LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
June 24/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 06/12-19:”Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on June 23-24/2019
Maronites Need Politicians From Bachir's Calibre
Guidanian represents President Aoun at the opening of Dbayeh Music Festival
Hariri Says PSP 'Doesn't Know What It Wants', Its Loyalty is 'Joke of the Day'
Berri Tells Kushner Billions of Dollars Won't 'Tempt Lebanon'
Abu Faour: Relation with al-Mustaqbal Movement is Not Alright
Al-Rahi Urges Sectarian Balance, Competence in Appointments
Kataeb Party Chief, MP Sami Gemayel: All those in power have turned the country into a farm!
MP Nasrallah says budget is moving in the right direction with no exceptions, rules out war possibility between America and Iran
Hamas to organize a large public protest in Beirut Tuesday in rejection of Bahrain's Conference
Ferzli: Nothing prevents President Aoun from visiting Syria
Jreissati: Waste crisis nearing its end

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 23-24/2019
US Launched Cyber Attacks against Iran this Week
Trump says he did not send message to Tehran warning of attack
Bolton warns Iran to not mistake US ‘prudence’ for ‘weakness’
Bolton from Israel: Iran Must Not Mistake US Prudence for Weakness
Iran May Further Reduce Nuclear Deal Compliance as UK Envoy Visits
Pompeo Says US to Engage Iran at ‘Right Time’ as Tehran Warns of Wider Conflict
Iran Executes Ex-Defense Ministry Employee for Spying for CIA
Italy holds Netherlands, EU ‘responsible’ for migrant boat
Climate protesters leave German coal mine
ASEAN leaders call for restraint amid sea row, US-China rift
India stampede leaves at least 14 dead
India rejects US report on attacks on minority Muslims
North Korea: Kim receives ‘excellent’ letter from Trump
Ethiopian army chief, regional president killed in unrest: PM Abiy
Ruling party candidate declares himself victor in Mauritania vote

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 23-24/2019
Maronites Need Politicians From Bachir's Calibre/Elias Bejjani/June 23/2019
Kushner's Economic Peace Plan Faces Broad Arab/Rejection/Reuters/Jerusalem Post/June 23/201
The Suicide of France/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/June 23/2019
Analysis/Something Stopped Trump From Striking Iran, and It Wasn’t 150 Lives/Zvi Bar’el/Haaretz/June 23/2019
Dershowitz: With 'Mideast Marshall plan,' Abbas can help — or hurt — Palestinians/Alan Dershowitz/The Hill/June 23/2019
War with Iran Remains the Last Resort/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat//June 23/2019
Iran's Nuclear Announcement Plays into Trump's Hands/Bobby Gosh/Bloomberg/June 23/2019
Russia and China’s Policy on Protests/Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/June 23/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on June 23-24/2019
Maronites Need Politicians From Bachir's Calibre
Elias Bejjani/June 23/2019
Lebanon President's Son in-law, Mr. Gobran Bassil is a disastrous politician, there is no doubt in this sad reality. Meanwhile both Sami Gymayel and Samir Geagea are not better in any way in any domain what so ever, but definitely, much much worse. We the Maronites need Politicians from Bachir's garment and Calibre.

Guidanian represents President Aoun at the opening of Dbayeh Music Festival
NNA/Sun 23 Jun 2019
Tourism Minister, Avedis Guidanian, represented the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, in inaugurating the musical festival in Dbayeh which included remarkable performances by Arab and international artists. Under the theme, "A Taste of Music", the event was organized by the Dbayeh International Festivals Committee on the occasion of the International Day of Music, with the participation of several Lebanese and international groups and an audience of more than 2,000 people hailing from different areas in Lebanon. Guidanian expressed his pleasure to partake in the festival's opening performances patronized by the Ministry of Tourism, deeming the tourist season as "promising" this summer with a series of festivals underway in different regions. "President Aoun, under whose auspices major tourism festivals are taking place this summer, continuously keeps pace with the measures undertaken by the Tourism Ministry, ensuring that all facilities are provided to Arab and foreign tourists and Lebanese expatriates who come to spend the summer with their families and relatives in Lebanon." In turn, Festivals Committee Head Corinne Ashkar considered that "these festivals are an opportunity to meet and interact through music, which reflects the facet of civilization which Lebanon has for long been one of its leading pioneers."

Hariri Says PSP 'Doesn't Know What It Wants', Its Loyalty is 'Joke of the Day'
Naharnet/June 23/2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Sunday snapped back at the Progressive Socialist Party over the latest criticism. “Your problem, our brothers in the Progressive Socialist Party, is that you do not know what you want,” Hariri said in a tweet. “Tell me when you know,” he added sarcastically. MP Bilal Abdullah of the PSP hit back via Twitter. “Unfortunately our problem with you, Mr. Premier, is that we know what you want and what you are relinquishing, especially something that is not your property. We know how you strive every day to weaken your community under the excuse of protecting the country, whereas the truth is somewhere else,” Abdullah said. “I wish you would respond this way to those usurping the powers of your position on a daily basis, unless one of the conditions of the electricity deal that you put the final touches on last week in Greece requires your withdrawal from your history, heritage and allies,” the MP added. Hariri responded in a series of tweets. “It is obvious that you know! You first accept a truce as to media statements before you wage an attack at midnight. You later remove the tweet and apologize. Anyhow, let people be the judge, or even this is prohibited in your dictionary?” the premier said.
“The PSP is speaking of loyalty! The joke of the day!” he added in another tweet. Earlier in the day, Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour of the PSP had said that his party’s relation with Hariri’s al-Mustaqbal Movement is not in a good situation. “We have a critical vision and an opposing viewpoint towards the current political course” of Mustaqbal, Abu Faour said. PSP and Mustaqbal officials have traded jabs in recent weeks. PSP chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat has also criticized Hariri over his political rapprochement with Free Patriotic Movement chief and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. Jumblat has accused Hariri and Bassil of seeking to monopolize power and administrative appointments.

Berri Tells Kushner Billions of Dollars Won't 'Tempt Lebanon'
Naharnet/June 23/2019
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Sunday voiced the first Lebanese response to remarks on the proposed U.S. peace place by Jared Kushner, the U.S. president’s son-in-law and adviser. “So that some don’t interpret the official Lebanese silence as an acceptance of the poisoned proposal, we stress that the only investment that will not find ripe ground in Lebanon would be any investment that comes at the expense of Palestine’s cause and the rights of the Palestinian people,” Berri said in a statement released by his office. “Mistaken are those who think that waving billions of dollars might tempt Lebanon… to bow or bargain over its constant and nonnegotiable principles, topped by the rejection of (refugee) naturalization, which we will resist with our Palestinian brothers through all legitimate resistance means,” the Speaker added. Kushner said Saturday that the U.S. Middle East peace plan to be presented next week in Bahrain aims to raise more than $50 billion for the Palestinians and create one million jobs for them within a decade. The 10-year plan calls for projects worth $27.5 billion in the West Bank and Gaza, and $9.1 billion, $7.4 billion and $6.3 billion for Palestinians in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, respectively.
Projects envisioned include those in the health care, education, power, water, high-tech, tourism, and agriculture sectors. It calls for the creation of a "master fund" to administer the finances and implementation of the projects that is says are akin to the Marshall Plan that rebuilt Europe after World War II.

Abu Faour: Relation with al-Mustaqbal Movement is Not Alright
Naharnet/June 23/2019
The Progressive Socialist Party’s relation with al-Mustaqbal Movement “is not alright,” Industry Minister Wael Abu Faour of the PSP said. “We have a critical vision and an opposing viewpoint towards the current political course” of Mustaqbal, Abu Faour said.
“Based on the historic relation between the two parties, the normal thing is to carry out a discussion and debate between us and al-Mustaqbal Movement to agree on the future approach towards the relation, especially that the issue is related to the pillars of our political system, including the Taef Accord,” the minister added. PSP and Mustaqbal officials have traded jabs in recent weeks. PSP chief ex-MP Walid Jumblat has also criticized Mustaqbal leader Prime Minister Saad Hariri over his political rapprochement with Free Patriotic Movement chief and Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil. Jumblat has accused Hariri and Bassil of seeking to monopolize power and administrative appointments.

Al-Rahi Urges Sectarian Balance, Competence in Appointments
Naharnet/June 23/2019
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday called on the government to respect the 1943 National Pact and equal Christian-Muslim power-sharing in the upcoming administrative and judicial appointments. The patriarch also urged the appointment of “competent and upright” individuals and equal opportunities for “every competent citizen” from both sexes, without “the precondition of belonging to a political party.”

