LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
March 15/2019

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant: You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you
Matthew 18/23-35/ Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother or sister who sins against me? Up to seven times?”Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. “Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand bags of gold[h] was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt. “At this the servant fell on his knees before him. ‘Be patient with me,’ he begged, ‘and I will pay back everything.’ The servant’s master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.“But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred silver coins. He grabbed him and began to choke him. ‘Pay back what you owe me!’ he demanded.“His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, ‘Be patient with me, and I will pay it back.’“But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. When the other servants saw what had happened, they were outraged and went and told their master everything that had happened. “Then the master called the servant in. ‘You wicked servant,’ he said, ‘I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. Shouldn’t you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?’ In anger his master handed him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. “This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on March 14-15/2019
Sources to Asharq Al-Awsat: Hariri's Saudi Visit to Have Positive Impact on Lebanon
UNIFIL Spokesman: Our Priority Is to Provide Support to Lebanon's Army
Lebanese Leaders Mark March 14 Uprising
Army Denies Coming under Gunfire on Syria Border
Rifi: Hariri Reconciliation a Barricade against Those Targeting Our Sect
Hariri at Brussels III Requests $2.9 bn in Aid for Refugee Return
Report: Berri-Pompeo Talks to Focus on Oil File
Boko Haram Kills Lebanese Construction Worker in Nigeria
U.N. Special Coordinator, UNRWA Lebanon Director Visit Ain el-Hilweh
Cautious Calm in Ain el-Hilweh after Armed Groups Trade Fire
Report: Europeans Regard Lebanon Refugee Efforts with 'Skepticism'
Kataeb MPs Commemorate 2005 Cedar Revolution
LU Kataeb Students Vow Relentless Struggle on Cedar Revolution Anniversary
Hezbollah’s Deadly Lies

Litles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on March 14-15/2019
Two Rockets Fired from Gaza at Tel Aviv
Satellite images show another Iranian missile site in Syria
Israel issues complaint to U.N. over terrorists on Golan border
Canada announces funding for humanitarian assistance in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq
US Wants to Swiftly Bring Iranian Crude Oil Exports to Zero
Sistani Receives Rouhani, Stresses Respect For States’ Sovereignty
Potential Khamenei Successor Elected to 2nd Influential Post
ISIS Militants Escape After Russian Raid on Idlib
US No Longer Refers to Golan, West Bank and Gaza as Occupied
White House to Veto Resolution on Ending Support for Arab Coalition
Griffiths Says Houthis Hesitant in Implementing Deal on Yemen’s Hodeidah
Disagreements Shake Party of Tunisian President’s Son
Egypt Supports S. Sudan’s Stability, Looks Forward to Broader Presence in Tanzania
Venezuela Calls Public Sector Back to Work as Blackout Recedes
Boeing Black Boxes Flown to France as Jets Grounded Worldwide
EU Hopes for 'Significant Pledges' at Syria Donor Meet
'VETO!' Says Trump after Senate Votes to End Border Emergency

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 14-15/2019
Hezbollah’s Deadly Lies/Tony Badran/Tablet magazine/March 14/19
Satellite images show another Iranian missile site in Syria/Jerusalem Post/March 14/19
Israel issues complaint to U.N. over terrorists on Golan border/Jerusalem Post/March 14/19
Analysis/Netanyahu Outfoxed Russia, Iran and ISIS With His Cynical, Ruthless Syria Policy/Anshel Pfeffer/Haaretz/March 14/19
History Could Doom US-China Trade Deal/Michael Schuman//Bloomberg/March, 14/19
Asset Managers Lead Britain’s Brexit Exodus/Mark Gilbert/Bloomberg/March, 14/19
Israel vs. its Enemies in Europe/Ruthie Blum/Gatestone Institute/March 14/19
Palestinians: Abbas Stands 'Trial' for Treason/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 14/19
Denmark in a State of Unreported Collapse/Ole Hasselbalch/Gatestone Institute/March 14/19
Iranian women’s long battle for rights a threat to regime/Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 14/ 2019
We should help future generations by helping ourselves/Éloi Laurent​/Arab News/March 14/19

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on March 14-15/2019
Sources to Asharq Al-Awsat: Hariri's Saudi Visit to Have Positive Impact on Lebanon
Beirut - Mohammed Shukair/Asharq Al-Awsat/March, 14/19/The positive atmosphere that prevailed over talks between the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri contributed significantly to the reconciliation meeting held between the latter and former Minister Ashraf Rifi, in the presence of former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and former Minister Rashid Derbas. Disagreement between the two Sunni officials had recently intensified over Tripoli’s sub-parliamentary elections. Parliamentary and ministerial sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that King Salman’s reception of Hariri at Al Yamama Palace in Riyadh earlier this week will have positive results in supporting Lebanon to overcome its economic and financial crises. Hariri’s visitors revealed that he would head back to Riyadh in the next couple of days following his meetings at the “Brussels Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region”, to which he arrived on Wednesday heading a delegation representing Lebanon. Moreover, Hariri’s positive talks in Riyadh coincided with his openness to Rifi’s insistence on turning the page of the past and opening a new page of reconciliation. Sources told Asharq Al-Awsat that both Siniora and Derbas have worked to end the dispute between Hariri and Rifi. The reconciliation, which took place on Tuesday evening at Siniora’s residence, constituted a big surprise in the Tripoli street. After emphasizing the unity of the country’s Sunni components, the prime minister pointed to his positive discussions in Riyadh with King Salman. He was quoted as saying: “We are now witnessing political and media clashes, and I am trying to neutralize them to protect our economic situation, which is going through a delicate period. My first and last concern is to prepare for the briefing of the Cedar Conference, because there is no interest in missing this opportunity.”

UNIFIL Spokesman: Our Priority Is to Provide Support to Lebanon's Army
Beirut - Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 14 March, 2019/The spokesperson for the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, Andrea Tenenti, assured Wednesday that UNIFIL's priority is to offer maritime and land support to the Lebanese Armed Forces, denying possibility to reduce any operational support. Tenenti noted to the National News Agency on whether the United Nations plans to downsize its UNIFIL force, saying that "the UN Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix said - earlier this week - that it is important for the Lebanese government to strengthen its naval capabilities, but he did not address the issue of downsizing operational activities and our assistance to the Lebanese armed forces." "The UNIFIL's priority is to provide support to the Lebanese Army at land and sea, while working with the international community to provide all the necessary support to the Lebanese armed forces," Tenenti said.

Lebanese Leaders Mark March 14 Uprising
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Lebanese leaders and social media activists on Thursday commemorated the 14th anniversary of the March 14, 2005 uprising, which is also known as the Cedar Revolution. The uprising took the form of a mass rally that gathered hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in central Beirut in the wake of the February 14, 2005 assassination of ex-PM Rafik Hariri in a massive suicide truck bombing that also killed 21 other people and injured dozens. “March 14, 2005 was a historic day on which the Lebanese laid the foundations for the project of the state, sovereignty and freedom. It was a project of a long struggle which we are continuing to achieve through consolidating security and economic stability, protecting coexistence and strengthening state institutions and our democratic system,” Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who is also the head of al-Mustaqbal Movement, tweeted.
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea meanwhile said that for the LF, “every day of the year is March 14.” Deputy Prime Minister Ghassan Hasbani of the LF said “March 14 trespasses time and place.”“It is the revolution of a human and the spirit of a country. It is not a memory or a picture in mind but rather an approach and a practice aimed at achieving Lebanon's rise,” he tweeted. LF bloc MP Ziad Hawwat meanwhile said March 14, 2005 was the day that “transferred Lebanon from tutelage into freedom and sovereignty, although sovereignty is still incomplete.” “The battle will continue in order to liberate Lebanon from the hegemony of arms and foreign agendas and in order to fight corruption until we rescue Lebanon from the entrenched mafias... We will not bow or back down until we reach a strong republic,” he added. The March 2005 uprising eventually led to the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, curbing Syrian influence, the formation of an international inquiry panel into Hariri's murder and the resignation of Omar Karami's government and the heads of security agencies.

Army Denies Coming under Gunfire on Syria Border
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/The Lebanese Army on Thursday denied reports that one of its patrols had come under fire in the Hermel area of al-Matrabeh on Syria's border, clarifying that the shots “were fired in the air” and “from within Syrian territory.”In a statement, the army also urged media outlets to seek accuracy when publishing reports about the military institution. State-run National News Agency had earlier reported that unknown assailants had opened heavy gunfire and shelled a Lebanese Army infantry patrol in Matrabeh. NNA said the soldiers were unharmed and no casualties were reported. The assailants managed to flee towards the Syrian territory, it added.

Rifi: Hariri Reconciliation a Barricade against Those Targeting Our Sect
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Firebrand Major General Ashraf Rifi, who served as justice minister and Internal Security Forces chief, on Thursday said that his recent reconciliation with Prime Minister Saad Hariri is aimed at “repelling” those who are “targeting” the Sunni community. “Together we made a big step to turn the page on fragmentation and disputes and I'm fully confident that this reconciliation is in the interest of our cause and objectives regarding independence, sovereignty and the state of institutions,” Rifi said at a press conference to officially announce his withdrawal from Tripoli's parliamentary by-election. “It is also clearly a firm barricade that will repel those targeting our sect with the corruption accusation after they had accused it of terrorism,” Rifi added about his reconciliation with Hariri. Rifi and Hariri had met Tuesday at ex-PM Fouad Saniora's resident in Beirut after which the major general announced that he would withdraw from the race in Tripoli and instead back Hariri's candidate Dima Jamali. Jamali's membership of the 2018 parliament had been recently revoked by the Constitutional Council over vote rigging suspicions. “To Sheikh Saad Hariri I say: today my hand is extended and our relation is now built on further frankness, and in the name of this reconciliation and the vast majority who were pleased by it, I will stand by you in the face of what is targeting you, in defense of the state, the constitution, the Taef Accord and coexistence, and to preserve our Lebanese and Arab community which is an essential component of this country,” Rifi added on Thursday. He also noted that he had disagreed with Hariri over “the concessions in the face of the illegitimate arms as long as these arms continued to take over the state and its institutions.”Referring to the latest controversy over the issue of the “missing” $11 billion and the war of words between Saniora and Hizbullah, Rifi said: “Those who respect the judiciary must hand over those accused of assassinating Rafik Hariri and those accused of the attempt on (ex-)MP Butros Harb's life.”“Those who respect the judiciary do not establish the Resistance Brigades militia which comprises ex-felons and fugitives and those who respect the judiciary must hand over the killers of the martyr Samer Hanna,” he added. Accusing Hizbullah of other corruption-related practices, Rifi went on to say: “Hizbullah would be mistaken if it thinks that it can confront us one by one, seeing as we become one man when storms arise.”

Hariri at Brussels III Requests $2.9 bn in Aid for Refugee Return
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday urged in a speech he made at the Brussels III conference, the allies of the Syrian regime to pressure it into facilitating the return of displaced Syrians in order to end their suffering. On why would not Lebanon take advantage of the fact that its is hosting the largest number of displaced Syrians in order to get enough aid funds. He said: “Lebanon is doing its humanitarian duty. We would like to see an end to the issue of the displaced in Lebanon, because it is a big burden on the country and the Lebanese. The problem is there, and solutions must be found.”He said that Lebanon can not tolerate the economic and social repercussions for hosting more than 1.5 million Syria refugees.“We need to secure the appropriate funding for Lebanon's response plan to the crisis, we ask for $ 2.9 billion to ensure stability for long-term projects," he said. Hariri has arrived on Wednesday in Brussels leading a delegation to Brussels III conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region, Hariri’s media office said. The delegation includes the Minister of Education Akram Shehayyeb, the Minister of Social Affairs Richard Kouyoumjian and the Lebanese Ambassador to Brussels Fadi Hajj Ali. On the sidelines of the conference, the Premier will hold meetings with the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini, the European Commissioner for European Neighborhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi. The conference brings together representatives from 85 countries and international organizations and around one thousand participants from donor countries, the United Nations and the countries hosting the displaced, especially Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

Hariri: Refugees' Return Is Only Solution to Ongoing Crisis
Kataeb.org/Thursday 14th March 2019/Prime Minister Saad Hariri on Thursday stressed that the only solution to the refugee crisis lies in the safe return to their homeland in accordance with international laws and treaties. Speaking at the third Brussels conference on supporting the future of Syria and the region, Hariri affirmed the Lebanese government’s commitment to cooperating with the United Nations over any initiative that concerns the refugees' return, including that put forth by Russia. “Lebanon can no longer endure the socio-economic consequences of the presence of more than a million and a half refugees on its land,” Hariri stated. “We want to see an end to the Syrian refugee issue because it has become a burden for Lebanon,” he added. “The International community must acknowledge that Lebanon cannot go on like this and that funds must be provided,” Hariri stated, requesting that $2.9 billion would be secured to help Lebanon deal with the lingering refugee crisis. “Let us hope that there won’t be a Brussels 4 and 5 and 6,” he said, calling on the allies of the Syrian government to pressure it into facilitating the return of refugees. Turning to Lebanese affairs, Hariri stressed that his government is aware of the need to introduce financial reforms in order to revive the economy, adding that hard decisions must be made to reduce the public debt.

Report: Berri-Pompeo Talks to Focus on Oil File
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Lebanon’s oil wealth file will be the focal point of discussions between Speaker Nabih Berri and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo during the latter’s expected visit to Beirut next week, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Thursday. Sources in Ain el-Tineh (Berri’s residence) told the daily that the disputed maritime border file between Lebanon and Israel will be “strongly present” in the meeting between the two. They stressed that the Speaker adamantly rejects a proposal related to the so-called Hoff line, and adheres to Lebanon's full right and wealth of oil and gas that Israel is trying to invade. The Frederick Hoff line is known after a US envoy to Syria and Lebanon drawn in 2012 and gives Lebanon 60 percent of the offshore oil Block 9 and gives Israel 40 percent.

