LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
January 13/19

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again
John 10/17-21: "For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.’ Again the Jews were divided because of these words. Many of them were saying, ‘He has a demon and is out of his mind. Why listen to him?’ Others were saying, ‘These are not the words of one who has a demon. Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?’"

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on January 12-13/19
Rahi calls for Maronite MPs meeting upcoming Wednesday to discuss role of Maronites in confronting general conditions
David Hale arrives in Beirut
Shlala following a field exercise of the Arab Summit arrangements: All facilities will be ready in the next two days
Lebanon Dollar-Bonds Tumble After Debt Rescheduling Report
Asian Cup: Saudi Arabia advances over Lebanon in the first half with a goal
Civil march sets out from Labor to Health Ministry in protest against corruption, unemployment, and to claim economic and health rights
Aid agencies: Stocktaking after storm hit refugees in Lebanon hard, preparations for looming storm underway
Regnard: We are witnessing the 'Lebanization' of French politics and we are now in a crisis situation
Exclusive: Hezbollah’s Gains From Syria War Equal Its Losses
Controversy in Lebanon Over Libya’s Invitation to Economic Summit
Bassil Says Syria Relation in Lebanon Interest, Slams Parties 'Exploiting' It
Report: Tensions Surge over Inviting Libya to Beirut Summit
Army Assures ‘Stable’ Situation on Border after Israeli Breaches
Hankache: Government of Specialists Needed to Manage Country's Affairs
Beirut summit will only further pull Lebanon to the abyss

Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on January 12-13/19
Israeli Warplanes Target Damascus Airport
Syria Says Israeli Warplanes Hit Damascus Airport Warehouse
Arab League: Inviting Syria to Tunis Summit Won’t be Discussed at Beirut Meeting
Pompeo talks Iran, ISIS and regional stability with Al Arabiya
Damascus Blackmails Diplomats to Reopen their Embassies
Iraq’s Hikma, Asa’ib Ahl el-Haq at Loggerheads after Sadr City Murder
US: No Further Waivers on Iran Oil Imports
India’s Iranian Oil Imports Fell By 41 Percent in December under US Pressure
Guterres Says 'Deeply Concerned' Over Widespread Violations of Human Rights in Libya
Libya: Salame Says Parliamentary Elections Expected Before Next Spring
Government Shutdown Becomes Longest in US Histor
Egypt police kill 6 militants in shootout, says interior ministry

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 12-13/19
Hezbollah’s Gains From Syria War Equal Its Losses/Beirut- Paula Astih/Asharq Al Awsat/January 12/19
Beirut summit will only further pull Lebanon to the abyss/Makram Rabah/The Weekly Arab/January 13/19
Two Ways May Could Just End the Brexit Standoff/Therese Raphael/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
US Should Go Back to the Moon/Faye Flam/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
Terrorists’ plots backfire on Iran/Reza Shafiee/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
While the Iranian regime’s elite bash US, their children reap its benefits/Ali Hajizade/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
China: Ominous signs of a weakening economy/Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
Engineering a historical narrative in Syria/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
Detailed Interview With The Israeli Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik:‘Israelis Are Living on the Titanic & No One Wants to Hear Bad News About the Army/Amos Harel/Haaretz/January 12/19
Extensive & Detailed Interview With The Outgoing Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot - A look back/Gadi Eisenkot talks war, peace and legacy/Yaakov Katz, Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/January 12/19
Iran’s opaque politics of succession to Khamenei/Gareth Smyth/The Weekly Arab/January 13/19

Latest LCCC English Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on January 12-13/19
Rahi calls for Maronite MPs meeting upcoming Wednesday to discuss role of Maronites in confronting general conditions
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Butros al-Rahi, called Saturday for a meeting upcoming Wednesday by Maronite deputies to deliberate on the role of Maronites in facing the prevailing conditions in the country. In an issued statement by the Maronite Patriarchate Secretariat earlier today, it indicated that the Patriarch calls on the "heads of parliamentary blocs and honorable Maronite deputies to attend a deliberation meeting to be held in Bkirki on Wednesday, January 16, at 10 a.m. to discuss the role of Maronites in confronting the general situation in Lebanon and the region and the deterioration witnessed at the political, economic and social levels...and to address the required initiatives and objectives to preserve the state of Lebanon."

David Hale arrives in Beirut
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, David Hale, arrived at Beirut International Airport this evening on an official visit, during which he will be meeting with Lebanese officials, NNA correspondent at Beirut Airport reported.

Shlala following a field exercise of the Arab Summit arrangements: All facilities will be ready in the next two days
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - In preparation for the fourth round of the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit scheduled to take place in Beirut from 18 to 20 January, a field exercise was carried out this afternoon of the arrangements to welcome the leaders and heads of state as they arrive at Rafic Hariri International Airport and head to Beirut Waterfront's "Sea Side Arena" where the Summit will be held. The security and logistics teams in charge of the ceremonies participated in the exercise under the supervision of the Summit's Executive Committee Head, Nabil Shedid, the Summit's Security Structure Commander, Brigadier Salim Feghali, and the Summit's Media Committee Head and Spokesperson, Rafic Shlala. Participants toured the halls of the Summit headquarters and waiting lounges, and the bilateral meeting rooms, as well as the main media center featuring the latest audio-visual equipments that can accommodate more than 700 media representatives. The final touches on the logistical, media and security arrangements were completed during the tour. Following the field exercise, Shlala said: "The aim of the field exercise is to ensure that all preparations for the arrival of the Arab leaders and accompanying delegations are finalized in accordance with the plan set by the executive committees since last August, in coordination with all concerned ministries, public departments and the Municipality of Beirut." "During the next two days all the Summit facilities and venues will be ready, including the Phoenicia Hotel (the ministerial meeting venue), Monroe Hotel (media center) and the Summit venue," Shalala added. It is to note that on Monday, January 14, a press conference will be held at the Summit headquarters to explain all the related operational, media and security measures to be adopted.

Lebanon Dollar-Bonds Tumble After Debt Rescheduling Report
Reuters/Saturday 12th January 2019/Lebanon’s dollar-denominated sovereign bonds tumbled for a second day on Friday following a Bloomberg report quoting the finance minister saying a fiscal reform plan included a debt rescheduling. Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said such a rescheduling would be undertaken in coordination with lenders and the central bank, Bloomberg said, citing a statement. The plan did not include any change to Lebanon’s fixed exchange rate, it added. Lebanon’s dollar-denominated bonds suffered a second day of hefty falls with many issues trading at record lows. The 2025 bond dropped 5.25 cents to a fresh record low of 73.50 cents in the dollar. According to a summary of the comments to Bloomberg circulated by the finance ministry, Khalil did say the plan under consideration included a rescheduling, but he denied there was any intention to “restructure” Lebanon’s public debt, which is equal to around 150 percent of GDP. But a Lebanese newspaper cited him on Thursday as saying the ministry was “preparing a financial correction plan including restructuring of public debt”, which triggered Thursday’s sell-off in dollar-denominated debt. Asked by Reuters on Friday whether a haircut - or writedown in value - was under consideration, Khalil said: “There is absolutely no intention of touching the value of Lebanese bonds or taking a percentage of them. “The proposals are an operation to organise and manage the debt and to move ahead with reform measures that reduce the burden of it,” he added. Tim Ash at BlueBay Asset Management said the comments had caused concern in the markets. “The damage is done ...(this) just reflects the extent of the problems faced by Lebanon - there is simply no space for failing to adopt the right tone/language in all this,” he said. Khalil told Reuters on Thursday that Lebanon was studying ways to manage its public debt and its structure as part of plans for public finance reform. The International Monetary Fund urged Lebanon in June to carry out “an immediate and substantial fiscal adjustment” to improve debt sustainability. More than eight months since an election, political leaders have still not been able to agree a new government that could set about reforms to boost confidence. Khalil, a top figure in the Amal Movement led by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, has recently become more vocal in his warnings about the economy. Last month, he said Lebanon was in an economic crisis that had started to turn into a financial one which he hoped would not become a monetary one. Khalil has held the post of finance minister since 2014 and is expected to retain the position in the new government. A deal on forming the new cabinet to be led by Saad al-Hariri appeared close last month but the last obstacle was not resolved.

Asian Cup: Saudi Arabia advances over Lebanon in the first half with a goal
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - Dubai - Saudi Arabia advanced over Lebanon in the first half of the match between them at the Al-Maktoum Stadium in Al-Nasr Club in Dubai in the second interval of the first round of the fifth group of the 17th Asian Football Cup hosted by the UAE until February 1.Saudi striker Fahd Al-Muallad scored a direct shot in the 12th minute from the inside of the area to the roof of the goalkeeper Mahdi Khalil, a ball he accidentally received from a Lebanese defender while trying to cut a cross.

Civil march sets out from Labor to Health Ministry in protest against corruption, unemployment, and to claim economic and health rights
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - A civil march was organized this afternoon by the "We are all affected means we are all responsible" Campaign against corruption and unemployment in the country, and in demand for citizens' economic and health rights. The march set out from the Ministry of Labor towards the Ministry of Health, where participants gathered to voice their rejections for the existing stalemate situation.Civil Activist Nada Nassif said, "All parties in the authority are responsible for the economic, daily living, environmental and unemployment crisis," adding that "we are all paying the price for corruption." She pointed out that funds will become available when the State stops repaying the public debts with high interest rates to banks and beneficiary accounts, and when it adopts a fair and equitable tax regime. Nassif criticized the "inability to form a government, at a time of accumulating crises," adding that "failure extends to include the most basic obligations." Nassif called for movement in demand for three pressing issues at this stage, namely the need for an integrated health and hospitalization system, activation of Article 46 of the Lebanese Labor Law relating to the annual adjustment of wages in parallel with inflation, and preventing institutions from employing workers at less than the minimum wage and without social security.

Aid agencies: Stocktaking after storm hit refugees in Lebanon hard, preparations for looming storm underway
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon issued the following statement on the work of relief agencies during the recent storm that hit Lebanon, particularly in assisting the affected refugees: "A violent storm - Storm "Norma" - hit Lebanon hard on the morning of Sunday 6 January, and continued raging until the early hours of Thursday 10 January. Several days of strong winds, snow and torrential rains have affected more than 570 informal tented sites all over the country, home to over 22,500 refugees.
UNHCR, UNICEF and other humanitarian agencies, together with Lebanese authorities scrambled to attend to the needs of the affected Lebanese and refugees. The emergency response to the extreme weather conditions was coordinated by the Ministry of Social Affairs and UNHCR through the inter-agency coordination mechanism. Aid agencies have deployed to pump water out of inundated sites and provide affected refugees with relief items such as mattresses, blankets, children winter clothes, dignity and hygiene kits, fuel vouchers, plastic sheets, and wood poles. Given the scale of the challenges, agencies prioritized assistance to the most affected refugees first. So far, some 10,000 refugees have been reached with urgent distributions, and aid agencies will continue working around the clock to reach all affected refugees and sites. Over two months ago, UNHCR, UNICEF and partner organizations pre-positioned contingency stocks and grants for the winter to help quickly deploy relief items to vulnerable refugees during extreme weather conditions. However, the storm still hit refugees hard. Spontaneous settlements in Lebanon are made of temporary shelter materials. Such dwellings cannot sustain extreme weather conditions for too long, despite all the efforts of humanitarian actors. Tragically, the violent storm took the life of Fatima, an eight-year-old Syrian refugee girl who was swept away by floods in Minieh, northern Lebanon. Across the country, the Civil Defence and Lebanese Red Cross rushed to evacuate distressed refugees who found themselves stuck in their shelters because of floods or snow. Municipalities have also mobilized to ensure roads leading to informal settlements are accessible, and that those whose shelters were destroyed can be temporarily relocated to alternative sites where they can keep warm and dry.
In the Bekaa alone, at least 847 Syrian refugees had to relocate due to floods or severe damages to their shelters. In the North, the over 700 relocations are reported so far.  Aid agencies estimate that approximately 850 informal settlements, hosting over 70,000 refugees, are at risk of being affected by extreme weather. Agencies are preparing for another storm that is forecast to begin tomorrow. Emergency stocks have been replenished and sanitation provisions were delivered. Teams are also closely monitoring family separation cases to make sure children are protected during possible evacuations. At this time of emergency, the agencies are calling for all governmental and non-governmental actors as well as communities to stay mobilized and to work jointly towards protecting the most vulnerable people from further severe weather.Every year, refugees walk over 2 billion km to safety. Please join our solidarity movement to honor their resilience."

