English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For August 27/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 14/12-15/:"He said also to the one who had invited him, ‘When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbours, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.’One of the dinner guests, on hearing this, said to him, ‘Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!’".

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 26-27/2020

Lebanon Tops List of Countries Doubling Coronavirus Deaths
Lebanon Could 'Lose Control' of Coronavirus Outbreak, Warns PM
United Nations peacekeeping forces (UNIFIL) patrol along the border with Israel/Najia Houssari/Arab News/August 26/2020
Macron Returns to Beirut Seeking Reform
French President’s Office Confirms Macron to Visit Beirut Sept. 1
Higher Defense Council Extends General Mobilization until Dec 31
Israel Claims Attacks on Hizbullah Posts after Shots Fired at Soldiers
Netanyahu Vows 'Forceful' Response if More Attacks from Lebanon
Army Says 13 Missiles, 117 Flares and 100 Shells Fired at Lebanon
Report: Hizbullah Says No Group Posts Hit by Israel
Nasrallah Says to Comment Later on 'Israeli Upheaval, Attacks'
Eiffel Tower of Debris Cleared from Beirut Port
4 More Arrest Warrants Issued in Port Blast Probe
Lebanon Rejects Reform of UNIFIL Force on Border
Lebanon: An Economic Postmortem/Ghida Tayara/Carnegie MEC/August 26, 2020
IDF attacks Hezbollah targets following incident on northern border/Arutz Sheva/August 26/2020
Netanyahu: Hezbollah shouldn’t test us
Lebanon’s Hariri: I Am not a Candidate for the Premiership
Housing Bank Offers $40 Million in Soft Loans to Beirut’s Damaged Houses
Lebanon: Importers of Basic Commodities Warn Against Ending Subsidies
A free supermarket offers dignity to Lebanon’s most vulnerable/Rawaa Talass/Arab News/August 26/2020
Lebanese Figures Demand That Hizbullah Arsenals Across The Country Be Dismantled/MEMRI/August 26, 2020
The Obsessions of Lebanon’s Christians/Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 26/2020
Hariri verdict: Is the UN capable of delivering justice?/Michael Young/The National/August 26/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 26-27/2020

Pompeo Seeks to Hold Arab-Israeli Peace Conference
Netanyahu, Putin agree to continue coordination in Syria
Turkey Gave Abbas Meets with Raab: We are Ready for Negotiations Sponsored by Quartet
Abbas Meets with Raab: We are Ready for Negotiations Sponsored by Quartet
Israeli Settlers Commit 20 Assaults against Palestinians in 1 Month
Amman Tripartite Summit Calls For Confronting Foreign Interventions
Iraq, Egypt to Cooperate on Civilian, Military Production
Jordan, Egypt, Iraq summit stresses coordination, Palestinian issues
National Security Adviser to lead Israeli delegation to UAE next week
Minister Champagne concludes visit to Switzerland and Italy on his way to Lebanon
US Troops Injured in Interaction with Russian Forces in Syria

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 26-27/2020

CAIR 'Exposes' Itself/Martha Lee/JNS/August 26/2020
Battle of Manzikert: The “Subjugation of Christianity by Islam”/Raymond Ibrahim/August 26/2020
India Must Shut Down Western Radical Charities/Sam Westrop/Firstpost/August 26/2020
Trump Will Give Kadhimi Some Time/Robert Ford/Asharq Al Awsat/August 26/2020
How to End America's Loneliness Epidemic/Noah Smith/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on August 26-27/2020

Lebanon Tops List of Countries Doubling Coronavirus Deaths
Naharnet/August 26/2020
Lebanon tops the list of countries where the number of COVID-19 deaths double every twenty days, which means that the number of deaths may reach about 24 by the middle of next month, al-Akhbar daily reported on Wednesday.
Adviser to the Health Minister, Dr. Edmond Abboud told the newspaper that the high number of deaths is primarily due to the spike in cases. He said that the majority of deaths on Tuesday were elderly, most of whom suffer from incurable and chronic diseases. According to data, Lebanon doctors warn that a second coronavirus wave could outbreak at the end of autumn and by the beginning of winter. They said Lebanon today is witnessing the peak of the first coronavirus wave, and warned of the second wave. The most prominent challenge Lebanon faces will be in distinguishing between regular seasonal influenza and COVID-19, given the similarity of symptoms. The time it takes for the number of COVID-19 deaths to double varies by country. The doubling rate in the United States was 100 days as of August 24, 2020. In comparison, the number of confirmed deaths in Australia doubled from 247 to 502 in the space of only 18 days between August 6 and August 24, 2020. On Tuesday, Lebanon announced twelve COVID-19 deaths, the highest daily toll so far for the small country since the first infection was detected on February 21. 532 virus cases were confirmed on Tuesday -- 525 among residents and only seven among people coming from abroad. The new cases raise the overall tally to 13,687 while the fatalities take the death toll to 138. The country has meanwhile recorded 3,815 recoveries.
 

Lebanon Could 'Lose Control' of Coronavirus Outbreak, Warns PM
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab said on Wednesday the country was at risk of losing its control over the country’s coronavirus outbreak after a spike in the number of cases following the massive explosion in Beirut on Aug 4.
“The number of cases is increasing greatly, and if this continues, we will lose control of this epidemic,” Diab was cited as saying in a statement issued by the Supreme Defense Council. The council decided during the meeting maintain the state of health emergency until the end of the year. Lebanon registered 525 new COVID-19 infections and 12 deaths on Tuesday. The country experienced a spike in infections following the catastrophic explosion in the capital city at the start of the month. Cases doubled in the two weeks following the blast, as infections spread in hospitals where victims were being treated, medics say. The government imposed a partial lockdown last Friday to help combat community spread. But the shutdown, which includes a curfew from 6 pm to 6 am, still allows for clearing rubble, making repairs and giving out aid in neighborhoods damaged by the explosion. The airport will remain open, with travelers having to take PCR tests before boarding and on arriving in the country. The health minister for Lebanon’s caretaker government, Hamad Hassan, who also spoke to the Council, said the tally of coronavirus cases was concerning. Hassan added that hospital capacity needed to be increased to help combat the spike in cases, the official said.

United Nations peacekeeping forces (UNIFIL) patrol along the border with Israel,
Najia Houssari/Arab News/August 26/2020
BEIRUT: Maj. Gen. Stefano Del Col, head of mission and commander of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), on Wednesday urged Israeli and Lebanese parties “to exercise restraint and avoid any provocative act that would further escalate tensions and endanger the cessation of hostilities.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened Lebanon hours after Israeli forces fired dozens of fluorescent and phosphorous bombs at Lebanese border towns, causing fires but no human casualties. Netanyahu warned Hezbollah “not to test the striking force of Israel.” He added: “Hezbollah exposes the Lebanese state to danger because of its aggression.” Lebanon decided to submit a complaint to the UN Security Council (UNSC) regarding Israel’s attack. It took place 48 hours before the UNSC approved the renewal of UNIFIL’s mandate, which expires on Aug. 31, for one year.
In 2017, Israel sent a complaint to the UNSC, accusing Hezbollah of “establishing observation posts along the southern Lebanese border under the guise of an environmental organization.”The Lebanese Supreme Defense Council, headed by President Michel Aoun, met hours after the attack. The council was briefed on the details of what happened on the border. UNIFIL spokesman Andrea Tenenti said it “detected the launch of many flare bombs from Israeli army positions along the Blue Line in front of the towns of Aitaroun, Aita Al-Shaab, ​​Mays Al-Jabal, Hula, Kafr Kila and Kafr Shuba in southern Lebanon. UNIFIL’s radars also detected mortar and artillery shells, most of which were smoke shells, in addition to intense drone activities over these areas.”He added that UNIFIL “immediately … reinforced its forces along the Blue Line,” the UN border demarcation between the two countries. Tenenti said Del Col stressed the importance of “investigating all the facts and circumstances surrounding the dangerous developments that took place … along the Blue Line.” Both sides were urged “to fully cooperate with UNIFIL in determining the facts.”Netanyahu tweeted that “Israel views with great gravity Hezbollah’s firing at our forces,” adding: “We will respond mightily to any attack on us.”Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee said: “Military helicopters and another aircraft attacked targets belonging to Hezbollah … in the border area.” He added: “The Lebanese government is responsible for what is happening from its territory.” Hours after the attack, Walid Sukkarieh, an MP with Hezbollah’s parliamentary bloc and a former officer in the Lebanese Army, said: “The resistance will not slide into war, because Israel will not slide into war, nor will the resistance seek war.”Meanwhile, Lebanon’s General Directorate of the Internal Security Forces announced “the arrest of a Syrian youth belonging to Daesh who was planning to carry out terrorist operations in Lebanon.”

Macron Returns to Beirut Seeking Reform
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 26/2020
French President Emmanuel Macron, the first world leader to visit Lebanon after the devastating Beirut port blast, will return to Beirut next week to press for reform and reconstruction. Macron will depart Monday for a full day of meetings Tuesday in a bid to boost the reconstruction effort but also looking at political issues as Lebanon searches for a new government, the French presidency said. Macron visited Beirut on August 6, two days after a massive explosion at the port killed 181 people and wounded thousands. On August 9, he chaired a video conference that saw world leaders pledge more than 250 million euros ($295 million) for Lebanon. But he has made it clear that the country needs political reform as well as financial help, a message that has struck a chord with many Lebanese tired of decades of rule by the same political dynasties. The need for profound change meant "it is the time of responsibility for Lebanon today and its leaders" who required "a new pact with the Lebanese people in the coming weeks," Macron said in Beirut on August 6. Premier Hassan Diab's cabinet has resigned over the blast, which was blamed on a store of ammonium nitrate left for years in a port warehouse despite warnings. But in a pattern all-too-familiar to the Lebanese, the country today appears no closer to forming a new government. France has repeatedly indicated that aid is not a blank check and Lebanon must deal with its political and economic problems that led to crisis even before the blast. "The catastrophe should not be used as a pretext to obscure the reality that existed before of a country that is on the brink of the abyss... and which cannot reform itself," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said this week. "We want the Lebanese authorities to take the necessary leap for a government tasked with starting the essential reforms," he said, adding it was "not for us to replace the Lebanese government, it is up to the Lebanese to assume their responsibilities." Lebanon was under French mandate from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the wake of World War I until its independence in November 1943.

French President’s Office Confirms Macron to Visit Beirut Sept. 1
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
French President Emmanuel Macron will travel to Beirut on Sept. 1, his office said on Wednesday. Macron was the first foreign leader to visit Beirut after a massive blast destroyed parts of the Lebanese capital in early August. Macron has taken the lead role in coordinating the international response and has chaired a virtual aid conference that drummed up more than 250 million euros ($295 million) in pledges. The devastating explosion that was likely caused by a huge stockpile of ammonium nitrate stored at a warehouse at Beirut Port has killed and injured thousands of people and left an estimated 300,000 homeless. Many questions have been raised as to how such a huge cargo of highly explosive material could have been left unsecured for years. During his Beirut visit, the French president took a tough tone on the reforms he said were the only thing holding back a massive aid package that could put the ailing country back in the saddle.Speaking of Lebanon's political leaders, Macron said: "Their responsibility is huge, that of a revamped pact with the Lebanese people in the coming weeks, that of deep change."

Higher Defense Council Extends General Mobilization until Dec 31
Naharnet/August 26/2020
The Higher Defense Council on Wednesday extended the general mobilization measures until the end of the year, after a notable increase in coronavirus cases and deaths. “We are passing through a delicate stage regarding the confrontation with coronavirus. The number of cases are rising in a way that suggests we could lose control of the epidemic if it continues to rise,” said caretaker PM Hassan Diab at the beginning of the meeting. On Tuesday, Lebanon announced twelve COVID-19 deaths, the highest daily toll so far for the small country since the first infection was detected on February 21. Diab said many people tend to “challenge the lockdown measures which helps raise the virus cases. We might lose the ability to confront coronavirus if this keeps happening. I see a need to renew the general mobilization measures until the end of this year,” added Diab. The Health Ministry said 532 virus cases were confirmed Tuesday raising the overall tally to 13,687 while the fatalities take the death toll to 138. The country has meanwhile recorded 3,815 recoveries. On the extension of the UNIFIL mandate, Diab said: “Atmospheres are positive regarding extension of the UNIFIL term, and the Security Council is likely to approve that on Friday. Extending the UNIFIL term without modifying its tasks is in the interest of world countries.” Caretaker foreign minister Charbel Wehbe had separately received the ambassadors of the UN Security Council five permanent members ahead of Friday's vote, the National News Agency said.
He handed them a memorandum stressing that "Lebanon is attached to renewing (the mission of) UNIFIL, without modifying its mandate or its numbers", it added.

