referring to the real criminal, because of powerful countries’ apprehensions about a potentially explosive conflict, the decision nonetheless failed to eliminate this specter because it dashed the hopes of a substantial segment of Lebanese society and turned it into a time bomb that could explode at any moment as its sense of marginalization and vulnerability continues to grow.
The most disappointing aspect of the ruling is that it showed that the Western world, which has been relied upon, is today run by craftsmen and technocrats whose decisions are driven by modern technology and computers and lack common sense. This is precisely the logic the international tribunal used to come to its verdict; it claimed the evidence is legally considered circumstantial without considering the political and geostrategic incentives to be conclusive evidence for the decision on this terrorist act...
The West lives in the ambiguous virtual world of miniscreens and focuses its attention on consumption and people’s daily needs. On the other side of the world, “ideologues” have been hijacking the real world for more than two decades.
Western leaders and elites argue on social media and electronic platforms to compensate for not boldly interacting with events to find creative solutions they are capable of. Instead, they waste their capabilities on luxuries and entertainment...
 

Lebanese businesses rebel against lockdown
Najia Housari/Arab News/August 24/2020
BEIRUT: The owners of stores, restaurants and other businesses in Beirut and other cities in Lebanon on Monday rebelled against a government-imposed lockdown intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus. They said they will reopen from Wednesday.
The defiant move reflects growing concern about the political stalemate in efforts to form a new government, and the worsening financial crisis. Riad Salameh, governor of the Banque du Liban, Lebanon’s central bank, reportedly told President Michel Aoun, caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab and caretaker Minister of Finance Ghazi Wazni last week that there is only enough cash in reserve to fund subsidies of basic items such as bread, fuel and medicines for three months. It has $19.6 billion available, $17.5 billion of which must be kept to cover a portion of deposits by bank customers. This leaves $2.1 billion for subsidies, which cost $700 million a month. This financial drought has been caused by declines in remittances from expatriates, which reached $7.5 billion in 2019, the collapse of tourism, worth up to $7 billion a year, and a lack of investment.
Nicolas Chammas, the chairman of Beirut Merchants Association, announced a “total rejection of the lockdown in light of the failure of the state to provide alternative income for the people, and the restrictions on access to money deposited in banks.”
He also criticized the lack of government action to help businesses and added: “We used to say 25 percent of shops will close by the end of this year — now we will be lucky if 25 percent of commercial establishments survive until the end of the year.”
Chamas called for the formation of “a national salvation government quickly” and added: “We refuse to turn into a relief economy because we are not beggar people; we want a productive economy.”
The previous government resigned this month amid public anger over the explosion that destroyed Beirut’s port on Aug. 4. Many analysts predict the financial situation will get worse before it gets better. The Lebanese currency has lost 85 percent of its value, inflation is 90 percent, and a second wave of the coronavirus is adding to the problems. As more people lose their jobs, Lebanon does not have a social safety net to help them. “I do not understand how the politicians have not yet been provoked by the fact that the central bank’s hard-currency reserves have hit rock bottom and they are not moving in the direction of immediate solutions,” said Bechara Asmar, the head of the General Labor Union. “They must form a government of competent people who can decide on the beginning of a strategy.
“The first way to address the problem is to form a government with a minimum level of understanding of economic policy. It is unacceptable that leaders elected by the people do not speak to each other.”
A source at the Ministry of Finance said: “A set of measures could have been taken to address the economic collapse the country is facing … but the problem is that no one in authority wants to make any concessions.”
To recover, Lebanon will need to borrow billions of dollars from the international community, and the main condition for such a loan is sweeping economic reforms. On Monday, Wazni delivered to Aoun a contract with management consultancy Alvarez and Marsal. It will carry out a forensic audit of the accounts at the central bank. Wazni said he expects the contract to be signed in a few days and the audit would begin four or five days later. An initial audit report would be published within 10 weeks.
“The president is keen to ensure the audit includes all public institutions and is not limited to the accounts of the central bank,” he added.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 24-25/2020

Trump-dominated Republican Convention renominates US president for second term
Joyce Karam/The National/August 24/2020
الحزب الجمهوري في أميركا يعيد ترشيح ترامب لفترة رئاسية ثانية
Arrangements for gathering reflect incumbent's influence over Republican Party.
Donald Trump's policies have come to define the Republican Party as it holds its 2020 convention to renominate the US president for a second term.
From production to the line-up of speakers and daily addresses by the president himself, the Republican convention is Trump-centric and a reflection of his sway over the party. Sadoux Kim and Chuck La Bella, two former NBC producers who worked with Mr Trump when he hosted The Apprentice, are helping with the convention production, The New York Times reported. The speakers’ line-up puts heavy emphasis on the Trump family and the president’s allies in Congress. Donald Trump’s children and a daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, will deliver addresses to the convention. Daughter Ivanka will introduce her father on Thursday as he accepts the nomination. Congressional allies of Mr Trump, including Jim Jordan, Matt Gaetz, Kevin McCarthy and Tom Cotton, will address the event. More moderate voices in the party, such as Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, will be absent from the event in Charlotte, North Carolina. Matthew Continetti, of the American Enterprise Institute, said the convention was testimony to Mr Trump’s increasing influence in the Republican Party.
"The four nights of the GOP national convention will reflect the party's increasing emphasis on nationalism, populism, and rejecting political correctness and the media that enforce it,” Mr Continetti told The National. Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the St Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters, will be speaking on Monday. Nicholas Sandmann, the pupil who filed lawsuits against US news outlets after a video of him and Native American activist Nathan Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial went viral, will speak on Tuesday.
“The event will showcase the personality, predilections and policies of the man who has changed the GOP more than anyone since Ronald Reagan: Donald Trump,” Mr Continetti said. Mr Trump, who uses his personality and media appearances to rally his base, will be breaking with tradition and appearing at the convention every night from the White House.
Also breaking a longtime tradition of not mixing diplomacy with elections will be US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is recording a message to the convention from Israel. Mr Pompeo will record his message from the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on Monday to be played at the convention on Tuesday, Israeli media reported. A State Department official told The National there was no conflict between the two roles Mr Pompeo is playing. “Secretary Pompeo will address the convention in his personal capacity," the official said. "No State Department resources will be used.
"Staff are not involved in preparing the remarks or in the arrangements for Secretary Pompeo's appearance."He is in Israel on an official government trip and will be the first US secretary of state in recent memory to address a convention.
The only other Cabinet member addressing the convention will be Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Ben Carson. Former ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and the president’s lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, are also scheduled to speak.
The convention formally backed Mr Trump's renomination on Monday, and that of Vice President Mike Pence, who will address the convention on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the campaign for Joe Biden is capitalising on the divide within the Republican Party to promote the Democratic candidate. On Monday more than two dozen Republicans, including former senator Jeff Flake, endorsed Mr Biden. He has a significant lead in the polls, with an average of 9 per cent, the election analysis website Five Thirty Eight says . That lead is far ahead of any held by his predecessors running against an incumbent president.
“It’s a bullish sign for Mr Biden to be this far ahead of Mr Trump," the website said. "In fact, since 1968, no incumbent president has trailed by as much as Mr Trump heading into the first convention."
But with the election 70 days away, Mr Trump has time to rebound.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was poisoned, says Berlin hospital
Jamie Prentis/The National/August 24/2020
Navalny, 44, remains in induced coma but there is 'no acute threat' to his life
Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny has shown signs he was poisoned and remains in an induced coma, said the German hospital treating him. The Charite hospital in Berlin said doctors found cholinesterase inhibitors in Mr Navalny’s system, suggesting he was poisoned, although the specific substance is unknown. “His health is serious but there is currently no acute danger to his life,” the hospital said. Mr Navalny, 44, was admitted to hospital on Saturday after an intervention by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. German NGO Cinema For Peace organised a special flight for him to Berlin on Saturday. Mr Navalny is being treated with the antidote atropine. “The outcome of the disease remains uncertain and long-term consequences, especially in the area of ​​the nervous system, cannot be ruled out at this point,” the hospital said. Mr Navalny has been in an induced coma since Thursday after he became ill on a plane returning to Moscow from the Siberian city of Tomsk. The German hospital said it had been in close contact with Mr Navalny’s wife, Yulia Navalnaya, who visited her husband in the Berlin hospital on Sunday and Monday. Mrs Merkel said it was imperative to find out what happened to Mr Navalny. "In view of Mr Navalny's prominent role in the political opposition in Russia, the authorities there are now urgently called on to investigate this act thoroughly, and to do so with full transparency," she said in a joint statement with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. "Those responsible must be identified and held accountable," they said. The EU's diplomatic chief, Josep Borrell, on Monday called on Russian authorities to launch an "independent and transparent investigation" into the apparent poisoning of Mr Navalny. "The European Union strongly condemns what seems to be an attempt on Mr Navalny's life," Mr Borrell said. "The Russian people, as well as the international community, are demanding the facts behind Mr Navalny's poisoning. Those responsible must be held to account." Several Kremlin critics have fallen victim to poisoning in recent years, including former Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko in 2004 and Sergei Skripal, a former spy who was living in Britain, in 2018.

