English LCCC Newsbulletin For
Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For June 18/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
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Bible Quotations For today
Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another
member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as
seven times?’Jesus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you, seventy-seven
times
Saint Matthew 18/21-35:”Then Peter came and said to him, ‘Lord, if another
member of the church sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as
seven times?’J esus said to him, ‘Not seven times, but, I tell you,
seventy-seven times. ‘For this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a
king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves. When he began the reckoning,
one who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him; and, as he could not
pay, his lord ordered him to be sold, together with his wife and children and
all his possessions, and payment to be made. So the slave fell on his knees
before him, saying, “Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.” And
out of pity for him, the lord of that slave released him and forgave him the
debt. But that same slave, as he went out, came upon one of his fellow-slaves
who owed him a hundred denarii; and seizing him by the throat, he said, “Pay
what you owe.” Then his fellow-slave fell down and pleaded with him, “Have
patience with me, and I will pay you.” But he refused; then he went and threw
him into prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow-slaves saw what
had happened, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their
lord all that had taken place. Then his lord summoned him and said to him, “You
wicked slave! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. Should
you not have had mercy on your fellow-slave, as I had mercy on you?” And in
anger his lord handed him over to be tortured until he should pay his entire
debt. So my heavenly Father will also do to every one of you, if you do not
forgive your brother or sister from your heart.’
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials
published on June 17-18/2021
MoPH: 165 new coronavirus infections, 3 deaths
With few tangibles, world powers promise help to Lebanese army
France-Hosted Int'l Meeting Rallies Support for Crisis-Hit Lebanese Army
Lebanon Army Chief: Economic situation will lead to collapse of military
Report: Army Chief to Visit US, UK for Humanitarian Army Assistance
IDF destroys Syrian outpost used by Hezbollah
U.N. Supports Calls for Helping Lebanese Army Meet Emergency Needs
Top EU Official to Visit Lebanon with 'Key Messages' to Its Leaders
Wronecka: UN supports calls for helping LAF meet emergency needs
Patriarch Rahi receives French MP Rouillard
Egypt President receives Arab Information Ministers
Clarification by UN in Lebanon: Internal guidelines are standard procedure
'Loyalty to Resistance' meets in regular session: Government formation remains
first measure to determine solutions
Bassil tackles government dossier with Grillo
Hariri discusses situation with EU ambassador, meets Mount Lebanon Mufti
General strike in various sectors against deteriorating living conditions
U.N.-Habitat Head Urges Holistic Urban Recovery on Lebanon Visit
Workers Stage General Strike over Escalating Crises
Trade Unions Launch General Strike over Crisis, Political Parties Join In
Lebanon’s president pitted against parliament speaker over cabinet formation
Statement released by the Lebanese Swiss Association after LSA Conference for
Lebanon 2021
Lebanese banks swallow at least $250m in UN aid for refugees/Timour Azhari,
Thomson Reuters Foundation/June 127/2021
Titles For The Latest English LCCC
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on June
17-18/2021
Iran closer than before to reaching nuclear deal with US, but issues
remain: Official
Iran urges voters to set aside grievances, take part in presidential election
Khamenei says Iran elections are democratic, berates media in ‘some countries’
US, Turkey did not reach agreement on Russian S-400s: Biden aide
US House backs repeal of 2002 war authorization in bid to end ‘forever wars’
Moscow Hails Putin, Biden's Commitment to Arms Control
Major Banks, Airlines Report Online Outages
Tom Nides, next US envoy, ‘understands Israel well’/Next US envoy to Israel ‘an
excellent diplomat and real statesman’
More than 80 Christian leaders bless Bennett, express support for Israel
IDF Chief of Staff Kohavi to fly to Washington to discuss Iran, Gaza
Will every Israeli airstrike now be front page news? - analysis/Seth J.
Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
Nassar Of The Council On American-Islamic Relations Los Angeles (CAIR-LA), In
Lecture At Islamic Society Of Orange County: The 'European Jewish Colonizers' In
Palestine Converted To Judaism In The Middle Ages, Have No Connection To Ancient
Israelites; Antisemitism Is A Way Of Persecuting A Group For Falsely Claiming To
Descend From Historic Palestine/MEMRI/June 17/2021
Canada follows through on commitments to advance women, peace and security
agenda with third national action plan
Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC
English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June
17-18/2021
Israel's New Government Is Among the Most Diverse in the History of
Democracies/Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/June 17/2021
China's Plan to Dominate 'Near-Earth' Space/Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone
Institute/June 17/2021
Oppressed Palestinians or Oppressive Terrorists?/Raymond Ibrahim/June 17/2021
There is no Islamophobia in Canada/Tarek Fatah/The Toronto Sun/June 17/2021
Tehran’s nuclear secrets have been exposed/Clifford D. May/The Washington
Times/June 17/2021
Biden Should Not Lift Sanctions Against Iranian Presidential Candidate Ebrahim
Raisi/Matthew Zweig/Policy Brief/June 17/2021
Iran's Leading Presidential Candidate Has Committed Crimes Against Humanity/Tzvi
Kahn/Real Clear World/June 17/2021
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese &
Lebanese Related News & Editorials published
on June 17-18/2021
MoPH: 165 new coronavirus infections,
3 deaths
NNA/17 June ,2021
Lebanon has recorded 165 new coronavirus cases and three deaths in the last 24
hours, as reported by the Ministry of Public Health on Thursday.
With few tangibles, world powers promise help to Lebanese army
Reuters/17 June ,2021
World powers agreed to provide support for the Lebanese army at a meeting on
Thursday, aiming to prevent the military from collapsing, but stopped short of
announcing tangible aid as the country’s economic and political crisis worsens.
France, which has led international efforts, has sought to ramp up pressure on
Lebanon’s squabbling politicians, after failed attempts to rally them to agree a
new government and launch reforms to unlock foreign cash. Discontent is brewing
among Lebanon’s security forces over a currency crash that has wiped out most of
the value of their salaries. To tackle that, Paris organized a virtual meeting
with partners including the United States, Russia, China and European powers and
some Gulf Arab states. Lebanon’s pound has lost 90 percent of its value against
the dollar since late 2019 in a financial meltdown that poses the biggest threat
to stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. Discontent is brewing among
Lebanon’s security forces over a currency crash that has wiped out most of the
value of their salaries. To tackle that, Paris organized a virtual meeting with
partners including the United States, Russia, China and European powers and some
Gulf Arab states. Lebanon’s pound has lost 90 percent of its value against the
dollar since late 2019 in a financial meltdown that poses the biggest threat to
stability since the 1975-1990 civil war. “The participants highlighted the dire
and steadily degrading economic and social conditions in Lebanon. In this
context, they stressed that the LAF, yet overstretched, remains a crucial pillar
of the Lebanese State,” the French Armed Forces Ministry said in a
statement.“Their cohesiveness and professionalism remain key to preserving the
country’s stability from more risks.”The ministry did not respond to request for
further information. According to participants, Army Chief Joseph Aoun warned of
the increasingly untenable situation, but said that the institution remained
strong. Salaries have fallen five- or six-fold in value, forcing many to take
extra jobs and some to leave the army altogether. The kind of support countries
were asked to provide was food, medical supplies, spare parts for military
equipment and even fuel, but salaries would not be paid. Two diplomats said the
majority of countries had shown a willingness to provide aid bilaterally going
forward and that a follow-up mechanism to monitor and coordinate would be used.
The army has long been seen as one of the few institutions in Lebanon that can
rally national pride and create unity. Its collapse at the start of the civil
war, when it split along sectarian lines, led to Lebanon’s descent into militia
rule.
France-Hosted Int'l Meeting Rallies Support
for Crisis-Hit Lebanese Army
Naharnet/June 17/2021
A France-organized virtual international meeting for supporting the Lebanese
Army was held Thursday with the participation of 20 countries. The conference
was also backed by the United Nations and Italy. “We must meet the needs of the
Lebanese Army through providing it with the essential assistance requirements,”
Italian Defense Minister Lorenzo Guerini said. French defense minister Florence
Parly for her part said all participants should be concerned with making sure
that the Lebanese Army will remain able to “carry out its missions in preserving
security and stability.”