Israel Claims Attacks on Hizbullah Posts after Shots Fired at Soldiers
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 26/2020
Israeli attack helicopters struck observation posts of the Hizbullah group along the Lebanon border overnight after shots were fired at Israeli troops operating in the area, the military said Wednesday. It said no Israeli forces were wounded, and there were no immediate reports of casualties or major damage in Lebanon. Earlier, Israeli troops fired flares and smoke shells along the heavily guarded border. The military also ordered civilians in nearby communities to shelter in place and blocked roads near the border. Those restrictions were lifted early Wednesday. The incident took place near the northern town of Manara. Israel has been bracing for a possible attack by Hizbullah since an Israeli airstrike killed a Hizbullah fighter in neighboring Syria last month. On July 27, the Israeli military said it had thwarted an infiltration attempt by Hizbullah fighters in a battle that raged for more than an hour. Neither side reported any casualties and the Iran-backed Hizbullah denied involvement. Israel considers Hizbullah to be its toughest and most immediate threat. After battling Israel to a stalemate during a monthlong war in 2006, Hizbullah is believed to be far stronger today. Israeli officials estimate that Hizbullah possesses some 130,000 rockets and missiles capable of striking virtually anywhere in Israel. The group also has gained valuable battlefield experience by fighting alongside Iranian troops backing the forces of President Bashar Assad in the Syrian civil war.
Israel, which considers Iran to be its greatest enemy, has acknowledged carrying out scores of airstrikes in Syria it says were meant to stop Iran from transferring sophisticated weapons to Hizbullah.

Netanyahu Vows 'Forceful' Response if More Attacks from Lebanon
Agence France Presse/Associated Press/Naharnet/August 26/2020
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel views with "great gravity" the latest flare-up on the Lebanese border and pledged a tough response in the event of further incidents. "We shall react forcefully to any attack against us," Netanyahu said in a statement. "I advise Hizbullah not to test Israel's strength. Hizbullah is once again endangering Lebanon due to its aggression."Israel and Hizbullah fought a devastating month-long war in 2006. Israel said earlier it had launched air strikes against Hizbullah observation posts in Lebanon after shots were fired from across the border towards its troops the previous evening. A Hizbullah spokesman declined to comment. Another member of the group, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said no Hizbullah positions were hit. He said shrapnel hit a structure belonging to Green Without Borders, an environmental NGO that Israel says is an arm of Hizbullah, allegations denied by the group. The Hizbullah member would neither confirm nor deny that an attack had been launched from Lebanon. Lebanon's Higher Defense Council, the country's top defense body, said it would file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council "over Israel's aggressions on Lebanon last night."The border flare-up came hours after Lebanon rejected an Israeli call to reform the UN peacekeeping force which patrols the border ahead of a UN Security Council vote to renew its mandate. The Israeli army had said earlier that a "security incident" was unfolding near Manara, a kibbutz near the UN-demarcated border between the two countries, and urged residents to take shelter. It reported no Israeli casualties. Manara was quiet on Wednesday morning, an AFP journalist reported. The army told residents they could come into the open and resume work in the fields.

Army Says 13 Missiles, 117 Flares and 100 Shells Fired at Lebanon
Naharnet/August 26/2020
The Lebanese Army on Wednesday said 13 missiles, 117 flares and 100 shells were fired by Israel overnight at Lebanese border areas. “After midnight, helicopters belonging to the Israeli enemy targeted posts belonging to the Green Without Borders environmental NGO with three missiles at the outskirts of the town of Ramya and eight missiles at the outskirts of the town of Aita al-Shaab, in addition to two missiles that were fired from the Tal al-Raheb post at the outskirts of the aforementioned town,” the army said in a statement. “A post for the aforementioned NGO was also targeted in the Aitaroun national reserve, which sparked a blaze in it,” the army added. The military also said that Israel had earlier in the night fired 117 flares and around 100 explosive and incendiary shells at the outskirts of the Lebanese towns of Mays al-Jabal, Houla, Maroun al-Ras and Aitaroun, which resulted in several forestfires and damaged a house and a goat farm. The Israeli army said Wednesday that attack helicopters overnight struck observation posts of Hizbullah along the Lebanon border after shots were fired at Israeli troops operating in the area. Israel has been bracing for a possible attack by Hizbullah since an Israeli airstrike killed a Hizbullah fighter in neighboring Syria on July 20. The Israeli army said no Israeli forces were wounded, and there were no reports of casualties in Lebanon. A Hizbullah spokesman declined to comment. Another member of the group, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media, said no Hizbullah positions were hit. He said shrapnel hit a structure belonging to Green Without Borders, an environmental NGO that Israel says is an arm of Hizbullah, allegations denied by the militants. The Hizbullah member would neither confirm nor deny that an attack had been launched from Lebanon.

Report: Hizbullah Says No Group Posts Hit by Israel
Associated Press/Naharnet/August 26/2020
A Hizbullah spokesman on Wednesday declined to comment on the overnight flare-up on the Lebanese-Israeli border but a member of the group said no Hizbullah positions were hit by Israel as claimed by its army.
The Hizbullah member spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. He said shrapnel hit a structure belonging to Green Without Borders, an environmental NGO that Israel says is an arm of Hizbullah, allegations denied by the Iran-backed armed group. The Hizbullah member would neither confirm nor deny that an attack had been launched from Lebanon. The Israeli army said Wednesday morning that attack helicopters had overnight bombed observation posts of Hizbullah along the Lebanon border overnight after shots were fired at Israeli troops operating in the area. The Israeli military said no Israeli forces were wounded, and there were no reports of casualties in Lebanon. Earlier, Israeli troops fired flares and smoke shells along the heavily guarded border. Hizbullah-run al-Manar TV reported that two homes were damaged by the shelling.

Nasrallah Says to Comment Later on 'Israeli Upheaval, Attacks'
Naharnet/August 26/2020
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Wednesday opted not to comment extensively on Tuesday’s flare-up on the Lebanese-Israeli border while describing the events as “important and sensitive.”
“Yesterday’s events, the Israeli upheaval, the firing of phosphorus bombs and some attacks are something important and sensitive to us but I deliberately will not comment now,” said Nasrallah in brief remarks about the incidents during a Ashoura religious sermon. “I will leave talk about it to the appropriate time,” Nasrallah added. A Hizbullah spokesman on Wednesday declined to comment on the overnight flare-up but a member of the group said no Hizbullah positions were hit by Israel as claimed by its army. The Hizbullah member spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media. He said shrapnel hit a structure belonging to Green Without Borders, an environmental NGO that Israel says is an arm of Hizbullah, allegations denied by the Iran-backed armed group. The Hizbullah member would neither confirm nor deny that an attack had been launched from Lebanon.
The Israeli army said Wednesday morning that attack helicopters had overnight bombed observation posts of Hizbullah along the Lebanon border overnight after shots were fired at Israeli troops operating in the area.
The Israeli military said no Israeli forces were wounded, and there were no reports of casualties in Lebanon. Earlier on Tuesday night, Israeli troops fired flares, smoke shells and incendiary phosphorus bombs along the border. Hizbullah-run al-Manar TV reported that two homes were damaged by the shelling.
The Lebanese Army for its part said that Israel had fired 13 missiles, 117 flares and 100 shells at Lebanon during the flare-up. “After midnight, helicopters belonging to the Israeli enemy targeted posts belonging to the Green Without Borders environmental NGO with three missiles at the outskirts of the town of Ramya and eight missiles at the outskirts of the town of Aita al-Shaab, in addition to two missiles that were fired from the Tal al-Raheb post at the outskirts of the aforementioned town,” the army said in a statement.
“A post for the aforementioned NGO was also targeted in the Aitaroun national reserve, which sparked a blaze in it,” the army added. The military also said that Israel had earlier in the night fired 117 flares and around 100 explosive and incendiary shells at the outskirts of the Lebanese towns of Mays al-Jabal, Houla, Maroun al-Ras and Aitaroun, which resulted in several forestfires and damaged a house and a goat farm.

Eiffel Tower of Debris Cleared from Beirut Port
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/August 26/2020
French and Lebanese soldiers cleared 8,000 tons of steel and concrete equivalent to the weight of the Eiffel Tower from Beirut port which was devastated by a monster blast, an officer said Wednesday. Efforts have focused recently on clearing the parts of the port worst affected by the massive August 4 explosion that ripped across swathes of Beirut and killed more than 180 people. "It took me four days to clear 8,000 tons of concrete and steel," said Lieutenant Paulin, a French officer coordinating clearing operations at the port. "8,000 tons since we got here five days ago, that's the equivalent of the weight of the Eiffel Tower," said Paulin, who belongs to a French civil engineering regiment. The Tonnerre, a huge French amphibious helicopter carrier, arrived in Beirut earlier in August with dozens of trucks and heavy machinery to clear the debris. The blast, one of the largest in recent history, leveled entire sectors of the port, created a 43-metre-deep crater that was covered by the sea, and sent a shockwave that damaged property and wounded people several miles away. Colonel Yusef Haidar of the Lebanese army said the port, on which the country usually relies for around 90 percent of its imports, was currently operating at almost half of its capacity. "Last week, it was 30 percent, today we're talking around 45 percent," he said during a news conference inside the port. Three weeks after the blast, which was widely blamed on negligence by the Lebanese state, the port was still a sea of wrecked cars, mangled containers and collapsed warehouses. French and Lebanese soldiers could be seen salvaging goods and sorting them in such a way that traders and insurance experts can visit and make loss assessments in the coming days.

4 More Arrest Warrants Issued in Port Blast Probe
Naharnet/August 26/2020
Judicial Investigator Judge Fadi Sawwan on Wednesday interrogated four more people over the catastrophic August 4 blast at Beirut’s port. The National News Agency identified those questioned as head of operations at the port Samer Raad, head of the security and safety dept. Mohammed Ziad al-Aouf, Customs First Sergeant Elias Chahine and Customs First Sergeant Khaled al-Khatib. Sawwan issued arrest warrants for the four, which raises the number of those held according to judicial warrants to 16. Three detainees meanwhile remain in custody pending interrogation and are expected to be questioned on Friday. Senior officials have been detained in connection with the probe, most notable the incumbent and former heads of the Customs authority and the director of Beirut port. Judicial sources had said that ministers and former ministers might be also interrogated as part of the investigation.

Lebanon Rejects Reform of UNIFIL Force on Border
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Lebanon Tuesday rejected an Israeli call to reform a UN peacekeeping force patrolling the border between the two countries days before a UN Security Council vote to renew its mandate. Lebanon and Israel are still technically at war, and the United Nations force, UNIFIL, is tasked with monitoring a cessation of hostilities between the two sides. Lebanon's caretaker foreign minister Charbel Wahbe separately received the ambassadors of the council's five permanent members ahead of Friday's vote, Lebanon's National News Agency said.
He handed them a memorandum stressing that "Lebanon is attached to renewing (the mission of) UNIFIL, without modifying its mandate or its numbers", it added. Hezbollah has also rejected any change to the nature of the force's mission. Set up in 1978, UNIFIL was beefed up after a devastating month-long war in 2006 between Israel and Hezbollah. Israel accuses UNIFIL, whose latest mandate expires at the end of August, of not being active enough against Hezbollah. It accuses the group of stockpiling weapons at the border, and is pushing for the UN force to be allowed to inspect private property. UN chief Antonio Guterres in June called for an improved surveillance capacity for the force, including thermal-imaging cameras, hi-tech binoculars, and drones. The US ambassador to the UN, Kelly Craft, in May called for the Security Council to empower UNIFIL or alter its staffing and resources to better fulfill its mandate. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah later the same month rejected any change to the nature of the peacekeeping mission, and lashed out at US pressure over the issue.