Boko Haram Kills Lebanese Construction Worker in Nigeria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Lebanese construction worker Ahmed al-Sareji has been killed at the hands of the extremist Boko Haram group, Lebanese TV networks said on Thursday. Al-Sareji had been abducted by the Islamist group around a week ago. Tuesday's attack had left another person dead when four gunmen stormed a road construction site in the city of Kano. "There was a kidnapping incident at Dangi Roundabout this morning and the victim is a Lebanese engineer," Kano state police spokesman Abdullahi Haruna told AFP on Tuesday. "One person was killed and another injured in the attack," said Haruna. The victim was at the site without any assigned security, he added. Witnesses said a Nigerian construction worker was killed and another injured, after they tried to prevent the gunmen from entering the site. Kidnapping for ransom is widespread in the oil-rich southern delta region of Nigeria, where criminal gangs seize expatriate oil workers and wealthy Nigerians in exchange for hefty payments. The gangs often roam on motorcycles and are known to operate in northern Kaduna and neighboring Zamfara states. Abductees are often released within days if the ransom is paid but residents say they can be killed if no money is forthcoming.

U.N. Special Coordinator, UNRWA Lebanon Director Visit Ain el-Hilweh
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, and the Director of UNRWA Affairs in Lebanon, Claudio Cordone, on Thursday visited the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh in southern Lebanon. It was Kubis’ first visit to a Palestine refugee camp in Lebanon since taking up his functions as U.N. Special Coordinator in February. Kubis was briefed by UNRWA representatives about the living conditions of Palestine refugees and the situation in the camp. Kubis and Cordone visited UNRWA’s Bissan and Sammouh schools and met with representatives of Palestinian factions and popular committees of Ain el-Hilweh and discussed with them the political, social and economic situation in the camp. Kubis together with Cordone also met with a group of Palestine refugee youth from Lebanon and Syria to discuss “their aspiration and the socio-economic challenges they face, specifically those related to education and unemployment,” a statement issued by Kubis' office said. “I am grateful for the hospitality and warm welcome I received today from the residents of Ain el-Hilweh and I commend the efforts of my UNRWA colleagues, who continue to provide essential services to the Palestine refugees in Lebanon despite the financial constraints that the agency continues to face,” Kubiš said. He also welcomed cooperation between Lebanese authorities and Ain el-Hilweh representatives and underlined the importance of ongoing dialogue between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, saying: “Building mutual understanding and trust between the two communities remains key to improving livelihoods and preserving stability and security in Ain el-Hilweh and the neighboring areas.”Moreover, Kubis pledged continued efforts to encourage international support for UNRWA to ensure that humanitarian needs are met. Cordone for his part reiterated the Agency's commitment to implement its mandate on behalf of Palestine refugees. He said: “Our support to Palestine refugees is key for the implementation of the rights and dignity of Palestine refugees until a just and lasting solution to their plight is achieved. We continue to count on the support of the whole U.N. family in achieving our goals.”According to the U.N., UNRWA is confronted with an increased demand for services resulting from a growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty. “UNRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions and financial support has been outpaced by the growth in needs. As a result, the UNRWA Program Budget, which supports the delivery of core essential services, operates with a large shortfall. UNRWA encourages all Member States to work collectively to exert all possible efforts to fully fund the Agency’s Program Budget. UNRWA emergency programs and key projects, also operating with large shortfalls, are funded through separate funding portals,” the statement issued by Kubis' office added.

Cautious Calm in Ain el-Hilweh after Armed Groups Trade Fire
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Cautious calm was on Thursday afternoon engulfing the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilweh after an exchange of gunfire between two armed groups, the National News Agency said. Two people were wounded in the clash, one of them seriously, NNA added. Al-Jadeed television meanwhile reported that "intensive contacts" were underway to contain the situation. Earlier in the day, NNA said a group led by B.A. traded fire with members of the Islamist Usbat al-Ansar group after the Palestinian Kh.Kh., who is loyal to Usbat al-Ansar, opened fire at Y.A., a son of the leader of the first group, wounding him in the stomach. Thursday's incidents are linked to the clash that erupted two days ago according to NNA. Two Palestinian civilians were wounded in that incident.

Report: Europeans Regard Lebanon Refugee Efforts with 'Skepticism'
Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/The meetings held by Lebanese parties at the Brussels III conference reflected European “skepticism” about Lebanon's efforts towards the displaced Syrians, and “pessimism” about the commitments promised in the past years in that regard, Asharq al-Awsat daily reported on Thursday.
The daily added that representatives of the European Union, during their participation in the conference, “sensed no signs of Syrian refugee returns in 2019 and 2020,” stressing that it must be both “secure and voluntary.”Dr. Nasser Yassin, Research Director at the American University of Beirut's Issam Fares Institute, and a conference participant, drew attention to the “donors commitment to supporting Lebanon, with emphasis on the role of the new government by initiating serious and genuine reforms, but that has not happened yet,” he told the daily. “This pessimism about Lebanon's ability to carry out reforms stems from previous Brussels experiences as well as other issues related to reforms called by the CEDRE Conference," Yassin said. He notes that one of the most important commitments not yet implemented by Lebanon, which receives the largest share of aid among the countries of asylum estimated at $1.2 billion, is embodied in the "complex procedures" for residency permit documents. On the other hand, donors stress the importance of ensuring the necessary living conditions for refugees in Lebanon and ensure that assistance reaches those who truly need it in terms of health and education. At Brussels conference, Lebanon is asking for $ 2.5 billion in long-term assistance to refugees and host communities, including several sectors, most notably education and health.

Kataeb MPs Commemorate 2005 Cedar Revolution
Kataeb.org/Thursday 14th March 2019/Kataeb lawmakers on Thursday marked the 14th anniversary of the Cedar Revolution, vowing unwavering commitment to the values that the event of the March 14, 2005, embodied. “Incomplete sovereignty ... Continued Struggle,” Kataeb leader Samy Gemayel wrote on Twitter. “We will carry on for your sake," MP Elias Hankache wrote in a caption of a picture of all the March 14 martyrs. "The March 14th Cedar Revolution is one revolution that never dies,” he stressed.

LU Kataeb Students Vow Relentless Struggle on Cedar Revolution Anniversary
Kataeb.org/Thursday 14th March 2019/The Kataeb students staged a sit-in at the Lebanese University's Faculty of Law and Political Science in Jal El Dib on Thursday, to mark the anniversary of the Cedar Revolution of March 14, 2005. Head of the Kataeb's cell at the faculty, Charbel Rustom, deplored Lebanon's incomplete and flawed sovereignty 14 years after the landmark event that saw more than one million Lebanese rallying in Beirut. Speaking during the sit-in, Rustom blamed the ongoing encroachments on Lebanon's sovereignty for the failure to build the State that the Lebanese dreamed of in 2005. "Our economy is deteriorating because we are unable to attract investors amid the presence of illegal, non-state arms that are jeopardizing security," he said. "Our porous border, that is allowing smuggling, is also weakening our national economy." Rustom said that democracy in Lebanon is at its worst levels given the hegemony of an armed political faction that is confiscating the State's decision-making power and crippling its institutions based on its own interests. "Our struggle to achieve what we dreamed of in 2005 is not over yet, because the Kataeb students have never yielded to the de-facto reality," he affirmed.
Rustom said that the sit-in is aimed at making the following demands: making the military the only armed force in Lebanon, demarcating and controlling the borders in order to safeguard the country's security and protect its economy, and adhering to UNSC Resolutions 1701 and 1559.

