English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For October 02/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Matthew12/38-45: Then some of the Pharisees and teachers of the law said to him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” He answered, “A wicked and adulterous generation asks for a sign! But none will be given it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a huge fish, so the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now something greater than Jonah is here. The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom, and now something greater than Solomon is here. “When an impure spirit comes out of a person, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order.Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that person is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 01-02/2020
Occupied Lebanon Need the Implementation of UN Resolution 1559/Elias Bejjani/October 01/2020
Lebanon, Israel reach ‘framework agreement’ to hold border talks
First Israeli-Lebanese talks in 30 years to be held on maritime dispute
Berri Announces Upcoming Talks with Israel on Disputed Borders
U.S. Diplomat Says Lebanon-Israel Talks 'Another Example of Trump Efforts'
Pompeo Says Lebanon-Israel Border Talks Can Bring 'Security, Prosperity'
Schenker Says Hizbullah May Sabotage Talks with Israel, Sanctions Won't Stop
Israeli FM Says Border Talks with Lebanon Can Boost Stability
Aoun Says in Charge of Overseeing Border Talks with Israel
UNIFIL Says to Offer 'All Support' to Lebanon-Israel Border Negotiations
Independent Resigned MPs Call for Early Elections
Bassil Admitted to Hospital over Virus Symptoms
Bassil Urges 'Lebanese Way' in Border Talks with Israel
Report: Lebanon Hopes Lavrov’s Visit Would Ease Govt Deadlock
Lebanon to Allow Students Abroad to Get Dollars from Home
Lebanon: Hezbollah Wants 'Partnership' as Basis For Govt Formation
Lebanon Parliament OKs Illicit Enrichment Bill, Postpones General Amnesty
Lebanese President's Daughter And Advisor Claudine Aoun-Roukoz: I Support Peace And Want To Visit Jerusalem, But Border Disputes Must Be Resolved First/MEMRI/October 01/2020
Lebanese Journalist Noufal Daou: If Beirut Is Rebuilt Only For Hizbullah To Take Over, We Would Rather Leave It In Ruins/MEMRI/October 01/2020
Lebanon passes ‘historic’ anti-corruption law amid public outcry for transparency/Sunniva Rose/The National/October 01/2020
Israeli Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Eshel: It would take The Israeli Army months to clean out Hezbollah/Yonah Jeremy Bob/Jerusalem Post/October 01/2020

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01-02/2020

France Accuses Turkey of Sending Syrian Mercenaries to Nagorno-Karabakh
Armenia withdraws ambassador from Israel over Azerbaijan arms deal
Following Baghdad Attacks, Rockets Target Erbil Airport
Iraqi PM Reassures 25 Ambassadors of Ability to Protect Diplomatic Missions
UN Warns Against ‘One-state Reality’ in Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
Palestinian Authority Criticized for Referring Thousands of Gaza Employees to Early Retirement
Gazans Embrace Mask-Wearing to Fight COVID-19
Accusations of Wasting Funds Allotted to Fight the Pandemic in East Libya
Burhan, Ethiopian FM Discuss Border Demarcation
Yemenis Fear Holding Funerals for Killed Relatives in Houthi-held Areas
Algerian Hirak Activists Launch New Political Party
 

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 01-02/2020

Iran's Other Threat to Civilization/Peter Vincent Pry and Peter Huessy/Gatestone Institute./October 01/2020
A Victory over Terrorists Raises a Question over Election Reporting/Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute./October 01/2020
Sheikh Sabah, a Man of Balance/Nabil Amr/Asharq Al Awsat/October 01/2020
If Trump Prepares for Tyranny, Will Republicans Follow?/Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg/October 01/2020
Reports In Syria: Turkey Is Sending Syrian Rebel Fighters To Azerbaijan To Participate In Fight Against Armenia/MEMRI/October 01/2020

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on October 01-02/2020

Occupied Lebanon Need the Implementation of UN Resolution 1559

Elias Bejjani/October 01/2020
*There is no salvation for our beloved and blesses country from the Ammonite Nitrate Party's occupation (The Terrorist Hezbollah) without the full implementing of all the UN Resolutions, The Lebanese Armistice Accord with Israel, the 1680, 1559 and  1701, and specifically the 1559. At the same time declaring Lebanon a rogue state and placing it under the UN Chapter Seven. All other means are futile and a waste of time.

*The Iranian Occupied Lebanon accepted to negotiate with the state of Israel and not with the so called "occupied Palestine" serious issues related to Lebanese-Israeli border demarcation. This negotiation is a bold prove that the liberation and resistance Iranian tags are a big lie and a mere bogus of dhimmitude

Lebanon, Israel reach ‘framework agreement’ to hold border talks
The Arab Weekly/October 01/2020
The US State Department said it “welcomes the decision by the governments of Israel and Lebanon to begin discussions on the maritime boundary".
BEIRUT – Lebanon and Israel agreed to a framework for US-mediated talks aimed at ending a long-running dispute along the border between the two nations that have fought several conflicts.
Still in a formal state of war, Lebanon and Israel have contested their land and maritime borders for decades, namely over an area in the sea on the edge of three Lebanese offshore energy blocks. Israel said the talks would cover the sea border.
Washington has mediated between the two sides. “This is a framework agreement, not a final one,” Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told reporters, less than a month after the United States imposed sanctions on his top aide for corruption and financially enabling Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese group which Washington deems a terrorist organisation.
The announcement comes with Lebanon facing its worst crisis since its 1975-1990 civil war. The country’s financial meltdown was compounded by a massive port explosion that wrecked a swathe of Beirut in August, killing nearly 200 people.
Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz confirmed the two sides would hold US-brokered talks on the maritime border, a major point of contention. He said negotiations were expected to start after October 9.
The US State Department said it “welcomes the decision by the governments of Israel and Lebanon to begin discussions on the maritime boundary,” adding that the framework agreement for talks had taken three years of diplomacy to achieve.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the discussions between the two countries “have the potential to yield greater stability, security, and prosperity for Lebanese and Israeli citizens alike.”
He added that the agreement is the result of nearly three years of intense diplomatic engagement by US officials.
An Israeli official said last week that a deal had been reached, but there was no immediate Lebanese or US confirmation at the time. The official said Steinitz will lead the Israeli delegation.
“We are hoping to start direct negotiations in the near future. Our presumptive goal is to arrive at a peaceful resolution on the matter of the Exclusive Economic Zone bordering between Israel and Lebanon in a way that benefits both neighbouring nations,” Steinitz said in a statement.
The Israeli-Lebanese agreement to hold talks follows deals signed last month, brokered by Washington, between Israel and two Gulf Arab states to normalise relations.
Indirect talks mean that Lebanese Army negotiators will not be speaking directly to members of the Israeli delegation but through UN and US officials.
The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, welcomed the agreement, saying it stands ready “to extend to the parties all the support at its disposal and facilitate efforts towards a resolution of this issue.”
Berri, a Hezbollah ally and influential Shia leader in charge of the border file, said talks would be held under the auspices of the United Nations at a UN base in Naqoura near the boundary with Israel, known as the Blue Line.
He told a news conference in Beirut that Washington would push for an agreement as soon as possible.
Berri mentioned the land and maritime border at the news conference, while Israel and the United States only mentioned the maritime boundary. One reason previous efforts to launch talks floundered was the two sides disagreeing over which frontier to discuss, analysts say.
A Lebanese official source suggested Berri was prompted to make the announcement now because of the economic crisis and US sanctions imposed last month on his right-hand man, Ali Hassan Khalil. A Western diplomat echoed this. Berri denied being swayed. “I, Berri, cannot be softened by force,” he told reporters.
In 2018, Beirut licensed a group of Italy’s Eni, France’s Total and Russia’s Novatek to carry out Lebanon’s first offshore energy exploration in two blocks. One of them, Block 9, contains waters disputed with Israel.
Berri said he had asked French President Emmanuel Macron, who has been at the centre of foreign efforts to help Lebanon out of crisis, to press Total not to delay exploration for gas in the offshore area.
Berri also said the gas discoveries on the Israeli side of the Mediterranean “prove that there are reserves and God willing this will help us pay our debt.”
Lebanon has one of the highest debt ratios in the world standing at about 170% of its GDP. Three of Lebanon’s 10 offshore blocks are along the disputed maritime border with Israel. As well as the maritime border row, the two countries disagree over a border wall Israel started building in 2018. A UN peacekeeping force monitors the boundary since Israel’s military withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000, ending a 22-year occupation.

First Israeli-Lebanese talks in 30 years to be held on maritime dispute
Jerusalem Post/October 01/2020
Israel's energy minister confirmed that two sides would hold US-mediated talks.
For the first time in 30 years, Israel and Lebanon will hold direct negotiations to try to resolve their maritime border dispute, officials for both sides and the United States said Thursday. The talks between the two neighboring states, which are at war and have no diplomatic ties, will be mediated by the US and hosted by the United Nations. Those negotiations, over an 860-square-kilometer area in the Eastern Mediterranean near Israel’s natural-gas fields, are scheduled to begin the week of October 12 at the UN base in Naqoura, near the country’s border with Israel at Rosh Hanikra. “The United States looks forward to commencement of the maritime boundary discussions soon, to be held in Naqoura, Lebanon, under the UN flag and hosted by the staff from the Office of the UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon (UNSCOL),” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. News of the pending negotiations is viewed as the latest Middle East success for the Trump administration with regard to Israel’s ties with its neighbors. It follows two US-brokered normalization deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “Today’s announcement is a vital step forward that serves the interests of Lebanon and Israel, of the region, and of the United States,” Pompeo said. “Both countries requested that the United States participate as mediator and facilitator in the maritime discussions,” he added. “This historic agreement between the two parties was brokered by the United States and is the result of nearly three years of intense diplomatic engagement by Ambassador David Satterfield and Assistant Secretary [of State for Near East Affairs] David Schenker,” Pompeo said. “The United States also looks forward to separate expert-level talks to define unresolved issues related to the Blue Line [the Israel-Lebanon land border], which offer the promise of another positive step for regional stability,” he said.