Lebanon: An Economic Postmortem
Ghida Tayara/Carnegie MEC/August 26, 2020
https://youtu.be/P9owN4VBll8
In an interview, Alain Bifani discusses the country’s financial collapse and his exit from the Finance Ministry. Alain Bifani is Lebanon’s former director general of the Finance Ministry, who resigned last June in protest at the way Lebanon’s leadership has been handling the country’s financial crisis. Bifani holds an engineering degree in optics and telecommunication from the Ecole Superieure d’Optique in France and a higher degree (equivalent to an MBA) in management and finance from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales. Previously, he worked at Arthur Andersen in Paris, mostly auditing banks and industries in Europe and consulting for housing sector needs in postwar countries. He then occupied senior positions at ABN AMRO Bank Lebanon and Dubai and at Thomson Financial Bankwatch, where he was director for sovereign ratings for the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa. Bifani was the key driver behind the Diab government’s economic and financial reform plan that sought to put Lebanon on the right path after the country defaulted on its foreign debt. Diwan interviewed him in late August to get his perspective on the financial situation in the country and ask what was behind his resignation.
 

IDF attacks Hezbollah targets following incident on northern border
Arutz Sheva/August 26/2020
IDF aircraft attack Hezbollah targets following incident on the northern border in which IDF forces were fired upon. IDF combat helicopters and aircraft attacked Hezbollah terrorist targets early Wednesday morning following Tuesday’s incident on the northern border.
The attack targeted observation posts of the terrorist organization located near the border with Lebanon. "The IDF considers the Lebanese government responsible for what happens in its territory. The IDF views the incident very seriously. Any attempt to violate the sovereignty of the State of Israel is a serious incident. The IDF will continue to maintain a high level of readiness in order to protect Israeli sovereignty and security,” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said in a statement. Tuesday night’s security incident occurred around 10:40 p.m. near Kibbutz Menara when fire was opened toward IDF forces who were operating in the area. There were no injuries among the Israeli forces. The troops responded by firing dozens of flash bombs and smoke shells. Following the security incident in the north, the residents of Yiftach, Menara, Margaliot, Misgav Am and Malkia have been ordered to stay in their homes. Those restrictions were lifted early Wednesday morning. The IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said that the residents "are prohibited from any activity in an open space, including agricultural work. Residents are required to stay in their homes and upon receiving a warning, to immediately enter a protected area - security/emergency room, shared shelter, internal stairwell or internal room in the house, close doors and windows and stay there for 10 minutes." "Please keep up to date with the guidelines disseminated in the media and obey the instructions of the security forces and the IDF operating in the area," the statement added. According to one report, gunfire that was heard from the Lebanese side of the border alerted IDF forces who fired dozens of flares and conducted searches in the area. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was staying with his family on vacation at a hotel in Tzfat on Tuesday night. His office announced that he was holding security discussions following the incident and receiving regular updates about it. Defense Minister Benny Gantz also held consultations with Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi following the incident. About a month ago, an attempt was made to infiltrate Israeli territory near Har Dov in the vicinity of the Hermon. An IDF force identified the infiltration and opened fire. The incident ended without any injuries, and the intruders fled into Lebanese territory. Israel filed a formal complaint with the UN Security Council following the incident.
 

Netanyahu: Hezbollah shouldn’t test us
Jerusalem Post/August 26/2020
Netanyahu warned that Hezbollah’s aggression is endangering Lebanon.
Israel will have a powerful response to any attack, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned on Wednesday, the morning after Hezbollah terrorists shot at Israeli soldiers near the border with Lebanon. “Israel takes the shooting at our forces by Hezbollah very seriously,” Netanyahu said. “We will not tolerate any aggression against our citizens.” Netanyahu warned that Hezbollah’s aggression is endangering Lebanon, saying: “I suggest Hezbollah doesn’t test Israel’s crushing force.”The prime minister met with Defense Minister Benny Gantz, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi and other senior officials overnight.
Anna Ahronheim contributed to this report.

Lebanon’s Hariri: I Am not a Candidate for the Premiership
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Former Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Tuesday that he was not a candidate to head the new government, urging all parties to withdraw his name from the ongoing deliberations. Sources said that Hariri has informed Speaker Nabih Berri and the head of the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), Walid Jumblatt, of his decision prior to his announcement, and has also communicated with the former prime ministers about his stance. The attendees of a meeting between Hariri and Jumblatt told Asharq Al-Awsat that the PSP chief has warned the former premier over attempts by certain parties to thwart his mission if he was nominated to head the new cabinet. “Those have not learned from the successive crises, the last of which was the (Beirut) Port explosion. They are determined to follow the policies that led Lebanon to this status quo,” Jumblatt told Hariri as quoted by the sources.
Meanwhile, the rivals of Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Gebran Bassil blamed him for obstructing efforts to agree on a government that would save the country from its worsening crises and accelerate the implementation of reforms.
In a statement on Tuesday, Hariri said: “I declare that I am not a candidate to head the new government, and I hope that everyone will withdraw my name from deliberation in this regard.”The former premier affirmed that he, along with al-Mustaqbal Bloc, will name a competent candidate who has “the ability to form a government that guarantees the success of the last opportunity that our country has.”Hinting at Bassil, Hariri said: “I have noticed, like the rest of the Lebanese, that some political parties are still in a state of severe denial.” “They see the new reality as a new opportunity… to achieve their personal goals and to cling to weak authoritarian gains,” he added.

Housing Bank Offers $40 Million in Soft Loans to Beirut’s Damaged Houses
Beirut- Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
While caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab announced Tuesday that his government’s priorities include restoring houses and schools damaged from the Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion before winter, Lebanon’s housing bank said it would provide a sum of LL60 billion ($40 million) for financing very soft loans to the restoration and reconstruction of damaged housings. Diab visited Tuesday the Advanced Emergency Chamber in Beirut where he toured the various departments and was briefed on the progress of the operations that include collecting survey information, establishing a center to receive calls from citizens affected by the explosion, isolating and reinforcing buildings that are at risk of collapse, preserving heritage buildings, coordinating with NGOs and relevant associations, and distributing aid to people in distress. “We hope that the Beirut port explosion will be the last disaster facing Lebanon. Many ambassadors have praised the work conducted by the local community, civil society, as well as international institutions and associations, and youth associations. Our priorities include restoring houses and schools before winter,” the PM said. He said ministers are following up on the delivery of aid that has been channeled from abroad and will soon reach Lebanon. “Most importantly, work must be done with absolute transparency in terms of the assistance's quality and target. We thank the Army, Security forces, municipalities, governorates, the Red Cross, Civil defense institutions, civil society, and all institutions and associations. Lebanon will never forget the role you are playing,” the resigned PM added. Meanwhile, the housing bank’s CEO Joseph Sassine said the bank will dedicate “very soft loans in Lebanese pounds dedicated exclusively to the restoration, reconstruction, and rehabilitation of housing damaged by the port explosion on August 4th, 2020, so that they become suitable for use again.” In support of families with medium and low income, the bank said that in a first stage, it would provide this sum from its own money. The maximum limit of each loan is LL150 million with a yearly interest rate of 3 percent and a maximum period of 15 years for repayment.

Lebanon: Importers of Basic Commodities Warn Against Ending Subsidies
Beirut - Enass Sherry/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Since the beginning of 2020, the Lebanese have been suffering from a continuous and sharp rise in commodity prices, mainly due to the devaluation of the local currency against the US dollar in the parallel market. The Central Bank (BDL) has been subsidizing basic commodities, including wheat, medicine and fuel. However, reports have emerged over the BDL’s inability to continue to subsidize the basic commodities, which would put them at the mercy of the fluctuating exchange rate. Lifting subsidies on medicine would be a “humanitarian catastrophe”, as described by the head of the Drug Importers Syndicate, Karim Gebara. “Citizens pay 35 percent of the medicine bill and they can barely afford it; so what if the subsidy is lifted and the value of the bill is doubled?” he asked. In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, Gebara said it was difficult to define the increase in prices. “There will be no fixed price or threshold; the prices of medicine will be directly linked to the dollar exchange rate on the black market,” he noted. If we consider that the exchange rate remains at its current value of LBP 7,500, then this means the price of any drug will be multiplied by five. Gebara stressed that so far, the Syndicate has not been officially informed of BDL’s ending of subsidies, hoping that such a move, if taken, would not affect the medical sector. The Syndicate of Gas Station Owners has not been officially informed either, but warned of a real crisis facing the sector and citizens if BDL goes ahead with such a plan. The head of the syndicate, Sami Braks, stressed that lifting the subsidies would automatically mean an adjustment of fuel prices. Economic Expert Elie Yashouei said that ending the subsidies has become inevitable, adding: “We will reach it sooner or later.”“In light of the drastic decline in BDL’s foreign reserves … it no longer has enough funds to support basic commodities or even the 300 commodities in the approved food basket,” he said. In the event that the prices of goods were determined by the current rate of the US dollar on the black market (USD1= LBP7,500), the price of a pack of bread will exceed LBP5,000, a kilo of chicken will be sold for LBP50,000, a kilo of meat for LBP80,000, and a box of Panadol medicine for LBP15,000.

A free supermarket offers dignity to Lebanon’s most vulnerable
Rawaa Talass/Arab News/August 26/2020
DUBAI: Beit El Baraka, which means “house of blessings” in Arabic, is a nonprofit organization in Beirut that is living up to its name in a time of crisis.
It was launched by Maya Chams Ibrahimchah last year to offer a helping hand to elderly and retired people abandoned by the state. More recently, it has been providing a lifeline to cash-strapped families struggling to survive amid Lebanon’s economic collapse. Beit El Baraka chiefly operates through its free supermarket in the capital’s Karm El-Zeitoun neighborhood. The store provides a friendly and accessible environment for the 1,012 people it serves each day. The August 4 explosions in Beirut, while causing temporary disruptions, having not dimmed the spirit of altruism of the NGO’s founder. “Two factors are important to us: dignity and security,” said Ibrahimchah, a graduate of the American University of Beirut. “When someone visits us, it’s like entering a person’s home. Usually, a home is a place where you feel safe. Your family is supposed to treat you with kindness, respect you as a citizen with rights, and support you.”A communications expert and heritage-preservation activist, Ibrahimchah said the decision to set up a charitable organization was sparked by distressing daily encounters with poverty resulting from failing, bankrupt government institutions caught in a perfect storm of crises.
She recalled the day she decided to do something. She met a women who had worked as a French teacher for 40 years, who had lost her home and was sitting in the street surrounded by her few remaining possessions: some suitcases and boxes of books. “How can someone so educated just end up on the streets?” asked Ibrahimchah. After finding shelter for the woman, she and the teacher spent time together and began to research Lebanese retirement laws and pension plans. They were dismayed to discover how little retirees receive as end-of-service benefits after many years of hard work.
An International Monetary Fund report published in 2016 found Lebanon to be the only country in the Middle East and North Africa region that lacks a social security system for retirees from the private sector, who lose their benefits and health coverage when their service ends.
The country also has the highest percentage of people still working past the age of 65 to pay their bills as the cost of living keeps rising.
Another incident that left its mark on Ibrahimchah was a visit to an apartment where a couple lived by candlelight in the evenings because they had been without electricity for eight years. “These are things that you’re not supposed to see in the 21st century,” she said. “It’s not just shameful, it shows a lack of dignity from our leaders. “The Lebanese people are educated, cultured and known for their resilience — they fall and rise again. We have 5,000 years of history in Lebanon and we’re one of the oldest countries in the world. How can a country that has endured so much and become all that it’s become be reduced to this level of misery?”A woman on a mission, Ibrahimchah opened Beit El Baraka’s free supermarket in February 2019. It works on a system based on points rather than money: younger retirees are encouraged to work with Beit El Baraka, interacting with others and gaining points by cooking, delivering food to the older beneficiaries, and offering assistance in their homes.

