English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For April 24/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews21/english.april24.21.htm
 

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Bible Quotations For today

Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 06/60-71/:”When many of his disciples heard it, they said, ‘This teaching is difficult; who can accept it?’But Jesus, being aware that his disciples were complaining about it, said to them, ‘Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the spirit that gives life; the flesh is useless. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But among you there are some who do not believe.’ For Jesus knew from the first who were the ones that did not believe, and who was the one that would betray him. And he said, ‘For this reason I have told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted by the Father.’Because of this many of his disciples turned back and no longer went about with him. So Jesus asked the twelve, ‘Do you also wish to go away?’Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.’ Jesus answered them, ‘Did I not choose you, the twelve? Yet one of you is a devil.’He was speaking of Judas son of Simon Iscariot, for he, though one of the twelve, was going to betray him.”

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 23-24/2021

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: 1,504 new infections, 33 deaths
President Aoun receives Information Minister, Uruguayan Ambassador
Foreign Ministry notified about KSA’s decision to ban entry of Lebanese vegetables, fruits
Saudi Arabia bans Lebanese vegetables and fruits from entering it or transit through its territories as of next Sunday
Saudi Arabia announces ban on fruits, vegetables from Lebanon due to drug smuggling
Judge Ghada Aoun to Probe Al-Qard al-Hasan, Iranian Medicines in Lebanon
Judge Ghada Aoun Appears before Head of Judicial Inspection Authority
Rahi meets ambassadors of Canada, Russia and Denmark
Iran still sends weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, says top US general for Middle East
Helicopters Battle Locust Attacks in Arsal Outskirts
Panic in Lebanon as desert locust swarms hit farmland/Najia Houssari/Arab News/April 23/2021
Geagea Compares FPM and Its Supporters to '1931 Nazis'
Two Million COVID-19 Vaccines Expected between May-June

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 23-24/2021

Iran rejects remarks by former official about military support to Yemen’s Houthis
Israel will inform White House of opposition to possible US-Iran nuclear deal: Report
Sudan says Ethiopia rejected invitation for PM-level summit on dam
Turkey to issue arrest warrant for missing crypto founder: Reports
US general concerned about Afghan security forces after troop withdrawal
Veteran diplomat Jeffrey Feltman tapped to be US special envoy for the Horn of Africa
Ankara tense ahead of Biden’s expected recognition of Armenian Genocide
Biden puts Erdogan under high pressure
Baghdad base housing US troops is hit as Iran proxies apply pressure
Russia Begins Drawdown of Troops from Ukraine's Border
Bahrain, Israel to Recognize Each Other's Covid Vaccinations
Over 120 Wounded in East Jerusalem Clashes
Sudan warns of legal action against Ethiopia over dam
French police station stabbing: Woman killed in Rambouillet knife attack
Kremlin critic Navalny says ending hunger strike
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 23-24/2021

Question: "Will there be a second chance for salvation after death?"/GotQuestions.org?/April 23/2021
Context crucial if Biden recognizes Armenian genocide/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/April 23/2021
Why Iran Negotiations Will Go Nowhere/The problem isn’t the details of the nuclear deal but the dishonesty of the regime/Eli Lake/Bloomberg LP/April 23/2021
Pakistani Taliban claims suicide bombing in Quetta/Thomas Joscelyn/FDD's Long War Journal/April 23/2021
OPCW Member States Hold Syria Accountable for Chemical Weapons Use/Anthony Ruggiero and Andrea Stricker/FDD/April 23/2021
“Endless Wars” and the Danger of Ignoring History/Bradley Bowman and Clifford D. May/FDD/April 23/2021
Does Israel Lie America Into Wars?/Tony Badran/The Tablet/April 23/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on April 23-24/2021

Ministry of Health: 1,504 new infections, 33 deaths
NNA/23 April ,2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 1,504 new coronavirus infection cases, which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 518104.33 deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours.

President Aoun receives Information Minister, Uruguayan Ambassador
NNA/23 April ,2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, met Minister of Information, Mrs. Manal Abdel Samad, today at Baabda Palace.
The meeting addressed latest internal developments, in addition to the media reality in Lebanon and the projects carried out by the ministry in the field of developing media work and skills.
The media law was also discussed during the meeting, as Minister Abdel Samad indicated that this law “Is today in its final stages before the Administration and Justice Committee, to be presented soon to the General Assembly of Parliament, and It would contribute to preserving the rights of media professionals and provide many provisions that regulate the media sector”.
Statement:
After the meeting, Minister Abdel Samad made the following statement:
“The topics of the day have been discussed, especially the issue of media, which plays a fundamental and essential role during the crises that the country is going through. The media reflects the image of reality objectively, and its pioneering role and it is a partner in facing the crisis. It is necessary to prevent any transgressions that affect or harm journalists. We must protect journalists, because we have seen how they are exposed to problems and unfortunately harm, whether verbal or physical, as a result of a certain situation or expression, and this is unacceptable.
We also stress the need for the media person to be objective and reflect the realistic image, because we live in a crisis. We must know the choice of words and adjust the language not to be inciting, because any expression can lead to greater crises and aggravate problems.
The role of social media, which is for communication and dialogue at times, was discussed during the meeting, and at other times it is for divergence and dissonance that do not serve our country in the current situation, therefore it is necessary for us to work on selecting our words and our style of communication.
We tackled some projects of the Ministry of Information, most notably the grant provided by INA FRANCE to archive and automate the archives of Lebanon TV, which is a pioneering step indicating the confidence we have from friendly countries through pioneering and serious projects. We also discussed the establishment of a media observatory in the Ministry of Information to be a platform for objective reports through which the media reality is analyzed and the topics that must be highlighted and recommendations be made.  Emphasis has been placed on the role of the media law, noting that we have reached the final stage in its development, and it is now before the Administration and Justice Committee in the House of Representatives, and it will be presented to the General Assembly soon. Moreover, we assert the importance of this law, which includes electronic media within the general law, preserves the rights of media professionals and journalists, and gives many provisions that regulate the media sector. This helps us recover from the crisis in which we are witnessing.
Questions & Answers:
In response to a question about the pursuit of director Charbel Khalil and the encirclement of a group of internal security forces at his home, and the role of the Ministry of Information in this regard, she replied: “You notice that my role was not limited only to speeches and denunciations or recording my verbal position, but through coordination with the concerned authorities directly. I made many calls to denounce some of the issues and abuses that occurred against the media professionals, and my visit today to the President of the Republic comes mainly in this context, especially as we notice that the media people are subjected to a lot of physical or verbal harm and this is unacceptable, for they are ultimately the bearers of a message, and the bearer of the message is not guilty. It is imperative that we respect this journalist. We affirm that the differences of opinion in Lebanon should be evidence of validity and not an obstacle to solutions, and we must take them in a positive context and at the same time protect the media. A series of contacts were made in this regard with the Minister of Interior and the relevant ministries, and today the President of the Republic was briefed about this issue. We hope that these matters would not be repeated”.
President Aoun also received the Uruguayan ambassador to Lebanon, Mr. Ricardo Nario, on a farewell visit on the occasion of the end of his diplomatic missions in Lebanon.
The President thanked Nario for his work and the efforts he made in developing relations between Lebanon and Uruguay, and wished him success in his new responsibilities. ---Presidency Press Office
 

Foreign Ministry notified about KSA’s decision to ban entry of Lebanese vegetables, fruits
NNA/23 April ,2021
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants on Friday has been informed by the Saudi embassy about the KSA’s decision to ban the entry of vegetables and fruits to its territories from Lebanon. For his part, Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs, Charbel Wehbe, has relayed the aforementioned decision to the country’s senior officials. The Ministry emphasized in a statement that "smuggling drugs in containers or trucks loaded with fruits and vegetables from Lebanon to foreign countries is an act that’s punishable by the Lebanese law; drug smuggling harms the economy, the Lebanese farmers, and Lebanon’s reputation.”Moreover, the ministry’s statement called on the Lebanese authorities to exert their utmost efforts to control all smuggling operations by intensifying the activities of the security services and customs at the border crossings in line with the Lebanese laws that criminalize trafficking, smuggling, and drug abuse, “in a bid to overcome this scourge and prevent harm to innocent citizens, farmers, industrialists and the Lebanese economy.”