Berri Announces Upcoming Talks with Israel on Disputed Borders
Naharnet/October 01/2020
Lebanon and Israel will hold U.N.-mediated talks on their disputed land and maritime borders, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri announced Thursday.
The United States will act as a facilitator during the talks, which are due to be held at the U.N. headquarters in the southern Lebanon border town of Naqoura, Berri told a news conference without providing a date for the negotiations.
U.S. envoy David Schenker said the negotiations would start in the week of October 12. Berri noted that the negotiations will be carried out by the Lebanese Army under the supervision of the President and the government, adding that his role in the file had ended with the announcement with the framework agreement.“I have been calling on the U.N. to demarcate the sea border for the past 10 years,” Berri noted, pointing out that he had “personally” asked U.S. officials to help in the file. He also said that the discussions resumed after the latest visit to Lebanon by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
“Continuous meetings will be held at the U.N. headquarters in Naqoura under the auspices of the U.N. coordinator,” Berri said. “The U.S. has been asked by the two parties to act as a mediator and facilitator for the demarcation of the sea border,” he added. Noting that the sea demarcation agreement will eventually be submitted to the U.N. to become an official document, Berri answered a reporter’s question by saying that the framework agreement was reached prior to the latest U.S. sanctions against his aide Ali Hassan Khalil.
“As Nabih Berri I do not bow to pressures,” he emphasized.
He added that the U.S. “intends to exert its utmost efforts to establish a positive and constructive atmosphere between the two parties” in order to “conclude the negotiations as soon as possible.”“The demarcation will help Lebanon economically” and French oil giant Total “has promised to begin exploration operations before the end of the year,” Berri said. In Israel, Energy Minister Youval Steinitz said in a statement the "direct negotiations" would be held after the Jewish feast of Sukkot that ends October 10. According to Israel, bilateral negotiations with Lebanon have been suspended since 1994. But an adviser to Berri, Ali Hamdan, said the talks would be "indirect." "They will sit in the same room, but there will be no direct conversation between both sides. It will rather be via the UN team," he told AFP.
Blue Line up for discussion
Talks would also address disputed areas along the Blue Line, a U.N.-drawn land border between the two countries established in 2000 after Israeli troops withdrew from southern Lebanon. They aim at an agreement "on the land border in relation to the Blue Line, after the signature of Lebanon, Israel and UNIFIL," the U.N. peacekeeping force patrolling the shared frontier, Berri said.
But Schenker said this talks track would however be held separately from the maritime border discussions.
"We welcome... new steps by the parties to resume expert-level discussion on remaining unresolved Blue Line points with the objective also of reaching agreement on that," he said. But "that's a separate track and that obviously is a discussion traditionally between the Israelis, the Lebanese, and UNIFIL," he said, referring to the U.N. mission in Lebanon. The U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon, Jan Kubis, hailed what he described as "important positive news, confirming the decision of Lebanon and Israel to begin discussions on the delineation of the maritime boundary... with the U.S. participating as mediator and facilitator.""A different set of discussions on (the) Blue line will take place as well," he added. U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hailed what he a called a historic agreement between Lebanon and Israel to discuss their disputed borders, a "result of nearly three years of intense diplomatic engagement."
The talks between Lebanon and Israel, which are still technically at war, follow two years of indirect contacts via the U.S. administration, the Israeli energy minister's office said. Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbullah fought a devastating war in 2006.
At the time, then Lebanese prime minister Fouad Saniora said that Lebanon would be the "last Arab country to make peace with Israel."U.S. envoy David Schenker on September 8 said he hoped to come to Lebanon and sign a framework agreement towards starting discussions "in the coming weeks."
The issue of the maritime border is particularly sensitive due to the possible presence of hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean.
In February 2018, Lebanon signed its first contract for offshore drilling in two blocks in the Mediterranean for oil and gas with a consortium comprising energy giants Total, ENI and Novatek. Lebanon in April said initial drilling in Block 4 had shown traces of gas but no commercially viable reserves.
Exploration of the other one, Block 9, has not started and is more controversial as ownership is disputed. Lebanese energy expert Laury Haytayan said both sides agreeing on the maritime frontier was in Lebanon's interest so it could press forward with oil and gas exploration off its coast.
The maritime "border demarcation is necessary because first it will facilitate work on Block 9, and could also spark interest from international firms for Block 8, more than half of which lies in the disputed area," she said.

U.S. Diplomat Says Lebanon-Israel Talks 'Another Example of Trump Efforts'
Naharnet/October 01/2020
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Kelly Craft said Thursday that the U.S.-mediated framework agreement to launch border demarcation talks between Lebanon and Israel was “yet another example” of U.S. President Donald Trump’s “historic efforts toward Middle East peace.”The “leaders of Israel and Lebanon have agreed to discuss their maritime boundary. This agreement holds the potential for economic development in the Mediterranean & greater stability for the people,” Craft added in a tweet. Lebanon and Israel said earlier on Thursday they would hold U.S.-brokered negotiations on their disputed land and maritime borders, in what Washington hailed as a "historic" agreement between two sides technically still at war. The United States will act as a facilitator during the U.N.-backed talks to be held in the southern Lebanon border town of Naqoura, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told a news conference in Beirut. U.S. envoy David Schenker said the negotiations would start in the week of October 12.

Pompeo Says Lebanon-Israel Border Talks Can Bring 'Security, Prosperity'
Agence France Presse/October 01/2020
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo hailed Thursday an agreement under which Israel and Lebanon will discuss their disputed maritime and land borders. "This historic agreement between the two parties was brokered by the United States and is the result of nearly three years of intense diplomatic engagement" by U.S. diplomats David Satterfield and David Schenker, Pompeo said in a statement. "Today's announcement is a vital step forward that serves the interests of Lebanon and Israel, of the region, and of the United States," he added. “The agreement between the two parties on a common framework for maritime discussions will allow both countries to begin discussions, which have the potential to yield greater stability, security, and prosperity for Lebanese and Israeli citizens alike,” Pompeo went on to say. Noting that both Lebanon and Israel had requested that the United States participate as mediator and facilitator in the maritime discussions, Pompeo said Washington “looks forward to commencement of the maritime boundary discussions soon.”“Recognizing the positive experience of the Tripartite mechanism, the United States also looks forward to separate expert-level talks to define unresolved issues related to the Blue Line, which offer the promise of another positive step for regional stability,” Pompeo added, referring to the land border between Israel and Lebanon.

Schenker Says Hizbullah May Sabotage Talks with Israel, Sanctions Won't Stop
Naharnet/October 01/2020
U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker announced Thursday that Washington will continue to slap sanctions on Lebanese individuals despite the U.S.-mediated framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel to launch talks over their disputed borders.
“We will continue to designate individuals in Lebanon who are the allies of Hizbullah. We will continue to designate people for corruption under Global Magnitsky Act,” Schenker told reporters. Noting that the U.S. will not “talk to Hizbullah” in its border demarcation mediation, the U.S. diplomat warned that the Iran-backed party might seek to sabotage the Lebanese-Israeli talks. And pointing out that maritime border demarcation might help Lebanon economically, Schenker said the indirect negotiations will not normalize ties between Lebanon and Israel. He however added that “both sides seem eager to be able to get a deal” on border demarcation.

Israeli FM Says Border Talks with Lebanon Can Boost Stability
Agence France Presse/October 01/2020
Israel's Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi on Thursday said success in the upcoming Lebanese-Israeli negotiations to demarcate the disputed border between the two sides will likely boost stability in the region. "I believe that success in the talks will significantly contribute to the stability of the region and promote prosperity for the citizens of both Israel and Lebanon," he said. Ashkenazi also thanked U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and his staff for “their dedicated efforts that have led to the beginning of direct talks.”An adviser to Speaker Nabih Berri, Ali Hamdan, has clarified that the talks would be "indirect.""They will sit in the same room, but there will be no direct conversation between both sides. It will rather be via the U.N. team," he told AFP. Berri announced Thursday that the Lebanese Army will carry out the negotiations under the supervision of President Michel Aoun and the government.Israel and Lebanon's Iran-backed Hizbullah fought a devastating war in 2006. At the time, then prime minister Fouad Saniora said that Lebanon would be the "last Arab country to make peace with Israel."The issue of the maritime border is particularly sensitive due to the possible presence of hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean.

Aoun Says in Charge of Overseeing Border Talks with Israel
Naharnet/October 01/2020
President Michel Aoun will be in charge of the border negotiations with Israel in line with Article 52 of the Constitution, the Presidency said on Thursday. It added that Aoun will oversee “the formation of the negotiating Lebanese delegation” and will “follow up on the negotiation stages.”The President “welcomes U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s announcement that a framework agreement has been reached for negotiations over border demarcation under the sponsorship and flag of the United Nations and with a facilitating mediation from the United States,” the Presidency said.
The President “calls on the U.S. side to carry on with its impartial mediation,” it added. Earlier in the day, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said the negotiations will be carried out by the Lebanese Army under the supervision of the President and the government, adding that his role in the file had ended with the announcement with the framework agreement.

UNIFIL Says to Offer 'All Support' to Lebanon-Israel Border Negotiations
Naharnet/October 01/2020
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) welcomes today’s announcement of a framework agreement to launch negotiations between Lebanon and Israel on maritime and land border demarcation between the two countries, the U.N. force said on Thursday.
"UNIFIL stands ready to extend to the parties all the support at its disposal and facilitate efforts towards a resolution of this upcoming negotiations and move forward with Blue Line demarcation," it said in a statement, shortly after the framework agreement was announced by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri.
"Under Security Council resolution 1701, UNIFIL is supporting any agreement between the two countries aimed at reinforcing confidence in getting the parties to re-commit to the sanctity of the Blue Line and the broader border demarcation process," UNIFIL added.

Independent Resigned MPs Call for Early Elections
Naharnet/October 01/2020
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi held talks on Thursday with seven, now-resigned, independent Christian lawmakers who emphasized the need that Lebanon stages early parliamentary elections to “restore credibility between the people and officials,” the National News Agency reported.
“The Patriarch is keen on maintaining hope in Lebanon while seeing it diminishing. We must hold on to this land. We need early elections, because it restores credibility between the people and political leaders,” MP Neamet Efrem said. For her part, MP Paula Yaacoubian called for “delegitimizing” the ruling authority. She voiced calls on Rahi to “stand by his people who are no longer able to stay in this country. The brain drain is huge, and the Patriarch feels this concern,” she said. The MP noted that “half the capital was destroyed” as a result of the Beirut port explosion on August 4, meanwhile political parties “stood idle” without extending any help. Yaccoubian pinned hopes that Rahi’s calls to salvage Lebanon could make a difference, “his calls echo everywhere,” she said. Moreover, resigned MP Elias Hankash urged the rest of lawmakers to follow his suit and resign.“We resigned from parliament for moral reasons and because we could not make any change from within. The coming phase will be difficult for all. Neutrality is Lebanon’s salvation, said Hankash.

Bassil Admitted to Hospital over Virus Symptoms
Naharnet/October 01/2020
Head of the Free Patriotic Movement MP Jebran Bassil was reportedly admitted to the hospital four days after contracting the COVID-19 virus, MTV station reported on Thursday, The station said Bassil was admitted to Hotel Dieu Hospital after suffering shortness of breath and that his situation was stable and doing well. On Sunday, Bassil’s media office said he tested positive for coronavirus and that the infection level was still "low and acceptable."The announcement comes amid an alarming surge in coronavirus cases in Lebanon, with record numbers registered almost every day for the past week.

Bassil Urges 'Lebanese Way' in Border Talks with Israel
Naharnet/October 01/2020
Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil on Thursday said that Lebanon should follow the “Lebanese way” in the border demarcation talks with Israel. “This time we have to negotiate not according to the Persian way nor according to the Arab way, but rather in our Lebanese way: firmness and flexibility -- the firmness of adhering to rights and flexibility in science and solutions,” Bassil tweeted. “The issue contains a mixture of sovereignty and resources and we must know how to preserve both and how to reconcile between the two,” the FPM chief, who is a former foreign minister, added. “Today Lebanon begins a new stage of recovering its rights, but this time through negotiations. If the framework agreement required all that time, effort, domestic solidarity and positive cooperation from those concerned, a (final) agreement requires” the same and even more, Bassil said.