Lebanese Figures Demand That Hizbullah Arsenals Across The Country Be Dismantled
MEMRI/August 26, 2020
Since the blast at the port of Beirut, in which 177 people were killed and over 6,000 were injured, Lebanese figures have been expressing concern that one of Hizbullah's arsenals across the country, some of which are situated in residential neighborhoods, might explode in a similar manner. These figures, including local council members in the Mount Lebanon Governorate, as well as the leader of Lebanon's Christian community, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi, demand that the state deal with these arsenals or even confiscate them before another disaster occurs.
This report reviews some of these calls.
(Source: S.annahar.digital)
Local Council Members Resign After Their Demand For Dismantling Hizbullah's Arsenals Is Ignored
On August 19, 2020, 11 of the 15 members of the town council of Ba'abda Al-Louaize, located in the Mount Lebanon Governorate, announced their collective resignation to protest against the disregard of their demand that Hizbullah's arsenals, which they said may be situated near their town, be addressed.
The previous week, on August 13, 2020, the members of the town council of Ba'abda Al-Louaize demanded in a letter to council head Antoine Elias Al-Helou that he appeal to the interior minister and to the military leadership and warn them of the possibility of an explosion in the area because Hizbullah may be storing its weapons and missiles there. The letter stated:
"Distinguished Ba'abda Al-Louaize council head Mr. Antoine Elias Al-Helou: The undersigned members of the council request that you appeal in writing to the minister of the interior and municipalities... and to the military leadership... to express the concerns of the council and of the area's residents in the matter of the likelihood of an explosion in the vicinity of Ba'abda, particularly near Saint Charles Hospital, as was stated two months ago by the prime minister of the Israeli enemy Benjamin Netanyahu at a public press conference."[1]
It added: "A verbal appeal will be ineffective and will have no impact if any explosion does take place, heaven forfend. It is necessary to deliver such a letter [to the minister and the military leadership] in order to absolve the council head and the council members of responsibility [for the explosion], to prevent damage, and to protect [the] lives and property [of the citizens] in the Ba'abda Al-Louaize area."[2]
The Ba'abda Al-Louaize town council letter (Source: Twitter.com/daou_rimane, August, 17, 2020)
The Lebanese Al-Akhbar daily reported that the letter had sparked fear among the residents of the town, who thronged to the council building to express their concern, and added that some of them had even abandoned their homes.[3]
However, Al-Helou rejected the request, even accusing the council members of stirring up unwarranted media buzz and of being influenced by partisan considerations connected to the elections. He went so far as to accuse them of pandering to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.[4]
Subsequently, the council members who signed the letter were investigated by military intelligence, including a seven-hour interrogation. According to council member Elias Bou Khalil, instead of warning the minister or the military leadership, "the council head informed against us to military intelligence, [saying] that our demand serves Netanyahu's purposes. Therefore, all the council member signatories were summoned [by the army]... and six of them were interrogated at the Ministry of Defense. For seven hours, they were the focus of an investigation which centered on where they had obtained the information in their possession..."[5]
Following the investigation, the Lebanese Army announced: "The Military Intelligence Division heard out the members of the council from the Ba'abda Al-Louaize area, in an attempt to obtain an explanation about the concerns of the residents of the town and of the council members about the likelihood of any kind of explosion in the area, especially nearby Saint Charles Hospital, following the false claims issued by the enemy Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at a past press conference concerning the existence of weapons and ammunition in the aforementioned area." The statement added that military intelligence had examined the area in question and found these claims to be false.[6]
Lebanese Army statement (Source: Twitter.com/LebarmyOfficial, August 18, 2020)
The army's announcement was apparently unconvincing, and, as noted, on August 19, 11 of the 15 council members announced their collective resignation.[7]
Lebanese Patriarch: It Is Time These Arsenals Were "Confiscated, So That The Civilians Will Feel Safe, At Least In Their Own Homes"
A few days after the council members' resignation, during an August 23 mass, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rahi also called on Lebanon's authorities to address the issue of arsenals scattered throughout the country and hidden within residential neighborhoods, hinting at Hizbullah. He said:
"The pain and tears of the victims of the [Beirut port] explosion are a cry to the heart of God and become His [directive] to every individual in charge... [and] particularly to the Lebanese authorities, to consider the Beirut port disaster as a warning bell. Thus, they [i.e. the authorities] must hasten to raid all the hiding places of weapons and explosives, and the storage depots situated illegally in residential neighborhoods in cities, towns, and villages. Some regions of Lebanon have become minefields and there is no knowing when they will explode, or who will detonate them. The existence of these hiding places is a grave threat to the lives of civilians, which are not the property of any man, group, or organization. It is time for these weapons and explosives to be confiscated, so that the civilians will feel safe, at least in their own homes..."[8]
[1] It is not clear which statement by Prime Minister Netanyahu is referenced. However, on July 14, 2020, the Israeli English-language newspaper The Jerusalem Post published a report from the Alma Research and Education Center with information on 28 Hizbullah arsenals and positions with missile launch capabilities situated in residential neighborhoods in Beirut; one of these is adjacent to Saint Charles Hospital (Israel-alma.org). Also, in September 2018, in his speech at the UN General Assembly, Netanyahu revealed information about Hizbullah missile facilities situated at several focal points in Beirut, including some near Beirut's international airport and residential neighborhoods in the city. The Israeli army subsequently published photographs and maps of these facilities. Moreover, on August 11, 2020, following a phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron, Netanyahu tweeted: "In order to prevent disasters such as the one at Beirut Port, the explosives and the missiles hidden away by Hizbullah must be removed from civilian population centers in Lebanon." (Twitter.com/IsraeliPM_heb).
[2] Alhurra.com, August 20, 2020; Annahar.com, August 21, 2020; Twitter.com/daou_rimane, August 17, 2020.
[3] Al-Akhbar (Lebanon), August 25, 2020.
[4] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (London), August 20, 2020.
[5] Annahar.com, August 21, 2020.
[6] Twitter.com/LebarmyOfficial, August 18, 2020.
[7] Lebanondebate.com, August 19, 2020.
[8] Annahar.com, August 23, 2020.

The Obsessions of Lebanon’s Christians
Hazem Saghieh/Asharq Al Awsat/August 26/2020
Before the horrifying crime at the Port of Beirut, a Lebanese Christian lady named Jocelyne Khoueiry passed away after a long battle with illness. In the Christian milieu, it seemed an event whose ramifications few had been prepared for.
Suddenly, on a wide scale, they were reminded that Khoueiry had been a Kataeb fighter during the “Two-Year War.” Old photos of her holding guns and fighting battles were shared. One after the other, the stories customarily told about those whom their parties call martyrs followed. The stories mixed fiction with reality, as is usually the case on such occasions. The faithfulness and religiosity in Khoueiry’s story poured mystical incense on old guns.
The event and vociferousness with which it was received point to two indications: the Christians also have, in this forest where martyrs grow, their own martyrs, and they are overtaken with nostalgia for the days of guns, when women would fight alongside men.
With the explosion at the port, which was particularly damaging to Christian-majority areas, another overwhelming sentiment was added to those sentiments: we are helpless from the day we are born until the day we die. Despite the Christian central role in Lebanon’s foundation, partnership is the last thing to concern their partners in the nation. Whoever of those partners wishes to carry arms to fight Israel, or any other power, will do so, totally ignoring their Christian partners. This is reason enough for the latter to feel, regardless of ideological claims, as though those arms are in fact raised against them.
All the Lebanese are indeed devastated and overwhelmed, but the Christians’ helplessness is more combined in its present and more rooted in its past. As for the state of the region, it only adds salt to the open wound.
Furthermore, they are not a political or ideological minority, such that the majority’s opinion could be imposed on them through elections or perhaps civil war. They are a religious and sectarian minority in the same way Kurds are an ethnic minority. The two groups have subcultures from which they derive a different sense of meaning from that which prevails amongst the majority. Instead, they carry collective imaginations that are not completely in line with the familiar imaginations of struggle. The Kurds, for example, gifted the Arabs Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi, and the Christians subsequently gifted them Michel Aflaq and George Habash.
Nevertheless, nations cannot be built, given a desire to build them, as these minorities are ignored and made into unwelcome guests in their own countries. This disregard has a long history in the region; “Juhush” were conjured up in pre-2003 Iraq to represent the Kurds, and during the era of Syrian tutelage over Lebanon, some Christian figures were inflated with hot air by the Syrian authorities who promised that the former would represent the Christian community.
The fact is, the majority/minority binary is not purely a matter of numbers; rather, the degree of power a group holds and the influence it has on decision making also determine it. Sunnis in Syria are a numerical majority, but they are a minority in that sense. And, before 2003, the Shiites of Iraq, who are a numerical majority, were also a minority in terms of the degree of power they held and their ability to shape decisions.
However, in whichever way we frame the issue, today, there remains a desire for session brewing for the Christians of Lebanon, who lost all hope in “coexistence.” The first resistance imposed on them led to the loss of land and turned civil contradictions into a civil war; then, a second resistance exacerbated the civil war’s causes by entrenching an unprecedented preponderance and disparity in armaments. At any time, a faction might spring up and make of sectarian discontent a reason to take up arms and raise the “liberation of Palestine” banner.
Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai’s persistent and intensifying campaign for neutrality, the erosion of the Aounist environment, which is seen now as “collaborators” with Hezbollah, and the “Lebanese Forces” call for the Christian President of the Republic’s resignation, breaking a traditional political taboo, all point to the fact that Christians are now somewhere else. They have paid dearly for policies that they had not once been consulted about. They tried perusing honorable political pursuits, such as standing by the rest of the Lebanese in 2005 and 2019. They also tried foolish policies, such as sympathizing with the “alliance of minorities”, the Aoun-Basil-Assad approach. Neither did this help nor did the other.
This experience brings to mind, albeit on a smaller scale, a bitter experience that all efforts must be made to avoid: the French Revolution, with all of its achievements, did not succeed in preventing the punishment known as the “Dreyfus affair” from being inflicted on the Jews of Europe, nor did the Bolshevik Revolution and Communism’s promises exempt them from confronting Stalinism and its tyranny. These disappointments came before European anti-Semitism was crowned by the victory of Nazism and filling the crematoria with Jews’ corpses during the Holocaust. Thus, the chances of raising the solution proposed by the Zionists increased: let us have a state of our own.
Many of Lebanon’s Christians now have this desire. However, they do not have the means to actualize it, never mind the country’s geographical and demographic realities that complicate such a division of the population. But one thing remains certain; Lebanon, as an Arab window into modernity, is dying, and the region declares its resounding failure to accommodate an experiment founded on freedom and pluralism.
But in any case, for some, this is not of importance. What does matter is that Hezbollah continues in its resistance!

Hariri verdict: Is the UN capable of delivering justice?
Michael Young/The National/August 26/2020
Families of victims of the 2005 car bomb that killed Rafik Hariri were promised justice, but were left with disappointment.
When the Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued its verdict last week, the court’s presiding judge, David Re, stated several times that not enough evidence was available to prove that certain suspects were guilty of the crimes for which they had been indicted. The accused were entitled to a presumption of innocence, but Mr Re’s clarifications were nonetheless very odd.
The reason was simple. In 2005, the United Nations had established a commission to investigate the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. It worked for years to gather evidence. However, after 2006 the investigation had not advanced much, for reasons that remain unclear but are probably political in nature. Mr Re’s repeated assertions that evidence was lacking only confirmed this conclusion.
My own reporting on the investigation upheld such a view. In January 2008, I had interviewed the first commissioner of the UN investigative team, the German judge Detlev Mehlis. He had told me, speaking of his successor, the Belgian judge Serge Brammertz, “I haven’t seen a word in his reports during the past two years confirming that he has moved forward. When I left we were ready to name suspects, but [the investigation] seems not to have progressed from that stage.”
An initial UN inquiry of the Hariri assassination had concluded that the crime involved “considerable finance, military precision in its execution, [and] substantial logistical support”. Yet only one suspect, Salim Ayyash, was found guilty last week. Many Lebanese were angered by the paltry results of a trial that had begun in 2014. And the consequences should not have been be welcomed by the United Nations either, whose credibility was tied to the success of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the first court to deal with terrorism as a distinct crime.
That’s the theory at least. The reality appears to be different. While the UN hardly benefited from a botched investigation and a trial that ended with only one suspect being found guilty, everything about its actions indicated it was never very keen to be successful. For starters, the UN suspiciously promoted Mr Brammertz to the prestigious post of prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia at the International Criminal Court, despite – or perhaps because of – his lethargy in Beirut.
Mr Brammertz must have sensed early on that the UN did not want a thorough investigation of the type that Mr Mehlis had intended. In fact, when asked whether the UN had hindered his investigation, the German judge replied that the secretary general in 2005, Kofi Annan, while supportive of his work, “had made it clear to me that he did not want another trouble spot”. Perhaps Mr Brammertz had the professional drive to take Annan’s warnings more to heart.
In light of Annan’s comments, to what extent did the UN bureaucracy actually want the STL to succeed? As an organisation, the UN avoids conflicts between member states that may undermine its work. The Hariri assassination had all the makings of a major headache. Syria and Iran were likely involved and Hezbollah’s participation could have provoked a sectarian conflict in Lebanon. From the beginning, it seemed that the truth could come with a steep price tag.
Yet the investigation process and trial were played up as necessary to end immunity in political crimes. The UN did not tamp down such expectations, having to justify the nearly $1 billion needed to fund the tribunal, and the fifteen-year waiting period for the verdict. But the reality today is that the trial process has in no way ended immunity. The tribunal’s verdict betrayed the hopes of the Lebanese, but it also ensured that expectations about what the UN could achieve remained modest—a plus for a risk averse organisation that has much to be modest about.
But why blame the UN alone? In my research I came to realise that a large number of Lebanese politicians and regional governments who had been vocal supporters of the UN investigation process did not actually want it to find the guilty parties. It was as if they were adhering to a code of silence on criminal activity. As everyone assured us that justice was coming, they had already thought of ways to transcend the trial process and ignore the culpability of the killers.
Amid all this cynicism, the families of the victims merit a sympathetic thought. For a long time they were deceived into thinking that the trial would bring closure. Instead, they have been playing a part for a decade and a half in a charade orchestrated by the UN. Having lost loved ones once, they now have to come to grips with the fact that they have done so again.
Detlev Mehlis summed up the UN’s investigative process this way in 2008: “This can either be an example of efficient UN involvement or a one-time experiment. The UN’s image is at stake, particularly in Lebanon, where people put high hopes – perhaps too high – in the Hariri investigation.” In a sad way, that double-edged reading was on the money. The Lebanese simply hoped too much.
*Michael Young is editor of Diwan, the blog of the Carnegie Middle East programme, in Beirut
 