Hezbollah’s Deadly Lies
طوني بدران في تحليل له على خلفية وضع حزب الله في بريطانيا بالكامل على قوائم الإرهاب يبين حقيقة أكاذيب هذا التنظيم الإرهابي القاتلة
Tony Badran/Tablet magazine/March 14/19
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72973/tony-badran-tablet-magazine-hezbollahs-deadly-lies%D8%B7%D9%88%D9%86%D9%8A-%D8%A8%D8%AF%D8%B1%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%84%D9%87-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%89-%D8%AE/
For years, the terrorist organization duped the expert class into believing it was peacefully evolving. Now that many have wised up, new and more dangerous fictions emerge.
It took more than 10 years, but the United Kingdom has finally designated the entirety of Hezbollah as a terrorist group. The U.K. had already designated Hezbollah’s so-called military wing in 2008, and now, Home Secretary Sajid Javid said, Britain is “no longer able to distinguish between their already banned military wing and the political party.”
Of course, the distinction always was fictional.
This was not a matter of opinion. It was the explicit position of the group itself. Invariably, Hezbollah time and again made clear it had a single leadership that handled all aspects of the group’s activities, as Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem plainly stated in a much-quoted 2009 interview with the Los Angeles Times, to give but one example.
The issue, therefore, is not about evidence. If anything, it’s about the deliberate avoidance of evidence; it’s not as though the British government did not have enough information about Hezbollah before it finally resolved to designate it. Nor, for that matter, did the French, who immediately rejected to follow suit with the British decision. Nor did the Germans. So why do people choose to deny reality and create such fictitious dichotomies as the tale of Hezbollah having different and disparate wings, one violent and the other benign?
For years, the literature on Hezbollah put forward precisely such a false dichotomy about the organization. These were not simply academic exercises: At specific junctures, experts and journalists peddled bogus categories and distinctions, arguing that Hezbollah was evolving from a mere terror group to something more nuanced. Unsurprisingly, these ideas purposefully obscured the group’s history and its nature, which isn’t surprising given that some of the experts on Hezbollah, like academic Augustus Richard Norton or journalist Hala Jaber, were sympathetic to the group, or, like academic Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, were outright supporters, who share its animosity toward Israel, and today are having a meltdown over the U.K. designation. Under the guise of dispassionate scholars, these professional Lebanon-watchers invested in the image of the group they were advancing, all the more so as most were writing at the moment when America turned its attention to the war on terrorism. Thus, the expert literature on Hezbollah of the period took upon itself a mission: To distinguish the Shiite organization from the Sunni terrorist groups, and to remove it from America’s crosshairs. As such, with few exceptions, minimizing or defining away Hezbollah’s terrorism was effectively the norm in the academic and policy literature at the time.
That’s where the sham theories emerged. Hezbollah had “evolved” from its earlier days of transnational terrorist operations, the experts argued, going as far as to cast doubt on whether the group’s military commander, and the most recognizable name in association with its terrorist activity—Imad Mughniyeh—was really part of the organization at all. Others, likewise seeking to distance Mughniyeh from Hezbollah, laid the group’s terrorism exclusively at his feet while portraying him as a rogue agent or lone wolf of sorts, who answered to the Iranians, separate from Hezbollah, which was now supposedly “Lebanonized.” Consider the journalism professor Mohamad Bazzi, who in 2008 was billed as “working on a book about Hezbollah.” In an interview following Mughniyeh’s assassination, Bazzi authoritatively declared that Mughniyeh “hasn’t really been active since the 1980s.” In fact, he proceeded, “It’s debatable whether he still had a leading position in Hezbollah up to this day.” He was merely an “an old, symbolic Hezbollah cause.”
Or take this pronouncement by another journalist and author of a book on Hezbollah, Nicholas Blanford. “Mughnieh is often described as Hizballah’s security chief,” Blanford wrote in 2003. “But no firm evidence has been produced that he takes his orders from Hizbollah or has any established organizational link with the group.” This assessment can be traced back to Hala Jaber’s 1997 book—a few years after Mughniyeh directed the attacks against the Israeli Embassy and the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires: “One must regard Mughniyeh as someone who is on the margins,” Jaber wrote. “In fact, Mughniyeh does not report to Hezbollah.”
Similarly, the literature commonly dismissed any suggestion that Hezbollah was an organic extension of the Iranian regime, and a key instrument of its power projection. A 2005 academic article described this position as an “anachronistic approach.”
These ludicrous assertions and artificial distinctions were dressed up in the usual academic jargon about how labeling the group as terrorist is a “rhetorical bludgeon,” which hampers “the production of knowledge,” as it caricatures Hezbollah and conceals its other social and political work. This line was also a moralizing polemic. Since Hezbollah was a political party with a large constituency that votes for it as its representative in the Lebanese system, does designating it as a terrorist group mean that these supporters were also terrorists?
This evocation of favorite chestnuts like nuance and morality was perfectly tailored for Western, especially European, policymakers, who congratulated themselves for having a deep and unique insight into the Middle East. And while antipathy toward Israel played a part in exciting the European imagination, it was an ontological, not political, bias that made it natural for experts on both sides of the Atlantic to adopt the idea that Hezbollah was anything more than a terrorist group: For policy practitioners in the West, seeing things as 50 shades of gray is the apex of worldly sophistication, the most relished attribute. Take French President Emmanuel Macron’s choice of words when commenting on the recent British decision: “France and no other power has the right to decide what Lebanese political parties are good and which are not. This is up to the Lebanese people.”
Lofty as Macron’s words are, they don’t hold a candle to the nuanced sophistication of former Obama administration officials. Consider the views of John Brennan, who went on to become director of the CIA under President Obama. Back when he was assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism in 2010, Brennan’s comments about the group made news. Hezbollah was “a very interesting organization,” he said. And it had evolved from being “purely a terrorist organization.” Sure, there were “elements” within Hezbollah that were of concern. But what the U.S. needed to do, Brennan explained, was to find ways to diminish their influence within the organization and to try to build up the more moderate elements.”
It’s likely Brennan believed this nonsense. More importantly, however, is that Brennan’s intellectual vanity and moralizing were a cover for set policy choices, namely President Obama’s entente and realignment with Iran.
In 2008, Brennan had made the same pitch about Hezbollah being a layered and complex organization, but this time Brennan was bringing up the Lebanese terrorist organization to argue for another infamous and equally fictitious dichotomy: strengthening moderates against “extremists” in Iran. This strategy, which was the Obama administration’s stated policy, would require, Brennan wrote, “strategic patience” and sensitivity to the complex political realities inside Iran, as well as the complexity of Tehran’s regional strategy, an early signal of how Obama would treat Iran’s regional project: “Washington,” the future director of the CIA noted, “should not expect Tehran to ever sever its ties to Lebanese Hezbollah.” But that hardly was a problem, Brennan continued, because, if anything, Iran can help deepen Hezbollah’s involvement in Lebanese politics. “It would not be foolhardy … for the United States to tolerate, and even to encourage, greater assimilation of Hezbollah into Lebanon’s political system,” Brennan stated. Increasing “Hezbollah’s stake” in Lebanon’s political process is the “best hope” for “reducing the influence of violent extremists within the organization—as well as the influence of extremist Iranian officials.” And it was in this context that he repeated the claptrap noted earlier about Hezbollah’s Lebanonization and “evolution”—“a far cry from Hezbollah’s genesis as solely a terrorist organization.”
Of course, Brennan continued, as America pursued this nuanced and sophisticated policy, it was likely to face one thorny problem: Israeli intransigence. The Obama administration, which would soon embark on its pro-Iran policy, “will need to convince Israeli officials that they must abandon their aim of eliminating Hezbollah as a political force,” Brennan continued. The Obama administration was to “work to help advance rather than thwart Iranian interests,” Brennan explained. By definition, then, the pro-Iran policy, as we saw for eight years, meant undermining U.S. allies.
Washington being what it is, Brennan’s views signaled to aspiring bureaucrats which way the wind was blowing. And so, Steven Simon, a former State Department and Clinton White House official who would soon join the Obama National Security Council, co-authored two essays in 2010 expanding on Brennan’s pitch. Adding another layer of pseudo-intellectual sophistication to the future CIA chief’s assertions, Simon pushed an analogy between Hezbollah and the IRA. Like the IRA, which became “convinced that the ballot box was more powerful than the gun,” Simon claimed, “Hezbollah’s leaders might see a move toward demilitarization as a new avenue for increasing the group’s appeal and bolstering its credibility as a party.”
This statement, and the comparison which it posits, is even more embarrassing today than when it was published. Even as Simon conceded that, unlike the IRA, Hezbollah had a state backer, he nevertheless contended, relying on a 2009 Rand Corp. study, “that Hezbollah was distancing itself from Iranian patronage in order to increase its domestic legitimacy among parties that have viewed it as Tehran’s lackey.” You hardly have to sit on the nation’s top security agencies to know that this statement is precisely the literal opposite of the truth: Hezbollah is not merely a recipient of Iranian support; it is part of the Iranian command structure. That fact alone nullifies the premise of Simon’s comparison. Still, he saw the similarities between the IRA and Hezbollah as “striking.” How, you might ask? Why, both organizations had “political and military wings,” naturally. Even when everyone knew that the IRA and its so-called “political wing,” Sinn Fein, were distinct only in name, Sinn Fein’s leaders at least put on the public act of separating themselves from the IRA and its operations. Hezbollah, on the other hand, emphatically underscores the absolute oneness of the group and its command. None of these easily observable facts, however, made any difference to Simon.
In the decade since the essay’s publication, the growth in Hezbollah’s military activity makes a mockery of Simon’s claim about its supposed desire to “demilitarize” and “shift more decisively to the political realm.” In fact, Hezbollah has both increased its military role as well as its political dominance, maybe because it never saw the two as mutually exclusive options.
All this was of no concern to Simon, who was simply pushing a policy of establishing a channel to Hezbollah. “The Obama administration,” he wrote, “should suspend its ban on official contact with Hezbollah.”
In other words, it never mattered whether any of these fancy arguments actually had any intellectual merit. That was all beside the point. As with the academics and journalists who invented distinct categories in Hezbollah in the service of their preferred policy, what Brennan and Simon were engaged in was not an actual intellectual exercise. Rather, what they did was simply to put a veneer of nuanced worldliness on a policy decision that was already made by their boss: entente and realignment with Iran. That meant, as we saw over the past decade, recognizing what Obama euphemistically dubbed Iran’s “equities” in the region, and effectively partnering with Iranian assets and propping up an Iranian order from Baghdad to Beirut.
One suspects a similar logic applies to France. Behind Macron’s soaring, moralizing rhetoric, there are perhaps less lofty calculations. For one thing, Macron knows French troops stationed in Lebanon as part of UNIFIL could become targets once more. But beyond threats, France is invested in Lebanon, politically and economically. And the French understand that Hezbollah runs the show in Beirut. Fairy tales about different wings, therefore, are necessary for business.
But while the old line about Hezbollah having some sort of magical distinction between its political and military wings no longer cuts it for some, the story the bien-pensants in policy circles everywhere in the West tell themselves today is another convenient fiction—that you can separate the group that dominates the Lebanese government and all its institutions from the polity it dominates. In other words, today’s smart set believes that you can somehow designate the former as a terrorist organization while continuing to support and do business with the latter without interruption.
As much as the U.S. and the Europeans want to pretend that Hezbollah and the “Lebanese state” are not the same thing, reality is the unfailing wet blanket. Such is the total distinction between the Lebanese state and Hezbollah that the Lebanese Embassy in London intervened on Hezbollah’s behalf with a letter to British members of parliament explaining how Hezbollah “enjoys broad popular support, and is represented in parliament, the government and the municipalities, and is difficult to set apart from the general Lebanese public.” Further emphasizing the firewall between Hezbollah and state institutions, the Lebanese foreign minister, a close Hezbollah ally, proclaimed alongside the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Policy Federica Mogherini that Hezbollah will “remain embraced by state institutions and all the Lebanese people.”
The Lebanese know they can get away with this. Any nation can now, for example, warn the Lebanese about Hezbollah’s “influence” in the government, or its control over this or that ministry, and still turn around the next day and announce its enduring commitment to supporting this very same government and to pour aid into its institutions. This, sadly, is precisely what the U.S. government is doing. Worse still, our secretary of state, by visiting Lebanon later this month, will only lend American prestige to this Hezbollah-run government.
To be sure, the British decision to proscribe Hezbollah, and the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to target the group’s criminal enterprise and sources of revenue, are laudable. They are, however, undermined by the stubborn attachment to a policy of make-believe.
The U.S. continues to urge European countries like France and Germany to follow Britain’s example and drop the myth of distinct wings in Hezbollah, to no avail, as the myth serves their policies toward Lebanon and Iran. But Washington is wedded to a fable of its own: that by strengthening the “institutions” of a Hezbollah-controlled state, we somehow (and nobody actually bothers to explain how or when) defeat Hezbollah’s “narrative.” As commander of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel, explained to a Senate committee last month, the US policy to strengthen the Lebanese Armed Forces—which maintain a synergetic relationship with Hezbollah—helps undercut “Hezbollah’s claim that its armed militia is necessary to protect Lebanon.” Because that’s somehow a real thing, and “narrative” is how a superpower is supposed to conduct policy. The British, too, have invested heavily in the LAF, and “narrative,” and will continue to do so even as they proscribed Hezbollah, which not only operates jointly with the LAF, but which also controls the government to which the LAF answers.
The two fictions, which distinguish between Hezbollah’s wings and between Lebanon and Hezbollah, are not identical, but their function is the same. They are simply a cover for a predetermined policy decision, and a convenient way to bypass a reality we simply don’t want to acknowledge or deal with—namely, that Lebanon is run by a terrorist group tied to Iran. And that by supporting Lebanon’s Hezbollah-dominated “state institutions,” we are supporting Hezbollah’s state.
*The above editorial’s link on the Tablet Magazine site
https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/281447/hezbollahs-deadly-lies?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=e370f6c89b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_03_14_12_23&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-e370f6c89b-207800041

Latest LCCC English Miscellaneous Reports & News published on March 14-15/2019
Two Rockets Fired from Gaza at Tel Aviv
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Two rockets were fired from Gaza toward the greater Tel Aviv district on Thursday night, the Israeli army said, without giving further information. Shortly before the army announcement alarm sirens sounded in Tel Aviv and neighboring towns, and Israeli media reported that Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system opened fire. There were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage.

Satellite images show another Iranian missile site in Syria
Jerusalem Post/March 14/19
Compound in the Syrian city of Safita is some eight kilometers from the border with Lebanon.
Satellite images taken by Israeli intelligence firm ImageSat International (ISI) on Wednesday appear to show a new missile factory being constructed in Syria, raising additional suspicion of Iranian involvement in missile production in the country. The images show a site surrounded by a fence, three hangers and a newly built water tower. Buses and vans were detected in the site entrance within the securely fenced compound during recent months, with workers at the site coming and going in patterns consistent with military installations, ISI said. The factory is being built in the town of Safita east of Tartus on the Mediterranean coast, some eight kilometers from the border with Lebanon in an area controlled by the Syrian regime and in the vicinity of Russian SAM (surface-to-air missile) deployment. According to ISI, the compound is similar to a factory used for producing surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) in Iran's Khojir. “The construction patterns, the compound location and the activity signs at the compound and its region, increase the probability that this is a missile manufacturing site,” (ISI) said, adding that “if this site is indeed related to SSM manufacturing it is possible that the two hangers include production line and the third is for manufacture or assembly.”While the compound is already active and in development stages, it appears that the site does not manufacture missile engines or warheads, since ISI was not able to detect any protected structures or missiles launchers within the compound. Nevertheless, the firm identified marks some 500 meters from the site, “probably created by the activity of heavy vehicles such as SSM launchers,” ISI said, adding that "in our assessment, the tire prints are not related to the activity of quarries operating in the area.”Last month, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Iran was operating a precision missile factory built on the outskirts of Latakia near the Russian Khmeimim Air Force base with the help of the Syrian government and Hezbollah. ISI said that it could not confirm the report. In late August, satellite images taken by ISI of an area of northwestern Syria revealed the establishment of another Iranian SSM factory, which may house weapons capable of striking Israel. The images purportedly show evidence which suggest that Iran is continuing to build various facilities related to the development and production of SSMs in the area of Wadi Jahannam near Baniyas.
Similar to the compound shown in the images released by ISI on Wednesday, some of the structures at the site have similar visual characteristics to those built at SSM facilities in Parchin and Khojir in Iran.
Jerusalem has repeatedly warned against Tehran's entrenchment in Syria and has stressed time and again that Syrian soil cannot serve as a forward operating base for Iran, and that the war-torn country cannot be a way-station for arms smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon.
In September during his address at the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shared photos of locations near Beirut International Airport where he said Hezbollah attempted to convert ground-to-ground missiles to precision missiles. The sites have since been closed.

Israel issues complaint to U.N. over terrorists on Golan border
Jerusalem Post/March 14/19
Israel's Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon vowed Israel would "act with force against the aggression from Tehran."
Israel issued a formal complaint to the United Nations Security Council over Hezbollah's recently revealed "Golan Project," which has positioned operatives along Israel's northern border. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon on Wednesday wrote to council members stating that Israel "will not ignore the conversion of Syria and Lebanon to a military front against us and will act with force against the aggression from Tehran," referring to Hezbollah's Iranian backers. "Hezbollah is not yet recognized as a terrorist organization by the Security Council," Danon noted, "despite a plethora of evidence of cross-border terrorist activity." Israel in the First Lebanon War in 1982 and the Second Lebanon War in 2006 when it shot rockets into Israeli civilian population centers, promoting a harsh Israeli response. Recently, it also made deep inroads as a major political party in the Lebanese parliament.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Israel Defense Forces announced the detection of the Golan Project network led by senior Hezbollah commander Ali Mussa Daqduq, who spent five years in an Iraqi prison for a 2007 attack that killed five American soldiers in the Karbala Governorate. He was released in 2012, returned to Lebanon and was deployed to Syria this past summer to establish the Golan terror network. Since the Six Day War of 1967, Israel has administrated the Golan and formally annexed the area in 1981. The strategic highland borders Lebanon and Syria, with a small buffer zone along the Syrian border patrolled by UN peacekeeping forces.

Canada announces funding for humanitarian assistance in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq
March 14, 2019 - Brussels, Belgium - Global Affairs Canada
The Syrian crisis continues to affect millions of people across Syria and neighbouring countries, including Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. Canada is committed to working with the international community to promote peace and security in the Middle East.
On behalf of the Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister of International Development and Minister for Women and Gender Equality, Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced $50.35 million in support to address humanitarian needs in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq.
This funding will be allocated to United Nations agencies and the International Committee of the Red Cross and go toward meeting the basic needs of crisis-affected people, including through the provision of food assistance; protection; comprehensive health services; and water, sanitation and hygiene. The assistance addresses the specific rights and needs of women and girls through protection services and sexual and reproductive health services.
Parliamentary Secretary Goldsmith-Jones made this announcement during the third conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region, held in Brussels, Belgium, from March 12 to 14, 2019.
Quotes
“Canada is taking action to support the millions of people affected by the conflict in Syria who still require urgent help, many of whom are struggling to meet their basic needs. This funding will provide some much-needed relief to those most severely affected by this tragedy—especially women and children, who are bearing the brunt of this crisis.”— Pamela Goldsmith-Jones, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Foreign Affairs
Quick facts. Today’s announcement is part of Canada’s Middle East strategy. Canada committed $2.1 billion over the course of three years toward security, stabilization, and humanitarian and development assistance in response to the crises in Iraq and Syria and their impacts on Jordan and Lebanon.