Report: Lebanon Hopes Lavrov’s Visit Would Ease Govt Deadlock
Naharnet/October 01/2020
President Michel Aoun has “decelerated” calls for binding parliamentary consultations to name a new Premier, amid anticipations that a near visit of Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov to the country would help make a breakthrough, al-Anbaa daily reported on Thursday.
The President has reportedly “delayed consultations with lawmakers by two weeks or more, because conditions set by Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah totally differ from the road map set by French President Emmanuel Macron,” sources told the daily on condition of anonymity.
“Macron had set a road map to get Lebanon out of the crisis and form a government accompanied by an economic conference to support Lebanon in mid September,” they added. The sources said Lavrov could play a role in facilitating this mission by pressuring Iran to help facilitate forming a government in Lebanon. “But this hope remains insignificant if political parties maintain rigid positions,” the sources concluded. Lavrov is expected to fly to Lebanon late in October for talks with senior officials.

Lebanon to Allow Students Abroad to Get Dollars from Home
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
The Lebanese parliament has passed a law allowing students abroad to transfer $10,000 out of Lebanon at an official exchange rate far below the street rate, a move to help those struggling to pay foreign fees amid a deep economic crisis.
Lebanon's banking system has been paralyzed since last year, as a liquidity crunch left the nation unable to repay its massive debts. Lebanon's pound crashed, while banks severely restricted dollar withdrawals, blocked transfers and cut card spending limits abroad down to as little as $15 a month.
This left many Lebanese students around the world struggling to pay fees or meet daily expenses. Many Lebanese remain skeptical banks will deliver even with a new law, after a year in which the banks have tightened controls on transfers even without legislation in place, Reuters reported. The street value of the Lebanese pound -- officially pegged at 1,500 to the dollar -- has plunged to about 8,000. Dollars have grown scarce on the black market. Parliament passed a law on Wednesday, the first of a two-day session, allowing students or their guardians to make a one-off transfer of up to $10,000 at the rate of 1,515 to the dollar. It applies only to students who began studies abroad before 2020. It takes effect after publication in the official gazette. Several students have had to cancel or defer plans to start studies abroad this academic year, as banks refused to let them transfer dollars to pay fees. At the start of the economic crisis, banks had pledged to transfer dollars for urgent needs, such as medical or college fees. But clients say most requests were blocked.

Lebanon: Hezbollah Wants 'Partnership' as Basis For Govt Formation
Beirut - Nazir Rida/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
The formation of a new Lebanese government has returned to square one, with the insistence of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah on partnership in naming the Shiite ministers to “protect the resistance.”His recent comments reflected further complications surrounding the current government formation process. Since the Doha Agreement in 2008, six Lebanese governments have carried the name of “National Unity Government”, in which most of the active political forces in the country were represented. Only two governments were boycotted by political forces that were previously part of the March 14 team.
Previous formulas stipulated that political forces nominate their representatives in the government, before new demands came out after the October 17 uprising, to form independent and non-political technocrat governments that would be able to address the international community and attract international aid to save Lebanon from its economic and political crises. In his latest media appearance, Nasrallah did not deny his insistence to proceed with the previous approach in forming governments. Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Political researcher Dr. Talal Atrissi said that Lebanon’s problem lies in “the accumulation of norms that govern political action, in violation of the constitution.”“In Lebanon, there is no single standard for government formation nor for political action,” he added. Lebanon follows the system of consensual democracy, which is defined by 3 conditions: The rule of the political poles, the veto system and the power sharing among sects. This system needs a “continuous dialogue,” according to constitutional references. “In the absence of consensus on the method of governance, Nasrallah’s insists that the process be kept as it is, similar to previous governments. That is, the prime minister-designate consults with political forces, who name non-partisan experts and specialists, until a conclusive formula is agreed upon through a constitutional conference that discusses the different parties’ concerns,” Atrissi noted.

Lebanon Parliament OKs Illicit Enrichment Bill, Postpones General Amnesty
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
Lebanon’s parliament approved on Wednesday the illicit enrichment law, yet it failed to approve a draft general amnesty law anticipated by families of thousands of convicted prisoners in Lebanon, as the evening session was rescheduled due to lack of quorum. The next parliamentary session was postponed until Oct. 20, when the general amnesty law is now supposed to be discussed and adopted. Speaker Nabih Berri chaired the meeting which began with lawmakers observing a moment of silence for the passing of Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, and former Lebanese MP Tark Habshi, media reports said. “The next session will be held on October 20 and it will witness the election of members for the Higher Council for the Trial of Presidents and Ministers to replace the resigned MPs, after which I will open a legislative session to pass the general amnesty law should the panel reach an agreement,” the Speaker added. “The pandemic’s situation is aggravating and we no longer have enough beds, so what shall we tell those infected inside prisons?” he warned. Berri formed a committee comprised of MPs representing the main blocs to discuss and finalize a text agreed upon by all sides for the general amnesty draft law. The law was scratched from the Parliament's morning agenda after parties voiced their opposition to the text of the draft including former Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s Independent Center bloc and the Strong Lebanon parliamentary bloc of the Free Patriotic Movement, which were leaning toward skipping the session. However, Berri withdrew the draft law from the agenda, which then led to the Strong Lebanon bloc, comprised of 25 MPs, to attend the session. The Lebanese Forces’ Strong Republic bloc with 15 MPs Tuesday announced it would be boycotting the session, citing the absence of necessary items on the agenda. The bloc stressed that the focus of the session should be on calling early parliamentary elections and not on passing new laws.
Among other laws passed in the morning session, was a law that establishes a special credit line for parents who have kids studying abroad to be able to send them funds of up to $10,000 at the LL1,515 exchange rate.
Member of the Finance and Budget parliament committee, MP Ibrahim Kanaan said: “Illicit enrichment law was approved without excluding ministers, deputies or any public employee. “Unjust enrichment will therefore be classified as an ordinary crime, subject to ordinary judiciary. Meaning, violators will no more enjoy immunity from prosecution,” he added.
 

Lebanese President's Daughter And Advisor Claudine Aoun-Roukoz: I Support Peace And Want To Visit Jerusalem, But Border Disputes Must Be Resolved First
MEMRI/October 01/2020
Claudine Aoun-Roukoz, Lebanese President Michel Aoun's daughter and special advisor, said in a September 23, 2020 interview on OTV (Lebanon) that before Lebanon can have peace with Israel like the UAE and Bahrain, its border disputes with Israel must be resolved. She said that everybody wants peace and argued that the weapons of "the resistance" are legitimate according to the Lebanese constitution and international law. In addition, she said that once Lebanon’s border disputes with Israel are resolved, she would support a defensive strategy in which all Lebanese people would be part of "the resistance" and would be able to defend Lebanon if it is attacked. She added that she supports the "principle of peace" and that she would like to go to Jerusalem someday. Aoun-Roukoz serves as the President of the National Commission for Lebanese Women, and she is the wife of Lebanese MP Chamel Roukoz, a former Brigadier-General in the Lebanese military. Interviewer: "We have recently seen the normalization of relations with Israel. It started with the UAE, then Bahrain, and maybe Saudi Arabia will join soon, nobody knows when. Some people in Lebanon say: 'We support this normalization. Let us live in peace. We do not want wars. We Lebanese love life.' Are you in favor of this peace today?" Claudine Aoun-Roukoz: "The border issue must be resolved first. Has there been a demarcation of Lebanon's borders yet? We still have disputed areas. Today, we are talking about the weapons of the resistance, but the weapons of the resistance have been recognized as legitimate since the 1990s by all the governments, and in all their ministerial statements, on the basis of the general international law that guarantees the right to legitimate defense. So the legitimacy of the weapons has continued since the 1990s. Like in the town of Al-Qaa. What happened in Al-Qaa when ISIS came? Didn't the locals take up weapons to protect their town? This is legitimate defense and it is guaranteed by the Lebanese constitution, which abides by international law. "When the demarcation of the borders is done and the problems are resolved, I will definitely be in favor of a defensive strategy, in which all of us in Lebanon will be resistance fighters. We will have a plan B in case anyone attacks us in the north, in Akkar, in the Beqqa, or in the south, and ultimately we will definitely return to peace, but let us first resolve the problem of those Lebanese lands. "Our first challenge is the economic crisis. We should form a government, like the President said. We should hold a dialogue over our defensive strategy, and resolve our problem with Israel.
"Who among us does not support the principle of peace? I would like to go to Jerusalem. I definitely want to go to Jerusalem. We all do."
Interviewer: "Of course. We all support peace." Aoun-Roukoz: "But first we must resolve all the problems."

Lebanese Journalist Noufal Daou: If Beirut Is Rebuilt Only For Hizbullah To Take Over, We Would Rather Leave It In Ruins
MEMRI/October 01/2020
Lebanese journalist Noufal Daou said in a September 20, 2020 interview on MTV (Lebanon) that Lebanon would gratefully accept French President Emmanuel Macron's help in rebuilding Lebanon and its economy but only if Hizbullah is disarmed. He elaborated that if Lebanon is going to be rebuilt only to be taken over by Hizbullah, then he would rather leave Lebanon in ruins. Noufal Daou: "Macron is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, and it is his business to see how Resolutions 1559 and 1791 can be implemented, and how to restore Lebanon's sovereignty and independence. If, as a follow up, he would like to see how he can help us economically and politically, we would be grateful. If he can help us implement the French model in Lebanon, we would be grateful. "But if he comes only to tell us how he wants to give us sugar and rice and that he wants to offer scholarships to our students and rebuild our hospitals – we would still be grateful, but we do not want all this so long as Hizbullah keeps its weapons. Let it stay ruined. If Beirut is rebuilt only so that Hizbullah can take over it, we do not want it to be rebuilt.  "I am telling you that if it is going to be like it was, in the past, when we rebuilt [Beirut] and then the Syrians took over, and today we will rebuild it so that the Iranians take over – let them take it in ruins. "[Beirut] had been rebuilt and then the Syrians stole it, and eventually they put Prime Minister [Rafic Hariri] in a hole in the ground near St. Georges Hotel. If we rebuild Beirut following the August 4 blast only so that Hizbullah can take it over with its weapons and rule the country, we would rather not have it rebuilt."

