LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
March 14/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews19/english.march14.20.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today
You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 12/13-21/:”Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. And he thought to himself, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?” Then he said, “I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?” So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich towards God.’

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 13-14/2020
Nasrallah Denies Virus Cover-Up, Says Up to Govt. to Declare Emergency
Tight Measures Against Coronavirus Deathblow to Restaurants in Lebanon
MoPH reports 77 confirmed cases
Aoun Informs UN of Swift Action on Reform Plan
Aoun receives letter from Al-Sisi
Presidency Media Office: News promoted about nationalization of non-Lebanese is false, and will bring its perpetrators to legal accountability
US ambassador visits Diab: Only by accountability can Lebanon initiate difficult process of restoring international confidence
Diab chairs meeting over coronavirus preventive measures
Diab chairs meeting to discuss Energy Ministry affairs
Hitti, Shea discuss challenges facing Lebanon
Salameh instructs bank to prioritize transfers to purchase supplies to fight coronavirus
Fahmy's media office: No naturalization decree filed since Fahmy assumed duties
Hoballah: Government's priority is to fight corruption
Majzoub extends educational institutions' closure until March 22
79-year-old man becomes third victim in Lebanon; 15 nurses quarantined
U.S. 'Supports' Lebanon and the Calls of Its People, Says Ambassador
Salameh: Priority for Transfers to Buy Equipment to Combat Virus
Report: Legal, Financial Advisers Begin Talks with Creditors
Religious Services Curbed in Lebanon over Virus Fears
Lebanon Banks Close Saturday over Coronavirus
Geagea Urges Country's Lockdown, Says LF May Sue Diab, Hasan
Coronavirus pushes Lebanon to the brink of collapse/Georgi Azar/Annahar/March 13/2020
Will Lebanon’s Eurobond default spur much-needed reform/Simon Speakman Cordall/The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
Prayers restricted across Middle East amid coronavirus fears/Al Jazeera/March 13/2020
The Shia crescent is still America’s biggest Middle East challenge/Steven Bucci/Al Arabiya/Friday, 13 March 2020
Hamas, Hezbollah and coronavirus/Yuval Karni|/Ynetnews/March 13/2020
Preventive measures against the covid19 coronavirus in Canada except for the province of Quebec./Paul Marwan Tabet/Bishop of Canada for Maronites/March 12/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 13-14/2020
GCC officials blast Iran for coronavirus spread/Mohammed Alkhereiji/The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
Iran Warns Trump over 'Dangerous Actions' after Iraq Airstrikes
Satellite Images Show Iran Mass Graves amid Virus Outbreak
Idlib Truce Violations by Factions Not Controlled by Turkey Alarm Moscow
US Strikes Kataib Hezbollah that Hit Iraq Base
US says Iran threat remains as Iraqi military condemns air strikes that killed six/Arab News/March 13/2020
Democrats reach deal with Trump on coronavirus aid bill, says Pelosi
US President Trump declares coronavirus national emergency
US to keep two carriers in Gulf to counter Iran proxies
Turkey, Russia agree joint patrols in Syria's Idlib as sit-in protests begin on M4 highway
New Homes Offer Some Relief for Syria's Desperate Displaced
Saudi arrests spark speculations about attempted coup
French FM Discusses Libyan Crisis in Algiers
Ethiopia Says Won't be Forced by US on Nile Dam

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 13-14/2020
The Global Village and the War on the Coronavirus/Elias Harfoush/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 13/2020
Iran’s Secret Nuclear Past Comes Into Focus/Eli Lake/Bloomberg/March 13/2020
Dealing with Coronavirus Reveals Cultural Differences/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 13/2020
Why on Earth Did Iran Bait Trump Now/Bobby Ghosh/Bloomberg/March 13/2020
Twenty-four hours in Iraq: How the US built its case for airstrikes/Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/March 13/2020
State Department Report Documents Iran’s Systematic Human Rights Violations/Tzvi Kahn/FDD/March 13/2020
The Army Times Defends Terrorist-Linked CAIR/Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/March 13/2020
Coronavirus: European Leaders Finally Acknowledge Scale of Crisis/Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/March 13/2020
The Army Times Defends Terrorist-Linked CAIR/Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/March 13/2020
A Thousand Times: No, No, No: Why the PLO Cannot Sign Any Peace Treaty With Israel/Ze'ev B. Begin/MEMRI/March 13/2020
Erdogan tightens his grip on Qatar/Fahad bin Abdullah Al-Thani/Arab News/March 13/2020
Syria’s government makes dubious claims about COVID-19/Sami Moubayed/The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
The Coronavirus in Iran (Part 2): Regime Culpability and Resiliency/Mehdi Khalaji/The Washington Institute/March 13/2020
Why OPEC should welcome a US shale-oil bailout/Omar Al-Ubaydli/Al Arabiya/Friday, 13 March 2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on March 13-14/2020
Nasrallah Denies Virus Cover-Up, Says Up to Govt. to Declare Emergency
Naharnet/March 13/2020
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday stressed that the Health Ministry has been transparent in reporting coronavirus cases, as he noted that it is up to the government to declare a state of emergency should the need arise. “The Health Ministry has been transparent from the first day and all claims about a cover-up by the Health Ministry or Hizbullah are baseless and mere lies,” Nasrallah said in a televised address focused on the coronavirus crisis.
Some activists and media reports had in recent days claimed that undeclared coronavirus cases are present at the Hizbullah-affiliated Great Prophet Hospital. “We put all our capabilities, health and medical cadres, manpower, institutions and resistance fighters at the government’s disposal,” Nasrallah added. He also stressed that it is up to the government to declare a state of emergency over coronavirus, emphasizing that his party is not preventing it from making such a move. Separately, he called on the country’s banks to “act responsibly” regarding the virus crisis. “You have a lot of money and you have made huge profit and now you must shoulder your responsibility. You are the first side that must offer help to the government, the health sector and social solidarity, so that the people and the country can triumph,” Nasrallah said. Turning to the controversy over the government’s measures in the face of the virus, Nasrallah said: “There is no problem in critics voicing their opinions, but we must shun divisions and I hope you will not discriminate regionally, racially or confessionally over this virus. We are before a humanitarian battle par excellence.”
“In the battle against coronavirus, the state, the people and the institutions must cooperate and the time is not for settling scores or bickering,” Nasrallah added. Noting that the objective of containing the disease is “realistic and achievable,” Nasrallah said success requires “a decision, a will, patience and an accurate follow-up.” “Until the world discovers a cure for this pandemic, the objective must be to limit the spread of the virus as well as human losses,” he said.
“People's lives are the priority. The academic year and the economic losses can be compensated,” he added. Addressing citizens, he urged them to pray in their homes and not to go to mosques and churches.
“I urge people to fully abide by the government's instructions… All people must be transparent if they have any symptoms,” Hizbullah’s leader said. He also warned that it is a “religious duty” to abide by the instructions of the health authorities. Lebanon has so far confirmed 78 coronavirus cases among them three fatalities. On Wednesday, the country closed restaurants and cafes and announced the suspension of flights from 11 virus-hit nations, giving Lebanese citizens a four-day deadline to return from seven countries. Educational institutions, sport clubs, nightclubs, pubs and other gathering venues had been closed since several days. Health Minister Hamad Hasan said Thursday that Lebanon cannot declare an official state of emergency seeing as that would harm daily income workers.

Tight Measures Against Coronavirus Deathblow to Restaurants in Lebanon
Beirut- Paula Astih/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
A decision last Wednesday to close all restaurants across Lebanon as part of measures to limit the spread of coronavirus in the country seriously places this sector at risk, particularly that restaurants are already suffering from the country’s economic crisis. Between September 2019 and February 2020, the number of restaurants and cafes that closed in Lebanon reached almost 800. The month of January alone witnessed the closing of 240 institutions. Meanwhile, more than 25,000 employees were laid off. According to Information International, the restaurant sector generates $5 billion every year and it constitutes 10 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). “The coronavirus crisis came to send a deathblow to the restaurant sector,” said Maya Bekhazi Noun, general secretary of the Syndicate of Owners of Restaurants, Nightclubs, Cafes, and Patisseries. Noun told Asharq Al-Awsat that before last September, the sector employed 150,000 workers, who are now at risk. She said before the coronavirus crisis, restaurants were already suffering from several changes due to the political and economic instability in the country. “Until now, we cannot determine for how long restaurants will remain closed or what would be the direct economic and financial repercussions of such a decision,” Noun explained. Sources at the Tourism Ministry told Asharq Al-Awsat that in order to contain the virus outbreak in Lebanon, it is essential that restaurants remain closed, even if such a decision would engender dire economic consequences. “Disease has worse repercussions on the Lebanese than an economic deterioration,” the sources said, adding that the ministry would update its assessments regarding the closure of several sectors on a weekly basis, based on the authorities’ capacity to contain the virus.

MoPH reports 77 confirmed cases
NNA/March 13/2020
The Ministry of Public Health issued this Friday its daily COVID-19 report, which reads:
"To this date (March 13, 2020 noontime), the total number of confirmed cases of coronavirus is 77, including those diagnosed at the Rafic Hariri University Hospital, and those reported by other university hospitals. The Ministry of Public Health also announces that one of its employees in the central administration had contracted the virus from an infected relative. The Ministry shall follow the necessary procedures to isolate the said employee, identify those who had been in contact with her inside and outside the ministry, collect samples from them, and place them under home quarantine."

Aoun Informs UN of Swift Action on Reform Plan
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Lebanese President Michel Aoun informed the United Nations Special Coordinator to Lebanon, Jan Kubis, that the government was working at a rapid pace to implement the reform plan that would address debt and banking restructuring and other financial, administrative and social reforms. Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni also said Thursday that Lebanon’s plan to address its financial and economic crisis would meet the recommendations of the International Monetary Fund and be ready within weeks. During his meeting with Kubis on Thursday, Aoun stressed that the government was taking all appropriate measures to combat the coronavirus outbreak and limit its spread through several preventive measures. He also noted that work has begun for the implementation of the electricity plan, in addition to the adoption of a series of steps to push economic development forward. Kubis informed the Lebanese president of the ongoing preparations for the Security Council meeting that would discuss recent developments in the country mentioned in the report on the implementation of Resolution 1701. Meanwhile, Wazni said on Friday that Lebanon’s economic and financial plan would meet the IMF recommendations. He stressed that any decision to resort to the Fund must be approved by political consensus, adding that conditions should not cause sufferings.

Aoun receives letter from Al-Sisi
NNA/March 13/2020
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received the Egyptian Ambassador to Lebanon, Yasser Mohamed Alawi, with whom he tackled the overall situation and the latest developments in Lebanon and the region. Alawi delivered to Aoun a message from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

Presidency Media Office: News promoted about nationalization of non-Lebanese is false, and will bring its perpetrators to legal accountability
NNA/March 13/2020
The Information Office in the Lebanese Presidency issued the following statement:
Some media and social media outlets reported that President Michel Aoun issued nationalization decrees for a number of non-Lebanese individuals. This news is false and fabricated, and falls within the framework of fake news, which some deliberately promote for reasons well-known reasons. The truth that exposes these allegations is that restoring citizenship decrees, published in the latest issue of the Official Gazette, which were reported by various media outlets, were belonging to individuals residing abroad and of Lebanese descent. These decrees are issued according to Law No. 41 (24/11/2015), “Defining the conditions for regaining Lebanese citizenship”.The law has set specific conditions with the process mechanism of requesting citizenship restoration, starting with the submission of an application in Lebanese missions abroad, sent to the Foreign Affairs Ministry and then to the Interior Ministry, so the Directorate of General Security and then to a special committee stipulated by the law and that has full authority to accept or reject requests, after studying. Then, to the Directorate of Personal Status, which in turn establishes the draft decree for each application to be signed according to rules. The law set a maximum 18-month period for this transaction. Thus, since 2016 till now, dozens of decrees have been issued and all those who have obtained restoration of nationality have submitted documents proving that they are of Lebanese origin and it is their natural right, granted to them by the aforementioned law.
The Information Office again stresses, on different mass media outlets, on the need to refer to the media office in all news related to the Presidency of the Republic, in order to prevent the publication of any false or misleading news, noting that the repetition of such acts is violating laws and regulations, and perpetrators will be held accountable.-- Presidency Press Office

US ambassador visits Diab: Only by accountability can Lebanon initiate difficult process of restoring international confidence
NNA/March 13/2020
Prime Minister Hassan Diab on Friday met with US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, in presence of Deputy Chief of Mission, Win Dayton, and Counselor for Political and Economic Affairs, Hans Wechsel, as well as PM’s Consultants Khodr Taleb, Gebran Soufan, and Khaled Akkari.
After the meeting, Ambassador Shea said: “Good morning. Sabah al-kheir. I want to thank Prime Minister Diab—as well as President Aoun, Speaker Berri, and Foreign Minister Hitti—for their very warm welcome. I am honored to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon and to work alongside the Lebanese people, who are famous not only for their hospitality, but also for their resilience, diversity, and entrepreneurship.
Today I discussed with Prime Minister Diab the strength and potential of the U.S. partnership with Lebanon, and our shared stake in a Lebanon that is stable, secure, and sovereign. This is a partnership that is vitally important not only to both of our countries, but to all of the countries in the region.
The people of Lebanon have rightly called for reform, an end to corruption, and the imposition of effective policies necessary to extricate Lebanon from its unprecedented economic crisis. The United States continues to back the protestors’ legitimate demands for economic opportunity, accountability, and transparency. Only by meeting those demands can Lebanon initiate the difficult process of restoring international confidence.
The United States is proud to have been a committed partner to Lebanon since the 1800s. We have deep ties in education, in business, in security, and in people-to-people and family relationships, including my own, that touch all walks of life. We seek a bright future for the Lebanese people, who deserve a stable, secure, sovereign, and prosperous country. We stand with the Lebanese people in encouraging their government to effect real change in its policies, and to chart a course that will earn the confidence of those it means to govern – and, in doing so, secure the support of the international community.
Thank you again for the warm welcome that you have extended me. Shukran.” -- Presidency of the Council of Ministers

Diab chairs meeting over coronavirus preventive measures
NNA/March 13/2020
A meeting chaired by Prime Minister Hassan Diab, was held this evening at the Grand Serail to discuss latest developments regarding preventive measures to deal with coronavirus in Lebanon.The meeting took place in presence of Ministers of Defense Zeina Akar, Public Health Hamad Hassan, Foreign Affairs Nassif Hitti, Interior Mohammad Fahmi, Economy Raoul Nehme, Energy Raymond Ghajar, Labor Lamia Yammine, and Public Works and Transportation Michel Najjar. Discussions touched on means of increasing the alert level. Meetings will be carried out tomorrow to announce new measures.-- Grand Serail Press Office

Diab chairs meeting to discuss Energy Ministry affairs
NNA/March 13/2020
Prime Minister Dr. Hassan Diab chaired a meeting to discuss affairs related to the Ministry of Energy. The meeting was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Zeina Akar, Minister of Energy Raymond Ghajar, Chairman of EdL Kamal Al-Hayek and a number of officials and consultants from the Ministry of Energy. Discussion featured high on setting a price ceiling for fuel purchase for EdL.--Grand Serail Press Office

Hitti, Shea discuss challenges facing Lebanon
NNA/March 13/2020
Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Nassif Hitti, tackled with the Ambassador of the United States to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, the means by which Lebanon can address the challenges facing it.

Salameh instructs bank to prioritize transfers to purchase supplies to fight coronavirus
NNAGovernor of the Central Bank, Riad Salameh, instructed all Lebanese banks to give priority to transfers for the purchase of medical supplies and equipment to combat coronavirus.

Fahmy's media office: No naturalization decree filed since Fahmy assumed duties
NNA/March 13/2020
The media office of Minister of Interior and Municipalities, Mohamed Fahmy, issued the following statement:
"Some have circulated through social media a list of names published in the Official Gazette, claiming it was part of a new naturalization decree that has been issued. The media office of Minister Fahmy is keen to clarify that the Minister has not filed any new decrees for naturalization since he assumed his duties as Minister of the Interior, and that the aforementioned names fall within the context of the decrees to restore Lebanese citizenship to those who deserve it, as per Law 41 promulgated in 2015. It is to note that this measure has been in place for more than five years; decrees are issued periodically based on a study conducted by a committee headed by a judge. The media office also calls on all citizens to verify information before they publish them, and to communicate with the ministry for clarifications over any piece of information."

Hoballah: Government's priority is to fight corruption
NNA/March 13/2020
Minister of Industry, Imad Hoballah, said in a statement that "Lebanon can only be saved with hope and action. No one can expect from this government, or any other government, anything more than what it has already done at the level of fighting coronavirus. There seems to be a mobilization against the state and the government, and that is not acceptable.""Do those calling to declare a state of emergency realize the implications of such a declaration? Do they know that a state of emergency requires the deployment of the army, forced curfews and many other decisions, measures and procedures?" he wondered, stressing that the government was aware of the basis on which to declare a state of emergency, and that it is studying its implications carefully and meticulously. "We know that the issue will develop, and we will act accordingly. We are doing what the countries of the world are doing, and sometimes more, to confront and deal with [the crisis]." Hoballah emphasized that "one of the priorities of our government is to fight corruption and recover the stolen money. We are fighting the battle of Lebanon's survival and revival, away from any foreign dependency, and we feel that the people are giving us the opportunity. (...) They killed the industry intentionally, to keep Lebanon dependent on foreign sides abroad."He concluded by stressing that "suspending the payment of Eurobonds was the right decision."

Majzoub extends educational institutions' closure until March 22
NNA/March 13/2020
Minister of Education and Higher Education Tarek al-Majzoub, on Friday requested that classes continue to be suspended in all public and private educational institutions until Sunday evening, March 22, 2020, in a circular addressed to elementary and secondary schools, vocational institutes and public and private universities today. "In order to preserve the health and safety of students and administrative and educational bodies, and after communicating with the Public Health Minister and the official committee tasked with following-up on the fight against the Coronavirus, and based on public interest requirements, all directors of public and private educational institutions are requested to continue to suspend classes in all public and private educational institutions until Sunday evening, March 22, 2020," the circular read. It also called for "completing the preparation of emergency programs to end the educational curricula and compensate for the lessons lost by the students."