Pompeo: We’ll supply UAE with arms without hurting Israel’s advantage
Jerusalem Post/August 24/2020
The remarks came amid controversy in Israel over whether the Washington will sell F-35 stealth jets to Abu Dhabi, now that Israel and the UAE have diplomatic relations. The US will find a way to balance helping its military ally the United Arab Emirates without weakening Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME), Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem on Monday. The remarks came amid controversy in Israel over whether Washington will sell F-35 stealth jets to Abu Dhabi, now that Israel and the UAE have diplomatic relations. “The US has legal requirements with respect to the QME, and we will respect that,” Pompeo said. “We have a 20-plus-year security relationship with the UAE as well.” Without mentioning F-35s or any other systems by name, Pompeo said the US wants to “make sure we are delivering the equipment [the UAE] needs to defend themselves from the... threat of the Islamic Republic” of Iran.But he said he is “sure we’ll find a way” to do so while ensuring Israel’s military superiority in the Middle East. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the normalization deal with the UAE “did not include Israel’s acceptance to any arms deal. I don’t know of any arms deal that has been agreed upon but our position hasn’t changed.”The prime minister added that he reiterated his objections to Pompeo, who said he is strongly committed to maintaining Israel’s QME. “That has been true over four decades of peace with Egypt and two and a half decades of peace with Jordan. The US has stood by that and I have no doubt will continue to do so,” he said.
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Alternate Prime Minister Benny Gantz emphasized after his meeting with Pompeo the need to maintain Israel’s QME, in light of statements by White House officials that the US is considering selling F-35s to the UAE now that it has formal ties with Israel.
The QME is “a necessary condition for regional stability and for Israel’s security when facing the challenges of the Middle East,” he said. A day earlier, White House special adviser Jared Kushner said on CNN that “this new peace agreement should increase the probability of [the UAE] getting [F-35s]."
In the past week, talk of the UAE purchasing the planes has raised questions as to whether the prime minister knew it would happen soon after normalization – which he denied on Monday – and criticism of Netanyahu for not informing Gantz, who is also defense minister, of the matter.
Pompeo and Netanyahu also addressed the US move to trigger “snapback sanctions” on Iran, which would stop the UN arms embargo on the Islamic Republic from running out in October. The other parties to the Iran nuclear deal say the US is not authorized to do so, because it left the framework in 2018. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is a separate document from the UN Security Council resolution instituting the snapback mechanism, which states that any permanent UNSC member can trigger the continuation of sanctions.
Netanyahu commended the US for having “stood up to Iranian aggression” by calling on snapback sanctions, warning that it would be “outrageous” for the world to allow the arms embargo to run out, facilitating its regime in obtaining “tanks, aircraft missiles and anti-aircraft defenses to continue its campaign of aggression in the region and the world. “It’s just absurd,” he said. Netanyahu pointed out that Gulf states are as strongly opposed to the end of the embargo as he is.
“I suggest to our friends, especially our European friends at this point, that when Arabs and Israelis agree on something, it makes sense to pay attention,” he said.
Pompeo said the US will “use every tool we have” to ensure Iran does not attain nuclear weapons, and he is confident they will succeed.
“We think its in the best interest of the whole world. Many leaders tell me so privately. It’s time to stand up... Iran is on the cusp of having access to those weapons and the money,” he said. Last week, Pompeo specified that the leaders of the UK, France and Germany made those remarks privately.
The US decision to trigger snapback sanctions on Iran is “necessary to maintain stability in the Middle East,” Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi said after meeting with Pompeo. “Iran cannot be allowed to import and export arms, and all the sanctions must be brought back.”
Netanyahu and Pompeo lauded the UAE-Israel deal, with the prime minister calling it “the alliance of the moderates against the radicals” and “a boon to peace and regional stability.”The prime minister expressed hope that more nations will formalize their ties with Israel, saying there may be “good news in the near future.”Pompeo’s itinerary for this week includes Sudan and Bahrain, two countries with which Israel’s ties have warmed recently and could follow in the footsteps of the UAE, which the secretary of state also plans to visit.
Ashkenazi also brought up the issue of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), whose mandate is coming up for a renewal vote in the Security Council. The US has threatened to veto the renewal, abolishing UNIFIL if its mandate is not changed to make it more effective in combating Hezbollah’s presence in southern Lebanon. “We cannot allow UNIFIL not to fulfil its mandate fully and effectively. The American stance on this matter is important and will lead to practical implementation” of the mandate, Ashkenazi said.
Pompeo courted controversy, filming an address from an “undisclosed location” in Jerusalem, which will air at the Republican National Convention on Tuesday. The State Department said Pompeo “will address the convention in his personal capacity. No State Department resources will be used. Staff are not involved in preparing the remarks or in the arrangements for Secretary Pompeo’s appearance. The State Department will not bear any costs in conjunction with this appearance.”Democratic Majority for Israel criticized Pompeo, tweeting: “By violating another vital norm – speaking to the RNC from Israel – [Pompeo] is helping [Trump] further degrade American government, just as their never-ending effort to politicize Israel damages that country. Trump and Pompeo care only about themselves, not the US, not Israel.”Jewish Democratic Council of America executive director Halie Soifer said “by arranging for Secretary Pompeo to speak to the RNC while on official travel in Jerusalem, Trump is once again using Israel to score political points. “Jewish voters see through this cheap political stunt and reject Trump’s ongoing use of Israel as a political wedge issue,” Soifer added. “The US-Israel relationship has been, and should remain, a bipartisan issue and... US taxpayers should not pay for politicized State Department activity in Israel.”

Pompeo, Netanyahu Hopeful More Arab States Will Forge Israel Ties
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 24/2020
Israel's prime minister and Washington's top diplomat voiced hope Monday the Jewish state would soon build ties with more Arab countries, following its landmark move to normalize relations with the United Arab Emirates. Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was starting a Mideast tour in Jerusalem, both praised the U.S.-brokered deal as a major step toward stability to the turbulent region. "I'm very hopeful that we will see other Arab nations join in this," said Pompeo, who was also set to visit Sudan, Bahrain and the UAE on his five-day trip. Netanyahu hailed the Israel-UAE agreement as "a boon to peace and regional stability" which "heralds a new era where we could have other nations join."
"I hope we'll have good news in the future, maybe in the near future," he said.
Washington and its close ally Israel hope that more such ties with other regional countries traditionally hostile to the Jewish state will help forge a stronger regional alliance against their common foe, Iran. Pompeo again stressed U.S. President Donald Trump's goal that "Iran will never have a nuclear weapon" and urged world powers to maintain an arms embargo on the Islamic republic.
- 'Legacy of hostility' -
Israel has existing peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan which, unlike the UAE, share borders with the Jewish state and have fought wars with it. Under the U.S.-brokered agreement with the Emirates announced on August 13, Israel pledged to suspend its previous plans to annex parts of the occupied West Bank, without saying for how long. The Palestinians slammed the UAE's move as a "stab in the back" while their own conflict with the Jewish state remains unresolved. The Islamist group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, charged Monday that the Israel-UAE deal helps "maintain crimes and violations" against the Palestinians. It urged regional and world leaders to "break their silence to bring an end" to the Gaza blockade. British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab is expected to meet Pompeo in Jerusalem Monday evening and Netanyahu the following day, as well as Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi and Defense Minister Benny Gantz.
A Palestinian official said that Raab would also meet Tuesday in Ramallah with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh. An Israeli foreign ministry official said Raab would be asked to coax the Palestinians back to peace talks with Israel, which stalled in 2014. "We will ask the British FM to be a bridge between us and the Palestinians, in order to bring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table," the ministry's deputy chief for European Affairs Anna Azari told reporters.
- Who's next? -
The Israel-Emirati pact has sparked speculation on which country in the region might be next, with frequent mention of Bahrain and Sudan. Israel is technically at war with Sudan, which for years had supported hardline Islamist forces but which is turning its back on the era of strongman Omar al-Bashir who was ousted last year. The State Department said Pompeo would meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok during his tour, to "express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship." Pompeo will also meet Bahrain's Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa before talks with UAE foreign minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, it said. Saudi Arabia, in keeping with decades of policy by most Arab states, says it will not follow the UAE's example until Israel has signed a peace deal with the Palestinians.
- 'Outlaw' -
Netanyahu has meanwhile denied reports that the UAE deal hinges on the sale of U.S. F-35 stealth fighter-jets to the Emirates, saying he opposes a move that could reduce Israel's strategic edge in the region. "This deal did not include Israel's acceptance of any arms deal," he said Monday. Pompeo said the U.S. was determined to help the Emirates defend itself against Iran "in a way that preserves our commitments to Israel." "The United States has a legal requirement with respect to (Israel's) qualitative military edge. We will continue to honor that," he said.
But he also noted Washington's long-running security relationship with the UAE, saying the U.S. would "continue to make sure that we're delivering them the equipment that they need to secure and defend their own people...from the Islamic republic of Iran." And in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Pompeo said: "I hope one day that the Iranians will normalize with Israel as well."But in a tweet, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif described Pompeo as an "outlaw." "Standing next to World's #1 nuclear threat, he declares his desire to flood our region with even more U.S. weapons," he wrote.