Lebanon passes ‘historic’ anti-corruption law amid public outcry for transparency
Sunniva Rose/The National/October 01/2020
For the first time, ministers and MPs could be tried for illicit enrichment
Last October, as Lebanon was gripped by the collective euphoria of massive anti-government protests, a Lebanese judge tried to press charges against a former prime minister for illicit enrichment.
Judge Ghada Aoun’s move captured media attention because it was a first. Despite being passed into law in 1953, Lebanon’s illicit enrichment legislation has never been applied, experts say.
But the small Mediterranean country’s judicial system is not independent from politics, and local media cast doubt on Judge Aoun’s intentions. Whatever her motivations, her attempt to prosecute former prime minister Najib Mikati went nowhere. Flawed Lebanese legislation hinders prosecuting high-profile politicians. The United Nations Convention Against Corruption defines illicit enrichment as the significant increase in the assets of a public official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to their income.
The law also allows a yet-to-be formed anti-corruption agency to periodically audit politicians’ assets and declarations of interest. The bill will now be transferred to President Michel Aoun, who is expected to sign it because his political party, the Free Patriotic Movement, has presented the law as a political win in fighting corruption.
It will be a significant development in a country that is struggling with its worst-ever economic crisis caused in large part by nepotism and mismanagement.
Lebanon’s economic collapse has heightened public interest in accountability, with local social media users obsessing over what were previously considered to be petty details.
This trend continued to increase after a deadly blast at Beirut port tore through the capital on August 4, killing nearly 200 people. Last month, President Michel Aoun was forced to explain that he had distributed a Sri Lankan gift of over one tonne of tea to the Presidential guard, causing a public outcry.
“Politicians have turned the constitutional framework of Lebanon from a Parliamentary democracy into a systemically corrupt sectarian-based oligarchy,” said former MP Ghassan Mokheiber, who led the parliamentary team that worked on the new illicit enrichment bill.
“I believe this law is a benchmark because it is a tool to fight big corruption and not just petty corruption,” he told The National.
“In Lebanon, we can see with the naked eye that corruption kills. Beirut's port blew up as a result of gross corruption and mismanagement.”
The Lebanese President is excluded from this law because he can only be tried in front of a special court, even for common law crimes, said Mr Mokheiber. This procedure, which is similar to impeachment in the US, has never been activated in Lebanon.
MP Ibrahim Kanaan, head of the finance and budget parliament committee, said the new law was “historic on the legislative level”.
“Today, with this law, after more than 50 years, we are getting the right legislation to open the way for anyone [to be prosecuted] and for the ordinary judiciary to make public officials accountable,” Mr Kanaan, who is a member of the FPM, said on Wednesday.
“Of course, we have to continue … following this path seriously. Other laws are required, like banking secrecy and the recovery of stolen assets. It’s a whole process,” he added. Parliament has also been reviewing a law that increases the independence of the judiciary for the past year. The new illicit enrichment bill corrects flaws of the previous 1999 law, which was a merger of a 1953 law on illicit enrichment and a 1954 law on asset declaration. Public officials could previously keep their assets declaration secret unless a panel of judges had gathered enough evidence that a crime had been committed.
“That beat the purpose, because without a system to regularly check these declarations, you are unlikely to find evidence to begin with,” said Arkan El Seblani, UNDP chief technical adviser on anti-corruption in Arab states.
“In Lebanon, there is a common misconception that there are enough laws and that we just need to move ahead with implementation, but existing laws are filled with obstacles and loopholes - action is needed on both fronts” he added.
With the past illicit enrichment law, prosecutors had to prove that public officials had made financial gains through offences such as embezzlement or bribery. Now, they must simply prove a discrepancy in wealth. The suspect then has to show that it has not been derived from an illegitimate source.
Initiating a proceeding for illicit enrichment used to be an expensive and uncertain process. Individuals had to deposit a guarantee of 25 million Lebanese Pounds, or a little over $16,000 at the official, now defunct, exchange rate, and could be counter-sued by the accused for damages in hundreds of millions of Lebanese pounds. “This signals that the law was so inappropriately drafted and so ineffective that it made its use by judges or the general public almost impossible,” said Mr Mokheiber. “Our laws are meant to be incomplete so that oligarchs can continue doing what they want in agreement among themselves.”
 

Israeli Defense Ministry Director-General Amir Eshel: It would take The Israeli Army months to clean out Hezbollah
Yonah Jeremy Bob/Jerusalem Post/October 01/2020
يونا جيريمي بوب/جيروزاليم بوست/مدير عام وزارة الدفاع الإسرائيلية أمير إيشيل: قد يحتاج الجيش الإسرائيلي عدة اشهر للقضاء على حزب الله
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/90910/jerusalem-post-israeli-defense-ministry-director-general-amir-eshel-it-would-take-the-israeli-army-months-to-clean-out-hezbollah-%d9%8a%d9%88%d9%86%d8%a7-%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%b1%d9%8a%d9%85%d9%8a-%d8%a8/
Predicts soon some soldiers will take orders from autonomous units.
In order to truly clean out Hezbollah from its strongholds in any future conflict, it would take the IDF months, Defense Ministry director-general Amir Eshel said Tuesday night.
He spoke as part of Tel Aviv University’s Yuval Neeman workshop for Science, Technology and Security videoconference on a new book about the future of war by Dr. Haim Asa, former adviser to prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, and TAU emeritus Prof. Joseph Agassi.
Eshel, who was formerly chief of the Israel Air Force, said that if Israel fought like it had in past wars, it would take “not days or weeks, but it could be months” before Israel was able to establish order in core Hezbollah areas.
The Defense Ministry director-general stated that, “while we would be doing it, they would be shooting rockets at us.”
Imagining what he said was a best-case scenario, Israel might successfully strike around 80% of Hezbollah’s 150,000 rockets. This would mean a potential 30,000 rockets raining down on Israel, causing untold physical and economic damage as well as a much greater loss of life than the country has been accustomed to even during wars.
Eshel said that all during this time the IDF would also be forced to strike civilian areas where Hezbollah’s weapons are hidden.
Despite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation at the UN General Assembly Tuesday night on Hezbollah’s weapons being hidden improperly in civilian areas, he said Israel would still take a major hit to its legitimacy for expected Lebanese civilian casualties – however unintended.
To avoid this dark scenario, Eshel said that Israel needs to make multiple major changes in the way it fights wars. He said that Israel must “understand the change” in the inability to win wars decisively “and must understand the limits of its military power.”
Qualifying these remarks, Eshel said the inability to win wars decisively is not the result of a “change in our abilities. It is not that we cannot hit hard,” noting that the IDF can still strike “very hard.”
He said using Israeli force in a way that quickly ravages and destroys Lebanon’s infrastructure is much more likely to get Hezbollah to a ceasefire than playing the old-style game of chasing its concealed guerrilla fighters.
Hezbollah, he said, is much more afraid of a long period of having to rebuild that infrastructure than it is of extended guerrilla fighting and firing rockets against the Israeli home front.
But more broadly he said that Israel needs to recognize that strategic issues surrounding war and postwar diplomacy mean that even a superior military force would only go so far.
While still striving for as short a war as possible, he emphasized improving the resiliency of the civilian home front in the face of rocket attacks.
Eshel said that Israel must cooperate with key nation-state powers and influencers long before a conflict comes along so that those relationships can quickly bear fruit and lead Hezbollah back to a ceasefire as quickly as possible.
Another key trend in warfare would be Israeli growth in the use of autonomous weapons and vehicles. The former air force chief said he strongly supports this trend, but felt the need to address some critics. “There is a growing feeling about autonomous remote weapons that there is a robot and it does whatever it wants. Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. Rather, he said that “there is always a human who is watching the battle, so it is not just a robot. A human is in the loop.”
He said that someday there will be greater use of autonomous vehicles, saying “it is unstoppable.” However, he added that the actor who “makes the laws will still be people. If they are immoral people, they [autonomous vehicles] will be immoral. If they are moral people, they [autonomous vehicles] will be moral. Eventually there will even be autonomous units with command [over some lower-ranked] people – this is the right move.”
Eshel did not explain how exactly the chain of command would work at this stage in terms of higher-ranking humans commanding mid-level autonomous units that, in turn, command lower-ranking humans.
TAU technology official Isaac Ben-Israel, a former IDF major-general, moderated the conference.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 01-02/2020

France Accuses Turkey of Sending Syrian Mercenaries to Nagorno-Karabakh
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
France accused Turkey on Thursday of sending Syrian mercenaries to fight in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and said it was working with Russia to reach a ceasefire between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces. For its part, Turkey has denied sending fighters to take part in the conflict. "President Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin agreed on the need for a joint effort to reach a ceasefire in the framework of Minsk," Macron's office said in a statement after the two leaders spoke by telephone. "They also shared their concern regarding the sending of Syrian mercenaries by Turkey to Nagorno-Karabakh."The French presidency provided no evidence to support the accusation about the mercenaries and the Kremlin statement made no mention of the accusation. France, Russia and the US are co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation's (OSCE) Minsk Group, set up in 1992 to mediate a peaceful resolution over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in the South Caucasus. Macron, who has been in a war of words with Turkish President Recep Tayyep Erdogan for months, said on Wednesday Ankara was acting in a "warlike" manner. Russia's foreign ministry said on Wednesday Syrian and Libyan fighters from illegal armed groups were being sent to the Nagorno-Karabakh regions. According to Reuters, Russia has a military base in Armenia and considers it to be a strategic partner. France's population includes about 600,000 people of Armenian origin. Armenia's ambassador to Moscow said on Monday that Turkey had sent around 4,000 fighters from northern Syria to Azerbaijan and that they were fighting there, an assertion denied by an aide to Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, and Turkey's government.

Armenia withdraws ambassador from Israel over Azerbaijan arms deal
Reuters/October 01/2020
Azerbaijan has acknowledged using Israeli-made weapons in its fighting with ethnic Armenian forces around Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia said on Thursday it had recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations over Israeli arms sales to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has acknowledged using Israeli-made weapons in its fighting with ethnic Armenian forces around Nagorno-Karabakh, where heavy clashes this week have drawn international calls for an immediate ceasefire. Protesting against the Israeli weapons exports, Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalyan said "Israel's workstyle is unacceptable. The ministry has to call back its ambassador in Israel."Israel's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Asked for details on weapons sales to Azerbaijan, an Israeli defense ministry spokeswoman declined comment. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a leading conflict and armaments think-tank, Israel provided Azerbaijan with some $825 million in weapons between 2006 and 2019.Those exports included drones, loitering munitions, anti-tank missiles, and a surface-to-air missile system, information from SIPRI's Arms Transfers Database showed.