US Wants to Swiftly Bring Iranian Crude Oil Exports to Zero
Washington - Heba El Koudsy/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 14 March, 2019/US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has stressed Washington’s commitment to swiftly bring Iranian crude oil exports to zero, saying Tehran’s role in the energy market has been diminishing due to US pressure. Washington reimposed oil sanctions on Iran last year, sharply reducing its volume of crude exports in the past several months in an effort to curb Tehran’s nuclear, missile and regional activities. “We’re committed to bringing Iranian crude oil exports to zero as quickly as market conditions will permit,” Pompeo said in a speech at IHS Markit’s CERAWeek conference in Houston, where US oil and gas executives, energy luminaries and officials of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries gather annually to discuss global energy development. “You know its role in global energy markets. We know that role is diminishing. Its exports have tanked due to our pressure campaign,” he said. “Iran uses its energy exports to exert undue influence all across the Middle East, most particularly today on Iraq. While the United States is working to develop an independent, sovereign Iraq, Iran is using its energy to create a vassal state,” Pompeo added. Brian Hook, the State Department’s special representative on Iran, also said in remarks at the CERAWeek energy conference that Iran has lost $10 billion in revenue since US sanctions in November have removed about 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian crude from global markets.
Trump “has made it very clear that we need to have a campaign of maximum economic pressure” on Iran, Hook said, “but he also doesn’t want to shock oil markets, he wants to ensure a stable and well-supplied oil market. That policy has not changed.”
“When you have a better supplied oil market it enables us to accelerate our path to zero. But we also know that there are a lot of variables that go into a well-supplied and stable oil market,” said Hook, a senior policy adviser to Pompeo.
Sigal Mandelker, US Treasury under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, briefed the House Committee on Appropriations on the establishment of the Iran Finance Fusion Cell to monitor Tehran’s activities. “Last November, we re-imposed all of the US sanctions authorities previously lifted under the Iran nuclear agreement, and added over 700 individuals, entities, aircraft, and vessels onto our sanctions list on a single day. As part of that, we designated 70 Iran-linked financial institutions and subsidiaries. This brings the total number of Iran-related sanctions targets under this Administration to 927 entities, individuals, vessels, and aircraft,” she said.

Sistani Receives Rouhani, Stresses Respect For States’ Sovereignty
Baghdad - Hamza Mustafa/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 14 March, 2019/Iraq’s Shiite cleric Ali Sistani underlined the importance of respecting the sovereignty of states, during his meeting on Wednesday with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. A statement by Sistani’s office said Iraq’s top Shiite cleric welcomed “any move to strengthen Iraq’s relations with its neighbors based on respect for state sovereignty and non-interference in its internal affairs.”Sistani emphasized, in light of the fragile situation in the region, “the need for international and regional policies to be balanced and moderate in order to spare people more tragedies and damage.”He pointed out that the most major challenges facing Iraq at this stage were fighting corruption, restricting the use of weapons to state and security services, as well as improving public services.”Sistani’s office statement highlighted “the fateful war waged by the Iraqi people to defeat ISIS,” and “the great sacrifices made by the heroic Iraqis to achieve victory over this terrorist organization and to eliminate its danger from the entire region.”The meeting was held on the third day of Rouhani’s visit to Baghdad. Shiite cleric Haidar al-Gharabi told Asharq Al-Awsat that talks between Sistani and the Iranian president gave many “indications of the current stage in Iraq, represented by a multitude of agendas, especially foreign ones.”“Iran is an important international player in the region and Iraq; therefore, the understanding with the highest religious authority in Najaf comes in this context, especially as we believe that Iran has positive attitudes towards Iraq,” Gharabi said. Sistani had closed his doors since late 2015 to Iraqi politicians, including presidents, ministers, MPs and bloc leaders. He also refused to receive the French foreign minister who visited Iraq in January.

Potential Khamenei Successor Elected to 2nd Influential Post
Tehran - Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 13 March, 2019/A panel known as the Assembly of Experts elected Tuesday Ebrahim Raisi as a deputy chief only days after his appointment as head of Iran's Judiciary. The latest move increases his chances to succeed Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. The panel’s majority voted in favor of Raisi against his rival, the head of the Expediency Council Sadiq Larijani. A total of 73 members took part in the voting. While Raisi and Larijani garnered 43 and 27 votes respectively, five votes went to Sadeq Golpayegani. The 88-seat assembly is the main body of the Iranian regime entitled to appoint, and dismiss the country’s supreme leader in case he fails to carry out his mission. Raisi is known for his role in overseeing the execution of political prisoners in the late 1980s. An audio file release in 2016 proved he was part of a four-person committee that ordered the execution of several thousand political prisoners in 1988. Last week, Khamenei appointed Raisi as head of the Iranian judiciary. In another context, deputy speaker Ali Motahari protested the meddling of the Expediency Council in the Iranian parliament’s decisions. The Council is expected to have a final say on the government’s bill to join the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) after the dispute between the parliament and the Guardian Council. Motahari warned against taking a “dangerous approach,” saying the Expediency Council can’t protest the parliament’s legislation, according to Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA). He objected to remarks made by the Council on the state budget approved by the parliament about 10 days ago.

ISIS Militants Escape After Russian Raid on Idlib
Baghouz, London- Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 14 March, 2019/Several ISIS members fled a prison in northwest Syria’s Idlib province, following Russian airstrikes coordinated with Ankara. Russia’s defense ministry confirmed it had hit Idlib in coordination with Turkey, targeting drones and weapons stores of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants it said were intended for use in an attack on a major Russian airbase near the Mediterranean coast. Idlib residents said Russian aircraft conducted at least 12 aerial strikes on residential areas, including a prison on its outskirts, where they said dozens of prisoners escaped. At least 10 civilians were killed and 45 injured. More than 100 civilians have been killed since the beginning of the year. ISIS is living its "final moments" in northeast Syria after the thunderous shelling by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the US-led international coalition against Baghouz enclave pushed 3,000 of their fellow fighters to surrender in the past two days, according to an AFP report. ISIS launched two counter-attacks in Baghouz on forces besieging their final shred of territory in eastern Syria on but was beaten back without any progress, the SDF said. The group launched the second counter-attack in the afternoon, “taking advantage of smoke and dust over Baghouz”, the SDF media office said. “Fighting is still continuing. ISIS made no progress so far and were stopped.” ISIS presence in Baghouz is limited to a random camp surrounded by agricultural lands near the Iraqi border. "ISIS's final moments have started," SDF official Jiaker Amed told AFP Wednesday. SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said about 3,000 fighters had handed themselves over to the SDF. "The battle is ongoing and the final hour is now closer than ever," he said. Coalition spokesman Sean Ryan on Wednesday said ISIS has no room to maneuver. "There is no freedom of movement at night for the enemy," he told AFP. "Combined with the SDF ground movement against the final enclave, progress is being made and their capabilities are being severely destroyed,” Ryan added. Since December, about 60,000 people have left the last ISIS redoubt. The identities of men, women, and children of the group families were inspected after they departed. Suspects to be extremists were moved to detention centers while children and women to camps in the northeast of the country. Further, the group released a video late Monday on Telegram calling on followers to stay strong. "It is said we have lost -- but God's judging standard is different.”"The battles are not over," it added.

US No Longer Refers to Golan, West Bank and Gaza as Occupied
Washington - Heba El Koudsy/Asharq Al-Awsat/March, 14/The US Department of State no longer refers to Syria’s Golan Heights as an "Israeli-occupied" territory. In its latest annual human rights report published Wednesday, the State Department now calls the area the "Israeli-controlled Golan Heights."When asked by Asharq Al-Awsat about the measure, a State Department official said that the change is only intended to make the report clearer. The report also did not refer to the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as "Occupied Territories."The purpose behind the changes is to make the terminologies clearer and easier for readers, said the official. "This, by the way, is not a human rights issue, it's a legal status issue," said Michael Kozak of the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor. Israel has been pressuring the Trump administration for the recognition of the Golan Heights. Israel seized much of the Golan from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and then effectively annexed it in 1981, a move that was never recognized by the international community. The annexation issue was raised during a visit made US National Security Adviser John Bolton to Israel in January.

White House to Veto Resolution on Ending Support for Arab Coalition
Washington - Elie Youssef/Asharq Al-Awsat/March, 14/19/US President Donald Trump’s advisers have recommended that he vetoes a Senate resolution seeking to end American support for the Arab Coalition in Yemen. The Senate vote on Wednesday was 54 to 46. The resolution seeks to end any US military involvement in the conflict, including providing targeting support for air strikes, without authorization from Congress, Reuters reported. In its statement threatening a veto, the White House called the measure "flawed" and saying it would harm bilateral relationships in the region and hurt Washington's ability to fight extremism. Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., described the vote as inappropriate and said it would have negative repercussions. The measure was co-sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Sen. Mike Lee, R- Utah. Sanders, who is running for president in 2020, described the Yemeni crisis as a “catastrophic war.”The two Senators had pledged last year to invoke the decades-old War Powers Resolution, which is a federal law intended to check the president's power to commit the US to an armed conflict without Congressional consent.
The Senate had approved the War Powers Resolution in December, during the last Congress. But Republicans, who controlled the House until January, did not let it come up for a vote. With the Democrats in control, the House passed its own version of the resolution in February, but a procedural issue meant the House must vote on the Senate's version of the measure.

Griffiths Says Houthis Hesitant in Implementing Deal on Yemen’s Hodeidah
New York - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/March, 14/19/The United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, and General Michael Lollesgaard, who heads the newly-created UN mission to monitor the redeployment from Hodeidah, have “raised hope” on the possibility of implementing the first stage of the Stockholm Agreement “in the comings days or weeks,” Security Council diplomats said. The UN-brokered deal between Yemen’s warring sides was struck in December in the Swedish capital. The legitimate government and Iran-backed Houthi militias agreed to begin a redeployment of forces in the port city of Hodeidah, but the insurgents have stalled in respecting their commitments. Asharq Al-Awsat learned that there was “constructive dialogue” during a Security Council closed-door meeting on Wednesday aimed at saving the Stockholm Agreement. Griffiths briefed the Council on the continuous efforts to implement phase one of the deal. He said Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi and the legitimate government were cooperating to implement the agreement. But he said that the Houthis were still “hesitant” after refusing to pull away from the ports of Saleef and Ras Issa as agreed as part of the first stage. Lollesgaard, who also briefed the Council, said he will continue to press for action on the ground. France's UN Ambassador Francois Delattre, the current council president, told reporters after the closed-door meeting that there was "no posturing but constructive dialogue" and united support for Griffiths. Ahead of the Council meeting, Griffiths met with ambassadors of permanent council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. On Tuesday, the ambassadors of the P5 in Yemen said they were "extremely concerned" that agreements reached in Stockholm had not been implemented and expressed support for UN efforts to "secure the earliest possible implementation of the arrangements" for redeploying forces from the ports and city of Hodeidah. The ambassadors said in a joint statement that the pullback should begin "without further delay and without seeking to exploit the redeployments by the other side."

Disagreements Shake Party of Tunisian President’s Son
Tunis - Mongi Saidani/Asharq Al-Awsat/March, 14/19/Recent meetings held by top officials of Nidaa Tounes, led by the President’s son, Hafedh Caid Essebsi, revealed sharp differences between its political committee and the executive office comprised of political leaders seeking to unify the party’s ranks.
Nidaa’s first electoral conference has been set for April 6. However, party officials have expressed fears that the event will witness an uncontested election of the president’s son, who heads the political committee. They have rejected what they called a “political inheritance” inside the party. The political committee held a meeting on Tuesday to set the stage for the party’s first congress, and to announce its roadmap in putting all partisan differences aside. The head of the committee preparing for the conference, MP Ridha Charafeddine, defended the event, describing it as a “national mission” despite all the difficulties.
Speaking on the disagreements, top Nidaa official Mohammed Ramzi Khamis indicated that the party has only set a date for the electoral conference, expecting coordination and stronger efforts to ensure its success. Khamis stated that the body assigned to prepare for the conference had been determined by the political committee, which is the legal and legitimate leadership of the party, hinting at Hafedh Essebsi.He further denied that any committee member has claimed to be in contact with a grouping, which seeks to unify party ranks and that rejects unilateral decision-making by the president’s son.
The grouping, which includes the membership of Nidaa’s executive office, had called for the formation of a new commission to lead the party until the electoral conference is held in April. The group’s members condemned the last meeting held between Hafedh Caid Essebsi and head of Ennahda Movement Rached Ghannouchi, putting it in line with his unilateral decision-making. They also agreed to cancel all decisions to dismiss previous party leaders including Ridha Belhaj, one of Nidaa’s founders, and current Prime Minister Youssef Chahed.