Syria Constitution Talks Halted after 3 Test Positive for COVID-19
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 24/2020
Syrian constitutional talks at the United Nations were put on hold just hours after they began on Monday after three delegates tested positive for COVID-19, the U.N. said. The office of U.N. special envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen said it received confirmation that "three members of the Syrian Constitutional Committee Small Body tested positive for COVID-19" and the session in Geneva "is currently on hold."
 

Turkey’s Erdogan hosts large Hamas delegation with wanted terrorist
Jerusalem Post/August 24/2020
Both Hamas and Turkey’s ruling party have roots in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted a large Hamas delegation on Saturday on the eve of US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Israel.
The meeting was the latest in a series of high-profile Hamas meetings in Turkey that have all been pushed by Erdogan and his team. Ankara is a supporter of Hamas, which has been accused of plotting attacks on Israel in Turkey. The country has given Hamas members citizenship, according to media accounts in the United Kingdom. Both Hamas and Turkey’s ruling party have roots in the Muslim Brotherhood, a far-right religious, extremist organization. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood have been accused of having antisemitic views.
Hamas praised the meeting with Erdogan on Saturday in a press release. The delegation included Hamas deputy chief Saleh al-Arouri, chief of Hamas abroad Maher Salah, Hamas head of Arab and Islamic religions Ezzat al-Rihiq and Hamas representative in Turkey Jihad Yaghmor, it said. Arouri is a wanted terrorist. Hamas head Ismael Haniyeh “congratulated Erdogan on the advent of a new Hijri year, discovery of a new natural-gas field and the reopening of the Aya Sofia Mosque.” The mosque was opened in what had been a museum and historic church. It is one of two ancient churches the Ankara regime recently turned into mosques. Hamas said it briefed Erdogan on the “Palestinian cause” and complained about Israel’s annexation plans. Those plans are now on hold after Israel and the UAE agreed to normalize ties. Hamas, Iran and Turkey oppose the Israeli peace deal with the UAE. Hamas said it was working against Israel’s “Judaization of Jerusalem.”Sitting at Erdogan’s right at the meeting was Arouri, a designated terrorist in the United States with a $5 million bounty on his head, Raf Sanchez of NBC wrote on Twitter. Erdogan has slammed the US in recent years, claiming it works with “terrorists” in Syria because Washington has backed Kurdish fighters against ISIS. But it appears it was Ankara’s government hosting wanted terrorists on Saturday.
Turkey has been granting citizenship to senior operatives of a Hamas terrorist cell, The Telegraph reported on August 13. Last December, the paper reported that Hamas planned attacks from Turkey. A recent article at The Times in the UK argued that Israel increasingly views Turkey as a threat. An IDF annual assessment last year reportedly mentioned Turkey for the first time as a “challenge.” THE MEETING with Hamas in Turkey took place at the Istanbul mansion of Ottoman Sultan Vahdettin. The monumental mansion was the home of the last Ottoman Sultan and was renovated in 2014 for Erdogan to host meetings while in the historic city. The meeting was symbolic of Turkey, a NATO member, attempting to embrace its Ottoman heritage as Erdogan increasingly challenges Greece, France, Egypt and others in the Mediterranean.
Israel recently backed Greece as Turkey increased pressure. In addition, Israel has signed a pipeline deal with Greece and Cyprus, and Egypt and has also signed a deal with Greece. Turkey has in turn sent a fleet under the cover of a research ship to the Mediterranean and sent Syrian mercenaries to fight in Libya as part of a deal with Libya to lay claim to the sea between the two countries, angering Greece.
The UAE and Egypt support the Benghazi-based faction in Libya against the Turkish-backed factions in Tripoli. Turkey’s overall goal is to unite Hamas, Qatar and the Government of National Accord in Tripoli in a coalition that looks increasingly anchored in parties linked to the Muslim Brotherhood as part of a grand coalition against the UAE, Israel, Egypt, Greece and other countries. The Hamas visit to Turkey and the high-level delegation it included was intended to treat the terrorist group as a government equal to the regime in Ankara, as if Hamas was representing the Palestinians at a time when Israel and the UAE have signed an agreement. It came on the eve of Pompeo’s visit to Israel, likely as part of a message. While Turkey has been a historical ally of the US and was once also close to Israel, the meeting was intended to show that Ankara is now working hand in hand with Hamas as part of Turkey’s increasingly close relations with Iran and its purchasing of air-defense systems from Moscow.Hamas receives backing from Tehran. No other country in the world gives Hamas the large, high-level welcome that Turkey regularly does – not even Iran, Qatar and Malaysia. The meeting appears to be intended to increase Hamas’s appearance of legitimacy and raise its stature at a time when Israel and the UAE are making peace.

Iraq’s Kadhimi Offers Condolences to Late Activist Reham Yacoub’s Family, Vows to Prosecute Killers
Cairo- Fadhel al-Nashmi/Asharq Al Awsat/August 24/2020
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi has headed to the southern Iraqi city of Basra directly upon his return from his official visit to the United States. On Saturday evening, the Premier visited the family of assassinated activist Reham Yacoub to offer condolences and vowed to pursue perpetrators “no matter how long it takes.”According to a statement by the Premier’s office, Kadhimi “expressed deep sympathy to the martyr’s family.”Yacoub, who had led several women’s marches in the past, was killed on Wednesday and three others wounded when gunmen, brandishing assault rifles on the back of a motorcycle, opened fire on their car. Kadhimi’s visit was also aimed at identifying the recent security breaches and assassinations carried out by armed gangs against activists. During his meetings with security leaders, he slammed the security measures in the city and highlighted the seriousness of the assassination crimes.
Kadhimi was accompanied by the defense and interior ministers, head of the Popular Mobilization Forces, the counter-terrorism chief, head of the national security agency, the national security adviser, army chief of staff and the deputy joint operations command, as well as the undersecretaries of the interior and defense ministries. This high-ranking security delegation indicates the level of concern by Iraqi authorities due to the rate of assassinations against activists in Basra and other provinces. Yacoub's killing marks the third incident this week in which gunmen targeted anti-government political activists. Tahseen Oussama, 30, was gunned down on Aug. 14 and four others were shot at while together in a car on Aug. 17. In July, the well-known security analyst and government advisor, Hisham al-Hashemi, was also gunned down outside his Baghdad family home by men on a motorbike.
Assassinations of activists by unknown elements, who are believed to be affiliated with pro-Iran armed groups, raise the concerns and fears of government authorities and Iraqi citizens. Some parties even urged activists to protect themselves instead of relying on the security services, which have miserably failed to uncover the perpetrators or at least prevent operations. These operations have also been considered “political assassinations” aimed at ending the protest movement, which began in early October 2019 against the corruption and the recklessness of armed militias.

UK Foreign Minister to Meet Israeli, Palestinian Leaders to Press for Dialogue
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 24 August, 2020
British foreign minister Dominic Raab will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas this week to press for renewed dialogue between their governments to pursue a negotiated two-state solution. "The UK remains committed to Israel's security and stability, and the recent normalisation of relations between Israel and the UAE (United Arab Emirates) was an important moment for the region," Raab said in a statement on Monday, referring to a U.S.-sponsored deal when Israel agreed with the UAE to forge full relations.
"Israel's suspension of annexation is an essential step towards a more peaceful Middle East. It is important to build on this new dynamic, and ultimately only the government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority can negotiate the two state solution required to secure lasting peace."

US Officials Tour the Middle East after Israel-UAE Agreement
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 24 August, 2020
Top US officials are preparing to tour the Middle East in order to consolidate the agreement between Israel and the UAE and lobby other Arab countries to sign a similar deal, according to diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has recently denied agreeing to stopping the annexation of parts of the West Bank and Jordan Vally and accepting the sale of F-35 aircraft to the UAE. The sources pointed out that the US wants to ensure the success of the Emirati-Israeli agreement by setting a timetable for its progress and removing any obstacle in its way. Washington is interested in encouraging other Arab countries to strike a similar deal with Israel, according to the sources. They added that progress has been achieved with other Arab states, hinting that Sudan could be the next state to sign a normalization agreement with Israel. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was in Israel on Monday. He will then head to the UAE. Pompeo will "discuss regional security issues related to Iran's malicious influence (and) establishing and deepening Israel's relationships in the region," the State Department said in a statement. The Secretary is also scheduled to visit Sudan “to discuss continued US support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship.” During his visit to Khartoum, Pompeo is expected to announce that US sanctions will be lifted, according to the sources.
A week after his visit, a large US delegation headed by US President Donald Trump's senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will tour several Gulf countries. An Israeli official confirmed that US officials will address other issues, namely the Iranian threat and China's economic and security expansion in the region. In Israel, US officials will meet Netanyahu, alternate Prime Minister and Security Minister Benny Gantz, and Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi. In Abu Dhabi, the delegation will meet Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed and other top officials. Political circles in Tel Aviv believe Trump wants to hold a ceremony to celebrate the signing of the Israeli-Emirati agreement next month in the Rose Garden at the White House, at the presence of high-level representatives from Arab countries to show their support for the agreement.
The Israeli PM appointed National Security Council Head Meir Ben-Shabbat to coordinate the preparation for Israel's talks with the UAE. The two sides discussed major issues such as opening direct flights between Tel Aviv and Abu Dhabi.