Saudi Arabia bans Lebanese vegetables and fruits from entering it or transit through its territories as of next Sunday
NNA/23 April ,2021
The Saudi Ministry of Interior announced that consignments of Lebanese vegetables and fruits will not be allowed to enter into the Kingdom or transit through its territory, starting Sunday 25/4/2021, until the relevant Lebanese authorities provide sufficient and reliable guarantees to take the necessary measures to stop the systematic smuggling operations targeting the Kingdom. The Ministry said that this decision was taken "based on Saudi Arabia's obligations in accordance with the relevant local regulations and provisions of international conventions related to combating all forms of drug smuggling, and after the Saudi concerned authorities have noticed increased drug smuggling activity targeting the Kingdom from Lebanon or passing through Lebanese territories, using Lebanese products to smuggle drugs into the Kingdom's territory, whether through incoming dispatches to the Kingdom's markets or with the intent to cross over to the neighboring countries, especially in vegetables and fruits consignments. The ministry added that the ban was also due to the failure of taking practical measures to stop these practices towards the Kingdom, despite the Kingdom’s numerous attempts to urge the concerned Lebanese authorities to do so, and in order to protect the Kingdom's citizens and residents from anything that might affect their safety and security. In addition, the Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the concerned authorities, will continue to follow up and monitor other consignments coming from Lebanon and will take decisions accordingly and as needed towards these shipments. The Ministry affirms that it will continue monitoring everything that would target the security of the Kingdom and the safety of its citizens and residents from the scourge of drugs, whether from Lebanon or from other countries, and will not hesitate to take necessary measures to address such attempts.--SPA Saudi Press Agency

Saudi Arabia announces ban on fruits, vegetables from Lebanon due to drug smuggling
Tala Michel Issa & Krishna Kumar, Al Arabiya English/23 April ,2021
Saudi Arabia will ban the import of Lebanese fruits and vegetables as of 9 a.m. on April 25 after a reported increase in drug smuggling from Beirut, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Friday.
The move comes after Saudi Customs foiled an attempt to smuggle over 5 million pills of Captagon stuffed inside fruit imported from Lebanon, the SPA reported. Captagon is used by fighters at war because of the effects it can have to fight tiredness. It is an amphetamine that has widely been made and exported illegally from Lebanon. The ban will remain in effect until Lebanese authorities provide sufficient and reliable guarantees that they will take the necessary steps to halt systemic drug smuggling operations. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry criticized the drug smuggling operations and called on the country’s security authorities to crack down “in order to prevent harm to innocent citizens, farmers, industrialists and the Lebanese economy.” Mohammed bin Ali Al-Naim, the undersecretary of the Customs Authority for Security Affairs, said the narcotics were stuffed inside pomegrante imported from Lebanon. Amphetamine narcotics tablets smuggled through pomegranate shipment coming In addition, the Ministry of Interior, in cooperation with the concerned authorities, said it would continue to follow up and monitor other shipments coming from Lebanon. The spokesperson of the General Directorate of Narcotics Control (GDNC), Captain Mohammed al-Nujaidi, said there were five culprits involved in the incident, one foreigner and four Saudi citizens. The detainees are expected to first go through legal procedures prior to undergoing public prosecution.
 

Judge Ghada Aoun to Probe Al-Qard al-Hasan, Iranian Medicines in Lebanon
Naharnet/23 April ,2021
Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun requested a probe into Hizbullah’s al-Qard Al-Hasan financial institution, and the import of Iranian medicines to Lebanon contradicting the WHO standards, Nidaa al-Watan newspaper reported on Friday. The complaints were submitted to Aoun by attorneys Majd Harb and Elie Kerillos. The complaint accused the activities of Qard al-Hasan of “violating the provisions of the Monetary and Credit Law, which stipulated in Article 206 that its violators must be prosecuted before the criminal courts, and Article 200 convicts a person who engages in credit activities without being registered with the Banque du Liban, based on Article 655 of the Penal Code.” The complaint indicates that al-Qard al-Hasan is classified as a non-profit charitable association, the source of its funding is shareholder funds in dollars in addition to annual subscriptions provided by borrowers. Regarding the Iranian medicines, the complaint said they have been entered into Lebanon “contrary to the principles and legal and administrative procedures adopted in accredited laboratory, and in the absence of sufficient scientific information about their quality, safety of their contents and correct use, which may cause death of patients and put the national health system at risk.”Aoun received the complaints and referred them to the head of the State Security office in Baabda and tasked him to investigate and report the findings.
 

Judge Ghada Aoun Appears before Head of Judicial Inspection Authority
Naharnet/23 April ,2021
Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun appeared before head of the Judicial Inspection Authority Judge Borkan Saad on Friday over a number of complaints, the latest was raiding the offices of Mecattaf money exchange company. There are 23 complaints filed against Aoun before the Judicial Inspection Authority. Media reports said Aoun had arrived at the Justice Palace individually without any convoy or security presence. The controversial judge carried out repeated raids recently on the Mecattaf company in Awkar, defying a judicial order dismissing her from investigation into financial crimes. Aoun managed Wednesday to enter the offices of Mecattaf, after bringing workers to break open a metallic gate, as minor scuffles erupted outside between her supporters and the Internal Security Forces. The Higher Judicial Council asked the Judicial Inspection Board to look into Aoun’s controversial actions while asking her to abide by the state prosecutor’s decisions.The Council said the Inspection Board will question Aoun over “her breach of the obligation of reticence, her failure to honor her repeated pledges before the Council, her refrainment from appearing before the public prosecution, and her stances and behavior after the state prosecutor issued a decision redistributing tasks at the Mt. Lebanon prosecution.”
 

Rahi meets ambassadors of Canada, Russia and Denmark
NNA/23 April ,2021
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros Rahi, on Friday received in Bkirki the Canadian Ambassador to Lebanon, Chantal Chastenay, with whom he discussed the current situation on the local and regional arena. Patriarch Rahi later met with the Russian Ambassador to Lebanon, Alexandre Rodakov, who said on emerging that the visit comes within the framework of coordination with the patriarch, in light of the circumstances that Lebanon is going through which require the formation of a government as soon as possible.The Patriarch also met with Denmark’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Merete Juhl, on her first visit to Bkirki since assuming her diplomatic mission in the country. Ambassador Juhl said the visit was important with talks touching on the major challenges facing Lebanon and the means through which Denmark can assist Lebanon. She said that Denmark is committed to helping Lebanon, through twinning projects between the Embassy and the European Union.

Iran still sends weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah, says top US general for Middle East
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/23 April ,2021
The United States will not be drawn into a military confrontation with Iran, and Tehran’s nuclear program moves are “not irreversible,” the top US military commander for the Middle East said Thursday. Asked about deterring Iran, Central Command chief Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said nothing Tehran had done related to enriching uranium needed for a nuclear weapon was final. “They’ve done nothing that is irreversible,” the US general told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon. But McKenzie warned that Iran continued to threaten the stability of the Middle East and voiced concerns over Iran's missile program. The US general said Washington continued to provide Saudi Arabia “defensive support” because it is under attack “typically at least every other day, sometimes more than once a day … from Yemen.”“So, the principal thing I do with the Saudis is I give them advance notice when I’m able to do that,” he said. Asked about Lebanon, McKenzie commended the Lebanese army and expressed continued support for arming the Lebanese Armed Forces.“It is a good relationship with the Lebanese Armed Forces, and it’s a relatively inexpensive relationship … and we view them as one of the few institutions in that country that really is a pillar of stability. So it’s important to keep that relationship alive so we will continue to work that very hard,” he said.But Lebanon’s Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed militia, is a constant concern to the US, he said. “We know that, in fact, Iran does continue to ship arms to Hezbollah in Lebanon with an aim to build capabilities that could strike Israel to the south. All those things are very concerning to me,” McKenzie said.

Helicopters Battle Locust Attacks in Arsal Outskirts
Naharnet/23 April ,2021
Army helicopters and teams from the ministry of agriculture will start battling swarms of desert locusts that appeared in the outskirts of the northeastern town of Arsal and in neighboring areas, media reports said on Friday. Lebanon’s agriculture ministry asked bee farmers to take needed measures to protect beehives before helicopters start spraying insecticides. People on social media shared videos of swarms of locusts invading large agricultural areas in Arsal. LBCI said the insects were also seen in the outskirts of Ras Baalbek. Farmers have been warned on Thursday of a wave of locusts reportedly reaching several southern and eastern areas in neighboring Syria.
 

Panic in Lebanon as desert locust swarms hit farmland
Najia Houssari/Arab News/April 23/2021
BEIRUT: The arrival of locust swarms in Lebanon has caused panic among the country’s farmers. Videos showing the insects flying over farmland in the towns of Ersal and Ras Baalbek in Bekaa circulated on social media, with the hashtag #locust trending in Lebanon on Friday as people made sarcastic comments about the latest crisis to hit the beleaguered country. The Lebanese military said that helicopters had begun spraying pesticides over Baalbek and Ras Baalbek to “fight and eradicate” the desert locusts. Ersal Mayor Bassel Al-Hujairi recounted seeing “millions” of locusts flying and attacking cherry trees and crops.
“Locusts have invaded one-third of Ersal,” he told Arab News. “As we rushed to find out the size of the disaster, locust swarms had already gone across the town, which means that in the early hours of Friday locusts were able to cross 15 km, heading from barren areas toward Ersal. If these swarms multiply, they can cover the sun.”Ersal was home to more than two million cherry, apple and apricot trees that were located on the town’s southern and eastern sides, said the mayor, and locusts were still on the northern side of the town.
“I hope wind will not take them to other directions,” he added. The swarms arrived in Lebanon after invading Syria, Iraq and Jordan. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the appearance of desert locusts in Syria and Jordan was an “unusual and rare” event caused by several days of strong southerly winds and high temperatures that brought the adult groups to these areas. It added that while the swarms did not represent a “large-scale invasion” and could be controlled, it feared that some of the mature adults may lay eggs and reproduce. The ministries of agriculture and defense have mobilized to address the problem as Lebanon is a member of the FAO’s Commission for Controlling the Desert Locust in the Central Region. Agriculture Minister Abbas Mortada inspected Ersal and said that ministry teams had witnessed “locust waves” and were able to define their approximate scope.
“But we still have fears that these locusts may reproduce and invade fields and farms. People are filming the locust swarms, but they are still relatively far.”
Ras Baalbek Mayor Menhem Mhanna reported “huge numbers” of locusts over the town’s barren areas and expressed his fears about these swarms reaching inhabited areas. “Locusts will not find anything in Lebanon since the politicians have devoured everything,” said one person on social media, while another said: “Lebanon’s politicians are more dangerous than these swarms.” “Locusts are the cherry on the top to be added to Lebanon’s economic collapse, political gridlock and starvation,” read another comment. The crisis has brought the Lebanese back to the beginning of the 20th century, when swarms stripped the country of almost all its vegetation. At that time Lebanon was already grappling with economic hardship and a double blockade by both the Ottoman Empire and the Allied Forces, resulting in a famine that led to more than a third of the population dying. In 2013, historians and researchers Dr. Christian Taoutel and Father Pierre Wittouck released a book compiling the previously unpublished French chronicles of Jesuit priests during the famine called “The Lebanese people in the turmoil of the Great War of 1914-1918.”According to the book, “famine started with a hungry swarm of locusts that devoured everything, where the Lebanese called the year of 1915 ‘The Year of Locusts’ which were impossible to control.”