79-year-old man becomes third victim in Lebanon; 15 nurses quarantined
Najia Houssari/Arab News/March 13/2020
BEIRUT: Lebanon has reported its third death from the coronavirus. A 79-year-old man with cancer died on Wednesday while being treated in a hospital in Jbeil. He was sharing the room with a man, whose infection was not yet been confirmed. Doctors’ syndicate chief Sharaf Abu Sharaf said: “There are 15 nurses and two doctors being quarantined at home who have not showed any symptoms.”The streets have been almost empty as all entertainment and recreational facilities in the country have shut. The Lebanese Cabinet has doubled internet speed and capacity for Ogero users until the end of April, to encourage them to work and study at home. Mohammed, a taxi driver in Beirut, told Arab News: “People have stopped going to malls and Beirut souks are empty. They are even refusing to take a cab and are walking instead.” Salam, a saleswoman in Sodeco, said: “Buying clothes is no longer a priority as people are afraid of the coronavirus. We are making sure to disinfect and sterilize the shop everyday but it seems like we will be closing soon.”The Lebanese General Directorate of General Security has begun implementing the decision of the Ministerial Committee for Combating Coronavirus to close all border crossing points with Syria, preventing entry without residence permits. The directorate has also banned the Lebanese from entering Syria, where all border crossing points are expected to close four days after the issuance of the decision. On Wednesday, the Lebanese prime minister stopped all flights between Italy, South Korea, Iran and China for a week. Lebanon has also banned the entry of passengers from France, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Germany, Spain and the UK.

U.S. 'Supports' Lebanon and the Calls of Its People, Says Ambassador
Naharnet/March 13/2020
The newly-appointed US ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy Shea, said from the Grand Serail on Friday that the United States continues to “support” Lebanon and the calls of Lebanese protesters demanding reforms and an end for corruption. Shea who spoke after meeting with PM Hassan Diab said in a statement after: “The Lebanese are calling for fighting corruption, and they have taken to the streets for this purpose. We support their demands and call for their fulfillment in order to overcome the economic crisis,”She stressed the need for Lebanon to adopt transparency which would facilitate the way for “formal Lebanon to gain global trust,” she said. “The United States continues to support Lebanon and insists on the importance of supporting the economy, business and bilateral relations and we hope for a better future,” she concluded.

Salameh: Priority for Transfers to Buy Equipment to Combat Virus
Naharnet/March 13/2020
Central bank governor Riad Salameh instructed Lebanese banks on Friday to prioritize transfers for the purchase of medical supplies and equipment to combat coronavirus, the National News Agency reported on Friday. The disease has infected 77 individuals in Lebanon so far according to the health ministry. On Friday, an employee at the ministry was diagnosed with the virus which the ministry said was "contracted from a relative."In light of a liquidity crisis, Lebanese banks have imposed a strap on transfers abroad. But Salameh said it was a priority to transfer money for the purchase of protective equipment against the virus.

Report: Legal, Financial Advisers Begin Talks with Creditors
Naharnet/March 13/2020
The two US-based firms to act as legal and financial advisers on Lebanon’s public debt restructuring began negotiating with major creditors abroad after the government decided to default on its $1.2 billion Eurobond debt, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Friday. The daily said that financial adviser and asset management firm Lazard Cleary Gottlieb Steen, and legal adviser on the country's Eurobond debt Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, began talks mainly with Ashmore Group Plc, Fidelity Investments and Goldman Sachs. It is not yet known whether the creditors will initiate lawsuits, said the daily, because Lebanon is actually in the stage of suspending the payment of its debt. Earlier in March, Prime Minister Hassan Diab said the government will suspend payment of $1.2 billion in loans, marking the crisis-hit country's first-ever default on its sovereign debt amid ongoing popular unrest. He said the country will seek to restructure its massive debt.The default marks a new chapter in the crisis and could have severe repercussions on Lebanon, risking legal action by lenders that could further aggravate and push Lebanon's economy toward financial collapse.

Religious Services Curbed in Lebanon over Virus Fears
Associated Press/Naharnet/March 13/2020
Religious authorities moved to cancel or limit weekly prayer gatherings in Lebanon on Friday to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus as they encouraged the faithful to pray for those afflicted by the global pandemic. Friday prayers have been temporarily suspended in all Shiite mosques. The country's top Sunni authority has said it is forbidden for anyone with a contagious disease to attend prayers and has urged elderly people and those with weakened immune systems to pray at home. For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes. But the rapid spread of the virus has caused worldwide alarm, tanking financial markets, disrupting travel and leading to large-scale shutdowns in some areas.

Lebanon Banks Close Saturday over Coronavirus
Naharnet/March 13/2020
Lebanon’s banks issued a statement suspending work on Saturday over coronavirus fears. Lebanon bank employee union said in the statement that the “number of coronavirus cases is increasing despite the health ministry’s instructions.”The statement criticized the administrations of some banks and how they failed to take precautionary measures against the virus, noting that several employees have been buying the necessary personal protective equipment from their own money. The union decided to suspend work on March 14 as a protest against the “negligence” of related authorities in order to “protect the colleagues and employees.”Banks meanwhile will embark on disinfecting and sanitizing their buildings during the temporary closure.

Geagea Urges Country's Lockdown, Says LF May Sue Diab, Hasan
Naharnet/March 13/2020
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Friday urged the government to lockdown the entire country as a precaution against the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, warning that the LF may file lawsuits against Prime Minister Hassan Diab and Health Minister Hamad Hasan should the infections increase dramatically. “If the government doesn’t take the necessary measures, and if we reach the state which we believe will be reached – a significant increase in the coronavirus infections in Lebanon in a manner that exceeds the capacity of hospitals and medical crews and infrastructure and people start dying on the streets, we will file lawsuits against PM Hassan Diab and Health Minister Hassan Diab, seeing as we represent broad popular segments,” Geagea said at a press conference. He said the government should immediately lockdown the whole country, warning that should the disease spread “we will see people dying before reaching hospitals and others piled at the gates of hospitals for a simple reason, which is that we don’t have medical equipment.” Lebanon has so far confirmed 77 coronavirus cases among them three fatalities. On Wednesday, the country closed restaurants and cafes and announced the suspension of flights from 11 virus-hit nations, giving Lebanese citizens a four-day deadline to return from seven countries. Educational institutions, sport clubs, nightclubs, pubs and other gathering venues had been closed since several days. Health Minister Hamad Hasan said Thursday that Lebanon cannot declare an official state of emergency seeing as that would harm daily income workers.

Coronavirus pushes Lebanon to the brink of collapse
Georgi Azar/Annahar/March 13/2020
Initiate a total lockdown and screech its already fledgling economy to a halt, or implement lax measures and risk a full-blown outbreak.
BEIRUT: Already reeling under the worst financial crisis in decades, the novel coronavirus which has brought the world to its knees risks pushing Lebanon over the edge. A great deal of pain is coming to the small Mediterranean country, whose unemployment rate has already soared above 40 percent while almost two million people dropped below the poverty line. Last month, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva said the outbreak is the world’s “most pressing uncertainty," with Lebanon stuck between a rock and a hard place. Initiate a total lockdown and screech its already fledgling economy to a halt, or implement lax measures and risk a full-blown outbreak.
Lebanon's Health Minister alluded Friday to the "possibility of declaring a state of emergency," saying that 20 new cases could be announced, bringing the total to near the 100 mark. Experts have continuously warned that Lebanon can absorb a mere 300 cases of coronavirus patients.
Lebanon's central bank governor also asked Friday the country's cash-strapped banks to prioritize foreign currency for the import of medical supplies needed to combat the outbreak, as banks have implemented strict capital controls limiting the outflow of dollars since the currency crisis erupted in October 2019.
“Lebanon is already living on borrowed time. The GDP is said to have shrunk to $44 billion from $50 billion, many businesses are closing and laying off workers and Lebanon’s foreign exchange reserves are drying up," Dr. Sumru Altug, a professor of economics at the American University of Beirut, told Annahar. China, where the virus originated, has seen its economy drop dead, indicating its first contraction since the 1970s. Local businesses have already gone into a tailspin, with concern and fear growing among Lebanese. Earlier this week, authorities ordered the complete shutdown of all movie theaters, gyms, computer cafes, restaurants and pubs. Shopping malls, gambling establishments and sports venues are also on lockdown.
240 F&B businesses closed shop in January alone, with 25,000 employees being laid off since September 2019. Other hospitality establishments halved salaries or shifted full-time workers to a part-time basis. Lebanon's debt burden meanwhile, one of the largest in the world, is now equivalent to nearly 170 percent of its gross domestic product. Last week, it defaulted on its debt obligations for the first time in its history. "A figure of around $20 billion is being discussed as the needed amount of funds to recapitalize the banking sector and to undertake the other structural reforms to get the Lebanese economy growing again," Altug said, further highlighting that if people stay home from school, refrain from going out to stores, doctors or the gym, the economic consequences facing Lebanon could be cataclysmic. The global economy is staring at a negative growth rate in Q1 of 2020, with overall growth projected at 2.4 percent. "Even the most developed countries are putting together fiscal stimulus packages to avert recessions and declines in economic activity," Altug said, a luxury that Lebanon cannot afford since "half of its fiscal expenditures are going towards paying its debt."
"In the event of further declines in economic activity, estimated by another 10 percent drop in GDP, we are looking at a very dire situation," she said. A total lockdown, similar to Italy and China, is expected to be put in place as early as next week, sources told Annahar, as fears over a spike in community spread grow.  Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea called Friday for "the immediate and complete closure of the country, coupled with a "lockdown of land, sea and air crossings for 21 days to prevent the spread of the coronavirus."The virus, which has infected around 135,000 people and killed 5,000 worldwide, has caused immense disruptions to global supply chains with countries reporting shortages to everything from disinfectants to generic medicines. Dr. Souha Kanj however, an infectious disease expert at the American University of Beirut Medical Center, cautioned against a total locked down just yet. “It's not justified for us to have a complete lockdown as we don’t have such a high number of people infected. What's more important is that people coming from abroad go into home quarantine," she said. If and when a lockdown is initiated, factories are the first line to be shut down, sources say.
"Almost all workers are expected to be placed on unpaid leave for at least 20 days," Nicolas Abi Nasr, a local factory owner managing 360 employees, told Annahar.
These employees, who live paycheck to paycheck and support their families, will find it increasingly difficult to make ends meet.
With each employee supporting at least three to four family members, over 1,500 individuals stand to be impacted by the closure of just one factory, he said.
Lebanese's purchasing power has already taken a massive hit as a result of inflation and the local currency losing more than 50 percent of its value. "Electricity and household costs are surging while their source of income has been cut off," he told Annahar, shining a light on the ultimate economic impact of the coronavirus in Lebanon. "We've already had to ration our food expenses after my paycheck was reduced by more than 30 percent," Ali, a father of four told Annahar. "By being forced to sit at home, I'm not sure how much longer we can survive," he said.
Lebanon already lacks an effective social safety net, with austerity cuts across the board further slashing social welfare services. Despite the urgency of the situation, Lebanese have yet to grasp the extent and severity of the coronavirus outbreak.
Social interactions, albeit limited, remain common, as a number of Lebanese seemingly go about their daily lives as usual. Travelers who are returning from countries with large numbers of cases are also failing to take the home quarantine recommendations seriously.
“I think the government is doing a great job and is acting rigidly considering we have less than a hundred cases, the only problem is that some people are not abiding by government’s home quarantine suggestions," Kanj said. A number of hospitals also continue normal operations by taking in non-urgent patients. Hotel Dieu Hospital, however, decided Thursday to enter emergency mode and bar elective cases. In response, doctors at the American University Hospital launched a petition Friday, calling for "a lockdown to limit the Coronavirus spread."“I don’t think we reached a stage where we should restrict entries to emergencies only but I do think that hospitals should regulate them and check exactly who is coming in and out," Kanj said.
*Elissa Hassan contributed to this article

Will Lebanon’s Eurobond default spur much-needed reform?
Simon Speakman Cordall/The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
TUNIS - Lebanon has defaulted on its international debts for the first time. Through civil war and social and political turmoil, Lebanon had always met its economic obligations.
However, convulsed by a long-foreshadowed currency crisis and battered by the spread of coronavirus, Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab said in a televised address March 7 that he was placing the needs of Lebanon’s citizens ahead of its fiscal responsibilities.
Announcing the country would not be paying the $1.2 billion Eurobond due March 9 he said: “How can we pay the creditors while there are people in the streets without the money to buy a loaf of bread?”
Few were surprised by Diab’s decision. Lebanon’s economy has been in decline for several years. Reports by the Financial Times in 2011 suggested Lebanon’s reliance on domestic consumption and hard currency remittances from the diaspora placed its economy at risk.
Over the following years, corruption and mismanagement along with Lebanon’s confessional system of government produced an economic crisis with no immediate solution.
Lebanon is one of the most indebted countries in the world, owing more than $90 billion, approximately 170% of GDP.
Official estimates in January stated that inflation was running at a year-on-year rate of 10%. However, a leading consumer association told Bloomberg News that prices have risen 45% since October, affecting purchasing power at an “unprecedented rate” as companies slash both jobs and pay.
“Since around August of 2019 and the dollar shortage at the banks, we’ve seen price hikes, a decline in consumer confidence and difficulties in importing and pricing basic goods such as wheat and fuel,” said Kareem Chehayeb an investigative journalist at the Public Source, an independent Lebanese media organisation. Banks that remained open throughout Lebanon’s 15-year civil war are now closing early, cutting credit card limits and dramatically curtailing the public’s access to the country’s diminishing dollar supply.
“As the conditions worsened, we saw mass layoffs and salary cuts,” Chehayeb said. “Couple that with an inflated black market exchange rate dominating the markets and people’s lives have clearly worsened significantly.”
Mona Yacoubian, a senior adviser at the United States Institute of Peace, said: “Estimates already indicate that as much as 50% of the population live below the poverty line. Many people have faced layoffs and inflation is rising as the Lebanese pound continues to lose value. Many people are taking a de facto ‘haircut’ as their dollar-denominated accounts are translated into lira at a devalued rate.
“Unfortunately, more pain lies ahead in the short to medium term as austerity measures eventually are put in place following the default.”
“The medium- and long-term implications of the Eurobond default will very much depend on what measures and reforms Lebanon undertakes following the default. Obviously, a default is never good and Lebanon will necessarily pay a price in the markets for having failed to repay its debt,” she added.
Yacoubian said there remained the possibility that the default may spur much-needed reform, which, while including austerity, should “include a shift towards greater transparency and accountability and measures to combat widespread corruption, then the long-term prognosis for Lebanon is far better as the economy will be on a far more solid footing.”
Under typical circumstances, a country experiencing similar conditions would look to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for support. An IMF delegation made a technical visit to Lebanon in February that it described as “very informative and productive.”
However, in the absence of a credible economic plan, the IMF is unlikely to offer Lebanon the level of support required to see it either through its present difficulties or to fund the fiscal stabilisation fund — estimated by former Economy Minister Nasser Saidi to be around $20 billion — to underpin any reform programme. Lebanon’s unique political circumstances may impede any IMF bailout. The Iran-backed Hezbollah, which wields strong influence in the country’s government, is unlikely to welcome what it would see as a surrender of sovereignty over any IMF bailout.
An analysis by the global risk consultancy HIS Markit after Lebanon’s default noted that Hezbollah “has repeatedly expressed its opposition to an International Monetary Fund bailout and the measures it would require.” These are said to include cutting bread subsidies, taxing fuel and raising the value added tax.
It is possible that the government may undertake reforms without IMF support, looking to cut spending and commence a longer-term plan of tax hikes without an internationally funded stabilisation programme.
Credit ratings agency Fitch has suggested that Beirut might raid deposits and savings held by the country’s banks, a possibility the government has yet to rule out.
*Simon Speakman Cordall is a freelance writer.

Prayers restricted across Middle East amid coronavirus fears
Al Jazeera/March 13/2020
Religious authorities limit, cancel weekly prayer gatherings in states across region as COVID-19 cases persist.
Religious authorities across the Middle East have moved to cancel or limit weekly prayer gatherings to help prevent the spread of the new coronavirus.
In Kuwait on Friday, religious authorities asked Muslims to pray at home as the Gulf states stepped up measures to fight the spread the novel virus.
In Jerusalem, Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders said services would continue to be held in the Holy Land but moved to limit indoor gatherings after the Israeli Health Ministry said they should not exceed 100 people.
The Islamic endowment that oversees the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in occupied East Jerusalem, the third holiest site in Islam, said Friday prayers would be held as normal but encouraged people to pray in the outer courtyards and refrain from crowding inside the mosques.
It advised the elderly and sick not to enter crowded mosques.
Hard-hit Iran cancelled Friday prayers in major cities, and Egypt has ordered all mosques to limit Friday prayers, including the weekly sermon, to no more than 15 minutes.
The prayers usually last around an hour.The outbreak has reached Iran’s top officials, with its senior vice president, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, Revolutionary Guard members and Health Ministry officials among those infected.
Iran has reported more than 10,000 cases and over 400 deaths, making it among the worst outbreaks worldwide. There are concerns that the number of infections is much higher. Iraq, which has reported more than 80 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and eight deaths so far, scrapped Friday prayers in Karbala and in the country's predominantly Kurdish northern region.
Last week, Iraq's most influential Shia cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, urged people to abide by a ban on mass prayers.
In Lebanon, Friday prayers have been temporarily suspended in all Shia mosques. The country's top Sunni authority has said it is forbidden for anyone with a contagious disease to attend prayers and has urged elderly people and those with weakened immune systems to pray at home. Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia banned "Umrah" for residents and citizens. Umrah, which can be completed in a few hours, is a pilgrimage that can be undertaken at any time of year, unlike the much more intensive and time-consuming Hajj - one of the five pillars of Islam performed during a few specific days each year.
Saudi Arabia also said it was preventing foreigners from reaching the holy city of Mecca and the Kaaba, the building at the centre of the Great Mosque, and said travel was suspended to Prophet Muhammad's mosque in Medina.
Other events cancelled
Bahrain's King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa released nearly 1,500 prisoners, around 900 of whom were pardoned. The move appeared aimed at preventing the virus from spreading inside detention facilities.
The moves to limit religious gatherings come on the heels of several cancellations of sporting events, conferences and other meetings worldwide. To date, the virus has infected nearly 130,000 people worldwide and caused more than 4,700 deaths. The vast majority of people recover from the new virus and the COVID-19 illness it causes.
But the rapid spread of the virus has caused worldwide alarm, tanking financial markets, disrupting travel and leading to large-scale shutdowns in some areas.