Regnard: We are witnessing the 'Lebanization' of French politics and we are now in a crisis situation
Sat 12 Jan 2019/NNA - French Senator representing French citizens living abroad, Damien Regnard, held a dialogue session at the Smallville Hotel in Beirut on Saturday, at the invitation of the French Republican Party's Lebanon Branch, in the presence of the Consulate Advisor and Republican Party Representative in Lebanon, Fabienne Blino, who introduced Regnard and called for a wide participation in the European elections. Taking the floor, Regnard touched on France's domestic policy and the policy pursued by the Republican Party, saying, "We are witnessing the Lebanization of French politics...There is an immigration crisis and a crisis of integration, and the challenges created by this crisis must be considered." The Senator called on the French abroad to "vote heavily in the upcoming European elections to be held in May to preserve their right to vote." "All forces must be assembled to participate in the elections because they are the only legitimacy we have, whether for the parliament council or senators or consular representatives abroad," he said, noting that "the percentage of voting must exceed 20 percent." Regnard pointed out that "the current French President Emmanuel Macron does not support the French abroad, and does not mention them in his statements." He also referred to reducing their allocated budgets, including cutting-off the Foreign Affairs Ministry's budget by approximately 13 percent, which he deemed as being a "disaster" that led to the closure of a number of consulates across the world. "France is losing some of its influence and its image in the United Nations because of this reduction," Regnard said. "It is no longer in a number of committees and bodies and is replaced by the Chinese and the British, whose budget has increased by about 60 percent," he added. Regnard revealed that Germany is trying to convert the French seat in the UN Security Council to a European seat.Regarding the yellow jacket demonstrations, Regnard said, "I understand the mobilization that took place and the demands of the November 17 demonstration...but I do not understand the unjust demands that are now being raised, from the abolition of the Senate to the referendum and others..."We are now in a crisis situation," he said. On another level, Regnard indicated that this is his first visit to Lebanon at the invitation of French Ambassador Bruno Foucher, during which he met with a number of Lebanese parliamentarians at the Pine Palace. He disclosed that discussions touched on educational services, since Lebanon hosts the largest network of French accredited schools with the largest number of students, noting that he met with a large number of school principals. Regnard added that he visited the Higher Institute of Business and was briefed on the incubator of many companies and how to finance entrepreneurs for their projects in the world. He also noted that he will be visiting the French contingent operating within UNIFIL peacekeepers in the South.

Exclusive: Hezbollah’s Gains From Syria War Equal Its Losses
Beirut- Paula Astih/Asharq Al Awsat/January 12/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/70999/paula-astih-hezbollahs-gains-from-syria-war-equal-its-losses-%d8%a8%d9%88%d9%84%d8%a7-%d8%a7%d8%b3%d8%b7%d9%8a%d8%ad-%d9%85%d9%83%d8%aa%d8%b3%d8%a8%d8%a7%d8%aa-%d8%ad%d8%b2%d8%a8-%d8%a7/
Nearly seven years have passed since Hezbollah got practically engaged in the Syrian war – the movement’s biggest challenge since its establishment in 1982.
Today, as the battles calm down, the party has returned to the political work inside Lebanon, seeking to invest what it considers “filed victories”. Thus, the party leadership and observers have started to evaluate this experience.
Perhaps the first thing to look for in any attempt to assess Hezbollah’s experience in the Syrian war is the number of party members killed on the field, amid a total blackout on the matter. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights announced on the war’s seventh anniversary that around 122,000 members of the Syrian regime and its pro-Syrian and non-Syrian armed forces were killed, including 63,820 Syrian soldiers and 1,630 members of the Lebanese Hezbollah.
As battles intensified in Syria, specifically in 2013 and 2014, the number of Hezbollah fighters there was estimated at 5,000. The AFP, in a past report, noted that elements of the party received training in Lebanon and Iran before going to the field. The number of party fighters in Syria has recently dropped significantly, in conjunction with the decline of fighting intensity. The director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Rami Abdul Rahman, told Asharq Al-Awsat that those were currently concentrated in the vicinity of Deir Ezzor, Bukamal, Al-Qusayr, Rif Dimashq, Syrian Badia Aleppo and Al-Qamishli airport. The movement refuses to set a date for its withdrawal from Syria. Its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, said last summer that the pullout would be at the request of the Syrian leadership.
Die Welt, a German newspaper, recently published a report on the end of Hezbollah’s mission in Syria, after losing a large number of fighters on the battlefield. The newspaper noted that the party would maintain an advisory role after participating in the Syrian war with about 8,000 fighters.
Opinions converge over Hezbollah’s gains in the Syrian war. Supporters and opponents alike agree that the party achieved a great combat experience. The head of the Middle East Center for Strategic Studies, retired Brigadier General Dr. Hisham Jaber, said that the “combat experience gained by the party fighters [during the war] cannot be provided through training organized by the party leadership.”
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy published in 2016 a study prepared by an IDF officer in 2014, in which he concluded that Hezbollah could pursue a more aggressive combat strategy in any future war with Israel in order to shorten the duration of the conflict. He added that the deep engagement in Syria affected the overall approach of the organization in the planning and implementation of military operations. The military gains of the party are not limited to combat experience. Military experts said that Hezbollah has probably acquired large quantities of weapons over the past years, both from Syria and Iran. Jaber noted that in the July 2006 war, Israel estimated the number of surface-to-surface missiles possessed by Hezbollah at around 20-30 thousand, but today, it puts them at around 100-150 thousand.
Politically, Hezbollah considers that the most important thing it has gained from engaging in the Syrian war is to prevent what it calls “terrorist organizations” from reaching Lebanon, especially after the battle of al-Qusayr. Jaber said that the party also considered itself a major contributor, along with Russia and Iran, to support the Syrian regime and prevent its collapse.
However, as much as the party won, it lost its popularity both inside Lebanon and on the Arab level, in addition to losing hundreds of its members. Jaber emphasized that the number of party members killed in Syria ranged between 1,500-2,000, in addition to hundreds of people with disabilities.
A study by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in 2016 stated that when Hezbollah began its intervention in Syria, its priorities, strategies and rhetoric changed, and a much larger proportion of its budget was allocated to military spending. Despite the continued funding for social services, a larger proportion has been directed to families and institutions associated with Hezbollah’s military infrastructure as part of the party’s efforts to support its forces. Abdul Rahman told Asharq Al-Awsat that the party “lost most of the popularity it enjoyed in Syria, especially in the Sunni and Shiite communities, as well as among the other components.”

Controversy in Lebanon Over Libya’s Invitation to Economic Summit
Beirut - Caroline Akoum/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/The date for the Arab Economic Summit that is scheduled to be held in Beirut on Jan. 19-20 has not changed despite a dispute sparked by Speaker Nabih Berri following his objection to invite Libya after his earlier call to postpone the event over Syria’s non-representation. On Friday, the Organizing Committee of the Arab Summit for Economic and Social Development issued a statement saying Berri has informed members of the Supreme Committee that he agreed on inviting Libya, provided that the invitation be addressed through diplomatic channels. “This was done by Libya's delegate to the League of Arab States,” the statement said. The committee members also explained to Berri that Syria’s invitation is not a Lebanese decision, adding that it was up to the Arab League to approve the mater. However, Berri’s media office countered claims that he had been notified of the status of the two countries’ attendance. It stressed in a statement that “the information is made up and absolutely not true.”In fact, the statement claimed, Berri’s top aide, caretaker Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil, had visited President Michel Aoun on the Speaker’s request to protest inviting Libya to the Summit. “The office expresses its surprise that the level of fabrications reaches this level,” the statement added. Berri is opposed to Lebanon having ties with Libya because of the 1978 disappearance of the movement’s founder, Imam Musa Sadr, and two of his companions during an official visit to the country. Sources close to Aoun told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Summit would be held on time. “We were not informed about any decision to postpone it,” the sources said. Meanwhile, the Higher Islamic Shiite Council held an emergency meeting and called on the concerned Lebanese authorities not to invite the Libyan delegation to the Summit. The Council warned against "ignoring the popular reactions that may result from insisting on inviting the Libyan delegation," stressing that "meetings will be kept open so as to follow-up on the developments and take the appropriate measures."

Bassil Says Syria Relation in Lebanon Interest, Slams Parties 'Exploiting' It
Naharnet/January 12/19/Free Patriotic Movement chief and caretaker Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil stressed Friday that the relation with Syria is “in Lebanon's interest,” as he noted that it should not be “exploited” by any political party. “Our relation with Syria is in the interest of Lebanon and all its components, but the relations with Syria cannot be the subject of domestic overbidding or exploitation by a certain party seeking to improve its own relation with Syria at Lebanon's expense,” Bassil said during a visit to Zahle. “We have put an end to the subordinate and subservient foreign policy and we're now practicing an independent policy based on reciprocity for the sake of Lebanon,” the FM added. “When Syria was in Lebanon, we confronted it until its withdrawal, and when Syria returned to its territory, we boldly declared our determination to establish the best relations with it. We are not ashamed of this and it changes nothing of our history,” the minister went on to say. Turning to the controversy over Syria's return to the Arab League, Bassil said: “We were the first to call for Syria's return to the Arab League and we will not merely follow a certain side to Syria when they decide so.”“We objected against the suspension of Syria's membership in the Arab League from the very beginning and we preserved the best ties with it and it is normal today to help in its return,” the FPM chief went on to say. He added: “We are keen on our national unity but we also reject to subject our national interests to harm and we will not await a decision from beyond the border.”“The war in Syria had suffocated us and the Arab markets were closed in our face, so it is unacceptable to suffocate ourselves during peacetime,” Bassil said. Tensions have surged in Lebanon in recent weeks between parties who want Damascus to be invited to a key Arab economic summit in Beirut and others who reject its participation. Some parties have meanwhile called for postponing the summit until after Syria's return to the Arab League.

Report: Tensions Surge over Inviting Libya to Beirut Summit
Naharnet/January 12/19/The debate in Lebanon intensified over the Arab Economic and Social Development summit scheduled in Beirut on January 19-20, due to the opposition of Speaker Nabih Berri to Libya's invitation and his calls to postpone the summit because of Syria’s lack of participation, media reports said on Saturday. Asharq al-Awsat said some have interpreted Berri's position as “a message to the Syrian regime after relations between the two have witnessed some estrangement.” The country’s presidency has affirmed that the summit is going to be held on time, as Speaker Nabih Berri’s office countered claims that he had been notified of the status of Libya’s and Syria’s attendance. Deputies and ministers of AMAL Movement and Hizbullah are “likely to boycott the summit,” according to the daily. Meanwhile, Assistant Arab League Secretary-General Hossam Zaki told reporters upon his arrival at Beirut's airport on Friday that “the summit will be held on time. The (Lebanese) political tensions are domestic and do not concern the Arab League. The League is concerned with the organization of the summit and we are here to coordinate the arrangements with the Lebanese authorities.”Presidency sources of President Michel Aoun said that preparations for the summit are ongoing and that “no request had been received from the Arab League or any country to postpone it. Invitations were sent to the participants.”Tensions have surged in Lebanon in recent weeks between parties who want Damascus to be invited to the summit and others who reject its participation. Controversy has also arisen over the invitation of Libya in connection with the case of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, a revered Shiite cleric who disappeared in 1978 while on an official visit to the country.

Army Assures ‘Stable’ Situation on Border after Israeli Breaches
Naharnet/January 12/19/The Lebanese Army Command assured on Saturday that the situation on the southern border was stable following Israel’s provocative acts and breaches that included construction works along the Blue Line. “The situation is stable. The army command coordinated efforts with the UN Interim Force in order to maintain stability along the Blue Line,” VDL radio 100.5 quoted the army command. Meanwhile, the Saudi Asharq al-Awsat newspaper quoted unnamed military sources who said “there is a tendency to resolve the issue diplomatically.”
“The army is deployed along the border and is closely monitoring Israel's work. We are in full readiness if the situation develops, although we believe that no one is suited to the military escalation,” added the source. On Thursday, Israel embarked on the construction of a border wall, placing cement blocks near the Miskav Aam settlement, that breached a number of points contested by Lebanon. An army statement noted “the blocks had been placed without informing UNIFIL.” A UNIFIL statement said after the first regular Tripartite meeting of 2019, that the “focus of discussions was on tunnels and ongoing engineering works near the Blue Line.”Tripartite meetings between with senior officers from the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the UN position in Ras Al Naqoura, have been held regularly under the auspices of UNIFIL since the end of the 2006 war in south Lebanon as an essential conflict management and confidence building mechanism.

Hankache: Government of Specialists Needed to Manage Country's Affairs
Kataeb.org/ Saturday 12th January 2019/Kataeb MP Elias Hankache on Saturday stressed that an apportionment government will be disappointing and unproductive, reiterating the party’s call for a government of specialists that will manage the citizens’ affairs while contentious political issues would be addressed at the parliament. "Foreign allegiance, not the Consultative Gathering knot, is the major obstacle that is preventing the government formation; the prematurely-launched presidential race, the U.S. sanctions on Iran, the Yemen war and many other issues are also hindering any breakthrough,” he said in an interview on Future TV. Hankache rejected calls for the reactivation of the caretaker government amid the failure to form a new one, deeming such a proposal as a "heresy" that circumvents the Constitution. "Instead of opting for this option, it would be better to form a new government because the Lebanese have begun to feel desperate,” he said. Hankache pointed out that the country is going through a very difficult phase, adding that the unemployment rate has reached 40% with a high of businesses shuting their doors. “We need a work environment, but there are many problems coming in the way; thus, a government of specialists in needed to restore confidence in the country,” he stressed.

