English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 29/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
To love God with all the heart & with all the understanding, and with all the strength & to love one’s neighbour as oneself is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices
Mark 12/28-34: “One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.”The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”;and “to love God with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”, this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 28-29/2020
Hezbollah and the Pandora Box/Dr.Walid Phares/May 29/2020
Hariri Hospital: 389 tests performed, two new recoveries
Seven New Coronavirus Cases in Lebanon, Tally Reaches 1168
Parliament Passes Laws as Mustaqbal, Karami Walk Out over Amnesty Controversy
Schenker Says U.S. Considering Sanctions against Hizbullah Allies Supporting the Govt.
Army Dismantles Pipelines Used to Smuggle Diesel into Syria
Hariri: Free Patriotic Movement 'Wants Entire Country'
Geagea Hails Approval of Appointments Law as 'Triumph'
Nehme Announces Subsidies for Basic Food Products
Lebanon Crisis Brings Mixed Legacy for Central Bank Governor
Iran-backed Hezbollah wary of US pressure over UN peacekeepers
Lebanon removes banking secrecy rules to fight corruption
Aoun, Salameh discuss financial and monetary conditions, Central Bank procedures to secure basic citizen needs
Parliament passes LBP 1200 billion bill, revised bank secrecy law, and new appointments mechanism
Ministry of Finance: Eighth meeting with IMF discusses recovery plan, restructuring of financial sector
Hariri receives ABL delegation
Jumblatt contacts Bogdanov over current developments
Kanaan following bank secrecy law approval: First serious step towards combating corruption
LAU Crowned University of the Year at Dubai Lynx: Graphic design students top
Lebanese Army removes smuggling pipeline at border with Syria/Joseph Haboush and Lauren Holtmeier/Al Arabiya English/Thursday 28 May
Hezbollah's Nasrallah warns of 'great war' on all fronts with Israel/Tzvi Joffre/Jerusalem Post/May 28/2020
Israel's Flight from South Lebanon 20 Years On/ Efraim Karsh and Gershon Hacohen/BESA Center Perspectives/May 28/ 2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 28-29/2020
Joint Statement on Hong Kong – Canada, US, UK, and Australia
Qatar University Professor Dr. Abduljabbar Saeed On Jazeera TV: All Rocks And Trees Will Call On The Muslims To Kill The Jews; Victory Is Achieved Over The Skulls Of The Enemies
Trump Planning New Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia, Says Senator
Angry U.S. Protests for 2nd Night over Police Killing of Black Man
PM Johnson Charts Britain's Path Out of Lockdown
Gunmen kill 60 in northwest Nigeria attacks

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 28-29/2020
Totalitarian China and Liberal Hongkong/Charles Elias Chartouni/May 28/ 2020
The Battle of Covadonga: Today in History a ‘Mustard Seed’ of Christian Liberation from Muslim Rule Is Planted in Spain/Raymond Ibrahim/May 28/2020
China Devours Hong Kong/Con Coughlin/ Gatestone Institute/May 28/2020
Communist China’s imperialist dreams/Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/May 28/2020
Why are US taxpayers funding a ‘Voice of the Mullahs’ in Iran?/Brian Hook/FDD/May28/2020
Israel Awards Desalination Plant Construction to Domestic Firm Over China/Julia Schulman/Policy Brief //May 28/2020
Assad attempts to weaponize COVID-19 in Syria/Will Todman/The Hill/May 28/2020
Collateral damage: Child health under threat in humanitarian settings from COVID-19/Neal Russell and Nadia Lafferty/Al Arabiya/Thursday 28 May 2020
Why scaring people about the coronavirus can backfire/Omar Al-Ubaydli/Al Arabiya/Thursday 28 May 2020
Venezuelans may soon suffer the bad fortune of closer ties to Iran/Con Coughlin/The National/May 28/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on May 28-29/2020
Hezbollah and the Pandora Box
Dr.Walid Phares/May 29/2020
Some Lebanese political and religious figures who are affiliated totally to the Iranian axis do every now and than utter loudly their vicious intentions in regards to wishful drastic changes in the Lebanese constitution in a bid to flood public institutions in an Iranian ideological quagmire.
Meanwhile many opponents of this Iranian media terrorizing strategy seems to fear such public and bold threats.
We assure those who are worried and anxious and advice them not to be afraid because all that Hezbollah is endeavouring to force and impose will go with it...and Hezbollah definitely will not be able to maintain its terrorism and occupation.
If Hezbollah and its local puppets try to open any file in regards to certain institutional changes, let them do so.
At the same and more strongly Lebanese activists in both occupied Lebanon and Diaspora will open more and much larger files.
What is reassuring is that the public majority of the Lebanese is not pro Hezbollah or its Iranian axis.
The October Revolution, regardless of its political diversity, is a referendum on the illegality of (Non Legitimate) of the current governing institutions that are fully controlled and run by Hezbollah.
In summary, any venue the Iranian axis heads to it will be heading more and to a Pandora Box.

Hariri Hospital: 389 tests performed, two new recoveries
NNA/May 29/2020
In its daily report on the latest developments of the novel Covid-19 virus, the Rafic Hariri University Hospital announced on Thursday, that the number of tests conducted in its laboratories during the past 24 hours has reached 389.
It added that the number of patients infected with the virus currently present in the hospital for follow-up is 63, while the number of suspected cases that have been transferred from other hospitals during the past 24 hours has reached 13 cases.
Meanwhile, the hospital report stated that two new recoveries have been registered over the past twenty-four hours, thus bringing the total number of full recoveries to- date to194, The report also indicated one critical condition in intensive care. It also indicated that more information on the number of infected cases on all Lebanese territories can be found in the daily report issued by the Ministry of Public Health. In conclusion, the Hospital reminded that "the Corona Virus Contact Center for emergency response and knowledge of test results, operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week including public holidays, and can be reached through the number 01-820830 or through the WhatsApp contact service 76-897961."

Seven New Coronavirus Cases in Lebanon, Tally Reaches 1168
Naharnet/May 28/2020
Lebanon on Thursday recorded seven new cases of coronavirus after relaxing so-called general mobilization measures over coronavirus earlier in May. The Health Ministry said four of those infected are residents and three are repatriated Lebanese expats. According to official data, 699 people who retracted the virus have recovered from infection. The first case was recorded in Lebanon on February 21. No new deaths were witnessed over the past 24 hours and the number stands at 26.

Parliament Passes Laws as Mustaqbal, Karami Walk Out over Amnesty Controversy
Naharnet/May 28/2020
Parliament on Thursday approved several draft laws as al-Mustaqbal bloc and MP Faisal Karami walked out of the legislative session during the discussion of the controversial general amnesty law. Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil had earlier threatened that the Strong Lebanon bloc might also walk out of the session. "If it is prohibited to vote against the amnesty law, we will walk out of the session," he said. Mustaqbal leader ex-PM Saad Hariri said he asked his bloc to leave the session because "some parties want to return to square one" regarding the amnesty law. "Speaker (Nabih) Berri exerted major efforts and I don't know the reason behind the attempt to outsmart each other," Hariri added. Berri later adjourned the session after MPs decided to return the capital control draft law to the parliamentary committees. He had earlier told MPs: "Put the amnesty law aside for now, perhaps God's mercy will be bestowed on us in a while."MP Ali Hasan Khalil of Berri's Development and Liberation bloc said Berri adjourned the session "due to the withdrawal of a main component," in reference to al-Mustaqbal bloc. "We wish the session ended in a different manner and Speaker Berri was keen on all the components of the session," he added.Parliament had earlier in the day endorsed a draft law on lifting bank secrecy after an amendment was introduced at the request of a number of lawmakers who opposed the initial text. The amendment stipulates that the authorities authorized to lift bank secrecy are exclusively the central bank's Special Investigation Commission and the newly-created National Commission for Combating Corruption. Parliament also approved a law for administrative appointments amid the objection of the Free Patriotic Movement, whose MPs are inclined to file an appeal against it before the Constitutional Council.
A draft law granting the government LBP 1,200 billion for its coronavirus social and economic aid plan was also passed, with Prime Minister Hassan Diab promising that a “transparent mechanism” will be devised for the distribution of funds. Moreover, parliament approved a $180 million loan for housing plans from the Kuwait Fund For Arab Economic Development.
The legislators meanwhile rejected a draft law on joining the International Organization for Migration on the grounds that the global body's charter encourages the integration of migrants and refugees.
The ambassadors of Norway, Switzerland and Canada attended the legislative session in the morning, according to LBCI TV. Political parties are divided over what crimes should be pardoned and included in the controversial amnesty law. Protesters chanting slogans against “treason” and the amnesty law meanwhile rallied outside the session's venue – Beirut's UNESCO Palace -- and in the southern cities of Sidon and Nabatieh. The law involves a pardon for Lebanese who fled to Israel after its withdrawal from the South in 2000, another for Islamists jailed over terror-related offenses and one for drug-related offenses that would benefit prisoners who hail from the Bekaa. Before the session, the secretary of the Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, said the legislative session must put an end to the process of transferring money abroad. On the amnesty law, Kanaan said he regrets the subject is taking a “sectarian character.”MP Qassem Hashem of the Development and Liberation bloc said: “Up to this point, there are still some differences in the positions of parliamentary blocs regarding the proposed amnesty law. Contacts are underway to reach an agreement.”“The amnesty law in its current form is distorted. Certainly, we will not approve it,” MP Fadi Saad of the Strong Republic bloc said. For his part, MP Michel Daher said in a tweet: “The draft law on capital control should be decided by authorizing the government, in cooperation with the Central Bank of Lebanon, to take all measures it considers necessary to protect and stabilize monetary and banking stability and the interests of depositors.”

Schenker Says U.S. Considering Sanctions against Hizbullah Allies Supporting the Govt.
Naharnet/May 28/2020
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker said the Lebanese government faces immense challenges as the result of years of corruption and the implications of the war in Syria, noting that sanctions could be imposed on Lebanese parties allied to Hizbullah and supporting the government of PM Hassan Diab.
“The Lebanese government faces great challenges including a health crisis as the result of coronavirus pandemic, a financial and economic crisis as a result of years of corruption, mismanagement and the consequences of the war in Syria,” said Schenker in an interview with France 24 late on Wednesday.
“Prime Minister Hassan Diab presented a (economic rescue) plan and we are waiting to see the extent of the government's commitment to reforms and actually implementing them. Only then, we will assess our position to support Lebanon regarding its file with the International Monetary Fund.”
Schenker said the United States could impose sanctions against figures in the political coalition supporting the government of Hassan Diab and allied with Hizbullah. “Yes, it is possible, and we are examining this. They are allies of Hizbullah and we're going to be looking at a set of sanctions. We hope to apply some of them soon,” he said. In remarks he made to another media outlet, Schenker stressed that the deteriorating economic and financial situation in Lebanon is not due to U.S. sanctions, but to other factors that he believes have brought Lebanon to where it is. Lebanon is facing a crippling economic and financial crisis, which has pushed it to default on its overwhelming debt and to officially request assistance from the IMF. Lebanon is facing a crippling economic and financial crisis, which has pushed it to default on its overwhelming debt and to officially request assistance from the IMF. Negotiations with the international lender began earlier in May. An essential condition to see these negotiations succeed is that Lebanon fights the endemic corruption and mismanagement draining its economy.

Army Dismantles Pipelines Used to Smuggle Diesel into Syria
Naharnet/May 28/2020
As part of efforts to protect Lebanon’s subsidized diesel oil from being smuggled into neighboring Syria, the Lebanese army discovered and dismantled 30 meters of pipelines used to smuggle the liquid fuel into Syria, the Army Command said in a statement. The pipelines were discovered at the border northern village of al-Buqaia (also known as Petroleum line) in Akkar, an army statement said on Wednesday. The statement said it confiscated around 30 meters of the pipelines inside Lebanese territories. The army's efforts are ongoing to stop smuggling mainly subsidized materials like flour and diesel into Syria.
It has also been cracking down on illegal border crossings between the two countries that saw smuggling flourish, and Lebanon's economy badly worsening. Between May 7 and 14, the army seized about 215,000 litres of fuel oil and 71 tonnes of flour at the Lebanese-Syrian border, arresting 25 people.

Hariri: Free Patriotic Movement 'Wants Entire Country'
Naharnet/May 28/2020
Ex-PM Saad Hariri on Thursday hurled a new jab at the Free Patriotic Movement, this time over an administrative appointments law that has been approved by parliament amid the objection of the FPM. “Today we voted in favor of the law that stipulates a mechanism for choosing first grade civil servants. Of course there are parties that will file an appeal against this law, because they always aspire to appoint individuals in the way they see fit, but the best thing that can happen in this state is to remove the hands of political forces off these appointments,” Hariri said after taking part in a legislative session at the UNESCO Palace – parliament's temporary venue. Asked whether he was accusing the FPM of seeking to maintain the distribution of shares in administrative appointments, Hariri said: “No. The FPM wants the entire country!”As for the controversial general amnesty law, which is yet to be approved by parliament, the ex-PM and incumbent Beirut MP said: “Some are trying to depict the issue as if we want to get criminals and murderers out of jail, and this is not our goal. Our goal is to get out of prison individuals who been jailed for years without being put on trials and without going to court.”Asked about those who fled to Israel in the wake of its withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, Hariri said: “There is a text in the amnesty law that tackles this issue and I don't know why there has been a sudden change today in the stances of some political parties.”Responding to another question about his “targeting of the FPM and Minister Jebran Bassil,” the ex-PM said: “I mentioned the Free Patriotic Movement but I did not mention Jebran Bassil.”

Geagea Hails Approval of Appointments Law as 'Triumph'
Naharnet/May 28/2020
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday described parliament's approval of a law for administrative appointments as a “triumph” for the LF-led Strong Republic bloc.“We have finally triumphed. A mechanism for the appointments of first grade employees, directors general and senior civil servants was approved in today's parliamentary session,” Geagea tweeted. “We had struggled for its approval for many years,” he noted.

