LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 10/2019
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today
Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death
First Letter of John 03/11-22:”This is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. We must not be like Cain who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. Do not be astonished, brothers and sisters, that the world hates you. We know that we have passed from death to life because we love one another. Whoever does not love abides in death. All who hate a brother or sister are murderers, and you know that murderers do not have eternal life abiding in them. We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him. whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have boldness before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask, because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on October 09-10/2019
Betrayal Of the Kurds In Syria: What a Shame On Trump, The Arab Countries and the European Union
Lebanese Foreign Ministry Condemns Turkey Op in Syria as 'Aggression, Occupation'
Aoun: Appearing before Judiciary Duty, Not Choice
Berri Criticizes Delay in Approving 2020 State Budget
Khalil Says Ministers Should Facilitate Budget Approval Before Deadline
Hariri Tells Visiting U.N. Official that Lebanon is Committed to 1701
Retired Servicemen Stage Sit-in Outside VAT Building
Dutch foreign minister summons Turkish ambassador over Syria incursion
Rahi leaves to Africa on pastoral tour
12th Session of ESCWA Committee on Social Development, New report on Social Protection Reform in Arab countries

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 09-10/2019
11 Killed as Turkey Launches Assault on Kurdish Militants in Syria
UN Security Council head appeals to Turkey for restraint in Syria
EU urges Turkey to halt Syria offensive, says won’t pay for ‘safe zone’
Russia won't get involved in conflict between Turkey, Syria: Report'
Netanyahu Condemns Germany Attack as Sign of Rising Anti-Semitism
Trump Calls Turkey Operation in Syria a 'Bad Idea'
France’s Macron says ‘worried’ about Turkey offensive in meeting with Syrian SDF
Erdogan announces the start of the operation in northeast Syria
Kurdish-led SDF reports civilian casualties in Turkey border attack
France, Britain, Germany to condemn Turkish offensive in Syria, call UN meeting
Trump: U.S. Going into Middle East was 'Worst Decision Ever'
Turkey Launches Assault on Syrian Kurds
Damascus Vows to Respond to Turkish Assault
Lavrov Slams America’s Mixed Signals as Kurds Call Up Civilians to Defend North Syria
Rouhani: Turkey has every right to have concerns over its southern bo
Iran Launches Surprise Drill near Turkey Border
Iran has tech to build warships, seeks to expand regionally: IRGC head
Suspects Who Plotted Soleimani Assassination to Face Hirabah Charges
Arab League Chief Alarmed by Turkey’s Planned Syria Incursion
Iran Threatens 4th Violation of Nuclear Deal, Raises Pressure on Europeans
Iran Urges Turkey to Revise Decision on Syria, Begins Surprise Drill
Palestinian Authority Accuses Hamas of Detaining Public Committee Members
Two killed in attack on German synagogue

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 09-10/2019
Betrayal Of the Kurds In Syria: What a Shame On Trump, The Arab Countries and the European Union/Elias Bejjani/October 10/2019
Turkey launches troop offensive in northeastern Syria/DEBKAfile/October 09/2019
Iranian general ‘played leading role’ in crackdown on Iraqi protests/Suadad Al Salhy/Arabic News//October 09/2019
Owner Of Egyptian Daily Calls To Liberate Women From The Custom Of Wearing The Hijab: 'It Has Nothing To Do With The Islamic Shari'a'/MEMRI/October 09/2019
Can Israel Trust the U.S. after Syria Withdrawal?/Seth Frantzman/The Jerusalem Post/October 09/2019
Islam’s Erasure of the Mideast’s Judaic and Christian Heritage/Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/October 09/2019
UK: New Subversive "Guidance" for Journalists/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/October 09/2019
Syria operation to put Turkey in difficult position/Omer Taspinar/Arabic News/October 09/2019
US needs new Iran deal to correct its errors in the region/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arabic News/October 09/2019
GCC-EU partnership to grow under new Brussels leadership/Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arabic News/October 09/2019
Johnson’s Brexit strategy flies in the face of reality/Andrew Hammond/Arabic News/October 09/2019
Trump’s Capitulation to Erdogan Destroys U.S. Credibility/Eric S. Edelman/Aykan Erdemir/Foreign Policy/October 09/2019
Trump’s Syria decision is a victory for America’s enemies in the Middle East/David Adesnik/Fox News//October 09/2019
Angry At Trump’s Syria-Withdrawal? He Learned His Foreign Policy From Obama/Mark Dubowitz/Tzvi Kahn/FDD/October 09/2019

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News published on October 09-10/2019
Betrayal Of the Kurds In Syria: What a Shame On Trump, The Arab Countries and the European Union
Elias Bejjani/October 10/2019
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/79349/elias-bejjani-betrayal-of-the-kurds-in-syria-what-a-shame-on-trump-the-arab-countries-and-the-european-union/
History will throw in its Dustbin all those world leaders and politicians who either conspired and worked openly or covertly against the Syrian Kurds, or kept silent and did not take a courageous, loud and ethical stance in regards to the criminal Turkish invasion.
What is important and meaningful are the practical acts and not the rhetoric words.
What could make a difference is actually what is going on the ground, in the battlefield and not in the comfortable offices.
On the ground Erdogan’s Turkish Army is viciously invading North Syria in a bid to terrorise and subdue the Syria Kurds and if needed in accordance to his schemes to massacre them.
Erdogan’s invasion is taking place, while Mr. Trump, Europe and all the Arab countries are fighting him back rhetorically by mere words and empty statements.
Their rhetoric empty statements are meaningless and definitely would not stop the invasion, but on the contrary are blessing and hailing it.
Simply and as all the world is sadly witnessing Mr. Trump and the West did not only betray and abandon the Kurds in North Syria, but also conspired against them with no shame or gratitude.
They all with not even one exception gave a green light to the Turkish dictator, Erdogan to freely slaughter the Kurds and conquer their Syrian homeland.
In conclusion words and statements are not what the Kurds want and need and definitely all those world leaders who betrayed the Kurds in Syrian will end in the Dustbin of history.

Foreign Ministry Condemns Turkey Op in Syria as 'Aggression, Occupation'
Naharnet/October 09/2019
Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday condemned a Turkish military operation against Kurdish militants in northeast Syria as an “aggression” and “occupation.”The Foreign Ministry “considers the military operation that the Turkish armed forces are carrying out in northern Syria an aggression against a brotherly Arab country and an occupation of Syrian territory which will subject its people to killing and internal and external displacement,” it said in a statement. It accordingly called on the Turkish leadership to “reevaluate its decision,” urging it to “work with the relevant nations on restoring stability in Syria and implementing the international resolutions.”The ministry also stressed the importance of “the unity of Syria’s people and land.”Turkey launched a broad assault on Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria on Wednesday, with intensive bombardment paving the way for an invasion made possible by the withdrawal of U.S. troops. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of the attack on Twitter and soon after jets and artillery targeted Kurdish positions along the full width of the border, sending thousands of civilians fleeing their homes. The move had seemed inevitable since U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a military pullback from the border, but the attack triggered international condemnation and an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council set for Thursday. The White House said Wednesday the Turkish assault was a "bad idea" after it had effectively gifted Erdogan a green light and smashed the U.S. alliance with the Kurdish forces, who spearheaded five years of ground battles against the Islamic State group in Syria.

Aoun: Appearing before Judiciary Duty, Not Choice
Naharnet/October 09/2019
President Michel Aoun on Wednesday said that appearing before the judiciary is “a duty, not a choice,” after two ministers refused to meet with the financial prosecutor over suspected corruption at the Ministry of Telecommunications. “Respecting the judiciary is a duty, not a choice, and summoning someone to it is not necessarily an accusation,” Aoun tweeted. “Appearing before it certainly contributes to unveiling the truth,” he added. Telecommunications Minister Mohammed Choucair had announced Friday that he will not meet with Financial Prosecutor Ali Ibrahim for a testimony over suspected wrongdoing in the telecom sector. “I will not appear at the office of the financial prosecutor, neither for coffee nor for tea, and if he wants to meet I’m ready to host him at my house or office,” Choucair told reporters. “Let them interrogate all telecom ministers who served between 1992 and today,” he added, lamenting that the file has been “politicized.”“Let no one try to outsmart or intimidate us,” he said. “Neither I nor Minister Jamal al-Jarrah will attend, and if he wants to come he is welcome,” Choucair went on to say.

Berri Criticizes Delay in Approving 2020 State Budget
Naharnet/October 09/2019
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday criticized the delay in discussing the 2020 state budget. “The Speaker wondered about the progress of the state budget debate, after the series of meetings in Cabinet and in its ministerial committees,” MP Ali Bazzi said after the weekly Ain el-Tineh meeting between Berri and lawmakers. “Speaker Berri considered that sectarianism is both the political system’s poison and protector, but wondered if that is sustainable,” Bazzi added. Berri also described the electoral law under which the 2018 polls were held as a “mini-Orthodox” law, in reference to an electoral law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering under which each sect would elect its own MPs. “We are living its negative repercussions today,” Berri lamented.

Khalil Says Ministers Should Facilitate Budget Approval Before Deadline
Naharnet/October 09/2019
Amid concerns the government might be unable to finish studying the 2020 state budget before a mid of October deadline, Finance Minister Ali Hassan Khalil said its completion proves the government has kept a pledge to the international community, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Wednesday.
“The budget must be referred to the Parliament before October 15. It is crucial that the government’s work focuses in that direction. It is also important that the ministers facilitate that mission,” said Khalil in remarks to the daily. He added: “Completing the budget within the constitutional deadline gives positive signals, at home and abroad, that the government is continuing its work, and that it is able to make a decision and keep the pledges it made to forward the budget to the Parliament before October 15.”In August, parliament passed the 2019 budget, which is expected to trim Lebanon's deficit to 7.59 percent of gross domestic product -- a nearly 4-point drop from the previous year. Analysts warn that Lebanon needs to accelerate reforms to revive its floundering economy, implement structural reforms to reduce the large budget gap and improve business activity. Growth in Lebanon has plummeted in the wake of repeated political deadlocks in recent years, compounded by the 2011 breakout of civil war in neighbouring Syria. The country's public debt stands at more than 86 billion dollars, or higher than 150 percent of GDP, according to the finance ministry.
Eighty percent of that debt is owed to Lebanon's central bank and local banks. In September, Fitch and S&P agency downgraded the Mediterranean country's credit rating as "a reminder of the importance of reducing the deficit and adopting reforms".Lebanon has promised donors to slash public spending as part of reforms to unlock $11 billion in aid pledged at a conference in Paris last year.

Hariri Tells Visiting U.N. Official that Lebanon is Committed to 1701
Naharnet/October 09/2019
Prime Minister Saad Hariri met Wednesday at the Grand Serail with the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, in the presence of the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Jan Kubis, former Minister Ghattas Khoury and Hariri’s advisors Nadim Mounla and Hazar Caracalla. During the meeting, which included a working lunch, discussions focused on the situation in the region and the challenges that Lebanon is facing to preserve its security and economic and social stability.
Hariri assured DiCarlo of Lebanon's “adherence to U.N. Resolution 1701, the government's commitment to the disassociation policy and its rejection of anything that would drag Lebanon into conflicts or interference in the internal affairs of the Arab countries,” the premier’s office said.
He added that he is working with President Michel Aoun, in cooperation with Speaker Nabih Berri, to fortify Lebanon in the face of regional and economic risks and to carry out administrative, sectoral and monetary reforms, in parallel with the efforts to launch the Capital investment program, knowing that the financing of the first stage of the CIP was secured during the CEDRE Conference. Hariri also highlighted the responsibility of the international community, and the United Nations in particular, to help Lebanon prevent attacks and put an end to the Israeli violations of UNSCR 1701, which succeeded in maintaining calm for thirteen years, noting that this responsibility comes within the framework of preventing any regional conflict in the grave situations that most countries in the region are experiencing. He also congratulated DiCarlo on the success of the U.N. Special Envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, in forming the Syrian Constitutional Committee to draft a new Constitution, as a step towards reaching a political solution that “must include the return of displaced Syrians to their country.” Moreover, Hariri pointed to the responsibility of the United Nations in mobilizing the international community to “help Lebanon bear the burden of one and a half million displaced Syrians.”After the meeting, DiCarlo said: “I am very happy to be here in Beirut. It is my first time in Lebanon and I am very pleased to have been received by the Prime Minister. I am going to be meeting here with a number of other Lebanese officials and stakeholders. I had an excellent discussion with the Prime Minister regarding many of the initiatives that he is undertaking particularly in the area of economic reform. We talked about regional tensions and the work that the U.N. is doing here, my colleagues from the Special Coordinator’s Office, UNIFIL and humanitarian and development colleagues.” “I assured the Prime Minister of our continued support for all the people of Lebanon and our continued support for hosting the number of refugees that Lebanon hosts, and we are very grateful for the generosity of the Lebanese people in this regard. I have to say that it has been a very good start to this visit and I look forward to further conversations not only with officials but also with representatives of the civil society and to see this beautiful city,” DiCarlo added.

Retired Servicemen Stage Sit-in Outside VAT Building
Naharnet/October 09/2019
Retired military servicemen on Wednesday staged a sit-in outside the Finance Ministry’s VAT building protesting austerity government measures and delays to end-of-service payments, medical aid and benefit cuts. The protesters blocked the entrances to the building amid tight security measures. Retired Brig. Gen. George Nader told LBCI TV station outside the Value-Added Tax building: “Today's sit-in is only a warning to shed the light on the rights of retired military servicemen,” he said, warning of “escalatory” measures if their demands are not met. Retired Brig. Gen. Andreh Abu Maashar said: “We will not block any roads with burning tires today, because the whole Lebanese are suffering like the veterans are. The authority's performance is unacceptable.”The veterans held a series of protests earlier against deductions to their pensions in the 2019 state budget which introduced austerity measures and increased income and import taxes and suspended early retirement schemes for three years. Army veterans say the measures cut deep into their pensions and benefits.

