LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 02.2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
No one who believes in him will be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved
Letter to the Romans 10/01-13/:”Brothers and sisters, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved. I can testify that they have a zeal for God, but it is not enlightened. For, being ignorant of the righteousness that comes from God, and seeking to establish their own, they have not submitted to God’s righteousness. For Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. Moses writes concerning the righteousness that comes from the law, that ‘the person who does these things will live by them.’ But the righteousness that comes from faith says, ‘Do not say in your heart, “Who will ascend into heaven?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ down) ‘or “Who will descend into the abyss?” ’ (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? ‘The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart’ (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved. The scripture says, ‘No one who believes in him will be put to shame.’ For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek; the same Lord is Lord of all and is generous to all who call on him. For, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 01-02/2020
Hitti from Cairo: To fortify the “Arab House”, support the Palestinian position
Diab forms a committee to follow up on Corona virus preventive measures
Diab to Labor Union: Your participation in bearing the burdens is a national responsibility
Wazni: Policy Statement to Be Ready Monday
Lebanon to decide on circular regulating 'bank-customer' relationships - report
Report: Central Bank Measures Could 'Ease' Concerns
“No bankruptcy,” says El-Khalil
Report: Fahmi Adopts New Plan to Deal with 'Non-Peaceful' Protesters
Beirut’s demonstrations end with no confrontations
Protest march sets out from Sassine Square towards Riad El Solh
Two marches set out from General Labor Union and BDL towards Riad El Solh
Abou Al-Hassan: Giving the government a chance does not mean giving it confidence
Hbeish: We decided to partake in the confidence session and oppose the government from within the parliament
Public Works Ministry instructs Beirut & Tripoli Ports not to allow the Chinese ship to anchor until its safety is confirmed
Aoueidat requests judicial authorities to look into issue of judges obtaining free services from Ogero
Kuwaiti Prince to Jumblatt: Our position is firm in supporting Lebanon
Jumblatt: There is an impression that Turkish ships have become EDL's property
El-Sayed: Who believes Riad Salameh?
Report: Lebanon Discusses US Mideast Plan at Arab League Emergency Meeting
Jumblat: Policy Statement Should Clearly Define How to Reform Electricity Sector
Lebanon’s government takes office amid uncertainty, opposition/Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/February 01/2020
Protesters march in Lebanon to reject new government/Associated Press /February 01/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 01-02/2020
Arab League rejects Trump’s Middle East plan: Statement
Arab League rejects Trump Mid-East peace plan. Not all members agree/DebkaFile/February 01/2020
Abbas Says Palestinians 'Cut All Ties' with Israel, US
US envoy warns Palestinians against raising opposition to US peace plan at UN
Egypt sentences officer-turned-militant and 36 others to death
Passenger plane skids off snowy runaway in Iran
Israel army launches overnight airstrike in the Gaza Strip
Kurdistan’s Erbil airport sends back three Chinese to Dubai over coronavirus
Britain Leaves the European Union, Leaps into the Unknown
Stalemate over Iraq PM Pick as Deadline Looms
Iraq’s President assigns Mohammed Allawi with forming new government

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 01-02/2020
Palestinians should abandon posturing and stand strong in the face of new US-Israel plan/Raghida Dergham/The National/February 01/2020
Sweden: Hijab is 'Look of the Year'/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/February 01/2020
Trump Middle East Plan: Last Chance for the Palestinians?/Alain Destexhe/Gatestone Institute/February 01/2020
The West Bank's new Bantustans/Amichai Cohen|/Ynetnews/February 01/2020
The new realities of the Deal of the Century/Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/February 02/2020
Why Davos?/Basil M.K. Al-Ghalayini/Arab News/February 01/2020
Brexit is done … but now for the hard part/Cornelia Meyer/Arab News/February 01/2020
Violent extremists and the ideologies that drive them/Peter Welby/Arab News/February 01/2020
US, Taliban edge toward peace deal but hurdles remain/Rahimullah Yusufzai/Arab News/February 01/2020
Coronavirus: What the Middle East can do to stay safe/Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/February 01/2020

Details Of The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorial published on February 01-02/2020
Hitti from Cairo: To fortify the “Arab House”, support the Palestinian position
NNA/February 01/2020
Lebanese Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti, on Saturday, stressed the need to strengthen the “Arab House” and to support the Palestinian stance, calling for international action at all levels to achieve peace in Palestine. In his address at the emergency meeting of the Arab Foreign Ministers devoted to discussing the American peace plan, or the so-called "deal of the century", at the headquarters of the Arab States League in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, Minister Hitti said that "Lebanon is committed to the Arab peace initiative that emerged from the Arab Summit in Beirut in 2002, on the basis of a legal vision, be it the principles of international law or the relevant Security Council and United Nations resolutions; and also on a realistic vision based on a legal position that leads to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside the Palestinians’ right to return to their homeland and reject resettlement.”“In order for the settlement to be permanent it must be fair, and to be fair it must be comprehensive,” Hitti went on. “In the lessons of the past during the interim negotiations, we detected from the very beginning how Israel continuously attempted to empty these negotiations of their content and remove them from its path,” he said. The Minister deemed in his word that “dropping the rules and principles of international law and the relevant United Nations resolutions, in order to address the settlement of international conflicts and disputes, would result in a system of international chaos, the price of which will be borne by all throughout the world, and in all kinds of existing conflicts and disputes.”Hitti concluded by reiterating the need to fortify the Arab family, which denotes a “fortification of all our national houses,” and to provide all kinds of support for the Palestinian position, and to move internationally at all levels to work towards achieving peace according to international references and the Arab peace initiative.

Diab forms a committee to follow up on Corona virus preventive measures
NNA/February 01/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab issued Saturday decree no. 9/2020, which stipulates forming a committee to follow up on the preventive measures and procedures adopted for the Corona virus.
The committee will be headed by the Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Defense and will be comprised of representatives of departments and agencies delegated to the membership of the national committee tasked with developing emergency plans to face disasters of all kinds. In this context, the committee will include representatives of the Ministries of Public Health, Higher Education, Agriculture, Public Works and Transport, Foreign Affairs and Social Affairs, as well as the Internal Security Forces, the Lebanese Red Cross, and the Disaster Risk Management Unit Director at the Council of Ministers’ Presidency. The committee’s mission would be to consolidate the efforts of the concerned departments and ministries in preparing to face the possibility of the virus’ spreading, identifying the virus spread scenarios and taking precautionary measures in public facilities (such as the airport, schools and various public places). The committee will also determine the needs at the national level in the event of a virus outbreak, prepare a plan for communication and coordination with regional and international partners in the areas of combating cross-border epidemics, and set a mechanism for requesting external assistance when needed. It will be responsible as well for disseminating accurate information to citizens through all means of audio-visual communication and social media platforms. In this framework, the committee will be required to submit a weekly report to the Premiership.

Diab to Labor Union: Your participation in bearing the burdens is a national responsibility
NNA/February 01/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab called on the General Labor Union to "cooperate in the next stage to alleviate the repercussions of the social and daily living crisis that Lebanon is witnessing," considering that "the Union's participation in bearing the burdens is a major national responsibility."
Diab's words came during his meeting with a General Labor Union delegation who visited him at the Grand Serail this afternoon, with talks centering on the country’s economic situation and labor demands. “I know the extent of the pressures, the economic and daily living burdens, and the conditions of workers and employees…and I know very well the extent of unemployment and how high the poverty rates," said Diab, praising the Labor Union’s “responsible positions in wake of the country’s difficult circumstances.”In turn, the Union delegation affirmed their confidence in the Prime Minister, stressing that "honorable people stand beside him to endure and overcome the difficult stage.”

Wazni: Policy Statement to Be Ready Monday
Naharnet/February 01/2020
Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni announced that the government’s policy statement will be ready on Monday, adding that a BDL circular regulating bank-customer relations has been issued, LBCI TV station said Saturday. In remarks to the station, Wazni said the government shall finish discussing the ministerial statement “it will be ready on Monday.”He added: “We did receive a circular from the central bank regulating relations between banks and customers,” noting that “a decision will emerge in the next few days on that.” According to reports, BDL circular speaks of new measures to ease financial and monetary concerns as the country grapples with an economic and liquidity crisis. Wazni had met with Head of the Association of Banks in Lebanon Salim Sfeir on Friday who assured that bank deposits are safe and there are no plans to impose haircut on deposits.

Lebanon to decide on circular regulating 'bank-customer' relationships - report
NNA/February 01/2020
The Lebanese government has received a central bank circular aimed at regulating the relationship between banks and their customers and will study and decide on it within days, Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni told broadcaster LBC on Saturday. LBC earlier cited central bank governor Riad Salameh as saying the circular had been submitted to Prime Minister Hassan Diab and Wazni 10 days ago. If they agreed to it, the circular "would not include any exceptional measures", Salameh said. "Operations will continue in the banks as usual," he said. The aim was for "equal and fair treatment among all customers". ---Reuters

Report: Central Bank Measures Could 'Ease' Concerns
Naharnet/February 01/2020
Central bank governor Riad Salameh intends to take some “important” measures in agreement with local banks, and under a political cover, within the exceptional powers granted to him by the Monetary and Credit Law / Article 174, al-Liwaa daily reported on Saturday.
According to the daily, the measures entail:
-Setting a withdrawal limit on dollars of up to $1000 per week instead of 200 or 300 provided that the total withdrawal amount does not exceed $6000 per month.
- Setting the price of one dollar in banks at 2,000 Lebanese pounds in order to keep dollars in banks and prevent dollar run to the black market.
-Providing the necessary credit facilities for the purchase and import of food commodities such as sugar, rice, medical equipment, medicines, tools and supplies for industry in order to motivate the economy and production cycle, reduce unemployment, provide job opportunities for Lebanese youth, and reduce immigration.
- Dismiss completely the idea of haircut or deduction from the deposits of citizens, regardless of their size or quantity.

“No bankruptcy,” says El-Khalil
NNA/February 01/2020
MP Anwar El-Khalil said in a statement Saturday that "the talk about bankruptcy results from the lack of knowledge of the banking system." “This crisis is a monetary and financial crisis, which can last for some time and can end with a quick decision, but certainly banks are not exposed to the problem of bankruptcy,” he asserted. El-Khalil cited herein Libya, Syria and Sudan as examples of countries that suffer financial and monetary problems, but have faced no bankruptcy. “The bankruptcy process is not as easy as it used to be,” the MP explained. “With regards to the Central Bank, it should not allow for any bankruptcy to occur and must work to save banks or merge them, because the bankruptcy of one bank drags other banks with it, since the chain effect process begins from one bank to another,” stated El-Khalil, noting that there should be no worry in this respect. “Yes, there is a state of financial stumbling,” he said; however, he indicated that “all Lebanese banks are having difficulty performing obligations in US dollars and not in Lebanese pounds.”

Report: Fahmi Adopts New Plan to Deal with 'Non-Peaceful' Protesters
Naharnet /February 01/2020
Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi said he adopted a new strategy to deal with “non-peaceful” demonstrators, affirming that he fully supports the “rightful" demands of peaceful movements, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat reported on Saturday. Fahmi said he set a new plan in place a “new strategy for dealing with non-peaceful demonstrators, not peaceful ones, to whom I belong in their rightful demands maintained by law in expressing opinion, sit-in, and peaceful demonstrations.” The Minister added that “rioters attack public property, private property and security forces which deviates the rightful demands of the movement. I don’t believe that road blockages are legitimate.” Over accusations fired at him by activists that he is trying to break up the protests, Fahmi said: “I do not intend to break up the movement and its rightful demands, but I want to protect the citizens and peaceful protesters and to prevent chaos in light of the painful situation we are in.” Last week Fahmi was slammed on social media over a security decision to remove barriers from the main protest square in downtown Beirut. Protesters said security forces embarked on removing the iron barriers at the entrance of Martyrs Square which Fahmi argued was “aimed at facilitating traffic in the capital.”