Beirut summit will only further pull Lebanon to the abyss
Makram Rabah/The Weekly Arab/January 13/19
The last time Beirut hosted a regional Arab summit, Lebanon and perhaps the world were totally different. In 2002, Lebanon was a quasi-Syrian protectorate with a political system subservient to the Assad regime.
More important, the US-led invasion of Iraq had not yet occurred and Iran and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were still at bay and forbidden from meddling in the affairs of many Arab countries.
Seventeen years ago, the summit was a testament of Arab support for Lebanon and its government under Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a larger-than-life figure who protected Lebanon and its economy from both internal and regional turmoil.
As it stands, however, the Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, later this month in Beirut, rather than strengthening Lebanon’s position vis-a-vis its Arab neighbours, will further expose it to the many regional schisms that Lebanon’s political establishment neither has the acumen nor the will to navigate.
Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Hezbollah’s main Christian ally, is adamant for the summit to take place on time because it projects him as a true statesman and conceals the fact that the country’s governance structure is in shambles.
Joining him in the desire to see the summit through is Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, whose inability to form a government has been made even harder by Aoun’s party’s unrealistic demands for government portfolios.
Equally, Hezbollah is working to impose its own terms on Hariri, who, over the years, has made many concessions to both Syria and Iran, ones that have made him a collaborator in the eyes of some Arab Gulf countries.
Mistakenly, both Aoun and Hariri see the summit as an occasion to lobby the Arab world, mainly the oil-rich Gulf countries, to bail out Lebanon and its unsalvageable economy and, just as it did on numerous other occasions, to rebuild the country’s barely existent infrastructure.
However, if the Beirut summit does take place, it will only confirm a few essential facts that the Lebanese refuse to acknowledge or even contemplate.
For any of the Arab monarchs or even for their crown princes to make the trip to Beirut and to offer anything beyond token support, the Lebanese government must unequivocally prove its friendship and camaraderie to its Arab guests. This might prove an extremely difficult undertaking because the Lebanese government has failed time and again to curb the influence of Hezbollah over the state and prevent it from doing Iran’s bidding in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and beyond.
Consequently, Lebanon under Saad Hariri is no longer the appealing post-war success story that owes its resurgence to the Arabs but merely a willing hostage of Iran and its militia.
Equally, this summit will antagonise and further radicalise the Syrian-Iranian axis, which looks at the event as an opportunity to flex its muscles and gloat about its so-called victories in the region.
Above all, Iran wants to return Syria to the Arab League, ending a suspension of its membership since 2011. Yet this bullish wishful thinking is insufficient to end Syria’s Arab isolation because it requires the consensus of all 21 members of the Arab League for Bashar Assad to make his Beirut trip.
Iran’s and Syria’s local allies, chiefly among them Lebanese Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, Aoun’s son-in-law and political heir, have been openly lobbying for Assad’s return by claiming that such a measure would be within Lebanon’s economic interests.
Bassil’s simplistic yet sinister logic exposes the crux of Lebanon’s problems: The country’s political elite believe they can play both sides of the regional conflicts and get away with it.
The Beirut summit might appear to be a much-needed economic lifeline to Lebanon; however, the Lebanese would be better to wave off this perilous chance, which will only be a disappointment to all sides involved but more so to the Lebanese who are looking at a no-win situation at best, a scenario that can only pull the country further into the political abyss.
*Makram Rabah is a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, Department of History. He is the author of A Campus at War: Student Politics at the American University of Beirut, 1967-
1975.

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on January 12-13/19
Israeli Warplanes Target Damascus Airport
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/Israeli warplanes fired a number of missiles toward the Damascus area on Friday, the Syrian state news agency said. "The results of the aggression so far were limited to a strike on one of the warehouses at Damascus airport," the SANA news agency cited a military source as saying. The attack took place at 11:15 p.m., it said. Israel has previously carried out several bombings in Syria against what it says are Iranian military targets and advanced arms deliveries to Hezbollah. Many of them have been in the area south of Damascus. "Two areas hosting military positions of Iranian forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah movement have been targeted," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said. These were near the airport and around the Kisweh area south of Damascus, the observatory said. In an earlier report, SANA had spoken of Syrian air-defense batteries attacking "enemy targets".

Syria Says Israeli Warplanes Hit Damascus Airport Warehouse
Associated Press/Naharnet/January 12/19/Missiles fired by Israeli warplanes struck a warehouse at Damascus International Airport late Friday, causing damage but no casualties, a Syrian military official said. The unidentified official was quoted by Syrian state media as saying Israeli aircraft coming from the south fired several missiles at areas near Damascus about 45 minutes before midnight. He said Syrian air defense units shot down most of the missiles, but gave no details on other sites targeted. Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV said the attack was broader than usual, targeting areas ranging from the eastern Damascus suburb of Dmeir to Kiswa south of capital all the way to the village of Dimas in the west near the Lebanon border. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said airstrikes targeted an area near the airport while others hit the area of Kiswa, which is home to positions and storage sites for Iranian and Hizbullah forces allied with Syria's government. There was no immediate word from Israel, which rarely comments on such attacks. Israel is widely believed to have been behind a series of airstrikes in Syria that have mainly targeted Iranian and Hizbullah forces. It was the first airstrike on the Damascus area this year since Israeli warplanes struck areas near the capital on Christmas Day. In last month's incident, Israeli aircraft flying over Lebanon fired missiles toward areas near Damascus, hitting an arms depot and wounding three soldiers. Israeli drones and warplanes were heard flying Friday afternoon over Lebanon. Russia announced it had delivered the S-300 air defense system to Syria in October. That followed the Sept. 17 downing of a Russian reconnaissance plane by Syrian forces responding to an Israeli airstrike, a friendly fire incident that stoked regional tensions.

Arab League: Inviting Syria to Tunis Summit Won’t be Discussed at Beirut Meeting
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 12/19/Naharnet/January 12/19/Assistant Arab League Secretary-General Hossam Zaki said on Saturday there were no plans to discuss Syria's invitation to attend a summit in Tunisia next March, during an economic summit scheduled in Beirut between January 19-20. In a statement he made to Sputnik news agency, Zaki said: “The Arab League has no plans to discuss Syria's invitation to the Tunis Summit during the economic summit in Lebanon, which Damascus has not been invited to.”He assured that the summit will be held on time despite the calls of Lebanese Speaker Nabih Berri to postpone it. “The summit will be held on time,” he stressed. A source in the Tunisian presidency told Sputnik that “Tunisian President Béji Kayed Sibsi was holding consultations during the economic summit in Lebanon on the invitation of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the Arab summit to be held in Tunis next March.” Tensions have surged in Lebanon in recent weeks between parties who want Damascus to be invited to the summit and others who reject its participation. Controversy has also arisen over the invitation of Libya in connection with the case of Imam Moussa al-Sadr, a revered Shiite cleric who disappeared in 1978 while on an official visit to the country. In 2011, Syria was suspended from the Arab League over its failure to end the bloodshed in a move that aimed to increase the international pressure on President Bashar Assad.

Pompeo talks Iran, ISIS and regional stability with Al Arabiya
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English/Saturday, 12 January 2019/In an exclusive interview with Al Arabiya, United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo outlined Washington’s three main priorities in the Middle East which include countering Iran, destroying ISIS and ensuring regional stability. The US Secretary of State had harsh words for the Islamic Republic, saying that “countering Iran, the threat from the world’s largest state sponsor of terror – the Islamic Republic of Iran, is something President Trump has identified as one of his top priorities. We are determined to do that, we will do it with our partners in the Middle East. This is a mission for the world. It’s incredibly important and we are determined to do it,” he said. Pompeo flew in to Abu Dhabi from Manama and has already visited, Amman, Cairo, Baghdad and the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital of Erbil, as part of his ongoing tour in the Middle East which Washington believes is “critical” to confronting Iran and extremist groups.The secretary was also asked to comment on the US-Saudi relationship in the aftermath of the grisly murder of Jamal Khashoggi last year in Turkey. “President Trump made clear since immediately aftermath of this murder that the relationship is broader and deeper and bigger than that,” Pompeo said. “We absolutely have expectations when things go wrong, when heinous acts have occurred, people need to be held accountable for this, but this relationship predated that and the relationship must go forward. We have to have a good relation with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and this administration intends to do so”.The US Secretary of State is also planning on jointly hosting a ministerial summit with Poland that aims at “promoting a future of peace and security in the Middle East” in Warsaw on February 13-14. He’s expected to visit the other four members of the Gulf Cooperation Council - Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia.

Damascus Blackmails Diplomats to Reopen their Embassies
London - Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/The Syrian Foreign Ministry has surprised a number of foreign diplomats residing in Beirut with a decision to annul their residency permits as a means to exert pressure on their governments to reopen their embassies in the Syrian capital. At the end of 2011 and in 2012, several western states, including the United States, closed their embassies in Damascus, except for the Czech mission, which has represented US diplomatic interests in Syria. A number of diplomats were therefore stationed in Beirut, as western states activated their diplomatic missions in nearby states, particularly Turkey and Jordan. Progressively, some western diplomats began visiting Damascus. They also kept their diplomatic residencies, which is granted by the Syrian Foreign Ministry. However, the Ministry recently informed several diplomats residing in Beirut, including those from Chile, that it has annulled their residencies. The decision excluded Norway, Spain and Japan. Diplomats said the decision aims to “exert pressure on western states to reopen their embassies in Damascus and resume diplomatic relations with it.” They said such a move could effect assistance offered to Syria through the United Nations. Meanwhile, Italy is studying the possibility of resuming activities of diplomatic missions in Syria. “Italy is thinking about the possibility of reopening embassies where they have been physically closed on a widest scale. As for reflections on the Syrian particular case, they fully depend on the development of the situation in this country,” Italian Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi said Friday.

Iraq’s Hikma, Asa’ib Ahl el-Haq at Loggerheads after Sadr City Murder
Baghdad - Fadel al-Namshi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/There was growing tension on Friday between the National Wisdom Movement (Hikma) led by Ammar al-Hakim and Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) headed by Sheikh Qais al-Khazali over a report broadcast by the Hikma-linked Al Forat satellite television network on the involvement of an AAH member in the assassination of Imad Jabar, the owner of the Laymounah restaurant, in the city of Sadr, east of Baghdad. The television report said that police members arrested the killer of Jabar, and found with him papers and documents proving he is a member of Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq. The report drove AAH and its leader to launch a fierce attack against Hikma, accusing the party of controlling state buildings and lands in the neighborhood of Jadiriyah in Baghdad, and calling for large demonstrations near the party’s headquarters to condemn the TV report.
Without naming the National Wisdom Movement, al-Khazali wrote on his Twitter account: “A person reaches the utmost cynicism when he falsely accuses others for simply disagreeing with them. Unless he is paid, he would then be excused because he would be an agent.”Spokesperson for the Iraqi Interior Ministry Saad Maan denied arresting the killer of the Laymounah restaurant owner, weakening the credibility of the Forat channel report. However, the manager of the TV station, Ahmed Salem al-Saedi, issued a strongly worded statement, criticizing Khazali and parties close to Hikma. “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” he said. Observers are unaware of the real reasons behind the confrontation between the two sides. But some political sources assume the dispute is caused by the race for cabinet seats.

US: No Further Waivers on Iran Oil Imports
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/Washington will grant no more waivers for Iranian oil after the reimposition of US sanctions, the special representative for Iran said on Saturday, underlining America’s push to choke off Tehran’s sources of income. “Iran is now increasingly feeling the economic isolation that our sanctions are imposing...We do want to deny the regime revenues,” Brian Hook said. “Eighty percent of Iran’s revenues come from oil exports and this is (the) number one state sponsor of terrorism..We want to deny this regime the money it needs,” he said. Tensions between Iran and the United States have increased since May, when US President Donald Trump abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers, saying the accord was flawed in Tehran’s favor, and reintroduced sanctions on Iran that had been lifted under the pact. Washington granted waivers to eight major buyers of Iranian oil - including China, India, Japan and South Korea - after restoring energy sanctions in November.