Geagea Compares FPM and Its Supporters to '1931 Nazis'
Naharnet/23 April ,2021
Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea on Thursday lashed out at the Free Patriotic Movement and its supporters in connection with the latest controversy sparked by the actions of Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun. “The FPM has introduced new concepts to the dictionary of politics in Lebanon, with the protection of the rights of Christian lying in attacking and vandalizing private companies in Awkar, and the fight against corruption being in concealing the culprits as to electricity, telecommunications, customs, illegal border crossings and clientelism in state administrations,” Geagea said in a written statement. “The deposits of the people have meanwhile turned out to be at the Mecattaf firm and not at the banks, which lent them to the state that wasted them and is still wasting them on corruption, favoritism and commissions in tenders and bids and general,” the LF leader added sarcastically. Moreover, he lamented that the recent events in Lebanon “totally remind us of what the Nazis were doing in Germany in the early 1930s, when they used to carry out distraction operations, through attacking institutions or aggressing against private properties and individuals under the excuse of fighting corruption -- all of that to deviate attention from the essential and real problems of the country and to conceal the real criminals and their way of running things.”“But Lebanon is not Germany and today we are in the year 2021 and not in the year 1931,” he added. “All these farces, plays and twisted methods will only deepen the crisis in the country, whereas the only solution lies in the resignation of your parliamentary majority to allow the Lebanese to express their opinion and choose a new parliamentary majority that would pull them out of the hell that you have plunged Lebanon into,” Geagea went on to say.

Two Million COVID-19 Vaccines Expected between May-June
Naharnet/23 April ,2021 
Head of the Health Parliamentary Committee, Assem Araji stated on Friday that Lebanon is expecting two million Pfizer and Astrazeneca COVID-19 vaccines between May and June this year. He said around 750,000 doses will be allocated for the private sector, out of which 320,000 have been reserved by the four largest universities in Lebanon. On the number of people registered with the health ministry's vaccination platform, he said the turnout is still low with not more than one million and a half people registered. Many people still have concerns about the feasibility of the vaccine after suspectedly causing blood clots. He called on those concerned about any complications allegedly arising after the administration of Astrazeneca vaccine to postpone their appointment until getting notified of another vaccine. Araji brushed off concerns arising about Astrazeneca, describing them as rumors. The small country of about 6 million is facing its worst economic and financial crisis to date, with tens of thousands out of work, basic food prices soaring, and more than half the population now living under the poverty line.
Lebanon has so far registered over 515,088 coronavirus cases and more than 7,027 deaths.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on April 23-24/2021

Iran rejects remarks by former official about military support to Yemen’s Houthis
Yaghoub Fazeli, Al Arabiya English/23 April ,2021
Iran’s foreign ministry rejected on Friday remarks made earlier this week by a former Iranian official about Tehran’s support to the Houthi militia in Yemen. The remarks by Rostam Ghasemi, former oil minister and Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commander, “are contrary to reality and the policies of Iran in Yemen,” Iran’s foreign ministry said in a short statement published on its website. Iran’s “support for Yemen is [solely] political,” the statement said, adding that Tehran supports efforts to find a political solution to the conflict. Ghasemi had said in an interview with Russia Today on Wednesday that the IRGC has provided weapons to the Houthi militia in Yemen and trained the militia in manufacturing weapons. Ghasemi, a potential candidate for Iran’s upcoming presidential elections in June, said there is currently a “small” number of “advisors” from the IRGC on the ground in Yemen. Iran has long been accused of providing financial and military support to the Houthis. “All the weapons the [Houthis] possess is thanks to our aid,” Ghasemi said. He added: “We helped them with weapons manufacturing technology, but the weapons production takes place in Yemen, they make them themselves, the drones and missiles are Yemeni-made.” Ghasemi claimed his country is currently unable to send any weapons or even humanitarian aid to Yemen due to the “siege” imposed on the country. “We have provided weapons in a very limited way. We have provided more consultations compared to supplying weapons to Yemen.”Iranian admissions about military support to the Houthis are rare, but not unprecedented. In 2018, Iran for the first time acknowledged being involved in the Yemen conflict when then-IRGC head Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran provided “advisory assistance” to the Houthis. In 2019, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces Mohammad Bagheri said the IRGC is providing the Houthis with “advisory and intellectual assistance.” US Special Envoy on Yemen Tim Lenderking said on Wednesday that “Iranian support [for the Houthis] is quite significant, and it’s lethal.”Speaking during a congressional hearing in Washington, Lenderking said that the Houthis’ behaviour showed they were not devoted to the interests of the Yemeni people. The Houthis have conducted 150 attacks against Saudi Arabia this year, according to Lenderking.

Israel will inform White House of opposition to possible US-Iran nuclear deal: Report
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/23 April ,2021
Israel’s stance on the Iran nuclear deal remains unchanged and officials from Tel Aviv will voice their position during a trip to the US next week, according to a report citing Israeli officials. Ties between Washington and Tel Aviv have soured since the election of US President Joe Biden and his rushed attempts to rejoin the JCPOA, an acronym for the 2015 nuclear deal. Gulf capitals and Israel have said they should be included in any talks on a potential nuclear deal with Iran. They were not invited to participate in the negotiations prior to the 2015 deal, which former President Barack Obama brokered. And after two rounds of indirect talks in Vienna that started earlier this month, European countries, Russia and China, are the only external participants. According to the US news website Axio, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu informed officials of Tel Aviv’s position during a recent security meeting.
Israeli officials reportedly said that Netanyahu “instructed the delegation traveling to Washington, DC next week for strategic talks on Iran to stress their objection to a US return to the 2015 nuclear deal and to refuse to discuss its contents.”Netanyahu also reportedly told the traveling delegation to make it known that Israel was not a part of the JCPOA and that it would act in any way needed to protect itself from Iranian threats. “The decision at the end of the meeting was to stress that a return to the deal would put Israel in danger and to otherwise decline to discuss the talks in Vienna,” Axios reported. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan extended an invite to his Israeli counterpart, Meir Ben-Shabbat, to visit Washington to continue talks on “security issues of vital importance,” the White House previously announced. Israeli officials have voiced skepticism over any potential deal that fails to deal with Iran’s support for terrorist groups, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthis, and its ballistic missile program. On Wednesday, a senior State Department official told reporters that there had been some progress during the second round of indirect talks with Iran. “There are still disagreements, in some cases pretty important ones,” the official said.Asked about complaints from Israel that the US was not fully transparent about talks on a new deal, the official pushed back and said this was not true.

Sudan says Ethiopia rejected invitation for PM-level summit on dam
Reuters, Khartoum, Cairo/23 April ,2021
Sudan’s irrigation minister said in a statement on Friday that Ethiopia had rejected a Sudanese invitation for a prime minister-level summit surrounding negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.On April 13, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok had invited his Ethiopian and Egyptian counterparts to Khartoum after the latest round of negotiations had hit a dead end.

Turkey to issue arrest warrant for missing crypto founder: Reports
AFP, Istanbul/ 23 April ,2021
Turkish authorities on Friday started procedures to issue an international warrant to arrest and extradite the missing founder of a cryptocurrency exchange, state media reported.Thodex founder Faruk Fatih Ozer fled, officials said, to the Albanian capital of Tirana with a reported $2 billion in investors’ assets.
 

US general concerned about Afghan security forces after troop withdrawal
Reuters/Published: 22 April ,2021
The head of US forces in the Middle East said on Thursday that he was concerned about the ability of the Afghan security forces to hold territory after the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the country in the coming months. President Joe Biden announced last week that the United States will withdraw its remaining 2,500 troops from Afghanistan by Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the al Qaeda attacks that triggered America’s longest war. “My concern is the ability of the Afghan military to hold the ground that they’re on now without the support that they’ve been used to for many years,” Marine General Kenneth McKenzie, head of US Central Command, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. “I am concerned about the ability of the Afghan military to hold on after we leave, the ability of the Afghan Air Force to fly, in particular, after we remove the support for those aircraft,” McKenzie added. The Pentagon has said it is looking to fund key Afghan military capabilities, including the air force, and seeking to continue paying the salaries of Afghan security forces. But US officials have long been concerned about corruption in the security forces and questioned how they would be able to hold back Taliban insurgents, which McKenzie said number 50,000, without American air support and intelligence capabilities.

