English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For February 06/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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Bible Quotations For today

Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Letter to the Ephesians 06/10-20.23-24/:”Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his power. Put on the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armour of God, so that you may be able to withstand on that evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness. As shoes for your feet put on whatever will make you ready to proclaim the gospel of peace. With all of these, take the shield of faith, with which you will be able to quench all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints. Pray also for me, so that when I speak, a message may be given to me to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it boldly, as I must speak.Peace be to the whole community, and love with faith, from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with all who have an undying love for our Lord Jesus Christ.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 05- 06/2021

Ministry of Health: Record 98 deaths, 3071 infection cases
Blinken Urges that Slim’s Killers 'be Brought to Swift Justice'
EU, EU States Urge Lebanon to Bring Slim's Killers to Justice
Slim's Family Wants to Know if He was Tortured
Two Cars Raise Suspicions Prior to Slim's Assassination
Lokman Slim ‘may have been tortured’ before he was assassinated: Family
Family of slain Lebanese activist Lokman Slim hints Hezbollah behind the killing
Murdered Lebanese activist’s family: ‘We will not be silenced’/Najia Houssari/Arab News/February 05/2021
Killing of Lebanese anti-Hezbollah activist Luqman Slim sparks fury
Killing of Hezbollah critic draws domestic, international outcry
Lokman Slim: the assassination of a most elegant critic/Luna Safwan/The National/February 05/2021
Murdered activist Lokman Slim was facilitating a Hezbollah defection before death/Mona Alami/Al Arabiya/Thursday 04 February 2021
Killing of Lokman Slim in southern Lebanon sends message from Hezbollah, Iran
Hezbollah and Other Non-State Actors Acquire Asymmetric Tools in Cyberspace/Annie Fixler and Mark Montgomery/FDD/February 05/2021
Lokman Slim and the anatomy of Hezbollah’s brutal history of assassination/Nadim Shehadi/Al Arabiya/Friday 05 February 2021
Lebanon Allows Emergency Use of Russian Vaccine
'U.S.-French Agreement' on Lebanon Boosts Chances of Govt. Formation
Diab, Fahmi Confirm Lockdown to be Eased on Monday
Syrian refugees struggle for survival amid Lebanon’s crises
 

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 05- 06/2021

Libyan delegates chose interim prime minister, presidential council
U.S., E3 foreign ministers expected to discuss Iran soon -sources
After Canada's Proud Boys decision, U.S. lawmakers confront white supremacy threat
US Senate approves amendment to keep embassy in Jerusalem
Turkish police arrest 65 people over top university protests amid crackdown
Biden Says Yemen War 'Has to End' as He Stops Saudi Support
Yemeni Warring Factions Welcome Biden Peace Push
Al-Qaeda's leader in Yemen under arrest: UN report
Israeli army shoots, kills unarmed Palestinian man in West Bank settlement
Arab party may play ‘break-even role’ for Netanyahu to hold on to office
EU's Borrell Hails Russian Vaccine as 'Good News for Mankind'
Saudi Arabia says Biden’s speech reiterates US commitment to work with allies
 

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 05- 06/2021

In first, Saudi paper prints op-ed by Israelis — on Erdogan’s private militias/Lazar Berman/The Times Of Israel/February 05/2021
Iran is already winning...The ayatollahs are smiling/Behnam Ben Taleblu/The Spectator/February 05/2021
Elevating ‘deterrence by denial’ in US defense strategy/Erica D. Borghard, Benjamin Jensen, Mark/Montgomery/Atlantic/Council/February 05/2021
Suspending U.S.-ROK Military Exercises Will Not Facilitate Peace Negotiations/Mathew Ha/FDD/February 05/2021
Ideology Is Making Iran Even Sicker/Ilan I. Berman/Al-Hurra Digital/February 05/2021
Biden Wants to Mend the U.S.-Saudi Alliance, Not End It/Eli Lake/ Bloomberg/February 05/2021
Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen goes the Sudanese distance/Lahav Harjov/The Jerusalem Post/February 05/2021
Hypocrisy in action/Mohammed A. El Huni/The Arab Weekly/February 05/2021
The Mysteries of the Trump Impeachment Remake/Amir TaheriAsharq Al Awsat/February 05/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 05- 06/2021

Ministry of Health: Record 98 deaths, 3071 infection cases
NNA/Friday 05 February 2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced 3071 new coronavirus infection cases, which brings the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 315340.
A record number of 98 deaths has been recorded.
 

Blinken Urges that Slim’s Killers 'be Brought to Swift Justice'
Naharnet/Friday 05 February 2021
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned the “heinous assassination” of prominent Lebanese activist Lokman Slim in southern Lebanon. “We join the international community in calling for his killers to be brought to swift justice,” Blinken said in a statement. “Mr. Slim devoted his life to bringing about positive change in Lebanon and bravely pushed for justice, accountability, and rule of law in his country,” he added. The top U.S. diplomat stressed that it is “cowardly and unacceptable” to resort to violence, threats, and intimidation as “a means of subverting the rule of law or suppressing freedom of expression and civic activism.” He added: “We urge Lebanese officials, including the judiciary and political leaders, to hold accountable those who commit such barbaric acts without delay or exception.”

EU, EU States Urge Lebanon to Bring Slim's Killers to Justice
Naharnet/Friday 05 February 2021
The EU Delegation to Lebanon and the diplomatic missions of the EU Member States on Friday called on Lebanese authorities to act swiftly in the wake of the assassination of the renowned activist and researcher Lokman Slim. “We are shocked and deeply saddened by the assassination of M. Lokman Slim, a prominent intellectual and political activist, found dead in South Lebanon on 4 February 2021. We call on the Lebanese authorities to urgently launch an investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice,” they said in a joint statement. “This tragic day also marked the six-month anniversary of the terrible explosion at the Port of Beirut on 4 August 2020. The people of Lebanon deserve to know what happened half a year ago. They deserve swift justice and accountability. We continue to call on Lebanese authorities to deliver on their commitment to an impartial, credible, transparent and independent investigation,” the statement added. It also reminded that the EU has repeatedly underlined the urgent need for “state building and strengthening of institutions that guarantee the independence of the judiciary, ensure the respect for the rule of law, and meet the legitimate aspirations peacefully expressed by the people in Lebanon.” The EU will “continue to support those who champion fundamental democratic values and human rights,” the statement said. “We offer our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of M. Lokman Slim,” it added.
 

Slim's Family Wants to Know if He was Tortured
Associated Press/Friday 05 February 2021
The family of slain publisher and anti-Hizbullah activist Lokman Slim said Friday they want a forensic doctor they hired to determine whether he was tortured before he was killed. The development came amid much speculation that 58-year-old Slim was alive for several hours before he was shot several times at close range. He was found in his car in southern Lebanon on Thursday with multiple gunshot wounds. The brazen killing sparked fears of a return to political violence in a country gripped by social and economic upheaval.
The longtime Shiite political activist and researcher went missing on Wednesday night after a trip south to visit friends. The Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV and some local Lebanese TV stations have reported that Slim may have been tortured while local officials speculated that bruises on his face indicate he was punched before he was killed. Lebanese security forces found Slim's car on a rural road near the southern village of al-Addoussiyeh, in Sidon province. He was heading back to Beirut in the evening after his visit.
On Friday, his body was brought from the southern city of Sidon to the American University Medical Center in Beirut. Slim's family has dismissed a handwritten report by the coroner who was at the scene Thursday when the body was found. The coroner said there were six bullets in the body -- four to the head, one in the chest and one in the back. It was not known if the report had any mention of bruising. "We have asked a private doctor" to examine Slim's body, his sister, Rasha al-Ameer, told LBCI TV. The family, she said, wants to "find out how much they tortured him before killing him."
Al-Ameer on Thursday offered a veiled accusation against Hizbullah, without naming the group, and repeated it on Friday, saying that "it is known who controls" the area where her brother was found dead. "We want to know what happened to him during the three hours before he was killed," she added.
Hizbullah has condemned Slim's killing and called for a swift investigation. It also urged security agencies to combat crimes it said have spread around Lebanon and which have been "exploited politically and by the media at the expense of security and domestic stability" -- a jab at their critics.
Perpetrators of political violence or corruption are almost never identified or prosecuted in Lebanon. With rising tension amid deepening political dispute and economic crisis, officials have warned of a return of violence and assassinations.
 

Two Cars Raise Suspicions Prior to Slim's Assassination
Naharnet/Friday 05 February 2021
Neighbors of the friends whom Lokman Slim was visiting in the southern town of Niha prior to his assassination noticed a suspicious movement of two vehicles, according to leaked details of the probe. “According to residents, Slim used to regularly visit Niha and Srifa,” another southern town in the Tyre district, al-Akhbar daily reported Friday, quoting sources from Lebanon’s security agencies. “As he was spending his day at his friends' place, the neighbors detected a strange movement of a Toyota Camry car that started roaming the neighborhood’s vicinity as of 1:00 pm Wednesday,” the report said. “One person, from outside the region, was in the car. When the evening came, an SUV containing two or three people followed it,” the report added. It said residents remembered the two suspicious cars in the wake of Slim’s assassination, informing security forces who checked footage from CCTV cameras in the house’s vicinity. A passerby later saw Slim’s car parked in the southern area of al-Addousiyeh around 11:00 pm Wednesday. “The investigations that are being conducted, especially by the Intelligence Branch of the Internal Security Forces, are firstly focusing on witnesses’ testimonies, secondly on phone calls and telecom data, and thirdly on CCTV cameras,” al-Akhbar reported. “The third element is suffering from two difficulties: the presence of more than 30 roads that can be taken to get from Niha to al-Addousiyeh and the scarcity of CCTV cameras on a lot of those roads,” the daily added.

Lokman Slim ‘may have been tortured’ before he was assassinated: Family
Joanne Serrieh, Al Arabiya English/Friday 05 February 2021
Prominent Lebanese activist and Hezbollah critic Lokman Slim “may have been tortured” before he was assassinated, his sister told Al Arabiya on Friday, one day after her brother was found shot dead. “The [coroner’s report] I received says that there were six bullets in his body, and that he was bleeding, and it appears they may have tortured him before killing him,” Rasha al-Ameer said. She also described the report as “very basic,” adding that the family had requested the report in order to be allowed to move the corpse from a morgue in the Sidon public hospital to a morgue at a private hospital in Beirut, where Slim’s family lives. “We’ve requested from a pathologist [an autopsy] to get additional information on what he thinks happened, and the time of death,” his sister added. As of Friday, no one from the investigative team or authorities had contacted the family to provide more information, al-Ameer revealed to Al Arabiya. The body of 58-year-old Slim, a longtime Shia political activist and researcher, was slumped over on the passenger seat with multiple wounds from gunshots fired at close range, according to security and forensic officials. He was reported missing by his family late Wednesday night into Thursday morning after he visited a friend’s house in a village in Lebanon’s southern region, which is heavily controlled by the Iran-backed Hezbollah. Slim's family hinted on Thursday that the extremist group was behind the killing, according to the Associated Press. “He was carrying the weight of this country on his shoulder,” his sister Rasha al-Ameer told reporters at their home after the news of the killing broke. She said she has no faith in local investigations and that the family would carry out its own private forensic probe. “Up until today in the history of Lebanon, all investigations have led to a dead end,” she told reporters. His wife, Monika Borgmann, standing next to al-Ameer, called for an international probe. “This killer has to be punished,” Borgmann said. Al-Ameer hinted that Hezbollah was behind the killing, without naming the group, adding that it is known who controls the area where her brother was found dead. “Killing for them is a habit," she said. Hezbollah and its allies dominate the area in southern Lebanon.

Family of slain Lebanese activist Lokman Slim hints Hezbollah behind the killing
The Associated Press/Friday 05 February 2021
The family of prominent Lebanese publisher and vocal critic of the Shia militant Hezbollah group Lokman Slim who was found shot dead in his car on Thursday morning, hinted that the group was behind the killing.
The body of 58-year-old Slim, a longtime Shia political activist and researcher, was slumped over on the passenger seat with multiple wounds from gunshots fired at close range, security and forensic officials said.
He had been missing for hours since late Wednesday and his family posted social media messages looking for him.
To his friends, Slim was a fearless critic of Lebanon's powerful politicians, Hezbollah and its allies Iran and Syria, and a major resource on the history of Lebanon's civil war. His killing raised fears that Lebanon’s political tensions could turn into a new wave of assassinations.
Critics, however, accused Slim of sowing sedition, undermining national unity and being a Zionist because of his criticisms of Hezbollah.
“He was carrying the weight of this country on his shoulder,” his sister Rasha al-Ameer told reporters at their home after the news of the killing broke. She said she has no faith in local investigations and that the family would carry out its own private forensic probe.
“Up until today in the history of Lebanon, all investigations have led to a dead end,” she told reporters. His wife, Monika Borgmann, standing next to al-Ameer, called for an international probe. “This killer has to be punished,” Borgmann said.
Al-Ameer hinted that Hezbollah was behind the killing, without naming the group, adding that it is known who controls the area where her brother was found dead. “Killing for them is a habit," she said. Hezbollah and its allies dominate the area in southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah condemned Slim's killing, calling for a swift investigation. It also urged security agencies to combat crimes it said have spread around Lebanon and which have been “exploited politically and by the media at the expense of security and domestic stability" — a jab at their critics.
Slim was born in Beirut's southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, where he lived all his life. He returned from abroad to the house, when most people were leaving, during the 2006 war with Israel, when the suburbs were being bombed.
He founded Umam, a research and film production house with a library documenting Lebanon's and Shia history. His family owns a publishing house and Slim hosted public debates and political forums and art shows, including exhibitions documenting the civil war's missing. He and his wife worked on a film documenting the atrocities of Syria's notorious Tadmor prison.
In 2009, he and his wife organized a private viewing at their center for an Oscar-nominated anti-war Israeli cartoon about Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon and the rise of the then-President Bachir Gemayel, in defiance of Hezbollah and Lebanese authorities, which banned it.
Slim also set up Haya Bina, or “Let's go," a group that encouraged participation in 2005 parliamentary elections, called for changes to Lebanon's sectarian-based system, and taught women English. “It is a big tragedy,” said Makram Rabah, a close friend and history lecturer. “Anyone who knows Lokman they know who his enemies are.” Rabah said he and Slim were strong opponents of Hezbollah's grip on power and called for sovereignty and diversity in Lebanon. They were both attacked by a group of young men during a public debate at the height of anti-government protests in 2019. Slim at the time accused Hezbollah supporters of being behind the attack. Slim also accused Hezbollah supporters days before that attack of threatening him at his home, holding rallies and hanging posters on its walls accusing him of treason.