Dutch foreign minister summons Turkish ambassador over Syria incursion
NNA - Wed 09 Oct 2019
Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok on Wednesday said he had summoned the Turkish ambassador after Ankara launched a military incursion into Syria, he said in a statement. "The Netherlands condemns the Turkish offensive in northeast Syria," Blok said in a statement. "We call on Turkey not to continue on the path they are going down." ---Reuters

Rahi leaves to Africa on pastoral tour
NNA - Wed 09 Oct 2019
Maronite Patriarch Cardinal Beshara Rahi will leave Beirut this evening and head to Africa on a pastoral tour that includes Ghana, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Togo, Benin and Nigeria.

12th Session of ESCWA Committee on Social Development, New report on Social Protection Reform in Arab countries
NNA - Wed 09 Oct 2019
In a press release by ESCWA in Beirut, it said: "ESCWA today concluded the twelfth session of its Committee on Social Development, which discussed how best to support member States in achieving a more inclusive and equitable development in the Arab region.
Representatives of ESCWA member States, as well as observers from regional and international organizations, examined regional priorities in the social development field, such as social protection reform, the inclusion of older persons and persons with disabilities in the development process, and the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) with a focus on equality, inclusion and justice. "I hope that your session will generate concrete suggestions for maximizing the impact of the activities implemented by ESCWA in 2020," said Director of the ESCWA Social Development Division, Federico Neto, in his opening remarks on Tuesday. Participants agreed on the need to develop integrated and sustainable social protection systems, and link them to fiscal and macroeconomic policies. They also stressed the importance of looking into the efficiency and effectiveness of social assistance to guarantee that it targets those who need it most. They urged that special attention be given to countries suffering from conflict in the work of ESCWA. Daoud Al Deek, Deputy Minister of Social Development in the State of Palestine, was elected Chair of the 12th session of the Committee. In his remarks, he urged countries to adopt social protection systems that ensure coherence, transparency and accountability. He further stressed that the most significant challenge facing the Arab region was the lack of equality and social justice. "All other problems, including poverty and marginalization are manifestations of lacking social justice," he added. To launch its new report on "Social Protection Reform in Arab Countries," ESCWA held a round-table discussion within the Committee session. Panellists discussed the key findings of the report, agreed on the significant value it brings to mapping the situation of social protection in the Arab region, and highlighted the need for countries to implement social protection systems that help to build trust in government, increase social cohesion, and enhance social justice and social solidarity. The Committee on Social Development was established in 1994 with the aim of enhancing regional cooperation through effective participation of Member States in planning and implementing the ESCWA programme of work in the field of social development. It provides an intergovernmental forum that fosters discussion on achievements, opportunities and challenges, promotes the exchange of information and good practices, and proposes recommendations that guide the implementation of the work programme of ESCWA."

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on October 09-10/2019
11 Killed as Turkey Launches Assault on Kurdish Militants in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/2019
Turkey launched a broad assault on Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria on Wednesday, with intensive bombardment paving the way for an invasion made possible by the withdrawal of U.S. troops. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of the attack on Twitter and soon after jets and artillery targeted Kurdish positions along the full width of the border, sending thousands of civilians fleeing their homes. The move had seemed inevitable since U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday announced a military pullback from the border, but the attack triggered international condemnation and an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council set for Thursday. The White House said Wednesday the Turkish assault was a "bad idea" after it had effectively gifted Erdogan a green light and smashed the U.S. alliance with the Kurdish forces, who spearheaded five years of ground battles against the Islamic State group in Syria.
An AFP correspondent reported Turkish artillery fire in the Ras al-Ain border area and explosions as warplanes flew overhead. As plumes of smoke billowed into the sky, families could be seen filing out of town, some walking and others piling into vehicles with their belongings. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), made up mostly of the main Kurdish militia in the region, reported that at least two civilians were killed in air strikes. SDF fighters armed with rocket launchers were seen deploying in the area, as Kurdish authorities called up civilians to defend against the assault.
Kurdish sources reported that at least 16 positions were struck in the first hours of the operation, to which the SDF responded with some cross-border artillery fire. While the Turkish military and its Syrian proxies -- Arab-dominated former Syrian rebels -- had not yet crossed into Syria, an AFP photographer saw forces massing near the border. The SDF called on the international community to impose a no-fly zone to protect against "an imminent humanitarian crisis." Erdogan, who dubbed the attack "Operation Peace Spring", says the offensive is necessary to curb the power of the SDF due to its ties with Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey. He also wants a "safe zone" on the Syrian side of the border where Turkey could send back some of the 3.6 million refugees it hosts from the eight-year civil war. Trump insists the United States did not abandon its Kurdish allies, but he vowed to pull his troops out of Syria last year and analysts now predict that the days of the U.S. presence in Syria are numbered.
'General mobilization' -
In the face of the onslaught, Kurdish authorities announced a general mobilization, urging all civilians to "head to the border with Turkey... to resist during this delicate historical moment." Kurdish leaders said they would hold their erstwhile U.S. ally and the whole international community responsible for any "humanitarian catastrophe." In Ras al-Ain, Kurdish-led security forces set up checkpoints and stockpiled tires to set alight to blur the vision of Turkish military pilots, an AFP correspondent reported. Ras al-Ain was one of the places from which U.S. troops withdrew on Monday. "We will not leave this land," said Kawa Sleem, a 32-year-old Ras al-Ain resident. "War has been chasing us for years, and everyday Erdogan threatens us with a new attack," he added. It was expected that Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad would be the focus of the first assaults. Kurdish forces have dug trenches and tunnels in both areas, covering streets with metal canopies to block the cameras of Turkish drones. But the flat and open terrain favor the vastly superior Turkish military over the Kurds, who have no air force and limited equipment.
'Massive opposition'
The Kurdish-led SDF say they lost 11,000 personnel in years of operations against IS that climaxed in March with a battle against the final bastion of the jihadists' caliphate in Baghouz. Trump, who is campaigning for a second mandate, has faced a barrage of criticism, including from close allies in Washington, for appearing to leave U.S. allies to their fate. Senior Republican senator Lindsey Graham argued the U.S. administration had "shamelessly abandoned" the Kurds and warned he would "lead (an) effort in Congress to make Erdogan pay a heavy price." There has also been a chorus of international concern, including from France -- the top U.S. partner in the anti-IS coalition -- and Russia, now even more firmly the main foreign player in Syria. Since 2015, Russia has been the main military backer of the Syrian government, which has seized on the policy shift from Trump to try to persuade the Kurds to accept the restoration of central government control. The Kurds have warned that a Turkish offensive would reverse the military gains achieved against IS and allow the jihadist group's surviving leaders to come out of hiding. IS claimed an overnight suicide attack by two of its fighters in its former Syria stronghold of Raqa, the latest evidence that jihadist sleeper cells remained a threat. Turkey has said it would not allow a resurgence of IS, but called on European countries to repatriate jihadist prisoners being held in Kurdish detention centers.

Turkey launches troop offensive in northeastern Syria
DEBKAfile/October 09/2019
As President Recep Erdogan announced the start of a Turkish operation in northeastern Syria on Wednesday, Oct. 9, the Kurdish-led SDF reported that Turkish warplanes were striking civilian areas. Erdogan stated that he wants to create “a safe haven cleared of Kurdish militias to house a million Syrian refugees.”DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the Turkish army’s short-term goal is to establish a 100km long security belt, 30km deep, along the Syrian-Turkish border. (See attached map.) At the moment, Turkish air strikes are directed against Kurdish YPG militia’s bases and ammunition stores, while shelling them from across the border. The Turkish air force is also bombing Ras al-Ayn in the Hasakeh region east of the River Euphrates. Turkish ground forces and tanks crossed into Syria Wednesday night. Kurdish reports of Turkish aerial bombardment appeared to be inflated in the hope of bringing the Americans to their aid before the Turkish army crossed over. In the initial stage of the offensive, our military sources don’t expect Erdogan to overshoot the limits of the security zone, on whose creation he and President Donald Trump agreed in their phone call on Saturday, Oct. 7. It was after that call, that Trump announced the withdrawal of around 100 US troops from two observation posts in northeast Syria out of the way of the Turkish plan. This decision was sharply and widely criticized. He also warned Erdogan that he would “obliterate” the Turkish economic if the Kurds were attacked. There were a number of military movements related to Syria in the course of Yom Kippur:
*The Iranian and Turkish armies have embarked unannounced on a large-scale joint game, Iranian chief of staff Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi announced.
*A small US force made its way to the north Syrian town of Kobani near Aleppo to head off a possible Turkish attack. The force consists of six US armored vehicles.
*Pro-Turkish Turkmani militias have massed near the Syrian-Turkish border to support the forthcoming Turkish assault on Tal Abyad.

UN Security Council head appeals to Turkey for restraint in Syria
AFP, United Nations/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
The UN Security Council’s president, South African ambassador Jerry Matthews Matjila, appealed to Turkey Wednesday to “protect civilians” and exercise “maximum restraint” in its military operations in Syria. Matjila expressed hope the council could meet quickly on the situation but stressed it was up to drafters of resolutions on Syria to convene such a session. Belgium, Germany and Kuwait are the council members designated to follow the humanitarian situation in Syria, so it would fall to them to convene a council session. RELATED:Turkey seeks to ‘take over new lands for ISIS’ through Syria offensive, SDF says. The South African diplomat, who holds the council presidency for the month of October, spoke before the start of a meeting devoted to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier announced the start of a military operation against a western-backed Kurdish militia in Syria that Ankara has long regarded as a foe.

EU urges Turkey to halt Syria offensive, says won’t pay for ‘safe zone’
AFP, Brussels/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
EU chief Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday demanded Turkey halt its military operation against Kurdish militants in northern Syria, telling Ankara the bloc would not pay for any so-called “safe zone” that might be created.“I call on Turkey as well as the other actors to act with restraint and to stop operations already as we are speaking under way,” Juncker said at the European Parliament.

Russia won't get involved in conflict between Turkey, Syria: Report
Reuters, Moscow/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
Russia will not get involved in the conflict between Turkey and Syria after Ankara launched an operation in Syria's northeast, the RIA news agency cited a senior Russian lawmaker as saying on Wednesday. Russia's military is in Syria for different reasons, RIA quoted Vladimir Dzhabarov, the first deputy chair of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of parliament, as saying. Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan by phone on Wednesday to avoid any steps in Syria that could damage its peace process, the Kremlin said, as Turkey started its operation in northeastern Syria. The Turkish military offensive in Syria can be construed as a violation of Syria's sovereignty, Dzhabarov was quoted as saying.

Netanyahu Condemns Germany Attack as Sign of Rising Anti-Semitism
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/2019
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Wednesday's deadly shooting outside a synagogue in the German city of Halle as symptomatic of rising anti-Semitism in Europe. "The terrorist attack on the community in Halle in Germany on Yom Kippur is a new expression of anti-Semitism on the rise in Europe," he tweeted. "I urge German authorities to continue to act resolutely against the phenomenon of anti-Semitism," Netanyahu said. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, in a statement, warned that anti-Semitism was "not a problem of the Jews alone, but threatens to destroy us all." At least two people were shot dead in Halle with witnesses saying the synagogue was among the gunmen's targets as Jews marked the holy day of Yom Kippur.

Trump Calls Turkey Operation in Syria a 'Bad Idea'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/2019
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday described Turkey's incursion into northern Syria as a "bad idea."Trump -- who pulled out US troops from the area in what was interpreted as a green light for Turkey to assault Kurdish militias previously allied with the United States -- insisted that Washington "does not endorse this attack."The president said in a statement that Turkey had committed to "ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place -- and we will hold them to this commitment."Trump has come under withering criticism in Washington, including from senior members of his own Republican Party, over what they see as a betrayal of the Kurdish militias that fought alongside US forces to defeat the Islamic State movement in Syria. He is also being blamed for what critics say will be a boost for remnants of the Islamic State, often known as ISIS. Addressing some of these criticisms, Trump said in his statement that Turkey had promised to protect civilians and religious minorities. "In addition, Turkey is now responsible for ensuring all ISIS fighters being held captive remain in prison and that ISIS does not reconstitute in any way, shape or form," he said. "We expect Turkey to abide by all of its commitments, and we continue to monitor the situation closely," he added. The statement was the latest in a long sequence of mixed signals from the White House, which said it would not stand in the way of a Turkish offensive against the Kurds, while at the same time threatening the NATO ally with economic punishment if it oversteps. "If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey (I've done before!)," Trump tweeted on Monday. Trump says pulling the small, but politically significant, force of Americans out of the Syria-Turkey border area is part of his mission to extract the US from military conflicts across the Middle East. Earlier, he tweeted a denial that this constitutes a betrayal of the Kurds. "We may be in the process of leaving Syria, but in no way have we Abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters," he tweeted.

France’s Macron says ‘worried’ about Turkey offensive in meeting with Syrian SDF
Reuters, Paris/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
French President Emmanuel Macron met on Tuesday with Jihane Ahmed, the spokeswoman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), to express France’s solidarity with them in their fight against ISIS in the region, said Macron’s office. The meeting was also an opportunity to reiterate that France remains “very worried” about the prospect of a Turkish military operation in Syria, added Macron’s office on Wednesday. Turkey says it is ready to advance into northeast Syria now that the US has begun withdrawing troops from the Turkey-Syria frontier in an abrupt policy shift by US President Donald Trump widely criticized in Washington as a betrayal of America’s allies, the Kurds.

Erdogan announces the start of the operation in northeast Syria
Reuters, AFP/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
The Turkish operation against Kurdish militants in northern Syria has begun, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday. “The Turkish armed forces and Syrian National Army [rebel groups backed by Ankara] have began Operation Peace Spring in the north of Syria,” he wrote on Twitter.He said the offensive targeted Kurdish militants and ISIS in northern Syria. “Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area,” he wrote. A Turkish security official said that the operation launched with air strikes and will be supported by artillery fire. “Turkish warplanes have started to carry out air strikes on civilian areas,” SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said on Twitter. Syrian state media and a Kurdish official separately said bombing hit the town of Ras al-Ain in the northeast along the Turkish border. The US ambassador to Ankara has been summoned to the foreign ministry to be briefed on the Turkish operation , CNN Turk reported. Turkey has long been planning military action against Kurdish forces in northern Syria due to their ties with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a bloody insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984. The Turkish operation comes after US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of US forces from northeastern Syria, which is currently administered by the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (NES), often referred to as Rojava.The NES’ armed wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has accused Turkey of seeking to “take over new lands for ISIS.” President Trump threatened on on Monday threatened to “totally destroy and obliterate” the Turkish economy if Turkey took any action he considered “off-limits.”