Veteran diplomat Jeffrey Feltman tapped to be US special envoy for the Horn of Africa
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/23 April ,2021
Veteran US diplomat Jeffrey Feltman will become Washington’s Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, the State Department said Friday. “This appointment underscores the Administration’s commitment to lead an international diplomatic effort to address the interlinked political, security, and humanitarian crises in the Horn of Africa,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said. Feltman previously served at the State Department and most recently at the United Nations. Among the most pressing issues, Feltman will deal with are the continuing conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and escalating tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan. The dispute between African nations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam is another conflict Feltman will be tasked with mediating, Blinken said. “Special Envoy Feltman is uniquely suited to bring decades of experience in Africa and the Middle East, in multilateral diplomacy, and in negotiation and mediation to develop and execute an integrated US strategy to address these complex regional issues,” Blinken said. The top US diplomat noted that “high-level US engagement” in the Horn of Africa was vital to mitigating the risks posed by the current conflicts in the area. Feltman served as the under-secretary-general for political affairs at the UN after serving in the State Department for 26 years. Previous posts included being assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs and US ambassador to Lebanon.

Ankara tense ahead of Biden’s expected recognition of Armenian Genocide
Arab News/April 23/2021
ANKARA: Tensions between Washington and Ankara may be further strained on Saturday when US President Joe Biden is expected to become the first US leader to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide of 1915 onward. The massacre of around 1.5 million Armenians in the early 20th century was formally recognized as genocide by the US Senate in 2019, but then-President Donald Trump did not follow suit.  April 24 is Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, and ahead of Saturday’s annual commemoration, this much-anticipated move is now a major concern for Ankara, and likely to inflame an already tense relationship. Turkey denies any historical connection with the atrocities, since they took place during wartime in the Ottoman period. Biden, who put human rights at the center of his presidential agenda, promised to recognize the Armenian Genocide during his campaign. Vice-President Kamala Harris hails from California, where more than 200,000 Armenians currently reside. Forty US lawmakers, led by Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez, recently sent a letter to Biden urging him to follow through on his promise.  The fact that a scheduled phone call between Biden and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been delayed until after Saturday has been taken by many as a sign that Biden will recognize the genocide and trigger outrage in Ankara.

Biden puts Erdogan under high pressure

The Arab Weekly/April 23/2021
WASHINGTON/ ANKARA – The administration of President Joe Biden has dashed Turkey’s hopes for calmer days with the US, putting it under high pressure by officially removing it from a project to manufacture F-35 fighter planes, while expectations grow that Biden will announce Saturday formal US recognition of the historical responsibility of the Turks for the Armenian genocide. This step that is likely to infuriate Turkey and exacerbate tensions between the two countries. A US Defence Department official announced Washington has notified Turkey it is officially excluded from the F-35 fighter jet production programme. The official said the US and eight other countries had cancelled a 2006 memorandum of understanding and signed a new one, but did not go into further details. Ankara had ordered and manufactured parts of more than 100 F-35s. But it was removed from the programme in 2019 after it purchased Russian S-400 ground-to-air missile systems, which Washington says constitute a security threat for the F-35 fighters. Analysts say the Biden administration took a serious second look at its relations with Turkey, which wants to be a member of NATO and at the same time an ally of Russia. Washington is now telling Ankara that the new administration is different from the previous one and that Turkey will be forced to reassess its ambiguous policy of pursuing strategic military cooperation with Moscow and Washington at the same time. Observers pointed out that the exclusion of Ankara from the stealth fighter project and the recognition of the Armenian genocide narrative are two steps that personally challenge the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who finds himself besieged by crises and unable to push his usual brinkmanship any further. Erdogan has pledged to continue defending the case against those who, he maintains, for political reasons promote the “slander and lies” of the “Armenian genocide”, in reference to the US President’s decision to be announced on Saturday. Washington’s resolve to remove Ankara from the F-35 project is likely to push Turkey closer to Russia and further strain its relationship with NATO, especially considering the tensions shaking its ties with member countries, over a number of issues, including gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean and the stance on Libya. Before his confirmation as US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken described Ankara last January as a ” so–called strategic partner”. And he indicated that more sanctions could be imposed on Ankara for its purchase of Russian missile systems. ” “The idea that a strategic – so-called strategic – partner of ours would actually be in line with one of our biggest strategic competitors in Russia is not acceptable,” he said.
The firm American stance towards Turkey’s acquisition of the S-400 system coincides with a new escalation, that is unrelated the issue of military alliances.
It has to do instead with Biden’s intention to recognise that the massacre of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during the First World War was an act of genocide. Three US sources familiar with the matter said that Biden is likely to use the phrase “genocide” in a statement he will make on April 24 on the occasion of annual events commemorating the victims of the massacres. “My understanding is that he took the decision and will use the word genocide in his statement on Saturday,” said a source familiar with the matter. However, the sources cautioned that Biden may decide at the last minute not to use this term in light of the importance of bilateral relations with Turkey. “I expect we will have more to say about Remembrance Day on Saturday,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Wednesday when asked about Biden’s commitment. “But I don’t have anything to get ahead of that at this point in time.”
“The recognition by the United States will be a moral beacon for many countries,” said Armenian Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan. “This is not about Armenia and Turkey, this is about our commitment to recognise and condemn genocide in the past, present and future,” he added. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that any move by Biden to recognise the 1915 mass killings of Armenians by the Ottomans as a genocide will further harm already strained ties between the NATO allies. A year ago, when Biden was still a presidential candidate, he commemorated the anniversary of the 1.5 million Armenian men, women and children who lost their lives in the final days of the Ottoman Empire.
He pledged to support efforts to describe these killings as genocide.
The “New York Times” and “The Wall Street Journal” reported that Biden is scheduled to declare the massacres classified as “genocide” on Saturday on the occasion of the 106th anniversary of the mass killings that began in 1915 when the Ottoman Empire was fighting Tsarist Russia during World War I in the region known now as Armenia. More than 100 members of Congress, led by the Democratic member Adam Schiff, the House Intelligence Committee chairman, have sent a letter to Biden urging him to fulfil his pledge to recognise genocide during his election campaign. “For decades, as leaders around the world recognised the first genocide of the twentieth century, the president of the United States maintained his silence,” the letter said. “Mr President, as you said last year in your statement of the 24th of April, silence is complicity. And the shameful silence of the United States Government on the historic fact of the Armenian Genocide has gone on for too long, and it must end.” The massacres were already officially recognised by the US Congress as an act of genocide in December 2019 in an essentially symbolic vote. Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, said Biden’s expected move reflects the deteriorating relationship between the two countries, but that Erdogan’s options will be limited. “It is unlikely that Erdogan will provoke the United States with actions that could further undermine Turkey’s weak economy,” he added.

Baghdad base housing US troops is hit as Iran proxies apply pressure

The Arab Weekly/April 23/2021
BAGHDAD--Three rockets crashed into a base at the Iraqi capital’s airport housing US troops Friday, security sources said, in the latest attack coinciding with tensions between Tehran and Washington. One of the sources said the projectiles hit the section of the airbase occupied by Iraqi troops, who share the base with soldiers deployed by Washington as part of the US-led anti-ISIS coalition. One Iraqi soldier was wounded, the source added. It is the second attack on US interests in Iraq in less than a week. On Sunday, five rockets targeted another airbase north of the capital, wounding three Iraqi soldiers and two foreign contractors. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the strike, but Washington routinely blames Iran-linked Iraqi factions for such attacks on its troops and diplomats. Tehran is also seen by analysts as trying to exert pressure on the US to withdraw its troops from Iran and force concessions in the ongoing talks in Vienna about the Iranian nuclear programme. Friday’s is the 23rd bomb or rocket attack against American interests in Iraq, including troops, the Baghdad embassy or Iraqi supply convoys to foreign forces, since US President Joe Biden took office in January. Dozens of other strikes were carried out from autumn 2019 under the administration of former US president Donald Trump. In mid-April, an explosives-packed drone slammed into Iraq’s Irbil airport in the first reported use of such a weapon against a base used by US-led coalition troops in the country, officials said. In February, more than a dozen rockets targeted the military complex inside the same airport. In the past year, two foreign contractors, one Iraqi contractor and eight Iraqi civilians have been killed in the attacks.
Proxy pressures
The operations are sometimes claimed by obscure groups that experts say are smokescreens for Iranian-backed organisations long present in Iraq and often acting as de facto proxies to Tehran. Qais al-Khazali, a senior pro-Iran figure in the state-sponsored Hashed al-Shaabi (Poular Mobilisation Force) armed militia, recently declared that the “resistance” was carrying out attacks and would step them up “unless the US withdraws all its combat forces from across Iraq”. Pro-Iran groups have been ratcheting up their rhetoric, vowing to ramp up attacks to force out the “occupying” US forces, and there have been almost daily attacks on coalition supply convoys across the mainly Shia south. The United States in April committed to withdraw all remaining combat forces from Iraq, although the two countries did not set a timeline for what would be a second US withdrawal since the 2003 invasion which toppled Saddam Hussein.
The attack also comes amid heightened tensions over Iran’s nuclear programme. The remaining partners to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal have been engaged in talks aimed at returning the US to the accord it withdrew from under Trump and lifting the sanctions it reimposed on Iran, as well as ensuring Tehran’s return to nuclear commitments that it cut in retaliation. Sworn foes Tehran and Washington have both had a presence since 2003 in Iraq, where 2,500 US troops are still deployed and Iran sponsors the Hashed al-Shaabi. Tensions have spiked to the edge of war, in particular after Trump ordered a drone strike near Baghdad’s airport in January 2020 that killed top Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani.