U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka meanwhile said that the
conference aims to keep the army coherent and effective, calling on participants
to meet the military’s urgent needs. Lebanon’s caretaker Deputy PM, Defense
Minister and acting Foreign Minister Zeina Akar for her part warned against
“abandoning” the Lebanese Army, noting that it represents “the guarantee for
Lebanon’s stability and the security of the Lebanese.” Army Commander General
Joseph Aoun meanwhile told the conferees that the army enjoys domestic and
international confidence while calling for urgent assistance.
He added that the salaries of servicemen have lost around 90% of their value in
light of the unprecedented financial crisis, pointing out that soldiers’ medical
services, food security, missions and the spare parts of vehicles have also been
affected. “The continued deterioration of the economic and financial situation
in Lebanon will certainly lead to the collapse of institutions, including the
military institution, and accordingly the entire country’s security will be
exposed,” Aoun warned. “The army is the only and last institution that is still
coherent and it is the guarantee for security and stability in Lebanon and the
region,” the army chief added, cautioning that the decline of the military
institution would lead to “the collapse of the Lebanese entity and the spread of
chaos.”
Lebanon Army Chief: Economic situation will lead to
collapse of military
Reuters/Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
"The army is the only and last institution that is still coherent and guarantees
the security and stability in Lebanon and the region." "If the economic
situation continues to deteriorate in Lebanon it will inevitably lead to the
collapse of institutions, including the military establishment," said Lebanon's
Army Chief General Joseph Aoun, according to a Tweet from Lebanon's Army. "The
army is the only and last institution that is still coherent and guarantees the
security and stability in Lebanon and the region," said Aoun, who also said that
harm to it will lead to "the spread of chaos."A collapse of the military will
leave the country exposed, said Aoun, who asked for foreign support for the
military in getting through this "delicate stage. "We believe that we will pass
this difficult and delicate stage thanks to the determination and will of our
soldiers and with the support of the Lebanese people and friendly countries."
World powers will seek to raise tens of millions of dollars in emergency aid for
the Lebanese army at a meeting on Thursday, aiming to prevent the military from
collapsing as the country's economic and political crisis worsens, a French
official said. Paris, which has led aid efforts to its former colony, has sought
to ramp up pressure on Lebanon's squabbling politicians, after failed attempts
to rally them to agree a new government and launch reforms to unlock foreign
cash. Discontent is brewing among Lebanon's security forces over a currency
crash that has wiped out most of the value of their salaries. To tackle that,
France will host on Thursday a virtual meeting with partners including the
United States, Russia, China and European powers and the Gulf Arab region.
Lebanon's currency crashed past a milestone on Sunday reaching a new low against
the dollar, as the country's financial meltdown and political deadlock linger.
Market dealers said the Lebanese pound was trading at around 15,150 to the
dollar, losing around 90% of what it was worth in late 2019, when Lebanon's
economic and financial crisis erupted. Lebanon is in the throes of a deep
economic meltdown that is threatening its stability. The World Bank has called
it one of the deepest depressions of modern history.
Report: Army Chief to Visit US, UK for Humanitarian Army
Assistance
Naharnet/June 17/2021
Army chief General Joseph Aoun is expected to travel to the United States of
America and later to the UK in the upcoming days in request for "humanitarian"
support for the Lebanese army, the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper reported on
Thursday. Reports said that “humanitarian support for the army will be an
essential issue in addition to the logistical support provided by the two
countries.”The economic meltdown in Lebanon is putting unprecedented pressure on
the U.S.-backed army’s operational abilities, wiping out soldiers’ salaries and
wrecking morale. Lebanon’s military is now threatened by the country’s
devastating financial collapse, which the World Bank has said is likely to rank
as one of the worst the world has seen in the past 150 years. The military
itself has raised the alarm, unusual for a force that is perhaps unique in the
Middle East in that it largely remains outside politics. Aoun warned in a speech
to officers in March that soldiers were “suffering and hungry like the rest of
the people.” France is convening a virtual fundraising conference Thursday
seeking emergency aid, after Aoun visited Paris last month pleading for
assistance.