Murdered Lebanese activist’s family: ‘We will not be silenced’
Najia Houssari/Arab News/February 05/2021
ناجيا حسري/أرب نيوز: عائلة الشهيد لقمان سليم تؤكد بأنها لن تستكين أو تسكت تحت أي ظرف
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/95661/murdered-lebanese-activists-family-we-will-not-be-silenced-killing-of-lebanese-anti-hezbollah-activist-luqman-slim-sparks-fury-%d9%86%d8%a7%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d8%ad%d8%b3%d8%b1/
Luqman Salim, an outspoken critic of Hezbollah, was found shot dead in his rented car in the Zahrani area of southern Lebanon early on Thursday
Rasha Al-Ameer: They have tried to force us from our home and out of this area because we do not speak their language, the language of death
BEIRUT: The family of a murdered Lebanese anti-Hezbollah activist is refusing to bury him until specialist tests determine how he was killed and whether he was tortured.
Luqman Salim’s family is awaiting the report of a doctor hired to examine his body.
Salim, an outspoken critic of Hezbollah, was found shot dead in his rented car in the Zahrani area of southern Lebanon early on Thursday.
He had been reported missing the previous day while returning from visiting friends in the southern village of Niha.
Salim, a leading secular voice in Lebanon’s Shiite community, had been routinely threatened because of his stance against Hezbollah.
The activist’s sister, author Rasha Al-Ameer, told Arab News on Friday that his body had been moved from a hospital in the south of Lebanon to a private hospital in Beirut.
She claimed the initial coroner’s report lacked detail, and was “handwritten and unreliable officially.”
“They killed Luqman, and the timing of his burial no longer matters,” she added.
Al-Ameer said the family is refusing to be silenced.
“The killer is known, and it is known who controls the area where my brother was killed. They wanted to silence him. They have been trying for 15 years. But we will not be silenced,” she said.
The family plans to erect a shrine in the garden of Salim’s home in Ghobeiry, a southern suburb of Beirut.
“Will they dare enter the garden to sabotage the shrine?” asked Al-Ameer.
“They have tried to force us from our home and out of this area because we do not speak their language, the language of death. Luqman loved the language of life. They will not force us out,” she said.
Al-Ameer said that Salim’s elderly mother had been left broken-hearted by news of her son’s killing.
“They stomped on my mother’s heart. She lived in this area, helped people and did good deeds. Despite that, people from the sect she served killed her son.”
Security investigations into the assassination continued on Friday amid growing condemnation of the killing and calls for justice.
Former MP Fares Souaid said: “Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah, and the party has to provide answers. If Hezbollah does not reveal who killed Salim, we will continue to accuse the party.”
Melhem Khalaf, head of the Beirut Bar Association, called for Lebanon’s judiciary to show courage, saying: “There is no tranquility for the people. Justice now for the spirit of Salim and for all the innocent victims.”
Ret. Brig. Gen. George Nader said that Salim’s killing was an attempt to intimidate anti-Hezbollah groups that refuse to fall silent.
“Let them kill whoever they want. It is not possible to back down or be afraid,” he said.
Civil activists also said that they will organize protests against the killing.
US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea described Salim’s assassination as “barbaric.”
In a statement, she said that Salim acknowledged threats had been made against his life, and yet bravely continued to push for justice and the rule of law.
“This assassination was not just a brutal assault on an individual, but a cowardly attack on the principles of democracy, freedom of expression and civic participation. It is also an attack on Lebanon itself,” she said.
Shea called for “an urgent investigation of this and other recent unresolved killings so that the perpetrators of these acts are brought to justice, in a country that so desperately needs to recover from the multiple crises it faces.”
She said that “political assassinations send exactly the wrong signal to the world about what Lebanon stands for.”
In an article published on the Al-Arabiya website on Thursday, journalist Mona Al-Alami wrote that Salim had been killed because he uncovered Hezbollah’s “internal fabric and intricate web-like network.”

Killing of Lebanese anti-Hezbollah activist Luqman Slim sparks fury
Arab News/February 05/2021
اغتيال الشهيد لقمان سليم يثير موجة من الغضب
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/95661/murdered-lebanese-activists-family-we-will-not-be-silenced-killing-of-lebanese-anti-hezbollah-activist-luqman-slim-sparks-fury-%d9%86%d8%a7%d8%ac%d9%8a%d8%a7-%d8%ad%d8%b3%d8%b1/
Lebanese author and activist Luqman Slim, 59, was found dead on Thursday morning in the southern region of Zahrani. His killing was the first of a Lebanese Shiite anti-Hezbollah figure since 2004.
News of Slim’s disappearance broke on Thursday morning after nothing was heard from him on Wednesday evening after he started travelling home from visiting family in the southern village of Niha.
Rasha Al-Ameer, Slim’s sister, announced his disappearance on social media, asking for information to help recover him.
But in the early hours of Thursday morning, the news changed from a missing person to an assassination after Slim’s body was found in his car in one of the orchards of the Al-Adousiya area.
“We are demanding a thorough investigation which should determine the motive behind the killing and hold the perpetrators accountable,” Sherif Mansour, the MENA Program Coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists, told Arab News.
“The bottom line is that censorship including against critical journalists by fractions within Lebanon should not go unpunished and what we hope to see is that Hezbollah, especially because of their prior threats, will be questioned and pressured to provide answers.”
“In terms of censorship, we hope that the various Lebanese authorities would respect any media institution that has worked to cover not just this issue but others that are currently facing censorship by Hezbollah affiliates in Lebanon so that they can continue to operate without harassment or retaliation.”
Forensic doctor Afif Khafaja said that “the body was hit with five bullets, four in the head and one in the back,” which is an uncommon method of assassination. No identification cards were found on the body.
Slim’s family used a mobile application to locate his cell phone, which was found tossed in one of the orchards near the house he was at in Niha.
His killing is the culmination of a series of threats Slim has received for many years — which intensified in recent months — for his strong anti-Hezbollah stance. He was accused by Hezbollah and its members of being an “Israeli agent” or “a Shiite of the American Embassy.”
The activist chose not to hide in his home in the region of Ghobeiry despite the threats he had received, refusing to let intimidation prevent him from publishing his ideas.
Threats were sent through flyers that were thrown into his garden and read “muffler” and “Hezbollah is the nation’s honor.”
In a statement he issued in 2019, he blamed “all that has happened and may happen in the future on the de facto forces represented by Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri,” adding: “I place myself and my home under the protection of the Lebanese security forces, particularly the Lebanese Army.”
“This is a reminder of the risk journalists face in Lebanon, including those who have paid the ultimate price,” Mansour of the CPJ added, saying that, “I was reminded of the first documented murder an anti-Iran Shia journalist in 1992, Mustapha Jeha, and that also includes 3 other known cases in 2000 including prominent writers and intellectuals.”
Jeha was killed by unidentified gunmen while driving his car in an east Beirut suburb on Jan. 15, 1992.
Slim had turned his family home and the surrounding garden into a sanctuary for hosting intellectual and cultural activities.
He hailed from a family known for its knowledge, culture, openness and involvement in public affairs. His father, Mohsen Slim, was an MP and a prominent lawyer, while his uncle, Karim Slim, was an important judge.
Security sources told Arab News that “the area in which Slim’s body was found is a mandatory crossing route from Tyre district’s Niha village towards Beirut, through the Zahrani highway. However, Al-Adousiya’s population, where his body was found, has a majority of Christians and its overt loyalty is to the Free Patriotic Movement, while the neighboring town of Tuftaha has a Shiite majority and the majority of the town’s political affiliation is mixed between the Amal movement and Hezbollah. Whoever committed his crime has carefully chosen this area to dispose of the body.”
The judiciary instructed the Information Division of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces to conduct a complete scan of security cameras in the area to find out the route that Slim’s car took before his killing, and to download and analyze the data on his cell phone.
In her first comment on the assassination of her brother, Al-Ameer said: “We know who the killer is. He has control over the area in which Luqman was killed. Whoever threatened Luqman is involved in his murder, it has their signature all over it. They want everyone to leave and for only the killers to stay.”
The murder of Slim, who represents the opposing opinion within the Shiite community in Lebanon, provoked angry reactions across Lebanon.
President Michel Aoun requested a “swift investigation to clear up the circumstances of the crime and the parties behind it.”
The caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi described the incident as a “horrific crime.”
Police gather at the side where the body of anti-Hezbollah journalist and activist Luqman Slim was found in his car. (Reuters)
Slim, one of the most prominent Lebanese intellectuals to be gunned down since historian Samir Kassir in 2005, was born in Beirut in 1962 and studied in France late in the 1975-1990 civil war.
His murder comes as Lebanon marked six months since a devastating blast at the capital’s port killed more than 200 people and ravaged entire neighborhoods.
What was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history was caused by a years-old stock of highly explosive ammonium nitrate in a port warehouse.
Yet Lebanon’s own investigation into the presence of the material and its ignition appears to be completely stalled.
Hezbollah’s enemies pointed a finger at the Shiite militia’s influence over Lebanese customs and port security following the explosion.
According to a judicial official, the prosecutor tasked with investigating the blast started looking into possible connections to Syrian businessmen this week.
The United Nations envoy to Lebanon Jan Kubis wrote he was saddened by Slim’s murder, describing him as “an honest independent voice of courage.”
He also said that, unlike the port blast, Slim’s murder should be investigated in a “speedy and transparent way.”
Former premier Saad Al-Hariri, whose father’s assassination sparked regional turmoil in 2005, said Slim had been clearer than most in identifying the source of danger to the nation.
“Luqman Slim is a new victim on the path to freedom and democracy in Lebanon and his assassination is inseparable from the context of the assassinations of his predecessor, he said in a tweet.
France’s Foreign Ministry called the killing a “heinous crime” and demanded a transparent investigation. “France asks that the facts be clearly established and that all those who can contribute to establishing the truth contribute fully,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Agnes von der Muhll said in a statement.
“It expects the Lebanese authorities and all Lebanese officials to allow the justice system to act efficiently, transparently and without interference.”
France’s ambassador, Anne Grillo, spoke on social media of her “immense sadness and preoccupation” over Slim’s killing.
(With AFP and Reuters)

Killing of Hezbollah critic draws domestic, international outcry

The Arab Weekly/February 05/2021
United Nations Envoy to Lebanon Jan Kubis said he was saddened by Slim’s murder, describing him as “an honest independent voice of courage.” He added that, unlike the port blast, Slim’s murder should be investigated in a “speedy and transparent way.”

BEIRUT--A prominent Lebanese activist and intellectual known for his opposition to the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement was found dead in his car in the country’s south on Thursday, a security official said. Lokman Slim, 58, had long been a leading secular voice in the Shia community and was routinely targeted for criticism, and often threatened, over his anti-Hezbollah stance. A judge said the body of Lokman Slim had four bullets in the head and one in the back. A security source said his phone was found on the side of a road. Security sources did not immediately elaborate on the circumstances of his death but Slim’s own sister said before his death was even confirmed that his disappearance was inevitably linked to his opinions. “He had a political stance, why else would he have been kidnapped,” Rasha al-Ameer said. Slim was often criticised by Hezbollah supporters and accused of being instrumentalised by the United States.
Outside condemnation, shock in Lebanon
Lebanese social media erupted over the murder, on which many were already commenting as the latest in the long list of Lebanon’s political assassinations. Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi, quoted in local media, called Slim’s killing a “horrible crime.”
Hezbollah said it condemned the killing, which Lebanese officials, including the president, called an assassination.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken termed it a “heinous assassination” and called for Slim’s killers to be brought swiftly to justice.
“It is cowardly and unacceptable to resort to violence, threats, and intimidation as a means of subverting the rule of law or suppressing freedom of expression and civic activism,” Blinken said in a statement.
Human rights groups, the United Nations and other Western diplomats all demanded an investigation. “We deplore the prevailing culture of impunity,” EU ambassador Ralph Tarraf tweeted.
A Lebanese press freedom centre, SKeyes, said it feared a cover-up of the crime and more attempts to eliminate “symbols of free political thought.”
The centre was founded after a car bomb killed journalist Samir Kassir in 2005, at a time when a series of assassinations hit Lebanon targeting critics of Syria’s 15-year domination.
“A big loss”
Slim, who was in his late 50s, ran a research centre, made documentaries with his wife Monika Borgmann and led efforts to build an archive on Lebanon’s 1975-1990 sectarian civil war. The organisation called Umam Documentation and Research aimed at raising awareness and preventing further conflict.
The secular intellectual and pro-democracy activist had also worked in publishing. He spoke against what he described as the Iranian-backed, Shia Hezbollah’s intimidation tactics and attempts to monopolise Lebanese politics.
The activist also founded a non-profit to promote civil liberties which received a grant under the US Middle East Partnership Initiative and worked with an American think tank, leaked WikiLeaks diplomatic cables said in 2008.
At Slim’s family home in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah holds sway, relatives sat in shock. Some wept in silence. One relative said they had found out about his death from a news alert while at a police station.
“What a big loss. And they lost a noble enemy too … It’s rare for someone to argue with them and live among them with respect,” his sister Rasha told reporters, without naming Hezbollah.
She said he had not mentioned any threats. “Killing is the only language they are fluent in,” she added. “I don’t know how we will go on with our work … It will be hard.”
In an interview last month on Saudi’s al-Hadath TV, Slim said he believed Damascus and its ally Hezbollah had a role in the port blast that ripped through Beirut in August, killing 200 people and injuring thousands.
Hezbollah has denied any links to the explosion.
President Michel Aoun, a political ally of Hezbollah, said he had ordered an investigation into Thursday’s crime, which came exactly six month since the port blast.
Former premier Saad Hariri, whose father’s assassination sparked regional turmoil in 2005, said Slim had been clearer than most in identifying the source of danger to the nation. “His murder is a very big loss for Lebanon, for culture,” said Hazem Saghieh, a well-known Lebanese journalist. “He was one of a few who only knew how to speak his mind.”
Serious threats
When a cross-sectarian pro-democracy protest movement was still gathering daily and occupying parts of central Beirut in late 2019, thugs loyal to Hezbollah and the other main Shia party Amal were involved in several violent incidents.
They beat up protesters and in one instance in December that year plastered messages on the walls of Slim’s Beirut home calling him a traitor and warning that his “time will come.” Slim said at the time that he would lay the blame squarely on the leaders of Hezbollah and Amal, Hassan Nasrallah and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri respectively, should anything happen to him or his family. He also said people had gathered in his garden, chanting slurs and threats, noting that he had received death threats after speaking in a debate at a Beirut camp that activists set up when protests against all the country’s political leaders swept Lebanon.
United Nations Envoy to Lebanon Jan Kubis wrote that he was saddened by Slim’s murder, describing him as “an honest independent voice of courage.”
Slim, one of the most prominent Lebanese intellectuals to be gunned down since historian Samir Kassir in 2005, was born in Beirut in 1962 and studied in France towards the end of the 1975-1990 civil war.
The activist’s murder comes as Lebanon marked six months since a devastating blast at Beirut port killed more than 200 people and ravaged entire neighbourhoods of the capital.
What was one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history was caused by a years-old stock of highly explosive ammonium nitrate in a port warehouse.
Yet the reasons for its presence have yet to be elucidated and Lebanon’s own investigation into the tragedy appears to be completely stalled.
Hezbollah’s enemies have pointed a finger at the Shia militia’s influence over Lebanese customs and port security following the explosion.
According to a judicial official, the prosecutor tasked with investigating the blast started looking into possible connections to Syrian businessmen this week.
Kubis said that, unlike the port blast, Slim’s murder should be investigated in a “speedy and transparent way.”