Hamas Urges Mideast Leaders to Press Israel Over Gaza Blockade
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 24 August, 2020
As US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo started a Middle East tour in Israel on Monday, militant group Hamas called on regional leaders to "break their silence" on Israel's blockade of Gaza.
Israel has bombed the coastal Palestinian strip, which is ruled by the group, almost daily since August 6, while balloons carrying firebombs and, less frequently, rocket fire have hit Israel from Gaza. In retaliation for the balloon attacks and the widespread blazes on farms and scrubland they have caused, Israel has tightened its 13-year blockade of Gaza's two million inhabitants. It has banned Gaza fishermen from going to sea and closed its goods crossing with the territory, prompting the closure of Gaza's sole power plant for want of fuel.
Hamas in a statement called the closure of the Kerem Shalom crossing a "crime against humanity" and called on the international community and "decision-makers in the region" to "break their silence to bring an end" to the blockade.
Hamas also said that the normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates helps "maintain crimes and violations" against the Palestinians.
Pompeo touched down in Tel Aviv Monday morning to kick off a five-day trip to the Middle East. His visit will focus on Israel's normalizing diplomatic ties with the UAE, seen as a betrayal by many Palestinians, and urging other Arab states to follow suit.
Earlier Monday the Israeli army said it had again hit Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip overnight, in retaliation for incendiary balloon and rocket attacks launched from the Palestinian enclave. An Egyptian delegation has been trying to broker a return to an informal truce.
"During the day, explosive and arson balloons were launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel," an army statement said. "In response ... fighter jets, tanks, and aircraft struck military posts and underground infrastructure" belonging to Hamas in the southern Gaza Strip, it said. On Thursday night, Gaza militants fired a dozen rockets at Israel, which responded with airstrikes on a rocket-manufacturing plant and underground infrastructure. Egypt has acted to calm repeated flare-ups of violence in recent years to prevent any repetition of the three wars Israel and Hamas have fought since 2008.

Hamas Awaits Egypt’s Response to Its Demands
Asharq Al-Awsat/Monday, 24 August, 2020
Hamas movement is waiting for a response to its demands from the Egyptian security delegation, announced deputy head of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Khalil Hayya. Hayya indicated that the movement demands ending the occupation and the blockade of the Gaza Strip in all its forms.
Speaking to reporters in the Strip, the senior official threatened that the resistance factions would be able to achieve the rights of the Palestinians if no agreement is reached, cautioning that Israel bears full responsibility for any further military escalation against the enclave.
"The Palestinian resistance has the right to respond to the Israeli crimes against our people in the coastal enclave.”The official responded to Israel’s threats of resorting to assassinations and warned that “it [Israel] knows very well that we are ready for any new military escalation in Gaza.”The talks in Gaza are facing severe complications after Israel refused to meet Hamas’ demands without ending the escalation, while the movement refused to stop the incendiary balloons and nighttime protests without Israel first responding.
Hamas informed the Egyptian intelligence officials of its demands, including approving economic infrastructure projects, allowing import and export movement, increasing work permits for Gazan workers in Israel to 100,000, expanding the fishing area to 20 miles, and keeping Kerem Shalom commercial crossing open. The movement also requested doubling the Qatari grant provided to the enclave and the implementation of projects previously agreed upon through the UN. Tel Aviv refused to respond to any demand before Hamas halted launching incendiary balloons and nighttime protests at the border.
Israel informed mediators that it was ready to escalate the situation into a new round of war, and Hamas responded that it was ready for such a battle. Egypt and the United Nations are pressing to restore stability, and Qatar has pledged to continue paying the money, but no agreement has been made public yet due to the parties' desire to set new rules. The Israeli Walla news site reported Sunday that the Egyptian and Qatari mediators pressured Hamas to stop launching incendiary balloons and rockets towards Israeli territory, which Israeli security officials expect to lead to a breakthrough.
Qatari Ambassador to Gaza Mohammed al-Emadi is expected to arrive within a few days to Gaza to distribute funds. However, his entry to the Strip depends on the security situation and could be an indication of whether an agreement could be reached or not. The Israeli Ynet indicated that if Hamas continues sending incendiary balloons and rockets into Israeli territory, Tel Aviv will not allow Emadi into the Strip to deliver the money. Hamas is still launching balloons into Israeli areas, and a statement issued by Saif brigades said that the coming hours will witness an intense escalation of launching balloons towards the settlements. Israeli sources stated that at least 11 fires broke out on Sunday in the Eshkol Regional Council, and one of the balloons cut off electricity in settlements in Kibbutz Nir Am and Mefalsim. Israeli media said that the electricity was cut off as a result of a burning balloon colliding with electricity wires. In return, Israel tightened its punitive measures in the Gaza Strip, and informed the Palestinian Presidential Committee for Commodities Coordination (PCCC) of the government's decision to stop the entry of all goods into the Strip, with the exception of food and medical supplies.
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 24-25/2020
Checkmating Iran is a Strategic Imperative
Charles Elias Chartouni/August 24/2020
شارل الياس شرتوني: مبدأ “كش ملك” ضرورة استراتجية ضد إيران
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/89757/charles-elias-chartouni-checkmating-iran-is-a-strategic-imperative-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d9%85%d8%a8%d8%af%d8%a3-%d9%83/

The scuffle around the the enforcement of sanctions against Iran on account of its blatant violation of the nuclear accord and its ramifications, its continued military projections and political disruptions in the larger Middle East is a must, notwithstanding the differences between NATO members and their scaled priorities in this regard.
The ongoing accord has initially failed its normalization scope since it was instrumentalized by the Islamic regime as a veil to conceal, an aggressive conventional weaponization, an ambivalent posture towards nuclear militarization, and an assertive destabilization strategy throughout the Middle East.
The stipulations of this accord have been flawed under the Obama administration which finalized them, and was unable to create and sustain a normalization dynamic on account of the internal power struggles of the Iranian regime, which perceives international normalization on a continuum with internal liberalization, and its impact on the survival of the delegitimized Islamic narrative and its power configuration.
The Trump administration has capitalized on the inherent equivocations of the extant accord and its unleashed political dynamics, and the Islamic dictatorship tries to circumvent its pressure through alternative Chinese and Russian geo-strategic umbrellas, and outmaneuver it through the impending US electoral deadlines, the exploitation of political differences amongst the Western alliance, and the emerging Cold War scenarios between the West and the rest ( China, Russia ).
The waffling Iranian strategy is far from being situational and induced by the Trump administration power dynamics, it’s the outcome of an ingrained political posture which perceives any change in the extant power configuration as a potential threat to the Islamic regime and its geopolitical anchors.
The US has to solidify its political entrenchments, mend the rifts within the Western coalition and double down on its sanctions and bring the confrontation unto a new scale of dissuasion.
The Islamist regime in Tehran is an undermined political entity engaged in imperial adventurism as a structuring vision of Shiite millenialism, sustained imperial drive, the vested interests of its oligarchs, and the insidious and highly manipulated fears elicited by hazardous geopolitics and historical grievances.
The Trump administration should pursue its swaying politics, widen its diplomatic spectrum, and forge its way into a working panoply of containment policies, and a political framework of negotiation which serves as an inevitable template for the impending administration, notwithstanding the domestic electoral outcomes.
The American diplomacy is supposed to stay its course, solidify its coalitions and thwart the deflections of an embattled murderous political dystopia.