Egypt Supports S. Sudan’s Stability, Looks Forward to Broader Presence in Tanzania
Cairo - Mohammed Abdo Hasanein/Asharq Al-Awsat/March, 14/19/President Abdul Fattah el-Sisi asserted Egypt's keenness on supporting efforts to restore peace and stability in South Sudan as soon as possible, saying Cairo will work in this respect through supporting the South Sudan peace agreement bilaterally or through its chairmanship of the African Union. Sisi was speaking during his meeting with a delegation of the National Pre-Transitional Committee (NPTC) chaired by security adviser of South Sudan’s President Tut Kew Gatluak, according to Egyptian presidential spokesman Bassam Radi.
The Committee is tasked with the oversight and coordination of the implementation of the activities of the pre-transitional period in South Sudan. Egypt will also coordinate with the concerned regional and international parties to discuss the efforts to support the implementation of the peace agreement and highlight efforts of South Sudan factions in terms of implementing the agreement within the set timetable, Radi quoted the president as saying. The chair of the delegation conveyed a message to Sisi appreciating Egypt’s role in supporting the peace and stability in the country, wishing that Cairo continues to play its active role regionally and internationally to help the people of South Sudan reach their objectives. Similarly, Sisi held talks with Tanzania’s Minister for Defense and National Service Hussein Mwinyi, Radi said, adding that the Egyptian President asserted Cairo’s willingness to enhance the relations between the two countries in various fields. The President visited Tanzania in August 2017, during which companies from the two states signed a contract to build the Stiegler’s Gorge dam in the Selous Game Reserve. In addition, Sisi asserted Egypt’s support for development efforts in Tanzania and welcomed the military cooperation between the two countries in light of the recent meeting of the military cooperation committee in Cairo, chaired by defense ministers from both sides.

Venezuela Calls Public Sector Back to Work as Blackout Recedes
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/Venezuela's public employees were called to return to work Thursday after the government ended a nearly week-long hiatus caused by an unprecedented nationwide blackout that deepened widespread anger against President Nicolas Maduro.
Communications Minister Jorge Rodriguez said in an address on state television Wednesday that Maduro decided the public sector would resume work on Thursday, although state schools would remain closed for an extra day.
The span of decreed public holidays started last Friday, a day after power went out in 22 of Venezuela's 23 states, disrupting transport, causing stockpiled food to rot in fridges and forcing some Caracas residents to source water from sewage outflows as taps ran dry. By Wednesday, electricity was back in Caracas and other regions. But swaths of western Venezuela remained without power, including the city of Maracaibo where more than 500 shops reported having been looted, according to a retailers' association. The blackout -- the worst in the history of the once-rich oil-producing nation -- deepened an already grave economic crisis. According to Ecoanalitica, an economic analysis firm, the vast power cut cost Venezuela $875 million. "There is major paralysis in many critical areas in the oil sector," it said, estimating that up to 70 percent of the one million barrels of oil a day Venezuela still managed to produce could end up being affected. "No water, no power, no medicine, no cash, no transport. This has been dreadful," one Caracas resident, Victoria Milano, 40, told AFP. The worsening situation has bolstered Juan Guaido, an opposition leader whose claim to be Venezuela's interim president is backed by the US and 50 other countries. "This desperation and darkness is caused by the dictatorship," he told supporters on Tuesday, alleging that 20 people had died in hospitals because of a lack of power. He added that he expected to take over the presidential palace "very soon."Venezuela's pro-Maduro prosecutor's office has hit back with a criminal investigation against Guaido for "sabotage," alleging he had a hand in the blackout. But the opposition leader remains free after the US warned of "consequences" if he were arrested.
Maduro sees 'victory'
Maduro has accused Washington of waging "cybernetic" and "electromagnetic" attacks against Venezuela's Guri hydroelectric plant, which provides power to 80 percent of the country's 30 million inhabitants. As he declared "victory" on television late Tuesday, asserting that power had been restored "in almost all" the nation, Caracas residents in formerly middle-class neighborhoods banged pots in the street in protest. Experts said an attack by a foreign state actor on Venezuela's grid was possible, but unlikely. "Knowing Venezuela, it was likely an internal failure," Jeff Middleton, the chief technology officer at The Vault Foundation, a company that secures crypto currency transactions, told AFP. Venezuela's infrastructure has degraded over years because of lack of investment, a significant brain drain, and the government's practice of putting the military in charge of key civilian facilities and companies. That has impacted not only the electricity grid but also the country's vital oil industry. The situation has worsened with successive rounds of US sanctions against Maduro's government, including steps that have severely curbed its oil exports.
China, Spain offer help
While much of Latin America and Europe have thrown their weight behind Guaido with a view to forcing presidential elections in Venezuela, Maduro has the support of Russia and China, major creditors and buyers of Venezuelan oil. China on Wednesday said it stood ready to help Venezuela get its electricity up and running again. "China hopes that Venezuela can quickly find the cause of this accident and restore normal power and social order," foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang said at a regular briefing in Beijing. "China is willing to offer assistance and technical support to Venezuela to restore the power system," Lu said. The spokesman said China was "very concerned" about reports of a cyber attack, but declined to directly blame the United States. Spain, one of the EU countries strongly backing Guaido, also offered help to fix Venezuela's "badly deteriorated" electricity system.

Boeing Black Boxes Flown to France as Jets Grounded Worldwide
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/The black box flight recorders from the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft that crashed in Ethiopia were flown to France Thursday for analysis as the ban on the model went worldwide after President Donald Trump added the U.S. to countries that have grounded the aircraft. France's BEA air safety agency confirmed it has received the recorders from the plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa on Sunday, killing all 157 people aboard. BEA investigators will try to remove information from the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, which were damaged in the disaster.
The information that black boxes contain about what the pilots and plane were doing help explain 90 percent of all crashes, according to aviation experts. On Wednesday, U.S. authorities said new evidence showed similarities between the Ethiopia crash and that of a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October that claimed the lives of 189 people. The Federal Aviation Administration said findings from the crash site near Addis Ababa and "newly refined satellite data" warranted "further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents."
Safety of 'paramount concern'
An FAA emergency order grounded 737 MAX 8 and MAX 9 aircraft until further notice, effectively taking the aircraft out of the skies globally after a growing number of airlines and countries had decided not to fly the planes until it was ascertained there are no safety issues. Trump told reporters the "safety of the American people and all peoples is our paramount concern."The US action came after many airlines around the globe voluntarily took the model out of service and many countries banned it from their airspace. FAA acting chief Daniel Elwell said the agency has been "working tirelessly" to find the cause of the accident but faced delays because the black box flight data recorders had been damaged. The new information shows "the track of that airplane was close enough to the track of the Lion Air flight... to warrant the grounding of the airplanes so we could get more information from the black boxes and determine if there's a link between the two, and if there is, find a fix to that link," Elwell said on CNBC. Boeing's shares have sunk 10 percent since Sunday's crash, wiping out more than $20 billion off the company's market value. Boeing chief Dennis Muilenburg said he supported the U.S. decision "out of an abundance of caution" but continued to have "full confidence" in the safety of the plane. The company continues its efforts "to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again," he said in a statement. The MAX series is Boeing's fastest-selling model, but it is still relatively new with fewer than 500 of the aircraft in service. There are 74 of the planes registered in the United States, and 387 in use worldwide with 59 carriers, according to the FAA.
Pilots concerns
The accounts of the recent crashes were echoed in concerns registered by U.S. pilots on how the MAX 8 behaves. At least four American pilots made reports following the Lion Air crash, all complaining the aircraft suddenly pitched downwards shortly after takeoff, according to documents reviewed by AFP on the Aviation Safety Reporting System, a voluntary incident database maintained by NASA. In two anonymous reports on flights just after the Lion Air disaster, pilots disconnected the autopilot and corrected the plane's trajectory. One said the flight crew reviewed the incident "at length... but can't think of any reason the aircraft would pitch nose-down so aggressively." It was unclear if U.S. transport authorities review the database or investigate the incidents. However, the FAA said this week it had mandated that Boeing update its flight software and training on the aircraft.
Questions about the Lion Air crash have honed in on an automated stall prevention system, the MCAS, designed to automatically point the nose of the plane downward if it is in danger of stalling. According to the flight data recorder, the pilots of Lion Air Flight 610 struggled to control the aircraft as the MCAS repeatedly pushed the plane's nose down following takeoff. The Ethiopian Airlines pilots reported similar difficulties before their aircraft plunged to the ground as they tried to return to the airport. Boeing was criticised after the Lion Air crash for allegedly failing to adequately inform 737 pilots about the functioning of the stall prevention system. Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam said on Sunday said the captain on the flight, Yared Mulugeta Getachew, 29, was an experienced aviator with more than 8,000 flight hours. Andrew Hunter, a defense industry expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that while Boeing and the FAA had good track records on addressing safety concerns, sometimes the combination of automated systems and humans did not work smoothly. "It is hard to get a system to work seamlessly with human beings," he told AFP. "The fact the system was fighting the pilot was not an unintended consequence," because it should counteract a pilot error and correcting this is "challenging."In Ethiopia, distraught families wept and lit candles on Wednesday as they visited the deep black crater where the plane smashed into a field, disintegrating on impact.
The Ethiopian Airlines plane was less than four months old when it went down six minutes into its flight to Nairobi. Families of the victims from Kenya, China, the United States and Canada, as well as diplomatic staff from embassies, visited the crash site.

EU Hopes for 'Significant Pledges' at Syria Donor Meet
Associated Press/Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/The European Union's top diplomat says the EU expects "significant pledges" for Syria at a donor conference, as the bloc seeks to keep the 8-year conflict in the international spotlight. Speaking ahead of Thursday's donor conference in Brussels, foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said that Syrians must "not to be forgotten in a moment where the international community seems to care a little bit less about this." Around 55 countries and 80 delegations are expected to attend. The U.N. says $3.3 billion is needed to help meet Syria's aid needs, plus a further $5.5 billion to support countries like Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, where many Syrians have sought refuge. About 11.7 million Syrians still depend on aid and some 6 million people have fled the country.