Following Baghdad Attacks, Rockets Target Erbil Airport
Baghdad - Fadhel al-Nashmi/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
Iran-backed militias launched rockets targeting US troops that landed near Erbil airport in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a Kurdish security agency said on Wednesday. Observers dubbed the attack as the most serious escalation in the last months.
Iraqi Kurdistan's counterterrorism service blamed the attack on the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), an umbrella grouping of mostly Iran-backed Iraqi Shiite militias. "Six rockets were launched from the borders of the Sheikh Amir village in Nineveh province by the PMF that were targeting (US-led) coalition forces in Erbil International Airport," the service said. Four rockets landed at the edge of the airport compound and two did not explode, it added in a statement. Public and government fury enflamed by the arbitrary shelling carried out by Iran-aligned armed factions in Baghdad did not curb the attacks. Militias continue their illegitimate targeting of multiple locations in Iraq. Authorities in Baghdad proved unable to deter the threat posed by the militias whose attacks have stepped up since last August. Security sources confirmed that Iran-backed factions carried out at least 100 operations that included the firing of Katyusha rockets on the Green Zone and army camps. These factions have also targeted international coalition convoys with explosive devices. There is, however, a consensus among Iraq’s powerful Shiite political forces on rejecting and denouncing such hostilities which place the country’s security and international ties on the line. Many Shiite parties, including the Fatah Alliance which offers an umbrella to popular factions linked to Tehran, have collectively denounced the attacks following Washington’s announcement that it could close its embassy in Baghdad. Despite no faction claiming the attacks carried out against diplomatic missions in Baghdad, it is widely predicted that those hits were staged by groups ideologically aligned with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Iraqi factions close to Iran have adopted an agenda centered on driving US presence outside the country. In their latest attack on Wednesday, the outlawed groups have targeted a civilian four-wheel drive vehicle en route to the Green Zone in central Baghdad. Although damage was incurred, no human injuries were recorded. “A roadside bomb hit a civilian vehicle at Baghdad International Airport,” the Iraqi Security Media Cell reported. Convoys driven by Iraqis and contracted by the coalition have come under almost daily attacks in recent months at the hands of pro-Iranian Shiite militias. Baghdad airport is also frequently targeted, as it hosts a coalition base. The US Embassy and Iraqi military bases hosting coalition troops have been repeatedly targeted as well. Iraqi people view those attacks as overt acts of terror that are no less dangerous and ferocious than the actions of terrorist groups linked to ISIS.

Iraqi PM Reassures 25 Ambassadors of Ability to Protect Diplomatic Missions
Baghdad/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
Iraq’s government acknowledged the dangerous repercussions of Washington choosing to close its embassy in Baghdad, and continued spending major efforts at home and abroad in order to contain the fallout of such a decision. Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi discussed with 25 Arab and foreign emissaries in Baghdad the implications of the US decision and the measures taken by his country to protect diplomatic missions from armed attacks. “Iraq is keen on enforcing the rule of law, the state’s monopoly on having weapons, protecting foreign missions, and diplomatic buildings,” Kadhimi told a meeting of 25 ambassadors and Charges d’Affaires, his office said in a statement. “Those who carry out attacks on foreign missions are seeking to destabilize Iraq and sabotage its regional and international relations,” he said. “These attacks do not target foreign missions alone, but have hurt innocent citizens, including children,” Kadhimi said, adding that state security institutions are adamant on ending the series of assaults and have taken measures accordingly. “The outlaws who try to harm the reputation of Iraq and its international obligations act on the inspiration of non-national motives, and they despise the will of the Iraqi people and their religious, political and cultural positions that have unanimously agreed on the seriousness of what they are doing,” Kadhimi noted. “We expressed our deep concern over the rise in the number and sophistication of attacks against diplomatic premises in Iraq,” the 25 diplomats said in a joint statement. “We welcome the actions that Prime Minister Kadhimi and his government have taken to address these concerns,” the statement added. In other news, Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein on Wednesday called on the US to reconsider the decision of closing its embassy in Baghdad following repeated attacks on the embassy. Hussein made his first official comments about the possible withdrawal of the US embassy in Baghdad at a press conference. “We hope that the US administration will reconsider the decision to close the embassy, and we will communicate with it to reverse this decision,” Hussein told reporters.

UN Warns Against ‘One-state Reality’ in Palestinian-Israeli Conflict
New York - Ali Barada/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov has warned that “destabilizing factors” in the region could pull Israelis and Palestinians further towards a “one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict.”Mladenov was briefing the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East on Wednesday. “We are again at a pivotal moment in the search for peace as a convergence of destabilizing factors threatens to pull Israelis and Palestinians further towards a one-state reality of perpetual occupation and conflict,” he said. “I remain committed to supporting both sides to resolve the conflict and end the occupation in line with relevant UN resolutions, international law and bilateral agreements in pursuit of achieving the vision of two states – Israel and an independent, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian state – within secure and recognized borders, based on the pre-1967 lines, with Jerusalem as the capital of both states,” he told the Council. Mladenov reiterated the call of UN chief Antonio Guterres to the members of the Middle East Quartet, key Arab partners, and to the Israeli and Palestinian leadership “to urgently re-engage and strengthen efforts to advance the goal of a negotiated two-state solution before it is too late.”Mladenov also warned against rising daily violence, which he said continues to fuel mistrust. Israel must ensure the safety and security of the Palestinians and “must exercise maximum restraint and may use lethal force only when strictly unavoidable in order to protect life.”According to him, Israel’s suspension of plans to annex parts of the West Bank removed a critical threat that had the potential to upend peace and regional stability. He warned, however, that the threat remains. “I am concerned by recent discussions in the Israeli Knesset which demonstrate the intensifying pressure on the Israeli government against Palestinians living in Area C.”“I am deeply concerned by the serious spike in demolitions and seizures of Palestinian owned structures in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem. I urge Israel to cease this policy immediately, in line with Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law,” he said.

Palestinian Authority Criticized for Referring Thousands of Gaza Employees to Early Retirement
Ramallah - Kifah Zboun/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
A controversy on Palestinian Authority employees in the Gaza Strip has erupted following a PA decision to offer early retirement to around 7,000 employees. The Palestinian Ministry of Finance imposed an early retirement program on the employees, the majority of whom work for the ministries of education, health, transportation, social development, and finance. This prompted the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to renew calls on the PA and the government to put an end to all forms of discrimination among the public sector employees and to suspend all procedures taken against them in Gaza.
The Front denounced the measures, which it said coincides with the worst humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It stressed the urgency of national calls to halt all discrimination policies practiced against the Gaza Strip, describing the new measures as illegal and part of the collective punishment of its people. The Front also decried statements made by Palestinian Social Affairs Minister Ahmed Majdalani, who said that Gaza laborers have been receiving their salaries for 13 years without working. They can’t be compared to the workers in the West Bank, he added.
Senior Fatah official in Gaza Ibrahim Abu al-Naja sent a letter to the government in Ramallah requesting a clarification of Majdalani’s statement, which he deemed offensive. Fatah Central Committee member Tawfiq al-Tirawi also criticized the latest decision and highlighted the importance of protecting salaries in Gaza, which preserve the people’s social dignity and provide them with a decent living.For its part, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights called on the government to adhere to its legal commitments, to assume its responsibilities, and to withdraw the punitive measures imposed on Gaza since March 2017 under the pretext of political and geographical division.

Gazans Embrace Mask-Wearing to Fight COVID-19
Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
The coronavirus may have been slow to reach the sealed-off Gaza Strip, but Palestinians in the densely populated enclave have been quick to embrace mask-wearing to try to contain its spread. Five weeks into an outbreak of COVID-19 among the general population in the territory, restaurants, many shops, schools, mosques and other public facilities remain closed, and a night-time curfew is in effect. It is rare to see anyone without a mask outdoors, with the coronavirus death toll at 20 and nearly 3,000 cases reported since infections spread beyond border quarantine facilities on Aug. 24. Tariq Zaanin, 35, from the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, said Gazans had thought their hated isolation from the outside world would at least keep them safe from the global pandemic. "Today it has spread in your neighborhood, hitting friends and relatives. So people are now more cautious because they are afraid for themselves and for those they care about," he said. Zaanin, a hairdresser, got married on Sept. 22 but social distancing meant cancelling a large wedding dinner, Reuters reported. "Some may say it saved us money, but it took away our joy," he said.International health officials caution that a wider COVID-19 outbreak in Gaza would be disastrous, given its under-developed health system and a chronic shortage of medical supplies. Gaza's security forces enforce a ban on beach-going, a popular activity in the enclave, where frequent power cuts make cooling off that much harder. Police man checkpoints, inspecting vehicles to ensure drivers and passengers wear masks. Eyad Al-Bozom, a Gaza interior ministry spokesman, said people who violate health regulations or the curfew can be fined or detained.

Accusations of Wasting Funds Allotted to Fight the Pandemic in East Libya
Cairo - Jamal Jawhar/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
The European Union delegation in Libya has organized a training for doctors in Tripoli to fight the COVID-19 disease amid accusations of wasting funds allotted for confronting the pandemic in eastern Libya. Health workers are on the frontlines of the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said the delegation. “Fifty medical professionals in two primary health care centers in Tripoli have now received training on case management and COVID-19 prevention protocols,” according to the delegation. “The training for Libyan doctors, nurses and health center staff has been organized by the International Medical Corps’ (IMC) in collaboration with the Libyan Ministry of Health, the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) and funded by the European Union Trust Fund (EUTF),” it said. The number of coronavirus infections and deaths have continued to rise in Libya. Deaths exceeded 551 while infection cases reached around 34,525 despite the improvement of the recovery rate. Meanwhile, the Ras Lanuf Oil and Gas Processing Company (Rasco) extended the suspension of operations in its administrations and offices until Oct. 10 despite some exceptions.
In the same context, local authorities in eastern Libya exchanged accusations of “wasting funds” allocated for confronting the pandemic in regions falling under the control of the government linked to the parliament. Governor of the Central Bank of Libya in Al-Bayda Ali Al-Hibri said that he agreed to allocate LYD300 million for the interim government but only LYD284 million was spent in 10 days. Hibri said that “there is no transparency in dealing with the pandemic.”Early this week, speaker of the east-based Libyan parliament Aguila Saleh decided to form a committee to investigate the management of funds.

Burhan, Ethiopian FM Discuss Border Demarcation
Khartoum - Mohammed Amin Yassin/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
The head of Sudan's Transitional Sovereign Council (TSC), Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, discussed Wednesday with Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedu Andargachew bilateral coordination to overcome obstacles facing border demarcation. The FM conveyed a message of support and solidarity from Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to Sudan in confronting the floods disaster. Andargachew stated that his visit aims to turn words into actions and to confirm support to the Sudanese government and people. The Ethiopian minister arrived in Khartoum on Thursday and was welcomed by his Sudanese counterpart Omer Gamar-Eddin, along with several government officials. Ethiopia has expressed solidarity by sending 60 tons of relief aid to Sudan, including medicine and foodstuff. The meeting between al-Burhan and Andargachew touched on the two countries’ joint border, the TSC revealed in a statement, saying coordination will take place to resolve all border-related problems. Gamar-Eddin expressed appreciation to the Ethiopian government and people for their support to Sudan to confront the impact of the floods.
The border between both countries has seen security tension in the past months, leading to casualties on both sides. Despite talks held by joint committees, border demarcation remains pending.

