English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For September 05/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today

‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 17/01-04/:”Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Occasions for stumbling are bound to come, but woe to anyone by whom they come! It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.Be on your guard! If another disciple sins, you must rebuke the offender, and if there is repentance, you must forgive. And if the same person sins against you seven times a day, and turns back to you seven times and says, “I repent”, you must forgive.’”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 04-05/2020

Question: "What does it mean that Jesus is God with us?"
Former Iranian minister praises fake image of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah in Fairuz home
British artist sells Fairuz prints to raise money for hungry Lebanese
Lebanon Marks One Month since Catastrophic Explosion
One Month on, Question Marks Hang over Lebanon Blast
Life Trickles Back to Beirut’s Gemmayzeh Neighborhood
Army Chief Says Port Disaster Could Have Been Avoided
After Uproar, Army Says Rescue Paused ‘Briefly’ over Collapse Fears
Search for Possible Survivor Continues at Destroyed Mar Mikhail Building
Survivor search grips a grieving Beirut as city marks a month since blast
Search for possible survivor one month after blast grips Lebanon
Army Finds 4 Tons of Ammonium Nitrate near Beirut Port
Cardinal Parolin Meets Aoun, Affirms Support for Lebanon
Aoun Orders Continued Search at Destroyed Mar Mikhail Building
Diab Testifies in Beirut Port Blast
Report: Differing Views on Seats Count in Adib’s Govt.
US calls for ‘significant reforms’ in Lebanon, sees Hezbollah as obstacle
Nissan's Ghosn Gone, American Kelly Faces Japan Trial Alone
U.S. Judge OKs Extradition of Men Accused of Aiding Ghosn Escape
Lebanese MP Fouad Makhzoumi: Hizbullah Is Stronger Than The Lebanese Government; Most Officials Are Hizbullah Collaborators; They Get Power, Hizbullah Gets To Keep Its Weapons/MEMRI/September 04/2020
Lebanon: Schenker’s Mission Does Not Diverge From Macron’s Initiative
Lebanese cabinet in existential race against time/Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/September 04/2020
Macron’s visit was another disaster for Lebanon/Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri/Arab News/September 04/2020
How Boris Johnson Can Save London/Therese Raphael/Bloomberg/September 04/2020
Lebanon: Where Every Party Vies to Keep its Part of the Corruption Cake/Charbel Raji/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
When They Disgracefully Make Concessions to the West/Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
President Macron and the Pitfalls of a Salvational Mediation/Charles Elias Chartouni/September 04/2020
Lebanon’s centennial is just another occasion for grief/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/September 04/2020
Civil strife in Lebanon: The ground is fertile, time may be ripe/Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/September 04/2020
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 04-05/2020

Explosion in western Iran leaves more than 200 injured: State media/Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English
Iran allows UN nuclear watchdog to inspect one of two sites after pressure
Trump Urges Iran Not to Execute Wrestling Star Navid Afkari
Iran's uranium stockpile 10 times higher than nuclear deal allows​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, says IAEA
WHO: Widespread COVID-19 Vaccinations Not Expected Until Mid-2021
Guterres Calls for Closure of Libya Migrant Detention Centers
NATO Calls on Russia to Cooperate on Probe into Navalny Case
Canada concerned by U.S. sanctions imposed on International Criminal Court officials
Rights Groups Urge Release of Egypt Journalists after Deaths in Custody
Erekat: Palestine Victim of Trump Electoral Ambitions
Kosovo, Israel agree to normalize ties; Serbia to move embassy to Jerusalem
Serbia to Move Its Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
PLO official blasts Serbia embassy move to Jerusalem, says ‘Palestine a victim’
 

Titles For The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 04-05/2020

Turkey’s growing focus on Africa causing concern in rival capitals/Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/September 04/2020
The Real Palestinian Tragedy/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/September 04/2020
US Elections: Predicting the Unpredictable/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
How the Trump Plan Makes Peace Possible/Douglas J. Feith and Lewis Libby/Middle East Quarterly/Fall 2020
 

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on September 04-05/2020

Question: "What does it mean that Jesus is God with us?"
GotQuestions.org Network//Friday 04 September/2020
Answer: Before the birth of Jesus, an angel appeared to Joseph and revealed that his fiancée, Mary, had conceived a child through the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20–21). Mary would give birth to a Son, and they were to name Him Jesus. Then Matthew, quoting from Isaiah 7:14, provided this inspired revelation: “All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’)” (Matthew 1:22–23).
Seven hundred years earlier, the prophet Isaiah foresaw the virgin birth of the promised Messiah. He prophesied that His name would be Immanuel, which means “God with us.” By referencing the words of Isaiah, Matthew recognized Jesus as Immanuel. The name Immanuel expresses the miracle of the Incarnation: Jesus is God with us! God had been with His people always—in the pillar of cloud above the tabernacle, in the voice of the prophets, in the ark of the covenant—but never was God so clearly present with His people as He was through His virgin-born Son, Jesus, the Messiah of Israel.
In the Old Testament, the presence of God with His people was most evident when His glory filled the tabernacle (Exodus 25:8; 40:34–35) and the temple (1 Kings 8:10–11). But that glory was far surpassed by the personal presence of God the Son, God become flesh, God with us in person.
Perhaps the most significant passage in the Bible on the Incarnation of Jesus is John 1:1–14. John states that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning” (verses 1–2, CSB). John uses the term logos, or “the Word,” as a clear reference to God. John declares in verse 14, “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (CSB).
On the night of His arrest, Jesus was teaching His disciples. Philip had a request: “Lord, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.” It was a perfectly natural yearning. But Jesus replied, “Philip, I have been with you all this time, and still you do not know Me? Anyone who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:8–9, BSB). Jesus had been showing them the Father all along. He was truly “God with us.” Whenever Jesus spoke, He spoke the Father’s words. Whatever Jesus did, He did exactly as the Father would do.
God took upon Himself human flesh and blood (1 Timothy 3:16). This is the meaning of incarnation. The Son of God literally “tabernacled” among us as one of us; He “set up His tent” in our camp (John 1:14). God showed us His glory and offered us His grace and truth. Under the Old Covenant, the tabernacle represented the presence of God, but now, under the New Covenant, Jesus Christ is God with us. He is not merely a symbol of God with us; Jesus is God with us in person. Jesus is not a partial revelation of God; He is God with us in all His fullness: “For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body” (Colossians 2:9, NLT).
God makes Himself fully known to us through Jesus Christ. He reveals Himself as our Redeemer (1 Peter 1:18–19). Jesus is God with us as Reconciler. Once we were separated from God through sin (Isaiah 59:2), but when Jesus Christ came, He brought God to us: “For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19, NLT; see also Romans 8:3).
Jesus is not only God with us but also God in us. God comes to live in us through Jesus Christ when we are born again: “My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20, NLT). The Spirit of God lives in us, and we are His dwelling place: “For we are the temple of the living God. As God said: ‘I will live in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they will be my people’” (2 Corinthians 6:16, NLT).
Jesus is not God with us temporarily, but eternally. God the Son, never ceasing for a moment to be divine, took on a fully human nature and became ‘God with us’ forever: “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20, NLT; see also Hebrews 13:5).
When it was time for Jesus to return to the Father, He told His disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever” (John 14:16, ESV). Jesus was speaking of the Holy Spirit, the third Person of the Godhead, who would continue to bring the presence of God to dwell in the lives of believers. The Holy Spirit carries on the role of Jesus as teacher, revealer of truth, encourager, comforter, intercessor, and God with us.

Former Iranian minister praises fake image of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah in Fairuz home
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Friday 04 September 2020
A former Iranian minister has been subject to ridicule online after he shared a photoshopped photo of legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz’s home with images of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and slain Iranian general Qassem Soleimani framed on the wall. The original photo was taken on Monday during French President Emmanuel Macron visit to Fairuz’s home near Beirut. The two were photographed in front of a wall decorated with paintings of Fairuz and Christian religious figures. Ataollah Mohajerani, who served as Iran’s Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance from 1997 to 2000, praised Fairuz on Twitter by sharing a photoshopped image of her meeting with Macron, where the original photos on the wall in the singer’s home were replaced with images of Nasrallah, Soleimani, and founder of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, among others. Mohajerani later deleted the tweet, but insisted that Fairuz supports the Iran-backed Hezbollah and its leader Nasrallah. Despite living in exile in London, Mohajerani is a staunch supporter of the Iranian regime and its foreign policy. Mocking Mohajerani, one Iranian user tweeted the image of Fairuz’s meeting with Macron with a picture of an Iranian opposition figure photoshopped on the wall. Another user tweeted the same image but with a picture of Mohajerani himself photoshopped in captioned: “Let's see what Mohajerani says when he sees this.”Others pointed to the “hypocrisy” in Mohajerani praising a female singer, given the restrictions imposed on female singers and performers in Iran by the clerical regime that Mohajerani supports.

British artist sells Fairuz prints to raise money for hungry Lebanese
Al Arabiya English/Friday 04 September 2020
A British artist is selling prints of legendary Lebanese singer Fairuz as part of a crowdfunding project set up to help families now facing poverty buy essential goods. Abu Dhabi-based The National reported that the artist is seeking to raise 2,000 British pounds ($2,651) that will be donated to families in Lebanon’s second largest city Tripoli who can no longer buy basic goods. The number of families that can no longer buy necessities in Lebanon has shot up as the country continues to face its worst economic crisis since the end of the 15-year civil war in 1990. Tripoli, known for its poverty before the crisis set in, has been hard hit by the deepening economic troubles. According to 2015 United Nations figures, 57 percent lived at or below the poverty line in Tripoli and 26 percent suffered extreme poverty. Now, unemployment has gone up, as well as the poverty rate. The prices of basic goods has skyrocketed, and the devaluation of the local currency has seen the value of people’s incomes plummet. The coronavirus has dealt an additional heavy blow. Funds will be delivered through local NGO Menna w Fina, run by Abdul Rahman Harrouk, and the British artist, Rachel Smith, designed a lino print of the iconic singer Fairuz, the National reported. After the devastating explosion at the Port of Beirut that destroyed some 40 percent of the Lebanese capital, French President Emmanuel Macron has visited the city twice, and on his second visit, he met with the singer. A month after the blasts, the country is still reeling, and tensions are high. The government headed by Prime Minister Hassan Diab stepped down a week after the blast, and diplomat Mustapha Adib has been designated as the new premier. Per Macron’s recently unveiled reform plan, the country, which has failed to make reforms across various sectors for years, has two weeks to form a cabinet – a process that typically takes years – and has three months to demonstrate that it is making progress to electricity reform and is taking serious steps to crack down on corruption.

Lebanon Marks One Month since Catastrophic Explosion
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
Citizens, activists, the army and the Beirut Fire Brigade held ceremonies and sit-ins at the blast-hit Beirut port on Friday to mark one month since the cataclysmic Aug. 4 blast that killed 191 people, injured 6,500 others and traumatized Lebanon.
People throughout Lebanon meanwhile observed a moment of silence in honor of the victims. The commemoration ceremonies at the port were held in the presence of some of the victims’ relatives. Soldiers fired a salute, then laid a white rose for every one of the 191 victims at a memorial. The crowd fell silent at 6:08 p.m., the moment of the explosion that marked the most destructive single blast in Lebanon's violent history. Relatives of the deceased also laid white flowers near the memorial, which bears the names of all those killed in the blast.
"One month on, we still don't know why the explosion happened and who is responsible," said Michele, the sister of a port employee who was killed. Church bells tolled, mosques made a call for prayers and ambulances blared their sirens simultaneously. Some present there wept silently. Others held ropes tied as nooses -- an indication of the grief and raw anger toward officials that persists in the country. The blast was caused by nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been improperly stored at Beirut's port for years. In addition to the dead and injured, thousands of homes were damaged by the blast, which smashed windows and doors for kilometers and was felt on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. It still isn't clear what caused the fire that ignited the ammonium nitrate. The public blames the corruption and negligence of Lebanon's politicians, security and judicial officials, many of whom knew about the storage of the chemicals and did nothing. "We will hold you accountable," one banner read. A firefighting force drove from its headquarters in the direction of the port, marking the route that 10 of their colleagues took when they rushed to put out the fire but were killed instead. All 25 suspects identified by the blast probe, including port director-general Hassan Qureitem and customs chief Badri Daher, are in the custody of Lebanese authorities. But political leaders, whose negligence and corruption are widely blamed for the explosion, have so far dodged arrest.
The lead investigator in the blast probe, Judge Fadi Sawwan, on Thursday interrogated caretaker PM Hassan Diab, as a witness, according to media reports. But Sawwan might not have the authority to interrogate or order the arrest of incumbents in government and parliament without recourse to a special judicial-parliamentary body dedicated to trying top officials.

One Month on, Question Marks Hang over Lebanon Blast
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
A month after a deadly port explosion killed over 190 people and destroyed swathes of Lebanon's capital, the government's account of the blast remains pockmarked with questions.
Here is a recap:
- What happened? -
An initial explosion shook Beirut's port area at around 6:08 pm (1508 GMT) on August 4, resulting in a fire, several small blasts and then a colossal explosion that flattened the docks and surrounding buildings. Seismologists measured the event, which blew out windows at the city's international airport nine kilometres (more than five miles) away, as the equivalent of a 3.3-magnitude earthquake. The blast, heard as far away as Cyprus, left a crater 43 metres (141 feet) deep.
Why such a big blast?
Hassan Diab, who quit along with his government in the wake of the blast, said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had blown up. The fertiliser had been stored in a portside warehouse for seven years, without precautionary measures.
But experts believe that the quantity that ignited was substantially less than declared by authorities. Even in relatively low quantities, ammonium nitrate creates a potent explosive when combined with fuel oils and has caused numerous industrial accidents around the world over the years.
Regulations in the United States were tightened significantly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, which used two tonnes of ammonium nitrate and killed 168 people.US facilities that store more than 2,000 pounds (0.9 metric tonnes) of ammonium nitrate are subject to inspections.
Why was it kept at the port?
The ammonium nitrate is widely understood to have arrived in Beirut in 2013 on board the Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged ship sailing from Georgia and bound for Mozambique. According to Lebanese law firm Baroudi & Associates, which represents the crew, the vessel had faced "technical problems". Several security officials told AFP that it was seized by authorities after a Lebanese company filed a lawsuit against its owner. Port authorities unloaded the ammonium nitrate and stored it in a run down port warehouse with cracks in its walls, the officials said. The Rhosus sank in Beirut port several years after it was impounded.
An investigation by the Organised Crime And Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found that the vessel's owner was Charalambos Manoli, a Cypriot shipping magnate. Manoli denies the claim. The report said a Mozambican factory -- Fabrica de Explosivos de Mocambique -- had ordered the ammonium nitrate, but did not attempt to retrieve it after the Rhosus was seized.
Who is to blame?
Lebanese port authorities, customs and security officials knew the chemical was being stored in the port, but despite warnings, action was not taken to remove it, according to an AFP investigation. Security forces eventually launched an investigation in 2019 after the warehouse started to exude a strange odour, concluding the "dangerous" chemicals needed to be removed from the premises, but again no action was taken. On July 20 this year, both Diab and President Michel Aoun received a report from the State Security agency warning of the danger of the stored chemicals, according to security and judicial sources.
In the week of the blast, workers had begun repairs on the decrepit warehouse. Security sources have suggested the welding work could have started a fire that triggered the blast, but some observers have rejected this as an attempt to shift the blame for high-level failings. The OCCRP report alleged that there was a link between the Rhosus and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah, a major political player in the country. It said Manoli was in debt to FBME, a Lebanese-owned bank that went out of business after losing licences in several countries following US Treasury accusations of money laundering and links with Hezbollah. At one stage, the Rhosus was offered up as collateral to the bank, the report said.
- What is the toll? -
The explosion killed 191 people. Seven people remain missing, and more than 6,500 were injured. Up to 300,000 were left homeless.The cost of the damage amounts to between $2.9 billion and $3.5 billion, according to a World Bank assessment.
- How are probes progressing? -
Western powers including France and the United States have joined calls by Lebanese citizens at home and abroad for an international investigation. Lebanese authorities, however, have rejected an international probe, favouring instead a local investigation, albeit supported by the US FBI.
France has launched its own probe. All 25 suspects identified by Lebanese investigators are now in custody, a judicial source told AFP. They include Beirut port chief Hassan Koraytem and customs chief Badri Daher, as well as three Syrian welders.
Blast-hit Beirut Begins Timid Recovery
In a blast-damaged tailor shop in the Lebanese capital, Claudette is back at work sewing the hem of an orange skirt as rescue teams dig nearby.
"The explosion destroyed everything here, but I decided to return to work, because I have no choice," said the 60-year-old seamstress in the Gemmayzeh neighbourhood. The area was among the hardest hit by the deadly August 4 blast at nearby Beirut port that ravaged swathes of the capital and piled on new misery for Lebanese already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and the country's worst economic crisis in decades.
Rescue workers resumed a search for possible survivors under the rubble on Friday buoyed by faint hopes of a miracle after scanners detected a pulse.
A sniffer dog used by Chilean rescuers on Wednesday night responded to a scent from the site of a collapsed building in Gemmayzeh, the city's governor Marwan Abboud told reporters at the scene.
One month on, seven people are still posted as missing. A total of 191 have been confirmed killed in Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster.
In Gemmayzeh, life is trickling back as an army of volunteers sweep away debris and workmen carry out repairs. Claudette is among a handful of store owners trying to pick up where they had left off. "My husband is unemployed, and my 33-year-old son has been fired because of the economic crisis," Lebanon's worst since its 1975-1990 civil war, she said.
"He has two children and a rent to pay, I have to help him," she said of her son, spools of coloured thread neatly arranged on a shelf behind her.
'Ghost town'
Like many neighbours', Claudette's storefront was shattered by the blast, while her expensive sewing machine was badly damaged.
Donations from a charity helped pay for a new glass storefront but the cost of repairing the machine came out of her own pocket.
The outlook for the future remains grim.
"Most of my clients used to live here. I'm afraid they'll never come back," she said, calling the area a "ghost town".
In a nearby bakery, a man removed hot flat bread topped with thyme or cheese from a large oven, filling the air with scents.
After quick but extensive repairs, Hikmat Kaai reopened just days after the explosion. "We're trying to reconnect with life because we have hope," Kaai said. Gemmayzeh, a district known for heritage buildings, trendy bars and hip art galleries, still looks like a wasteland, even with tonnes of shattered glass and debris removed. Many of its architectural gems have totally collapsed, while others have been scarred by gaping holes or left roof-less.
On a main street, the Iman Cafe was severely damaged in the explosion, with only its grill left intact. Its owner, who carried out limited repairs, now serves only sandwiches because most of his kitchen equipment was destroyed.
"We survive thanks to the volunteers and to the NGO employees involved in reconstruction work who come to eat at our place," said manager Mehsen.
- 'Resisting' -
Few people stroll the streets of adjacent Mar Mikhail, once the beating heart of Beirut's nightlife.In the shadow of gutted buildings, three young men sipped beers as they blasted music from a speaker sitting on a pavement littered with debris.
In the apocalyptic landscape, blighted by Beirut's constant power cuts, one bar had lights on. Inside, customers drank colourful cocktails. Parked outside were the skeletons of charred cars. "It's our way of resisting. We will continue to drink and celebrate life," one of them said. The nearby Cyrano bar, which had one of its waitresses killed in the blast, is determined to make a comeback. "We didn't reopen for the money, but to send a message of life," said its owner, Elie Khoury, 37. "We've known war, bombings, attacks, and we've always got back on our feet," he said.