India’s Iranian Oil Imports Fell By 41 Percent in December under US Pressure
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 11 January, 2019/India’s oil imports from Iran fell by 41 percent in December to 302,000 barrels per day oil (bpd), ship tracking data reviewed by Reuters showed, as pressure from US sanctions took effect. The US introduced tough sanctions aimed at crippling Iran’s oil revenue-dependent economy in November but gave a six-month waiver to eight nations, including India, which allowed them to import some Iranian oil. India is restricted to buying 1.25 million tonnes per month, some 300,000 bpd. In 2018 India shipped about 13 percent more oil from Iran. According to Reuters, December imports from Iran were 9.4 percent higher than November when some cargoes were delayed due to lack of ships, the tanker arrival data showed. Iran was the sixth biggest oil supplier to India in December compared to third position it held a year ago and last month Tehran’s share of India’s overall imports declined to 6.2 percent from 11.7 percent a year ago, the data showed. Government sources say Reuters’ calculations showing India’s oil imports from Iran in this fiscal year would be higher than the 452,000 bpd, or 22.6 million tonnes, it imported in the previous year, are correct. In April-December 2018, the first 9 months of this fiscal year, India’s oil imports from Iran averaged about 533,800 bpd, up about 22 percent from a year ago, the data showed. India’s total oil imports in December were about 4.9 bpd, up about 15 percent from a year ago, the data showed.

Guterres Says 'Deeply Concerned' Over Widespread Violations of Human Rights in Libya
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Thursday called on the Libyan government to take measures to protect detainees in Libya from torture and ensure a fair trial. "I remain deeply concerned about the widespread violations of human rights, the attacks against detainees and the arbitrary detention of thousands of men, women and children," Guterres said in a report covering the past six months. "The Libyan government must implement procedures to allow all persons detained to be protected against torture and other ill-treatment," he added. "All prisons must be under the effective control of the government and not subject to any influence or interference from armed groups."In his report, the Secretary-General referred specifically to the situation of migrants and refugees "who are still subject to deprivation of liberty, arbitrary detention and sexual assault in official or unofficial prisons, as well as abduction or forced labor". According to the report, more than 669,000 immigrants have been counted in the country, including 12% of women and 9% of children, during the period mentioned. The report pointed out that the number of detainees in Libya has increased since last August. He explained that about 5,300 refugees and migrants were detained in Libya during the reporting period, including 3,700 people in need of international protection. Guterres said women and children were "particularly vulnerable to rape, sexual abuse and exploitation by government and non-governmental entities."

Libya: Salame Says Parliamentary Elections Expected Before Next Spring
Algeria - Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 12 January, 2019/UN Special Envoy to Libya Ghassan Salame said parliamentary elections “could take place as early as next spring”. “Two or three weeks” of meetings between representatives of Libya’s rival camps were still needed before a date could be set for the ambitious event, Salame noted. “But the decision to convene the national conference has already been taken and contacts between our Libyan partners have begun,” he stressed. Salame revealed that the ceasefire in Tripoli is remarkably respected, stressing that he along with 15 police commanders are closely watching the implementation of the ceasefire. He also lauded efforts exerted by Interior Minister at Government of National Accord Fathi Ali Bashagha for the to foster security bodies, commending Bashagha’s step in replacing a number of security officers at the ministry. Salame said there are 15 million unseized weapons, which means that each Libyan owns two or three weapons. Withdrawing these weapons won't happen overnight, and is a real challenge. Moreover, he noted that a UN mission will be launched in Benghazi in the coming days, with ongoing plans to launch another one in Sabha (south Libya).

Government Shutdown Becomes Longest in US History
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/January 12/19/The US government shutdown that has left 800,000 federal employees without salaries as a result of President Donald Trump's row with Democrats over building a Mexico border wall entered a record 22nd day Saturday. The Democrats' refusal to approve $5.7 billion demanded by Trump for the wall project has paralyzed Washington, with the president retaliating by refusing to sign off on budgets for swaths of government departments unrelated to the dispute. As a result, workers as diverse as FBI agents, air traffic controllers and museum staff, did not receive paychecks Friday. The partial shutdown of the government became the longest on record at midnight Friday (0500 GMT Saturday), when it overtook the 21-day stretch in 1995-1996, under president Bill Clinton. Trump on Friday backed off a series of previous threats to end the deadlock by declaring a national emergency and attempting to secure the funds without congressional approval. "I'm not going to do it so fast," he said at a White House meeting. Trump described an emergency declaration as the "easy way out" and said Congress had to step up to the responsibility of approving the $5.7 billion. "If they can't do it... I will declare a national emergency. I have the absolute right," he insisted. Until now, Trump had suggested numerous times that he was getting closer to taking the controversial decision. Only minutes earlier, powerful Republican ally Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted after talks with Trump: "Mr. President, Declare a national emergency NOW." It was not clear what made Trump change course. But Trump himself acknowledged in the White House meeting that an attempt to claim emergency powers would likely end up in legal battles going all the way to the Supreme Court.
Opponents say that a unilateral move by the president over the sensitive border issue would be constitutional overreach and set a dangerous precedent in similar controversies.
Under siege
The standoff has turned into a test of political ego, particularly for Trump, who came into office boasting of his deal making powers and making an aggressive border policy the keystone of his nationalist agenda. Democrats, meanwhile, seem determined at all costs to prevent a president who relishes campaign rally chants of "build the wall!" from getting a win. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the US-Mexican frontier presents major challenges, ranging from the hyper-violent Mexican drug trade to the plight of asylum seekers and poor migrants seeking new lives in the world's richest country. There's also little debate that border walls are needed: about a third of the frontier is already fenced off. But Trump has turned his single-minded push for more walls into a political crusade seen by opponents as a stunt to stoke xenophobia in his right-wing voter base, while wilfully ignoring the border's complex realities. For Trump, who visited the Texas border with Mexico on Thursday, the border situation amounts to an invasion by criminals that can only be solved by more walls. "We have a country that's under siege," he told the local officials in the White House. Some studies show that illegal immigrants generally commit fewer crimes than people born in the United States, although not everyone agrees on this. More certain is that while narcotics do enter the country across remote sections of the border, most are sneaked through heavily guarded checkpoints in vehicles, the government's own Drug Enforcement Administration said in a 2017 report. It said that most smuggling is done "through US ports of entry (POEs) in passenger vehicles with concealed compartments or commingled with legitimate goods on tractor trailers."Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives and a key figure in opposing Trump's agenda, said money should be spent in many areas of border security, but not on walls. "We need to look at the facts," she said. But Trump accused the Democrats of only wanting to score points against him with a view to the 2020 presidential elections.
"They think, 'Gee, we can hurt Trump,'" he said. "The Democrats are just following politics."

Egypt police kill 6 militants in shootout, says interior ministry
AFP, Cairo/Saturday, 12 January 2019/Egyptian police killed six suspected extremists in a shootout early Saturday in the country’s south, the interior ministry said. The clashes broke out during a police raid on a militant hideout in a mountainous area on the edge of the southern province of Sohag, some 460 kilometres (285 miles) south of Cairo, the ministry said in a statement. Police seized weapons and ammunition, it added. The operation is part of “the interior ministry’s efforts to confront terrorist organizations aiming to undermine security and stability” in Egypt, it said. Egypt has been battling an Islamist insurgency following the 2013 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi, who was forced out by the military in the face of mass protests against his rule. Attacks have largely been concentrated in the turbulent northern Sinai region, but have also taken place elsewhere across the country. Egypt launched in February a wide-scale operation centered on North Sinai to wipe out extremists, including members of ISIS extremist group, spearheading the insurgency there.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on January 12-13/19
Two Ways May Could Just End the Brexit Standoff
Therese Raphael/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
Britain’s parliament hasn’t yet voted on Theresa May’s Brexit deal or on whether it still has confidence in her government. The first will happen on Jan. 15 and if, as expected, she loses, the Labour Party is threatening to hold a vote on the latter soon after.
But two votes that members of parliament have held so far this week amount to both a rejection of her deal and an informal vote of no confidence in the government. The result is what May’s former chief of staff Nick Timothy calls a “Mexican stand-off.” There are two ways May can end it; neither will please hardline Brexiters.
Tuesday’s vote, in which 20 of May’s own Conservative MPs sided with the Labour Party, was a warning lawmakers will do whatever it takes to stop a no-deal exit. But that’s harder than it seems. While the vote ties the Treasury’s hands in the event of a departure without agreement, it doesn’t actually prevent it.
The second defeat for the government, a day later, was more consequential. Speaker John Bercow controversially dispensed with convention to allow an amendment that forces the government to return to parliament within three days of its deal being voted down to explain its Plan B.
That means MPs should get a chance soon to vote on other options than May’s deal, including a second referendum. It would still require the government to embrace a course of action, but at least it would clarify if there is a parliamentary majority for it. Bercow’s decision suggests he will use his powers liberally until he’s ousted at least. For now, though, the hand of parliament has been strengthened at a key moment.
The government hasn’t given up on its deal, though. But its attempt to woo the Democratic Unionist Party, the Northern Irish party May relies on for her parliamentary majority, was dismissed by the DUP as “fairly meaningless.” A bid to woo Brexiters with promises that MPs would decide whether to trigger the controversial backstop doesn’t seem to have changed minds.
So who fires the first shot in the Mexican stand-off, and what’s May’s Plan B? May has refused repeatedly to rule out a no-deal exit. Unless you believe she’s actually willing to allow that to happen — I don’t — her refusal is tactical, a punt on the hope that the threat will force MPs to vote for her deal instead. For it to work, the threat needs to be credible, and MPs need to believe they have no other choice. But they do.
Jeremy Corbyn has previously been unwilling to trigger a no-confidence vote he will certainly lose, especially as Labour’s policy, if elections aren’t possible, is to call a second referendum. That’s something that Corbyn doesn’t really want. But Labour’s call for new elections has started to look like more than empty posturing. What if a sufficient number of moderate Conservative MPs see a confidence vote as the only way to avert a disastrous no-deal exit?
Careerism and party loyalties can usually be said to trump almost anything else in British politics, but perhaps not now, not at this historical juncture and not in the midst of a constitutional crisis that, as today’s announcement of 5,000 job cuts at Jaguar Land Rover reminds us, may soon turn into an economic one. There may well be enough Conservatives who will say “not in my name,” and even risk deselection to take a stand.
Or as the young Conservative MP Paul Masterton tweeted, “If hardline Brexiteers want to lob a grenade for an ideological purist fantasy fire on. But my patience + goodwill will be gone. This deal is as far as I’m prepared to go.”
May will continue to try to get some assurances from Brussels to win votes, but in return the EU will want to be confident that whatever they give won’t be rejected; that’s tricky. If there is no EU white knight, then May has two plausible, but fraught, options.
One is that she could seek to forge a cross-party consensus of some sort, perhaps formalized in some form of consultative body composed of Labour and other MPs — a de facto German-style grand coalition. That would suggest she’s willing to accept demands for a softer Brexit, including remaining in the EU’s customs union permanently.
This was something she couldn’t contemplate before last year’s confidence vote in her leadership, but winning that bought her a 12-month reprieve from being challenged by her own party. This option could eliminate the need for the controversial backstop and win over enough Labour support to pass a deal. It would be an extraordinary step, given Britain’s adversarial political history, but we are also in uncharted territory.
Another option is to call a general election without waiting for a vote of no-confidence. That would force Labour — which has remarkably not managed to convert the Tories’ mess into a big poll lead — to spell out exactly how it intends to proceed with Brexit. And it would force Conservative MPs to back their leader’s plan for Brexit and rule out no-deal — under pain of being deselected by their party. That would at least allow voters to elect a party with a coherent view on the subject.
The 2017 election was a disaster, but it can also be seen as a rejection of May’s early vision of a hard Brexit. A humbler party with a clearer, more realistic offering on Brexit might do better, especially given voter skepticism about Labour’s economic offering.
The parliamentary votes so far this week may seem like a noisy sideshow, but they underscore the divisions that have made the Conservatives dysfunctional as a ruling party as long as the Europe question remains unresolved. And they underscore the strength of support for avoiding a no-deal exit, something hardline Brexiters are now advocating.
It will be May who will have to decide if Britain leaves the EU without a deal. If she fails to pass her deal, she could back down and agree to remain in the customs union permanently. Or members of her own party could vote with Labour to bring down the government. Either way, a showdown with the eurosceptic wing of her own party is inevitable. Only one side can win.

