English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 10/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For today

Jesus Appears to His Disciples/Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
John 20/19-23/On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 09-10/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/

Ministry of Health: 2500 new infections, 43 deaths
President briefed on industrial sector’s situation by Minister Hobballah, signs six Parliament-approved laws
Rahi receives Army Commander in Bkerki
PCM Press Office: Diab’s Iraq visit postponed
Report: EU, France Considering Sanctions on Lebanese Politicians
Zaki from Bkirki: Arab League Backs Rahi’s Stance of Lebanon’s Neutrality
Army chief meets Arab League’s Zaki
Lebanon: Forensic Audit Sparks Internal Dispute
Aoun holds Lebanon’s central bank responsible for crisis
Salameh Warns that Foreign Banks Cutting Ties with Lebanon
Report: Diab to Sign Oil Import Agreement with Iraq
Ministry of Information, UNESCO Beirut Office conclude 'Journalism during and post COVID-19' webinars
Kandice Ardiel to NNA: UNIFIL has launched investigation into Houla explosion
Geagea: Forensic audit mandatory, mere political propaganda if President and government fail to force Central Bank to provide answers
Gemayel welcomes Zaki: Lebanon ruled with selfishness while people writhe under burden of poverty
Families of prisoners stage sit-in outside Interior Ministry
Iran’s Lebanon: At Last the Christian Cover is Off/Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/April 09.2021
LIFC: Congratulations to the New Members of the Biden Administration

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 09-10/2021
The Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, is dead at age 99.
Iran is testing nuclear-capable missiles, Israeli ambassador reveals
Parties to Iran nuclear talks see progress despite disagreement with US on sanctions
U.S. to send two warships through Bosphorus to Black Sea, says Turkey
Russia Hails 'Positive Momentum' at Iran Nuclear Talks
Israel does not recognize ICC authority to investigate it
Houthi Blockade, Pandemic Exasperate Suffering of Yemenis in Taiz
Egypt temporarily suspends talks to normalize ties with Turkey: Al Arabiya sources
Syrians reveal they were recruited into sleeper cells to target US army: Sources
Sudan Darfur Clashes Leave at Least 132 People Dead in Recent Days
Iraq Urges Vaccinations, Blaming Public for Virus Record
Libya Prepares for Rolling Out Vaccines
Iran Frees South Korean Ship it Held amid Dispute over Funds
UN 'very concerned' for life of Dubai's Sheikha Latifa
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 09-10/2021

Joe Biden crawls back to the Iran nuclear drawing board - opinion/Ruthie Blum/Jerusalem Post/April 09/2021
Iran nuclear deal: A view from the Middle East - opinion/Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher and Orni Petruschka/Jerusalem Post/April 09/202
Biden Administration to Support Palestinian Dictatorship/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute./April 09/2021
Question: "Why should I believe in Christ’s resurrection?"/GotQuestions.org/April 09/2021
Iran pres candidate gives racist/sexist rant: Women resort to African men/Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/April 09.2021
Jordan: State Loyalty Put to the Test/Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 09/2021
Iran: Between Illusion and Reality/Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 09/2021
Causes Without Their Subjects/Hussam Itani/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 09/2021
Can the Islamic Republic Change?/Michael Young/Carnegie MEC/April 09/2021
As the Syrian conflict completes 10 years, new diplomatic initiatives are taking shape/Talmiz Ahmad/Arab News/April 09, 2021
The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy: AMCD Calls for UN Peacekeepers to Redeploy in Darfur/The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 09-10/2021

Ministry of Health: 2500 new infections, 43 deaths
NNA/Friday, 09 April, 2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 2500 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 491928.
43 deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours.
 

President briefed on industrial sector’s situation by Minister Hobballah, signs six Parliament-approved laws
NNA/Friday, 09 April, 2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, received Industry Minister, Imad Hobballah, today at the Presidential Palace. Minister Hobballah stressed the importance of starting forensic audit, as soon as possible, also asserting the need to form a new government “Since a caretaker business situation will inevitably destroy Lebanon’s capabilities and push us into direction which cannot be tolerated”. The Industry Minister also quoted President Aoun stressing that “Priority should be given to people’s livelihood and life matters, during this period”.
Minister Hobballah’s Statement:
“I was pleased to meet His Excellency, President Aoun today. We tackled some important matters, first of which was the need to form a government as soon as possible, because the country cannot tolerate a caretaker conduct of business, as that will become a reason to destroying the country’s capabilities and pushing it towards directions which cannot be tolerated. We also addressed the issue of forensic audit, and the importance of commitment and the start of implementation of this audit as soon as possible, whether in the Central Bank or in state institutions. There was confirmation that if forensic audit is not adhered to, we are thus throwing state funds in wrong directions especially since we do not have guarantees that these funds are being spent in the correct way. In addition, the President had been briefed about the Prime Minister’s upcoming trip to the state of Iraq, and his Excellency’s directives have been taken in this issue. President Aoun confirmed support for the issue of manufacturing the Corona virus vaccine in one of the Lebanese medicinal factories, and we informed him that there are serious negotiations in this regard, awaiting to reach good results. Moreover, the President called for continuous interest in the livelihood matters of people, especially regarding prices and commodities, where we also addressed the cement issue, as it was emphasized that companies and factories must abide by regulations. On the other hand, merchants and distributors must stop monopoly in order to return to lower prices. I also informed the President that work is underway to discuss prices and amendments which should be later made. Finally, I reaffirm that the formation of the government is a basic necessity and must be completed as soon as possible, as well as forensic audit and people livelihood issues”.
Questions & Answers:
Responding to a question about the government’s support to the industrial sector, Minister Hobballah stated that “The necessity of supporting industrialists was emphasized during the meeting, because if not taken into consideration it will pose a threat to the industrial sector, although this sector has begun to regain vitality. However, there is a danger that is now evident in some factories starting to emigrate from the country, because the support from the BDL and banks during this period is halted, and financial support isn’t sufficient. All industrialists suffer from difficulty in obtaining funds, especially in US Dollar. On the other hand, banks are not helping factories to obtain their funds, so we need urgent support by all possible means”.
Law Signing:
The President signed six Parliament-approved laws, and referred them to publication:
-Law No.214 of 8/4/2021: Recovering funds from crimes of corruption.
-Law No.215 of 8/4/2021: Granting the Lebanese Electricity Corporation a treasury advance for year 2021, up to a maximum of 300 billion, to pay deficits in fuel purchase, of the 2021 budget.
-Law No. 216 of 8/4/2021: Approval of the conclusion of a treaty between the Ministry of Health and Environment in the Republic of Iraq and the Ministry of Public Health in the Republic of Lebanon, for health cooperation.
-Law No. 217 of 8/4/2021: Amending Law No. 6 of 3/11/2014 relating to the conclusion of a loan agreement submitted by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to support innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises projects.
-Law No. 218 of 8/4/2021: Amending Appendix No. 3 of the agreement authorized to be concluded under Law No. 180 of 12/6/2020.
-Law No. 219 of 8/4/2021: Requesting approval to conclude a loan agreement between the Republic of Lebanon and the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development to implement the emergency project to support a social safety net in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the economic crisis in Lebanon of $ 246,000,000. -- Presidency Press Office

Rahi receives Army Commander in Bkerki
NNA/Friday, 09 April, 2021
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Beshara Boutros Rahi, on Friday welcomed in Bkerki Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, who came to express well-wishes on the occasion of Easter.
Patriarch Rahi hailed the role of the military institution "in these difficult circumstances that Lebanon is going through," calling on all to stand by and support the military institution, being one of the key pillars of this nation, dedicated to preserving the country’s security.

PCM Press Office: Diab’s Iraq visit postponed
NNA/Friday, 09 April, 2021
The Presidency of the Council of Ministers’ Press Office issued the following statement: The visit of caretaker prime minister, Hassan Diab, and the Lebanese delegation to the Republic of Iraq, which was scheduled for April 17th, has been postponed by the brotherly Iraqi officials. The Protocol Directorate of the Iraqi Presidency of the Council of Ministers today informed the Lebanese PCM Protocol Department of the request to postpone the date for internal Iraqi reasons. ----PCM Press Office

Report: EU, France Considering Sanctions on Lebanese Politicians
Naharnet/Friday, 09 April, 2021
France and the European Union are reportedly preparing proposals that could result in an asset freeze and a travel ban on Lebanese politicians to push them to agree on a government to save the country from economic collapse, media reports said on Friday. France has led efforts to assist Lebanon, but has not yet succeeded at getting the various sectarian factions to agree on a government, let alone initiate reforms that could allow an influx of foreign aid. "Concrete proposals are being prepared against the same people who have abandoned the common good for their personal interests," French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian told lawmakers on Tuesday. "If (Lebanese) politicians do not fulfill their responsibilities, we will not hesitate to carry out our responsibilities," he added. Two foreign diplomats reportedly said that Le Drian's team is studying how the European Union can prepare sanctions that include travel bans and asset freezes on some Lebanese officials. A massive explosion at Beirut’s port on August 4 last year has devastated swaths of the capital. A government has not yet been formed to replace the one that resigned after the incident.

Zaki from Bkirki: Arab League Backs Rahi’s Stance of Lebanon’s Neutrality
Naharnet/Friday, 09 April, 2021
Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League, Hussam Zaki, emphasized on Friday that the Arab League backs the calls of Lebanon’s Maronite Patriarch Beshara el-Rahi for the neutralization of Lebanon. “The Patriarch's position as to the neutrality of Lebanon is in complete harmony with the decisions of the Arab League Council regarding distancing oneself from all conflicts and disputes. We have supported and welcomed this stance, and there can be a definite interest for Lebanon in this matter,” said Zaki after meeting Rahi in Bkirki. "I have explained the purpose of my visit to the Patriarch and the outcome of the contacts that have taken place so far, which were not completed due to the need for more communication. But we believe that there is a desire to find a way out of the political crisis, despite its difficulty and delicateness. The matter requires patience, action and a political will," he continued. Zaki concluded: "We pledged to continue seeking and reaching out to everyone to find a way out of the current crisis, which would allow the quick formation of a government to undertake the required reforms and achieve a qualitative leap in the country's economic and financial situation."

Army chief meets Arab League’s Zaki
NNA/Friday, 09 April, 2021
Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun, on Friday received at his Yarzeh office the Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ambassador Hussam Zaki, at the head of an accompanying delegation.
Discussions reportedly touched on various matters.

Lebanon: Forensic Audit Sparks Internal Dispute
Beirut - Nazeer Rida/Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 09 April, 2021
President Michel Aoun’s recent criticism of Banque du Liban’s delay in launching a forensic audit has sparked political controversy. In a televised speech on Wednesday evening, Aoun said that the political parties “provided cover to the Central Bank, private banks and the Ministry of Finance,” pointing to “the responsibility of all governments, departments, ministries, councils and agencies for every penny wasted over the years.”“All of them must be included in the forensic audit,” he stated. “The issue of forensic auditing is at the forefront of the priorities for the reform of the financial and economic situation. It is a battle that deserves and requires the support of all the forces,” Hezbollah MP Ibrahim Mousawi stated. “Banque du Liban has the duty to abide by the law issued for this purpose,” he added. For his part, the head of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, said that forensic audit was “not a slogan that is occasionally brought up, nor a means to attack a political opponent, but rather a sacred act aimed at reform.”Referring implicitly to Aoun, Geagea asked: “Why haven’t you supported the idea of forensic auditing since the beginning of this tenure despite the majority that you have in the cabinet or in the parliament?" The political parties believe the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) is holding onto the forensic audit in “an attempt to target its political opponents and conceal its responsibility for the crisis.” Deputy leader of Al-Mustaqbal Movement, Mustafa Alloush, emphasized that a forensic audit needed “a government that would be able to take over the task.”A member of the Development and Liberation bloc, MP Ali Bazzi, noted that Speaker Nabih Berri wanted a complete and comprehensive audit, in line with the law approved by the parliament, starting with the Central Bank.“We have carried out our legislative duties and now we must see the implementation of the law,” he said, referring to a bill passed by the parliament in December to lift banking secrecy on the accounts of officials for a year, and to expand the request for forensic audit in all state institutions, ministries and departments.

Aoun holds Lebanon’s central bank responsible for crisis
MEO/April 09/2021
Lebanese President accuses banks of squandering people's savings and central bank governor of giving excuses for refusing to answer Alvarez & Marsal’s questions for audit. BEIRUT - Lebanon's President Michel Aoun said on Wednesday the central bank bore responsibility for the country's financial collapse and for stalling an audit which is a key condition for foreign aid the country badly needs. In a national address, Aoun accused Lebanese banks of squandering people's savings and the central bank governor of giving excuses for refusing to answer 73 out of 133 questions that consultancy Alvarez & Marsal had sent for the audit. "To the central bank I say: the main responsibility befalls you," he said, in his strongest criticism yet. "You should have taken measures to protect people's money in the banks."Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The paralyzed banking sector is at the heart of Lebanon's financial collapse, which came to a head in 2019 when dollar inflows dried up and protests swept the country. The heavily indebted state and the banking sector, its biggest creditor, have since traded blame for the crisis, Lebanon's worst in decades. Banks have frozen savers out of their dollar deposits, as the Lebanese currency lost most of its value, plunging many into poverty. Leaders have failed to launch a rescue plan, instead wrangling over the make-up of a new government, with Aoun and veteran politician Saad al-Hariri, who was designated premier in October, locked in a standoff. Foreign donors have warned they will not give any aid without reforms to tackle crushing debt and entrenched graft, root causes of the crisis. An audit of the central bank is a key demand. In his Wednesday speech, Aoun also said politicians shared the blame for providing the central bank with cover, without naming individuals.