IDF destroys Syrian outpost used by Hezbollah
Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
The post, 150m from the border, was the first destroyed by the government of
Naftali Bennett.
Israeli soldiers ride a tank after returning to Israel from
Gaza, 2014 . The IDF struck a Syrian outpost near the city of Quneitra on
Thursday, marking the first strike on the northern border by the government of
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. The post, some 150 meters away from the border,
was affiliated with the Syrian Army’s 90th Brigade and First Corps, and had been
frequented by Hezbollah officials and used as a reconnaissance post against IDF
forces on the Golan Heights. According to Syrian opposition reports, it was
destroyed by tank fire. Two weeks ago, the IDF destroyed another observation
post in the same area, built in the demilitarized zone. Writing on Twitter,
Avichay Adraee said that the military “destroyed a forward observation post of
the Syrian army that was set up in an Israeli area west of the Alfa line in the
Golan Heights.”Israel, he said, “would not tolerate any attempts to violate our
sovereignty.” At least two other strikes have been blamed on Israel since the
beginning of May. During his tenure as defense minister, Bennett worked to
escalate Israeli actions against Iranian forces in Syria aiming to get Tehran to
withdraw all of its troops from Israel’s northern borders. While the IDF does
not respond to most foreign reports, it has admitted to carrying out hundreds of
airstrikes as part of its “war-between-wars” (known in Hebrew as MABAM) campaign
to prevent the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the
entrenchment of Iranian forces in Syria, where they could easily act against the
Jewish state. Although Israel usually refrains from targeting terror operatives
to avoid subsequent retaliation, some strikes ascribed to Israel have killed
several Hezbollah operatives in southern Syria on the Golan Heights, where the
group has been trying to establish a permanent military presence. The Golan
Project has its headquarters in Damascus and Beirut. The operatives began
operating in the Syrian towns of Hadar, Quneitra and Erneh to collect
intelligence on Israel and military movements on the Golan Heights. But
according to a December report by the ALMA Research and Education Center,
Hezbollah’s presence in southern Syria is much larger than previously revealed,
with some 58 sites in the southern Syrian provinces of Quneitra and Daraa where
the terror group’s Southern Command and Golan Project have been deployed.
U.N. Supports Calls for Helping Lebanese Army Meet
Emergency Needs
Naharnet/June 17/2021
U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka on Thursday called on
countries taking part in a French-hosted virtual conference in support of the
Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) to do everything in their power to meet the
immediate emergency needs of Lebanon’s military institution, which has been
deeply affected by the country’s unprecedented economic crisis. “Now is the time
to support the LAF and its personnel in all their efforts to preserve and
promote Lebanon’s stability,” Wronecka said. She thanked the French Government
for organizing this "important meeting at this critical time" and the countries
who had already provided emergency support to the LAF in recent months. Noting
the "pivotal" role played by the Lebanese Army in safeguarding Lebanon’s
security and stability and in the implementation of U.N. Resolution 1701,
Wronecka said meeting the army’s immediate material and human needs was
necessary to keep it functioning. She also urged the LAF to continue in its
efforts to meet its human rights commitments. Moreover, Wronecka underlined that
the U.N. will support the LAF in instituting follow-up arrangements for today's
conference.
Top EU Official to Visit Lebanon with 'Key Messages' to
Its Leaders
Naharnet/June 17/2021
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy/Vice-President of
the European Commission, Josep Borrell, will visit Lebanon on Saturday and
Sunday, the EU Delegation to Lebanon confirmed on Thursday. Borrell’s first
official visit to Lebanon on behalf of the EU well come “at a very critical
moment for the country, which is suffering from several crises,” the Delegation
said in a statement. The trip comes at a time when the Lebanese political
leadership “urgently needs to form a government and implement key reforms,” the
statement added. “He will deliver key messages to the Lebanese leadership, and
convey the EU’s solidarity with the Lebanese people in these extremely difficult
times,” it said. Borrell will have meetings with Lebanese political and military
leaders, as well as with organizations from civil society. He will meet, among
others, President Michel Aoun, Speaker Nabih Berri, caretaker PM Hassan Diab,
PM-designate Saad Hariri and caretaker Deputy PM and Defense and Foreign
Minister Zeina Akar.