Life Trickles Back to Beirut’s Gemmayzeh Neighborhood
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 September, 2020
In a blast-damaged tailor shop in the Lebanese capital, Claudette is back at work sewing the hem of an orange skirt. "The explosion destroyed everything here, but I decided to return to work, because I have no choice," said the 60-year-old seamstress in the Gemmayzeh neighborhood. The area was among the hardest hit by the deadly August 4 blast at nearby Beirut port that ravaged swathes of the capital and piled on new misery for Lebanese already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and the country's worst economic crisis in decades. A total of 191 have been confirmed killed in Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster. In Gemmayzeh, life is trickling back as an army of volunteers sweep away debris and workmen carry out repairs. Claudette is among a handful of store owners trying to pick up where they had left off. "My husband is unemployed, and my 33-year-old son has been fired because of the economic crisis,” she told AFP. "He has two children and a rent to pay, I have to help him," she said of her son, spools of colored thread neatly arranged on a shelf behind her. Like many neighbors', Claudette's storefront was shattered by the blast, while her expensive sewing machine was badly damaged. Donations from a charity helped pay for a new glass storefront but the cost of repairing the machine came out of her own pocket. The outlook for the future remains grim. "Most of my clients used to live here. I'm afraid they'll never come back," she said, calling the area a "ghost town". In a nearby bakery, a man removed hot flat bread topped with thyme or cheese from a large oven, filling the air with scents. After quick but extensive repairs, Hikmat Kaai reopened just days after the explosion. "We're trying to reconnect with life because we have hope," Kaai told AFP. Gemmayzeh, a district known for heritage buildings, trendy bars and hip art galleries, still looks like a wasteland, even with tons of shattered glass and debris removed. Many of its architectural gems have totally collapsed, while others have been scarred by gaping holes or left roof-less. On a main street, the Iman Cafe was severely damaged in the explosion, with only its grill left intact. Its owner, who carried out limited repairs, now serves only sandwiches because most of his kitchen equipment was destroyed. "We survive thanks to the volunteers and to the NGO employees involved in reconstruction work who come to eat at our place," said manager Mehsen.

Army Chief Says Port Disaster Could Have Been Avoided
Naharnet 04/2020
Army chief General Joseph Aoun announced Friday that the catastrophic explosion at Beirut’s port could have been avoided had authorities acted in a different way. “From the very first moments after the port blast, the army took charge of the area’s security, seeing as that was its responsibility, even without the presence of an (official) authorization,” Aoun said in Ras Baalbek, where he unveiled a statue honoring troops and citizens who fell in a battle to rout Islamic State militants from the town’s outskirts and in suicide blasts inside the town itself.“The magnitude and size of the disaster made the port’s security, public safety and the search for survivors and missing people under the rubble its priority. We worked silently for several days, because words have no value compared to the blood of innocents, the moaning of the wounded and the tears of grief and pain,” the army chief added. “We grieved with them, because we lost eight martyrs and we have more than 300 wounded (soldiers). We got angry with them because this tragedy could have been avoided,” Aoun went on to say. He also noted that despite its several missions, which increased in number after the explosion, the army “will not allow terror to return” to the country.
“Our many responsibilities, which are an honor to us, will not deviate our attention from two enemies that do not rest whenever they seize chances: terrorism and the Israeli enemy,” Aoun pledged.

After Uproar, Army Says Rescue Paused ‘Briefly’ over Collapse Fears
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
Lebanese authorities came under more fire from an anxious public after Thursday's search and rescue operation for possible survivors under rubble in Beirut, was paused for two hours. The army said Friday the efforts had been halted because chunks of the building's wall could fall on rescuers. Work was resumed at 2230 GMT after military engineers with the help of two cranes "managed to secure the building for work to resume", it said. The stoppage sparked an outcry online. "There is a heart beating in Mar Mikhail, and there are heartless officials who decided to stop the rescue operation," activist Zahia Awad tweeted. The cataclysmic August 4 explosion killed 191 people, making it Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster. One month on, seven people are still missing. Hopes emerged Thursday that one of them could be found alive after a specialist sensor device detected a heart beat under the debris of a collapsed building. Chilean and Lebanese rescuers on Friday lifted chunks of rubble from the site between the hard-hit districts of Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhail, an AFP photographer said. As well as killing more than 190 people, the explosion injured at least 6,500 and left 300,000 homeless. UNICEF on Friday said "600,000 children live within a 20-kilometre radius of the blast and could be suffering negative short-term and long-term psychological impacts." Hassan Diab, who quit along with his government after the blast, said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had blown up. The fertiliser had been stored in a portside warehouse for years, without precautionary measures. Several gatherings, including a minute's silence, organised by civil society groups and families of the victims are planned for Friday afternoon to mark one month since the blast. "One month later, still removing the rubble, trying desperately to recover life," American University of Beirut professor Mona Fawaz tweeted. "The city is deeply wounded. It will take a lot to move forward, we have not even begun the work."

Search for Possible Survivor Continues at Destroyed Mar Mikhail Building
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
Rescuers resumed a search Friday for possible survivors under rubble in a destroyed Beirut building, buoyed by faint hopes of a miracle a month after a monster blast ripped through the city's port. The cataclysmic August 4 explosion killed 191 people, making it Lebanon's deadliest peacetime disaster. One month on, seven people are still missing. Hopes emerged Thursday that one of them could be found alive after a specialist sensor device detected a heart beat under the debris of a collapsed building located between the hard-hit districts of Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhail. "I was not aware I needed a miracle that much. Please God, give Beirut this miracle it deserves," said Selim Mourad, a 32-year-old filmmaker. Chilean and Lebanese rescuers on Friday lifted chunks of rubble from the site. "The experts working with us discovered that someone was breathing slowly under the rubble, at a depth of three metres (yards)," the head of the Chilean rescue team, Francisco Lermanda, said. "We had to dig three tunnels to reach the spot where the pulse was detected," he told reporters Friday evening. The painstaking task is continuing, but it is unclear whether "the person is alive or dead," Lermanda added.
In remarks to LBCI TV, he said "We won't use the dog today and we'll suspend work at 10pm before resuming it in the early morning."The pulse had slowed significantly on Friday compared to a previous recording, said rescue coordinator Nicholas Saade. "After removing the big chunks we scanned again for heartbeats or respiration, it showed low beat/respiration" levels of seven per minute, he said. "The reading before was about 16 to 18.""Ninety-nine percent there isn't anything, but even if there is less than 1% hope, we should keep on looking," Youssef Malah, a well-known civil defense worker, said Thursday. He said the work was extremely sensitive. A Chilean volunteer, however, said their equipment identifies breathing and heartbeat from humans, not animals, and it detected a sign of a human. The worker, who identified himself as Francisco Lermanda, said it is rare, but not unheard of, for someone to survive under the rubble for a month. The past few weeks have been extremely hot in Lebanon, including a current heat wave with high levels of humidity. Every now and then, the Chilean team asked people on the streets, including a crowd of journalists watching the operation, to turn off their mobiles and stay quiet for five minutes so as not to interfere with the sounds being detected by their instruments. Two days after the explosion, a French rescue team and Lebanese civil defense volunteers had looked into the rubble of the same building, where the ground floor used to be a bar. At the time, they had no reason to believe there were any bodies or survivors left at the site. French civil engineer Emmanuel Durand, who is assisting the rescue effort, said 3D mapping scans of the building had so far shown no signs of life. "What we have seen so far is, unfortunately, no trace of any victim or body. We have been conducting two scans on two different rooms," he said.
- Chilean 'heroes' -
The area being excavated was among the hardest hit by the blast that was so powerful it was heard in Cyprus, some 240 kilometers away. The explosion piled on new misery for Lebanese already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic and the country's worst economic crisis in decades. A sniffer dog deployed by Chilean rescuers on Wednesday night had responded to a scent from the site, Beirut governor Marwan Abboud said. After detecting a pulse on Thursday, Lebanese rescuers teamed up with the Chileans to find survivors.
They moved Friday in the "direction of the signal," trying to find a tunnel or entry point giving access to a "survivor or corpse," Saade said. Lebanon lacks the tools and expertise to handle advanced search and rescue operations which are now being supported by international experts. The Chileans arrived recently with a sniffer dog, as well as specialist sensors that can detect heart beats and breathing. They have been praised as heroes by many Lebanese who have compared their expertise with the lackluster performance of what they see as an absent state."Shows you how low we are on the priority ladder of these insects ruling us," said one on Twitter.
-'Heartless officials' -
Lebanese authorities came under more fire from an anxious public after Thursday's search and rescue operation was paused for two hours.
The army said Friday the efforts had been halted because chunks of the building's wall could fall on rescuers. Work was resumed at 2230 GMT after military engineers with the help of two cranes "managed to secure the building," it said. The stoppage sparked an outcry online. "There is a heart beating in Mar Mikhail, and there are heartless officials who decided to stop the rescue operation," activist Zahia Awad tweeted. As well as killing more than 190 people, the explosion injured at least 6,500 and left 300,000 homeless.
UNICEF on Friday said "600,000 children live within a 20-kilometer radius of the blast and could be suffering negative short-term and long-term psychological impacts." Hassan Diab, who quit along with his government after the blast, said 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate had blown up. The fertilizer had been stored in a warehouse for years without precautions. Several gatherings, including a minute's silence, organized by civil society groups and families of the victims are planned for Friday afternoon to mark one month since the blast. "One month later, still removing the rubble, trying desperately to recover life," American University of Beirut professor Mona Fawaz tweeted. "The city is deeply wounded. It will take a lot to move forward, we have not even begun the work."

Survivor search grips a grieving Beirut as city marks a month since blast
Arab News/September 04/2020
BEIRUT: Rescue workers in Lebanon were in a race against time on Friday with about half a meter of rubble left between them and what they believe could be a survivor of the devastating Aug. 4 Beirut blast.
Local channel Al-Jadeed reported that faint signs of life had been discovered under the rubble. From the early hours of the morning, and throughout the day, workers dug their way through the debris - at one point reaching what they thought was about 80 cm from the survivor, but their access was blocked by solid concrete and so they had to try another route.
Live feeds from the rescue site were briefly interrupted through the morning as rescuers asked those at the scene to turn off phones, cameras and other electrical devices.
State news previously reported that a rescue and recovery team with a specially trained search dog had detected signs of a pulse and breathing under a destroyed building in the Gemmayze area of Beirut, one of the worst hit areas by the blast. The team of rescue workers included volunteers from Chile, as well as Lebanon and members of the local civil defense force.
A crane was brought to the search area to help by carefully lifting up steel girders and other heavy pieces of debris.
Residents gathered nearby, holding out hope that someone could be found, while some voiced frustration that not enough had been done earlier to find survivors.
“How many people could have survived if there had been a state and rescue operations ready?” asked 28-year-old Chadem.
Rescue workers initially suspended the search operation late on Thursday night, sparking angered reactions from locals, The Washington Post reported.
Residents in Beirut’s Gemmayze reacted angrily as rescue workers broke for the night. They resumed the search a short while later at 1 a.m. on Friday (Video: Tony Srour ANfr)
Oscar-nominated director Nadine Labaki joined angered residents as they demanded the work continued. “There could be someone alive,” she said. “That cannot wait until tomorrow morning.”
“You have no brains,” another woman was quoted as saying. “If your sister or mother was there, would you leave them?”
Soldiers had to escort people off the rubble as they scrambled over the debris of the collapsed building to resume the work the rescuers appeared to be leaving, the Washington Post added..
The search was eventually resumed shortly after 1 a.m. on Friday.
Across from Mar Mikhail, near Beirut port, a commemoration was held for the victims of the blast in the presence of some of their relatives on Friday evening. Soldiers fired a salute, then laid a white rose for every one of the 191 victims at a memorial. The crowd fell silent at 6:08 p.m., the moment of the explosion that marked the most destructive single blast in Lebanon’s violent history.
The explosion ripped through a swathe of the capital, smashing up districts such as Gemmayze, home to many old, traditional buildings, some of which collapsed in the shockwave. The building where the search was being conducted had once housed a bar on its ground floor.
The search came as Lebanon was to mark one month since the blast that killed about 190 people and injured 6,000 others, leaving the country traumatized. A moment of silence was planned at 6:08 p.m., the moment that marks the most destructive single incident in Lebanon’s history on Aug. 4.
As the search and rescue work continued, a truck was brought in that helps to reduce the dust produced as drilling work continued. (Photo: Tony Srour ANfr)
“These (signs of breathing and pulse) along with the temperature sensor means there is a possibility of life,” rescue worker Eddy Bitar told reporters at the scene. Rescue workers in bright jackets clambered over the building that had collapsed in the blast. Bitar said a civil defense unit had been called in to help with extra equipment to conduct the search. Local media said any search and rescue effort, if it became clear that someone was still alive, was likely to take hours.

Search for possible survivor one month after blast grips Lebanon
The Arab Weekly/September 04/2020
BEIRUT – Rescue workers used cranes, shovels and their bare hands in search operations that resumed early Friday in the rubble of a building that collapsed last month in Beirut’s catastrophic explosion, hoping to find a survivor after a pulsing signal was detected.
The search was taking place exactly a month since the massive blast that killed and wounded thousands of people and traumatised a country that had already been suffering for months under a severe economic crisis and financial collapse.
A march and a vigil were planned Friday as well as a moment of silence at 6:08 p.m., the moment that marked the most destructive single incident in Lebanon’s history on August 4. The search operation unfolding in Beirut’s historic Mar Mikhail district has gripped the nation for the past 24 hours. The idea, however unlikely, that a survivor could be found a month later gave hope to people who followed the live images on television, wishing for a miracle.
Search operations first began Thursday afternoon after a sniffer dog belonging to a Chilean search and rescue team called TOPOS detected something while the team was touring Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhail streets, and rushed toward the rubble. Images of the black and white 5-year-old dog named Flash, wearing red shoes to protect his feet, have circulated on social media with people describing him as a hero. The episode laid bare the raw anger and grief still there, a month later. After hours of searching, the work was suspended briefly before midnight, apparently to search for a crane. That sparked outrage among protesters who arrived at the scene claiming the Lebanese army had asked the Chilean team to stop the search.
In a reflection of the staggering divide and people’s lack of trust in authorities, some protesters donned helmets and started searching the rubble themselves while others made calls to try to arrange for a crane. “Where’s your conscience? There’s life under this building and you want to stop the work until tomorrow?” one woman screamed at a soldier. “The government has been completely complacent, has been completely absent,” said Stephanie Bou Chedid, a volunteer from a group helping victims of the blast. She said her group had hired the crane to help with the rescue work. Members of Lebanon’s Civil Defense team returned an hour after midnight and resumed work. The army issued a statement Friday in response to the criticism, saying the Chilean team stopped work half an hour before midnight fearing that a wall might collapse on them. It added that army experts inspected the site and two cranes were brought in to remove the wall after which the search resumed.
It was extremely unlikely that any survivors would be found a month after the August blast that tore through Beirut when nearly 3,000 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate ignited at the port. The explosion killed 191 people and injured 6,000 others and is considered to be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded.
Thousands of homes were damaged in the explosion, which smashed glass and blasted windows and doors for several miles around and was felt on the neighbouring island of Cyprus. It still wasn’t clear what caused the fire that ignited the ammonium nitrate, but the public blames the corruption and negligence of Lebanon’s politicians, security and judicial officials, many of whom knew about the chemicals’ existence and did nothing about it.
On Friday morning, rescue workers were slowly removing debris with their hands and shovels, digging holes in the building’s debris pile in Mar Mikhail. The more they dug, the more careful the work became to protect any possible survivors under the rubble. Later, they brought a 360-degree camera placed at the end of a long stick and pushed it into a hole in the building. A scan from the camera did not turn up any trace of humans from that particular section. On Thursday, the team used audio detection equipment for signals or heartbeat and detected what could be a pulse of 18 to 19 beats per minute. The origin of the pulsing signal was not immediately known but it was enough to set off the frantic search and raised new hope. On Friday morning, the beats dropped to seven per minute, according to comments made by a Chilean volunteer to local TV station Al Jadeed. “Ninety-nine percent there isn’t anything, but even if there is less than 1% hope, we should keep on looking,” Youssef Malah, a civil defense worker, said Thursday. He said the work was extremely sensitive.
A Chilean volunteer, however, said their equipment identifies breathing and heartbeat from humans, not animals, and it detected a sign of a human. The worker, who identified himself as Francisco Lermanda, said it is rare, but not unheard of, for someone to survive under the rubble for a month.
The past few weeks have been extremely hot in Lebanon, including a current heat wave with high levels of humidity. Every now and then, the Chilean team asked people on the streets, including a crowd of journalists watching the operation, to turn off their mobiles and stay quiet for five minutes so as not to interfere with the sounds being detected by their instruments. Two days after the explosion, a French rescue team and Lebanese civil defence volunteers had looked into the rubble of the same building, where the ground floor used to be a bar. At the time, they had no reason to believe there were any bodies or survivors left at the site.

Army Finds 4 Tons of Ammonium Nitrate near Beirut Port
Associated Press/Naharnet 04/2020
The army has discovered more than 4 tons of ammonium nitrate near Beirut's port, a find that's a chilling reminder of the horrific explosion a month ago that killed 191 people. According to the military, army experts were called in for an inspection and found 4.35 tons of the dangerous chemical in four containers stored near the port. There were no details on the origin of the chemicals or their owner. The find comes almost exactly a month after nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at Beirut's port for six years detonated, wreaking death and destruction. Along with 191 people killed, more than 6,000 were injured and entire neighborhoods were devastated. The blast left nearly 300,000 people homeless and caused damage worth billions of dollars. The military statement said that customs officials had called in the army to inspect containers at a facility near the port, where they found 4.35 tons of ammonium nitrate. It said army experts were "dealing with the material," an apparent reference that it was being destroyed. Days after the Aug. 4 blast, French and Italian chemical experts working amid the remains of the port identified more than 20 containers carrying dangerous chemicals. The army later said that these containers were moved and stored safely in locations away from the port. French experts as well as the FBI have taken part in the investigation into the Aug. 4 blast, at the request of Lebanese authorities. Their findings have yet to be released.So far, authorities have detained 25 people over last month's explosion, most of them port and customs officials.

Cardinal Parolin Meets Aoun, Affirms Support for Lebanon
Naharnet 04/2020
Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin affirmed Friday after meeting with President Michel Aoun at Baabda Palace that the Holy See attaches great importance to Lebanon, stressing international support for the reconstruction of Beirut after the explosion."As Pope John Paul II said," Lebanon is a mission "and Lebanon must preserve its components,” stated Parolin, noting that Lebanon does not stand alone. For his part, Aoun conveyed Lebanon's gratitude to Pope Francis for his initiative to render this Friday a day of universal prayer and fasting for Lebanon.
"One month after the port catastrophe, we remember the martyrs who have fallen, the wounded, and the people who have lost their livelihoods. We affirm that justice will be served to everyone who is responsible or negligent. This is the right of the Lebanese who have been united by the disaster and united by pain," Aoun said.