Kataeb Party Chief, MP Sami Gemayel: All those in power have turned the country into a farm!
NNA/Sun 23 Jun 2019
Kataeb Party Chief, MP Sami Gemayel, stressed Sunday that "all those in power are responsible for the situation we have reached today, turning the country into a farm and fighting over quotas after they have given up sovereignty!" "The performance is undoubtedly wrong, not in the sharing of quotas but rather in breaking the law and the constitution and abandoning sovereignty," he said, speaking at an event organized by the Kataeb branch in Byblos earlier today. "It is not Gebran Bassil who shoulders the sole responsibility for our current status, but you are all responsible for the logic of compromises we have reached, trading in politics and abandoning the principles and elements of building the state," Gemayel corroborated. "It is time for people to reject the words of fraud and return to dwell on building Lebanon through principles and constants," he emphasized, urging citizens to hold their official representatives accountable at the ballot boxes. "Without your votes they are worthless, and what we lack today are officials who love the country and are honest and competent," Gemayel concluded.

MP Nasrallah says budget is moving in the right direction with no exceptions, rules out war possibility between America and Iran
NNA/Sun 23 Jun 2019
Member of the "Development and Liberation" Parliamentary Bloc, MP Mohammad Nasrallah, stated Sunday that the annual state budget is moving in the right direction, hoping that discussions of its various articles will be completed by the upcoming week's end to be raised to the Parliament Council for endorsement. In an interview with the National News Agency earlier today, Nasrallah touched on the postponement of the decision pertaining to the Development and Reconstruction Council, saying: "The exceptions are not final, but postponed to a later stage for approval." He added, 'We are with addressing all articles of the budget related to State institutions that are endorsed by the Parliament Council in accordance with the rules."Nasrallah highlighted the "need to pay special attention to the regions of Western Bekaa and Rachaya because of the deprivation they are suffering," noting that "the region enjoys a beautiful environment and landscape."He called herein on the Minister of Environment "to develop a guideline and vision for dealing with the issue of quarries in the region, away from fighting and pressuring them."Touching on the regional and international situation, the MP ruled out an American-Iranian war, saying: "I do not see a war between the US and Iran, and the two sides do not want war."He added: "Israel is the only party that has an interest in a war with its allies, and therefore it is seeking a war between America and Iran, thinking that the US will be able to strike a painful blow to Iran...However, in the United States there are those who believe that America might possess the decision to go to war but has no decision over the course that the war might take or its consequences, and the scale of the losses resulting from such a war..."Nasrallah continued to indicate that "the responsibility lies with a number of developed countries, especially Europe, and the efforts to heal the rift and allow the language of dialogue to prevail, which can play an advanced role between the United States and Iran on the subject of the nuclear agreement...""This can be built upon to reduce the conflict and lower the level and heat of a war in the region," he maintained. "Iran does not want a war, but if it is imposed on it, Iran has no fears and is ready to respond to any future war," Nasrallah reiterated. On the Bahrain Conference, the MP deemed that "it is no longer a secret, whereby it is one of the steps to achieve what is known as the 'deal of the century' aimed at eliminating the Palestinian cause."He considered that the conference and so-called century deal have already failed in wake of the unanimous Palestinian rejection.

Hamas to organize a large public protest in Beirut Tuesday in rejection of Bahrain's Conference
NNA/Sun 23 Jun 2019
"Hamas will organize a large public protest in Beirut upcoming Tuesday to voice the clear rejection of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon of the century deal and the Bahrain Economic Conference," Hamas Movement Media Official in Lebanon, Walid al-Kilani, said in a statement on Sunday. "The protest will be held in front of the United Nations headquarters in Beirut [ESCWA], in conjunction with the commencement of the Bahrain Conference which is refuted by all Palestinians and their factions," he said. "This rally is part of a series of popular, political and media functions organized by the Movement in Lebanon, confirming its commitment to the project of resistance, liberation and right of return," al-Kilani concluded.

Ferzli: Nothing prevents President Aoun from visiting Syria
NNA/Sun 23 Jun 2019
"Nothing prevents President Michel Aoun from visiting Syria to finalize the issue of the Syrian refugees in Lebanon," Deputy Speaker of the House, Elie Ferzli, said Sunday during a symposium held in Jbeil.
Ferzli deemed that "the delay in not holding a summit between President Aoun and Syrian President Bashar Assad to demand the return of Syrian refugees to their country is due to the absence of an internal maturity in this matter."The Deputy Speaker also revealed that "serious efforts are being made to return the displaced Syrians to their country," noting that the Lebanese perspective towards the displaced Syrians is not racist.

Jreissati: Waste crisis nearing its end
NNA/Sun 23 Jun 2019
Minister of Environment, Fadi Jreissati, said that the waste crisis in Lebanon is coming to an end, pointing out that the solutions will be implemented in the near future. Minister Jreissati's remarks came on Saturday evening during a dinner banquet hosted by Minister of State for Foreign Trade Hassan Abdel Rahim Mrad in Chtaura.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June 23-24/2019
US Launched Cyber Attacks against Iran this Week
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 June, 2019
The United States launched cyber attacks against Iranian missile control systems and a spy network this week after Tehran downed an American surveillance drone, US media reported on Saturday. US President Donald Trump ordered a retaliatory military strike against Iran after the drone shootdown but then called it off, saying the response wouldn't be "proportionate" and instead pledged new sanctions on the country. But after the drone's downing, Trump secretly authorized US Cyber Command to carry out a retaliatory cyber attack on Iran, The Washington Post reported. Two officials told The Associated Press that the strikes were conducted with approval from Trump. A third official confirmed the broad outlines of the strike. All spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the operation. The cyber attacks — a contingency plan developed over weeks amid escalating tensions — disabled Iranian computer systems that controlled its rocket and missile launchers, the officials said. Two of the officials said the attacks, which specifically targeted Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps computer system, were provided as options after Iranian forces blew up two oil tankers earlier this month. The attack crippled computers used to control rocket and missile launches, according to the Post, which cited people familiar with the matter. Yahoo cited two former intelligence officials as saying the US targeted a spying group responsible for tracking ships in the strategic Strait of Hormuz, where Washington has blamed Iran for two recent mine attacks on oil tankers. The Post said the strikes, which caused no casualties, had been planned for weeks and were first proposed as a response to the tanker attacks. US defense officials refused to confirm the reports. "As a matter of policy and for operational security, we do not discuss cyberspace operations, intelligence or planning," Defense Department spokeswoman Heather Babb told AFP. Tensions are high between the US and Iran once again following Trump's move more than one year ago to leave a multinational accord curbing Iran's nuclear ambition. His administration has instead imposed a robust slate of punitive economic sanctions designed to choke off Iranian oil sales and cripple its economy. On Saturday, Trump said the US would put "major" new sanctions on Iran next week. Tehran said it shot down the US drone on Thursday after it violated Iranian airspace -- something Washington denies. These cyber attacks aren't the first time the US and Iran have dueled online. The Stuxnet virus, discovered in 2010, is believed to have been engineered by Israel and the US to damage nuclear facilities in Iran. And Tehran is believed to have stepped up its own cyber capabilities in the face of US efforts to isolate Iran.

Trump says he did not send message to Tehran warning of attack
Reuters, Washington/Sunday, 23 June 2019
President Donald Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he did not send a message to Tehran warning Iran of a US attack, which he later called off. Iranian sources told Reuters that Trump had warned Tehran via Oman that a US attack was imminent, but had said he was against war and wanted talks. “I did not send that message,” Trump said on NBC’s Meet the Press program, adding, “I’m not looking for war.”Asked what he thinks Iran wants, he said, “I think they want to negotiate. And I think they want to make a deal. And my deal is nuclear. Look, they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon ... is, is absolutely broken.”

Bolton warns Iran to not mistake US ‘prudence’ for ‘weakness’
AFP, Jerusalem/Sunday, 23 June 2019
US National Security Advisor John Bolton warned Tehran on Sunday of misinterpreting as “weakness” President Donald Trump’s last-minute cancellation of a retaliatory strike on Iran. “Neither Iran nor any other hostile actor should mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness,” said Bolton ahead of a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem. “No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East,” he added. “Our military is rebuilt new and ready to go,” said Bolton, after Trump called off a planned attack on Iran in response to Tehran downing a US drone on Thursday. Bolton, who was in Israel for a pre-scheduled trilateral meeting with his Israeli and Russian counterparts, Meir Ben-Shabbat and Nikolai Patrushev, noted that the “current circumstances in the region make our conversations even more timely.” In a Saturday tweet, Trump had pledged to hit Iran with “major” new sanctions on Monday.Washington has imposed a series of measures against Tehran since Trump pulled out of a landmark nuclear accord between Iran and world powers last year. “We expect that the new sanctions president Trump referred to in preparation for some weeks will be announced publicly on Monday. Stay tuned,” Bolton said in Jerusalem.