Beirut’s demonstrations end with no confrontations
NNA/February 01/2020
The protest marches that set out today from a number of Beirut neighborhoods, and met in Riad El-Solh Square in Central Beirut, ended in peace without registering any confrontations or provocations between the demonstrators and members of the security forces, with the exception of a number of demonstrators climbing the wall established by the security forces at the entrances of Nejmeh Square and the Government Serail, in objection to having barriers between the people and the authority, NNA correspondent reported.

Protest march sets out from Sassine Square towards Riad El Solh
NNA/February 01/2020
A protest march set out this afternoon from Sassine Square in Ashrafieh towards Martyrs Square in downtown Beirut, denouncing the arrest of a number of activists and confirming the continuation of the popular movements until achieving all of their demands.
A large banner reading, "No confidence", preceded the demonstration march, as protesters called for “the thieves and the corrupt to be held accountable.”
The march will pass in front of the Palace of Justice building and then the Banks Association, before reaching the Martyrs' and Riad El Solh Squares, where it will meet with the rest of the marches coming from several Lebanese regions.

Two marches set out from General Labor Union and BDL towards Riad El Solh
NNA/February 01/2020
A protest march set out this afternoon from outside the General Labor Union towards the Lebanese Electricity Company, all the way to the Riad El Solh Square, while another march set out from outside the Central Bank in Hamra, also heading to Riad El Solh, as protesters carried banners reading, "No confidence," NNA correspondent reported.

Abou Al-Hassan: Giving the government a chance does not mean giving it confidence
NNA/February 01/2020
"Democratic Gathering" Secretary, MP Hadi Abou Al-Hassan, affirmed Saturday that "giving the government a chance does not necessarily entail giving it confidence." "We will meet on Tuesday to discuss and decide whether the Democratic Gathering will give confidence or not, based on the government's seriousness in its approach to the required reform, but we tend towards not giving it confidence," he said in an interview with “MTV Station” this afternoon. “The government has to distance itself from regional conflicts, except for the Palestinian issue. As for what is happening between the United States and Iran, it does not concern us, because Lebanon, in its constitution, is an Arab country,” Abou Al-Hassan underlined. He stressed that Lebanon’s national interests ought to be prioritized, adding that the lesson from the government’s ministerial statement remains in its implementation. Touching on the Arab Foreign Ministers’ emergency meeting in Cairo, Abou Al-Hassan said: "The position of the Lebanese Foreign Minister today was important and reflects the position of the Lebanese people by returning to the Arab initiative and to international resolutions."
Referring to the "Deal of the Century", he stressed that "there must be a one united Palestinian stance," calling for "fortifying the internal situation and having not fear of demographic change, while emphasizing the rejection of resettlement." “The solution to everything that is happening in Lebanon lies in resorting to a civil state, passing a non-sectarian election law and forming a national body to abolish political sectarianism," Abou Al-Hassan corroborated.

Hbeish: We decided to partake in the confidence session and oppose the government from within the parliament
NNA/February 01/2020
Future Parliamentary Bloc Member, MP Hadi Hbeish, disclosed Saturday that they have decided to participate in the “votes of confidence” session and to act as an opposition from within the Parliament. “Otherwise, boycotting the sessions for the remainder of the Parliament’s mandate would require the resignation of the deputies, as they are not allowed to refrain from carrying out their duties while getting paid their salaries and boycotting the sessions at the same time,” indicated Hbeish. “Additionally, it is illogical to leave the March 8th teams alone in Parliament to do whatever they wish over a period of two and a half years!” he exclaimed. "What is happening today in the country in terms of the economic and financial situation requires the search for exceptional ways to prevent the collapse of private institutions that have exhausted all their material and human capacities, and no longer have the ability to produce and continue their work, which leads to their closure and the loss of jobs by thousands of workers and employees," warned Hbeish. The MP’s words came during his meeting with popular delegations who visited him at his Qbayet residence today.

Public Works Ministry instructs Beirut & Tripoli Ports not to allow the Chinese ship to anchor until its safety is confirmed
NNA/February 01/2020
In a press release by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport on Saturday, it announced that it has "given urgent instructions to the administrations of the Beirut and Tripoli Ports to refrain from receiving the Chinese ship coming to Lebanon, until confirmation of its safety and fulfillment of the health condition requirements is issued by the competent authorities, particularly the Ministry of Public Health.”

Aoueidat requests judicial authorities to look into issue of judges obtaining free services from Ogero
NNA/February 01/2020
Prosecutor General, Judge Ghassan Aoueidat, asked the judicial authorities to investigate the recent news reported by some media regarding Ogero’s placing of vehicles and toll-free phone numbers at the disposal of some judges, provided that investigations are conducted at the Central Intelligence Bureau under the supervision of Brigadier General Maurice Abu Zeidan.

Kuwaiti Prince to Jumblatt: Our position is firm in supporting Lebanon
NNA/February 01/2020
In a press release by the Progressive Socialist Party’s Information Office on Saturday, it indicated that the Party’s Chief Walid Jumblatt received a response cable from the Emir of the State of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, expressing his sincere appreciation for Jumblatt’s well-wishes and gratitude. The Emir thanked Jumblatt for commending Kuwait’s support extended to Lebanon, especially in the fields of humanitarian and development work, stressing “the firm position of the State of Kuwait in supporting the Lebanese brethrens in various domains.”“We ask the Lord Almighty to enable the sisterly Republic of Lebanon and its honorable people to achieve all progress and prosperity,” Al-Sabah concluded.

Jumblatt: There is an impression that Turkish ships have become EDL's property
NNA/February 01/2020
Progressive Socialist Party Chief, Walid Jumblatt, criticized Saturday the Turkish 'power ship', saying via his Twitter account: "I hope that the ministerial statement includes the daily life requirements of the citizen and clearly defines how the electricity sector will be reformed, because there is a growing impression that Turkish ships have become the property of 'Electricity of Lebanon' Company."

El-Sayed: Who believes Riad Salameh?
NNA/February 01/2020
MP Jamil al-Sayed tweeted, Saturday, on Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh’s reassurances that the official exchange rate of the Lebanese pound will be maintained, while the difference between the official rate and that of exchange dealers will be temporary, saying: “Who believes him? Until yesterday, Salameh was reassuring the Lebanese that the Lira was steadfast and in great condition…Then suddenly and at the first crisis, the protector of the Lira fell into contradictions, and it turned out that he was deluding the people! This fraud is called Ponzi."

Report: Lebanon Discusses US Mideast Plan at Arab League Emergency Meeting
Naharnet /February 01/2020
Foreign Minister Nassif Hitti shall take part in the emergency Arab League meeting, held at the level of foreign ministers, to discuss the controversial Mideast plan revealed by US President Donald Trump this week where he will state Lebanon’s position, Nida al-Watan reported on Saturday.
In his first appearance at an international forum, Hitti, according to the daily, shall deliver Lebanon’s speech and will focus on Lebanon’s position and commitment to the Arab peace initiative adopted at the Arab Summit in Beirut in 2002, specifically the establishment of a fully sovereign Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. The daily said, the minister will also stress that Lebanon is a peace-loving country and committed to a just and comprehensive solution within the terms of the Arab Peace Initiative in Beirut, which is based on a two-state solution and East Jerusalem as the eternal capital of the Palestinian people. Hitti shall stress that Lebanon adheres to any solution within Arab consensus, and that if Arabs manage to reach consensus on a decision, Lebanon will not break this consensus, said the daily. The foreign minister will also call for the formation of an Arab committee to follow up with the United States of America and urge it to amend the deal making it consistent with the Palestinian conditions. Lebanon's basic requirement is that the Palestinians agree to a solution they deem appropriate because Lebanon will not go with any if they don't. Hitti will also stress rejection of resettlements and will affirm the Palestinian right of return, concluded Nida al-Watan.

Jumblat: Policy Statement Should Clearly Define How to Reform Electricity Sector
Naharnet/February 01/2020
Progressive Socialist Party leader ex-MP Walid Jumblat on Saturday voiced hopes that people’s livelihood get addressed in the government's awaited policy statement mainly the problematic electricity sector. In a tweet, Jumblat said: “Perhaps the policy statement would address the people’s livelihood which are increasing each day,” he said referring to an economic and financial crisis hitting the country. Jumblat also referred to the problematic energy sector in Lebanon saying the policy statement must “clearly specify how to reform the electricity sector in light of impressions that the Turkish (power) vessels are owned now by EDL (Electricity du Liban), and whoever who has monopolized them for years which explains high operation cost and outrageous profit.”

Lebanon’s government takes office amid uncertainty, opposition
*Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/February 01/2020
While Arab countries and the West do not want Lebanon’s collapse, they also do not want to support a government closely linked to Hezbollah.
BEIRUT - Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, whose cabinet took office January 23, is yet to submit its policy statement to parliament amid calls to deny his Hezbollah-backed administration a vote of confidence.
Stringent security measures were enforced around the parliament building, which was sealed off with concrete blocks, barbed wire and blast walls to deter anti-government protesters from reaching the building from adjacent Martyrs’ Square, a main protest hub in Beirut.
The deteriorating economic and financial situation was expected to top the government’s agenda but a cabinet stamped as a one-sided Hezbollah-led group will be unlikely to get badly needed Arab and international financial assistance.
“Challenges awaiting Diab’s administration are extremely difficult. They are rendered even more challenging because the government has no wide political cover and it is branded as pro-Hezbollah, even though it includes non-partisan and moderate figures,” said political analyst Johnny Mounayar.
“The future is blurred. Some people say the government won’t last long, while others, including Hezbollah, believe it will stay for a long while due to the extreme complexity of forming another administration.
“But, in order to help alleviate the acute financial crisis and shore up the economy, painful and unpopular fiscal measures will be unavoidable, a move that will further infuriate and alienate the people,” Mounayar said.
While the unprecedented street protests that have swept Lebanon since mid-October have tapered, opposition to Diab’s cabinet and public mistrust in its capacity to pull the country from its aggravating situation continue.
Washington and its Arab Gulf allies, which have long channelled funds into Lebanon's fragile economy, expressed alarm at the rising influence of Hezbollah and its partners.
The US administration “will not" provide any kind of assistance for Lebanon's new government because it considers it an “extension” of Hezbollah’s authority, local daily Nida Al Watan said quoting sources in Washington.
None of the Gulf Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, appears willing to step in to help heavily indebted Lebanon.
Mounayar said Lebanon is regarded as part of the confrontation of the United States and its Arab allies with Iran, now that it has officially fallen into the grip of the ruling majority led by Hezbollah.
“Only the European led by France might be willing to help contain the crisis through CEDRE conference on condition that the government introduces serious reforms, primarily in the electricity sector,” Mounayar said.
Foreign donors who pledged assistance for Lebanon at the CEDRE conference in Paris in 2018 have said any support depends on enacting long-delayed reforms.
While Arab countries and the West do not want Lebanon’s collapse, they also do not want to support a government closely linked to Hezbollah.
“No money will be coming for the time being. The future looks uncertain and I fear things would get worse,” Mounayar added.
Lebanon's crisis is rooted in decades of official corruption and waste. A hard currency squeeze has pushed up prices, hit the Lebanese pound and driven banks to impose capital controls.
*Samar Kadi is the Arab Weekly society and travel section editor.