The Shia crescent is still America’s biggest Middle East challenge
Steven Bucci/Al Arabiya/Friday, 13 March 2020
The Middle East today has many issues categorized as challenges for the United States, but the biggest and most daunting has been, and remains, the so-called Shia crescent and the mischief the Mullahs of Tehran work throughout its troubled areas.
The leaders of the Iranian revolutionary regime continue to expend enormous amounts of national capital - time, money, and personnel - to make the current unrest in the region permanent and to, in fact, expand their regional influence. The crescent is the strategic center of gravity. For the Iranian regime and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ overseas arms the Quds Force, building, maintaining, and exploiting the Shia crescent constituents their most significant ongoing effort.
What is the Shia crescent? It is the area including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen, and the Shia populations in each of those countries. It is anchored by Iran proper, and includes major surrogate groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, and southern Iraqi militias. Together this band of peoples and territories, split the larger Sunni Muslim world in the Middle East, and allow Iran to utilize interior lines of operation to conduct conventional military operations, terrorism, and funding across the region.
General Qassem Soleimani, the late commander of the IRGC-Quds Force, was the master of the crescent. He almost single handedly built the network of relationships and alliances that allowed Iran to wield an enormous amount of influence and cause a huge amount of damage to US interests and those of our allies. Using denial, obfuscation, and outright lies, the Iranians sowed deadly seeds of discord and death, and then simply shrugged their shoulders. They recognized that they had insufficient conventional power to directly confront the US and the West, but these asymmetric means worked wonderfully for them.
Most nation states try to build allies and power blocks in regions they consider strategically important to them. After the debacle of the Iranian nuclear agreement, known technically as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Mullahs used Soleimani to not just push the envelope when it comes to developing regional power, but to obliterate it.
It is one thing to actively supply surrogates, but it is another to send in uniformed special operators to plan for, lead, and fight alongside those surrogates. These efforts are not acts of diplomacy, they are acts of war. Operating within their self-defined privileged zone of the crescent, the IRGC-Quds Force, whose only real analog was the old Soviet Spetsnaz, conducts terror, murder, supplies advanced IEDs, and works continually to shape the area into the docile subordinates Tehran believes its neighbors should be.
The efforts of the Obama administration to conduct Iranian “negotiations” was ludicrous. Then-US Secretary of State John Kerry and his team were outmatched. Former US Secretary of Defense and Marine Corps General James Mattis must have been reminded of the phrase, “The Persians have not won a battle in a 1000 years. They also have not lost a negotiation in the same time period.” This sentiment was echoed by the ambassador of a different Shia country to Washington, who asked during the JCPOA discussions, “Why are you Americans negotiating with the Persians? No one negotiates with them, because they always win.”
Kerry was not up to the task and got taken for a ride. The Americans were so obviously salivating for a deal (they were after all building Obama’s legacy), that the Iranians just kept demanding more and more, and low and behold, they got it all and several pallets with millions in cash besides. Iran was even honestly indignant that their “rightfully won” - in their minds - victory that could be taken back by President Donald Trump.
Absent that, they returned to active subversive operations across the crescent, which led to Soleimani’s death. Again they were shocked that America was no longer playing by “the rules.”
This is not about a preference for Sunnis over Shia, or Arabs over Persians. It is simply a preference for friends over enemies, and the side America can trust more. The mullahs are not to be trusted in any way. Despite the setbacks in the abrogation of the JCPOA, and the decisive elimination of their principle operator across the Shia crescent, the Iranians are still active. The crescent is still alive with challenges for America and its allies. The fight is not over, and cannot be ignored. The biggest challenge must still be confronted with strength and resolve.
*Steven P. Bucci, who served America for three decades as an Army Special Forces officer and top Pentagon official, is a visiting research fellow at The Heritage Foundation. He tweets @SBucci.

Hamas, Hezbollah and coronavirus
Yuval Karni|/Ynetnews/March 13/2020
Opinion: Threats to the north and south and general electoral exhaustion mean Israel cannot afford to waste time on political squabbles; Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz, we need unity now
There are moments in life when the feeling of revulsion is overtaken by real concern. After three long and exhausting election campaigns full of dangerous divisive rhetoric, that moment is now upon us. Revulsion aside, there is now a genuine concern for us citizens, our country, our political discourse, our political system, and the lack of public trust. Truth be told, that one has tried to stop us from deteriorating to the dangers that stem from the current political discourse that only proves how low we've come. Worst still is the sanctimonious contention of our politicians that they are on the side of truth. The world of Israeli politics has become over this past year one of extremes. Therefore, we cannot be surprised by what has failed to come out of the recent elections. There is no talk of a national unity coalition by either of the major parties, whose positions are very similar on major policy issues. A decision to form such a government would finally enable us to deal with the real issues facing the country. It is time for politicians to set aside campaign promises, principles and personal animosities for the greater good.
Blue & White leader Benny Gantz would like to form a unity government if only Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would be removed. The prime minister in turn tried and failed three times to win the necessary votes to form a government and advance his agenda, which includes legislation that would release him of his criminal trial for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust. Three rounds of elections in less than one year have failed to result in a conclusive winner. So, what made Gantz rush to try to form a narrow government? Why is Netanyahu refusing to push for national unity?
Each man is waiting for the other to fail, but if one of them succeeds in establishing a narrow coalition, his government would be hated by half of the public and begin its tenure lacking public trust. Israel is dealing with a real emergency at this time, and though politicians prefer to stay away from unity governments, unity is the solution most favored by the voters who dread the idea of a fourth election cycle. The coronavirus will affect not only the health of its citizens and of its medical establishments but could also devastate its economy.  And lest us forget our ongoing security challenges on our northern and southern fronts.
We can all dream of our ideal government, but we cannot now, as the window of opportunity is about to close, let the chance of a unity coalition be lost. We must all join forces, and hands, and put the county first. It is also time to heal the wounds so Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Gantz, to you I say: Unity now

Preventive measures against the covid19 coronavirus in Canada except for the province of Quebec.
Paul Marwan Tabet/Bishop of Canada for Maronites/March 12/2020
After the development we are witnessing in this matter which is escalating on a national even global level, I ask you to cancel all activities as of tomorrow, Friday, including the “Stations of the Cross”, catechism classes, preparation sessions for the first communion, Arabic language school, scout teams, community meetings and spiritual movements and youth gatherings.
And abide by the following preventive directives during the celebration of the Divine Mass, until further notice:
• Exchanging of peace with salutation.
• Cleansing the hands of offering carriers with an effective sanitizer before handing them out.
• Distribution of the Communion in the hand is mandatory until the end of this crisis.
• Reducing the use of ritual books in the hands of believers as much as possible.
• Emptying the Holy Water dispensers.
• Periodic sterilization of places and utensils.
• Inviting people who suffer from any sickness symptoms to avoid coming to the church for the safety of all (Every believer that feels any pathological symptoms related to the virus is exempt from the conscientious obligation to participate in the Divine Liturgy or any group prayer in the church..)
I also remind you of the important basic precautions that you have become aware of, including the following:
For priests and servants of the altar:
• Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water, or use an effective sanitizer in the same way before Mass.
• Avoid taking communion from the same cup and avoid drinking from it, rather do it by "dipping" (Intinction)
• Cleansing hands before and after the distribution of communion with an effective cleanser before the eyes of believers.
Generally:
• Encourage those around you (believers, employees, etc.) to wash hands frequently.
• Avoid touching the face with the hand.
• Coughing and sneezing in the elbow.
• Avoid shaking hands.
I ask God that this tribulation passes quickly and then we return to our regular pastoral activities. I invite all of our children to pray for the sick and for the wounds of the families of the victims, that the Lord may protect us all with His grace.
With my love and my prayers,

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 13-14/2020
GCC officials blast Iran for coronavirus spread
Mohammed Alkhereiji/The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
LONDON - The effects of the coronavirus outbreak can be felt region-wide, as governments in the Gulf Cooperation Council blame Iran for being negligent in allowing the spread of the virus to their countries. At a cabinet session March 10, Saudi Arabia held Iran "directly responsible" for the spread of the COVID-19 virus worldwide and in the kingdom because most of the country’s 62 reported cases were said to have contracted the virus during visits to Iran. The Saudi cabinet denounced Tehran's "irresponsible" behaviour that allowed Saudi nationals to enter Iran without stamping their passports. "This creates a health risk and undermines international efforts to fight the virus," the cabinet said in a report in Okaz newspaper. With most of Saudi Arabia’s cases stemming from the majority Shia eastern province of Qatif, authorities quarantined the governorate. Work at all public and private institutions was suspended.
Bahrain, which has reported more than 110 cases of coronavirus, was also critical of Iran, accusing it of “biological aggression” by not stamping passports of Bahrainis who travelled there. “With this behaviour, Iran has allowed the disease to travel abroad and, in my estimation, this constitutes a form of biological aggression that is criminalised by international law because it put in danger our safety and health and that of others,” Bahraini Interior Minister Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah al-Khalifa said on Twitter.
As the number of individuals infected with the virus rises, Gulf governments introduced additional measures to minimise the spread of the disease, including cancelling many public gatherings. Saudi Arabia suspended cinema screenings March 11. The Saudi General Commission for Audiovisual Media said it took the decision based on recommendations from health authorities. Riyadh also suspended classes at state schools and universities, banned the smoking of shisha and extended a flight and travel ban to include the European Union and 12 other countries. Besides EU members, countries affected are: Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea, India, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, Somalia, Sudan and Switzerland, the Interior Ministry said. Saudi nationals in those countries were given 72 hours to return home. Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud donated $10 million to the World Health Organisation to support global efforts to fight coronavirus. "This supreme order reflects the honourable humanitarian role played by the kingdom of Saudi Arabia," a royal adviser and supervisor at the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre told SPA. The United Arab Emirates, which reported 85 coronavirus cases, introduced additional measures including thermal testing for all passengers travelling to the United States through Dubai International Airport. The UAE Department of Culture and Tourism temporarily shut down nightclubs in Abu Dhabi, with a similar order for Dubai expected. In Dubai, a major tourism hub, a ban on shisha pipes in cafes was put in place. Kuwait, which has 80 people infected with the virus, announced extreme measures to combat spread of the virus, including the cancellation of all public prayers until further notice. Kuwaiti authorities also shut down all commercial flights, except those returning nationals to the country and cargo flights. Kuwait also announced a 2-week holiday in the public sector and banned people from going to restaurants and malls. Qatar reported 18 cases of the coronavirus and it has put in place a nationwide ban on shishas at cafes. Qatar also suspended classes at schools and universities. Oman, which also has 18 cases of the coronavirus, most of which stem from travel to Iran, said it would suspend sports and student activities starting March 15. Omani health authorities recommended the cancellation of all international events in the sultanate.
*Mohammed Alkhereiji is the Arab Weekly’s Gulf section editor.

Iran Warns Trump over 'Dangerous Actions' after Iraq Airstrikes
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Tehran on Friday warned US President Donald Trump against taking "dangerous actions" after American forces waged a series of airstrikes against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a major rocket attack a day earlier. "Instead of dangerous actions and baseless accusations, Mr. Trump should reconsider the presence and behavior of his troops in the area," foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a statement, hours after the US strikes. The Pentagon said that the strikes appeared limited in scope and narrowly tailored, targeting five weapons storage facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah militants, including stores of weaponry for past attacks on US-led coalition troops. In a statement, Iraq's military said the US airstrikes hit four locations in Iraq that housed formal Iraqi police and military units, in addition to the paramilitary groups. Three Iraqi army soldiers were killed and four wounded, police in Babel province said in a statement. Five paramilitary fighters and one policeman were also injured, they said, adding that the fate of two more policemen was unknown. One strike hit an Iraqi civilian airport under construction in Kerbala and killed a worker, Iraqi religious authorities said on Friday. The US military did not estimate how many people in Iraq may have been killed in the strikes, which officials said were carried out by piloted aircraft. In a sign of concern that tension between the United States and Iran could be headed toward open conflict, the Democratic-led US House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday to limit Trump's ability to wage war against Iran. The Republican president has been engaged in a maximum-pressure campaign of renewed sanctions and near-constant rhetoric against Iran, after pulling the United States out of the international nuclear deal struck under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama. Tensions between Washington and Tehran have mostly played out on Iraqi soil in recent months.

Satellite Images Show Iran Mass Graves amid Virus Outbreak
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Satellite images of mass graves in the city of Qom suggest Iran’s coronavirus outbreak is even more serious than the authorities are admitting, Britain’s The Guardian reported on Friday. The pictures, first published by the New York Times, show the excavation of a new section in a cemetery on the northern fringe of the city in late February, and two long trenches dug, of a total length of 100 yards, by the end of the month. They confirm the worst fears about the extent of the epidemic and the government’s subsequent cover-up, said The Guardian. On February 24, at the time the trenches were being dug, a legislator from Qom, 120 km south of Tehran, accused the health ministry of lying about the scale of the outbreak, saying there had already been 50 deaths in the city, at a time when the ministry was claiming only 12 people had died from the virus nationwide. The deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, held a press conference to deny the allegations, but he wiped his face and eyes, and was clearly sweating and coughing as he did so. The next day, Harirchi confirmed that he was infected with the virus. Since then, lawmakers, a former diplomat and a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have died. The latest suspected case of infection was Ali Akbar Velayati, who advises the supreme leader on foreign policy. Iran announced on Friday that the new coronavirus has claimed another 85 lives, bringing to 514 the overall number of deaths in the country. Across the country, at least 1,289 infected people have been added to the list of confirmed patients. "The total number of patients has therefore reached 11,364 cases," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said. Amir Afkhami, who has written a history of Iran’s experience of cholera epidemics, A Modern Contagion, said the mass graves add weight to suspicions the real mortality figures are much higher and are still being covered by the leadership. “It doesn’t surprise me that they are now trying to create mass graves and trying to hide the actual extent of the impact of the disease,” The Guardian quoted Afkhami, an associate professor at George Washington University, as saying.

Idlib Truce Violations by Factions Not Controlled by Turkey Alarm Moscow
Moscow – Raed Jabr/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Moscow has voiced its satisfaction with the ongoing ceasefire in Idlib, Syria, and noted that no violations on part of the Ankara-backed factions were recorded. But violations carried out by independent factions were registered for the third day in a row, something that might usher in Russian or Syrian regime retaliation against attack launch sites. The Russian defense ministry, for its part, confirmed that no violations to the truce were spotted on part of the Syrian armed factions in Idlib. The Head of the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, Oleg Zhuravlev said: “During the day, no shelling attacks by Turkey-controlled illegal armed groups were reported.” However, in his words, Zhuravlev said that eight ceasefire violations by units of the Islamic Party of Turkestan and Jahbat al-Nusra (both banned in Russia), which are not controlled by Turkey, were reported in Aleppo governorate. Political analysts believe that singling out attacks by factions not backed by Turkey may lead to a counter military operation as Russia stresses that these factions aren’t included in the ceasefire deal. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, the day after the signing of the Russian-Turkish agreements that led to the ceasefire in Idlib, confirmed that operations against terrorist factions will continue. It is noteworthy that Russia refers to Syrian rebel factions as terrorists. Zhuravlev also confirmed that the round-the-clock communication channel joining the Russian-run Khemiem center and Turkey is up and running. Moscow has recently announced the forming of a channel for coordination between the Russian and Turkish armies in Idlib. Zhuravlev spoke more on Russian-Turkish cooperation. He said that, during the last 24 hours, units of the Russian military police escorted seven Turkish convoys to deployment sites of the Turkish army’s observation posts in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

US Strikes Kataib Hezbollah that Hit Iraq Base
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
The US military launched precision airstrikes against pro-Iran Kataib Hezbollah armed faction in Iraq following the deaths of two Americans and a Briton in a rocket attack, US military officials said on Thursday.
The operation targeted five weapons facilities of Kataib Hezbollah across Iraq, the Pentagon said in a statement. "These weapons storage facilities include facilities that housed weapons used to target US and coalition troops," the statement said. The strikes were "defensive, proportional, and in direct response to the threat posed by Iranian-backed Shiite militia groups who continue to attack bases" hosting troops that are part of the international coalition fighting ISIS. US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, in a Pentagon statement detailing the strikes, cautioned the United States "will not tolerate attacks against our people, our interests, or our allies.""As we have demonstrated in recent months, we will take any action necessary to protect our forces in Iraq and the region," he said. Esper had earlier warned that "all options are on the table" to respond to the death of the three soldiers in a barrage of about 18 rockets on the Taji air base on Wednesday. Troops from the United States and other countries in the Operation Inherent Resolve coalition reside at the base, and have been targets of previous rocket attacks attributed to Iran-backed Iraqi groups. Wednesday's attack on the Taji air base was the 22nd on US installations in Iraq, including the American embassy, since late October. While there was no immediate claim of responsibility, Washington has blamed Iran-backed factions from the Popular Moblization Forces network, which includes Kataib Hezbollah, for recent similar violence. The UK named its fallen service member in the attack Wednesday as Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. The United States has not yet identified the US service members killed. Fourteen others were wounded, including Americans, Brits, and Poles.

US says Iran threat remains as Iraqi military condemns air strikes that killed six
Arab News/March 13/2020
BAGHDAD: Iraq’s military condemned overnight US air strikes on Friday, saying they had killed six people and describing them as a violation of sovereignty and a targeted aggression against the nation’s formal armed forces.
The Iraqi foreign minister on Friday has summoned the American and British envoys over the attack. “The pretext that this attack came as a response to the aggression that targeted the Taji base is a false pretext; one that leads to escalation and does not provide a solution,” Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said in a statement. “This action is against the will of the Iraqi state and a violation of its sovereignty, it strengthens outlaws. No party has the right to substitute itself for the state, its sovereignty, or its legitimate decisions.” The US said it carried out the series of strikes on Thursday against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a rocket attack a day earlier which killed two American troops and a British soldier. A top US general said on Friday that the threat from Iran still remained high despite the strikes on Thursday. Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, head of the US military's Central Command, said he believed the US retaliatory strikes against five weapons storage facilities in Iraq would deter "future strikes of this nature."But he did not suggest any easing of the risk from Iran and Iran-backed groups in the days following January's state-on-state exchanges, which saw the United States kill a top Iranian general and Iran's missile strikes in Iraq cause brain injuries in more than 100 US troops. "I think the threat remains very high. I think the tensions have actually not gone down," McKenzie told a Pentagon news briefing. He also said that the strike in Iraq sent a clear message that the US would not tolerate "indirect Iranian attacks with Iranian-supplied weapons."Three of the dead were Iraqi soldiers and two policemen, the military statement said, adding that 11 Iraqi fighters were also wounded, some of them critically. The civilian was a cook working at the unfinished Kerbala airport, where another civilian employee was also wounded in the raids. The Pentagon said Friday it would keep two aircraft carrier task forces in the Gulf region after carrying out strikes in Iraq on five depots for Iran-supplied rockets. Central Command chief General Kenneth McKenzie said the carrier groups would be staying for a sustained period following a series of attacks on US positions in Iraq by Iranian-backed groups that have ratcheted up tensions with Tehran. Britain’s foreign minister Dominic Raab said the US-led response to the attack on coalition forces in Iraq was “swift, decisive and proportionate” and warned that anyone seeking to harm those forces could expect a strong response. “UK forces are in Iraq with coalition partners to help the country counter terrorist activity and anyone seeking to harm them can expect a strong response,” Raab said in a statement on Friday. The Pentagon said the strikes targeted five weapons stores used by Kataib Hezbollah militants, including facilities housing arms used in past attacks on US-led coalition troops.