Lokman Slim: the assassination of a most elegant critic
Luna Safwan/The National/February 05/2021
لونا صفوان/ذا ناشيونال : اغتبال لقمان سليم الناقد الأكثر أناقة
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/95653/95653/

The last time I saw Lokman Slim, the Lebanese publisher and independent activist, was a few weeks ago, on a sunny midweek day in Beirut. He was standing next to Riad Al Soloh square, the site of so many protests, smoking a cigarette, holding two pieces of paper in his hand and waiting to go inside a building housing many regional and international studios for one of his live interviews.
I was wearing my mask and several layers when I spotted him, and feared he might not recognise me through it all.
“I recognised you since I saw you taking a picture of the graffiti on the wall,” he said.
We laughed. It had been too long since we had last seen each other. I did not see him again on the way out. I also didn’t know it would be the last time I would see him in the sun.
I met Slim in 2012, as the Syrian revolution was dominating the world’s news, and criticism against Hezbollah, a Lebanese ally of the Syrian regime, was mounting. He was famous for his criticism of Hezbollah. I was a young journalist battling my way onto the scene, with so much to say. He invited me, through my boss at the time, to a round table between Lebanese and Syrian activists in Hamra, Beirut.
We soon became friends on social media. I used to admire him because, me being a recent graduate, in him I saw everything I had hoped to see in my university professors: a critical thinker, a fierce yet calm fighter with a distinguished voice, a listener. I was always amazed by the fact that Slim was a man dealing with politics every day who never interrupted me as I spoke, me the young female journalist squeezing her way into a challenging career.
After our round table, I learned that he was born in Haret Hreik, where in 1990 he founded an independent Lebanese publishing house called Dar Al Jadeed. Many of his and the Dar’s publications were deemed controversial because they stirred discussions, tested ideologies and put forth questions that conservative sections of our society often did not want asked.
He never left Haret Hreik. He continued living there to develop his work and never shied away from his causes – be they political, social or historical. Slim was an eloquent opposition figure. He knew what he was up against.
The fact that he came from Hezbollah’s own Shiite community lent an added layer of authority – but also challenges – to his already-controversial views. Pro-Hezbollah media labelled him as a “Shiite of the US embassy”, a term often used against those who reject Hezbollah’s ideology in an effort to paint them as “traitors”. They published recurring, indirect threats to him and other opposition members at the time. He responded with historical facts, tackling the political psychology of his society and referring back to something stronger that any propaganda: research with analysis based on reason.
And because politics were never enough, his love for Lebanon and Beirut’s memory was so immense that in 2004 he cofounded the Umam Documentation and Research Centre, where he and his team worked on collecting a large portion of resources to document Lebanese history. Preserving history was one of his missions, he used to say repeatedly, because Lebanon has so much history, and to him it was too precious to go to waste.
One of his main causes was to keep the memory of the missing Lebanese in the Syrian regime’s prisons alive. The Syrian revolution was also a cause that he strongly believed in; in 2016, he co-directed the documentary “Tadmor”.
In the fall of 2019, during an event in Beirut, I was moderating a panel about memory and history in Beit Beirut, a building which I knew Slim enjoyed so much. After discussing innovation, politics, technology and the memories of Syria, it was time to talk about Beirut.
When I asked him about the role of the memory in the revolution (which was still happening back then), he answered with a smile: “There is no revolution without memory.”
Thought never dies.
A few weeks later, his house in Harit Hreik was in the spotlight when a large group of Hezbollah supporters protested in his garden, asking him and his family to leave, sending them clear messages by hanging papers on the walls outside that said “Lokman Slim, the traitor agent”, “Lokman the Zionist” and “Glory to the one who silences him” – all terms that refer to what would eventually transpire today, his assassination.
Slim was a prominent personality who had no real political aspirations, but only hopes that Lebanon would remain a cultural hub and a space to maintain freedom of thought. It was, for him, a space to share even with those with whom we do not necessarily agree.
With Lokman Slim’s death, Lebanon lost a part of its memory. I’m afraid now that Lebanon is entering an era where all good memories, including those Slim strongly believed in, will be silenced or disappeared, one way or another.
*Luna Safwan is a Lebanese freelance journalist who works on press freedom

Murdered activist Lokman Slim was facilitating a Hezbollah defection before death
Mona Alami/Al Arabiya/Thursday 04 February 2021
The death of Shia anti-Hezbollah activist Lokman Slim was not a random killing. It was a cold-blooded execution. The activist who denounced Hezbollah human rights violations for years and investigated closely the militant’s group’s increasing repression of its Shia popular base as well as the wider Lebanese street was found killed by four bullets to the head in the Zaharani, region, a Hezbollah bastion. His phone was found a few kilometers away, in Niha, in the South, another region under the militant group’s control.
What killed Slim was not his open criticism of Hezbollah, which had in the last few years turned Lebanon – with the tacit agreement of the corrupt Lebanese leadership – into an Iranian satellite, at the cost of its economy, its stability and its foreign relations.
Slim’s Umam Center was well known for publishing a wide array of research about the party. Nor was he killed over his overt relations with the American embassy, high American or European diplomats. What killed Slim was that he went too far into uncovering Hezbollah’s internal fabric and its intricate web-like network. In the last few months, Slim delved into Hezbollah money laundering activities, looking into possible contacts between traders facilitating those activities for the movement, and going as far as attempting to link those with figures working with the Lebanese central bank, according to a conversation I had with him. On Sunday 31 January, Slim asked me to pass by his office on Monday, as he wanted to discuss a sensitive topic with me that could be done only face to face. When I met him on Monday February 1, he confided that he was a contact with a business associate of Hezbollah, who was heavily involved in money laundering activities for the party and was sanctioned by the US Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC). This person, whose name he didn’t share, was ready to defect in exchange for his extraction from Lebanon and protection from Hezbollah.
Slim was asking me what was the best way to do it, given that any contact with a local foreign embassy would include the involvement of too many parties, which could lead to an intelligence leak and threaten the life of the alleged defector. The best way to handle it, he thought, was to contact directly the US State department, or the Treasury. Three days later, ignorant that he was being followed, Slim went to the south for a dinner with friends. He disappeared a few hours later in the evening, leaving his family devastated, only to be found dead a day later. His fate had been sealed. It remains to be seen if another body – that of the mysterious defector – will surface in the next few weeks. It is certain that no serious investigation will be led into the execution of Lokman Slim, and that the Lebanese judiciary will not bring the perpetrators to justice. Lebanese security services and its judiciary have no interest in the truth. It is a costly commodity in a country where a human life does not amount to much.

Killing of Lokman Slim in southern Lebanon sends message from Hezbollah, Iran
The Arab Weekly/February 05/2021
Political sources in Lebanon see the Biden administration as being among the intended targets of the message sent by the political activist’s murder.
BEIRUT - Political sources in Beirut said the assassination of Shia political activist Lokman Slim in southern Lebanon, in an area under direct Hezbollah control, was intended to intimidate the Lebanese, especially the Shia community, and send a message from Iran to the new US administration.
The sources added that the substance of the message is that Lebanon and its entire Shia community are under the control of Hezbollah, which can do with them whatever it pleases, as it dominates all power structures in the country.
The Lebanese political sources emphasised that the main factor in Slim's assassination lies in its timing, as it is obvious Hezbollah could have assassinated the political activist whenever it desired, especially as he resided in the Haret Hreik district in Beirut's southern suburbs.
However, the party waited until the new US administration headed by President Joe Biden took office in the White House to send a message to it that Hezbollah has complete control over Lebanon and the Shia community. Another part of the message is that Hezbollah will not tolerate any dissent from within the community.
The same sources indicated that Hezbollah and Iran were most troubled by the relations Slim kept with officials in the US administration and European officials, which showed that not all of Lebanon's Shia are under the wings of the party. They added that Slim, who owned a publishing house and led a research institution, did not have much influence in popular Shia circles, especially as he was from Beirut and not from the south or the Bekaa, in addition to being perceived as an elitist. But he had a wide network of international and Arab relations through which he could assert that the Shia of Lebanon are not all affiliated with Iran and that there is another side to the Shia community than Hezbollah and Iran. It was noteworthy that the son of Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah hastened to endorse the assassination, writing on Twitter: “The loss of some is in fact a gain and a form of unexpected kindness. No regrets.” Soon, though, Jawad Hassan Nasrallah deleted the tweet, which many considered as amounting to Hezbollah putting its signature on the crime.
Slim hailed from a well-to-do family that is among some ten Shia families with deeply anchored roots in the southern suburbs of Beirut, originally a Shia-Christian area. His father, a lawyer, Mohsen Slim, with no known loyalties except to Lebanon, owned a large house in the area of Haret Hreik, where the family of current President Michel Aoun used to reside. Despite constantly receiving threats, Slim stayed with his German wife in Haret Hreik and took no security precautions.
His assassination in the Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon region occurred while he was on his way back to Beirut, after spending the evening with friends in the southern village of Niha, near Srifa. Aoun called for a probe to quickly identify the parties behind the killing of the activist, who was found dead in his car in the southern part of the country.

Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri tweeted, “Lokman Slim is a new martyr on the path to freedom and democracy in Lebanon, and his assassination cannot be dissociated from the context of the assassinations of his predecessors. Lokman Slim was clearer than everyone, perhaps in identifying the source of danger facing the homeland."
The head of the caretaker government, Hassan Diab, said that whoever is responsible for Slim's assassination will be held accountable.
Amnesty International and a senior United Nations diplomat, as well as Ralph Tarraf, the European Union’s ambassador to Lebanon, have all called for an investigation.
"We deplore the prevailing culture of impunity," Tarraf wrote on Twitter.
The Skeyes Center for the Defence of Media and Cultural Freedom said that it feared "tampering with the evidence" in the crime scene as well as the occurrence of other attempts to liquidate "the symbols of free political thought and opposition."
In a recent interview with Saudi-owned Al-Hadath TV channel, Slim said he believed Damascus and its ally Hezbollah were involved in the port blast that rocked Beirut August 4, killing 200 people and wounding thousands.
His criticism of Hezbollah sparked attacks from party supporters, who at times described him as belonging to the "embassy Shia," a label used to try to discredit opponents of the militant party by describing them as tools in the hands of the United States.
Former MP Bassem Al-Sabe said that Slim's assassination carried a "direct message to all activists, writers and politicians from the Shia community who chose to move, exercise their activism and express their views outside the political orbit of Hezbollah."
Lebanese journalist Ali Al-Amin described Slim's murder as the responsibility of the president and Hezbollah, which is responsible for security in the area where the crime took place. "Lokman Slim has often clearly declared his opposition to Hezbollah and received threats in secret and in public," he added.
Journalist Hazem Saghieh said, "The killing of Lokman Slim constitutes a very big loss for Lebanon, culture, thought, work, seriousness, integrity and frankness in saying what should be said."
 

Hezbollah and Other Non-State Actors Acquire Asymmetric Tools in Cyberspace
Annie Fixler and Mark Montgomery/FDD/February 05/2021
The cyber domain is again forcing the United States and its allies to reevaluate assumptions about deterrence. But instead of rethinking the credibility of deterrence, the United States should focus on deterrence by denial.
Hezbollah’s cyber operatives are back in the game, according to a new report by Israeli firm ClearSky Cyber Security. After years of apparent inactivity, the group’s reappearance is part of a larger trend in which non-state actors increasingly acquire sophisticated cyber tools that exploit insufficient investments in cyber defense. ClearSky identified suspicious network activity in early 2020 and discovered an updated version of custom-built remote access malware previously used only by an Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) group known as Lebanese Cedar or Volatile Cedar. Another Israeli cybersecurity firm, Check Point, uncovered the group in 2012 and concluded that it originated in Lebanon. At the time, other researchers linked the group to Hezbollah, although Check Point itself did not make a positive attribution.
Yaniv Balmas, the head of cyber research at Check Point, said that the new report’s findings are consistent with his company’s assessment of Lebanese Cedar. While Balmas reiterated that Check Point has not identified the organization within Lebanon responsible for this APT, he noted that the victim profile “could match the motives of Hezbollah.”
ClearSky noted that Lebanese Cedar also used a piece of malware built by Iranian hackers responsible for the 2011–13 distributed denial of service attacks against the U.S. financial system. ClearSky caveated the finding by noting that its researchers are “unable to determine the nature of the relationship” between Lebanese Cedar and the Iranian hackers. However, ClearSky said, the existence of Iranian code “may point to a connection” with the regime in Iran.
In the non-cyber domain, Hezbollah has relied on the Islamic Republic to develop its military capabilities. For example, Iran has transferred components for manufacturing precision-guided missiles and has helped Hezbollah set up conversion and assembly facilities in Lebanon, with the goal of establishing domestic production capability. Iran has also provided Hezbollah with drone technology.
A similar dynamic is happening with technology and cyber capabilities. Iran built Hezbollah’s secure telecommunications network and supplies the funding and technical know-how for Hezbollah’s robust cyber warfare training program. Former Israeli national security advisor Yaakov Amidror went so far as to call Hezbollah Iran’s cyber “sub-contractor.”
While Hezbollah’s cyber operatives receive backing from the Islamic Republic, the broader challenge for cyber defenders is that “cyber capabilities, unlike nuclear capabilities, can be built or obtained without access to national resources and power,” explained the congressionally mandated Cyberspace Solarium Commission in March 2020.
“While it might be difficult to buy sophisticated kinetic weapons on the black market,” the Commission added, “for both states and criminal groups it is easy to buy malware to support brazen cyberattacks.”
More than five years ago, John Riggi, the FBI’s then-cyber section chief, warned that terrorist groups have “strong intent” but “thankfully, low capability. But the concern is that they’ll buy that capability.” A joint 2019 U.S. government-private sector study of the “proliferation and commodification of cyber offensive capabilities” observed an “increasing ability to buy cyber tools on a commercial basis.” In the case of terrorist groups like Hezbollah, this is particularly concerning because they are “often not susceptible to diplomatic or military suasion in the same manner as nation-states.”
The increased likelihood of the use of cyber tools is enhanced by another dynamic—the increased effectiveness of the cyber tools available to terrorist groups like Hezbollah and other non-state actors. In this latest global espionage campaign, Lebanese Cedar used not only custom, self-developed tools, but also a far greater number of tools readily available to malicious actors on the internet. The accessibility of sophisticated open-source and dark web tools is increasing the capability of non-state cyber actors exponentially.
The ClearSky report points to the second part of this dynamic: the increasing interconnectivity of networks. The cybersecurity firm identified 250 compromised servers including hosting servers and other information technology and managed service providers in the United States and the United Kingdom which the hackers leveraged to hit targeted countries in the Middle East. The interconnectivity of networks is providing an exponentially greater attack surface for malicious actors.
Following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, faced with an adversary that did not respond to traditional forms of deterrence, the United States developed new financial tools to punish states that host terrorist groups and individuals or groups that could be persuaded not to finance a terrorist group’s activities in the first place.The cyber domain is again forcing the United States and its allies to reevaluate assumptions about deterrence. But instead of rethinking the credibility of deterrence, the United States should focus on deterrence by denial. By investing in cyber defense, the government and private sector can collaborate to reduce vulnerabilities and thus deny all cyber adversaries the ability to achieve their objectives. “This form of denial is especially important for deterring non-state actors, such as extremists and criminals,” observed the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. A better defense will require not only investments in network security but also better threat information sharing with the private sector and with allies and partners. The United States also needs national critical infrastructure resilience strategies to communicate to adversaries that their malicious cyber operations will fail.
*Annie Fixler is the deputy director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation (CCTI) at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). RADM (Ret)
*Mark Montgomery is the senior director of CCTI, an FDD senior fellow, and serves as a senior advisor to the Cyberspace Solarium Commission. Follow them on Twitter @MarkCMontgomery and @AFixler. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Lokman Slim and the anatomy of Hezbollah’s brutal history of assassination
Nadim Shehadi/Al Arabiya/Friday 05 February 2021
نديم شحادة/العربية: لقمان سليم وتشريح تاريخ حزب الله الوحشي للاغتيالات
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/95650/nadim-shehadi-lokman-slim-and-the-anatomy-of-hezbollahs-brutal-history-of-assassination-%d9%86%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%85-%d8%b4%d8%ad%d8%a7%d8%af%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%b1%d8%a8%d9%8a%d8%a9/
Lokman Slim was found dead, shot four times in the head, and once in the back after disappearing from his family in a brutal assassination attempt aimed at shutting down a dissenting voice of Hezbollah, an Iran-backed terrorist group with a dark history.
Assassinations in Lebanon are like a recurring nightmare. First the news through a dense fog of rumors, followed by denial and disbelief, a stubborn clinging to every hope that it can’t be true. A mixture of anger, despair, sadness, emptiness and then the realization of the futility of it all.
There is also desperate attempt to find a reason, as though a rationale and a meaning would make it easier to accept.
Conspiracy theories, speculations about motive, timing and purpose clutter our screens. No matter how many try to explain, justify or deny; we’ve been through this too often. The pattern is as well established and as unmistakably recognizable as mob killings in movies about the Mafia in the US.
Lokman Slim’s home as well as the cultural institutions he created are situated in the heart of Beirut’s southern suburbs. The family name is associated with the area of Haret Hreik as are a few other Maronite and Shia families who are its original inhabitants.
They formed a tightly knit diverse community with a distinct culture and cuisine who have been neighbors for centuries. This is before it became densely populated, with the influx of displaced Shia from the south of Lebanon fleeing Israeli attacks and occupation.
This is also the suburb of Beirut that was almost totally destroyed by the Israeli air force in the summer war of 2006 and is almost totally under Hezbollah control.
The historically marginalized Shia community of Lebanon has always been politically and intellectually diverse.
Prominent early founders of the Lebanese communist party coexisted with a broad spectrum of Islamists and secular nationalists of all shades.
Many were also active in Palestinian organizations before and during the Lebanese civil war when an equally diverse group of Iranian exiles took refuge in the country and mixed with revolutionaries of all sorts.
The Italian Red Brigade, the Japanese Red Army, the IRA, Sandinistas, Bader Meinhof Gang, Vietnamese as well as the Dhofar rebels of Oman all had a presence in Lebanon, to support the Palestinian revolution.
These were the Foreign Fighters of the Lebanese civil war who were based in Palestinian refugee camps adjacent to the southern suburbs.
Hezbollah was born in that environment and achieved tight control first and foremost through internal battles within their own Shia community. In the case of Lokman Slim, all fingers point at another carefully calculated assassination delivering a message, a warning to dissenters.
The same methods of achieving hegemony through assassinations happened in Iran itself and in Iraq and Yemen where Hezbollah is active along with other proxies of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
On the August 18 last year, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon issued a judgement linking members of Hezbollah to the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and members of Hezbollah. This was part of a continuous series of assassinations in Lebanon over a 10 year period between 2004 and 2014.
Less known are earlier assassinations targeting prominent Shia personalities in the late 1980s. Communists like Hussein Mroue and Hassan Hamdan, the latter known as Mahdi Amel, had a significant international following.
There was also the assassination of rival Shia leaders from the Amal movement like Daoud Daoud, Mahmoud Faqih and Hassan Sbayti. This was in sync with almost three years of infighting in 1988-1990 in the War of Brothers between Hezbollah and Amal whose leader Nabih Berri called Hezbollah “Dracula” because the organization thrives on spilt blood.
Prominent critics like Lokman Slim, from within the Shia community can be seen as far more dangerous than an external enemy to movements like Hezbollah.
For some time, they were dismissed as “Shia of the Embassy” but they disrupt the group’s sectarian narrative that it is there to protect the community from an Israeli threat and provide support and services where the Lebanese state has failed. The agenda of perpetual war and membership of the Axis of Resistance which sent many Shia young men to fight along the Assad regime also undermined that narrative.
A military threat from Israel strengthens Hezbollah, and gives it legitimacy as resistance against the Israeli occupation and protector against aggression.
Hezbollah emerged much stronger from the 2006 war with Israel, that war confirmed its narrative and empowered it well beyond its narrow constituency.
The Lebanese army cannot fight Hezbollah, nor can it be defeated in a civil war which will also reinforce sectarian tensions with each community seeking protection from its own sectarian militias.
Pressure increased on Hezbollah when the protests in Lebanon gradually focused more on its role and identifying it and its allies as the core of “the regime”. The protests started in October 2019 by targeting the whole political and financial establishment blaming them for the economic collapse.
Failure of the state, combined with corruption and negligence, were also the cause behind the enormous blast in the port of Beirut on August 4 that destroyed a large part of the city.
For the first time there were demonstrations in South Lebanon and the Bekaa valley in Hezbollah’s heartland, and recently the “regime,” which is the target of the protests, has been more narrowly identified with Hezbollah and its allies.
This is at the same time that there are also protests in Iran itself against the hegemony of the IRGC and in Iraq, largely by Shia, against their own versions of Hezbollah and other Iranian sponsored terrorist groups.
Hezbollah’s Achille’s heel and soft underbelly is dissenters like Lokman Slim from within the Shia community which can spread and undermine its control over the country and Iran’s agenda in the region.