New Sultan on the Block
Mohanad Hage Ali/Carnegie MEC/August 24/2020
Turkish influence is increasing in Lebanon, where many Sunnis are looking for a regional patron.
On July 4, Lebanese Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi announced that four citizens, two Syrians and two Turks, had been arrested as they attempted to smuggle $4 million dollars into Lebanon on a flight from Turkey. He claimed that the money was meant to finance “violent street movements,” and that “instructions” had been sent from Turkey via the WhatsApp application to members of the anti-government protest movement in the country
Fahmi was not the only politician to refer to the growing Turkish role in Lebanon. A website affiliated with a former interior minister, Nouhad al-Mashnouq, published a full list of allegedly pro-Turkish nongovernmental organizations and mosques. It claimed that Turkey was planning “to occupy Tripoli,” Lebanon’s second largest city and a Sunni Muslim stronghold in the country.
These claims of a Turkish role or conspiracies in Lebanon are difficult to substantiate, as Ankara, unlike Iran and Saudi Arabia, hasn’t actively pursued a political agenda in the country. Nor does it have political allies in parliament or government. Iran has Hezbollah, with its political influence and militia, while Saudi Arabia has sway over some of the largest blocs in parliament, from former prime minister Sa‘d Hariri’s Future Movement to the Christian Lebanese Forces. Turkey is nowhere to be found in Lebanon’s political institutions.
However, the Turks have been slowly but consistently building up networks and establishing ties with Sunni communities across Lebanon on different levels. The announcement last week that Turkey had discovered a new gas field in the Black Sea could potentially bring more resources to such efforts. First, Ankara is continuing to work on strengthening cultural and ethnic links with Lebanon by providing scholarships, engaging in cultural activities, and granting citizenship to thousands of Lebanese. Since President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s visit to Beirut in November 2010, Turkey has invested in rehabilitating Ottoman-era symbols, among them the Tripoli train station of the historical Hijaz railway. It has also opened cultural centers where thousands of people are learning Turkish.
A Turkish priority is also the revival of Turkmen identity. Until Turkey showed interest in the community more than a decade ago, the Turkmen minority of several thousand people, scattered between northern and eastern Lebanon, had lost much of its connection to Turkey. Today, residents of marginalized Turkmen towns say they feel the presence of the Turkish state far more than they do that of the Lebanese state. Turkey organizes regular diplomatic visits and funds projects through the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency. Many thousands of Syrian Turkmen also reside in Lebanon.
In addition to development projects, the granting of citizenship has become a major Turkish endeavor. Thousands of Lebanese, many of whom are Turkmen or claim Turkish origins, have received Turkish nationality. Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu declared recently, while on a visit to Beirut following the catastrophic explosion in Beirut Port, that Erdoğan had instructed him to provide any Lebanese Turkmen or those of Turkish origin with citizenship.
According to semiofficial numbers, until 2019 almost 18,000 Lebanese had applied for Turkish citizenship, and just over 9,600 had received it. Not all applicants were ethnically Turkish or Turkmen, as many Lebanese are attracted to Turkey due to its stability, lifestyle, and visa waiver program with Lebanon. Turkey’s soft power, mostly due to popular Turkish television series and Erdoğan’s populist politics, has strongly impacted many Lebanese. Among them are Sunnis longing for a new source of pride given Iran’s influence in the Levant, particularly among Shi‘a communities.
Nevertheless, Turkey’s growing clout in the Sunni community has had negative repercussions on Lebanese intercommunal relations. Ankara has sought to whitewash and glorify Ottoman history through funded lectures, even though this has been controversial in Lebanon. For example, Turkey’s network of supporters has sought to intimidate Armenians commemorating the anniversary of their genocide in 1915. Since Erdoğan’s trip to Beirut, Armenians have been increasingly under pressure as thousands of pro-Turkish protesters have shown up at their rallies waving Turkish flags and chanting threatening slogans, often calling for another genocide.
Such actions are not restricted to rallies. Turkey’s supporters recently intimidated an Armenian television journalist who criticized Erdoğan on a live show. The ensuing attacks were remarkable, with videos, threats, and insults directed against the Armenian community. The number of Armenians in Lebanon is dwindling as many are opting to leave, given the changing tide in a country normally sympathetic to their cause. The Armenian example highlights a worrying aspect of Turkey’s growing clout: Many Lebanese minorities share a mostly traumatic and unfavorable view of the Ottoman era.
Another aspect of Turkish influence in Lebanon is how Turkey has integrated domestic issues into its actions in the country. Recently, Turkish officials mentioned Eren Bülbül, a fifteen-year-old boy killed by the Kurdistan Workers Party in 2017, as an inspiration for a relief effort after a major explosion at Beirut Port on August 4. Such references are mainly intended for Turkish audiences.
Internal priorities were also behind Turkey’s pursuit in Lebanon of supporters of Fethullah Gülen, a strong rival of Erdoğan who lives in exile, despite their scant presence. Following the failed July 15, 2016, coup attempt and the crackdown on the Gülenist network in Turkey and elsewhere, Ankara mobilized its supporters in Lebanon and forced a Lebanese cleric with alleged links to Gülen to resign from his position as head of a Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Quranic school in western Beirut. According to three individuals familiar with the case, the school had a partnership with the Gülenist network but was not affiliated with it. Such intervention, while it showed Ankara’s reach and capability, also demonstrated a narrow-minded approach that failed to take into consideration broader Turkish interests.
Turkey’s investments in Lebanon are ongoing and span the Sunni community. A Turkish hospital is to be inaugurated soon in the city of Sidon. Thousands of Turkish university scholarships have been distributed, making Turkey among the top countries in Lebanon providing aid for higher education.
So far, Turkey has refrained from supporting a single political party, such as Lebanon’s version of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Jama‘a Islamiyya. This is perhaps aimed at remaining above partisan politics and retaining popular support among a wide cross-section of the Sunni community. In fact, Turkey’s influence and Erdoğan’s support base extends to Kurdish and Arab populations that migrated from Turkey and were granted Lebanese citizenship in the 1990s. Some of these groups maintain a strong connection to Turkey.
Some Lebanese politicians have also established relations with Turkey, including former prime minister Sa‘d Hariri, who was a witness at the marriage of Erdoğan’s daughter. However, the growing hostility between Turkey and Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt will make it difficult for certain politicians, Hariri among them, to maintain such relationships. Erdoğan’s security chief and confidante, Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, has also built strong ties with Lebanon’s director general of General Security, ‘Abbas Ibrahim, an increasingly influential figure in the country.
Nonetheless, Turkey has not directly intervened in Lebanon’s politics. However, that might change after the Beirut Port explosion. French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Lebanon in its aftermath and his initiative to end the political deadlock in the country were partly seen as an effort to prevent Turkey from establishing another foothold on the Mediterranean. Macron connected Lebanon and Libya in a tweet about a phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, in a direct reference to Turkish actions in both countries. The United Arab Emirates and Egypt, both of them rivals of Turkey, have played a part in advancing the Macron initiative in Lebanon, and received a rebuke from Erdoğan, in which he referred to France’s attempt to restore its colonial-era influence. Turkish media have also warned against a perceived new French role in Lebanon.
While Turkey’s engagement in Libya and Syria already represent significant commitments, there seems to be growing Turkish interest to also focus on Lebanon. If that continues, Turkey will have local support to build upon among Sunnis in search of a patron.