Protesters march in Lebanon to reject new government
Associated Press /February 01/2020
The national currency, which has been pegged to the dollar since 1997, lost about 60% of its value in recent weeks, sparking a run on banks which responded with limits on cash withdrawals and transfers.
BEIRUT: Hundreds of Lebanese marched on Saturday through the streets of the capital and the main northern city to reject a new government named to deal with an economic crisis, which they say lacks a popular mandate.
The new government named in January came after weeks of political stalemate and amid nationwide protests while Lebanon grappled with an unprecedented economic crisis. Backed by the two main blocs in parliament, the government is awaiting a vote of confidence, which it is likely to get. But protesters say the government is an extension of traditional political parties they have denounced as corrupt. “We are here today and every day ... to say no confidence,” a protester who read a joint statement for the rallies said. It said the protesters won’t give another chance “to those who robbed them of their dreams, impoverished them, forced them to migrate, and humiliated them.” They vowed to keep up the pressure against a ruling class ”that controls decision-making and resources.”
Lebanon’s nationwide protests broke out Oct. 17 after a summer of discontent over a slumping economy and an austerity budget. The protests, sparked by proposals for new taxes, snowballed into demands for the ruling elite to step aside.
Lebanon’s ruling class has been in power since the end of the 1975-90 civil war, including some of its warlords. Protesters accuse them of mismanaging Lebanon’s wealth and of widespread corruption.
The new 20-member government of Prime Minister Hassan Diab was announced in late January but protests continued.
In recent weeks, demonstrations have turned violent as frustration rose. Security forces and protesters clashed outside the country’s parliament and the central bank in pitched street battles that left hundreds injured. Rights groups denounced the security forces’ use of rubber bullets to disperse the crowds. Over the last week, security forces erected blast walls around parliament and other government buildings, sealing them off from protesters and turning central Beirut into a fortified security zone.
On Saturday, protesters marched through the streets of Beirut and Tripoli, in the north, carrying banners against corruption and declaring “no confidence” in the new government. They stopped at the central bank, the Finance Ministry and the Banks Association before reaching central Beirut. The protesters gathered by the blast walls outside the parliament and the government building before dispersing peacefully. Lebanon has one of the world’s highest public debts, standing at more than 150% of gross domestic product. Growth has plummeted and the budget deficit reached 11% of GDP in 2018 as economic activities slowed and remittances from Lebanese living abroad shrank. The national currency, which has been pegged to the dollar since 1997, lost about 60% of its value in recent weeks, sparking a run on banks which responded with limits on cash withdrawals and transfers.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 01-02/2020
Arab League rejects Trump’s Middle East plan: Statement
Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 1 February 2020
The Arab League on Saturday rejected US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, calling it “unfair” to Palestinians. The pan-Arab bloc said in a statement that it “rejects the US-Israeli ‘deal of the century’ considering that it does not meet the minimum rights and aspirations of Palestinian people.”
Arab leaders also vowed “not to ... cooperate with the US administration to implement this plan.”Abbas threatens to cut security ties with Israel, US. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas threatened to cut security ties with both Israel and the US on Saturday, in a lengthy speech delivered at an Arab League meeting in Egypt’s capital that denounced a White House plan for ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The US plan would grant the Palestinians limited self-rule in parts of the occupied West Bank, while allowing Israel to annex all its settlements there and keep nearly all of east Jerusalem. The summit of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo was requested by the Palestinians, who responded angrily to the American proposal. Abbas said that he told Israel and the US that “there will be no relations with them, including the security ties” following the deal that Palestinians say heavily favors Israel. There was no immediate comment from US or Israeli officials. The Palestinian leader said that he’d refused to take US President Donald Trump’s phone calls and messages “because I know that he would use that to say he consulted us.”“I will never accept this solution,” Abbas said. “I will not have it recorded in my history that I have sold Jerusalem.”He said the Palestinians remain committed to ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a state with its capital in east Jerusalem. Abbas said that the Palestinians wouldn’t accept the US as a sole mediator in any negotiations with Israel. He said they would go to the United Nations Security Council and other world and regional organizations to “explain our position.” “We still believe in peace using the basis [of plans laid out in] the Arab Peace Initiative and the UN Security Council resolutions,” Abbas said, adding that the authority would go to the UN Security Council to find a solution to the issue. During the meeting, Abbas stated that Jerusalem did not just belong to Palestinians, but to all Arabs as well. He added that Saudi Arabia’s King Salman bin Abdulaziz told him that the Kingdom would always stand with the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia reaffirms its support for the Palestinian people and their just cause, the Kingdom’s foreign minister Faisal bin Farhan said during the emergency Arab League meeting. The Arab League’s head, Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, said the proposal revealed a “sharp turn” in the long-standing US foreign policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “This turn does not help achieve peace and a just solution,” he declared. Aboul-Gheit said that the Palestinians reject the proposal. He called for the two sides, the Israelis and the Palestinians, to negotiate to reach a “satisfactory solution for both of them.”Aboul-Gheit urged the union’s members to formulate a unified stance on US President Donald Trump’s Mideast peace plan. (With Agencies)

Arab League rejects Trump Mid-East peace plan. Not all members agree
DebkaFile/February 01/2020
Arab League foreign ministers rejected President Donald Trump’s Israel-Palestinian peace plan at an emergency meeting in Cairo, on Feb.1, called by the Palestinian leader. They said “it does not satisfy the minimum rights and aspirations of the Palestinian people” and warned Israel against “implementing it by force.” The US and Israel will be responsible for the consequences of Israel annexing any part of the West Bank. The closing statement said that the Arab countries “will not engage with the US on the plan” and will not cooperate with the Trump administration in its implementation.”
Sources in Cairo add, however that the Arab foreign ministers were not of one mind on this statement. Some of them pointed out that the Trump plan contained some positive elements and it should not be summarily rejected but rather the subject of negotiations..
President Trump and the plan’s co-authors, senior adviser to the president Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, did not expect all Arab governments to buy the new Israel-Palestinian peace plan as a seamless, non-negotiable product, but rather as a framework with movable parts.
What the White House tried to achieve with the plan’s formal unveiling on Tuesday, Jan. 28, was: –
1-To loosen up with practical ideas the most intractable issues between Israelis and Palestinians held in deep freeze for too many years.
2-To lay down the Trump administration’s positions on the fundamental issues of the dispute and chart a framework for resolving them. The White House would feel vindicated, if only by a small step forward, if the Arabs and/or the Palestinians came forward with demands for changes in the plan.
They were encouraged in this hope when Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE advised the Palestinians before the Cairo session not to reject the Trump plan forthwith but to first study it in detail. On Friday, Jan. 31, the UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed Al- Nahyan made this advice public when he quoted a NYT article with this heading: “Refusal today will almost inevitably lead to getting less tomorrow.”
The UAE, Oman and Bahrain sent their ambassadors to the plan’s formal presentation at the White House. And the foreign ministers’ communique fell short of going all the way to meet the all-or-nothing demand from Ramallah: “Tell the Americans, ‘What the Palestinians accept, we accept. And what the Palestinians reject, we reject.’” This demand was laid down by Hussein a-Sheikh, the Palestinian minister in charge of interrelations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Therefore, from Washington’s point of view, the Trump plan could have fared worse than it did in Cairo on Saturday.
To that end, Trump’s “peace envoys” went out of their way to pour cold water on Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s eagerness to immediately announce the extension of Israeli sovereignty to all Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria, as provided for in the new peace plan. Those envoys, led by Kushner, explained that a unilateral Israeli move for large-scale annexations would shut the door against negotiations, which were likewise an integral element of the Trump plan. Therefore, it is to be expected that the Israel chapter in this plan will be open for dialogue like all its other sections.
Meanwhile, following intense discussions between Washington and Jerusalem over the timing of the annexation process. The Americans urged its delay until after Israel’s general election on March 2. The upshot of these talks is that the Netanyahu will have to be satisfied for the moment with a token step, such as extending sovereignty to one place. The small town of Maale Adummim, east of Jerusalem, tops the list.

Abbas Says Palestinians 'Cut All Ties' with Israel, US
Agence France Presse/Naharnet /February 01/2020
Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas on Saturday announced a cut in all ties with Israel and the United States, including security cooperation. Abbas said the peace plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday was in "violation of the (autonomy) accords" launched in Oslo in 1993 by Israel and the Palestinians. Israel will have to "bear responsibility as an occupying power" for the Palestinian territories, he told an emergency Arab League meeting in Cairo.

US envoy warns Palestinians against raising opposition to US peace plan at UN
Reuters, United Nations/Saturday, 1 February 2020
US Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft warned the Palestinians on Friday that bringing their displeasure with the US peace plan to the world body would only “repeat the failed pattern of the last seven decades.”Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will speak in the UN Security Council in the next two weeks about the plan, Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour said on Wednesday, adding that he hoped the 15-member council would also vote on a draft resolution on the issue. However, the United States is certain to veto any such resolution, diplomats said. That would allow the Palestinians to take the draft text to the 193-member UV General Assembly, where a vote would publicly show how the Trump administration’s peace plan has been received internationally. Craft said that while the Palestinians’ initial reaction to the plan was anticipated, “why not instead take that displeasure and channel it into negotiations?”“Bringing that displeasure to the United Nations does nothing but repeat the failed pattern of the last seven decades. Let’s avoid those traps and instead take a chance on peace,” she told Reuters. Craft said the United States was ready to facilitate talks and that she was “happy to play any role” that contributes to the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan unveiled by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday. Mansour said on Thursday: “There is not a single Palestinian official (who) will meet with American officials now after they submitted an earthquake, the essence of it the destruction of the national aspirations of the Palestinian people. This is unacceptable.”Israel’s UN mission signaled on Tuesday that it was preparing for the Palestinians to pursue UN action, saying in a statement that it was “working to thwart these efforts, and will lead a concerted diplomatic campaign with the US.”

Egypt sentences officer-turned-militant and 36 others to death
Reuters, Cairo/Saturday, 1 February 2020
An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced Hisham al-Ashmawy, a former special forces officer turned extremist militant, and 36 others to death after they were convicted of terrorism, court officials said. Ashmawy was captured in the eastern Libyan city of Derna in late 2018 and transferred by authorities loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar to Egypt in May last year. He was convicted on several charges including plotting a 2014 attack that killed 22 military guards near the frontier with Libya, and involvement in an attempt to kill a former interior minister in 2013, a military statement said. Ashmawy led the Sinai-based Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, Egypt’s most active militant group, before it pledged allegiance to Islamic State in 2014, it said. The other 36 defendants tried with him were also convicted of terrorism charges, the court ruled. Their cases were referred to the Grand Mufti, Egypt’s highest Islamic legal official. Egyptian law requires any capital sentence to be referred to him for an opinion before executions can take place. The court set a new session for March 2 to confirm the convictions after receiving the Mufti’s non-binding opinion. In November, a military court had already sentenced Ashmawy to death in another terrorism case. Egyptian civilian and military courts had also sentenced Ashmawy to death in absentia before his extradition.

Passenger plane skids off snowy runaway in Iran
The Associated Press, Tehran/Saturday, 1 February 2020
An Iranian jetliner skidded off a snowy runaway in the western city of Kermanshah due to low visibility on Saturday, Iran’s state TV said. The report said that there were no injuries and that the plane overshot the landing strip by only a few meters. The Iran Air flight coming from the capital, Tehran, had not experienced any technical problems, it added. The state-run IRNA said one of the plane’s wheels slipped six meters due to heavy snowfall when it was in taxiway after landing. This is the second time in a week that a plane skidded off the runaway in Iran. On Monday, an Iranian passenger airliner carrying some 150 passengers skidded off the runway and into a highway next to the airport in the southern city of Mahshahr, after losing its landing gear in a hard landing. Iran is still coping with the aftermath of the January accidental downing of a Ukrainian airliner over Tehran. The plane was shot down by the Revolutionary Guard earlier this month amid heightened tensions with the United States, killing all 176 people aboard.Iran has a history of frequent air accidents blamed on its aging aircraft and poor maintenance.

Israel army launches overnight airstrike in the Gaza Strip
Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 1 February 2020
Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes on several areas in the Gaza Strip on Friday evening after rockets were fired from the Strip towards settlement territories, according to Al Arabiya sources. Two rockets from the Gaza Strip heading towards the settlements were intercepted mid-air, the Israeli army said. The airstrikes came after the Israeli military had said on early on Friday that it launched “wide-scale” attacks on militant targets in the Gaza Strip shortly after Palestinian militants fired three rockets into Israel, two of which were intercepted. The attacks came amid heightened tensions after US President Donald Trump released his Mideast peace plan, a US-led initiative aimed at ending the conflict that heavily favors Israel and was rejected by the Palestinians.

Kurdistan’s Erbil airport sends back three Chinese to Dubai over coronavirus
Reuters, Erbil/Saturday, 1 February 2020
Erbil International Airport in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq denied entry to three Chinese citizens over fears about the coronavirus outbreak in China, authorities said on Saturday. The three passengers were sent back to Dubai, from where they had flown to Erbil, a statement from Kurdistan’s airport authority said. Several countries tightened travel curbs on Friday, a day after the World Health Organization declared a global health emergency. Iraq’s Basra International Airport said on Friday it was denying entry to passengers of any nationality travelling to Iraq from China.
The Australian government on Saturday said it would bar non-citizens arriving from China from entering the country under new measures to combat the spread of the coronavirus epidemic.