Bolton from Israel: Iran Must Not Mistake US Prudence for Weakness
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 June, 2019
US National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Sunday that Iran was feeling the effect of sanctions, saying its continued pursuit of nuclear weapons “are not signs of a nation seeking peace.”Speaking from Jerusalem alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he added that Tehran should not "mistake US prudence and discretion for weakness.”Washington had abruptly called off military strikes against the Iran in response to the shooting down of an unmanned American surveillance drone. President Donald Trump's last-minute about face appears to have raised questions about US willingness to use force against Iran. The downing of the aircraft on Thursday marked a new high in the rising tensions between the United States and Iran in the Gulf. The Trump administration has vowed to combine a "maximum pressure" campaign of economic sanctions with a buildup of American forces in the region, following the US withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. "Sanctions are biting, and more added last night," Bolton said. "Iran can never have nuclear weapons - not against the USA and not against the world." Trump said he backed away from the planned strikes after learning 150 people would be killed. But Bolton, a longtime Iran hawk, emphasized that the US reserved the right to attack at a later point. "No one has granted them a hunting license in the Middle East. As President Trump said on Friday our military is rebuilt, new and ready to go," Bolton stressed. Netanyahu said Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region had increased as a result of the nuclear deal, which gave the country a new cash infusion, and had nothing to do with the US exit from the agreement. "After the deal, but before recent events, Iran has been on a campaign of aggression," he said. "Those who describe the recent actions as somehow opening a hornet's nest are living on another planet." Netanyahu made no mention of the called-off airstrike and said he was "pleased" by US plans for increased economic pressure. Bolton is visiting Israel for three-way talks with his Israeli and Russian counterparts that are expected to focus on Iranian involvement in conflicts across the region, including in neighboring Syria.

Iran May Further Reduce Nuclear Deal Compliance as UK Envoy Visits
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 June, 2019
Iran announced on Sunday that it may further scale back compliance with its nuclear deal if European powers fail to shield it from US sanctions. “If Europeans don’t take measures within the 60-day deadline (announced by Iran in May), we will take new steps,” said the head of Tehran’s Strategic Council on Foreign Relations Kamal Kharazi according to the semi-official news agency ISNA. “It would be a positive steps if they put resources in (the planned European trade mechanism) Instex and … make trade possible.”The US unilaterally withdrew from the pact and reimposed sanctions last year.
On May 8, Iran said it would reduce some of its nuclear commitments to the deal unless the remaining partners -- Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia -- helped it circumvent US sanctions and sell its oil. Amid the growing tensions, Kharazi received in Tehran on Sunday Britain’s Minister of State for the Middle East Andrew Murrison, state-run IRIB news agency reported. The two officials discussed "bilateral ties, regional issues" and the 2015 nuclear deal, the agency said. The British official is expected to meet deputy foreign minister Abbas Araghchi later on Sunday. Murrison was to call for an "urgent de-escalation" and raise British concerns "about Iran's regional conduct and its threat to cease complying with the nuclear deal to which the UK remains fully committed," according to a statement by Britain's Foreign Office. Tensions between Washington and Tehran have flared after Iran on Thursday shot down a US drone. Iran said the drone violated its airspace -- a claim the US denies -- near the strategic Strait of Hormuz. In response, the US was ready to carry out a military strike against Iran but US President Donald Trump said he called it off at the last minute. The downing of the drone came after tensions spiked between the two countries following a series of attacks on commercial vessels that the US has blamed on Iran -- accusations vehemently denied by Tehran.

Pompeo Says US to Engage Iran at ‘Right Time’ as Tehran Warns of Wider Conflict
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 23 June, 2019
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Saturday that Washington will engage Iran “when the time is right.”Until that happens, the US will intensify its economic pressure on Iran until Tehran forgoes violence and engages with US diplomatic efforts, he added. When Tehran decides “to forgo violence and meet our diplomacy with diplomacy, it knows how to reach us.”Meanwhile, an Iranian general warned Sunday that any conflict in the Gulf region may spread uncontrollably, reported the semi-official news agency Fars. “If a conflict breaks out in the region, no country would be able to manage its scope and timing,” said Major General Gholamali Rashid. “The American government must act responsibly to protect the lives of American troops by avoiding misconduct in the region.” US President Donald Trump said on Friday he aborted a military strike to retaliate for Iran’s downing of a drone because it could have killed 150 people, and signaled he was open to talks with Tehran. Iran said on Saturday it would respond firmly to any threat against it. At parliament, Iranian lawmakers chanted “Death to America” after a speaker accused the United States of being the “real world terrorist”. “America is the real terrorist in the world by spreading chaos in countries, giving advanced weapons to terrorist groups, causing insecurity, and still it says ‘Come, let’s negotiate’,” the parliament’s deputy speaker, Masoud Pezeshkian, said at the start of a session broadcast live on state radio. Israel, which has itself long threatened strikes against Iran’s disputed nuclear program, signaled understanding for Trump’s stance given his campaign of diplomatic pressure on Tehran. “With all due respect to the fact that 150 Iranians were spared a cruel fate, the real major thing is the American policy (which) absolutely serves the interests of the world and of Israel in preventing Iran from getting nuclear weaponry,” Regional Cooperation Minister Tzachi Hanegbi told Israel Radio. Trump said on Saturday he would impose fresh sanctions on Iran but that he wanted to make a deal to bolster its flagging economy, an apparent move to defuse tensions. Hanegbi predicted, however, that Washington could still hit out at the Iranians if provoked in the Gulf. “I learned that - if you study theater - a pistol that is brought out in the First Act will apparently be fired in the Third Act (and) we are getting close to the third,” he said.

Iran Executes Ex-Defense Ministry Employee for Spying for CIA
Asharq Al-Awsat/Saturday, 22 June, 2019
Iran executed a former contract employee for the aerospace organization of the defense ministry in recent days on charges of spying for the US Central Intelligence Agency, the IRIB news agency reported on Saturday. Jalal Hajizavar had left his post nine years ago and was convicted by a military court after an investigation which discovered documents and spying equipment at his home, the report said. He was executed at the Rajai Shahr prison in Karaj, west of Tehran, without providing further details. Turkey Says No Room for More Displaced from Syria's Idlib. Head of Turkish Interior Ministry's migration management department said his country is closely monitoring developments in Idlib and areas in Syria’s northwest. Abdullah Ayaz stressed that Turkey will not be able to receive more refugees flowing into Turkish territory if a major battle erupts in the city of Idlib between regime forces and the armed opposition factions. “Turkey’s capacity to host a new wave of migrants has almost reached its limits,” Ayaz told a meeting of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Mediterranean in Ankara earlier this week. It is critical to find a political solution for the conflict in Idlib and guarantee continuation of political talks on the city, Ayaz stressed. He said that the number of refugees in Turkey rose from 4.2 million in 2017 to 4.9 million, including 3.6 million Syrians, pointing out that his country has not received sufficient support from Europe or the international community in this regard. Idlib, the opposition stronghold in northwestern Syria, could become the scene of the last chapter of the Syrian war that has been ongoing for eight years now, and it may perhaps be the bloodiest battle between the regime and opposition forces.The United Nations says the result could be a humanitarian catastrophe and estimates that there are around three million civilians in Idlib, including one million children. More than 40 percent of these civilians had arrived from other parts of the country, from areas that were under the opposition control and later became under that of the regime. Turkey fears the fighting launched on April 26 in southern Idlib could escalate. It has been in close contact with Russia and Iran, both of which are guarantor states along with Turkey and part of the Astana talks in which de-escalation zones in Idlib were specified. Turkey has also been seeking to maintain the Sochi agreement signed with Russia on September 17, 2018 on the establishment of a demilitarized buffer zone between regime and opposition forces in Idlib. The regime has been attacking southern Idlib since April, supported by Russia. The latter, for its part, accuses Turkey of failing to meet its obligations to expel militant groups from the region under the agreement. Ankara, however, has been calling on Moscow and Tehran to pressure the regime to stop its attacks that have hit some Turkish military observation points in the de-escalation zones.

Italy holds Netherlands, EU ‘responsible’ for migrant boat
AFP, Rome/Sunday, 23 June 2019
Italy’s hardline interior minister Matteo Salvini said he would hold the Netherlands and the European Union “responsible” for the fate of 42 migrants that Rome has blocked from disembarking at Italian ports for over a week. The Dutch-flagged rescue boat Sea-Watch 3 has been stuck in the Mediterranean since rescuing 53 migrants drifting in an inflatable raft off the coast of Libya on June 12. While eleven of those on board the Sea-Watch were allowed to disembark - including two pregnant women - the vessel was denied permission to dock in Italy and has refused to return those rescued back to crisis-hit Libya, saying Tripoli was not a safe port. Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister and leads the powerful right-wing League party in the ruling coalition, has seen his popularity soar in the last year with a hard line against migrants which has included closing ports to rescue vessels. He said on Sunday that he had written to his counterpart in the Netherlands. “I am incredulous because they are not interested in a boat that is flying their flag... and has been floating in the open sea for 11 days,” he said in a statement. “We will hold the government of the Netherlands and the European Union, distant and absent as usual, responsible for all that happens to the women and men on board the Sea-Watch,” he added. Ten of the Sea-Watch migrants were allowed to disembark a week ago on the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa, which lies between the Italian mainland and the North African coast, while a sick man was also able to leave the boat on Saturday. But 42 people remain on board the ship, which is operated by a German aid group. Malta on Sunday said its navy had rescued a group of 37 migrants in difficulty in the Mediterranean. They are expected to arrive on the island during the day. Rome and Valletta insist on there being a fair distribution of migrants to other EU countries, while countries such as France say migrants should disembark at the closest port and then be voluntarily redistributed around Europe. More than 12,000 people have died since 2014 trying to flee Libya to Europe by what the UN refugee agency calls the “world’s deadliest sea crossing.”