Salameh Warns that Foreign Banks Cutting Ties with Lebanon
Naharnet/April 09/2021
Lebanon’s money transfers abroad, its purchases of goods, and access to foreign exchange are all at risk to stop after correspondent banks abroad began to cut their financial relations with the Central Bank of Lebanon, al-Akhbar daily reported on Friday. In a memorandum addressed on March 31 by the Central Bank governor Riad Salameh to the Public Prosecutor, Judge Ghassan Oweidat, Salameh warned that the Central Bank “is in a difficult situation,” revealed the daily. In the memorandum, Salameh referred to “negative shock” of relations between BDL on one part and the international correspondent banks on the other, after starting to curtail their business relationships with the local financial system. He said it will place Lebanon in a “difficult situation regarding foreign transfers and the purchase of basic commodities, as well as obtaining foreign currencies to operate various economic facilities.”
Prominent sources described Salameh’s message as “dangerous” because of the information it contains and the fear of its negative impact on the Lebanese political, monetary and economic situation. It mentions the lenders and correspondent banks that closed the BDL's accounts with them, namely: Wells Fargo had closed a central bank account in dollars, and Britains’ HSBC had shut its British sterling account, the Danish "Danske" closed the account in Swedish krona, leaving the Central Bank of Lebanon without an external correspondent in this currency, the Canadian "CIBS", returned the BDL deposits it employed and stopped all dealings with it. Salameh warned that the measures could expand in the future, attributing the reasons to: Lebanon’s default on Eurobonds, political campaigns against BDL, the judicial uproar and its exploitation inside and outside Lebanon, which “sowed doubts among our correspondents and the major banks with which we deal.”He added and “warned” that the Central Bank has become "in a difficult situation. We only have “one bank, JP Morgan that accepts letters of credit we issue to import fuels and others for the benefit of EDL, the Ministry of Energy and some public sector departments, in return for funds deposited at the bank equal to the value of the credit .”He added that the bank “refuses to date to approve a credit in favor of the German company "Combi Lift" to lift containers from Beirut port that contain dangerous chemicals.”

Report: Diab to Sign Oil Import Agreement with Iraq
Naharnet/April 09/2021
Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab is scheduled to lead a delegation of Lebanese officials to visit Iraq on April 17,18, media reports said on Friday. Diab’s trip will include the signing of a preliminary agreement to obtain 500 thousand tons of fuel oil in exchange for health and medical services, al-Akhbar daily said. It added that after signing, the joint committees will draw up the final agreement in preparation for its approval. In February, Iraq had agreed to a deal to supply Lebanon with 500,000 tonnes of fuel a year in return for medical expertise. The caretaker ministers of Agriculture, Industry, Health, Tourism and Energy will accompany Diab during his trip. They are expected to offer their Iraqi counterparts opportunities for cooperation in various fields, and to discuss the possibility of expanding the cooperation agreement.
 

Ministry of Information, UNESCO Beirut Office conclude 'Journalism during and post COVID-19' webinars
NNA/April 09/2021
The Ministry of Information and UNESCO-Beirut Office on Friday concluded a series of four webinars titled "Journalism during and post COVID-19," during which regional and international experts tackled media coverage in light of the pandemic, the safety of journalists and mental health, countering hate speech, and fact checking. In her intervention, Caretaker Minister of Information Manal Abdel Samad underlined that the goal of her minister was to develop the capacities of journalists. Moreover, she heaped praise on the training webinars "which allowed exchanging expertise and shedding light on current issue." In addition, she highlighted the importance of partnership between the ministry and the UNESCO-Beirut Office in that respect. "We seek a better society, sustainable development, and good media environment; we also welcome all constructive comments and criticism as they help us develop," said Abdel Samad. For her part, UNESCO Beirut Officer in Charge, Costanza Farina, stressed that the UNESCO's goal was to support media, the freedom of expression, and the right to information.
She also highlighted the necessity to combat fake news. A virtual distribution of certificates took place next

Kandice Ardiel to NNA: UNIFIL has launched investigation into Houla explosion
NNA/April 09/2021
In response to a question from the correspondent of the National News Agency (NNA) about the explosion that occurred Thursday morning in the southern town of Houla, which coincided with an alleged Israeli raid on Syria, UNIFIL Deputy Chief of Strategic Communications and Public Information Kandice Ardiel said that “in the early morning hours of 8 April 2021, UNIFIL peacekeepers recorded an explosion, which later media reports said was caused by a missile, near the village of Houla within its area of operations in south Lebanon.” “UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Stefano Del Col was in immediate contact with the parties,” she noted. “UNIFIL has launched an investigation to determine the facts, and whether there has been a violation of United Nations Security Council resolution 1701,” Ardiel added.
 

Geagea: Forensic audit mandatory, mere political propaganda if President and government fail to force Central Bank to provide answers
NNA/April 09/2021
Head of the Lebanese Forces party, Samir Geagea, issued the following statement:
"Forensic audit is an obligation, and an entry point to any desired reform. The natural starting point for auditing is the Central Bank of Lebanon, provided that it successively includes all ministries, departments, and state funds that were marred by waste in the past period. This matter bears no argument.
In the last speech, whereby His Excellency the President touched upon forensic scrutiny, he came up with a set of facts that are unanimously agreed upon among the Lebanese (…). His Excellency's speech included all the facts and data but omitted one that changes the course of all matters; that is the fact that in the last five years he was President of the Republic, and by his side were a ministerial and a parliamentary majority. If the average citizen has the right to ask all such questions addressed by his Excellency, is it reasonable for the President of the Republic himself to be limited to asking questions? Why has he been reluctant to support our forensic audit demand since 2017? Why did he allow or cover for his closest allies' attack on the Lebanese Forces because of its call for forensic scrutiny? However, it is not too late. It has rather become clear that the Central Bank is evading answers, so why does the President not push -- along with the caretaker government that includes his camp and his allies only -- to take the necessary administrative and penal measures and procedures to force the Central Bank to comply and provide the required answers? So long as that remains unachieved, all that has been said will be regarded as populism and political propaganda only, at a time when the country is collapsing day after day."

Gemayel welcomes Zaki: Lebanon ruled with selfishness while people writhe under burden of poverty
NNA/April 09/2021
Head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party, Sami Gemayel, welcomed this Friday the Assistant Secretary-General of the Arab League, Ambassador Hussam Zaki, and an accompanying delegation. In the wake of the meeting, Zaki said: "We have listened with interest to the vision of the Kataeb Party regarding the Lebanese situation, and I conveyed in detail the endeavor of the Arab League and its concern about the continuing political crisis in the country." Gemayel, in turn, said "the Lebanese have recently felt as though they were left behind by their friends," hoping "that this changes, and that all Arab countries and friends in the world would care for the fate of the Lebanese people, who are in dire need of such support." Expressing his point of view to the Arab League delegation on "the necessity of forming a fully independent government, as forming a government of specialists appointed by the parties is worse than having a political government," Gemayel accused political parties of negotiating quotas amongst themselves while the people writhe under the weight of poverty and social and economic devastation. "We have held them fully responsible for what happened over the past six months, yet they still dig for more spoils and quotas," he said. In response to a question, Gemayel affirmed that "neither European nor Arab countries can comprehend how the fate of a country and its people's starvation is caused by selfishness ruling over political life in Lebanon. Unfortunately, this has been the case in our country for a while now, for it is ruled by selfishness."

Families of prisoners stage sit-in outside Interior Ministry
NNA/April 09/2021
The National News Agency correspondent reported that families of prisoners from all over Lebanon held a sit-in outside the Ministry of Interior this Friday to demand the approval of the general amnesty bill and the speeding up of trials, in addition to solving the problem of overcrowding in prisons and the shortage of meals. The security forces closed the road in front of the Ministry of Interior and diverted traffic to other routes.
 

Iran’s Lebanon: At Last the Christian Cover is Off
Eyad Abu Shakra/Asharq Al Awsat/April 09.2021
"It is better to arrive late than never" has been the best comment I read on social media on the Easter speech delivered by the Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rai.
This speech came while his candid accusations of Hezbollah in a video call were still reverberating. In that video call, Rai criticized the pro-Iran militia for imposing its hegemony on Lebanon, paralyzing its institutions, disabling its government, and pushing the bankrupt, and almost starving country in regional wars, without consulting its people or its political and religious leaders.
The difference, however, between the Easter speech and the video call – made with US-based Christian bishops - is that the former was made directly, and officially, to the Lebanese people in a highly symbolic Christian occasion against a background of horrible collapse and desperation.
Even more significantly, the Patriarch’s frank and carefully worded speech came after two consecutive speeches by Hezbollah’s Sec-Gen Hassan Nasrallah. What Nasrallah said leaves no doubt as to who wields the real and absolute power in a country whose political institutions have become a façade, its judiciary a waste of time, and its economy a lifeless corpse. Indeed, Nasrallah’s speeches, given in a ‘hectoring’ commanding tone, threw off reservations and crossed the Rubicon while Lebanon remains without a cabinet, suffering acute living conditions, and ravaged by Covid-19.
The Patriarch’s call for Lebanon’s neutrality and an international conference to deal with its problems has been a qualitative shift, that brought back the memories of his predecessor Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir's tough stances against the Damascus regime and the Syrian-Lebanese security apparatus that was de facto running Lebanon until February 2005. Sfeir’s courageous opposition reached the stage of refusing to welcome Pope John Paul II when the pontiff visited Syria in May 2001.
On the other hand, just like Patriarch Sfeir, who refused to bring down the then president Emile Lahoud after the ‘2005 Pro-Independence Uprising’ in the aftermath of Rafic Harari’s assassination, Rai adamantly opposed bringing down President Michel Aoun or calling for his resignation.
Obviously, the ‘special regard’ felt towards the presidency and its political symbolism to Lebanon’s Christians, and specifically the Maronites, was behind the two patriarchs’ decisions; although, they were both damaging to the solidarity of the protesting Lebanese from all sects.
The refusal to depose Lahoud confused the ‘2005 Uprising’, and facilitated the infiltration by a ‘fifth column’ that eventually turned against it. Likewise, rejecting the opposition’s demand for Aoun abdication aborted the ‘October 2019 Uprising’, weakened it, and allowed several ‘fifth columns’ to intimidate and divide it led by Hezbollah; in addition to Covid-19 whose terrible effects curtailed well-organized mass action, despite the equally terrible conditions that had justified the uprising in the first place.
As far as Rai is concerned, many have been openly critical of what they regarded as his Christian political ‘cover’ to Aoun, despite the latter’s alliance with Hezbollah. The days have long passed when Aoun claimed that he was ‘the father of (the anti-Hezbollah) UN resolution’ and the US Congress ‘Syria Accountability Act’ as he became Hezbollah’s presidential candidate and the ally of the Iranian influence in Lebanon. Furthermore, Aoun has also become a close ally and associate of Bashar al-Assad’s regime after the Syrian Revolt since 2011.
What further strengthened the impression of Rai's tacit support of Aoun policies was the Patriarch's negative position towards the Syrian Revolt, his expressed doubts about Assad’s opponents, and his warnings against replacing the regime “because any alternative will be worse”. These thoughts were expressed to international circles during the Patriarch’s first visit to France after the Revolt.
Soon afterward, as we know, the real revolutionaries in Syria were besieged and systematically weakened; as regional and international powers strived to hijack and abort the revolution. Some regional players decided to ride the wave of popular discontent, and divert the demands to become vehicles to their ideological agenda; while their regional opponents embarked on confronting the people’s demands with its armed sectarian militias, originally ‘ideologized’ by the mission of ‘exporting the (Iranian) Revolution’.
As for the major international powers, despite the problem of refugees and immigration, they seemed happy that what began as a popular revolution was being transformed into a civil war. Indeed, they waited until the emergence of ISIS provided them with the excuse to keep a regime that has long performed the dual regional tasks of being a ‘mail box’ (between major players) and ‘border guard’ (for Israel).
Thus, after the forced retreat of the Syrian Revolution’s moderate (liberals and progressives) militia organizations fighting under Islamist banners dominated the scene, through the Astana ‘deal’ between Russia, Iran, and Turkey. This is when many Lebanese thought that Patriarch Rai may have been right all along. This impression, however, was always nurtured by pro-Iran security organizations dominant in Lebanon, which were ‘fabricating’ and sponsoring selectively labeled ‘extremist’ groups; just as similar groups were ‘fabricated’ and sponsored inside Syria.
In other words, Iran’s security and military presence managed to redefine ‘extremism’ and give it a single ‘sectarian identity’. So while some extremists were venerated, others from a different sect were demonized after being created, or at least aided and abetted, to be exploited in the future as ‘bogeymen’ along ISIS-lines; which was a very rewarding venture in both Syria and Iraq.
This is exactly what we saw during Barack Obama’s presidency – and somehow even under Donald Trump –, when Washington declared that its main enemy in the Middle East was ISIS; even if this meant reaching deals with Iran, and turning a blind eye to its aggression and regional expansionism.
What has actually happened in Lebanon - and I dare say has been high in Patriarch Rai’s mind – is the political and economic collapse of Lebanon, the perennial soft belly of the Arab Levant. The religiously and confessionally diverse, nationally fragile, culturally rich, and immigration-prone Lebanon may have reached the end of the road.
This is why it is not possible anymore to keep quiet about a regional and sectarian armed ‘occupation’ that is negating the Lebanese state, destroy the economy, and change the demographic nature of the country.
This is exactly the essence of the Patriarch’s message.
Past experiences have shown that Lebanon was not qualified, during ‘the Cold War’ to the ‘Arab Hanoi’; and current realities show that it is unqualified, neither today nor tomorrow to be - in its present demographic fabric - part of the Vali-e-Faqih state and its chief port on the Mediterranean.