US Should Go Back to the Moon
Faye Flam/Bloomberg/Saturday, 12 January, 2019
To claim we’ve already been to the moon is like spending a day each in Iowa, Arizona, Rhode Island and maybe Western Pennsylvania and saying you’ve already been to Earth. There’s a lot more to see on the moon — including the whole far side, the half that’s perpetually turned away from us. That’s one reason for the excitement behind the Chinese-led mission Chang’e-4, which landed in this unexplored region last week.
Images from lunar orbit show the geology there is strikingly different from the sites where Apollo astronauts explored. The craft landed in a vast depression called the South Pole-Aitken basin, which takes up a quarter of the lunar surface and appears to have formed early in the history of our solar system, said planetary geologist Seth Jacobson of Northwestern University. The rocks there could hold clues to how our own planet formed.
The prevailing theory about the moon’s origin is a dramatic one: Soon after a proto-Earth came together, it collided with another planet the size of Mars, coalescing into a bigger planet and the moon. Jacobson said the lander is in an area where rocks from beneath the moon’s crust may have been brought to the surface by ancient impacts. Both NASA and the China National Space Administration have proposed missions to go back to this area and collect samples.
Though tantalizing, the far side is tough to visit because there’s no way to communicate directly with a lander, he said. You need an orbiter to relay signals. One of the scariest parts of the Apollo-8 mission, he said, was the period when astronauts flew behind the moon and lost all contact with mission control.
But the radio darkness is a plus for some astrophysics quests, including the detection of subtle radio waves emanating from deep space — energy remnants of the early universe that would be drowned out on the Earth. And so Chang’e-4 also carries a prototype for the kind of lunar radio telescope that might one day be built on a larger scale.
The US is still the unquestioned leader in space exploration — the Chinese landing came just two days after an American probe's spectacular flyby of an icy body 4.1 billion miles away, called Ultima Thule, which qualifies as the most distant object ever reached by spacecraft. The same NASA craft, New Horizons, had a close encounter with Pluto in 2015. But the moon is a place astronauts might go, and so Chang’e-4 has spurred talk of a new space race.
The experts I spoke to were keen to send astronauts back to the moon, though preferably not as part of an unfriendly international competition. Planetary scientist Clive Neal of Notre Dame said that space races aren’t sustainable in the long term. The Apollo missions were world-changing but ended after just a few years. Now, informed by history, he said, we could go about a more collaborative program that would get astronauts to the moon and beyond.
While sending people to the moon might seem like a modest goal compared to a trip to Mars, learning to live on the moon would help scientists learn how to keep humans alive and healthy on longer journeys. There are known deposits of water ice on the moon, said Neal, and depending on its purity, these might supply a moon base with water or be separated into hydrogen and oxygen and used to fuel a Mars mission.
Humanity would get farther faster and would gather more scientific wisdom by international collaboration than by space racing, but Congress currently restricts NASA collaboration with the Chinese under what’s known as the Wolf amendment, introduced by Virginia congressman Frank Wolf. The rationale was prevention of espionage. There were concerns over Chinese hacking and a Chinese scientist who left a NASA facility with an unauthorized laptop. Time Magazine reported that the laptop contained pornography and pirated movies but no national secrets.
Jacobson said it’s worth noting the symbolism of where the Chinese chose to land on the moon: the crater-within-a-crater named after Theodore von Karman, who was the head of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a mentor to a young Chinese researcher — Hsue-Shen Tsien — who became one of the world’s great rocket scientists. The two worked together before and during World War II, and Tsien is now recognized for making a major contribution to the US space program. But after the war, common enemies no longer sustained the alliance, and in the 1950s, during the Communist scare, Tsien was interrogated, put under house arrest for five years and then deported. Upon release, he headed the Chinese nuclear weapons program, putting it on the fast track to nuclear weapons and long-range missiles.
Could sending the Chinese spacecraft to the Von Karman crater be an intentional gesture of reconciliation and hope for further cooperation? Perhaps it’s just a coincidence, but one that can serve as a reminder of the collaboration that gave birth to space travel in the first place.

Terrorists’ plots backfire on Iran
Reza Shafiee/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen announced January 8, along with other officials on behalf of 28 members EU bloc, new sanctions targeting the Iranian regime’s terrorist plots and assassinations in France, Denmark and the Netherlands. The clerical regime used to getting free rides and actions without consequences in the West was hard hit with the reality. It planned a series of terrorist attacks against its opposition in both sides of the Atlantic last year, but payback time has come in 2019. In a letter outlining its justification for sanctions, the Dutch Foreign Ministry cited “strong indications that Iran was involved in the assassinations of two Dutch nationals of Iranian origin,” one in 2015 in the city of Almere, and another in 2017 in The Hague. “In the Dutch government’s opinion, hostile acts of this kind flagrantly violate the sovereignty of the Netherlands and are unacceptable,” the letter said.
For years, the EU tried to bring the Iranian regime to the table, and showered it with incentive packages. Now, the regime has turned around and bit the hand that has been trying to feed it for years
To send a strong message, ambassadors from Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany and the Netherlands visited the Iranian Foreign Ministry in Tehran “to convey their serious concerns” about Iran’s behavior, according to the Dutch letter.
What happened in 2018?
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his cronies in the regime planned a revenge for their main opposition in response to what had happened in late 2017 and throughout 2018 in Iran. Widespread protests in the country were not something that the Iranian regime could take lightly. Khamenei has not missed a single opportunity to remind its base support in Iran paramilitary Basij Force and Revolutionary Guards, of the existential threat the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) poses to the regime.
Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) with its partner in crime, the Intelligence Unit of the Revolutionary Guards, and their sister, the Quds Force, are accomplices in cynical plans against the regime’s opposition. A section of the MOIS is the target of the January 8 sanctions imposed by the EU bloc.
It all began by a failed MOIS plan to hit the Persian New Year Celebration of MEK in their new residence in Albania in March.
Tehran has changed its pattern of dealing with its dissidents abroad and has removed the “moderation” mask altogether.
In the 80s and early 90s, the nascent theocratic regime – not caring about the consequences of its actions – hunted down opposition figures in European capitals such as Paris, Berlin and Rome. Now it seems that the ruling regime is revisiting the old terror tactics in Western cities again.The second stop in the renewed terror campaign – this time using Iranian trained spies turned diplomats instead of using proxies like Lebanese Hezbollah to do the dirty work – was where a large gathering of Iran’s main opposition the National Council of Resistance (NCRI) took place in Paris on June 30.
Even as the rally unfolded, security forces in France, with the help of their German and Belgian partners, foiled a terrorist plot intending to target it. Timing of the plot was significant because Hassan Rouhani was scheduled to visit Austria the next day.
Assadollah Assadi, with MOIS nickname, Daniel, masterminded the plot while under diplomatic immunity from the Austrian government. He was stationed in Vienna. Assadi was caught red-handed when he was giving the explosives and detonator to a sleeper cell, an Iranian born Belgian couple to carry out the attack. Later Assadi was extradited to Belgium where he is imprisoned waiting for his trail on terror charges.
Assadi is one of two individuals named in the European Union’s first imposed sanctions against the Iranian regime since the nuclear accord was implemented three years ago.
According to diplomatic and security sources last fall, France expelled an Iranian diplomat in response to the failed plot. France’s foreign ministry said on October 2, there was no doubt the Iranian intelligence ministry had been behind the plot against the June 30 rally in Paris.
It subsequently froze assets belonging to Tehran’s intelligence services and two Iranian nationals. The Iranian regime continued with its campaign of hunting down its opponents in the summer and the next stop was the US.
On August 20, 2018, the US Justice Department announced two arrests on American soil , Ahmadreza Mohammadi-Doostdar, a 38 year old man born in America and from Iranian immigrant parents, and Majid Ghorbani a US permanent resident of California.
The two were charged with spying on members and supporters of Iran’s main opposition group, the MEK.
In July 2018, Dutch authorities said they had expelled two Iranian diplomats, who foreign officials say were linked to the assassinations of two Iranian dissidents. US officials believed Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security was involved.
Back in Albania where the country hosts thousands of MEK members, the Balkan country – finally fed up with the Iranian embassy’s espionage and terrorist plots – made a bold move and expelled the Iranian regime’s ambassador from its soil. Many, including the US President and his close advisers welcomed the move. What Albania did was setting a good example in dealing with the ruthless regime in Iran. For years, the EU tried to bring the Iranian regime to the table, and showered it with incentive packages. Now, the regime has turned around and bit the hand that has been trying to feed it for years.
How to stop the theocratic regime in Tehran
Mohammad Mohadessien, Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) tweeted on January 8th: “To prevent Iranian mullahs’ terrorism in Europe, EU must black list MOIS and the IRGC, and expel its agents and mercenaries. Mullahs must understand their terrorism will have grave consequences for their repressive regime.”He added: “According to the statement of 29 April 1997, EU must refrain giving visa to intelligence agents of the Iranian regime, expel those agents from Europe, and end meetings between European and Iranian officials at ministerial level.”
In 1997, the EU Council of Ministers issued a declaration for the expulsion of all Iranian Intelligence operatives from European soil. That order came after a trial in Germany found Iranian regime guilty of involvement in the assassination of four Kurdish dissidents in what came to be known as the Mykonos murders.

While the Iranian regime’s elite bash US, their children reap its benefits
Ali Hajizade/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
A distinguishing feature of the world’s pariahs is their hypocrisy.
During the 20th century, the examples of hypocrisy could be witnessed in the Eastern bloc countries, where the elites were living separately from the people, positioning themselves as the working class advocates.For example, while the country was desolated by famine, the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il became the biggest private buyer of Hennessy Paradis cognac. Iran’s theocratic regime decided to follow the “good traditions” of the Eastern bloc and North Korea. Moreover, mullahs decided to go far and send their children to the US for education. It turns out that their favorite slogans like “death to America” and epithets like “Great Satan” are only propagandist tricks to fool their people. In a recent speech, Brian Hook assured that the US authorities are seized of the matter. Namely, of people who have close relative ties with members of the Iranian elite and have received a passport or a residence permit in the US.
In addition to information declared by a member of the Iranian parliament, conservative politician Hojjatal-Islam Mojtaba Zolnour, said that during the negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program, Barack Obama’s administration had granted citizenship to 2500 Iranians as encouragement, before signing the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA). Among these 2500 holders of the US passports (or in some cases, green cards) there were children and close relatives of Iranian high-rank officials and tycoons close to the regime. The Iranians even launched a petition on change.org demanding to deport the children of the Iranian officials from the US. At the time of writing this article, the petition has collected 117000 signatures.When it comes to their children and close relatives, the Iranian leaders do not mind to send them far from Iran. (Shutterstock)
Notable Iranians living in the US
After raising this issue in the US and Iran, some of the Iranians have left the country. These are a few of the children of Iranian individuals who have close relative ties with members of the regime, but live or have lived in the US:
Ali Fereydoun and Maryam Fereydoun – a son and a daughter of Hossein Fereydoun, a close relative and assistant of President Hassan Rouhani.
Fatemeh Ardeshir Larijani – a daughter of Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament.
Mahdi Zarif - a son of the Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.
Seyed Ahmad Araghchi – a nephew of Abbas Araghchi, who is currently the political deputy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran.
Eissa Hashemi – a son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President of Iran. She became known after acting as an interpreter for terrorists who took over the US Embassy in Tehran, right after the Islamic revolution.
It is just a small part of the people linked to the regime, who could reap the benefits of the US general education system (in certain cases, at the US taxpayers’ expense).