Climate protesters leave German coal mine
The Associated Press/Sunday, 23 June 2019
Hundreds of climate activists have ended their protest inside one of Germany’s biggest open-pit mines after police repeatedly ordered them to leave and authorities pulled some protesters out. The Garzweiler lignite coal mine has been the focus of environmental protests in Germany’s Rhineland region since Friday. The protests started after European Union leaders failed to agree on how to make the EU carbon neutral by 2050. On Saturday, some demonstrators blocked railroad tracks used to transport coal before others broke through a police cordon to enter the mine. Authorities ordered them out, saying the mine was dangerous. Protesters and police inside the mine accused each other of hostile behavior and causing injuries. Police said eight officers had been injured in scuffles with protesters. German news agency dpa reported that activists claimed police denied water and food to those who were temporarily detained. Police denied the allegation.

ASEAN leaders call for restraint amid sea row, US-China rift
The Associated Press/Sunday, 23 June 2019
Southeast Asian leaders on Sunday pressed their call for self-restraint in the disputed South China Sea and renewed their alarm over the US-China trade war, with one leader warning it may spiral out of control. The long-raging territorial conflicts and the protracted dispute between the two global economic powerhouses are high on the agenda in the final of two days of meetings of leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. It’s an annual summit steeped in diplomacy, protocol and cultural color in the Thai capital. Facing regional predicaments such as the Rohingya refugee crisis in Myanmar, the leaders took the stage and clasped their hands together in a trademark ASEAN handshake to project unity. Founded in 1967 in Bangkok in the Cold War era, the diverse 10-nation bloc lumps together an absolute monarchy and constitutional monarchies, along with socialist republics and fledgling democracies. This year’s host, Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, opened the summit with a call for regional unity and a push for the bloc to conclude a massive free trade pact with China and five other Asia-Pacific nations to cushion any impact from America’s trade conflicts with China. “The winds of protectionism that are battering the multilateral system remind us that we must hang on ever stronger to one another,” Prayuth said. The US, which has pursued bilateral deals over multination trade accords under President Donald Trump, is not included in the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, which Prayuth said would encompass the world’s largest free-trade region. Officials from Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam will be at the G-20 summit later this month in Japan, where Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping are expected to meet and express the region’s concerns. “ASEAN hopes there will be discussions that lead to an easing and resolution of these problems because they affect many countries,” Prayuth said. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte told other leaders on Saturday that the trade conflict between Washington and Beijing “is creating uncertainty. It is taking a toll on global growth and it could hinder the ongoing processes of economic integration.”“The US and China must both take the high road and resolve their differences before the situation spirals out of control,” the usually blunt Duterte said.

India stampede leaves at least 14 dead
AFP, New Delhi/Sunday, 23 June 2019
At least 14 people were killed and dozens injured in a stampede at a religious gathering in northern India on Sunday, after strong winds caused a large marquee to collapse. More than a thousand people were at the event in Rajasthan state, where Hindu religious sermons were being given. “There was a stampede and it appears some iron pipes also fell causing grievous injuries,” senior police officer Khinv Singh told AFP. He said at least 60 people were injured. Police have launched an investigation to see if rules were flouted by organizers. Photos showed wires, pipes and step ladders lying scattered about the venue.
In a tweet, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quoted by his office as saying the incident was “unfortunate” and wishing the injured a quick recovery. Stampedes are common at India’s religious gatherings with police and volunteer stewards often overwhelmed by large crowds.

India rejects US report on attacks on minority Muslims
Reuters, New Delhi/Sunday, 23 June 2019
India on Sunday rejected a US State Department’s annual report on religious freedom that raised questions about the government’s inability to curb violent attacks on the country’s minority Muslims. Preparing for a visit by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday, India’s foreign ministry issued a stiff rejoinder to the US criticism. “India is proud of its secular credentials, its status as the largest democracy and a pluralistic society with a longstanding commitment to tolerance and inclusion,” Raveesh Kumar, the ministry’s spokesman, said in a statement. The State Department report, released on Friday, said some senior officials from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last year had made “inflammatory speeches” against religious minorities. Kumar said India’s constitution guarantees fundamental rights and religious freedom of all citizens, including its minority communities. Muslims make up 14 percent of India’s 1.3 billion people. “We see no locus standi for a foreign entity to pronounce on the state of our citizens’ constitutionally protected rights,” Kumar said. The US State Department report examined attacks on minorities during 2018. “Mob attacks by violent extremist Hindu groups against minority communities, especially Muslims, continued throughout the year amid rumors that victims had traded or killed cows for beef,” the report said. It also noted reports by non-governmental organizations that the government sometimes failed to act on mob attacks on religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government. While in New Delhi, Pompeo is expected to hold talks aimed at laying the ground for a meeting between US President Donald Trump and Modi during a Group of 20 summit in Japan later next week.

North Korea: Kim receives ‘excellent’ letter from Trump
The Associated Press, Seoul/Sunday, 23 June 2019
President Donald Trump sent North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a letter, a government-controlled news agency reported Sunday. Kim “said with satisfaction that the letter is of excellent content,” the Korean Central News Agency reported. “Appreciating the political judging faculty and extraordinary courage of President Trump, Kim Jong Un said that he would seriously contemplate the interesting content,” the agency said. Nuclear talks between the US and North Korea broke down after the failed summit between Kim and Trump in February in Vietnam. The US is demanding that North Korea abandon its nuclear weapons entirely before international sanctions are lifted. North Korea is seeking a step-by-step approach in which moves toward denuclearization are matched by concessions from the US, notably a relaxation of the sanctions. The North Korean report on Trump’s letter came days after Kim’s summit with visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, which experts say underscored China’s emergence as a major player in the diplomatic push to resolve the nuclear standoff with the North. North Korean state media said Kim and Xi discussed the political situation surrounding the Korean Peninsula and reached unspecified consensus on important issues. Xi is expected to meet with Trump next week in Japan. Analysts say he could pass him a message from Kim about the nuclear negotiations. Kim during his annual New Year’s speech said he would seek a “new way” if the United States persists with sanctions and pressure against North Korea. Following the collapse of his meeting with Trump in Hanoi over disagreements in exchanging sanctions relief and disarmament, Kim said Washington has until the end of the year to offer mutually acceptable terms for a deal to salvage the negotiations. Trump and Kim exchanged letters in 2018 after a summit in Singapore to discuss the nuclear issue. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at the time that the letters addressed their commitment to work toward North Korea’s “complete denuclearization.”In September 2018, Trump told a cheering crowd at a campaign rally in West Virginia that Kim “wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

Ethiopian army chief, regional president killed in unrest: PM Abiy
Reuters, Addis Ababa/Sunday, 23 June 2019
Ethiopia’s army chief was shot dead by his bodyguard just hours after an attempted coup in Amhara state left the regional president and another top adviser dead, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Sunday. Spokeswoman Billene Seyoum told journalists a “hit squad” led by Amhara’s security chief Asaminew Tsige burst into a meeting on Saturday afternoon and shot regional president Ambachew Mekonnen and another top official. The men were “gravely injured in the attack and later died of their wounds,” she said. “Several hours later in what seems like a coordinated attack, the chief of the staff of the national security forces Seare Mekonnen was killed in his home by his bodyguard.”The head of Ethiopia's Amhara state and his advisor were also killed during a coup attempt in their state, state media reported on Sunday. Ambachew Mekonnen and his advisor were attacked in their offices on Saturday, state media reported. Speaking on state television late on Saturday, Abiy said General Seare Mekonnen was one of several casualties. But his press secretary, Billene Seyoum, told Reuters later that it was unclear whether General Seare had been killed or wounded. “He was shot by people who are close to him,” Abiy said. The prime minister said the general had been trying to prevent plotters carrying out a coup in Amhara state, one of Ethiopia’s nine federal states. Since coming to power last year, Abiy has tried to spearhead political reforms, to open up the once isolated, security-obsessed country of 100 million people on the Horn of Africa. Abiy has released political prisoners, removed bans on political parties and prosecuted officials accused of gross human rights abuses, but his government is battling mounting violence. Ethnic bloodshed - long held in check by the state’s iron grip - has flared up in many areas, including Amhara, where the regional government was led by Ambachew Mekonnen. According to Abiy, regional government officials were in a meeting when a coup attempt occurred. “There are a few people who were killed while others were injured,” Abiy said. An Ethiopian army general was behind a coup attempt in the state of Amahara, state television reported on Sunday. State media named him as General Asamnew Tsige, who was Amhara's head of security. Amhara is one of nine regional states in Ethiopia. A regional television broadcaster affiliated with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a member of Abiy’s coalition, reported Seare had been killed, alongside another senior military official, Gize Abera. The US Embassy said on Saturday that it was aware of reports of gunfire in Addis Ababa, though Reuters could not confirm those reports. “Chief of Mission personnel are advised to shelter in place,” the Embassy said on its website. Early on Sunday, Brigadier General Tefera Mamo, the head of special forces in Amhara, told state television that “most of the people who attempted the coup have been arrested, although there are a few still at large.” Residents in Amhara’s capital Bahir Dar said late on Saturday there was gunfire in some neighborhoods and some roads had been closed off. Ethiopia is due to hold a national parliamentary election next year. Several opposition groups have called for the polls to be held on time despite the unrest and displacement.