Kurdish-led SDF reports civilian casualties in Turkey border attack
AFP, Beirut/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
Turkish bombardment on Kurdish-controlled targets in northeastern Syria on Wednesday caused civilian casualties, the Kurdish forces said. The Syrian Democratic Forces’ coordination and military operations center reported “intensive bombardment by Turkish jets on military positions and civilian villages” in the areas of Ras al-Ain, Tal Abyad, Qamishli, and Ain Issa.“According to initial reports there are casualties among civilian people,” it said in a statement.

France, Britain, Germany to condemn Turkish offensive in Syria, call UN meeting
Reuters, Paris/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
France’s European affairs minister said on Wednesday that France, Britain and Germany had called for the United Nations Security Council to meet to discuss the Turkish offensive in northern Syria. Speaking to the parliamentary foreign affairs committee Amelie de Montchalin said the three countries were also finalizing a joint statement to “strongly condemn” the Turkish offensive, but said a separate EU statement had yet to be agreed because some countries had not signed up to it. Germany's foreign minister accused Turkey of risking an ISIS resurgence with its offensive. Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said on Wednesday that Turkish operations in Syria risk destabilizing the region and harming civilians. European Union chief Jean-Claude Juncker demanded Turkey halt its military operation against Kurdish militants in northern Syria, telling Ankara the bloc would not pay for any so-called “safe zone” that might be created.

Trump: U.S. Going into Middle East was 'Worst Decision Ever'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/2019
U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday the U.S. military becoming involved in the Middle East was the "worst decision ever made" and that he was ensuring the safe return of troops. Trump has faced a bipartisan storm of criticism since a surprise announcement by the White House on Sunday that Washington was pulling back 50 to 100 "special operators" from Syria's northern frontier. "GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY! We went to war under a false & now disproven premise, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. There were NONE!" the president tweeted in reference to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. The United States is estimated to have between 60,000 and 80,000 troops across the area covered by US Central Command, which includes Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.Trump bemoaned what he called the "eight trillion-dollar" bill for "fighting and policing" in the Middle East, and the thousands of U.S. soldiers who had been killed or wounded in battle. "Now we are slowly & carefully bringing our great soldiers & military home. Our focus is on the BIG PICTURE! THE USA IS GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!" Trump said. Syria's Kurds called up civilians on Wednesday to defend against a Turkish assault feared to be imminent despite Trump's insistence the United States has not abandoned its Kurdish allies. Turkey said on Tuesday that it would begin its long-threatened offensive "soon," after Trump gave what was widely seen as a green light at the weekend, ordering the pullback of U.S. troops who had previously served as a buffer.

Turkey Launches Assault on Syrian Kurds
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/2019
Turkey launched an assault on Kurdish positions in northern Syria on Wednesday with air strikes and explosions reported near the border. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the start of the attack on Twitter, labeling it "Operation Peace Spring". Moments later, a cloud of white smoke rose over the Ras al-Ain border area, an AFP correspondent said, adding that warplanes could be seen flying overhead. "Our mission is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across our southern border, and to bring peace to the area," Erdogan wrote, adding that the operation would target Kurdish militants and the Islamic State group (IS). The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported that Turkish air strikes had hit the Ras al-Ain area. Turkey's Anadolu news agency reported shelling of Kurdish militant positions in the border town of Tal Abyad.
Syria's Kurds called up civilians on Wednesday to defend against the assault, while President Donald Trump insisted the United States had not abandoned its Kurdish allies who were a crucial ally against IS. Trump was widely seen as giving a green light at the weekend, ordering the pullback of U.S. troops from the Turkey-Syrian border which had served as a buffer. Russian President Vladimir Putin urged Erdogan to "think carefully" before any offensive in a phone call. But Ankara says the assault is necessary to curb the power of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) due to their ties with Kurdish insurgents inside Turkey. Turkey also wants a "safe zone" on the Syrian side of the border where it could send back some of the 3.6 million refugees it hosts from the eight-year civil war.
'General mobilization' -
Kurds have been girding for combat as Turkey sent a large convoy of troops and vehicles to the border area overnight. "We announce three days of general mobilization in northern and eastern Syria," Kurdish authorities in northern Syria said, urging all civilians to "head to the border with Turkey... to resist during this delicate historical moment." They said they would hold their erstwhile U.S. ally and the whole international community responsible for any "humanitarian catastrophe" that unfolds. The Kurds say Ankara's real goal is to dilute their demographic dominance of the northeast with an influx of mostly Sunni Arab refugees from other parts of the country now living in southwestern Turkey. In Ras al-Ain, Kurdish-led security forces set up new checkpoints and stockpiled tires to set alight to blur the vision of Turkish military pilots, an AFP correspondent reported. Ras al-Ain was one of the places from which U.S. troops withdrew on Monday. Kurdish authorities in the town called for protesters to gather at the border later on Wednesday and hoisted flags on tents. "We will not leave this land," said Kawa Sleem, a 32-year-old Ras al-Ain resident. "War has been chasing us for years, and everyday Erdogan threatens us with a new attack," he added, pledging to defend the area with "all means available."Ras al-Ain is one of the first areas on which Ankara's planned offensive is expected to focus. Like Tal Abyad, further west, its population is mainly Arab. Kurdish forces have dug trenches and tunnels in both areas, covering streets with metal canopies to block the cameras of Turkish drones.
'Massive opposition' -
The Kurdish-led SDF took heavy losses in the U.S.-backed campaign against the Islamic State group in Syria which they led to its successful conclusion in March. Trump has faced a barrage of criticism, including from close allies in Washington, for appearing to leave US allies to their fate. Senior Republican senator Lindsey Graham addressed a tweet to the Turkish government saying, "You do NOT have a green light to enter into northern Syria. "There is massive bipartisan opposition in Congress, which you should see as a red line you should not cross."There has also been a chorus of international concern, including from US allies. French President Emmanuel Macron is "very worried" about the planned Turkish operation, an aide told AFP on Wednesday. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Iraqi Kurdish leaders he met earlier this week had voiced deep concern about the risks of the mixed signals from Trump. "They are extremely alarmed that such a lightweight treatment of this extremely delicate subject could ignite the entire region," Lavrov said. Since 2015, Russia has been the main military backer of the Syrian government, which has seized on the policy shift from Trump to try to persuade the Kurds to accept the restoration of central government control. The Kurds called on Moscow on Wednesday to facilitate dialogue with Damascus. They have warned that a Turkish offensive would reverse the military gains achieved against IS and allow the jihadist group's surviving leaders to come out of hiding. While a Kurdish-led operation earlier this year saw the end of IS' territorial caliphate, the organisation is not dead and sleeper cells have been active in several parts of Syria and Iraq. IS claimed an overnight suicide attack by two of its fighters in its former Syria stronghold of Raqa.Turkey said it would not allow a resurgence of IS, but called on European countries to repatriate jihadist prisoners being held in Kurdish detention centers.

Damascus Vows to Respond to Turkish Assault
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/October 09/2019
Damascus vowed Wednesday to respond to a planned Turkish invasion of northeastern Syria, saying it condemned Ankara's "hostile intentions."Damascus "is determined and willing to confront a Turkish assault using all legitimate means," a foreign ministry source told state news agency SANA, condemning Ankara's "hawkish statements, hostile intentions... and military build-up" along the border.

Lavrov Slams America’s Mixed Signals as Kurds Call Up Civilians to Defend North Syria
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 9 October, 2019
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday warned of the risks of Washington sending mixed signals on an American withdrawal from northern Syria as the Kurdish administration there called up civilians to defend the region against a feared Turkish assault. "We announce three days of general mobilization in northern and eastern Syria," the administration said in a statement, urging all civilians to "head to the border with Turkey... to resist during this delicate historical moment".It also called on Kurds in Syria and abroad to protest against Ankara's planned offensive. Ankara’s offensive is believed to be imminent. The Kurds are "extremely alarmed" by US statements and fear that confusion could "ignite the whole region,” said Lavrov on Wednesday. "This must be avoided at all costs," he said following talks in Kazakhstan's capital Nur-Sultan.
US President Donald Trump has blown hot and cold since a surprise announcement on Sunday that Washington was pulling back 50 to 100 "special operators" from Syria's northern frontier. The troops had served as a buffer preventing a long-planned attack by Turkey against Kurdish forces, who were crucial in the campaign to defeat ISIS but are viewed as "terrorists" by Ankara. After appearing to give a green light to the Turkish invasion on Sunday, he later threatened to "obliterate" Turkey's economy if it went too far. On Tuesday, Istanbul sent more armored vehicles to the border with Syria, an AFP correspondent said, with a large convoy of dozens of vehicles seen in the Turkish town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province.

Rouhani: Turkey has every right to have concerns over its southern borders
Reuters, Dubai/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
Iran's President Hassan Rouhani called on Turkey to show restraint and avoid military action in Northern Syria, and said US forces should leave the region. "Turkey is rightfully worried about its southern borders. We believe that a correct path should be adopted to remove those concerns... American troops must leave the region... Kurds in Syria... should support the Syrian army," state news agency IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying.Turkish forces poised to enter Northern Syria following a surprise US troop pullback.

Iran Launches Surprise Drill near Turkey Border
Associated Press/Naharnet/October 09/2019
Iranian state television says the Islamic Republic has launched a surprise military drill with army special operations forces near the country's border with Turkey. The exercise comes amid Iran's opposition to Turkey's planned invasion of northern Syria against Syrian Kurdish fighters there. The Syrian Kurds were U.S. allies in the war against the Islamic State group. The sudden Iranian drill was announced on Wednesday. The TV report says it's overseen by Maj. Gen. Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of Iran's army. However, the state TV didn't mention the expected Turkish operation nor elaborate on the number of troops taking part in the drill in Qushchi in Iran's Western Azerbaijan province. The area is about 620 kilometers, or 385 miles, northwest of Tehran. Iran and Russia are both key allies of Syrian President Bashar Assad's long-embattled government. Both have troops on the ground in Syria. While they may publicly oppose a Turkish incursion into Syria, they probably don't mind an operation that diminishes the Kurdish forces.

Iran has tech to build warships, seeks to expand regionally: IRGC head
Staff writer, Al Arabiya.English/Wednesday, 9 October 2019
Iran has the latest defense technologies to produce warships and is looking to expand its presence in the region, claimed the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Hossein Salami on Wednesday, reported the semi-official Tasnim news agency. “Today, Iran and the IRGC possess the latest technologies for producing and upgrading military vessels,” said Salami. Iran should move towards the production of unmanned ships, he said, adding that the country has the “knowledge” to produce such ships. Despite sanctions, the IRGC’s achievements in defense are “innumerable,” Tasnim cited Salami as saying. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is “pleased” but not “convinced” with the progress made in Iran’s defense capability, said Salami, adding: “That is why we must strive to advance further in this area." Salami also said that Iran is looking to expand its presence in the region. “All of our efforts are in order to move the enemy away from the heart of Islam, and for this reason we seek to expand the strategic depth of the Islamic Republic’s presence in the region,” he said, adding that “As per the Supreme Leader [Khamenei]’s saying,” Iran must expand the “geography of resistance.”
Iran is accused of pursuing aggressive policies in the region, including attacking Saudi Arabia’s oil facilities, threatening shipping in the Arabian Gulf, and continuing to support proxy organizations in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen.
No country has the right to interfere in the fate of the Iranian people, said Salami. “All world powers should know that if they want to play with the fate of the Iranian nation, we will play with their fate.”Salami had previously claimed that Iran is capable of attacking its enemies anywhere, and that Israel’s destruction is now an “achievable goal.”Tensions in the region have been heightened after the September 14 attacks on Saudi Aramco oil facilities, which Iran is widely accused of carrying out. Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said that the response to Iran must be well-calculated, adding that “The political and peaceful solution is much better than the military one.”

Suspects Who Plotted Soleimani Assassination to Face Hirabah Charges
London- Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 9 October, 2019
An Iranian prosecutor revealed that individuals arrested for the attempted assassination of IRGC Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani will be tried on the charges of acting against national security, Hirabah (fighting God) and helping foreign secret services. The charge of Hirabah can entail the death sentence for the suspects. The prosecutor of Kerman in southeastern Iran also uncovered new details on the case a few days after Hossein Taeb, the head of the IRGC’s Intelligence Organization, was cited for making new allegations about the thwarting of the assassination plot which targeted Soleimani’s life last September. According to Taeb, the suspects had planted 350 kg to 500 kg of ammunition in a canal dug under a mosque and were planning to detonate it and assassinate Soleimani when he came to visit the place. As reported by IRNA, Kerman Prosecutor Dadkhoda Salari told reporters that three agents will be tried soon. “These individuals will be tried on the charges of acting against national security, fighting God and helping foreign secret services,” Salari said. He also noted that the plot had went into its implementation phase ahead of the suspects’ arrest. He added that IRGC intelligence was monitoring the activities of the terrorist group in and outside the country six months before their arrest, noting that their recruitment and training, as well as supply of their weapons, ammunition and communication systems, were all carried out outside the country and even the equipment had been sent to them from abroad. Yet, the official declined to name any specific country. “All parts of the operational process, including the recruitment, training, and equipping of spies with weapons, materiel, explosives, communications equipment, and military equipment, were moved across the border by the project's sponsors,” Salari said.

Arab League Chief Alarmed by Turkey’s Planned Syria Incursion
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 9 October, 2019
Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit expressed alarm on Wednesday at Turkey's planned military incursion against Syrian Kurdish fighters in northeastern Syria. He warned that such an offensive would be a "blatant violation of Syria's sovereignty and threatens Syria's integrity." In a statement, he warned the incursion threatens to inflame further conflicts in eastern and northern parts of the war-torn country and "could allow for the revival" of the ISIS extremist group. Turkey has been preparing for an attack on the Kurdish fighters in Syria whom Ankara considers terrorists allied with a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey. President Donald Trump said earlier this week the United States would step aside for an expected Turkish attack on the fighters, who have fought alongside Americans for years in their fight against ISIS. Meanwhile, the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and two Syrian activist groups said ISIS extremists have carried out an attack in the northern Syrian city of Raqqa, the extremists’ former de facto capital. ISIS launched three suicide attacks against its positions in Raqqa, said the SDF. There was no word on casualties. Raqqa is being Silently Slaughtered, an activist collective, reported an exchange of fire and a blast. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group, said the attack involved two ISIS fighters who engaged in a shootout before blowing themselves up.