LIFC: Congratulations to the New Members of the Biden Administration
April 9, 2021
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: joanna@theresolute.group
The Lebanese Information Center (LIC) would like to extend its congratulations to the newest members of the Biden Administration.
Mr. Antony Blinken, Secretary of State
Gen. Lloyd Austin, Secretary of Defense
Mr. Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of Homeland Security
Amb. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, United States Ambassador to the United Nations
Mr. Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor
Mr. Jonathan Finer, Deputy National Security Advisor
Amb. Barbara Leaf, Senior Director for Middle East and North Africa Affairs
Ms. Avril Haines, Director of National Intelligence
Ms. Mira Resnick, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Political-Military Affairs
Ms. Dana Stroul, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East
Dr. Mara Karlin, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
The LIC is hopeful that the new administration will remain committed to US-Lebanon relations, particularly by supporting Lebanon’s sovereignty, strengthening ties to its pro-democracy actors, and backing efforts to fight corruption.
This backing is more important than ever. The interests of both Lebanon and the US are threatened by Iranian meddling, unlawful militias (primarily Hezbollah), and a corrupt ruling class that has been shunned by the international community. The assassination earlier this year of Lokman Slim — a free thinking, anti-Hezbollah activist, and longtime friend of the US — hinted at the dark days ahead unless urgent action is taken.
The LIC is confident in the abilities and expertise of each individual to guide US-Lebanese relations as Lebanon endures one of its most challenging periods. The historic partnership between the US and Lebanon has always won bi-partisan support and we are certain this tradition will continue.
Through its vast network of active members and its longstanding relationships with the US government, the LIC will continue to work for a free, sovereign and democratic Lebanon, for the good of the Lebanese people and in the interests of the United States of America.
On behalf of the largest grassroots organization of Lebanese-Americans, the Lebanese Information Center wishes the new President, Vice President, and his administration the best of luck as they lead our nation through this critical juncture at home and around the world.
**The Lebanese Information Center in the U.S. is the largest grassroots organization of Americans of Lebanese descent, committed to building a free, sovereign, and democratic Lebanon for the good of the Lebanese people and in the interest of the United States of America.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 09-10/2021

The Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, is dead at age 99.
Arutz Sheva/April 09/202
The prince had retired from his royal duties in 2017, and had suffered from health problems in recent years. In February, Prince Philip was hospitalized as a “precautionary measure”, before being released last month. The prince is survived by his wife, Queen Elizabeth, and four children – Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward – as well as their families. Prince Philip was married to Queen Elizabeth for 73 years, celebrating their 73rd anniversary in November 2020. "We remember the Duke for all of this and, above all, for his steadfast support for Her Majesty The Queen," said British Prime Minister Boris Johnson Friday afternoon. "Not just as her consort, by her side every day of her reign, but as her husband, her strength and stay, of more than 70 years. And it is to Her Majesty and her family that our nation's thoughts must turn today. Because they have lost not just a much-loved and highly respected public figure, but a devoted husband and a proud and loving father, grandfather and, in recent years, great-grandfather." "He helped to steer the Royal Family and the monarchy so that it remains an institution indisputably vital to the balance and happiness of our national life."
 

Iran is testing nuclear-capable missiles, Israeli ambassador reveals
Arutz Sheva/April 09/2021
As world powers are stepping up efforts to return to a nuclear deal with Iran, the Islamic Republic is testing nuclear-capable ballistic missiles in violation of the agreement, Israel revealed this week. According to a report by Israel Hayom Friday, Israeli Ambassador to the United States and the United Nations Gilad Erdan has sent a letter to the UN Security Council and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, revealing information about Iran's illegal missile activities, which violate Resolution 2231 that endorsed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action back in 2015. Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps has been testing missiles for several months, including nuclear ones, Erdan wrote in his letter. He called on UNSC members to condemn Tehran's actions. The Security Council must respond to Iran's threats to world peace and security, Erdan wrote, and described in detail the kinds of missiles the regime was testing and what their capabilities were. During one of its military exercises in mid-January, called "The Great Prophet 15," Iranian forces tested missiles of various ranges, including the Sejjil and Qader ballistic missiles, which are capable of carrying a 650 kg (1400 pounds) warhead and have a range of approximately 2,000 km (1,200 miles). Tehran's technological progress once again reflects the link between the regime's space and military programs, which work together to develop the regime's nuclear capabilities, Erdan wrote in his letter. Meanwhile, Iran warned Israel and the US Thursday about possible retaliation after the Jewish state struck Saviz, an Iranian-flagged ship, in the Red Sea on Tuesday. "No doubt the United States was involved," an Iranian military spokesman said.

Parties to Iran nuclear talks see progress despite disagreement with US on sanctions
Reuters/09 April ,2021
Talks to bring Iran and the United States fully back into the 2015 nuclear deal are making progress, delegates said on Friday, but Iranian officials indicated disagreement with Washington over which sanctions it must lift. The talks, in which European Union officials are shuttling between the remaining parties to the deal and the United States, aim to restore the bargain at the core of the deal - restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the lifting of US and other international sanctions. The United States was the first to renege on that bargain under President Donald Trump, who vehemently opposed the deal and sought to wreck it. He pulled out, reimposed the sanctions that were lifted, and brought in many more. Iran responded by breaching many of the nuclear restrictions. “All Trump sanctions were anti-JCPOA & must be removed—w/o distinction between arbitrary designations,” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said on Twitter, referring to the deal by its full name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. The United States says it is prepared to lift “sanctions that are inconsistent with the JCPOA”. While it has declined to elaborate, that appears to exclude sanctions formally unrelated to nuclear issues covered by the deal. Iran’s Zarif says US sanctions are against nuclear deal, must be removed. Whether the statements are opening gambits or more firm positions remains to be seen. European officials said Iran was bargaining hard at the outset. The remaining parties to the accord - Iran, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia - met again in Vienna on Friday after talks formally began on Tuesday and they agreed to keep going, Russian and Chinese envoys said. “The #JCPOA participants took stock of the work done by experts over the last three days and noted with satisfaction the initial progress made,” Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s envoy to the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said on Twitter after the meeting formally known as the Joint Commission. “The Commission will reconvene next week in order to maintain the positive momentum.” The deal’s remaining parties have formed two expert-level working groups whose job is to draw up lists of sanctions that the United States will lift and of nuclear restrictions Iran will implement. Their work continues between Joint Commission meetings. “All parties have narrowed down their differences and we do see the momentum for gradually evolving consensus,” Wang Qun, China’s ambassador to the IAEA, told reporters after the meeting, adding that work would continue next week.

U.S. to send two warships through Bosphorus to Black Sea, says Turkey
NNA/April 09/2021
The United States will send two warships through the Bosphorus to the Black Sea, the Turkish foreign ministry said on Friday, as tensions simmer between Russia and Ukraine. The ships will stay in the region until May 4, the foreign ministry said in a statement. Turkish media said the warships will enter the Black Sea next week. "We were notified through diplomatic channels 15 days ago... that two US warships will pass toward the Black Sea," a Turkish foreign ministry official told reporters. The US embassy in Turkey, contacted by AFP, declined comment. Washington is required to give Ankara a notice of at least 15 days before sending warships through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits under the terms of the 1936 Montreux Convention. The treaty's terms allow foreign warships to stay in the Black Sea for 21 days.--AFP.

Russia Hails 'Positive Momentum' at Iran Nuclear Talks
Agence France Presse/April 09/2021
Russia said Friday that the first week of talks to save the landmark 2015 deal on Iran's nuclear programme had produced "positive momentum" and that negotiations would continue next week. The deal -- known as the JCPOA -- has been disintegrating since former US President Donald Trump dramatically withdrew from it in 2018 and re-imposed sanctions, prompting Iran to retaliate by exceeding the limits on nuclear activity laid down in the deal. Diplomats from the remaining parties to the JCPOA -- Iran, China, Britain, France, Germany and Russia -- have been meeting in a luxury hotel in Vienna, with indirect American participation from a delegation based nearby. Moscow's ambassador to the UN in Vienna Mikhail Ulyanov said Friday the remaining JCPOA participants "took stock of the work done by experts over the last three days and noted with satisfaction the initial progress made".
He added in a tweet that diplomats "will reconvene next week in order to maintain the positive momentum". Iran and the US had also described the first day of talks on Tuesday as "constructive". US President Joe Biden has said he is willing to return to the deal but Iran has refused direct negotiations with Washington as long as its sanctions against Tehran remain in place. EU negotiators in Vienna have therefore been acting as intermediaries between parties to the main talks and American diplomats, who are based in a hotel close to the main talks. In the meantime, two expert-level groups -- on sanctions lifting and nuclear issues -- have been meeting over the course of the week to explore the actions that could be taken by Iran and the US to facilitate a return to the deal. The 2015 deal, known as the JCPOA, put strict curbs on Iran's nuclear programme in order to reassure the international community Tehran would not be able to develop a nuclear weapon.

Israel does not recognize ICC authority to investigate it
Arutz Sheva/April 09/2021
After a lengthy deliberation presided over by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, it has been decided that Israel's formal response to the International Criminal Court in the Hague will be that it does not recognize the court's authority to investigate the Jewish State. The language of the response is intended to be both laconic and noncommittal, in the hopes of allowing for further dialogue. ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda authorized a probe into alleged Israeli war crimes in Palestinian Authority territories in February. A three-judge panel ruled that Judea, Samaria, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem are within the jurisdiction of the court. In a press release, the ICC said that the judges ruled that "the Court's territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine, a State party to the ICC Rome Statute, extends to the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, namely Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem." Israel has consistently rejected the court's authority to launch such an investigation, arguing that the ICC has no jurisdiction since Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statute and Palestine is not a state. In addition, the ICC is only supposed to investigate states that cannot carry out proper internal investigations themselves. Prime Minister Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Gilad Erdan both called the ICC's decision to investigate Israel anti-Semitic, noting that the investigation covers the period following the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in the summer of 2014 but excludes the murders themselves.

Houthi Blockade, Pandemic Exasperate Suffering of Yemenis in Taiz
Sanaa – Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 9 April, 2021
Medics are warning that the spread of coronavirus infections in the southern Yemeni governorate of Taiz has aggravated severely in recent days, with the situation worsening drastically under the ongoing Houthi blockade. For the fourth day in a row Taiz registered record daily coronavirus infections when compared to other Yemeni governorates. The governorate, which is part controlled by Houthis and part run by the UN recognized Yemeni government, recorded 29 new cases last Tuesday. That day, a total of 94 cases had been registered across six government-held governorates, including Taiz. Newly diagnosed cases brought the infection toll in the governorate to 583 since the start of 2021, said the deputy information manager at the Health Ministry office in Taiz. Tayseer al-Samei also noted that Taiz recorded five coronavirus deaths on Tuesday, bringing the governorate’s death toll to 62. Over 43 recoveries were recorded that day too. Poor access to hospitals and isolation centers in the governorate has placed Taiz at the top of governorates struggling to curb the spread of the pandemic. Health workers warn that more deaths and infections are very likely to be recorded in the hard-hit governorate, especially that some cases are still undiagnosed due to the lack of medical services there. More than 25 physicians and health workers have officially raised the alarm in Taiz and confirmed that the governorate’s medical infrastructure is insufficient to face the spread of the virus. They predicted the governorate would soon completely lose control of the situation given the shortcomings of its health capabilities. “In Taiz, the health situation is gradually sliding towards the abyss, especially that it continues to top the list of Yemeni governorates in terms of the highest rate of recorded coronavirus infections and deaths,” local medics told Asharq Al-Awsat. The rapid and unprecedented spread of the pandemic in Taiz has even affected officials, with many reporting having tested positive for the coronavirus.
 

Egypt temporarily suspends talks to normalize ties with Turkey: Al Arabiya sources
Ismaeel Naar, Al Arabiya English/09 April ,2021
Egypt has temporarily suspended talks to normalize relations with Turkey, including deciding on suspending security contacts with Ankara until further notice, Al Arabiya sources have confirmed. The sources said that Cairo also suspended communications with Ankara until the Egyptian demands have been were quickly implemented, noting that Turkey's slowdown in withdrawing mercenaries from Libya has caused the suspension of meetings with Egypt. Al Arabiya sources said that Turkey had requested more time to withdraw its military advisors and members from Libya, while Egypt demanded Turkey for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal from the conflict-strife North African country. Turkey recently suspended a number of the Muslim Brotherhood’s activities within its territories, but Egypt had demanded more permanent measures and the handover of Yahya Musa and Alaa al-Samahi, both officials within the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood Islamist group of Egypt. According to the sources who spoke to Al Arabiya, Turkey had wanted to implement the demands gradually while Egypt had adhered to implementing them in two phases, stressing that the dispute between Cairo and Ankara is about the speed of implementation of measures against the Muslim Brotherhood. The sources said Egypt had suspended Ankara's request to hold a broad meeting in Cairo before the end of April, and that “Cairo confirmed the necessity of the Turkish military withdrawal from Arab countries out of respect for their sovereignty.”
Last month, Turkey restarted diplomatic contacts with Egypt, state-run Anadolu Agency cited Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu as saying at the time. A week later, Turkish authorities ordered Istanbul-based TV channels affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood to stop airing criticism geared toward Egypt immediately.According to Al Arabiya sources, Turkey has so far pledged to implement more measures against the Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated channels before the end of Ramadan, but Egypt has informed Turkey of the need to accelerate measures against such media outlets.
Turkey has also sent a telegram to Egypt confirming that it has frozen the granting of citizenships to a number of Muslim Brotherhood members, but that Egypt also further demanded the Islamist fighters who were in the ranks of ISIS who obtained Turkish citizenship after returning from Syria be handed over.