Aoun Orders Continued Search at Destroyed Mar Mikhail Building
Naharnet 04/2020
President Michel Aoun was on Friday following up on the search and rescue operations at a Mar Mikhail building destroyed by the August 4 port explosion, the National News Agency said. “To this end, President Aoun called Civil Defense Director General Brig. Gen. Raymond Khattar and learned about the latest developments related to the work of the rescue crews,” NNA added. “He stressed the need to continue the search operation and follow up on any indication until the situation becomes clear while taking into consideration the need to guarantee the safety of the crews that are removing the rubble and searching for missing people,” the agency said. Rescue workers were on Friday using cranes, shovels and their bare hands to search the rubble of the destroyed building, hoping to find a survivor after a pulsing sound was detected.
The search operation in the historic Mar Mikhail district on a street once filled with crowded bars and restaurants has gripped the nation for the past 24 hours. The idea, however unlikely, that a survivor could be found a month later gave hope to people who followed the live images on television, wishing for a miracle. Search operations first began Thursday after a dog used by the Chilean search and rescue team TOPOS detected something as it toured Gemmayzeh and Mar Mikhail streets and rushed toward the rubble. Images of the black-and-white 5-year-old dog named Flash, wearing red shoes to protect its paws, circulated on social media. After hours of searching, the work was suspended briefly before midnight Thursday, apparently to find a crane. That sparked outrage among protesters at the scene who claimed the Lebanese army had asked the Chilean team to stop the search. In a reflection of the staggering distrust of the authorities, some protesters donned helmets and started searching themselves while others tried to arrange for a crane. "Where's your conscience? There's life under this building and you want to stop the work until tomorrow?" one woman screamed at a soldier. Members of Lebanon's Civil Defense team returned after midnight and resumed work. The army issued a statement Friday in response to the criticism, saying the Chilean team stopped work at 11:30 p.m. fearing a wall might collapse on them. It added that army experts inspected the site and two cranes were brought in to remove the wall, after which the search resumed.

Diab Testifies in Beirut Port Blast
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
The lead investigator of the catastrophic blast at the Lebanese capital's port heard testimony from outgoing prime minister Hassan Diab on Thursday. Diab became the first senior politician to testify before judicial authorities, who are not entitled to question incumbents in government or parliament without recourse to a special body. The premier who resigned in the wake of the August 4 blast that left more than 190 dead had said it was caused by 2,750 tonnes of fertiliser ammonium nitrate stored in a portside warehouse for years. Judge Fadi Sawan listened to Diab's testimony in his "capacity as a witness," a judicial source told AFP. Sawan was seeking to determine "how long he knew as prime minister of the presence of ammonium nitrate in the port", according to the source. He also wanted to find out "why he did not instruct the government to take measures to remove the dangerous (substance) after receiving reports from security services". On July 20, Diab and President Michel Aoun both received a report from the State Security agency warning of the danger posed by the highly unstable material. After the explosion, the agency confirmed it had alerted authorities in a detailed report quoting a chemical expert who had visited the warehouse. If ignited, the ammonium nitrate would cause a huge explosion that would be especially destructive to the port, warned the report seen by AFP. Lebanese authorities have launched their own investigation after rejecting calls for an international probe. Twenty-five suspects have so far been arrested, including port director-general Hassan Koraytem and customs chief Badri Daher. Also among those arrested are three Syrian workers who carried out welding work on the warehouse on the day of the blast. Security sources have suggested the work could have started a fire that triggered the blast, but some observers have rejected the theory. The Lebanese army said Thursday it has found another 4.35 tonnes of ammonium nitrate stored inside containers at an entrance to the port.

Report: Differing Views on Seats Count in Adib’s Govt.
Naharnet 04/2020
Prime Minister designate Mustafa Adib continues consultations to form a “small government of experts” capable of introducing much-needed reforms as demanded by France, amid reports that President Michel Aoun requested one with more ministerial portfolios, Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday.
Adib sifts through the outcome of ideas and consultations with parliamentary blocs and senior leaders on the shape of the upcoming government. The outcome of talks could crystallize by the end of the week, the daily said. The PM-designate reportedly inclines to form a "small" crisis government, but the “President's desire to form one with more ministerial seats took matters a step backward,” said the daily. According to sources who spoke to Nidaa al Watan newspaper, during talks between the two men on Thursday, Aoun suggested “assigning a portfolio to each minister, which raises the government composition to 22 ministers. A ministerial portfolio would also be assigned to the PM.” The last government resigned in the face of public anger over the August 4 explosion that killed at least 190, wounded thousands and laid waste to entire districts of the capital. Government formation is usually a drawn-out process in multi-confessional Lebanon where a complex political system seeks to share power between different religious groups.But the country's deadliest peacetime disaster has created intense pressure for swift reforms to lift it out of its worst economic crisis in decades.

US calls for ‘significant reforms’ in Lebanon, sees Hezbollah as obstacle
The Arab Weekly/September 04/2020
WASHINGTON –US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday that any new Lebanese government must pursue fundamental reforms to benefit the Lebanese people and regional security. “Business as usual in Lebanon just is unacceptable,” Pompeo told reporters.
An August 4 blast at the port in the capital Beirut killed at least 190 people, pilloried the country’s economy and brought down the government. “This has to be a government that conducts significant reforms,” Pompeo continued. He said the United States and France, whose President Emmanuel Macron was in Beirut Tuesday for consultations, shared “the same objective” for Lebanon. “Real change is what the people of Lebanon are demanding, and the United States is going to use its diplomatic presence and its diplomatic capabilities to make sure that we get that outcome,” he said.
“I think the French share that. I think the whole world frankly sees the risk.”Pompeo said the principal challenge is the power of the armed political party Hezbollah, which the US considers a terror group. In an apparent snub to the ruling class, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Schenker said Wednesday he will not meet with Lebanese politicians during a visit to Beirut but would hold talks with civil society activists. In an interview with the pan-Arab Saudi newspaper Asharq al-Awsat, Schenker said the new Lebanese government must believe in reforms and implement them.
“There is a need for a government that cares about its people and their demands, a responsible and transparent government that carries out economic and political reforms,” he said. Echoing Pompeo’s stance, Schenker noted that Hezbollah was a “large part of the problem [and] stands in the way of reform.”
On Sunday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah said his Iran-backed Shia movement was “open” to a French proposal for a new political pact for Lebanon. During his visit, Macron said Lebanese political leaders had agreed on a reform roadmap involving a government being put together within two weeks, following last month’s devastating blast. The last government resigned in the face of public anger over the explosion, which also wounded thousands and laid waste to entire districts of the capital. Lebanon’s prime minister designate Mustapha Adib has pledged to form a “government of experts” to drive desperately needed reforms in the disaster-hit and economically ailing country.

Nissan's Ghosn Gone, American Kelly Faces Japan Trial Alone
Associated Press/Naharnet 04/2020
His boss Carlos Ghosn escaped financial misconduct charges by fleeing the country, but another former Nissan executive is still awaiting trial in Japan: Greg Kelly. Kelly's trial in Tokyo District Court is to open Sept. 15, nearly two years after his arrest, and the same day he turns 64 . If convicted of charges related to alleged under-reporting of Ghosn's income, Kelly could face up to a decade in prison. Even if acquitted, he has already paid a heavy price, unable to leave Japan and go home to Tennessee while out on bail. He has yet to see his newborn grandchild. His wife got a student visa to stay with him in Tokyo.
Kelly, like Ghosn, says he is innocent. Tokyo prosecutors say Kelly and Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan Motor Co., violated financial laws by under-reporting Ghosn's pay by about 9 billion yen ($85 million) from 2011 through 2018. Jamie Wareham, Kelly's lawyer in the U.S., says a compensation agreement was never finalized. He believes the real motive was a "corporate coup" to oust Ghosn by others at Nissan who feared he might engineer a takeover by its French alliance partner, Renault.
"The whole thing is a fraud," Wareham told The Associated Press by phone. Ghosn could have been a star witness for the defense. But he is gone, having fled to Lebanon late last year, hidden in a box aboard a private jet. "He is frustrated. He is upset," Wareham said of Kelly. "He has been abused from the beginning by the Japanese system."Nissan's U.S. division hired Kelly, who has a law degree, in 1988. He became a representative director in 2012, the first American on Nissan's board. Kelly worked in legal counsel and human resources at the company. He was arrested in November 2018, upon his arrival from the U.S. in Japan, thinking he was going to attend Nissan meetings. Kelly has not been charged with breach of trust allegations that Ghosn is facing, which center around suspected use of Nissan money for personal purposes, including fancy homes. Ghosn's lawyers have argued the properties were needed for work, and contend that such questions could have been raised internally at the company and did not require prosecution. Tokyo Deputy Chief Prosecutor Hiroshi Yamamoto said the preparations for Kelly's trial took a long time because of the massive amounts of evidence involved. "We feel we have a solid case with ample evidence to win a guilty verdict," Yamamoto told reporters recently. Wareham, Kelly's counsel, said prosecutors have sent the equivalent of a billion pages of documents, mostly in English, that can only be examined on a computer at the Tokyo legal team's office. They have yet to hand over more than 70 7-inch-size boxes full of material marked as evidence, with only two weeks left before the trial opens.
Kelly's treatment has been unfair, Wareham said. But he is confident Kelly will be vindicated because he is so "obviously innocent," he said. Nissan was charged as a company, and Nissan and Kelly will be tried together. Nissan has acknowledged guilt and made changes to the statements on compensation. It was fined 2.4 billion yen ($22.6 million) fine but still faces related charges.In a trial likely to last about a year, Nissan employees, including former Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa, are expected to testify in support of the prosecutors. Saikawa replaced Ghosn but resigned last year over financial misconduct allegations of his own. He has not been charged. Separately, Japan is seeking the extradition of two Americans, Michael Taylor and his son Peter Taylor, wanted on charges of smuggling Ghosn out of Japan. They are being held in a Massachusetts jail without bail.
Ghosn has repeatedly slammed Japan's court system, denouncing it as "hostage justice." That is a widespread criticism given that the conviction rate is above 99 percent. Suspects are routinely grilled by police or prosecutors without a lawyer present and held for months before trial, a practice that critics say leads to false confessions and lacks a presumption of innocence.At the heart of the whole Ghosn saga is the tendency for Japanese executives to be paid far less than their Western counterparts, while they work more as part of "salaryman" teams than as powerful leaders. In 2010, when Japan started requiring the public disclosure of individual executives' pay, Ghosn's $9.5 million annual salary raised eyebrows. Ghosn defended his higher than usual compensation as what he deserved for what he had achieved at Nissan, leading its turnaround from the brink of collapse after he was sent by Renault in 1999.
Since Japan has no extradition treaty with Lebanon, it's unlikely Ghosn will ever face trial. But his legacy at Nissan is likely to overshadow Kelly's trial.
"My prayers go to Greg Kelly and his family who remain trapped by the Japanese Hostage Justice System," Ghosn said in a tweet earlier this year.

U.S. Judge OKs Extradition of Men Accused of Aiding Ghosn Escape
Associated Press/Naharnet 04/2020
Two American men accused of smuggling Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan while he was awaiting trial on financial misconduct charges can be extradited, a U.S. federal judge ruled Friday. U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald Cabell issued a ruling approving the extradition of Michael Taylor, a U.S. Army Special Forces veteran, and his son Peter Taylor, but the final decision rests with the U.S. State Department. The Taylors are wanted by Japan so they can be tried on charges that they helped Ghosn flee the country last year with the former Nissan boss tucked away in a box on a private jet. The flight went first to Turkey, then to Lebanon, where Ghosn has citizenship but which has no extradition treaty with Japan. Ghosn said he fled because he could not expect a fair trial, was subjected to unfair conditions in detention and was barred from meeting his wife under his bail conditions. Ghosn has denied allegations that he underreported his income and committed a breach of trust by diverting Nissan money for his personal gain. Bank records show Ghosn wired more than $860,000 to a company linked to Peter Taylor in October 2019, prosecutors said in court documents. Ghosn's son also made cryptocurrency payments totaling about $500,000 to Peter Taylor in the first five months of this year, prosecutors say. The Taylors have been locked up in a Massachusetts jail since they were arrested in May. Their attorneys never denied the allegations, but argued they can't be extradited because they say their actions don't fit under the law with which Japan is trying to convict them. Michael Taylor, a former Green Beret, ran a private security business initially focused on private investigations, but their caseload grew through corporate work and unofficial referrals from the State Department and FBI, including parents whose children had been taken overseas by former spouses. In 2012, federal prosecutors alleged Taylor had won a U.S. military contract to train Afghan soldiers by using secret information passed along from an American officer. When Taylor learned the contract was being investigated, he asked an FBI agent and friend to intervene, prosecutors charged. The government seized $5 million from the bank account of Taylor's company. Facing 50 charges, he spent 14 months in jail before agreeing to plead guilty to two counts. The government agreed to return $2 million to the company as well as confiscated vehicles.

Lebanese MP Fouad Makhzoumi: Hizbullah Is Stronger Than The Lebanese Government; Most Officials Are Hizbullah Collaborators; They Get Power, Hizbullah Gets To Keep Its Weapons
MEMRI/September 04/2020
Lebanese MP Fouad Makhzoumi said in an August 12, 2020 interview on Alghad TV (Egypt/UAE) that Hizbullah is more powerful than the Lebanese government. He added that Lebanon's prime minister and parliament speaker can only be appointed if Hizbullah approves of them. Makhzoumi said that most Lebanese officials are Hizbullah collaborators and that the corrupt officials control the Lebanese government while Hizbullah gets to keep its weapons. He said that this is fine as long as Hizbullah is defending Lebanon, but that today Lebanon is facing regional powers that it cannot handle. In addition, he said that it is an embarrassment that Lebanon needs aid from other countries.
Interviewer: "Which of the two states is stronger?"
Fouad Makhzoumi: "Hizbullah's state is stronger. You know that today, it's impossible to appoint a prime minister... Hizbullah's state is stronger. A prime minister cannot be appointed without Hizbullah's approval. A parliament speaker cannot be appointed without Hizbullah's approval. Very few of us have successfully challenged them. Most people are [Hizbullah] collaborators.
"Tell me which judge, officer, or official can get [a job] with the state, without getting Hizbullah's approval. This equation has existed since 2005 – weapons in exchange for ruling the country. They say: 'You corrupt [people] can rule the country, and [we] get to keep our weapons.' So long as [Hizbullah's] weapons are defending Lebanon, everything is fine. But today, we are entangled in regional axes that we cannot endure. Lebanon cannot endure them. Imagine! Today a Jordanian or Moroccan plane needs to bring us water. Lebanon needs water, flour, and bread! Our entire lives, we've seen ourselves as a beacon in this region. What a disgrace!

Lebanon: Schenker’s Mission Does Not Diverge From Macron’s Initiative
Beirut - Mohammed Shukair/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
Washington is not seeking to circumvent the initiative led by French President Emmanuel Macron to save Lebanon from its severe economic, financial and political crises, well-informed sources told Asharq Al-Awsat.
They noted that the visit of Assistant Secretary of State David Schenker to Beirut was not intended at competing with the French initiative or preventing it from achieving its desired goals.
During the visit, Schenker decided to limit his talks to a group of activists in civil society organizations and the eight deputies, who resigned from Parliament and with whom he met in Bikfaya on Thursday evening at the invitation of the head of Kataeb party, resigned MP Sami Gemayel. According to the sources, coordination was ongoing between Washington and Paris. They stressed that Macron’s return to Beirut was organized in all its details with the US administration. This explains Schenker’s insistence on excluding from his agenda all those who met with the French president from his agenda, lest it be said that he was leading an invisible political campaign to disrupt the French initiative. The sources considered that Macron’s initiative to save Lebanon falls within two frameworks: addressing the economic, financial and social crises, which were exacerbated by the devastating explosion at the Beirut Port on Aug. 4 and resolving the political situation, starting with the formation of a government of specialists and professionals who also have knowledge of the political situation. According to the sources, the newly appointed prime minister, Mustapha Adib, would pledge to commit to the reform paper prepared by Macron - which would also serve as a first draft of the new government’s ministerial statement, especially as it had the unconditional support of all those who met the French President. The transitional government will have a mission to stop the collapse, provided that it will be succeeded by a political government that will look into Hezbollah’s weapons, the defense strategy and the policy of active neutrality that was proposed by Maronite Patriarch Beshara Al-Rai, the sources underlined.

Lebanese cabinet in existential race against time
Samar Kadi/The Arab Weekly/September 04/2020
BEIRUT-The nomination on August 31 of Prime Minister-designate Mustapha Adib within less than three weeks of his predecessor Hassan Diab’s resignation is unprecedented in Lebanon, where political divisiveness and rivalry have often delayed the designation process for months.
The relatively quick decision is largely due to international pressure led by France, whose President Emmanuel Macron pressed Lebanese political leaders to form the government by mid-September or face painful sanctions.
Analysts expect the cabinet to take shape within the French-set deadline. Unlike his predecessor, Adib, who served as Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany for the last seven years, was endorsed by the Sunni community. Under Lebanon’s sectarian power sharing system, the prime minister is Sunni, the president Maronite Christian and the speaker a Shia Muslim. Will Adib have a better chance than Diab to introduce long-delayed but urgently-needed reforms to pull Lebanon out of a financial crisis the likes of which the country has never seen?
“The context is different this time. There is high international pressure led by France, an extremely dire economic situation, because we are no longer in an economic crisis but in economic collapse, and the level of population anger is unprecedented,” says Sami Nader, director of the Levant Institute for Strategic Affairs. “The major factor which will push for the quick formation of the government is the direct threats. President Macron said it clearly that either you come up with a government before September 15 and start achieving substantial reforms in the coming three months or the international community will impose sanctions against you,” Nader said. Macron, who visited Lebanon twice since the massive blast at Beirut port on August 4, made it crystal clear to everybody that there will be no bailout for Lebanon in the absence of credible reforms. The explosion of some 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate that was unsafely stored in the port for years killed more than 200 people and left an estimated $5 billion in damages.
While the previous government dominated by Hezbollah and its allies– the Shia Amal Movement of Speaker Nabih Berri and the Christian Free Patriotic Movement of President Michel Aoun, have failed drastically to initiate reforms, analysts suggest there is now space for compromise and that a new government would be mildly capable of securing some political and economic stability.
“God willing, we will agree to have a ministerial team of competent specialists and hit the ground running to implement essential reforms swiftly, to put the country on the road to recovery,” Adib said in a speech after his appointment.
“It will be a government under stick,” Nader said. “I believe that they would come up with a new breed of ministers, including non-provocative figures with no known political affiliations. “Hezbollah will have to make compromises. Either it accepts and gives in what it denied to the previous government, or sacrifices its allies, because they will be cooked under the sanctions.”A key difference between Adib and outgoing premier Diab is that Adib is supported by his Sunni community, maintains political analyst Amin Kammourieh. “Those who were against Hassan Diab and his government are now behind Adib,” Kammourieh said. “Much will also depend on the figures that will participate in his government, but I believe they would have non-politically affiliated ministers with a lease to enforce a minimum of reforms in sectors like electricity, the judiciary and forensic audit of the Central Bank which is a key requirement for financial reform.”However, Kammourieh cautioned that “the devil lies in the details.”
“What if the investigation into the port blast involved ministers or former ministers, would they be able to incriminate them?” he asked, adding: “This requires an independent judiciary which does not exist currently.”The disaster-stricken Lebanese public has little faith in Adib’s promises, which which they have heard before. Some critics have pointed out that Adib for years served as an advisor to multi-billionaire ex-Prime Minister Najib Mikati, Lebanon’s richest man who was indicted on financial corruption charges last year. Lebanon has for years failed to enact political and economic reforms to manage its crippling debt, clean up its banking sector and tackle entrenched corruption by political elites — corruption enabled in part by the country’s complex sectarian governing system. The UN has warned that over half of Lebanon’s population is living in poverty, with 23% in “extreme poverty” — while 10% of the population owns 70% of its wealth. Unemployment was at 40% even before the coronavirus pandemic and explosion hit. “Obviously, the international community and France in particular don’t want Lebanon to fall in the hands of Iran,” Nader said. “This is the last chance we have to try to fix the mess we are in. The composition of the next government will reflect how serious we are about change.”