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on August 26-27/2020

Pompeo Seeks to Hold Arab-Israeli Peace Conference
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Tel Aviv and several Arab capitals is part of Washington’s effort to prepare for a regional peace conference that would be held in a Gulf country and include Israel and Arab states, revealed Israeli and American sources. According to Israel Hayom, the conference will most likely be held in the United Arab Emirates in wake of its decision to normalize relations with Israel, under a US-sponsored agreement. An Emirati diplomat familiar with the matter said Bahrain, Sudan, Oman, Morocco and Chad had given their preliminary approval to attend the conference. The diplomat added that prior to and during Pompeo's visit to Israel, Palestinian officials were invited to the summit. The message was also conveyed to the Palestinian Authority that Pompeo is willing to visit PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah to personally invite him to the summit.
Abbas and other PA officials dismissed the offer, snubbing the top American diplomat "and even sent the message that Pompeo is not wanted in Ramallah," the UAE official said. "The Palestinian position is very saddening. They were given an opportunity to deescalate the situation with a respectful invitation to take part in a regional peace conference, and they rejected it out of hand with no reasonable explanation," he noted, according to Israel Hayom. "The Palestinians have to come to grips with the fact that the wheels of peace have started to turn, and peace and normalization will come with or without the Palestinians even if they continue to be defiant."

Netanyahu, Putin agree to continue coordination in Syria
Jerusalem Post/August 26/2020
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to continue coordinating to allow for Israeli airstrikes in Syria, in a phone conversation on Monday. “I talked to [Putin] about Syria and ensuring the air force’s freedom to act in that area. It’s very important for Israeli security,” Netanyahu said soon after. The leaders “noted a mutual interest in continuing coordination in the Syrian sector to counter international terrorism,” the Kremlin readout of Monday’s call states. Israel has maintained a policy of airstrikes on Iranian targets in Syria, to prevent their entrenchment along Israel’s northern border. Israeli and Russian officials have been in continual contact about the situation in Syria, where Russia has a significant military presence. Neither side mentioned Iran in their statements. Russia voted against extending the UN arms embargo in Iran in the UN Security Council this month, and opposed the US attempt to “snapback” those sanctions. The leaders also discussed the normalization between Israel and the UAE. Putin emphasized Russia’s “principled position in support of a just, comprehensive and sustainable solution to the Palestinian problem and expressed the hope that the agreement…would contribute to strengthening stability and security in the region,” the Kremlin said. Netanyahu and Putin also agreed to have their countries cooperate in research and production of a coronavirus vaccine.

Turkey Gave Hamas Members Passports, Israel Says
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Turkey has given passports to a dozen Hamas members in Istanbul, a senior Israeli diplomat said on Wednesday, describing the move as “a very unfriendly step” which his government would raise with Turkish officials.
Speaking days after Turkey’s president met visiting Hamas leaders, charge d’affaires Roey Gilad said Israel had already told Turkey last year that Hamas was carrying out “terror-related activity” in Istanbul, but Turkey had not taken action.
The two countries have had a bitter falling out in recent years, despite strong commercial ties, expelling ambassadors in 2018. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly condemned Israel’s West Bank occupation and treatment of Palestinians. Gilad said Israel had proof that Turkey was providing passports and identity cards to members of Hamas, which runs Gaza and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States, Israel and European Union. “Some are in the process, some already got (the documents), but we are talking about around a dozen,” he said.“We have already one document that we will present to the government in copy,” he said. “Judging by the last experience we had by presenting a well-based portfolio to the government... and getting no reply, I must say I don’t have high hopes that something will be done this time.”
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.On Saturday, Erdogan hosted Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and other officials in Istanbul for the second time this year, prompting objections from Washington, which linked one of the men to terrorist attacks, hijackings and kidnappings. Ankara said it rejected the US criticism. Gilad said the Hamas members who received Turkish documents were financing and organizing terrorism from Istanbul, which Turkey has previously denied. Many of them came to Turkey under a 2011 deal between Turkey and Israel to exchange a captured Israeli soldier for more than 1,000 prisoners, Gilad said.Hamas seized Gaza from forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in 2007, and the group has fought three wars with Israel since then. Turkey says Hamas is a legitimate political movement that was elected democratically.
Gilad said the current tensions ruled out any cooperation on exploiting gas reserves in the eastern Mediterranean, where Turkey is challenging maritime claims by Greece, Cyprus and their allies.

Abbas Meets with Raab: We are Ready for Negotiations Sponsored by Quartet
Ramallah - Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that the Palestinians were ready to go to negotiations under the auspices of the Quartet and with the participation of other countries, on the basis of peace in exchange for land.
During his meeting with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in Ramallah, Abbas said: “We are ready to return to negotiations and are committed to achieving peace in accordance with international legitimacy resolutions. We are also firmly committed to fighting global terrorism, and we continue our endeavors for Palestinian reconciliation that would lead to general elections.” He continued: “We reiterate that there will be no peace, security and stability in our region without ending the Israeli occupation of our land, and the Palestinian people obtaining their freedom and independence in their sovereign state based on the 1967 borders.”Raab arrived in Ramallah from Israel as part of British efforts to advance peace between the two sides. “We appreciate all the aid Britain provides to support building our institutions and advancing our national economy. We say that it is time for Britain to recognize the state of Palestine. This will help achieve justice and work to consolidate the two-state solution on the basis of the 1967 borders, so that Palestine and Israel may live in security, peace and good neighborliness,” Abbas said. The Palestinians suggested returning to negotiations under the international quartet (the European Union, the United Nations, Russia and the United States) and considering the 2002 Arab peace initiative as a reference for this process.

Israeli Settlers Commit 20 Assaults against Palestinians in 1 Month
Tel Aviv - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
The recent months have witnessed an unprecedented spike in attacks by Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank, revealed human rights and Israeli legal groups. Twenty assaults were reported in one month alone. From December through August 10, these groups counted no less than 163 attacks. Forty-nine of the attacks were physical assaults that led to injuries and bruising and 114 were attacks on orchards, crops and other property.
Palestinians complain that such acts of violence are usually carried out under the obvious protection of Israeli police and soldiers. Troops often take part in the attacks. According to B'Tselem, the chances that a Palestinian complaint against a soldier’s violence will lead to the prosecution are 0.7 percent, which leads to a sense of impunity among the attackers. “All those individuals are people with power and physical strength, who resort to violence in order to harm and cause pain to others – just because they can,” said journalist Amira Hass in an opinion piece published in Israel’s Haaretz. “The shock at police violence on Balfour Street [the scene of Israeli protests against Premier Benjamin Netanyahu] is surprising. Or to be more precise – it’s shocking. It demonstrates that Israeli society does not understand how deeply mired it is in a culture of superiority, of birthright entitlement and of the divine right to exercise our muscles to attain satisfaction, real estate, and a cheap and submissive workforce,” she added. “Israeli society is living in a state of conscious denial. It refuses to internalize the scope of violence that it is nurturing. And I refer not only to police violence against Palestinian in East Jerusalem or against Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.”“Fifty-three years of military, police and Shin Bet security service domination over about 5 million people are exactly that: violence. Supremacy. Satisfaction with the violence and the supremacy. Every floor tile in every house in every Jewish settlement is just that: arrogant, prolonged violence, which is defended day and night by brigades and generations of our delicate and armed children,” Hass noted.

Amman Tripartite Summit Calls For Confronting Foreign Interventions
Amman- Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
A joint statement issued by the Jordan-Egypt-Iraq summit on Tuesday reiterated the need to activate peace-achieving efforts that answer to all legitimate demands of the Palestinian people and accomplish their right to a sovereign state with Jerusalem as its capital. King Abdullah II of Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi confirmed that resolving the Palestinian issue should be achieved through international resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative.The three leaders made their remarks after concluding a trilateral summit in Amman, where they discussed cooperation and the latest regional developments, especially the Palestinian cause. They, in a joint statement, stressed the need for Israel to stop annexing Palestinian territories and to halt its attempts to alter existing historical and legal status in Jerusalem especially at Islamic and Christian holy sites.
The leaders stressed the importance of intensifying efforts to reach political solutions for crises across the region, especially in Syria, Libya, and Yemen. They emphasized that these solutions must be in accordance with relevant UNSC resolutions and approved references, in a manner that preserves the unity and independence of these countries and prevents foreign interventions aimed at destabilizing Arab national security. The leaders also discussed developments with regard to the Renaissance Dam and highlighted that Egypt’s water security is an integral part of Arab national security.
They stressed the need to reach a fair and balanced agreement on the basis of international law that preserves the water rights and interests of Egypt and Sudan. Finally, they reiterated their support for Iraq with respect to protecting its sovereignty, security, and stability, and its efforts to consolidate great victory over terrorism. The leaders discussed the current Arab situation, regional developments, and the real challenges that face the Arab system.

Iraq, Egypt to Cooperate on Civilian, Military Production
Cairo - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
Egyptian and Iraqi officials expressed Tuesday willingness to enhance cooperation between the two countries in civilian and military production. Egyptian Minister of State for Military Production Mohamed Ahmed Morsi met with Iraqi Ambassador Ahmed Nayef al-Dleimy in Cairo. They explored the possibility of exchanging expertise and manufacturing technology in various industrial sectors. “The meeting tackled the importance of cooperation between Egypt's military production companies and their Iraqi counterparts,” the ministry said in a statement. It said Morsi expressed willingness to deploy the ministry's technological means and human resources for the reconstruction of Iraq by taking part in the execution of major industrial projects in the civilian and military sectors. “The minister asserted the importance of encouraging cooperation between the two countries in many areas, and expressed his ministry's keenness to employ all the industrial, technological and human capabilities to participate in Iraq's reconstruction,” the statement added. For his part, the Iraqi ambassador praised the ministry for its role in advancing both military and civilian industries, and its contribution in national megaprojects accomplished in Egypt.
Al-Dulaimi said the ministry will be a major factor in contributing to Iraq's military and civilian reconstruction. “Iraq's keenness to cooperate with Egypt's Ministry of Military Production comes as part of the technological, manufacturing, technical, research, and infrastructure capabilities of the latter's subsidiary companies,” the Ambassador said. The meeting comes amid a summit held by President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, Jordanian King Abdallah al-Thani, and Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Kadhimi in Amman. According to a statement by the Royal Hashemite Court, the summit focused on expanding economic, commercial and investment cooperation among the three countries, in order to achieve their common interests and serve Arab causes. Also on Tuesday, Egyptian Minister of Housing Assem El-Gazzar held a meeting with president of the Iraqi Contractors Federation (ICF) Ali Sanafi to discuss mutual cooperation between the two countries.

Jordan, Egypt, Iraq summit stresses coordination, Palestinian issues
Jerusalem Post/August 26/2020
Jordan's King Abdullah II, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi "reaffirmed the centrality of the Palestinian cause." Regional coordination and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were the central topics at a trilateral summit between Jordan, Egypt and Iraq on Tuesday. Jordan's King Abdullah II, Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi "reaffirmed the centrality of the Palestinian cause," at the summit, stressing that the conflict must be resolved according to international law, UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative. The three added that Israel must stop efforts to annex territory and any measures that "undermine prospects to achieve just peace, or seek to alter the historical and legal status quo in Jerusalem and its Islamic and Christian holy sites." Kadhimi added that Iraq's vision for the Palestinians is based on avoiding conflict and developing joint economic zones with Jordan and Egypt to enhance economic cooperation and integration. The summit stressed Jordan's "important role" in safeguarding Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem, according to Petra news. The three leaders also discussed regional issues, including the need to find political solutions to crises in Syria, Libya and Yemen. Ethiopia's Grand Renaissance Dam, which Egypt sees as a threat to its water security, was discussed as well. The summit stressed the importance of reaching a "just and balanced agreement" that safeguards the water rights of Egypt and Sudan.
The three countries also agreed that there was a need to develop a joint economic zone and increase cooperation in the health, medical, educational, energy, trade, and investment sectors. A business forum will be held on the sidelines of an upcoming meeting between Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt's industry and trade ministers.