Nehme Announces Subsidies for Basic Food Products
Naharnet/May 28/2020
Economy Minister Raoul Nehme on Thursday announced that specific basic food supplies will be subsidized by the Central Bank of Lebanon to help reduce the prices, amid an uncontrolled depreciation of the Lebanese pound. “This food basket provides all the nutritional components, i.e. vegetable and animal protein, carbohydrates, etc.. the goal is not to choose cheap goods but all the nutritional components that the citizen needs,” said Nehme in remarks at a press conference. "This subsidy is not an achievement; this is our least obligation towards battered citizens who are unable to provide amid these difficult times," he said. "The Ministry of Economy saw an obligation to find a solution to mitigate people's tribulations," he added. “In cooperation with the Central Bank and through the mechanism established by the Ministry of Economy and Trade, our move today will lead to a reduction in commodity prices and will maintain food security in these difficult circumstances,” he concluded.

Lebanon Crisis Brings Mixed Legacy for Central Bank Governor
Associated Press/Naharnet/May 28/2020
Touted as the guardian of Lebanon's monetary stability, he steered the tiny country's finances for nearly three decades, through post-war recovery and bouts of unrest. Now, Lebanon's central bank governor is being called a "thief" by some anti-government protesters who see him as a member of a corrupt ruling elite whose mismanagement has driven the country to the edge of bankruptcy.
The changing fortunes of Riad Salameh, a 69-year-old former investment banker, mirror the rise and fall of Lebanon's post-war banking sector, which he personally oversaw. Last year, as economic conditions worsened and Lebanon was engulfed in mass protests, banks began imposing limits on cash withdrawals and limits on transfers abroad that continue to deprive depositors of access to their savings. In recent weeks, the Lebanese pound — pegged to the dollar for more than two decades under Salameh — lost 60% of its value against the dollar on the black market.Protesters rioted, hurling firebombs and smashing ATM machines. Metal barriers rose up around the banks. "They are like thieves, hiding behind their fortifications," said Ahmad Rustom, 46, a self-employed carpenter standing outside a local bank in Beirut recently. "The fact that they are fortifying means they don't intend to give people their money back."At the center of this tumult is Salameh, one of the world's longest-serving governors. Prime Minister Hassan Diab's government has singled him out, blaming the bank's "opaque policies" for the downward currency spiral over the past weeks. Naim Kassem, the deputy leader of Hizbullah group which supports Diab's government, said the crash "is the result of accumulated mistakes at the central bank." The Iran-backed group and its allies see Salameh as being pro-American by strictly implementing U.S. sanctions against the group, listed as a terrorist organization by Washington. Salameh has declined an AP request for an interview but defended himself publicly against what he described as a "systematic campaign" against the central bank, blaming successive governments for the crisis. "Yes, the central bank financed the state, but it is not the one that spent the money," Salameh charged in a televised speech.
In perhaps the starkest warning to Salameh, the head of cash operations at the central bank was charged earlier this month with violating banking laws and money laundering, allegations the central bank denied. The official, Mazen Hamdan, was later ordered released on bail.
Salameh's supporters say he did his best to keep the economy afloat and is being made a scapegoat.
David Schenker, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, has weighed in, saying Salameh has credibility and that Washington has "worked well" with him. Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Lebanon's Byblos Bank, the country's third-largest lender, said Salameh "used the tools at hand to maintain the currency stability for so long, despite the fact that only the monetary policy was functioning" in the country. Salameh, a Maronite Christian like all central bank governors under Lebanon's sectarian power-sharing system, took the post in 1993, three years after Lebanon's 15-year civil war ended. It was a time when the country was nearly bankrupt and the currency had hit record lows.
He had been an investment banker for 20 years with Merrill Lynch shuttling between Beirut and Paris when the country's new prime minister, billionaire businessman Rafik Hariri, picked him for governor.
According to a biography in the Lebanese Armed Forces magazine, Salameh used to handle investments for wealthy Arab businessmen, including the late Hariri. Shortly after he took over, the Lebanese pound began making gains. In four years, it reached 1,500 pounds to the dollar, where it remained pegged until late last year. Salameh is credited with preserving financial stability at critical junctures. This included the 2005 assassination of Hariri, the devastating monthlong war between Israel and Hizbullah in 2006, and the influx of more than a million refugees during Syria's ongoing civil war. In 2009, he became the first Arab central bank governor to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
"I hope that through my work I have benefited Lebanon and its banking sector but for sure this is not an individual effort but that of a team at the central bank," he once said in an interview.
Successive governments, however, did little to enact reforms or improve Lebanon's infrastructure, while continuing to borrow heavily, accumulating one of the world's largest debts reaching $90 billion, or 170% of GDP.
With Lebanon in constant need of hard currency to cover its massive trade balance deficit — it exports way too little and imports almost everything —Salameh helped attract deposits to local banks by offering higher interest rates than those of international markets.
When the flow of hard currency dropped, beginning in 2016 — in large part because falling oil prices reduced remittances from Lebanese working in Gulf Arab nations — Salameh responded with a so-called "financial engineerings" debt policy. This encouraged local banks to obtain dollars from abroad by paying high interest rates, to keep the state's finances afloat.
This approach is what his detractors now say proved too costly for the country. An economic recovery plan recently adopted by the government showed that the central bank had $44 billion in losses over the past years, the result of losing financial operations. In the months before anti-government demonstrations erupted last October, panicked depositors pulled billions of dollars from banks, which subsequently closed for two weeks and later imposed stringent restrictions on withdrawals. Protesters now shout insults at Salameh outside the central bank, surrounded with concrete walls and barbed wire on Beirut's Hamra Street. A graffiti on another Beirut street reads: "Riad Salameh should be executed."
Economist Louis Hobeika said Salameh's biggest mistake was staying in his post for 27 years. "He is going to leave a very mixed legacy," Hobeika said.
In an editorial in the daily Al-Akhbar, Ibrahim al-Amin compared Salameh's policies over the years to plastic surgeries.
"All the plastic surgeries are not useful anymore," al-Amin wrote. "Please leave."

Iran-backed Hezbollah wary of US pressure over UN peacekeepers
The Arab Weekly/May 28/2020
Hezbollah fears the US will finally succeed in imposing changes to UNIFIL's mandate.
BEIRUT - Debate over the role of UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon is raging again as the UN Security Council prepares to vote to renew the United Nations Interim Force In Lebanon's (UNIFIL's) mandate. The debate comes at a time when Hezbollah fears the US will finally succeed in imposing changes to UNIFIL's mandate. Hezbollah’s concerns were evident on Tuesday when the head of the Iran-backed Shia movement rejected a US request to empower the UN peacekeeping force patrolling the border with Israel. “The Americans, as the result of Israeli demands, are raising the issue of changing the nature of UNIFIL’s mission,” Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a radio interview to mark 20 years since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon. “Lebanon has refused to change UNIFIL’s mission, but Israel wants… it to have the right to raid and search private properties, and the Americans are pressuring Lebanon on this matter,” Nasrallah said. Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, however, after visiting the UN peacekeepers in the country’s south near the border with Israel a day later, described their presence as “necessary and urgent” in light of ongoing “violations by Israel of Lebanon’s sovereignty by land, sea and air.”Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab reviews the honour guard of the United  The quibble over UNIFIL's mandate comes up every year before it is renewed in the summer. Israel is calling for major changes to the way the mission in southern Lebanon operates on the ground, demanding that it have access to all sites and freedom of movement, and that it report back to the Security Council if it is being blocked. In August last year, the UN Security Council voted to renew UNIFIL’s mandate for a year. But the resolution included a requirement — on the insistence of the United States, diplomats said — for the UN secretary-general to conduct an evaluation of the UNIFIL mission and its staff before June 1, 2020. “We are not against UNIFIL staying,” Nasrallah said. But “the time of deeming Lebanon to be weak is over, and Israel cannot impose conditions on Lebanon, even behind an American mask.”
In early May, US ambassador to the UN Kelly Craft claimed UNIFIL was being “prevented from fulfilling its mandate” and Hezbollah had “been able to arm itself and expand operations, putting the Lebanese people at risk."
The Security Council “must either pursue serious change to empower UNIFIL or realign its staffing and resources with tasks it can actually accomplish,” she wrote on Twitter. Nasrallah spoke after a dispute broke out late May 25 in the southern village of Blida between Finnish peacekeepers and residents, after a UNIFIL military vehicle hit two cars and a motorbike, the National News Agency reported. Young men cut off the road in protest, and the Finnish peacekeepers had to be escorted out by the Lebanese army, it said. On May 26, surrounding villages in a joint statement accused the patrol of “entering and searching people’s vineyards and private properties," describing such actions as unacceptable. Lebanon and Israel technically remain at war and Israel has repeatedly accused Iran-backed Hezbollah of impeding the peacekeepers from carrying out their mandate. The peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon was originally created to oversee the withdrawal of Israeli troops after the 1978 invasion. The mission was expanded after a 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah militants so that peacekeepers could deploy along the Lebanon-Israel border to help Lebanese troops extend their authority into their country’s south for the first time in decades.

Lebanon removes banking secrecy rules to fight corruption
Associated Press/May 28/2020
The move opens the way for investigations into bank accounts of current and former officials such as Cabinet ministers, legislators, and civil servants, state-run National News Agency reported.
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s parliament approved on Thursday a law to remove decades-old banking secrecy rules in order to better fight rampant corruption that has pushed the country to the edge of economic collapse.
The move opens the way for investigations into bank accounts of current and former officials such as Cabinet ministers, legislators, and civil servants, state-run National News Agency reported. The restoration of stolen public money in the corruption-plagued nation has been a key demand of protesters who have been demonstrating since mid-October against Lebanon’s ruling elite, which they blame for widespread corruption and mismanagement. The approval of the law came two months after the Cabinet approved a draft resolution to abolish the country’s banking secrecy laws, which have turned tiny Lebanon into the region’s Switzerland, attracting clients from around the Arab world who prized the anonymity its banks offered. Protesters rioted, hurling firebombs and smashing ATM machines. Metal barriers rose up around the banks.
“They are like thieves, hiding behind their fortifications,” said Ahmad Rustom, 46, a self-employed carpenter standing outside a local bank in Beirut recently. “The fact that they are fortifying means they don’t intend to give people their money back.”At the center of this tumult is Salameh, one of the world’s longest-serving governors. Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government has singled him out, blaming the bank’s “opaque policies” for the downward currency spiral over the past weeks. Naim Kassem, the deputy leader of the militant Hezbollah group which supports Diab’s government, said the crash “is the result of accumulated mistakes at the central bank.” The Iran-backed group and its allies see Salameh as being pro-American by strictly implementing U.S. sanctions against the group, listed as a terrorist organization by Washington.
Salameh has declined an AP request for an interview but defended himself publicly against what he described as a “systematic campaign” against the central bank, blaming successive governments for the crisis.
“Yes, the central bank financed the state, but it is not the one that spent the money,” Salameh charged in a televised speech.
In perhaps the starkest warning to Salameh, the head of cash operations at the central bank was charged earlier this month with violating banking laws and money laundering, allegations the central bank denied. The official, Mazen Hamdan, was later ordered released on bail. Salameh’s supporters say he did his best to keep the economy afloat and is being made a scapegoat.
David Schenker, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, has weighed in, saying Salameh has credibility and that Washington has “worked well” with him. Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Lebanon’s Byblos Bank, the country’s third-largest lender, said Salameh “used the tools at hand to maintain the currency stability for so long, despite the fact that only the monetary policy was functioning” in the country.
Salameh, a Maronite Christian like all central bank governors under Lebanon’s sectarian power-sharing system, took the post in 1993, three years after Lebanon’s 15-year civil war ended. It was a time when the country was nearly bankrupt and the currency had hit record lows.
He had been an investment banker for 20 years with Merrill Lynch shuttling between Beirut and Paris when the country’s new prime minister, billionaire businessman Rafik Hariri, picked him for governor.
According to a biography in the Lebanese Armed Forces magazine, Salameh used to handle investments for wealthy Arab businessmen, including the late Hariri. Shortly after he took over, the Lebanese pound began making gains. In four years, it reached 1,500 pounds to the dollar, where it remained pegged until late last year. Salameh is credited with preserving financial stability at critical junctures. This included the 2005 assassination of Hariri, the devastating monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006, and the influx of more than a million refugees during Syria’s ongoing civil war. In 2009, he became the first Arab central bank governor to ring the bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
“I hope that through my work I have benefited Lebanon and its banking sector but for sure this is not an individual effort but that of a team at the central bank,” he once said in an interview.
Successive governments, however, did little to enact reforms or improve Lebanon’s infrastructure, while continuing to borrow heavily, accumulating one of the world’s largest debts reaching $90 billion, or 170% of GDP.
With Lebanon in constant need of hard currency to cover its massive trade balance deficit — it exports way too little and imports almost everything —Salameh helped attract deposits to local banks by offering higher interest rates than those of international markets.
When the flow of hard currency dropped, beginning in 2016 — in large part because falling oil prices reduced remittances from Lebanese working in Gulf Arab nations — Salameh responded with a so-called “financial engineerings” debt policy. This encouraged local banks to obtain dollars from abroad by paying high interest rates, to keep the state’s finances afloat. This approach is what his detractors now say proved too costly for the country. An economic recovery plan recently adopted by the government showed that the central bank had $44 billion in losses over the past years, the result of losing financial operations.
In the months before anti-government demonstrations erupted last October, panicked depositors pulled billions of dollars from banks, which subsequently closed for two weeks and later imposed stringent restrictions on withdrawals.
Protesters now shout insults at Salameh outside the central bank, surrounded with concrete walls and barbed wire on Beirut’s Hamra Street. A graffiti on another Beirut street reads: “Riad Salameh should be executed.”
Economist Louis Hobeika said Salameh’s biggest mistake was staying in his post for 27 years. “He is going to leave a very mixed legacy,” Hobeika said. In an editorial in the daily Al-Akhbar, Ibrahim al-Amin compared Salameh’s policies over the years to plastic surgeries.
“All the plastic surgeries are not useful anymore,” al-Amin wrote. “Please leave.”