Lebanon Allows Emergency Use of Russian Vaccine
Naharnet/February 05/2021
The Lebanese health ministry on Friday issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Russian anti-Covid vaccine Sputnik V. “The scientific and technical committee formed by caretaker Health Minister Hamad Hassan to look into the registration of vaccines submitted by the private sector has agreed to issue an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for the Sputnik V vaccine,” the National News Agency said. “Its importation shall be limited to a licensed medicine warehouse,” NNA added. The move allows “the marketing of the vaccine according to applicable conditions and an agreement will be made with the importing companies to guarantee the registration of citizens who receive the vaccine,” the agency said. The committee will study other requests for the importation of additional vaccines, including China’s Sinopharm, in its coming meetings, NNA added. Lebanon will this month launch its anti-Covid vaccination campaign with the arrival of vaccines from U.S. firm Pfizer.

'U.S.-French Agreement' on Lebanon Boosts Chances of Govt. Formation
Naharnet/February 05/2021
Communication resumed between France and Lebanon after a “U.S.-French agreement on tasking French President Emmanuel Macron with the Lebanese file, especially the government’s formation,” informed sources said. “Ahead of PM-designate Saad Hariri’s expected visit to France, there are contacts between the French and the officials in Lebanon in addition to a drive by the French ambassador to Lebanon,” the sources told al-Joumhouria newspaper in remarks published Friday. The sources however noted that “all these developments do not mean that the solution is imminent.” “But hopes can be pinned on a foreign drive to break the deadlock and the lethal procrastination regarding the government,” the sources added.

Diab, Fahmi Confirm Lockdown to be Eased on Monday
Naharnet/February 05/2021
Caretaker Prime Minister Hassan Diab confirmed Friday that Lebanon will on Monday ease a strict coronavirus lockdown that has been in place since January 14. “The lockdown was aimed at preventing collapse, especially that the number of cases in intensive care units had nearly exceeded the capacity of the Lebanese health sector to deal with it and contain it,” Diab said at the beginning of a meeting for the country’s anti-Covid ministerial panel. “We shut down the country because a lot of people were not abiding by the least requirements of anti-coronavirus precautionary measures,” he added.
“The general lockdown will end on Sunday but Monday will not be an ordinary day, seeing as we will continue to implement measures that prevent a return to the pre-lockdown period,” Diab went on to say. “We will partially reopen the country and we will continue to enforce strict measures. We will continue to shut down some sectors and will allow some sectors to operate according to specific conditions,” Diab confirmed. Caretaker Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi later confirmed that all sectors will be gradually allowed to operate under a four-phase reopening plan each consisting of two weeks.
He however noted that "if the numbers of infections don't go down, we will not move to the second phase." TV networks meanwhile said that supermarkets, banks and factories will be allowed to reopen during the first phase of the plan.
A curfew in place since January 14 will meanwhile continue to be implemented and authorities will be more strict in granting exemptions to those who need to carry out urgent tasks outside their homes, the reports said.
 

Syrian refugees struggle for survival amid Lebanon’s crises
The Arab Weekly/February 05/2021
Syrian refugees were among those worst hit by the August 4 port explosion that killed 200 people, injured 6,000 and left 300,000 homeless.
BEIRUT--As Syrian refugees, Moayad Obeid and his family had it hard even before the massive explosion that tore through Beirut last August, killing his 26-year-old brother Ayman. In the six months since, life has become all but impossible. As well as supporting his own family, Obeid, who makes the equivalent of about $100 a month working odd jobs in Beirut, now sends money to his brother’s widow and baby daughter, who returned to Syria after the blast, unable to make ends meet.
Six months on, he has still received no aid.
“Everyone’s story is harder than the other, Lebanese or Syrian, we are all suffering,” Obeid told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “But I will do anything, even sit on the street and beg, if it means I can feed my brother’s daughter.”
Syrian refugees were among those worst hit by the August 4 port explosion that killed 200 people, injured 6,000 and left 300,000 homeless.
They made up a significant proportion of those killed in the blast, with 41 confirmed dead and two still missing, according to Kayan Tlais, who represents the victims’ families. Most received little aid and struggled to afford food and shelter even before the blast. Now, with many Lebanese families also having lost everything, aid agencies say what little help was available is having to stretch even further. Fadi Hallisso is the director of Basmeh and Zeytouneh, an organisation that has helped 4,000 families, most of them Syrian, after the blast.
Since the explosion, he said, his organisation had been getting hundreds of new calls every day from people desperate for food, rent and medical aid. Demand has been so great, it risks running out of funds by the end of this month.
“The situation is dire,” he said. “We’re witnessing a new phenomenon of Syrian and Lebanese men abandoning their families because they can’t provide for them anymore. There’s a lot more cases of women telling us their husbands have disappeared.”Many Lebanese were hit by a financial crisis that began in 2019 and has sent prices soaring, and some have become less tolerant of the Syrians who have boosted the population by about 1.5 million to some 6 million.
Bleak prospects
About a quarter of the country’s Syrian refugee population lives in the capital, a city that has suffered the triple whammy of economic crisis, a major explosion and a pandemic. Half the Syrian families in Lebanon said they went short of food in 2020, nearly twice as many as in 2019, according to a December survey by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR). A nationwide COVID-19 lockdown with a round-the-clock curfew has only made things more difficult for those trying to help, while further squeezing those in need. A government ban on work during the lockdown has meant Basmeh and Zeytouneh has completed work on just 110 of the roughly 200 homes it received funding to refurbish after the blast. Many still have no windows, doors or insulation. The Norwegian Refugee Council estimates that some 9,000 of a total 200,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the blast still require repairs.
“Syrians were often the last ones who had houses renovated, and many still haven’t been refurbished,” said Nabil Khalouf, a Syrian relief worker with Edinburgh Direct Aid who spent months working in the worst-affected areas.
Basmeh and Zeytouneh prioritises widows and other families headed by women, as they are especially vulnerable.
But with 75% of the Lebanese population now needing some form of aid, according to outgoing Social Affairs Minister Ramzi Moucharaifeh, Basmeh and Zeytouneh and other organisations like it are under intense pressure.
“It’s looking very grim,” Hallisso said. “By the end of February, we will spend every last penny we have and there is nothing on the horizon, so I’m not sure if we’ll be able to continue.”

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 05- 06/2021

Libyan delegates chose interim prime minister, presidential council
The Arab Weekly/February 05/2021
Mohammad Younes Menfi was chosen to head the three-person Presidential Council. Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah was chosen as interim prime minister.
GENEVA - Delegates from Libya’s warring factions on Friday selected four leaders to guide the North African country through to national elections in December, seen as a major — if uncertain — step toward unifying a nation with two separate governments in the east and west. In what could become a landmark achievement to end one of the intractable conflicts left behind by the “Arab spring” a decade ago, the 74 delegates chose a list of candidates in a UN-hosted process aimed to give balance to regional powers and various political and economic interests. Mohammad Younes Menfi, a Libyan diplomat with a support base in the country’s east, was chosen to head the three-person Presidential Council. Abdul Hamid Mohammed Dbeibah, a powerful businessman backed by Western tribes, was chosen as interim prime minister.
The UN process, known as the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum, was aimed at choosing an interim authority that will oversee Libya as part of an effort to rebuild state institutions and lead to national elections on December 24.
Menfi’s list was elected in a runoff as none of four lists initially proposed secured the required 60% of votes from the delegates in the first round.
Capping a UN-led diplomatic process that began in Berlin in January last year, forum delegates began meeting on Monday in an undisclosed location near Geneva, before reducing their selection to four, then two, and finally one list of candidates for interim prime minister and presidential council on Friday.
The voting took place under the mediation of the UN secretary-general’s acting special representative for Libya, Stephanie Williams, in hopes of bringing stability to a oil-rich North African country that has been largely lawless since longtime ruler Muammar Gadhafi was toppled and killed in 2011 afer a NATO-backed uprising. “I am pleased to witness this historic moment,” Williams told delegates after the results were announced. “The decision that you have taken today will grow with the passage of time in the collective memory of the Libyan people.”Williams stressed that the interim government must fully support the ceasefire and uphold the national elections date. She added that the new executive authority must also launch “a comprehensive national reconciliation process.”
Since 2015, Libya has been divided between two governments, one in the east and another in the west of the country, each backed by a vast array of militias.
In April 2019, Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army (LNA) allied with the eastern government, launched an offensive to capture the capital, Tripoli. His campaign failed after 14 months of fighting. In October, the UN convinced both parties to sign a ceasefire agreement and embark on a political dialogue. The other list of finalists had gotten the highest number of votes in a previous round. It included Aguila Saleh, the politically savvy speaker of Libya’s eastern parliament who ran to head the council, and Fathi Bashagha, the powerful interior minister in the western government.
On his Twitter page, Bashagha conceded to the winners and hailed the UN-mediated electoral process as “the full embodiment of democracy” — and wished the new government success in running the country.
One of the unknowns for Libya is how the international community — and in particular, as many as nine countries that have backed opposing sides in Libya — will respond to the vote. The internationally recognised government in Tripoli has had the backing of Turkey and Qatar while Haftar has been supported by countries including Egypt and Russia. The voting process was aired live on several Libyan television channels and streamed on the UNTV website.