Democrats reach deal with Trump on coronavirus aid bill, says Pelosi
Reuters, WashingtonSaturday, 14 March 2020
Democrats in the House of Representatives have reached a deal with President Donald Trump’s administration on a coronavirus aid package and will soon pass it, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Friday. “We are proud to have reached an agreement with the administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass” the bill, Pelosi said in a statement. Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin have been negotiating since Thursday on a multi-billion dollar package that aims to limit the economic fallout from the pandemic, which has infected 138,000 people worldwide, killed more than 5,000 and shuttered schools, sports arenas, theaters and offices. For more coronavirus news, visit our dedicated page. The bill would provide for free coronavirus testing and two weeks of paid sick and family leave for those affected by the virus, Pelosi said earlier in the day. It also would expand safety-net programs that help people weather economic downturns. Trump’s fellow Republicans in Congress have waited to hear from Trump before weighing in on the measure. Pelosi does not need their support to pass legislation out of the House. But it would probably not get far in the Republican-controlled Senate without bipartisan support. US President Trump declares coronavirus national emergency

US President Trump declares coronavirus national emergency
Agencies Washington/Friday, 13 March 2020
President Donald Trump declared a US national emergency over the quickly spreading coronavirus on Friday, opening the door to more federal aid to combat a disease that has infected 138,000 people worldwide and left more than 5,000 dead. The impact of the coronavirus on everyday life deepened around the world, and it was detected for the first time in several more countries. More schools and businesses closed to try to slow its spread, governments took other drastic steps, the global sporting calendar was left in tatters and people faced greater restrictions on where they could go. “To unleash the full power of the federal government to this effort today, I am officially declaring a national emergency - two very big words,” Trump said in remarks at the White House.He said the action will open up access to up to $50 billion in funds for states and localities in the fight against the coronavirus. Trump also urged states to establish emergency operations centers. Trump had faced criticism from some experts for being slow and ineffective in his response to the crisis and downplaying the threat. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency, a seldom-used presidential power, enables the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist state and local governments and coordinate the US response to the crisis. The virus has killed 41 people in the United States. The final global economic cost remains unknown, but travel bans have hammered airlines and travel companies, while financial markets have been hit by panic selling. Despite a limited recovery on Friday, the main US stock indexes faced their biggest weekly declines since the 2008 financial crisis, and remain around 25 percent below the record highs achieved in mid-February. The World Health Organization (WHO) called Europe the epicenter of a coronavirus pandemic after the number of cases in China, where it originated, slowed to a trickle. The WHO called the death toll reaching 5,000 globally “a tragic milestone.” The WHO’s top emergency expert Mike Ryan said social distancing was a “tried and tested method” to slow the spread of a virus but “not a panacea” that would stop transmission.
“Blanket travel measures in their own right will do nothing to protect an individual state,” Ryan said. In Washington, the Democratic-led US House of Representatives will pass a coronavirus economic aid package on Friday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, but it was unclear whether Trump and his fellow Republicans would support it. The package would provide for free coronavirus testing and two weeks of paid sick and family leave for those affected by the virus, Pelosi said.

US to keep two carriers in Gulf to counter Iran proxies
AFP, Washington/Friday, 13 March 2020
The Pentagon said on Friday it would keep two aircraft carrier task forces in the Gulf region after carrying out strikes in Iraq on five depots for Iran-supplied rockets.
Central Command commander General Kenneth McKenzie said the two carrier groups would be staying in the region for a sustained period in the wake of a series of attacks on US positions in Iraq by Iranian-backed groups that have ratcheted up tensions with Tehran. Retaliatory strikes against Kata’ib Hezbollah . Early Friday the US military launched air strikes against weapons depots of Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iraqi armed faction that receives support from Iran. The strikes were in retaliation to Wednesday's rocket attack, attributed to Kata’ib Hezbollah, that killed two American and one British soldiers at Iraq's Taji air base. Showing journalists before and after surveillance photographs of the five sites, McKenzie said the US strikes effectively destroyed them, degrading the Iraqi group's ability to carry out attacks. “We are confident that we have effectively destroyed these facilities and expect they will no longer be able to house the type of advanced Iranian supplied weapons that were used in the Kata’ib Hezbollah attacks on the Iraq base at Camp Taji,” he said.
Countering Iran proxies
He accused Tehran of continuing to support attacks against US and coalition forces via its proxies in Iraq. To maintain an effective ability to counter such threats, the Pentagon had authorized keeping the two aircraft carriers in the Gulf for the first time since 2012.
With the two carriers in the region, he said, “We have the flexibility, the capability and the will to respond to any threat,” McKenzie said. “I think the threat remains very high. I think that tensions have actually not gone down,” he added. “I would caution Iran and its proxies from attempting a response that would endanger US and coalition forces,” he added.

Turkey, Russia agree joint patrols in Syria's Idlib as sit-in protests begin on M4 highway
Arab News/March 13/2020
ANKARA: Turkish and Russian officials agreed Friday to start joint patrols in Syria’s Idlib at the weekend, Turkey’s defense minister said, following a fragile cease-fire in the last rebel stronghold. “Both sides have signed the prepared text, and it has entered into force. We will see the first application of this with joint patrols on March 15 along the M4 highway,” said Hulusi Akar, quoted by state news agency Anadolu. A Russian military delegation has been in Ankara since Tuesday to work out the details of a cease-fire agreed on March 5 in Moscow between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.The accord stated that a security corridor with joint Turkish-Russian patrols would be established along the key M4 highway of the northwestern province. Meanwhile, Syrians started a sit-in on the highway in protest of the patrols on Friday. “Joint coordination centers will be set up with Russia where the activities will be managed together,” the minister added. Akar repeated Turkey’s wish for the cease-fire to be “lasting.” Idlib had suffered heavy bombardment by Syrian forces and Russian warplanes since December, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing nearly a million to flee toward the Turkish border. Despite being on opposing sides of the nine-year war, Turkey and Russia have worked closely on Syria, especially regarding developments in Idlib. Turkey supports certain rebel groups in Idlib and has military observation posts under a previous cease-fire deal agreed with Russia in 2018.

New Homes Offer Some Relief for Syria's Desperate Displaced
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Hamad al-Abdallah has installed wifi and insulation in his new concrete room, trying to make the most of the desperate conditions his family has endured since fleeing Syrian regime bombardments.
They were among the lucky ones to move into the new, 24-square-meter concrete homes provided by a Turkish charity last month after almost a year living in a tent in the huge, squalid camps along Syria's northern border with Turkey.
Abdallah fled with his wife and four children when the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, began their assault on the last rebel holdout of Idlib. "It's big enough and we feel comfortable," he said, welcoming AFP into his humble new, two-bedroom house. "If one day we can go home, we will. But so long as the Syrian army does not pull back, we can't because most of us are wanted by the regime. "With young children, we can't try to get into Turkey either, so we will stay here," he added. Turkey, which already hosts more than 3.6 million Syrians, has refused to let any more enter, but its NGOs are busy building an enormous stretch of new housing inside Syrian territory to deal with the latest wave of displacement -- now numbering close to a million people in Idlib. Despite a ceasefire agreed on March 6 between Turkey and Russia, few believe the Syrian regime will back off its plans to eventually retake the province, leaving few options for the displaced. The camps stretch out as far as the eye can see -- thousands upon thousands of tents on either side of the road linking Turkey to the city of Idlib, but now with a smattering of new concrete-block houses built by Turkish NGOs.
'Exhausted from living in tents'
Along the dirt tracks of the camp in the area of Kafr Lusin, children play while groups of women chat around washing lines, and a flock of sheep nose around the rubbish piles. Many tents have their own solar panels to charge batteries and provide light. Some occupants have managed to make a small living here -- there is a hairdresser, grocery, even a dress shop -- while some blocks serve as makeshift classrooms. There are public toilets, though the smell from open sewers remains overpowering. Ankara encouraged the construction of more permanent structures as a way to stop refugees trying to breach the border. According to IHH, the main Turkish NGO working here, the new concrete homes are reserved for families of six or more who earned less than $150. Spokesman Selim Tosun said the charity was aiming to build 15,000 homes, and had so far completed 1,000. "People are exhausted from life in the tents. These new houses can at least protect them from the winter cold and the summer heat," he said, adding that 100,000 would eventually be needed to completely replace the tents.
'Left everything'
Each new home costs $360 to build, Tosun said, with the money coming entirely from private donors in Turkey. With nowhere to run, they at least offer displaced families hope of a modest improvement in daily life after months and years of horror. Suleiman Mousa hopes to move into one of the concrete houses in a few days, after two and a half years living in a pair of tents, shared between his two wives and 10 children. Despite the difficult life, the camp has at least given his family some sense of safety."As long as we are safe here, without bombings and fighter jets flying over us, it's better to stay here than try to reach Turkey," he said. Noora al-Ali, an elderly woman who fled the town of Maaret al-Numan with her son and eight grandchildren. "A rocket blew up near me and my nephew was killed," she recalled. "I thought I would die too. I left everything." "At least I'm spared Bashar's bombs here."

Saudi arrests spark speculations about attempted coup
The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
LONDON - Although not officially confirmed, high-profile arrests in Riyadh reportedly involved senior members of the royal family, including the king’s younger brother and a former crown prince. Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, 78, a former interior minister and one of the last surviving sons of the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdulaziz Al Saud, and Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz, 60, a former crown prince, who served as Saudi interior minister from November 2012 until his sacking in June 2017, were arrested March 6. That no formal announcement was made regarding reasons for the rumoured arrests created speculation about Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s health. To address the rumours, officials released photos of King Salman, 84, conducting normal activity. Sources in Saudi Arabia said Prince Ahmed and Prince Mohammed along with two other members of the royal family had been detained. Arrests included Interior Ministry officials and senior military officers. The Wall Street Journal said the arrests stemmed from a “coup attempt” to unseat King Salman and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz.
A coup would be difficult in Saudi Arabia, considering Crown Prince Mohammed’s tight hold on the kingdom’s security bodies. Western media also reported that those detained may have planned to influence the kingdom’s Allegiance Council. Set up in 2007 by King Abdallah bin Abdulaziz Al Saud to address succession within the ruling generation of the royal family, the Allegiance Council was intended to guarantee a smooth transition with regards to the choice of the crown prince. Previously, the issue was resolved through informal consensus within the royal family. Prince Ahmed was widely reputed to be opposed to Crown Prince Mohammed becoming heir to the throne in 2017. In 2018, while in self-imposed exile in London, Prince Ahmed was quoted as telling protesters outside the Saudi Embassy that King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed were to blame for the humanitarian crisis in Yemen. Prince Ahmed and Prince Mohammed reportedly had talks on using the Allegiance Council “to block the accession” of Crown Prince Mohammed if King Salman died or became incapacitated, the Guardian newspaper reported. Sources told the Guardian that the senior royals were trying to install Prince Ahmed as chairman of the Allegiance Council, currently a vacant position. A source told Thomson Reuters that Crown Prince Mohammed accused the two men of “conducting contacts with foreign powers, including the Americans and others, to carry out a coup d’etat.” Prince Ahmed and Prince Mohammed were known for having ties with the traditional Saudi Wahhabi religious establishment, which is unhappy with the reforms the kingdom is undertaking, particularly in women’s rights and the entertainment sector. However, the reforms are very popular in the kingdom and most Saudis consider Crown Prince Mohammed as the catalyst behind the changes. Besides being popular with the kingdom’s youth, the crown prince also has staunch supporters in the royal family, which numbers around 10,000 members. With Crown Prince Mohammed’s consolidation of power, which includes intelligence and security agencies, the prospects of a coup succeeding were slim. It remains to be seen whether any more arrests will take place. If there was a coup attempt, it has clearly reached opposite results than those that would have been pursued by the plotters. A Saudi source told Thomson Reuters that “with these arrests, [Crown Prince Mohammed] consolidated his full grip on power. It’s over with this purge.”

French FM Discusses Libyan Crisis in Algiers
Algiers - Boualem Goumrassa//Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian have tackled the Libyan crisis and its repercussions on security in the Maghreb and the Mediterranean Basin, Algerian diplomatic sources said.
During a meeting they held in Algiers on Thursday on the sidelines of the sixth session of the Mixed Commission for Economic Cooperation, the ministers discussed bilateral economic ties. Spokesperson for the Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Abdelaziz Benali Cherif revealed in a statement that the one-day meeting was an opportunity for both countries to discuss progress on economic and commercial cooperation. Cooperation mainly covers bilateral partnership ventures in the automobile and pharmaceutical industries, agriculture, food industry, technology, and tourism, he said. Benali added that Boukadoum and Le Drian will discuss international and regional developments, namely the Libyan crisis, the Western Sahara, the conditions on the coast and Mali, as well as the latest developments in the Middle East and the coronavirus outbreak. There are other topics of mutual concern between Algeria and France that are no less important, including the 1968 agreement on the freedom of movement, which Algeria demands to be revised. Further, some Algerian associations have repeatedly asked France for an official apology for Algeria’s war and its colonialist crimes. However, France is yet to apologize although it has admitted that occupying Algeria was oppressing and painful. Also Thursday, the Public Prosecution in the capital ordered a one-year jail term and a fine for 80-year-old activist Lakhdar Bouregaa on charges of “weakening the army's morale." Last summer, he was placed in provisional detention, but was released four months later after his health deteriorated. The charge was made against Bouregaa by late General Ahmed Gaid Salah when the former described the army as “militias.”

Ethiopia Says Won't be Forced by US on Nile Dam
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 13 March, 2020
Ethiopia refuses to be pressured by the United States into signing a deal with Egypt and Sudan over its controversial dam on the Nile River, says Ethiopia's foreign minister. In an interview with The Associated Press, Gedu Andargachew said the three countries need to resolve their differences without outside pressure. “In the talks held in Washington, D.C., around mid- February, we were pressured to quickly reach an agreement and sign a deal before resolving outstanding issues,” Gedu said, adding that his delegation told US officials at the time that Ethiopia would not sign an accord under such duress. “Then US officials drafted and sent us an agreement, which we also opposed because the US only has an observer status," he said. "We are of the opinion that an agreement reached under pressure is not in the best interest of anyone party to the talks.” Tensions are rising over the impasse between Ethiopia and Egypt over the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that Ethiopia is building on the Nile River, Africa's longest river. The stresses escalated after Addis Ababa did not attend the latest round of talks held in Washington on Feb. 26, citing the need for further domestic consultations. When Ethiopia did not attend the Washington meeting, Egypt’s foreign ministry criticized “Ethiopia’s unjustifiable absence … at this critical stage in the negotiations” and added “Egypt will use all available means to defend the interests of its people.” Following the unsuccessful Washington meeting, US President Donald Trump phoned Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and “expressed hope that an agreement on the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam would be finalized soon,” according to a statement issued by the White House. Ethiopia is now drafting its own proposal on how to resolve the standoff and it will be presented to Egypt and Sudan soon, said Gedu. Ethiopia's construction of the mega-dam, which will be Africa's largest and produce 6.4 gigawatts of power and is now around 71% complete, has been contentious for years. Ethiopia says the power from the dam is crucially needed to help to pull many of its 100 million people out of poverty, while Egypt warns that filling the dam’s reservoir too rapidly in the coming years will threaten its fair share of Nile River waters. Ethiopia seeks to fill the dam in seven years, but Egypt proposes it should be done more slowly, over a period of 12 to 21 years, to minimize the reduction of the flow of Nile waters. Egypt relies on the Nile River for agricultural irrigation and water for its population of about 100 million.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 13-14/2020
The Global Village and the War on the Coronavirus
Elias Harfoush/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 13/2020
After becoming a threat to the entire world, as the World Health Organization says, the coronavirus has started to remind us that we live on one planet and that we are exposed to the same illnesses. It reminds us that we face the same outcomes and risks, including death, in critical circumstances. It stands before anyone who is infected with the same anxious anticipation of finding a vaccine or cure.
A global state of panic. Airports are closed for travelers, stocks have collapsed, an exceptional recession is predicted to hit the world economy. Stock markets are lamenting their luck against this pandemic that the world was neither prepared for nor expecting. Suddenly, the entire global population found that the technological advancements that it enjoys are not useful against this violent attack that spread from the meat and seafood market in Wuhan.
What country or religion you belong to and how large your bank account is, no longer matters in confronting the coronavirus. Most of those infected live in developed countries including China, Europe and the United States, and are from the middle class or above. Europeans and Chinese. Americans and Arabs. Koreans and Iranians. Some people live in poorer countries whether in Asia or Africa and have not put fighting the pandemic as their highest priority. Even the WHO's recommendations don't find their way to being implemented in countries like this, hiding the number of cases and the extent of spread. Some states consider the recommendations an intervention in their internal affairs and how they deal with their citizens.
The reason may be that the virus is the simplest misfortune that could hit people in these countries, compared to the miserable living conditions that they experience. It may also be that these governments do not care for monitoring pandemics and their spread or find ways to combat the spread.
With the coronavirus becoming a pandemic, confronting it requires solidarity, as it forces countries to redraw their bounderies and intensify border checks, countering the globalization that living in a "global village" requires. Even in the European Union, where internal borders are open, they are now being monitored. For example, France and Austria have intensified border checks on Italy where the number of cases surpasses the number of cases in all other European countries combined. The same thing has happened between Europe and the US where President Donald Trump issued a decree preventing all Europeans excluding the United Kingdom and Ireland from entering the United States in an attempt to curb the spread of the virus in his country that has recorded around 1,300 cases so far.
Perhaps the global panic has something to do with the restrictions that precautionary measures have imposed on our lives, including travel inside and outside our countries, or forcing us to stay home to isolate ourselves, or changing our social lives in terms of going out and hitting restaurants or clubs and so on.
This situation at such a large scale does not happen other than in world wars. And despite this panic, dealing with the coronavirus becomes more realistic when it is compared to other pandemics and their impact. A hundred years ago, in 1918, influenza infected around 500 million people worldwide (one-third of the global population back then) and around 50 million people died, the majority of whom were from developing countries. More recently, in 2009, another wave of influenza, named H1N1, killed around 600,000 people. In comparison, the coronavirus has infected 126,000 people so far and has killed 4,600, the majority of which were caused by weak immune systems that have to do with old age and other pre-existing health conditions.
This comparison becomes more substantial when we remember that the spread of a pandemic is easier today than it was a hundred years ago considering the means of transportation available between countries, which cause the transmission of the virus, to begin with, from China to Europe and Iran, and then to Arab countries and the rest of the world.
Speaking of the coronavirus, it is worth noting that China has proven how powerful it is in threatening the planet, the economy, and how people live. Not only as a rising economic power but as a country capable of exporting a dangerous pandemic that unsettles the western world and its economy.
Wuhan, an important financial and economic center in China is compared to Chicago. This centrality has facilitated the spread of the virus as a result of being very well connected to other Chinese cities and the world. Ironically, now that the entire world is rushing to fight the pandemic that is rising by the day, the Chinese President rushed to Wuhan to announce that the spread of the virus has started to decline in China and that it has nearly been exterminated. China did what no other country could. It first spread the virus then instituting strict measures to stop its spread that most Western countries wouldn't dare to do.