Aoun, Salameh discuss financial and monetary conditions, Central Bank procedures to secure basic citizen needs
NNA /May 28/2020
President Michel Aoun received Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, today at Baabda Palace, and deliberated with him financial-monetary conditions, and recently issued BDL circulars dealing with financial conditions and securing financing for basic needs such as, hydrocarbons, flour, medicine and foods.
Governor Salameh indicated that these financial measures are continuous aiming to control prices of basic citizen needs.
Baalbek-Hermel Governor:
President Aoun met the Governor of Baalbek-Hermel, Bashir Khodr, who briefed him on the conditions of the province and the measures taken to combat Corona virus.
The needs of Baalbek-Hermel region were also discussed in the meeting.
Chair of Baalbek International Festival Committee:
The President then met the Chairperson of Baalbek International Festivals Committee, Mrs. Nayla De Freij, member of the executive board, Mr. Nabil Hajjar, and Maestro Harout Vasilian.
The delegation briefed the President on the concert which the Committee will hold next June, at Baalbek Castle, as an affirmation of the cultural and intellectual role of Lebanon, despite current harsh circumstances.
The concert will be held in Bacchus Temple, without audience, on the occasion of the Centenary of “Greater Lebanon”, and will include performances of Western symphonies and Lebanese music similar to those held previous summer season. Local, Arab and international screens will broadcast this event. -- Presidency of the Republic

Parliament passes LBP 1200 billion bill, revised bank secrecy law, and new appointments mechanism
NNA /May 28/2020
The House of Parliament on Thursday approved in the first part of its legislative session at the UNESCO Palace additional appropriations for the 2020 state budget of approximately LBP 1200 billion with LBP 600 billion allocated to the social safety net, and LBP 600 billion to the remaining sectors, provided that a bill of LBP 300 billion will be allocated to the educational sector .The Parliament also approved a law involving bank secrecy, provided that any relevant investigations will be limited to the Special Investigation Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Authority. The House of Parliament endorsed as well a law proposal with a new appointments mechanism for first category employees in public administrations and for employees assuming higher positions in state institutions. However, the MPs amended the aforementioned law by crossing out a phrase which gives ministers the power to add or change names for such positions. It is to note that this decision has been opposed by the Change and Reform Bloc MPs.

Ministry of Finance: Eighth meeting with IMF discusses recovery plan, restructuring of financial sector
NNA /May 28/2020
The Media Office of the Ministry of Finance indicated in a statement on Thursday that "The Lebanese negotiating delegation, chaired by Finance Minister Ghazi Wazni, held its eighth meeting with the International Monetary Fund, in the presence of BDL Governor, Riad Salameh, on top of a team from the Central Bank.”The eighth meeting with the IMF centered on the details of the recovery plan set by the government, the restructuring of the financial sector, Lebanon’s Central Bank as well as capital controls, with discussions to be resumed at the beginning of next week, statement indicated.

Hariri receives ABL delegation
NNA /May 28/2020
Former Prime Minister Saad Hariri received this afternoon at the Center House a delegation from the Association of Banks in Lebanon headed by Dr. Salim Sfeir, in the presence of advisers Nadim Munla and Hazar Caracalla.
Discussions focused on the approach presented by the association to get Lebanon out of the crisis it faces in a way that guarantees the restoration of confidence and the preservation of national wealth. Prime Minister Hariri expressed his support for everything that is in Lebanon's interest.
Hariri then met with the President of the Union of Beiruti Families Associations, Muhammad Afif Yamout, and discussed with him the situation in the capital and its affairs.-- Hariri Press Office

Jumblatt contacts Bogdanov over current developments
NNA /May 28/2020
Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) leader, Walid Jumblatt, contacted by phone Russian Special Presidential Representative for the Middle East and Africa, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mikhail Bogdanov, during which they discussed the general situation and exchanged viewpoints over the recent developments in Lebanon and the region. Both sides jointly emphasized ongoing communication and the historical relationship between the Progressive Socialist Party and Russia, as per a statement by the PSP.

Kanaan following bank secrecy law approval: First serious step towards combating corruption
NNA /May 28/2020
Head of the Finance and Budget House Committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan, on Thursday described the Parliament’s approval of a law on lifting bank secrecy as an exceptional and serious step towards enhancing transparency and combating corruption. MP Kanaan also considered that "the triumph is for Lebanon and not for a political side,” given that Lebanon should restore its confidence in its system, its transparency, and the seriousness of fighting corruption.

LAU Crowned University of the Year at Dubai Lynx: Graphic design students top
NNA /May 28/2020
Every spring, the Dubai Lynx Festival of Creativity draws the region’s top talents in media, advertising, marketing and communication, to celebrate up-and-coming talent, while spotlighting international speakers from the industry.
Though the festival was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, its student competitions continued virtually, and the results came back blazing for LAU’s Art and Design Department at the School of Architecture and Design.
The graphic design students nabbed three top wins: Chloe Maria El Khoueiri snatched first place for the MBC Youth Award and second place for the Masar Student Print Award, and her peers Jean-Pierre El Hajj and Hana Ghemrawi jointly took second place for the MBC Youth Award.
With the cumulative points they scored, the three students reaped the University of the Year title for LAU. “As these awards come amidst such a challenging year,” declared Associate Professor of Graphic Design Melissa Plourde Khoury, they “are a testament to the students’ talent and determination in the face of adversity.”Reflecting on the experience, El Hajj admitted that Dubai Lynx was a unique challenge. “Rebranding an established brand requires deep understanding of its identity, and you are not given enough to follow a direction, but just enough to design one,” he said.
Add to that the difficult circumstances that they had to endure throughout the fall semester, as “a great struggle was starting to brew,” he said, referring to the October 17 Uprising. And yet, they managed to come up with outstanding ideas that captured a jury of professionals.
Calling it “an adventure,” El Khoueiri said that working on the campaign for months allowed her to gain hands-on experience and simulate real briefs, complete with rounds of professional feedback.
For Ghemrawi, the most interesting part of the experience had been designing for a target audience that she and her peers can identify with. “This made the process fun and highly engaging,” she noted, adding how “making it to the shortlist felt surreal – let alone winning.”
Congratulating the students, Khoury recognized the efforts of Adjunct Instructor Joumana Ibrahim who integrated the competition briefs into her course content and followed up on the students’ work individually. This is not the first time that graphic design faculty members encourage their students to put their talent to the test at the annual festival, and gain visibility for their projects. This exposure is paramount, Khoury said, as advertising and design agencies across the region keep an eye on student winners each year for potential hires, which is “a must for our graduates to distinguish themselves within a highly competitive industry.”Indeed, as El Khoueiri noted, the MBC Youth competition prompted her to integrate Artificial Intelligence into her campaign. As she will be graduating next spring, she is already looking for opportunities to learn more about User Experience and User Interface, “since the industry seems to be heading in that direction.”-- LAU

Lebanese Army removes smuggling pipeline at border with Syria
Joseph Haboush and Lauren Holtmeier/Al Arabiya English/Thursday 28 May
The Lebanese Army has found and removed a fuel smuggling pipeline at the country’s northern border with Syria.
The Army released a statement Wednesday, adding that around 30 meters of pipes were confiscated on the Lebanese side of the border. “This step comes as part of the continuous efforts by the Army to combat smuggling at the Lebanese-Syrian border and to [control the border] using all available methods,” the statement read. No further details were provided. Fuel smuggling in the country has become increasingly public as Lebanon begins talks with the International Monetary Fund in a last-ditch effort to save its fast-sinking economy. Earlier in May, trucks headed toward the Syrian border were stopped.
Border control blame game
The announcement comes a day after former Defense Minister Elias Bou Saab blamed the Army for not controlling the border or closing illegal border crossings during his time at the ministry. Bou Saab, currently a Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) MP, said that he had met with Hezbollah’s interlocutor to the Lebanese security forces, Wafik Safa, at the time to discuss the border situation. “I told him [Safa] that the Lebanese Army can’t be present in an area where there’s smuggling going on and a blind eye is turned to it,” Bou Saab told MTV Lebanon on Tuesday. Safa told him to “give me 24 hours.” Bou Saab added: “He came back and said we [Hezbollah] have nothing to do with this. You guys made a decision in cabinet [to lock down illegal border crossings]: go implement it.” In recent weeks, Prime Minister Hassan Diab’s government has tried to take credit for cracking down on illegal smuggling. A handful of suspects have been arrested and their vehicles or trucks confiscated in the act of smuggling. Yet, Bou Saab doubled down on blaming the Lebanese Army for not doing the same when he was minister. “I sent a list of 10 [illegal] border crossings to be shut down to the Army. I was told that there were logistical problems and it couldn’t; be done. Let the discussion be with the Army chief from here on out ... to see what they are missing,” Bou Saad said. “The ball is in the Army’s court,” he said, in an effort to distance himself from blame. According to Bou Saab, it is not only Hezbollah smuggling. “All parties are doing it. Some border crossings in north Lebanon have no Shiites in the area. There are some Christian areas that smuggle too.”He referred to the recent arrests by the Army as “propaganda.”This is not the first time Bou Saab or the FPM have targeted the Lebanese Army. During the anti-government protests last year, Bou Saab and the FPM criticized the Army for not reopening roads blocked by protesters.
Crackdown on smuggling
Beyond the pipeline, the government has made more concentrated efforts lately to crackdown on smuggling. Videos have surfaced on social media of diesel tankers heading toward Lebanon’s border with Syria carrying subsidized fuel and wheat. On May 11, customs officers and local police seized two trucks carrying camouflaged tanks with diesel. However, the force was attacked by a group of people, allowing the vehicles to flee before being rearrested shortly after, reported Lebanon’s National News Agency. But the problem is deeper than two trucks making their way into Syria. In 2019, fuel imports in Lebanon doubled compared to 2018, which Firas Maksad, an adjunct professor at George Washington University, said is one indication that smuggling is on the rise. Videos showing trucks moving toward the border and comments from government officials, including Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh, are also indicators that smuggling is becoming more common. “We don’t know if all of these imports are for domestic consumption,” AFP reported Salameh saying in October 2019. Smuggled fuel deals a further blow to the country’s sinking economy as subsidized goods make their way across the border.
Lebanon subsidizes its fuel, wheat, and medicine imports, allowing importers to buy dollars at the official exchange rate of 1,507 Lebanese lira to the dollar. On the street, inflation has skyrocketed, and in the exchange shops, the rate for dollars is now over 4,000. Across the border in Syria, the fuel can sell for three to four times the price it’s purchased at in Lebanon, said Lokman Slim, co-director of documentation and research at UMAM, a Beirut-based research group. The same applies for flour that crosses the border. “It’s something that bankers in Lebanon have been talking about for quite some time,” Maksad said.
Lost dollars
The country faces a severe dollar shortage that has driven up inflation, and the smuggling has exacerbated the greenback shortage, which was primarily driven by a lack of remittance flows, a stoppage of foreign investment, and the war in Syria. A banking source, speaking on condition of anonymity, explained how this smuggling in part has contributed to the country’s dollar shortage. When the central bank gives US dollars to exchange shops, those dollars should stay in Lebanon to circulate, maintaining the level of dollars in the country, the source explained. But currently that isn't happening. “Exchangers sell to Syrian merchants, and those dollars end up in Damascus, Tehran, and Aleppo,” the source said. Before 2018, when fuel was smuggled, merchants would be paid in dollars that went to Syria but eventually would return to Lebanon as deals were struck back and forth across the border. In 2019 this began to change. Syrians in Lebanon began to be paid in Lebanese lira, and as banks in Syria piled up with Lebanese currency, purchasers began to use Lebanese lira, rather than dollars, to pay for the fuel, the source said, thus leading to less dollars flowing back into Lebanon. Slim said that the smuggling isn’t a new problem in Lebanon, and people living close to the border knew it was happening, but now its begun to take on and “industrial shape.”“It’s no longer just a group of smugglers enjoying some protection,” he said. “It’s more of a policy, and it’s happening at a moment when Lebanon is short of funds.”
Reserves depleted
Lebanon’s foreign currency reserves have been depleting for months. In mid-March, they were estimated to be around $22 billion. In mid-September 2019, foreign reserves stood around $38.7 billion. The country is currently in the throngs of its worst economic crisis in decades, and has recently begun talks with the IMF. Previously, Lebanon asked international donors for $4-5 billion in soft loans to purchase wheat, fuel, and medicine. In March, the country defaulted on its Eurobond payments, citing the need to purchase essential provisions, triggering talks with the IMF. “The Lebanese government wants to put its best foot forward, and those lines about diesel smuggling into Syria is not the way to do it,” Maksad said. “It’s highly problematic that smuggling continues.”