U.S., E3 foreign ministers expected to discuss Iran soon -sources
John Irish, Arshad Mohammed/Reuters/February 05/2021
The U.S., British, French and German foreign ministers plan to discuss soon, possibly as early as Friday, how to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal abandoned by former U.S. President Donald Trump, sources familiar with the matter said on Thursday. Four of the sources said the virtual meeting, which was likely to cover other topics, could take place as soon as Friday, while two others said it could happen next week. All spoke on condition that they not be identified. Such a high-level conversation would be the latest step by U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration to seek a way to revive the pact, under which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear activities so as to make it harder to develop an atomic bomb in return for relief from U.S. and other economic sanctions. Trump abandoned the deal in 2018, restoring the U.S. sanctions the agreement had removed and placing more on Iran.
Iran has long denied any intent to develop nuclear arms. Biden, who took office last month, has said that if Tehran returned to strict compliance with the 2015 pact, Washington would follow suit and use that as a springboard to a broader agreement that might restrict Iran’s missile development and regional activities. Tehran has insisted that Washington ease sanctions before it will resume compliance, but Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif hinted on Monday at a way to resolve the impasse over who goes first by saying the steps could be synchronized. While the U.S. State Department reacted coolly, a U.S. official said its stance should not be seen as a rejection. The State Department declined comment on whether the four foreign ministers would meet soon. British, French and German spokesmen did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Speaking to a U.S. think tank from Paris, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the U.S. willingness to engage Iran, offered himself as an “honest broker” and said Saudi Arabia and Israel must ultimately be involved. In 2019, he pushed to bring Washington and Tehran back to the negotiating table and to set parameters for wider future talks.
European and Western diplomats have said Britain, France and Germany have proposed sequencing for Iran to return to compliance in return for economic benefits. It is unclear if Washington would lift sanctions without Iran first complying. In September 2019, France proposed offering Iran a $15 billion credit facility, which would be guaranteed by Iranian oil revenues if Tehran came back fully into compliance. Such an arrangement hinged on Washington giving tacit approval. “We aren’t starting from a blank page. We know the parameters of the sequencing to get back to (the deal) and then to build on a deeper accord,” said a senior European diplomat.
*Reporting By John Irish in Paris and by Arshad Mohammed in Washington; Writing by Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Peter Cooney

After Canada's Proud Boys decision, U.S. lawmakers confront white supremacy threat
The Canadian Press/Thu., February 4, 2021,
WASHINGTON — U.S. lawmakers are coming to grips with what experts warned Thursday is a dangerous and escalating threat of homegrown violent extremism following last month's riots on Capitol Hill.
Members of the House committee on homeland security heard chilling warnings about a "high likelihood" of domestic terror attacks fuelled by the divisions that were on such stark display on Jan. 6.
That date was an inflection point in the nature of the terror threats faced by the U.S., said Elizabeth Neumann, a counterterrorism expert and former Department of Homeland Security official.
Prior to the riots, terrorism was largely an international threat, Neumann said. Afterward, it became a domestic one.
"There is a high likelihood of violence in the coming months on a range of softer targets associated with their perception of the deep state, including infrastructure, mainstream media, law enforcement, big tech and elected officials," Neumann told the committee.
"Sadly, I do believe that we will be fighting domestic terrorism that has its roots and inspiration points from Jan. 6 for the next 10 to 20 years."
Neumann called it "paramount" that Congress establish a bipartisan commission on domestic terrorism to establish a "shared understanding" of the threat and to prevent discussions from being co-opted and manipulated by the very people they are meant to target.
Extremist ideology, she said, has been "mainstreamed and normalized" as a result of political rhetoric, conspiracy theories and social media communications that exploit humour and memes "to mask the danger of those ideas present."
Such a commission, she added, could explore the pros and cons of putting domestic extremism on the same legal footing as international terrorism. Under current U.S. law, it's typically easier for authorities to prosecute crimes as terrorist incidents when they have a link to organizations overseas.
On Wednesday, Canada got out ahead of that idea when the federal government designated the white-supremacist Proud Boys, who played a prominent role in last month's storming of the Capitol, as a terrorist organization.
Also among the 13 groups added to the list were The Base, the Atomwaffen Division and the Russian Imperial Movement, all described as neo-Nazi and white-supremacy organizations.
Thursday's hearing was far from unanimous when it came to the idea of changing the law in the U.S., a country that takes its commitment to the idea of free speech extremely seriously.
"We do have to re-examine how we view incitement" in the modern-day context of the internet and social media, said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert and senior adviser to the non-profit Rand Corp. think-tank.
"I'm cautious about new anti-terrorism legislation that leads us to decide, 'Well, you're a terrorist, this group is a terrorist, this group is a terrorist' — that's going to be a long and futile argument," Jenkins said.
"Examining the communications technologies and how these platforms run and rule themselves is something we have to do."
Jonathan Greenblatt, the chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League, laid the blame for the rise of right-wing extremism squarely at the feet of former president Donald Trump and the social media platforms that have provided shelter to dangerous rhetoric.
"No longer does a person have to decamp to a clandestine compound in the woods; today, you can find hate 24/7 with just a few clicks on your phone," Greenblatt said.
Of the 17 U.S. deaths last year that the ADL has tied to extremist activity, 16 of them were caused by groups or individuals espousing a right-wing ideology, he added. He called the Capitol riots "the most predictable terror attack in American history" and a "watershed moment" for the U.S. white-supremacy movement. Greenblatt's seven-point strategy includes passing the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act, which would give the federal government more authority and resources to investigate, prevent and respond to the threat, though it stops short of putting it on the same plane as international terrorism.
He also called for banning extremists from the military, law enforcement and elected offices; tighter controls on social media; a concerted effort to prevent radicalization; and targeting foreign white-supremacist groups.
"Make no mistake, this movement is a global threat," Greenblatt said. "There is no silver bullet to stopping the threat of domestic terrorism. A single statute won't solve the problem. This is a multi-pronged approach to address a multi-pronged issue."
U.S. law enforcement agencies are in the process of a comprehensive intelligence assessment of the extent of the threat — a review the White House said it would await before deciding whether to follow Canada's lead on white-supremacist groups.
*This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2021.
*James McCarten, The Canadian Press

US Senate approves amendment to keep embassy in Jerusalem
The Jerusalem Post/February 05/2021
The three opposing votes were Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Tom Carper of Delaware. The United States Senate voted 97-3 late Thursday to support an amendment to the COVID-19 budget resolution that affirmed the country's intention to keep its embassy in Jerusalem. It was put forward by Republican Senators Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma and Bill Hagerty of Tennessee. Inhofe tweeted that the amendment "would make the U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem permanent, effectively preventing it from being downgraded or moved. It's an important message that we acknowledge Jerusalem as the capital of Israel." On the Senate floor Inhofe said that the "amendment should not be controversial to anyone. It has been our position in the US for 25 years. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and we should have our embassy in Jerusalem." He referenced past Senate votes to place the US Embassy in Jerusalem: "In 1995 the same amendment was 93-5. In 2017 it was 90-0." Hagerty said that Jerusalem was "the eternal and indivisible capital of the Jewish state of Israel." He added that, "establishing this embassy is paving the way for peace across the region and should be preserved. Now our allies there know we will stand with them." The three opposing votes were Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tom Carper of Delaware. The vote is largely viewed as symbolic since the Biden administration has already stated that it has no intention of relocating the embassy. When Biden was in the Senate, he supported the Congressional 1995 US Embassy Act, which mandated that the American Embassy be relocated from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Former presidents Bill Clinton, George Bush and Barack Obama all made use of a waiver option to delay implementation of the act. The embassy was relocated to Jerusalem only in 2018, by former US president Donald Trump.

Turkish police arrest 65 people over top university protests amid crackdown
Reuters, Istanbul/Friday 05 February 2021
Turkish police detained 65 people late on Thursday over protests which first started last month at a top university, authorities said on Friday, continuing a crackdown on the protesters despite growing international criticism. Students and teachers at Istanbul’s Bogazici University have protested against President Recap Tayyip Erdogan’s choice of university rector, an appointment they said was undemocratic. The Istanbul governor’s office said the protesters had violated a ban on public demonstrations, gatherings and marches imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It said that the people detained on Thursday in Istanbul’s Kadikoy district were carrying out illegal acts. Some 600 people have been detained since January 4 after protests spread in Istanbul and Ankara, authorities have said. Most have been released, despite repeated statements from officials that the protesters are terrorists. Two people who were detained at an Istanbul protest on Tuesday were arrested overnight, a court spokeswoman said. Government response to the protests and condemnation of an art display including a picture blending Islamic and LGBT images has alarmed the US and United Nations, both of which have criticized what they called homophobic rhetoric. Ankara dismissed the criticism as interference in its domestic affairs. The EU Commission said the detention of students “exercising their legitimate right to freedom of assembly” was deeply worrying, and the COVID pandemic should not be used as a reason to silence critical voices.
“Hate speech displayed by high-level officials against LGBTI students during these events and the closing of a LGBTI association is unacceptable,” the commission said. Erdogan said on Wednesday his government would not allow the protests to swell into a repeat of widespread demonstrations in 2013, calling protesters terrorists. His interior minister described them as “LGBT deviants.”

Biden Says Yemen War 'Has to End' as He Stops Saudi Support
Agence France Presse/Friday 05 February 2021
U.S. President Joe Biden said Thursday that the war in Yemen "has to end," pledging to terminate U.S. support for Saudi-led offensive operations and to halt arms sales. "This war has to end," Biden said. "To underscore our commitment, we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales."
 

Yemeni Warring Factions Welcome Biden Peace Push
Agence France Presse/Friday 05 February 2021
Yemen's warring factions declared their readiness to act after U.S. President Joe Biden called for renewed efforts to end their conflict, but experts said Friday that a real solution appears out of reach. The grinding six-year war in Yemen has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, triggering what the United Nations calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster. In his first major foreign policy speech since replacing Donald Trump last month, Biden appointed an envoy to push for peace and said the U.S. would end all support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen. "This war has to end," Biden said. "To underscore our commitment, we are ending all American support for offensive operations in the war in Yemen, including relevant arm sales."
Yemen's internationally recognized government, which is backed by a Saudi-led military coalition, welcomed his remarks and stressed the "importance of supporting diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis." It hailed Timothy Lenderking's appointment as U.S. envoy, describing it as "another important step" taken by the U.S. to "end the war caused by the Iran-backed Huthis." The Huthi rebels, who control much of the country, including the capital Sanaa, said they supported the approach of the new U.S. administration.
"The real proof to achieve peace in Yemen is an end to the aggression and a lifting of the blockade," Huthi spokesman Mohamed Abdel Salam in a tweet. "Yemen's missiles are for the defense of Yemen and stopping them comes when an end to the aggression and a lifting of the blockade are totally achieved," he added. Saudi Arabia reacted by reasserting its commitment to a political solution in Yemen. The kingdom also welcomed Biden's "commitment to cooperate with the kingdom to defend its sovereignty and counter threats against it," according to the official Saudi Press Agency. But like the Yemeni government, it did not address Biden's decision to end military support to the war in Yemen.
'Talk to the Iranians'
Saudi Arabia, which has led a military intervention against the Huthis since 2015, has come under repeated missile or drone attacks from the Shiite rebels. It has repeatedly accused regional rival Iran of supplying sophisticated weapons to the Huthis, a charge Tehran denies. Trump -- who argued arms sales were creating U.S. defense jobs -- viewed the war as a way to hit back at Iran, America's sworn enemy. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also said he would revisit Trump's last-minute designation of the Huthis as a terrorist group.
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, said Biden's speech was "historic.""We look forward to working with our friends in the U.S. to end conflicts and confront challenges, as we have for over seven decades," he tweeted. But for Yemenis, talk of a solution is very far from their reality. "The war won't end; no one wants it to end. This is just propaganda," said Huda Ibrahim, a 38-year-old housewife from the port city of Hodeida. "I'm not optimistic and I don't believe anything about ending the war. How will it end when clashes don't stop even for one night," she told AFP. Analysts have also cast doubt on the likelihood of a breakthrough. "Biden's announcement that he will end US support for offensive Saudi military action against Yemen is an excellent first step," said Annelle Sheline, Middle East research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. "But the devil is in the details -- it remains to be seen what 'offensive action' means in practice. "Who will determine if an action is offensive, the U.S. or Saudi Arabia? And how will it be defined? The Saudis, for instance, argue that their entire war efforts are defensive," she said. "Ending America's support for the war and ending the war are two different things. "To truly end the war, we need diplomacy, and for that, we need to be able to talk to the Iranians again," she added.

Al-Qaeda's leader in Yemen under arrest: UN report
AFP/Friday 05 February 2021
The leader of Al-Qaeda’s Yemeni affiliate has been under arrest for several months, according to a United Nations report released on Thursday. The document said Khalid Batarfi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) for just under a year, was arrested and his deputy, Saad Atef al-Awlaqi, died during an “operation in Ghayda City, Al-Mahrah Governorate, in October.”The report -- filed to the Security Council from a UN monitoring team specializing in extremist groups -- is the first official confirmation of Batarfi’s arrest following unverified reports. The wide-ranging document, summarizing global potential terrorist threats, did not disclose the militant’s whereabouts or reveal any further details of the October operation. But the SITE Intelligence Group noted “unconfirmed reports” in October that Batarfi had been arrested by Yemeni security forces and then handed to Saudi Arabia.

Israeli army shoots, kills unarmed Palestinian man in West Bank settlement
The Associated Press, Jerusalem/Friday 05 February 2021
The Israeli military said Friday that an unarmed Palestinian man was shot and killed in a West Bank settlement after he tried to break into a home and fought with a guard. The military referred to the incident as a “terror attack,” but a spokesman was unable to explain how it came to that conclusion, given that no weapons were found on the suspect or in his car. It said the incident took place in “Sde Efraim farm,” which does not appear on maps and is likely one of several small outposts set up by Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank. When Israeli officials use the term “terror attack” they are nearly always referring to attacks carried out by Palestinians against Jews. There have been a series of stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks against Israelis in recent years, mostly carried out by lone Palestinians with no apparent ties to armed groups. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 war, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state. Nearly 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank, mainly in large, developed settlements. Hard-line settlers have established a number of smaller outposts without official authorization. The Palestinians view all the settlements as illegal and a major obstacle to peace, a position with wide international support.

Arab party may play ‘break-even role’ for Netanyahu to hold on to office
The Associated Press, Jerusalem/Thursday 04 February 2021
An alliance of Arab parties in Israel finalized its breakup on Thursday, setting up the possibility that a small Islamist party could hold the key to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remaining in office and avoiding prosecution on corruption charges. The Joint List, an alliance of four Arab parties that won a record 15 seats in elections held last year, finalized the split overnight in which three will run together and the United Arab List, an Islamist party led by parliament member Mansour Abbas, will strike out on its own. One of the main points of division was Abbas’ openness to working with Netanyahu or other Israeli leaders to address longstanding issues like crime and housing in Israel’s Arab community, which makes up around 20 percent of its population. Abbas’ party is only expected to win a few seats in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset. But in a tightly-fought election in which the winner must assemble a coalition of 61 seats, he could emerge as an unlikely kingmaker. Polls show Netanyahu’s Likud winning the most seats but falling slightly short of a ruling coalition. Even a couple seats might be enough to make a difference. “Taking into consideration the political stalemate, any Arab party might play the break-even role ... in return for benefits for Arab society,” said Arik Rudnitzky, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute. “This is the main political consideration of the Islamic movement.” Israel’s Arab community has full citizenship, including the right to vote, but faces widespread discrimination in housing and other areas. They have close ties to the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, which has led many Jewish Israelis to view them with suspicion. No Arab party has ever sought or been invited to join an Israeli government, but that could change this time around, or the Arab parties might support a ruling coalition from outside, allowing it to form a government. The March 23 elections will be Israel’s fourth in less than two years. In previous campaigns, Netanyahu has been accused of racism and incitement for inveighing against the Arab parties, but this time around he is openly courting Arab support in what many saw as an attempt to hasten the breakup of the Joint List and reduce overall turnout. Netanyahu hopes to assemble a ruling coalition that would extend his 12 years in office and potentially grant him immunity from prosecution on charges stemming from a series of corruption investigations. Rudnitzky said Abbas’ party could do well on its own. “The Islamic movement is one of the largest popular social movements acting in Arab society,” he said. “They have a very solid base of popular support, but the question is whether this popular support will translate into an actual vote on election day.”Later on Thursday, two left-wing candidates, Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai and Knesset member Ofer Shelah, dropped out of the race. Huldai, the long-time mayor of the country’s secular metropolis, had launched a new party to great fanfare late last year. Their departure is expected help the left-wing Labor and Meretz parties consolidate support.
On the opposite side of Israel’s political spectrum, the Religious Zionist party joined forces with Jewish Power, a small faction comprised of the heirs to the late rabbi Meir Kahane, whose outlawed Kach party advocated the forcible removal of Palestinians and the establishment of a Jewish theocracy. The two parties united in a bid to pool votes and exceed the 3.25 percent electoral threshold. “We are uniting. For the sake of the people of Israel, the land of Israel and the Torah of Israel,” Jewish Power leader Itamar Ben Gvir wrote on Twitter.