Macron’s visit was another disaster for Lebanon
Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri/Arab News/September 04/2020
French President Emmanuel Macron’s first visit to Lebanon after the explosion at Beirut port was warmly welcomed by some Lebanese people. Others in the region decided to wait to see what it would lead to.
That first visit, in early August, was seen as an expression of solidarity for Lebanon and a desire for stability. Those who welcomed it felt it might help to save from terrorism a country that was already suffering from the results of prevalent corruption. The explosion, some felt, was one of the consequences of Lebanon straying too far from its own interests.
Last week, Macron returned to Lebanon, this time demanding that a new government be formed. It is as if he wants simply to clean up the rubble in Beirut and close the file. The solutions to Lebanon’s problems, however, will involve a lot more than simply forming a government. Many governments have been formed, many times, and none have been successful in their endeavors.In fact, the presence of an Iranian-backed terrorist militia prevents the establishment of a real, effective government in Lebanon. That militia, Hezbollah, has hijacked the country and turned it into a source of terrorist activity and intervention across the region.Hezbollah, which is affiliated with Tehran, is no ordinary arms-bearing militia. It considers itself a political party, and it participates in and controls the Lebanese government. Its influence in the Lebanese parliament gives it control of the security services and other military forces. Its power and control springs directly from the force of its arms.
This terrorist militia is the cause of Lebanon’s problems. It was responsible for the Beirut explosion. It was the force behind the assassination of President Rafik Hariri in 2005, and it remains the cause of the rampant corruption that weakens and destroys everything in the country. Its powerful members are present in all parts of the state and are above the law. Nobody is allowed to question or challenge its actions, its terrorism or its corruption.
The presence of an Iranian-backed terrorist militia prevents the establishment of a real, effective government in Lebanon.
This is the country’s real problem and this is what the Lebanese people would like to be rid of. Lebanon wants to join the community of nations that supports democracy and would never accept the existence of an armed militia that operates outside the framework or control of the state.
Macron’s visit was not in the interest of the Lebanese people, the Lebanese state, or the stability of the region. The real beneficiaries of his visit were Iran and its terrorist militias, which continue to augment terrorism and interfere brazenly in the region — in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and elsewhere.
The militias see themselves as unaccountable and believe the international mood is with them. This was especially true in the shameful nuclear agreement between Western powers and Iran. It was based on the greed that desired the return of oil companies, including France’s Total, to Tehran. In addition, some countries want to lift the arms embargo and sell weapons to Iran, the largest state supporter of terrorism.
The fact is that the region has gradually realized that Iran and its terrorist militias do not act alone, and that there are those who benefit from their interventions and efforts to destabilize the security and stability of many countries.
Unleashing Iranian terrorism in the region and failing to hold its militias to account will complicate matters even further and will not bring stability — quite the reverse. It will endanger everyone’s interests, and instead of thinking that Tehran and its militias are protecting the interests of the people, they will be seen to be doing exactly the opposite.Lebanon’s problems cannot and will not be solved simply by forming a sham government or visiting a Lebanese artist and drinking coffee with her, as Macron did last week. The problems can only be solved by eradicating terrorism, so that people start to enjoy their lives, support the coming of peace and stability, and be assured of a proper future for their children.
*Dr. Hamdan Al-Shehri is a political analyst and international relations scholar. Twitter: @DrHamsheri

How Boris Johnson Can Save London
Therese Raphael/Bloomberg/September 04/2020
Getting English kids back into school this week isn’t just about them. It’s crucial that we repair the damage to educational outcomes, life chances and physical and emotional wellbeing inflicted by months out of the classroom. But this is also about removing a major obstacle to the return of working parents to their city-center offices.
Tackling the empty workplace is now Boris Johnson’s priority. That’s understandable. The hollowing out of cities could have a devastating impact on employment, widen inequalities and further weaken government revenues. London — always the prime consideration in these conversations — makes up about 22% of the UK’s gross domestic product. Even so, the prime minister’s back-to-the-office campaign may not succeed; it’s not obvious that it’s a politician’s job to tell businesses what to do.
Johnson says people are returning to the office in “huge numbers.” Those numbers are still unclear, however. Use of the London Underground is 72% lower than the same time last year. More workers will no doubt venture back to their desks at least part-time in the weeks ahead, liberated by the reopening of schools and reassured by new deep-cleaning and social-distancing protocols. But worries about getting on the Tube, buses or suburban trains and the airborne spread of the virus are supported by evidence and are unlikely to disappear soon.
And, as countless articles have noted, many workers and employers have become fans of remote working. Commuters are spared a long, costly and often soul-destroying journey; and they have a lower carbon footprint and possibly a better work-life balance. The savings from money spent previously on travel fares and gourmet sandwiches means more funds are available for education, home improvements and retirement. Many are happier, and no less productive.
But these contented white-collar “remotes” are very distant from workers in more deprived parts of the country, who delivered power to Johnson’s Conservatives in the December election. The government is acutely aware of a gulf between those who can WFH safely and those who can’t. The perception of bankers in their Surrey bunkers being fine, while bus drivers and shop workers have to get on with it and risk infection, would be toxic politically.
At the same time, younger voters often see more benefits in office life as they set out on their careers. They also rely more on the kinds of service-industry jobs that will be lost if city centers remain deserted. Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer, is worried too about unemployment and the loss of tax revenue from shuttered shops and restaurants.
Hence Johnson’s eagerness to get people moving. A recent headline in the Tory-supporting Daily Telegraph quoted anonymous government officials telling people to, “Go back to work or risk losing your job.”
Unfortunately for the prime minister, this is an awkward position for a libertarian to take. How does a Conservative government — usually the arch-defender of an unobtrusive state — start telling companies and workers how to do their business?
Do corporate bosses even want a return to pre-Covid working norms? It’s a fraught prospect, regardless of how safe workplaces strive to be. Many employers find remote working perfectly viable. If productivity had fallen because of WFH, they’d presumably be forcing people back into offices, not formalizing remote arrangements as both JPMorgan Chase & Co. and the law firm Linklaters have done recently.
Different employers will work out their own arrangements. Some will want to give up swanky central offices, others will be desperate to return to in-person meetings. Even if Johnson’s “huge numbers” return to the City of London, some jobs will disappear and others will be permanently home-based. The proper role of government is to make an inevitable transition smoother, not to seek to stop it.
Instead of trying to compel workers to return, Johnson should look for ways to nudge employers and workers to stick to their cities, perhaps by cutting the cost of transport and mitigating the risks. Some imaginative policies would help, along the lines of August’s “eat out to help out” scheme to subsidize restaurant meals. As well as keeping hospitality workers employed, that scheme brought shoppers back to town streets.
And there are potential gains from the new trend in work habits. Cheaper city real estate may attract new residents and businesses, while suburban and less prosperous areas could get more investment. A spike in property purchases outside the capital suggests that may happen sooner than expected.
None of this means London is dead. As US comedian Jerry Seinfeld noted about his own hometown, “real, live, inspiriting human energy exists, when we coagulate together in crazy places like New York City.”
London is no different. Some workers will abandon the daily commute, but the agglomeration effects for those businesses that depend on client relationships, the arts and creative co-working won’t disappear. Johnson’s campaign may help on the margins, but confidence depends ultimately on mundane bureaucratic Covid measures such as test-and-trace. That’s where a competent government can make a real difference.

Lebanon: Where Every Party Vies to Keep its Part of the Corruption Cake
Charbel Raji/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
Today marks one month on the devastating explosion in Beirut’s port. No Lebanese official has taken any responsibility and no report was issued on what has happened.
I have worked in the media for 10 years, followed by 15 years of intense work in political affairs and diplomacy with the United Nations on some of the most complex political and humanitarian files. I have organized peace talks in Geneva and Kuwait, drafted ceasefire agreements in Yemen, visited refugee camps in Turkey and Tunisia, developed political agreements in Cairo, contributed to the removal of chemical weapons in Syria and worked on Counter-Terrorism in Africa. After all these experiences I can honestly say, in good conscience, that I have never witnessed the level of corruption and mismanagement that Lebanon is engaged in. As a Lebanese citizen, it breaks my heart to say so but a quick overview of what Lebanon is currently witnessing and its egregious lack of leadership will clarify the picture.
Fed up with the economic stagnation, massive currency devaluation and endemic corruption, Lebanese men and women took to the streets in October 2019 in a massive uprising cutting across the sectarian lines that have plagued the country for decades. Throwing fear to the wind, protestors asked for reforms and demanded a new non-sectarian political system with a new President, fair parliamentary representation, and sustainable living conditions.
For the last 20 years, the Lebanese economy has been struggling with low growth and high debt, reaching a GDP growth 0.2% in 2018 and around -0.2% in 2019, according to the World Bank. Not much has improved since Lebanon’s civil war, one that the Lebanese still remember vividly, especially since the very people who initiated it are still in power. The country is still plagued by an ongoing deteriorating infrastructure, spiraling inflation, frequent power cuts, suppression of freedom of speech, daily piles of uncollected garbage and numerous daily struggles Lebanese people go through.
Lebanese youth feel disempowered by the political system and lack of opportunities for growth. Recent reports refer to more than 350,000 (10% of the Lebanese population) visa applications submitted to foreign embassies in order to leave the country. All this was before COVID-19 had hit Lebanon in February 2020 and is, for many obvious reasons, currently on the rise in Lebanon with more than 600 cases recorded every day. In summary, the country has been struggling for years and the latest events only aggravated an already dire humanitarian situation.
As if this was not enough, on August 4, 2020 a massive explosion shook Beirut. It killed hundreds, seriously injured thousands and many are still missing. This man-made catastrophe was totally avoidable had the political leaders who admitted knowing about the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored in the port of Beirut took sufficient and timely action to remove the time-ticking bomb from one of the most populated areas in the country. The explosion left more than 300,000 Lebanese citizens homeless, a ratio to total population equal to 14 million Americans in the US or 6 million in Italy.
Initial reports indicate that the ammonium nitrate was on board of a Russian-owned vessel that arrived in Beirut on its way to Mozambique in November 2013. The vessel suffered "technical problems" while sailing through the Eastern Mediterranean and was forced to dock at Beirut's port. While the ownership of the ship and the technical problems remain unclear with suspicious scenarios being speculated every day, the information vacuum can lead to many analyses.
Earlier in 2013, on August 21, chemical weapons attacks took place in Syria on the opposition-controlled Damascus suburbs of Eastern and Western Ghouta. The attacks killed hundreds of civilians, including large numbers of children. I was part of the UN joint UN-OPCW Mission that was established on 16 October 2013 to oversee the timely elimination of the chemical weapons program of the Syrian Arab Republic in the safest and most secure manner possible and ban the entry of new chemical weapons to the country. Was the arrival of the vessel containing chemical weapons to Beirut in November of the same year a pure coincidence?
On another note, experts are confirming that the amount of chemicals that have exploded did not exceed 1,000 tons. If this information is correct, what happened to the remaining chemicals? Were they used or sold? Where, by whom and to what country?
A month has passed and the current establishment has not held a single press conference or released one investigation report to explain what happened. Instead, Lebanese politicians are playing the only game they are skilled at: blaming each other, passing off responsibilities to one another and covering for each other to avoid a snitching domino effect. Of course they would do so, since the sectarian political system that indulges in clientelism allows political parties to appoint their supporters in key positions in the judiciary system which makes any condemnation almost impossible.
The forecast seems pretty bleak, at least for the near future. Most Lebanese scribe to the need to cave to international pressure for any remarkable change to happen. So far nothing has happened unless big regional and international powers have intervened, whether it is the election of the current President or the very recent appointment of new Prime Minister Mustafa Adib only a few hours prior to French President Macron’s second visit in less than a month.
Macron called for a new “political pact” and threatened the political leaders with sanctions unless a reform-cabinet is formed within the next 14 days. But what do we know about the new PM. Not much, except that he is Sunni (which Prime Ministers are required to be by Lebanese constitutional law); he is backed by Hezbollah; and he has been maintaining strong relationships with the political parties who are currently leading the country. In other words, it was the very same people who are asked to step down that are nominating the new Prime Minister.
No plan has been announced, nor has he issued a political framework or economic rescue plan. He has yet to form a new government, a difficult task in a country where every political party vies to keep its part of the corruption cake. The International Monetary Fund and donor countries are imposing corrective measures as a pre-requisite for any support. And all this chaos against the backdrop of a pandemic which is getting worse and worse with each passing day. Let us not forget that regional conflicts and turmoil are also impacting the country, East and West, South and North and every decision has to be at the cross interest of the international players represented directly or indirectly by the political blocs. It is also known that this status-quo may last until the US elections, for a possible deal between the US and Iran that could lead to a breakthrough at some point.
But the situation in Lebanon cannot last longer and the country does not afford the luxury of time. The clock is ticking and immediate actions should be taken. Protests are powerful, and the immediate demand of those leading the newest iteration of a revolution is that the government allows for new parliamentary elections leading to the election of a new President.
But warlords don’t historically go down without a fight, and the revolution has not put forth any new leaders to unify the resistance. People of Lebanon need to focus on three pillars as stepping stones towards a new system: a) a fair neutral judiciary system for justice to prevail and sanctions to be imposed in order to stop clientelism that is rooted and intertwined in the current political system; b) an immediate financial rescue plan to ease suffering of the citizens and alleviate the soaring poverty rate (more than 30,000 employees have been laid off and more than 1,000 restaurants closed in the last few months); c) advanced parliamentary elections allowing for new knowledgeable figures to contribute to the political non-sectarian landscape and leading to the election of a new President, provided that new trusted political figures gain some traction until then.
Lebanese men and women feel powerless and the resilience that was once their best quality is now considered to be a blessing in disguise. The country is collapsing. The current leadership and political blocs have failed to provide the most basic life conditions. But how would these warlords let go of the power and at what price? I have met over the last few years presidents turning down peace deals because they did not reflect their personal aspirations. I am currently witnessing in Lebanon the same denial of politicians in their fancy comfortable palaces disregarding the unbearable living conditions of the population, including their followers, who are struggling to feed their children or heat their home on a cold rainy day.
In summary, Lebanon is dealing with a double pandemic: while there is hope about a cure for Covid19, the poisonous political virus affecting the country won’t be easily eradicated. The country is going through its own kind of euthanasia or clinical death. You would not wish this storm on your worst enemies.
**Charbel Raji is a Lebanese journalist and political analyst

When They Disgracefully Make Concessions to the West
Hanna Saleh/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
With the ruling clique’s success in killing the state, wiping out smiles, and abolishing joy, Lebanon started its second century with two significant events. The first is the ESCWA’s announcement that before the end of 2020, poverty will beleaguer 55% of the Lebanese, or about 2.7 million citizens (after it was 28%). The percentage of those who will suffer from extreme poverty will rise to 23% (from 8%), which means that this large segment of society will fail to secure its daily nutritional needs, not to mention medical treatment!
The second is the Central Bank’s announcement that it will not subsidize essential goods, namely, wheat, medicine, and fuel. And reliable economic studies have found that with the dollar exchange rate of 7,500 Lebanese pounds, this would mean eight thousand pounds for a bundle of bread, almost 100,000 pounds for a tank of gas, while the cost of medications would multiply five-fold, with the price of Panadol exceeding 15 thousand pounds! To get a more precise understanding of the situation, a quick look at the minimum wage, 675 thousand pounds, suffices. It is equivalent to only 90 dollars, and it is known that almost 60% of those who are of working age are unemployed!
Reports regularly indicate that Lebanon no longer has the luxury of taking its time. It urgently needs to break the cycle that isolated the country and severely limited its ability to bring in foreign currencies, as with every passing day, the situation exacerbates. From the declaration of bankruptcy after the great collapse caused by orchestrated plunder to the war crime the explosion at the port that obliterated the backbone of the Lebanese economy, incinerating large parts of Beirut, and between them, the pandemic’s outbreak and the rapid increase in the number of coronavirus cases, all of these factors multiplied the extent of the general powerlessness.
It should compel the development of a framework for salvation without delay!
There is no need for “pounding in the sand.” The framework required cannot but spring from the necessity of adopting policies different from those that had been pursued by the regime of corruption in decades passed, especially since the presidential settlement in 2016 that put the country’s decision-making in the hands of Hezbollah and its subordinate, the Free Patriotic Movement, the current of the president of the republic’s party. Recognition was thereby granted to the military interventions of the “party’s” militia, per the Iranian agenda’s dictates, in the region and beyond. This led to the isolation of Lebanon, which turned into a platform for launching attacks against brothers and friends alike! This duo and its subordinates’ conduct was exposed, and it seemed isolated and beleaguered in the face of furious popular backlash!
It is at this stage that French President Emmanuel Macron came, carrying the symbolism of the French-Lebanese historical relationship with him. The visit coincided with the dominant regional power’s isolation and beleaguerment, that is, the Iranian regime, through its directly controlled tool Hezbollah. Thus, France overseeing a mandate - tutelage over Lebanon was accepted. A country well accustomed to playing this role, France was left to give a lifeline to the isolated and deeply-hated political class in crisis, the economic model that brought suffering and the authorities who govern in the name of their sects and replaced the constitution with the corrupt sectarian regime of spoil-sharing on the basis of sectarian quotas. There is no clearer indication of the extent of the entire political clique’s isolation than the fact that, even a full month after the capital and its people were subjected to the genocidal crime, no official of any rank headed to the areas that had been devastated to talk to the people and listen to their concerns, after they had buried what remains of their loved ones among victims and their life’s work had been destroyed before their very eyes!
During his first visit to examine the damages, Macron proposed the rubric. He preceded his second visit with naming the Lebanese prime minister, who had been chosen by an employee in his administration. He left the “race” to announce the name to the others in Beirut, who announced their unconditional submission to the outside. President Macron went as far as granting the Lebanese president a way out of his isolation on the one hand, and, one the other hand, heeding Iran’s interests in Lebanon and beyond. He took it upon himself to lecture us about the differences between Hezbollah’s armed and political wing and limited the crises facing Lebanon to the urgent and pressing need to reform. He is nonetheless bound to fail as the statelet invades the state, and the limitations on what is permissible persist. And in his proposals, he leaped above widespread public demands for accountability for the August fourth crime through a transparent international investigation. Simultaneously, a team of French businessmen was advancing on the port’s rubble and the devasted area to secure lucrative contracts for reconstructing the port, operating the container terminal, and other maritime activity.
Everyone knows that Ambassador Mustafa Adeeb, who was named prime minister before the binding parliamentary consultations, a crude breach of the constitution, had been an advisor to the head of the “blackshirts’” (name given to Hezbollah militias members who operate within Lebanon and engage in violent political intimidation) government, Najib Mikati. This Hezbollah-imposed government was in place during that stage that the country’s borders and sovereignty were nullified. Lebanon became embroiled in the murder of the Syrian people. The country turned into a refugee camp after the erection of refugee camps in areas close to the borders was prevented! The “achievement” that is his appointment as prime minister would not have been possible without the role played by the “former prime ministers’ club”, which granted cover to the option that had been presented to it, a decision that gravely disparages the importance of the moment Lebanon and its people are undergoing. However, this cover is nevertheless partial and local, and does not imply, in any way, a restoration of Arab-Gulf cover, especially in light of the current circumstances, when we are at a real turning point with regard to pulling the country up from rock bottom.
What is certain is that the members of this club pursued this option, going as far as saving the ruling duo that the people blame for the crime of the genocidal explosion at the port. They have overlooked the significance of the Special Tribunal’s verdict in the Prime Minister Rafic Hariri assassination trial and went beyond its repercussions. They also ignored the significant amendments to the missions of the “UNIFIL” forces introduced by the Security Council and turned a blind eye on the state’s hijacking.
They know that this choice will waste a lot of Lebanon’s time, as their steps amount to nothing more than replicating Hassan Diab’s government, and it is impossible to mislead the people with such pitiful theatrics. That much is obvious from the widespread repudiation of this move, as well as the people’s response with which Mustafa Adeeb was faced during his visit to the devastated area. Tehran will remain the primary beneficiary for the few months until the US presidential elections!
Not much has changed on the Lebanese street or in Lebanon’s general conditions. There is a grave concern about the expansion of the social catastrophes in the next ESCWA report. Today, the October Revolution’s powerful slogan sounds oh so fitting: “All of them means all of them, and we don’t exclude a single of them.” It looks like Mustafa Adeeb is one of them.