'VETO!' Says Trump after Senate Votes to End Border Emergency
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/Maqrch 14/19/U.S. President Donald Trump made clear Thursday he would use his veto powers, as promised, to override a congressional vote to terminate his border emergency, following an embarrassing defeat in the U.S. Senate. "VETO!" came the president's one-word response, tweeted after a dozen fellow Republicans joined all Democrats in voting down the emergency declared by Trump as a way to secure alternative funding for his U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on March 14-15/2019
Analysis/Netanyahu Outfoxed Russia, Iran and ISIS With His Cynical, Ruthless Syria Policy
أنشيل فايفر/هآرتس/نتنياهو بسياسته القاسية والمتشائمة تفوق على روسيا وإيران وداعش في سوريا
Anshel Pfeffer/Haaretz/March 14/19
If Netanyahu has one valid claim to remaining in office, it’s his Syria policy and the fact he was one of the first world leaders to recognize the threat of ISIS.
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72977/anshel-pfeffer-haaretz-netanyahu-outfoxed-russia-iran-and-isis-with-his-cynical-ruthless-syria-policy%D8%A3%D9%86%D8%B4%D9%8A%D9%84-%D9%81%D8%A7%D9%8A%D9%81%D8%B1-%D9%87%D8%A2%D8%B1%D8%AA%D8%B3/
“Assad will be gone in weeks, perhaps even days,” predicted the ebullient veteran Israeli intelligence officer. It was October 2011 and the Syrian civil war that had begun seven months earlier with widespread protests calling for democracy had swiftly escalated to an armed insurgency, with large parts of the regime’s army defecting and forming the Free Syrian Army.
The unrest across the Middle East was still being called optimistically “the Arab Spring,” the long-serving presidents of Tunisia and Egypt had been toppled and in Libya, dictator Muammar Gaddafi had been murdered in the street by rebels. The departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad from the scene was both a realistic and highly satisfactory outcome.
One senior figure in the Israeli leadership felt otherwise. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no sympathy for Assad Junior, but he was both skeptical of any assessment predicting his imminent downfall and worried about what would happen in Assad’s absence, if he should indeed be forced out. Netanyahu had never been enthusiastic about the Arab Spring, arguing during its early stages that after the spring would come an “Islamist winter.”
Netanyahu had unsuccessfully urged U.S. President Barack Obama and other Western leaders to stick with Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak. He argued in his conversations with other leaders that the vacuum left by the Arab strongmen would be filled both by Iran and its proxies, and by Jihadists of Al-Qaida’s ilk. Some Western leaders supported shipping advanced weapons to the Free Syrian Army and other rebel groups in Syria, Netanyahu counseled caution.
While Obama was still referring to the Islamic State as “a JV (junior varsity) team,” Netanyahu was using every opportunity to urge his counterparts not to send shoulder-launched anti-aircraft missiles to the rebels in Syria, worried those could fall into the hands of Jihadist groups that would use those missiles not only against Assad’s air force, but also against Israeli and Western aircraft. When he visited London in April 2013 for Margaret Thatcher’s funeral, it was one of the main items on the agenda during his short meeting with Prime Minister David Cameron.
Anti-Israel and pro-Iranian conspiracy theorists have tried to establish the narrative that Israel somehow had a hand in the foundation of ISIS. The truth is that while Netanyahu always saw Iran as a much bigger threat than ISIS, he was one of the first leaders to identify the significance of the rise of Islamic State in the power vacuum that had been created in Syria and Iraq.
Combating ISIS
Netanyahu modified his policy somewhat in 2014, when the villages on the Syrian Golan Heights were facing both Iranian-supported fighters and ISIS-aligned groups. Israel not only began offering medical and other humanitarian support to the villagers, but the local rebel groups received also light weapons to defend their villages. The rules were no weapons for Jihadists and no arms that could potentially threaten Israel should they fall into enemy hands.
For eight years of war in Syria, Netanyahu has pursued a ruthless and cynical policy regarding Israel’s northern neighbor. It has also been prescient and effective. While there were those among his military and intelligence advisors who were in favor of Israel taking sides against the Assad regime, Netanyahu insisted on remaining on the sidelines. That doesn’t mean he shied away from acting in Syria, quite the opposite, but Netanyahu’s red-lines prescribed exactly when Israel would act: Specifically against convoys, depots and research centers that were directly connected to supplying and developing Hezbollah with advanced weapons, as well as against Hezbollah and Iranian efforts to establish a presence near Israel’s frontier on the Golan.
Netanyahu was prepared to go much further in these attacks than some of his generals thought prudent. When in January 2015, Israel attacked a group of senior Hezbollah and Iranian officers near the border – killing among others its commanders in Syria, Jihad Mughniyeh and Mohamad Issa, as well as a general of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – one IDF general observed that “we were on the brink of war.” But Netanyahu judged correctly that Iran was too invested in propping up the Assad regime to jeopardize that by escalating hostilities with Israel.
Netanyahu was also quick to detect that under Obama, and then Trump, the U.S. had relinquished any meaningful role in the Syrian arena, save for airstrikes on ISIS. He was prepared for the arrival of Russian forces in September 2015, and was in Moscow within days, establishing ground-rules with Vladimir Putin.
Once again, Netanyahu's generals were concerned that Russia’s presence would make it much more difficult for Israel to operate in Syria, but Netanyahu understood that Putin had no interest in helping Iran, just in ensuring his client Assad survived and regained control of his country.
That meant Israel would continue attacking Iran’s proxies in Syria, even in Damascus, which was under Russia’s air defense umbrella, but it was clear that it was only striking assets which could potentially threaten Israel, not the Shia militias which were fighting for Assad and providing Russia with “boots on the ground."
In 2017, when Iran, in addition to its support of Assad, also tried establishing long-term bases in Syria, Netanyahu green-lighted the IDF’s plan to strike not only at the proxies, but the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force bases, and in some cases its personnel as well. Once again, there were those who warned this would bring Israel into contention with Russia.
IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot had some heated exchanges with his Russian counterparts, but that was all: Putin wouldn’t give his generals an order to block Israel’s operations. “Putin knows that Israel is the only regional force which can ruin his plans to keep Assad in power,” said one well-placed Russian source at the time. “He won’t take the risk of jeopardizing what he’s achieved in Syria just to shield Iran."
Russian arrangement
Netanyahu reached a clear understanding with the Russian president. As long as it still had a free hand to operate against Iran and Hezbollah in Syria, Israel would not do anything to harm Assad’s survival, and would only fire on the regime’s forces if fired upon, as when Syrian anti-aircraft missiles were launched against Israeli fighter-jets. This freedom to act was imperative when it became clear that Russia did not have the power or the inclination to stop Iran from operating near Israel’s border. Israel upped its attacks on Iranian targets, carrying out hundreds of strikes in 2017-18. Iran tried to retaliate a number of times, but its armed drones and rockets were intercepted without causing any damage or casualties.
Iran is of course still very active in Syria, but it has failed to build the permanent bases it planned there. And Russia, despite the crisis over the shooting down of its spy plane by Syrian anti-aircraft missiles, with the loss of fifteen men, in the aftermath of an Israeli strike, is still standing back, allowing Israel to conduct its business in Syria.
There has been criticism of Netanyahu’s Syria policy within the higher echelons of Israel’s military establishment. Some have called upon him to authorize strikes against regime aircraft that were involved in bombing Syrian civilians with barrel-bombs and chlorine gas. Former commander of military intelligence Amos Yadlin, openly called for an Israeli strike on all the regime’s helicopters as “a moral stance against killers who use weapons of mass murder against civilians.” He argued that “in this instance, Israel’s values and its strategic interests both point in that direction.” But Netanyahu insisted that Israel’s interest was to stick to its deal with the Russians and not to intervene in any way against the regime. Yadlin had the moral upper-ground, but Netanyahu’s decision was probably the correct one for Israel’s interests.
In mid-2018, when the Assad regime began reasserting its control over the Syrian Golan, under Russian auspices, Israel ended its humanitarian operation with the local villages. Appeals from local rebels saying that they would now suffer the regime’s retribution and the gathering of thousands of civilians near the border hoping that Israel would establish a safe-zone didn't change Netanyahu's mind. Netanyahu stuck by his ground rules of not intervening between Assad and the rebels.
Netanyahu doesn’t have many fans among the IDF General Staff, but on his Syrian record, they are near-unanimous in praise. The only criticism you can hear today is that in recent months he has been too quick to acknowledge Israel’s strikes, which in the past had been left unattributed. But that claim is hard to stick to Netanyahu, when Eisenkot himself spoke about the strikes openly in his the interviews he gave in January at the end of his term.
On a final note, complimenting Benjamin Netanyahu on any of his policies on the eve of an election, when he is mired in corruption indictments, legitimizing racism and undermining the country’s democratic institutions, is hardly an easy thing to do. But if he has one valid claim to remaining in office, it’s his Syria policy.

History Could Doom US-China Trade Deal
Michael Schuman//Bloomberg/March, 14/19
Trade talks between the US and China seem to be hurtling toward a predictable conclusion -- the signing of a shallow deal that doesn’t solve the real issues dividing the world’s two largest economies. The coup de grace will likely come later this month in another high-profile summit between presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping.
It’s time to admit the “comprehensive” pact Trump promised never really had a chance to come to fruition, precisely because of the way he chose to pursue it. What’s worse, in his eagerness to tout any deal as a bigger and more transformative triumph than it’s likely to be, he may well ensure it fails.
From the beginning, Trump’s tariff strategy not only displayed a fundamental misunderstanding of the Chinese economy and its problems, it was designed to entrench resistance in China. It’s all too easy for outsiders to assume the People’s Republic has no politics, especially after watching China’s rubberstamp National People’s Congress go through its annual motions in Beijing this week. Nevertheless, the Chinese Communist Party has its internal factional struggles and ideological agenda, as well as an image to uphold with the public, just like any other political party.
The fact that Xi now thoroughly dominates the government also puts pressure on him to score successes and maintain a strong economic performance, since there’s no longer anyone else to blame. That suggests he might be eager to end the trade war, especially as the Chinese economy slows down. While he does seem willing to give Trump enough to get a deal done, however, surrendering too much would be more dangerous for Xi politically than doing no deal at all.
The reason is rooted in history, or at least the CCP version of it. A core element of the messaging the party uses to justify its rule is that it will right the perceived wrongs of the past. Beginning in the mid-1800s, Great Britain, France, the US and others used force or the threat of force against a temporarily weakened China to extract pieces of territory, economic concessions and other demeaning violations of Chinese sovereignty through a series of “unequal” treaties. That’s how the British got Hong Kong and the Japanese Taiwan.
Much of the purpose was to pry open a Chinese market that had been tightly restricted by the ruling Qing Dynasty. The CCP now argues that -- thanks to its skillful rule since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 -- China is strong again and will avenge these past humiliations, reassuming its proper place at the center of the world economy.
The state propaganda machine keeps the humiliation of China’s surrender to “gunboat diplomacy” fresh in the public mind. In response to US Vice President Mike Pence’s speech late last year on China policy, for instance, a commentary in the party-owned Global Times was quick to remind readers that “the US had been one of the perpetrators of the indignities and exploitation that China suffered during the ‘Century of Humiliation.’”
This narrative severely constrains Xi’s flexibility. Whether the issue is China’s claims in the South China Sea, its disputed border with India, or the legal case against Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd.’s chief financial officer, the government simply cannot be seen at home as kowtowing to bullying by foreigners.
Trump’s strategy -- aiming tariffs, if not cannon, at the Middle Kingdom -- willfully ignored this history and its role in current Chinese politics. And several of Washington’s demands and threats verge on gunboat-style arrogance -- for instance, the US proposal that it be allowed to reimpose tariffs if it decides China is reneging on its commitments, while Beijing would be forbidden to retaliate. The chances of Xi accepting such “unequal” conditions are virtually nil.
The problem is that Trump’s tariffs have hurt the US economy enough, and have been such a source of uncertainty for investors, that he can’t simply hold out for a better deal. Already in 2020 campaign mode and worried about declines in the stock market, Trump is reportedly pushing to wrap up negotiations quickly in hopes of sparking a rally.
Those same pressures -- and criticism from Democrats of any weak deal -- will undoubtedly encourage Trump to trumpet his accomplishment as loudly as possible. That’s precisely the wrong approach to take with China. Xi will need to sell the agreement at home by emphasizing how little he’s given up, or at least as the sort of “win-win” solution he so often touts. Having Trump contradict him publicly and persistently will only feed the narrative that China’s been humiliated again. That will encourage China to assert its newly earned clout in future, on trade as well as other issues, in ways that are sure to inflame tensions.
The result of all this is likely to be a deal that will perpetuate conflict between the US and China rather than resolve it. Sadly, the same political forces that are pressing the two sides towards a pact of dubious value will also fuel continued confrontation.

Asset Managers Lead Britain’s Brexit Exodus
Mark Gilbert/Bloomberg/March, 14/19
The prospect of leaving the European Union has forced Britain’s financial community to make expensive preparations for life outside of the trading bloc. Whatever happens on March 29 — a no-deal Brexit, a delay to the departure or some kind of agreement — the UK faces a slow but steady erosion to its position as the European center of looking after other people’s money.
London-based think tank New Financial said in a report published this week that it identified 269 UK-based financial firms that have reacted to Brexit by setting up new hubs, moving staff or rebasing assets elsewhere in the EU. The moves are real, not theoretical; the firms can’t afford to wait and see whether Brexit actually happens. “The days of ‘contingency planning’ are long gone,” as New Financial puts it.
Asset managers have been the most proactive in establishing non-UK offices from which to do business, the report says. Moreover, the greatest number have chosen Dublin for their base in the bloc. Banks that have secured new EU licenses have overwhelmingly opted to locate their hubs in Frankfurt.
New Financial says that it identified 65 billion pounds ($85.2 billion) of portfolio funds that have been transferred out of the UK so far. But that’s based on publicly available information, which the think tank reckons underestimates the potential flows from the asset management community, as well as from banks. “We think the final numbers will be much larger,” the study says.
The European Securities Market Association and the Financial Conduct Authority have acted sensibly in minimizing the potential disturbance Brexit will cause and ensuring the continuation of so-called delegation rights that allow funds to be marketed and sold in one country and managed from another. Last month, EU and UK regulators agreed to two cooperation agreements to coordinate oversight of investment funds, in case Britain leaves the bloc without a deal.
But what the asset management industry has secured so far are “temporary fixes, not permanent solutions,” according to Sean Tuffy, the head of market and regulatory intelligence for Citigroup Inc. in Dublin. Most of the agreements have a two-year shelf life; the EU is likely to revisit how to create a third-country regime at its next review of regulations governing the sale and management of mutual funds across borders, which would threaten those delegation rights.
It’s not so much the jobs that move directly because of Brexit that will do the long-term damage to London’s role as Europe’s leading financial center. More important are the future roles that aren’t created in the UK that will slowly erode the capital’s status as other cities develop the pools of talent and the regulatory and legal architecture that the industry depends on.
And make no mistake: Dublin, Frankfurt, Paris and Luxembourg are keen to seize this one-time opportunity to win lucrative market share wherever they can. For example, London’s rivals are targeting the primacy of English law in financial contracts as a way of taking business away from the UK, as my colleague Lionel Laurent detailed earlier this week.
Moreover, as the head of one of Britain’s largest asset managers told me last week, Brexit has forced the nation’s financial firms to spend money building new capabilities to create and distribute products from countries elsewhere in the EU. That’s a sunk cost, an expense that firms wouldn’t have undertaken if Brexit hadn’t forced them to shell out on new offices and alternative legal and regulatory arrangements.
So when decisions arise in the future about which location should create and market an investment product, that new infrastructure will compete directly with the existing setup at the UK head office for the new business and the associated headcount — and will win at least some of the time initially, and likely with increasing frequency over time. However Brexit plays out, the UK fund management industry will be a long-term loser from the fallout.