Syrians reveal they were recruited into sleeper cells to target US army: Sources
Jennifer Bell, Al Arabiya English/09 April ,2021
Captured extremists have said they were recruited into a secret sleeper cell by Syrian intelligence agencies that aimed to target US patrols and spread propaganda among the war-torn country. In the latest episode of the 11-part documentary, Al Arabiya interviewed former members of a cell who were recruited by Syrian intelligence agencies in the city of Qamishli, in northeastern Syria on the Syria–Turkey border. One member of the former sleeper cell, Jalal Abdullah Ismail, 31, broke down in tears as he spoke of his part he played in the regime. “I am broken,” he said. “I made a mistake.” The cell was first activated in 2018 by the Military Intelligence Division. Some of its members were detained while others disappeared. But Military Intelligence at Qamishli Airport, specifically a colonel named Ahmed Suleiman - nicknamed ‘Sheikh Ibrahim’ - reactivated the cell in 2020 with the aim of forming cells called ‘Popular Resistance.’ The cell was preparing to target American patrols in the suburbs of Rmelan and to write slogans on walls and streets expressing support for the forces of the Syrian regime.
The three members of the cell were detained. Two have now spoken to journalist Rola al-Khatib, as part of a new “Face to Face” series, which sees Al Arabiya go into camps and villages in Syria and Iraq and sit down with former ISIS members and their families, former members of the Syrian government forces and residents in the two countries to tell their stories. In the fourth episode, ‘Face-to-Face: The cells of the regime,’ head of the cell, Ali Hamoud Hamdan, a 35-year-old father-of-six, explained how he recruited Ismail. “In September, a man named Mohamed al-Halo talked to me. He told me there was a Colonel in the Air Force Intelligence. We went to the colonel - Ahmed Suleiman, nicknamed ‘Sheikh Ibrahim’ - and sat down with him,” Hamdan said. “At first, Jalal wasn’t allowed in because the Colonel he was coming with me. I told him I had a young man with me. We went in, Mohamed al-Halo and I, Jalal stayed outside,” he continued.
“I told him that I know a young man who wants to work with me. He asked me if I trusted him and I said yes. He said: ‘say no more.’” Ismail said he was allowed to meet the colonel who then gave him instructions to spread propaganda in parts of Sryia. “He asked us to write things, to write: ‘the Syrian Arab Army is coming,’ ‘death to America,’” he said. “The colonel said it’s to make it look like a popular revolution rather than one affiliated with the State.
“We bought spray paint and wrote the slogans,” he added. Hamdan said: “The colonel asked us to write slogans and to target the American convoy and the Syrian Democratic Forces.” He revealed the colonel told the cell members “he would provide explosives.”“He was going to provide them from the airport. Qamishli Airport is still under the control of the Syrian regime.”Hamdan said the only act he participated in was writing slogans on walls. This, he said, was to “create chaos in the area, for people to know that the State is present and that it will take the area back.”The two men have polarizing views of their time in the secret cell. For Hamdan, a father of six, he has no regrets. “I acted out of love for this State. It was depending on us. Ultimately, I’m telling you I don’t regret it. If I said I regret it, I would be lying,” Hamdan said. Ismail, however, spoke of his devastation at being recruited, saying he was acting out of hunger and a drive to provide food for his family, from whom he is now separated from. The colonel had provided them with food baskets in return for their work, the men revealed. “We lost our children and we lost ourselves,” said Ismail, a father-of-three. “My daughter is two-months-old. I couldn’t get her milk.”
“I didn’t do it because I loved the State or the regime or the party. This wasn’t an issue I thought of. I had no inclination either way. I just wanted one thing; to provide for my children,” he said. “My daughter is nine-years-old and I haven’t registered her yet. I can’t afford it.  "They asked for 50,000 lira ($15) just to register her…I can’t afford it. I swear, I didn’t do it willingly. Hunger drove me to it.” Speaking in a one-on-one interview with al-Khatib, Ismail explained the fear he had over his recruiter, Hamdan. “I’m always scared of him. Once, I was at home, he brought a gun to my home. He said no one could know he was in the area. He told me not to tell,” Hamdan told Al Arabiya. “He brought a gun and threatened me and my children. "He threatened me in front of my mother, in front of my wife. He has no mercy. He is willing to eliminate anyone. I didn’t do anything willingly. I had a life before.”

Sudan Darfur Clashes Leave at Least 132 People Dead in Recent Days
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 9 April, 2021
Intercommunal clashes in Sudan's West Darfur state have left at least 132 people dead in recent days, its governor said Thursday. Members of the Massalit and Arab communities have fought since Saturday in and around the state capital El Geneina, trading gun and heavy weapons fire.
Sudan's government has declared a state of emergency in the region. "According to medical reports, the number of dead is now 132," Mohamed Abdallah Douma, the governor of the region bordering Chad, told a press conference in Khartoum. "The situation is now relatively stable," he said, adding that there was "looting" but "no more fighting". Douma blamed the fighting on militia militants but the UN had said the conflict was between Sudan's Massalit and the Arab communities, the latest in a string of clashes since January, which has forced over 100,000 people to flee their homes, according to AFP. Sudan is in the midst of a rocky transition following the toppling of long-time president Omar al-Bashir in April 2019, following mass protests against his rule. The transitional government has pushed to build peace with rebel groups in Sudan's main conflict zones, including Darfur, where UN peacekeepers were recently withdrawn. Thousands have fled the latest outbreak of violence, some escaping into Chad, according to the United Nations. The clashes have seen a power station destroyed, an ambulance attacked and a rocket-propelled grenade hitting the key Sultan Tajeldin Hospital. The vast Darfur region was previously ravaged by a civil war that erupted in 2003, leaving around 300,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN. It flared when ethnic minority rebels rose up against Bashir's Arab-dominated government. Khartoum responded by unleashing a notorious Arab-dominated militia known as the Janjaweed, recruited from among the region's nomadic tribes. The conflict has subsided over the years, and the latest in a string of peace deals was agreed in October. But after years of conflict, the region is awash with automatic weapons and clashes still erupt, often over land and access to water. Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of genocide during the Darfur conflict.

Iraq Urges Vaccinations, Blaming Public for Virus Record
Asharq Al-Awsat/Friday, 9 April, 2021
Iraq's Health Ministry has warned of “dire consequences” ahead because citizens are not heeding coronavirus prevention measures, after the country reached a new high in daily infection rates. Iraq recorded 8,331 new virus cases within a 24-hour period on Wednesday, the highest figure since the ministry began keeping records at the onset of the pandemic last year. That was double the number of new infections from last month, and well ahead of a previous peak of some 6,000 in March. Death rates are still fairly low relative to new infections. At least 14,606 people have died, from a total of 903,439 cases, The Associated Press reported. The severe spike in case numbers prompted the Health Ministry to issue a grave warning in a statement on Thursday, saying the rise was due to laxity among Iraqis who flout preventative measures. The statement said public commitment toward heeding virus prevention measures was “almost non-existent in most regions of Iraq," where citizens rarely wear face masks and continue to hold large gatherings. Those who continue to flout prevention measures and instructions “are responsible for the increase in the number of infections,” the statement said. It called on tribal sheikhs, activists and influential figures to speak out and inform the public on the severity of the pandemic. Iraq began administering vaccines in late March, but rollout has been slow owing to low demand. Many Iraqis are suspicious of the vaccine and few have booked appointments to receive a dose. Rumors of debilitating side-effects have also put many off.The ministry urged citizens to inoculate, and said vaccination was the only way to control the outbreak.

Libya Prepares for Rolling Out Vaccines
Cairo - Jamal Jawhar/Friday, 9 April, 2021
Libya has been preparing to launch the national vaccination campaign, at a time when the coronavirus cases exceeded 166,000 in the country. The National Center for Disease Control published on Thursday guidelines, calling on citizens who wish to receive the vaccine to constantly check body temperature, coughing, critical diseases, or any type of allergy. The Center stressed that any side effects must be checked, especially one to three weeks after getting the vaccine. Libya received on Sunday the first shipment of Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V. "It is the first drop of rain. Thank God, we are able to supply the first batch of coronavirus vaccine," Libyan Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibeh said. "The rest of the shipment will arrive in succession," he added, without giving further details. WHO Libya has expressed commitment to continue its support to the Government of Libya, and the National Center for Disease Control in the fight against COVID-19. WHO said some volunteers are exerting relentless efforts in Benghazi to raise awareness in the community. In addition, they are distributing facemasks, sterilizers, and fliers guide with the support of USAID. In the same context, the Primary Health Care Institute (PHCI) in cooperation with the Center held a workshop to offer training on the delivery of vaccines. Twenty-seven new deaths linked to the coronavirus have been recorded in 11 Libyan cities, bringing the total fatalities to 28,000.The National Center further announced on Thursday that up to 869 new cases have been recorded in Libya, while recoveries reached 152,000.

Iran Frees South Korean Ship it Held amid Dispute over Funds
Associated Press/Friday, 9 April, 2021
A South Korean oil tanker held for months by Iran amid a dispute over billions of dollars seized by Seoul was freed and sailed away early Friday, just hours ahead of further talks between Tehran and world powers over its tattered nuclear deal. MarineTraffic.com data showed the MT Hankuk Chemi leaving Bandar Abbas in the early morning hours. South Korea's Foreign Ministry said Iran released the tanker and its captain after seizing the vessel in January. The ministry says the Hankuk Chemi left an Iranian port at around 6 a.m. local time after completing an administrative process. Iran did not immediately acknowledge the ship had been freed. The ship's owner, DM Shipping Co. Ltd. of Busan, South Korea, could not be immediately reached for comment. The Hankuk Chemi had been traveling from a petrochemicals facility in Jubail, Saudi Arabia, to Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates when armed Revolutionary Guard troops stormed the vessel in January and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran. Iran had accused the MT Hankuk Chemi of polluting the waters in the crucial Strait of Hormuz. But the seizure was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Seoul to release billions of dollars in Iranian assets tied up in South Korean banks amid heavy American sanctions on Iran. South Korea's Foreign Ministry did not elaborate on the terms of the ship's release. Iran in February released much of the ship's crew. South Korea's Yonhap news agency, quoting an anonymous Foreign Ministry official, suggested Seoul may pay off Iran's United Nations dues that had been in arrears. In January, the U.N. said Iran topped a list of countries owing money to the world body with a minimum bill of over $16 million. If unpaid, Iran could lose its voting rights as required under the U.N. Charter. "We're expecting to make a considerable progress in terms of paying the U.N. dues," the official said. "We have also exported some $30 million worth of medical equipment since we resumed the humanitarian trade with Iran last April."The development came as Iran and world powers were set to resume negotiations in Vienna on Friday to break the standoff over U.S. sanctions against Iran and Iranian breaches of the nuclear agreement. The 2015 nuclear accord, which then-President Donald Trump abandoned three years later, offered Iran sanctions relief in exchange for restrictions on its nuclear program.

UN 'very concerned' for life of Dubai's Sheikha Latifa
NNA/Friday, 9 April, 2021
The UN said Friday it was "very concerned" for Dubai's Sheikha Latifa, two months after having asked the United Arab Emirates for proof that the royal was still alive. In February, the United Nations Human Rights Office asked for evidence about the daughter of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum after the BBC broadcast a video shot by Latifa saying she was being held captive and feared for her life. Sheikh Mohammed is the vice president and prime minister of the UAE, of which Dubai is one of the seven emirates. His 35-year-old daughter has not been seen in public since a foiled attempt to escape from the emirate in March 2018. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights spoke to the UAE's diplomatic mission in Geneva in a bid to obtain proof of life. "We are very concerned," spokeswoman Marta Hurtado told reporters in Geneva. "We haven't got any proof of life and we would like one, and one that is clear, compelling evidence that she is alive."Our first concern, of course. is to be sure of that: that she is still alive." ---AFP

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 09-10/2021

Joe Biden crawls back to the Iran nuclear drawing board - opinion
Ruthie Blum/Jerusalem Post/April 09/2021
Reports that US and Iran are at a stalemate – with each demanding that the other be the first to comply with the JCPOA before any genuine negotiations can proceed – are laughable
Addressing a session of the Iranian cabinet on Wednesday, President Hassan Rouhani lauded the return of the United States to the nuclear negotiating table. Referring to Tuesday’s summit in Vienna, coordinated by the European Union and attended by representatives from the US, Iran, Russia, China, France and Britain, Rouhani said, “Today, a united voice is being heard, as all parties to the nuclear deal have come to the conclusion that there is no solution better than the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, and there is no path other than its full implementation.”
The point of his speech was not to express “unity” with Washington, however. After all, the American and Iranian delegates didn’t even sit in the same room during the first day of the talks, which are taking place in the very city where the JCPOA was signed in 2015.
No, the purpose of his pontification was to praise his mullah puppet-masters for once again bringing the “Great Satan” to its knees. No wonder Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi announced the same day that “in less than four months, we have produced 55 kg. [121 lbs.] of 20% enriched uranium... in around eight months, we can reach 120 kg. [264.5 lbs.]”
It’s typical of Iranian officials to boast about the might of the regime, particularly with a presidential election fast approaching amid severe domestic woes. The country’s internecine problems have been increasing steadily since 2018, when former US President Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA and instated a “maximum pressure” sanctions campaign against Tehran. The outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, which hit the Islamic Republic especially hard, only served to exacerbate an already untenable situation, with more than 70% of workers unemployed and 80% of the population falling below the poverty line. Nor are those Iranians who can’t afford basic food staples buying the regime’s repeated excuse for their plight: that the US is to blame for “violating” the JCPOA and refusing to lift all sanctions. They’re also fed up with the leadership’s simultaneous bragging about its massively expensive military build-up. On March 15, for example, the government released footage of an underground Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps base, which it called a “missile city,” equipped with advanced weaponry and electronic-warfare technology. According to Middle East Eye, the nuclear-warhead-capable cruise and ballistic missiles at the complex have a range of up to 2,000 km. (approximately 1,243 miles). And last year, the regime announced that it had constructed several such compounds along the coast of the Persian Gulf.
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The release of the missile-city video and photos followed Iran’s announcement that it had resumed enriching uranium at the Natanz and Fordow nuclear facilities. AS WORLD diplomats convened in the Austrian capital on Tuesday to keep the administration of US President Joe Biden ready, willing and eager to reenter the JCPOA, the AEOI began mechanical trials on its domestically produced next-generation IR-9 uranium-enrichment centrifuges. Under the nuclear deal, Iran is only allowed to use IR-1 centrifuges and solely at Natanz. Tehran had warned the Biden administration that this was going to happen if Washington didn’t rejoin the JCPOA and ease sanctions before February 21. “Time is running out for the Americans,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the newspaper Hamshahri three weeks ahead of the deadline spelled out in a law passed by the Iranian Parliament in November. The legislation – whose passage elicited chants of “Death to America” from the plenum – consists of nine articles, all related to the requirement that Iran drastically step up its nuclear activity. It also includes a clause about banning short-notice inspections of its nuclear sites by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). “The more America procrastinates, the more it will... appear that Mr. Biden’s administration doesn’t want to rid itself of Trump’s failed legacy,” Zarif said. “We don’t need to return to the negotiating table. It’s America that has to find the ticket” to do so.
A glitch in Iran’s plans came in the form of a joint statement by the Biden administration and the E3 – France, Germany and Italy – “underlining the dangerous nature of a decision to limit IAEA access,” and urging Tehran “to consider the consequences of such grave action, particularly at this time of renewed diplomatic opportunity.”
Iran responded by extending the deadline for implementation of its new law. Meanwhile, it launched rocket attacks on US targets in Iraq, provoking the Biden administration to retaliate with deadly airstrikes on Iran-backed militias in neighboring Syria. Lest one imagine that Washington’s apparently tough stance indicates a rethinking of its desire to rejoin or renegotiate the JCPOA, even Zarif and the rest of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s underlings realize that undoing Trump’s policies takes precedence in the Oval Office over pragmatism and American power. Ironically, then, though they’re undoubtedly congratulating themselves for causing the US president to dispatch a diplomatic team to Vienna this week, Biden and his anti-Trump buddies in Europe deserve a lion’s share of the credit for the capitulation. IN HER daily briefing on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki perfectly exhibited the administration’s floundering on this issue. When questioned by a reporter about US leverage in the negotiations with Iran, other than the threat of war, she stumbled.
“What it – what would Iran want out of it? Is that what you’re asking?” she replied, either genuinely puzzled or stalling to come up with a rational response in the absence of one. “No,” the reporter answered. “I’m saying, ‘What’s the stick?’ You’re coming with a carrot, right? Which is, you know, ‘We’ll bring you back in and so on if you dismantle all this stuff.’ And, you know, ‘We’ll eventually give you sanctions relief.’ That’s pretty clear. But they withstood the sanctions under the Trump administration. And, you know – and they – the effect only increased the activity in the nuclear field. So, what – what is left?”
Taking a breath, Psaki explained, “Well, if you... go back historically, just a few years before the Trump administration, to the Obama-Biden administration, sanctions were put in place which incentivize, in many ways, getting them to the table to have the discussion about the Joint Plan of Action. So, look, I would say at this point: Today is the first day of discussions... and they are happening through our European counterparts and partners. We expect them to have difficult portions [sic]. We expect this to be a long process. And we, you know, continue to believe that a diplomatic path is the right path forward, and there are benefits to all sides.” She concluded by accusing Biden’s predecessor of making matters worse. “When the Trump administration pulled out of the Joint Plan of Action, what they left us with is a far-decreased visibility of Iran’s nuclear capability, of inspections at their sites, of an understanding of how close they were to acquiring a nuclear weapon,” she asserted. “That’s not in anyone’s interest, certainly not [that of] the American people.”
In other words, despite acknowledgment that Iran was lying about its nuclear program being “peaceful,” and allowing for clauses in the JCPOA that enabled Tehran to perpetuate the deception, former president Barack Obama and then-second-in-command Biden obsessively pushed for the deal anyway. Now that Biden is in charge, things are no different. His appointment of Robert Malley as special envoy to Iran means picking up where Obama left off and then some. Malley, who left his position as head of the International Crisis Group NGO to accept the post, was a key negotiator of the JCPOA in the first place. Nobody could be better suited for the job of appeasing the ayatollahs than the “conflict resolution” addict who advocates engagement with Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. This is why reports that US and Iran are at a stalemate – with each demanding that the other be the first to comply with the JCPOA before any genuine negotiations can proceed – are laughable. Malley’s goal is to secure a deal; Khamenei’s is to obtain nuclear weapons and tranches of cash to fund them. With the former equal to the latter, the impasse can easily be broken. Indeed, all the regime in Tehran has to do, like last time, is pretend to agree to certain conditions. And its promises, like Zarif’s signature on any document curbing Iran’s nukes, will be as false as the outcome of Biden’s charade is preordained.