Russia Begins Drawdown of Troops from Ukraine's Border
Agence France Presse/April 23/2021
Russia on Friday began withdrawing troops that had been running drills near the borders of Ukraine, the defence ministry said, following weeks of heightened tensions between Moscow and the West over the buildup.
"Military units and formations are currently marching to railway loading stations and airfields, and loading onto landing ships, railway platforms and military transport aircraft," the ministry said in a statement carried by Russian news agencies.
 

Bahrain, Israel to Recognize Each Other's Covid Vaccinations
Agence France Presse/April 23/2021
Bahrain and Israel have signed an agreement to recognise each other's Covid vaccinations in a bid to smoothe travel between the two countries which normalised ties last year. "The governments of the Kingdom of Bahrain and the State of Israel today reached an agreement regarding mutual recognition of vaccination and green passports," the official Bahrain News Agency reported late Thursday.The Gulf kingdom and the Jewish state both have inoculation rates that are among the highest in the world, according to German data agency Statista. Under the agreement, people who have been inoculated in one country with "vaccinations recognised in the other country will be exempt from quarantine and be able to enter places that require a 'green passport'," BNA said.  Israel has eased many of its coronavirus restrictions but various measures remain in place, including a "green passport" system that grants access to certain sites only to those who have been vaccinated or have recovered from Covid-19. The Bahraini report said arrangements would be made at a later stage for individuals who have been inoculated with a vaccine other than those recognised by one of the two countries, without providing start dates for the arrangements.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gabi Ashkenazi tweeted that the deal would "increase tourism and boost our economies and help our common fight against the coronavirus". Last September, Bahrain signed a US-brokered agreement normalising ties with Israel, in a break with decades of Arab consensus against doing so without a comprehensive peace deal. Over five million Israelis, or more than half of its nine million population, have received two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, according to Israeli health ministry figures. More than half a million people in Bahrain, or nearly half the population, have received both doses of various vaccines, according to official figures.
 

Over 120 Wounded in East Jerusalem Clashes
Agence France Presse/23 April ,2021
Over 100 Palestinians and 20 Israeli police were wounded in overnight clashes in annexed east Jerusalem, medics and police said Friday, as tensions mount over a police ban on gatherings and videos of attacks on youths.The violence broke out outside one of the entrances to the walled Old City where far-right Jews had completed a march, during which participants harassed Palestinians and chanted "death to Arabs". There have been nightly disturbances in the area since the start of Ramadan on April 13 with Palestinians complaining that police were blocking access to the promenade around the walls, a popular gathering place for Palestinians after the end of the daytime Ramadan fast. The Palestinian Red Crescent said it had treated at least 105 people, with some 20 of them hospitalised. Israeli police said 20 officers were wounded, three of whom were taken to hospital.They said "hundreds of rioters began disrupting the order violently including throwing stones and objects at forces" stationed near the Old City. Tensions were high in Jerusalem after a series of videos posted in recent days showing young Arabs attacking ultra-Orthodox Jews, with Jewish extremists taking to the street bullying Arabs in nightly confrontations. On Thursday night, the Israeli extreme-right group Lehava organised a march ending opposite the Old City attended by hundreds to protest the anti-Jewish violence. Videos on social media also showed Palestinians attacking ultra-Orthodox Jews in the early hours of Friday. Police said more than 50 people detained overnight were taken for a remand hearing Friday morning.

Sudan warns of legal action against Ethiopia over dam
AFP/April 24, 2021
KHARTOUM: Sudan has warned it could take legal action against Ethiopia if it goes ahead with plans to fill a mega-dam on the Blue Nile without a deal with Khartoum and Cairo. Water Minister Yasser Abbas also said in a tweet that Ethiopia has raised “objections” to an invitation by Sudan to attend three-way talks to discuss the controversial dam.Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have been locked in inconclusive talks for nearly a decade over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) which broke ground in 2011. Cairo has regarded the dam as an existential threat to its water supplies, while Khartoum fears its own dams would be harmed if Ethiopia fills the reservoir without a deal. Last week, Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok invited his Egyptian and Ethiopian counterparts to a closed meeting after recent African Union-sponsored negotiations failed to produce a deal.
“Ethiopia has objected to the invitation of Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok for a three-way summit and we see that there is no justification for that,” Abbas tweeted. Addis Ababa announced last July that it had filled part of the barrage with a second stage due to take place this coming July, even if no agreement has been made with Cairo and Khartoum.
FASTFACT
Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia have been locked in inconclusive talks for nearly a decade over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam which broke ground in 2011.If Ethiopia goes ahead with the filling, Sudan “would file lawsuits against the Italian company constructing the dam and the Ethiopian government,” Abbas warned. He said the lawsuits would highlight that the “environmental and social impact as well as the dangers of the dam” have not been taken into adequate consideration. The tensions over the dam come as Sudan’s relations with Egypt warm while its relations with Ethiopia have been hit by a dispute over the use of the Fashaga farmland near their common border. In March, Sudan said it has accepted an offer by the United Arab Emirates to mediate with Ethiopia over GERD and the contested border region.Abbas said the UAE’s initiative included investment opportunities in the Fashaga region as well as “unofficial bid to bridge the gap in views with regard to GERD.”

French police station stabbing: Woman killed in Rambouillet knife attack
NNA/April 24, 2021
A female police employee has been fatally stabbed in a knife attack at a police station in Rambouillet, south-west of Paris. The 36-year-old attacker, who reportedly came to France from Tunisia several years ago, was shot and later died in hospital. The stabbing took place in the entrance on Friday afternoon and no motive has yet been given for the attack. The 48-year-old unarmed administrative officer was stabbed in the neck. She was returning from her break at 14:20 (12:20 GMT) when the man barged into the police station, according to local reports.
He lunged at the officer and her colleagues then opened fire on him. Prime Minister Jean Castex and Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin went straight to the scene, in the large Yvelines area to the the west of the capital. "The republic has lost one of its everyday heroes in a barbaric act of unlimited cowardice," Mr Castex tweeted. Police appealed to the public not to share rumours. Officials said the man was unknown to intelligence service and the stabbing was not being investigated at this stage by the anti-terror prosecutor. Witnesses said the man had been seen walking around while on his mobile phone outside the police station and seized his chance to go in as the woman went through the security doors.—BBC

Kremlin critic Navalny says ending hunger strike
NNA/April 24, 2021 
Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny said Friday he was ending a 24-day hunger strike he launched to demand medical treatment behind bars, after allies said his life was in danger. The announcement came after Navalny's personal doctors said Thursday that he had received treatment at a civilian hospital and urged him to put a stop to his protest. "Taking into account the progress and all the circumstances, I am beginning to end my hunger strike," President Vladimir Putin's best-known critic said in an Instagram post. He said that the process would take him 24 days, writing: "They say it's even harder" than the hunger strike. The 44-year-old trained lawyer announced the hunger strike in his penal colony on March 31, demanding to see an independent doctor for pain in his back and numbness in his arms and legs.--AFP
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on April 23-24/2021

Question: "Will there be a second chance for salvation after death?"
GotQuestions.org?/April 23/2021
Answer: While the idea of a second chance for salvation is appealing, the Bible is clear that death is the end of all chances. Hebrews 9:27 tells us that we die, and then face judgment. So, as long as a person is alive, he has a second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. chance to accept Christ and be saved (John 3:16; Romans 10:9-10; Acts 16:31). Once a person dies, there are no more chances. The idea of purgatory, a place where people go after death to pay for their sins, has no biblical basis, but is rather a tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.
To understand what happens to nonbelievers after they die, we go to Revelation 20:11-15 which describes the Great White Throne judgment. Here takes place the opening of the books and “the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” The books contain all the thoughts and deeds of those being judged, and we know from Romans 3:20 that “by the works of the Law is no flesh justified.” Therefore, all who are judged by their works and thoughts are condemned to hell. Believers in Christ, on the other hand, are not judged by the books of works, but their names are found written in another book—the “Lamb’s Book of Life” (Revelation 21:27). These are the ones who have believed on the Lord Jesus, and they alone will be allowed to enter heaven.
The key to understanding this is the Lamb’s Book of Life. Anyone whose name is written in this book was “saved before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4) by God’s sovereign saving grace to be part of His Son’s bride, the church of Jesus Christ. These people need no “second chance” at salvation because their salvation has been secured by Christ. He chose us, He saved us, and He will keep us saved. Nothing can separate us from Christ (Romans 8:39). Those for whom He died will be saved because Jesus will see to it. He declared “all that the Father has given me will come to me” (John 6:37), and “I give to them eternal life, and they shall never ever perish, and not anyone shall pluck them out of My hand” (John 10:28). For believers, there is no need for a second chance because the first chance is sufficient.
What about those who do not believe? Wouldn’t they repent and believe if they were given a second chance? The answer is no, they would not because their hearts are not changed simply because they die. Their hearts and minds “are at enmity” against God and won’t accept Him even when they see Him face to face. This is evidenced clearly in the story of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-31. If ever someone should have repented when given a second chance to see clearly the truth, it was the rich man. But although he was in torment in hell, he only asked that Abraham send Lazarus back to earth to warn his brothers so they didn’t have to suffer the same fate. There was no repentance in his heart, only regret for where he found himself. Abraham’s answer says it all: “And he said to him, If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded, even though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Here we see that the witness of the Scriptures is sufficient for salvation for those who believe it, and no other revelation will bring about salvation to those who do not. No second, third, or fourth chances would be enough to turn the heart of stone into a heart of flesh.
Philippians 2:10-11 declares “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” One day, everyone will bow before Jesus and recognize that He is the Lord and Savior. At that point, though, it will be too late for salvation. After death, all that remains for the unbeliever is judgment (Revelation 20:14-15). That is why we must trust in Him in this life.