Iran’s Secret Nuclear Past Comes Into Focus
Eli Lake/Bloomberg/March 13/2020
Five years ago, as the US was hammering out the final details of the Iran nuclear deal, negotiators relented on a key demand: Iran would not have to account for the possible military dimensions of its past nuclear activities. This bargain was enshrined in a December 2015 report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, which closed the longstanding investigation into Iran’s nuclear program.
Now it appears that investigation is reopened. Bloomberg News is reporting that the agency has rebuked Iran for stonewalling inspectors with new questions about Iran’s past nuclear-weapon work. The agency says that Iran now possesses 1,021 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, up from 372 kilograms last fall. This news is disturbing but not unexpected. The Iranian regime had announced that it was turning on its cascades of centrifuges last year during heightened tensions with US President Donald Trump who withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, and six months later began ratcheting up the secondary sanctions on Iran’s oil sector that the 2015 bargain had lifted.
The bigger news is about Iran’s past nuclear program. A report from the agency to member states says that Iran “has not provided access to the agency to two locations,” according to Reuters, nor has it “engaged in substantive discussions to clarify agency questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities.”
All of this reads like a replay of the standoffs between Iran and the international community in the 2000s, when weapons inspectors tried to gain access to military installations and other sites. A key difference is that, this time around, the IAEA has a roadmap of Iran’s past nuclear weapons work.
In 2018, Israel publicized the findings of a daring raid into a warehouse outside of Tehran that included blueprints, videos and other documents that detailed Iran’s past nuclear weapons program. The Israelis have shared the intelligence with the US as well as the IAEA.
“Everything the Israelis found in the nuclear archives prior to 2004 shows Iran had a full- fledged nuclear weapons program,” says Andrea Stricker, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. The regime was making progress and “sought to hide and disguise parts of the program from the world.”These are uncomfortable facts for proponents of the 2015 nuclear deal. President Barack Obama’s former deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes, for example, is focusing instead on Iran’s tripled uranium stockpile, blaming Trump’s decision to exit the deal for Iran’s recent breakout.
That’s an easy story to tell. But the IAEA’s renewed questions about Iran’s past work on building a nuclear weapons muddy the narrative. Why did the Obama administration give Iran a pass for its history of deception and defiance of the IAEA? If Iran truly had given up its ambitions to build a weapon, why would it take such pains to preserve its plans and blueprints in a warehouse?
These are important questions both for Trump, who has said he hopes to renegotiate a better nuclear deal, and for Democratic presidential candidates, who have pledged to re-enter the old one. Whoever wins the election in November, he should make sure the next nuclear deal with Iran requires the regime to fully account for its secret nuclear history.

Dealing with Coronavirus Reveals Cultural Differences
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/March 13/2020
Having started as a local public health issue in China, the corona epidemic has now morphed into a global economic and even political threat. It has also put the limelight on the manner with which affected nations have tried to face the challenge, revealing the true nature of various regimes.
At the time of this writing, four nations are singled out as those most affected by the pandemic: China, where it started, Iran which is second to China in numbers of cases, South Korea where the coronavirus broke out in a religious community and Italy, the Western nation most affected.
The different ways in which those nations dealt with the challenge sheds light on their respective political systems and cultural environments.
In China, the initial reflex was to brush everything under the carpet by denying the outbreak of the virus. The culture of secrecy, turned into a cult since 1949, regards information as a precious weapon that cannot be made available to the public at large. If knowledge is power, it is only natural that the revolutionary regime should have a monopoly on it. Thus, it took the central authorities in Beijing weeks before they decided to admit the existence of the epidemic and, having blamed the local authorities for negligence, seized control of the response.
Sharing the Chinese regime’s penchant for secrecy, the Islamic Republic in Iran also tried to hush up things. However, the Iranian attempt was not as effective as China’s and news of the outbreak was known to a majority of Iranians within weeks. The reason is that, unlike China, the Islamic Republic is a faction-ridden ramshackle Third World despotism often in only nominal control of society.
South Korea, a non-Western capitalist democracy, did not try to hush things up but was hampered by another factor: The “bleeding-heart” liberal insistence on respect for religious diversity. Because the epidemic started in a Christian fundamentalist community, the authorities in Seoul were hesitant to magnify the threat and take drastic measures such as imposing a quarantine on the congregation.
The Italian response was marred by the political divisions that has plunged it into a systemic crisis with a series of unstable governments.
It is odd that the central authorities in Rome decided to impose a quarantine on all provinces north of Rimini, that is to say precisely the regions where the so-called League, a coalition of conservative and secessionist groups and parties mainly rooted in Lombardy, has its support base.
What seems suspicious is that the drastic measures that Rome imposed on regions where its opponents are strong were not adopted, even in a light version, for the country as a whole. As a result, more than a million people fled the forbidden zone to relocate in central and southern regions of the peninsula.
Worse, still there was no control on those who fled abroad, including the Italian globe-trotter who took the coronavirus to the Maldives islands thousands of miles away.
Italy was not the only country where partisan considerations were put above concern for public safety. In Iran, President Hassan Rouhani claimed that the virus had been introduced by the American “Great Satan” in order to disrupt elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) then underway. The fable was propagated that the record low turnout of voters had been part of an American plot. Iran also shared South Korea’s reluctance to put public safety above religious sensibilities. The coronavirus had come to Iran via the “holy” city of Qom where dozens of Chinese theological students had just returned from New Year holidays back home.
The logical step would have been to quarantine the city and impose a ban on pilgrimage for the duration of the crisis. But that would have meant abandoning the myth that the “holy” shrine cures all ailments, makes the blind see and the lame run in marathons.
In the end, however, the authorities were forced not only to stop pilgrimage but to also ban Friday payers across the country. Within days, the mullahs’ logomachy urging staying away from holy places and mosques reached a crescendo of tedium. By that time, however, Iran had secured second place, after China, in number of deaths from the coronavirus.
In Britain, the public-schoolboy style of politics introduced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, a mixture of braggadocio and sang-froid, meant weeks of contradictory signals. While the government was emitting reassuring noises, people were emptying the shelves in supermarkets in panic buying. If the Chinese felt that the all-powerful party would make sure that all would end well while Iranians were told that a metaphysical agent would protect the believers, the British, forgetting the Blitz spirit, were building stocks of baked beans, toilet tissues and hand-wash gels.
In the United States, facing the prospect of an economic downturn that could rob him of his biggest claim to success, President Donald Trump tried to set a reassuring tone. His Democratic opponents, however, tried to over-dramatize the situation as much as possible. The imposition of state of emergency in New York and the saga of the wayward cruiser in California were used by Democrats to turn the coronavirus episode into what Robert Reich, former Secretary of Commerce under President Bill Clinton, into “Trump’s Katrina”, after the 2005 hurricane that damaged the Republican Party’s chance in the subsequent presidential election.
The coronavirus pandemic comes at a time when the very concept of globalization is challenged from both left and right. While the current trend in many countries is away from globalist parties to nationalist ones, the coronavirus should remind us that we live in a world in which a local event, good or bad, could quickly assume a global dimension.
Today, we have a whole toolbox of means needed to deal with economic and trade problems. The problem is that the toolbox is designed to deal with probabilities while the virus shows that the improbable, if only theoretically possible, may force itself into the global agenda. The system is based on presumed certainties while the never mentioned reality of human existence is uncertainty.
Carl Schmidt argued that the task of the state is to deal with exceptions because the countless quotidian ordinary acts that sustain human existence are normally and routinely carried out by citizens. The coronavirus, like recent recessions, however, shows that the modern state is more geared to regulating, not say tinkering with, the ordinary than dealing with the exceptional.
In the end, maybe, there is a metaphysical entity that keeps our fragile global system going on the edge of the precipice.

Why on Earth Did Iran Bait Trump Now?
Bobby Ghosh/Bloomberg/March 13/2020
Even for a regime that rejoices in reckless endangerment — of its own people, of regional stability, and of the world order — Iran’s proxy strike on a military base near Baghdad last night was exceptionally rash. Two Americans and a Briton have reportedly been killed by the rockets that struck Camp Taji; the number of Iraqi casualties is not yet known.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who has defined the taking of American lives as a red line, is now obliged to strike back. After the last major Iranian attack, he repeatedly downplayed the head trauma inflicted on U.S. soldiers as mere headaches, saying that he had “stopped something that would have been very devastating for them” because none of the soldiers had been killed.
This time it will be hard for the president to argue that the deaths of two Americans don’t merit retaliation. The only question is when, where and upon whom Trump’s retribution will descend.
We should assume—or hope—Trump will not carry through on his mindless Twitter threat to strike at Iranian cultural sites, “VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.” (Boldface, his.) But even if the punishment is inflicted on Iraqi Shiite militias that act as Iranian proxies in Iraq, there is a substantial risk of escalation.
The risk is not only on the American side. For one, Tehran will find itself having to provide more and more support to its proxies in Iraq. But that may be the least of the regime’s worries. As Trump has already demonstrated with the killing of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, the U.S. is prepared to extract direct retribution on senior regime figures.
You’d think inviting such an escalation would ill suit the Islamic Republic at a time when it is grappling with several overlapping crises — the coronavirus outbreak, the effects of the Saudi-Russian oil war, widespread public distrust of the leadership and growing international concern at its nuclear brinkmanship.
The attack came a day after the regime pleaded with the U.S. to lift sanctions that, it claimed, were hindering imports of medicines and food needed to fight the coronavirus outbreak—and a day before it sought $5 billion from the International Monetary Fund for that same purpose.
So why bait Trump — and tempt fate — now?
It might be merely a matter of habit: The regime simply can’t help playing fast and loose. Despite the perception in some quarters of Washington that Iran’s leaders are artful schemers, their default tendency has been to keep testing American tolerance. Only the caution—and occasionally, credulity—of U.S. presidents has prevented catastrophe. What better demonstration of recklessness than the fact that the Iranians have continued to dance on the knife’s edge when the implement is being wielded by someone as clumsy as Trump?
It is conceivable someone in Tehran thought firing rockets in the general direction of some Americans would be a good way to commemorate the birthday of the slain Soleimani, and a welcome distraction from, well, everything else. At a time when Iranians are disgusted with their government’s incompetence, a desperate regime might think it expedient to invoke the memory of the one public figure who still enjoys widespread admiration.
A more charitable explanation is that Soleimani’s death has left too much slack in the strings with which he controlled the proxies. Replacing terrorist masterminds isn’t easy, and the new puppet-master — Esmail Ghaani now commands the elite Al Quds Force — may not be able to exercise as much control over the Iraqi Shiite militias as his predecessor did.
That’s the spin most likely to be offered by Iran. As it contends with all the other crises, the regime will hope that Trump — who, let’s face it, has a few of his own — finds it convenient to portray the attack on Taji as the work of a militia leader gone rogue. As the rest of the world holds its breath, fingers in Tehran will be tightly crossed that he doesn’t retaliate with something that would be “very devastating for them.”
But relying on Trump to show restraint is the very height of recklessness.

Twenty-four hours in Iraq: How the US built its case for airstrikes
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/March 13/2020
“Let me be clear: The U.S. will not tolerate attacks against our people, our interests or our allies," Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday. "All options are on the table as we work with our partners to bring the perpetrators to justice and maintain deterrence.”
His briefing came hours before US forces, likely consisting of drones or warplanes, carried out precision airstrikes in Iraq against targets associated with Kataib Hezbollah, a pro-Iranian paramilitary that is part of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces. The strike was Washington’s response to an attack on Wednesday evening that had killed three personnel at Camp Taji, an Iraqi base where anti-ISIS Coalition forces are stationed. Two Americans and one British service member were killed.
The rocket attack at Camp Taji was the latest in around thirty similar attacks against bases where US forces are located and against US personnel stationed near the US embassy in Baghdad. A similar incident in December led to other airstrikes on Kataib Hezbollah. This is part of the ratcheting up of tensions with Iran that has taken place over the last years and has grown since May 2019.
Iran has carried out mining attacks in the Gulf of Oman, a drone attack on Saudi Arabia, shipped weapons to Houthi rebels in Yemen which the US has intercepted, and fired ballistic missiles at a US base in Iraq. The US killed Iran’s IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in January alongside Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
Over the twenty-four hours after the Taji attack the US built a case for another round of airstrikes. It now appears that after the Taji attack there were airstrikes against Iranian-backed forces in Syria near Albukamal on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning just after midnight. But those attacks, the US says, were not carried out by Washington. That led to speculation in the region about who did it.
In the morning in Washington on Thursday the Pentagon made the case for US retaliatory airstrikes against the Iranian-backed groups in Iraq. To make such a case a full-court press was employed from the Secretary of State on down. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley said the attack, which also wounded 14 others, was carried out by "Shia militia groups." He did not name the group responsible, noting "we have pretty good confidence we know who did this."
Central Command (CENTCOM) head Gen. Frank McKenzie told US Senators, also on Thursday, that Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah is the only Shia militia group known to have conducted "an indirect fire attack on this scale against US coalition forces in Iraq." He referenced back to the December attack when the same group attacked a military base in Kirkuk, Iraq, killing a US contractor.
In response the US had carried out attacks on five positions of Kataib Hezbollah in December, at three sites in Iraq and two in Syria. The group would be help accountable for this week’s attack also. Senators asked about air defense, which the US has said was on the way to Iraq this week. “On that base with these type of rockets, no they were not intercepted. It's not a function of failure.
There's not a system there to defend against those types of rockets," he said. Even though the US has acquired two batteries of Iron Dome, it does not have them deployed and it is unclear if the US has another system to defend against 107mm rockets. The Patriot system is designed for higher altitude threats and defense. A former administration official told Politico on Thursday that the Wednesday attack was conducted with the “knowledge and support of the IRGC…Although some stated they believed the killing of [Iranian Gen. Qassem] Solemani would prevent further attacks, many more believed it would not and that this is the start of their response,” the former official said. Asked about the attack, US President Donald Trump said “you will see,” a cryptic response that indicated the wrath of America was only a matter of time. CENTCOM was already preparing the measures necessary and laying out its case. On Thursday it tweeted an array of evidence for other Iranian attacks. The US airstrikes which followed were described as “defensive” and included precision attacks on five weapon storage facilities of Kataib Hezbollah. “These weapons storage facilities include facilities that housed weapons used to target US and coalition troops.” The US said the attack was proportional.

State Department Report Documents Iran’s Systematic Human Rights Violations
Tzvi Kahn/FDD/March 13/2020
The regime in Tehran commits abuse “as a matter of government policy,” with impunity for perpetrators “throughout all levels of the government and security forces,” according to an annual review the State Department released on Wednesday. The meticulous review is part of the department’s 2019 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which documents violations across the globe, including unabated repression in Iran, where society remains under siege by a ruthless Islamist dictatorship.
According to the State Department, the regime in Tehran routinely perpetrates arbitrary or unlawful killings and arrests; torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; unfair trials with no semblance of due process; repression of civil liberties, including press freedom, internet freedom, academic freedom, and freedom of peaceful assembly; rampant corruption and lack of transparency in government; and discrimination against women, the LGBTI community, and ethnic and religious minorities.
The report repeatedly contrasts Tehran’s behavior with key provisions of the Iranian constitution. For example, while the constitution enshrines the right to a fair trial and the presumption of innocence until proven guilty, these “rights were not upheld.” In fact, “rights activists reported trials in which authorities appeared to have determined the verdicts in advance, and defendants did not have the opportunity to confront their accusers or meet with lawyers.”
Similarly, states the report, while “the constitution prohibits all forms of torture ‘for the purpose of extracting confession or acquiring information,’ use of physical and mental torture to coerce confessions remained prevalent, especially during pretrial detention.” And while the “constitution provides that the judiciary be ‘an independent power’ that is ‘free from every kind of unhealthy relation and connection,’” the “court system was subjected to political influence.”
Tehran also deflected efforts to hold it accountable. The regime “restricted the operations of and did not cooperate with local or international human rights NGOs investigating alleged violations of human rights,” the report said. “The government restricted the work of domestic activists and often responded to their inquiries and reports with harassment, arrests, online hacking, and monitoring of individual activists and organization workplaces.”
In a Wednesday statement announcing the release of the full 2019 Country Report, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo specifically highlighted one egregious case of human rights abuse in Iran.
Pouya Bakhtiari, a 27-year-old engineer, was shot in the head and killed by security forces during nationwide protests last fall. Yet “the family’s nightmare was not over,” Pompeo said. Since then, “the regime has denied them the right to mourn Pouya in accordance with their faith. When they tried to hold a funeral, Pouya’s 11-year-old nephew, his grandparents, his parents, and other relatives were all arrested. They’ve been released now, but live in fear under house arrest.”
“Today,” Pompeo added, “I want great Iranians like the Bakhtiaris to know America remembers those lost and stands for their freedom.”
This story typifies the tales documented in the report. It also underscores the strategic imperative of addressing Tehran’s human rights abuses as part of Washington’s larger maximum pressure campaign against Iran. An emphasis on human rights violations strikes at the heart of the regime’s legitimacy. Yet the Trump administration, notwithstanding intermittent statements on the subject, has not required Iran to halt its human rights violations as a precondition for the lifting of sanctions.
That policy needs to change. To send Iran this message, Washington can start by sanctioning the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), Iran’s state-run media conglomerate, which routinely broadcasts the forced confessions of political prisoners. It should also sanction the range of other Iranian officials responsible for committing some of the worst human rights abuses. In so doing, the Trump administration can demonstrate that U.S. pressure will remain unrelenting until Tehran halts the full range of its misconduct.
*Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis from Tzvi and CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Tzvi on Twitter @TzviKahn. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