Iran nuclear deal: A view from the Middle East - opinion

Ami Ayalon, Gilead Sher and Orni Petruschka/Jerusalem Post/April 09/2021
We are concerned about the threat Tehran poses to our region, but we view these talks as a positive step.
With US and Iran holding indirect talks on returning to the 2015 nuclear deal, we offer a view from the region derived from our military, intelligence and diplomatic backgrounds.
We are concerned about the threat Tehran poses to our region, but we view these talks as a positive step.
Former US president Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, formally known at the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – a move that was encouraged and cheered by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – has led to a dangerous situation. Iran is now much closer to a nuclear bomb than it was before Trump pulled out. As the outgoing deputy director of the Mossad declared in a March 5 interview: “Our situation today is worse than it was at the time of the [2015] nuclear deal.” In our view, the best way available for US President Joe Biden’s administration to attain the objective National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan articulated – “to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and to do so through diplomacy” – and to restore America’s standing in the Middle East is to connect the Iran issue and the Palestinian question and integrate both into a multilateral, three-tiered Middle East policy: returning to the Iran deal, initiating an Israeli-Palestinian process and creating a regional coalition.
To be sure, many obstacles stand in the way of this policy’s success. The key is to construct a framework that meets the interests of the parties involved and corrects the nuclear deal’s biggest flaw. It ignored two Iran threats: development of conventional missiles with extended range, improved precision, and ability to carry a nuclear warhead; and Tehran’s support of terrorist groups to undermine regional stability – Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Houthis in Yemen and Syria. First, returning to the nuclear deal must involve lifting the sanctions imposed by the Trump administration, but conditioned on Iran’s immediate and complete cessation of its violations of the agreement, return of full inspection and tightening of procedures for procuring military equipment also suitable for use in the nuclear program.  Second, the Biden administration should initiate a gradual Israeli-Palestinian political process aimed at attaining a “two states for two peoples” agreement, in accordance with UN Security Council resolutions and an up-to-date Arab Peace Initiative. Having been personally involved in this effort for decades, we understand the impediments all too well.
We think they can be overcome.
US State Department statements “reaffirming the US commitment” to “a negotiated two-state solution” show the Americans would be on board. The statement from the four Middle East mediators, the US, Russia, EU and UN – known as the Quartet – calling for a return “to meaningful negotiations that will lead to a two-state solution” indicates the international community would also be. And the Palestinians’ letter to Biden committing to a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders signify they would, too.
But would the Israelis?
We recognize that Netanyahu opposes a two-state outcome. But his precarious political situation notwithstanding, previous staunchly right-wing prime ministers undertook less likely actions that surprised most pundits. Menachem Begin pulled Israel out of the Sinai Peninsula to sign a peace treaty with Egypt in 1979. Yitzhak Shamir attended the international Madrid Conference in 1991, which included Palestinians. Ariel Sharon pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005.  Even Netanyahu has agreed, in the Abraham Accords, to waive unilateral annexation of the West Bank in exchange for normalization agreements with Arab states. Thus, Israel engaging with the Palestinians should not be discounted no matter who its prime minister is, especially when the US maintains leverage. And third, Washington should create a regional coalition comprising Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf states. Led by the US, this partnership should also include key members of the EU and, most importantly, Israel. All parties to such a coalition have a common objective: to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons, continuing its missile project and perpetrating terrorism.
The US-brokered Abraham Accords demonstrate that such a coalition is attainable. But genuine progress on the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a prerequisite for leading Arab states accepting Israel’s participation. Indeed, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan said earlier in April that any Israel deal with Saudi Arabia was “very much dependent on progress with the peace process.” Consequently, initiating an Israeli-Palestinian process and establishing a regional coalition must be done in tandem.  With this process and coalition under way, the Biden administration would be able to introduce the “sticks” that were missing when former US president Barack Obama’s administration formed the nuclear deal and to address its basic flaw. Thus, the US could convey a credible military option without dispatching troops, by, for example: intervening in regional conflicts through provision of weapons directly or through proxy organizations; deploying intelligence monitoring of Iranian-inspired terrorism and Iranian nuclear actions; or expanding the coalition’ activities to include joint military exercises to address the scenario of Iranian violations of the nuclear agreement.
THIS PROPOSED policy would bring other benefits: Dispel the notion that America is abandoning regional countries’ interests to reach an agreement with Iran; enhance Israel’s acceptance in the region; foster progress on the Palestinian question; and negate the exploitation of the Palestinian issue by Iran.
For Iran, this policy would lift the US-led sanctions and reinstate other gains it realized through the 2015 JCPOA. In Israel, perhaps the greatest obstacle to our proposed framework, even our current leaders who fervently oppose a two-state solution will agree to engage with the Palestinians if that enables them to counter the Iranian threat, with normalization with Saudi Arabia as added benefit.
And for the US, this approach addresses two important Middle East challenges – Iran’s nuclear weapons program and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – while enabling America to regain its role as a global leader for peace and security. We realize that constructing this framework is a difficult undertaking, replete with potential pitfalls, and success far from certain. Nevertheless, if only because it would advance the interests of the parties involved, a policy integrating Iran talks, an Israeli-Palestinian process and a regional coalition is the most achievable course of action available for reaching the primary common goal: preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
*Ami Ayalon is former director of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and commander of the Israel Navy.
*Gilead Sher, former chief of staff for prime minister Ehud Barak and senior Israeli peace negotiator, heads the Institute for National Security Studies’ Center for Applied Negotiations.
*Orni Petruschka is a hi-tech entrepreneur.

Biden Administration to Support Palestinian Dictatorship
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute./April 09/2021
Sadly, while the Biden administration is talking about the "need to protect [Palestinian] civil society through the reduction of arrests of bloggers and dissidents," the Palestinian leadership is evidently moving in precisely the opposite direction.
While the Biden administration says it wants to strengthen Palestinian civil society organizations, the Palestinian leadership is working to tighten its grip on these organizations.
The elections are part of Abbas's attempt to curry favor with the Biden administration and present himself as a leader who cares about democracy and fair elections. The fact is that Abbas is desperate for US funding to preserve his regime and remain in power until his last day.
Abbas's punitive measures against [Nasser al-Kidwa, a former PA foreign minister] are aimed at sending a warning to these officials that they would meet the same fate should they run outside the Abbas-led list. Abbas is essentially announcing that anyone who challenges him will be expelled from Fatah and deprived of money and employment.
Instead of holding Abbas to account for his repressive measures, the Biden administration seems to be headed toward financially supporting his totalitarian regime.
According to the internal memo, the US is planning to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians in late March or early April. This means propping up Abbas and his associates ahead of the elections and allowing them to step up their campaign of intimidation against any candidate who dares to demand reforms and an end to rampant corruption.
The Biden administration is about to pump millions of dollars into Abbas's coffers to help him cut off the emergence of new and young leaders and to help him maintain his authoritarian rule over the Palestinians. Once the bounty is paid, Abbas shows all signs of stepping up his repressive measures against his rivals and critics to ensure that he and his Fatah faction triumph in the elections. The latest victim of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas's effort to intimidate his critics ahead of elections is Nasser al-Kidwa (pictured), a former PA foreign minister and a nephew of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat. Earlier this month, Abbas expelled Kidwa from Fatah and suspended PA funding to the organization he heads: the Yasser Arafat Foundation. He later fired Kidwa from his job as chairman of the foundation and ordered the arrest of his bodyguard, Qadri Ataya.
The Biden administration is reportedly planning to "reset" US relations with the Palestinians. An internal memo presented to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on March 1 states: "As we reset US relations with the Palestinians, the Palestinian body politic is at an inflection point as it moves towards its first elections in 15 years."
The memo reintroduces some of the issues that the George W. Bush and the Barack Obama administrations pushed forward, such as the strengthening of Palestinian institutions, including civil society and media watchdogs.
The document, in addition, mentions the resumption of US financial aid to the Palestinians and "means to advance the prospects of a negotiated two-state solution."
Sadly, while the Biden administration is talking about the "need to protect [Palestinian] civil society through the reduction of arrests of bloggers and dissidents," the Palestinian leadership is evidently moving in precisely the opposite direction.
Instead of enhancing the role of civil society organizations, the Palestinian leadership is hampering their work by imposing severe restrictions on them.
Instead of boosting public freedoms and bringing democracy to its people, the Palestinian leadership is harshly punishing those who speak out against its policies.
While the Biden administration says it wants to strengthen Palestinian civil society organizations, the Palestinian leadership is working to tighten its grip on these organizations.
Recently, Palestinian civil society organizations expressed their absolute rejection of attempts by the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership to impose severe restrictions on their work. The organizations were responding to a recent decree issued by PA President Mahmoud Abbas that effectively turns Palestinian non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into government-controlled institutions.
Abbas's decree requires the organizations to present to the PA government an "annual action plan and estimated budget." This means that the organizations will be working for the PA government and not in accordance with their vision, mission, goals or programs.
"This [decree] undermines the professionalism, independence and freedom of civic activity, including its monitoring role over the performance of the executive authority and its objective to hold this authority accountable for its violations," several Palestinian civil society organizations said in a joint statement.
"This law by decree was issued within the framework of several ongoing laws by decree that are drafted in full secrecy and behind closed doors... the law hinders the right of assembly and organization and the right to exercise activities independent of ministries and the executive authority...
"The aforementioned law by decree violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 20) and The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (Article 22), which confirms the basic right of freedom of association, independence of activities and financial sources. It also violates several resolutions issued by the UN Human Rights Council, including Resolution (22/6) of 21/03/2013, which calls on states not to impede the functional independence of associations and not to impose restrictions on potential sources of funding in a discriminatory manner."
Abbas's crackdown on Palestinian NGOs came as Palestinians prepare to hold their first general elections since 2006. The elections are part of Abbas's attempt to curry favor with the Biden administration and present himself as a leader who cares about democracy and fair elections. The fact is that Abbas is desperate for US funding to preserve his regime and remain in power until his last day.
The Palestinian parliamentary election has been set for May 22, while the vote for the PA presidency is scheduled to take place on July 31.
The timing of Abbas's move against the Palestinian civil society organizations is hardly coincidental. The 85-year-old Abbas wants to make sure that there is no criticism of him and his regime ahead of the elections.
Abbas is worried that Palestinian civil society organizations, which are not directly under the control of his government, would criticize him or his government on the eve of the planned elections. Such criticism, Abbas fears, will hurt his (and his ruling Fatah faction's) chances of winning the vote.
It is worth stressing that the Biden administration memo completely ignores Abbas's clampdown on the civil society organizations.
Abbas thus now feels free to crack down on any Palestinian who dares to differ with him or challenge his policies.
The latest victim of Abbas's effort to intimidate his critics ahead of the elections is Nasser al-Kidwa, a former PA foreign minister and a nephew of former PLO leader Yasser Arafat.
Earlier this month, Abbas expelled Kidwa from Fatah and suspended PA funding to the organization he heads: the Yasser Arafat Foundation. He later fired Kidwa from his job as chairman of the foundation and ordered the arrest of his bodyguard, Qadri Ataya.
Hassan Asfour, a former Palestinian cabinet minister and editor of the Palestinian news website Amad, denounced Abbas's measures against Kidwa as "political bullying."
Abbas's vengeance came in response to Kidwa's decision to form his own list to run in the parliamentary election. Kidwa is a member of the Fatah Central Committee, the highest decision-making body of Abbas's faction. Abbas was enraged because Kidwa said he wants to run on a separate list, and not as part of the Abbas-led Fatah slate.
In addition to Kidwa, a number of Fatah officials are also planning to run on separate lists in the parliamentary election. The officials are calling for a "radical change" of the Palestinian political system, a reference to the need to end Abbas's dictatorship.
Abbas's punitive measures against Kidwa are aimed at sending a warning to these officials that they would meet the same fate should they run outside the Abbas-led list. Abbas is essentially announcing that anyone who challenges him will be expelled from Fatah and deprived of money and employment.
Abbas is telling the Biden administration: Fund me to the tune of millions, my autocratic rule, assault on public freedoms and intimidation of critics and political rivals be damned.
Instead of holding Abbas to account for his repressive measures, the Biden administration seems to be headed toward financially supporting his totalitarian regime.
According to the internal memo, the US is planning to resume unconditional financial aid to the Palestinians in late March or early April. This means propping up Abbas and his associates ahead of the elections and allowing them to step up their campaign of intimidation against any candidate who dares to demand reforms and an end to rampant corruption.
The Biden administration is about to pump millions of dollars into Abbas's coffers to help him cut off the emergence of new and young leaders and to help him maintain his authoritarian rule over the Palestinians. Once the bounty is paid, Abbas shows all signs of stepping up his repressive measures against his rivals and critics to ensure that he and his Fatah faction triumph in the elections.
*Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2021 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.