National Security Adviser to lead Israeli delegation to UAE next week
Jerusalem Post/August 26/2020
Israeli team will fly with American officials on first commercial direct flight to Abu Dhabi. An official Israeli delegation led by National Security Adviser Meir Ben Shabbat is set to travel to Abu Dhabi next Monday, following the announcement of normalization between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
The Israelis will take the first-ever commercial direct flight from Israel to the UAE, with Ben-Shabbat’s American counterpart Robert O’Brien, White House Special Adviser Jared Kushner, US Special Representative for International Negotiations Avi Berkowitz and Special Representative for Iran, Brian Hook. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli delegation will “act, together with the American team and the parallel Emirati team, to promote peace and normalization between Israel and the UAE.”Normalization with the UAE is a “historic agreement that will bring engines for growth. It can help bring about economic flourishing in general, and specifically in the time of the coronavirus,” Netanyahu stated. “I hope that more countries in our region will join the circle of peace.” The prime minister also expressed hope that Israeli tourists will be able to visit Dubai soon. Israeli aviation, health and banking experts will be on the flight as well. The Prime Minister’s Office said that talks in Abu Dhabi will also focus on ways to cooperate in fields such as tourism, trade, energy, security and more. “The experts could engage in substantive conversation and work on bilateral agreements in those industries,” a White House official added.

Minister Champagne concludes visit to Switzerland and Italy on his way to Lebanon
August 26, 2020 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs, concluded successful visits to Switzerland and Italy, where he met with his counterparts and top officials from key international organizations.
In Switzerland, Minister Champagne met with Ignazio Cassis, Head of the Department of Foreign Affairs, to discuss cooperation on multilateral issues, including the search for a COVID-19 vaccine. He also met with Michelle Bachelet, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights; Roberto Azevêdo, Director-General, World Trade Organization; Børge Brende, President, World Economic Forum; and Klaus Schwab, Founder and Chairman, World Economic Forum, as well as officials from the Red Cross.
In Italy, Minister Champagne met with Luigi Di Maio, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to discuss the strengthening of relations between Canada and Italy as well as Italy’s upcoming presidency of the G20. The ministers also talked about multilateral cooperation on the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
While in Rome, the Minister also held a call with Jean-Yves Le Drian, France’s Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, to discuss the emergency situation in Beirut and the two countries’ common support for critical reforms needed in Lebanon.
Finally, Minister Champagne held a meeting in Rome with Wang Yi, China’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, who was also on an official visit to Italy.
Minister Champagne now travels on to Lebanon, where he will be officially hosted there by Charbel Wehbe, Minister of Foreign Affairs. While in Beirut, the Minister will meet with Michel Aoun President of Lebanon, and with representatives from the United Nations, the Lebanese Red Cross and other civil society organizations.
During his travels, Minister Champagne is following all applicable health and safety protocols, including public health advice measures. He will self-quarantine for 14 days upon his return to Canada.
Quotes
“The human toll of the tragedy in Beirut demands a robust international response, and Canada has stepped up. Through our assistance and the generosity of individual Canadians directly supporting first responders on the ground through personal donations, as well as the Government of Canada’s matching fund, we are ensuring humanitarian aid goes to those most affected by the explosion. My visit to Beirut will be an opportunity to see the impact of this work up close, highlight Canada’s ongoing support for the Lebanese people and advocate for much-needed political and economic reforms in Lebanon.”
- François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Quick facts
Canada is providing a total of $30 million in humanitarian and early recovery assistance following the explosion at the Port of Beirut.
Through the Lebanon Matching Fund, for every eligible dollar donated to the Humanitarian Coalition and its members between August 4 and 24, 2020, Canada will provide the equivalent to the Humanitarian Coalition, up to a maximum total amount of $8 million.
Through its Middle East engagement strategy, Canada is also providing more than $47 million in humanitarian assistance for crisis-affected populations in Lebanon in 2020. This assistance includes, among other things, support for access to basic health services and the supply of medical assistance.
 

US Troops Injured in Interaction with Russian Forces in Syria
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
A small number of US troops were injured during an interaction with Russian forces in Syria, two US officials told Reuters on Wednesday. While such interactions between American and Russian forces are not rare, the incident highlights the risks of troops from both countries operating in close proximity in northern Syria and the potential for an escalation in tensions. One of the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the injuries were a result of a collision and not any exchange of fire. The other official said the incident took place earlier this week in northeastern Syria and the injuries were mild. The Pentagon and the US military’s Central Command, which oversees US forces in the region, declined to comment. The US military does not generally comment on injuries. However, last month a paratrooper was killed during a vehicle rollover accident in eastern Syria. Videos on social media showed Russian military vehicles, backed by a pair of helicopters, driving dangerously close to US armored vehicles. The origin of the videos was unclear. Earlier this year, another video showed a close interaction between troops on a Syrian road. About 500 US forces remain in northern Syria after a sharp reduction in troops that were initially there to drive out ISIS militants from all of their strongholds in the country.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on August 26-27/2020

CAIR 'Exposes' Itself
Martha Lee/JNS/August 26/2020
On August 16, the Florida branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) started livestreaming a series of events under the title "EXPOSED" – described as "a compelling series of interviews with former political prisoners and their family members" to "expose real cases of government overreach and injustice." According to CAIR, those featured in the series are "high profile cases," whose plights are "critical to the life of [...] any person of conscience."In reality, CAIR-Florida seems determined to present an associate of the designated Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a convicted murderer, a Taliban supporter who was detained in Guantanamo, and the leaders of a Hamas-funding organization as nothing but admirable "activists" persecuted by an ostensibly vindictive U.S. government.
The series started with a live interview with Sami Al-Arian. Now exiled in Turkey, Al-Arian taught at the University of South Florida before his arrest in 2003. In 2006, he pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), a specially designated terrorist organization. In the plea agreement, Al-Arian admitted that he was associated with the PIJ in the 80s and 90s and that he "performed services for the PIJ" starting in 1995 and until, crucially, after he knew that the PIJ had been designated.
In his plea agreement, Al-Arian acknowledged that while he was aware that the PIJ "used acts of violence," he "continued to assist the terrorist organization" by helping a PIJ associate to file paperwork in order to obtain immigration benefits and by "concealing the terrorist associations of various individuals associated with the PIJ."
Al-Arian was deported to Turkey in 2015. A few years later, at a conference on Jerusalem sponsored by Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs, he described the United States as "our enemy."
Since then, his radicalism has not lessened. During his event with CAIR, Al-Arian accused Muslims of providing Israel with information which, according to him, have been used to assassinate leaders from "Muslim communities." He expressed support for Aafia Siddiqui, also known as 'Lady Al-Qaeda' who is currently serving a life sentence for the attempted murder of U.S. officials, calling her the "victim of crime."
And yet, when CAIR-Florida published its edited version of the livestream a day later, these comments were apparently not what troubled them most. Several other parts, however, had been bowdlerized. Fortunately, however, the Middle East Forum possesses a copy of the original livestream.
In one of the sections removed, Al Arian denounced Emgage, a leading political action group with its own Islamist links, for speaking on "behalf of the Muslim community," claiming that they have a "checkered history" of trying to "dance with Zionists" and "infiltrate our community."
CAIR also removed a section in which, responding to Al-Arian's complaint that American Muslims "leave our people in prison to rot because we are afraid of speaking truth to power," CAIR Florida director Hassan Shibly agreed and warned that "our community [has] changed in the wrong direction."
Interestingly, shortly after the edited version was published, the whole video was taken down. According to activist Hebh Jamal, "CAIR FL was pressured by Emgage to remove the video, censoring an important member of our community." CAIR-FL was subsequently condemned by her followers, with one commenting: "Hassan Shibly AGAIN censoring an already censored, once imprisoned, and exiled community elder is unacceptable."
Now that CAIR has explained the plight of a deported, self-admitted terrorist operative, next up was Jamil Al-Amin on August 23. In 1999, Al-Amin murdered a sheriff's deputy and shot another during an attempted arrest. Al-Amin was sentenced to life without parole in 2004.
But Al-Amin has long claimed that the multiple charges against him instead reflect American hostility toward Islam. In 1995, he wrote that "Islam is under attack on a global scale by those who wish to control the world" and claimed that "the charges leveled against [him] are in direct relationship to the success that Islam has experienced in our immediate area." In 2000, he repeated that "there is a premeditated conspiracy to destroy Islamic leadership" and warned that "when the truth is established, the disbelievers will start to do things." In spite of all this, he continues to be supported by CAIR.
Moazzam Begg is the subject of the third episode, on August 30. A British citizen, Begg moved to Afghanistan in the summer of 2001; he was later detained and transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2003. According to Begg himself, he wanted to live in an Islamic state and the "Taliban were better than anything Afghanistan has had in the past 25 years." Pentagon officials stated that "Begg trained at three terrorist camps, "associated" with an array of operatives from Al Qaeda and was ready to fight American-led forces in Afghanistan." The Wall Street Journal, reports that Begg told his Combatant Status Review Board at Guantanamo that he visited camps on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, "where he was responsible for 'small arms and mountain tactics' training.
After being released and sent back to Britain, Begg reinvented himself as a human rights activist, bringing attention to his allegedly unjust treatment by the U.S. But even since then, Begg and his group has been widely criticized in British media because of their expressed sympathies for jihadi terrorists.
The fourth and last CAIR Florida EXPOSED episode on September 6 will discuss the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), a Texas-based charity described by the U.S. Department of Justice as "a fundraising arm" to support Hamas. HLF's leaders "provided financial support to the families of Hamas martyrs, detainees, and activists knowing and intending that such assistance would support the Hamas terrorist organization." One of the convicted HLF leaders once referred to "to a suicide bombing as 'a beautiful operation.'" Five of HLF's leaders were found guilty of providing material support to Hamas: they had illegally routed more than $12 million to the terrorist organization.
CAIR-Florida is attempting to exploit the current tumultuous political climate in the United States and heightened media interest in civil rights violations, all to present terror-supporters as dedicated activists, punished, ostensibly, merely for being minorities.
Indeed, in its newsletter introducing the series, CAIR-FL despairs that a "a combination of passing time along with deliberate efforts to stifle the memory of civil/human rights giants cause us to forget some of the greatest infringements in our lifetime."
But even if one believes the claim that the U.S criminal justice system did not treat CAIR's four subjects fairly, it is undeniably, unbelievably dishonest to present a convicted murderer and other partisans of violent organizations as "civil/human rights giants." These four radicals are bound together only by a commitment to violence and hateful, totalitarian ideologies. Misrepresentation of their plight serves only to reiterate CAIR's long-standing extremist agenda.
*Martha Lee is the Research Fellow for Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