Wronecka: UN supports calls for helping LAF meet
emergency needs
NNA/June 17/202
UN Special Coordinator for Lebanon Joanna Wronecka today called on countries
taking part in a French-hosted virtual conference in support of the Lebanese
Armed Forces (LAF) to do everything in their power to meet the immediate
emergency needs of Lebanon’s military institution, which has been deeply
affected by the country’s unprecedented economic crisis. "Now is the time to
support the LAF and its personnel in all their efforts to preserve and promote
Lebanon’s stability," Ms. Wronecka said. She thanked the French Government for
organizing this important meeting at this critical time and the countries who
had already provided emergency support to the LAF in recent months. Noting the
pivotal role played by the Lebanese army in safeguarding Lebanon’s security and
stability and in the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, Ms. Wronecka said
meeting the army’s immediate material and human needs was necessary to keep it
functioning. She urged the LAF to continue in its efforts to meet its human
rights commitments. Ms. Wronecka underlined that the UN will support the LAF in
instituting follow-up arrangements for today’s conference. ---UNSCOL Office
Patriarch Rahi receives French MP Rouillard
NNA/June 17/202
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Beshara Rahi, met Thursday in Bkerki with Member of
the French Parliament Gwendal Rouillard, over the current situation and latest
developments. "Within the frame of our constant communication with Patriarch
Rahi, we discussed today the necessity to form an emergency government in
Lebanon to meet the dire needs of the Lebanese, whether on the educational or
the social level," the French politician told reporters following the meeting.
"We also discussed the importance of building a modern state that protects its
citizens," he said. "I reiterated support for the efforts exerted by Patriarch
Rahi in order to hold an international conference for the neutrality of
Lebanese," he added.
Egypt President receives Arab Information Ministers
NNA/June 17/202
President of Egypt, Abdelfattah Al-Sisi, received Thursday Arab Information
Ministers and officials, including Caretaker Minister of Information, Manal
Abdel Samad, on the sidelines of the 51st ordinary session of the Council of
Arab Information Ministers.
Following the meeting, Spokesperson of the Egyptian Presidency, Ambassador
Bassam Radi, said: "His Excellency the President welcomed the Arab Information
Ministers, to whom he confirmed Egypt's keenness on enhancing the role of Arab
and national information to keep up with the fast media booms in the past
years."He also said that conferees had highly valued the "tangible achievements"
witnessed by Egypt under President Al-Sisi's leadership in all fields, as well
as Egypt's salient role in preserving the security and stability of the Arab
world.
Clarification by UN in Lebanon: Internal guidelines are
standard procedure
NNA/June 17/202
The United Nations Information Centre in Beirut (UNIC) issued Thursday the
following: "It has come to the attention of the UN that internal guidelines,
addressed to staff members, are being circulated on media and social media. Such
guidelines are a standard procedure and practice in all countries where the UN
operates. Their purpose is to advise on precautionary measures, and they are
provided in line with the UN’s organizational responsibility towards its staff
members. The guidelines are strictly based on open-source information."
'Loyalty to Resistance' meets in regular session:
Government formation remains first measure to determine solutions
NNA/June 17/202
"Loyalty to Resistance" bloc on Thursday held its periodic meeting at its
headquarters in Haret Hreik, under the chairmanship of bloc head, MP Mohammed
Raad, to discuss the country’s prevailing situation. In a statement issued in
the wake of the meeting, the bloc stressed that the formation of the government
in Lebanon remains the first measure to determine solutions and procedures to
stop the rolling deterioration and to initiate the necessary steps to improve
the country's conditions in the various fields and domains. Accordingly, the
statement added, mutual concessions are a necessity that governs all, while
intransigence leads to disruption of solutions, complication of treatments, and
wasting precious opportunities for the homeland and citizens.