Appeasement: The European Sickness
Richard Kemp/Gatestone Institute/August 24, 2020
Now, Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia.
Both countries [Britain and France], as well as Germany and the EU itself, knew only too well that, rather than its stated purpose of denying Iran a route to nuclear weapons, the JCPOA in fact paved Iran's pathway — not just to acquiring nuclear capabilities, but doing so legitimately.
The re-imposed sanctions will then leave China, Russia and the European countries with tough choices about whether they observe them or take the damaging consequences to their own trade with the US.
And for what? Perhaps for the benefit of Russia and China, whose weapons sales to Iran will both bring financial benefit and extend their influence in the region at the expense of America and Europe.
If US snapback sanctions succeed, that can only hasten the end of the terrorist regime in Tehran. It will also boost confidence and security among the Arab countries, increasingly fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia. Pictured: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. (Photo by Vyacheslav Oseledko/AFP via Getty Images)
Europe is in the grip of a uniquely virulent and pernicious disease that threatens the wellbeing of its peoples and of the world: not Coronavirus, but appeasement. Anglo-French foreign policy in the 1930s was also dominated by appeasement -- of Nazi Germany -- a policy that failed to prevent one of the greatest catastrophes that ever engulfed civilisation and that led to the deaths of millions.
Now, Britain and France seek to appease the three powers that most threaten the world today: Iran, China and Russia. As permanent members of the UN Security Council, last week both Britain and France genuflected to their arch-enemies by refusing to support their greatest ally, the United States, in its resolution to extend the UN arms embargo on Iran. The US resolution was of course opposed by China and Russia, both of which intend to sell advanced conventional weapons to Iran as soon as the embargo runs out in October.
Back in the 1930s, the aggressive intentions of Nazi Germany were clear. Although appeasement of Hitler was inexcusable, the main reason was perhaps understandable: a prevailing attitude of "peace at any price" following the unexampled butchery of World War I, then still so fresh in everybody's minds.
Today, the intentions of Khamenei's Iran are just as clear, and have been frequently demonstrated in imperial aggression across the Middle East, especially against Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Saudi Arabia, as well as in its unwavering threats and military actions against Israel.
Even if European countries were so blinkered as to overlook these distant aggressions, how could they ignore the multitude of terrorist and assassination plots mounted by Iranian proxies on their own soil in recent years? As well as the murder and attempted murder of Iranian dissidents, these have included a failed bomb plot against a Paris convention in 2018 and the stockpiling of tons of explosive materials in London in 2015. Only a few years earlier, I was involved in discussions in Downing Street about the killing of British troops in Iraq by Iranian proxies and encountered a widespread reluctance to take any meaningful action.
The excuses for British and French timorousness are less compelling today than they were in the 1930s. They include the hangovers from recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan, although compared to the Great War, these affected hardly anyone in Europe. This paralysis is compounded by long-standing and ingrained colonial guilt, exploited for decades by the left to undermine national self-confidence and promote a spirit of appeasement of Middle Eastern countries. Growing Islamic radicalism in both the UK and France, which each have tens of thousands of known jihadists living amongst them, has also served to encourage pusillanimity.
As the economic legacy of the Great Depression fuelled appeasement in the 1930s, today's commercial entanglement of Europe with China and Russia, combined with apprehension over the post-Covid economic landscape, scare European governments and institutions from alienating either of them.
A further factor perhaps weighs even heavier on the minds of our bewildered European politicians. Britain, and even more so France, had deep concerns over former US President Barack Obama's nuclear deal with Iran, the JCPOA, which is directly responsible for the crisis about to engulf the UN Security Council. Both countries, as well as Germany and the EU itself, knew only too well that, rather than its stated purpose of denying Iran a route to nuclear weapons, the JCPOA in fact paved Iran's pathway — not just to acquiring nuclear capabilities, but doing so legitimately, effectively, and with the blessing of the UN Security Council.
Against their better judgement, they acceded to the JCPOA because it was President Obama, whom they venerated, that demanded it of them. US President Donald J. Trump's withdrawal from the deal threw them into a quandary. They despised Trump as much as they revered Obama and, although they knew he was right, could not possibly bring themselves to follow his lead.
Last week, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo fired the starting gun in New York for the snapback provisions which underpinned UN support for the JCPOA in Security Council Resolution 2231. He did this because the council rejected the extension of the UN arms embargo on Iran. Its effect will be to reimpose all previous UN sanctions against Iran, including the conventional arms embargo. It will also ban international support for Iran's missile programme, development of nuclear-capable missiles and nuclear enrichment activities; and reimpose travel bans on sanctioned individuals in the Tehran regime. Snapback will effectively end the JCPOA in a way that will be beyond repair in any form.
Snapback is justified under the terms of Resolution 2231 because of Iran's violations of their JCPOA undertakings as certified by the International Atomic Energy Agency. The IAEA reported in June that Iran has enriched uranium and increased low-enriched uranium beyond its allowances, stored excess quantities of heavy water, tested advanced centrifuges and re-commenced enrichment at its Fordow plant, all in breach of the agreement. The IAEA also specified that Iran continues to refuse access to nuclear sites to international inspectors, and may be concealing undeclared nuclear materials and processes.
Britain and France of course know this only too well and in January themselves initiated, together with Germany, the JCPOA dispute resolution mechanism in protest at Iran's violations. Yet still they rejected the US demand to extend the arms embargo and are planning not only to deny support for the US snapback but actively frustrate it at the Security Council, in support of Russian and Chinese attempts to do so, cheered on of course by Germany and the EU.
Like Iran, these countries are expecting, and hoping, that President Trump will lose at the polls in November and that the nuclear agreement will be salvaged by his successor. Whoever wins the election, that will not be so easy. A 30-day period of delay and obfuscation at the Security Council now begins. Iran's supporters are desperate to prevent snapback on the grounds that the US, having withdrawn from the JCPOA, no longer has standing to demand it. Unfortunately for them, they are wrong. That will not stop them going into endless convulsions, however, while attempting to bend the terms and precedents of the Security Council to their will.
The end result is likely to be the success of Pompeo's snapback. The re-imposed sanctions will then leave China, Russia and the European countries with tough choices about whether they observe them or take the damaging consequences to their own trade with the US. Along the way we could see irreparable damage not just to US-European relations but also to the UN itself, an institution already under heavy fire from many in the US.
And for what? Perhaps for the benefit of Russia and China, whose weapons sales to Iran will both bring financial benefit and extend their influence in the region at the expense of America and Europe.
As for Europe, they may hope to gain some twisted kudos in standing up against the evil Trump and the US, and perhaps some meagre pickings from trade with Iran. Definitely it will not advance peace or global security. There may be benefits for the warmongering Ayatollahs in Tehran, but there will certainly be no benefit for the Iranian people or other countries in the Middle East. Many decent Iranian people want nothing more than a swift end to the repressive ayatollahs who have turned them into pariahs and forced them into destitution. If US snapback sanctions succeed, that can only hasten the end of the terrorist regime in Tehran. It will also boost confidence and security among the Arab countries, increasingly fearful of a nuclear-armed Iran.
European appeasement in the 1930s was ended almost single-handedly by one man: Winston Churchill. Britain's prime minister today, Boris Johnson, who has written a biography of Churchill, would be advised to reflect on what would certainly be his reaction to this dire situation, and get alongside our American allies at the UN Security Council.
Colonel Richard Kemp is a former British Army Commander. He was also head of the international terrorism team in the U.K. Cabinet Office and is now a writer and speaker on international and military affairs.
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The Islamic Republic of Iran: A Criminal Enterprise, Not a State
Peter Huessy/Gatestone Institute/August 24, 2020