EU's Borrell Hails Russian Vaccine as 'Good News for Mankind'
Agence France Presse/February 05/2021
The EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell on Friday hailed the success of Russia's Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine, adding that he hoped it could be certified for use in the bloc. "It's good news for the whole of mankind because it means we will have more tools to fight the pandemic," he said after talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in Moscow. Lavrov said Washington and Moscow had agreed to "see if there is room for acting together" on vaccines and that several European countries were "interested in producing the vaccine on their territory."

Saudi Arabia says Biden’s speech reiterates US commitment to work with allies
Arab News/February 05/2021
DUBAI: Saudi Arabia said on Friday President Joe Biden’s speech reiterated US commitment to work with “friends and allies” to resolve conflicts. Saudi Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Adel Al-Jubeir told Al-Ekhbaria the Kingdom was looking forward to working with the US administration.
“We look forward to working with our friends in the US to end conflicts and confront challenges, as we have for over seven decades," he added. He added: “Our countries have spilled blood in the liberation of Kuwait and in combating Al-Qaeda, including in Yemen, and Daesh in Syria.
Biden said the war in Yemen “must end,” during his first foreign policy speech on Thursday since taking office. “At the same time, we’re going to continue to support and help Saudi Arabia defend its sovereignty and its territorial integrity and its people,” Biden said, adding that the Kingdom continues to be targeted with missile attacks. And he spoke of the need for the US to play a more active diplomatic role to bring an end to the conflict in Yemen. Saudi Arabia, a member of the Arab coalition supporting Yemen’s internationally recognized government, has repeatedly called for a diplomatic solution to the conflict. "The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia welcomes the United States’ commitment, expressed in President Biden’s speech today, to cooperate with the Kingdom in defending its security and territory," said Prince Faisal bin Farhan on Thursday, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister. "We look forward to working with Tim Lenderking to achieve our joint goal of a comprehensive political resolution in Yemen as part of our shared vision for a peaceful and prosperous region." Also on Thursday, Saudi Arabia's Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman welcomed the president's commitment to working with allies to resolve conflicts. He also welcomed the appointment of Lenderking and said the Kingdom was looking forward to working with its American partners to "alleviate the humanitarian situation and find a solution to the Yemen crisis, and ensure peace and stability."
* With Reuters

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 05- 06/2021

In first, Saudi paper prints op-ed by Israelis — on Erdogan’s private militias
Lazar Berman/The Times Of Israel/February 05/2021
Fellows at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security pen analysis of Turkish leader’s proxy armies, based on joint research with a UAE think tank
In the latest sign of changes rippling across the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s most widely read English newspaper on Thursday published an op-ed by Israelis for the first time in its history.
What’s more, the analysis on Arab News was the product of joint research between Israeli and Emirati think tanks.
Written by Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak and Dr. Jonathan Spyer, the op-ed examines Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s establishment of a private militia network made up of fighters from the Syrian civil war.
Both authors are fellows at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, which has recently partnered with the TRENDS research center in the United Arab Emirates in the wake of the Abraham Accords normalization agreement between the nations.
Jonathan Spyer (courtesy)
Israel established diplomatic ties with the UAE and Bahrain in September as part of the accords and has also reached normalization agreements with Sudan and Morocco.
“Erdogan has quietly established a network of private militias manned entirely by fighters imported from Syria in a remarkably brazen and cynical move,” the authors say. “Their role is to advance his grand plan of re-establishing influence over a region roughly overlapping the former Ottoman Empire — from the Palestinian territories to Syria and the Caucasus to as far away as Kashmir, according to some reports.”
These proxies “provide the Turkish president with a large pool of available, organized, trained, easily deployed and easily disposable proxy foreign manpower as a tool of power projection, which can be used with a degree
of plausible deniability.”
In using them, they argue, “Erdogan seeks to minimize domestic public criticism of his extraterritorial military campaigns. While he could justify the mobilization of Turkish Armed Forces personnel to neighboring countries like Syria and Iraq — for homeland security reasons — it is more challenging for him to persuade the Turkish public to dispatch soldiers to a distant theater like Libya.”
The writers say the West must pressure Erdogan to end such “nefarious” practices.
“This needs to end. Militias, terror groups and Islamist extremism are all elements that the Middle East must outgrow if it is to achieve stability and reconstruction.,” they say.
Israel and Saudi Arabi have grown increasingly close in recent years, though ties have remained unofficial. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reported to have flown to the Arab country in November for a clandestine meeting with Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
The former Trump administration’s senior adviser Jared Kushner said in August that normalized ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia were inevitable, following the US-brokered agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates the day before.
Saudi Arabia, like Israel and the UAE, shares Iran as a common foe and has had close ties to Washington, though the new Biden administration is expected to take a far cooler approach toward Riyadh.

Iran is already winning...The ayatollahs are smiling
Behnam Ben Taleblu/The Spectator/February 05/2021
The popular Persian proverb, ‘the spatula has hit the bottom of the pot’ artfully explains the erosion of luck, capability, or financial wherewithal. With the inauguration of President Joe Biden however, Iranian officials may soon cease using the phrase. Although mistrust of and enmity with America on a bipartisan basis remain, regime elites understand that the new administration is eager to score a diplomatic win, spiting its predecessor, while assiduously avoiding a military confrontation. Taken together, these sentiments offer the Islamic Republic a path to victory even before negotiations commence.
So how did we get here?
Since leaving the Iran nuclear deal —the JCPOA — in May 2018, the Trump administration employed unilateral sanctions to dry-up Iranian revenues and push it towards the negotiating table. On limited occasions, Washington resorted to using military force, as demonstrated in January 2020 with the killing of Iran’s chief terrorist, Qassem Soleimani, or elsewhere in Iraq in response to the killing of American soldiers by pro-Iran militias. The administration also continued supporting Iranian protestors, who were taking to the streets more often and more aggressively than in years past. This policy, known as ‘maximum pressure’, produced substantial macroeconomic contraction and domestic political pressure for Tehran. When married up with Israel’s military pushback in Syria, and what many assume to be Israel’s targeted killing of Iran’s top military nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, the policy landed some powerful blows. However, Tehran’s desire to maintain its revolutionary agenda was so intense that despite dwindling revenues, it engaged in an escalatory contest of wills with Washington, a contest that it now believes it has won. No clearer indication of this sense of victory exists than the recent statement by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani proclaiming, ‘Tyrant Trump’s political career and his ominous reign are over today and his “maximum pressure” policy on Iran has completely failed… Trump is dead but the nuclear deal is still alive’.
Despite the departure of Trump and his maximum pressure policy, the Islamic Republic continues to shun direct engagement with the new administration. Instead, it is upping the ante. As Tehran learned during the previous iteration of nuclear talks (2013-2015), taking risks, drawing red lines, overvaluing concessions, and changing the goal posts, work. This January, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei produced a list of conditions and demands, some of which include financial compensation and sanctions relief independent of any American return to the JCPOA.
In addition to still proliferating weapons, Tehran is also modernizing its ballistic missile arsenal – the largest in the Middle East. Worse, the country’s nuclear coercion continues, in the hope of coaxing the Biden administration into early sanctions relief. According to open-source estimates, Iran now has enough domestic low-enriched uranium to make one to two nuclear bombs, should it decide to do so. This January, Tehran took a step towards that decision as it resumed enrichment of uranium to 20 per cent purity – technically considered highly enriched uranium – at its underground Fordow facility.
While members of the new Biden administration have rhetorically begun to pump the brakes on the idea of a speedy JCPOA re-entry, Iranian escalation is designed to expedite it, driving the matter of premature sanctions relief to the top of Biden’s agenda by growing the risks of military conflict and diplomatic failure. In short, Iran is engaging in a policy of extortion and it is working.
On the political front, many pro-engagement voices are clamoring about the need to act fast to resurrect a non-proliferation agreement that was ‘working’. Some even contend that JCPOA re-entry can lay the foundation for a better deal. But no building can be erected on a sordid foundation. A return to the JCPOA, even if only in the quest for a ‘longer and stronger’ agreement, as some Biden appointees suggest, means that if Washington unwinds the bulk of its sanctions for limits on Tehran’s nuclear program, it will have little to no non-kinetic leverage left to address Iran’s missiles or support for terrorism. For an administration that shuns deeper engagement or military conflict in the Middle East, dispensing with this national security tool too early would raise, rather than lower, the prospects of conflict.
Worst of all, rejoining the JCPOA absent any improvements upfront would restore an outdated and inaccurate framing of the Iran threat: nuclear über alles. During the presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the Iran threat was primarily addressed through the prism of counter-proliferation policy. It was the Trump administration that corrected this narrow view and merged the nuclear, missile and regional tracks in a bid for a comprehensive agreement. Abandoning this approach would be akin to a reduction of US goals toward Iran, which is exactly what the regime wants. How do we know? Iran’s Foreign Minister, Mohammad-Javad Zarif, said as much in his recent op-ed in Foreign Affairs.
While there are other areas, such as pauses in regional arms sales, where developments may be viewed as a win for Iran, it is on the economic front where the Islamic Republic’s gains are the most concrete. In November 2020, Iran’s rial began to appreciate on the free market relative to the US dollar. The strengthening of the rial continued in mid-January, hinting at the prospect of potentially better economic times ahead. According to Bloomberg News, the rial ‘lost 80 per cent of its value against the dollar over the course of Trump’s presidency’. Bloomberg also reported that Iranian oil production was growing in January, which builds on reports from late 2020 about a slight rise in oil sales by Iran to China. With the election of Biden, black-hat buyers, traders and shippers may again feel confident taking risks that ultimately redound to the benefit of Iran’s bottom line.
Ultimately, the more money Iran has upfront, the more watered-down US sanctions become, the less resolute America will appear and the less effective Biden’s diplomatic approach will be. Time will tell if engagement with American partners and allies, which is currently underway, can help the new administration reverse this dynamic and capitalize on existing sanctions leverage to render Iran’s wins, however real, short-lived.
*Behnam Ben Taleblu is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) in Washington D.C. where he focuses on Iranian foreign and security policy. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.

Elevating ‘deterrence by denial’ in US defense strategy
Erica D. Borghard, Benjamin Jensen, Mark Montgomery/Atlantic/Council/February 05/2021
The United States is at a critical strategic juncture. At the systemic level, changes in the distribution of military and economic power signal that the American unipolar moment has passed. Protecting US security and advancing US interests in an increasingly multipolar world—one defined by both rising and revanchist powers—now form the crux of what national-security commentators call “great-power competition.”
Yet the conversation around great-power competition is incomplete without considering how emerging technology and global connectivity alter the strategic landscape. In calibrating a new strategic approach to great-power competition, President Joe Biden’s administration should orient US foreign policy around the logic of a concept known as “deterrence by denial.” This means denying adversaries the ability to threaten the global connectivity on which we all rely. The concept must become a key aspect of defense strategy.
While deterrence is often associated with the nuclear standoff of the Cold War, the concept remains a cornerstone of US foreign policy. Practitioners of deterrence generally seek to maintain the status quo—to prevent a target from engaging in some undesired action it has not yet undertaken. Successful deterrence is therefore defined in negative terms. It’s reflected in the absence of activity.
Deterrence works by manipulating a target’s perception of the costs, benefits, and risks of an action. It relies on what the political scientists Alexander L. George and Richard Smoke called the “persuasion of one’s opponent that the costs and/or risks of a given course of action [they] might take outweigh its benefits.” That’s why signaling and communication are integral to the concept of deterrence. Strong signals of resolve by a country, if they’re backed up by capability, can help to convince adversaries that the costs of challenging that country are significant. Deterrence often combines negative and positive inducements—the proverbial sticks and carrots.
Historically, deterrence has come in two forms: punishment and denial. In theory and practice, countries tend to deter by focusing on imposing costs on and signaling the ability to threaten an adversary—in other words, on punishment strategies. Punishment, John J. Mearsheimer has written, often involves “threatening to destroy large portions of an opponent’s civilian population and industry,” while denial “requires convincing an opponent that he will not attain his goals on the battlefield.” Denial strategies, adds Michael J. Mazarr, “seek to deter an action by making it infeasible or unlikely to succeed.” These strategies work when a country targets an adversary’s military capabilities (in contrast to its population centers or economy) or shores up its own defenses to such an extent that offensive operations are perceived to be inordinately costly for an attacking country.
A US defense strategy based more on deterrence by denial than on punishment is best suited for contemporary strategic challenges for several reasons. Therefore, the concept should feature more prominently in US strategy, given the evolution of the international landscape.
First, the rise of serious challengers to US military dominance reduces the already limited effectiveness of punishment-based deterrence strategies. In an environment where the United States no longer possesses decisive military advantage over its adversaries, especially China and Russia, a punishment-based approach becomes increasingly risky. This could manifest in a number of different ways. For instance, adversaries could credibly absorb or deny US attempts to impose costs, such as through anti-access area-denial capabilities, which aim to prevent the projection of adversary military capabilities to an area or restrict their movement within it. This would reduce the impact of US punishment strategies, forcing the United States to choose between accepting defeat or escalating further—with the latter presenting significant dangers, especially against two nuclear-armed adversaries. Additionally, as other countries increase their own military capabilities, they’re better positioned to impose direct military costs against the United States or indirect costs against US allies or interests. This reduces the credibility of the threat of US punishment strategies because the United States would have to convey its willingness to continue to carry out punishment approaches despite these costs. Altogether, therefore, the risks of punishment-based approaches may outweigh the benefits.
Second, emerging technology increasingly influences both national security and economic prosperity. This is especially true for information and communications technology and for new and newly important domains of warfare such as space and cyberspace. The US economy is deeply integrated with and dependent on the global economy. To provide one example, the international financial system, of which the US financial sector is the critical hub, rests on the reliable and resilient functioning of digital infrastructure, networks, and systems, making the financial system interconnected with cyberspace. And for an example from the military perspective, the United States’ precision-strike weapon systems, including nuclear command and control, depend on both cyberspace and outer space for core functions.
Complicating all of this, both the outer space and cyberspace domains rely on the private sector. For example, in cyberspace, the private sector owns and operates the majority of the networks and infrastructure. Similarly, the national power grid and transport systems are critical to the US military’s ability to deploy, and the commercial space industry is critical to America’s ability to launch satellites in volume. Therefore, both play roles in national security. The US economy and military are both vulnerable to adversaries in space and cyberspace—and defending these spaces means defending government and private infrastructure alike. A successful deterrence-by-denial strategy must include frameworks for public-private collaboration that are deeper and more meaningful than those that currently exist.
As the Biden administration reshapes foreign policy and makes decisions about how to invest in US military capabilities for the future, it should acknowledge the value of a denial-based approach to deterrence. It should invest in capabilities that enable defense and emphasize infrastructure, logistics, and partner capabilities—even if this may sometimes come at the expense of the exquisite and costly US military capabilities that are necessary for punishment-based approaches.
*Erica D. Borghard is a resident senior fellow with the New American Engagement Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security and was senior director on the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
*Benjamin Jensen is a nonresident senior fellow with Forward Defense at the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, a professor at the School of Advanced Warfighting in the Marine Corps University, and a scholar-in-residence at American University’s School of International Service. He was also the senior research director and lead author for the US Cyberspace Solarium Commission.
*Mark Montgomery is the senior director of the Center on Cyber and Technology Innovation and a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He serves as the senior advisor to the chairmen of the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and was the executive director. Follow him on Twitter @MarkCMontgomery. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy and national security issues.