Britain Leaves the European Union, Leaps into the Unknown
Associated Press/Naharnet /February 01/2020
So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, adieu.
With little fanfare, Britain left the European Union on Friday after 47 years of membership, taking a leap into the unknown in a historic blow to the bloc.
The U.K.'s departure became official at 11 p.m. (2300GMT), midnight in Brussels, where the EU is headquartered. Thousands of enthusiastic Brexit supporters gathered outside Britain's Parliament to welcome the moment they'd longed for since Britain's 52%-48% vote in June 2016 to walk away from the club it had joined in 1973. The flag-waving crowd erupted in cheers as Big Ben bonged 11 times — on a recording. Parliament's real bell has been silenced for repairs. In a message from nearby 10 Downing St., Prime Minister Boris Johnson called Britain's departure "a moment of real national renewal and change." But many Britons mourned the loss of their EU identity, and some marked the passing with tearful vigils. There was also sadness in Brussels as British flags were quietly removed from the bloc's many buildings.
Whether Brexit makes Britain a proud nation that has reclaimed its sovereignty, or a diminished presence in Europe and the world, will be debated for years to come.
While Britain's exit is a historic moment, it only marks the end of the first stage of the Brexit saga. When Britons wake up on Saturday, they will notice very little change. The U.K. and the EU have given themselves an 11-month "transition period" — in which the U.K. will continue to follow the bloc's rules — to strike new agreements on trade, security and a host of other areas.
The now 27-member EU will have to bounce back from one of its biggest setbacks in its 62-year history to confront an ever more complicated world as its former member becomes a competitor, just across the English Channel.
French President Emmanuel Macron called Brexit a "historic alarm signal" that should force the EU to improve itself.
"It's a sad day, let's not hide it," he said in a televised address. "But it is a day that must also lead us to do things differently."
He insisted that European citizens need a united Europe "more than ever," to defend their interests in the face of China and the United States, to cope with climate change and migration and technological upheaval.
In the many EU buildings of Brussels on Friday, British flags were quietly lowered, folded and taken away. This is the first time a country has left the EU, and many in the bloc rued the day. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen lamented that "as the sun rises tomorrow, a new chapter for our union of 27 will start."
But she warned Brexit day would mark a major loss for the U.K. and said the island nation was heading for a lonelier existence.
"Strength does not lie in splendid isolation, but in our unique union," she said.
Johnson insisted post-Brexit Britain would be "simultaneously a great European power and truly global in our range and ambitions."
"We want this to be the beginning of a new era of friendly cooperation between the EU and an energetic Britain," Johnson said in a pre-recorded address to the country broadcast an hour before Britain's exit.
In a break with usual practice, independent media outlets were not allowed to film Johnson's speech, which the government recorded Thursday at 10 Downing St. Johnson won an election victory in December with a dual promise to "get Brexit done" and deliver improved jobs, infrastructure and services for Britain's most deprived areas, where support for leaving the EU is strongest. On Friday, he symbolically held a Cabinet meeting in the pro-Brexit town of Sunderland in northeast England, rather than in London.
Johnson is a Brexit enthusiast, but he knows many Britons aren't, and his Conservative government sought to mark the moment with quiet dignity. Red, white and blue lights illuminated government buildings and a countdown clock projected onto the prime minister's Downing Street residence.
There was no such restraint in nearby Parliament Square, where arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage gathered a crowd of several thousand, who belted out the patriotic song "Land of Hope and Glory" as they waited for the moment that even Farage sometimes doubted would ever come.
"This is the single most important moment in the modern history of our great nation," Farage told the crowd. "The war is over," said Farage, who often describes Britain's relationship with Europe in martial terms. "We have won."
Londoner Donna Jones said she had come to "be part of history."
"It doesn't mean we're anti-Europe, it just means we want to be self-sufficient in a certain way," she said. But Britons who cherished their membership in the bloc — and the freedom it bought to live anywhere across of 28 countries — were mourning.
"Many of us want to just mark our sadness in public," said Ann Jones, who joined dozens of other remainers on a march to the EU's mission in London.
"And we don't want trouble, we just want to say, well you know, we didn't want this." Britain's journey to Brexit has been long, rocky — and far from over. The U.K. was never a wholehearted EU member, but actually leaving the bloc was long considered a fringe idea. It gradually gained strength within the Conservative Party, which has a wing of fierce "euroskeptics" — opponents of EU membership. Former Prime Minister David Cameron eventually agreed to hold a referendum, saying he wanted to settle the issue once and for all.
It hasn't worked out that way. Since the 2016 vote, the U.K. has held fractious negotiations with the EU that finally, late last year, secured a deal on divorce terms. But Britain is leaving the bloc arguably as divided as it was on referendum day.
By and large, Britain's big cities voted to stay in the EU, while small towns voted to leave. England and Wales backed Brexit, while Northern Ireland and Scotland voted to remain.
Candlelit vigils were held in several Scottish cities, government buildings in Edinburgh were lit up in the EU's blue and yellow colors, and the bloc's flag continued to fly outside the Scottish Parliament.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said Brexit was "a moment of profound sadness." "And here in Scotland, given that it is happening against the will of the vast majority of us, that sadness will be tinged with anger," she said in a speech in Edinburgh. Sturgeon's Scottish National Party government is demanding the right to hold a referendum on independence from the U.K., something Johnson refuses to grant. London, which is home to more than 1 million EU citizens, also voted by a wide margin to stay in the bloc.
Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was "heartbroken" about Brexit. But he insisted London would remain that welcomed all, regardless of "the color of your skin, the color of your flag, the color of your passport."
Negotiations between Britain and the EU on their new relationship are due to start in earnest in March, and the early signs are not encouraging. The EU says Britain can't have full access to the EU's single market unless it follows the bloc's rules, but Britain insists it will not agree to follow an EU rule book in return for unfettered trade. With Johnson adamant he won't extend the transition period beyond Dec. 31, months of uncertainty and acrimony lie ahead. In the English port of Dover, just 20 miles (32 kilometers) across the Channel from France, retiree Philip Barry said he was confident it would all be worth it. "My expectation is that there may be a little bump or two in the road but in the end it will even out," he said. "Somebody once said: short-term pain but long-term gain."

Stalemate over Iraq PM Pick as Deadline Looms
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/February 01/2020
A deadline set by Iraq's president for parliament to name a new premier was set to expire Saturday amid renewed pressure from the street after influential cleric Moqtada Sadr called for fresh protests. Baghdad and the mainly Shiite south have been gripped by four months of anti-government rallies demanding snap elections, a politically independent prime minister and accountability for corruption and protest-related violence. Faced with pressure from the street and from the Shiite religious leadership, Prime Minister Adel Abdel Mahdi resigned in December after just over a year in office. But rival parties have failed to agree on a successor, stoking fears of a spiral into chaos as the country tries to navigate the protests and rising tensions between its two main allies, Iran and the United States.
In a bid to restore some stability, President Barham Saleh sent a letter to the deeply divided parliament this week saying he would nominate a premier unilaterally if lawmakers did not do so by Saturday. The ultimatum sent parties into crisis talks but on Saturday, there was still no clear consensus. "There's no agreement, no way to end the rivalries so far," a top government official told AFP on condition of anonymity.  "And if Saleh names someone on his own, there will be a crisis because that shouldn't be his role." In a normal situation, parliament's largest bloc must nominate a prime minister within 15 days of an election, and the candidate is then tasked by the president with forming a government within one month. But Iraq is in an unprecedented situation: no premier has ever resigned and the constitution makes no provision for how to handle such a move.
Sadrists return to streets
Since a US-led invasion toppled longtime dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, major decisions have been made by consensus among the country's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties. Any contender for prime minister needs a green light from a dizzying array of interests -- the divided political class, the Shiite religious leadership, neighbouring Iran, its rival the United States and now the protesters. One of the most influential voices in Iraqi politics in recent years has been Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr, who led the anti-US Mehdi Army militia after the invasion and has since refashioned himself as a populist politician.
He controls parliament's largest bloc and many ministerial posts. But he backed the protests when they erupted in October and his supporters were widely recognised as the best organised demonstrators. A week ago, he appeared to rethink his support for the protest movement and his hard-core backers dismantled their tents in protest camps across the country. Within hours of Sadr's withdrawal, riot police moved into burn or tear down protest camps and around a dozen demonstrators were killed, medics and police said. But on Friday he seemed to flip again, calling for his backers "to renew the peaceful, reformist revolution".
They were back in the streets on Saturday, setting up tents and mingling with politically unaligned protesters who had held their ground when the Sadrists pulled out. The violence dropped markedly, too. "Since the Sadrists came back, we've implemented a sort of ceasefire and haven't fired tear gas at protesters," a member of the security forces told AFP near Tahrir Square, the main protest camp in the capital.
Pushing for progress
More than 480 people have died in protest-related violence since October, the great majority of them demonstrators killed by live rounds or military-grade tear gas canisters. Protesters in Tahrir Square have already publicly rejected a number of names floated for prime minister, including former communications minister Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi and current intelligence chief Mustafa Kazemi. Their portraits, marked with large "X"s over their faces, were hanging in the square along with a big blue poster calling for the United Nations to intervene in the crisis. The top UN official in Iraq Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert has pushed throughout the week for progress, tweeting on Friday that solutions were "urgently needed" to "break the political deadlock". And the country's top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani piled on the pressure on Friday, saying Iraq must "accelerate the formation of a new government". "It is imperative to speed up holding early elections so that the people will have their say," he said.

Iraq’s President assigns Mohammed Allawi with forming new government
Souad El Skaf, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 1 February 2020
Iraq’s President Barham Saleh on Saturday assigned Mohammed Tawfiq Allawi with forming a new government, according to the state-run Television. Allawi who is a former communications minister was named prime minister designate by rival Iraqi factions on Saturday after weeks of political deadlock, AFP cited three Iraqi officials as saying. Allawi, 66, would run the country until early elections can be held. He must form a new government within a month. He was born in Baghdad and served as communications minister first in 2006 and again between 2010-2012. He resigned from his post after a dispute with former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. In a pre-recorded statement posted online, Allawi called on protesters to continue with their uprising against corruption and said he would quit if the blocs insist on imposing names of ministers. “If it wasn’t for your sacrifices and courage there wouldn’t have been any change in the country,” he said addressing anti-government protesters. “I have faith in you and ask you to continue with the protests.” A screengrab of the pre-recorded statement by Allawi which was posted online on February 1, 2020. (Screengrab) Last Wednesday, Saleh threatened to unilaterally name a successor to the country’s premier, who resigned in December, if parliament did not nominate a candidate within three days. “If the concerned blocs are unable to resolve the nomination issue by no later than Saturday, February 1... I see an obligation to exercise my constitutional powers by tasking whomever I find most acceptable to parliament and the people,” Barham Saleh wrote in a letter seen by AFP.
Prime Minister Adil Abdel Mahdi resigned in December after two months of deadly protests against his government, but he has stayed on in a caretaker role, as deeply divided political parties have failed to agree on a replacement. According to the constitution, a replacement for Abdul-Mahdi should have been identified 15 days after his resignation in early December. Instead, it has taken rival blocs nearly two months of jockeying to select Allawi as their consensus candidate. Abdul-Mahdi’s rise to power was the product of a provisional alliance between parliament’s two main blocs - Sairoon, led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, and Fatah, which includes leaders associated with the Iranian-backed Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) militias headed by Hadi al-Amiri. In the May 2018 election, neither coalition won a commanding plurality, which would have enabled it to name the premier, as stipulated by the Iraqi constitution. To avoid political crisis, Sairoon and Fatah forged a precarious union with Abdul-Mahdi as their prime minister. Until Allawi’s selection, al-Sadr had rejected the candidates put forward largely by Fatah, officials and analysts said. Sairoon appears to have agreed to his candidacy following a tumultuous two week after the radical cleric held an anti-US rally attended by tens of thousands and withdrew support for Iraq’s mass anti-government protest movement, only to reverse the decision later.
“Sairoon has approved and Fatah has approved,” a senior Iraqi official said. If elected by parliament, Allawi will have to contend with navigating Iraq through brewing regional tensions between Tehran and Washington. Tensions skyrocketed after a US drone strike near Baghdad’s airport killed top Iranian general Qassim Soleimani and senior Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandes. The tumultuous event brought Iraq close to the brink of war and officials scrambling to contain the fallout. The presence of US troops on Iraqi soil has become the focus of Iraqi politics in the wake of the strike. Parliament passed a non-binding resolution for their ouster and Abdul-Mahdi had openly supported withdrawal. Abdul-Mahdi’s resignation was precipitated by ongoing mass protests in Baghdad and southern Iraq. Protesters are calling for new executive leadership, snap elections and electoral reforms. They have said they would not accept a candidate chosen by the political establishment. (With Agencies)