Context crucial if Biden recognizes Armenian genocide
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/April 23/2021
US President Joe Biden is this weekend expected to formally recognize the massacres conducted against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War as “genocide.” He is likely to make the announcement on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, which falls on Saturday. This recognition was one of his campaign promises. Biden already has a chilly relationship with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and this move is likely to increase the tensions between the two NATO allies. However, the recognition should not be looked at from a political angle but rather a human one. It should not be used to score points against Turkey, but as a framework to achieve a much-needed Turkish-Armenian reconciliation. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned that the recognition would sour the already-tense US-Turkish ties. Biden started his term on the wrong foot with Turkey. In an interview with the New York Times that was published in January, he stated he was willing to support the opposition to Erdogan, which the Turkish president did not take lightly. Erdogan considered it to be interference in Turkish domestic affairs. To add to that, Biden has appointed Brett McGurk as a key official when it comes to Middle East policy. McGurk is seen very negatively by the Turks, who accuse him of empowering Kurdish terrorism.The US needs Turkey to stabilize Syria and Iraq and does not need another point of contention with its NATO ally. In light of the competition between Russia and the US, the last thing America needs is for Ankara to side with Moscow. If Turkey ever decides to leave NATO, it would be the end of the alliance, which has been the backbone of Western military integration for more than 70 years.
Despite also cozying up to Greece, the US needs Turkey to roll up its policies across the region. However, their relations have been getting more complex and more strained by the day. Biden’s recognition of the Armenian genocide might be the trigger that pushes Turkey to switch camps. On the other hand, it is a campaign promise to which Biden is bound. Other presidents have alluded to Armenian suffering but refrained from mentioning the genocide. However, official recognition has matured to become a public opinion issue in the US and more than 100 lawmakers have been pushing for it.
Biden should try to find a middle ground between fulfilling his promise, catering to public demand and not turning off an essential ally. However, the Biden administration places human rights at the heart of its policymaking agenda and will have difficulty ignoring the demands for recognition of the genocide.
Such a move would be of great importance to Armenian people all over the world. The 19th-century French historian Ernest Renan, when he tried to analyze the construction of a nation, found that the memories of collective suffering shaped the national identity. You will never find this to be more relevant than in the case of the Armenian people. The suffering inflicted on them 100 years ago has transcended generations and shaped their sense of peoplehood. Hence, it should be addressed and cannot be ignored. However, it is important for the matter not to be politicized.
It should not be used to score points against Turkey, but as a framework to achieve a much-needed Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.
The Turkish government insists that the Armenians were killed during the war and that there was no systematic elimination or ethnic cleansing that could amount to genocide. The narrative of the government is the generally accepted view of the Turkish people all across the political spectrum. It is difficult to convince a Turkish citizen that their ancestors committed genocide. However, it is important to reconcile with one’s past to have a better future. We don’t know what Biden is going to say, but it is important that he frames this recognition as part of a general framework for reconciliation. Before he tackles Ottoman history, he should start with his own history and explain the crimes committed by the European settlers against the Native Americans. It is important that he explains how the US reconciled with its past, which is stained with genocide and slavery, how it embraced it, how it accepted its faults and worked for a better future. He should point out that recognition is not aimed at punishing the Turks, because one cannot punish people for crimes committed by their ancestors a century ago. However, the more a nation is self-confident, the more it has the courage to admit its past mistakes. The US recognition should be coupled by a call for Turkish-Armenian reconciliation, which is a much-needed process, especially since Ankara last year sided with Azerbaijan in its war with Armenia. Biden should point out that we cannot live in anger, hatred and insecurity forever; that there comes a time when we need to reconcile. To do that, we should accept each other, recognize our past mistakes and be willing to forgive and move on. He should point out that the recognition is not politically motivated and is not meant to punish Turkey, but is meant to bring Turkey and Armenia together. He should mention that the recognition is not a trial but a healing process.
If it is presented in this framework, it will benefit everyone. The Armenians will get the moral and symbolic recognition they long for; Turkey will not feel aggrieved or abused by its NATO ally; and the US will be fulfilling the role it should play as an agent for peace, stability and conflict resolution.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She is also an affiliate scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Why Iran Negotiations Will Go Nowhere/The problem isn’t the details of the nuclear deal but the dishonesty of the regime.
Eli Lake/Bloomberg LP/April 23/2021,
Senator Marsha Blackburn has not devoted much of her time in office to Iran policy. But this week the Tennessee Republican offered some clarity on the issue when she introduced a bill aimed at preventing President Joe Biden from returning the U.S. to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
“It’s time for Biden to wake up and realize that the U.S. cannot negotiate an honest agreement with Iran because they are a fanatical, anti-American regime,” her statement reads. “No amount of negotiating or ‘indirect discussions’ can change that.”
In a sense, Blackburn blundered. Democrats have long criticized former President Donald Trump’s policy of sanctioning Iran. Trump said the sanctions were meant to put pressure on Iran to agree to a better deal, but Democrats said they were a thinly disguised way to force regime change.
Now Blackburn has let the mask slip: The problem with Iran, she says, is the regime itself. It will never agree to stronger conditions for a nuclear agreement — such as a ban on missile development, the abolition of sunsets on uranium enrichment levels or an end to Iran’s support for regional aggression.
At the same time, Blackburn is on to something. If the Biden administration succeeds in the ongoing nuclear negotiations in Vienna, one unavoidable consequence will be a windfall for Iran’s war machine. Tens of billions of dollars owed to Iran (mainly from the sale of oil and gas) remain locked in overseas bank accounts because of U.S. sanctions. Iran will receive that money when the sanctions are lifted.
So a deal that seeks to prevent the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism from obtaining a nuclear weapon will provide Iran with money to sponsor more terrorism. This is not a flaw with the deal so much as a flaw with the regime.
Unfortunately, Blackburn’s actual legislation does little to address the problem she has identified. Her bill would prevent federal funds from being spent on rejoining the 2015 Iran deal and require Biden and any future president to submit any deal to the Senate as a treaty, requiring two-thirds approval. Those are laudable goals. But while they make it harder to lift sanctions on Iran, they don’t increase the chances of success for Iran’s democratic opposition.
To do that, Blackburn (and for that matter the Biden administration) should consider a new approach. One idea would be not to release the billions now frozen in overseas accounts until Iran agreed to hold a referendum — monitored by the U.N. — to change its constitution and eliminate the unaccountable position of supreme leader. That constitutional change has circulated among Iranian reformers for nearly two decades, and in recent years has been endorsed by a slew of dissidents and human rights activists, including Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi.
Another idea would be to work directly with humanitarian organizations in Iran to reduce the harm caused by sanctions to supplies of food and medicine. Give those goods directly to Iranian organizations that are independent from the regime. Biden could also lift some banking restrictions to make it easier for Iranian diaspora groups to send money to labor unions and dissidents still in Iran.
These proposals would signal that the U.S. does not intend to punish the Iranian people for the proliferation and terrorism of the regime that oppresses them. It would also provide a path to the full economic normalization that Iranians themselves so desperately want.
America’s current approach offers only false hope in this regard. Even if all the sanctions are lifted, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates will pressure banks and oil companies to stay away from Iran’s economy as a condition for doing business in their countries. Meanwhile, companies that choose to invest in Iran will still have to weigh the risks that any Iranian dual nationals that work for them are at risk of arbitrary arrest, as has happened time and again in Iran since the 2015 nuclear deal. Biden’s policy also offers false hope on nuclear security, as the best he can get will be an Iranian return to enrichment limits that expire by the end of the decade.
Six years ago, there was a credible argument that the alternative to former President Barack Obama’s flawed nuclear deal was a regional war. But Israel has shown that sabotage can set back Iran’s nuclear program without the region spiraling into open warfare. That sabotage has purchased precious time for Biden to focus U.S. policy on the problem at the center of the Iranian nuclear crisis: the Iranian regime.
*This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Pakistani Taliban claims suicide bombing in Quetta
Thomas Joscelyn/FDD's Long War Journal/April 23/2021
Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (the TTP, or Pakistani Taliban) has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a luxury hotel in Quetta, Pakistan. The group has identified the terrorist responsible as Muhammad Abbas (a.k.a. “Farooq”), saying he “targeted police officers and other higher-ups with a martyrdom-seeking attack” on the “five-star Serena hotel.”
At least several people were killed and a dozen or more wounded in the blast yesterday (Apr. 21). According to the Pakistani interior ministry, a Chinese diplomatic delegation, including China’s ambassador, was staying at the same hotel, but was not at the location at the time of the bombing. There is no indication that the Chinese delegation was intentionally targeted.
Instead, the TTP claims that two Pakistani “assistant commissioners” perished, while “scores of other security officers were either killed or injured” and many vehicles “were burnt and destroyed in the attack.”
The TTP has executed a string of mostly small-scale attacks, including assassinations, against Pakistani military and security personnel this year. The group claims the latest bombing is evidence of its “strong military leadership” and the “might” of its “intelligence” arm.
The jihadists’ claim of responsibility was posted by the TTP’s official propaganda outlet, Umar Media, on social media and its website. The message is attributed to the TTP’s spokesperson, a man identified as “Muhammad Khurasani .” The author of the statement criticizes unnamed Pakistani journalists and officials for supposedly covering up the success of the operation, saying these people “childishly” hid “information on the type of attack and its target.”
Like other jihadist organizations, the TTP has suffered a string of setbacks over the years. However, the group has been reconstituted under the leadership of its current emir Noor Wali Mehsud.
Noor Wali was named the emir of the TTP in June 2018, shortly after his predecessor, Mullah Fazlullah, was killed in Afghanistan. Fazlullah’s tenure was rocky, as the TTP suffered defections to the Islamic State’s upstart Khorasan branch, as well as other disruptions in its chain of command. Noor Wali has sought to reunify the TTP’s ranks, formally welcoming breakaway factions back into the fold and publicly accepting oaths of allegiance.
The TTP has been closely allied with al-Qaeda since its formation in late 2007, a relationship that is highlighted in the group’s media. Some personnel are dual-hatted, meaning they serve in both the TTP’s and al-Qaeda’s ranks.
The TTP maintains a significant presence in Afghanistan, where it is waging jihad to restore the Afghan Taliban’s Islamic Emirate. As part of a Feb. 29, 2020, withdrawal deal with the U.S., the Afghan Taliban is supposed to prevent terrorist organizations that threaten the U.S. from operating inside Afghanistan. However, there is no evidence of a break between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP. The TTP’s international aspirations have long been known. In addition to conducting regular attacks inside Pakistan, the group is responsible for the failed May 2010 Times Square bombing.
According to a United Nations monitoring team, thousands of Pakistani jihadists, many of whom are affiliated with the TTP, continue to wage jihad in Afghanistan.
*Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD’s Long War Journal. Follow Tom on Twitter @thomasjoscelyn. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