President Macron and the Pitfalls of a Salvational Mediation
Charles Elias Chartouni/September 04/2020
الرئيس ماكرون ومزالق ومآزق مهمة وساطته الإنقاذية
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/90114/charles-elias-chartouni-president-macron-and-the-pitfalls-of-a-salvational-mediation-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b1%d8%a6%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%83%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%86-%d9%88%d9%85%d8%b2%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%82/
The conjectures around the French mediation have abounded and elicited controversial interpretations in both France and Lebanon.
Whatever might be the political ciphers assigned to this risky undertaking, it has helped Lebanon break out of the imposed claustration, the political and economic foreclosures set by Hezbollah and oligarchic coalitions, and an engineered coup d’état which aims at deconstructing Lebanon’s national narrative and its institutional framing.
Hezbollah, its acolytes and opportunist partners are instrumentalizing the systemic crises, which have taken place throughout the last eleven months, to promote their alternative ideological script and bargaining leverage, and move on with a forceful takeover through the rigging of successive cabinet formations, a deliberate stonewalling on strategic financial reforms ( forensic audit, debt negotiations, overhauling of the banking sector, and jump starting the deadlocked economy …. ).
The timely French intervention has braked the ongoing slippery slope without putting an end to it, since Hezbollah tries to outmaneuver it, buy time, pursue its insidious control of the institutional conglomerate, and prepare the path to a bloody steamrolling.
Rather than confronting the French through its conventional terrorist repertoire ( while making obvious insinuations in this direction through its Secretary General ), Hezbollah and its opportunist coalition are trying to outsmart the French presidential mediation through simulated gestures of cooperation, to deflect pressure, prevent sanctions from tightening the screws and hitting the widespread oligarchic cesspool, and eventually lure their way back to the international financial markets.
The personal venturing of President Macron and its conditional Western backing ( EU and the USA ) are quite salvational in a critical situation like ours, but should be assorted with a cautionary tale: the genuine move towards Lebanon is marred with multiple hazards, the cynicism of a delinquent political oligarchy and a subversive Shiite militancy mainly interested in their survival, and the active pursuit of their respective predatory strategies.
The French presidential lonesome venturing should broaden its supportive platform, reckon with the lurking sabotaging dynamics, the spurious partnerships and the political meandering of a devious totalitarian millenarism.
The ultimate reservation emanates from the overwhelming regional power politics ( Iranian, Turkish, Saudi …. ) and their incidence on the framing of Lebanese agendas.
Shiite fascism (Hezbollah and acolytes) seems to favor Lebanon’s systemic unraveling, oligarchs are determined to safeguard their spoils, and the institutional political choreography highlighted through the formation of ghost cabinets, are part of a panoply of conventional fraud scenarios.
This subversion pushing its way amidst the rubbles of an imploded regional order, and a terrorist attack aimed at remodeling the strategic and urban landscapes of Lebanon and Greater Beirut, is no coincidence.
It takes sanctions to impose systemic reforms, sway obdurate malevolence, and destroy the unswerving dynamics of an outright totalitarian subversive strategy.

Lebanon’s centennial is just another occasion for grief
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/September 04/2020
“At the foot of these majestic mountains, which have been the strength of your country and remain the impregnable stronghold of its faith and freedom; on the shore of this sea of many legends that has seen the triremes of Phoenicia, Greece and Rome, that, in subtle spirit, carried through the world your fathers, skilled in commerce and eloquence. Now, by a happy return, this sea brings you the confirmation of a great and ancient friendship and the blessings of French peace. In front of all these witnesses of your wishes, of your struggles and of your victory, it is in sharing your joy and pride that I solemnly salute Greater Lebanon in its glory and its force from Nahr al-Kébir to the gates of Palestine and to the crest of the Anti-Lebanon mountains.”
With these historic, and emotional, words, French High Commissioner General Henri Gouraud proclaimed the state of Greater Lebanon on September 1, 1920.
Yet, as Lebanon celebrates its centennial, few are optimistic that this small and trouble-ridden country will see its second centennial. Lebanon’s many challenges mainly boil down to its archaic and medieval political system, which has provided a fertile ground for Iran and its militia Hezbollah to establish its hegemony over Lebanon.
Lebanese in general, particularly the Christian majority, tend to stress the golden years of Lebanon’s history and even go back to their primordial ancestors – the Phoenicians – while failing to take responsibility or justify why they have failed for a century to build a country that is immune to internal and external intervention. Perhaps one of the most dangerous traits the Lebanese cherish is their supposed resilience, which is dangerous when mixed with their diehard conviction that their country is too important to be forgotten by the West and thus all calamities will simply be remedied through a return to the French mandate era. This belief was clear when French President Emmanuel Macron arrived in Lebanon this week to celebrate the centennial but also to deliver a French plan to force a Cabinet formation within two weeks, and push for a reform plan that would hopefully lead Lebanon to its salvation.
Macron’s trip however and his many exhibitionist gestures, such as meeting the Lebanese diva Fairouz and planting a cedar tree – a national symbol in Lebanon – in one of the country’s reserves was nothing short of orientalism, and of the bad kind. Macron’s whole approach hinges on the political establishment accepting to implement radical structural reform to their clientelist and corrupt political system and for Hezbollah to accept that it must practice constraint vis-a-vis Iran’s regional expansionist plans. These adolescent or perhaps wicked assumptions might have bought the Lebanese at least three more months until Macron’s next trip in December, but the plan will certainly not place Lebanon on the right track to recovery.
The French, and consequently the Europeans, believe that the United States’ maximum pressure tactics placed on Iran are futile and renders diplomatic channels useless. While this approach has many supporters, prior experience in dealing with Iran have shown that neither the carrot nor the stick is enough to divert them from pursuing their goals and thus one is left with the option of confronting them or simply becoming their accomplice.
The Lebanese, by entertaining the possibility that Macron’s plan could succeed, are gambling on their legendary resilience. Yet, they have failed to acknowledge that the terrible state the country finds itself in is the byproduct of this toxic pliability, as they have missed every chance to rebuild a stronger, better Lebanon.
A hundred years ago, the French Mandate carved out Lebanon under its current borders, not because the Lebanese wished it, but rather because it suited their imperial ambitions and because appearing as caring about the Christians of the Levant was a good public relations stunt. But now, all that remains of this French commitment to Lebanon is a picture of Henri Gouraud surrounded by the heads of the Lebanese sects and one of Macron trying to fill the shoes of his ancestor, only to fail miserably.
The Lebanese are left with very few options, and waiting is not one of them. The one-handed WWI veteran Gouraud and his devotion to his Catholic faith might have created Lebanon but it is time for the Lebanese to win it back or simply fade away into the realm of oblivion.

Civil strife in Lebanon: The ground is fertile, time may be ripe
Rami Rayess/Al Arabiya/September 04/2020
Security incidents around Lebanon over the last couple of weeks have raised deep concerns that Lebanon is on the verge of civil strife.
Several consequent incidents, not divorced of confessional tension, have marked the internal security situation as dangerous with high risks of explosion. The most remarkable was the incident that happened in one of Beirut’s congested suburbs, Khaldeh, that is heavily populated by Sunnis but is a mandatory passage to the southern part of the country, which is densely Shia. Two people were killed, several others injured, and a number of buildings were set on fire.
In other parts of Lebanon, similar incidents have occurred that have led to lost lives and increased confessional tension. One took place in the Bekaa Valley, the eastern agricultural province of the country and the other in northern Lebanon, leading to the killing of three people. Security apparatuses are still searching for the suspects two weeks after the murder. Crimes happen even in first-world countries, but in those places motives behind robberies and theft are different than in Lebanon. In the small country, motives are usually political and actions carry political repercussions. Hanging a billboard or a party flag can lead to bloody incidents, just like what happened in Khaldeh.
A Hezbollah affiliate wanted to hang a sign that praises Salim Ayyash, the Hezbollah member who was convicted of the assassination of Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). This is how confessional tension rises: A poster of a Shia convicted in the killing of the Sunni prime minister was to be hung in a predominantly Sunni populated area. Despite Hezbollah denying hanging the poster, neighborhood inhabitants who lost a 17-year-old boy at the hand of a sniper thought this narrative doubtful.
Lebanon’s demographic structure is highly intertwined. One can rarely locate an area that includes inhabitants of one single sect with few exceptions. Although this should be viewed as a positive sign of coexistence in periods of peace and stability, it can hardly be viewed as such in times of tension and conflict. When there is sectarian tension in one area, other areas can quickly turn into hotspots of the same tension.
All it takes is a few youngsters lighting a few tires on fire in the street, and their opponents will ready to retaliate. With no gun control in the country, neither at the legislative level nor at the street level, such incidents in turn fuel additional tensions all around the country.
Hezbollah’s arsenal, while it exists supposedly to confront Israel, its local armed wing is prepared to deal with internal developments. “Saraya al Moqawama,” or the Resistance Brigade, is a paramilitary group that includes members from different sects, and is not restricted to Shia members as Hezbollah is, and it is spread throughout Lebanon.
When this group was created a few years back, its official mission, as announced by Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah, was to provide support for the Resistance in its fight to liberate Lebanese lands from Israeli occupation. A few years on, this group became a contingency brigade to intervene whenever necessary according to Hezbollah’s objectives. Other parties’ affiliates also have their own weaponry, and they claim their arsenals are to preserve security in a certain neighborhood or village. The presence of these arms means clashes can erupt at the smallest spark if the political circumstances are right.
There is an old saying in Lebanon that says that the country’s security is basically political, rather than any other factor, meaning that stability can be preserved only when there is political consensus. When this consensus falls, the country’s security follows. This, among several other complicated reasons, was behind the eruption of the prolonged Lebanese civil war, fought from 1975 to 1990.
It’s as if history repeats itself. Whenever there are deep political divisions in the country, there are, in parallel, tensions on the ground.
Lebanon’s political and economic crisis is unprecedented, and it has been exacerbated by the enormous Beirut port blast on August 4. The country is in a free fall and the ailing economy is descending into the abyss. Poverty rates are on the rise, so is inflation. And this complex situation is fertile ground for tension.
Whether the whole country will fall into chaos is yet unknown, but what is definite is that it has all the needed ingredients for a recipe for civil strife: the weak central state, the weaponry available for the different stakeholders, the economic failure, and the high influence of the regional players over the local players. All that is needed is the match that ignites the fire.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 04-05/2020

Explosion in western Iran leaves more than 200 injured: State media
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/Friday 04 September 2020
A gas explosion in western Iran injured over 200 people late Friday, state media reported. The “chlorine gas explosion” injured 217 people in a village in the western province of Ilam, the official IRNA news agency reported, citing the head of the province’s medical university Mohammad Karimian. “Carelessness and negligence” of a driver of a trailer carrying gas capsules led to the explosion, IRNA said. No deaths have been reported. Karimian said that all of Ilam’s hospitals had raised their readiness levels to treat the wounded. Iran witnessed a series of explosions and fires between June and July, some of which occurred at or near military, nuclear and industrial facilities.

Iran allows UN nuclear watchdog to inspect one of two sites after pressure
Reuters/Friday 04 September 2020
Iran has let the UN nuclear watchdog inspect one of the two sites it agreed last week to grant access to after a protracted standoff, while Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium has risen further, quarterly reports by the agency said on Friday. The International Atomic Energy Agency inspected one of the sites and took environmental samples there, one of the two reports obtained by Reuters said, referring to samples aimed at detecting traces of nuclear material that may have been present. The agency’s inspectors will visit the other site “later in September 2020 on a date already agreed with Iran, to take environmental samples”, the report said. The other report said that Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) rose by 534 kg in the most recent quarter, roughly the same amount as in the previous three months, to 2,105.4 kg. That is more than 10 times the 202.8 kg limit set by Iran’s 2015 nuclear accord with big powers, which Iran has been breaching in response to Washington’s withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and reimposition of sanctions against Tehran. The stockpile, however, remains far below the many tonnes of enriched uranium Iran had accumulated before the 2015 deal. Tehran is enriching up to a fissile purity of 4.5 percent, which while above the deal’s 3.67 percent limit is still far short of the 20 percent level it achieved before the deal. Roughly 90 percent purity is considered weapons-grade, suitable for an atomic bomb. Iran agreed on Aug. 26, during the first visit to Tehran by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, to allow access for UN inspectors to two sites suspected of once hosting covert uranium conversion and nuclear testing activities. While the IAEA says it has the right to examine such sites without permission, Iran objected because at least some of the information about them came from a trove of documents on its past activities that Tehran’s main Middle East adversary, Israel, says it seized inside Iran.
 

Trump Urges Iran Not to Execute Wrestling Star Navid Afkari
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 September, 2020
President Donald Trump has urged Iran not to execute a popular wrestler who authorities claimed he killed a man during 2018 anti-government rallies.
Citing reports on the death sentence for 27-year-old Navid Afkari, Trump said in a Thursday tweet: “... To the leaders of Iran, I would greatly appreciate if you would spare this young man’s life, and not execute him. Thank you!”
Judiciary authorities in Iran said Afkari was sentenced to death for the death of Hassan Torkaman, a water supply company employee in the southern city of Shiraz, following an anti-government protest over economic problems, The Associated Press reported. A provincial court in Shiraz sentenced Afkari to death and his brothers Vahid Afkari and Habib Afkari to 54 and 27 years in prison, respectively. All three were construction workers. The July verdicts that were reported in August prompted an outcry both in Iran and internationally. Earlier this week, the Afkaris' mother, Behieh Namjou, in a video that circulated on social media, claimed the three men confessed to the killing under torture. She pleaded to authorities for mercy for her children. The news website of Iran’s judiciary, Mizanonline, on Monday denied Afkari had been tortured and called the Greco-Roman wrestler a “murderer of an innocent citizen.” Hassan Younesi, Afkari's lawyer, told the semiofficial ILNA news agency that there is no evidence showing Afkari had a role the victim's death and has requested a retrial.

Iran's uranium stockpile 10 times higher than nuclear deal allows​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​, says IAEA
The National/September 04/2020
UN atomic watchdog says Iran continues to increase stores of uranium after being allowed at last to inspect a suspected nuclear site. Iran's uranium stockpile is 10 times higher than the limits set by the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has said. The UN's atomic watchdog said Iran continued to increase its stores of uranium in breach of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, according to a report seen by Reuters. The announcement came after the IAEA was eventually allowed to inspect one of the two suspected nuclear sites to which it has been requesting access after a protracted standoff. But after IAEA director Rafael Grossi personally visited Tehran in late August for meetings with top officials, he said Iran had agreed to provide inspectors access. Inspectors will visit the second site later this month to take samples aimed at detecting traces of nuclear material. The 2015 deal promised Tehran economic incentives in return for curbs on its nuclear programme. But in 2018, US President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the deal and renewed sanctions on Iran. The latter has since slowly violated the restrictions to try to pressure the remaining nations to increase the incentives to offset new US sanctions that are crippling its economy.

WHO: Widespread COVID-19 Vaccinations Not Expected Until Mid-2021
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 September, 2020
A World Health Organization spokeswoman said on Friday it does not expect widespread vaccinations against COVID-19 until the middle of next year, stressing the importance of rigorous checks on their
effectiveness and safety. "We are not expecting to see widespread vaccination until the middle of next year," spokeswoman Margaret Harris told journalists at a briefing in Geneva. "This Phase 3 must take longer because we need to see how truly protective the vaccine is and we also need to see how safe it is," she added referring to vaccine clinical trials. Three Western drug makers are progressing with their Phase 3 clinical trials, involving tens of thousands of participants. The three are AstraZeneca, which is partnering with Oxford University in England; Moderna, collaborating with the US National Institutes of Health; and the Pfizer/BioNTech alliance. By the nature of the trials, it is difficult to predict when reliable results will emerge. Half of the participants in such trials receive an experimental vaccine, while the other half are given a placebo. Under normal procedures, test administrators must wait -- probably for months -- to see whether there is a statistically significant difference in the infection rate of the two groups. The US Food and Drug Administration however has raised the possibility that a vaccine might be given emergency approval before the end of trials.

Guterres Calls for Closure of Libya Migrant Detention Centers
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 September, 2020
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has called for the closure of migrant detention centers in Libya, denouncing what he called rights violations committed there. In a report submitted Thursday to the UN Security Council, Guterres said: "Nothing can justify the horrendous conditions under which refugees and migrants are detained in Libya.""I renew my appeal to the Libyan authorities... to fulfill their obligations under international law and to close all detention centers, in close coordination with United Nations entities," AFP quoted him as saying.
According to the secretary-general's report, more than 2,780 people were being detained as of July 31 in centers across Libya. Twenty-two percent of the detainees were children. "Children should never be detained, particularly when they are unaccompanied or separated from their parents," Guterres said, calling on Libyan authorities to ensure the children are protected until "long-term solutions" are found. The UN chief cited reports of torture, enforced disappearances, and sexual and gender-based violence in the centers, committed by those running the facilities. He also mentioned a reported lack of food and health care. "Men and boys are routinely threatened with violence when they are calling their families, to pressure them to send ransom money," he wrote. "Migrants and refugees have been shot at when they attempted to escape, resulting in injuries and deaths," the report said, alleging that some are even "left on the streets or bushes to die" when they are deemed too weak to survive.In centers where arms and munitions are stored, some refugees and migrants are recruited by force, while others are forced to repair or reload firearms for armed groups, it said. More than a year after a July 2019 airstrike killed more than 50 refugees and migrants and wounded dozens more at a detention center near Tripoli, no one has been forced to account for the deaths, Guterres said.

NATO Calls on Russia to Cooperate on Probe into Navalny Case
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 4 September, 2020
NATO allies agreed on Friday that Russia must cooperate fully with an impartial investigation to be led by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons into the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, the alliance's chief said. "Any use of chemical weapons shows a total disrespect for human lives, and is an unacceptable breach of international norms and rules," Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg told a news conference. "NATO allies agree that Russia now has serious questions, it must answer, the Russian government must fully cooperate with the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons on an impartial international investigation," he said, Reuters reported. Earlier, British and German ministers said they agreed to work together to hold Russia accountable in the case of Navalny. "The Foreign Secretary and Maas agreed that any use of Novichok was a violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, and therefore a matter of international concern," a foreign office spokesperson said on Friday. for its part, Russia said on Thursday the West should not rush to judge it over the poisoning of Navalny and that there were no grounds to accuse it of the crime. Navalny, 44, is an outspoken opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin and has specialized in high-impact investigations into official corruption. He was airlifted to Germany last month after collapsing on a domestic Russian flight after drinking a cup of tea that his allies said was poisoned.
 