Ruling party candidate declares himself victor in Mauritania vote
AFP, Nouakchott/Sunday, 23 June 2019
Government candidate and frontrunner Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has declared himself the winner of the first round of Mauritania’s presidential election. The 62-year-old former head of the domestic security service made the claim in the early hours of Sunday in the presence of current president Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, his supporters and journalists. A source at the Independent National Electoral Commission (CENI) said Ghazouani had won 50.56 percent of the votes after 80 percent of the votes had been counted following Saturday’s election. “There is only 20 percent left (to count), but that will not change the final result,” Ghazouani reportedly told supporters. The CENI source said leading opposition candidates Sidi Mohamed Ould Boubacar, a former prime minister, and Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid had each garnered about 18 percent with the count continuing. Both men had complained of balloting irregularities and the expulsion of representatives from some polling stations. However CENI said no major problems had been reported. Ghazouani -- who campaigned on the themes of continuity, solidarity and security for the vast largely desert nation -- served as Abdel Aziz’s chief of staff from 2008 to last year.
The outgoing president is a general who originally came to power in a 2008 coup, won elections a year later and was again elected in 2014 in polls boycotted by the opposition. The ballot is the first in Mauritania’s coup-strewn history that looks set to see an elected president complete his mandate and transfer power to an elected successor, but the opposition has raised concerns that it could perpetuate a government dominated by military figures.

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June 23-24/2019
Kushner's Economic Peace Plan Faces Broad Arab Rejection
تقرير من رويترز وجيرارازلم بوست/ خطة كوشينر للسلام الإقتصادي تواجه موجة رفض عربية واسعة
Reuters/Jerusalem Post/June 23/201
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/76069/%d8%aa%d9%82%d8%b1%d9%8a%d8%b1-%d9%85%d9%86-%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%8a%d8%aa%d8%b1%d8%b2-%d9%88%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%b2%d9%88%d9%84%d9%85-%d8%a8%d9%88%d8%b3%d8%aa-%d8%ae%d8%b7%d8%a9-%d9%83%d9%88%d8%b4/
From Sudan to Kuwait, prominent commentators and ordinary citizens denounced Kushner's proposals in strikingly similar terms: "colossal waste of time," "non-starter," "dead on arrival."
RIYADH/AMMAN/CAIRO- US President Donald Trump's economic vision as part of the wider plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was met with contempt, repudiation and exasperation in the Arab world, even as some in the Gulf called for it to be given a chance.
The $50 billion "peace to prosperity" plan, set to be presented by Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner at a conference in Bahrain next week, envisions a global investment fund to lift the Palestinian and neighboring Arab state economies.
e lack of a political solution, which Washington has said would be unveiled later, prompted rejection not only from Palestinians but also in Arab countries that Israel would seek normal relations with.
m Sudan to Kuwait, prominent commentators and ordinary citizens denounced Kushner's proposals in strikingly similar terms: "colossal waste of time," "non-starter," "dead on arrival."
"Homelands cannot be sold, even for all the money in the world," Egyptian analyst Gamal Fahmy said. "This plan is the brainchild of real estate brokers, not politicians. Even Arab states that are described as moderate are not able to openly express support for it."
Commentator Sarkis Naoum at Lebanon's An-Nahar newspaper said, "This economic plan, like others, won't succeed because it has no political foundation."
While the precise outline of the political plan has been shrouded with secrecy, officials briefed on it say Kushner has jettisoned the two-state solution - the long-standing worldwide formula that envisages an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.
The PLO has dismissed Kushner's plans as "all abstract promises," insisting that only a political solution will solve the problem. It said they were an attempt to bribe the Palestinians into accepting Israeli occupation.
Jawad al-Anani, a former senior Jordanian politician, described widespread suspicion after Trump's decisions to move the US embassy to Jerusalem and recognize Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights.
"This is an unbalanced approach: it assumes the Palestinians are the more vulnerable side and they are the ones who can succumb to pressure more easily," he said. "This is a major setback for the whole region." Azzam Huneidi, deputy head of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood, the country's main opposition said: "The economic plan is the sale of Palestine under the banner of prosperity in return for peace and with no land being returned ... and with the bulk of the funds shouldered by Gulf Arab states ... A deal with Arab money."
"HISTORIC CRIME"
Kushner's economic proposals will be discussed at a US-led gathering on June 25-26. The Palestinian Authority is boycotting and the White House did not invite the Israeli government. US-allied Gulf Arab states, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will take part along with officials from Egypt, Jordan and Morocco. Lebanon and Iraq will not attend.
Lebanon's Iranian-backed Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which wields significant influence over the government, has previously called the plan “an historic crime” that must be stopped.
Arab analysts believe the economic plan is an attempt to buy off opposition to Israel's occupation of Palestinian land with a multi-billion dollar bribe to pay off the neighboring hosts of millions of Palestinian refugees to integrate them. "It is disingenuous to say that this plan is purely economic because it has a political dimension that has implications that are incongruous with the political aspirations," said Safwan Masri, a Columbia University professor.
"A big part of the $50 billion will go to neighboring states to settle the Palestinian refugees in those countries." After Israel’s creation in 1948, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon absorbed the most Palestinian refugees, with some estimates that they now account for around five million.
Mohanad Hage Ali, a fellow at Beirut's Carnegie Middle East Center, said: "I see it failing miserably while benefiting US adversaries in the region," a reference to Iran.
NO HARM IN LISTENING"
In recent years, Iran's bitter rivalry with a bloc led by Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has increasingly pushed the Arab-Israeli struggle into the background. While Riyadh and its allies have welcomed Trump’s harder line against Tehran, which has cast itself as the guardian of Palestinian rights, critics accuse Saudi Arabia, the custodian of Islam's holiest places, of abandoning the Palestinians.
Amid fears that it would push them to accept a US plan that favors Israel, Saudi Arabia has assured Arab allies it would not endorse anything that fails to meet key Palestinian demands.
Ali Shihabi, who heads the Arabia Foundation which supports Saudi policies, said the Palestinian Authority was wrong to reject the plan out of hand.
"It should accept it and work on delivering the benefits to its people and then move forward aggressively with non-violent work ... to seek political rights,” he tweeted. Prominent Emirati businessman Khalaf Ahmad al-Habtoor has also criticized the Palestinians' refusal to go to Bahrain, calling it "short-sighted at best, self-defeating at worst."
"There is no harm in listening to what will be placed on the table," he wrote last month. Yet even in the Gulf, backing for Kushner's plan is limited. Majed al-Ansari, a political sociology professor at Qatar University, called it laughable and unrealistic.
"The idea of moving from land-for-peace to money-for-peace, is insulting to the Palestinian cause," he said. "It is very clear that Kushner's idea is about paying for Palestinian approval of Israel taking over all their land and basically giving no concessions to the Palestinians." Kuwaiti researcher Maitham al-Shakhs predicted Washington would be unable to implement the plan through diplomacy and might have to impose it by force.
"(Trump) gave Israel Jerusalem and the Golan, and every day he gives them gifts at the expense of the Arabs."Emirati political scientist Abdulkhaleq Abdulla said the Palestinians are entitled to reject Kushner's plan because it does not meet their minimum aspirations.
"The plan is not even palatable to the wider audience in the region. It will be a sell-off of a just cause," he said. "The Gulf states will have a hard time to force it on the Palestinians. They will have a hard time convincing the Palestinians ... it’s not what people expect after years of conflict and struggle."