Iran Threatens 4th Violation of Nuclear Deal, Raises Pressure on Europeans
London/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 9 October, 2019
Iranian pressure on its European partners to counterpoise the US sanctions has increased one month before the end of its third chance given in the joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Tehran is now flagging a high-level violation compared to the first three in the path of its gradual withdrawal from the nuclear deal by reducing commitments. This step comes after its European partners signaled to resort to a trigger mechanism if Tehran continues to reduce its commitments. Chairman of the Economic Commission in Iran's Parliament Mohammad Reza Pour-Ebrahimi said Tuesday that his country was determined to reduce its nuclear commitments by taking a fourth step on the path of a gradual withdrawal from the nuclear deal. He also wondered why Europeans still haven’t taken any “positive” step to preserve the nuclear deal “while demanding that Iran abide by its commitments.”Ebrahimi said the third step Tehran has announced taking in September “applies to the nuclear deal.” He then addressed the Europeans and Americans and told them his country is “determined” to take the fourth step in reducing its nuclear obligations. He pointed out that Iran will continue its path if Europeans don’t fulfill their obligations, adding that abiding by the deal’s commitments in light of the current situation is “not logical.”In Vienna, Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Kazem Gharib Abadi said his country’s reduction of its nuclear commitments “hasn’t affected its cooperation with the IAEA.”In a conference held in Vienna, Gharib Abadi denied any impact of Iran's commitment cuts on the “implementation of the Additional Protocol,” which allows IAEA inspectors to enter into Iranian nuclear facilities and verify Iran's compliance with terms of the agreement. Iranian agencies have quoted Gharib Abadi as saying that after the United States withdrew from the nuclear agreement, it exerted the “maximum pressure to destroy the deal and resolution (2231) and vowed to punish others immediately in case they fulfill their obligations under the agreement and the UN resolution.”He noted that Iran remained in the nuclear deal after the US withdrawal as a result of promises given by the agreement’s other leaders to compensate US sanctions. The Iranian ambassador also pointed out that his country hasn’t yet attain any results despite its decision to implement articles (260 and (36) of the deal.

Iran Urges Turkey to Revise Decision on Syria, Begins Surprise Drill
Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 9 October, 2019
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani called on Turkey on Wednesday to show restraint and avoid military action in northern Syria, as Ankara’s forces were poised to advance into an area there being vacated by the US military.
As Rouhani spoke, Iran’s Army Ground Forces began an unannounced military drill in the northwest of the country that borders Turkey, the Iranian Students’ News Agency ISNA reported. Turkish forces and their Syrian rebel allies will push into Syria “shortly”, a Turkish official said on Wednesday, in an operation world powers fear could open a new chapter in Syria’s ruinous eight-year-old war. Iran, a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has regularly urged Turkey to respect Syria’s territorial integrity and says all foreign military forces “with an illegal presence” - including the United States - should leave the country. “We have openly said that the only solution to ensure safety and security in southern Turkey and northern Syria is the presence of the Syrian army,” state news agency IRNA quoted Rouhani as saying on Wednesday. “We are calling on our friendly and brotherly neighbor Turkey to act with more patience and restraint, and to revise its decision and chosen path,” he said. Iran, like Turkey, is home to a large ethnic Kurdish population and Rouhani expressed understanding for Turkish concerns about security on its borders, adding: “We believe that a correct path should be adopted to remove those concerns.”“Kurds in Syria... should support the Syrian army,” he said. Reporting on Iran’s own military drill that started on Wednesday, ISNA said it included rapid reaction units, mobile and offense brigades, and helicopters from the Army Ground Force’s Air Unit.
“The aim of the military exercise is to evaluate the combat readiness of army units and their mobility and agility in the battlefield,” ISNA said, without referring to the planned Turkish operation in northeast Syria. Ankara has said it intends to create a “safe zone” in northeast Syria in order to return millions of refugees there, but the scheme has alarmed some Western allies as much as the risks posed by the military operation itself. For Ankara, which views Kurdish YPG fighters in northeast Syria as terrorists because of their ties to militants waging an insurgency inside Turkey, an influx of non-Kurdish Syrians would help it secure a buffer against its main security threat. Kurds are spread out in Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.

Palestinian Authority Accuses Hamas of Detaining Public Committee Members
Ramallah/Asharq Al-Awsat/Wednesday, 9 October, 2019
The Palestinian Authority (PA) accused Hamas of arresting members of a government committee in Gaza that was working to update employees' data. Government spokesman Ibrahim Melhem said Hamas arrested members of the committee, which consists of the Personnel Bureau, Ministry of Finance, and Ministry of Interior. Melhem condemned the measure saying it was a disruption of the committee’s work aiming to resolve public servants’ issues, noting that four members of the Ministry of Finance's committee were detained. The committee was established by the government two weeks ago, during a session chaired by Undersecretary of the Ministry of Finance Farid Ghannam to update employees’ data, according to Melhem.The Ministry demanded that Hamas immediately release the detained staff. It issued a statement stressing that the committee comes per the directives of the government and aims to remove discrepancies in the employees’ job files which were last updated four years ago. The PA and Hamas disagree over civil servants in Gaza, with Hamas wanting to consider its employees part of the Authority's staff, which is rejected by the PA before a committee examines the job situation in the enclave. Fatah movement condemned Hamas saying that the government is working to find quick and appropriate solutions that guarantee Gaza employees’ rights and ensure justice in the payment of salaries, said the head of the movement’s media office Monir al-Jaghoub. Jaghoub stated that Hamas claims it is looking for those employees’ best interest, the movement is using them against the government and the leadership. It is also using their issue to cover up its corruption and inability to manage Gazans’ affairs. Palestinian People's Party also denounced Hamas for its actions against employees who were performing their duties.
The party considered this action as a disruption of the data update process, and contradicts the several parties’ calls for disbursing employees’ salaries fully, including those launched by Hamas. The party stressed that the measure also contradicts its approval of the vision presented by the eight factions aimed at achieving national reconciliation. It urged Hamas to immediately release the detainees without further hindering their task.

Two killed in attack on German synagogue
News Agencies/BERLIN/October 09/2019
: German federal prosecutors have taken over the investigation of a shooting in the eastern city of Halle that left two people dead. Germany's federal prosecutors handle cases involving suspected terrorism or national security. German news agency dpa reported that the federal prosecutor's office said it had assumed responsibility for the shooting case. Police in in the eastern German city of Halle say one person was arrested but it isn't clear whether more suspected assailants remain at large. Mass-selling daily Bild said on its website the shooting took place in front of a synagogue. Bild reported that a hand grenade was also thrown onto a Jewish cemetery. "According to initial findings, two people were killed in Halle," local police said on Twitter. "There were several shots. The alleged perpetrators have fled with a vehicle. We are searching urgently and ask citizens to remain in their homes."
The attack occurred on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year in Judaism when Jews fast for more than 24 hours, seeking atonement. National rail operator Deutsche Bahn said the main train station in Halle had been closed.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 09-10/2019
Iranian general ‘played leading role’ in crackdown on Iraqi protests
Suadad Al Salhy/Arabic News//October 09/2019
BAGHDAD: The Iraqi government sent Iranian-backed armed factions to crack down on demonstrations and kill protesters, senior Iraqi security officials and politicians told Arab News on Tuesday.
The groups are said to directly report to Gen. Qasim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.
“The general personally came to Baghdad a few days ago to manage the crisis,” said a senior security official in Baghdad. “He gave the orders to brutally deal with the demonstrators, and even kill them to sow terror in the hearts of the rest.
“On his orders, Iraqi security leaders were excluded from (dealing with the protests), the internet was blocked, most local journalists covering the demonstrations were threatened and some local and Arabic satellite TV stations were set on fire.”
There have been widespread demonstrations in Baghdad and seven southern, Shiite-dominated provinces over the past week in protest against corruption, high levels of unemployment and a lack of basic daily services. They turned violent when Iraqi riot police used live bullets and tear gas to disperse demonstrators who were trying to reach government and political party headquarters.
In the past eight days, more than 180 people have been killed and 7,000 injured, including security personnel, and dozens of government buildings, political party headquarters and military vehicles have been torched, security sources said.
Video footage recorded by demonstrators and activists reveals that many of the demonstrators who were killed were unarmed and not close enough to any security services or government buildings to pose a threat.
One of the videos seen by Arab News showed a young demonstrator running through a popular small marketplace to escape his pursuers. When he stopped to talk to someone a gunman approached and, from a distance of less than a meter, shot him in the head.
In a speech on Monday evening, Iraqi President Barham Salih acknowledged that excessive force had been used against demonstrators but added that the authorities did not give any orders to use deadly force, and the killers are criminals.
“Targeting peaceful demonstrators and security forces with live bullets ... is unacceptable in Iraq, which we have accepted and pledged to be a democracy in which rights and freedoms are fostered,” he said.
“The government and the commanders of the security services assure us that there were no orders to shoot, and that these abuses, the excessive violence and the targeting (of demonstrators) with live bullets, were not (the result of) a decision by the state and its agencies. Consequently, the perpetrators are criminals and outlaws.”
Security chiefs said Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi ignored their recommendations not to use force against protesters as long as they did not pose a threat to citizens or the state, and to try to calm their anger. Rather than allow some time to find a peaceful solution, he ordered armed factions allied with the government to deal with the situation, security officials said.
The factions that took to the street are said to be the Badr Organization, the largest armed Shiite group, Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, Sayyid Al-Shuhada Brigades and Saraya Al-Khorasani. Security leaders, politicians and activists said these groups played a pivotal role in cracking down on the demonstrations and the killing of demonstrators.
Iraqi authorities on Tuesday blocked internet access for an eighth consecutive day in an attempt to control the protests and prevent demonstrators from sharing videos and pictures that they hope will help gain more domestic and international support.
Most Iraqi and foreign journalists and activists who were reporting on or monitoring the protests left Baghdad over the past week after receiving warnings that warrants had been issued for the arrest of dozens of them under terrorism legislation, the punishment for which includes the death penalty or life imprisonment.
“We have nothing to do with any of these measures,” said a senior National Security Council official. “Everything related to the demonstrations is currently managed by the Popular Mobilization Security Directorate. Even the arrest warrants issued against journalists and activists, we have nothing to do with them. The situation gets worse day after day.”
The Popular Mobilization Forces is a governmental umbrella organization, established in June 2014, composed of pro-Iran Shiite armed factions and individuals who volunteered to fight Daesh alongside the Iraqi government. The Badr Organization, Assaib Ahl Al-Haq and several other factions form its backbone.
Abdul Mahdi on Sunday announced a package of policies he described as exceptional, including the creation of thousands of jobs, the construction of housing for poor families, loans for the unemployed, and the chance for thousands expelled from military service to return to their units and for volunteers to join the army. It coincided with large-scale arrests of protesters or anyone else involved in the demonstrations.
The protests in Baghdad have greatly diminished since Sunday. There are now only small groups concentrated in Sadr City, east of Baghdad, and the surrounding areas. However, they have been the deadliest in the city to date, with 57 killed and more than 1,000 wounded, 205 of whom are in a critical condition, security and medical sources said.
“What Abdul Mahdi and his allies have done to the protesters is particularly brutal,” a key organizer of the demonstrations told Arab News. “They may silence the demonstrations by force for now but we will soon return more strongly.
“Recent days have proven to us that we are alone and that all political forces have abandoned us, while others have traded us, so our next step is to resort to arms. They have left us no other choice.”