China: Ominous signs of a weakening economy
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
While market analysts have been focusing and rightly so on the protracted trade talks between the USA and China and its effects on the global stick markets and economies, there has been little discussion on the underlying strength of the Chinese economy.
This is important if one is to assess future economic growth in that country and its impact on oil demand and oil prices and, in turn, the fiscal health of Gulf oil producers. On the trade talks, things seemed a bit more optimistic. As 2018 drew to a tumultuous close, President Donald Trump went out of his way to highlight the positive tone of a call he had just concluded with China’s President Xi Jinping, focused almost entirely on the state of trade negotiations between the two.
As relayed by Trump, the tone of the call was indeed friendly, but more to the point, the two leaders confirmed a desire to refrain from any further escalation of tariffs, to step up negotiations towards the removal of all additional tariff threats, and to work towards a comprehensive agreement on trade, agreeing to the now formally announced bilateral deputy-level meeting starting in Beijing on January 7 which seem to have gone well as China promised to purchase more American goods causing some uplift in US and global stock markets.
The issue of the Chinese currency and that the Chinese are using it to obtain unfair trade advantage by fixing artificial rates, as opposed to market led rates, has long been a sore point with the United States negotiators.
Managing their differences
All these recent interactions are positive signs that the world’s two largest economies are trying to manage their differences to bring ties back on track after months of trade war. Nevertheless, one might not be too uncharitable in noting the real reason for the timing of Trump’s call to XI just may have been to support the US stock market after the ugliest Christmas Eve plunge ever.
While the Chinese will find some comfort in that President Trump needs a successful trade talk outcome for domestic reasons and with some in China possibly urging fewer concessions, the economic picture in Beijing is not exactly one of all roses either.
Following the release of China’s sub-50 (49.4) December 2018 Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) which are key economic indicators and derived from monthly surveys of private sector companies.
The latest Chinese PMI readings spooked investors – the first contraction since July 2016 and the weakest reading since February of the same year – and the People’s Bank of China ( PBoC ) did not hesitate to announce a 100 basis points cut in their Reserve Requirement Ratio ( RRR). That helped, at least for now, stabilize their markets. The Chinese government has now set some policy objectives to ensure that the world’s second largest economy does not go into a recession.
First, the Central Party Committee agreed broadly to implement “countercyclical” and “proactive” fiscal and monetary policies to ensure that GDP would not fall below the coming year’s more modest 6.0-6.5% GDP target, and that the 6.0% GDP floor would be defended at all costs, even in what we believe is the unlikely event there is no agreement with the US to at least de-escalate tensions over trade.
Second, on monetary policy, Premier Li Keqiang flagged the possibility of “some loosening” in 2019 as downward pressure accelerates on the economy, with expectations that the PBoC should be ready to deliver 4-5 RRR cuts next year. That is significantly higher than the end of year market consensus for 3 cuts in 2019 - and the PBoC has the go ahead to even deliver an actual benchmark rate cut if “very necessary.”
Some analysts have noted that even after the cuts announced last night go into effect, the RRR rate for large banks will stall stand at 13.5%, and for small banks at 11.5%. Third, tax cuts that are also to come, as hinted by Premier Li Keqiang which some believe is a suggestion for a 2019 tax cut on businesses and individuals equating to about 1.0-1.2 trillion Yuan. That would be up from the 800 billion Yuan of tax cuts instituted in 2018.
Chinese currency
The issue of the Chinese currency and that the Chinese are using it to obtain unfair trade advantage by fixing artificial rates, as opposed to market led rates, has long been a sore point with the United States negotiators. From all accounts even with that stimulus, the Chinese have steered clear of any suggestion they could be targeting or even condoning a weaker currency, sticking to the mantra the Yuan- Renminbi is to be kept at a “basically reasonable and balanced” level.
The desire to avoid political charges from the US or other trading partners over FX depreciation was clearly confirmed in the wake of the RRR, where one stated explanation for splitting the 100 basis points cut into two tranches was to counteract any knee-jerk market weakening of the Yuan. Any structural and fundamental changes in economic direction and policies needs the blessing of the ruling Chinese Communist Party to the leadership.
It would seem the prospects of a looming economic slowdown that will affect many parts of the country has prompted the need to hold a rare Communist Party gathering of all provinces. President Xi Jinping may be clearing the calendar for a long-awaited Communist Party gathering later this month. Nearly half of China’s 31 regions that normally hold annual legislative and advisory meetings have suddenly rescheduled them this month, to create a window from January 19 to 22. That’s the usual length of time required for a full meeting of the party’s Central Committee, which involves more than 200 officials from the government, military and state-owned enterprises and which approves major policy changes.
Is this enough to settle the Chinese markets? The initial readings after the weak PMI number are that both central bank and regulatory sources expect potential big swings in the Yuan FX rate in 2019 due to unsettled global economic fundamentals, political uncertainties, and volatility in equity, bond, and commodity markets. For these reasons, while that may well translate into more two-way movement for the dollar as well, some analysts still see less room for the dollar to rise in 2019 than it did in 2018 due to domestic US economic slowdown and impasse in the American legislative bodies to act on a bi-partisan basis.
The on-going US Federal Government budget shutdown is only a flavour of what is to come. As for Gulf oil producers, a slowdown in Chinese economic growth will translate into generally depressed oil prices for most of 2019, leading to larger than budgeted fiscal deficits and reserve drawdowns.

Engineering a historical narrative in Syria
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya English/January 12/19
“We will go down in history either as the world’s greatest statesmen or its worst villains.”
These were the indomitable words of Field Marshal Hermann Goring prior to the Nazis facing a crushing defeat and Goring himself facing trial in the world’s first war crimes tribunal. Had the Nazis emerged victorious, the tables would certainly have been reversed. With Bashar al-Assad on the verge of complete victory in Syria, we can expect his regime to follow a similar trajectory of engineering the historical narrative to paint Assad as the greatest statesman and the civilian uprising as nothing but a plot by dark foreign powers and Islamists. In fact, much of this groundwork has already been laid by Putin’s cyber warriors with the demonization of the White Helmets and declaring all opposition to Assad as al-Qaeda and ISIS. And the West, suffering from guilt after a complete dereliction of duty of standing up for their own values, will likely not offer much resistance. After all absence of war is much more important than justice and accountability. The Syrian people who rose up against a brutal dictator and paid with their lives will simply be recast as enemies of stability. This handbook for beating a civilian population into submission will become a must read for any authoritarian regime facing a popular uprising within its territory. Militarily, first encircle the target area and block all traffic of food. Then, bomb hospitals to ensure insufficient medical facilities when casualties start mounting up. Last, use munitions with the highest psychological impact, such as cluster bombs and chemical weapons to break the targets into surrendering. In case you were not certain, yes, all three of these tactics are explicit war crimes.
Evidence of war crimes
What used to happen until now, however, is that the propaganda offensive by the Russian information warfare machine to obfuscate and confuse the evidence for war crimes committed by Assad and the Kremlin started either as during the acts themselves, or immediately after.
But this has now changed, and the Kremlin has moved onto the next logical evolution of its propaganda capabilities: pre-emptive misinformation. Prior to any offensive, the Kremlin-backed “media” channels started pushing the narrative that the rebels are acquiring and planning to use chemical weapons. This did two things: 1) it supposedly gave Assad and Putin cause and urgency to step up their offensive against the rebels; and 2) if chemical weapons were to be deployed, well this time “we know” that it was the rebels who had such weapons on hand. Translation: an all-out military assault is necessary even if it will be utter bloodbath, complete with liberal deployment of chemical weapons and any other illegal weapons and munitions against civilian targets deemed necessary to shatter the psyche of the local population. Under normal circumstances, such advance warning of intent to commit war crimes by clearly identifiable state actors would be useful in formulating a response from the international community, which might prevent such an attack, or at least mitigate it to some extent. But we do not live in normal time. The incumbent administration in the United States has no personal moral interest in humanitarian concerns, either around the globe or indeed in their own country, China does not get involved in these kinds of disputes as matter of policy, and the rest of Western Europe has neither the leadership, nor the will, to risk direct confrontation with any serious adversary.
The aftermath of this kind of assault is equally predictable. Tens to hundreds of thousands dead, horrific pictures on the news, a new wave of refugees heading towards Europe, and the tacit acceptance by the West that the situation is what it is, and nothing can be done about it now – “at least the regime is killing terrorists”, is what they will be telling themselves.