Israel vs. its Enemies in Europe
Ruthie Blum/Gatestone Institute/March 14/19
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13847/israel-cancer-breakthroughs
Ireland's Senate recently voted to support organizations, many headed by terrorists, in imposing a boycott on Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. This, while hardly ever uttering a critical word about countries such as China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Turkey, Mauritania, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Sudan or South Sudan.
The singling-out of Israel probably tells more about Ireland's longstanding history of anti-Semitism than about the country it has been targeting.
It is time for the world to cease and desist in its efforts to demonize Israel, and to admit to its use of and reliance on the innovation and technology for healing that Israel -- turning no one away -- always graciously provides. It would be a welcome change if its adversaries were half as ethical.
Even while leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas glorify terrorism against innocent Israelis and call for sanctions against Israel, they frequently turn to Israel for medical care, often for cancer treatments. For example, PA President Mahmoud Abbas' brother and brother-in-law received life-saving treatments at Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv. Abbas' wife underwent surgery at that same hospital. Pictured: Assuta Medical Center. (Image source: Olegmay/Wikimedia Commons)
Ireland's Senate recently voted to support organizations, many headed by terrorists , in imposing a boycott on Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. This, while hardly ever uttering a critical word about countries such as China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, Turkey, Mauritania, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Sudan or South Sudan. The singling-out of Israel probably tells more about Ireland's longstanding history of anti-Semitism than about the country it has been targeting, particularly since it ignores that state's major contributions to world, including in the field of medicine. Take, for example, cancer research.
The national executive director of the Israel Cancer Research Fund, Mark A. Israel, recently explained why a tiny country such as Israel -- in which the "rate of cancer deaths for Jews... is among the lowest in the world" -- has made so many important strides in the fight against the deadly global disease for which there is not yet a cure.
"Israel's scientists are bringing to the cancer fight the same breathtaking innovation, urgency, breakthrough thinking, tireless determination, and adroit use of resources that have been the hallmark of Israeli science and technology for the last 70 years," wrote Israel, professor emeritus from the Dartmouth Medical School.
"[This has] led to such transformative discoveries as the cellular pathways and molecules which are targeted for the treatment of multiple myeloma, chronic myelogenous leukemia and other life-threatening tumors. More recently, Israeli scientists have made major contributions to the development of novel approaches to immunotherapy for the treatment of leukemia and other cancers."
Two major breakthroughs since the beginning of 2019 alone illustrate his point. Researchers from Israel's Bar-Ilan University and Harvard Medical School discovered a mechanism that allows the immune system to attack cancer cells, particularly in the lungs and on the skin; and the Israeli company IceCure successfully implemented cryoablation therapy -- a procedure that freezes cancerous tumors -- eliminating the need for surgery.
Last year, too, was significant in this field. The tech and innovation website NoCamels reported on the following seven breakthroughs in Israeli cancer research and detection in 2018:
Israeli scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology successfully treated a cancerous tumor using a synthetic cell that produces anti-cancer proteins within the tissue.
Israeli scientists, also at the Technion, developed technology that enables drug delivery to target diseased tissue, using light and gold particles, making cancer treatments more effective.
Tel Aviv University researchers used nanomedicine to inhibit the progression of pancreatic cancer in mouse models.
The Israeli startup Nucleai raised $5 million in seed funding to continue developing an artificial intelligence-based system that assists pathologists in the diagnosis of cancer and other diseases in a speedier and more efficient manner.
The Israeli company Micromedic Technologies developed technology for a non-invasive diagnostic test for prostate cancer.
The Israeli company Todos Medical Ltd. conducted its first blind clinical trial for a blood test for breast-cancer screening at the Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot.
The Israeli-founded social network for cancer patients and caregivers, Belong, announced partnered with Colorectal Cancer Canada (CCC), to "improve the quality of life for colorectal cancer patients and their families by increasing access to high-quality content, digital services and community support."
Belong developed a free, AI-powered app that provides people with cancer and their families an effective, up-to-date channel and "a unique and innovative personalized solution to help manage and fight cancer more effectively."
In 2017, according to the innovation website Israel21C, an Israeli researcher, Prof. Uri Nir of Bar-Ilan University, devised a synthetic compound to disable the enzymes that allow cancer cells to metastasize.
In 2016, according to the Times of Israel:
"A breakthrough cancer study [at the University of Pennsylvania], in which patients suffering from a form of leukemia saw their diseases go into remission after they were treated with genetically modified T-cells has deep roots in Israel.
"One of the first in the world to work on the innovative adaptive immunotherapy technique to treat cancer... was Weizmann University Professor Zelig Eshhar..."
It is perhaps no surprise, then, that breakthroughs in cancer detection and treatment, such as those above -- a mere fraction of Israeli innovation in the field of medicine as a whole -- are not mentioned by the leaders and followers of movements aimed at eliminating Israel. To highlight Israel's contribution to the global efforts to eradicate cancer -- which killed 9.6 million people in 2018, a year in which 17 million new cases were diagnosed -- such movements would have two choices: forego life-saving technology and treatments, or be deemed hypocritical for ignoring their own boycotts.
Some of Israel's adversaries claim that their efforts to demonize Israel are part of a legitimate campaign on behalf of the Palestinian people. Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and the leaders of Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip, warmly welcome these campaigns, whose actual objective, according to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center,
"is to label Israel as an 'apartheid' country and promote an international boycott of its institutions, leaders, economy and culture, and of Israel's supporters. Its final goal is to cause Israel to collapse, as the apartheid regime in South Africa collapsed. The campaign's organizers oppose any recognition of the State of Israel or negotiations with it, reject the two-state solution, emphasize the so-called 'right of return' of the millions of Palestinian refugees to the territory of the State of Israel and seek to realize the vision of one state ruled by Palestinians."
What Abbas's Fatah faction and Hamas -- both of which glorify terrorism against innocent Israelis and call for international sanctions against the state of Israel -- keep neatly under wraps, however, is the frequency with which they themselves have turned to Israel for medical care, often for cancer treatments.
In 2016, for instance, Abbas' Qatar-based brother, Abu Lawi, was treated for cancer at the Assuta Medical Center in Tel Aviv, and not for the first time.
In 2015, Abbas' brother-in-law received life-saving heart surgery at that same hospital. Abbas' wife, Amina, underwent surgery there in 2014.
In 2014, as well, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's mother-in-law was treated for cancer at Jerusalem's Augusta Victoria Hospital. That same year, Haniyeh's daughter was treated at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv. She was among the more than 1,000 residents of Gaza and the Palestinian Authority treated at Ichilov every year.
Also in 2014, Hamas spokesman Moussa Abu Marzouk's sister was treated for cancer at an Israeli hospital.
In 2013, Haniyeh's baby granddaughter was treated at the Schneider Children's Medical Center in Petah Tikvah.
Most recently, in May 2018, Abbas himself was treated by an Israeli specialist, who joined a foreign team of doctors caring for him in the intensive care unit at a hospital in Ramallah, in the Palestinian Authority.
Israel proudly joined its counterparts around the globe on February 4 to mark World Cancer Day, initiated by the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC). It is time for the world to cease and desist in its efforts to demonize Israel, and to admit to its use of and reliance on the innovation and technology for healing that Israel -- turning no one away -- always graciously provides. It would be a welcome change if its adversaries were half as ethical.
*Ruthie Blum is the author of "To Hell in a Handbasket: Carter, Obama, and the 'Arab Spring.'"
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Palestinians: Abbas Stands 'Trial' for Treason
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/March 14/19
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13880/mahmoud-abbas-trial-treason
To some, the mock trial in the Gaza Strip of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may seem trivial or like some sort of bizarre comedy act. The "trial," however, is something else entirely: it is designed to send a signal not only to Abbas, but to any Palestinian who even thinks of making peace with Israel or recognizing its right to exist.
The "trial" is aimed at showing what awaits any Palestinian who dares to work with Israel by conducting security coordination or normalizing ties with it. Verdict: Any Palestinian who accepts a peace plan with Israel will also be found guilty -- and signing his own death warrant.
The mock trial in the Gaza Strip of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas may seem like some sort of bizarre comedy act. The "trial," however, is designed to send a signal not only to Abbas, but to any Palestinian who even thinks of making peace with Israel or recognizing its right to exist. Pictured: Mahmoud Abbas at the UN General Assembly, September 20, 2017. (Photo by Kevin Hagen/Getty Images)
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas has made no secret of its desire to see Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas stand trial for betraying the Palestinians for his alleged "collaboration" with Israel and sanctions against the Gaza Strip.
Last year, a senior Hamas official, Ahmed Bahr, called for bringing Abbas to trial for "great treason" -- a crime punishable by death. Abbas is not only refusing to make peace with Hamas, he wants it to hand over its weapons to his government, Bahr said. "For that, he should be brought before a popular and constitutional court on charges of great treason."
Earlier, another Hamas official, Marwan Abu Ras, called for Abbas to be executed by hanging in accordance with Islamic sharia law. Abu Ras, accusing Abbas of "collaboration" with Israel, claimed that the Palestinian president was depriving the Gaza Strip of international financial aid. "Abbas is the biggest traitor the Palestinian cause has known," he said. "He should be put on trial in the center of the Gaza Strip and sentenced to death by hanging in line with sharia law."
Hamas's leaders are angry with Abbas: they say that he recognizes Israel's right to exist and is even prepared to accept US President Donald Trump's upcoming plan for peace in the Middle East, known as the "Deal of the Century."
They also say they want to hang Abbas because his security forces conduct security coordination with Israel in the West Bank and because of the economic sanctions he imposed on the Gaza Strip. The sanctions include cutting salaries to thousands of Palestinian employees there.
Above all, Hamas's leaders say the organization does not -- and will not -- recognize Israel's right to exist.
They seem to think, moreover, that chances of ever seeing Abbas stand trial for his alleged "crimes" is unrealistic to the point of being nearly impossible to achieve. Abbas is sitting in Ramallah, the de facto capital of the Palestinians, where he is protected not only by his security forces, but also by the Israel Defense Forces. Abbas undoubtedly knows that were it not for Israel's presence in the West Bank, Hamas would have overthrown his regime, dragged him to the center of Ramallah and hanged him for his alleged betrayal of the Palestinians.
Hamas's supporters know that Abbas is not going to show up in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip anytime soon, if ever. Abbas is also not about to hand himself over to Hamas and other Palestinians who clearly want to put him on trial for his treachery.
So impatient are Abbas's political foes, however, that they decided to hold their own trial for the "traitor" and "collaborator."
On March 10, a Hamas-affiliated group called the Popular Movement for National Salvation held a mock trial for the 83-year-old Abbas at the Rashad Shawa Cultural Center in Gaza City. Hundreds of Palestinians, including heads of clans, university students, and employees whose salaries have been cut by Abbas, attended the "trial." Many in the audience carried small signs calling on Abbas to "go away."
The court "prosecutor" read out 17 charges against Abbas. They included "usurping authority since 2009" (Abbas's four-year-term in office expired in January 2009), causing the death of dozens of Palestinians by depriving them of medical treatment, cutting welfare payments to orphans and widows, cutting the supply of electricity (to the Gaza Strip), and complicity with Israel in imposing a blockade on the Hamas-ruled coastal enclave to prevent Hamas from importing weapons.
Those who attended the "trial" also charged Abbas with "inciting" Israel to launch military strikes against the Gaza Strip, violating the Palestinian Basic Law, obstructing the work of the Palestinian parliament, committing war crimes against the Palestinian people and perpetrating hundreds of acts of torture against Palestinian detainees. In addition, the charge sheet against Abbas accused him of conducting security coordination and promoting normalization with Israel, as well as abusing his position for personal and family interests.
At the end of the "trial," the "court" announced its verdict: guilty. The court found Abbas guilty of deliberately committing all of the crimes attributed to him and announced that he should be punished with the most severe penalties in accordance with Palestinian Penal Code -- a reference to the death sentence.
To some, the mock trial in the Gaza Strip may seem trivial, or like some sort of bizarre comedy act. The "trial," however, is something else entirely: it is designed to send a signal not only to Abbas, but to any Palestinian who even thinks of making peace with Israel or recognizing its right to exist. The "trial" is aimed at showing what awaits any Palestinian who dares to work with Israel by conducting security coordination or normalizing ties with it. Verdict: Any Palestinian who accepts a peace plan with Israel will also be found guilty -- and signing his own death warrant.
*Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Denmark in a State of Unreported Collapse
Ole Hasselbalch/Gatestone Institute/March 14/19
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13876/denmark-collapse
The official statistical definition of "descendants" includes only the first generation after the person who migrated to Denmark. So the official figures do not show the real picture.
If the population statistics continue to follow that pattern, ethnic Danes -- whose birthrate is far lower than that of non-Western immigrants -- will become a minority sometime around the year 2065. According to a 2017 report by Statistics Denmark, only about half of non-Western immigrants between the ages of 16 and 64 are employed (53% of men and 45% of women).
In 2017, a third of all the people provided for by Denmark's basic social-welfare system were immigrants, which constitutes a rise of 82% in a mere seven years. These figures show that the public expenses connected to immigration will, in the long run, bring the welfare state to an end.
Contrary to misleading media reports, Denmark is not forcing suffering refugees to live on a remote island. Only foreign criminals "convicted of crimes and slated for deportation under the terms of their sentences" will be housed there. And they will even be given ferry rides to the mainland, under the excuse that this is necessary due to "international conventions".
The media portrayal of Denmark as a country hostile and inhumane to migrants is misleading, if not completely false.
One reason for the inaccurate picture is that it is painted by journalists' political bias. Another is that trustworthy official Danish statistics on the country's immigration problem are both difficult to find and even harder to interpret. A further problem is a lack of reliable research, at best; and purposely distorted data, at worst.
The following breakdown illustrates that rather than being more relatively free of the consequences of mass migration than other European countries in general, and Scandinavian countries in particular, Denmark is in a state of societal collapse. In spite of Copenhagen's many laws that govern migration and affect immigrants, the Danish people have been experiencing a major cultural and political shift in their life as they have traditionally known it.
Population Projections
In 1960, the population of Denmark was 4,580,708. Today, that number stands at 5,768,712. This growth appears to be largely due to immigration.
In 2016, Statistics Denmark projected that the country will have 507,000 "non-Western" immigrants by the year 2060, and 342,000 "non-Western descendants."
"Descendants", however, include only the first generation after the person who migrated. So the official figures do not show the real picture.
In 1989, a private organization, "The Danish Association", published an alternative projection as part of a special edition of the group's periodical Danskeren (September 1989, p. 3, not available on the internet.) The article, published anonymously -- revealing the degree of political correctness and self-censorship required in Denmark even then -- predicted that immigration would remain relatively static, regardless of foreseeable insufficient attempts to tighten legislation. This prediction has turned out to be almost correct up to now.
The article predicted about 1.1 million immigrants around 2020, in accordance with what can be seen in current statistics if you include the third generation of newcomers as well as the probable number of unregistered foreigners.
If the population statistics continue to follow this pattern, ethnic Danes -- whose birthrate is far lower than that of non-Western immigrants – will become a minority sometime around the year 2065. This is in fact quite likely to happen, as immigrants defined as "refugees" continue to enter the country; and others, such as arrivals of family members and "walk-ins," are rarely able to be returned to their countries of origin.
Employment and Social Welfare
According to a 2017 report by Statistics Denmark, only about half of non-Western immigrants between the ages of 16 and 64 are employed (53% of men and 45% of women). When broken down into countries of origin, however, major differences among migrants were revealed -- with the employment rate being particularly low among those hailing from Iraq, Lebanon, Somalia and Syria.
Analyzing Statistics Denmark data, the Danish Employers Confederation revealed that in 2016, 41.5% of non-Western immigrants were on welfare, while only 17.5% of ethnic Danes were supported by the same benefits. In 2017, a third of all the people provided for by Denmark's basic social-welfare system were immigrants, which constitutes a rise of 82% in a mere seven years.
These figures show that the public expenses connected to immigration will, in the long run, bring the welfare state to an end.
Education
According to the same 2017 Statistics Denmark report, 49% of male non-Western descendants, and 70% of female non-Western descendants, completed an education in an employable field, compared to 73% male ethnic Danes and 81% female ethnic Danes.
In addition, ethnic Danish children scored higher on final exams than immigrants' children and their first-generation descendants (grades of 6.7 for boys and 7.4 for girls, compared to 5.3 respectively 5.9 for non-western first-generation descendants). Those who scored lowest were first-generation descendants of Turkish and Lebanese immigrant parents.
A 2018 report by the Danish Ministry of Education found a similar difference even among third-generation descendants of migrants. The study was disputed, but the factual results stand. They indicate that many of the long-term descendants of non-Western immigrants will have difficulties satisfying the demands of a modern, highly industrialized Western society.
Unfortunately, reports in Denmark increasingly end up as this one did: If officials publish something that contradicts the fairy-tales of the do-gooders, journalists will take action and scare the transgressor -- so he will rephrase what he said without directly correcting it.
The Economy
According to a February 2018 Danish Finance Ministry report, the government's net annual expenditure on non-Western immigrants in 2015 was 36 billion Danish kroner -- approximately $5 billion USD. As there are approximately 5 million ethnic Danes, the taxpayer cost borne by each individual, in effect, came to $1,000 per year, or $4,000 for a family of four.
That figure, however, only refers to public budgets directly related to immigrants. It does not include the additional indirect public funds spent on law enforcement, schools, social security administration and other ancillary matters, due to the presence of non-Western immigrants.
It will not be possible in the long run to finance these rapidly growing expenditures.
Crime
According to the Statistics Denmark report, the crime rate among in 2017 was 35% higher among non-Western male immigrants and 145% higher among male descendants of non-Western immigrants than in the Danish male general population. It should be noted that the figures are misleading, since third-generation descendants of immigrants are counted as Danes also in this context. Male descendants of immigrants from Lebanon - many of whom were, according to the report, stateless Palestinians -- followed by male descendants of immigrants from Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan, Morocco and Syria -- rated the highest for crime.
Polls
Polls have been taken among immigrants. Examples: In 2006 young adult Muslims in Denmark proved to be more religious that their parents; half of them even thought that freedom of speech should give way for consideration of religious rules and traditions (reported in Jyllands-Posten 21/5 2006). Only 59% of the Muslims though that the constitution alone should be the basis for Danish legislation. More than a third of the Muslims in Denmark felt more connected to their country of origin than to Denmark (Jyllands-Posten 13/5 2006). Four out of 10 boys of Turkish and Lebanese background expect their mother to be at home to take care of family and children (Jyllands-Posten 12/11 2008). About half of the Muslims polled thought that Israel has no right to exist. Other polls show the same depressing picture.
Political Fallout
Do not be fooled by the much-publicized burqa ban that went into effect in Denmark in August 2018. For one thing, it has rarely been enforced -- only 13 fines in half a year. Moreover, those who wish to oppose the idea of equality between men and women are free to go to countries where such dress-codes are welcomed.
Do not trust other media stories running along the same lines, either. Suffering refugees are not forced to live on a remote island. Only foreign criminals "convicted of crimes and slated for deportation under the terms of their sentences" will be housed there. And they will even be given ferry rides to the mainland, under the excuse that this is necessary due to "international conventions".
Refugees are not "stripped" of their valuables at the border. Jewelry and assets exceeding a value of 10,000 Danish kroner ($1,500 USD) have to be handed in to the authorities to help pay for those seeking asylum. Just as Danes do not get social welfare money if they have valuables that enable them to provide for themselves. The actions by the border-control authorities on this are subject to control by the courts.
Other examples of media disinformation on Denmark abound.
The political climate in Denmark is such that even Prime Minister Poul Schlüter (served 1982-1993), a conservative, at a time when there was a discussion in 1989 of reversing the then recently-passed catastrophic immigration legislation, was prevented by the private but heavily subsidized organization Danish Refugee Council from meeting with a representative of the most prominent anti-immigration organization. [1]
Most of all, due largely to the left-wing media, most Danes fail to understand how serious the problem is that the country is facing from the influx of non-Westerners, whose children and grandchildren in unsettling numbers do not appear to be adopting Danish culture and values, and who seem to resist assimilation. It is thus highly unlikely that any political party that opposes immigration will find support among voters to influence legislation enough to meet the country's urgent needs.
Ole Hasselbalch is a professor of law at Aarhus University, Denmark.
[1] Full disclosure: the present author who was by then a Crown servant holding a senior university position; the full story published in his book Opgøret, 2001, ISBN 87-90014-73-5, p. 57 including further documentation.
© 2019 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Iranian women’s long battle for rights a threat to regime
د. ماجد رزادة/معركة المرأة الإيرانية الطويلة من أجل الحقوق هي تهديد لنظام الملالي
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/March 14/ 2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/72986/dr-majid-rafizadeh-iranian-womens-long-battle-for-rights-a-threat-to-regime%d8%af-%d9%85%d8%a7%d8%ac%d8%af-%d8%b1%d8%b2%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a9-%d9%85%d8%b9%d8%b1%d9%83%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%85/
The role that Iranian women have played in changing the sociopolitical and religious dynamics of the Islamic Republic has unfortunately been subject to little scholarly work. Since the ruling mullahs came to power in 1979, one of the biggest threats to the survival of their theocratic establishment is resistance by women.
Iranian women were at the forefront of the revolution: They were fighting for gender equality, social justice, the rule of law, and a representative and democratic system of governance. Realizing that women were significant to the revolution, the mullahs initially made false promises pledging to improve their rights. After the shah was ousted, tens of thousands of women across the country took to the streets to celebrate. But the celebrations turned into protests, including demonstrations in front of the new prime minister’s office in Tehran, after they realized that the mullahs had hijacked the revolution and turned the tide against women.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini began issuing decrees restricting women’s rights just a few days after gaining power. Gender laws were changed in the constitution, including those pertaining to the Family Protection Law, playing sports, child custody, citizenship, inheritance and retribution (with new rules such as allowing flogging and stoning), to name just a few. The regime suspended the Family Protection Law, dismantled family courts and imposed the compulsory veil and dress codes on all women. Many women were expelled from their jobs, arrested and tortured, and they were forced to obey the mullahs’ rules.
Decades of progress were rolled back against an overwhelming majority of the country’s women. But they did not surrender — they continued their movement to take back the revolution. The regime’s thugs and forces used brute force and violent tactics, such as attacking women with knives, bricks, stones and broken glasses.
Despite the fact that the regime continues to force women into accepting a traditional female role in the new social order of the theocracy, they have continued to defy and resist the regime in order to close the gender gap throughout the last 40 years.
Education has been an important tool that women utilize as a mode of resistance. In spite of the legal and political impediments they face, and in spite of the fact that the Iranian leaders banned women from pursuing some fields, greater numbers of women now attend universities. They now constitute more than half of the university students in Iran.
For almost 90 years, Iranian women have struggled under the Pahlavis and the mullahs and have protested against their subjugation, dehumanization and suppression
Another mode of resistance against the regime has been to cross the boundaries of the theocracy’s dress code. At the beginning, when some women showed strands of their hair as a sign of resistance, the regime imprisoned and violently cracked down on them. But, when millions of women and girls across the country resist simultaneously, the regime finds it impossible to arrest and imprison all of them. This is the power of large numbers that the regime fears.
Demonstrating their resistance to the regime by defying the compulsory veil reached a new level when a young woman, Vida Movahed, stood on a box in one of the most crowded streets in Tehran in December 2017, took off her headscarf and waved it on a stick. Video and pictures of the incident went viral.
Social media has helped circulate images of the defiance of Iranian women against the regime’s forces. Other women joined Movahed and dozens were arrested, but a new movement called the “daughters of the revolution” was born. Other known Iranian women’s rights movements of the last two decades include “One Million Signatures,” which sought to gain that many backers for the repeal of discriminatory laws, and “My Stealthy Freedom,” an online campaign where women from around Iran oppose the Islamic Republic by posting photos of themselves not wearing a headscarf.
Zahra, an Iranian teacher, feminist and activist who lives in Tehran, told me that: “Iranian women are patient. We struggled during the shah’s era and continue to do so now. We do not resort to violence. Every minute of the day, we are peacefully resisting the theocracy and forcing it to change its laws. Without the Iranian women, there would not have been a revolution in 1979. And we will continue our struggle to change this regime as well.”
Zahra’s statement highlights an important fact: Iranian women are nonviolently fighting the regime through their day-to-day activities. Every act, including dressing, socializing, partying, dancing, dating, and engaging in public activities, has become a way to resist the ruling mullahs.
In conclusion, for almost 90 years, Iranian women have struggled under the Pahlavis and the mullahs and have protested against their subjugation, dehumanization and suppression. Although the Islamic Republic continues to crack down on them, women have used their day-to-day activities to resist the regime. Therefore, one of the biggest threats to the continuing rule of the clerics is women’s widespread and growing resistance across the nation.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