Owner Of Egyptian Daily Calls To Liberate Women From The Custom Of Wearing The Hijab: 'It Has Nothing To Do With The Islamic Shari'a'
MEMRI/October 09/2019
Salah Diab, an Egyptian businessman and the owner of the daily Al-Masri Al-Yawm, who writes under the pen name Newton, published a number of articles titled "Liberating the Mind" and "Is [Showing One's] Hair Considered Nudity?" in which he argued that the hijab (head scarf) and niqab (full-face veil), which are worn by the vast majority of Egyptian women, are not mandated by the Islamic shari'a. Egyptian women, he wrote, adopted this custom as a result of religious indoctrination which prevailed in Egypt in the 1970s and which falsely presented it as a religious duty. He noted that Egypt once had prominent reformists who strove to renew the religious discourse, but that conservative forces, including Al-Azhar, excluded them from the public arena and prevented them from promoting their liberal views.
Stressing that he is not urging women to reject the hijab, but only calling to respect the choice of those who do not wish to wear it, Diab attacked the preachers who, over the years, established the view that almost every part of the woman's body, including her hair, is 'awrah, i.e., nudity that must be covered, a view that has no basis in the Quran. He added that liberating the Egyptian mind of the prevailing religious discourse will also liberate the Egyptian womens' heads from the hijab.
The articles sparked a lively debate among Diab's readers, and expressions of support for his view, some of which he quoted in his articles.
The following are translated excerpts from the articles:
Liberating Egypt From The Hijab Begins By Liberating It From Benighted Religious Discourse
In a July 19, 2019 article, Diab wrote that religious indoctrination in Egypt was responsible for imposing the hijab on women. He wrote: "Since there is talk of renewing or developing the religious discourse, could we perhaps launch a campaign calling for the removal of the hijab? Iran has a law that imposes the hijab [on women], and in Egypt over 90% of women wear it, most of them based on the belief that it is mandated by the shari'a. [But] we must ask, Who claims this? [The answer is that] it is the religious indoctrination which imposed this reality over the years.
"In the past, in the 1950s, 1960s and even 1970s, female university students used to go bareheaded, whereas today most of them wear a hijab or niqab. This is the result of the religious discourse that began spreading in Egypt in the late 1970s and early 1980s, which presented the hijab as part of the shari'a, when in fact it has nothing to do with the shari'a.
"Historically speaking, the first people who started wearing this garment, the hijab/niqab, were the Jews. As the custom spread, in complete contrast to what one might expect, there was an increase in sexual harassment, which was unknown in the pre-hijab era.
"Do we now have the courage to liberate [women's] heads from these wrappings? For this to happen, we need one or more models [for emulation] that will serve as a tangible emblem of developing the religious discourse. Religious reformist Gamal Al-Banna[1] enriched the Arabic library with an entire book on the hijab, in which he clarified that it has nothing to do with the shari'a or the [Muslim] religion...
"The problem is that... instead of completing the awakening led by 'Abd Al-Raziq,[2] Muhammad 'Abduh[3] and other reformers – [such as] Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd,[4] Farag Foda,[5] Sa'id Al-'Ashmawi,[6] and the pioneering reformist Gamal Al-Banna – preachers took us back to dark times, when ritual, appearances and literal interpretations overshadowed [the reformist] tendencies in all religions. The reformists were not given an opportunity to appear and present their ideas. On the contrary, Al-Azhar persecuted them and they did not present their enlightened views to the public.
"Liberating heads from without [i.e., removing the hijab] requires first of all liberating them from within. By liberating minds we liberate [people] from any [form of] hijab."[7]
Should Muslim Women Who Choose To Go Bareheaded Be Considered Infidels?
On July 21, Diab published a reader's response to this article. He prefaced it with the following remarks: "I am not telling any [woman] to either wear the hijab or remove it. I am defending those who do not wish to wear a hijab. Are they infidels?... Women like my late mother and grandmother, who did not wear the hijab yet strictly and consistently observed the religious commandments, were they non-Muslim? Should we say that Egypt before 1970, between the time of [Egyptian feminist] Huda Sha'arawi's call for removing the hijab and [the start of] this Wahhabi attack on the Egyptian women's dress, was not Muslim?[8]
"Modesty is a basic [principle] of Islam, and nobody is speaking against it... [Notice that] the phenomenon of the miniskirt made [only] a brief appearance in Egypt – when Western fashion became afflicted with [this garment] – but soon declined. Conversely, the new form of dress we are discussing [i.e., Islamic dress, including the hijab and niqab] prevails throughout society, among both young and old. It swamped society and persists [to this day] because it entered Egypt in the guise of religion. This was a sweeping attack on the Egyptian dress code that prevailed [at the time], following which a hijab appeared on every head."[9]
The View Of The Religious Preachers, That Almost Every Part Of The Woman's Body Is 'Awrah, Has No Basis In The Quran
In an article published one week later, Diab condemned the radical fatwas that define a woman's hair, and almost every other part of her body, as 'awrah, namely as nudity that must be covered in public, arguing that this has no basis in the Quran. He wrote: "The first mention of 'awrah [in the Quran] is made after Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge, violating Allah's commandment. They covered their privates with a mulberry leaf – that was [the size of] the covering that was required back then. However, as time passed and fatwas were issued, [the meaning of 'awrah] gradually expanded until it included the entire body, in the case of women, so that [today] they even wear gloves to cover their hands. Today the only thing used to cover people's nakedness is cloth, and people think this cloth is proof of purity, modesty and innocence...
"Thinking about it logically, if women's hair is 'awrah, why isn't the man's? After all, the principle is the same, and there is no discernable difference. The Quran is a miracle and is paralleled by another miracle of Allah: the mind [He gave us], with which we can cite the first miracle [the Quran]. But if we let others [use] the miracle of intelligence on our behalf, they will dictate their own conclusions and opinions.
"Many sheikhs [indeed] seem to believe that hair, both women's and men's, is 'awrah. That explains the clothes worn by some of the sheikhs on the satellite channels, who cover their hair with a strange [garment] that looks more like a hijab [than anything else]. The Quran says nothing about hair. As for the verse [that instructs Muslim women] to 'wrap their headcovers over their chests' [Quran 24:31], the jurists' interpretation of the phrase 'their chests' [juyoubihinna] is clear and uncontested. 'Chests' refers to the openings [of the garment], namely the neck opening...
"Later, fatwas appeared stating that a woman's voice is 'awrah. Now we have reached the point where hair is 'awrah, voice is 'awrah, driving a car is 'awrah, and working [outside the home] is 'awrah. It's as though all of the woman is 'awrah. We have begun talking of technicalities and trivialities, while ignoring many true 'awrahs that constantly surround us: fornication is 'awrah, hedonism is 'awrah, excessively fancy dress is 'awrah, lascivious looks, whether by a man or a woman, are 'awrah. It is a harmful simplification to wrap a piece of cloth over the head and then [assume] that we may do as we please."[10]
[1] Gamal Al-Banna (1920-2013) was a liberal Egyptian intellectual and author who penned many writings on Islam and politics. His views were diametrically opposed to those of his older brother, Muslim Brotherhood founder Hassan Al-Banna.
[2] Egyptian intellectual and author Mustafa 'Abd al-Raziq (1885-1947), who served as the head of Al-Azhar, is considered a reformer of Islamic philosophy.
[3] Renowned religious scholar Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905), who served as Egypt's Grand Mufti, was a pioneer of religious reform in his generation.
[4] Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010) was an Egyptian academic and researcher of Islam.
[5] Farag Foda (1945-1992) was a prominent Egyptian academic, writer, journalist and human rights activist, founder of the Egyptian Society for Enlightenment. He was assassinated by members of the fundamentalist Islamist group Al-Gama'a Al-Islamya after being accused of blasphemy by Al-Azhar.
[6] Muhammad Sa'id Al-'Ashmawi (1932-2013) was an Egyptian intellectual and judge.
[7] Al-Masri Al-Yawm (Egypt), July 19, 2019.
[8] This apparently refers to the rise of Islamic Salafism in Egypt and the Salafist takeover of Egyptian institutions, including Al-Azhar, during Sadat's period, starting in 1970.
[9] Al-Masri Al-Yawm (Egypt), July 21, 2019.
[10] Al-Masri Al-Yawm (Egypt), July 29, 2019.

Can Israel Trust the U.S. after Syria Withdrawal?
Seth Frantzman/The Jerusalem Post/October 09/2019
The US surprise decision to announce that it would withdraw from an area along the Syrian border and enable a Turkish military operation into northern Syria raises many questions about long-term US policy in the Middle East. It is also concerning to Jerusalem because both Iran, an enemy of Israel, and Turkey, which excoriates Israel regularly at international forums, appear to gain as the US retreats.
The US decision to open the door for a Turkish invasion of eastern Syria is seen as a betrayal among US partners on the ground in Syria, and particularly among many Kurds. Across the region it is also seen as the US, once again, letting down allies. This has been a refrain from Iraq to Egypt to the Gulf. US President Donald Trump said that although the Kurds fought alongside the US, eastern Syria was now the for "Turkey, Europe, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Russia" to deal with.
The US may appear to only be leaving a few border posts in Tel Abyad near the Turkish border. But the effect is felt all the way to the Gulf and Riyadh and down to Amman and Cairo. It's a message.
Across the Middle East, Trump's decision is seen as the US, once again, letting down an ally.
In the Gulf the feeling is already clear. Saudi Arabia cannot confront Iran after the September 14 attack on Abqaiq and its oil facilities. The UAE is seeking to end the Yemen conflict. Riyadh appears bogged down in Yemen with the forces it supports being dealt a blow by the Iranian-backed Houthis. Saudi's image has been harmed by the murder of former insider Jama Khashoggi in Istanbul last year.
This then is the situation in the region. The US wants to end the Afghan war, empowering Iran there as well. It wants to leave Syria. It may be asked to leave parts of Iraq by Iranian-backed parties in parliament. Turkey, once more close to Israel, is now one of the most vocal opponents of Israel in the region and is empowered by the US move. It and its ally Qatar have worked with Hamas. Iran works with Hamas. Iran works with Turkey on Syria. On Iran's grand chessboard for its long-term strategy in the region, it sees another win.
An erratic Washington creates the kind of uncertainty that Israel's enemies will readily exploit.
The US decision to leave eastern Syria appears abrupt, not informing European allies or the SDF, or preparing the ground. It shows that the US can make policy by tweet, as Trump has in the past. What does this mean for Jerusalem? It means that Washington's "deal of the century" and other plans are not clear. An erratic Washington, even one that appears more pro-Israel than previous administration, leaves more questions than answers. Israel's enemies exploit that kind of uncertainty. There is a feeling that while the US supports Israel's actions in the region, Israel is also alone and not being consulted on regional strategy.
In the short term the plans by Ankara to move into eastern Syria, bit-by-bit, are clear. But the long term question is how Iran and Israel enemies may benefit. Russia will watch closely what is happening because its ally the Syrian regime doesn't want the US to manage a Turkish takeover of eastern Syria.
Russia previously signed off on Turkey using the airspace over Afrin for a campaign there. But Russia is concerned about instability in Raqqa and other areas where there was previously ISIS presence. If the SDF fights Turkey there will be a power vacuum. Will Iran fill the vacuum? If it does it gives it more real estate in Syria to transfer weapons to Hezbollah and allies. Whoever fills that vacuum has leverage over the future of Syria and Iraq and security throughout the region. Israel is concerned and will watch closely.
*Seth Frantzman, a writing fellow at the Middle East Forum, is the author of After ISIS: America, Iran and the Struggle for the Middle East (2019), op-ed editor of The Jerusalem Post, and founder of the Middle East Center for Reporting and Analysis.

Islam’s Erasure of the Mideast’s Judaic and Christian Heritage
Raymond Ibrahim/FrontPage Magazine/October 09/2019
The Muslim world is at war with history. It needs to be, if it hopes to change the narrative concerning how it came into being and, more importantly, how no one but Muslims has any right to any land claimed by Islam.
Most recently, the Palestinian Authority’s minister of culture, ‘Atif Abu Sayf, stated on official PA TV that
Our struggle is with this State [of Israel] that came out of nowhere, without a history and without geography, stole our land, and wants to put an end to our existence… There is nothing in history that proves this presence. They have not found one stone… [Israel knows] that they have no connection to this city [Jerusalem], that they have no connection to this history, and that they have no connection to the geography, just as they have no connection to the future.
Days later, in early September 2019, the minister of culture made similar assertions: “Our struggle with the occupying entity is a struggle over the narrative. We are the legal inheritors of all that is on the land… The occupier’s narrative is false, and all of its attempts to find justification for its presence here have failed.”
Abu Sayf’s views are standard among Palestinians. As a September 15, 2019 report notes, “One of the central elements of the Palestinian narrative is the negation of the entire Jewish history in the Land of Israel in general and in Jerusalem in particular. Despite numerous sources and archeological finds proving the opposite, the Palestinian Authority regularly repeats this claim because it is the basis for the PA’s denial of Israel’s right to exist.”
The irony is that, although Judaism has a millennia-old history and presence in Jerusalem, Muslims from Arabia brutally conquered, colonized, and Arabized that ancient city beginning in the year 637.
This is the “philosophical” problem confronting not just Palestinians but much of the Muslim world: most of the territory Islam claims was seized from non-Muslims through violent conquest and colonization.
As such, if conquerors and their descendants base right on might—as Islam has always done—it would seem that they have few rights to claim once their might wanes. Hence the Muslim tendency to rewrite history, particularly when dealing with non-Muslims—to present themselves not as conquerors but as “rightful” claimants of this or that land.
While such revisionism is evident in the aforementioned PA quotes concerning Israel, it is especially ubiquitous in Islam’s attempts to erase evidence of Christianity from the lands it conquered. This is unsurprising considering that the heart of the Muslim world—including all of North Africa (from Morocco to Egypt) and the Middle East (Syria, Iraq, Turkey, etc.)—was Christian centuries before the scimitar of Islam came.
As Dr. Hena al-Kaldani once said during a conference in Amman, Jordan, hosted by the Jerusalem Center for Political Studies: “There is a complete cancelation of Arab Christian history in the pre-Islamic era,” “many historical mistakes,” and “unjustifiable historic leaps in our Jordanian curriculum.” “Tenth grade textbooks omit any mention of any Christian or church history in the region.” Wherever Christianity is mentioned, omissions and mischaracterizations proliferate, including the portrayal of Christianity as a Western (that is, “foreign”) source of colonization, said al-Kaldani.
“It’s the same situation in Iraq,” said Sharara Yousif Zara, a politician involved in the Iraqi Ministry of Education: “There’s almost nothing about us [Christians] in our history books, and what there is, is totally wrong. There’s nothing about us being here before Islam. The only Christians mentioned are from the West. Many Iraqis believe we moved here. From the West. That we are guests in this country.”
“It sounds absurd, but Muslims more or less know nothing about Christians, even though they make up a large part of the population and are in fact the original Egyptians,” said Kamal Mougheeth, a retired teacher in Egypt: “Egypt was Christian for six or seven centuries [before the Muslim invasion around 640]. The sad thing is that for many years the history books skipped from Cleopatra to the Muslim conquest of Egypt. The Christian era was gone. Disappeared. An enormous black whole.”
This comports with what Copts have told me concerning their Egyptian classroom experiences: there was virtually no mention of Hellenism, Christianity, or the Coptic Church—one thousand years of Egypt’s pre-Islamic history. History began with the pharaohs before jumping to the seventh century when Arabian Muslims “opened” Egypt to Islam. (Wherever Muslims conquer non-Muslim territories, Islamic hagiography euphemistically refers to the event as an “opening,” fath, never a “conquest.”)
As with its treatment of Judaism, the Muslim world’s expunging of Christianity from Middle Eastern history has for generations successfully indoctrinated Muslim students to suspect and hate the Christian minorities living among them, who are presented as non-organic parasitic remnants supposedly left by Western colonialists (though as seen, Christianity precedes Islam in the region by some six centuries).
This also explains one of Islam’s bitterest ironies: the ancestors of those many Muslims currently persecuting Christians throughout the Middle East—including in PA territory—were themselves persecuted Christians who over the centuries converted to Islam to end their own sufferings. In other words, Muslim descendants of persecuted Christians are today slaughtering their Christian cousins, without any clue of their common origins.
Such is the tragedy caused by Islam’s rewriting of history—a rewriting that is required whenever Muslims try to portray themselves as the “rightful” claimants of this or that land.