Canada concerned by U.S. sanctions imposed on International Criminal Court officials
September 3, 2020 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
Global Affairs Canada today issued the following statement following the recent sanctions imposed by the United States on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC):
“On September 2, 2020, the United States imposed financial sanctions against Fatou Bensouda, Prosecutor of the ICC, and Phakiso Mochochoko, Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division in the Office of the Prosecutor. Other unidentified persons were added to the U.S. visa restriction list. “Canada is disappointed by the US announcement and is worried about personnel of the International Criminal Court being targeted for the important work that they do.
“Canada values the important role played by the ICC in investigating and prosecuting the most serious international crimes.“Canada will continue to respect the independence of both the judges of the court and of the Prosecutor of the ICC and her office.”

Rights Groups Urge Release of Egypt Journalists after Deaths in Custody
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
The Committee to Protect Journalists urged Egypt on Friday to release two jailed journalists, including one with Covid-19, after Human Rights Watch said four inmates had died in Egyptian custody within 72 hours. The CPJ, a New-York based press freedom advocacy group, called on authorities to immediately free Hany Greisha and El-Sayed Shehta, who were both arrested from their homes last month. They both worked at the private pro-government tabloid Youm 7. The CPJ said Greisha was charged with spreading false news and joining a terror group, charges regularly invoked against dissidents, while it was unclear whether Shehta faces charges. It said Shehta, who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, is currently handcuffed to a hospital bed in the intensive care unit of a public hospital about an hour outside of Cairo. "Egyptian authorities should be urgently releasing journalists from its prisons because of the Covid-19 pandemic," said Sherif Mansour, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa Coordinator. "Instead, it is diligently rounding up more to throw in jail – including now one who was sick and in quarantine," he added.
Fearing the spread of the virus in overcrowded facilities, human rights groups have regularly highlighted poor prison conditions in Egypt and called for the release of political prisoners and detainees awaiting trial.
Surge in prisoner deaths
On Thursday, HRW reported the deaths of four detainees in various Egyptian jails within 72 hours. They included Ahmed Abdelnabi Mahmoud, a 64-year-old Egyptian man whose US-based family pleaded several times for his release because he suffered several chronic illnesses. He died in Tora Maximum-Security Prison II in Cairo on September 2 after nearly two years in detention without trial, it said. HRW also cited a report from the Egyptian Coordination for Rights and Freedoms, a local rights group, saying three other detainees at different prisons died over the course of just two days, August 31 and September 1. The others who died were Sobhy al-Saqqa, in Borg al-Arab Alexandria Prison, Sha'ban Hussein Khaled in al-Fayoum General Prison and Abdelrahman Youssef Zawal in Tora Tahqiq Prison. "Detainees and prisoners keep dying in Egyptian custody despite frequent pleas for adequate health care," the rights group said in a Thursday statement. "This reflects unacceptable negligence on the part of Egyptian prison authorities".Last month, senior Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam El-Erian died in jail from a heart attack following an argument with a fellow inmate.And earlier this year, Egypt faced international condemnation for the death in custody of 24-year-old film-maker Shady Habash. According to several NGOs, an estimated 60,000 detainees in Egypt are political prisoners. These include secular activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and Islamists arrested in an ongoing crackdown against dissent since the military's 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, who himself died in jail last year.

Erekat: Palestine Victim of Trump Electoral Ambitions
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
A senior Palestinian official on Friday slammed Serbia's decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem saying it makes "Palestine a victim" of U.S. President Donald Trump's re-election hopes. "Palestine has become a victim of the electoral ambitions of President Trump, whose team would take any action, no matter how destructive for peace... to achieve his re-election" in November, tweeted Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). "This, just like the UAE-Israel agreement (to normalize diplomatic ties), isn't about Middle East Peace," he added.

Kosovo, Israel agree to normalize ties; Serbia to move embassy to Jerusalem
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/Friday 04 September 2020
US President Donald Trump said Friday that Kosovo and Israel had agreed to normalizing ties and establishing diplomatic relations in Washington's latest push for countries around the world to warm ties with Tel Aviv. Former rivals Kosovo and Serbia also committed to economic normalization, Trump said.
“Serbia and Kosovo have each committed to economic normalization,” the US president said alongside officials from Kosovo and Serbia. After two days of meetings with Trump administration officials, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti agreed to cooperate on a range of economic fronts to attract investment and create jobs. Ethnic Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 after a NATO-led bombing campaign to curtail ethnic warfare. Serbia, backed by its large Slavic and Orthodox Christian ally Russia, does not recognize Kosovo’s independence, a precondition for Belgrade’s future membership in the European Union.
Ties with Israel
Trump revealed that Serbia, which recently designated Iran-backed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Kosovo, meanwhile, has agreed with Israel to normalize ties and establish diplomatic relations.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked “my friend, the president of Serbia.” Netanyahu said the embassy move would take place by July of next year.- With Reuters

Serbia to Move Its Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem
Agence France Presse/Naharnet 04/2020
Serbia will transfer its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, becoming the first European country to follow the U.S. in making the move, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday. "I thank my friend the president of Serbia... for the decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and to transfer his embassy there," Netanyahu said, adding that the controversial move would happen by July 2021. Traditionally, most diplomatic missions in Israel have been in Tel Aviv as countries stayed neutral over the disputed city of Jerusalem until its status could be settled in an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.
But U.S. President Donald Trump smashed that taboo in December 2017 by recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and shifting the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to the city, holy to the three Abrahamic faiths. Israel seized control of East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it in moves never recognized by the international community. Israel considers the city its undivided capital, but Palestinians see the mostly Arab eastern part of Jerusalem, including the Old City with its holy sites, as the illegally occupied capital of their future state. The United Nations and the European Union, Israel's top economic partner, say the city's final status must be negotiated between Israelis and Palestinians, until which countries should not locate their embassies there. News of the move by Serbia, not a member of the 27-nation EU, coincided with the announcement by Trump on Friday that former foes Serbia and Kosovo had agreed on a historic pact to normalize economic relations. "A truly historic day," Trump said at the White House flanked by Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic. Netanyahu also thanked Trump for Serbia's decision to shift its embassy to Jerusalem. "I would like also to thank my friend President Trump for contributing to this achievement," he said in a Hebrew-language statement. He also announced that Israel had set up diplomatic relations from Kosovo, which gained its independence from Serbia in 2008."Kosovo will become the first majority-Muslim country to open an embassy in Jerusalem," Netanyahu said in a statement.
Disputed city
Trump's decision to move the embassy out of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem three years ago triggered Palestinian outrage and a diplomatic shockwave. So far only Guatemala followed in his footsteps, also opening up its diplomatic mission in the holy city in May 2018. Friday's announcement also comes less than a month after Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed to normalize ties under a U.S.-brokered deal. The agreement, expected to be signed at a White House ceremony in coming weeks, would be Israel's first with a Gulf nation, and the third with an Arab country after those it reached with its neighbors Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. The issue of Jerusalem is one of the most sensitive in the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Old City, a UNESCO World Heritage site, includes Islam's third holiest site -- the golden Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosque compound.
It is also home to the Western Wall, the holiest place where Jews are allowed to pray, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher on the site where Christians believe Jesus was crucified and buried.
More than 200,000 Israelis live in east Jerusalem alongside around 300,000 Palestinians.

PLO official blasts Serbia embassy move to Jerusalem, says ‘Palestine a victim’
AFP/Friday 04 September 2020
A senior Palestinian official on Friday slammed Serbia’s decision to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, saying it makes “Palestine a victim” of US President Donald Trump’s re-election hopes. “Palestine has become a victim of the electoral ambitions of President Trump, whose team would take any action, no matter how destructive for peace... to achieve his re-election” in November, tweeted Saeb Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). “This, just like the UAE-Israel agreement (to normalize diplomatic ties), isn’t about Middle East Peace,” he added. Trump said Friday that Kosovo and Israel had agreed to normalizing ties and establishing diplomatic relations in Washington's latest push for countries around the world to warm ties with Tel Aviv. Serbia also said it would move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 04-05/2020

Turkey’s growing focus on Africa causing concern in rival capitals
Sinem Cengiz/Arab News/September 04/2020
When the Cold War ended, and Ankara became increasingly engaged in efforts to diversify its foreign policy, Africa began to emerge as a potential area in which Turkish influence might be exerted.
As a result, in 1998 Turkey adopted an “Africa Action Plan.” However, a challenging agenda during the 1990s sapped the energy from the efforts of Turkish decision-makers looking for a strong “Africa opening.” Domestic political and economic instability during the decade — including changes of government, economic crises, the rise of terrorism, threats from neighboring nations, and frustrations about diplomatic relations with the EU — limited Ankara’s power to forge closer ties with Africa.
Although Turkey’s pivot to the continent started before the current ruling party came to power in 2002, the 2000s paved the way for Turkey to create enduring relationships. Africa has become an attractive new target for Ankara in its pursuit of influence, and a test for its global and soft power goals.
The 1998 action plan really began to take shape in 2005, which was declared the “Year of Africa.” Although Turkey’s accession talks with the EU formally began that year, too, all eyes in Ankara were on Africa rather than Europe.
In 2008, Turkey signed a formal partnership with the African Union. The same year, Ankara acquired the status of strategic partner to the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), but the move toward Africa was much more noteworthy.
The growing disagreements between Turkey and some EU and GCC member states in recent years have led Ankara to further shift its attention to Africa, which has become a new arena for rivalry between regional powers. The war in Libya in particular has forced these powers to make efforts to carve out positions for themselves on the continent through deals with African states.
In the past year alone, Turkish officials have visited the continent at least three times. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s most recent African tour was in January, during which he visited Algeria, Gambia and Senegal. His first stop was Algeria. It shares a border with Libya, where Turkey has increased its military activity in recent months.
With Libya occupying a special place in Turkey’s new foreign policy paradigm, as well as being important to other forces in the region, it is likely that a number of powers will continue to attempt to carve out roles for themselves in the continent, stepping on each other’s toes as they do so.
The visit proved that Ankara places high importance on its relations with Algeria, a country that has a significant presence in the region and which is considered by France — psychologically — to be its backyard.
When Erdogan visited Algeria in 2018, a reporter allegedly asked him, in French: “Did you come here with ... sympathy for Ottoman colonization?” Erdogan wittily replied: “If we were colonizers, you would have asked this question in Turkish, not French.”
There have been significant changes in northern Africa in the past 10 years, including the increasing presence of external powers, including Turkey. Given the tense relationship between Ankara and Paris as a result of regional issues, the development in recent months of an increasingly close relationship between Turkey and Algeria requires closer scrutiny.
During a visit to Ankara this week, Algerian Foreign Minister Sabri Boukadoum reiterated that both countries are determined to enhance all aspects of their relationship. Both he and his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, also said that Turkey and Algeria will continue to work together in an effort to bring peace and stability to Libya and the wider region.During his visit to Algeria in January, Erdogan reportedly asked Algerian authorities for access to their air and naval bases to assist Turkish operations in Libya. In another sign of improving relations, a fugitive Algerian soldier accused of leaking confidential military information was reportedly handed over by the Turkish government at the end of July, following a request by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a telephone conversation with Erdogan.
France, meanwhile, is annoyed by Ankara’s attempts to cultivate ties in Algeria and other African countries. Cavusoglu made it clear during a three-day tour of Togo, Niger and Equatorial Guinea in July that Turkey is determined to strengthen its cooperation with African countries and regional organizations. While he was in Niger, a southern neighbor of Libya, a deal was signed for cooperation on military training — a development that caught the attention of Africa Intelligence, a website based in France.
The military dimension has become a characteristic of Turkey’s bilateral ties with African nations. During his visits to the continent, Erdogan has promoted Turkish military equipment and sought to forge military partnerships.
In parallel with its military activity in Libya, the significance of Ankara’s increasingly close relationships with countries across the continent cannot be underestimated, from Tunisia to Sudan, Ethiopia to Somalia.
In the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is emerging as a second potential partner for Ankara after Somalia, where Turkey built a military base that established a new balance in the Horn of Africa. Off the coast of the Horn, Turkish warships patrol the Gulf of Aden as part of the UN’s antipiracy task forces. Sudan in 2017 agreed to lease Suakin Island to Turkey for 99 years, which sparked concerns among regional powers about Turkish intentions in the Red Sea.
Meanwhile, at a time when Algeria’s top diplomat was in Ankara, French President Emmanuel Macron was touring the Middle East. With Libya occupying a special place in Turkey’s new foreign policy paradigm, as well as being important to other forces in the region, it is likely that a number of powers will continue to attempt to carve out roles for themselves on the continent, stepping on each other’s toes as they do so.
*Sinem Cengiz is a Turkish political analyst who specializes in Turkey’s relations with the Middle East. Twitter: @SinemCngz
 

The Real Palestinian Tragedy
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/September 04/2020
Unlike their leaders, however, the Palestinians living in Syria and Iraq do not appear to be worried about the Israel-UAE accord. These Palestinians have more existential concerns -- such as providing shelter for their children and safe drinking water for their families. They are disturbed about the homes they have lost, and they are in a state of anguish about fate of their missing sons.
The Palestinian families complained that the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations, including the United Nations, have refused to assist them in their search for their beloved ones.
Palestinian writer Nabil Al-Sahli said that the 4,000 Palestinians who remain in Iraq are facing an "ongoing tragedy." He said that according to some studies, at least 20,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Iraq to 40 countries around the world because of the "massacres" committed against them by sectarian militias. By extreme contrast [to Syria and Iraq], the UAE and other Gulf states have long opened their doors to Palestinians and provided them with jobs and high living standards. Puzzlingly, Palestinian leaders have plenty of time to castigate the UAE, but no time at all to comment on the systematic abuse and killing of Palestinians in Syria and Iraq. For the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the true tragedy is when an Arab expresses willingness to make peace with Israel.
In Syria, since the beginning of the civil war there in 2011, 4,048 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded. Tens of thousands of others have fled their homes, some to other areas in Syria and others to neighboring Arab countries and Europe. Pictured: The Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp, near Damascus, on May 22, 2018, days after Syrian government forces regained control over the camp. (Photo by Louai Beshara/AFP via Getty Images)
Palestinian leaders are so committed to condemning the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for its normalization agreement with Israel that they have no time left to notice the horrific suffering of their people in some Arab countries, particularly Syria and Iraq. Specifically, these leaders seem unperturbed that in some in Arab countries, Palestinians are mysteriously disappearing.
Unlike their leaders, however, Palestinians living in Syria and Iraq do not appear to be worried about the Israel-UAE accord. These Palestinians have more existential concerns -- such as providing shelter for their children and safe drinking water for their families. They are disturbed about the homes they have lost, and they are in a state of anguish about fate of their missing sons.
In the past two weeks, leaders of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas have focused their attention mainly on the Israel-UAE deal and how to persuade other Arab states from following in the UAE's footsteps.
Peace between Israel and the UAE, nevertheless, seems to be the last thing on the mind of the Palestinians residing in Syria.
In Syria, since the beginning of the civil war there in 2011, 4,048 Palestinians have been killed and thousands wounded. Tens of thousands of others have fled their homes, some to other areas in Syria and others to neighboring Arab countries and Europe.
In addition, 1,797 Palestinians have been detained by the Syrian authorities and are being held in harsh conditions, while another 333 have gone missing and their families know nothing about their fate.
While Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, at the behest of their leaders, were burning flags of the UAE and pictures of Crown Prince Mohammed Ben Zayed, hundreds of displaced Palestinian families were reported to be living in "dire humanitarian conditions" in tents in northern Syria.
The Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS) said that many of the families were forced to flee the tents because of the lack of basic services. "They face the intense summer heat, amid a lack of water," the group said. "Sometimes the camps lack drinking water for many days."
Last week, AGPS said it has documented the cases of 333 Palestinians (including 37 women) missing in Syria since the beginning of the civil war.
"Activists accused the pro-Syrian security agencies groups of carrying out kidnappings and arrests, either on the grounds that the missing person was wanted by the Syrian security forces, or for the sake of bargaining with the kidnapped person's relatives and demanding a ransom for his or her release."
The conditions of Palestinians in neighboring Iraq are also bad, even if not as bad as the unfortunate Palestinians living in Syria. In Iraq, too, Palestinians seem to be disappearing in mysterious circumstances.
Last week, several Palestinian families living in Iraq appealed to Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi to reveal the fate of their sons who have been detained for many years without anyone knowing their place of detention or the circumstances of their incarceration. Some of the Palestinians have been in detention since 2005.
"We, the families of Palestinian detainees in Iraq who have been detained for many years, do not know anything about our sons' whereabouts," the families wrote in their letter to Kadhimi.
"We have visited many security departments and centers, but have not found any trace of them. We call on you to see the state of their families and the grief of their mothers, some of whom have died from mourning their sons. We ask you to kindly help us in this matter to find out what happened to our sons, and kindly to agree to meet with a number of families of these missing Palestinians to learn about their cause."
The Palestinian families complained that the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international organizations, including the United Nations, have refused to assist them in their search for their beloved ones.
Mohammed Abu Omar, a Palestinian resident of Iraq, said that two members of his family have been missing since they were detained by the Iraqi security forces in 2005. "Two days after the arrest, we were asked to pay a $50,000 ransom," Abu Omar said. "We paid half the amount, so they released one of them and promised to release the second, who has since disappeared."
Palestinian writer Nabil Al-Sahli said that the 4,000 Palestinians who remain in Iraq are facing an "ongoing tragedy." He said that according to some studies, at least 20,000 Palestinians have been displaced from Iraq to 40 countries around the world because of the "massacres" committed against them by sectarian militias. Al-Sahli said he expected the suffering of the Palestinians in Iraq to increase after the approval of the new Iraqi law that strips Palestinian refugees of their rights and classifies them as foreigners. The new law, enacted in 2018, replaced a 2001 law issued by Saddam Hussein that requires Iraq to treat Palestinians as equals to Iraqis, with all privileges and citizenship rights.
"Considering the popularity of the Palestinian cause, it is somewhat surprising that the plight of Palestinian refugees in Iraq is so severely under-reported," according to a study by The New Arab, a Qatar-funded website.
"After suffering more than a decade and a half of abuses, Palestinians who have been living in Iraq since the creation of Israel in 1948 are now seeking to leave their adoptive home to escape the torments they suffer on a daily basis."
The New Arab report pointed out that Palestinians have effectively been stripped of their identity and travel documents by successive Iraqi governments.
"Having been maligned as being 'Baathist loyalists', 'Saddam's favourites' and simply 'Sunnis', Palestinian refugees were heavily targeted by sectarian Shia militias in the wake of Saddam Hussein's regime. In 2003 alone, 344 Palestinian families were forcibly expelled from their homes by militias."
Palestinian leaders who are now accusing the UAE of "stabbing the Palestinians in the back" because it seeks to make peace with Israel might take note that Arab countries such as Iraq and Syria are not only stabbing the Palestinians in the back, but killing and wounding them, forcing them out of their homes, and making their sons "disappear".
By extreme contrast, the UAE and other Gulf states have long opened their doors to Palestinians and provided them with jobs and high living standards. Puzzlingly, Palestinian leaders have plenty of time to castigate the UAE, but no time at all to comment on the systematic abuse and killing of Palestinians in Syria and Iraq. For the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, the true tragedy is when an Arab expresses willingness to make peace with Israel.
Palestinians in Syria and Iraq will continue to fear for their lives so long as their leaders prefer to derail peace agreements between Israel and the Arab countries rather than to rail against the persecution and killing of Palestinians in Arab states.
*Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
© 2020 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.