بيتر هويسي/معهد جيتستون : جمهورية إيران الإسلامية هي مؤسسة إجرامية وليست دولة

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Venezuela, Iran's ally, has also made clear its intention to buy Iranian missiles that can reach American cities.
It is not as if China's criminal track record is not well known. The CCP deliberately let the Covid-19 virus spread around the world. It has directed the theft of trillions worth of intellectual property from the United States and Europe. It has hollowed out some eight million US manufacturing jobs, and it is illegally sending tons of the opioid fentanyl across US borders in partnership with the Mexican drug cartels.
As for Iran, desperate for cash and weapons and pummeled by US-led sanctions, the mullahs are contemplating signing on as a partner of the Communist Party of China (CCP). In return for sending China cheap oil and giving the CCP military bases in the region, Iran will get billions in cash.
The Islamic Republic of Iran is a criminal enterprise. The button men for ayatollahs are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, (IRGC), the Quds Force, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi mountain bandits in Yemen. Venezuela, Iran's ally, has made clear its intention to buy Iranian missiles that can reach American cities. Pictured: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (left) greets Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Tehran on January 10, 2015.
"Iran has to take a decision whether it wants to be a nation or a cause," Henry Kissinger, former US National Security Advisor and Secretary of State, told The Washington Post in 2006. He was referring to the tension between Iran's national interests and the religious ideology that took over the country after Iran's 1979 revolution.
The Islamic Republic of Iran, however, is neither a nation nor a cause: it is a criminal enterprise. The button men for ayatollahs are the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, (IRGC), the Quds Force, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthi mountain bandits in Yemen.
Like the Salvadoran MS-13 and Mexican Sinaloa cartel, Iran specializes in regional aggression and "death to America" — and has used specially made improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to kill more than 600 American soldiers serving in the Middle East. But killing is not Iran's only criminal activity. The Tehran thugs are the ones who make the deals with drug dealers, cigarette smugglers and human traffickers in the Middle East and in the Western hemisphere.
To rein in the mullahs' criminality, the US had implemented tough economic sanctions on Iran. On January 3, 2020, the US also took out Qassem Soleimani, the head of the IRGC who had ordered the killing of more than 600 Americans. While the death of Soleimani was welcome news, it did not end Iran's criminal empire any more than did the imprisonment of the head of the powerful Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel. The cartel remains in business today, smuggling tons of drugs into America.
If the US wants to stop the Iranians from killing, it must use every economic and diplomatic tool to crush the cash pipeline that sustains Iran's criminal enterprise. Even though current sanctions have cut Iranian support for its terrorist allies, more needs to be done -- such as ending Iran's practice of paying the Taliban a bounty to kill Americans.
The resolution of two major debates at the UN could also help, but only if decisions are made to reimpose sanctions and an arms embargo on Iran. The first debate was caused by the US desire to renew the UN arms embargo on Iran that automatically expires October 1, 2020. The second was caused by the US seeking to "snap back" the UN sanctions against Iran that were lifted as part of the 2015 "nuclear deal" with Iran -- and resulting in another substantial negative impact on Iran's cash pipeline.
Even though Secretary of State Pompeo had "every expectation that every country in the world will live up to its obligations, including every member of the P5," he may also have been right to fear that it is may be too much to ask the members of the UN to take seriously "the international commitments to which they have signed up for" and extend the arms embargo.
Some analysts argue that the UN members are not obligated to do anything. They say when the US pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). which is what the "nuclear deal" is called, the US supposedly lost the legal standing to snap back sanctions or extend the embargo.
Those critics are wrong. Even if the US relies solely on the UN's authority, UN Security Council Resolution 2231 gives the US the right, as an original participant of the JCPOA, to invoke the snapback of sanctions that would, of course, include maintaining the arms embargo. Senator Ted Cruz explains:
"When the Iran nuclear deal was being negotiated, Congress demanded that, as a final failsafe, the Obama administration had to ensure that the United States could, at any time, unilaterally determine that Iran had violated the deal and force a restoration of the six previous resolutions and their sanctions, including the arms embargo. Indeed, this so-called 'snapback mechanism' was incorporated into UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (UNSCR)."
The initial supporters of the JCPOA, which incidentally, Iran never signed, promised that Iran would stop seeking nuclear weapons and assured the world that Iran's criminal activities and terrorism would certainly moderate. However, as Cruz reminded Americans recently, precisely the opposite took place:
"The Iranian regime is brutal, oppressive and tyrannical. It finances and exports terror, and openly threatens all-out war while seeking weapons that could incinerate American cities with a single flash of light. When the ayatollah says 'death to America' and 'death to Israel,' he means it."
As importantly, Tehran has never adhered to a key term of the JCPOA that requires Iran to come clean about its past nuclear weapons activity. Even the UN's International Atomic Energy Administration, (IAEA), charged with monitoring the JCPOA, concluded that Iran has not been in compliance with that requirement.
In addition, the ability to buy advanced weapons means that Iran will better arm its terror proxies. Those will certainly include the Houthis in Yemen, whose actions, as the US State Department explains, have "led to years of prolonged regional armed conflict and suffering," and caused what many term the greatest humanitarian disaster in the world today. Venezuela, Iran's ally, has also made clear its intention to buy Iranian missiles that can reach American cities.
Unfortunately, the UN decided last week not to extend the arms embargo, after Russia and China threatened to veto a US resolution. That vote prompted the US representative to the UN, Ambassador Kelly Craft, to declare:
"The United States stands sickened — but not surprised — as the clear majority of council members gave the green light to Iran to buy and sell all manner of conventional weapons."
As a result, President Trump on his own authority has ordered a snapback of all sanctions on Iran, and has asked his UN Ambassador to inform the UN Security Council of the decision.
As for Iran, desperate for cash and weapons and pummeled by US-led sanctions, the mullahs are contemplating signing on as a partner of the Communist Party of China (CCP). In return for sending China cheap oil and giving the CCP military bases in the region, Iran will get billions in cash.
The wedding of two criminal enterprises -- China as the Godfather and Iran as the "made man" -- was not a surprise. To see America's European allies unwilling to support the embargo or sanctions and signing up as wedding guests? That was a surprise.
It is not as if China's criminal track record is not well known. The CCP deliberately let the Covid-19 virus spread around the world. It has directed the theft of trillions worth of intellectual property from the United States and Europe. It has hollowed out some eight million US manufacturing jobs, and it is illegally sending tons of the opioid fentanyl across US borders in partnership with the Mexican drug cartels.
The US, therefore, has no choice. The US must cut off the money and weapons openly dedicated to "Death to America." That, the mullahs will understand.
*Peter Huessy is Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute. He is also senior consulting analyst at Ravenna Associates, a strategic communications company.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The UAE-Israel announcement proves the folly of warming to Iran
Michael Oren/CNN/August 24/2020
(CNN)The impending peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel is a game-changer for the entire Middle East.
In addition to wedding one of world's wealthiest states (the UAE) with its most innovative (Israel), it also opens new avenues toward peace. Realizing that other Arab states may soon follow the UAE's lead, and that time is no longer on their side, the Palestinians may well return to the negotiating table.
An Israeli public that is secure in its newfound relations with the Arab world will be more likely to make concessions. Stalemated for almost 30 years, the peace process might finally be revived.
More than its economic and diplomatic potential, though, the UAE-Israel accord is of immense strategic value. It signifies the emergence of a united Middle Eastern front against Iran. Such an alliance was necessitated by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action -- the Iran nuclear deal. Contrary to hopes that it would transform Iran into a responsible regional power, the JCPOA bolstered Iranian efforts to gain even greater power in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and support terror worldwide. The JCPOA did not prohibit Iran from developing more advanced centrifuges, capable of swiftly enriching uranium and significantly reducing the time Iran would need to create a nuclear arsenal. Similarly, that agreement -- which the US concluded along with the European powers, Russia, and China -- did not compel Iran to cease developing technology that could be used to launch an intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of carrying nuclear warheads to Europe and the US, as experts worry they are doing under cover of a space program.
To more effectively defend themselves against such grave dangers, Israel and Sunni Arab states sought an open alliance.
For American policymakers, the peace process and the Iranian issue have always been inextricably linked. But while the previous US administration sought to defuse regional tensions through the nuclear deal, ironically it in fact created a UAE-Israel alliance in opposition to that plan.
Conversely, by abandoning the nuclear deal in 2018, the United States regained the leverage and the trust needed to broker the UAE-Israel breakthrough.
To many Americans, the goals of achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace and of broader reconciliation with Iran may still seem to be complementary. Many believed that reconciling with Iran could limit the threat that its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah poses to Israel, or that achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace could give Iran one less reason to hate the Jewish state.
But from a Middle Eastern perspective, these two goals are fundamentally at odds. Striving for both, many of the region's people would agree, is like fighting climate change while promoting the use of coal.
In retrospect, the belief that America could make Israelis feel more, rather than less secure, by striking a bargain with an Iran sworn to destroy them is mind-boggling. So, too, is the notion that Sunni Arabs would welcome an accord between their longstanding US ally and a rapidly expanding Shiite empire.
Yet the simultaneous achievement of both peace and the nuclear deal were for years the twin goals of American diplomacy. During the Syrian civil war, Iran helped perpetrate the massacre and displacement of millions of Syrians, and it has bankrolled Hamas rocket attacks against Israel, for which a Hamas leader in Gaza thanked Iran publicly in spring 2019, as The Times of Israel reported. Secretary of State John Kerry mounted an intense peace initiative. But between 2012 and 2013, as Iran was engaging in such activities, Kerry was also conducting nuclear talks with Iran that began in secret, behind Israeli and Arab backs. That betrayal all but eliminated America's credibility as a reliable mediator.
The signing of the Israeli-Emirati accord signals the restoration of American leverage. It is proof that the assumptions behind the 2015 Iran nuclear deal were flawed and that America's 2018 withdrawal from it was well-founded.
It will enable to the United States to play a central role in the conclusion of additional peace agreements between Israel, Bahrain, Oman, and other Arab states and, potentially, to preside over renewed Israeli-Palestinian talks. A peace agreement based on creative formulas and close economic and strategic ties will be possible.
Opinion: UAE helps normalize Israeli oppression
All of these potential historical developments are dependent, however, on continued American opposition to Tehran. No American who cares about ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should ever support the restoration of the JCPOA. No country promoting Arab-Israeli reconciliation should empower an Iranian regime committed to undermining those efforts, most often with violence.
If burning coal is incompatible with combating climate change, so, too, is seeking peace with a strengthening warlike Iran, and the UAE-Israel deal provides positive proof.
*Michael Oren, formerly Israel's ambassador to the United States, Knesset Member, and deputy minister in the Prime Minister's office, is the author of "The Night Archer and Other Stories" (forthcoming, Wicked Son Press, 2020)