We should help future generations by helping ourselves
Éloi Laurent​/Arab News/March 14/19
On the Ides of March (March 15), the day by which ancient Romans were expected to settle their debts, young people in 60 countries around the world will stage a school walkout to press world leaders for more urgent action on climate change. It is a tragedy that younger generations are forced to speak out against the injustice they will suffer as a result of choices made by others; yet, at the same time, it is deeply reassuring to witness their power and passion as they try to change the course of history.
Concerns about the intergenerational injustice of the climate crisis are of a piece with concerns about inequality in the here and now. Following in the footsteps of his papal namesake Francis of Assisi (named Patron Saint of Ecologists in 1979), Pope Francis observed in his May 2015 encyclical that: “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental.”
This means that making the necessary shift to an ecologically sustainable economy cannot ignore the challenges that many people are already facing today. But, just as the problems of climate change and inequality go hand in hand, so do the solutions. Adopting renewable energy, for example, can also yield massive health benefits, create jobs and improve other indicators of social wellbeing. In fact, according to the Lancet Commission, “tackling climate change could be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century.”
As younger generations already recognize, our economic systems can no longer be based on the logic of trade-offs, and must now follow the logic of social-environmental synergy. Fortunately, more and more policymakers are also coming to this realization.
Consider the proposals in the US for a “Green New Deal,” which is designed to address the “systemic injustice” driving today’s ecological crises, the brunt of which is borne by “frontline and vulnerable communities.” The hardship and calamities that these populations — which include children, the elderly, the poor, and many ethnic minorities — are already suffering will befall all of us if we continue to destroy our habitat blindly and with abandon.
As younger generations already recognize, our economic systems can no longer be based on the logic of trade-offs, and must now follow the logic of social-environmental synergy
Or consider a recent open letter co-signed by many of the world’s top economists calling for “carbon dividends” of the type economist James K. Boyce has proposed. To be sure, such a policy would help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But it would succeed only if it included measures to ensure that the most vulnerable are not hurt by the introduction of a carbon price. Presumably, the recent protests in France will have provided ample warning to policymakers considering this route. Environmental policies must also be social policies.
One country making notable progress toward social-environmental synergy is China. Now that the government’s war on pollution has started to show results, people in many parts of the country are enjoying the benefits of better air quality. According to the Energy Policy Institute’s recently released Air Quality Life Index, sustained exposure to particulate matter in the air can result in lower life expectancy for affected communities. Yet, by reducing local pollution, particularly in urban areas, China is not just improving the wellbeing of its citizens; it is also reducing carbon dioxide pollution globally.
Policymakers in Europe are also advocating concrete proposals to advance the goals of sustainable equality. A report from the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, for example, acknowledges that “inequality is an environmental issue just as environmental degradation is also a social issue.” Accordingly, it offers a series of recommendations for reducing emissions in key sectors such as heavy manufacturing and agriculture, while also supporting the communities that will be most affected.
By definition, all of the policies being designed around social-environmental synergy will yield “co-benefits” with respect to inequality and climate change. But, equally important, they will also benefit humanity both in the present and the future.
The fact is that our societies will be more just if they are more sustainable and more sustainable if they are more just. Societies that have been rendered socially and politically fragile by inequality will be ill-prepared to face the environmental shocks from climate change. And, as ecological conditions continue to deteriorate, one should expect to witness an explosion of injustices, new and old.
“Why should I care about future generations?” Groucho Marx is said to have asked. “What have they ever done for me?” On March 15, young people around the world will remind us that such questions are moot. While our debt to posterity grows ever larger, young people are merely asking that we help them by helping ourselves.
• Éloi Laurent​ is a Senior Research Fellow at OFCE (Sciences Po Center for Economic Research, Paris), Professor at the School of Management and Innovation at Sciences Po, and Visiting Professor at Stanford University. He is the author of the forthcoming book “The New Environmental Economics — Sustainability and Justice.” Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2019.