Yemenis Fear Holding Funerals for Killed Relatives in Houthi-held Areas
Taiz/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
Houthi oppression practiced in areas under their control has sparked fear in the hearts of thousands of Yemenis who now are going as far as concealing the deaths of their relatives and burying them in unmarked graves without holding funeral services. Families in Sanaa in Taiz have been forced to hide the martyrdom of their relatives who were killed on the battlefield while defending the country against the Houthi insurgency alongside government forces. They resort to keeping the news of the death of relatives a secret and only accept condolences from a trusted few over the phone. The reason behind shrouding the deaths of valiant Yemenis in secrecy is traced back to Houthis hunting down the families of any opponent, sources said, adding that the lives of those families remain in danger. Houthis have gone as far as kidnapping, arresting, and firing relatives of any opposition member. Families of Yemenis who died fighting off the Houthi coup voiced their fear towards their other children being arrested and killed by the Iran-backed militia. “Houthi oppression has led to neighbors hiding the truth from each other,” a brother of a Yemeni fighter who died in the battles raging in Marib against Houthis told Asharq Al-Awsat.
A resident of al-Hoban region east of Houthi-held Taiz, the brother, who requested anonymity, said that Houthi supervisors are closely monitoring families who happen to have a member disappear. “The Houthi-appointed overseers investigate into the disappearance of any household member,” he said, adding that the families are forced to give false reasons for why their relatives are not home. “When asked, the families say that the disappeared member had traveled to the village to work in agriculture,” the bereft brother said. He stressed that his family, which owns a supermarket in Taiz, lives in constant fear of Houthis figuring out how his brother’s fate. The deceased brother had died and was buried in Marib governorate in 2019.

Algerian Hirak Activists Launch New Political Party
Algiers - Boualem Goumrassa/Asharq Al-Awsat/Thursday, 1 October, 2020
Activists from the Algerian mass protest movement, known as Hirak, have launched the NCP party. The names and photos of 14 founders - all of them being prominent figures from the protest movement that erupted on Feb. 22 against ousted president Abdelaziz Bouteflika - were posted on social media this week. Prominent activist Mouadh Tabainet posted on his Facebook page that the 14 figures will be in charge with implementing the party’s political plan until its founding conference is held. He saw it as a challenging mission yet attainable for those who have faith in the NCP. The 14-member team selected Dr. Saif Al-Islam ben Attia to be the coordinator of activities that would set the stage for the party’s political plan. Ben Attia is further nominated to be the president of the party if the interior ministry gives it a license. The Hirak suspended its protests in March due to the coronavirus pandemic. In the past weeks, there have been several attempts to revive demonstrations but the security forces apprehended and imprisoned protesters on charges of “encouraging unlicensed protests” and “jeopardizing national unity.” Activists remain skeptical towards the legitimacy of the presidential elections that took place at the end of last year and resulted in the victory of Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. For this reason, they demand a radical regime change. The president’s loyalists consider that the constitution to be submitted to a referendum in November “meets the key demand of the Hirak, which is putting the corrupt in jail.”Meanwhile, National Liberation Front (FLN) former secretary general Mohammed Jamiei was released from prison after spending a year behind bars. He had been accused of “forging official documents” on real estate. Activists were dissatisfied with his release and considered it a “counter revolution.”

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 01-02/2020

Iran's Other Threat to Civilization
Peter Vincent Pry and Peter Huessy/Gatestone Institute./October 01/2020
The US and its allies need to do everything possible never again to be caught in a state of unpreparedness.
The Congressional EMP Commission estimates that, given U.S. current unpreparedness, within one year of an EMP attack that causes a nationwide blackout... up to 90 percent of the U.S. population could perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse. An EMP attack, therefore, would confer upon Iran an "assured destruction" capability against the United States.
The Congressionally created EMP Commission assesses that North Korea already has super-EMP nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them.... Iran may also already -- or soon -- have the capability to deliver an EMP attack.
"By sending a military satellite into space, Iran now has shown that it can target all American territory; the Iranian Parliament had previously warned [the U.S.] that an electromagnetic nuclear attack on the United States would likely kill 90 percent of Americans." — Iran's state-controlled Afkar News.
The formal end of the UN arms embargo -- at the end of September 2020 -- could provide Iran with even more missile and nuclear technology possibly from Russia or China.
"Iran should be regarded by national security decision makers as a nuclear missile state capable of posing an existential threat to the United States and its allies... The fact of Iran's ICBM capability and their proximity to nuclear weapons necessitates that Iran be regarded as a nuclear missile state — right now." — William R. Graham, Henry F. Cooper, Fritz Ermarth and Peter Vincent Pry, Newsmax, February 1, 2015.
The Islamic Republic of Iran may soon have the capability, if it does not already, of carrying out electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks against its enemies. An EMP attack could black out not only the US national electric grid but also virtually all life-sustaining equipment that relies on electrical power and computer systems. An EMP attack could thus pose an existential threat to modern civilization. (Image source: iStock)
The Islamic Republic of Iran may soon have the capability, if it does not already, of carrying out electromagnetic pulse (EMP) attacks against its enemies. Such an attack involves exploding a nuclear warhead some 30-400 miles above the United States, for instance, and unleashing a downward electronic pulse that can destroy the (currently unprotected) infrastructure. That would include such as critical electronic systems in virtually all civilian systems: food manufacturing and supply chains, automobiles, airplanes, trains, elevators, communications and the US electric grid -- actually, just about everything on which a modern country relies.
An EMP attack could black out not only the US national electric grid but also virtually all life-sustaining equipment that relies on electrical power and computer systems. An EMP attack could thus pose an existential threat to modern civilization. This would totally alter the risk-benefit calculations for the United States and its allies for being able to defend the post-1945 world order.
Recently, the Iranian state-controlled Afkar News claimed that Iran is now able to carry out just such an EMP attack over the United States:
"By sending a military satellite into space, Iran now has shown that it can target all American territory; the Iranian Parliament had previously warned [the U.S.] that an electromagnetic nuclear attack on the United States would likely kill 90 percent of Americans."
Does Iran Already Have Nuclear Weapons?
Washington's conventional consensus is that Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons or missiles capable of threatening the United States with a nuclear attack. The Obama Administration assessed that Iran could develop an atomic weapon in six months to two years, prior to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which pretended to stop an Iranian A-bomb. Iran ostensibly agreed to the JCPOA five years ago, on July 14, 2015. Iran never signed the agreement, and started violating its terms almost immediately.
A 2020 assessment by Israel confirmed that Iran continues to cheat on its JCPOA obligations and will be able develop atomic weapons in six months to two years.
Some senior Israeli analysts and U.S. experts disagree with the "consensus view" and assess that Iran already has nuclear weapons. According to a report in Newsmax, titled "Experts: Iran Now a Nuclear-Ready State, Missiles Capable of Hitting US":
"Regardless of intelligence uncertainties and unknowns about Iran's nuclear weapons and missile programs, we know enough now to make a prudent judgment that Iran should be regarded by national security decision makers as a nuclear missile state capable of posing an existential threat to the United States and its allies...The fact of Iran's ICBM capability and their proximity to nuclear weapons necessitates that Iran be regarded as a nuclear missile state—right now."
The North Korea Connection
The Congressionally created EMP Commission estimates that North Korea already has super-EMP nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver them. North Korea and Iran are collaborating and have signed an agreement to cooperate in "science and technology."
Iran may already -- or soon -- have the capability to deliver an EMP attack. It has successfully launched several civilian satellites -- in 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2015 -- including on southern polar trajectories, assisted by North Korean missile technology and North Korean technicians. On April 22, 2020, Iran orbited a military satellite over the United States, launched by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- the world's deadliest terrorist organization. The IRGC's Noor-1 satellite is tiny, weighing only about 30 pounds, but the Space Launch Vehicle's third stage also went into orbit, demonstrating a capability to circle over the U.S. a net payload weighing several hundred pounds -- enough for a nuclear weapon.
North Korea sold the mullahs much of the technology for Iran's most sophisticated ballistic missile, the Shahab-III, which is an improved version of North Korea's Nodong missile. Iran's Shahab-III is capable of delivering a high-altitude EMP attack over America's heartland if the missile is launched, say, from a freighter in the Gulf of Mexico. Iran has apparently already practiced launching and fusing Shahab-III missiles that could carry out a high-altitude EMP attack. Iran has also demonstrated that it is capable of launching a ballistic missile from a vessel at sea. Worse, the formal end of the UN arms embargo -- at the end of September 2020 -- could provide Iran with even more missile and nuclear technology possibly from Russia or China.
The Terrorist Connection
Iran, as the "world's worst state sponsor of terrorism," could become a conduit for giving nuclear EMP attack capabilities to terrorists. The EMP Commission warns:
"Terrorists or state actors that possess relatively unsophisticated missiles armed with nuclear weapons may well calculate that, instead of destroying a city or military base, they may obtain the greatest political-military utility from one or a few such weapons by using them — or threatening their use — in an EMP attack."
Congressional testimony in 2004 by US President Ronald Reagan's Science Adviser and one of the EMP Commissioners warns of the prospects of an anonymous EMP attack launched from a freighter by Iran hired terrorists:
"DR. GRAHAM: Iran, the world's leading sponsor of international terrorism, has practiced launching a mobile ballistic missile from a vessel in the Caspian Sea. Iran has also tested high-altitude explosions of the Shahab-III, a test mode consistent with EMP attack, and described the tests as successful. Iranian military writings explicitly discuss a nuclear EMP attack that would gravely harm the United States."
Iranian Military Doctrine Endorses EMP Attack
An official Iranian military textbook from 2010, but not released until 2017, endorses a nuclear EMP attack against the United States, as well as deception measures to conceal nuclear weapons -- in violation of international agreements. The textbook is used to train officers at Iran's prestigious military academy and think tank, the Martyr Lt. General Sayad Shirazi Center for Education and Research.
Strangely for a book titled Passive Defense, its overarching focus is offensive -- how to black out electric grids -- including by nuclear EMP attack.
Calculations in the book that America could be vanquished by a nuclear EMP attack appear to be correct.
Strategic Implications
The Congressional EMP Commission estimates that, given U.S. current unpreparedness, within one year of an EMP attack that causes a nationwide blackout, two-thirds or more, up to 90 percent, of the U.S. population could perish from starvation, disease and societal collapse.
An EMP attack, therefore, would confer upon Iran an "assured destruction" capability against the United States. The geopolitical consequences of this development are so grave that U.S. and global security would, in effect, go into free-fall. Where the U.S. would land, into what kind of future, is of course unknown.
If Iran and North Korea both decided to use threats to America or its allies with an EMP-generated genocide, it could destroy the foundations of the existing world order. If the US can no longer be the superpower that since 1945 has halted the cycle of world wars and sustained the global advancement of freedom, the consequences would be existential and catastrophic.
An EMP assured destruction capability changes the strategic calculus of risk for the United States in being able to uphold its role as a superpower and would necessarily erode the confidence of U.S. allies -- perhaps to the point where they would feel the need to develop their own nuclear weapons.
Most alarmingly, the U.S. is fast moving to a place where, for the first time, smaller failed states such as Iran and North Korea would have the power to blackmail or destroy the largest and most successful societies on Earth. These rogue states have long perceived themselves to be at war with the United States, and have already demonstrated that they are desperate, highly dangerous characters.
The US and its allies need to do everything possible never again to be caught in a state of unpreparedness. We know how to protect our electric grid and the President of the United States has ordered the government bureaucracy to take the necessary steps to do so. Progress, however, regrettably remains slow. The emerging threats from Iran and North Korean outlined here should compel the United States to take faster action -- now.
*Dr. Peter Vincent Pry is Director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security. Peter Huessy is Director of Strategic Deterrent Studies at the Mitchell Institute. He is also senior consulting analyst at Ravenna Associates, a strategic communications company.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