OPCW Member States Hold Syria Accountable for Chemical Weapons Use
Anthony Ruggiero and Andrea Stricker/FDD/April 23/2021
Eighty-seven member states of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) voted yesterday to suspend Syria’s voting rights in the organization. This was an appropriate, albeit overdue, response to the Assad regime’s unconscionable use of chemical weapons against Syrian citizens.
The OPCW’s unprecedented action marks the first time that the multilateral anti-chemical weapons body has suspended a country. In 2013, Syria joined the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) and nominally surrendered its chemical weapons arsenal. Yet the OPCW, UN Security Council, and independent investigations have proven the Assad regime continued to use chemical weapons against civilians on numerous occasions since 2013. The CWC requires parties to disclose, destroy, and refrain from using chemical weapons, but Damascus has refused to cooperate.
In July 2020, the OPCW’s 41-member Executive Council (EC) set a 90-day deadline for Syria to declare its chemical weapons, its banned chemicals and precursors, and its related production facilities and to demonstrate compliance with the CWC. The EC recommended that the OPCW’s 193-member Conference of States Parties (CSP), which makes final decisions on CWC compliance issues, take appropriate action if Syria did not comply with the deadline.
Nine months later, the organization has finally acted to penalize Syria.
Unfortunately, only 87 countries in the CSP stood with the Syrian people, while 15 voted against the resolution and 34 countries abstained. Fifty-seven countries did not vote at all. The “no” votes were not surprising and included countries that habitually vote against strong action to uphold the CWC, such as China, Iran, Russia, and Syria.
But a few countries that abstained should explain their failure to take a stance on this critical issue. For example, Mexico and Cameroon voted for the July EC decision but abstained in the suspension vote. The United Arab Emirates and India, close Western partners, abstained in both votes. Jordan also abstained.
Still, the suspension of Syria’s voting rights is long overdue and represents a first step toward restoring the global norm of zero chemical weapons use. The OPCW’s next action must be holding Russia accountable for its continued use of chemical weapons to silence regime opponents.
Fifty-nine countries issued a statement at the CSP on Tuesday condemning Russia’s August 2020 use of a Novichok nerve agent to poison dissident Alexei Navalny. Yet the statement did not go far enough. It asked that Russia provide additional information about the incident, which is unlikely, rather than demanding an OPCW investigation.
At the next OPCW EC meeting in July, the Biden administration should lead an effort to adopt a decision demanding that Russia comply with its CWC obligations within 90 days, modeled on the July 2020 EC resolution on Syria. Seventeen current EC member states were among the 59 who condemned Russia on Tuesday, a robust start toward gathering the 28 votes needed for an EC decision.
While some states may regard such an EC decision as hasty, Russia also used Novichok in 2018 in the United Kingdom, inadvertently killing a mother of three instead of the Russian defector targeted for assassination. President Vladimir Putin evidently has yet to receive the message that it is unacceptable to use chemical weapons.
In the lead-up to the July OPCW meeting, Washington should also issue additional targeted sanctions on Russia and Syria and support the prosecution of officials who have committed atrocities.
The OPCW decision marks an important first step toward restoring the global norm of zero chemical weapons use. The fight will continue in the OPCW and elsewhere. The Biden administration must prioritize efforts to hold violators accountable.
Anthony Ruggiero is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where Andrea Stricker is a research fellow. They both contribute to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP), Center on Economic and Financial Power (CEFP), and International Organizations Program. For more analysis from Anthony, Andrea, CMPP, CEFP, and the International Organizations Program, please subscribe HERE. Follow the authors on Twitter @NatSecAnthony and @StrickerNonpro. Follow FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_CMPP and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