Bassil tackles government dossier with Grillo
NNA/June 17/202
Head of the Free Patriotic Movement, MP Gebran Bassil, received this Thursday
the French Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, and discussed with her the
government dossier "based on the common vision on the priority of forming a
government," with focus on "the obstacles that still hinder such a formation."
Hariri discusses situation with EU ambassador, meets Mount
Lebanon Mufti
NNA/June 17/202
PM-designate Saad Hariri, on Thursday received at the “Center House” European
Union's Ambassador to Lebanon, Ralph Tarraf, in the presence of Hariri’s
Diplomatic Affairs Advisor, Dr. Bassem Al-Shab. Discussions touched on the
general situation and the latest developments in Lebanon and the region. Hariri
also received Mount Lebanon Mufti, Sheikh Mohammad Ali Jouzo, at the top of a
delegation of Mount Lebanon sheikhs, in the presence of Hariri's Advisor for
Islamic Affairs, Sheikh Dr. Ali Al-Janani.
General strike in various sectors against deteriorating living conditions
NNA/June 17/202
A general strike was witnessed today in the various public and private sectors
in different Lebanese districts, upon the call by the General Labor
Confederation, in protest against the dire living and economic conditions and in
demand for the formation of a national rescue government. Certain violations
were recorded especially in public departments to finalize urgent transactions
for citizens, as per reports by NNA Correspondents.
U.N.-Habitat Head Urges Holistic Urban Recovery on
Lebanon Visit
Naharnet/June 17/202
United Nations Under-Secretary-General and U.N.-Habitat Executive Director,
Maimunah Mohd Sharif, has completed her first official visit to Lebanon from 10
to 16 June 2021, the U.N. said on Thursday. During her visit, Sharif toured
projects implemented by U.N.-Habitat in Lebanon, including those conducted and
underway in response to the catastrophic Beirut Port explosion. Throughout her
visit, she interacted with partners and donors supporting these efforts. Her
visit aimed to promote and advocate for “the necessity of factoring urban
dynamics into crisis response and recovery efforts, particularly in support of
the people of Lebanon, during these unprecedented times,” a U.N. statement said.
“A tangible evidence-base for the holistic reconstruction of Lebanon’s capital
city, is the Beirut City Profile which was launched during Ms. Sharif’s visit,
the statement added.
“The need to continue to mobilize the international community to maintain its
support and engagement to help Lebanon is paramount. Not only to ensure that the
heart of Lebanon is restored, but to assist the people – Lebanese, refugees, and
migrant communities – across the country, to overcome the harsh multiple and
ongoing crises,” said Sharif. During her meetings with Government officials,
Sharif emphasized the importance of “immediate and scaled up support to
reinforce the capacities of local institutions and authorities in Lebanon –
because of their front-line role in responding to the needs of the people.”She
also further urged national and local urban development stakeholders to place
“adequate and affordable housing at the center of current and future recovery
efforts across Lebanon.”“The already dire housing situation in the country has
been further impacted because of the multiple crises in the country. This has
left thousands – including Lebanese, migrant and refugee communities – at
heightened risk of eviction, and even more at risk of downgrading their already
sub-standard living conditions,” the statement warned. “The U.N.-Habitat
Executive Director’s visit to Lebanon follows a visit she made to Iraq. As the
two countries are facing complex challenges, there are some similarities that
can be adopted in terms of response and recovery of the two nations – ensuring
that efforts within each of these countries address their peoples’ respective
needs,” said Erfan Ali, U.N.-Habitat Regional Representative for Arab States
To help provide an evidence-base for the recovery of Beirut, Sharif launched
U.N.-Habitat’s Beirut City Profile that offers a cross-sectoral analysis across
the urban realm of Lebanon’s capital city, including major challenges. It also
sets forth “holistic, people-centered recommendations on the way forward,
through immediate, medium, and long-term solutions towards a green, inclusive
resilient recovery of the city – at city, neighborhood, and national level.”