A Victory over Terrorists Raises a Question over Election Reporting
Chris Farrell/Gatestone Institute./October 01/2020
An interesting legal question or two popped-up... right at the intersection of free speech and technology. Corporate standards for content and how Internet platforms engage in editorial decisions over content material (they supposedly are not responsible for) is increasingly becoming a point of contention.
Policing content and platform liability get more complicated with every passing day. The social media tech giants pretend they are not really responsible, unless they want to be -- or they do not like your politics -- or they are frightened of being prosecuted and fined for supporting terrorism.
Corporate America, and especially the Internet tech giants, do not see it that way. Consider the multi-billion-dollar Internet pornography industry that exploits and denigrates human beings through exploitation, child abuse and trafficking.
What happens when the giants decide that an election outcome must be decided in one way, and that anyone reporting or asking questions about a different outcome, a different way, must be banned and suppressed?
Policing internet content and platform liability get more complicated with every passing day. The social media tech giants pretend they are not really responsible, unless they want to be -- or they do not like your politics -- or they are frightened of being prosecuted and fined for supporting terrorism. What happens when the giants decide that an election outcome must be decided in one way, and that anyone reporting or asking questions about a different outcome must be banned and suppressed? (Image source: iStock)
We have good news: Terrorists were stopped from exploiting the Internet and a state university event to propound their violence-inspiring, hate-filled rhetoric. Ten days ago, several online news and social media fora sounded the alarm over San Francisco State University (SFSU) hosting the terrorist Leila Khaled on September 23, 2020 via an Internet-based open classroom event. The occasion was described as "a historic roundtable conversation with Palestinian feminist, militant, and leader Leila Khaled, followed by Q&A discussion with students, activists, and scholars."
Billed as "Whose Narratives? Gender, Justice, & Resistance: A conversation with Leila Khaled," the event featured at least three other terrorists from the Weather Underground, Black Panthers and an advisor to Hamas. Today, the good news with which we are following up is that Khaled and the other terrorists did not win.
While Khaled is not a specially designated terrorist, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) is a designated organization -- and Khaled is a member of the terrorist organization's politburo. Because the online event was an Internet open classroom, there were no specific issues related to her physical admissibility to the U.S. Khaled has spoken in Europe several times (including at an EU conference in Brussels in 2017) but the same year, was denied entry to Italy.
Khaled was invited by the roundtable organizer, Professor Rabab Abdulhadi of the SFSU Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas (AMED) program. She has a long history of Palestinian, anti-Jewish activism, including establishing ties between SFSU and Hamas-affiliated universities. In 2014, she led a university-funded delegation of academics to the Middle East, where it met with Leila Khaled and Sheikh Raed Salah, "leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel who has funded the terrorist organization Hamas." Co-sponsors of the event included the Marxist Workers World Party and leading BDS organization Al-Awda -- The Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, which has called for the elimination of Israel and earlier this year had its GoFundMe account terminated on account of its anti-Semitic views.
Here is the good news: First, Zoom, then Facebook, and finally YouTube rejected hosting the terrorists. Zoom sent the following statement to The Lawfare Project:
"Zoom is committed to supporting the open exchange of ideas and conversations, subject to certain limitations contained in our Terms of Service, including those related to user compliance with applicable U.S. export control, sanctions, and anti-terrorism laws. In light of the speaker's reported affiliation or membership in a U.S. designated foreign terrorist organization, and SFSU's inability to confirm otherwise, we determined the meeting is in violation of Zoom's Terms of Service and told SFSU they may not use Zoom for this particular event."
As one might expect, the SFSU president, Lynn Mahoney, conjured up an excruciating statement rationalizing virulent anti-Semitism:
"Zoom's cancelation of the event will be deeply wounding to some members of our community who will feel themselves and their dissent silenced once again, just as the participation of Leila Khaled in a class panel discussion is deeply wounding to others in our community. We cannot embrace the silencing of controversial views, even if they are hurtful to others."
Where does one go to have their Internet event cancellation deep wounds treated?
Some would argue a First Amendment or international Internet freedom case supporting the "right" of Khaled to contaminate the already poisoned minds of the students and faculty at SFSU. Material cooperation with atrocities -- in this case, terrorism -- explodes that argument. We cannot glorify or promote atrocities.
Corporate America, and especially the Internet tech giants, do not see it that way. Consider the multi-billion-dollar Internet pornography industry that exploits and denigrates human beings through exploitation, child abuse and trafficking.
In the case of Khaled, the other terrorists and their supporters, we can be satisfied that Zoom, Facebook and YouTube did the right thing, even if they did so for the wrong reasons. The corporate counsels were probably looking at the legal exposures and liabilities for charges of "material support to terrorist organizations" (18 US Code § 2339A) when they made their recommendations, not thumbing through the Summa Theologica of Thomas Aquinas. That's okay. Sufficient awareness and pressure were brought to bear by a legion of organizations, activists and ordinary citizens to make the tech firms, SFSU and senior U.S. government officials aware of what was planned and how it needed to be stopped. It happened.
An interesting legal question or two popped-up along the way, right at the intersection of free speech and technology. Corporate standards for content and how Internet platforms engage in editorial decisions over content material (they supposedly are not responsible for) is increasingly becoming a point of contention. Policing content and platform liability get more complicated with every passing day. The social media tech giants pretend they are not really responsible, unless they want to be -- or they do not like your politics -- or they are frightened of being prosecuted and fined for supporting terrorism. In this circumstance we have a victory.
Thinking more broadly, one can imagine how the same techniques could be employed and justified to suppress the speech of domestic political opponents of the social media tech giants. What happens when the giants decide that an election outcome must be decided in one way, and that anyone reporting or asking questions about a different outcome, a different way, must be banned and suppressed? Perhaps we will find out.
Democratic political operatives are already feeding the "Don't Fall for the Red Mirage" storyline -- suggesting a Trump landslide on election night is "fake" and that "all of the ballots must be counted." This narrative suggests that there is no way there could actually be a legitimate victory by the candidate they do not like and that election night becomes election month. The Left wants to count and count and count until they get a number that beats Trump.
Suppose Trump declares victory? Is that "fake news?" Does Trump's Twitter feed get cut? What about the Trump campaign's social media accounts? You see how this all plays out, of course.
*Chris Farrell is a former counterintelligence case officer. For the past 20 years, he has served as the Director of Investigations & Research for Judicial Watch. The views expressed are the author's alone, and not necessarily those of Judicial Watch.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

Sheikh Sabah, a Man of Balance
Nabil Amr/Asharq Al Awsat/October 01/2020
Rulers and leaders are most critically tested when their ability to weigh matters out and make the right decisions is elucidated, when the stormy winds blow in their way or threaten their people, or when their vital area and their wider surroundings are struck by significant events, like war and various forms of turbulent upheaval. These situations demand the wisest of policies and that the leaders choose the most appropriate roles for themselves to protect the country from the gravest of threats.
Among the Arab leaders who passed this test distinctively is Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad, the Emir of Kuwait. The man of balance in the era of imbalance; he was a man of powerful diplomacy. This applies to his role as one the most present and prominent of Kuwait’s foreign ministers, leading the ministry soberly and intelligently, diligently and meticulously- following up on solving the crises forced in the region. The consensus is not that he was a traditional mediator, but a source of trust with all that this requires.
Sheikh Sabah’s diplomatic successes and the distinctiveness of his leadership in the Gulf and the Arab world are sorely missed during these particular circumstances, as we Arabs undergo terrible circumstances, the likes of which we have never lived through before. Crises and challenges revolve around us together and individually; and the collective Arab action, of which the deceased had been a pillar and guarantor, has been suffering from turbulence, rifts, and collapses. Some of these developments had led to some of history’s most dangerous and costly internal wars, and others have been so grave as to make Arab unanimity on any issue far-fetched, if not impossible.
When speaking about Sheikh Sabah, Kuwait, and Palestine, the fleeting negatives do not cancel out the enduring positives. Who denies the Kuwait’s role in supporting and endorsing the Palestine cause since the very beginning, and that Kuwait stretched out a strategic helping hand to the people of Palestine, so much so that hundreds of thousands came to live there? They were not treated like refugees, but expatriates, and the doors of decent work were opened for them, in cooperation with the country’s people, with the young Kuwaiti state providing the best opportunities for work and production; it is as though they had been in their country.
In the era of fear-mongering about the Palestinian revolution’s eruption, Kuwait embraced it early on- as the engineer Yasser Arafat used to say - a confident supporter of the Palestinian peoples’ right to belong to their revolution and partake in all of its activities.
When one visited Kuwait, he would see the best manifestations of the Palestinian movement. There, professional and syndical unions were the most effective, organized, and present in the lives of the revolution and the people. Whenever the revolution was in danger, Sheikh Sabah was the go-to fireman.
Among the Palestinian movements’ mistakes was its reprehensible refrain from condemning the invasion of Kuwait, and one of the best things it did was apologize for it. Because of Sheikh Sabah and his countrymen’s refined sense of responsibility, they opted for forgiveness. They accepted the apology without deviating in the slightest from their conscious and responsible endorsement of Palestine and its people’s imperative to attain their rights.
May Sheikh Sabah’s soul run in peace. He was a man whose death deserves the entire Arab nation’s grief, the world as a whole as well. The Emir was a necessity to all of us during his lifetime. Nonetheless, he will remain present through his legacy and the unstable national and moral impact he left behind for Kuwait, its people, its leadership, and the entire Arab nation.