The Suicide of France
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/June 23/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14406/suicide-of-france
"Frenchness" is disappearing and being replaced by a kind balkanization of enclaves not communicating with one another.... this is not a good recipe.
The more the French élites with their disposable incomes and cultural leisure cloister themselves in their enclaves, the less likely it is that they will understand the everyday impact of failed mass immigration and multiculturalism.
The globalized, "bobo-ized [bourgeois Bohemian] upper classes" are filling the "new citadels" -- as in Medieval France -- and are voting en masse for Macron. They have developed "a single way of talking and thinking... that allows the dominant classes to substitute for the reality of a nation subject to severe stress and strain the fable of a kind and welcoming society." — Christophe Guilluy, Twilight of the Elites, Yale University Press, 2019.
The recent "yellow vests" movement -- whose demonstrators have been protesting every Saturday in Paris, for months -- is a symbol of the division between France's working class and the gentrified progressives. Pictured: "Yellow vests" protestors occupy the steps leading to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur on March 23, 2019 in Paris, France.
"Regarding France in 2019, it can no longer be denied that a momentous and hazardous transformation, a 'Great Switch', is in the making", observed the founder and president of the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, Michel Gurfinkiel. He was mourning "the passing of France as a distinct country, or at least as the Western, Judeo-Christian nation it had hitherto been presumed to be". A recent cover story in the weekly Le Point called it "the great upheaval".
Switch or upheaval, the days of France as we knew it are numbered: the society has lost its cultural center of gravity: the old way of life is fading and close to "extinction". "Frenchness" is disappearing and being replaced by a kind balkanization of enclaves not communicating with one another. For the country most affected by Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, this is not a good recipe.
The French switch is also becoming geographical. France now appears split between "ghettos for the rich" and "ghettos for the poor", according to an analysis of the electoral map by France's largest newspaper, Le Monde. "In the poorest sector, 6 out of 10 newly settled households have a person born abroad", notes Le Monde. A kind of abyss now separates peripheral France -- small towns, suburbs and rural areas – from the globalized metropolis of the "bourgeois Bohemians", or "bobos". The more the French élites with their disposable incomes and cultural leisure cloister themselves in their enclaves, the less likely it is that they will understand the everyday impact of failed mass immigration and multiculturalism.
A recent European poll reflected these "two Frances that do not cross or speak to each other", observed Sylvain Crepon of the University of Tours, in analyzing the success of Marine Le Pen's National Rally party in the recent European Parliament election. Le Pen and President Emmanuel Macron, the two winners in the election, speak to completely different sociological groups. In the Paris suburbs -- Aulnay-sous-Bois, Sevran, Villepinte and Seine-Saint-Denis -- the far-right National Rally has been experiencing a boom. In the cities, Le Pen is largely behind: she came fifth in Paris, third in Lille, fourth in Lyon. According to Crepon:
"[T]hese cities will be protected from the National Rally's vote by their sociological structuring. It gives credit to the populist talk that diagnoses a disconnected elite. This [view] backs the idea of ​​a sociological break, which is not completely wrong".
On one side of this break are towns such as Dreux, which Valeurs Actuelles called "the city that prefigures the France of tomorrow":
"On one side, a royal city with the vestige of a history believing that all things are being changed [millenarian]; on the other, cities imbued with [drug] trafficking and Islam. The bourgeois of the city center vote for Macron, the 'small whites' for Le Pen".
On the other side, is Paris. "All the metropolises of the world know the same fate. This is where wealth flows and where the alliance between the 'winners of globalization' and their 'servants', immigrants who have come to serve the new masters of the world, keep their children, bring their pizzas or work in their restaurants", writes the distinguished social commentator Èric Zemmour in Le Figaro. From now on, he writes, "Paris is a global city, not really a French city".
The globalized, "bobo-ized [bourgeois Bohemian] upper classes", according to one of France's most respected authors. Christophe Guilluy, are filling the "new citadels" -- as in Medieval France -- and are voting en masse for Macron. They have developed "a single way of talking and thinking... that allows the dominant classes to substitute for the reality of a nation subject to severe stress and strain the fable of a kind and welcoming society". Guilluy has been criticized by some French media for addressing this reality.
The recent "yellow vests" movement -- whose demonstrators have been protesting every Saturday in Paris, for months, against President Macron's reforms -- is a symbol of this division between the working class and the gentrified progressives. According to Guilluy, it is a "social and cultural shock". This shock, according to the French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut, consists of the "ugliness of peripheral France and its effects on concrete lives, the sadness of these working classes who have lost not only a standard of living but also a cultural referent". In France, there is now a pervasive sense of "dispossession".
Marine Le Pen's party won more than twice as many electoral department as Macron. Le Pen won in the depressed and deindustrialized areas of northern, south-central and eastern France that spawned the yellow vests.
"Since moving to France in 2002, I've watched the country complete a cultural revolution", Simon Kuper recently wrote in the Financial Times.
"Catholicism has almost died out (only 6 per cent of French people now habitually attend mass), though not as thoroughly as its longtime rival 'church', communism. The non-white population has kept growing".
Macron, Kuper explains, is the symbol of "a new individualised, globalised, irreligious society".
France's flight from Catholicism is so evident that a new book, L'archipel français: Naissance d'une nation multiple et divisée, by the pollster Jerôme Fourquet, has described the cultural failing of the French society as a "post-Christian era": French society's displacement from its Catholic matrix has become almost total. The country, Fourquet states, is now implementing its own de-Christianization. And there is only one strong substitute at the horizon. There are today already, according to a new academic study, as many Muslims as Catholics among 18-29 year-olds in France; and Muslims represent 13% of the population of France's large cities, more than double the national average.
Sometimes Muslim feelings of community solidarity appear to have been taking advantage of this fragmentation by creating their own "ghettos of sharia". A report from Institut Montaigne, "The Islamist Factory", has detailed the radicalization of the French Muslim society. Instead of integration, assimilation and Europeanization, Muslim extremists in France are pursuing multiculturalism, separation and partition. The enclaves of immigrants at the edges of French cities, posits Gilles Kepel in his book, La Fracture, foment "a rupture in values with French society, and a will to subvert it". "People do not want to live together", said France's former Interior Minister, Gérard Collomb, in comments reported by Valeurs Actuelles.
This "fracture" was noted again in the same publication: "Four out of ten boys in Seine-Saint-Denis have Arab-Muslim first names". Pollster Jérôme Fourquet revealed in a new study that "18 percent of newborn babies in France have an Arab-Muslim name".
France's "Great Switch" is underway. As the philosopher Alain Finkielkraut recently wrote, "The Notre-Dame fire is neither an attack nor an accident, but a suicide attempt."
*Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Analysis/Something Stopped Trump From Striking Iran, and It Wasn’t 150 Lives
زفي برئيل/الهآرتس: شيئاً ما أوقف ترامب من ضرب إيران وهو لم يكن خوفه على حياة 150 أيرانياً
Zvi Bar’el/Haaretz/June 23/2019
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U.S. president says he aborted an attack on Iran out of concern for civilians, but his real fear is what one attack could spiral into.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s flip-flopping over the past three days may be the most important calming signal that the Middle East has received recently. It was said that all the major ingredients that could justify an American military offensive against Iran had come together.
Things had come to a boil in the Persian Gulf when Saudi, Japanese and other tanker ships were damaged in naval attacks. Without decisive proof, Iran was suggested as the culprit. And Yemini Houthis fired missiles into Saudi Arabia – into Jizan province and at an airfield in Abha – prompting battle cries against Iran.
Iran has shortened the period in which it will step up its enrichment of uranium and thereby violate the nuclear deal. The heads of the Iranian army and Revolutionary Guards have threatened that, despite their desire to avoid a violent confrontation, they wouldn’t hesitate to hit American targets if Iran were attacked. Tensions peaked with Iran’s downing of an American drone last week.
The legitimization for an attack was now ripe, a bank of Iranian targets was assembled and the order to deploy American forces was given. But all of a sudden, nothing. It was back to square one.
On a closer look, the two justifications for carrying out a U.S. attack were flimsy. “Circumstantial proof” is insufficient to launch a strike that in the blink of an eye could spiral into a regional war. The downing of the drone got caught up between American claims that the aircraft had been over international waters and the Iranians’ assertions that the drone had violated their airspace.
Such proof is often used by Israel to justify attacks on Hamas on a scale that doesn’t affect the Middle East as a whole. But this isn’t sufficient for a world power that has to take into account the possibility that its close allies could be hit. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, at least publicly, said they didn’t want a war in the Gulf.
Israeli defense officials have said Iran could employ its branches in Lebanon and Syria, either in response to an attack on it or to put pressure on Washington. Only the Israeli government, which should have adopted the Saudi stance because Israeli targets are also on the Iranians’ list, remained silent.
Trump explained his decision not to attack was a desire to avoid killing 150 Iranians. Such a humanitarian explanation would have been heartwarming if it hadn’t come from the president still arming the Saudi military that’s killing thousands in Yemen. This is also the president who wasn’t upset that thousands of Syrian and Iranian civilians were hit in American attacks during the war against the Islamic State. It’s also the president who’s incapable of showing concern for the masses of migrants seeking to enter the United States from Mexico.
In any event, hadn’t the estimate of 150 dead in a U.S. strike been known before the decision to attack was made? The American intelligence services should be given credit for being able to estimate the number of fatalities in such an attack, but it would be interesting to know when such casualties stopped being unavoidable collateral damage and became a humanitarian disaster that Washington couldn’t tolerate.
The important thing, however, isn’t simply Trump’s decision-making process, if the way he tosses around orders can be deemed a process. It’s the consequences of his most recent decision on the confrontation zone in the Persian Gulf and beyond.
The U.S. administration has a vision and aspirations vis-à-vis Iran, but it lacks a strategy to bring them about. The sanctions that Trump has imposed are among the harshest that the country has known, but eight months after being put in place, they still haven’t made Iran succumb.
In their regular interpretations, analysts have been able to point out the huge losses that the Iranians have been sustaining, the exodus of companies that could invest in the country and the fact that most of Iran’s oil customers have stopped buying from the Islamic Republic. But what’s lacking is information or an estimate on how long Iran can survive under such harsh conditions.
Iraq under Saddam Hussein continued to function for more than a decade under a sanctions regime that was harsher than that currently imposed on Iran, and Saddam’s regime was ultimately only defeated on the battlefield. There is no proof that the Iranian regime will act any differently, but the Trump administration has presented no practical strategy for a situation in which Iran sticks to its policy and refuses to negotiate a new nuclear agreement. Is the United States prepared to resort to all-out war to bring down the Iranian regime?
Iran’s decision to exceed the limitations of the current nuclear agreement appear to give the United States and the Western signatories to the agreement grounds to attack Iran. But such concerted action would require a consensus among these countries.
It doesn’t exist at the moment and it’s doubtful that it could be achieved. Some European Union countries are making major efforts, albeit without major success, to create a path to bypass the U.S. sanctions. And Russia and China certainly wouldn’t lend a hand to a war against Iran.
The United States could therefore find itself alone facing both Iran and international antagonism. Granted that the anti-American international coalition that arose following the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear accord hasn’t impressed Trump, but there’s a fundamental difference between diplomacy and war. In any case, even when it comes to such circumstances, Washington doesn’t appear to have a convincing road map.
The dilemma that should guide any military confrontation is whether it should be broken down into a series of attacks designed to “send a message” or whether an assault should be reserved for a last resort that would be applied with full force. In other circumstances, the response to the attacks in the Gulf could have sufficed with surgical, one-time strikes that would send a message.
But the Gulf region could react poorly to narrowly targeted attacks and spiral quickly into a battlefield involving many countries. It appears that this consideration rather than a loss of life among Iranian civilians is what stopped Trump from carrying out his earlier decision.
Israel will certainly tell him that in the process he has raised the threshold for a response and that Iran will interpret the decision as weakness on the part of the United States, because that’s how things are in the Middle East. From Jerusalem’s standpoint, a twofold opportunity has been missed – Sending Iran a message, and it’s the United States, not Israel, that would send the message. But sending messages isn’t a linear process that assures a desired result. Israel learned that well on other fronts, just as the United States learned its lesson in its own confrontations.