Battle of Manzikert: The “Subjugation of Christianity by Islam”
Raymond Ibrahim/August 26/2020
Today in history, on August 26, 1071, one of the most decisive battles in all world history took place—that of Manzikert, which initiated the creation of the modern state of Turkey atop formerly Christian Asia Minor.
What happened on that day and the days leading to it is worth recounting. In 1019, “the first appearance of the bloodthirsty beasts … the savage nation of infidels called Turks entered Armenia,” in eastern Anatolia, “and mercilessly slaughtered the Christian faithful with the sword,” writes a chronicler. In the ensuing years and decades, virtually the whole of Armenia was decimated: hundreds of thousands were slaughtered or enslaved, and thousands of churches torched or desecrated, including by being turned into mosques:
Who is able to relate the happenings and ruinous events which befell the Armenians, for everything was covered with blood. . . . Because of the great number of corpses, the land stank, and all of Persia was filled with innumerable captives; thus this whole nation of beasts became drunk with blood. All human beings of Christian faith were in tears and in sorrowful affliction…
Nor was there much doubt concerning what fueled the Turks’ animus: “This nation of infidels,” a military leader explained, “comes against us because of our Christian faith and they are intent on destroying the ordinances of the worshippers of the cross and on exterminating the Christian faithful.” Therefore, “it is fitting and right for all the faithful to go forth with their swords and to die for the Christian faith.” Many were of the same mind; records tell of monks and priests, fathers, wives, and children, all shabbily armed but zealous to protect their way of life, coming out to face the invaders—only to be butchered or enslaved.
Nor were the Turkish hordes, under the authority of the ascendant Seljuk tribe, content with Armenia; they continued riding westward across the Anatolian plain, then part of the Eastern Roman Empire (“Byzantium”), leaving a trail of smoke and destruction in their wake. On becoming emperor in 1068, Romanus Diogenes made it his priority to act. By 1069 he had amassed and marched a massive army deep into Asia Minor, liberating numerous cities from the Turks.
The two forces eventually met near the city of Manzikert, just north of Lake Van. The Turkic sultan, Muhammad bin Dawud—better known to posterity as “Alp Arslan,” or, “Heroic Lion”—sent a delegation to parley with Romanus on “the pretext of peace” though in reality “stalling for time,” explained Michael Attaleiates, who was present. This only “roused the emperor to war.”
Romanus spurned the emissaries, forced them to prostrate themselves before him, and commanded them to tell their sultan that “there will be no treaty . . . and no going home except after I have done in the lands of Islam the like of what has been done in the lands of Rome [Byzantium].” Then, having “dismissed the ambassador with the greatest contempt,” Romanus incited his men to war with “words of extraordinary violence.”
Muhammad exhorted his men to jihad and reminded them of its win-win scenario: “If we are given victory over them, [well and good]. If not, we will go as martyrs to the Garden.” “We are with you!” cried the men in unison when he finished his harangue, followed by a barrage of “Allah Akbars” that reportedly “shook the mountains.”
Thus, as “martial music resounded from both sides and the dust of the battlefield billowed up like clouds in the sky,” the two armies met on that fateful Friday, August 26, 1071.
The battle ensued in the usual way: Turkic horseman, in a crescent formation that hid their fewer numbers, sped forward and unleashed volleys of arrows, before swiftly retreating. Throngs of Roman men and horses fell; some even broke rank and fled. Undaunted, Romanus maintained the line and marched his forces forward; but because the Turks had unlimited terrain to fall back on, the Christian army never managed to corner and finish them off, even as the Turks continued to engage in effective hit and runs tactics.
When the day was nearly spent, Romanus ordered an about-face back to camp, the only place to feed his men and water their horses. Once he turned his back, the Turks launched an all-out assault, “hurling themselves fiercely upon the Romans with terrifying cries.” Havoc ensued. “All were shouting incoherently and riding about in disorder; nobody could say what was going on…. It was like an earthquake with howling, sweat, a swift rush of fear, clouds of dust, and not least Turks riding all around us,” Attaleiates later remembered.
Romanus’s Varangian Guard (the empire’s elite unit of Nordic warriors who were always attached to the emperor they served) were surrounded and, despite fighting valiantly, killed to a man. Seeing that he was “abandoned and completely cut off from help, [Romanus] unsheathed his sword and charged at his enemies, killing many of them and putting others to flight. But he was surrounded by a crowd of adversaries and was wounded in the hand. They recognized him and he was completely encircled; an arrow wounded his horse, which slipped and fell, dragging its rider down with it. Thus the emperor of the Romans was captured and led in chains to the sultan.”
Worse, the once proud and imperious Romanus became the first Roman emperor in over a thousand years to experience the ignominy of being taken prisoner from the field of battle. “Those who escaped were but a tiny fraction,” notes another chronicler. “Of the majority, some were taken captive, the rest massacred.” One Muslim chronicle confirms that the Christians “were killed to such an extent that a valley there where the two sides had met was filled [with their corpses].”
Sultan Muhammad declared victory and hurriedly dispatched “the cross and what had been taken from the Byzantines” to Baghdad, and “the caliph and the Muslims rejoiced. Baghdad was decorated in an unprecedented fashion and domes were erected. It was a great victory the like of which Islam had not seen before,” writes a Damascene historian.
The battle, moreover, opened the doorway to the permanent conquest of Asia Minor. Before he was assassinated, the Heroic Lion had commanded the Turks to “be like lion cubs and eagle young, racing through the countryside day and night, slaying the Christians and not sparing any mercy on the Roman nation.” This they did; and “the emirs spread like locusts, over the face of the land,” invading every corner of Anatolia, sacking some of ancient Christianity’s most important cities, including Ephesus, home of Saint John the Evangelist; Nicaea, where Christendom’s creed was formulated in 325; and Antioch, the original see of Saint Peter. “All that was left were devastated fields, trees cut down, mutilated corpses and towns driven mad by fear or in flames.” Hundreds of thousands of Anatolian Christians were reportedly massacred or enslaved. By the early 1090s, the Turks had taken the last Christian bastion, Nicomedia, only 2,500 feet away from Constantinople, across the narrowest point of the Bosporus strait.
Five years later the First Crusade was underway.
Muhammad bin Dawud would be honored by Muslims in general, Turks in particular, for centuries to come. For the “victory of the Seljuq sultan at Manzikert was not just a military triumph over the Byzantine emperor,” explains historian Carole Hillenbrand. “His capture symbolized the subjugation of Christianity by Islam. Manzikert was perceived to be the first step in an epic story in which Turkish-led dynasties would defeat the Christians and proclaim the triumph of Islam.”
Little wonder that, along with another Muhammad—the sultan who conquered Constantinople in 1453—Turkish president Erdoğan never fails to honor (if not seek to emulate) this sultan, Muhammad bin Dawud, Turkey’s “Heroic Lion” and scourge of Christianity.
Note: The above account was excerpted and adapted from the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.

India Must Shut Down Western Radical Charities
Sam Westrop/Firstpost/August 26/2020
With various proscriptions and inquiries into Islamist groups recently introduced, it seems the Indian government has thoroughly woken up to the threat posed by Islamist movements active across South Asia. Security services, politicians and media have recently paid particularly close attention to the danger of Jamaat-e-Islami in Pakistan and Kashmir, and their branches and proxies' links to terrorist plots against Indian troops and civilians.
But Islamism is never a parochial affair. Every Islamist group, no matter how locally focused, makes use of international networks of support, and relies on infrastructure closely intertwined with civil society. Today, Western Islamist charities, funded by Western governments and linked to international Islamist movements such as Jamaat-e-Islami, operate throughout India with impunity.
These charities have long histories of subsidizing terrorism and enabling extremism. One of the most egregious examples is Muslim Aid.
Radical Management
Founded in London in 1985, Muslim Aid has grown into one of the largest Islamic charities in the world, boasting revenue of tens of millions of pounds each year. Outside of its headquarters in the UK, it operates branches, offices and various affiliate entities in a dozen countries across Africa and Asia, with prominent fundraising offices in Sweden and the United States as well.
From the beginning, Muslim Aid's officials have been tied closely to Jamaat-e-Islami (JI). In 2013, a Bangladeshi war crimes tribunal sentenced to death in absentia one of the charity's early leaders, Chowdhury Mueen-Uddin, for his role leading a JI killing squad that abducted and murdered 18 people during the country's 1971 Liberation War.
Muslim Aid board chairmen have included Manazir Ahsan, a leading British Islamist who helped to coordinate Islamist riots in the UK against novelist Salman Rushdie over his book, The Satanic Verses; and Iqbal Sacranie, another infamous British Islamist who said of Rushdie: "Death, perhaps, is a bit too easy for him."
Other Muslim Aid officials have included Manzair Ahsan, who is also closely involved with the Islamic Foundation, JI's UK-based thinktank. His colleagues there have included former Muslim Aid official Farooq Murad, the son of Khurram Murad, who has led both the Bangladeshi and Pakistani branches of JI. In 2003, The Times reported that two Islamic Foundation trustees were on the UN sanctions list of people associated with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Terror Ties
With this violence-tied management, it comes as little surprise that Muslim Aid has repeatedly been found involved with a number of terror networks. In 2010, following investigative work by British media and an inquiry by Britain's charity regulator, Muslim Aid was found (and admitted) to have been funding a number of front organizations for the terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Muslim Aid's terror links are not limited just to the Palestinian territories. Counter-terrorism analyst Chris Blackburn notes that Muslim Aid's Australian branch has supported jihadist-funding organizations in Indonesia; government agencies in Bangladesh included Muslim Aid in a list of ten Islamic charities supporting Islamist terrorism; and Spanish police have declared that Muslim Aid financed jihadists in Bosnia in the 1990s.
In the United States, documents acquired by the Middle East Forum show that in 2015, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Asset Control (which is tasked with stopping the flow of monies to terrorist groups) looked into Muslim Aid as a potential terror financer.
In Pakistan, meanwhile, both the UK and Pakistani branches of Muslim Aid partner openly with Al Khidmat, the "charitable" arm of Jamaat-e-Islami's Pakistani arm. Al Khidmat publicly works with Hizbul Mujahedeen, the Kashmiri militant wing of Jamaat-e-Islami and a designated terrorist group in both India and the United States.
This Pakistan branch is particularly shadowy. In 2009, it appointed a senior official of Pakistan's infamous, terror-connected Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as chairman of its board of trustees.
Other terrorist operatives have made use of Muslim Aid's infrastructure. In 2012, three terrorist operatives used Muslim Aid identities to raise money for a series of suicide bombings. Although Muslim Aid was apparently unaware of this scheme, Britain's charity regulator later censured the organization for having "insufficient measures in place to monitor its spending" and activities, leading British officials to fear, among other things, that it might be "inadvertently funding a proscribed terrorist organisation." Concerns over the charity's management have continued to surface over the past few years.
Muslim Aid India
Despite this extraordinary array of terror links and overt extremism, Muslim Aid is active on both sides of the Line of Control in Kashmir, and well as throughout India. Although it claims to have operated a field office in the country since 2005, this was not its first appearance: a British Islamist publication from 1992 features a call for donations to "Muslim Aid – India" in the wake of the notorious destruction of the Babri Mosque in Uttar Pradesh.
Today, Muslim Aid India appears to operate primarily out of Hyderabad. But management of the charity is not exactly local. Its two leading officials, Mirza Feroz Baig and Jafer Hussain Qureshi, are involved with a string of companies and charities registered in the United Kingdom. Several of these organizations have declared addresses on incorporation paperwork registered to a single house in the English city of Birmingham, which property records obtained by the Middle East Forum show to be owned by Qureshi.'
Muslim Aid's Qureshi, it seems, has been helping for years to manage the affairs of the terror-connected international Islamist operative Zakir Naik. One of the companies previously registered to Qureshi's address is Universal Broadcasting Corporation Limited, a key component of Zakir Naik's network, and which serves as the umbrella organization for Naik's infamous Peace TV media outlets and various companies.
Perhaps the most famous radical preacher in the world, Naik lives in exile in Malaysia, where he is currently the target of an extradition request by Indian authorities on charges of money laundering and allegations of terrorism links. Law enforcement blame Naik's preaching for the radicalization of hundreds of jihadist recruits. Because of his extremism, he is banned from entering a number of other countries, including the UK and Canada.
And yet it is in the UK where Naik operates his most significant network of companies outside India, all with the help of a senior Muslim Aid official.
Along with Qureshi, both Zakir Naik and his wife, Farhat, have been listed in company registration documentation as directors of the Universal Broadcasting Corporation, with Farhat's address listed as Qureshi's house. Farhat, along with a number of Naik's other companies, are believed to be part of Naik's extensive money laundering effort.
Moreover, documents gathered by the Middle East Forum reveal that this enterprising trio, along with other trustees from Qureshi's other companies, are also listed as trustees of the UK office of the Islamic Research Foundation (IRF), which India banned in 2016. In fact, Muslim Aid India's Qureshi has been a director of almost all of Naik's UK businesses and charities.
In May, Britain's media watchdog issued a £300,000 fine against Peace TV and its various parent companies (with which Qureshi has also been involved) for inciting murder and broadcasting hate speech. The outlet shut down its UK broadcasting in November just before regulators were expected to rescind its license. Britain's Charity Commission, meanwhile, recently opened an investigation into IRF, citing concerns over its close links to Peace TV.
Qureshi, who has also served as a trustee of Muslim Aid's UK headquarters as well as Muslim Aid Sweden, is involved with a number of other prominent Islamist charities. He runs the Zakat Foundation of India, where his colleagues include Syed Zafar Mahmood, a prominent anti-Modi activist who in 2018, on behalf of the Zakat Foundation, publicly denounced the ban of the terror-tied Popular Front of India (PFI). Qureshi has also served of chairman of the Al Fouz Trust, a British charity that operates in South Asia. Emma Webb, in a report for the Henry Jackson Society, notes that Al Fouz Trust has previously reported "sponsoring the programs" on Zakir Naik's Peace TV of Abdurraheem Green, a prominent Salafi hate preacher and former jihadist.
Finally, Qureshi is a trustee of the Al-Khair Foundation, a charity that runs that radical television station IQRA TV. Al-Khair has often partnered with Muslim Aid, while also maintaining close ties to Zakir Naik and his network (in fact, it appears to have been an invitation to an Al-Khair Foundation conference that prompted Zakir Naik's ban from entering the United Kingdom).
Within India, Jamaat-e-Islami and Zakir Naik (who belongs to the Ahl-e-Hadith sect of Islam) may represent two separate, dangerous threat; while outside India, it appears, its advocates are working closely together.
Muslim Aid India, just as with other Muslim Aid branches, appears to be controlled by a close-knit cell of prominent Islamists with international connections to notorious terror-tied extremists. This Birmingham-Hyderabadi network deserves extensive investigation by both Indian and Western law enforcement.
An Uphill Battle
Despite all this evidence of extremism, however, the Muslim Aid franchise has enjoyed significant support from Western governments. The group received more than $1.5 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development in 2013, handed over just three years after the charity admitted to funding proxies for the designated terrorist organization, Hamas. The European Union has given millions to the Islamist charity - 600,000 Euros in 2017 alone.
There is some evidence, however, that Muslim Aid's luck is running out. British government support for Muslim Aid, meanwhile, has drastically diminished over the past decade, with documents published on British government websites now openly naming Muslim Aid as Jamaat-e-Islami-connected. Britain's Charity Commission, meanwhile, has conducted repeated investigations into Muslim Aid's management.
Muslim Aid is not, of course, the only Western Jamaati charity active in India. Helping Hand for Relief and Development – the international aid arm of the Jamaat-e-Islami's branch in the United States – also operates on both sides of the LoC in Kashmir. In 2018, the Middle East Forum revealed that Helping Hand had been openly working with Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terror group responsible for the deadly 2008 Mumbai attacks. In the past, Helping Hand's parent organization, the JI-founded Islamic Circle of North America, has run events with known ISI agents.
It's time for the Indian government and its law enforcement agencies to focus closely on these radical groups and counteract their influence. Where exactly in Kashmir is the money raised by Western Islamist charities ending up? Are these Islamist charities linked to the ISI? Do they continue to work with other South Asian jihadists?
Over the past few years, the Indian government has taken some bold steps in the battle against domestic extremist groups. However, while India has woken up to the threat of Islamism's local violent cheerleaders, the government and security services risk overlooking Islamist movements' quieter, international underpinnings – a pernicious global network providing financial, logistical and ideological support, led by registered charities from the West using programs of benevolence as a fig leaf for terror and extremism.
Ultimately, if the threat of Islamism in India is to be tackled, then charities such as Muslim Aid, Helping Hand for Relief and Development must be proscribed.
**Sam Westrop is director of Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.
 