“Endless Wars” and the Danger of Ignoring History
Bradley Bowman and Clifford D. May/FDD/April 23/2021
“Ending endless wars” is the goal and mantra of many of those calling for Washington to withdraw troops from overseas deployments. It is an appealing notion. It also demonstrates stunning ignorance. History offers little evidence that protracted armed conflicts – so-called “endless” or “forever” wars – can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion by leaving one’s enemies to plot in safety and comfort. Should the U.S. government adopt such an approach, Americans must expect to be insufficiently protected in the present and more dangerously threatened in the future.
“The story of the human race is war,” Winston Churchill, a keen and lifelong student of history who had fought in four wars by age 25, concluded.1
In 1968, historians Will and Ariel Durant proved Churchill correct quantitatively. They calculated that there had been only 268 years free of war in the previous 3,421.2
In 1995, the eminent historian Donald Kagan concurred. In On the Origins of War and the Preservation of Peace, he wrote that “war has been a persistent part of human experience since before the birth of civilization.”3
Consider a few examples: The Persian-Roman wars were fought from 54 BCE to 628 – a span of 681 years. The Anglo-French wars began in 1066 and lasted for almost 750 years. The Iberian Religious Wars, fought in what is now Spain and Portugal between Christian kingdoms and Muslim emirates and caliphates, started in 711 and ended in 1492 – a period of 781 years.4
In response to the horrors of World War I, world leaders in 1920 established the League of Nations. Signatories to the League’s covenant explicitly committed “not to resort to war.”5 The mission was the maintenance of peace.6 However, the League failed, and we now refer to the Great War (1914–18) as World War I – the precursor to World War II (1939–45).
In 1928, 15 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact renouncing war “as an instrument of national policy.”7 Notably, the signatories included the president of the German Reich and the emperor of Japan. Within a few years, they and other signatory nations would deploy troops to multiple battlefields.8
Still, such isolationist thinking remained fashionable. Between 1918 and 1939, the prevailing view in the United Kingdom was that it would be wasteful and unhelpful to build a powerful military. In 1933, the Oxford Union Society passed a resolution declaring: “This House will under no circumstances fight for its King and country.”9 Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle both argued strenuously against this line of thinking, but to no avail.10
Meanwhile, Germans were finding pacificism less appealing. Among the consequences, as noted by historian Andrew Roberts in his most recent book, Leadership in War, over just six weeks in 1940, the French “lost 90,000 men killed, 250,000 wounded, and 1.9 million captured.” At that point, Marshal Philippe Pétain, a hero of World War I, surrendered to Hitler, while de Gaulle fled to London.11
Following World War II, the two great powers – the Soviet Union and the United States – were able to avoid direct military conflict with one another. The Cold War was fought using diplomacy, economics, espionage, information, disinformation, and proxies. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a close call. But hot wars were not entirely avoidable; the United States did deploy tens of thousands of troops to Korea and Vietnam. More to the point, even during periods without kinetic actions, both sides prepared for the possibility of war. Israelis, who have learned a thing or two about conflict over the past 72 years, now call such periods “the wars between the wars.”12
With the 1989 collapse of the Berlin Wall, many in the West were eager to take a “peace dividend.”13 This was to be America’s “unipolar moment,” when the United States and its allies purportedly had no enemies worth worrying about. Surely, the thinking went, leaders of most nation-states would develop some form of representative governance with a decent respect for basic human rights.
James Woolsey, a former FDD chairman, saw a rather different scenario unfolding. Testifying before Congress just after being nominated as President Bill Clinton’s CIA director in 1993, he referred to the Soviet Union as a “large dragon” America had slain. He predicted we would soon be threatened by a “bewildering variety of poisonous snakes.”14 He was prescient; in 2001, a particularly nasty serpent bit America.
To make matters worse, it turned out the dragon did not stay dead.15 Vladimir Putin, who came to power in the Kremlin in 1999, was not interested in transforming Russia into a liberal, law-abiding member in good standing of the international community. A self-styled czar/commissar, he has worked assiduously to revive and expand Russian power. Regarding geopolitics as a zero-sum game, he has undermined the United States and NATO in whatever ways he can. The people of Georgia and Ukraine have paid the steepest price.
China’s rulers also did not agree that increasing prosperity and democratization must go hand in hand. Instead of liberalizing and participating in the post-World War II liberal rules-based order, Beijing has sought to recast the international system in its own authoritarian image and impose its own rules.
To this end, the Communist Party of China has launched a multi-faceted campaign that includes massive theft of intellectual property – America’s in particular.
It is worth recalling what Sun Tzu, the great Chinese military strategist, born around 544 BCE, observed that “a victorious army wins its victories before seeking battle.”16 Two and a half millennia later, in 1999, two officers of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) wrote a manual called Unrestricted Warfare, a plan to wage war in such a surreptitious manner that the victim remains oblivious.17
The primary goal is to build a PLA capable of defeating U.S. forces. In a report earlier this year, the top U.S. commander in the Indo-Pacific warned that the military balance of power vis-a-vis China was becoming increasingly “unfavorable.”18 Recently, the PLA Air Force released a provocative video that appears to show attacks on Guam, an American territory.19
Americans and other free peoples have been slow to wake up to this threat.
But the threats do not end there. For decades, American and other Western diplomats have attempted to prevent the hostile and despotic rulers of North Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them to targets anywhere in the world. Nevertheless, North Korea today has nuclear weapons and increasingly accurate intercontinental ballistic missiles.20 The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to export terrorism and likely could attain a nuclear weapons capability in relatively short order.21
Unfortunately, there are other threats to consider, too. Since 9/11, despite the elimination of Osama bin Laden and several other terrorist leaders, non-state jihadi terrorist groups have been both mutating and proliferating. Though the Islamic State has been deprived of the territory it conquered in Syria and Iraq, the organization has not been conclusively defeated.22 Only military pressure applied in the wider Middle East – and mainly from U.S. bases in the Middle East – has deprived these groups of the breathing space they need to successfully plan and carry out additional attacks against Americans.
So, now the United States is challenged and threatened by both “dragons” and “snakes,” as David Kilcullen, an Australian-American soldier and scholar who served as a top adviser to the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan and is currently on the Board of Advisors of FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power, has observed.23 Kilcullen notes that the dragons (Moscow and Beijing) and the snakes (Tehran, Pyongyang, and non-state jihadi groups) are learning from each other and becoming more dangerous in the process.24
If democracies have any hope of defending themselves against this daunting array of threats, free peoples must begin by at least acknowledging that these foes exist – and that our enemies mean to do us harm. Leaving them alone and declaring “mission accomplished” is not the answer.
No society in human history has permanently ended or escaped war by retreating and declaring conflicts over. Those who theorize that the outcome will be different in the 21st century declare themselves proponents of “responsible statecraft.” But they have evidence to support neither their theory nor their claim.
We all recognize the terrible costs war exacts on nations and individuals – particularly the brave citizens who fight them and the family members who are left behind. It is right and prudent to view war as a last resort. Our leaders should do all they can to prevent wars, deter enemies, and utilize diplomacy, economic sanctions, and other means to defend America’s vital interests. The responsibility of leaders is to forestall conflicts that are avoidable and shorten those that are not.
To be sure, not all deployments, interventions, conflicts, and wars are in America’s strategic interest. Not all battles can be won. And not all battles must be won in order to prevail in the larger wars. There can be strategic retreats. However, history’s most successful leaders have understood that prioritizing the avoidance of military conflict above all else invites aggression. Understanding this leads to the conclusion that the United States should maintain the most capable military forces possible, retain well-designed defenses, and forward-deploy military forces alongside key allies and partners.
This approach will not end all wars, now or in the future. It will, however, better protect Americans – while making conflicts fewer and farther between.

Does Israel Lie America Into Wars?
Tony Badran/The Tablet/April 23/2021
طوني بدران/مجلة التابلت: هل توريط إسرائيل أميركا في الحروب “مع إيران”
كولين كال مرشح بايدن لموقع مهم في ادارته يلمح إلى أن كشف نيتنياهو عام 2018 عن ملفات البرنامج النووي الإيراني التي سرقتها الموساد من إيران لم يكن إلا مؤامرة. في هذه الإثناء تم فضح تلميح كولين كال المخيف هذا الأسبوع الماضي. والسؤال هو لماذا قال ما قاله مرشح لمنصب مهم اختارة بايدن؟
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/98175/tony-badran-the-tablet-does-israel-lie-america-into-wars-%d8%b7%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%af%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%85%d8%ac%d9%84%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%a8%d9%84%d8%aa-%d9%87%d9%84/

Colin Kahl’s creepy insinuation was debunked last week. The question is why Biden’s Pentagon pick said it in the first place.
A top adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has acknowledged the 2018 Israeli operation that seized Iran’s nuclear archive. “The country has been widely exposed to security violations, and the example is that in less than a year, three security incidents have occurred: two explosions and one assassination,” Mohsen Rezaee, secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council, told Iran’s Mehr News last Wednesday. “Before this, documents from our entire nuclear [archive] have been stolen, and before that, a few suspicious drones came and did some work.”
Rezaee’s statement marked the first time Iran has acknowledged that the nuclear archive lifted by the Israelis was real—a fact that was obvious to any sentient observer from the size, complexity, and interconnected nature of the materials, which would have taken many years and a very technologically advanced team of forgers to manufacture out of whole cloth. Yet the Iranians had previously been loath to admit that the archive was authentic, presumably because both its contents and its theft were embarrassing to the regime.
Which leaves President Joe Biden’s former national security adviser and current nominee for undersecretary of defense for policy, Colin Kahl, in the ludicrous position of being the only Iranian nuclear archive denialist still standing.
Of course, there was no shortage of Obama-era echo chamber operatives and reporter types who broadcast their initial skepticism about aspects of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2018 presentation of the stolen archive. The materials presented by the Israelis showed that Iranian claims that had been taken at face value by President Obama and his team for the purposes of securing the nuclear deal were false. Why did it matter? As Jacob Nagel and Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies wrote in Newsweek recently, “What is the point of ‘unprecedented’ monitoring of these sites if the IAEA never established a baseline of Iran's weaponization efforts?”
Was Netanyahu hyping a minor find in 2018? What was actually in the so-called “archive”? Were all the documents in fact real? As soon as Israel revealed its operation, those with a professional interest in soft-pedaling the lies of Tehran’s spokespeople suddenly became hardened skeptics, casting doubt on the veracity of Iranian government documents that contradicted their claims.
And then there was Colin Kahl. Not content with dismissive suspicion or scattershot attempts at debunking, Kahl opted to go one step further—or three—and suggested that the evidence Israel obtained and intended to publicize was part of some kind of Jewish plot to sucker America into war. Ahead of Netanyahu’s presentation, Kahl tweeted: “Let’s see what this is. But this sure has an eerie pre-2003 Iraq vibe to it.”
How can we understand that Kahl’s response to reported news of Israeli spies uncovering a “huge amount of new and dramatic information on the Iranian nuclear program” was to publicly retail a patently false anti-Semitic conspiracy theory? The possibilities are finite, and they all come with the same appendix. Maybe the top-secret U.S. government intelligence that Kahl was privy to before 2018 was in fact blind to Iran’s nuclear program, and really did make it seem reasonable to assume that the Iranian documents were forgeries. If not, and U.S. intelligence had long corroborated Israel’s eventual findings, then Kahl’s use of an anti-Semitic canard to deflate the new revelations was viciously cynical.
Kahl is now Biden’s nominee for the No. 3 position at the Pentagon. To support Kahl’s stalled confirmation, Obama’s former ambassador to Israel, Daniel Shapiro, and his former special envoy for Middle East peace, Martin Indyk, have spearheaded a letter in defense of the embattled nominee that attempts to portray him as a friend of Israel based on his 13 visits there while carrying out Obama’s policies. “Kahl has been unfairly and ludicrously smeared as anti-Israel,” Shapiro insists.
Really? A hallmark of the Obama years was the corruption of language—sometimes referred to as gaslighting—wherein people were asked to accept constantly evolving word definitions while rejecting contradictory evidence that they might have previously seen as clear-cut. In this case, the evidence suggests that Colin Kahl is a nuclear archive truther who deflected against unwelcome news by spreading anti-Semitic falsehoods. How friendly is that?
From an American national security standpoint, Kahl’s inability to tell the difference between friends and foes would appear to be matched by his failure to correctly analyze intelligence material, which might ordinarily seem like a prohibitive defect for the guy in charge of policy at the Pentagon. But these are not normal times. For Kahl’s brazen public supporters, the nominee’s empty toolkit must come second to his allegiance to the party line—which now apparently includes the idea that Israel lies America into wars.
*Picture Enclosed shows Former U.S. Deputy Assistant Defense Secretary for the Middle East Colin Kahl participates in a panel discussion about Iran’s nuclear program sponsored by the National Iranian American Council in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 21, 2012. Kahl said the Iranian supreme leader had not decided to start a full-fledged program to build nuclear weapons.