Dershowitz: With 'Mideast Marshall plan,' Abbas can help — or hurt — Palestinians
Alan Dershowitz/The Hill/June 23/2019
The White House has unveiled the economic aspects of its Middle East peace plan. As expected, Palestinian leaders rejected it before the ink was dry. But that may not be the final word because there is likely to be pressure on them to reconsider — pressure from their Sunni Arab neighbors and, perhaps, even from their own people.
If ultimately accepted, the plan would provide $50 billion — more than half for Palestinians, the remainder divided between Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon — in educational opportunities, health care, business incentives, infrastructure improvements and many other tangible benefits. Nearly 180 specific projects already are identified.
It would create, for the first time, a physical connection between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, thus enabling residents of each to transit to the other. It promises realistic protections against the massive corruption that has plagued what, heretofore, has been a Palestinian kleptocracy depriving its citizens of the benefits of funding that has come through the government.
The bottom line is that if Palestinian leaders were to accept — or at least sit down and negotiate about —the proposed peace plan, they could quickly improve the quality of life of their people. This could lead to a two-state solution that would be a win-win for all sides.
But as Israeli diplomat Abba Eban once quipped, the Palestinian leadership “never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” They rejected a two-state solution in 1948, 2001 and 2008. They rejected other opportunities to improve the lives of their people, as in 2005 when Israel unilaterally left the Gaza Strip, ending its military presence and abandoning all settlements. The Palestinians could have created a “Singapore on the Mediterranean” with the financial help they received from numerous sources. Instead, they used these resources not to help their people but to hurt their neighbors, by building rockets, terror tunnels and other offensive weapons.
This negativity has gotten them nowhere. It hasn’t improved the quality of life of Palestinians. To the contrary, it has made it much worse. This has been the history of Palestinian leaders from the beginning: They seem to care less about helping their people and more about hurting Israel. They seem to want their own state less than they want there not to be a neighboring nation-state of the Jewish people.
Well, they are not going to accomplish that goal despite their rockets and terrorism, BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) or U.N. condemnation. Israel will continue to thrive. It is strong militarily, economically, diplomatically and in other ways. Palestinians must come to recognize the reality that Israel is here to stay, whether they like it or not. The remaining question is whether there will ever be a viable Palestinian state living in peace with Israel. That is largely up to Palestinians.
Such a state can emerge only from negotiations with Israel in which both sides make painful compromises. The new U.S. economic proposals can serve as a building block for such negotiations. Palestinians should go to a conference on the plan in Bahrain this week with open minds. They need not commit themselves to any specific agreements except to listen and to offer suggestions and counter-proposals.
Even if they erroneously decide to continue to boycott that conference, they should publicize the contents of these economic proposals to their people in order to get their views. It is the people, not their kleptocratic leaders, who stand to benefit the most from this “Mideast Marshall plan.” If the Palestinian people understand how this will improve the quality of life for them and their children, they may demand that their leaders put the welfare of the average Palestinian above ideological, religious and political objections to the Jewish nation-state.
Neither the Palestinian Authority nor the Hamas tyranny over the Gaza Strip are functioning democracies with structures that assure that the opinions of their citizens will be taken into account. But neither could those leaders totally ignore “the street” — Palestinian public opinion. The problem is that the street will not even know what their leaders are denying them unless they become aware of the contents of the U.S. economic plan.
There is no free, independent media on the West Bank or Gaza Strip. Residents can tune into Israeli or international media but they have been taught not to trust either. So it is uncertain whether the Palestinian street will know what their leaders are depriving them of by not engaging with the U.S. and its beneficial economic proposals. It is certainly possible that Palestinian leaders will once again miss an opportunity to help their people and that their people will be misinformed about that missed opportunity.
This may be the Palestinians’ last chance for a peaceful resolution of the long conflict with Israel that has caused so much misery and so many deaths on both sides. When then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat turned down the offer of a two-state solution from President Bill Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. called Arafat’s decision a “crime” against the Palestinian people. Will Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas commit yet another crime against his people by refusing even to listen or negotiate?
If he were to agree to negotiate in earnest about the proposed peace plan — the geopolitical elements of which will be rolled out toward the end of this year — there is a significant likelihood that the end result of mutual, painful compromises may be a Palestinian state. If he persists in his refusal to negotiate, he and his people will have no one but themselves to blame for the persistence of an untenable status quo.
The U.S. has presented the first phase of its plan. It’s an excellent, fair start. The ball is now in the Palestinian court. They should reconsider their knee-jerk rejection and begin negotiations that may be the only road to statehood.
*Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School. His new book is “The Case Against the Democratic House Impeaching Trump.” You can follow him on Twitter @AlanDersh.