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 01-02/2020
Palestinians should abandon posturing and stand strong in the face of new US-Israel plan
Raghida Dergham/The National/February 01/2020
With little international appetite to oppose the Trump peace plan, the Palestinian Authority needs to be smarter and more realistic
Who will stand up to US President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan, dubbed the “deal of the century”, which he unveiled alongside Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House last week? That is the question the Palestinian people might be asking themselves following what was a sad day for their aspirations of nationhood.
European countries, collectively or individually, will not oppose the proposed deal. The most they can do is improve the economic and financial offer extended to the Palestinians while taking measures to prevent the inflow of refugees. Russia will not oppose the US as the erstwhile Soviet Union had done when the Arab-Israeli conflict was a key component of the Cold War. Today, Moscow could perhaps recall international resolutions and revive the "quartet”, comprising the United Nations, the US, the European Union and itself. It could also convene an international conference and encourage negotiations, but little beyond this. For its part, China will adhere to its traditional position on the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as international principles enshrining the Palestinian right to statehood, but Beijing will not bring this issue into the calculations of its relationship with the US.
The Arab countries meanwhile are divided in an unprecedented manner. Some have highlighted shortfalls in the proposal, while others have called for negotiations to improve the terms and others still have encouraged the Palestinians to focus on the positives.
Iran and Turkey will engage in one-upmanship, using the issue to fulfill their domestic and regional agendas. Beyond the use of shiny slogans devoid of meaning, neither country is interested in having a direct confrontation with Israel or risking further US sanctions – particularly if they engage Israel through their proxies.
Now, there is no doubt that the proposed deal – meant to serve the electoral purposes of both Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu – prejudices Palestinian rights, and defies international law and UN resolutions. Mr Trump has also in effect retracted from commitments made by several US administrations over decades to the two-state solution. However, the one positive from the proposed deal is that Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law and the plan's architect, has persuaded Mr Netanyahu to at least postpone annexing the West Bank settlements as well as the Jordan Valley. The latter is a strategic area occupying 30 per cent of the West Bank and gives Israel the ability to lock in the Palestinian state, thereby denying it sovereignty.
However, given that there would be no way for a Palestinian state to emerge without US approval, its leaders need to take a hard look at their policy of refusing to talk to US or Israeli authorities, and begin thinking of the tactical steps they could be taking in order to prevent further loss of territory to the Israelis. President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority must stop engaging in verbal posturing and be smarter as the PA hopes to resist the implementation of the plan on the ground.
The leadership’s current bid to oppose the deal will not have much impact on the ground, except garnering applause at the UN General Assembly or the Security Council, which Mr Abbas intends to address. However, he is unlikely to receive as much moral support as before, and the Palestinian draft resolution might not even obtain the nine votes needed for adoption by the council.
Palestinians must no doubt engage with the rest of the world but their movements in international forums must complement a plan to rejoin negotiations in coordination with key Arab countries that would be compelled to put their weight behind a common strategy. Refusing to talk to the US only gives Israel licence to annex whatever it wants with American blessings. The posturing, which includes calling for resistance and boycotts, almost always takes place at the expense of Palestinians. They might even pay the price for incitement because they are on the verge of becoming a hopeless and possibly permanent burden.
US President Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discuss their peace plan in the White House last week. Reuters
The Palestinians should also realise that Iran, a proponent of the policy of maintaining stubborn refusal, will be unable to deliver on any promises of resistance and retaliation against the “deal of shame” – as Tehran has called it.
Indeed, the Trump administration will be extra-vigilant against Iran and its proxies, and is intent on holding it responsible for any escalation of regional tension. When he spoke about the assassination of Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani during the unveiling of the deal, Mr Trump was clearly threatening Tehran and daring it to use the peace plan as a means of presenting itself as the leader of the resistance against the deal. Some say that Tehran is developing a strategy of escalation against the deal because this would allow it to deflect attention from its internal economic problems and unrest, in addition to other benefits of engaging in one-upmanship with Arab states. Others say Iran will refrain from escalation, having fewer resources and less support to execute its schemes, especially under penalty of US sanctions.
A Palestinian source involved in the failed peace process said: “We must compartmentalise the battle and create options.” The priority, he added, must be to “move to prevent Israel from implementing the plan unilaterally” by agreeing to negotiate “on the condition that Israel refrains from implementing any terms” beforehand. This way, it might be possible to stop Israel’s rush to annex territory and thwart Mr Netanyahu’s bet on Palestinian rejection. In other words, the Palestinian leadership must have a shorter-term practical plan to prevent or postpone annexation while shoring up intra-Palestinian unity.
And as one Russian official who asked not to be named said, the Palestinians must “not to overdo contrariness” and should “adopt a flexible tactic rather than absolute rejection of what has been proposed”.
*Raghida Dergham is the founder and executive chairwoman of the Beirut Institute