The Army Times Defends Terrorist-Linked CAIR
Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/March 13/2020
Prior to my February 26 US Army War College talk, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”), Islamist activist Linda Sarsour, and their leftist allies began another round of press releases and petitions, referring to me as an “infamous Islamophobe” and urging the War College to cancel my lecture on Sword and Scimitar, which CAIR insisted would be “hypocritical, ahistorical and hateful.”
In the midst of all this, Kyle Rempfer, a reporter from the Army Times, widely regarded as the preeminent publication for military men and veterans, contacted me. Along with answering his questions, I made it a point to stress that CAIR is an “unindicted co-conspirator” of terrorist Hamas, and that US allies such as the UAE designate CAIR, by name, as a “terrorist organization”—right up there with ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
When the report, “Muslim-American advocates protest upcoming Army War College speaker,” came out, I was not surprised to discover that Rempfer had quoted, at great length, CAIR’s false claims and criticisms against me—amplified by his own independent research: he had told me beforehand that he meant to be absolutely transparent, and did, to his credit, quote some of my defenses.
That said, and considering his supposed premium on “transparency,” I was a little surprised to see that he did not deem it relevant to inform Army Times’ readership that CAIR is a designated co-conspirator in the largest terrorist funding case in US history—even though I had sent him ample documentation, including this US Justice Dept. letter and other court evidence that makes clear what CAIR’s “work in America” is all about. To quote from the “explanatory memorandum” of the Muslim Brotherhood (CAIR’s parent organization):
The Ikhwan [The Brotherhood and its offshoots] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.
Why no “transparency” concerning these court documented facts? Could it be they raise serious questions about CAIR’s motives, so that, instead of appearing as concerned “Muslim-American activists” trying to prevent “hate” and “bigotry,” the truth will become apparent—that CAIR’s only motive was to shield America’s military leadership from a presentation that unequivocally demonstrated that Islamic terrorism is not an aberration but a perfect continuation of Islamic history vis-à-vis the West?
Similarly, while presenting one of my defenses, the report did so in mangled form, indicating that I had been “attacked” by my “own readers and Jihad Watch’s director, Robert Spencer, for insisting critics of Islam use words like ‘Islamist,’ instead of ‘Muslim.’”
For the record, Spencer never “attacked” me, nor does he insist on the word “Muslim.” Rather, what I had in mind was a 2012 exchange, which ended with me supporting the use of words “like Islamist” and Spencer supporting the word “Islamic supremacist.” A purely semantic disagreement, though in the aforementioned quote Spencer appears to have been conflated with those angry readers who did/do insist on using “Muslim” in every circumstance (which leads to counterproductive confusions).
Due to these issues, I made it a point to call Rempfer. He had no response as to why he failed to mention—that is, failed to be transparent about—CAIR’s well documented terror ties; when pressed on the issue, he said that it was his editor’s decision not to include this information and that I should take it up with her. He also refused to revise the mistake concerning Spencer, even though I later emphasized in an email that, “as that sentence currently stands, your own readers will walk away with a demonstrably false impression [concerning Spencer’s views]; as such, it seems in all our interest to fix it.” He replied that that’s how I had worded it, to which I replied, even so, I’m telling you now that it’s wrongly worded and should be fixed. To this he said it was too late to make any changes to his report, since it had already been published.
When I looked at the report and noticed that they actually had re-opened it and made changes after publication—but only to add more fuel against me, by quoting Georgetown professor emeritus John Voll, who “does not agree with Ibrahim’s view”—I knew there was more afoot.
All it took was a few seconds online to make sense of everything—including Rempfer’s constant fallback excuse, that everything was up to his editor, who refused to budge.
As the Daily Caller reports, on January 10, “The Army Times appointed as its top editor a 28-year-old feminist from Brooklyn who has repeatedly tweeted that she hates President Donald Trump.” Sarah Sicard’s other “credentials” include “interning for several Democrats …, contemplating art school,” and writing “for a marijuana publication called the Bluntness.” Here are some of this supposedly “objective” editor-in-chief’s tweets:
“Does anyone else feel like Donald Trump’s endorsement of anything makes the rest of us immediate [sic] hate that thing?” – May 2019
“Okay I hate @realDonaldTrump.” – September 2018
“I mean, I hate Trump.” – May 2017
In January 2019, she exclaimed in a tweet that it was “SAD!” that she had lost followers because of “all my callouts of @POTUS” (image above).
It would seem that the Army Times has also been “losing followers” since Sicard took over—if the comments on the report in question are any indicator: the overwhelming majority of them are critical of CAIR and/or the Army Times for shielding them.
“You a-holes need to change your name to Taliban Times,” writes Tyler Johnston. “What an embarrassment you are to this country. Your use of the word Army in your title is taking a big 💩 on the people who made it great. You low life’s make me sick.” Robert Sterling comments: “Nothing says ‘freedom’ like kowtowing to a known terrorist supporting mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood and oppressing any viewpoint they don’t like. Viva AWC.”
Perhaps Red State best summarizes the disaster of placing Sicard in charge of Army Times:
The leftists corrupt everything they touch. They can never just leave well enough alone. Now their grubby claws have managed to gain control of yet another American icon, the Army Times. The Army Times was started in 1940 by Mel Ryder, just in time for World War II. For over 8 decades and 6 major conflicts, including the Cold War, it has provided news and other objective information to the members of the United States Army…at least until now….
After highlighting some of Sicard’s unprofessionalism, Red State concludes:
This is yet one more example of hatred for Donald Trump being used as an excuse to defy journalistic standards and place a highly biased, leftist hack in what was once a well regarded news source for members of the United States Army.
Indeed; and it also explains the Army Times’ pro-leftist bias and unethical tactics in defense of a notorious Islamic terror-linked organization, CAIR.

Coronavirus: European Leaders Finally Acknowledge Scale of Crisis
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/March 13/2020
The number of new coronavirus cases in Europe has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours.
"It has increased in some countries over the last two weeks by one thousand... There is nothing to stop that expansion... unless those societies move aggressively... including introducing social distancing.... We need to modify our behavior. We need to start practicing that now. We have to modify our behavior in ways that reduces the risk of transmitting the virus...." — Dr. Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
"I think we need to start thinking in terms of the social risk. If I have a cold and I go to work and shake hands with my older colleague who has a chronic medical condition, I could be responsible for that colleague's death. We all need to think about our responsibility to each other as we govern our behavior. We can't view the epidemic in terms of our personal risk, we need to act collectively in a cooperative manner..." — Dr. Richard Hatchett.
Merkel said that her government's top priority was to slow down the contagion to prevent a collapse of the German healthcare system.
After months of complacency, European leaders are beginning to acknowledge the scale of the unfolding coronavirus crisis. The number of new infections in Europe has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours. More than 30,000 people have tested positive for the disease, and 4% of them have died (as of March 12). Pictured: A man receives assistance at a pre-triage medical tent in front of a hospital in Cremona, Italy, on March 4, 2020.
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now reached more than 45 countries in Europe, where (as of March 12) more than 30,000 people have tested positive for the disease, according to a Gatestone Institute tally based on calculations from European health ministries.
The disease is spreading fast: more than 28,000 coronavirus cases (93% of all cases) in Europe were confirmed during just the first twelve days of March. The number of new cases has been doubling, on average, every 72 hours.
Italy is Europe's worst-affected country, followed by Spain, France and Germany. Twelve other European countries have reported coronavirus cases in the triple digits: Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Austria, Greece, the Czech Republic, Finland and Iceland.
In Europe as a whole, more than 1,200 people — 4.0% of those confirmed as having been infected — have died from COVID-19.
The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), in a risk assessment, warned that the actual number of COVID-19 cases in Europe could be far higher due to under-detection, particularly among mild or asymptomatic cases that do not lead to a visit to the hospital.
In an interview with Britain's Channel 4 news, Dr. Richard Hatchett, Chief Executive Officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, a Norway-based international alliance for developing vaccines against infectious diseases, explained the long-term dangers of the COVID-19, not only for Europe, but globally:
"The threat is very significant... There are many epidemiologists who talk about the potential of the virus in terms of attack rates globally that could be between 50% and 70% of the global population.
"It is important to recognize that the virus is here and that it has tremendous potential to be disruptive, to cause high rates of illness and even high rates of death....
"I don't think we are dealing with the flu here... this is a virus that is now circulating in a population that has absolutely no immunity to it.... You might have an attack rate that is three times higher than seasonal flu with a mortality rate that is ten times higher.
"The most concerning thing about this virus is the combination of infectiousness and the ability to cause severe disease or death. We have not since 1918 — since the Spanish flu — seen a virus that combined those two qualities in the same way. We have seen very lethal viruses — Ebola's mortality rate in some cases is greater than 80% — but they don't have the infectiousness that this virus has. They don't have the potential to explode and spread globally....
"I think that what we are seeing is a virus that is many, many times more lethal than the flu, and a population that is completely vulnerable to it, and we are seeing its ability to explode. It has increased in some countries over the last two weeks by one thousand-fold and many countries are seeing ten-fold or one hundred-fold increases in cases. There is nothing to stop that expansion from continuing unless those societies move aggressively, engage their publics, implement multiple public health interventions, including introducing social distancing....
"We need to modify our behavior. We need to start practicing that now. We have to modify our behavior in ways that reduces the risk of transmitting the virus.... One challenge that we face is that people who are young and are generally healthy won't perceive personal risk and they will govern their behavior based on what they perceive their personal risk to be. I think we need to start thinking in terms of the social risk. If I have a cold and I go to work and shake hands with my older colleague who has a chronic medical condition, I could be responsible for that colleague's death. We all need to think about our responsibility to each other as we govern our behavior. We can't view the epidemic in terms of our personal risk, we need to act collectively in a cooperative manner....
"I don't think it's a crazy analogy to compare this to World War 2... I think this is an appropriate analogy and the mindset that people need to get into....
"We don't see any way that a vaccine can be available much more rapidly than 12 to 18 months, and even it if were to be available in 12 and 18 months, that would literally be the world record for developing and delivering a vaccine. We would not have seven billion doses of that vaccine in 12 months.
"This is a virus that is going to be with us for some time. There are many epidemiologists who believe that this virus is likely to become globally endemic and be with us in perpetuity.... I think this is a virus that we are going to be dealing with for years.
"This is the most frightening disease that I have ever encountered in my career. That includes Ebola, MERS and SARS. It's frightening because of the combination between infectiousness and a lethality that appears to be many-fold higher than flu."
After months of complacency, European leaders are beginning to acknowledge the scale of the unfolding crisis.
In Germany, Europe's most populous country, Chancellor Angela Merkel, in her first public comments on the coronavirus, warned that more than two-thirds of the population — 58 million people — could get infected. During a press conference on March 11, nearly three weeks after the crisis in Germany began, she admitted:
"The virus has arrived in Europe, it is here, and we must all understand that. As long as there is no immunity in the population, no vaccines and no therapy, then a high percentage of the population — experts say 60% to 70% — will become infected."
Merkel said that her government's top priority was to slow down the contagion to prevent a collapse of the German healthcare system. Nevertheless, Germany has not implemented social distancing measures such as those in other European countries, including Italy, Spain and France.
In Britain, a leaked government report estimated that in a worst-case scenario, up to 80% of the population — 53 million people — could become infected with the coronavirus, and that half a million Britons could die from COVID-19. A survey conducted by The Doctors' Association UK, a trade association for British doctors, found that only 1% of doctors in the country believe that the National Health Service is prepared to deal with a major outbreak of coronavirus.
In Ireland, one of Europe's smaller countries with only 4.8 million inhabitants, healthcare officials said that 40% of the population — 1.9 million people — will almost certainly become infected with the coronavirus. Most of those would become sick within a three-week concentrated burst, which would place "intense pressure" on the healthcare system. Those figures were effectively confirmed by Paul Reid, CEO of the Health Service Executive (HSE), which manages the delivery of all public health services in Ireland.
In Spain, where the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus has increased exponentially in recent days, hospitals are overwhelmed and the healthcare systems in the most affected regions are in danger of collapse. In Andalusia and the Basque Country, hundreds of doctors and nurses have been quarantined to prevent hospitals from becoming centers of infection.
In Madrid, the head of the regional government, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, said that medical professionals expected a significant increase in coronavirus cases this coming weekend and that the spread of the virus would peak over the next three weeks.
In France, President Emmanuel Macron said that the coronavirus epidemic was the country's worst health crisis in a century and announced that schools throughout the country would close indefinitely beginning next week. "We are just at the beginning of this crisis," Macron said. "In spite of all our efforts to break it, this virus is continuing to propagate and to accelerate."
In Italy, more than 12,000 people are infected with coronavirus. On March 9, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ordered a nation-wide lockdown. The quarantine of Europe's third-most populous country, with 60 million inhabitants, bans non-essential travel to, from and within Italy; prohibits all public events; and requires that people maintain a distance from each other of at least one meter (three feet). The restrictions were subsequently extended: all restaurants and bars, as well as all stores, except for grocery stores and pharmacies, have been ordered closed.
Dr. Daniele Macchini, who works at the Humanitas Gavazzeni hospital in Bergamo, ground zero of the coronavirus crisis in Italy, warned about the dangers of complacency:
"After thinking for a long time if and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that the silence was not at all responsible. I will therefore try to convey to people more distant from our reality, what we are experiencing in Bergamo during these pandemic days from Covid-19.
"I myself looked with some amazement at the reorganization of the entire hospital in the previous week, when our current enemy was still in the shadows: the wards slowly 'emptied,' the elective activities interrupted, the intensive therapies freed to create as many beds as possible. All this rapid transformation brought into the corridors of the hospital an atmosphere of surreal silence and emptiness that we still did not understand, waiting for a war that was yet to begin and that many (including me) were not so sure would ever come with such ferocity.
"Well, the situation is now nothing short of dramatic. No other words come to mind. The war has literally exploded, and the battles are uninterrupted day and night. One after the other, the unfortunate people come to the emergency room. What they have is much more than the complications of a flu. Let's stop saying it's a bad flu.
"Now, however, that need for beds in all its drama has arrived. One after another, the departments that had been emptied are filling up at an impressive rate. The display boards with the names of the sick, of different colors depending on the operating unit they belong to, are now all red and instead of the surgical operation there is the diagnosis, which is always the damn same: bilateral interstitial pneumonia. Now, tell me which flu virus causes such a rapid tragedy?
"An epidemiological disaster is taking place. There are no more surgeons, urologists, orthopedists, we are only doctors who suddenly have become part of a single team to face this tsunami that has overwhelmed us."
On March 11, U.S. President Donald J. Trump announced a 30-day ban on continental Europeans traveling to the United States. "The European Union failed to take the same precautions and restrict travel from China and other hotspots," Trump said. "As a result, a large number of new clusters in the United States were seeded by travelers from Europe." The restrictions, which will go into effect at midnight on March 13, will not apply to the United Kingdom, and exemptions will be made for U.S. citizens. "This is the most aggressive and comprehensive effort to confront a foreign virus in modern history," he said.
*Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

The Army Times Defends Terrorist-Linked CAIR
Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/March 13/2020
Prior to my February 26 US Army War College talk, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (“CAIR”), Islamist activist Linda Sarsour, and their leftist allies began another round of press releases and petitions, referring to me as an “infamous Islamophobe” and urging the War College to cancel my lecture on Sword and Scimitar, which CAIR insisted would be “hypocritical, ahistorical and hateful.”
In the midst of all this, Kyle Rempfer, a reporter from the Army Times, widely regarded as the preeminent publication for military men and veterans, contacted me. Along with answering his questions, I made it a point to stress that CAIR is an “unindicted co-conspirator” of terrorist Hamas, and that US allies such as the UAE designate CAIR, by name, as a “terrorist organization”—right up there with ISIS, al-Qaeda, and the Muslim Brotherhood.
When the report, “Muslim-American advocates protest upcoming Army War College speaker,” came out, I was not surprised to discover that Rempfer had quoted, at great length, CAIR’s false claims and criticisms against me—amplified by his own independent research: he had told me beforehand that he meant to be absolutely transparent, and did, to his credit, quote some of my defenses.
That said, and considering his supposed premium on “transparency,” I was a little surprised to see that he did not deem it relevant to inform Army Times’ readership that CAIR is a designated co-conspirator in the largest terrorist funding case in US history—even though I had sent him ample documentation, including this US Justice Dept. letter and other court evidence that makes clear what CAIR’s “work in America” is all about. To quote from the “explanatory memorandum” of the Muslim Brotherhood (CAIR’s parent organization):
The Ikhwan [The Brotherhood and its offshoots] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.
Why no “transparency” concerning these court documented facts? Could it be they raise serious questions about CAIR’s motives, so that, instead of appearing as concerned “Muslim-American activists” trying to prevent “hate” and “bigotry,” the truth will become apparent—that CAIR’s only motive was to shield America’s military leadership from a presentation that unequivocally demonstrated that Islamic terrorism is not an aberration but a perfect continuation of Islamic history vis-à-vis the West?
Similarly, while presenting one of my defenses, the report did so in mangled form, indicating that I had been “attacked” by my “own readers and Jihad Watch’s director, Robert Spencer, for insisting critics of Islam use words like ‘Islamist,’ instead of ‘Muslim.’”
For the record, Spencer never “attacked” me, nor does he insist on the word “Muslim.” Rather, what I had in mind was a 2012 exchange, which ended with me supporting the use of words “like Islamist” and Spencer supporting the word “Islamic supremacist.” A purely semantic disagreement, though in the aforementioned quote Spencer appears to have been conflated with those angry readers who did/do insist on using “Muslim” in every circumstance (which leads to counterproductive confusions).
Due to these issues, I made it a point to call Rempfer. He had no response as to why he failed to mention—that is, failed to be transparent about—CAIR’s well documented terror ties; when pressed on the issue, he said that it was his editor’s decision not to include this information and that I should take it up with her. He also refused to revise the mistake concerning Spencer, even though I later emphasized in an email that, “as that sentence currently stands, your own readers will walk away with a demonstrably false impression [concerning Spencer’s views]; as such, it seems in all our interest to fix it.” He replied that that’s how I had worded it, to which I replied, even so, I’m telling you now that it’s wrongly worded and should be fixed. To this he said it was too late to make any changes to his report, since it had already been published.
When I looked at the report and noticed that they actually had re-opened it and made changes after publication—but only to add more fuel against me, by quoting Georgetown professor emeritus John Voll, who “does not agree with Ibrahim’s view”—I knew there was more afoot.
All it took was a few seconds online to make sense of everything—including Rempfer’s constant fallback excuse, that everything was up to his editor, who refused to budge.
As the Daily Caller reports, on January 10, “The Army Times appointed as its top editor a 28-year-old feminist from Brooklyn who has repeatedly tweeted that she hates President Donald Trump.” Sarah Sicard’s other “credentials” include “interning for several Democrats …, contemplating art school,” and writing “for a marijuana publication called the Bluntness.” Here are some of this supposedly “objective” editor-in-chief’s tweets:
“Does anyone else feel like Donald Trump’s endorsement of anything makes the rest of us immediate [sic] hate that thing?” – May 2019
“Okay I hate @realDonaldTrump.” – September 2018
“I mean, I hate Trump.” – May 2017
In January 2019, she exclaimed in a tweet that it was “SAD!” that she had lost followers because of “all my callouts of @POTUS” (image above).
It would seem that the Army Times has also been “losing followers” since Sicard took over—if the comments on the report in question are any indicator: the overwhelming majority of them are critical of CAIR and/or the Army Times for shielding them.
“You a-holes need to change your name to Taliban Times,” writes Tyler Johnston. “What an embarrassment you are to this country. Your use of the word Army in your title is taking a big 💩 on the people who made it great. You low life’s make me sick.” Robert Sterling comments: “Nothing says ‘freedom’ like kowtowing to a known terrorist supporting mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood and oppressing any viewpoint they don’t like. Viva AWC.”
Perhaps Red State best summarizes the disaster of placing Sicard in charge of Army Times:
The leftists corrupt everything they touch. They can never just leave well enough alone. Now their grubby claws have managed to gain control of yet another American icon, the Army Times. The Army Times was started in 1940 by Mel Ryder, just in time for World War II. For over 8 decades and 6 major conflicts, including the Cold War, it has provided news and other objective information to the members of the United States Army…at least until now….
After highlighting some of Sicard’s unprofessionalism, Red State concludes:
This is yet one more example of hatred for Donald Trump being used as an excuse to defy journalistic standards and place a highly biased, leftist hack in what was once a well regarded news source for members of the United States Army.
Indeed; and it also explains the Army Times’ pro-leftist bias and unethical tactics in defense of a notorious Islamic terror-linked organization, CAIR.