Hezbollah's Nasrallah warns of 'great war' on all fronts with Israel
Tzvi Joffre/Jerusalem Post/May 28/2020
Marking 20 years since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel of "the great war that will open all fronts at once," saying that it would be "the end of Israel." The Hezbollah leader stressed, however, that there are "no indications that Israel intends to launch a war against Lebanon."The statements were made during an interview with the Al-Nour Radio Station on Tuesday night, which was broadcast by the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV Channel. Nasrallah warned that any Israeli air strike on Lebanon would "not pass without a response," adding that the terror group has "military capabilities that did not exist before 2006" and would respond if any Hezbollah terrorist was killed anywhere. In reference to an airstrike on a Hezbollah vehicle along the Lebanon-Syria border a few weeks ago, Nasrallah stressed that Israel did not make a mistake in the strike and was not trying to kill the terrorists in the vehicle, because they knew that Hezbollah would respond if the terrorists were killed.
In possible reference to a series of airstrikes in recent years on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria which were blamed on Israel, Nasrallah stated that while the Syrian leadership believes that it is not in the country's interest to be drawn into a war with Israel, the "patience and endurance of the Syrian leadership with Israeli aggression has limits."
Nasrallah also referred to a drone attack in the suburbs of Beirut last year that was blamed on Israel, saying that such an operation has not been repeated since and warning that Israeli aircraft in Lebanese airspace would be shot down.
Sightings of Israeli aircraft are reported in Lebanese airspace by local media on a weekly, if not daily, basis. A couple of quadcopters have been shot down near the border, but larger aircraft have reportedly flown in the airspace undamaged, with claims that air strikes on Syria have been carried out by Israeli aircraft from Lebanese airspace.
Both Hezbollah and Israel have the ability to initiate a conflict, said Nasrallah, but the balance of power created by the terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon takes into account a number of calculations, preventing a conflict at present. "The Israeli enemy did not target us at the beginning, and it was providing support to the Syrian armed groups, not all the opposition,” he said, deeming that "Israel’s venturing into a battle between the wars in Syria was a victory for the axis of the resistance, and this is what made the Israeli resort to air strikes."
Nasrallah rejected calls for Hezbollah to surrender its weapons, asking those calling for such a measure to look at the "state of deterrence, a deterrence that is the protector of Lebanon," and asking anyone with a better method to state it. he claimed that the "level of support for the choice of resistance among the Palestinian people is higher than ever."
In Lebanon, however, Nasrallah admitted that "there was never national unity around the resistance in order to say that it once had a wide audience that it had lost. Even in 2000, the internal situation was not better than today." The secretary-general added that some Lebanese people believe Hezbollah is connected with Syria and Iran and isn't a Lebanese group at all. Nasrallah insisted that Hezbollah is not trying to get the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon to leave the country, but questioned why Israel does not have any UNIFIL forces on its side of the Blue Line.
Prime Minister Hassan Diab; Minister of Defense and Deputy Prime Minister Zeina Akar; and Commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces Gen. Joseph Aoun are expected to visit UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura amid heightened tensions along the border with Israel, according to Lebanon's National News Agency. An investigation into the shooting of a Syrian national by IDF troops after he infiltrated into Israeli territory near Mount Dov last week was completed by a joint Lebanese and UNIFIL investigation team. According to Lebanon’s National News Agency, the probe of the shooting will be submitted during the upcoming tripartite meeting chaired by UNIFIL. Nasrallah also discussed domestic issues, stressing that corruption must be addressed by the judiciary and warning that sectarian divides in the country must also be addressed.
*Anna Ahronheim contributed to this report.

Israel's Flight from South Lebanon 20 Years On
 Efraim Karsh and Gershon Hacohen/BESA Center Perspectives/May 28/ 2020
https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/israels-south-lebanon-withdrawal/
Israel's rushed May 2000 withdrawal from south Lebanon tarnished the Jewish State's deterrent posture.
In the dead of night on May 24, 2000, 18 years after invading Lebanon with the expressed goal of removing the longstanding terrorist threat to its northern towns and villages, Israel hurriedly vacated its self-proclaimed security zone in south Lebanon and redeployed on the other side of the border. With PM Ehud Barak authorizing the operation a day earlier to avoid its disruption by the Hezbollah terror organization, which had long harassed the Israeli forces in Lebanon, the evacuation was executed without a single casualty.
Yet the humiliation attending the IDF's flight under Hezbollah fire, leaving behind heavy weapons and military equipment (some of which were promptly bombed by the Israeli air force to deny them to Hezbollah), as well as its abandonment of the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which had aided its counterterrorist operations for years and which collapsed upon the withdrawal with many of its fighters and their families seeking asylum in Israel, was not lost on outside observers. A prominent leftwing Israeli journalist, by no means hostile to the withdrawal, even compared "the scent of humiliation [that] permeated the air" to that attending the "last helicopter on the [US] embassy roof in Vietnam."
Shattered deterrence
Keenly aware of these disturbing images, Barak quickly extolled the flight as a glowing success that in one fell swoop ended Israel's "18-year Lebanese tragedy" and neutralized Hezbollah's terrorist threat to the Galilee. "To fight against terrorism is like fighting mosquitoes," he told Time Magazine:
You can chase them one by one, but it's not very cost-effective. The more profound approach is to drain the swamp. So we are draining the swamp [by leaving Lebanon] ... Once we are within Israel, defending ourselves from within our borders, the Lebanese government and the Syrian government are responsible to make sure that no one will dare hit Israeli civilians or armed forces within Israel. Any violation of this might become an act of war, and it will be treated accordingly. I don't recommend to anyone to try us once we are inside Israel.
The withdrawal enabled Hezbollah to turn south Lebanon into an ineradicable military stronghold.
This buoyant prognosis couldn't have been further from the truth. Far from draining Hezbollah's "terrorist marsh," the withdrawal served to expand it to gargantuan proportions. Hezbollah exploited the demise of Israel's security zone to transform south Lebanon into an ineradicable military stronghold crisscrossed with fortified defenses, both above ground and in a complex underground tunnel system, designed to serve as a springboard for terror attacks on Israeli territory, to shelter Hezbollah's burgeoning rocket and missile arsenal (which quickly doubled after the withdrawal from 7,000 to 14,000), and to exact a high cost from attacking forces in the event of a general conflagration. Hence the IDF's inconclusive ground operations in the Second Lebanon War (July 12-August 14, 2006), which hardly ventured more than a few miles from the border during the 34 days of fighting—in stark contrast to the 1982 invasion, which swiftly swept across this area and reached Beirut within five days. And hence the war's relatively high human toll: 164 fatalities, or 70% of those killed in the security zone during the 15 years preceding the 2000 withdrawal.
Nor did Barak's warning against any attempt "to try us once we are inside Israel" (or, for that matter, FM David Levy's threat that "Lebanon will burn" in the event of terror attacks from its territory) make an impression on Hezbollah. With Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah famously deriding Israel as "weaker than a spider web," the organization launched repeated attacks on targets in northern Israel at a rate of half-a-dozen per year. These began as early as October 7, 2000—a mere four months after the withdrawal—with the abduction of three IDF soldiers on a border patrol (who, it later transpired, were killed in the attack), culminating in the July 12, 2006 abduction of two more soldiers (who, too, were killed in the process) and the killing of another three in a cross-border raid that triggered the Second Lebanon War. During that war, Hezbollah fired some 4,000 rockets and missiles on Israeli towns and villages—the largest attack on the Jewish State's population centers since the 1948 War of Independence—killing 45 civilians, inflicting massive destruction and economic damage, and driving thousands of Israelis to flee their homes to the southern parts of the country.
While the Israeli architects of the war, which was censured by an official commission of enquiry as "a great and grave blunder," sought to portray it as a shining success that led to a prolonged period of calm, the conflagration did not deter Hezbollah from sporadic attacks on Israeli targets in subsequent years or from substantially expanding its military buildup in flagrant violation of Security Council Resolution 1701, which had ended the war. This included the expansion of its already substantial rocket/missile holdings to a monstrous 150,000-strong arsenal and the deployment of thousands of well-armed and battle-hardened fighters in south Lebanon on a constant state of alert to invade Israel en masse, either directly or via offensive underground tunnels penetrating Israeli territory (some of which were destroyed by the IDF in 2019).
Hezbollah's security threat is today infinitely greater than it was in May 2000.
Even the postwar relative lull has had less to do with the Lebanon War's deterrent effect (though Nasrallah later admitted he would have foregone the soldiers' abduction had he known it would lead to full-scale war) than with Hezbollah's decade-long immersion in the Syrian civil war and the reluctance of its Iranian patron to unleash its protégé's full might absent a direct Israeli attack on its nuclear weapons installations. Had PM Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak's purported intention to launch such an attack in 2010-11 not been nipped in the bud by their security establishment and the Obama administration, an all-out Hezbollah-Israel war would likely have ensued. As it is, such a conflagration remains a distinct possibility, with Hezbollah's security threat via both its rocket/missile arsenal, which can hit any part of the Jewish State, and ability to invade Israel and occupy Israeli localities infinitely greater than it was in May 2000.
Sparking the Palestinian war of terror
Defending his Lebanon decision 20 years later, Barak argued that the withdrawal improved Israel's military position vis-à-vis the Palestinians since the IDF's continued presence in Lebanon would have seriously constrained its ability to launch Operation Defensive Shield (April 2002), which curbed the Palestinian war of terror (euphemized as "the al-Aqsa Intifada") that had begun a year-and-a-half earlier.
As with his claim that the Lebanon flight neutralized Hezbollah's terrorist threat, this assertion is not only false but the inverse of the truth: had the humiliating Lebanon flight not occurred, the "al-Aqsa Intifada" might not have ensued in the first place, at least not on its unprecedented massive scale.
Hamas applauded Hezbollah's achievement as proving the indispensability of "armed struggle."
Like most of their Arab brethren, the Palestinians viewed the Lebanon flight as a defeat of the formidable Israeli army by a small but determined guerrilla force. Hamas and Islamic Jihad applauded Hezbollah's achievement as proving the indispensability of the "armed struggle" while thousands of Palestinians celebrated the withdrawal with placards saying "Lebanon Today, Palestine Tomorrow." Even Israeli Arabs were increasingly drawn into Hezbollah's widening terror and spying web inside Israel in the years following the withdrawal.
More importantly, the flight's humiliating nature helped convince PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat, who viewed the Oslo "peace process" (launched in September 1993) as a strategic means not to a two-state solution but to the substitution of a Palestinian state for the state of Israel, that the pros of reverting to wholesale violence far exceeded its potential cons since Israel no longer had the stomach for a protracted conflict. If Israelis couldn't bear 20-25 fatalities per year (less than a tenth of the death toll on their roads) in the fight against Hezbollah, surely they wouldn't be able to stomach the much heavier death toll attending a protracted all-out Palestinian "resistance campaign." At the July 2000 Camp David summit that sought to reach a comprehensive Palestinian-Israeli peace agreement, Arafat explicitly warned his Israeli counterparts that "we can see to it that the Hezbollah precedent is replicated in the territories," and that threat was quickly amplified by his top henchmen after the summit. A Palestinian public opinion poll found two-thirds of respondents eager to see their leadership follow in Hezbollah's violent footsteps.
For Yasser Arafat, the withdrawal showed Israel no longer had the stomach for a protracted conflict.
This is indeed what happened with the outbreak of the "al-Aqsa Intifada" in September 2000—the bloodiest and most destructive confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians since the 1948 war—which exacted over 1,000 Israeli lives. And while West Bank terrorism was largely curbed in the early 2000s through sustained counterinsurgency operations and the construction of a security barrier, the Gaza Strip has become a formidable terror entity that represents a clear and present danger to the vast majority of Israel's population. While it can be contained through repeated military campaigns (e.g., in 2008-9, 2012, and 2014), it cannot be eradicated altogether.
Weakening the IDF
A major plank of Barak's justification of the withdrawal was its supposed benefits for the IDF. "If we act to change reality in the right direction, it strengthens us. It doesn't weaken us," he told Time Magazine after the withdrawal. "I didn't see a single armed force that became stronger or a nation that became more self-confident by fighting guerrillas in another country."
The withdrawal eroded the daring, enterprising, and proactive spirit that had characterized the IDF from its inception.
There is of course a world of difference between a great power fighting guerrillas thousands of miles from its homeland and a small state defending its citizens and population centers from terrorist attacks launched from across the border, even if this means taking the fight to the aggressing state's territory. By abdicating this crucial component of self-defense, the Lebanon flight not only brought a terror organization committed to Israel's destruction within a stone's throw of its border neighborhoods and made its dislodgement from this area exceedingly difficult: it also dented the IDF's fighting ethos and operational competence. The daring, enterprising, and proactive spirit that had characterized this force from its inception gave way to a reactive, dogmatic, and passive disposition that responded to events rather than anticipating them and that contented itself with containing rather than defeating the enemy.
In fairness to Barak, this transformation reflected a conceptual malaise that had been pervading the IDF's top echelon for some time. This malaise deepened with the launch of the Oslo "peace process," whereby striving for victory was replaced by a conviction that the changing nature of the Arab-Israeli conflict—from interstate wars to low-intensity warfare between Israel and terrorist/guerrilla organizations—made military decisions virtually impossible because these (far weaker) groups represented "authentic resistance movements," to use Barak's own words, that needed to be politically appeased.
The Oslo approach effectively handed off responsibility for defeating terrorism to the political leadership.
This approach, which effectively handed off responsibility for defeating terrorism to the political leadership, was first manifested in the IDF's failure to suppress the Palestinian intifada (1987-93), which only ended upon the signing of the Oslo Accords. Here too, Barak played a key role in his capacity as deputy chief of staff (1987-91) and chief of staff (1991-95). It received a major impetus with the May 2000 Lebanon flight and the delusion of removing Hezbollah's terrorist threat via political retreat, and was repeated during the "al-Aqsa Intifada's" first months—when the IDF (under the direct leadership of defense minister Barak) sought to contain rather than suppress the conflagration.
Even after Barak's February 2001 crushing electoral defeat to Ariel Sharon, probably Israel's most illustrious and offensive-oriented general, it took over a year of unprecedented terrorism that murdered hundreds of Israelis and spread mayhem in Israel's population centers before the IDF moved onto the offensive and broke the backbone of Palestinian terrorism in the West Bank (but not Gaza). So much so that PM Sharon, who was elected on the crest of the hope that he would swiftly suppress the Palestinian terror war, was forced to justify this extraordinary delay with such meaningless platitudes as "restraint is power" and "what can be seen from here [the PM's office] can't be seen from elsewhere."
Further deviations from the IDF's hallowed precepts of initiative, maneuver, and shifting the fight to enemy territory were on display during the Second Lebanon War and Operation Protective Edge (2014), where the military leadership hoped to end the conflict via air strikes and only grudgingly committed ground forces at a later stage and in a highly circumspect fashion. By way of concealing its declining appetite for ground operations, the IDF leadership persistently denied terrorism's strategic threat to Israel's national security, stressing the (supposed) absence of a military solution to the problem and the attendant need for its resolution by political means. Hence Chief-of-Staff Moshe Yaalon's assertion that Hezbollah's political weakening would culminate in its rockets/missiles "rusting on their launchers"; and hence the stubborn ignoring of Hezbollah's and Hamas's cross-border underground terror tunnels and their hazards.
IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan (1953-58): "I prefer to pull back galloping horses than push lazy hinnies forward."
As late as July-August 2014, while Israel was engaged in a full-scale war with Hamas, defense minister Yaalon and the IDF leadership, alongside the heads of Shin Bet and the National Security Council, continued to underplay the strategic significance of those tunnels, let alone provide the war cabinet with a concrete plan for their destruction—even though Hamas had used such a tunnel as long before as 2006 to infiltrate Israel, abduct an Israeli soldier, and kill two others.
IDF Chief-of-Staff Moshe Dayan (1953-58) famously quipped that he would rather have to restrain galloping horses than spur lazy mules. The humiliating May 2000 Lebanon flight accelerated the transformation of the IDF's leadership in the opposite direction while greatly enhancing the dangers to Israel's national security on the Lebanese and Palestinian fronts to hitherto unprecedented levels. One can only hope that its twentieth anniversary will be used for genuine reflection, stocktaking, and a return to the IDF's daring and winning ways.
*Efraim Karsh is director of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, emeritus professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King's College London, and editor of the Middle East Quarterly.
*Maj. Gen. (res.) Gershon Hacohen, formerly a corps commander and commander of the IDF Military Colleges, is a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on May 28-29/2020
Joint Statement on Hong Kong – Canada, US, UK, and Australia
May 28, 2020 – Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
“Signatories to this statement reiterate our deep concern regarding Beijing’s decision to impose a national security law in Hong Kong.
“Hong Kong has flourished as a bastion of freedom. The international community has a significant and longstanding stake in Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability. Direct imposition of national security legislation on Hong Kong by the Beijing authorities, rather than through Hong Kong’s own institutions as provided for under Article 23 of the Basic Law, would curtail the Hong Kong people’s liberties, and in doing so, dramatically erode the autonomy and the system that made it so prosperous.
“China’s proposals for a new national security law for Hong Kong lies in direct conflict with its international obligations under the principles of the legally-binding, UN-registered Sino-British Joint Declaration. The proposed law would undermine the One Country, Two Systems framework. It also raises the prospect of prosecution in Hong Kong for political crimes, and undermines existing commitments to protect the rights of Hong Kong people - including those set out in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
“We are also extremely concerned that this action will exacerbate the existing deep divisions in Hong Kong society; the law does nothing to build mutual understanding and foster reconciliation within Hong Kong. Rebuilding trust across Hong Kong society by allowing the people of Hong Kong to enjoy the rights and freedoms they were promised can be the only way back from the tensions and unrest that the territory has seen over the last year.
“The world’s focus on a global pandemic requires enhanced trust in governments and international cooperation. Beijing's unprecedented move risks having the opposite effect.
“As Hong Kong’s stability and prosperity are jeopardized by the new imposition, we call on the Government of China to work with the Hong Kong SAR Government and the people of Hong Kong to find a mutually acceptable accommodation that will honor China’s international obligations under the UN-filed Sino-British Joint Declaration."