The Harshness of Living without a State
Ghassan Charbel/Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper/August, 24/2020
The harshness of the images does not need an explanation. Youths from al-Nasiriya in southern Iraq found no other means other than bulldozers to raze the headquarters of parties they blame for razing the remains of the Iraqi state in favor of chaos. This anger against sides protesters blame for the killing and kidnapping activists is understandable.
The truth is that the systematic killing at protest squares in Baghdad and other cities is too much to bear. It is a high degree of oppression and brutality and violation of the most basic rights by powers that believe they can escape punishment.
Complicating the situation in Iraq are some powers, which do not believe in the state, its institutions and laws, that have succeeded in infiltrating the state and where they are earning salaries and enjoying its benefits. Since the parties, whose headquarters were targeted by protesters, are allied to Iran, the battle for restoring the Iraqi state is taking on both an internal and external form. The protesters want to restore the state from armed Iraqi factions and from Iran, which has given these very groups constant protection.
The same harshness of living without a state in Iraq are also playing out in Lebanon. I have listened to the testimonies of several Lebanese youths. Many are still committed to their unwavering dream for change and ousting the corrupt political class, despite its prowess at maneuvering and deceit to maintain its interests and control of the state. I also listened to other testimonies from youths who have been eaten up by despair after their dreams were dealt one blow after another. The massive crime that was the Beirut port blast broke their ability to live in a country that has been torn apart by internal and foreign powers. They therefore, declare that they will seize the first chance they get to quit this nation.
These are damning testimonies. They believe that remaining in Lebanon is a waste of their lives and dreams. The corrupt system has decimated their ties to the land of their ancestors and they now see escape as a win. They believe that remaining is a form of assassination of their ambitions, aspirations and humanity. They complained that whenever they sought to express their anger through peaceful means, they were lured into clashes that the entrenched ruling class exploited to fire rubber bullets at and arrest them in practices that a majority of countries have abandoned and banned.
It is truly a tragedy for young generations to discover that they now have to wage a battle of building a nation that should have been waged and won decades ago. Moreover, it is a battle that is being waged in very challenging circumstances as Lebanon is caught in the fangs of internal and foreign powers. There are no drawn lines inside maps, whose borders have been violated. There are no limits to the practices of the hostile powers in the region. Some countries are so unlucky that they find themselves at the mercy of foreign powers that only exacerbate internal divisions.
It’s so difficult to be born in a difficult place. It is so difficult to be young and deluded into believing that you are required to build your own future and that of your nation. It is so difficult to be young and deluded into believing that you can introduce change and that the adventure is worth the price, even if it were hefty. How difficult it is to realize early that you were born on a stolen map, which has been violated by foreign powers. How difficult it is to realize that some inhabitants of this map have been attracted to this foreign visitor and have turned into soldiers for its wars or puppets for its games. How difficult it is to realize that violence is the only effective means of communication, that the talent for wasting progress takes precedence over all others and that the land and its residents need accommodate the most powerful regardless of their policies and affiliations. Maps are stolen by greedy international powers or avaricious regional ones. They are stolen from the inside by those championing dictatorship and oppression and a unilateral approach to decision-making and abuse of gains and resources.
It is painful for maps to be stolen by the outside and for their will to come under occupation. This oppression will fade if an internal unifying roadmap that commits to freedom, sovereignty and independence emerges from the inside. Experience has shown that nations cannot be killed from the outside. A stranger can never have this chance. The real killing come from the inside: from the fragmentation of a national equation and the internal front; from hatred that resorts to violence, weapons and the elimination of the other; from the desire to maintain a single color to the nation and take out anyone who is different.
The plight becomes worse when internal parties see in foreign forces a closer ally to them than the different citizen living in the nearby neighborhood. These parties have the habit of abandoning leniency and concessions for the sake of striking acceptable internal settlements in favor of offering greater concessions to obtain foreign protection. At first, these internal parties celebrate at finding a foreign ally they see as a savior, but by the time it is too late, they come to realize that they have lost their independent decision-making power and have been transformed into a pawn for a policy that is greater than them and that offers them no room to participate in implementing or even questioning it.
This is what is going through the minds of people following the developments in Basra, Nasiriya or Beirut. The absence of a worthy state sheds the people’s blood, wastes the country’s resources and deepens divisions. This is why Iraq now, more than ever, needs the redeployment of American forces. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi is well aware of this. The PM had just flown in from Washington to Basra to confirm that the assassination of activists will not lead to the assassination of the dream to restore the state.
Iraq’s future is not built on the assassination of activists and a deceptive media campaigns that shed their blood. It is definitely not built with the firing of rockets aimed at seeing the departure of one foreign force for the interest of another. The future is also not built with the disregard of the constitution and staging of elections amid tensions. There can be no future without first passing through the state and institutions.
The same can be said about Lebanon. It is truly shameful that the latest massacre that devastated half of the capital and that is sparking a new unprecedented exodus has not persuaded some officials and politicians to abandon the non-state. The Lebanese people are being impoverished and driven to hunger. The Lebanese people are being degraded and pushed to immigration. Despite all of this, some sides are still thinking about their share in the new government and their ability to keep chronic grudges, instead of deriving lessons from the tragedy and leading the country towards the state of law.

The unintended lessons of the UAE-Israel deal
Jerry Sorkin/The Arab Weekly/August 24/2020
Extending their hand to Arab countries that chose to normalise instead of hurling invectives at them will earn the Palestinians new allies in the region and the world.
US President Donald Trump seems eager to surprise Americans and the world with new announcements on a near-daily basis — from his suggestion that Americans consider injecting disinfectant into the bodies of COVID-19 patients, to making unsubstantiated claims that the US mail system is not reliable and that November’s election should be postponed.
But his surprise announcement on August 13 that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel had agreed to open full diplomatic relations was certainly not fake news. It was an announcement that captured a lot of attention….both welcome and not.
It is not a secret that Israel has maintained quiet relations with the UAE as well as with other Arab Gulf countries. But the announcement that the two countries are establishing full diplomatic relations put the UAE in a small club that includes only two other Arab nations: Egypt and Jordan.
The UAE and Israel will expand cooperation in many areas, from technology to security and tourism. Angered by the move, Palestinian authorities called the announcement a “stab in the back.”
But people in the street in the West Bank want nothing more than to see normal life and to end the predicament of having their territory surrounded by walls and security checkpoints.
A few weekends ago, there was a rare phenomenon of West Bankers going to the beach, passing through tanks to an unexplained lapse in Israel security, which allowed literally thousands of Palestinians to take advantage of this rare opportunity.
For the younger generation, this was in most cases the first glimpse of the seaside, despite their living less than an hour’s drive from the West Bank. Reports were that the Israelis simply stood by and allowed the Palestinians to enjoy their rare day at Israeli beaches. There is not a Palestinian who would not want to do this again, reported the New York Times.
Two years ago, I took part in a group forum at a West Bank Palestinian university aimed at enabling American visitors to hear from the “20-something” generation of Palestinians, a generation that has only known occupation. After numerous students spoke and the Q&A session started, a Palestinian professor chairing the event seemed to jump on every question posed to the students and give her own answers instead. It was clear that the students were frustrated, particularly when a question was posed to them asking if they or their professors would be willing to work with Israeli academics who wanted to work and collaborate with Palestinian students and professors. Rather than letting the students answer, the Palestinian professor immediately responded that they would never collaborate with Israeli professors or students, as it would be traitorous “to work with the colonists.”
After the session, we invited some of the students to join us at a small restaurant/cafe in Bir Zeit village, providing them with a less intimidating atmosphere to speak candidly. They felt their professor prevented them from saying what they would have liked to say, which was that they would very much want to meet and have exchanges with their Israeli counterparts.
At another forum in March where American citizens met with students from several West Bank Palestinian universities, we purposely avoided university grounds so the five students attending could speak freely. When we assured them that they would not be recorded, we heard from each of the five that they wanted to have exchanges with their Israeli counterparts. Some admitted that they do so on social media, or have had the opportunity to attend university programmes outside the Middle East. They found that their exchanges with their Israeli counterparts were among the most rewarding relations they had ever had. “We are governed by men who are 70 years and older, men who have found ways to benefit and enrich themselves while we the youth, only hear about what can be. It is time for another direction,” noted one of the students. “We keep hearing about elections, but it has been fifteen years since there were elections,” added another.
In my numerous visits to the Palestinian territories and meetings with people from many walks of life, I often hear statements reflecting what is supposed to be the politically correct Palestinian discourse. But in private settings, nearly every Palestinian admits that they just want to have a normal life, one that might allow them to travel, both in the region and beyond. They want to enjoy a life that does not subject them to the indignity of passing through checkpoints. They want to be able to enjoy the benefits that their Palestinian counterparts who hold Israeli citizenship have: access to travel, filling the ranks of Israeli universities, joining the professions of medicine, the academy, the arts and more. The constant message from this generation that has only known “occupation” is that they want what their counterparts with Israeli citizenship have.
For many Palestinians, any step towards normal relations with Israel can only be a beneficial step, though perhaps with some bitterness. There is now political fatigue in the Arab world over what they see as Palestinian leaders’ lack of vision. The traditional stance by Arab nations to stand by the Palestinians until a solution is reached has led nowhere. Countries like the UAE and others who are developing relations with Israel no longer see support to the Palestinians and establishment of formal ties with Israel as being mutually exclusive.
Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”
Standing still will never bring change. Palestinian leaders’ continued refusal of any cooperation or dialogue with Israel has brought nothing to their people. Despite the reasons for this lack of cooperation and dialogue, stubbornness about holding firm appears to have tired to the UAE and most other Arab nations who now prioritise the task of taking care of their own concerns.
So, what can the Palestinians do?
While steps towards establishing formal relations with Israel may seem to be a form of “betrayal” to parts of the Arab and Palestinian public, it could ironically be the first step on a path that breaks the tragic stalemate that has so far severely victimised the Palestinians. Extending their hand to Arab countries that choose to normalise instead of hurling invectives at them will earn the Palestinians new allies in the region and the world. It will also help them build a level of trust with Israel, a trust that may help the many Palestinians who want to have the oppression of occupation lifted from their shoulders and give something to the coming generations who are simply yearning for a better life.
Moving forward is what is needed and might be the best route towards giving Palestinians the dignity and the nationhood they yearn for. Moving away from old formulae that never worked is the wise thing to do. This may well be one of the unintended lessons of the UAE-Israel deal.
*Jerry Sorkin is founder and president of Iconic Journeys Worldwide and of TunisUSA, and is an adjunct professor at Temple University in Philadephia. He is a frequent contributor to The Arab Weekly.