Suspending U.S.-ROK Military Exercises Will Not Facilitate Peace Negotiations
Mathew Ha/FDD/February 05/2021
Seoul may have its hopes up, but history shows Pyongyang will not change course if military exercises are altered.
In his new year’s press conference on January 27, Suh Wook, the Republic of Korea’s (ROK) defense minister, provided an ambiguous statement on plans for the combined ROK-U.S. military exercises scheduled for this spring. While he stated the exercises will continue as planned, Minister Suh also hinted that Seoul could reconsider the effort because the “joint military drills are negotiable with North Korea.” His equivocal remarks warrant concern, because a suspension of the exercises would continue undermining the U.S. and ROK’s combined military readiness. Moreover, suspending the exercises would feed directly into the North Korean regime’s political warfare strategy of extorting political, economic, and security concessions from its adversaries while giving up nothing in return.
On the day after the press conference, 387 South Korean and foreign civic organizations collectively urged the administration of ROK President Moon Jae-in to suspend the scheduled exercises, arguing that such a move “will be a crucial step toward restarting genuine diplomacy with North Korea.” South Korea’s unification minister, Lee In-young, expressed similar hopes for a “flexible” approach to the military exercises that aims to move the “peace process forward through dialogue and cooperation.”
Minister Lee and the advocacy groups are echoing North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s public remarks from Pyongyang’s Eighth Party Congress in January. At the time, Kim said that ending military exercises and terminating Washington’s “hostile policy” are preconditions for restarting diplomacy with South Korea. Unfortunately, there is little guarantee for Seoul that meeting Pyongyang’s preconditions will improve prospects for diplomacy and inter-Korean reconciliation. The Moon administration is operating under the flawed assumption that the Kim regime shares its vision for a permanent peace on the Korean peninsula. Thus, over the last two years, the U.S. and ROK militaries have suspended, postponed, and scaled back their combined military exercises. Both Seoul and Washington agreed that these adjustments to the exercises would help shape conditions for diplomacy with North Korea. Pyongyang, however, has failed to reciprocate any good-will gesture from Seoul or Washington.
In fact, North Korea’s military has responded by continuing its own seasonal training cycles at full capacity from 2019 to the present. Pyongyang also has conducted twenty-one weapons tests of short-range missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM), and multiple rocket-launcher systems. Additionally, in October 2020 and January 2021, the Kim regime held two ostentatious military parades showcasing new advanced weaponry, such as inter-continental ballistic missiles (ICBM), SLBMs, and other conventional military equipment. An ICBM would boost North Korea’s ability to directly strike the territorial United States. Similarly, an SLBM would enhance Pyongyang’s missile arsenal by creating a second-strike capability alongside its current land-based capabilities. Kim’s intent for these parades was likely to signal to the world that North Korea will continue its efforts to put Pyongyang in a position of strength against all adversaries. The North Korean military’s activities underscore the pressing need for Washington and Seoul to ensure their combined forces maintain their own readiness. Additionally, the United States and ROK cannot afford to continue suspending or reducing exercises in the hopes of eliciting a positive response from the North. Two years of suspensions and scaling back of these exercises have begun to degrade the readiness of U.S. and ROK combined forces, weakening U.S. deterrence and putting South Korea at greater security risk.
History provides abundant evidence that North Korea is laying a trap for the United States and South Korea by stipulating pre-conditions for talks.
Prior examples of nuclear negotiations with North Korea show how the Kim regime exploits diplomacy for the sole purpose of reaping undue rewards and benefits while giving up nothing of its own. During the Six Party Talks that brought together the United States, North Korea, South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia between 2003 and 2009 to achieve North Korea’s denuclearization, Pyongyang dragged out negotiations without ever following through on signed commitments to “not possess nuclear reprocessing and uranium enrichment facilities” pursuant to the 1992 Joint Declaration on the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Pursuant to the 2005 Joint Statement of the Six Party Talks, North Korea also failed to “abandon all nuclear weapons programs and return at an early date to the Treaty of Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and to IAEA safeguards.”
Instead, North Korea continued operating its nuclear facilities, conducted its first nuclear weapons test in 2006, and even threatened to abandon negotiations solely to coerce the other governments to provide concessions.
One of North Korea’s top demands during the Six Party Talks was for the United States to return $25 million of Pyongyang’s financial assets held in a Macau bank, known as Banco Delta Asia (BDA). The Treasury Department froze Kim’s funds in 2005 after ruling that BDA is a “primary money laundering concern” supporting the regime’s illegal activity. Washington eventually returned the money to North Korea in 2007, hoping that this would prompt Pyongyang to follow through on its commitments.
Yet Pyongyang continued to disregard its obligations and instead issued new demands, such as the U.S. State Department’s de-listing of North Korea from its State Sponsors of Terrorism list. The regime also demanded a verification agreement that did not require Pyongyang to allow outside inspectors to conduct environmental sampling from its nuclear facilities. The agreement would therefore have enabled North Korea to potentially continue covert production of fissile material for weapons even after signing a commitment to abandon such programs. This cycle of coercion and concession continued until North Korea abandoned the Six Party Talks in 2009 after the U.S. and other countries refused to give in to North Korea’s proposed verification agreement.
Kim Jong-un’s recent speech during the Eighth Party Congress suggests Pyongyang will continue this coercive diplomacy even if Seoul suspends the exercises again for the sake of trying to restart talks. This reality is apparent from Kim’s explicit demand for an end to U.S. “hostile policy” in exchange for a new relationship. North Korean government officials have historically defined U.S. “hostile policy” as the U.S. military deployments in South Korea, economic sanctions, and the nuclear umbrella. Consequently, Kim is posturing himself to extort far more substantial concessions, which could include removing all U.S. troops and military assets from South Korea, ending the U.S. extended deterrence, and providing premature sanctions relief.
If the Moon administration truly seeks a permanent peace for Korea, it must avoid repeating history by capitulating to the Kim regime’s demands in the hope that Pyongyang will reciprocate. Instead, Seoul should impose military, diplomatic, and economic costs that force Kim to realize the risks of his current strategy. The first step of such an effort would entail moving forward with the upcoming U.S.-ROK combined military exercises. This will help Washington and Seoul resolve any issues in their readiness and interoperability that may have resulted from the past two years of downgrading these exercises.
Restoring the seamless readiness and top capabilities of the combined forces’ capabilities would serve as a critical foundation to deter North Korea and to sustain the United States and ROK in a position of strength for any future diplomatic efforts.
*Mathew Ha is a research analyst focused on North Korea and East Asia at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), where he also contributes to FDD’s Center on Military and Political Power (CMPP). Follow him on Twitter @MatJunsuk. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
 

Ideology Is Making Iran Even Sicker
Ilan I. Berman/Al-Hurra Digital/February 05/2021
A year into the coronavirus, the progression of the disease in the Middle East is decidedly mixed. Some countries, such the nations of the GCC, have weathered the pandemic comparatively well as a result of what scholars have termed "authoritarian management." Other nations, however, have been profoundly ravaged by the illness.
Of those, Iran has been the most deeply affected. According to official statistics, more than 1.2 million of its roughly 85 million citizens have fallen ill from the disease, and some 56,000 have died from it. Unofficially, however, the situation appears to be much, much worse – with multiple millions infected and perhaps as many as 209,000 casualties, equivalent to 0.25% of the country's population.
The causes of the Islamic Republic's illness are numerous. They range from a disdain for modern medicine among the country's clerical elite to the Iranian regime's extensive cooperation with China, the original source of global infection. Yet, instead of pursuing all possible remedies, Iranian officials are sticking to their ideological guns – even if it helps make their country sicker.
Thus, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei recently declared that Iran would not accept imported COVID vaccines from either the United States or the United Kingdom. "Imports of U.S. and British vaccines into the country are forbidden... They're completely untrustworthy," Khamenei said in a televised statement in early January. "It's not unlikely they would want to contaminate other nations."
Instead of relying on Western remedies, the Iranian regime is increasingly turning to its strategic partners for help in fighting the virus.
One of them is Cuba. Tehran and Havana recently signed an agreement under which Cuba pledged to transfer its most advanced COVID vaccine technology to Iran. As part of the arrangement, Iran gave permission for Cuba to conduct late-stage clinical trials of its most promising vaccine, known as Soberna 2, within the Islamic Republic.
Iran has also approved the use of Russia's controversial COVID-19 vaccine, Sputnik V, and intends to both import and produce it in coming months. "The Sputnik V vaccine was yesterday also registered and approved by our health authorities," Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif confirmed in late January. "In the near future, we hope to be able to purchase it, as well as start joint production."
That, however, isn't likely to significantly change the state of the health crisis within Iran. Although Sputnik V was rushed to market, the Kremlin has made it a central prong of its diplomacy during the pandemic, with significant success. Numerous nations around the world have decided to adopt the treatment – so many, in fact, that in order to make good on its commitments, Russia has been forced to produce a diluted variant of its vaccine for international export. The result, dubbed "Sputnik Light," will be administered in a single dose and offer only temporary immunity for those who receive it.
To their credit, Iran's more technocratically-minded officials grasp that reliance on these subpar remedies falls far short of a serious solution to their problem. That's why Iran's top epidemiologist has confirmed plans to import COVID-19 vaccines from pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca, which he and others describe as a "Swedish company" (and therefore not subject to Khamenei's ideological restrictions). But Iranian health officials, desperately trying to reverse the tide of infection within the Islamic Republic, are undeniably still hampered by clerical mandate from receiving the most effective treatments by which to combat the pandemic.
Years from now, when historians carry out a full accounting of the pandemic, a great deal of blame will be assigned to China for its far-reaching campaign of disinformation surrounding the origins and spread of the virus. Nations (like Russia) who have attempted to steal vaccine data and otherwise compromise the race for treatments will likewise be found to have been culpable, too. In the case of Iran, however, its already clear that the principal culprit for the country's misery isn't an external force. Rather, the regime's official ideology and anti-Western orientation are primarily responsible for just how deeply the country is being ravaged by the pandemic, and why proper answers to it remain so elusive.