Qatar University Professor Dr. Abduljabbar Saeed On Jazeera TV: All Rocks And Trees Will Call On The Muslims To Kill The Jews; Victory Is Achieved Over The Skulls Of The Enemies
MEMRI/May 28/2020
Dr. Abduljabbar Saeed, the Head of the Quran and Sunnah Department in Qatar University's Shari'a Faculty, said in a May 16, 2020 interview on Al-Jazeera Network (Qatar) that Allah will help the Muslims liberate every single centimeter of Palestine. He cited a hadith in which the Prophet Muhammad said that Judgment Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews, who will hide behind rocks and trees, which will in turn call out to the Muslims to kill the Jews hiding behind them. Dr. Saeed referred to a version of the hadith, in which a type of tree called a gharqad will not call out to the Muslims. He said that he rejects this version and that he believes that every rock and every tree will call out to the Muslims. In addition, Dr. Saeed said that victory will only be achieved through sacrifice of all that is precious and through the "blood of the martyrs and over the skulls of the enemies."
Click here to view this clip on MEMRI TV
https://www.memri.org/tv/jazeera-tv-sharia-abduljabbar-saeed-judgement-day-jews-hide-rocks-trees-call-muslims-kill-blood-martyrs
Abduljabbar Saeed: "The trust we put in Allah is always and forever great. We trust that Allah will restore us to our religion sooner rather than later and that we will liberate Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea, from its norther border with southern Lebanon to Um Al-Rashrash [Eilat] in southern Palestine. Palestine includes all its soil, every grain of its sand, its waters, its mountains, its rivers, and its deserts.
"We do not acknowledge any other form of Palestine and we will not accept the occupation's existence on a single centimeter of it under any circumstances.
"The Prophet Muhammad said: 'Judgement Day will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.' This is a promise made by Allah and His Messenger. [The Prophet said:] 'The Muslims will kill [the Jews], until the rocks and the trees say: 'Oh Servant of Allah, there is a Jews behind me, come and kill him.' As for the addition of 'except for the gharqad, which is one of the trees of the Jews' - I am one of the [scholars] who believe this part is not reliable. I believe that Imam Muslim quoted it in order to show that it is unreliable and therefore I believe that all the rocks and all the trees will be fighting the Jews along with the Muslims and will call upon the Muslims to kill the Jews. These are Allah's promises and laws that govern us. "Victory will not come on a golden platter. Victory is achieved through the blood of martyrs and over the skulls of the enemies. Victory is achieved by sacrificing money, life, and all that is precious."

Trump Planning New Arms Sale to Saudi Arabia, Says Senator
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 28/2020
President Donald Trump's administration wants to sell arms to Saudi Arabia again, one year after pushing through a controversial $8.1 billion contract despite congressional opposition, an influential U.S. senator has revealed. "The administration is currently trying to sell thousands more precision-guided bombs to the President's 'friend,' Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman," New Jersey Democrat Bob Menendez said in an op-ed published online by CNN. The government wants to conclude the sale, the details of which have not yet been made public, "even though the Saudis seemingly want out of their failed and brutal war in Yemen," he added. Menendez, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recalled how the previous contract to sell various arms to Saudi Arabia as well as the United Arab Emirates was blocked by Congress after the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. U.S. intelligence services had concluded that the murder had been ordered by the crown prince, "a capricious Saudi despot who thinks he can butcher his critics without consequences," Menendez wrote. When Congress blocked that sale last year, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo invoked an obscure "emergency" procedure to push it through. "Today, a year later, there is still no justification for the US to sell bombs to Saudi Arabia," stated Menendez. "That is why I am particularly troubled that the State Department has again refused to explain the need to sell thousands more bombs to Saudi Arabia on top of the thousands that have yet to be delivered from last year's 'emergency,'" he continued. He called on Congress to block the new sale. Trump recently fired State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, who was reportedly investigating Pompeo's conduct during the earlier deal.

Angry U.S. Protests for 2nd Night over Police Killing of Black Man
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 28/2020
Fires continued to burn and one person was dead in Minneapolis Thursday after a second night of angry protests over the police killing of an African American man while in custody. Demonstrators clashed with police, looted stores and set fires to shops and a construction site overnight in the northern US city, and were met with tear gas and rubber bullets fired by police seeking to limit the damage. Media reports said the city was requesting National Guard troops as well as police from neighboring St. Paul to help keep the peace as more protests were planned Friday over the death of 46-year-old restaurant worker George Floyd, seen as the latest in a long series of unjustified police killings of African Americans. A bystander video taken Monday showed a handcuffed Floyd gasping for breath as a policeman pressed his knee on his neck after detaining him for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill in a purchase. After at least five minutes under the policeman's knee, Floyd goes still. He was taken to hospital where he was declared dead.
'People want justice'
Firemen continued to battle blazes Thursday morning in the busy Lake Street corridor, where more than 20 businesses were set afire. One person was reported dead of a gunshot wound, with police investigating whether he was shot by a shop owner in the area of the most severe rioting. Protests also took place outside the house of one of the four white police officers involved in the detention and death of Floyd, as well as at the home of Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman, demanding he indict the officers.In other areas of the city protests were peaceful. At the place where Floyd was first taken into custody, people chanted and carried placards and set out bouquets as tributes. Floyd's brother, Philonise Floyd, said on CNN that the officers, who were fired from the police department but remain free, should be arrested and charged with murder. "They need to be arrested and held accountable about everything, because these people want justice right now." "Justice is these guys need to be arrested, convicted of murder and given the death penalty."Philonise Floyd said he hoped protesters would be peaceful. "But I can't make everybody be peaceful," he said.
"But people are torn and hurting because they are tired of seeing black men die, constantly, over and over again."
- Los Angeles protest -
Anger over Floyd's death and police treatment of African Americans also erupted Wednesday in Los Angeles, where there are longstanding tensions between law enforcement and the black community. Protesters marched on downtown Los Angeles and briefly blocked the 101 Freeway. Some demonstrators smashed the windows of two police highway patrol cruisers, clambering on the hood of one of the vehicles. One of the protesters was injured when they fell off the vehicle as it sped away. Late Wednesday, President Donald Trump in a tweet called Floyd's death "sad and tragic," while Democratic Senator Kamala Harris labelled it a "public execution.""This is not new, it has been going on a long time ... what our communities have known for generations, which is discriminatory implementation and enforcement of the laws," she said. The protests evoked memories of riots in Ferguson, Missouri in 2014 after a policeman shot dead an African American man suspected of robbery, and the case earlier the same year of New Yorker Eric Garner, who was detained by police for illegally selling cigarettes and filmed being held in an illegal chokehold that led to his death. "How many more of these senseless excessive-force killings from the people who are supposed to protect us can we take in America?" civil rights attorney Ben Crump, who was retained by Floyd's family, said Wednesday. Crump pointed out that the arrest involved a minor, non-violent crime, and there was no sign, as police initially claimed, that Floyd resisted arrest. "There is no reason to apply this excessive fatal force," Crump said.

PM Johnson Charts Britain's Path Out of Lockdown
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/May 28/2020
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Thursday some English schools and shops would reopen from next week as he tried to end a scandal over what police said appeared to be a "minor" lockdown breach by his closest adviser.
Johnson's attempts to navigate Britain through a health disaster that has officially claimed 37,837 lives -- second only to the United States -- and devastated the economy are being complicated by the cross-country travels of his top aide Dominic Cummings. The Brexit campaign mastermind has become Johnson's most trusted adviser and one of the chief architects of Britain's coronavirus response plan. But police ruled Thursday that "there might have been a minor breach of the regulations" when he made a 60-mile (100-kilometre) round-trip in April to a picturesque castle in northern England from a family home where he had been self-isolating with his wife and four-year-old son. Durham Constabulary said it had closed the case because other Britons who committed similar offences were not being prosecuted retroactively. Cummings had justified the journey by claiming he had needed to test his eyesight after experiencing COVID-19 symptoms in late March and subsequently developing blurry vision. But the controversial aide has also sparked fury for relocating his family from London to his parents' house about 260 miles away during the lockdown's strictest phase. He has insisted the decision was within the government's guidelines because he needed to ensure he had childcare. Johnson said the police statement vindicated his decision to stand by Cummings during what has turned into arguably the biggest political scandal of his year in office. "They are not taking any action and I intend to draw a line under it," Johnson told reporters.
'Joyful moment'
The British leader tried to focus the nation's attention instead on his decision to reopen schools for younger children on Monday and for older students on June 15. People will be able to meet in groups of up to six people in England -- and eight people in Scotland -- from next week. Johnson said that would mark the "long-awaited and joyful moment" when people will be able to see "both parents at once, or both grandparents at once" in cases where families live apart. All shops still solvent after being forced to lock up for 12 weeks can open their doors on June 15. But the British leader insisted everyone must continue observing social distancing measures and exercise common sense -- a policy that government critics argue is being gravely undermined by the premier's rule-breaking aide. Johnson's most senior adviser -- dubbed by some media as Britain's second-most powerful man -- staged an unusual press conference Monday in which he made no apologies and blamed the media for misrepresenting his case. But the police said they had "examined the circumstances surrounding the journey to Barnard Castle... and have concluded that there might have been a minor breach of the regulations that would have warranted police intervention".
'Desperate'
The police findings could still pose a political problem for Johnson later down the line. More than 40 members of his Conservative party have called on Johnson to part with Cummings and several top Brexit-supporting newspapers have mounted campaigns to force out the adviser they once adored. Some opposition lawmakers seized on the police report to redouble their calls for Cummings to either be fired or to quit. Labour leader Keir Starmer -- until Thursday relatively reserved in his statements -- said Johnson has "shown himself to be weak". "I mean, he's so desperate for this adviser he'll cling on to him through thick and thin," Starmer told the BBC. The left-wing Mirror newspaper separately accused Johnson of acting in a "Putin-esque" manner by jumping in before government scientists could answer questions about Cummings during Thursday's briefing.

Gunmen kill 60 in northwest Nigeria attacks
AFP/May 28/2020
Armed criminals killed 60 people in a string of attacks on villages in the restive northwest of Nigeria, medics and residents said Thursday. Dozens of gunmen -- described locally as "bandits -- riding motorcycles raided five villages in Sabon Birni district in Sokoto state late Wednesday, the sources told AFP."We received a total of 60 dead bodies and several people with gunshot injuries from the villages attacked by the bandits last night," a nurse at the general hospital in Sabon Birni said. A second medic gave the same toll and said "all the bodies had bullet wounds, most of them were shot in the head". Both sources asked not to be named as they were not authorised to speak to journalists on the incident.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on May 28-29/2020
Totalitarian China and Liberal Hongkong
Charles Elias Chartouni/May 28/ 2020
The enduring crisis between mainland China and Hongkong reflects the Janus-faced politics of the Chinese autocracy demonstrating its unwillingness to abide by the UN brokered legal arrangement based on the predicate of "one country and two systems", and it’s deep seated apprehension of liberalization within mainland China. The crackdown on Hongkong demonstrations against the curtailment of its territorial sovereignty, highlights the inability of an imperial driven Chinese totalitarianism to tolerate dissenting models developing inside mainland and the contamination effects of liberal Hongkong, and their impact on the future of a totalitarian dystopia. One wonders how this new wave of Chinese totalitarianism is likely to contain the emancipatory dynamics of a modernizing China, and the imperative normalization of its regional geopolitics.
The new imperialistic outbursts are the obverse side of an insidious liberalization developing within China, and the attempt to control it through subversive international engagements to mend the rifts of an unraveling ideological unanimity attempted by the late autocrat Xi Jinping. The boisterous clampdown on Hongkong internationally acknowledged status reflects the uncertainties of a declining totalitarian order, and the determination to stem its subversive tides. Rather than proceeding into progressive democratization and endorsing the bolting social liberalization, the Communist regime decided to thwart the tidal movement and relay it through tempestuous foreign interventionism based on economic suzerainty and discretionary abridgment of sovereignty.
There is actually a correlation between internal authoritarianism and aggressive external political interventionism, and the Hongkong idiosyncrasy is quite illustrative of a larger pattern tendentially defining the Chinese template of international relations. The coronavirus is quite illustrative of the Chinese double dealing, dismissive arrogance and unwillingness to reckon with its responsibilities and obligations within the international community. The support for Hongkong is mandatory and should be part of a comprehensive scheme to contain Chinese delinquency, and make its membership contingent upon its scrupulous respect of the international law and conditional integration into the international division of labor. China has to realize that the benevolent international environment it abused carelessly and its free-riding have come to an end.