War with Iran Remains the Last Resort
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al Awsat//June 23/2019
I am an ardent advocate of pressuring the Iranian regime to change its policies; or, in the case of that failing, I strongly support forcibly changing its policies, but not at any cost. Needless to say that changing the Iranian regime through peaceful means would be better and more effective for all of us.
The ideal result we hope to reach, whether by carrot or stick, is that Iran stops its military projects in terms of strengthening its military and nuclear capabilities, and permanently refrains from spreading chaos and wars in the region. However, we know that Tehran would not do that on its own, and there is no way but to force it to do so. The best way to do it is by imposing strong economic sanctions on it.
However, a military confrontation, should only be used in the case of self-defense — that is why we hear all the politicians repeating and emphasizing that they do not want war.
So the question remains, why not choose war if it is the quickest solution to force the Iranian regime to comply, rather than waiting two years or five years to see if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s government surrenders? Simply because the results of war are not guaranteed. We are dealing with a regime that does not care if 1 million or 2 million of its people die; a regime that didn’t build anything anyway so would not fear losses; a regime that thinks it can, through war, arouse a sense of patriotism in the minds of 90 million Iranians; a regime betting on more chaos in Iraq and the Gulf.
There are a lot of other factors that make war a last resort, for no sane man is in favor of war. However, we will hear a lot of passionate voices that underestimate the risks, overstate the gains, or simplify a complex situation, all wanting a quick solution to a chronic 40-year-old problem called the Iranian regime.
Those who want the US and the West in general to fight their war overlook the fact that these countries have their own agendas and that these major powers are not for rent, as many insist on interpreting the European, Russian and American policies as being motivated by business. They fail to see their strategic interests as well.
Should the economic embargo on the Iranian regime continue as we see it today, Khamenei will eventually be forced to bow and comply with the peace terms. The economic sanctions and embargoes are the most impactful and harmful weapons that can be used against the Iranian regime. They are less risky for the Gulf and the US, despite the provocations of the Iranians, whether attacking oil tankers with mines or bombing using drones.
Once Tehran decides to face the siege by fighting, the Gulf countries and their allies will be forced to defend themselves and their interests, whatever the consequences might be. This is what the Gulf countries want: To go to war with Iran only in the case of self-defense, and to be the aggrieved not the aggressor. In the event of war, Iran will be defeated. It is the weaker part in the power equation. War remains the last weapon in the current confrontation. We should avoid human and material losses on both sides, and give peace a chance.

Iran's Nuclear Announcement Plays into Trump's Hands
Bobby Gosh/Bloomberg/June 23/2019
Iran announced Monday it is 10 days away from breaching the nuclear-stockpile cap imposed by the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. For good measure, Tehran is threatening to enrich uranium beyond a 3.67% limit, meant to prevent it from making weapons-grade material, if the European signatories don’t move quickly to save the deal.
For those Europeans – Germany, France, the UK and the European Union – it’s a moment of truth. They remain vocally supportive of the nuclear pact, and continue to criticize the US for abrogating it last year. But just last month, they rejected an Iranian ultimatum, saying they would not keep the deal alive under Tehran’s threats.
have to act, and the only realistic course left is to put aside their legitimate distaste for the Trump administration and join US efforts to deny the Iranian regime access to nuclear weapons.
For the White House, the announcement from Tehran is a gift. For weeks, the US has faced a wall of skepticism as it tried to persuade the world, and specifically European allies, that Iran is behind a series of attacks on tankers in the Gulf of Oman. Despite growing circumstantial evidence that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is culpable, the Europeans have for the most part been reluctant to criticize Iran.
Their skepticism is warranted: Trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and National Security Advisor John Bolton have a record of playing fast and loose with facts, especially on Iran. In a recent example, Pompeo blamed Tehran for an attack in Kabul, even though the Taliban — no friend of Iran — had already claimed responsibility.
ered Iran for the tanker attacks, he came across like the mendacious shepherd who cried wolf: the global village shrugged it off. With the latest Iranian announcement, the wolf is baying its own intentions, and the villagers must act.
A good start would be to drop the charade that had characterized the European-Iranian discussion since the US pulled out of the nuclear deal. Both sides have known all along that the Europeans could not “save” it. There was never any realistic possibility that European companies and investors would defy US sanctions and pour money and technology into Iran. Nor could anybody reasonably believe that European leaders could get Trump to change his mind.
And yet, the Iranians kept up the pretense that Europe could deliver on the promise of the 2015 pact. Why? Because it allowed Tehran to keep playing the victim while continuing apace with its plan to expand its influence in the Middle East, through its support of murderous regimes and terrorist groups, from Syria and Lebanon to Gaza and Yemen. It also gave President Hassan Rouhani a way to deflect domestic criticism for his failure to deliver on the much-touted economic dividend of the nuclear deal. For proof that the Iranians never really expected the deal to be saved, note that they did not make the same appeals and threats to China and Russia, also signatories to the pact.
For the Europeans, the charade allowed for some political virtue-signaling at home, where Trump is deeply unpopular, and a pretense of independence from US foreign policy. Germany, France and Britain went so far as to create a “special purpose vehicle,” known as Instex, to try and work around US sanctions — knowing full well that no European company that hoped to remain solvent would use it.
The pretense can now be dropped. Having rejected the Iranian ultimatum, the Europeans should now state clearly what they will do if the regime does break out of the nuclear deal’s limits on enrichment.
Europe doesn’t have many options here. There’s not much point in taking matters up at the United Nations — Russia and China are almost certain to veto any action against Iran. But the Europeans can, and should, slap on their own sanctions on the regime. They can also more forcefully speak and act against Iranian mischief across the region, and especially in the vital shipping lanes of the Gulf. The British navy’s decision to send ships to the Gulf is one example of the actions they could take.
This will require the Europeans to set aside their disapproval of the Trump administration’s behavior. But they might find satisfaction in knowing that backing the US could help reduce the tensions in the Gulf by influencing both Iranian and American actions. The sight of Europe rallying behind the US should make it plain to the Iranians that their attempt to split the Western alliance has failed. With any luck, sober minds in Tehran will recognize that more bad behavior will be met by unified response.
On the other side, by returning to the American camp, the Europeans will better be able to make the case that sanctions and diplomacy should be given time and space to work — rather than precipitous actions that might lead to war.

Russia and China’s Policy on Protests
Leonid Bershidsky/Bloomberg/June 23/2019
The apparent victory of Hong Kong protesters and a mini-thaw taking place in Russia are interesting departures from the usual practice of two regimes known to have no reverse gear. Could they have decided to learn a technique one student of authoritarianism has dubbed “contained escalation”?
The communist government of mainland China has been whittling away at Hong Kong’s British-style liberties for years, and protests were routinely ignored. The so-called Umbrella Revolution of 2014 – a series of protests against a plan to have candidates for the role of Hong Kong’s chief executive screened by the mainland – resulted in the preservation of an even more restrictive electoral system. And last April, nine of the movement’s leaders were convicted of “conspiring” and “inciting” to cause a public nuisance. Even in relatively liberal Hong Kong, the regime that crushed the Tiananmen Square protests didn’t step back in the face of popular indignation.
This time it’s different – the (much more numerous) protesters have forced pro-Beijing Chief Executive Carrie Lam to shelve a bill that would allow extradition from Hong Kong to the mainland, which would have dealt a major blow to the special economic region’s judicial independence. And Lam has promised no arrests, too.
Meanwhile in Russia, personal interventions by President Vladimir Putin -- after numerically weak but noisy protests – led to the release of investigative journalist Ivan Golunov, who had been arrested on what seemed like trumped-up drug charges, and to the cancellation of a plan to replace a public park with a cathedral in Yekaterinburg. More concessions are expected. A retreat on plans to build a massive landfill in the northern Russian region of Arkhangelsk, which have led to violent clashes between locals and police, could be on the cards.
The differences between the Chinese and Russian situations are obvious: In Hong Kong, the protests and the concession have been much bigger. But the similarity of the regimes’ retreating when they didn’t really have to is more intriguing.
Surely both Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping know that liberalization can be a slippery slope. In a 2017 paper, political scientist Daniel Treisman from the University of California at Los Angeles, who had studied all cases of democratization between 1800 and 2015, named it among the most common fatal mistakes dictators make.
Other mistakes Treisman mentioned included overestimating popular support and “overrepressing.” Any regime depends to some extent on popular support, and it’s extremely difficult to get the balance of repression and concession just right.
In 2014, Dana Moss from the University off California, Irvine, described the case of Jordan that managed to avoid a revolution during the Arab Spring. The regime started compromising with those who appeared to make manageable demands.
This dynamic of “contained escalation,” as Moss called it, is likely what we’re seeing in both Russia and China. Putin clearly feels he needs to tread carefully because he no longer enjoys 80 percent approval ratings and because Russians appear to be tired of foreign military adventures as the same old problems fester at home. Xi, for his part, doesn’t need domestic instability during a ruthless trade war with the US.
Both appear to be willing to concede some non-critical ground. Even without the extradition law, Hong Kong remains firmly under Beijing’s control, and if protesters give any indication they’re working to end that, there probably will be a forceful response. In Russia, neither Golunov’s arrest nor the construction of the church was a matter of principle for Putin, and intervention only helped him win popularity points; but when activists continued protesting against unfair arrests after Golunov’s release, about 500 people were detained in Moscow.
The Russian and the Chinese regimes have plenty of time and resources to build their models, in which the activists end up realizing they can get the rulers’ favorable attention if they make small demands and show willingness to negotiate, while demanding more will get them beaten up and thrown behind bars. The regimes will learn as they go; activists should as well.