A Thousand Times: No, No, No: Why the PLO Cannot Sign Any Peace Treaty With Israel
Ze'ev B. Begin/MEMRI/March 13/2020
"We say a thousand times: 'No, no, no, to the Deal of the Century'... Our people will send [it] to the garbage bin of history, where all the conspiratorial plans to eliminate our cause have gone." This was the statement that PLO Chairman Mahmoud 'Abbas delivered at a press conference in Ramallah on January 28, immediately following President Donald Trump's presentation of the American "Peace to Prosperity" plan.
Abbas's vehement objection to the American move is understandable. It represents a concrete withdrawal from some major components of proposals made by the U.S. and Israel over the last 20 years in their efforts to attain a peace agreement between the parties. But the fact is that even the more recent of these proposals, which deviated considerably from Israel's official positions until 2000, did not bring about the hoped-for agreement. Hence, as a reality check, it is worthwhile to revisit the PLO's reaction to the last Israeli proposal, presented by the prime minister of Israel at the time, Ehud Olmert, to Mahmoud 'Abbas on September 16, 2008, a proposal that went even further than the compromise presented by U.S. President Bill Clinton in 2000, which was accepted by then-Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak.
The PLO Rejected Olmert's 2008 Far-Reaching Proposal
The main points of Olmert's proposal were the following: (1) Israel would cede 97% of the territory of Judea and Samaria.[1] In addition, land-swaps with Israel would ensure that the area under PLO sovereignty would be equal in size to the area that was under Egypt's control (the Gaza Strip) and the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan (Judea and Samaria) in June 1967. It should be noted that the Gaza Strip was already under Hamas control at the time of this proposal. (2) A "safe passage" route under PLO control would connect Gaza to Judea; (3) Jerusalem would be divided into two capitals, one under Israeli sovereignty and another under PLO sovereignty; Israel would cede its sovereignty on the Temple Mount, the Mount of Olives and the City of David, which would be jointly administered by Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the PLO, the Unites States and Israel;[2] (5) About 5,000 refugees would be admitted to Israel over a five-year period, on the basis of personal-humanitarian considerations, rather than "the right to return" or "family unification"; (6) The PLO would sign its commitment to “an end of conflict and end of claims."[3]
Ever since the negotiations between Israel and the PLO were halted in 2008, academic and political circles have heatedly debated the question of whether 'Abbas "did not accept" Olmert's proposal, or actually "rejected" it. Some attach political significance to this distinction, arguing that 'Abbas did not reject the proposal but merely refrained from accepting it because Olmert was on the point of resigning, and therefore his proposal was moot in any case. This argument led some to conclude that a permanent peace agreement between Israel and the PLO would eventually be signed along the lines of Olmert's 2008 proposal. Olmert himself argued[4] that if his proposal "is placed back on the agenda, it will become the peace agreement."
In the recent years, PLO leaders have likewise argued that the 2008 negotiations could have led to an agreement. But in the months after the talks stalled, their position was different. In order to explore this, let us look back at those days.
On September 16, 2008, 'Abbas promised Olmert that he would send his aide over the next day for further discussion, but the next morning, PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat informed Olmert that there had been a mistake – they had forgotten that he and Abbas were going to Amman – and suggested postponing the meeting to the following week. "I never saw him again," Olmert said.[5] Several months later, 'Abbas was asked why he had declined Olmert's proposal. 'Abbas did not claim that technicalities of schedule had prevented it, or that Olmert was about to resign. He replied: "The gaps were wide."[6]
One month after that, Erekat gave his own version of the secret behind the Palestinian rejection of Olmert's proposal, saying: "At first they told us that we would run hospitals and schools. Later they were willing to give us 66 percent [of the area, a reference to prime minister Menachem Begin's autonomy plan of 1977]. At Camp David, they reached 90 percent [Barak's first proposal, from 1999], and today they have reached 100 percent. So why should we hurry, after all the injustice that has been done to us?"[7]
Another month passed, and Ehud Olmert wrote in an op-ed[8]: "To this day, I cannot understand why the Palestinian leadership did not accept the far-reaching and unprecedented proposal I offered them... It would be worth exploring the reasons that the Palestinians rejected my offer and preferred, instead, to drag their feet, avoiding real decisions."
Thus, over two months in 2009, both parties admitted that the PLO indeed rejected Olmert's proposal in September 2008, and two years later, former U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice revealed in her memoir No Higher Honor that the PLO had continued to refuse the offer even in November and December 2008. She wrote that she had already discussed Olmert's proposal with 'Abbas in May 2008, meaning that 'Abbas was not really surprised by Olmert's proposal in September. She suggested that the proposal, and 'Abbas's acceptance of it, be secretly put on record – but 'Abbas refused. When he came to Washington in November 2008 to say goodbye to President Bush, "the President took 'Abbas into the Oval Office alone and appealed to him to reconsider. The Palestinian stood firm, and the idea died," she wrote.
Since 2008, the PLO leadership has insisted that renewed negotiations with Israel on a permanent agreement must start where negotiations with Olmert left off, that is, with the proposal Olmert put on the table in September 16, 2008. 'Abbas recently reiterated this position in a February 11, 2020 joint press conference with Olmert in New York, where he declared that he was "fully" ready to resume negotiations from that point. A week later, an official close to 'Abbas clarified the intention behind this statement. He divulged that during a meeting held prior to the press conference, Olmert had once again urged 'Abbas to agree to his plan, in order to thwart the U.S. peace plan. But 'Abbas refused, indicating that issues related to the border, Jerusalem, and refugees still needed to be discussed and negotiated before the Palestinians could approve of the plan.[9] The PLO leadership is therefore still signaling its unwillingness to accept even Olmert's far-reaching proposal, and thus, realistically, any conceivable proposal for a permanent agreement with Israel. But that should not surprise us, if we recall the fascinating and sad interview[10] with Barak's foreign minister, history professor Shlomo Ben Ami, who negotiated with the PLO in 2000 in a bid to attain a historic agreement between the parties.
Lessons From The 2000 Israel-PLO Negotiations
Ben Ami said: "Eventually, even the most moderate negotiator reaches a point where he realizes that it never ends. Another push and another push, but they are never satisfied. It never ends." Ben Ami then gave an example, describing his talks on Jerusalem with PLO representatives in 2000: "By this stage, we had agreed to the division of the city and to full Palestinian sovereignty in Haram Al-Sharif [the Temple Mount], but we insisted that some affinity of ours to Temple Mount be recognized. I remember that when we held talks with Yasser 'Abed Rabbo, Saeb Erekat, and Muhammad Dahlan at the Bolling Air Force Base I raised the following idea without consulting anyone: The Palestinians would have sovereignty on the Temple Mount, but would undertake not to conduct excavations there because the place was sacred to the Jews. The Palestinians agreed not to excavate, but under no circumstances would they agree to grant us that minimal statement, 'because the site is sacred to the Jews.' At that moment I grasped that they were not willing to move toward our position even on the emotional and symbolic level. At the deepest level, they are not ready to recognize that we have any kind of title to this [land]."
The disappointed Ben Ami then explained his deep conclusion: "What Ehud [Barak] and I suddenly saw is the hard rock the process had come up against. That it is not a matter of territory in return for peace, not a matter of the Madrid assumptions. What we are facing is the question of whether there is a Palestinian recognition of the right of a Jewish democratic state to exist in this part of the world." He added: "At the end of the process, it is impossible not to form the impression that the Palestinians don't want a solution as much as they want to place Israel in the dock. They want to denounce our state more than they want their own state. At the deepest level they have a negative ethos... Hence, from their point of view, the process is not about conciliation but about vindication, about correcting the injustice, about undermining our existence as a Jewish state."
The PLO's Negation Of The Essence Of The State Of Israel
This approach of the PLO's is not limited to negating any historical affinity of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel. They also reject the very existence of a Jewish nation, defining Judaism as a religion only, that is not entitled to the national right to establish and maintain a state. Reacting to the Israeli demand of 2008 that the PLO recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, 'Abbas rejected it, on the grounds that accepting it would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement [in Israel] of refugees.[11] Erekat explained a month later[12]: "Demanding that you recognize a Jewish state is [virtually like] asking you to apply for membership in the Zionist movement. This movement owns the idea that religion equals nationality." Two months later, on August 13, 2009, Fatah published the resolutions of its Sixth Congress in Bethlehem,[13] including "an absolute objection, which cannot be withdrawn, to recognizing Israel as a 'Jewish state,' [and this] in order to protect the rights of the refugees and the rights of our people beyond the Green Line [i.e. the Arab citizens of Israel]."
The Seventh Fatah Congress, held in December 2016, endorsed this resolution, the practical significance of which was later explained by Hafez Al-Barghouti, editor of the Palestinian Authority daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida[14]: "We still strive [to gain] the homeland, outside and inside, and we shall never despair." The common expression "inside" means within the area delineated by the armistice demarcation line of 1949, that is, the area of the State of Israel.
Years passed, and, responding to President Trump's plan at a January 28, 2020 press conference in Ramallah, Mahmoud 'Abbas exposed the deeper layer of the PLO beliefs, saying: "Dear brothers, I consider this deal as the culmination of the Balfour declaration. This was what they were aiming for in the Balfour declaration... The Deal of the Century is based on the Balfour Declaration, which was created by America and Britain. Some may find this strange. America? Yes, America! And Britain. It was America that formulated [the Balfour Declaration], in agreement with Britain, and it was America that incorporated it into the Covenant of the League of Nations... America founded the Balfour Declaration, and it has now begun to implement it."
Indeed, according to Article 20 of the 1964 Palestinian Covenant, "The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything that has been based upon them, are deemed null and void." And so, even 22 years after the ceremony in which the Palestinian Charter was "abolished," the PLO continues to consider the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917 as a source of continuous injustice that has been done to the Palestinian Arabs.
It is in this spirit that Mahmoud 'Abbas stated in his September 22, 2016 speech at the United Nations General Assembly: "A hundred years have passed since the notorious Balfour Declaration, by which Britain gave, without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people. This paved the road for the Nakba of the Palestinian people and their dispossession and displacement from their land." The following year, on November 17, 2017, marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, 'Abbas wrote in an article titled "The Burden of Lord Balfour"[15]: "Lord Arthur Balfour was a British foreign secretary who decided to change the identity and fate of Palestine, a land that he did not own, by promising it to the Zionist movement, and dramatically altering the history of the Palestinian people... The Balfour Declaration of 1917 symbolizes the international role in the Palestinian catastrophe and exodus, the Nakba of 1948."
'Abbas then complained that the international community had persisted in this approach over the years: "Thirty years later, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 181 (II), calling for the partition of Palestine into two states. Again, this decision disregarded the wishes, aspirations, and the very rights of the indigenous population of Palestine... leading to the Nakba (catastrophe), which led to over two-thirds of the Palestinian people becoming refugees, including myself." This denouncement of the 1947 UN partition resolution is in line with the PLO "Declaration of Independence" of 1988,[16] according to which the partition resolution is a tactical tool which "continues to attach conditions to international legitimacy that guarantee the Palestinian Arab people the right to sovereignty and national independence." But, in contrast with the optimistic view in some circles, the PLO's negation of the partition resolution is clearly expressed in the same paragraph, which denounces "the historical injustice done to the Palestinian Arab people in its displacement and in being deprived of the right to self-determination following the adoption of General Assembly resolution 181 (II) of 1947, which partitioned Palestine into an Arab and a Jewish State."
In that article, 'Abbas also proposed a solution to the refugee issue: "We also reiterate that, in order to end claims with Israel, there must be a just solution for the seven million Palestinian refugees based on the choice of every refugee", i.e. his choice between returning to his family's original home in Israel and accepting financial compensation. The meaning of this permanent demand is that the PLO is not authorized to represent the will of each individual refugee, and hence the PLO is not able to agree with the Israeli government on any quota of refugees that would be allowed to settle in Israel. Hence, the PLO is unable to include in any agreement the vital component of "mutual end of claims." This barrier is in addition to the ongoing claim to the entire area of Israel, a claim that the PLO continues to instill in its youth.
The new American "Peace to Prosperity" plan implicitly anticipates that within the next four years the PLO leadership will return to the negotiation table. In order to avoid future mistakes, we must abandon the erroneous theory that "the PLO is the solution." This assumption is wishful thinking, along the lines of Julius Caesar's keen observation: "Something that a man wants, he also willingly believes in." Hence, we must not close our eyes to the simple fact that, for the PLO, the real, fundamental, deep, core issue is the hundred-year-old "injustice" embedded in the very existence of Jewish sovereignty in any part of Palestine. This gap cannot be bridged, and no plan that any Israeli government can accept will make the PLO declare an end to the conflict and an end to their claims vis-a-vis Israel. Hence, a peace treaty with the PLO cannot and will not be signed.
***Ze'ev B. Begin is a Senior Fellow at MEMRI. This article was first published in Hebrew in the Israeli daily Haaretz on March 6, 2020.
[1] According to 'Abbas, The Washington Post, May 31, 2009
[2] Points 2-4 according to Olmert in a November 28, 2009 interview with The Australian.
[3] Points 5-6 according to Olmert's January 17, 2012 talk at the MEMRI Forum.
[4] MEMRI Forum, January 17, 2012.
[5] Ehud Olmert, an interview with The Australian, November 28, 2009.
[6] 'Mahmoud Abbas, in an interview with The Washington Post, May 5, 2009.
[7] Saeb Erekat, in an interview in Al-Dustour, June 25, 2009.
[8] Ehud Olmert, The Washington Post, July 17, 2009
[9] Al-monitor.com, February 17, 2020.
[10] Shlomo Ben Ami, an interview, Haaretz, September 12, 2001.
[11] 'Mahmoud Abbas, in an interview with The Washington Post, May 5, 2009.
[12] Saeb Erekat, in an interview in Al-Dustour, June 25, 2009.
[13] See MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 541, Fatah Sixth General Conference Resolutions: Pursuing Peace Option Without Relinquishing Resistance or Right to Armed Struggle, August 31, 2009.
[14] Hafez Al-Barghouti, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 7, 2012.
[15] Mahmoud 'Abbas, The Cairo Reviews of Global Affairs, The American University in Cairo, 2017.
[16] Palestinian Declaration of Independence, https://fmep.org/resource/palestinian-declaration-of-independence/