The Battle of Covadonga: Today in History a ‘Mustard Seed’ of Christian Liberation from Muslim Rule Is Planted in Spain
Raymond Ibrahim/May 28/2020
A monument to Pelayo commemorating the site of Covadonga
Nearly thirteen-hundred years ago today, on May 28, 722,[*] a little known but profoundly important battle was waged, setting the tone for the next eight hundred years of Christian/Muslim “coexistence” in Spain: the Battle of Covadonga.
Ten years earlier, Arabs and Africans—“Moors,” under the banner of Islam— had “godlessly invaded Spain to destroy it,” to quote from the Chronicle of 754. Once on European soil, they “ruined beautiful cities, burning them with fire; condemned lords and powerful men to the cross; and butchered youths and infants with the sword.”
After meeting and beating Spain’s Visigothic nobles at the Battle of Guadalete — “never was there in the West a more bloody battle than this,” wrote the Muslim chronicler al-Hakam, “for the Muslims did not withdraw their scimitars from them [Christians] for three days” — the invaders continued to penetrate northward into Spain, “not passing a place without reducing it, and getting possession of its wealth, for Allah Almighty had struck with terror the hearts of the infidels.”
Such terrorism was intentionally cultivated, in keeping with the Koran (3:151, 8:12, etc.). For instance, the invaders slaughtered, cooked, and pretended to eat Christian captives, while releasing others who, horrified, fled and “informed the people of Andalus [Spain] that the Muslims feed on human flesh,” thereby “contributing in no small degree to increase the panic of the infidels,” wrote al-Maqqari, another Muslim chronicler.
Contrary to the claim that, seeing Muslim rule was no worse and possibly preferable to Visigothic rule, Spain capitulated easily, even Muslim chroniclers note how “the Christians defended themselves with the utmost vigor and resolution, and great was the havoc that they made in the ranks of the faithful.” In Córdoba, for example, a number of Spaniards holed themselves up in a church. Although “the besieged had no hopes of deliverance, they were so obstinate that when safety was offered to them on condition either of embracing Islam, or paying jizya, they refused to surrender, and the church being set on fire, they all perished in the flames,” wrote al-Maqqari. The ruins of this church became a place of “great veneration” for later generations of Spaniards, because “of the courage and endurance displayed in the cause of their religion by the people who died in it.”
In the end, native Spaniards had two choices: acquiesce to Muslim rule or “flee to the mountains, where they risked hunger and various forms of death.” Pelagius, better known as Pelayo (685–737), a relative of and “sword-bearer” to King Roderick, who survived Guadalete, followed both strategies. After the battle, he retreated north, where Muslim rule was still tenuous; there he eventually consented to become a vassal of Munnuza, a local Muslim chief. Through some “stratagem,” Munnuza “married” Pelayo’s sister — a matter that the sword-bearer “by no means consented to.” Having expressed displeasure at the seizure of his sister, and having ceased paying jizya (tribute), Muslims were sent “to apprehend him treacherously” and bring him back “bound in chains.” Unable to fight the oncoming throng “because they were so numerous,” Pelayo “climbed a mountain” and “joined himself to as many people as he found hastening to assemble.”
There, in the deepest recesses of the Asturian mountains — the only free spot left, in northwest Spain — the assembled Christian fugitives declared Pelayo their new king; and the Kingdom of Asturias was born.
“Hearing this, the king [the Muslim governor of Córdoba], moved by an insane fury, ordered a very large army from all over Spain to go forth” and bring the infidel rebels to heel. The invaders — 180,000 of them, if the chroniclers are to be believed — surrounded Pelayo’s mountain. They sent Oppa, a bishop and/or noble now turned dhimmi, to reason with him at the mouth of a deep cavern: “If when the entire army of the Goths was assembled, it was unable to sustain the attack of the Ishmaelites [at Guadalete], how much better will you be able to defend yourself on this mountaintop? To me it seems difficult. Rather, heed my warning and recall your soul from this decision, so that you may take advantage of many good things and enjoy the partnership of the Chaldeans [Arabs].”
“I will not associate with the Arabs in friendship nor will I submit to their authority,” Pelayo responded. Then the rebel made a prophecy that would be fulfilled over the course of nearly eight centuries: “Have you not read in the divine scriptures that the church of God is compared to a mustard seed and that it will be raised up again through divine mercy? [Mark 4:30-21]”
The dhimmi affirmed that it was so; the fugitive continued: “Christ is our hope that through this little mountain, which you see, the well-being of Spain and the army of the Gothic people will be restored. . . . Now, therefore, trusting in the mercy of Jesus Christ, I despise this multitude and am not afraid of it. As for the battle with which you threaten us, we have for ourselves an advocate in the presence of the Father, that is, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is capable of liberating us from these few.” Discussions were over.
There, at Covadonga — meaning “Cavern of the Lady” — battle commenced on May 28, 722. A shower of rocks rained down on the Muslims in the narrow passes, where their numbers counted for nothing and only caused confusion. Afterward, Pelayo and his band of rebels rushed forth from their caves and hiding places and made great slaughter among them; those who fled the carnage were tracked and mowed down by other, now emboldened, mountaineers. “A decisive blow was dealt at the Moorish power…. The advancing tide of conquest was stemmed. The Spaniards gathered heart and hope in their darkest hour; and the dream of Moslem invincibility was broken.”
Several subsequent Muslim campaigns—jihads—were launched to conquer the Asturian kingdom, and the “Christians of the North scarcely knew the meaning of repose, security, or any of the amenities of life.” Even so, the mustard seed would not perish. “A vital spark was still alive,” Edward Gibbon wrote; “some invincible fugitives preferred a life of poverty and freedom in the Asturian valleys; the hardy mountaineers repulsed the slaves of the caliph.” Moreover, “all who were dissatisfied with Moorish dominion, all who clung to the hope of a Christian revival, all who detested Mahomet,” were drawn to the life of poverty and freedom.”
By the mid eighth century, the “vital spark” had spread to engulf the entire northwest of the Peninsula; over the following centuries, various kingdoms, whose core identity revolved around Christian defiance to Islam—later manifested as the Reconquista—had evolved from this mustard seed. “Covadonga became the symbol of Christian resistance to Islam and a source of inspiration to those who, in words attributed to Pelayo, would achieve the salus Spanie, the salvation of Spain.”
After centuries of brutal warfare, by 1492, the last Muslim-held territory in Spain, Granada, was liberated. And it all came to pass thanks to Pelayo’s Asturian mustard seed, planted nearly eight hundred years earlier at the battle of Covadonga.
Despite this encounter’s importance for Spain—it was regularly celebrated, including in 1918 (at the height of the Spanish Flu) with Spanish monarchs in attendance—it remains virtually unknown in the West, sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and Islamic “golden age” myths.
Historical quotes used in this article were sourced from and referenced in the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West. Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center; a Judith Rosen Friedman Fellow at the Middle East Forum; and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
[*] Although scholarly consensus currently supports the date of May 28, 722, earlier historians placed the date of the battle in 718.

China Devours Hong Kong
Con Coughlin/ Gatestone Institute/May 28/2020
Beijing just imposed a raft of new security measures that will completely undermine the independence of Hong Kong's own legislature. The new measures will apparently be announced in a few weeks -- but one can assume that they include extradition to the mainland and imprisonment.
"In China they never really define what exactly is 'national security'. So the law could change according to political expediency or political necessity," Johannes Chan, a legal scholar in Hong Kong, told public broadcaster RTHK, according to The Guardian.
The measures will allow Beijing control over issues such as secession, foreign influence and terrorism which, in the view of pro-democracy activists, is little more than a blatant attempt by Beijing to suppress the anti-government protest movement that brought the territory to a standstill last year.
China's attempts to impose a new security law on Hong Kong is yet another attempt by the country's communist rulers to make a blatant power grab by exploiting the coronavirus pandemic. Pictured: Riot police fill a street in Hong Kong as they suppress pro-democracy protests in the Admiralty district on May 27, 2020. China's imposition of a new security law on Hong Kong today is yet another attempt by the country's communist rulers to make a blatant power grab by exploiting the coronavirus pandemic.
Ever since the deadly Covid-19 virus was first discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of last year, China's ruling communist party (CCP) has been busily exploiting the pandemic to further Beijing's strategic goals.
The Chinese have, for example, been particularly busy in the South China Sea where, apart from harassing less powerful neighbours such as Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines, Beijing last month unilaterally passed measures to strengthen its control over a number of disputed territories, including the Spratly and Paracel Islands, where China's People's Liberation Army has constructed a network of illegal military bases.
Beijing has most lately turning its attention to the former British colony of Hong Kong where, in the face of stiff opposition from the territory's 7.5 million inhabitants, the CCP aims to pass a new set of security laws that critics say will severely undermine Hong Kong's quasi-autonomous status.
Under the terms of the Basic Law agreement negotiated between Britain and China when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control in 1997, Hong Kongers have retained a number of basic rights denied to other Chinese citizens, such as freedoms of speech, the press and assembly, and a judiciary system independent of mainland China. China's communist dictatorship has never been comfortable with the special privileges enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong, an arrangement known as "one country, two systems." It is for this reason that Xi Jinping, China's tyrannical ruler, is seeking to impose a range of new security measures that, if implemented, will severely curtail Hong Kongers basic liberties.
Under Mr Xi's proposal, passed today by China's puppet parliament, the National People's Congress, Beijing imposed a raft of new security measures that will completely undermine the independence of Hong Kong's own legislature. The new measures will apparently be announced in a few weeks, but one can assume that they extradition to the mainland and imprisonment. "In China they never really define what exactly is 'national security'. So the law could change according to political expediency or political necessity," Johannes Chan, a legal scholar in Hong Kong, told public broadcaster RTHK, according to The Guardian.The measures will doubtless allow Beijing control over issues such as secession, foreign influence and terrorism which, in the view of pro-democracy activists, is little more than a blatant attempt by Beijing to suppress the anti-government protest movement that brought the territory to a standstill last year.
The Chinese move had prompted a fresh round of anti-Beijing protests in Hong Kong, with the security forces being accused by Amnesty International of carrying out "alarming" attacks on peaceful protesters.
China's attempt to assert its control over Hong Kong has attracted strong criticism from U.S. President Donald J. Trump, who earlier this week pledged to take action against Beijing over the proposed national security laws. Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned that the new laws could be a death knell for the "one country, two systems" policy, which guarantees those rights until 2047.
The problem for the U.S. and allies such is Britain is that, so long as Hong Kong's ruling body, the 70-member Legislative Council, continues to support Beijing's power grab, there is very little the outside world can do to challenge the territory's inexorable annexation by China, a point that Mr Pompeo conceded in a terse statement he issued yesterday. Mr Pompeo revealed that he had informed Congress that Washington no longer regards Hong Kong as an autonomous entity distinct from China, and that it will therefore no longer enjoy the preferential treatment under U.S. law. "No reasonable person can assert today that Hong Kong maintains a high degree of autonomy from China," said Mr Pompeo."
There are no doubt many pro-democracy activists in the territory who would like to take issue with this sobering assessment. The sad truth, however, is that China exercises undue influence over the Legislative Council, the body set up to administer the territory in 1997 and which is supposed to uphold the freedoms enshrined in the Basic Law. Chinese control over Hong Kong is further reflected in the fact that it is Beijing, and not Hong Kongers, which appoints the territory's chief executive, who is currently Carrie Lam.
In an attempt to quell further anti-government protests, Ms Lam earlier this week sought to play down the impact of the new Chinese security laws, claiming that they were a "responsible" move designed to protect the territory's law-abiding majority.
To add insult to injury, the Legislative Council, in an ill-timed display of solidarity with Beijing, had proposed to pass a contentious bill that would make abusing or insulting the Chinese national anthem, written in 1935 and titled "March of the Volunteers," a crime. The law would also have required all elementary and high school students to learn the words and to be able to sing the anthem. Apparently however, that proposal has been suspended.
To judge by the response of the protesters, no one in Hong Kong believes that China's intentions are benign. On the contrary, they see the imposition of the new security laws as a blatant power grab, one they seem determined to resist until the bitter end.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph's Defence and Foreign Affairs Editor and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
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Communist China’s imperialist dreams
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/May 28/2020
The Belt and Road Initiative is about more than infrastructure
A century ago, Vladimir Lenin wrote a book titled, “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism.” I doubt it occurred to him that imperialism might one day become the highest stage of communism. Yet that day is here.
The end of the Cold War was widely interpreted as communism’s downfall. But while the Soviet Union collapsed, communism survived, most consequentially in China.
Analysts on both the left and right didn’t get that. After all, China’s rulers were allowing private ownership of some means of production, and some Chinese citizens, not all of them government officials or even members of the Communist Party, were getting rich. Isn’t that capitalism?
Not exactly. There’s no heresy in socialist regimes refraining from nationalizing businesses so long as those businesses take orders from the party and state. One famous example: Lenin’s 1921 New Economic Policy.
Most China-watchers also believed that the more prosperous the peoples of China became, the more they would want freedoms and representative government. Surely, the authorities would acquiesce.
Even after the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, the dominant view among academics, diplomats and journalists was that China was on the road to moderation and liberalization. But the dominant view was wrong.
Returning to Lenin: He saw imperialism as the means by which capitalist countries could most effectively extract wealth from less-developed countries. But World War II abruptly ended the imperial ambitions of Germany, Japan, and Italy. Other European empires were soon dismantled as well.
Only the Soviet empire expanded. That lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 – just months after China’s Communist rulers suppressed the pro-freedom movement in Tiananmen.
The People’s Republic of China is already an empire. Tibet and Xinjiang are captive nations within it. In 1997, Britain agreed to turn over Hong Kong to the Chinese Communists in exchange for their promise that for a half century the former Crown Colony would maintain substantial independence.
That promise is now being broken, most recently by Beijing’s imposition of a law effectively criminalizing dissent. China’s rulers also are more aggressively threatening Taiwan, a free and democratic nation whose citizens have never been ruled by Communists, and would not choose to be.
But Beijing’s imperial dreams extend far beyond its immediate neighborhood. Seven years ago, it launched what is now called the Belt and Road Initiative. At first, the BRI was widely viewed as a benign foreign assistance, trade and development program. The Chinese would build roads, rail lines, airports, seaports, dams, power plants, and communications networks cheaply and efficiently. They’d offer loans. What’s not to like?
Elaine K. Dezenski, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Center on Economic and Financial Power, has asked that question, and provides some answers in a new report: “Below the Belt and Road: Corruption and Illicit Dealings in China’s Global Infrastructure.”
BRI projects, her research reveals, are “often white elephants that benefit mainly the companies that build them and politicians who allow them to proceed.”
In Sri Lanka, BRI funds were used to build “the world’s emptiest airport, along with a new seaport that is operating at two percent capacity, and a cricket stadium that has more seats than local residents.”
In Malaysia, “$100 billion in BRI deals were sweetened with bribes and the facilitation of kleptocracy.” China also helped shield Malaysia’s ruling party “from international investigations into its corruption scandals and to help identify sources providing information to journalists.”
In Kenya, both Chinese and local officials are being prosecuted after a railway project went massively over budget, leading to “unmanageable debt.” The project remains uncompleted.
Last year, Beijing also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on BRI with Italy. A new report by Giovanna De Maio, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, notes that doing so marked “a break in the ranks of the G-7, raising important concerns from Washington that Italy would become an entry point for Chinese influence in Europe.”She adds that Chinese foreign direct investment in Italy is actually “significantly lower than in other major European economies such as German and France, which have not endorsed the BRI but have secured important trade and investment deals with Beijing.”
One final point: Imperialism is not always accompanied by colonialism. But Ms. Dezenski observes out that from 2004 to 2014, a million “undocumented Chinese may have come to Africa.” These overseas Chinese communities, she writes, “often develop into independent states-within-the-state and function according to their own rules and mores. Underground banks (dixia qianzhuang), which transfer massive amounts of untaxed cash back to China as remittances, are common.”
More than 60 countries have signed BRI agreements with China. The reports cited above, along with other evidence of corruption, debt traps, tax avoidance, exploitation of natural resources, and Chinese political manipulation, have stoked what was already a fierce debate over China policy.
Of at least equal concern: Beijing’s egregious human rights violations, habitual cyber thievery and spying, alarming military buildup, and threats to freedom of the seas. The coronavirus pandemic, a global health and economic disaster born and bred in China, has added insult – and infection — to injury.
Imperialism, according to Lenin, involves “the division of the world.” It should now be obvious that China’s Communist rulers intend to divide the world to their economic and political benefit, and the detriment of pretty much everyone else. BRI is a means to that end. Americans are just beginning to consider how to address the enormous challenge that poses.
*Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times.