US Elections: Predicting the Unpredictable
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al Awsat/September 04/2020
The way the chatting classes in Europe portray the forthcoming US presidential election one might form two erroneous views on a contest the outcome of which could affect many aspects of international politics.
The first, and most current portrayal, is one that has the incumbent Donald J. Trump as the inevitable loser. That view is backed by numerous opinion polls that show the Democrat nominee Joe Biden as ahead by 8.2 percent at the time of this writing a few days ago.
Despite much improvement in recent years, however, polls have seldom proved on the bat in what is a complicated electoral system.
In 1976, President Jimmy Carter was 26.6 percent ahead in the average of polls at the same period before voting day. In 2016, at this time, Hillary Clinton was 6.6 percent ahead. In 2008, Barack Obama was slated to win at a statistically insignificant 0.5 percent margin. Even the hapless Michael Dukakis was given as winner with a 5.6 margin in 1988.
To be sure, it is always better to be ahead in the polls. However, one other factor makes it more difficult to predict the outcome of US elections than that of other major democracies. That factor is the chronically low voter turnout the US has experienced since the 1970s. This means that there is always a big chunk of eligible voters who respond to opinion pollsters but do not go to polling centers on voting day.
At the same time, another chunk of voters, on both sides of the divide, have always been shy of revealing their voting intentions to pollsters. Thus we have had “shy Republicans” and “shy radicals of the left” in at least half of the past 10 presidential elections. There is some anecdotal evidence that this time round we may have many more such “shy” voters in both camps. That in turn increases the importance of each camp’s ability to mobilize its core support base to the highest level possible.
The past 10 elections show that the two main parties, Democrats and Republicans, have a slid voting base of between 20 to 25 percent which means neither side can win without attracting at least some of the floating voters who might decide to go to the polls. The floating voter is even more important in eight to 10 swing states that decide the final tally in the Electoral College. The latest average of polls, at the start of the week, showed Trump and Biden tied in eight of those states. All that makes it vital for both candidates to mobilize their hardcore supporters who could offer them victory even without winning a majority of the total votes. In his first election as President, benefiting from mass mobilization of supporters by Democrats and division in Republican ranks, Bill Clinton won with just over a third of the votes cast. In 2000, George W bush benefited from base mobilization to win the presidency while losing the popular vote.
In that context, Trump seems to be in a stronger position than Biden. While he drives many Americans up the wall with his idiosyncratic style of politics he also generates great energy among core supporters. Not all the 85 million, some 20 percent of all adults in the US, who follow Trump on Twitter, are likely to vote for him. But the fact that the number of Trump’s Twitter followers is increasing by a weekly average of 55,000 shows that he is still attracting support.
A more important sign of that came during recent primaries for Senate and House of Representatives nominees for the Republican Party. In every case, but one, candidates endorsed by Trump won the party’s nomination. (Sole exception was Lynda Bennett in North Carolina).
Efforts to split the Republican Party through no-Trump groups seem to have had little effect on his core base while making some Biden supporters uneasy.
Some radical Democrat groups have bitterly denounced Biden’s decision to invite such turncoat Republican grandees as former Governor John Kasich and former Secretary of State Colin Powell to speak at the party’s convention.
On the Democrat side, the picture is different.
The hardcore of the party’s support, consisting of radical progressives or Bernie Sanders’ “insurgents”, won only 17 of the 217 nominations for the Congress, highlighting the strength of incumbents, many of whom are branded by “radicals” as closet Republicans. Even in open primaries, the “insurgents” won only five of 30 nominations. Thus, a good part of Biden’s chance of success depends on mobilizing the Sanders supporters who regard him, together with Barack Obama and the Clintons, as the old guard that have turned the Democrat Party into a pale copy of the Republican.
Some Americans seem prepared to blow up the whole system if that evicts Trump from the White House. That emotional aspect of the campaign renders readings of pre-election polls even more problematic.
The second erroneous portrayal of the current campaign presents it as a titanic duel between Left and Right in the European sense of the terms.
That view is buttressed by some of the rhetoric on both sides with Trump supporters depicting Biden as a “Socialist” and Biden backers repaying baptizing Trump as” the American Mussolini”.
Neither suggestion is worthy. Biden is an old stalwart of a system whose core ideology is self-perpetuation. He was on the left of Jimmy Carter when it suited him and on the right of Obama when a different hand was dealt.
Some suggest that because of the narrowness of his support base, Biden may end up a captive of “insurgents”. But, even if that were to happen, the “cold monster” that is the US machinery of state, is designed, geared and tested to prevent dramatic changes of course on major issues.
The Goldwaterites who thought that Ronald Reagan would realize their dream of radical change found that out to their chagrin. At the other end of the spectrum, Obama started as an idol of the “insurgents” and ended up a traitor in their eyes.
Branding Trump as a closet Fascist is equally off the mark.
Leaving aside his addiction to twittering the first thing that passes through his head, there is nothing in Trump’s record as president to justify classifying him as an icon of the ideological right. Many ideologues of the far right, among them Steve Bannon who saw himself as a Lenin of the right, found that out to their cost. Trump’s chief interest is to promote his brand in politics as he did in real estate. He is a pragmatic deal-maker, always looking for the easiest way to secure his goal. Not being an ideologue, Trump builds the political version of his towers or golf courses one at a time without an overarching dogma in mind. He has been building even his wall in bits and pieces in a variety of styles dictated by opportunities and setbacks.
All this does not mean that US politics is totally free of ideological subtexts. But that is another story.

How the Trump Plan Makes Peace Possible
Douglas J. Feith and Lewis Libby/Middle East Quarterly/Fall 2020
دوغلس فيس ولويس لبي/خطة ترامب وكيفية جعلها خطة السلام ممكنة في الشرق الأوسط
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/90118/douglas-j-feith-and-lewis-libby-middle-east-quarterly-how-the-trump-plan-makes-peace-possible-%d8%af%d9%88%d8%ba%d9%84%d8%b3-%d9%81%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d9%88%d9%84%d9%88%d9%8a%d8%b3-%d9%84%d8%a8%d9%8a/