UK: New Subversive "Guidance" for Journalists
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/October 09/2019
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14906/britain-guidance-journalists
Policy Exchange's report on the leaked guidance gives rise for concern. In the words of the report, the guidance, "seems designed to bind the hands of UK newspapers when it comes to reporting on stories relating to Islam and Muslims – with potentially serious long-term consequences for the workings of a free and independent press". — Policy Exchange Report, "Eroding the Free Press," by Will Heaven and Sir John Jenkins.
As the Policy Exchange authors write, "In all of this, there seems to be a suggestion that journalists should take a different approach to covering Muslims than that employed towards other faith groups. This all seems remarkably ill-conceived. If we ruled out reporting on matters specific to Muslims not only would we miss some big issues – not least the threat from Islamist extremist terrorism, which continues to dwarf other global terrorist threats – but we would also be unable to report properly on discrimination against Muslims. More generally, we must ask: is it really the role of journalists to consider community cohesion before truth and accuracy? And what are the potential consequences of such an ethos?" — Policy Exchange Report, "Eroding the Free Press," by Will Heaven and Sir John Jenkins.
"As Policy Exchange has previously pointed out, one of the things that makes the APPG's attempts to institutionalise an illiberal definition of Islamophobia so unpalatable, is the fact that it resembles a form of blasphemy law, protecting Islam specifically, implemented by the back door". — Policy Exchange Report, "Eroding the Free Press," by Will Heaven and Sir John Jenkins.
"Taken as a whole, the IPSO guidance document seems to mark a decisive shift in the purpose of the regulator – which takes it beyond considerations of accuracy or discrimination, as per the Editor's Code. Instead, it is moving into the realm of 'insensitivities' and 'unbalanced coverage' – elastic and subjective terms". — Policy Exchange Report, "Eroding the Free Press," by Will Heaven and Sir John Jenkins.
For the eroding of the freedom of the press in Britain, the question seems not so much to be "if" as "to what degree".
The British think-tank Policy Exchange, recently published a report, Eroding the Free Press, about a leaked draft of "Guidance for Reporting on Islam and Muslims". The guidance was drafted by the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO)[1], the UK's independent press regulator, an initiative that IPSO announced in late 2018. In the past, IPSO has, among other issues, published guidance on the reporting of death and inquests, sexual offences, suicides, and transgender people. According to IPSO, its guidance is "designed to support editors and journalists" and "does not limit or restrict editorial decision making, but may inform that decision making".
In a January 2019 blog on IPSO's main priorities for 2019, IPSO Head of Standards Charlotte Urwin laid out the five priorities of the year. "Reporting of Islam and Muslims" was listed as the first priority and described in the following way: "In October 2018, we began working towards producing guidance for journalists on the reporting of Islam and Muslims in the UK, an area of broad political and social concern. The guidance will help journalists to report on a sensitive area, whilst also ensuring that it does not impinge their right to criticise, challenge or stimulate debate. We have established an informal working group to help us draft the guidance, bringing together academics who have research experience in relation to Islam and Muslims in the UK and representatives of organisations interested in the coverage of Islam..."
Policy Exchange's report on the leaked guidance gives rise for concern. In the words of the report[2], the guidance, "seems designed to bind the hands of UK newspapers when it comes to reporting on stories relating to Islam and Muslims – with potentially serious long-term consequences for the workings of a free and independent press".
According to the Policy Exchange report, the draft IPSO guidance states:
"Journalists should be aware that their content can have an impact on the wider community and on how minority communities are treated. Inaccuracies and insensitivities can damage communities and prevents their accurate representation. They can also contribute to members of communities feeling divorced from, or misunderstood, by the media. Finally, inaccuracies and unbalanced coverage can work to increase tension between communities, which can make harassment more likely".
As the Policy Exchange authors write: "In all of this, there seems to be a suggestion that journalists should take a different approach to covering Muslims than that employed towards other faith groups. This all seems remarkably ill-conceived. If we ruled out reporting on matters specific to Muslims not only would we miss some big issues – not least the threat from Islamist extremist terrorism, which continues to dwarf other global terrorist threats – but we would also be unable to report properly on discrimination against Muslims. More generally, we must ask: is it really the role of journalists to consider community cohesion before truth and accuracy? And what are the potential consequences of such an ethos?"
In addition, the draft guidance has a section on "accuracy in reporting", which suggests that journalists should do one, or all of the following: "Provide contextualising information; present more than one opinion; verify the information from another source". While sounding banal and innocuous in and of itself, the guidance goes on to say, more disturbingly:
"Identifying the 'right' person to speak to can be extremely challenging and journalists should be aware that individuals and organisations may have different interpretations of a particular belief. Journalists may find it helpful to consider the expertise of the person/organisation, their background and any previous comments on the issues, in deciding who to approach for comment."
In a previous draft, the Policy Exchange report tells us, the word was not "expertise", but "representativeness".
It does appear to be the case that what is uppermost in the minds of the drafters of the guidance is not so much factually accurate reporting, but concerns of a far more political nature, namely those of accommodating religious and cultural "sensitivities" and avoiding the causing of any offense.
Another aspect also concerns the authors of the Policy Exchange report: The "informal working group" under IPSO that has authored the guidance apparently includes members who have publicly supported[3] the new definition of "Islamophobia" as defined by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on British Muslims (APPG). In December 2018 the APPG published Report on the inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia / anti-Muslim hatred. The report, conflating religion with ethnic origin or nationality, defined "Islamophobia" as a form of racism: "Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness."[4] For a full account of that report, see Gatestone's previous reporting on the issue here.
The authors of the Policy Exchange Report write: "Against this backdrop, one might ask whether the IPSO 'guidance' process is being used to advance the kind of 'anti-Islamophobia' agenda promoted by the APPG on British Muslims... despite the fact that the Government has deemed that definition not fit for purpose... one of the things that makes the APPG's attempts to institutionalise an illiberal definition of Islamophobia so unpalatable, is the fact that it resembles a form of blasphemy law, protecting Islam specifically, implemented by the back door".
In conclusion, the Policy Exchange report states: "Taken as a whole, the IPSO guidance document seems to mark a decisive shift in the purpose of the regulator – which takes it beyond considerations of accuracy or discrimination, as per the Editor's Code. Instead, it is moving into the realm of 'insensitivities' and 'unbalanced coverage' – elastic and subjective terms".
Policy Exchange's description of the leaked guidance is hardly shocking if one recalls the campaigns and guidelines made by European journalists' own organizations in recent years. As previously reported by Gatestone, the largest organization of journalists in Europe, the European Federation of Journalists (EJF) -- which represents more than 320,000 journalists in 72 journalists' organizations across 45 countries and claims that it "promotes and defends the rights to freedom of expression and information as guaranteed by Article 10 of the European convention on human rights" -- ran a Europe-wide campaign, sponsored by the EU, called "Media against Hate" in 2016-2018. The purpose of it was to, "improve media coverage related to migration, refugees, religion and marginalised groups... counter hate speech, intolerance, racism and discrimination... improve implementation of legal frameworks regulating hate speech and freedom of speech..."
None of the above appears to have had much to do with freedom of expression or journalism. Rather, it was actually a political campaign, spearheaded by one of the largest journalism organizations and supported by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) Programme of the European Union. The Council of Europe, another international political body constituted by 47 European member states was also listed as a partner. The mix-up of government interests with journalistic principles seemed to bother no one.
Similarly, in September 2017, a project called respectwords.org published guidelines -- the publication of which were financially supported by the Rights, Equality and Citizenship (REC) Programme of the European Union -- on reporting about migration and minorities. According to those guidelines, "more than 150 European radio outlets and 1300 journalists from the eight RESPECT WORDS countries (Austria, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia and Spain) have joined together to strengthen media coverage of migrants and minorities, an indispensable tool in the fight against hate speech".
One of the guidelines in the book, which IPSO's recommendations seem to echo, was to "Remember that sensitive information (eg race and ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, party affiliation or union affiliation, health and sexual information) should only be mentioned when it is necessary for the public's understanding of the news". The key here, again, seems to have been to respect "sensitivities" and avoid causing offense – not the factually correct reporting of newsworthy events. The guidelines also advised:
"Take care not to further stigmatise terms such as 'Muslim' or 'Islam' by associating them with particular acts... Don't allow extremists' claims about acting 'in the name of Islam' to stand unchallenged. Highlight... the diversity of Muslim communities..."
The respectwords.org guidelines, two years old, barely seek to hide that they are a political tool.
This, then, is the highly politicized atmosphere that journalists breathe and that their organizations openly promote. It is hardly surprising, then, that even independent regulators, such as IPSO, choose to take what looks like a similar path. As for the eroding of the freedom of the press, the question seems not so much to be "if" as "to what degree".
*Judith Bergman, a columnist, lawyer and political analyst, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
[1] IPSO is, according to its own website, the "independent regulator for the newspaper and magazine industry in the UK. We hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press". The body ensures that "member newspapers and magazines follow the Editors' Code" and investigates "complaints about printed and online material that may breach the Editors' Code. We can make newspapers and magazines publish corrections or adjudications if they breach the Editors' Code... We monitor press standards and require member newspapers and magazines to submit an annual statement about how they follow the Editors' Code and handle any complaints...".
[2] Eroding the Free Press, p 11.
[3] Eroding the Free Press, p 25
[4] Report on the inquiry into a working definition of Islamophobia / anti-Muslim hatred, p 11 and p 50.
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Syria operation to put Turkey in difficult position
Omer Taspinar/Arabic News/October 09/2019
Turkey on Wednesday launched a major assault in northeast Syria, which was unexpectedly greenlit by President Donald Trump following a phone call with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, on Sunday night. To an astonished national security establishment in Washington, Trump declared that American forces would not stand in the way of Turkish forces, who want to clear a 32-kilometer corridor inside Syria to establish what Ankara calls a “terrorism-free” safe zone.
Erdogan, as he did in an earlier phone call with Trump in December, once again managed to convince his American counterpart that Turkey would take care of the Daesh threat in northern Syria. That December phone call had prompted Trump to declare the withdrawal of American forces in Syria, which similarly shocked American military advisers. It was no coincidence that James Mattis resigned as secretary of defense shortly after this. Military advisers eventually convinced the president to slow the drawdown.
Fast forward to this week and senior Pentagon officials were again blindsided and are equally frustrated. Even normally loyal Republican leaders in Congress expressed strong disapproval. They have two main concerns. First, the US withdrawal is a major blow to American credibility and a betrayal of Kurdish allies, who trusted Washington in their fight against Daesh. Second, the main beneficiary of the American exit will be Russia, Iran and the Syrian regime.
The main issue poisoning Turkish-American relations is the fact that, while Washington considers Daesh the main terrorist threat, Ankara sees Kurdish forces as its principal enemy. This is why, for Erdogan, the easiest way to convince Trump to make such periodic declarations of an American exit from Syria is to assure him that the Turkish military can handle the danger posed by Daesh. Yet it is clear that the Turkish military sees the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia force linked with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as the top priority in northern Syria. Daesh, in the eyes of Ankara, is a secondary concern, which, in any case, appears to be subdued after the Kurdish-American victory in Raqqa. Turkey’s primary strategic objective is clear: Stop the emergence of a Kurdish autonomous zone in Syria.
Given the highly negative reaction in the American media, national security establishment and Congress, Trump recalibrated his position on Monday with a tweet warning Ankara that, if the Turkish military goes “off limits,” the US would “obliterate” its economy. Given the mercurial and erratic style of policymaking coming from the White House, it remains unclear how far the Turkish military incursion into northeast Syria will be allowed to go. For their part, the Kurdish forces in Syria have declared they will fight back.
At this point, the Syrian Kurds have considerable leverage on the ground because they are holding 12,000 Daesh prisoners in several detention facilities, as well as some 58,000 of these prisoners’ family members at the Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria. The Kurds could easily release these prisoners to prove that Turkey has no power to control the terrorist threat.
Why then was Erdogan so willing to launch this military operation? The short answer is to distract attention from accumulating problems at home. Over the last 12 months, Erdogan’s domestic problems gained an urgent dimension with the deterioration of the economy. Growing unemployment, high inflation and a loss of consumer confidence cost him municipal elections this summer. His party was defeated in Istanbul and other major cities.
Economic recessions always create scapegoats. Today, the majority of Turks believe the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in their country to be an economic liability. So it is not surprising that Erdogan is emphasizing that Turkey needs a safe zone to settle a large portion of these refugees. By doing so, he wants to show his political base that he can “solve” the problem.
A simple cost-benefit analysis indicates that a military incursion will have serious downsides for Ankara.
A simple cost-benefit analysis, however, indicates that the military incursion will have serious downsides for Ankara. For starters, there can be serious economic consequences. There are already a series of military and economic sanctions Congress wants to implement in reaction to Turkey’s purchase of the S-400 missile defense system from Russia. Now, if something goes wrong, all it would take is a couple of angry tweets from Trump for Turkey’s economy to once again unravel, as it did in 2017, when he blamed Erdogan for not releasing an American pastor from Turkish detention.
Another fallacy in Turkish strategic calculations is the hope that a safe zone can turn into an area where Syrian refugees can be transplanted. Why would refugees in Turkey agree to go to a war zone, where the Turkish military will be fighting Kurdish forces?
In fact, Turkey is likely to find itself in a very difficult position. Consider the following likely scenario: Syrians in Turkey will not leave; relations with Washington will be poisoned; the economic situation will deteriorate as Trump gets angry with Turkey after Syrian Kurds release detained Daesh fighters and their families; Russia and Iran will end up asking the Turkish army to leave Syria; the regime in Damascus will denounce Turkey as an invader; and Turkey may very well be bogged down in a war of attrition with the YPG.
It is unclear exactly how Turkish-American relations will unfold in the next few weeks. What is for sure, however, is that Turkey is entering yet another very difficult phase in its relations with Washington.
*Omer Taspinar is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of national security strategy at the National Defense University in Washington. Copyright: Syndication Bureau