Question: "Why should I believe in Christ’s resurrection?"
GotQuestions.org/April 09/2021
Answer: It is a fairly well-established fact that Jesus Christ was publicly executed in Judea in the 1st Century A.D., under Pontius Pilate, by means of crucifixion, at the behest of the Jewish Sanhedrin. The non-Christian historical accounts of Flavius Josephus, Cornelius Tacitus, Lucian of Samosata, Maimonides and even the Jewish Sanhedrin corroborate the early Christian eyewitness accounts of these important historical aspects of the death of Jesus Christ.
As for His resurrection, there are several lines of evidence which make for a compelling case. The late jurisprudential prodigy and international statesman Sir Lionel Luckhoo (of The Guinness Book of World Records fame for his unprecedented 245 consecutive defense murder trial acquittals) epitomized Christian enthusiasm and confidence in the strength of the case for the resurrection when he wrote, “I have spent more than 42 years as a defense trial lawyer appearing in many parts of the world and am still in active practice. I have been fortunate to secure a number of successes in jury trials and I say unequivocally the evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”
The secular community’s response to the same evidence has been predictably apathetic in accordance with their steadfast commitment to methodological naturalism. For those unfamiliar with the term, methodological naturalism is the human endeavor of explaining everything in terms of natural causes and natural causes only. If an alleged historical event defies natural explanation (e.g., a miraculous resurrection), secular scholars generally treat it with overwhelming skepticism, regardless of the evidence, no matter how favorable and compelling it may be.
In our view, such an unwavering allegiance to natural causes regardless of substantive evidence to the contrary is not conducive to an impartial (and therefore adequate) investigation of the evidence. We agree with Dr. Wernher von Braun and numerous others who still believe that forcing a popular philosophical predisposition upon the evidence hinders objectivity. Or in the words of Dr. von Braun, “To be forced to believe only one conclusion… would violate the very objectivity of science itself.”
Having said that, let us now examine several lines of evidence for Christ’s resurrection.
The First Line of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
To begin with, we have demonstrably sincere eyewitness testimony. Early Christian apologists cited hundreds of eyewitnesses, some of whom documented their own alleged experiences. Many of these eyewitnesses willfully and resolutely endured prolonged torture and death rather than repudiate their testimony. This fact attests to their sincerity, ruling out deception on their part. According to the historical record (The Book of Acts 4:1-17; Pliny’s Letters to Trajan X, 97, etc) most Christians could end their suffering simply by renouncing the faith. Instead, it seems that most opted to endure the suffering and proclaim Christ’s resurrection unto death.
Granted, while martyrdom is remarkable, it is not necessarily compelling. It does not validate a belief so much as it authenticates a believer (by demonstrating his or her sincerity in a tangible way). What makes the earliest Christian martyrs remarkable is that they knew whether or not what they were professing was true. They either saw Jesus Christ alive-and-well after His death or they did not. This is extraordinary. If it was all just a lie, why would so many perpetuate it given their circumstances? Why would they all knowingly cling to such an unprofitable lie in the face of persecution, imprisonment, torture, and death?
While the September 11, 2001, suicide hijackers undoubtedly believed what they professed (as evidenced by their willingness to die for it), they could not and did not know if it was true. They put their faith in traditions passed down to them over many generations. In contrast, the early Christian martyrs were the first generation. Either they saw what they claimed to see, or they did not.
Among the most illustrious of the professed eyewitnesses were the Apostles. They collectively underwent an undeniable change following the alleged post-resurrection appearances of Christ. Immediately following His crucifixion, they hid in fear for their lives. Following the resurrection they took to the streets, boldly proclaiming the resurrection despite intensifying persecution. What accounts for their sudden and dramatic change? It certainly was not financial gain. The Apostles gave up everything they had to preach the resurrection, including their lives.
The Second Line of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
A second line of evidence concerns the conversion of certain key skeptics, most notably Paul and James. Paul was of his own admission a violent persecutor of the early Church. After what he described as an encounter with the resurrected Christ, Paul underwent an immediate and drastic change from a vicious persecutor of the Church to one of its most prolific and selfless defenders. Like many early Christians, Paul suffered impoverishment, persecution, beatings, imprisonment, and execution for his steadfast commitment to Christ’s resurrection.
James was skeptical, though not as hostile as Paul. A purported post-resurrection encounter with Christ turned him into an inimitable believer, a leader of the Church in Jerusalem. We still have what scholars generally accept to be one of his letters to the early Church. Like Paul, James willingly suffered and died for his testimony, a fact which attests to the sincerity of his belief (see The Book of Acts and Josephus’ Antiquities of the Jews XX, ix, 1).
The Third and Fourth Lines of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
A third line and fourth line of evidence concern enemy attestation to the empty tomb and the fact that faith in the resurrection took root in Jerusalem. Jesus was publicly executed and buried in Jerusalem. It would have been impossible for faith in His resurrection to take root in Jerusalem while His body was still in the tomb where the Sanhedrin could exhume it, put it on public display, and thereby expose the hoax. Instead, the Sanhedrin accused the disciples of stealing the body, apparently in an effort to explain its disappearance (and therefore an empty tomb). How do we explain the fact of the empty tomb? Here are the three most common explanations:
First, the disciples stole the body. If this were the case, they would have known the resurrection was a hoax. They would not therefore have been so willing to suffer and die for it. (See the first line of evidence concerning demonstrably sincere eyewitness testimony.) All of the professed eyewitnesses would have known that they hadn’t really seen Christ and were therefore lying. With so many conspirators, surely someone would have confessed, if not to end his own suffering then at least to end the suffering of his friends and family. The first generation of Christians were absolutely brutalized, especially following the conflagration in Rome in A.D. 64 (a fire which Nero allegedly ordered to make room for the expansion of his palace, but which he blamed on the Christians in Rome in an effort to exculpate himself). As the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus recounted in his Annals of Imperial Rome (published just a generation after the fire):
“Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.” (Annals, XV, 44)
Nero illuminated his garden parties with Christians whom he burnt alive. Surely someone would have confessed the truth under the threat of such terrible pain. The fact is, however, we have no record of any early Christian denouncing the faith to end his suffering. Instead, we have multiple accounts of post-resurrection appearances and hundreds of eyewitnesses willing to suffer and die for it.
If the disciples didn’t steal the body, how else do we explain the empty tomb? Some have suggested that Christ faked His death and later escaped from the tomb. This is patently absurd. According to the eyewitness testimony, Christ was beaten, tortured, lacerated, and stabbed. He suffered internal damage, massive blood loss, asphyxiation, and a spear through His heart. There is no good reason to believe that Jesus Christ (or any other man for that matter) could survive such an ordeal, fake His death, sit in a tomb for three days and nights without medical attention, food or water, remove the massive stone which sealed His tomb, escape undetected (without leaving behind a trail of blood), convince hundreds of eyewitnesses that He was resurrected from the death and in good health, and then disappear without a trace. Such a notion is ridiculous.
The Fifth Line of Evidence for Christ’s resurrection
Finally, a fifth line of evidence concerns a peculiarity of the eyewitness testimony. In all of the major resurrection narratives, women are credited as the first and primary eyewitnesses. This would be an odd invention since in both the ancient Jewish and Roman cultures women were severely disesteemed. Their testimony was regarded as insubstantial and dismissible. Given this fact, it is highly unlikely that any perpetrators of a hoax in 1st Century Judea would elect women to be their primary witnesses. Of all the male disciples who claimed to see Jesus resurrected, if they all were lying and the resurrection was a scam, why did they pick the most ill-perceived, distrusted witnesses they could find?
Dr. William Lane Craig explains, “When you understand the role of women in first-century Jewish society, what’s really extraordinary is that this empty tomb story should feature women as the discoverers of the empty tomb in the first place. Women were on a very low rung of the social ladder in first-century Israel. There are old rabbinical sayings that said, 'Let the words of Law be burned rather than delivered to women' and 'blessed is he whose children are male, but woe to him whose children are female.' Women’s testimony was regarded as so worthless that they weren’t even allowed to serve as legal witnesses in a Jewish court of Law. In light of this, it’s absolutely remarkable that the chief witnesses to the empty tomb are these women... Any later legendary account would have certainly portrayed male disciples as discovering the tomb - Peter or John, for example. The fact that women are the first witnesses to the empty tomb is most plausibly explained by the reality that - like it or not - they were the discoverers of the empty tomb! This shows that the Gospel writers faithfully recorded what happened, even if it was embarrassing. This bespeaks the historicity of this tradition rather than its legendary status." (Dr. William Lane Craig, quoted by Lee Strobel, The Case For Christ, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1998, p. 293)
In Summary
These lines of evidence: the demonstrable sincerity of the eyewitnesses (and in the Apostles’ case, compelling, inexplicable change), the conversion and demonstrable sincerity of key antagonists- and skeptics-turned-martyrs, the fact of the empty tomb, enemy attestation to the empty tomb, the fact that all of this took place in Jerusalem where faith in the resurrection began and thrived, the testimony of the women, the significance of such testimony given the historical context; all of these strongly attest to the historicity of the resurrection. We encourage our readers to thoughtfully consider these evidences. What do they suggest to you? Having pondered them ourselves, we resolutely affirm Sir Lionel’s declaration:
“The evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ is so overwhelming that it compels acceptance by proof which leaves absolutely no room for doubt.”

Iran pres candidate gives racist/sexist rant: Women resort to African men
Benjamin Weinthal/Jerusalem Post/April 09.2021
Security forces arrested family members of the victims of the regime's 2019 mass murder of protesters against regime corruption.
A candidate for the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ali Motahari, who is widely considered a reformist, on Tuesday issued a racist and misogynist diatribe against black men and women during a group telephone call with more than 6,000 participants.
Motahari said during a Clubhouse telephone video discussion that “right now they have problems in Europe. Men are not aroused and women are resorting to African men.”
He termed “freedom of dress” for women an “animal right.” The Islamic Republic imposes a compulsory hijab system on women. Motahari, who is slated to run as a presidential candidate in the June 2021 presidential election, added: “If somebody is not aroused on the beach, then he is sick. God wants us to get aroused. Men must be aroused. It is good that a young man is aroused by seeing the hand of a woman.”
The women’s right campaigner and journalist Masih Alinejad responded to Motahari’s statement in a tweet: “What an outrageous comment.”
Arash Azizi, the author of Shadow Commander: Soleimani, US and Iran’s Global Ambition, tweeted: “Remember when Ali Motahari, a pro-Rouhani Iran MP & Majlis former deputy speaker, supported BlackLivesMatter? He is now running for president and has this gem: ‘In Europe, there is a problem of men not getting aroused by women which is why women are going after African men!”’
The online website IranWire wrote that Motahari “went on to set a new low in terms of racism and sexism even by his own, well-documented standards.”
Critics of Iran’s regime argue that the alleged difference between the Islamic Republic’s so-called hard-liners and reformists is a distinction without a difference.
The 63-year-old Motahari, who has a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Tehran, served in the Iranian regime’s parliament. He is the son of Morteza Motahari, who was a Shi’ite scholar and disciple of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
According to IranWire, Motahari delivered a 2002 speech to the Iranian parliament, declaring the “spread of bad hijab” in Iran.
He said then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and vice president Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei implemented a “pants and knee-length manteau” for women that triggered “sexual incitement.” He warned that the Ahmadinejad administration is contemplating “setting up cabarets and nightclubs.”
Separately, security forces for Iran’s regime on Wednesday arrested family members of victims of the regime’s 2019 mass murder of protesters against regime corruption. According to social media posts, the regime’s forces in Isfahan arrested at least 30 family members who sought to commemorate the memory of their murdered family members. A Reuters investigation determined that Iran’s regime murdered roughly 1,500 of its own people during the 2019 nation-wide protests.
The mother of Ebrahim Ketabdar, a protester killed by the regime during the 2019 demonstrations, suffered a loss of consciousness.
Alinejad tweeted: “These families lost their children when the Islamic Republic of Iran killed an estimated more than 1500 Iranian protesters in Nov 2019. They’re singing Iran’s national anthem, forbidden by the regime. They’re patriots. Yesterday, the regime arrested 30 family members.”
 