Sweden: Hijab is 'Look of the Year'
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/February 01/2020
Hejazipour said that she had decided "not to have a share in this horrendous lie and not to play the game of 'We love the hijab and have no problem with it anymore'... It creates many limitations for women and deprives them of their basic rights. Is this protection? I say definitely not, it is solely and merely a limitation."
"The Iranian authorities are employing the full machinery of the state to crush opposition to forced hijab, but with more than half the population against it, the tide is increasingly against them." — Hadi Ghaemi, Executive Director, Center for Human Rights in Iran, August 19, 2019
Swedish Elle readers are obviously free to choose whomever they see fit to be "look of the year". It is, however, perplexing that female readers in a self-proclaimed feminist nation who wears the hijab, when a study commissioned by Swedish authorities has shown that wearing a hijab for many women and children in Sweden is far from being a voluntary choice.
"Those of us who have fled gender apartheid dictatorships, where women risk their lives to protest the veil, know and have experienced what chastity laws mean... our feminist government chooses to prioritize collective religious rights over the human rights of children and women... As long as trendsetting journalists see gender apartheid as 'culture' .... oppression based on honor will continue". — Maria Rashidi and Sara Mohammad, human rights activists, Dagens Samhälle, December 14, 2019.
On February 1, World Hijab Day will be marked in countries all over the world, including in Sweden. Will anyone use that occasion to stand up for the many women and children who do not want to wear one?
On January 20, Iran's only female Olympic medalist, Kimia Alizadeh, defected from Iran. "I am one of the millions of oppressed women in Iran whom they've been playing for years," she wrote.
Then, last month, the Islamic Republic's female chess master, Mitra Hejazipour, 27, removed her hijab during a chess tournament in Moscow and was promptly removed from the national chess team.
Hejazipour said that she had decided "not to have a share in this horrendous lie and not to play the game of 'We love the hijab and have no problem with it' anymore..."
"It creates many limitations for women and deprives them of their basic rights. Is this protection? I say definitely not, it is solely and merely a limitation."
For years, women in Iran have been arrested and imprisoned for refusing to wear the mandatory headscarf and even for protesting its use. Between January 2018 and August 2019, at least 12 people were given prison sentences ranging from six months to 33 years for publicly removing their headscarves and other public acts of civil disobedience against compulsory hijab and 32 people were arrested for such acts, according to Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI).
According to the website:
"Millions of women who do not conform to the state's dictates regarding mandatory dress codes are stopped by the police each year for 'improper hijab,' and tens of thousands are referred to the judiciary in court cases each year... hijab protestors are... typically prosecuted under charges related to 'morality,' such as 'encouraging people to corruption and prostitution...'".
"The Iranian authorities are employing the full machinery of the state to crush opposition to forced hijab, but with more than half the population against it, the tide is increasingly against them," said CHRI's Executive Director Hadi Ghaemi.
As women in Iran protested the regime and the mandatory hijab, women in Sweden -- who are represented by "the first feminist government in the world" -- were championing the hijab on several recent occasions, illustrating the curious cultural transformations there.
In January, readers of the Swedish edition of Elle magazine picked Imane Asry, a hijab-wearing social media influencer with 150,000 Instagram followers, as winner of its "Look of the Year" competition.
"This prize is for all of us who did not see ourselves in the fashion magazines because we did not fit in... This is an acknowledgement that it is more than time that we begin to normalize the hijab in the fashion industry. Fashion is for everybody," Asry told Elle.
Swedish Elle readers are obviously free to choose whomever they see fit to be "look of the year". It is, however, perplexing that female readers in a self-proclaimed feminist nation choose a woman who wears the hijab, when a study commissioned by Swedish authorities has shown that wearing a hijab for many women and children in Sweden is far from being a voluntary choice.
As previously reported by Gatestone Institute, a 2018 study commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and written by researchers at the Centre for Societal Security (CTSS) at the Swedish Defence University, showed that radical Islam had spread to several Swedish cities and that this meant that in some areas, "There are parents...who put veils on their three-year-olds". The authors of the study also mentioned that schools and other local authorities did not know how to deal with the challenges created by the radical Islamists.
One example was when a Muslim schoolgirl wanted to take off her headscarf to play hairdresser with the other children, the Swedish school staff did not allow it out of respect for her parents' wishes. In an example from a Swedish preschool, a little girl did not want to wear her headscarf but the Swedish personnel forced it on her, "even though it felt wrong", because it was the parents' wish.
These are not the only examples of Swedish teachers appearing unbothered by considerations about little girls' rights not to have the hijab forced upon them. In the city of Skurup, municipal authorities recently prohibited wearing of headscarves in the city's schools. At one school, Prästmosseskolan, six female non-Muslim teachers wore hijabs to protest the decision. The headmaster said that he would never make a student remove their veil; that he considered the decision discriminatory and in contravention of the Swedish constitution, which guarantees freedom of religion. Around 250 Muslims demonstrated against the decision to ban the veil. "The ban is about taking Muslim women's rights to their bodies away and removing their democratic rights and choices. It is a racist policy", said Tasnim Raoof, chairman of the organization Malmö's Young Muslims.
"Those of us who have fled gender apartheid dictatorships, where women risk their lives to protest the veil, know and have experienced what chastity laws mean... The veil, also in the West, marks the difference between the pure (chaste) and the unclean... woman," wrote Maria Rashidi, a Swedish-Iranian human rights activist whose husband burned her face with acid when she requested a divorce, and Sara Mohammad, a Swedish-Iraqi human rights activist, who fled Iraq after her brother threatened to kill her if she did not marry the man that her family had chosen for her. The added:
"The veil signals chastity ethics that can be linked to daughters' responsibilities for the family's honor... But our feminist government chooses to prioritize collective religious rights over the human rights of children and women... As long as influential journalists see gender apartheid as 'culture' and those in power support the organizations that sanction it, oppression based on honor will continue".
Meanwhile, this fall, a new Islamic party, Nyans ("Nuance") was formed in Sweden. The party wants "Islamophobia" to be classified as a separate crime and is opposed to debates about banning the hijab.
"It isn't the veil that should be fought, but oppression. At the same time, parents have the right to raise their children according to their culture and religion," said spokesperson of the new party, Mikail Yüksel. He has reported Skurup municipality to the Justice Department and the Ombudsman for banning the veil in the municipalities' schools, by claiming that it goes against Swedish law. Yüksel was formerly a member of Swedish party Centerpartiet, but was excluded from it after he was accused of having concealed his affiliation with the far-right, ultranationalist Turkish movement the "Grey Wolves". Yüksel reportedly said that he had been open about being offered to start a Swedish chapter of the Grey Wolves in Sweden, but that he had declined.
On February 1, World Hijab Day will be marked in countries all over the world, including in Sweden. Will anyone use that occasion to stand up for the many women and children who do not want to wear one?
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Trump Middle East Plan: Last Chance for the Palestinians?
Alain Destexhe/Gatestone Institute/February 01/2020
Israel and the future Palestinian state could sign bilateral agreements and cooperate for their mutual benefit in many areas where Israeli expertise is recognized: agriculture, water, scientific research, technology, medicine. Why should the Palestinians be the only people not benefiting from it? The Trump deal could provide a dazzling future for those Palestinians who prioritize their economic situation over ideology.
It is also highly unlikely that any potential Democrat administration would come up with a more Palestinian-friendly plan that could also be accepted by Israel. And... there is little chance that the Palestinian cause will return to the center of the international agenda and find new allies, except on European and American university campuses.
Instead of openly supporting the Trump Plan, the European Union has already reacted in its usual way: by saying nothing substantial -- which is tantamount to preferring the current impasse and encouraging the Palestinians in their rejection of the Trump Plan and Israel. Cynicism will continue to prevail in European diplomatic circles.
Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority may remain self-righteous and draped in their claims, but it would unmask their real role as corrupt and autocratic leaders, intent on keeping their people as destitute and unempowered as possible.
President Donald Trump just unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan, "Peace to Prosperity", a strategy offering the Palestinians a state, $50 billion in international investment, and a US embassy in the newly-created state. This is a major step forward that the Palestinian Authority would be smart to accept as a starting point for discussions with Israel.
President Trump made an appeal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas:
"President Abbas, I want you to know that if you choose the path to peace, America and many other countries will be there. We will be there to help you in so many different ways... Your response to this historic opportunity will show the world to what extent you are ready to lead the Palestinian people to statehood... Today's agreement is a historic opportunity for the Palestinians to finally achieve an independent state of their very own. After 70 years of little progress, this could be the last opportunity they will ever have."
But it is Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump's son-in-law, who oversaw the plan, which probably best describes the Palestinian mood: "It's a big opportunity for the Palestinians... they have a perfect track record of blowing every opportunity they've had in their past." He urged Palestinian leaders to "stop posturing" and accept the plan.
Yet, most probably, the Palestinian leadership will prefer "posturing" and reject concrete steps forward in order to keep pursuing unrealistic demands such as the "right of return," which is at the heart of the failures of past plans. Everyone knows that the right of return for the descendants of Palestinians who left their homes in 1948 would mean the end of a Jewish state, which, of course, no Jewish party could ever accept.
Maintaining the fiction that the descendants of the 1948 exiles are refugees is at the heart of the Palestinian identity and struggle. No Palestinian leader wants to give it up even though they know that this argument is far from the reality on the ground.
Recognizing as "refugees" fourth-generation Palestinians living in crushing poverty in "refugee camps" that have since long become cities, while neither their parents nor often their grandparents have known the beaches of Jaffa or Haifa is pure nonsense. By supporting a specialized agency of the United Nations, UNRWA, which indirectly finances and legitimizes Hamas in Gaza, European countries and others have fostered the illusion of this right of return.
Let us reflect for a moment on the aberration of this situation. After all, no one is destined to remain a refugee indefinitely. Are the Jews who were expelled from a series of Arab countries after 1948 still refugees? What about the Germans from the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, the Boat People of Vietnam, or the Bosnians during the Yugoslav Wars? Will Syrians and Afghans recently arrived in Europe still be regarded as "refugees" in 50 years? It will be argued that the Palestinians have no other state of which they can easily become citizens. Certainly, but are the UN, European, and Arab countries doing them a service by maintaining them in this illusion that has lasted for the last 70 years? And would we still be calling them "Palestinian refugees" without international recognition of this status, often, seemingly, to punish Israel for successfully bringing its land into the 21st century?
The 1993 Oslo Accord led to a boom in the Palestinian economy. Ramallah and Gaza have nothing to do with the cities this author had known when they were under Israeli rule. Still, their potential for economic development is greatly untapped, and the majority of Palestinians are still poor. Perhaps their leaders like it that way, the better to have absolute control over them? Gaza could become a Singapore on the Mediterranean.
After coming to power through elections in 2006, Hamas has systematically chosen war over economic prosperity. When he decided to withdraw from Gaza, the "hawk" Ariel Sharon had promised more security for the Israelis. The opposite happened. More than a million Israelis are regularly forced to hide in bomb shelters to avoid the deluge of fire that Hamas launches from Gaza. Hamas also murdered dozens of Fatah members when it ousted Fatah's Mahmoud Abbas from Gaza and took control. President Abbas has not been able to set foot in Gaza to see his house there for the past 12 years.
The Palestinians already enjoy broad autonomy. The Israeli economy is prosperous and could employ hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. If they renounce terrorism, the number of those authorized to work in Israel could increase significantly. The Palestinian leaders, if they actually cared about the welfare of people, should focus on development and prosperity rather than on fostering a perverse and morbid culture of "martyrs".
Israel and a future Palestinian state could sign bilateral agreements and cooperate for their mutual benefit in many areas where Israeli expertise is recognized: agriculture, water, scientific research, technology, medicine. Why should the Palestinians be the only people not benefiting from it? The Trump deal could provide a dazzling future for those Palestinians who prioritize their economic situation over ideology. President Trump is offering money and investments, and it will be in Israel's interest to open its doors to broader economic cooperation.
Last but not least, it is also highly unlikely that any potential Democrat administration would come up with a more Palestinian-friendly plan that could also be accepted by Israel. And in the current global situation, there is little chance that the Palestinian cause will return to the center of the international agenda and find new allies, except on European and American university campuses.
Instead of openly supporting the Trump Plan, the European Union has already reacted in its usual way: by saying nothing substantial -- which is tantamount to preferring the current impasse and encouraging the Palestinians in their rejection of the Trump Plan and Israel. Cynicism will continue to prevail in European diplomatic circles.
Let us be realistic. There is no other plan on the table, and there will probably be no new -- better -- plan in the coming years. Israel can never give in on the security of its territory or agree on the "right" of Palestinians to "return."
If the Palestinian leaders are sensible, and if they care at all about about a peaceful, prosperous future for their people, as well as for the future leaders of a Palestinian state, they will join the negotiation table to deal with Israel on the basis of President Trump's plan. Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority may remain self-righteous and draped in their claims, but it would unmask their real role as corrupt and autocratic leaders, intent on keeping their people as destitute and unempowered as possible.
*Alain Destexhe, a columnist and political analyst, is an honorary Senator in Belgium and former Secretary General of Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The West Bank's new Bantustans
Amichai Cohen|/Ynetnews/February 01/2020
Opinion: The theory that the 'Jewish' parts of the West Bank can be annexed is a fantasy; the Palestinians will have to be given equal civil and political rights - there is simply no way to avoid it without Israel becoming an apartheid state
The public discourse in Israel surrounding the proposed application of sovereignty to the Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley region in the West Bank mainly focuses on the effort's symbolism and how the international community will react to such a move.
In reality, anyone who has visited the West Bank in past years will see that the transition is already in effect.
There is very little difference between Israelis living in the settlement of Ariel or the Gush Etzion settlement bloc and Israelis living inside the Green Line border.
A one-sided annexation of the settlements and the Jordan Valley holds within it a different meaning lacking in the public discourse: Israel would have to face a dilemma that it has attempted to ignore from for years, over the status of the Palestinian people.
Since the end of the 1967 Six-Day War, Israel has been controlling the West Bank under the mantle of a "temporary" occupying regime.
As the occupation continued, the regime became more permanent, with Israel still presenting its actions and settlements in the West Bank as open for debate.
The Oslo Accords signed in 1993 mandated a framework under which Israel "itemized" its control over the Palestinians in the region.
The legal classification of "temporal control" is neither coincidental nor symbolic. It is meant to serve two main purposes.
First, it aims to garner international legitimacy for the control over millions of Palestinians and the settlement of some half a million Israelis in the area.
An Israeli settlement in the West Bank
Just several weeks ago, Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit informed the International Criminal Court in The Hague that Israel is still committed to the Oslo Accords, and therefore, the planned ICC war crime probe should not include the West Bank settlements.
Secondly, the ambiguity allows Israel to refrain from dealing with the status of the Palestinians and the scope of their rights under Israeli and international law.
The so-called "Deal of the Century," with its provision for Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, will force Israel to tackle these two issues.
Israel will no longer be able to claim its commitment to Oslo, since a one-sided claim over the territory is contradictory to the accords' contents, making the attorney general's statement to the ICC redundant.
Furthermore, Israel will have to deal with the status of the Palestinians within this territory.
The peace deal proposes a future demilitarized Palestinian state - if the Palestinians ever agree that is.
As it stands, the Palestinians have widely rejected the plan and an independent state would be established against their will.
Those familiar with the map of Israeli settlement in the West Bank since 1967 know that there is no chance of establishing a Palestinian state comprising small patches of land separated from one another.
The proposal for such a disjointed Palestinian entity is nothing but a callback to the failure of a similar experiment in South Africa - the Bantustans.
The Bantustans (also known as Bantu homeland, black homeland, black state or simply homeland) were territory set aside for black inhabitants of South Africa and southwest Africa (now Namibia), as part of the policy of apartheid to create a separate nation-state for the black inhabitants.
These Bantustans were first established during the 1950s as a way for the apartheid regime to ensure the "safety and wellbeing" of the white minority and create white-majority regions throughout South Africa.
The international community refused to recognize the Bantustans, which were all dissembled in 1994 with the end of apartheid in South Africa.
Palestinians in Ramallah protest the U.S. peace plan
Israel's annexation of swathes of the West Bank will lead to the territory left for the Palestinian Authority becoming the new Bantustans – small puppet enclaves whose sole existence is to legitimize Israeli control, absolving Israel of having to deal with the question of Palestinian status and ensuring the protection of Jewish majority in the region.
It is impossible to reconcile this state of affairs with a democratic, if not conservative, position, certainly not for more than two million people.
Politically, Israel could bear the international backlash and go through with annexation, but such a move would kill the proposed Palestinian state.
The theory that the "Jewish" regions of the West Bank could be annexed by Israel, with the civilian and political rights of the Palestinians being ignored, is mere fantasy.
If Israel chooses the path to annexation, the Palestinians living in the West Bank would have to be granted full rights and privileges, there is simply no way around that.