US needs new Iran deal to correct its errors in the region
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Arabic News/October 09/2019
With the EU now privately warning Iran that it will likely be forced to fully withdraw from the nuclear agreement in November, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, to give its formal name, will soon be well and truly dead. This should be seen as an opportunity to start afresh by both the US and EU and they should create a new agreement that will benefit not just Iran but the whole region by restricting Tehran’s meddling and support for terrorist organizations in the Middle East and elsewhere.
It was never supposed to be like this. The Middle East has always been a place of geopolitical shifting sands. Regional players rise and fall, external empires come and go, and dreams of stability have always proven ephemeral. But Iran has always been a center of power in the region.
This was a return to the norm. It used to be a given that Iran would hold sway over peoples, militant groups and governments aligned with Shiite Islam.
But what is happening now is going well beyond that. Iraq — a region that has often in its history been a natural cultural and political extension into the Arab lands for a succession of Persian empires — used to be ruled by the highly antagonistic Saddam Hussein. His eight-year war against Iran in the 1980s was one of the deadliest conflicts the region has seen in centuries. But the US intervened to remove Hussein and, in his stead, elevated a Shiite-led government. However, a decade later, the government in Baghdad has effectively become a client state of Tehran.
The US supported the Sunni-led opposition in the Syrian civil war against the Shiite Alawite government of Bashar Assad — except it has not been sufficiently committed to the conflict to see its resolution to a favorable ending when it could have done. And the US has now moved aside for Russia and Iran to crush the opposition to Assad and enforce his rule. Where the Assad regime would have previously looked up to Iran as a natural ally, it now looks up to Iran as the friend to whom it owes its survival.
Tehran is finding itself in a much better position in Afghanistan than it could have ever hoped for, and it is making influential friends for the future, when the Taliban will inevitably return to power in Kabul.
Then there is the matter of Afghanistan. The conflict there is the longest and most expensive in US history. That war was started against the Taliban — a natural enemy of Iran for its hard-line ideology and intransigent anti-Shiite attitudes. In fact, Iran nearly went to war with the Taliban three years prior to the American intervention in 2001 following an incident where the group killed 10 Iranian diplomatic staff in Afghanistan. Needless to say, Iran was pleased to have one of its enemies, America, take out another and foot the bill in blood and treasure. It could hardly have hoped that the Afghan war would be such a long and bloody slog.
But now there is a twist in the story of the Afghan war. It is beginning to emerge that Iran has allied itself with the Taliban and is supporting its efforts to drive the US out of Afghanistan. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is allowing the Taliban to operate and build up on the Iranian side of the border, and it seems to be providing the group with logistical support and even personnel, as high-ranking Iranian commandos are thought to have been aiding recent Taliban operations in western Afghanistan. War makes for strange bedfellows. Either way, Tehran is finding itself in a much better position in Afghanistan than it could have ever hoped for, and it is making influential friends for the future, when the Taliban will inevitably return to power in Kabul.
The irony, of course, is that, in the nebulous thinking of the George W. Bush-era neocons, the Afghan and Iraqi wars were supposed to contain Iran and cement American influence over the region and its critical oil supplies. Instead they have done the exact opposite: They have guaranteed Iranian influence from the Mediterranean Sea to the Khyber Pass. And, in a stunning turn of events, that influence is beginning to transcend sectarian lines. Is it any wonder that America’s allies in the region are becoming more assertive and aggressive in the face of a rising Iran?
The region does not need any more conflict, but any new agreement with Iran must restrict its meddling in the region and support for terrorist groups that are themselves a principal cause for creating the conflict we wish to avoid.
*Dr. Azeem Ibrahim is a director at the Center for Global Policy and author of “The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar’s Genocide” (Hurst, 2017). Twitter: @AzeemIbrahim

GCC-EU partnership to grow under new Brussels leadership
Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg/Arabic News/October 09/2019
The EU will change leadership in a few weeks following political changes in member states and the composition of the European Parliament. How will this affect the EU’s relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and its member states? While the GCC-EU relationship has always been important to both sides, it has gone through some difficult times recently over the EU’s approach to Iran. Will that change under the new leadership?
GCC-EU relations started from the time the GCC was founded in 1981. It became one of the most important links as the GCC sought to model itself after the older organization. The stages of its economic integration, for example, followed the EU model, starting with a free trade agreement in 1983, followed by a customs union in 2003 and common market in 2008.
The strong institutional links were solidified by a cooperation agreement and the establishment of the GCC-EU Joint Ministerial Council, which met annually, attended by foreign ministers from the 34 states, in addition to hundreds of activities at other levels that covered almost every issue.
Over the past 38 years, the EU as a group remained the GCC’s No. 1 trading partner. Last year, the two-way trade in goods reached a total of about $170 billion. Gradually, however, GCC trade with the EU has declined as a share of overall GCC external trade, going down from more than 25 percent in 1981 to about 11 percent last year. If current trends continue, China will soon replace the EU as the top GCC trading partner. But GCC-EU trade will remain important for both sides as they try to conclude a free trade agreement and other arrangements to facilitate trade and promote investment.
There were important differences of opinion on trade and political issues, of course, but the relationship remained solid until the EU became the focal point in the nuclear deal negotiations with Iran. In those talks, the EU sidelined the GCC. Despite extensive discussions over the years — during GCC-EU Joint Ministerial Council meetings and elsewhere — about Iran’s destabilizing activities in the region and its support for terrorism, the EU overlooked those concerns in its pursuit of a deal and potential economic benefits for European companies in Iran.
The new EU leadership will take office on Nov. 1 and is expected to revisit EU policies in some important areas, including its foreign policy and the relationship with the Gulf region.
The need to recalibrate relations with Iran is dictated by several factors that the new leadership will likely take into account. For one thing, the nuclear deal has failed, as the US withdrew and Iran has repeatedly breached it. The US’ sanctions on Iran frustrated EU efforts to take advantage of the flawed deal economically, despite the adoption of schemes to circumvent the sanctions. European companies have mostly left Iran for fear of being snared by the US sanctions and of losing their places in the American market.
Iran has not helped. Not only did it breach the deal after it had ratified it, but it took the deal as a virtual license to increase its malign activities in the region, from Syria and Iraq to Yemen and Lebanon. This year, Iran has escalated its attacks on international shipping in the Gulf and increased the scope and severity of its attacks on Saudi Arabia, directly or through proxies, culminating in the brazen attacks of Sept. 14 on some of the Kingdom’s most important facilities, which provide oil to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
Iran’s support for the Assad regime in Syria produced Europe’s worst refugee crisis in decades, challenging the EU’s efforts to uphold its founding values and undermining political arrangements in a number of member states, which witnessed a rise in racism, xenophobia and support for extremist right-wing groups.
Trade and investment also matter. The EU was losing the competition with China, South Korea and other Asian powers in part because it was losing its privileged position in the GCC market, while Asian nations were gaining ground. The ambitious economic diversification plans adopted by GCC countries are opening up great opportunities for investment and trade, which EU member states have been losing out on to their Asian competitors. They need to get in on the action before it is too late.
The new EU leadership will take office on Nov. 1 and is expected to revisit EU policies in some important areas.
The key relevant actors in the EU who take office in November include the bloc’s new top diplomat. Spanish Foreign Minister Josep Borrell will become the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy and vice president of the European Commission. He is quite familiar with the GCC region and Spain has traditionally played a positive role in bringing the two blocs together. Phil Hogan, the incoming trade commissioner, is also familiar with the GCC as he has served, since 2014, as the EU commissioner for agriculture and rural development. He has previously stressed the need for greater trade with and investment in the Gulf. His appointment is expected to encourage current efforts to revive the free trade agreement negotiations, which have stalled since 2008.
One of the most important changes in EU leadership is the appointment of Ursula von der Leyen as president of the European Commission — the top post in the EU bureaucracy. She has served as Germany’s defense minister and supported the idea of an EU army. While she will probably not push the latter idea, she is nevertheless planning to further develop the EU’s defense capabilities. She is planning to create a new entity, led by France’s Sylvie Goulard, with the aim of harmonizing the development of weapons and defense systems in the EU.
This change will create new opportunities for GCC-EU cooperation, as the GCC has, from its inception, boasted a significant military pillar, which culminated in November 2018 with the appointment of the first ever GCC joint military command.
Thus, in many respects, the impending changes in the EU leadership will likely lead to stronger GCC-EU engagement on political, security and trade issues.
*Abdel Aziz Aluwaisheg is the GCC Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs and Negotiation, and a columnist for Arab News. The views expressed in this piece are personal and do not necessarily represent GCC views. Twitter: @abuhamad1

Johnson’s Brexit strategy flies in the face of reality
Andrew Hammond/Arabic News/October 09/2019
Boris Johnson is facing a massive few days for his Brexit strategy as he prepares for next week’s Queen’s Speech and EU Summit. Since he became UK prime minister, he has repeatedly promised to “get Brexit done” by Oct. 31, but this rests on a grand political fallacy.
While the prime minister implies leaving the EU this month would put an end to the UK’s Brexit saga, this is far from the case. Moreover, his no-holds-barred, scorched-earth strategy risks further polarizing an already-divided nation.
Rather than concluding the more than three-year-long Brexit drama that has engulfed the nation, leaving the EU with or without a deal this month would only be the start of a new phase of negotiations that would help define UK and international politics well into the 2020s.
Take the example of a no-deal Brexit, which will not just mean that London will automatically leave the EU without many, it not all, of the rules that regulate the UK’s relationships with Brussels, but also many economic relationships with the rest of the world too, inasmuch as these are underpinned by trade treaties that the EU has agreed. Quite aside from the economic shock that such a hard, disorderly exit is predicted to entail, what some Brexiteers fail to acknowledge is the way that such a UK exit from the EU would dominate domestic politics for years. So much so that the rest of Johnson’s domestic policy agenda may be completely sidelined, especially given the increased political strains between England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
If the reality of a no-deal Brexit dawns in November, both Brussels and London would almost certainly need to return to the negotiating table in the weeks that follow, but with a new set of incentives. As of Nov. 1, the UK would no longer be within the so-called Article 50 process. This would mean, officially speaking at least, that even a tweaked version of the withdrawal deal negotiated by Theresa May would no longer be on the table. And Britain would be a “third country” with the new European Commission leadership, which takes office in the autumn needing a new post-exit negotiating mandate from the EU-27.
A no-deal exit would therefore just be the end of round one of Brexit. The second round of discussions could take significantly longer under a no-deal scenario than if Johnson secured a compromise deal and got it through Parliament, as there would then at least be an agreed framework for moving toward a final, comprehensive deal during a transition period.
Without a transition, the negotiating process could get significantly harder, with the same trade-offs as before, including that of free movement of people versus scope of access to the single market, but with added time pressure if the UK economy is hurting more than that of the EU-27. One factor that may make concluding a final, comprehensive UK-EU deal significantly more difficult is that — outside of the Article 50 process that requires only a qualified majority of states to ratify — EU-27 unanimity would be needed, which risks one or two European states blocking any agreement.
Beyond this no-deal scenario, there is of course a different future that sees Johnson secure a political breakthrough over the Irish backstop, which might allow him to secure approval in Parliament for a modified version of May’s withdrawal deal. But even then Brexit would be far from over, as the next phase of negotiations would move mainly from the three core Article 50 issues — the financial settlement, citizens’ rights, and the Irish border — to the full spectrum of topics, from transport and fisheries to financial services and data transfer, which will collectively represent a new order of complexity to negotiate.
A no-deal exit would just be the end of round one. The second round of discussions could take significantly longer.
Take the example of converting the approximately 600-page withdrawal agreement, which would become a much longer legal text if ratified and transformed into a free trade deal, with many details the subject of long discussions — as the Canadians found in their seven-year discussions with Brussels to secure the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement. Even the 26-page political declaration that outlines the future EU-UK relationship will require intense negotiations as it is translated into hundreds, if not thousands, of pages of legal documentation.
In what may prove the most complex discussions for London since the UK joined the EU in the 1970s, the current proposed transition phase of less than two years is not likely to be nearly long enough. This is why some European politicians, such as Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, have proposed a five-year period. Yet neither London nor Brussels is prepared to talk openly about this, for now at least, which misleads the public.
Johnson’s desire to get Brexit finalized by Oct. 31 may make for a potentially eye-catching future election campaign slogan, but it flies in the face of reality. Far from the UK’s exit being done this autumn, with or without a deal, years of complex, detailed negotiations will inevitably follow.
*Andrew Hammond is an Associate at LSE IDEAS at the London School of Economics