Erdogan tightens his grip on Qatar
Fahad bin Abdullah Al-Thani/Arab News/March 13/2020
I greatly admired the Russian president’s smart move when receiving Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the Kremlin. Surrounding the Turkish president and his delegation were a number of imposing statues depicting Russian victories over the Turks, so that Erdogan would not forget his natural status or exceed his limits.
We see irony at its highest with Erdogan's entering Qatar as if he were its leader, marginalizing its emir and treating him like one of his followers. The Turkish president was keen to show his power to all media outlets so as to confirm his authority over Qatar, treating it like one of his provinces. He deliberately insulted the Qataris, subjecting them to the same treatment as had been inflicted on him by Putin as if to compensate for the humiliation the Russian had put him through.
Every time Erdogan visits Qatar or summons the emirs of Qatar, I am overwhelmed by a wave of grief, because he treats the Qataris not as his partners and friends, but as if he were their master and they his followers. I have experienced this bitterness first-hand 15 times — the number of summits between Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Erdogan. Each one of the 15 summits has been worse than the one before, as the Turkish president showcases his dominance. He does this in the way he treats Qatar or taxes Qatar to pay for all his losses, compensating for the currency collapses, covering the expenses of his invasions of northern Syria, paying to strengthen his presence in Libya, financing his base in Somalia, buying all his unsalable goods, and contracting with his companies to carry out small and secondary projects for huge sums.
What is more, he has planted his troops and weapons on every inch of Qatari territory, allowed himself to carry out intelligence operations inside the country and used its territory to test his weapons. The streets of our beloved Doha have turned into playgrounds for Turkish soldiers — and soon for Turkish police officers — swaggering and strutting around with the arrogance of the colonizer, controlling the movements of the unfortunate citizens, most of whom avoid contact with them. The honorable ones have chosen to remain in their homes and neighborhoods so as not to be morally or physically humiliated, especially if they are not fluent in Turkish, which has become a necessity of life unless Qatar is saved from this colonization.
The humiliation reaches its height when news about Qatar, its decisions and the visit of its emir, are broadcast by the Turkish Anadolu Agency in the form of directives or orders which draw attention to the fact that Qatar’s decisions are being made by Ankara.
How can Erdogan become a friend to the Arabs, if he is obsessed with memories of the Ottoman occupation of the Arab countries?
Any partnership is based on equality and common interests, which is lacking in Qatar’s relationship with Turkey. All the agreements signed between Qatar and Turkey give all the benefits to Turkey and only burden Qatar with obligations. The Turks have a historic contempt for the Arabs, so how can they suddenly befriend them? How can Erdogan become a friend to the Arabs, if he is obsessed with memories of the Ottoman occupation of the Arab countries? How can Erdogan become a friend when the bitterness of the great Battle of Al-Wajbah is still stifling his breath? How can Erdogan become a friend to Arabs when he knows only how to take and does not give, and when he does not respect anyone, and does not value unlimited Qatari support?
Like many Qataris, I wonder how the Qatari leadership accepted this humiliation and this strange dependency, handing over the reins of power to the Turks. We are all wondering: What fatuity is this? What has fate in store for us? Why do we put ourselves at the mercy of our executioners, opponents and haters who tortured and humiliated us in the days of their black colonization? What has become of our dignity to make us succumb to this anomaly? How can we entrust our enemy with our security?
To tighten Turkey’s grip on Qatar, one last thing must be done: To demolish Al-Wajbah Palace, delete this name from all curricula and programs, and then change the national day according to the Turkish mood. Anyone who thinks that Erdogan’s dominance has reached its peak is totally wrong, as he is becoming increasingly sinister with every morsel he swallows, asking for more. He will not stop until he is assured that Qatar has become Turkey’s first colony. It is only worthy of being a mere Ottoman state, one to be depleted of all of its resources and a foothold for Erdogan in the Gulf.
What I am most afraid of is the day when a Qatari asks about his homeland in Turkish (thank God I do not know Turkish and I do not like to hear the language).
All the Qataris I have talked to share the same concern and the same anger, as we see our pure land tainted with Turkish impressions until it has almost lost its features, invaded by the Turkish language until it has almost lost its identity.
Brothers and sisters, the holy month of Ramadan is approaching, the month during which we won the Battle of Al-Wajbah in a glorious victory, expelling the Ottomans and defeating the Ottoman governor of Basra who sought to humiliate Qatar.
We are the descendants and offspring of those great people, infused with the pride and dignity of our ancestors who never succumbed to humiliation and disgrace. May Qatar return to its identity and glory, with tribes and families who love and respect each other and appreciate their historic partnership in protecting this beloved entity and act as a guarantee for our children and grandchildren.
Qatar is an authentic Arab country and it will never be Turkish, no matter what happens. The so-called Tarek bin Ziyad colonial base will remember the story of the Ottoman governor and reenact what happened to him, for chivalry does not change and brave and noble people do not succumb — they will show that we are symbols of bravery and magnanimity.
*Fahad bin Abdullah Al-Thani is a member of the Qatari ruling family.

Syria’s government makes dubious claims about COVID-19
Sami Moubayed/The Arab Weekly/March 13/2020
A video is making the rounds on Syrian social media networks, of veteran comedian Yasser al-Azmeh singing that he refuses to shake anybody’s hands—let alone kiss them—fearing a deadly virus. The video was shot back in 1988 but it is going viral today at a time of a global coronavirus pandemic.
The Syrian government continues to insist that COVID-19 has not reached Syria. Such an argument might be difficult to digest, since the deadly virus has surfaced in neighbouring countries like Jordan and Lebanon. The numbers are even higher in Iraq, where the government has cancelled Friday prayers in some places and closed schools, universities and cinemas. This poses a very serious threat to Syria because, for the past five years, thousands of Iraqi fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have travelled freely to Syria to fight alongside the Syrian Army. These fighters will have roamed Syria’s markets, mingling with ordinary Syrians and live in densely populated, and often overcrowded, neighbourhoods. A large proportion of these fighters will have travelled to Syria from Iran, where they received their military training. Iran, of course, is another coronavirus hotspot, with confirmed cases of COVID-19 numbering in the tens of thousands. Additionally, Syria hosts a large number of Iranian troops who have been either fighting on the battlefield or serving as advisers to the Syrian government. In Tehran, cabinet ministers attending meetings wearprotective masks—but none of that is happening in Syria.
Over the past two weeks, opposition websites have accused the Syrian Health Ministry of concealing the truth from ordinary Syrians, including reports that 22 Iranians have been diagnosed with COVID-19 and are being quarantined in the vicinity of Sayida Zeinab, on the outskirts of Damascus. This week, even pro-government voices started peddling a similar line, with Lebanese journalist Rafik Lutfi writing that 400 COVID-19 cases had been registered in Syria while the Ministry of Health has taken “no measure, except silence.” On March 10, a state-run hospital said that one person was admitted on suspicion of contracting COVID-19 but his tests proved negative. As a precautionary measure, Syrian authorities have suspended flights to and from Iraq and Jordan for one month, while the private Syrian airliner Cham Wings cancelled all flights coming from Iran starting March 1. Schools and universities remained open across Syria, despite neighbouring countries shutting them down.
“They want us to believe that Syria is immune from everything” chuckled Siham, a student at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Damascus, speaking to The Arab Weekly. “We have no coronavirus; the Syrian Pound is doing fine… the reconstruction process is underway—and the skies are blue in Damascus.”
Muhiddine, a medical doctor in Damascus, told The Arab Weekly: “Its only logical for the Coronavirus to reach Syria but I don’t think it has reached us yet. We have a very outdated healthcare system that is suffering from ten years of sanctions, mismanagement, and corruption. We cannot quarantine people nor can we test them properly. If the virus were here, we would not be able to combat it and it would spread like forest-fire.”
If COVID-19 is confirmed in Syria, it could be fatal for the war-torn station. In government-held areas, hospitals are still functioning but suffering from a major shortage of medical equipment and drugsdue to international sanctions. These sanctions have prevented hospitals from upgrading their existing equipment and buying spare parts. This has been exacerbated by the dollar crunch that has ripped through the nation in recent months. Private hospitals claim that they have not been able to buy anything from Russia, Iran, or Chinasimply because the ability of ordinary Syrians to pay for state-of-the art medical services is currently lacking. Six months ago, the exchange rate stood at 600 Syrian Pounds (SP) to the US dollar. It now stands at a staggering 1,000 SP, draining the already razor-thin savings of ordinary Syrians, whose income have been reduced to comically low levels. Labs that conduct testing for the coronavirus are charging 100,000 SP ($100 USD)— higher than any salary in the Syrian public sector.
However, the international travel ban that has been in-place on Syria since 2012 might be a blessing in disguise. Many nationals whose countries have been plagued with COVID-19 simply cannot travel to Syria and their carriers don’t land at Damascus International Airport. There are no flights from Italy, for example, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Europe. The same cannot be said for the opposition-held city of Idlib in the Syrian northwest, where there are foreign fighters aplenty who hail from a handful of nations with confirmed COVID-19 cases, like Pakistan, Tunisia, France, and Iraq. There are also a large number of Turkish troops manning the occupied cities of Jarablus, Azaz, Afrin, and al-Bab, interacting frequently with the armed opposition and residents of Idlib. At least one case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in Turkey, meaning that there is a possibility of the virus spreading in the Syrian northwest.
*Sami Moubayed is a Syrian historian and author of Under the Black Flag (IB Tauris, 2015).

The Coronavirus in Iran (Part 2): Regime Culpability and Resiliency
Mehdi Khalaji/The Washington Institute/March 13/2020
Even as their lack of transparency worsens the public health crisis, the Supreme Leader and other officials have systematically gutted any civil society elements capable of organizing substantial opposition to such policies.
Iran’s ongoing coronavirus epidemic has left the people with less reason than ever to trust the information and directives issued by their leaders. Part 1 of this PolicyWatch discussed the clergy’s role in aggravating this problem, but the state’s mistakes and deceptions have been legion as well. They include scandalous discrepancies between official reports after a period of denial that the virus had entered the country; a health system that was unprepared to deal with such a disease promptly and properly; and official resistance to implementing internationally recommended precautionary measures, such as canceling flights from China and quarantining the center of the outbreak. These decisions have sown widespread confusion about facts and fictions related to the virus, the most effective medically proven ways to control it, and the degree to which it is spreading throughout the country. As a result, an already restive population has become increasingly panicked about the future and angry at the state.
Yet can the coronavirus actually bring down the regime? The harsh reality is that the state has left little space for opposition to organize around health issues, or any issues for that matter. Instead, it has sought to confuse the people and redirect their anger toward external enemies, even as its own policies contribute to the crisis.
CONCEALING FACTS, DEFLECTING BLAME
In response to health and social challenges like the current epidemic, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his circle frequently resort to two tactics: ideological exploitation and political paranoia. The first centers on Khamenei’s insistence that the regime’s brand of Islam has a solution for all of society’s problems. To prop up this claim against ample evidence to the contrary, the state consistently categorizes data on major social problems as classified information and releases misleading or contradictory reports. For example, despite the growing prevalence of drug addiction among school students, Education Minister Muhammad Bathai has refused to reveal the related statistics. Hassan Mousavi, head of the Iran Association of Social Workers, has complained about the state’s denial of such widespread social problems and its resistance to making the data public. Even parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani has criticized the government’s policy of classifying statistics related to addiction, divorce, and other issues.
The second tactic involves telling the public that Iran’s foreign enemies are bent on treating Muslim bodies as another battlefield on which to destroy Islam. For instance, Khamenei and other authorities have repeatedly accused Western governments of maliciously attempting to lower the birthrate in Muslim societies. In September 2010, he stated: “Westerners are against demographic growth among Muslims...We should not do things in a way that they reach their goal...The decline in birthrate is a very important issue. What is best for our enemies...is that Iran’s population remains around twenty or thirty million people...If they could plan for such an objective they would, they spend money, certainly they spend money.” In his view, even the domestic increase in drug addiction is the “enemy’s conspiracy.”
Another example of this paranoia is transgenic food products. In a February 2016 interview with the Khamenei-controlled newspaper Kayhan, biotechnology expert Ali Karami extensively argued that “transgenic products are Zionism’s conspiracy against the Muslim population.”
Even financial corruption and crime are blamed on the West. For example, in December 2013, Khamenei argued, “One of the effects of the enemies’ cultural invasion is the increasing rate of armed robbery from banks. We have seen it in [American] movies.”
Regarding coronavirus, Khamenei’s initial reaction on February 23 was to characterize “this new disease” as the enemy’s “pretext” to discourage Iranians from voting in the February parliamentary election, giving him a readymade excuse when his fears of plummeting turnout were in fact born out. This claim was followed by President Hassan Rouhani’s warning that the virus was becoming the “enemy’s weapon” to shut down the country.
GUTTING CIVIL SOCIETY IN THE NAME OF SECURITY
Under the Islamic Republic’s brand of authoritarianism, all independent networks, organizations, institutions, and campaigns are treated as potential threats to state security, regardless of their nature, mission, and impact—including those that benefit the public health. Furthermore, phenomena that a democratic government would define as social disorders or health deficiencies are usually categorized by Tehran as security concerns. This posture often entails blocking nongovernmental actors from intervening in these issues and criminalizing any individual or institution that attempts to get involved.
For example, according to a 2011 Amnesty International report, the Iranian doctors Kamiar Alaei and his brother Arash Alaei were imprisoned from 2008 to 2011 on charges of “cooperating with an enemy government.” Their actual “crime”? Founding an NGO for prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Last week, the brothers wrote a New York Times op-ed titled “How Iran Completely and Utterly Botched Its Response to the Coronavirus.” The article began: “We were doctors in the Iranian health system for years. This is what happens when you make health policy subservient to politics.”
Indeed, Tehran’s lack of transparency and systematic deception regarding the coronavirus is anything but a new behavior. Many citizens are now deeply suspicious of government claims about health issues by default, even when they lack access to accurate data sources that would confirm their mistrust. For instance, when authorities issued contradictory announcements last fall about the unusually high rate of AIDS infection in the province of Chaharmahol and Bakhtiari, street protests soon erupted. The public’s anger was exacerbated when the regime refused to take responsibility for a local medical center’s practice of using HIV-contaminated syringes, instead blaming foreign media and domestic political opponents. On October 19, Health Minister Saeed Namaki insisted that the matter was “classified.”
The regime has taken a similarly politicized approach to disaster relief. When major flooding struck Kermanshah province in May 2019, many nongovernmental institutions, sports stars, and celebrities managed to raise large sums of money and provide significant aid to the people in need. In response, government media criticized their luxurious lifestyle and complained about their legal tax exemptions, generating significant public resentment toward many celebrities who had previously been well-liked. Such systematic humiliation is Tehran’s way of preventing any alternative authority from taking independent action when citizens come under threat, whether due to the state’s aggression or its incompetence.
Social media and the Internet have done little to break this overwhelming grip. When crises like the coronavirus emerge, even experienced Iranian Internet users are exposed to limitless messages with conflicting, misleading, or manipulative information, much of it disseminated via the regime’s potent cyber capabilities. Most users are therefore quite susceptible to believing and facilitating virtual mass campaigns even if their content winds up sowing misinformation and confusion.
The proliferation of anti-regime campaigns does not necessarily alleviate this problem, especially when some of them tend toward propaganda themselves. When the coronavirus first emerged, regime reports about the crisis failed to persuade many Iranians. Yet the public was similarly skeptical when anti-regime websites and satellite television networks spread dramatically different reports without proof (though in some cases such proof was impossible to obtain given the regime’s deliberate withholding of disease statistics).
IMPLICATIONS FOR U.S. POLICY
On paper, the regime’s defining traits seem like a self-destructive combination: declining domestic credibility, international isolation, minimal competence to carry out its basic duties, ceaseless use of violence to maintain control, and an exhausting, defiant, utopian push to expand its hegemony abroad. Perhaps the recent string of crises will make that self-destruction more likely to materialize at some point.
Yet even if the regime founders, the damage it has done to Iranian society leaves little hope for a smooth, speedy transition to a democratic, relatively U.S.-friendly state in the near term. The public is struggling with a profound social trust deficit, the disintegration of shared values, and deep burnout after years of regime aggression and humiliation—all of which would likely delay or abort the strong social and moral solidarity needed to birth a truly promising regime alternative any time soon. Instead, many citizens are focused on just surviving, and have adopted deeply cynical worldviews that create a disturbing sense of living in a lawless space rather than a functioning nation.
In all likelihood, then, only a small subset of actors would be willing and able to fill the vacuum that follows the regime’s ultimate collapse—namely, existing factions that already hold the keys to Iran’s military arsenal and prisons. Such a replacement government would hardly choose to denounce the police state from which it was birthed, nor the defiant anti-Western animosity that has been Khamenei’s calling card.
*Mehdi Khalaji is the Libitzky Family Fellow at The Washington Institute.

Why OPEC should welcome a US shale-oil bailout
Omar Al-Ubaydli/Al Arabiya/Friday, 13 March 2020
The sharp fall in oil prices threatens thousands of shale oil jobs, reportedly pushing an election-conscious White House toward considering federal assistance. Rather than fearing that a bailout will empower its shale-producing adversaries, OPEC+ should welcome one as a way of neutering the industry: a bailout will likely transform shale oil executives from dynamic entrepreneurs fixated on improving efficiency, to 21st-century robber barons who prefer to lobby congress for special favors.
In countries with powerful governments, there are two ways to make money: creating value or state-backed predation. The former is what we traditionally associate with the American dream: identifying a market niche, developing novel technology, and using entrepreneurial nous to expand. In competitive markets, if everyone plays by the rules, serving customers is the only way to make money, either by offering low prices or high quality. As the father of modern economics Adam Smith remarked: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”
This is how shale oil became successful during the last 15 years. Initially, a sustained period of high oil prices and cheap credit opened the door for high-cost shale oil producers. Then, the price collapse of 2014-2016 forced them to frantically improve their efficiency through technological advancement. This is why oil prices have declined by over 60 percent in eight years, but shale oil is still thriving, transforming the US into the world’s largest producer of oil.
Then there is state-backed predation, which can be as blatant as the privateers (government-backed pirates) that stole merchandise on transatlantic shipping routes in the early modern era, but also comes in the more subtle guise of the “swamp” in Washington DC. The idea is to let others create value and then manipulate the political system to seize the fruits of their labor in a legally permissible manner. Popular examples include securing government subsidies, protective tariffs, and legal privileges such as onerous health and safety regulations, all of which impede competitors.
Legal predation requires considerable effort and expertise, and the massive lobbying industry in the US and all western economies is a testament to the commercial sophistication of the process of manipulating the political system. Thus, when a company is deciding on its business strategy, there is a genuine tradeoff between allocating resources to innovation and technological advancements on the one hand, and to lobbying the government on the other hand. Learning to respond to the needs of customers is distinct from learning to respond to the needs of the politicians, and one comes at the expense of the other.
Thus far, owing to its limited contribution to the economy and employment, and to its nascence as an industry, shale oil has focused its efforts on creating value rather than predation. There have surely been some lobbying efforts, such as in securing approval to construct pipelines that go through territories owned by native Americans; but even there, the underlying goal is to deliver a better quality product at a lower price for its clients.
In fact, it is likely that the Russo-Saudi split on the continuation of OPEC+ reflects divergent assessments on the capacity of shale oil to continue to realize efficiency improvements. Some reports suggest that the Russians wish to check shale oil’s progress by forcing prices down for a sustained period, but skeptics respond that a similar expectation was held in 2015, only for shale oil to rise to the challenge of low prices by cutting costs ruthlessly. The industry is yet to consolidate, so significant managerial efficiencies remain available.
But all of that could change if the US government decides to bailout the shale oil industry in the wake of the current oil-price collapse. Once management learns to suck from the public teat, their entire mindset might change. Lobbying is a hard word, but it is less painful and has far better fringe benefits than engaging in cut-throat competition, as the latter inevitably entails morale-crushing layoffs and asphyxiating belt-tightening.
Therefore, from the OPEC+ perspective, it may well be better for the shale oil industry to surrender the traditional American dream, and to get stuck in the swamp of lobbying so that the next time prices fall, shale oil executives’ impulse is to call their congressmen rather than their engineers, and to slash the training budget in favor of corporate “sponsorship” rather than research and development. This could help keep the industry fragmented and unable to exploit economies of scale, placing a firm cap on the industry’s collective ambition and ability to threaten OPEC+. As German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once quipped: “If you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”
*Omar Al-Ubaydli (@omareconomics) is an economist at George Mason University.