Jordan: State Loyalty Put to the Test
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 09/2021
Jordan has suffered the most from the political instability that has marked the region for decades. Throughout the years, it paid the price over and over again: Palestinian displacement waves, thousands of Iraqis crossing its borders following the invasion, and over one million Syrians fleeing to the country after 2011. Amid the instability that still plagues its three neighbors alone, Jordan is a victim of geopolitics, and to this day, Jordanians must share their livelihoods with millions of refugees, both old and new -- not to mention the increasing political risks that fall on the shoulders of the Hashemite Kingdom. Yet, despite threats of tension and possible unrest due to neighboring wars, Jordan maintained its internal peace, thanks to the strength of their state and the solid relationship between the leadership and the people. It is known that Jordan is a patient country. However, it became certain that its patience has run out when it announced a series of arrests targeting those accused in the case of Prince Hamza and declared its intention to conduct State Security trials and enact laws that will protect Jordan from any threats of chaos in the country.
Support came flooding in as all major and regional powers backed Jordan and King Abdullah. Much to their dismay, those who were betting on cornering the political leadership and polarizing the country were disappointed to see an influx of explicit domestic and foreign support for the Jordanian state and its leadership instead.
On the very eve of the arrest of the persons accused of conspiring to cause instability, Jordan's first message in the statement it issued was that everything is under control. This was evidenced in the streets that did not see any army tanks, security forces, or protests while Jordanians voiced their support for the political leadership and the country’s stability.
King Abdullah Bin Hussein enjoys great popularity among Jordanians, given his close and participatory relationship with them and his eagerness to drive government institutions to perform their duties towards the citizens.
Over the course of many a difficult year, Jordan was able to maintain its social and economic balance. The kingdom does not have any oil to speak of and its maritime access is quite limited while its river has barely any water flowing in it, but Jordan’s real wealth comes from the education and skills of its people; highly competent men and women who serve as the country’s key economic resource. Despite its limited financial resources, the World Bank rated Jordan as one the best countries in terms of infrastructure. However, with some luck, Jordan could start its shale oil operations as soon as next year according to estimates of large deposits of shale oil underlying Jordan’s territory. Like other countries in the region, Jordan’s problem is not the economy itself as much as the secondhand repercussions of the turmoil afflicting neighboring countries. Not only does this scare off investors, but also places heavy burdens on the state to prevent any ensuing risks. When stability and normality are restored in Iraq and Syria, then Jordan’s security and economy will finally thrive, and the same goes for its western neighbor, where the promised Palestinian state lies. The attempted coup that never saw the light in Jordan this week sounds the alarm for all countries in this flaming region as preventing the return of political upheavals has become a common demand.

Iran: Between Illusion and Reality
Amir Taheri/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 09/2021
The old script is out of the files and dusted, the décor shined and up, and the puppet-master testing the strings and flexing his fingers. But something is still missing: new puppets to make the show attractive to those who have seen the same old puppets once too often.
Got it? We are talking of the presidential election in the Islamic Republic in Iran, scheduled for next June but so far attracting little attention. In previous versions of the show, interest in it started up to two years before polling day as rival factions within the regime mobilized to reach for the prize or at least make an impression. On at least two occasions the rigmarole produced one pleasantly surprising result and one unexpectedly horrible one. On a third occasion, it triggered a nationwide prising that pushed the Khomeinist regime to the edge of collapse.
Those of us who had long conceded that this simulacrum of an election was an insult to human intelligence, nonetheless maintained an interest in it for at least two reasons.
First it provided an instant snapshot of the balance of power within the Khomeinist camp. Then the election also provided a rough indication of the regime’s ability in producing a credible turnout of voters. To these I would add a third reason, often rejected by many ran observers: the possibility, no matter how remote, of correcting the nation’s tragic trajectory even if only slightly. This time round, however, none of the above reasons seem to be relevant. The balance of power has solidified in favor of those who have reduced four decades of revolutionary experience and its ideological cocktail of misunderstood shiism and misguided communism to a banal Stalinist cult of personality built around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the self-styled “Supreme Guide”. It is no accident that Ayatollah Khatami, one of the mullahs most in vogue within the system insists that ever vote next June will be a vote for the “Supreme Guide” and the regime as a whole.
Gone are the days when Muhammad-Javad Zarif, presenting himself as Foreign Minister of Iran, no mention of the Islamic Republic or of Islam itself, and entertain the Council on Foreign Relations grandees with his tale of a “moderate” pro-US faction competing with a radical anti-American one for power in Tehran. As for voter turnout, we now know that the regime has set the stage for an “historic event”. Revolutionary Guard chief Gen. Hussein Salami says the “Supreme Gide” has ordered “an epoch-making turnout” that his force will help assemble.
As for the third reason, it is clear that the “Supreme Guide” will not tolerate the slightest deviation from the course he has set a revolution that he claims is moving from strength to strength. “Today we are stronger and America is weaker,” he said recently. One of his ideological gurus, Dr. Hassan Abbasi, aka “Dr. Kissinger of Islam”, goes further: “America is the sunset power,” he says. “We are the sunrise power!”
Last year there was some speculation regarding Khamenei’s decision to allow one of the younger generals of the IRGC to assume the presidency, thus pushing turbaned heads, except that of his own, into the background. Surprisingly, however, none of the IRGC’s heavy-lifters have come forward.
A former Defense Minister has thrown his cap in the ring with few people noticing. His chief claim to revolutionary competence is that he was one of the “students” who seized American diplomats hostage 41 years ago. He has been joined by a younger brigadier-general whose chief claim to fame is the building of railways that go nowhere and bridges that collapse before inauguration. A third IRGC apparatchik has also jumped in: he is a former head of the state-owned radio and TV network with a perhaps unique record: under his leadership the state-owned networks lost 70 percent of their audiences.
Not prepared to swallow the absurdity of the situation regime apologist are praying that other more serious candidates might emerge. The current Speaker of the Islamic Majlis, the ersatz parliament, Muhammad-Baer Qalibaf is one of those mentioned. His star rose when Khamenei chose him to deliver a “secret letter” to Russian President Vladimir Putin. His star declined when Putin refused to see him and turned him back at the gates of the Kremlin under snow. (He delivered the letter later to the Russian Duma’s Speaker.) Another putative candidate is former Speaker Ali Larijani. His star rose when Khamenei put him in charge of negotiations with China for a “strategic partnership”. The so-called deal turned out to be a mouth-watering wish list of the kind Lili Gantry presented to her lovers. The exercise exposed Zari and President Hasan Rouhani as extras in a comedia del arte number but revived Larijani’s half dead presidential ambitions.
Regardless of who else might join this show it is clear that the Khomeinist camp has no solution for Iran’s growing and growingly complex problems. It also lacks a charismatic figure capable of enthusing at least the regime’s bedrock of support.
Having said all that the coming election may still be of interest for another reason. It could end the illusion that the Khomeinist regime might change course and seize opportunity offered to it to re-join the global mainstream.
That would leave the outside world, including Iran’s neighbors, to decide either to tolerate its warts or to actively work for regime change in Tehran. The four-decade pursuit of “behavior change in Tehran” would have to be reviewed. The shedding of illusions might also persuade Iranians, including segments of the regime’s support base, to decide whether or not the status quo is their best option. Zarif implies that it took him almost 40 years to realize that” we chose to live differently” from everyone else in the world.
Behzad Nabavi, an elder statesman of the “moderate” faction sees “living differently” even more starkly than Zarif. “I prefer to be poor but proud,” he says.” If the choice is between freedom and independence, I shall always choose the latter.”Khamenei speaks of a “conspiracy” to force Iran to become a “normal nation” like everyone else and vows to never allow that to happen.
Iran may be heading for an end to pretense: The Khomeinist system isn’t a Middle Eastern version of the people-based Scandinavian Social Democracy as Noam Chomsky thinks. It is a despotism of the medieval kind with a pseudo-modern varnish borrowed from misunderstood Marxism. The replacement of illusion with reality, no matter how bitter, may be good news after all.

Causes Without Their Subjects
Hussam Itani/Asharq Al-Awsat/April 09/2021
Causes only acquire meaning and value once they are part of a grand project that does not take mortals and their short lives on this earth into consideration. Committing to a cause is making daily preparations for something great, something that is beyond people’s ability to understand it and the limits of their comprehension of their daily lives’ fate.
With this inverted logic drawn from the darkness of the past, popular analysts in the Arab Levante and the axis of resistance’s arenas build their arguments: the cause is more important than its subjects because its dangers go beyond them. The Palestinian cause would not be resolved by the Palestinian people obtaining their right to live decent lives on their land. Indeed, it is bigger than that. It embodies the eternal struggle between good and evil, which will come to a head in Jerusalem. Until then, people can be left to die and be humiliated. Any settlement is a betrayal and any negotiation a forfeiture. The misery of the camps’ inhabitants, their illnesses, and poverty are minutiae that do not catch the attention of those who know what is happening behind the scenes or those with foresight.
Syria’s survival is not linked to its people’s repression, the destruction of their neighborhoods, their displacement, or their country’s changing demography… The resistance regime in Damascus’s position in the regional map is where it should be, not where its residents want it to be. This map is drawn by those defending their authority, negotiating with their enemies, and spreading ignorance, chaos, and darkness in order to make their sick vision for the world a reality.
This inverted logic empties the issue of its contents and the cause of its substance, turning things into statues to be worshiped and offered sacrifices, nothing new in our countries. The conflict over priorities and meaning, which can be summed up in the radical disagreement about the value of human life and its centrality to politics, the economy, society, and culture, has not ended yet. Instead, unfortunately, it is quickly regressing towards new paganism that raises slogans of “jihad” and great causes.
An example of this can be seen in the tweet of a political science professor at the Lebanese University, Sheikh Sadiq Al-Nabulsi. In it, he belittles the significance of the afflictions the Lebanese have been facing and considers them a distraction from more critical issues. “Shifting public attention away from real issues towards marginal issues: Egypt: moving antique statues from Luxor to Tahrir Square - Lebanon: The price of a dollar ... a loaf ... gasoline ... blackouts.” (If the political science professor had given it a minute of his time, he would have noticed that mummies, not “antique statues,” were transferred; and they were transferred from the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square to the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization in the city of Fustat and that Luxor is hundreds of kilometers away from both the site the mummies were taken from and the place they were taken to, but this is not what we are concerned with here).
This tweet sums up a pompous stance on the issues that concern ordinary people: to care about the price of foreign currencies- which determines your salaries’ value and your purchasing power, thus what your children will eat and whether or not you can feed and clothe them- is to fall into a trap that diverts public opinion from the real issues that inevitably preoccupy Sheikh Nabil, who does care for trivialities like bread, gasoline, and electricity.
In all likelihood, the latter only concern plebs who give worldly concerns precedence over their obligations to causes whose prioritization and importance are determined by erudite men who, in their kinship and their university degrees, are of the top brass of the party whose secretary-general announced that its members are still being paid in hard currency.
The issue is not limited to emptying causes of their content to ensure permanent control and indisputable, unquestionable authority. Rather, it goes as far as being an enchanted perception of the meanings of the causes themselves, a perception based on causes’ links to an intentions are not articulated whose causes and motives that are impossible to understand, just like the Lebanese do not understand why Hezbollah defends corruption, disrupts all attempts at reform, and labels treacherous anyone who dare to challenge the criminal political elite that caused the destruction of Beirut, killing hundreds of innocents. The same applies to Gazans, who see Hamas authorities are doubling down and adding to their missile arsenal, which is being reinforced without any ideas on how to end the suffering caused by the deadly Israeli blockade or to fight the occupation. This is the case for all the stagnant causes that discussing is forbidden, as is criticizing the actions that bring calamities to the causes’ subjects. These prohibitions are imposed instead of rational ways to solve the issues and resolving them in the subjects’ favor. The significance of the Sheikh’s rhetoric does not stem from whom he is as a person but its alignment with a narrative and behavior that contributed strongly to destroying any assessment that can oversee the future and further the interests of the region’s peoples. Indeed, they are leading these peoples to centuries of schisms.