Why are US taxpayers funding a ‘Voice of the Mullahs’ in Iran?
Brian Hook/FDD/May28/2020
As the US special representative for Iran, I receive complaints regularly about Voice of America’s Persian service. Iranian viewers say its American taxpayer-funded programming often sounds more like the “Voice of the mullahs” than the “Voice of America.”
VOA Persian needs to do a better job of countering Iranian disinformation and propaganda. This is a priority for the Trump administration, because supporting the Iranian people includes giving them access to independent and truthful reporting.
Voice of America was founded n 1942 to communicate US policies to a global audience. VOA’s congressionally funded Persian News Network received more than $17 million in taxpayer funds last year. But VOA is failing to represent America to Iran with fact-based content that is reliable and authoritative.
And it isn’t just the Persian service. This month, President Trump highlighted serious concerns with VOA’s coverage of COVID-19, because it became an echo chamber for Chinese propaganda and disinformation.
The president is only the latest person to voice frustrations with VOA programming. The nonpartisan American Foreign Policy Council in 2017 conducted an independent assessment of VOA’s Persian programming. It found bias in its reporting, noting that VOA’s Persian coverage of Iran’s foreign policy “perpetuated to audiences the appearance of pro-regime propaganda, rather than objective reporting.” A follow-up analysis by the AFPC in 2019 found that many of the recommendations it made in 2017 were not implemented.
In 2014, a group of congressional representatives from both sides of the aisle called for an investigation into VOA Persian after allegations that it deliberately papered over the regime’s brutal human rights record.
I hear regularly about popular shows being suddenly canceled and replaced with lower quality programming that is less engaging and relevant. I was also disturbed to see that during the historic anti-regime protests last November, which left up to 1,500 Iranians dead, VOA Persian aired nature documentaries. VOA has certainly failed to present incisive and independent coverage of the Iranian regime itself.
One employee of VOA Persian told The Wall Street Journal that the network often refuses to air criticism of Iranian regime terror unless it is “balanced with the perspective of the Islamic Republic who vehemently [deny] any involvement.” Covering Iranian regime terrorism should not be conditioned upon regime hacks being available to lie about the terrorism.
Everyone knows the Iranian regime heavily censors news and information. The regime often imprisons journalists for telling the truth, then denies them their basic rights, like access to medical care or fair trials. The non-profit Reporters Without Borders routinely condemns the Islamic Republic for its assault against the free press. In February, it exposed Iranian officials who cracked down against the media for telling the truth about Iran’s COVID-19 outbreak and debunking the regime’s propaganda.
Now more than ever, the Iranian people need unbiased news. Regrettably, VOA Persian is letting them down. It is failing to effectively communicate US policies to Persian-speaking audiences with the balance and accuracy required in a contested information environment, especially with the regime’s sophisticated disinformation campaigns. There is also widespread mismanagement at the organization. VOA Persian has failed to create an open and transparent workplace, a problem that has persisted for more than a decade. A 2009 government report found widespread employee dissatisfaction at VOA Persian, along with allegations of favoritism and biased hiring. The report’s findings then could just as easily apply today, based on feedback from current and former employees, many of whom have taken their concerns public. VOA and the agency that oversees it, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), are regularly ranked by their employees in confidential surveys as among the worst federal agencies to work for. The American people deserve to have taxpayer-funded programs advance their interests, and VOA Persian is no exception. Here is what can be done to improve its reach and effectiveness.
First, VOA Persian needs to create more original programming that actually resonates with Iranian audiences. The earlier example of showing nature documentaries while protests raged across Iran is just one instance of VOA Persian’s programming missing the mark. In 2009, when the Green Revolution contested the presidential elections, VOA Persian continued its regular programming until three days into the post-election crisis. VOA Persian should be driving the conversation with content that is timely, relevant and reliably truthful.
Second, VOA Persian’s leadership needs to be more responsive and accountable. A start would be for USAGM to have a Senate-confirmed leader in place. Michael Pack was nominated to run the agency in June 2018, but his confirmation has languished needlessly in the Senate. Pack is the former head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and has served on the National Council of the Humanities. He is qualified for the position and should be confirmed by the Senate.
VOA Persian has the potential to be a critical tool to empower the Iranian people with news and information otherwise denied to them by the mullahs. Iranians suffer from heavily censored media; what they need is accurate and honest reporting. VOA Persian should be driving the news about human rights in Iran, corruption among the Iranian regime and analysis that counters propaganda rather than propagating it. If it can’t meet these standards — and soon — Congress should consider ending its funding and shutting down VOA Persian as a fiduciary duty to American taxpayers.
*Brian Hook is the US special representative for Iran and a senior adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Israel Awards Desalination Plant Construction to Domestic Firm Over China
Julia Schulman/Policy Brief //May 28/2020
Israel announced this week that it is awarding a $1.5 billion bid to build the world’s largest desalination plant to Israel’s IDE Technologies. Reports indicate that IDE Technologies offered to complete the project at an attractively low price, highlighting that it is possible for business and security considerations to align. The announcement comes in the wake of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Israel, where he reportedly called upon the Israeli government to block the bid of Chinese-owned Hutchinson from the Soreq B desalination plant project. The U.S. position reflects a growing sentiment inside the Beltway that China’s economic influence must be countered, including Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.
Trump administration officials have discussed their concerns about Chinese investment with Israeli officials since the publication of the December 2017 National Security Strategy, if not before. Israel has responded by establishing a foreign investment screening body, a decision that the United States welcomed as a good first step. In addition, Israel took the significant step of blocking Huawei from its 5G network. More recently, Israel abruptly halted and renegotiated a deal with Beijing Genomics Institute to set up a COVID-19 testing lab.
Israel’s foreign investment screening mechanism is still a work in progress. It benefits from strong interagency collaboration, with senior representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Defense, and the National Security Council. The committee also includes representatives from the Ministry of Economy, the National Economic Council, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Yet the mechanism does not automatically conduct a review of private sector companies that accepted foreign investment. It also lacks a mechanism to retroactively review potentially problematic business deals.
The broader challenge of decoupling from China, which increasingly appears to be U.S. policy, will not be an easy one for Israel. China accounts for roughly 10 to 15 percent of the Israeli economy. However, recent legislative initiatives in the United States may help the two countries collaborate on technological innovations at earlier stages to address respective national security concerns and prevent future misunderstandings. Washington can also support Israel by identifying alternative bilateral investment opportunities to supplant China, and by inviting Israel to participate in a regular bilateral dialogue.
By awarding the Soreq B tender to a local company, Israel simultaneously protected its critical infrastructure and addressed U.S. concerns. With additional challenges undoubtedly lying ahead, the Soreq B case study demonstrates that Israel is taking seriously Washington’s concerns about Chinese investment, and that business and security interests can align. *Julia Schulman is senior director of special projects at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from Julia and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Assad attempts to weaponize COVID-19 in Syria
Will Todman/The Hill/May 28/2020
COVID-19 has exacerbated Syria’s economic crisis to unprecedented levels. In recent weeks alone, the Syrian pound has lost more than half its value. President Bashar al-Assad argued that Syrians could not endure any more economic hardship. He reopened businesses and markets after a two-month lockdown in late April and lifted a daily curfew on May 26. But it is not “business as usual.” In fact, as he has opened the country Assad has tried to ensure that those in opposition-held areas are more vulnerable to the pandemic. He is seeking to weaponize COVID-19 to help win his civil war.
The Syrian government has exploited the misery of civilians throughout the conflict. It has blocked humanitarian aid, besieged civilian areas, and bombed aid convoys. The regime has damaged or destroyed 84 medical facilities in the northwest since December, and an independent United Nations investigation confirmed that these were deliberate strikes. Civilian suffering is not just the consequence of Assad’s military operations; punishing civilians in rebel-held areas is the goal.
COVID-19 has provided Assad a new opportunity to instrumentalize suffering. He knows how vulnerable Syria is to the pandemic. Syria’s health care infrastructure has been fragmented, downgraded and destroyed throughout the country’s civil war, and it is woefully under-equipped to deal with the spread of COVID-19. Over the past nine years, 70 percent of all Syrian medical workers have fled the country. Against the odds, Syria has seemingly avoided a large-scale outbreak thus far. But now that Assad is lifting the lockdown, an uptick of infections is all but ensured.
Assad has worked to ensure that COVID-19 will hit opposition-held areas harder than loyalist areas. His government undermined the ability of rival authorities in the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) to stem the spread of COVID-19 in the northeast. The government insisted that all samples for COVID-19 from the northeast be transported to Damascus to be tested in government labs. Tests confirmed that a 53-year-old man from the area had died from the virus on April 2. But the government prevented the World Health Organization (WHO) from telling the SDC that the pandemic had reached the northeast for 11 days. By then it was too late. Relatives of the man since have tested positive, demonstrating that community transmission has begun.
Assad also has obstructed UN agencies’ attempts to combat the pandemic in the northeast. The WHO repeatedly has requested the Syrian government’s permission to build its capacity in northeast Syria, where just 26 of 279 public health centers are functioning for a population of 4 million. The government in Damascus has delayed and obstructed these efforts. When it finally authorized a WHO shipment in mid-April, it ensured that supplies were funneled towards government loyalists. The WHO reported the delivery of a 30-ton medical shipment to northeast Syria on May 11, but SDC authorities did not receive any of this aid. The government also delayed the delivery of machines that test for the virus to local authorities and continues to prevent the WHO from establishing a COVID-19 testing laboratory in the area.
Russia has stepped in to defend its ally as evidence has grown that the regime is undermining efforts to combat COVID-19. On May 19, the Russian ambassador to the United Nations indicated that Russia would block any efforts to reauthorize UN humanitarian agencies’ use of an Iraqi crossing into northeast Syria. Using that crossing would allow the efficient delivery of medical equipment and supplies to opposition-held areas without the approval of the government. Russia forced the WHO to remove a plea to reinstate its use of the border crossing for medical deliveries in a draft paper presented to the Security Council. Although no COVID-19 cases have been confirmed in the Idlib province in the northwest, Assad has made the region particularly vulnerable to the pandemic. Displaced civilians have flooded in from the rest of the country for years, and the Syrian army’s campaign into Idlib in December then displaced almost 1 million more civilians. Idlib is bursting with desperate people who lack adequate shelter, food, water and sanitation. Many live out in the open, under trees. Hand-washing and other basic preventative measures are impossible.
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The uptick of the regime’s shelling of southern Idlib in recent weeks suggests that Syria and Russia are preparing for a new offensive. A former Russian deputy foreign minister recently argued that Russia has no option but to support a new Syrian attempt to retake all opposition-held territory in the area. A renewed offensive would provide the perfect conditions for the pandemic to spread more deeply in the area.
As I have argued elsewhere, UN Security Council members must place greater pressure on the Syrian government and its Russian allies to facilitate all UN operations to deal with COVID-19. They must stop Assad from using COVID-19 as another tool to stoke misery in Syria. The Middle East appears to have avoided widespread outbreaks of the pandemic, but Assad’s efforts to weaponize COVID-19 threaten a disaster.
*Will Todman is an associate fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. Follow him on Twitter @WillTodman.