Detailed Interview With The Israeli Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik:‘Israelis Are Living on the Titanic & No One Wants to Hear Bad News About the Army
مقابلة من الهآرتس مع اللواء احتياط يتسحاق بريك: الإسرائيليون يعيشون على تايتانيك ولا أحد يريد سماع أخبار سيئة حول الجيش
Amos Harel/Haaretz/January 12/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71009/%d9%85%d9%82%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%84%d8%a9-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%87%d8%a2%d8%b1%d8%aa%d8%b3-%d9%85%d8%b9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%84%d9%88%d8%a7%d8%a1-%d8%a7%d8%ad%d8%aa%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b7-%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b3/
Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik wraps up a decade as army watchdog, having issued divisive reports on the IDF's readiness for war. In an interview with Haaretz, he talks about low motivation, the question of ground forces and 'the worst personnel crisis since 1965'
The Israel Defense Forces is suffering a failure in its organizational and command culture resembling the plight of the Titanic, Maj. Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brik, who retired this week after 10 years as the IDF ombudsman, told Haaretz.
“This is the harsh disease that gives birth to the failures," Brik added, using a different metaphor. "As long as we don’t treat it, we will continue to deteriorate,” he said, adding that the main reason for the failures, from the Second Lebanon War to the 2014 Gaza war, is cultural.
“When you look at it from an economic angle, the IDF is the biggest company in Israel,” he said. “It has a budget of 31 billion shekels [$8.5 billion] a year and hundreds of thousands of people, including reservists. Billions in infrastructure and weapons are operated within this framework. This entire economy needs to be managed, but there’s no management in the army. The management falls through the cracks.”
Brik is bidding farewell to the defense establishment with harsh diagnoses, and as usual he isn’t afraid of the reactions. For 53 years, with short breaks, Brik has served in a number of roles in the IDF and at the Defense Ministry.
During the Yom Kippur War, the experience that has shaped his beliefs to this day, he was seriously wounded as the commander of a company of reservists in Sinai. He switched between damaged tanks seven times in the middle of the fighting, and at the end of the war was awarded the Medal of Courage, the IDF’s second highest award for bravery.
But his name has never been in the headlines as much as in the past seven months. For years, in his ombudsman’s reports, Brik has harshly criticized the army’s severe problems in treating its combat soldiers. He thus helped fix a long list of ills he identified based on soldiers’ complaints.
Outgoing Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot IDF Spokesperson's Unit
When he presented his last annual report in June, Brik ratcheted up his criticism. After pointing out the problems in the IDF’s organizational culture, he warned of the effects of these shortcomings on units' preparedness for war – in the Gaza Strip but especially on the northern front.
This is when, in a series of reports and letters Brik presented to the security cabinet and the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, he gradually began to embarrass the top brass. So much so that Brik’s statements have cast a shadow over the media rounds that IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot is conducting before he retires next week.
Eisenkot is an outstanding and admired chief of staff who enjoys a broad – and rare – media consensus on the way he has done his job, even though the far right is less enthusiastic. But it seems that Brik has launched the first serious debate on the state of the army, and in particular on the ground forces and reserves. It took time before the doubts began to spread.
Spokespeople, advisers and for some reason even a few journalists have made a serious effort in recent weeks to silence Brik and undermine his conclusions. Still, the public debate over these questions is growing. Brik’s stubbornness has led to the appointment of two military commissions that examined the IDF’s preparedness and rejected Brik’s main claim – but still recognized a long list of faults and gaps.
Even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as part of his additional new role as defense minister, invited Brik in for a meeting. Netanyahu has also consulted on how to address Brik’s claims. A number of senior officers in the reserves took part: reserve major generals Yaakov Amidror and Johanan Locker, and Brig. Gen. (res.) Jacob Nagel. It seems that Netanyahu, to the army’s great disappointment, is considering appointing another committee to look into the matter.
Armored personnel carriers during a training exercise in the Golan Heights Gil Eliyahu
The past few months have been a kind of duel between Eisenkot and Brik. Eisenkot especially disagreed with Brik’s across-the-board judgment on preparedness.
But his claims on the management of the IDF, the manpower crisis – which a number of people in the General Staff still insist on denying – and the gaps that the multiyear Gideon Plan has left should be heard out. Even if only some of Brik’s claims are justified, these issues will affect the term of the next chief of staff, Aviv Kochavi.
Brik points out a structural problem: In practice, the chief of staff is also the commander of the ground forces. As opposed to the air force and navy, in the ground forces there is no correlation between authority and responsibility. The head of the Ground Forces Command is responsible for training and building up these forces, but the regional commands are responsible for commanding on an operational level – under the chief of staff.
In the air force and navy, the commanders have both responsibility and authority, so they can function more effectively. Yes, the true commander of the ground forces is the chief of staff, but he’s busy with so many other things, thus much of his authority is given over to his deputy.
“The difficulty is that most deputy chiefs of staff are in the post for a relatively short time and are busy most of their term preparing for the job of chief of staff, for the dialogue with the political leadership, with strategy. These are outstanding people, but they don’t have enough time. It’s an enormous system that requires a high level of managerial ability,” Brik says.
“Until the deputy chief of staff begins to understand what’s going on there, he’s already finishing his term. Therefore there’s no one to manage the army day to day, no one who can coordinate preparing the army for war, which requires the integration of the efforts of the General Staff, the ground forces and the [regional] commands.”
Brik mentions an expansion in the number of orders in the military, and they’re distributed in different ways than in the past – through email and WhatsApp at the expense of radio. Often the IDF hasn’t developed an effective system to follow up on the carrying out of these orders.
“Two years ago, an internal examination was conducted on what percentage of the chief of staff and deputy’s orders were carried out in the ground forces. The result was about 15 percent,” Brik says.
“A culture of not carrying orders has developed in the IDF. Every officer sends out hundreds of emails and WhatsApp messages every day but there’s no oversight and follow-up mechanism to guarantee that the orders are carried out. Officers have told me many times: We can’t keep up with this flood. We simply delete a large portion of the emails without carrying them out – and no one knows.”
As he puts it, “With this method, as a commander on the battlefield, you won’t be convinced that they’ll carry out your orders. The anti-tank missile that hit the army bus near the Gaza Strip [in mid-November] is a good example. There were instructions from the [regional] command and the division, but they weren’t enforced. It’s complete anarchy.”
A bus engulfed in flames after being hit by an anti-tank missile near the Gaza Strip on November 12, 2018 Eliyahu Hershkovitz
A fear to present problems
During Eisenkot’s time, the army finally managed to launch a multiyear plan, Gideon. During the term of his predecessor, Benny Gantz, two such plans were shelved because of disputes over the budget. During the terms of Gantz and Eisenkot, the IDF’s tank forces were cut and some 5,000 soldiers in the career army were let go.
At the same time, positions in logistics and ordnance – mostly at warehouses and bases where equipment for reserve units is maintained – were transferred to the air force, intelligence and the cyberbranch.
The General Staff insists that these steps improved preparedness for war. Brik reached the opposite conclusion. To him, the cutbacks in the emergency stores make them the weakest link that will impede the ground forces during a war.
Brik also criticized the IDF’s agreement with the Finance Ministry to cut four months off compulsory service for men, a decision that Eisenkot justifies in retrospect.
An IDF officer standing outside an emergency storage warehouse in 2016 Gil Eliyahu
Eisenkot has also expressed support for cutting mandatory service by another two months, a proposal that the cabinet is due to examine this year. Kochavi opposes a further cut. The cutbacks in the career army and the drop in the number of conscript soldiers because of the shorter service period have muddled the equation between the scope of the missions and the staffing to carry them out.
“The IDF suffers from a lack of transparency, from a fear to present problems. The senior command doesn’t know what’s going on in the units. The cutbacks in career-army positions and then the shortening of service, without the appropriate reductions in missions, have created shallowness, superficiality, a lack of ability to carry things out,” Brik says.
“When a junior commander complains, his commanders tell him: Make do with what there is. If he complains a second time, he’ll get the image of a crybaby, and then people prefer not to bring up problems again. Everyone learns to shut up. The NCOs talk about the ‘Dr. Check Mark system’ – report you did it, regardless of what was really done.”
When asked about the major procurement to fill the warehouses after the army’s heavy use of weapons and ammunition in the 2014 Gaza war, Brik says: “In the IDF’s presentations for ministers and Knesset members, it shows that there are enough spare parts, inventory of weapons and ammunition, and exercises. But there’s no connection between the pretty presentations and what’s being done on the ground.”
In practice, the various weapons systems aren’t being maintained properly. “They think they’ve solved the problem because they put in more money,” Brik says.
“The IDF maintains flimsy standards. A large proportion of the units don’t have a mandatory daily routine. In a lot of places, every commander does what he understands, without supervision. According to my impressions, based on thousands of visits to all the IDF’s units over the past decade, company commanders have spent less than half their time guiding and supervising their subordinates,” he says.
“A huge amount of time is wasted on meetings and ceremonies. Over a year ago, I toured the outposts in the Northern Command, the Golan and Lebanese border. During the visits, I barely found the company commanders there. Every commander, corps commander, wants the more junior officers to come to all the meetings with him, and that’s what happens. Commanders of standing-army companies tell me: The battalion commander doesn’t influence the battalion at all. Why should I want to stay in the career army and be a battalion commander?”
Like A., a senior reserve officer who spoke with Haaretz last month, Brik notices a steady drop in the professional knowledge of some reserve units in the ground forces, which also stems from a limited number of training days a year. The army has given priority to certain brigades and trains them more, but other units have been left behind. At the same time, the standards are changing.
A team of IDF paratroopers training in a base in southern Israel, 2017 Eliyahu Hershkovitz
“In reserve training at the Tze’elim [training base in the Negev], soldiers don’t clean guns because the IDF hires a private company for that. Reservists don’t know how to fix a weapon and take care of it; they don’t know how to adjust sights [on a tank],” Brik says, before referring to the Yom Kippur War.
“If we soldiers had acted this way during wartime, we wouldn’t have survived. Commanders are reinventing the wheel every time. The lessons of the wars that were learned in blood are being forgotten. There’s no real organizational memory. Every once in a while they make a change, and everything spins around on its axis without being steadied.”
Armored personnel carriers during a training exercise in the Golan Heights, May 2018 Gil Eliyahu
The burning memories from 1973, and maybe also Brik’s past as a commander on all levels in the Armored Corps, from a single tank to the division level, have instilled skepticism about the IDF's dominant approach. Based on this thinking, the tank’s importance has fallen, and, given the lack of an enemy with a conventional army, it’s better to invest in things like precision aerial weaponry and commando units.
The IDF, warns Brik – and here he sounds to many people like a vestige of a different era – is taking excessive risks. “The most recent chiefs of staff built a small and cunning army for 20 to 30 years ahead. The problem is that they’re not taking into account that the expected threat can change again because of the frequent changes in the Middle East,” he says.
“The army has built itself for a war on two fronts, Gaza and Lebanon. But what will happen if the Syrian army revives after the Assad regime surprised everyone and won the civil war? In two years it’s possible that we’ll once gain find Syrian tanks facing us on the Golan border,” he adds.
“The response to Hezbollah’s missiles and rockets from Lebanon can’t only rely on the air force and firepower from a distance. In the end, we’ll also need ground maneuvers.”
Brik believes the army has to take into account preparations for a more extreme scenario in which all fronts are on fire, including an outbreak à la the second intifada in the West Bank.
But Brik saves his harshest words for the IDF’s manpower situation. Here he identifies a broader problem that Haaretz has covered in recent years: a drop in the motivation for service in combat units, a drop in young officers’ desire to sign up for the career army, a shortage of officers in combat support roles – such as logistics and ordnance – and a drop in commitment by many reservists.
“This is the worst crisis I’ve seen since I was drafted for compulsory service in 1965. The Manpower Directorate shows presentations and says that on average among the units, the situation is okay. They remind me of the joke about the man who drowns in a pool whose average depth is 40 centimeters [16 inches]. The IDF has good brigade commanders and battalion commanders, but among the company commanders and the officers in combat support roles, many are fleeing because they don’t want to stay in an army they see as mediocre,” Brik says.
“There’s a mix of factors here, which is related to the new model for the career army, under which only a few officers know with certainty that they’ll be promoted and continue in service until they retire. Also, if it’s necessary to compromise on carrying out missions because there aren’t enough resources and people, and you don’t admit it because you don’t want to damage the army’s image, there are officers who say: I prefer to leave instead of them silencing me when I say what’s really going on,” Brik adds.
“I hear these things all the time in meetings with young officers. The army has a serious problem at the ranks of captain and major with high-quality officers who want to leave. Within a year or two we may well reach the point of no return.”
Of all the problems, it’s clear that this is the one that worries him most. “This country is living on the Titanic,” he says, raising his voice and for a moment sounding like the prophet of doom his opponents describe – behind his back. “Everyone is happy in the restaurants and cafes; they don’t want to hear bad news about the state of the army. The IDF tells stories and someone has fallen asleep on their watch.”
When Brik is asked why his warnings about the army’s preparedness for war were rebuffed by two military committees and the Knesset subcommittee on military preparedness, he says: “The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has no teeth. It relies too much on reports from the army. There’s also a political problem. People are facing an election and party leaders don’t want to slaughter sacred cows.”
Netanyahu and Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Avi Dichter Emil Salman
In recent months, a number of ministers have met with Brik, separately and at their request. But no one has said anything explicit about the disagreements between the army and the ombudsman.
Even the previous defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who listened patiently to Brik, was wary about taking his side. A few months ago, at the height of the dispute between Brik and Eisenkot, Lieberman even declared that the IDF’s preparedness was at its best level since 1967. In conversations with retired senior officers, Lieberman sounded much more skeptical.
At the farewell ceremony when Brik retired this week, he sounded much more supportive of Eisenkot after their relations broke down last year. The IDF’s representative at the ceremony, new Deputy Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir, laid on the praise for Brik.
It was a farewell ceremony, not a change-of-command ceremony. No one in the defense establishment is in a hurry to find a replacement for Brik. Maybe they just want to enjoy the quiet a little longer, before a more comfortable candidate can be found.
A similar voice
While in public Brik argued with most senior officers, the outgoing ombudsman held a long series of meetings where senior officers said somewhat different things. For example, here’s a quote from a meeting Brik held in September with a (very) senior officer who recently retired.
“There’s a problem of awareness. The senior ranks aren’t counting on the ground forces. The message to the young commanders, not stated out loud, is that it’s possible to conclude a war with good intelligence and a good air force. This influences the spirit of the commanders. This is the reason for the fear of sending ground troops into enemy territory. When it happens, in a wide-scale war, it will be traumatic for the public. The Yom Kippur War will be a picnic in comparison,” the senior officer said.
“After the Second Lebanon War and Protective Edge [the 2014 Gaza war], the IDF didn’t conduct in-depth inquiries, and conclusions weren’t drawn. The subliminal message sent downward is: The IDF is the air force. This is a disastrous concept. As a result, the resolve of the young command is crumbling,” he added.
“There’s the lowest standard in the ground forces; without aspiration for excellence or discipline. The air force alone can’t stop the firing of missiles and rockets on the home front. In Protective Edge, the air force fired hundreds of precision munitions without achieving very much. Everything was done to relieve frustrations.”