The new realities of the Deal of the Century
Khairallah Khairallah/The Arab Weekly/February 02/2020
US President Donald Trump’s plan for peace in the Middle East cannot be dealt with without placing it in its regional framework, that of a new balance that has begun to take shape since Iraq left the regional equation in 2003.
The plan, the so-called Deal of the Century, refers to a two-state option. There is an existing Israeli state that aspires to expand its territory at the expense of the Palestinians. To which Palestinian state does Trump’s plan refer while it ignores the existence of a Palestinian people and their legitimate aspirations?
Perhaps the most important aspect of the Deal of the Century is its total disregard of international legitimacy resolutions, including UN Security Council Resolution 242, issued after the Six-Day War in 1967.
Instead, the US president and his team, headed by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, want to impose a vision of peace in which all Israeli demands are met, including recognition of the legitimacy of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank, control of the Jordan Valley and considering a united Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. How much of Jerusalem will remain for the Palestinians to constitute the capital of their state?
The US administration has recognised all Israeli settlements as legitimate and went further to consider the Israeli occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights legitimate as well in blatant disregard for all international legitimacy decisions that the American administration has come to consider outdated.
There is a new reality in the region that Trump and his team exploited to perpetuate the Israeli occupation that refuses to recognise the national rights of an entire people. Palestinians have found a place for themselves and their cause on the political map of the Middle East but failed to translate that into place on the geographical map.
It is difficult for any Palestinian to accept this Deal of the Century, which includes promises, such as the establishment of a Palestinian state on land in the West Bank while linking it to the Gaza Strip within specific Israeli conditions regarding security.
At the same time, talk of pumping up to $50 billion to help the Palestinian state succeed remains just talk in the absence of any real desire to respect international law, including the stipulation in Resolution 242 regarding the inadmissibility of occupying other people’s lands by force.
Still, bad as this Deal of the Century may be, the Palestinian side was mistaken to close all doors of negotiations over the plan. In theory, the Palestinian side is right, especially considering the colossal injustice suffered by generations of Palestinians since May 14, 1948, the day David Ben-Gurion announced the creation of the state of Israel. In practice, however, the Palestinians have learnt nothing from their bitter experiences.
Palestinians today seem to ignore the unfortunate reality that they have nothing with which to counter the Deal of the Century besides empty rhetoric about Palestinian national unity.
Suddenly, Hamas woke up to the importance of Palestinian unity but not before it had done Israel more favours than any other Palestinian party. It has given Israel all the excuses it needed to take the victim’s role in its wars against the Palestinians, especially after the establishment of a Hamas-run quasi-Islamic emirate in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
Before that, encouraged by Iran and other parties, Hamas carried out suicide attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Nahariya and many other places, to thwart the peace process that began with the Oslo Accords in 1993.
Palestinians have made all sorts of mistakes diplomatically and militarily to end up where they are. They did not realise that the Iran-backed Hamas was working for the rise of the Israeli far-right and preventing progress towards peace despite all that can be said about Israel’s ill intent.
There is no need to list the mistakes, including Palestinians’ not taking the right position towards Iraq’s occupation of Kuwait in 1990. However, what is ironic is that the Palestinians have ignored that, being exposed to the dangers of another expansionist project in the region, Iranian this time, the focus of the Arab world is elsewhere and not on Palestine. Iran has destroyed entire Arab cities, including Baghdad, Basra, Mosul, Aleppo, Homs and Hama, and controls Damascus and Beirut.
On the other hand, Trump provided hope to remove the Iranian nightmare when he imposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic and rid the region of Qassem Soleimani and Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
Palestinians must ask themselves: Do they want to deal with reality, with all its injustice, or live in the illusions of the past that made them believe that the whole world revolves around their cause? Do they want to pursue a policy based on missing all opportunities that present themselves?
Yes, the Deal of the Century is not in the interest of the Palestinians and their cause. However, what options are available to the Palestinian Authority as it suffers from a suffocating economic crisis and Hamas’s escalations?
Certainly, closing the doors of communication and of give and take with Washington is not an option because it is the shortest way to making the voice of the Israeli right the only voice heard in the United States. To have a Palestinian voice present in Washington, even a low one, would be much better than not to have any.
It would be better for the Palestinians to consider the regional circumstances that compel them to refrain from taking positions that would lead to a break with the US administration. It would be better if they understand that Arabs will not come to their rescue because of the Iranian threat to every country in the region. Only hope remains for a Palestinian people who have a deep awareness of the situation in the region. These people, who possess a genuine national identity, must face up to the Deal of the Century, knowing that much of their future will depend on the presence of a different leadership capable of formulating a realistic national project and of properly evaluating the regional situation as it is, without illusions of any kind.

Why Davos?
Basil M.K. Al-Ghalayini/Arab News/February 01/2020
Saudi Arabia’s participation in the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos last month was a remarkable one, with special sessions on the Saudi vision and receptions hosted by Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA), the Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz Foundation (Misk) and others. In my opinion, Saudi Vision 2030 was the most recognized brand during the forum. This year, the Saudi government contingent included over 50 senior officials and hundreds from the private sector. The branding had its positive impact as well, between SAGIA slogans at different sites to Saudi female chefs catering Misk Foundation gala dinner guests. Also, Saudi women in the government and in the private sector had their own share of showcasing the change and transformation the country is going through since the launch of its vision.
Over the years, the WEF grew in a very interesting fashion. It invited only politicians for the first time in 1974 as European Commission leaders sought a way to chew over new ideas of integrating Europe’s economies and the world struggled with regional conflicts. In 1976, it extended memberships to CEOs and business executives of the top 1,000 companies worldwide.
Now, the global power brokers spend the week mulling over major world challenges and how to solve them. On the sidelines, they meet, greet and make deals. In my experience, the meetings and networking with other participants are more beneficial than attending the agenda sessions.
As an example, the multiple meetings BMG Financial Group have arranged between key Saudi senior government officials and the senior management of Deutsche Post DHL (DPDHL) Group have reinforcement the decision made by DPDHL to invest in Saudi and its vision. Obviously, logistics is considered as the backbone of any fast-growing economy. With Saudi Arabia, its Vision 2030 roadmap gives it a high priority considering the size and unique location of the country.
As Saudi Arabia is hosting the G20 meetings this year, in partnership with the G20 Secretariat, the WEF will host a “special meeting” on the Middle in the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Riyadh next April. It will highlight the complex technological change and the attendant need for industry, government, and civil society to work together. This year could be the most important and busiest 12 months leading to Vision 2030. Apart from hosting the G20 in November and its different related meetings throughout the year covering business, youth, labor, and other areas, coupled with the Future Investment Forum in October, the next WEF meeting in April in Riyadh will be a quantum leap in the history of WEF. Saudi Arabia’s new role at the pinnacle of the Group of 20 leading global economies is a result of reforms that have been in the works for years.
*Basil M.K. Al-Ghalayini is the Chairman and CEO of BMG Financial Group.

Brexit is done … but now for the hard part
Cornelia Meyer/Arab News/February 01/2020
On a crisp Saturday morning, Britain woke up to a new era. At 11pm on Friday (midnight CET), the UK left the EU, 47 years after it joined and 1,317 days after the referendum in which it voted narrowly by 52 percent to 48 percent to leave. This moment will define the course the UK charts for decades to come. The time between referendum and exit was marked by schisms and nasty debates in Parliament and elsewhere. A divide had emerged on the political scene. Britons no longer identified with political parties but rather with where they stood in the great Brexit debate. Parliamentary discourse became increasingly nasty, if not soul destroying. Brexit cost two prime ministers their job. Then Boris Johnson, a Brexiteer, took office; he renegotiated his predecessor Theresa May’s EU withdrawal agreement, won an overwhelming majority in last December’s election, and ended thegridlock ended.
A tired nation now needs to look forward. There are those who say the European stage was always too small. They see the UK as having thrown off its European shackles, which will enable the country to chart a new course.
Equally, there are those who remind us that the UK’s trading relationship with the EU is intertwined and represents close to 50 percent of the total trade volume. They highlight complex supply chains and warn of dire consequences if they are broken.
These different views on on trade highlight the crux of the whole Brexit debate: While Brexiteers always painted a positive picture of innumerable opportunities if the country took back control of its borders, laws and money, Remainers highlighted obstacles and negative consequences associated with exiting the EU. The British do not like scaremongering; they prefer visions of greatness. This is the country and the people that stood up to the tyranny of Hitler and refused to be deterred by the Blitz.
Britain’s relationship with Europe has always been complicated. New prime ministers generally visited Washington long before they went to Brussels. The country as a whole takes great pride in the “special relationship” with the US. Thatcher, Major, Cameron and now Johnson all eyed Europe with a good deal of skepticism. Collaboration was at times more viewed as a necessary evil than embraced with enthusiasm. Thatcher ensured rebates to payments and Major kept the UK out of the euro and Schengen, to name just two examples of British reticence.
Feb. 1 marked the beginning of a new era. The general public will first notice little, because the trading relationship and travel situation are protected under the terms of the transition agreement. However, the real work has only just begun, because the UK now needs to negotiate its future relationship with the EU.
While UK diplomats and politicians may pride themselves on their closeness to the US, the UK shares many values with Europe. On climate change, the environment, animal welfare, etc. the UK government’s outlook is closer to the EU’s than to Washington’s. The same holds true with regard to technology, as illustrated by the decision to defy the US and build Britain’s 5G network using equipment from the Chinese company Huawei.
Feb. 1 marked the beginning of a new era. The general public will first notice little, because the trading relationship and travel situation are protected under the terms of the transition agreement. However, the real work has only just begun, because the UK now needs to negotiate its future relationship with the EU. Johnson insists this phase will end on Dec. 31, leaving precious little time for complex negotiations. The UK team will again face Michel Barnier, the EU’schief Brexit negotiator and a formidable force; keeping the bloc’s 27 member countries united throughout the drawn-out withdrawal negotiations was no mean feat. He will publish his initial negotiating position on Monday.
Brexit is a reality now, whichever side of the debate one chose. As a country the UK must now look forward and try to heal the rift the endless Brexit discussions left in their wake. Johnson said as much in his address on Friday night. He called the day the dawn of a new era and a moment of national renewal. He expressed his conviction that Brexit could be turned into a stunning success. He has broken the gridlock and started to concentrate on the domestic agenda, be it more police on the streets, new funding for the NHS, or the promised roll-out of infrastructure projects. The next months and years will prove whether the UK can indeed build a new constructive relationship with the EU and what its ramifications are for the British economy.
At home, there are many wounds to heal. Nothing has made this clearer than the statements by the Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is calling on Johnson to allow a second referendum on Scottish independence. Polls suggest 51 percent of Scots, who voted overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, now favor leaving the UK.
Northern Ireland is another choke point. What will happen if the UK and the EU do not manage to hammer out a free-trade agreement over the next 11 months? Will it mean the reinstatement of checks on the currently “invisible”border between the North and the South, raising fears of renewed bloodshed after 20 years of relative peace? The country needs to be realistic and look forward, and the prime minister’s message was both conciliatory and optimistic. But it also needs to take great care in devising a pragmatic relationship with its near neighbor and main trading partner. Failure to do so would be to the detriment of the British economy. The relationship between the UK’s four nations must be a top priority. Losing Scotland would be detrimental to both sides.
This is where the EU comes in. It too needs to be pragmatic and forward looking rather than dogmatic during the negotiations. In other words, may pettiness take a back seat and wisdom prevail.
*Cornelia Meyer is a business consultant, macro-economist and energy expert. Twitter: @MeyerResources

Violent extremists and the ideologies that drive them
Peter Welby/Arab News/February 01/2020
The UK’s prison system has endured some recent high-profile incidents related to extremism. On Nov. 29, Usman Khan, a terrorist offender attending a conference on rehabilitation, killed two people before being shot dead by police. He had been through deradicalization programs both inside prison and after his release. On Jan. 9, two inmates at Whitemoor maximum security prison put on fake suicide vests and attacked a prison officer with homemade knives. One of the prisoners is believed to be Brusthom Ziamani, who was jailed in 2015 for a plot to behead a British soldier.
Whitemoor is a common thread: Khan spent much of his sentence there before he was moved to another maximum security prison, Woodhill, before release. Blaming the staff at Whitemoor and Woodhill is pointless scapegoating, and in any case, wrong. The real problem lies in the structural way in which the UK deals with its extremist prisoners. Indeed, although Woodhill contains one of the UK’s three extremist isolation units, it has hardly been used — though the danger of extremist prisoners mixing with the wider prison population is exemplified by Ziamani’s fellow attacker at Whitemoor; a convert who was not in prison for extremist offenses. This issue goes to the top of the prison service. The British government has responded to these issues by bringing forward proposals for new counter-terrorism legislation. A lot of the new proposals amount to increases in funding and increases in frontline staff — all good things, but not in themselves able to address the fundamental issue that leads to extremists repeat offending and radicalising others.
A second part of the proposals deals with the terms of detention and release for extremist prisoners, requiring them to serve their full sentence, and establishing minimum sentences. This is a direct response to the London Bridge attack, whose perpetrator’s prison sentence was a mess of different legal regimes and court judgments. The original “indeterminate” sentence that he received for his plot in 2012 (indeterminate sentences were a way of ensuring that a criminal is released from prison only once they are deemed not to be a risk to society, as opposed to being released once they have served a set length of time) was overturned on appeal in 2013, and he was given a 16-year prison term. Under the guidelines for prison sentences in the UK, he was released after eight years (halfway through his sentence) on license, meaning that he had to abide by certain conditions. These conditions did not prevent him from finding the means to carry out a terrorist attack.
A lot of the UK's new proposals on extremism amount to increases in funding and increases in frontline staff — all good things, but not in themselves able to address the fundamental issue that leads to extremists repeat offending and radicalising others.
Not all terrorist prisoners are the same and sentencing is too often “one size fits all.” Some are much more dangerous than others; some will be deradicalized and rehabilitated, and others will not. There is little point in replacing a system that was blindly lenient with one that is blindly restrictive. The latter is better for the protection of the public, but the best system would be more responsive to the state of the prisoners and the dangers they pose individually — and that kind of system requires far greater resources than are available within the prison service, even with the new funding that has been promised.
But the third element of the proposals could be crucial. There is to be an increased focus on “specialist psychologists and specially trained imams” to assess the risk that extremist prisoners pose and seek to undermine their extremist ideologies. It is heartening to see that the UK government recognizes the importance of religious leaders in the deradicalization process. For much of the past decades, they have been a very small part of the official counter-extremism toolbox, and where they have been used, it has often been badly.
An example of this poor usage is in the Healthy Identity Intervention program, one of the deradicalization programmes that Khan participated in while he was in prison. A 2018 study commissioned by the government into this program records it as focusing “on personal and social identity, needs and values, rather than political or religious beliefs,” and recommended that for religious extremists a religious element was incorporated. More concerning still is the statement that this program was developed to persuade participants to be less willing to harm others (a noble aim), “regardless of their engagement with an extremist group, cause and/or ideology.” In other words, one of the key deradicalization programs sought to change behavior, but was not too worried about the ideology that justified that behavior. As we saw in Khan’s case, he held on to the ideology, and the behavior followed.
There remains in British academic and policy making circles a deeply held — one might say, ideological — belief that religious ideology is a minor factor in religious extremism. This belief is bolstered by several misconceptions, one being that extremist religious belief is irrational, and therefore rational people do not engage with it. This approach has consistently failed to deal with the problem. And while deradicalization efforts in prisons in the UK have focused on the psychological, there has been minimal focus on ensuring that the prison chaplains — those religious leaders appointed by the prison service to care for the spiritual needs of the prisoners — are equipped to engage with extremist offenders on terms to which they will respond.
I look forward to seeing these new specially trained imams, announced in the counter-terrorism proposals, get to work. But unless the prison service as a whole focuses on the ideologies that motivate extremist prisoners, we will not break out of this cycle.
*Peter Welby is a consultant on religion and global affairs, specializing in the Arab world. Twitter: @pdcwelby.