Can the Islamic Republic Change?
Michael Young/Carnegie MEC/April 09/2021
In an interview, Karim Sadjadpour outlines what a realistic U.S. policy toward Iran should look like.
Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. policy toward the Middle East. Recently, Sadjadpour wrote an important article for The Atlantic, titled “How to Win the Cold War with Iran,” in which he sought to outline the foundations for a more realistic U.S. approach toward the country. Diwan interviewed Sadjadpour in early April to discuss his article, and more generally to get a sense of where the U.S.-Iranian relationship stands today as the Biden administration seeks to return the United States to the nuclear deal with Iran.
Michael Young: You’ve just written an essay titled “How to Win the Cold War with Iran” for The Atlantic. What is your main argument?
Karim Sadjadpour: I tried to distill the main lessons I’ve learned over the last two decades thinking about Iran and U.S. policy toward Iran. During the first quarter of my career I lived in Tehran and Beirut, and during the last three quarters I have been based in Washington D.C.
Any effective U.S. strategy toward Iran first requires an honest assessment of the nature of the Islamic Republic, and must aim to address three specific questions: Is the Islamic Republic capable of meaningful reform? Is the Islamic Republic able to abandon anti-Americanism as part of its revolutionary ideology? Is the Islamic Republic likely to change its longtime regional policies, including its opposition to Israel’s existence and cultivation of regional militias such as Hezbollah?
When I first began my career, I was confident that the answer to all these questions was yes. Over time I gradually came to the opposite conclusion—that for a variety of reasons the Islamic Republic, like many revolutionary regimes, is unlikely to be able to fundamentally alter its character, especially now after four decades.
The question is how should the United States approach an Iranian regime that needs America as an adversary, but is at the same time integral to several critical U.S. national security concerns? I wrote that “it requires the flexibility of a gymnast and the precision of a surgeon to cooperate with Iran when possible, confront Iran when necessary, and contain Iran with the help of partner nations.” Yet a U.S. strategy that focuses only on the nuclear and regional ambitions of the Iranian government while overlooking the democratic ambitions of the Iranian people ignores the lessons of how the Cold War ended.
MY: In your essay, you cite former Iranian president Mohammed Khatami as saying that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had told him that “Iran needs enmity with America, the revolution needs enmity with America.” Can you explain what Khamenei meant, and in light of such a statement is normalization possible between Washington and Tehran?
KS: Khatami told me this at a private meeting in Oslo in 2008. I was shocked by his candor with me, and Khamenei’s candor with him. In essence, opposition to the United States is for Khamenei an ideological pillar of the revolution and part of the identity of the Islamic Republic. The culture of “Death to America” doesn’t serve the national interests of Iran—in other words the economic and security interests of the Iranian people—but it has served Khamenei’s parochial interests in that he understands he can best preserve his authority in a closed environment and needs an external adversary as a pretext for internal failings and repression.
The short answer to your question is that for as long as Khamenei is alive, there will be no normalization between the United States and Iran. By normalization I mean a U.S. embassy in Tehran and an Iranian embassy in Washington D.C. That is not an argument against deescalation with Iran, it just means we should be realistic about what is achievable.
MY: You argue that the soundest template for dealing with Iran is one that “contains, counters, and communicates” with the country, along the lines of what the United States did with the former Soviet Union. Can you explain what you mean?
KS: It’s important to try to maintain an official, private channel of communication with the Islamic Republic, even if it is used primarily to communicate mutual concerns or “red lines.” The United States had such a channel with the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. It will not bring peace between the United States and Iran, but it can help to prevent conflict.
There are also going to be times when the United States will be required to counter Iranian provocations. If Iran or its proxies launch attacks against U.S. personnel or partners in the Middle East, a failure to react risks emboldening Tehran to believe it can continue to push with impunity. The challenge for the United States is to confront Iran with the intention of deterring, rather than provoking, further escalation.
Much of U.S. policy toward Iran is going to be about containing Tehran’s nuclear and regional ambitions. The United States cannot do this unilaterally; it requires the active support and cooperation of U.S. global allies and regional partners.
MY: You also make a key point that it would be unrealistic for the United States to discuss nuclear nonproliferation, regional security, and Iranian civil rights in one negotiation, which may be how the Biden administration would like to proceed in reviving the nuclear agreement. What would you suggest instead?
KS: My sense is that the Biden administration does not want to expand nuclear discussions with Iran to include Tehran’s regional or domestic policies. I think that is prudent. I think the question is how do you make these three priorities complimentary rather than contradictory? When the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal with Iran, was signed in 2015, many people who were concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions and domestic brutality felt their issues were sacrificed at the altar of the nuclear deal. I think there should be a way to craft an Iran strategy in which these objectives are not at odds with one another but mutually reinforcing.
MY: There is a view in some quarters of the United States that the Biden administration is just another version of the Obama administration when it comes to Iran. In other words, Washington, by reviving the nuclear deal, seeks to realign with Iran in the region and recognize its regional stakes, at the expense of U.S. allies such as the Gulf states and Israel. Do you see evidence of this?
KS: Iran is a much lower priority for the Biden administration than it was for the Obama administration. Biden understandably wants to spend his time and political capital on an ambitious domestic agenda, not on the Middle East.
There is also another key difference. The Obama administration hoped that the nuclear deal might serve to transform Iranian politics and the U.S.-Iran relationship. Obama’s Central Intelligence Agency director, John Brennan, wrote in his 2020 memoir, Undaunted: My Fight Against America’s Enemies, At Home and Abroad, that Obama believed the nuclear deal was “essential not only for regional stability but also to strengthen the influence of Iranian moderates, especially Iranian [P]resident Hassan Rouhani and Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif.” I don’t think Biden and his senior advisors have any illusions that Iran’s domestic and regional policies will soften if the nuclear deal is revived, or that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is interested in a cooperative relationship with the United States.
MY: You write that Washington’s regional allies must proscribe Iran’s support for regional proxies and violations of their sovereignty. While some states can do so, many more—Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, or Syria—are either incapable of this or do not want to do so. How would you resolve this dilemma?
KS: The countries that you mention—Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria—have weak or embattled governments, and deeply polarized societies that either view Iran as an indispensably ally or an existential threat. Iran, through its cultivation of militias, has proven more adept than any other country in the Middle East at filling these regional power vacuums.
I wrote that “Arab disorder facilitates Iranian ambitions, and Iranian ambitions exacerbate Arab disorder.” What that implies is that the only enduring way to inhibit Iranian influence is by rebuilding functional Arab governmental institutions and allaying societal polarization, which is much easier said than done. This is at least a generational endeavor that will require diplomatic leadership from the United States and its global and regional partners.
But I would argue the situation is not as hopeless as it may appear. First, there is growing resentment of Iranian influence, even within the Shi‘a communities of Iraq and Lebanon. Second, Gulf countries have resources that Tehran does not have to try and compete for Arab hearts and minds in countries where Iran wields influence. Third, Europe has been on the receiving end of the refugee crisis that Iran and its regional allies have helped to create and would like to change the status quo. Finally, China actually has deeper economic relations with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates than Iran, and it seeks a stable Middle East to ensure the free flow of resources from the region. China abided by a U.S.-led effort to contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, and I would argue a similar U.S.-led global diplomatic initiative is needed to address security in the Middle East, including Iran’s regional ambitions.
MY: You present an interesting argument in favor of reviving the nuclear deal, by observing that an improvement in the economic circumstances of Iran could destabilize the country if the rising expectations of the population remain unfulfilled. Can you explain your reasoning in more detail.
KS: The American sociologist James Davies observed in 1969 that popular uprisings tend to occur “when a prolonged period of objective economic and social development is followed by a short period of sharp reversal.” In other words it’s not crushing poverty that most often leads to political unrest, but when a society’s improving economic circumstances lead to elevated expectations that go unfulfilled. This is commonly called the J-Curve theory or the revolution of rising expectations. In fact that theory is commonly used to explain Iran’s revolution in 1979.
Many opponents of the Islamic Republic worry that a revival of the nuclear deal will provide Iran with sanctions relief that will entrench the regime. Yet the near-term economic improvements that might result from a removal of U.S. sanctions are likelier in the medium and long term to destabilize the Islamic Republic rather than entrench it. The more Iranians fully understand that what stands between them and a better future is their own leadership, not the United States, the more the country’s most potent ideology—Iranian nationalism—will be harnessed against the regime rather than in service of it.
MY: You write that history is not on the side of the Islamic Republic, because it lacks democratic mechanisms for renewal. Yet authoritarian systems seem to be doing much better today than a decade ago, so why is that necessarily true?
KS: The Islamic Republic is rare in that it is not only highly politically authoritarian, but it is also socially and economically authoritarian. It spends an inordinate amount of time and money policing not only what its citizens say, but how they dress, what they drink, whom they love, and what they read and watch.
Iran today is a theocracy ruled by elderly religious men, presiding over an increasingly secular society whose most educated members are young women. Its economy is heavily reliant on the sale of oil and gas at a time when the global reliance on fossil fuels is decreasing. In contrast to China, which has offered its citizens greater prosperity while depriving them of political freedom, Iran offers political, economic, and social repression without much upside. Repression and intimidation can sustain these contradictions for years, but not indefinitely. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, those who make political reform impossible make political revolution inevitable.
*Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
 

As the Syrian conflict completes 10 years, new diplomatic initiatives are taking shape
Talmiz Ahmad/Arab News/April 09, 2021
The 10-year commemoration of Syria’s bloody civil conflict in March has evoked expressions of anguish and some new diplomatic initiatives.
Nearly half-a-million people have been killed and several million more displaced since the conflict started on March 15, 2011.
The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, described the Syrian situation as a “living nightmare” and recalled the “atrocities” and “greatest crimes” that have been inflicted on its people. He noted that 60 percent of the population could suffer hunger this year.
The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, mourned the “unimaginable violence and indignities” that the Syrian people have endured over the last decade, and applauded their “resilience.”
Widespread fatigue with the Syrian imbroglio was reflected at the online donors’ conference that the UN organized in Brussels on March 29. Mark Lowcock, head of UN humanitarian assistance and emergency relief, spoke of a decade of “death, destruction, displacement, disease, dread and despair” in Syria. But this exuberance of verbosity raised only SR24 billion ($6.4 billion) for the year against the target of $10 billion. Other than Germany, every other country reduced its commitment as compared to the previous year.
In an ironic move on March 18, hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in Idlib, Al-Bab and Azaz in the northern opposition-controlled areas of Syria to mark the 10th anniversary of their “revolution.” They replayed their decade-old slogans of freedom, justice and dignity, and affirmed their pledge to bring down the regime of Bashar Assad. They chose to forget that their cause has failed and Assad now controls 60 percent of the country.
There are however some signs of fresh thinking on Syria. At the Arab League Foreign Ministers meeting in Cairo on March 3, the Egyptian minister, Sameh Shoukry, called for Syria’s return to the Arab League from which it was ousted a decade ago. He stressed that this would need to be part of a holistic “political solution” that would also include the Syrian opposition. Some Egyptian commentators believe that Syria’s return to the league would facilitate the national peace process while reducing the influence of non-Arab states in the country.
In this background, the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, mounted a major diplomatic foray in the Gulf when he visited Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar on March 8-12. Syria was the main subject of discussion, signaling a new Arab interest in addressing Syria-related matters to facilitate the country’s return to the Arab fold.
Lavrov obtained a fairly clear understanding of present thinking on Syria in the region. The UAE Foreign Minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, described Syria’s return to the Arab ranks as in the interest “of Syria and the region.” He also criticized US sanctions on Syria under the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act. An important development during the Lavrov tour was the meeting in Doha on March 11 of the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Qatar. While Qatar opposed Syria’s early return to the Arab League, the three ministers announced their new “trilateral consultation process” to achieve a “lasting political solution” in Syria. In their joint statement, they affirmed their commitment to Syria’s territorial integrity and an inclusive political settlement, and their backing for the efforts of the constitutional committee and the early return of displaced persons to their homes.
This initiative suggests that the Astana peace process has reached the end of its useful life and the situation now needs a fresh approach with a new partner. Qatar’s inclusion in the tripartite process could perhaps help to moderate Turkey’s territorial and political ambitions in Syria. This will be a formidable challenge. In a Bloomberg article on March 15, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sought “Western support” for Istanbul's agenda in Syria, which means backing for Turkey’s “safe-zone” in the north, its confrontation with the Kurds, and its military presence in northern Syria.
After 10 years of a lethal conflict, the situation in Syria remains as intractable and as murky as ever.
This approach seems to be another instance of Erdogan’s duplicity — seeking Western backing for an agenda that he knows is robustly opposed by his Astana partners, Russia and Iran. In any case, it is unlikely to succeed as Western powers have no wish either to abandon the Kurds or to accommodate Erdogan’s affiliation with extremist elements in Idlib.
At the same time, Russia, Iran and the Assad regime are happy to support a Kurdish-Assad engagement and mobilize themselves for the much-delayed assault on extremist elements holed up in Idlib under Turkish protection.
After 10 years of a lethal conflict, the situation in Syria remains as intractable and as murky as ever, with domestic contending parties continuing on the path of confrontation along with the backing of external powers. With large sections of the international community losing interest in Syria, there is every likelihood that the conditions in Syria will continue for many more years unless Arab leaders can come up with a new peace initiative.
***Talmiz Ahmad is an author and former Indian ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the UAE. He holds the Ram Sathe Chair for International Studies at Symbiosis International University in Pune, India.
Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not necessarily reflect Arab News' point-of-view

The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy: AMCD Calls for UN Peacekeepers to Redeploy in Darfur
The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy
April 08, 2021, 11:41 GMT
WASHINGTON, DC, USA, April 8, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy calls for the mandate of the United Nations-African Union Hybrid Operation in Darfur (UNAMID) to be renewed following violent attacks by Arab Janjaweed militias on the black African Masalit tribe in the Darfur region of Sudan.
At least 129 people were killed and military reinforcements were brought into El Geneina, capital of West Darfur, just after international peacekeepers were withdrawn in January. Over Easter weekend, it was reported that 18 people were killed and another 54 were injured in attacks using mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns that the former Bashir government had provided the jihadists. We have also seen reports that the numbers of those killed and injured over the weekend are much higher.
“In view of the fact that jihad attacks are heating up again in Darfur, the UN needs to reconsider its decision to withdraw troops,” suggested AMCD co-chair Tom Harb. “Jihadists cannot be allowed to attack the defenseless civilian population with impunity.”
“As of today, the attack is still ongoing,” explained AMCD co-chair John Hajjar. “The old Janjaweed militias seem to be reforming and continuing their jihad in Darfur despite the Juba Peace Agreement. Unfortunately, the government sent the wrong message by releasing the Janjaweed militia commander, Musa Hilal, from prison last month.”
“President Bashir has been removed from power, yet his militias still in control of the government in Sudan,” explained General Abakar Mahamat Abdallah of the United Sudan Movement. “They continue to commit genocide, war crimes and human right abuses against the undefended population of Darfur. In addition to atrocious crimes they commit against the people, the Rapid Support Forces/Janjaweed (RSF/Janjaweed) militias enrich themselves from villagers as well. They kidnap people for ransom, women for sexual exploitation, and abduct children for slavery. Moreover, the militias engage in expropriation of land, pillage and plunder the villages, graze animals on farms and seize livestock. Fearing for their lives, the villagers flee to the Internally Displaced Peoples (IDP) camps, waiting for international relief supplies to survive. Unfortunately, the militias continually attack the IDP camps to disperse the undefended vulnerable populations. The Transitional Sovereignty Council is doing nothing to protect people since the Rapid Support Forces/Janjaweed militias are part of its security forces.”
“It is typical of jihadist groups to sign cease-fire agreements when they are weak and then to disregard them as soon as they are strong enough to launch attacks,” added Hossein Khorram. “It’s clear the government is not yet strong enough to end this violence permanently and so UNAMID needs to be brought back as soon as possible.”
“The attacks in the state of Western Darfur (or Darmasalit) are a complete violation of human rights,” stated Daowd Salih, Co-Founder & Board President of Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy. “The Sudanese transitional government needs to be held accountable. As an advocate who's been speaking out against the genocide since 1999, it disheartens me that the marginalization and ethnic cleansing of my people continues. It is imperative the international community provide protection in the region of Western Darfur. We urge the U.S. government and other Western powers to intervene and hold the Sudanese government accountable.”
AMCD condemns the ongoing jihadist violence in Sudan, Nigeria and other areas of Africa. The US has several small operations on the continent to help put down these jihadist insurgencies, but clearly, much more needs to be done. We call on the UN to intervene in order to protect innocent civilians in Darfur once again.
For further information or to find out how to help the suffering people of Darfur, please contact:
Daowd Salih
Co-Founder & Board President of Damanga Coalition for Freedom and Democracy
darmassalit@hotmail.com
adamsalih1218@gmail.com
908-727-0128
Rebecca Bynum
The American Mideast Coalition for Democracy
+1 615-775-6801
rebecca@americanmideast.com