Trump Will Give Kadhimi Some Time
Robert Ford/Asharq Al Awsat/August 26/2020
Robert Ford is a former US ambassador to Syria and Algeria and a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute for Near East Policy in Washington
By one measure, the visit of Iraqi Prime Minister Kadhimi to Washington was a success because he made a favorable impression on the American officials he met. President Trump called Kadhimi a friend and twice emphasized his respect for Kadhimi during their joint press conference on August 20 at the White House. Leaders in Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, praised Kadhimi’s efforts to achieve reforms in Iraq and promised strong cooperation from America. Notably, David Ignatius, who has many excellent sources in the American security establishment, wrote on August 21 that the United States should support Kadhimi. The only unhappy comment came from the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Representatives which criticized violence against peaceful protesters on Iraqi streets, but the committee also urged strong bilateral relations.
As expected, energy agreements received big attention. President Trump loves the world of business and he praised the preliminary agreements which maybe could lead to eight billion dollars in contracts. We heard the names of big American companies like Chevron, General Electric and Honeywell. If you read the details, however, there was a lot of ceremony and protocol, but not big, binding contracts. For example, the Chevron deal requires the oil company to spend several hundred million dollars on exploration in a southern Iraq field. This is small amount for the giant American firm. And in the past Chevron signed preliminary deals to work in Iraq that ended without any important commercial result. Chevron said it was too difficult to work with the Iraqi bureaucracy.
The Honeywell agreement to develop a natural gas complex in southern Iraq started with a memorandum of understanding signed in Baghdad a year ago. The announcement last week in Washington is simply to continue the planning, but there is a problem of financing the project.
The American company is trying to secure some of the financing from the United States with loan security guarantees from the American government. The Americans also hope that Saudi Arabia will help with this project, including investment from the two companies Aramco and ACWA Power. This deal aims at using natural gas for the Iraqi energy grid and is also related to the goal of connecting the Iraq power grid to the grids in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The American goal, which ought to be shared by Saudi Arabia, is to reduce Iraqi imports of Iranian energy. Iraqi Economy Minister Ali Allawi told the media last week that he could imagine that those Iraqi imports could diminish next year.
Energy deals that aim to reduce Iran’s exports to Iraq are one part of the American campaign for maximum pressure against Tehran. Minister Allawi himself said at a forum on August 21 that he was not sure if the Americans really value Iraq by itself as a partner or if they still see Iraq only a tool in their maximum pressure campaign against Iran. Allawi didn’t sound like a man celebrating a completely new beginning with the Americans.
The security discussions appear to be similar. Iraq’s Prime Minister told the Iraqi news agency on August 21 that President Trump emphasized that American troops will withdraw within three years. The PM also said that Iraq doesn’t need American forces for combat operations.
On Sunday, the Americans left the eighth Iraqi base where their forces were present. However, the American official statements in Washington did not to fix any timetable for withdrawal. Trump at their August 20 press conference simply said that the American forces would leave “eventually” and “in a short time.” Secretary of State Pompeo said the American troops would leave Iraq “when we finish the mission.”
What exactly is the mission? The total eradication of ISIS ? Strengthening Iraqi security forces that can defend against whom? ISIS or Iranian-backed militias inside Iraq ? It was not clear. Trump also said that if militias attack American forces the Americans could respond in a very severe manner, in other words in combat missions. Perhaps the technical committee the two governments are forming that will meet to work on these questions will find agreed answers. In the meantime, we can expect strong criticism from Iran’s allies in Baghdad against Kadhimi and probably more small attacks on the bases where those forces are located. In sum, the Prime Minister’s trip improved the climate of the bilateral relations but we haven’t seen concrete results yet. What is clear is that Washington will give Kadhimi time to assert central authority over the militias and enact reforms, a defeat for those who wanted an immediate, sharp position against Iranian influence in Iraq.

How to End America's Loneliness Epidemic
Noah Smith/Bloomberg/Wednesday, 26 August, 2020
A society’s success is gauged not just by economics but by the strength of human relationships. By that measure, the US is slipping dangerously. Bringing Americans together again will take a vigorous effort at every level of society, and public policy will have a role to play.
On paper, the US is still one of the world’s richest nations, even after accounting for inequality. But it has many problems not fully captured in income and output statistics, but which reduce quality of life for its people. One of these is a high rate of violent crime; the US has more than four times as many murders per capita as the United Kingdom, and more than 25 times as many as Japan. Another is poor health; obesity, opiate drugs, and other problems have combined to push US life expectancy below that of its rich-world peers.
But on top of these problems, there’s growing evidence the US suffers from an epidemic of social isolation. Research consistently finds close personal relationships are key factors in determining human happiness. So when we ask why Americans have grown unhappier in recent years, a breakdown of relationships is a natural place to look. Sociologists have documented a decline in Americans’ civic participation for decades now. But recent generations may feel the sting of loneliness even more acutely. One recent survey found that 43% of Americans feel socially isolated, and that members of Generation Z — the cohort now in their teens and early 20s — are the loneliest of all. Other surveys find the same, with around a quarter of young people saying they have no friends.
Romantic relationships are also on the wane. A Pew survey from late 2019 found that 37% of single Americans aged 18-29 weren’t looking for either long-term or casual relationships, with most saying they either had other priorities or just weren’t interested. A plurality of those surveyed said dating has become harder over the past decade, despite the proliferation of apps designed to help with the process.
Meanwhile, plenty of evidence shows young Americans are having less sex than ever before, even in an age of permissive mores. And US marriage rates are at record lows. Sociologist Rod Graham has suggested the country is facing an “intimacy apocalypse.”
The internet was supposed to reverse these trends. Social apps and mobile phones let people stay connected by video or text at all hours of the day. And yet in the information age, loneliness only seems to have gotten worse; somehow, simply facilitating human contact isn’t enough to make people build solid relationships. The one bright spot in the data is that the pandemic hasn’t made things worse, as one might have expected. It appears the stress and physical isolation of coronavirus have actually prodded Americans to reach out and support each other. But it’s not clear whether the situation has actually improved or simply stopped deteriorating.
A big question is whether the government can do anything to stem the epidemic of loneliness. Denser development and more public gathering places in America’s far-flung suburbs might help, but research doesn’t show much of a connection between suburbanization and social isolation. It’s just as easy to be lonely in Manhattan. A more effective approach might be to give Americans more time off from work. The US is notorious for giving its employees very little paid vacation. It’s the only advanced nation without federally mandated yearly time off, and a quarter of workers get no paid vacation time at all.
Worse, jobs in the US are notorious for giving hourly workers uncertain and ever-shifting schedules, forcing them to set aside much of their off-work time just in case. More paid time off, and laws against irregular scheduling, could give Americans more time to make friends, form relationships, and care for families.
Another strategy is to make families — one of the most important sources of social interaction throughout human history — more affordable. Psychologist Abraham Maslow believed that only once they enjoy economic security can humans focus on pursuing love and acceptance. Lower rent, national health care, and income supplementation can ease the economic pressures that keep people scrambling for money, letting them concentrate on human relationships instead. Ultimately, it will be up to Americans themselves to put their broken society back together, come out of their caves, and rediscover the joys of human relationships. But by removing the economic obstacles that leave Americans insecure, exhausted, and overworked, the government can give people the space to do this.

Sixteen English Editorials, Analysis & Reports Addressing Recent Unfolding Important Events In Iranian Occupied Lebanon/
ستة عشر مقالة وتحليل وتقرير باللغة الإنكليزية يتناولون أخر التطوارات في لبنان الذي تحتله إيران وحزبها الإرهابي
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/89813/sixteen-english-editorials-analysis-reports-addressing-recent-unfolding-important-events-in-iranian-occupied-lebanon-%d8%b3%d8%aa%d8%a9-%d8%b9%d8%b4%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%a9-%d9%88/

*IDF attacks Hezbollah targets following incident on northern border/Arutz Sheva
*A More Forceful France?/Ghida Tayar/Carnegie MEC
*Hariri Says Doesn’t Want to Return as Premier/Naharnet
*Riad Salameh: In Lebanon, depositors’ money is still available/Randa Takieddine/Arab News
*Lebanon’s new start needs to be locally led/Javier Solana/Arab News/
*In fifteen years between Hariri’s assassination and the Beirut explosion what did we learn?/Dr Amira Abo el-Fetouh/Middle East Monitor
*Making Sense Of The Next Round Of Turmoil In Iraq And Lebanon/Alberto M. Fernandez/MEMRI Daily Brief /August 25/2020
*The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy (AMCD) Praises Trump Administration’s Historic Peace Deal between Israel and the UAE/Weeks after blast, Lebanon patronage system immune to reform/Samya Kullab/AP
*It’s time for Europe to follow Germany’s lead and ban Hezbollah/Jerusalem Post Editorial/
*City of Beginnings: Poetic Modernism in Beirut/Robyn Creswell/Reviewed by Franck Salameh/Middle East Quarterly
*Syrians Lose Children, Homes and Jobs in Beirut Blast/Agence France Presse
*After Beirut Blast, Foreign Workers Beg to Go Home/Agence France Presse
*Occupation… Electronic Justice and the Mirage of an International Community/Sam Menassa/Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper
*Lebanese businesses rebel against lockdown/Najia Housari/Arab News
*US Seeking to Reduce Number of UNIFIL Troops, Stop Hezbollah Violations/New York- Ali Barda/Asharq Al Awsat