Trump’s Capitulation to Erdogan Destroys U.S. Credibility
Eric S. Edelman/Aykan Erdemir/Foreign Policy/October 09/2019
By abandoning America’s Kurdish partners in Syria, the White House has sent a message to allies everywhere that Washington can’t be trusted.
History repeats itself, as Karl Marx once wrote, “the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” In a farcical return to the chaos that resulted from a December 2018 phone call between the U.S. and Turkish presidents, Donald Trump has once again announced the pullback of U.S. forces in northeastern Syria, sending Washington’s entire policy establishment into damage control mode.
To prove he was not pushed around by or caving into the demands of Turkey’s Islamist strongman, Trump then tweeted threats to “totally destroy and obliterate” the Turkish economy, echoing his tweet to “devastate Turkey economically” the last time around. So far, the only thing he seems to have destroyed is U.S. credibility in the Middle East and beyond.
Trump’s latest move rewards a fellow NATO member for behaving badly, as he has done multiple times before when dealing with Turkey. Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government has held U.S. citizens and State Department employees hostage, helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions at the height of Washington’s efforts to thwart Tehran’s nuclear ambitions between 2012 and 2014, and most recently procured the Russian-made S-400 air defense system despite frequent warnings against doing so.
So far, Erdogan has miraculously walked away without any major diplomatic pushback, sanctions, or fines from the United States owing to an inexplicable leniency that belies Trump’s tough talk. Even as the U.S. president was reinforcing his Turkish counterpart’s sense of impunity, he was selling out the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), comprising Syrian Kurds, Arabs, Syriac Christians, and Yazidis who have been key partners in defeating the Islamic State while sacrificing more than 11,000 of their soldiers in the effort.
So far, Erdogan has miraculously walked away without any major diplomatic pushback, sanctions, or fines from the United States
Trump’s hasty action risks undermining all the gains that U.S. special operations forces and their SDF partners have secured to defeat the Islamic State. A recent report by the U.S. Defense Department inspector general warned that the Islamic State “solidified its insurgent capabilities in Iraq and was resurging in Syria.” There are further credible reports of Islamic State efforts “to replenish its ranks from members held in detention facilities.”
Given that these terrorist detainees are dispersed in a number of facilities, some of which are deep in Syrian territory, there is no way that Turkish troops and their proxies can take control of such facilities from the SDF in an orderly fashion. The logical result of the inevitable clashes between Turkey and the SDF will be a redeployment of SDF forces from the detention facilities to the front lines, leading inevitably to mass prison escapes and an Islamic State resurgence. If the Islamic State makes a comeback, triggering attacks not only in the Middle East but also in Europe and the continental United States, this will all be laid rightly at Trump’s doorstep.
The humanitarian consequences will be no less worrisome. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom warned in its 2019 annual report that any planned withdrawal from northeastern Syria should be “conducted in such a manner that will not negatively impact the rights and survival of vulnerable religious and ethnic minorities,” a message the commission reiterated following Trump’s latest announcement.
Turkey’s Islamist proxies in Afrin, which took control of the area following Turkey’s cross-border operation into northern Syria in 2018, have been implicated in numerous human rights violations against ethnic and religious minorities in the city—violations almost certain to be replicated in northeastern Syria.
Erdogan’s plans for demographic engineering in the region are a further recipe for disaster. The Turkish president announced at the United Nations General Assembly that he intends to settle up to 3 million mainly Arab Syrian refugees in northeastern Syria as part of a sinister attempt to turn Kurdish-majority areas into Arab-majority ones. Such a blatant manipulation of the regional ethnic balance is certain to fuel intercommunal tensions and violence in decades to come, further sowing the seeds of hatred and enmity in a region already seething with more than its fair share of prejudices and grievances.
Erdogan’s plans for demographic engineering in the region are a further recipe for disaster.
An important word of caution about the sinister motivations behind Erdogan’s Syria plans could have come from Turkey’s pro-secular opposition bloc, which succeeded in defeating Erdogan in the recent municipal elections in Ankara and Istanbul. But Trump’s threats to destroy and obliterate Turkey’s economy have effectively gagged the opposition.
Erdogan instead benefits from a rally-round-the-flag effect in advance of an anticipated military incursion into Syria and activation of anti-American sentiment that bolsters a government badly scathed by the recent economic downturn, election defeat, and defections of some of the founding figures of the ruling party. Trump’s bewildering rhetoric and policy zigzags have not only hurt the prospects for secular political forces on both sides of the Turkish-Syrian border; the president has also offered a lifeline to struggling Islamists there.
Trump’s Syria tactics have hurt the United States as much as its partners. The latest abandoning of U.S. allies has solidified an already widespread belief in the Middle East and beyond that the United States is not a reliable ally. As Russia and Iran offer the Syrian theater as proof that they are reliable partners that will stand by their allies, state and nonstate actors will pivot from Washington toward Moscow and Tehran as part of an attempt to hedge their foreign and security policies.
Trump’s Syria tactics have hurt the United States as much as its partners.
Trump’s willingness to yield in the face of Erdogan’s threats will create a vacuum that Moscow and Tehran will be only too willing to fill, doing lasting damage to the interests of the United States and its European allies. There is no better time to remind Trump that what’s at stake is not just the future of Syria but the fate of the region and Washington’s credibility as an ally.
*Eric S. Edelman is a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was U.S. ambassador to Turkey from 2003 to 2005 and Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from 2005 to 2009.
*Aykan Erdemir is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He was a member of the Turkish parliament representing the Republican People’s Party (CHP) from 2011 to 2015. Twitter: @aykan_erdemir

Trump’s Syria decision is a victory for America’s enemies in the Middle East
David Adesnik/Fox News//October 09/2019
Thousands of Syrian Kurdish fighters gave their lives to help America defeat the Islamic State, but President Trump just decided to abandon the Kurds to their worst enemy, Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan. This is good news for the Islamic State, which can mount its comeback more effectively if the Kurds are distracted. It is also good news for the Islamic Republic of Iran, which wants to turn Syria into a base for attacking Israel, something that will now be a lot easier.
Trump’s decision came out of the blue last night, in the form of a brief announcement from the office of the White House press secretary. Top national security officials had been working for months on an agreement with Turkey to prevent it from attacking the Kurds. That agreement appears to be dead.
The White House said Trump’s decision came after a phone call with Erdogan earlier on Sunday. This is actually the second time Trump has attempted a sudden reversal of his Syria policy after a phone call with Erdogan. Last December, the president said he was going to pull all U.S. troops out of Syria — they numbered about 2,000 at the time — and let Turkish forces deal with any remaining problems caused by the Islamic State.
That December reversal led Secretary of Defense James Mattis to resign in protest. Meanwhile, 42 Senate Republicans voted with 26 Democrats to condemn any “precipitous withdrawal” prior to the “enduring defeat” of ISIS. Slowly and quietly, Trump started to back away from his decision, although he never said he had changed his mind.
One reason that so many conservatives united against Trump’s decision is they understood that Erdogan is an adversary of the United States, even though Turkey remains part of NATO. Under previous leaders, Turkey had been a real ally. But Erdogan is an Islamist who has a long record of protecting extremists and terrorists, including members of Hamas directly responsible for murdering Israelis. Not surprisingly, the Turkish president is also a vicious anti-Semite who blames Jewish conspiracies for the economic chaos his own policies have created.
Influential figures close to Erdogan also partnered with Iran to evade U.S. sanctions, helping the Islamic Republic to tap $20 billion of frozen income — the full details emerged in the federal trial of a Turkish banker in 2017.
With regard to Syria in particular, Erdogan has a long record of sending money and weapons to extremist rebels, including those tied to Al Qaeda. Turkish intelligence even helped deliver the goods across the border. Just last month, the Treasury Department imposed sanctions on several Turkey-based financiers and currency exchanges for supporting the Islamic State.
Even so, yesterday’s announcement from the White House said, “Turkey will now be responsible for all ISIS fighters in the area captured over the past two years.” In other words, Trump is putting an arsonist in charge of putting out the fire.
Conservatives who opposed Trump’s planned withdrawal last December also understood that the president was dead wrong when he claimed that ISIS had been defeated. It was true that the U.S.-led coalition had put an end to the Islamic State’s ability to govern the territory it called the “caliphate.” However, it was clear that ISIS was already shifting to an insurgency based on guerrilla warfare. That insurgency has gotten progressively stronger over the past 10 months, yet Trump refuses to acknowledge the difference between dismantling the caliphate and defeating ISIS. Yesterday, he justified his latest reversal on Syria by insisting, “We quickly defeated 100 percent of the ISIS caliphate.”
Some high-profile Trump supporters are already speaking out against the president’s decision. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley tweeted, “The Kurds were instrumental in our successful fight against ISIS in Syria. Leaving them to die is a big mistake.”
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News that Trump was making exactly the same mistake that Obama made in Iraq, which led to the rise of ISIS. “This is a big win for Iran and Assad,” Graham added, “a big win for ISIS.”
Trump is clearly sensitive to the suggestion he is betraying the Kurds. Within hours of Haley and Graham’s comments, Trump pledged that if Turkey did anything “off limits” in Syria, he would “destroy and obliterate” its economy. Trump’s threat is not entirely credible, however, since he was not willing to sanction Turkey when it directly defied a U.S. warning not to purchase advanced air defense weapons from Russia. Nor has Trump fined the Turkish bank that helped Iran evade U.S. sanctions, despite the conviction of the bank’s general manager.
If Trump were serious about preventing Turkey from slaughtering the Syrian Kurds, he would have supported the State Department’s efforts to negotiate a border security agreement, rather than giving Erdogan a green light to invade. But mistakes like this are to be expected when the president makes impulsive decisions rather than thinking things through with the help of his top advisers. As Fox News reported this morning, Trump’s decision completely blindsided the Department of Defense.
The only good news when it comes to Syria is that the president still has time to reverse his decision. While U.S. troops appear to have already left certain observation posts near the Syrian border with Turkey, they can return. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should quickly tell the Turkish leader that his invitation to the White House in November will be canceled if Turkey launches an attack on the Kurds.
Trump says he wants to put an end to America’s endless wars, an idea that is popular on both sides of the aisle. What the president does not seem to understand is that we have avoided an endless war in Syria by finding allies — including Arabs and Christians, as well as Kurds — who did the hardest and bloodiest fighting. By supporting our partners with air power, intelligence, and a small contingent of troops, the U.S. military has been achieving a key victory at a very low cost in American dollars and American lives. A wiser president would take credit for this achievement instead of undermining it.
*David Adesnik is director of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy. Follow him on Twitter at @adesnik. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD.

Angry At Trump’s Syria-Withdrawal? He Learned His Foreign Policy From Obama
Mark Dubowitz/Tzvi Kahn/FDD/October 09/2019
Donald Trump’s decision this week to abandon the Kurds in Syria to Turkey’s authoritarian leader Recep Erdogan is a warning to America’s friends facing dangerous enemies. Trump could abandon you in a New York minute. And so could Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and even Joe Biden if one of them ends up as the next president. This is the new American bipartisan reality, which began in this century under Barack Obama, who jettisoned allies in pursuit of quixotic foreign policy projects. And it continues in an ever-cruder form under Trump, for whom today’s ally is tomorrow’s erstwhile friend.
Like his predecessor, Trump regards America as the victim of ungrateful and exploitative allies, bogged down in futile and costly wars that serve only foreign interests. The United States “defeated 100% of the ISIS Caliphate,” Trump tweeted on Monday, ignoring the essential role of the Kurdish forces. Yet Europe, he continued, which is dragging its feet on repatriating European ISIS fighters, is “thinking, as usual, that the U.S. is always the ‘sucker,’ on NATO, on Trade, on everything.”
This time, Trump stated, “Turkey, Europe, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Russia and the Kurds will now have to figure the situation out, and what they want to do with the captured ISIS fighters in their ‘neighborhood.’” America will “get out of these ridiculous Endless Wars, many of them tribal, and bring our soldiers home.” The U.S. military, he added, will no longer function “as a policing operation to the benefit of people who don’t even like the USA.”
It’s a remarkable choice of words. Just a few years earlier, Obama asserted that Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran “would need to find an effective way to share the neighborhood”; argued that America “must lead the world without becoming its policeman” (or “lead from behind,” as an Obama adviser recommended); and denounced U.S. allies as “free riders.” Meanwhile, Trump’s claim about the defeat of ISIS echoes Obama’s false statement that Al Qaeda “has been decimated,” and that ISIS is akin to a “jayvee team” – its influence limited only to “various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”
More jarringly, Trump’s rhetoric unwittingly embraces the mistaken assumptions that first guided Obama’s pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump vociferously opposed and abandoned last year.
In Obama’s view, the accord, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), aimed not merely to curtail the nuclear threat – which it only did temporarily thanks to sunset provisions that would terminate many of its restrictions after 2025 – but to spur a strategic realignment in the Middle East. This would allow Washington to reduce its role as a regional powerbroker. The deal, Obama claimed, may spur the Islamic Republic to moderate its policies and enable Washington to work with the clerical regime on other issues of mutual interest.
“And the truth of the matter is that Iran will be and should be a regional power,” said Obama.
And so it increasingly became one. After the JCPOA’s implementation, Tehran used billions of dollars in sanctions relief to finance its military adventurism, particularly in Syria, where the regime in Iran and Hezbollah worked to preserve Bashar Assad’s grip on power. In fact, to secure his nuclear accord, Obama ignored his red line against the use of chemical weapons: He backed down when Assad and Vladimir Putin called his bluff. He also abandoned the Syrian opposition, famously mocking its members as “former farmers or teachers or pharmacists” who are unable to confront Assad militarily. The Washington Post fact checker gave Obama’s claim three Pinocchios, noting “that a substantial portion of the fighters are actually ex-military personnel.”
Obama had also mocked Putin as leading Russia into a Syrian quagmire when Russian forces, less than three months after the JCPOA’s conclusion, stormed back into Syria to keep the tottering Assad regime from collapsing. Instead of the predicted Russian debacle, Putin became the major domo of power politics, with Assad still in power and Middle Eastern leaders, including Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, facing a JCPOA-financed, Iranian-led military buildup on three borders, all jockeying for Moscow’s support.
And while increasing its hold on Syria, Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq to target Israel, Tehran increased its arms shipments to its Houthi proxies in Yemen, which subsequently fired missiles into Saudi Arabia, leading to an ill-prepared Saudi offensive. The Yemeni war has become a humanitarian catastrophe.
To his credit, Trump abandoned the Obama chimera of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a responsible power. But Trump, whose factual errors have thoroughly exhausted the Washington Post fact checker and confused allies and adversaries alike, has found another regional authoritarian to his liking: Erdogan.
Trump now seems to believe that the Turkish leader, who imagines himself as a new Ottoman sultan, not only will act with restraint in the absence of the U.S. military but also will serve as a check against Iranian power. More likely, Erdogan will partner with Tehran and Moscow to undermine American influence while massacring Kurds, driving them into the arms of the Russians and Iranians. By doing so, Trump will have removed America’s most effective fighting force against an ISIS resurgence.
Like Obama, Trump thinks that sanctions alone will check the ambitions of adversaries. On Monday, he tweeted that he would “totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey” if Turkey did “anything” he considers “off limits.” This mirrors his Iran policy, which today, like Obama’s between 2009 and 2013, is almost entirely dependent on sanctions as the sole instrument of American power.
Thus, the Turks rightly have concluded that Trump lacks the fortitude for a sustained military commitment. They can draw the same conclusion as a result of Trump’s refusal to impose congressionally mandated sanctions for Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system. Likewise, Trump has blocked U.S. penalties on a state-owned Turkish bank whose deputy CEO was convicted in New York for his involvement in a $20 billion Iran-sanctions busting case.
Trump’s withdrawal of U.S. forces will reverberate far beyond Syria’s borders. Notwithstanding the differences between Trump and Obama, U.S. rivals from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific will conclude that presidential continuity persists in the one arena that matters most: disloyalty to allies. Call it the Trump Doctrine: If you’re a U.S. ally, Washington will support you if you do the fighting and dying to defend American interests and save American lives. You’ll get extra points if you pay for everything on your own. Then, once the job is finished, Washington will abandon you in the face of aggression by an authoritarian adversary.
In 2013, Qassem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the foreign-operations arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, famously said, “We’re not like the Americans. We don’t abandon our friends.” Trump, like Obama, seems committed to proving the Islamic Republic’s most dangerous commander right.
*Mark Dubowitz is chief executive of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, where Tzvi Kahn is a senior Iran analyst. Follow them on Twitter @mdubowitz and @TzviKahn.