President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace plan transforms longstanding official U.S. ideas about peace diplomacy and about the U.S. role in the region. In the past, U.S. peacemaking efforts aimed directly at a Palestinian-Israeli deal. The Trump peace plan, however, stresses that fundamental changes are required on the Palestinian side before such a deal can become realistic. The plan does not hold out the promise of a quick peace settlement. Rather, it has a more limited aim: to improve chances that peace will one day be possible.
A Warning
The plan’s most original element is a warning: If the Palestinian side continues to support terrorism and reject peace, its cause will suffer. For decades, Palestinian leaders, while refusing peace offers seen as reasonable by top U.S. officials, incited violence and demanded that the status quo in the territories be frozen pending a peace deal. The Palestinians are now being told that, if they continue on this path, Washington will not block Israel from advancing its own claims to areas in the West Bank that, in the administration’s view, would be left to Israel in realistic peace talks. Those areas, according to the peace plan’s “Conceptual Map,” include not just the major settlement blocs but also the Jordan Valley.
The Trump plan effectively tells the Palestinians that the sensible question is not whether a deal provides everything they think they are entitled to, but whether it is the best deal available, now and in the foreseeable future. A huge development program is promised as a reward for compromise. Obviously, the U.S government cannot force Palestinian leaders to accept a peace that they consider unjust, but if their demands for “justice” include the destruction of Israel, Trump warns that Washington will not support them and will not fight to preserve the West Bank’s legal status quo for their benefit.
The peace plan’s strong language and unequivocal conclusions reflect more than just this president’s personal talking style. They reflect the Trump team’s acquaintance with the long, exasperating history of U.S. diplomacy undone by Palestinian rejectionism and terrorism.
Installation of Arafat and the PLO
For nearly thirty years, Palestinian-Israeli peace diplomacy has been based on the 1993 Oslo accords. These agreements created the Palestinian Authority (PA), which Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), headed. Israeli officials empowered the PA so that it would end the intifada which began in 1987, promote peace, and negotiate in good faith a formal end to the conflict.
Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, who signed the accords, is often portrayed as the champion of the “two-state solution,” but, until the end, he opposed creation of a Palestinian state. In his last Knesset speech on October 5, 1995, a month before he was assassinated, Rabin said the conflict’s “permanent solution” would be a State of Israel and “alongside it a Palestinian entity,” which he envisioned as “less than a state,” which would “independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”[1] Rabin promised in the same speech to preserve security through permanent Israeli control of the Jordan Valley.
Arafat disappointed expectations that he would use his new power and prestige as PA president to promote peace. Rather, he spoke of a “jihad to liberate Jerusalem,” comparing Oslo to a peace the Prophet Muhammad accepted before obliterating his enemy.[2] PA schools and official media stoked hostility to Israel. In demanding an end to “the occupation,” they applied the term to cities within pre-1967 Israel—Haifa and Jaffa, for example—as much as to the territory Israel won in the 1967 Six-Day War. The PA honored terrorists that killed Israeli civilians, calling them heroes, naming streets for them, and urging children to emulate them. The PA enacted legislation that incentivized terrorism by providing official payments to terrorist prisoners held by Israel and to families of “martyrs” (i.e., terrorists killed in action). Critics call such legislation “pay-for-slay.”[3] More Israelis were killed in terrorist attacks after the Oslo accords than before.[4]
Nonetheless, U.S. president Bill Clinton tried for years to promote mutual Israeli-Palestinian confidence through agreements on practical problems such as water disputes, boundary issues, and local security arrangements. He hoped that diplomacy, by resolving misunderstandings and overcoming mistrust, could resolve the conflict.
A Most Generous Bid for Peace
With his term winding down, Clinton held a peace conference at Camp David in July 2000 to push for a deal to end the conflict. Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak made extraordinary concessions, offering the Palestinians control over an area at least 95 percent the size of the West Bank.[5] Barak also agreed to divide Jerusalem and accept Palestinian sovereignty over most of the Old City, including on the Temple Mount.[6] Arafat refused to make peace, however, angering Clinton.
Arafat demanded acceptance of a Palestinian “right of return” that would require Israel to admit millions of Palestinians—a small number of original refugees and a large number of their descendants. “No Israeli leader would ever let in so many Palestinians that the Jewish character of the state could be threatened,” Clinton told Arafat, calling the claimed right “a deal breaker.”[7]
After the Camp David talks collapsed, Arafat launched an all-out terrorism campaign against Israel. Many of the attacks were perpetrated by official PA security forces or other individuals responsive to Arafat or protected by him.[8] Before the talks, Barak had removed Israeli forces from Lebanon where for years they had been fighting Hezbollah militias that endangered northern Israel. Emboldened Palestinian demonstrators proclaimed, “Lebanon Today, Palestine Tomorrow.” At Camp David, Arafat threatened that “we can see to it that the Hezbollah [Lebanon] precedent is replicated in the territories.”[9] From 2000 to 2005, Arafat’s terrorism campaign killed more than 1,100 Israelis.[10] Palestinian fatalities are estimated between 3,000 and 5,000.[11] Misleadingly called the Second Intifada, this campaign has more accurately been labeled “Arafat’s War” by Israeli historian Efraim Karsh.[12]
Despite the ongoing violence, Clinton tried again for a peace deal. With Barak’s agreement, he offered Arafat terms (the “Clinton Parameters”) even more forthcoming than Barak’s Camp David proposals.[13] U.S. peace negotiator Dennis Ross says the “unprecedented” offer went absolutely as far as Israel could go and included
a Palestinian state in all of Gaza and nearly all of the West Bank; a capital for the state in East Jerusalem; security arrangements that would be built on an international presence; and an unlimited right of return for Palestinian refugees to their own state.[14]
Arafat, however, refused to make peace.
Arafat’s Rejectionism and Oslo’s Flawed Premise
After eight years, the failure of the Oslo process suggested that the conflict was something more fundamental than mutual misunderstandings and lack of trust. It was increasingly clear that the problem was a matter of intense beliefs rooted in religious and nationalist identities. According to Palestinian nationalist ideology, Palestine is an indivisible, inalienable possession of the Arabs, and the Jews are only a religious group, not a people entitled to national self-determination and a Jewish majority state.[15] Palestinian leaders have never actually been willing to renounce, once and for all, Palestinian claims over any territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The conflict was a matter of intense beliefs rooted in religious and nationalist identities.
Martin Indyk, a senior Middle East policy advisor to Clinton, marveled that U.S. officials held so tenaciously to the delusion that Arafat was a peacemaker. “After eight years, Clinton and our team surely should have known with whom we were dealing,” Indyk wrote, criticizing Clinton for making himself “dependent on the statesmanship of Yasser Arafat.”[16]
Many Israelis, including on the Left, were galled that Arafat had repaid Barak’s concessions by instigating horrific attacks against Israeli civilians. More and more Israelis concluded that they could neither persuade nor compel Palestinian leaders to make peace. PLO leaders might accept limited agreements—especially if rewarded by foreign donors—but were unwilling to end the conflict. Even if it agreed to a Palestinian state, Jerusalem could not stop the violence, so long as the Palestinian side remained unreconciled to Israel’s existence.
Israelis in large numbers came to the unhappy realization that they lacked the ability, short of national suicide, to appease their enemies. The slogan “peace now,” which implied that the Israeli government could have peace simply by changing its own policies, lost its following. The self-described “peace camp” shrank and has not recovered to this day.
Clinton warned incoming President George W. Bush against trusting Arafat. Soon thereafter, in February 2001, Barak lost his reelection bid, and Ariel Sharon became Israeli prime minister.
A Deceitful Terrorist
Despite Clinton’s warnings and the raging violence, the Bush team entered office willing to invest additional U.S. prestige in mediating between the Israelis and Arafat. Trying to induce Arafat to end terrorism and reinvigorate cooperation with Israel, Bush broke new diplomatic ground by endorsing a Palestinian state.[17] Arafat, however, continued to fuel terrorist attacks. Bush was slow to anger, but Arafat’s bad will became insufferable for him after exposure of the Karine A affair.
Military equipment confiscated from the Karine A, January 3, 2002. Yasser Arafat tried to smuggle a huge quantity of Iranian-supplied arms into Gaza in violation of his Oslo commitments. Israeli forces intercepted the contraband-laden ship.
In January 2002, Arafat tried to smuggle a huge quantity of Iranian-supplied arms into Gaza by sea in violation of his Oslo commitments. Israeli forces intercepted the contraband-laden ship, the Karine A.[18] Within weeks after the 9/11 attacks, Arafat had opted not only to continue terrorism, but to prepare an escalation and to stand with Iran, the U.S. enemy and a major state sponsor of terrorism. Bush’s concession on Palestinian statehood appeared to have no effect on Arafat’s behavior.
In her memoirs, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice recounted that the Karine A affair “made it absolutely clear that [Arafat] was not going to lead his people to peace.”[19] Nonetheless, immediately after the ship’s capture, she joined State Department officials in proposing that Bush write Arafat, chiding him on the Karine A but implicitly assuring him that no serious consequences would follow.[20] The idea was to put the affair behind them quickly and revive peace talks. One of the authors of this article, Lewis Libby, then Cheney’s national security adviser and chief of staff, and Libby’s deputy, Foreign Service Officer Eric Edelman, opposed the letter, arguing that the Karine A presented a rare, clarifying moment and that sweeping Arafat’s misconduct under the rug would undermine U.S. diplomacy and likely result in more terrorism.[21] Cheney agreed, so Rice brought the issue to Bush. Bush overruled Rice, scrapped the letter, elevated the Karine A issue, and demanded that Arafat show clearly that he was changing course.
Arafat’s war included shooting Israeli families in their homes and massacring students at a Jewish religious school.
Arafat, however, denied any role in the Karine A arms smuggling, a lie that infuriated Bush.[22] Over the next months, Arafat’s war included shooting Israeli families in their homes, bombing civilians on streets and in shopping malls, and massacring students at a Jewish religious school.
In spring 2002, Bush was considering how to handle Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s defiance of U.N resolutions. Secretary of State Colin Powell believed that Arab states would defy Bush on Iraq unless he reactivated diplomacy with Arafat.[23] Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and their staffs disagreed and argued that new peace initiatives would be futile and would appear to reward Arafat’s terrorism.
State Department officials predicted dire consequences if Cheney failed to meet Arafat during the vice president’s spring 2002 Middle East trip. Cheney agreed with Libby that, as a precondition, Arafat should sign a limited security agreement with Israel as the U.S. negotiator expected him to do. Arafat, however, refused to sign.[24] Then, in an April speech, Bush announced that Powell would go to the region to promote peace. In two meetings, Powell urged Arafat to make a positive gesture, but Arafat stood pat. Powell and Rice, nonetheless, favored convening a new peace conference. Bush rebuffed them. In June, Powell tried again, but, as Rice writes, the “President again said no, not with Arafat.”[25]
Bush was growing less and less receptive to advice from State Department and National Security Council staff officials to move forward with Arafat.[26] Bush and Cheney eventually embraced three insights: First, there was no hope for progress toward peace with Arafat. Second, the Palestinian issue would not bar Arab states from cooperating on important regional concerns, including Iraq. And third, as Cheney and others had repeatedly heard from leading Israelis, Jerusalem would compromise if Palestinians offered reasonable prospects for security and peace.
Bush saw Arafat as a deceitful terrorist. Yet he also, for the first time, gave Washington’s support to a Palestinian state. And he pressured Sharon to relax security measures in hopes of facilitating a peace deal with Arafat. All in all, Arafat could claim credit with his people for persisting in the anti-Zionist armed struggle while causing changes in U.S. policy that favored the Palestinian national cause.
Repudiating Palestinian Leadership
In spring of 2002, Rice pushed for a presidential speech that would appeal to Arafat.[27] The Cheney and Rumsfeld teams favored a different speech. They wanted Bush to say that Arafat was not a peace partner.[28] Undersecretary of defense for policy Douglas Feith wrote to Rice’s deputy and suggested that the president say, Until the Palestinians have a leadership that can speak credibly of peace, prevent terrorism, counter extremism, and handle funds honestly and transparently, the goal of a state of Palestine will remain out of reach.[29]
Bush’s new speech would go through more than thirty drafts. Delivered on June 24, 2002, its main point was repudiation of the PA’s leaders and institutions. Bush called on the Palestinians to elect new leaders “not compromised by terror.” He criticized PA corruption, opacity, and lack of accountability. Bush said that the Palestinians needed “entirely new political and economic institutions based on democracy, market economics and action against terrorism.”[30] In U.S. Middle East policy, this was a major departure.
Bush called on the Palestinians to elect new leaders “not compromised by terror.”
Blaming the PA for the lack of peace and for Palestinian suffering was novel, even shocking, especially for those wedded to what Rice in her memoirs called “the stale ideas governing policy toward the Middle East.”[31] Within weeks, State Department officials argued for Bush to modify his stand.[32] He remained committed, however, to never dealing with Arafat again.
Arab diplomats soon proposed creating a “roadmap” for peace. The roadmap, as drafted by State Department officials, would call on the Palestinians to end terrorism and reform their political institutions first, then move toward a provisional state, and finally, full statehood.[33]
The “Roadmap” Fails
When Arafat died in November 2004, his longtime deputy Mahmoud Abbas became PLO head and president of the PA. Bush, on the advice of Rice, his new secretary of state, greeted Abbas’s accession as a new beginning and treated him as a reformer and peacemaker.
Israel’s Sharon saw things differently. Not expecting peace in the near term, he finished building the security barrier that would impede terrorist infiltration from the West Bank. He also decided that Israel would withdraw from Gaza unilaterally, without negotiations or agreements. He viewed the costs of staying in Gaza as too high and thought that withdrawal, completed in fall 2005, could strengthen Israeli security overall.
Abbas and his Fatah faction within the PLO faced a political challenge from Hamas. As the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas calls for elimination of Israel and the killing of Jews.[34] To bolster Abbas, the State Department supported the PA’s January 2006 parliamentary elections, but Hamas won. A little over a year later, Hamas took control of Gaza away from the PA, after killing or expelling all the Fatah personnel there. As Hamas’s power grew, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger cautioned U.S. officials that Hamas’s radicalism should not obscure the support for terrorism from Abbas and the PLO, or their continued refusal, despite the Oslo accords, to accept Israel’s right to exist.[35]
The “Roadmap” assumed that Palestinian leaders were pursuing a peace deal in good faith. Despite all this, State Department officials restarted peace talks. Rice pressed Israeli officials to negotiate a “political horizon” addressing so-called final-status issues. This was contrary to previous assurances to Jerusalem that the Palestinians would first have to stop terrorism. The “Roadmap” had become little more than a revival of the Oslo process, which assumed that Palestinian leaders were pursuing in good faith a peace deal that would partition the Holy Land. Palestinian political reform, a critical issue in Bush’s June 24, 2002 speech, fell far to the rear.
Like Arafat, Abbas received a remarkably forthcoming offer from the Israelis. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert offered approximately 94 percent of the West Bank and a “land swap” from pre-1967 Israel equal to another 5 percent; Palestinian sovereignty in East Jerusalem; joint governance of Jerusalem’s Old City; and Israeli acceptance of fifteen to twenty thousand Palestinian refugees over five years. In her memoirs, Rice expressed amazement at Olmert’s “remarkable” offer, but “Abbas refused.”[36] A 2007 international peace conference Rice had organized produced no breakthroughs.
Obama Reverses Course
Barack Obama entered the presidency hoping to transform the U.S. relationship with the Muslim world, seeing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a principal irritant in that relationship and holding Israel largely to blame for the lack of peace. Bush, he thought, had been too close to Israel, which relieved its leaders from making concessions, which Obama expected would bring peace.[37]
To encourage peace talks, Obama prevailed on Israel to accept a ten-month “freeze” on new West Bank construction. Abbas squandered the freeze, failing to negotiate directly with Israel during most of it and then refusing to talk unless Israel extended it.
As he urged Jerusalem to take risks for peace, Obama gave the Israelis additional grounds to fear for their security. Most notably, Obama offered an “extended hand” if Iran, Israel’s foremost threat, would “unclench its fist”[38] The resulting nuclear deal, top Israeli officials believed, gave Iran a path to a weapon and over $100 billion that Iran could use to finance pro-Assad military operations and activities by Tehran’s terrorist proxies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
Obama distanced his administration from Israel and promoted sympathy for the Palestinian cause but made no progress on peace through his efforts. Abbas continued to lead the PA throughout the Obama years as he still does though he was elected PA president only once, in 2005, to a four-year term. Under him, the PA continues to support terrorism and remains undemocratic, corrupt,[39] and unwilling to conclude a permanent peace with Israel. Abbas insists on a Palestinian “right of return” that would end Israel as a Jewish-majority state. He said he would never recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish people.[40] Meanwhile, rejectionist Hamas rules Gaza, expanding its arsenal.
Over two terms as president, Obama tested his theory for advancing peace. He distanced his administration from Israel and promoted sympathy for the Palestinian cause. Yet, he had no progress to show for his efforts. During his tenure, neither Israel nor the PA made substantial new political concessions. Palestinian schools and official news media continued to exhort antisemitism and terrorism. Palestinians still labored under the PA’s violent misrule which stifled their lives and prospects. There were no peace talks underway when Obama left office.
Deflating Hopes of Destroying Israel
Trump rejected Obama’s peace policy as thoroughly as Obama had rejected Bush’s. Top Trump administration officials do not accept the view that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the main issue in Middle East affairs. They do not believe that Washington must distance itself from Israel to promote peace or win cooperation from Arab states. They blame Palestinian leaders for refusing to make compromises to end the conflict and for harming Palestinians.[41] Trump values Israel as the kind of foreign partner he seeks—a strong, democratic ally, active in defense of shared interests. His team praises Jerusalem for taking initiative, relying on its own troops, making available valuable intelligence, and battling successfully for goals common to Israel and the United States.[42]
Trump’s principal innovation in Middle East peace diplomacy is insisting that there should be consequences if the Palestinian side persists in terrorism and refuses reasonable peace terms. This means that outsiders should not tell Israel to preserve the West Bank status quo if Palestinian officials choose to perpetuate the conflict.
For the Trump team, the primary obstacle to peace is the hope among Israel’s enemies that they will defeat the Jewish State. A theme of the Obama administration was that Israel fuels terrorism by causing the Palestinians to despair about peace. While expressing sympathy for Palestinian suffering, the Trump team’s contrary message is that the primary obstacle to peace is not despair but hope among Israel’s enemies that they will eventually isolate and defeat the Jewish State. That hope is rooted in the well-known propaganda argument that Israel is an alien, artificial presence in the region that can be worn down, demoralized, and ultimately expelled as were the Crusaders and, in later centuries, the European imperial powers.
The Trump peace plan and the highly visible initiatives that preceded it—recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan, announcing that Israel’s West Bank settlements are not inherently a violation of international law, and curtailing assistance to the PA while it funds terrorism—all counter PA hopes for Israel’s elimination. These measures, taken in defiance of exaggerated fears of reactions from the “Arab street,” convey mutually reinforcing messages: Israel is as legitimate as any other state. It is rooted in its land and has rights to security and self-defense. It will not forever be hostage to Palestinian rejectionism. And it will retain U.S. support.
The Trump Peace Plan
The Trump plan contradicts conventional wisdom by contending that there can be strategic cooperation between Israel and the Arab states before any Palestinian peace deal. Integrating Israel into the region, the plan states, would facilitate countering Iran’s threats and “set the stage for diplomatic breakthroughs.”[43]
The plan sees Israel as ready to make necessary compromises to end the conflict but lacking a competent, well-intentioned Palestinian partner to engage. It would not ask Israel to sacrifice its security, noting that “extraordinary geographic and geostrategic challenges” give Israel “no margin for error.” Negative events in the West Bank—a takeover by Hamas, for example—could pose an “existential threat,” the plan observes, adding that Israel “had the bitter experience of withdrawing from territories that were then used to launch attacks against it.”[44]
The plan describes the Jordan Valley—a defensive buffer that benefits both Israel and Jordan—as “critical for Israel’s national security” and expects it, together with Israel’s main West Bank settlement blocs, to remain “under Israeli sovereignty” following good-faith peace negotiations. The plan’s “Conceptual Map” shows boundaries that might emerge from such talks. This has immediate real-world consequences, for, as Trump has stated, “The United States will recognize Israeli sovereignty over the territory that my vision provides to be part of the State of Israel. Very important.”[45] It is notable that the plan includes this map. No prior administration ever defined the territory that Israel could have U.S. support to hold permanently, with or without a peace agreement.
Replacing Palestinian Leadership
The Trump plan paints a sorry picture of Palestinian politics: “Gaza and the West Bank are politically divided. Gaza is run by Hamas, a terror organization that has fired thousands of rockets at Israel and murdered hundreds of Israelis.” In the West Bank, the PA is corrupt, runs failed institutions and, due to “lack of accountability and bad governance,” has “squandered” billions of dollars.[46]
Rockets from Gaza hit Sderot, June 2014. The Trump plan states that Gaza and the West Bank are “politically divided,” and Hamas is “a terror organization that has … murdered hundreds of Israelis.” Without substantial reform, the plan warns, there will be neither improvement in Palestinians’ lives nor peace with Israel. Using language virtually identical to that in Bush’s June 24, 2002 speech, it calls for rule of law, transparency, accountability, separation of powers and a fair and independent judiciary.[47]
Trump blames Palestinian leaders for indoctrinating their publics to hate Israel and commit terrorism. Trump, like Bush, blames Palestinian leaders for indoctrinating their publics — children, in particular — to hate Israel and commit terrorism.[48] This is hardly designed to win favor with current Palestinian officials. It is an appeal over their heads to the people and around the PA to the Arab states.
Critics who say Trump’s plan will not win acceptance by Mahmoud Abbas are missing its main point, which is that peace has no chance without substantial Palestinian political changes. In the Trump team’s view, Abbas and his colleagues brought this negative judgment on themselves through a long train of terrorism, ideological extremism, and bad-faith diplomacy. Having declared the need for Palestinian reform, the Trump plan proposes ways to encourage the rise of new leadership. It admits that success may prove elusive.
The $50 Billion Carrot
The plan promises a $50 billion economic development program if the Palestinians elevate leaders that make needed governmental reforms and accept reasonable terms for peace. The idea is not novel. The amount is.
Would-be peacemakers have tried for many decades to counter Palestinian anti-Zionism by dangling prospects of future prosperity. Though never carrying so enormous a price tag, such incentives consistently failed to overcome Arab nationalist and religious objections to Zionism and Israel. Palestinian leaders framed their rejectionist case as a matter of honor, justice, and duty to the Arab nation and to God, considerations that they say outweigh material concerns.
Economic inducements have never yet generated a politically significant Palestinian party in favor of ending the conflict. The Trump plan is testing whether economic inducements can work now, in an era of increasing Israeli military and economic might, Palestinian division, and Sunni Arab states’ anxiety about Iran. At a minimum, one can assume that the $50 billion carrot is meant to communicate U.S. sympathy for the Palestinians and hopes to improve their situation.
Help from Arab States
The Trump plan urges Arab states to promote better Palestinian leadership and to reach their own accommodations with Israel.[49] Clinton and Bush had similar hopes. Trump officials think that present circumstances are more favorable. Sunni Arab states, some of which include significant Shiite populations, see Iran’s growing regional influence, revolutionary Shiite ideology, military power (including its potential nuclear weapons capability), and capable proxies as a deadly threat. The Israelis help counter Tehran militarily through strikes against Iranian forces in Syria and against Iran’s proxy Hezbollah. The Israelis also fight Tehran diplomatically, especially in Washington, by arguing for economic sanctions and other means of constraint. Needing Jerusalem’s voice on this issue, Arab states have shown a greater willingness to deal openly with Israelis and to increase their economic and strategic cooperation.[50]
At the same time, Arab leaders have ample grounds to be antagonized by the Palestinians’ political disunity, the power of Hamas—an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, an enemy of Saudi Arabia and other Arab states—growing Iranian influence in Gaza, and the corruption and other shortcomings of PA leaders.
The Saudis, Egyptians, and Jordanians consequently have an interest in promoting better Palestinian leadership. The Palestinians rely heavily on foreign diplomatic and financial support, so foreigners have some leverage. Improving Palestinian governance may be a mission impossible, but there is sense in appealing to regional and other actors to play a role.
Changing Strategic Calculations
An innovative feature of the Trump peace plan is the warning to the Palestinians that steadfast rejectionism will not give them victory, but further erode their position. In other words, time is not on their side, and it is not necessarily even neutral. As noted above, if the Palestinians refuse to end the conflict, Washington will support the Israelis unilaterally extending sovereignty in parts of the West Bank that the Trump team expects Israel would keep anyway in any future peace agreement.
Trump has thus set aside what had been a general principle of U.S. policy since 1967: that changes in the status of the West Bank should be made only through negotiations. Negotiated change, of course, would be preferable, but the Palestinians are being warned that, if they refuse to negotiate reasonably, the Israelis can improve their position, with U.S. backing.
U.S. support for unilateral extension of Israeli sovereignty has generated worldwide controversy over whether Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu will and should take the action. The pros and cons are worthy of serious debate. Whatever the Israeli government decides, the Trump plan’s key goal is to change the diplomatic circumstances that have incentivized the Palestinian side to perpetuate the conflict. The Trump team is saying it makes no sense for Palestinian leaders to support terrorism and reject reasonable offers of peace while expecting U.S. officials to insist that the Israelis maintain the West Bank’s legal status quo.
Conclusion
For the last half century, U.S. officials have tried persistently to persuade bad Palestinian leaders to do good—that is, to improve Palestinian lives, fight terrorism, and make realistic compromises for a peace based on permanent coexistence with Israel. The history reviewed above shows why the Trump team has concluded that neither “even-handed” U.S. diplomacy nor pressure to resolve “final-status issues” will succeed without Palestinian leaders willing to end the conflict once and for all. The Trump peace plan is the most categorical U.S. government declaration ever that the key to peace is reform that produces new Palestinian leadership willing to make reasonable compromises.
That is why it is fair to say that the Trump plan is not trying to make peace but to bring about changes that will make peace possible. In prioritizing Palestinian reform, Trump’s plan builds on ideas laid out in the Bush June 24, 2002 speech but expands on them dramatically. The plan, like those of Trump’s predecessors, sympathizes with the suffering of the Palestinians and argues that ending the conflict with Israel would alleviate their misery. If they agree to reasonable peace terms, the plan promises unprecedented rewards. But it warns that, in the event of continued Palestinian terrorism and rejectionism, the United States will not oppose Jerusalem improving its position through steps that a realistic peace agreement would in any case allow. In this, Trump’s plan abandons past U.S. policies that rewarded the PA’s violent intransigence by trying to preserve the West Bank’s legal status quo.
Trump’s plan abandons past U.S. policies that rewarded the PA’s violent intransigence. The Trump team sees Israel’s security and strength as serving U.S. interests in the Middle East. As it encourages Arab states to cooperate with Israel against rising regional threats, Trump’s peace plan argues that such cooperation can grow substantially even before an Israeli-Palestinian final peace deal. If it grows, the plan says, peace could more easily be achieved.
Since the 1940s, U.S. policy has been constrained by fear of the “Arab street”—concern that support for Israel would ignite the tinderbox of Arab public opinion with terrible effects on U.S. regional interests. Trump administration policies have time and again successfully flouted that fear, from recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital to publication of this peace plan with its strong support for Israeli security and blunt criticism of the PA. One of the lasting effects is likely to be that, in future U.S. policy debates, arguments about the “Arab street” will be evaluated with skepticism.
The Trump plan cannot ensure a peace deal and does not expect one soon. Its virtues lie in exposing the falsity of conventional views about the Middle East; pointing to what is truly precluding peace; offering ample rewards for overcoming those obstacles; and ending policies that incentivize the conflict’s perpetuation. It advances U.S. interests in the region by sending sympathetic and constructive messages to the Palestinians and forthrightly supporting the security of the capable, democratic U.S. ally, Israel.
*Douglas J. Feith is a senior fellow and Lewis Libby is the senior vice president of Hudson Institute. During the first five years of the George W. Bush administration, they served as principal national security advisers to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice President Dick Cheney, respectively. This article is adapted from a historical analysis of the Trump peace plan recently published by the Begin-Sadat Center of Israel’s Bar-Ilan University.
[1] “PM Rabin in Knesset – Ratification of Interim Agreement,” Oct. 5, 1995, Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jerusalem.
[2] Daniel Pipes, “Lessons from the Prophet Muhammad’s Diplomacy,” Middle East Quarterly, Sept. 1999.
[3] Douglas J. Feith and Sander Gerber, “The Department of Pay-for-Slay,” Commentary, Apr. 2017.
[4] Efraim Karsh, The Oslo Disaster (Ramat Gan: Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, 2016), p. 18.
[5] Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 936.
[6] Ehud Barak, My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2018), p. 395.
[7] Clinton, My Life, p. 943.
[8] The Jerusalem Post, Sept. 29, 2010.
[9] Efraim Karsh and Gershon Hacohen, “Israel’s Flight from South Lebanon 20 Years On,” Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, May 22, 2020.
[10] “Vital Statistics: Total Casualties, Arab-Israel Conflict (1860-Present),” Jewish Virtual Library, Chevy Chase; “Five Years of Violent Confrontation between Israel and the Palestinians,” Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, Ramat Hasharon, Oct. 2, 2005.
[11] “Vital Statistics: Total Casualties, Arab-Israel Conflict (1860-Present).”
[12] See Efraim Karsh, Arafat’s War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest (New York: Grove Press, 2003), p. 189.
[13] Dennis Ross, Doomed to Succeed: The U.S.-Israel Relationship from Truman to Obama (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015), pp. 295-6.
[14] Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), pp. 3-4.
[15] “The Palestinian National Charter: Resolutions of the Palestine National Council, July 1-17, 1968,” The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy, Yale Law School, art. 20; The Jerusalem Post, Jan. 11, 2014.
[16] Martin Indyk, Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009), p. 375; see also, Elliott Abrams, Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 25-6.
[17] George W. Bush, “Address to the United Nations General Assembly,” Oct. 3, 2001, State Dept. archives, Washington, D.C.; Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 786; Ross, Doomed to Succeed, pp. 306, 307, 311; Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 16; Robert Satloff, “The Peace Process at Sea: Karine A Affair and the War on Terrorism,” The National Interest, Mar. 1, 2002.
[18] Satloff, “The Peace Process at Sea.”
[19] Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Crown Publishers, 2011), pp. 135-6; see also, Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 25.
[20] Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 26; authors’ telephone interview with Amb. Eric Edelman, June 2020; Ross, Doomed to Succeed, p. 312; Satloff, “The Peace Process at Sea.”
[21] Authors’ interview with Amb. Eric Edelman; Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 26.
[22] George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Crown Publishers, 2010), p. 401; Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions, 2011), p. 373.
[23] Ross, Doomed to Succeed, pp. 311, 315; Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 34.
[24] Cheney, In My Time, p. 378.
[25] Rice, No Higher Honor, pp. 139, 142.
[26] Abrams, Tested by Zion, pp. 25-6; Midland Reporter Telegram (Midland, Tex.), Jan. 24, 2002; Ross, Doomed to Succeed, p. 312; authors’ telephone interview with John Hannah, June 2020; The Jerusalem Post, Sept. 28, 2017.
[27] Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 39.
[28] Authors’ interviews with Edelman and Hannah.
[29] Feith fax to Steve Hadley, “Notes for possible speech,” June 10, 2002.
[30] “President Bush Calls for New Palestinian Leadership,” White House archives, Washington, D.C., June 24, 2002.
[31] Rice, No Higher Honor, p. 144.
[32] Abrams, Tested by Zion, p. 43.
[33] Bush, Decision Points, p. 405; “President Discusses Roadmap for Peace in the Middle East,” White House archives, Washington, D.C., Mar. 14, 2003.
[34] “Hamas Covenant 1988,” The Avalon Project, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale University, New Haven; Abrams, Tested by Zion, pp. 142, 160.
[35] Henry Kissinger, “Sharon’s legacy and Hamas,” The New York Times, Feb. 15, 2006.
[36] Rice, No Higher Honor, p. 723.
[37] Ross, Doomed to Succeed, pp. 345-7.
[38] Reuters, Jan. 27, 2009.
[39] Middle East Monitor (London), July 18, 2019.
[40] Ross, Doomed to Succeed, pp. 378, 384, 387.
[41] BBC, Jan. 28, 2020; Times of Israel (Jerusalem), June 6, 2019.
[42] “A Conversation with John Bolton,” The Jerusalem Post, Aug. 25, 2018.
[43] “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People,” White House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 2020, p. 37.
[44] Ibid., p. 7.
[45] “Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu of the State of Israel in Joint Statements,” White House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 28, 2020.
[46] “Peace to Prosperity,” p. 4.
[47] Ibid., p. 34.
[48] “Remarks by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel,” White House, Washington, D.C., Feb. 15, 2017.
[49] “Peace to Prosperity,” p. 36.
[50] See, for example, The New York Times, Oct. 26, 2018; TRTWorld (Istanbul), Feb. 6, 2020; The Japan Times (Tokyo), Feb. 23, 2020; The Times of Israel, Feb. 24, 2020.