Collateral damage: Child health under threat in humanitarian settings from COVID-19
Neal Russell and Nadia Lafferty/Al Arabiya/Thursday 28 May 2020
In 1971, the year Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was founded, over 15 million children under the age of five died. In the years since then, this number has fallen dramatically, in large part thanks to life-saving medical programs, like those run by MSF. Each year we treat around six million children. We vaccinate almost two million children for measles and safely deliver more than 300,000 babies. We work in some of the world’s hardest to reach, poorest and most dangerous places. The lives that are saved are hard won, and easily lost.
Now the world faces the COVID-19 pandemic, a crisis unprecedented in MSF’s history of international medical humanitarian action. While children are less likely to directly fall victim to the virus, the collateral fallout of the pandemic represents perhaps the greatest threat to child health we have seen in our lifetime.
In contrast to countries which have so far experienced COVID-19, where the greatest focus of concern is on elderly loved ones, in countries with few resources and weak health systems, children’s health is often much more fragile. Many families already know the pain of losing a child. As countries grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, parents in these places now see their children’s futures at risk due to the loss of basic, life-saving services, which have been severely compromised or even put to one side.
Though it is imperative for us all to respond swiftly and directly to this global health threat, the effects of the pandemic response on child health, particularly in humanitarian contexts, could be devastating. Previous outbreaks of Ebola demonstrated that those who die from indirect causes can outnumber those dying from the disease itself. With an increasing global shift in priorities and resources towards COVID-19, the decisions we make right now, as funders and implementers of healthcare, will have a crucial impact on child health, both during and after the pandemic.
The direct effect of COVID-19 on children in humanitarian settings is likely to be greater than that seen so far in wealthier countries. While severe COVID-19 disease has so far overwhelmingly affected adults, we don’t yet know how it will affect children in the places where MSF works, who often have underlying conditions and illnesses, such as malnutrition, TB or HIV. Nor can we predict how it will interact with the common infectious diseases seen in these places, like malaria and measles.
However, the most dangerous threat to child health will not be the disease itself, but its extended indirect fallout. We will see many more children die as a result of the downsizing or closure of regular child health services, and increased newborn deaths due to the loss of access to safe delivery and post-natal care. Even where child health services are maintained, fear and misunderstanding about COVID-19 means parents will avoid bringing their sick children to healthcare centers, resulting in children with life-threatening illnesses arriving too late to be treated. This is already being reported in high-income countries, but will undoubtedly have far greater consequences in places with fewer resources and weaker health systems.
COVID-19 is arriving at a very precarious moment for children. Severe hunger in 2020 in many parts of the world was already being predicted before COVID-19 erupted, but now malnutrition is set to rise dramatically as a consequence of the pandemic. ‘Biblical’ levels of famine are forecast by the World Food Programme, at the same time as children lose vital nutritional support because their schools and learning centers are closed or food aid has been cut short.
Furthermore in recent years, we have already seen diseases like measles and diphtheria, which should be easily prevented with vaccines, begin to surge again in countries including the Democratic Republic of Congo and in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh. These types of outbreaks will multiply as vaccination activities are suspended in several countries due to COVID-19.
It is predicted that for every adult COVID-19 death avoided by suspending vaccination activities, more than 100 children’s lives could be lost as a result. Since the year 2000, over 20 million child deaths have been prevented by measles vaccinations; combined with an increase in malnutrition, which exacerbates deaths from measles, the reversal of this progress could be devastating.
As seen every year, malaria will kill many times more children in 2020 than COVID-19 ever threatened to. Countries that will experience a peak in both epidemics at the same time, like many in West Africa, cannot allow COVID-19 to take precedence over malaria activities. The World Health Organization predicts hundreds of thousands more malaria deaths, the majority of them children, if control and prevention strategies cannot be sustained.
With donors already withdrawing funds from multilateral institutions, it is uncertain if the losses to child health activities in places where MSF, and organizations like ours, work could be easily regained during or after COVID-19.
At the time of writing, just over 300,000 people have died from COVID-19. This figure has shocked the world. Yet if the coverage of child health services is reduced over a similar period it could result in anywhere from 253,500 to 1,157,000 additional child deaths from diseases that will not stop just because the world’s attention is focused on COVID-19.
The extent to which organizations like MSF, and others, can prevent the deaths of children in humanitarian settings during this crisis will depend entirely on our ability to maintain and expand life-saving child health activities. If there was ever a time when this was needed, it is now. While the spotlight remains on COVID-19, vulnerable children risk dying in the shadows. We must not allow this pandemic to rob the next generation of their future.

Why scaring people about the coronavirus can backfire
Omar Al-Ubaydli/Al Arabiya/Thursday 28 May 2020
The communications strategy of many governments is predicated on alerting people to the grave danger posed by COVID-19, to motivate them to socially distance. New research suggests that such an approach can backfire, by making people fatalistically give up on social distancing.
The crux is that social distancing is a psychologically painful act that goes against our very nature, and so we have to be convinced of the purpose it serves if we are to practice it. Aside from the occasional hermit, we all want to be close to our loved ones, and to get to know new people in our schools and workplaces. Naturally, such behavior directly contributes to the spread of the coronavirus, and so governments – upon the advice of public health officials – are urging us to avoid meeting people outright, and, when forced to meet them, such as at the grocery store, to maintain a physical distance that renders most conversations impractical, especially when both parties are wearing a mask.
If we like social proximity, why would we comply with government wishes to distance socially? The first motivation is self-preservation: If you get close to people carrying the coronavirus, you are more likely to be infected, and risk serious health consequences, including death. Even those who live through it still have to grapple with the boredom and discomfort of a potential stint in quarantine.
Second, there may be material incentives to comply, such as fines and imprisonment for those who fail to distance socially. Stores are within their rights to turn away customers who refuse to wear a mask, or who get too close to other patrons when waiting in line.
Third, there are psychic incentives that reflect social norms and civic duty – i.e. people believe it’s the right thing to do.
As many who have innocently and inadvertently coughed in public during the last three months have discovered, the frowns and glares directed toward them can be enough to motivate many to get with the social distancing program. Moreover, social media has turned into fertile plains for finger-wagging social distancing hawks, and even celebrities have been keen to remind us how important it is to “stay at home.”
However, much of the motivation to comply with social distancing rests upon making people feel as though their efforts will yield a reward. A new paper by Jesper Akesson (The Behaviouralist) and colleagues, titled: “Fatalism, beliefs, and behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic,” demonstrates that if people start to lose hope regarding their ability to avoid contracting the coronavirus, they may fatalistically decide to reject social distancing and revert to natural levels of physical interaction.
Their study involves surveying people in the UK and the US, giving them information about the risks posed by COVID-19, asking them for their beliefs regarding the rate at which the coronavirus spreads, and finally asking them about their social distancing intentions for the coming weeks.
A key finding is that people who believe that the rate at which the virus spreads from person to person due to physical contact is high, are less likely to wash their hands, and are more likely to visit at risk groups. While this may seem counterintuitive, or even irrational, it actually makes sense when realizing that some people feel as though contracting the coronavirus is inevitable.
On average, this is indeed the case for people who think that transmission rates are high. To people who possess this mindset, asking them to practice social distancing is akin to asking a death-row prisoner to stay away from unhealthy food in their last meal. It may explain why some people in the Gulf have been keen to meet up with family and friends during Ramadan, in direct contravention of strict government orders. The study’s authors go on to argue that this is not a merely academic finding—it is an actionable one from the perspective of policymakers. In particular, they found that in both the UK and US, ordinary people significantly overestimated the rate at which the coronavirus spreads from person to person. Consequently, combining this with the first finding, getting people to correctly revise these estimates down may lead to greater adherence to social distancing protocols, because part of the non-adherence may have been the result of exaggerated beliefs regarding the virus’ rate of transmission.How might policymakers go about ensuring that people do have accurate perceptions? The usual suite of policy options is available, including public awareness broadcasts, social media campaigns, and, when the time is right, teaching people the truth at school. More generally, the coronavirus crisis has demonstrated the importance of a sound communication strategy to maintain public order, and to enhance the effectiveness of countermeasures. Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky captured this sentiment when he once quipped: “Much unhappiness has come into the world because of bewilderment and things left unsaid.”
*Omar Al-Ubaydli (@omareconomics) is a researcher at Derasat, Bahrain.

Venezuelans may soon suffer the bad fortune of closer ties to Iran
Con Coughlin/The National/May 28/2020
The arrival of an Iranian oil tanker in Venezuela earlier this week threatens to renew friction in the Americas.
On the face of it, Iran’s decision to send shipments of oil to Venezuela can be seen as an act of desperation, whereby two countries that have been brought to their knees by international isolation seek to help each other overcome their difficulties. Both Iran and Venezuela, for very different reasons, have been subjected to harsh economic sanctions that have had a devastating impact on their respective economies.
Tehran has been hit by one of the most hard-hitting sanctions regimes the world has ever seen because of Washington's objections to its nuclear programme, as well as its persistent meddling in the Middle East.
As far as Venezuela is concerned, the dispute between Caracas and Washington has a more ideological outlook, with the right-wing Trump administration refusing to engage with the hard-left socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro. Having overseen the devastating collapse of the Venezuelan economy, the origins of which date back to the rule of Mr Maduro’s charismatic predecessor, Hugo Chavez, the government in Caracas now finds itself desperate for any form of economic assistance to head off mounting anti-government protests.
It is in this context, therefore, that the Iranian government, which has experienced its own difficulties with anti-government protests over its inept management of the economy, has offered to come to Venezuela’s aid by dispatching a flotilla of oil tankers to provide Mr Maduro with much-needed economic support in his hour of need. Thus the arrival of the first Iranian oil tanker, the Fortune, in Venezuela earlier this week was hailed as a national victory by the Maduro government: a clear demonstration that, for all the economic pressure applied by Washington, the Venezuelan regime still has allies.
The importance of the Iranian oil lifeline to Venezuela, which Tehran has compared with the Berlin airlift the Allies conducted during the Cold War, was reflected in the fact that Caracas ordered Venezuelan fighter jets to escort the Iranian convoy on the last leg of its journey to protect it against any possible military intervention on the part of the US.
In all, a total of five ships will deliver an estimated 1.5 million barrels of Iranian fuel, with the deliveries, according to reports, being paid for with Venezuelan gold. In a tweet posted shortly after the arrival of the first tanker, Mr Maduro wrote: “Thanks Iran – only the brotherhood of free peoples will save us.”
The arrival of the tankers, though, represents a hollow victory for the Venezuelan leader. Venezuela, an OPEC state, sits on the world’s biggest oil reserves and was once a major oil producer. But decades of economic mismanagement by successive socialist governments, as well as lack of investment and the effects of US sanctions, have brought the industry to its knees. Consequently, the national oil refineries have become so dilapidated that they are no longer able to produce gasoline for domestic consumption. This has left Caracas in the humiliating position of having to import oil from other rogue states like Iran.
Moreover, the country’s severe fuel crisis has only served to increase popular disquiet with Mr Maduro’s administration. In recent weeks the crisis has become so acute that people are spending days queuing at petrol stations, with many being forced to walk miles to work.
And while the Iranian delivery will help to ease the shortages in the short term, they are unlikely to provide a long-term solution to Mr Maduro’s difficulties.
Oil experts believe that Iran has only been able to undertake the oil deliveries because a shortage of domestic demand for fuel in Iran caused by the coronavirus pandemic means Iran has a rare surplus of supplies. But this will end as the country begins to return to normal, thereby limiting Iran’s ability to carry out further exports to Venezuela.
This may well explain Washington’s disinclination to take much interest in the transaction. While the official position of the Trump administration is to maintain its support for Venezuela’s opposition leader, Juan Guaido, whom President Donald Trump described during his State of the Union address as “the true and legitimate president of Venezuela”, the White House has shown no real interest in involving itself in the country’s domestic turmoil.
The American attitude to the oil shipment was summed up by Elliott Abrams, the US special representative to Venezuela, who remarked: “You have two pariah states finding that they are able to exchange things they need for things they have.”
Of greater concern for Washington would be any attempt by Iran to deepen its ties with Venezuela to the point where they pose a threat to America’s southern flank. The two countries have a decades-long relationship dating back to Mr Chavez, who formed a close alliance with Iran’s then president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Under Mr Chavez, the Iranians ran car factories and cement plants, and built thousands of homes. Now concerns are being raised in American security circles that Iran might seek to build on its deepening engagement with Mr Maduro to extend its presence in Venezuela.
Tehran has been looking for ways to undermine the US since Mr Trump authorised the assassination of Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran’s Quds Force, in January, and Admiral Craig Faller, commander of US Southern Command, warned earlier this week that the objective of Iran’s oil deal with Caracas was to “gain positional advantage in our neighbourhood in a way that would counter US interests”.And if Iran really is serious about building its influence in Venezuela so that it can use the country as a launch pad against the US, then Washington is likely to take a much closer interest in any future deals, trade or otherwise, that take place between Caracas and Tehran.
*Con Coughlin is the Telegraph’s defence and foreign affairs editor