Biden Wants to Mend the U.S.-Saudi Alliance, Not End It
Eli Lake/ Bloomberg/February 05/2021
Unlike members of Congress, the president does not have the luxury of posturing on an issue.
Anyone paying attention for the last three years should not be surprised that President Joe Biden on Thursday announced the end to U.S. support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen, calling the war a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.” Most of Biden’s party has given up on the Saudi regime, particularly after its agents murdered and then dismembered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018.
But it would be a mistake to read too much into the Biden administration’s opening move in its attempt to reset the U.S. relationship with its oldest ally in the Middle East. Unlike members of Congress, the U.S. president does not have the luxury of only posturing on an issue. He also has to make policy.
This is why it’s important to pay attention to what else Biden said on Thursday. He pledged U.S. support to revive long-dormant peace talks between the Saudis and the Houthi rebels in Yemen and to continue to sell Saudi Arabia defensive weapons to protect it from drones, missiles and other threats.
In other words, Biden is interested in mending, not ending, the U.S.-Saudi relationship.
This process will not be entirely positive for the Saudis. For one, his administration has promised Congress that it will release an unclassified CIA report on the crown prince’s own culpability in the Khashoggi murder. According to the Washington Post, the agency concluded in 2018 that he did indeed order the operation in Istanbul. At the time, administration officials pushed back on that assessment.
There is also an inter-agency review of the broader relationship. It’s possible that more senior Saudi officials could face sanctions for Khashoggi’s murder. Other senior Biden officials have signaled to Congress that the new administration will press the Saudis to release liberal activists who have been jailed under the regime. There will be far more pressure now on Riyadh to end its war in Yemen.
All of that is good as far as it goes. But Biden will also have to come up with ways to tame the reckless crown prince. Some Saudi watchers, particularly Saudi dissidents, believe this to be a fool’s errand.
One such activist, Omar Abdulaziz, who now is exiled in Canada, told me that many Western diplomats were making the same mistake with bin Salman that they made with Saddam Hussein in the 1980s, acknowledging his brutality but deeming him an important bulwark against Iran. “MBS is a threat to the stability of the Middle East in the same way that Saddam was,” he said.
That may be true. But most experts do not think the U.S. has the leverage or savvy to persuade the Saudi royal family to pick another crown prince.
Kirsten Fontenrose served as the senior director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council until she resigned at the end of 2018, and is now director of the Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council. She told me that bin Salman has so effectively consolidated his power that there is no chance that he can be knocked off the throne. She does, however, think there is a chance to work toward more realistic goals for Saudi Arabia.
For example, she said, the Saudis have expressed an interest in formalizing a national security process that would include a more diverse and experienced group of advisers in major decisions. “When we did work with the Saudis on the Khashoggi issue, many wise advisers were open to amending the decision-making structures,” she told me.
Admittedly, this kind of modest diplomacy is not satisfying. Nor is there any guarantee it will work. Abdulaziz may be right that the young crown prince is irredeemable.
At the same time, alienating Riyadh entirely undermines the national interest. If the Biden administration fails to bring an end to the war in Yemen, the Saudis can always purchase less precise munitions from China or Russia. As the Wall Street Journal reported last year, the Saudis have already begun working with China on a civilian nuclear power program.
If the Saudis are persuaded that the U.S. will remain a steadfast ally, they will be more willing to bankroll humanitarian relief work and reconstruction in Yemen, Syria and the Palestinian territories. Over time, that will make it easier for the Biden administration to reduce the U.S. footprint in the Middle East. The trick now is to persuade bin Salman that his country’s alliance with the U.S. is a two-way street. Biden can’t be a good friend to a man who has dissidents murdered — and neither can America.
*Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen goes the Sudanese distance
Lahav Harjov/The Jerusalem Post/February 05/2021
Last week, Cohen became the first Israeli minister to visit the African state.
Walking into Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen’s Tel Aviv office this week, one can’t help but notice an enormous, long and narrow red padded box right behind the door.
The box has a window in its lid, displaying an imitation M-16 rifle, and a small label that says “gift” on it in English and Arabic, as well as “Military Industry Corp.” and “Yarmouk Industrial Complex.”
The Yarmouk munitions plant in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum was the site of a massive explosion in October 2012, which foreign sources say was due to an Israeli airstrike. That plant belonged to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and was on Tehran’s smuggling route to Hamas in Gaza. Iran then sent warships to guard Sudan.
That was just over eight years ago, emphasizing just how groundbreaking peace and normalization between Israel and Sudan really is.
Last week, Cohen became the first Israeli minister to visit the African state, and the rifle was a gift from the Sudanese government. Cohen, for his part, brought citrus fruits and olive oil from Israel.
“It was exciting,” Cohen recounted. “Just a year ago, the distance between Ben-Gurion Airport and Khartoum was endless. Following the leadership of [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu and [Sudanese leader Abdel Fattah] al-Burhan, the distance is now only two-and-a-half hours.”
Cohen pointed out that not only was Sudan a way station for Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks on Israel, but Sudanese soldiers fought against Israel in the War of Independence and the Yom Kippur War.
“I have a friend who’s a lawyer who called me over the weekend to tell me how, during the Yom Kippur War, he was at the Suez Canal and was told to watch out for ‘tall Sudanese soldiers,’” Cohen said. “Israelis remember the war as being against Syria and Egypt, but there were Sudanese soldiers there, fighting Israelis.”
When Cohen sat in meetings with Sudanese military officials discussing strategies with a retired IDF brigadier-general, who he could not name for security reasons, “I had to rub my eyes,” he said, expressing his sense of disbelief.
The transformation from a supporter of terrorism against Israel to a country that has forged peace with Israel is only a minor part of what has happened in Sudan in recent years. Dictator Omar al-Bashir was toppled in 2019, and since then, the African state has been attempting to transition toward democracy. Late last year, the US removed Sudan’s state sponsor of terror designation with bipartisan support, an important step toward its economic rehabilitation and international partnerships.
Cohen said he arrived uncertain of how the Sudanese officials would react to him, but found “warmth” from all the officials he met, including Burhan, who is head of Sudan’s transitional governing council, and Sudanese Defense Minister Yassin Ibrahim Yassin.
“I had a pretty long meeting with the president, and he said he plans to promote peace with Israel, that it is in the interest of the Sudanese people, and of their economy and security. He understands that cooperation with Israel will increase stability in the region,” Cohen said.
The minister also pointed out that relations with Khartoum are of importance to Israel, as Sudan is one of the biggest countries in Africa and has a strategic location on the banks of the Red Sea.
Israel also needs to work with countries that turned away from Tehran, Cohen said.
“Sudan made a strategic decision every country in the region must make,” the minister added. “If you want to protect your country, get Iran away from you. Every place Iran enters, it behaves like a cancer and destroys it by bringing in Islamist extremist factors… The good of Lebanon is different from what Hezbollah wants, the Houthis aren’t helping Yemen. Look at Gaza as opposed to Judea and Samaria. Where do people suffer more? Of course, in Gaza, where they have Islamic Jihad funded by Iran.”
Conversely, Cohen said, the latest peace agreements between Israel and states in Africa and the Middle East increase regional stability.
In that vein, Cohen and Burhan discussed the possibility of Israel joining the new Red Sea alliance, an initiative from Riyadh last year that includes Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Djibouti, Sudan, Somalia, Egypt and Yemen.
Israel has official relations with only three of those countries, yet Cohen argued “it’s in their interest that we join. Israel’s intelligence capabilities will contribute to them, because they need to defend themselves from Islamist extremists no less than we do, if not more.”
Cohen and Yassin signed a memorandum of understanding on security and intelligence cooperation, “to work together to stop terrorism and exchange defense strategies and knowledge.”
The minister also promoted Israel’s know-how in agriculture and water use, and says Israel will likely train Sudanese farmers in best practices, especially in Sudan’s large dairy industry.
“We certainly are in a new Middle East,” Cohen said, “a Middle East that is advancing stability.”LOOKING TOWARD Washington, Cohen credited former president Donald Trump with Israel’s four peace and normalization agreements and turning “the Middle East into a more open place,” saying that now “there is great hope from the peace agreements and an expectation for more… in one of the most sensitive regions in the world.”
Cohen expressed hope that new US President Joe Biden would act to expand that circle of peace, but pointed out that there are a lot of domestic issues, such as the coronavirus pandemic, that come first in the US.
Still, the minister pointed to several other countries that could be close to establishing ties with Israel, in Africa, Southeast Asia and the Gulf.
In Africa and Asia, Cohen hoped that seeing how well ties with Israel are going for other countries will create the momentum for Indonesia, Chad, Niger, Mauritania and others to normalize relations.
But in the Gulf, states like Oman, Saudi Arabia and even Qatar are looking to see what the new US administration’s policies toward Iran will be, Cohen said.
“A policy of compromises with Iran and lifting sanctions will create obstacles for future peace agreements,” Cohen said. “When in recent years the US acted determinedly towards Iran, left the nuclear deal, enacted sanctions and military operations, they felt comfortable getting closer to the West… A strong policy against Iran will mean a good chance we will see these three countries join the peace agreements.”
Gulf states “are more concerned than Israel,” he added. “Israel is strong in security and intelligence and has defensive and offensive capabilities.”
Biden and members of his administration have talked about rejoining the 2015 deal if Iran returns to full compliance, and then negotiating to strengthen the agreement to address Tehran’s ballistic missile programs and malign actions in the region. In the meantime, Iran has begun enriching uranium up to 20% and researching the development of uranium metals, which have no civilian use, and officials in Tehran have said they will not talk to the US unless sanctions are lifted first, and they will not agree to any additions to the deal.
When it comes to what Israel would like to see in future US-Iran negotiations, “Iran cannot have a nuclear program at all. A good agreement is one without a nuclear program,” said the minister.
“Up until now, the agreements with Iran weren’t worth the paper on which they were written,” Cohen asserted. “Biden, who was [former US president Barack] Obama’s vice president, saw the Iranians fool the world and the Americans… They continued building nuclear facilities, developing precise missiles, establishing themselves militarily in Syria and sending money to terrorist groups… Iran never abandoned its intention to attain weapons of mass destruction.”
“How can the Americans continue the agreement if they saw Iran break the last agreement?” WITH AN election coming up, Cohen is running in the Likud and has choice words for the parties that refuse to sit in a coalition with Netanyahu.
“Just like we don’t tell other parties who will lead them, no one will dictate it to Likud,” he said.
Those parties must “respect the democratic results” of the election, Cohen added, pointing out that “in every poll, Likud is twice as large as the next party and Netanyahu is viewed as the best choice to lead the country.”
Cohen said he believes Israel’s biggest challenges in the short term will be working with the Biden administration on countering Iran and promoting domestic policies to lower unemployment after it spiked due to the pandemic, and that Netanyahu is the best candidate to address both.
The minister pushed back against arguments that Netanyahu has been weak on equal enforcement of coronavirus lockdown rules, allowing haredi schools to remain open against the law, among other violations.
“The Likud’s determined policies led [UTJ leader Ya’acov] Litzman to resign from the government, because we decided to close synagogues,” Cohen said. “The law to raise fines [for violators] wasn’t proposed by Blue and White, it was by Health Minister Yuli Edelstein [from Likud].”
“The haredim are our brothers, but this is not ideological or political. Lives are at stake. Anyone breaking the law has to be shut down and pay a fine… We say there should be equal enforcement for everyone,” he affirmed.
Opening up
Aside from his responsibilities as intelligence minister, Eli Cohen is a member of the coronavirus cabinet, and is behind the “green passport” proposal to allow vaccinated Israelis to gradually return to normalcy.
“We’re not forcing those who don’t want a vaccine to get it, but we are giving benefits to those who do,” he explained. “The green passport model creates incentives to be vaccinated and is important for reviving the economy.”
One benefit Cohen experienced is that he returned from Sudan – just before all flights in and out of Israel were grounded – and did not have to go into quarantine, having gotten the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine over a week before that.
Later this month, Cohen expects cultural institutions to reopen and hold events for people who have been vaccinated,
“I think we all forgot what the movie theater looks like,” he quipped.
Cohen expressed optimism that the vast majority of Israeli adults – 4.5 million out of six million – will either have been vaccinated or have antibodies from having recovered from corona in the coming weeks.
“This year, Passover will truly be the Festival of Freedom, and we will be able to celebrate with our extended families at the upcoming Seder,” he said.
– L.H.

Hypocrisy in action
Mohammed A. El Huni/The Arab Weekly/February 05/2021
No wonder that most Libyans see the forum as an external process imposed on them. They have little confidence in it and little faith that it will work.
A great deal has been said by Acting UN Special Envoy for Libya Stephanie Williams during the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) about the need for transparency in Libya and for candidates for the Presidency Council and the prime ministry to adhere to it. She has also continuously repeated that the LPDF is a Libyan-owned process through which Libyans are deciding on their own government.
But it is not a Libyan-owned process. It is a UN-owned and UN-controlled process, and there has been minimal transparency throughout. Apart from the representatives of the House of Representatives and the State Council who have taken part in the forum, the overwhelming majority of participants were selected by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL). But on what basis? What was the criteria for choosing them? There has been no transparency on how the choices were made.
The lack of transparency has continued throughout the forum’s proceedings. The meetings and discussions, both in person and virtual, have been private, apart from this last one, and even then, only the presentations by the candidates for the Presidency Council and prime ministry were publicly televised. But as soon as each presentation was over and Williams or anyone else started to speak, the screens went blank and the microphones cut out.
UNSMIL preaches transparency but does not practice it. The entire LPDF process, especially the entire final session in Switzerland, should have been televised and made accessible to the Libyan people so they could follow it and make up their own minds about it and the candidates.
There has been a lack of transparency in other aspects of the forum’s life too. In November, there were serious allegations that at least one person who has since become an official candidate for prime minister bribed some LPDF members. A formal letter from 11 Libyan human rights and legal organisations to the UN demanded an inquiry be launched, the results be publicly announced and for anyone found to have been involved in corruption be banned from running for the Presidency Council or the premiership. Williams herself said there would be an inquiry. But what happened to it? What did the inquiry say? The accusations of corruption, of money flowing around, have been swept under the carpet, made to disappear. No wonder that most Libyans see the forum as an external process imposed on them. They have little confidence in it and little faith that it will work.
Like UNSMIL’s earlier, failed Presidency Council and the Government of National Accord (GNA) devised in Skhirat before it, this current attempt to bring peace and concord to Libya is flawed from the start because it rides roughshod over Libyan laws and Libyan sovereignty. The new proposed government becomes legitimate not because the House of Representative approves it, but because the UNSMIL-selected LPDF says so, because the UN says so. The LPDF has been turned into Libya’s legislature, its parliament. That has been further confirmed by the LPDF’s decision that should the HoR and the State Council fail to agree on a constitutional basis for December’s elections or the appointment of the heads of the seven sovereign institutions within 60 days of the start of the “preparatory phase,” arbitrarily set by Williams as December 21, 2020, then it will do so.
If the LPFD succeeds in bringing about a new administration, it will be a triumph for UNSMIL, but a triumph fuelled by hypocrisy and deception.
Williams is leaving UNSMIL this month. The job of UN special envoy has been given to Jan Kubis, a former Slovak foreign minister and, until the end of last year, the UN’s special coordinator for Lebanon. The LPDF may well produce a new administration for the next 10 months, but it is going to be a difficult time. There is no guarantee that a new, LPDF-devised government will be able to impose its authority throughout the whole country, that a constitutional basis for December’s elections is secured or even that they take place on time or at all. It could all go wrong. He is going to have his work cut out for him trying to help Libya arrive, in one piece, at that December destination. The hope is that, working in harmony with Libya’s many institutions and components of society, he succeeds.
*Mohammed A. El Huni is editor in chief of al Arab newspaper.

The Mysteries of the Trump Impeachment Remake
Amir TaheriAsharq Al Awsat/February 05/2021
Soon after he was declared winner of the 2020 presidential election by the Associated Press last November, Joe Biden called on the American people to start closing the Donald Trump chapter as a nightmare and move on.
The concept of closing a chapter and moving on has always been an important part of American political discourse. From its earliest days, the United States developed a positivist political culture that ejected the nurturing of ressentiment so dear to old European powers. That culture regarded concepts as vendetta and revanchisme, so strong in the old continent, with contempt. Even after the War of Secession, a tragic event by any standard, that culture helped Americans of all political shades to move on and, in time, get together again.
One only has to read what Gen. Ulysses S Grant, commander in chief of the unionists who led his camp to victory, has to say in praise of the defeated Gen. Robert E Lee, the confederal commander to realize that American political culture is not only remarkably free of vengefulness but also promotes forgiveness in the service of the common interest. The American is advised not to get mad but get even.
Thus when Biden spoke of moving on he was following a well-established American pattern of behavior. With that in mind, one cannot but wonder why his Democrat Party decided to keep the Trump chapter open by triggering a second impeachment process that seems to have no constitutional basis and everyone knows will not end with the conviction of the former president. This impeachment gambit simply doesn’t make sense.
If one wishes to punish Trump for his alleged triggering of the mob attack on Capitol last month, the American way would be for the Washington DC Police Department to shape a case for submission to the District Attorney to bring formal legal charges against Trump. In that way, the whole tug would be depoliticized with Trump facing criminal charges and becoming answerable to an independent judiciary with clear and time-tested rules.
So, why this stubborn insistence on shielding Trump against the legal process while casting him as the negative star of a poorly-scripted soap opera?
Adepts of conspiratorial theories might suggest that Trump himself bribed some Democrat leaders to launch the show and keep him in the news for as long as possible. As a result of the impeachment process, rather than fading in Florida has remained in the headlines with his every move massively reported and analyzed as if the fate of mankind depended on them. Nursing an insatiable thirst for publicity, old Donald J. must be having a whale of a time watching TV in Mare de Lago.
However, a more sinister motive may also be suggested. What if this whole farce is part of a broader attempt at injecting a strong dose of revisionist vengefulness in the American political culture?
Judging by various campaigns to remove statues, re-name public places by banning even such names George Washington; Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, would it be outlandish to fear that vendetta, justified by real or imaginary grievances, is creeping into American politics at a higher and higher level?
For the past decade or so, victim-hood has provided some individuals and groups with a store-front display to seek a share in the political marketplace. There is also the fact that segments of the American political elite, drunk on their cocktail of political correctness, seek to re-write American history as a tale of woes for real or imagined victims. Keeping real or imagined wounds open is also a means of covering one’s political nakedness. It is interesting that the politically correct crowd has never been able to offer anything resembling a coherent political platform beyond calling for the insurgency against the ”one percent” who are supposed to have a magic money tree in their back garden.
Deeper thinkers in that crowd demand a defunding of the police and the creation of “free zones “in cities where “freedom-fighters” keep “White Supremacists” out. Trump, being the bete-noire of “anti-Imperialist” and “Progressive” militants, it is no surprise that they insist on getting the pound of flesh they have no claim to.
But what if the Democrat barons, or at least some of them, have pedestrian partisan motives?
The impeachment helped Biden complete approval of his Cabinet at top speed, avoiding long and potentially damaging scrutiny of some nominees. It also covered the fact that the new president hasn’t offered anything sensationally new apart from canceling some of Trump’s controversial Executive Orders.
Beyond that, the impeachment may be designed to keep Trump politically alive by angering and thus further motivating his core supporters who would either split the Republican Party from within or even set up their own “Patriot Party”. Such a split would ensure the Democrats victory in mid-term elections next year. Since more Republican senators will face re-election next year, such a split could give Democrats a huge senate majority, something they haven’t had in decades. Some Republican senators may lose part of their electorate if they oppose the impeachment. Others may lose voters if they support it.
And then, we would be en-route for presidential election in 2040 which, Biden an unlikely “come-back-kid, would be an open on. Fielding Kamala Harris as nominee could be risky by Democrats. At the same time, Democrats lack a rising star while a challenger further on their left remains a threat.
On the Republican side, Trump may seek the party’s nomination.
If he wins, Democrats could mobilize the same coalition of “minorities” against him while a big chunk of Republican voters either stays at home or, like last November, join the anti-Trump front. If Trump doesn’t win the nomination he would be under pressure to stand as a third party candidate.
That could mean re-visiting the Ross Perot episode which helped Bill Clinton become president twice, both times by fewer than 40 percent of the votes.
Trump as a diversion may have other uses for Democrats. There is talk of turning DC into a state, something which could give the democrats two more senate seats. Biden has also spoken of the possibility of Puerto Rico becoming a state. If that happens, Democrats could control both houses for the foreseeable future. Even more outlandish is the suggested division of California into two or even four states which would give Democrats between two and eight more senate seats.
Could the two-party system develop into a one-and-a-half party scheme in which the one party is always in government and the half-party always in opposition?
That’s what happened in neighboring Mexico where the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) was in power from 1920 to 2000 with a half party serving as opposition to keep the myth of democracy alive.
Were that to happen, we would witness one of those ironies that give history its bitter-sweet taste. Mexicans fought for two centuries to have a democracy like that of their northern neighbor, never dreaming that anyone north of Rio Grande may wish to Mexicanize the American system.