Extensive & Detailed Interview With The Outgoing Israeli Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot - A look back/Gadi Eisenkot talks war, peace and legacy.
جيروزاليم بوست :
مقابلة واسعة ومفصلة مع رئيس الأركان الإسرائيلي المستقيل غادي إيزنكوت - نظرة إلى الوراء/حديث عن الحرب والسلام والإرث.
By Yaakov Katz, Anna Ahronheim/Jerusalem Post/January 12/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/71017/jerusalem-post-extensive-detailed-interview-with-the-outgoing-israeli-chief-of-staff-gadi-eisenkot-a-look-back-gadi-eisenkot-talks-war-peace-and-legacy-%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%88%d8%b2%d8%a7/
Plans for a future war are drawn up by the IDF’s Operations Directorate in what is known in Israel as the Bor (Pit), the heavily-fortified underground command center hidden beneath the Kirya Military Headquarters in Tel Aviv.
Back in 2007, just a few months after the end of the Second Lebanon War, Gadi Eisenkot convened a series of debates there to discuss what the IDF would do if a new war broke out with Hezbollah. Eisenkot had served during the war as the head of IDF operations, but was named head of the Northern Command just a month after the fighting had ended in a shaky United Nations-imposed ceasefire.
Eisenkot was pushing the military to approve a new policy, one he believed would ensure that a future war with Hezbollah would end quickly but painfully, although this time just for Lebanon. He called it the Dahiya doctrine.
It was named for the Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut which, until the 2006 war, could only be accessed by card-carrying Hezbollah members. During the Second Lebanon War, the IDF bombed large apartment buildings there, claiming that they were being used as Hezbollah command centers, and covered a series of bunkers where the organization’s top leaders, including Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, were hiding.
The idea was simple: Israel’s answer to a future war, Eisenkot explained, was disproportionate damage to Lebanon.
“What happened in the Dahiya quarter of Beirut in 2006 will happen in every village from which Israel is fired on,” Eisenkot said at the time. “We will apply disproportionate force and cause great damage and destruction there. From our standpoint, these are not civilian villages, they are military bases.”
That was 10 years ago. According to updated Israeli intelligence assessments, the possibility of war with Hezbollah is higher today than it has ever been in the 10 years since Eisenkot made that comment. It is especially poignant considering that next week he will wrap up four years as Israel’s 21st chief of staff and a term that ended without war. The Dahiya doctrine, will for now, stay on paper.
ON TUESDAY, Eisenkot will hang up his uniform after 40 years of service. While he has long been in the public eye, he remains something of an enigma. Short, burly and quiet, Eisenkot is far different than some of his predecessors. He shied away from the media and spoke in public only when necessary. Even then, his remarks often seemed forced. His background as an infantry grunt in the Golani Brigade provided him with a tough-guy persona, but even that was dismissed in the beginning.
A few years into his service, for example, Eisenkot was sent to Bahd 1, the IDF’s Officer Training School. When he returned to his brigade, though, he was put in charge of the same soldiers he had once served alongside. At first, his new subordinates didn’t take their new commander seriously. One night he told them to all be outside their tents at 6 a.m. wearing shorts and sneakers for an early-morning workout. Yet in the morning only one soldier was there. Eisenkot went into one of the tents and flipped over a soldier’s bed. A half hour later, everyone was outside and from that day on, it was smooth sailing.
He climbed the ranks, serving in every position in Golani up to brigade commander. His first taste of the inner workings of the government came in 1999 when he was appointed military secretary to then-prime minister Ehud Barak. It was there where he gained some of the diplomatic skills that helped him navigate a government over the last four years that didn’t shy away from using the military as a political tool.
How he will be remembered remains a question. Dan Halutz, the former head of the Air Force, is remembered for serving as chief of staff during the Second Lebanon War, which ended with a state-appointed commission of inquiry and his eventual resignation. Gabi Ashkenazi is remembered as the IDF’s rehabilitator after that war and the chief of staff who restored the public’s confidence in a military that fought poorly against Hezbollah. Benny Gantz, now the head of a political party, landed in the post after the unfortunate Harpaz Affair and is remembered for overseeing Operation Protective Edge against Hamas, one of the longest wars in Israeli history.
During Eisenkot’s term, though, there was no war or other single event to define it. When he took up his post in early 2015, ISIS was roaming freely throughout the Golan Heights and the Sinai Peninsula; Iran was on track to getting a nuclear weapon – the nuclear deal was finalized that summer; and Russia had begun deploying its forces in Syria. At the time, tens of thousands of fighters from Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias were deployed in Syria, fighting to preserve the Assad regime.
FOUR YEARS later, all of that is different. While the United States has pulled out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran has remained a part of the deal and, according to Israeli intelligence, has stuck to the its restrictions; Hezbollah and Iran’s ambitious plan to set up a base of operations in Syria has been halted, and according to the IDF, there is a nearly 50% reduction in their force deployment; Hezbollah’s attempt to obtain precision-guided weapons has also been stopped, thanks to the hundreds of strikes the IDF has carried out over the last few years. Without these attacks, defense officials say, Hezbollah would today have hundreds, if not thousands, of missiles with the ability to strike anywhere inside the Jewish state.
This was made possible by escalating what the IDF has grown accustomed to calling the “War Between Wars,” code for a constellation of covert operations – from the air and by ground – that continue below the radar against Israel’s enemies. Israel’s policy over the years has been consistent; even after reports emerge about another air strike in Syria, the country remains quiet – it neither confirms it was behind it nor denies its involvement.
That is not always possible, like at the end of December when the IDF was forced to activate its missile defense systems in response to Syria’s launching of surface-to-air missiles at Air Force jets following another such bombing raid.
In the government, ministers give Eisenkot credit for keeping Iran at bay in Syria and stopping the flow of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon. Privately, Eisenkot speaks proudly of the IDF’s achievement in getting Hezbollah to dismantle its missile factories in Beirut, where it had planned to upgrade the accuracy and range of its massive arsenal.
While Eisenkot – unlike his predecessors – managed to avoid an all-out conflict, not everyone saw that as a positive achievement.
One such person was Avigdor Liberman, the former defense minister who worked alongside Eisenkot for almost three years.
“Sometimes I feel like what I am hearing is a meeting of the leadership of Peace Now,” Liberman said at a meeting with the military’s top brass around the most recent flare-up with Hamas in November.
While Liberman and Eisenkot mostly got along throughout their joint terms, they also butted heads. Liberman wanted an aggressive approach to Gaza while Eisenkot pushed for ceasefires and moderation, urging the security cabinet to stay focused on Israel’s true threat to the north – Hezbollah.
While this might have made sense, it raised the ire of a number of ministers who felt that Eisenkot was playing politics, going over their heads and finalizing issues – before they were even brought to the cabinet – with the prime minister, a ploy used over the years by successive chiefs of staff.
“He is a serious officer,” one government official said. “But he made a great effort to avoid escalation, even when it seemed like that was the right solution.”
In October, in leaks to Hadashot news following a security cabinet meeting over Gaza, one unnamed minister was quoted as saying,
“In the final analysis, Eisenkot’s policy on responding [to Gaza violence] has failed and allowed the situation to deteriorate.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett went head-to-head with Eisenkot during the “Great Return” marches over the summer on his handling of aerial incendiary devices launched from Gaza that ravaged southern Israel.
The army was reluctant to shoot the Palestinians who launch the kites and balloons, since children are often among the cells. Bennett didn’t agree. At a security cabinet meeting in July, he urged Eisenkot to change the rules of engagement. “These are terrorists for all intents and purposes,” the minister said.
But the chief of staff stood his ground, and told Bennett: “I disagree with you. It’s against my operational and moral positions.”
Likud MK David Bitan, a confidant of Netanyahu, also criticized the chief of staff’s policy on Gaza, saying in a radio
interview that Eisenkot was “responsible for our lost deterrence in Gaza.” Eisenkot, Bitan said, was “not recommending operations” and the cabinet could not order broad military action without the backing of the army.
When it comes to Gaza, time will tell who was right. The current ceasefire is not expected to last and with Israel now in an election season, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will have difficulty transferring more Qatari cash to Hamas or putting up with rocket fire. Any concessions like these would give his political adversaries ammunition to use to attack him. If Hamas provokes Israel, Netanyahu will need to respond with force. Eisenkot might have simply delayed the inevitable.
WHILE EISENKOT worked hard to prepare the IDF for a future war in the North, his legacy is now tainted by a report IDF Ombudsman Maj.-Gen. (res.) Yitzhak Brick released a few weeks ago in which he claimed that the military was not prepared for war.
A Yom Kippur War hero, Brick launched an unprecedented campaign to warn of what he termed a looming disaster, taking his case to the Knesset, the prime minister and the press.
“The IDF is undergoing a process of deterioration that has reached its peak in recent years,” Brick warned at a recent Knesset hearing. “In the past three years, a lethal encounter between drastic, unregulated and sometimes irresponsible cuts of thousands of career soldiers and… the [simultaneous] shortening of male service has created complete incompatibility and critical gaps.”
Eisenkot naturally pushed back. He appointed a panel of ex-officers to review Brick’s report and independently investigate the ombudsman’s claims. They released a new report at the end of December claiming that Brick was wrong and that the IDF was as prepared as ever for a new ground war.
For Eisenkot, it no longer really matters. The test will eventually come and his role in how that war ends will not be forgotten. If the IDF performs well on the battlefield, it will be to his credit, but if it fails, Brick’s dossier will be pulled out once again, although this time as an indictment of the former chief of staff.
IN ADDITION to clashing with ministers, Eisenkot also had his run-ins with the general public. A recent study by the Berl Katznelson Foundation and the Vigo research company found that inflammatory comments against Eisenkot jumped online by 35% over the past year.
According to the study, which looked at sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, as well as blogs and forums, hate speech against Eisenkot jumped by a huge 712% since 2015, when he began his term.
The study found that the large majority of inciteful comments – 74% – came from right-wing users and only 5% from those on the Left. Another 21% came from people whose political affiliation could not be determined.
One case that likely contributed to this trend was that of former IDF soldier Elor Azaria, who was convicted of manslaughter in 2017 for the shooting of a neutralized and unarmed terrorist in Hebron. The Azaria trial sparked unprecedented national debate with many current and former generals finding themselves on different sides of the case. Many in the IDF’s top brass, including Eisenkot and then-defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, called Azaria’s actions “unethical.”
But that wasn’t necessarily the popular position. According to several polls, there was widespread public support for Azaria, indicating a significant gap between the views of the chief of staff and the Israeli public. And when Azaria appealed his sentence in March 2017, hate speech against Eisenkot, the study found, jumped again by 30%.
Eisenkot didn’t fold. He stood by his conviction for how a military is meant to conduct itself as well as the values that should serve as its foundation. Shooting and killing an unarmed Palestinian – even if he had moments earlier attacked a soldier – was beyond Eisenkot’s pale.
Another place where he stood strong was in pushing women through the military’s glass ceiling despite frequent opposition.
This year alone, the Armored Corps received its first four female tank commanders and the Navy announced that the first female naval combat soldiers will serve on the new missile ships due to arrive in the coming years. The first woman was appointed to command an Israel Air Force squadron and another to command transport planes.
Nevertheless, Eisenkot had his limits, making it clear that women would not serve on the frontlines.
“People tried to accuse me of feminism, but I’m not a chauvinist or a feminist,” the IDF chief said last year. “There is integration (of women), but it needs to be to a certain extent.”
So what kind of military does Eisenkot leave behind? That remains to be seen. The threats to Israel in recent years have continued to increase, even under Eisenkot’s careful watch.
While a quiet day in the Middle East is not a small achievement, his successor Aviv Kochavi will have to hit the ground running when he takes up the mantle from Eisenkot next week.
In Israel, a new chief of staff is usually a cause for celebration and Kochavi has all the experience and credentials to indicate that his tenure will be successful. He is a known reformer; as head of Military Intelligence he built up the directorate, incorporating new capabilities and technologies never used before. But as events of the past few months indicate, there is no time to rest. Israel’s enemies are not taking a break.

Iran’s opaque politics of succession to Khamenei
Gareth Smyth/The Weekly Arab/January 13/19
Discussion of the looming succession to Iran’s supreme leader, 79-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has little to go on. The sole precedent is 1989 when Khamenei replaced Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, charismatic leader of the 1979 revolution and architect of the Islamic Republic.
The constitutional rules are unchanged: Iran’s leader is chosen by the Iranian Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregan-e Rahbari), an elected body that currently has 88 clerics. Khamenei’s rise followed the removal of a constitutional requirement that the leader be a pre-eminent cleric. It was an amendment favoured by Khomeini to facilitate Khamenei. Within a day of Khomeini’s death, careful management by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the era’s wiliest politician, ensured the assembly backed Khomeini’s choice.
However, with the succession to Khamenei, questions abound. What influence might lie with clerics in Qom or leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps? How might Khamenei shape the process? How important is theological standing?
Two recent events make these questions particularly important. The death December 24 of Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, 70, removed someone widely seen as front-runner for leader until passed over in 2015 as head of the Assembly of Experts.
Second, Khamenei appointed Sadegh Larijani, 58-year-old judiciary chief, to replace Shahroudi as chairman of the Expediency Council (EC). The EC arbitrates between state institutions, especially parliament, and the watchdog Guardian Council. Shahroudi had held the post since 2017. The main contenders to follow Khamenei appear to be Larijani and Ebrahim Raeisi. The latter was appointed by Khamenei in 2016 to head Astan Quds Razavi, the foundation that manages the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad.
Other contenders lag much behind Larijani and Raeisi. Assembly of Experts Chairman Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who is also chairman of the Guardian Council, is 91. Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, a 57-year-old substitute Friday prayer leader in Tehran, has scant administrative experience. Iranian President Hassan Rohani, 70, has moved closer to Khamenei since winning the 2013 and 2017 elections but is resented by many conservatives, who dominate the Assembly of Experts.
No doubt Khamenei wants a smooth succession to encourage stability and preserve the leader’s office as an institution whose powers he has extended since 1989. The size of the leader’s office contributes to a “serious succession issue,” said Farideh Farhi, professor of political science at the University of Hawaii. “The only person I can imagine managing the leader’s sprawling office with some authority if Khamenei passed soon is Rohani, given his vast experience throughout the life of the Islamic Republic and his ability to stand, if barely, above the factional fray,” she said, “but Rohani is not so young, either, and his selection seems unlikely given current power dynamics.”
By precedent, Larijani is due to stand down in the summer after a second 5-year term as judiciary chief. As well as appointing him to the EC, Khamenei named him a clerical member of the Guardian Council. This gives Larijani a firm standing near the apex of the hierarchy. Rumours suggest Khamenei will appoint Raeisi judiciary chief, although it is unclear if he would also continue as head of the Imam Reza Foundation.
Does Khamenei have a preference? If so, he may resist designating a successor given the need for unity in the face of tightening sanctions and recent protests by factory workers, farmers and teachers.
Khamenei knows he lacks Khomeini’s standing. “For Khamenei to express a public choice and the assembly then pick someone else could be dangerous,” said Saeid Golkar, lecturer in Middle East and North African studies at Northwestern University. “Khamenei’s office and even his family might be the target of a new leader. It’s far more likely Khamenei will try to shape the outcome discretely.”Hence Khamenei’s influence may remain as mysterious as the rest of the process. “The Assembly of Experts already has the ‘Article 107 and 109 Committee,’ called after the constitutional articles dealing with the succession, which has been meeting and presumably checking the backgrounds of several candidates,” said Farhi. “Its proceedings are secret. Raeisi is a member of this committee but its chairman is Ayatollah Morteza Moqtadai.”
There is another complication. In the interregnum between leaders, which could be longer than in 1989, the constitution provides for a three-person leadership council. That would be made up of the president, the judiciary chief and one of the six clerical members of the 12-person Guardian Council to be chosen by the Expediency Council. The last, then, could be Larijani.
Farhi said she is wary of predictions in what she calls a “guessing game.”
“Moving Raeisi to the judiciary requires a replacement [at the shrine] who may not be easily found,” she said. “Raeisi also does not have much theological heft. He went to Qom at 15, became a prosecutor at 21 and so has effectively been a state functionary all his life. He is certainly a candidate but I don’t think the choice is an easy one for Khamenei. The only two things that these recent moves suggest are that Khamenei prefers conservatives, as we already knew, and that his options are limited.”
**Gareth Smyth has covered Middle Eastern affairs for 20 years and was chief correspondent for The Financial Times in Iran.