US, Taliban edge toward peace deal but hurdles remain
Rahimullah Yusufzai/Arab News/February 01/2020
A major hurdle in finalizing the expected peace deal between the Taliban and the US seems to have been overcome thanks to the former’s willingness to take steps to reduce violence in Afghanistan.
This was a persistent US demand, even though it would have preferred a permanent cease-fire during the peace talks. The Taliban still does not refer to the reduction in violence as a cease-fire and insists that it is only for a limited time. Still, the de-escalation by the Taliban and US-led NATO forces and the Afghan government could create the right conditions for moving the peace process forward. The understanding of reducing violence is not yet formally in place and, until that happens, there will always be the risk of escalation causing deadlock in the peace talks.
An escalation in violence was noted on Sunday, when the Afghan government claimed its forces carried out 13 ground attacks and 12 airstrikes in 24 hours against the Taliban in nine provinces. They killed 51 insurgents, injured 13 and arrested six. The Taliban, on the other hand, claimed its fighters conducted two attacks in Kunduz and Balkh provinces, killing 18 security forces personnel, injuring three and seizing a large cache of weapons. Airstrikes by government forces in Balkh also killed seven civilians, including three children, triggering protests by locals and prompting President Ashraf Ghani’s administration to send a fact-finding mission to investigate the incident.
The crash of an American military aircraft in a Taliban-controlled area in Afghanistan’s central Ghazni province on Monday could cause a further escalation in violence and affect the peace talks if ongoing US investigations conclude that the Taliban shot it down. Until now, the US has dismissed Taliban claims about shooting down the plane and killing several senior American servicemen. There are also questions about whether the Taliban possesses anti-aircraft missiles that could hit planes flying at high altitudes.
As always, Taliban leaders appear more hopeful than the Americans, as they expect the peace deal to be signed in the coming days.
Unlike the US, which is likely to consider the promised Taliban de-escalation in violence as a step forward, the Afghan government has made cease-fire a pre-condition for holding peace talks with the group. This is tricky, as the Taliban still refuses to recognize the Afghan government and hold direct talks with it. The beleaguered Afghan government obviously isn’t presently in a position to dictate terms to the Taliban.
The government is also facing strong criticism from a coalition of Ghani’s political opponents led by Abdullah Abdullah — who is chief executive in their national unity government and was his main rival in the Sept. 28 presidential election — for impeding the peace process. The election’s final result has not yet been declared. The opposition stalwarts, who include former President Hamid Karzai, want unconditional peace talks with the Taliban, making full use of the opportunity presently available. They are against the monopolization of the peace process by the Ghani administration and are demanding the formation of an inclusive delegation of all anti-Taliban forces to negotiate peace.
The national unity government, formed in 2014 through the mediation of the US following a disputed election for president, will come to an end once the result of the latest presidential vote is announced. It has suffered from disunity during the last five years, as Ghani and Abdullah often disagreed with each other. Now, a victory for Ghani, who is leading after the preliminary vote count, is unlikely to be accepted by Abdullah and could trigger protests. In case Ghani is unable to win in the first round, the second round of voting will have to be delayed until the end of the winter. This could hold up the intra-Afghan peace talks, even though the Taliban and the US are keen to complete the process.
As always, Taliban leaders appear more hopeful than the Americans, as they expect the peace deal to be signed in the coming days. This may not happen, as the US has to first ensure that the concerns of the Afghan government are addressed and the Taliban accepts a roadmap, including the format of the intra-Afghan dialogue, for the post-peace deal period.
For the Taliban, securing a deal that ensures the withdrawal of the US-led foreign forces is the most important objective of the peace talks with the Americans. As the Taliban deputy leader and chief negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Biradar noted in a recent interview, their fight would continue until the “aggression” against Afghanistan comes to an end and all foreign “occupying forces” are evicted. Reluctantly agreeing to reduce violence initially and perhaps even accepting a longer cease-fire is the price the Taliban appears willing to pay to achieve the goal of forcing the international coalition’s forces out of Afghanistan.
There are quite a few hurdles on the way to making Afghanistan peaceful and stable after four decades of conflict. Once the Taliban-US peace agreement is signed and the mechanism for implementing it under the watchful eyes of international guarantors is agreed upon, intra-Afghan talks can be undertaken. China, Germany and other countries have expressed a willingness to host such meetings, though the Germans are expected to take the lead after having already co-hosted with Qatar one such dialogue in Doha last year.
A way out will have to be found to put together a unified national delegation of anti-Taliban groups, including the Afghan government, to hold talks with the Taliban on better terms. This will also overcome the Taliban’s refusal to talk directly to the Afghan government, as the group has repeatedly promised to interact with any and all Afghans for the sake of peace and national reconciliation.
*Rahimullah Yusufzai is a senior political and security analyst in Pakistan. He was the first to interview Taliban founder Mullah Mohammad Omar, and twice interviewed Osama bin Laden in 1998. Twitter: @rahimyusufzai1

Coronavirus: What the Middle East can do to stay safe
Hafed Al-Ghwell/Arab News/February 01/2020
Few things are as haunting as tracking a viral outbreak through the cascade of headlines detailing worsening statistics, cities under lockdown, closed borders, canceled flights, evacuations and quarantines. More than 12,000 people have now been infected by the Wuhan coronavirus, mostly in China but in 26 other countries too, and more than 250 have died.
Viral outbreaks are a tragic unintended consequence of at least three factors crucial to human development — urbanization, globalization and industrialized farming. Viruses thrive and spread as long as there are new carriers or incubators, whether human or animal. It is not surprising that viral epidemics have increased in frequency and led to greater loss of life in the past few millennia, when more people crowded into densely populated cities. As a result, pathogens had the perfect conditions to cause the Plague of Athens in 430BC, as did the parasitic flatworms responsible for the many bilharzia outbreaks in Ancient Egypt. Isolated outbreaks of disease in the mostly insular pre-globalized world eventually waned because there were fewer people or livestock to spread the illness. However, the rapid increase in migration, trade and related interactions that began in the Age of Discovery and has since nearly peaked has led to isolated epidemics becoming global pandemics, from smallpox and bubonic plague to the more recent variants of influenza.
This is not an argument against globalization; it is an observation aimed at identifying additional opportunities to develop common biosecurity standards across the globe given the level with which nations, societies, economies, lives and livelihoods are interconnected. After all, recent pandemics have been stopped in their tracks because of increasingly effective global cooperation and coordination, demonstrating the potential not just for combating existing viral threats but also pre-emptively crafting crucial safeguards against disease proliferation.
Shrinking arable land, dwindling water supplies and adverse weather events caused by climate change have brought food security concerns to the fore. In China and India, with a combined 2.8 billion people, livestock rearing is rapidly moving from traditional small-to-medium scale to resemble the West’s massive industrialized farms. In the absence of proper biosecurity and food safety standards, forcing livestock into ever smaller enclosures creates the ideal conditions for pathogens to spread, especially those that can be transmitted from animal to human, such as the Wuhan virus. It happened in the 1990s, when migratory birds brought the H5N1 avian flu virus too close to large scale poultry farms in eastern China. The swine flu pandemic in March and April 2009 was exacerbated by intensive livestock rearing operations and spread further by the global trade of poultry and pigs between North America, Asia and Europe.
For the Wuhan virus, the main culprit appears to be China’s wet markets, where animals are slaughtered to order or taken home alive. Animals from small-scale farms with no biosecurity come into contact with people, with little care or concern for food safety standards. It is not the first time these wet markets have been responsible for the spread of a deadly virus, and it is unlikely to be the last. In 2013, the H7N9 bird flu epidemic swept across China and caused at least 100 deaths, prompting authorities to temporarily shut down live poultry markets.
For the Wuhan virus, the main culprit appears to be China’s wet markets, where animals are slaughtered to order or taken home alive. Animals from small-scale farms with no biosecurity come into contact with people, with little care or concern for food safety standards.
Researchers also point to the increasingly lucrative trade in wild animals, driven by demand from China, as an additional factor in the emergence of previously unknown pathogens. It is worsened by the resultant rush to hunt, and find new hunting locations when target species are depleted in a particular area, combined with the crowding of different species that normally would not mix in the wild.
More than a third of China’s livestock is still raised in backyards or family compounds on small-scale mixed farms, which remain a source of income and food. Closing wet markets or forcing poor farmers to adopt biosecurity or food safety standards will do more harm than good, especially in an already beleaguered Chinese economy. Additionally, the consumption of expensive wildlife has become a status symbol, which incentivizes the continuation of wild animal hunting and trade. Previous attempts at disrupting supply chains of these wildlife markets or outlawing demand has only pushed prices up and made it more lucrative. For consumers, higher prices make the consumption of wildlife only more appealing.
The Middle East has so far been spared a raft of confirmed cases, aside from the Chinese family of four who traveled to the UAE from Wuhan, where the the virus was first identified. Nevertheless, there are important lessons on public health, food safety and biosecurity that build on those already learned from similar outbreaks in the past. Wealthier Arab nations are better able to act pre-emptively, by strengthening standards, adequately equipping and staffing medical facilities and enforcing biosecurity measures via compliance inspections.
Poorer nations remain vulnerable, relegated to responding after the fact, given the lack of means and, in some cases, technical know-how for implementing stringent standards that are far more likely to stifle growth than keep the nation safe from a viral threat.
For now, what most nations can do is simply remain vigilant, taking cues from the World Health Organization and relevant international bodies with staff on the frontline dealing with the crisis. The priority for Arab world governments is ensuring the public is well informed of the latest developments, debunking rumors and thus avoiding panic.
*Hafed Al-Ghwell is a non-resident senior fellow with the Foreign Policy Institute at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. He is also senior adviser at the international economic consultancy Maxwell Stamp and at the geopolitical risk advisory firm Oxford Analytica, a member of the Strategic Advisory Solutions International Group in Washington DC and a former adviser to the board of the World Bank Group. Twitter: @HafedAlGhwell