If Trump Prepares for Tyranny, Will Republicans Follow?
Jonathan Bernstein/Bloomberg/October 01/2020
Let’s be clear: Any attempt by Republican state legislators to appoint their own set of electors — the people who will actually select the next president in the electoral college — in defiance of their states’ voters after the Nov. 3 election would be a flat-out attack on constitutional government. If it succeeded in keeping a defeated president in office, it would replace the rule of law with partisan power. It would, as political scientist William Adler put it, be “the end of the republic.”
This outlandish scenario now has to be taken seriously because President Donald Trump’s campaign and at least some swing-state Republicans are thinking about trying it, according to reporting from Barton Gellman in The Atlantic. The idea would be to claim without cause — serious claims with evidence to back them could be adjudicated in the courts, after all — that an actual vote count that extends past Election Day as mail-in ballots are reviewed is so fraudulent that the legislature has no choice but to step in:
The Trump-campaign legal adviser I spoke with told me the push to appoint electors would be framed in terms of protecting the people’s will. Once committed to the position that the overtime count has been rigged, the adviser said, state lawmakers will want to judge for themselves what the voters intended.
“The state legislatures will say, ‘All right, we’ve been given this constitutional power. We don’t think the results of our own state are accurate, so here’s our slate of electors that we think properly reflect the results of our state,’ ” the adviser said. Democrats, he added, have exposed themselves to this stratagem by creating the conditions for a lengthy overtime.
“If you have this notion,” the adviser said, “that ballots can come in for I don’t know how many days — in some states a week, 10 days — then that onslaught of ballots just gets pushed back and pushed back and pushed back. So pick your poison. Is it worse to have electors named by legislators or to have votes received by Election Day?”
What’s important, however, is that the Constitution doesn’t give state legislatures the power to pick their own electors in this fashion. It’s true that the states get to decide how to select their electors, and that one option used in the early days of the republic was for the state legislature, rather than the voters, to choose. But the states Republicans are said to be targeting — Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Florida, Arizona and North Carolina — have long-established law giving the voters the power to select electors. There is no justification, in law or the Constitution or democratic theory, for suddenly asserting that those laws don’t count just because the Republicans in those legislatures don’t like the results. That’s not how law works.
Gellman goes through a number of ways that the Trump campaign and the Republican Party may contest the election results. Some are more legitimate than others, although virtually all of them are unseemly at best. Many fall into the murky area in which parties and campaigns are within their rights to fight hard to win, even if it’s ugly. For example, parties certainly have the right to challenge ballots. It’s worse, but not illegitimate, to add to that a strategy of arranging to make voting difficult in any number of ways. It’s even worse to apply those strategies selectively, so that Democrats are more likely to have their ballots challenged than Republicans.
But these kinds of tactics probably fall under the category of stealing an election fair and square. Some of the other tactics, such as encouraging or even organizing Republicans to intimidate voters at the polls, are even worse, and those who pursue them should be prosecuted when they break the law. But as bad as they are, and I don’t mean to downplay them, these sorts of things are likely to have relatively small effects — keeping in mind that in close elections small effects can be decisive.
The idea of just throwing out election results if the legislature doesn’t like them? And we’re talking about the outgoing, lame-duck legislature, not the newly elected one, so that’s even worse. That’s flat-out tyranny. If the current government can ignore the results of elections by fiat, then it’s an authoritarian state.
The good news is that it’s possible that Republicans would not follow through on these plans. Florida Republicans were all over Twitter on Wednesday not only denying they would do any such thing, but calling the idea “totally crazy.” And, should the Democratic challenger Joe Biden win the election, it will be up to state parties and state legislators to resist whatever insanity Trump and his allies throws at them in terms of phony claims of fraud and baseless assertions that only votes tabulated on Election Day should count. It’s a good bet that Trump will cry election fraud if he loses; after all, he complained (without evidence) about fraud even when he won in 2016. And there’s no reason to expect Trump to abide by constitutional standards, since he’s regularly ignored those that he doesn’t like.
So the real issue if Trump loses will be the behavior of the Republican Party, particularly its elected officials. If pressed, would they choose democracy, or would they try to turn the nation into a self-perpetuating party dictatorship? I really wish I could be confident about the answer.
 

Reports In Syria: Turkey Is Sending Syrian Rebel Fighters To Azerbaijan To Participate In Fight Against Armenia
MEMRI/October 01/2020
Since the start of the current round of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, whose Armenian majority seeks to secede from Azerbaijan and join Armenia, many reports in Syrian and Arab media claim that Turkey, which supports Azerbaijan, has been sending Syrian fighters there to participate in the fighting. The fighters are reportedly members of rebel militias loyal to Turkey. This is similar to Turkey's actions in Libya: Since late 2019, it has been recruiting Syrian opposition fighters and sending them to fight in that country on the side of Fayez Al-Sarraj's Government of National Accord, which it supports.
Nationalia.info
The reports indicate that as in the case of Libya, Turkey has been recruiting fighters mainly from the Syrian National Army (SNA) – a coalition of rebel militias that was formed with Turkey's support in October 2019 – and especially from the Al-Sultan Mourad and Suleiman Shah factions within that coalition. The reports also claim that Turkey has already recruited hundreds and perhaps thousands of Syrian fighters, trained them on its soil, and sent them to Azerbaijan, and that it pays them salaries of close to $2,000 a month.
Azerbaijan itself denies that Turkey has sent it Syrian reinforcements,[1] but several sources in the Syrian opposition have confirmed the reports. An SNA official said that no formal decision was made to send fighters to Azerbaijan, but acknowledged that some fighters may have gone there of their own accord. Another SNA commander stressed that Syrians are prepared to go to Azerbaijan or anywhere they are asked in order to defend Turkey's interests. Conversely, other elements in the Syrian opposition were enraged by the reports and condemned Syrians who had gone to serve as mercenaries. Similar criticism has been voiced by Syrian opposition elements regarding Syrians who are participating in the fighting in Libya.
SNA fighters wave the Syrian rebels' and Turkish flags (aa.com.tr, April 27, 2019)
This report reviews the reports about the sending of Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan and the Syrian opposition's reactions to these reports.
Reports: Turkey Is Sending Syrian Rebel Fighters To Fight In Azerbaijan For $2,000 A Month; Syrians Are Present Among Armenian Forces As Well
Even before the outbreak of the current fighting between Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ayman Al-Nour, editor of the Syrian opposition website All4syria.info, tweeted that some 1,000 Syrians were due to go to Azerbaijan for three months of "defense and guarding" duties, and would be paid a salary of $1,800 per month.[2]
On September 24, the Syrian Human Rights Observatory (SHRO), which is known to oppose the Syrian regime, reported that Turkey had recruited over 300 Syrian fighters from militias loyal to it in the villages of the 'Afrin area in northern Syria. The fighters had been told they would be sent to Azerbaijan on a mission to guard the border and would be paid between $1,500 and $2,000.[3] Three days later, on September 27, the SHRO reported that the fighters had been brought to Azerbaijan via Turkey, and that another group of fighters was also due to arrive there. [4]
The next day, September 28, Armenian Defense Ministry spokesperson Susan Stepanyan said that Syrian mercenaries were fighting alongside the Turkey-backed Azeri forces, and Armenia's official news agency reported that there were 4,000 of these fighters and that 81 of them had been killed.[5]
The SHRO denied all these Armenian reports, saying that the number of Syrian fighters in Azerbaijan does not exceed 320, and that they have not yet joined the fighting. According to the SHRO, most of the Syrians who have arrived in Azerbaijan are Turkmen and are members of the Suleiman Shah and Al-Sultan Mourad factions, and the Arab pro-Turkey factions of the Syrian opposition are opposed to the sending of fighters to Azerbaijan.[6]
An unnamed SNA major told the Al-Quds Al-Arabi daily, which is owned by Turkey's ally Qatar, that the pro-Turkish Syrian factions, including the Suqour Al-Jabal and Al-Sultan Mouran factions, have recruited hundreds of fighters who will be dispatched to Azerbaijan after training in Turkey. He added that a first group, of 350 SNA fighters, had already been sent to Nagorno-Karabakh, and that, according to his estimate, some 1,500 additional soldiers had already been trained for their mission there. Other SNA sources reported that SNA translators and technicians had arrived in Azerbaijan several days ago to provide the Turkish army with the names of the new Syrian recruits who will be joining the fighting in the region. The daily also claimed that Syrian militiamen are eager to go to Azerbaijan for the $1,800 salary in light of the severe economic crisis in Syria.[7]
Other reports indicate that there are Syrians fighting on both sides, as is the case in Libya. The Azeri Defense Ministry claims that it has in its possession intelligence according to which among the Armenian casualties in Nagorno-Karabakh are Syrians of Armenian origin.[8] The SHRO likewise claims to have information that Syrians of Armenian origin have arrived in Armenia to join the fighting.[9]
SNA Commander: We Will Fight For Turkey Inside And Outside Of Syria
Senior SNA officials, when asked about the veracity of the reports that Syrian fighters were being sent to Azerbaijan, did not rule out the possibility that then reports were accurate. SNA spokesman Yousuf Al-Hamoud clarified that there had been no official decision to send fighters to Azerbaijan, and that he knew nothing about any factions sending them there. He added, however, that some Syrian fighters might have gone there on their own.[10]
Naji Mustafa, spokesman for the National Liberation Front, which is part of the pro-Turkey SNA, said that Turkey had never approached his faction about sending fighters to Azerbaijan. He added that the National Liberation Front was deeply involved in the fighting in Idlib, Syria, and therefore could not even discuss the possibility of sending fighters there, but added that he did not know where the other factions stood on this issue.
Conversely, SNA commander Ziad Haji 'Abid stated unequivocally to the Kurdish Rudaw news outlet that since Turkey provides significant support to the Syrian fighters in Syria, "we [i.e. the SNA] are prepared to defend Turkish interests [both] inside and outside of Syria... The interests of the [Syrian] National Army are aligned with [those of] Turkey. Young [Syrians] have gone to Libya, and when it becomes necessary, we will go to Azerbaijan, alongside the Turkish army. They [the Syrians] are prepared to go... We must repay [our] debt to the Turkish side and join the Turks in the trenches, in Libya, Azerbaijan, or anywhere else."[11]
Syrian Opposition Elements: It's Shameful For Syrians To Serve As Mercenaries; Turkey Has No Need For Syrian Reinforcements
However, the Syrian opposition does not unanimously support the sending of fighters to Azerbaijan; the reports on this sparked criticism from some opposition elements. Ibrahim Al-Jabawi, a member of the High Negotiations Committee that represents the Syrian opposition in talks with the Syrian regime, tweeted: "The path of the mercenaries [has led] from Libya to Azerbaijan... Shame on those who agree [to become mercenaries] and on whoever helps and sends them [into battle]!!!"[12]
Likewise, Syrian opposition member and commentator 'Abdulbaset Sieda tweeted: "Who would have believed that news agencies would refer to Syrians as mercenaries fighting first in Libya, then in Azerbaijan, and who knows [where next]? Even worse is that some defend this, claiming that it is part of the interests shared with Turkey. Should Turkey's interests be jeopardized, it has the second largest army in NATO [and thus does not need our help]."[13]
Abdulbaset Sieda's tweet
[1] Alarabiya.net, September 28, 2020.
[2] Twitter.com, aabnour, September 21, 2020.
[3] Syriahr.com, September 24, 2020.
[4] Syriahr.com, September 27, 2020.
[5] Alarabiya.net, September 28, 2020.
[6] Syriahr.com, September 29, 2020.
[7] Al-Quds Al-Arabi (Qatar), September 28, 2020.
[8] Al-Sharq Al-Awsat (London), September 29, 2020.
[9] Syriahr.com, September 29, 2020.
[10] Arabi21.com, September 27, 2020.
[11] Rudaw.net, September 29, 2020.
[12] Twitter.com/ibrahimjbawi0, September 27, 2020.
[13] Twitter.com/Ebdulbasit, September 28, 2020.