“U.N.-Habitat remains ready to support the Lebanese people and local authorities
technically and operationally, in implementing future reforms that have an urban
bearing. While concurrently continuing to support local authorities and
communities across Lebanon through targeted urban interventions such as our work
in rehabilitating the National HIV and TB Center damaged by the Beirut Port
explosion and our multisectoral urban upgrading project in Mina, Tripoli that we
inaugurated during the visit of Ms. Sharif,” said Taina Christiansen, Head of
U.N.-Habitat Lebanon Country Program.
Workers Stage General Strike over Escalating Crises
Associated Press/June 17/202
Shops, government offices, businesses and banks shuttered their doors in Lebanon
on Thursday, as part of a general strike to protest deteriorating economic
conditions and press for a government to deal with worsening crises. The strike,
which was accompanied by several roadblocks set up around Beirut and other
cities, was ironically supported by the very political parties blamed for the
deadlock over forming a government. This drew criticism from many activists and
commentators, who questioned why those who were driving the economic and
financial meltdown were themselves on strike. Lebanon has been without a fully
functioning government since August. Prime Minister designate Saad Hariri, named
to the post in October, has failed to gain support from the presidency over his
Cabinet picks — and the two sides have locked horns over who gets more say in
shaping a government. The World Bank has described Lebanon' financial and
economic crises as among the worst in the world in 150 years. The crisis,
festering since 2019, has reached new heights in recent weeks. Fuel has been in
short supply, power outages have increased, and medicine — mostly imported — has
been missing. Hospitals have closed their labs to outpatients and prices have
soared as the local currency, pegged to the dollar for 30 years, is in free
fall. On the black market, it sells at nearly 10 times its official rate.
Protesters have blocked Beirut's airport highway with trash bins, setting them
on fire, and causing large clouds of black smoke to hang over the motorway.
Banks and government offices were shut and several shops in central Beirut were
also closed. Critics ridiculed the ruling elite's attempt to rally behind the
strike. A hashtag on Twitter called "the regime revolts" was trending on
Thursday. Memes were posted using pictures from popular anti-government protests
in 2019, replacing faces of protesters arrested or dragged by security forces
with those of images of prominent politicians. Amid the crisis, politicians
appeared in no rush to form a government that would have to take major,
unpopular reform and austerity decisions. On Wednesday, a public war of words
broke out between President Michel Aoun and powerful parliament speaker Nabih
Berri, who has offered to mediate the deadlock. Berri questioned the role of the
president in delaying the Cabinet formation — suggesting that he and his
Christian party, led by his son-in-law, were seeking enough seats in the
government to block decisions. Aoun responded by denying the charges and
accusing Berri of siding with the prime minister designate. "The system is going
on strike against itself while its pillars are fighting among themselves over
powers that no longer exist to prove to us who can contribute to our bankruptcy
more than the other," tweeted Samy Gemayel, head of the Kataeb party. He
resigned from parliament last year over corruption and a massive explosion in
Beirut. The three leaders "are not living on the same planet as us," he added.
Trade Unions Launch General Strike over Crisis, Political
Parties Join In
Naharnet/June 17/202
Lebanon sees a nationwide general strike called by the General Labor Union on
Thursday, protesting the dire economic and financial conditions and the delayed
cabinet formation. The strike garnered support from Lebanon’s wrangling
political parties, including those in power.
The strike aims to protest political leaders’ failure to form a much-needed
government to steer the country out of its multiple crises. General Labor Union
head Beshara el-Asmar asked in a statement the “economic bodies, merchants’
organizations, the Association of Banks in Lebanon to back the strike and allow
employees and workers to participate in this national day.” Several political
parties, including al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement, said
they intend to take part in the movements. Similarly did the Association of
Banks in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s president pitted against parliament speaker
over cabinet formation
The Arab Weekly/June 17/2021
BEIRUT- The Lebanese parliament’s speaker Nabih Berri has taken a clear position
with President Michel Aoun and called on him to stick to the constitution over
the formation of a government headed by Saad Hariri. On Wednesday, Berri was
keen to remind the president that parliament was behind the appointment of
Hariri to form the government and in those circumstances, Aoun should not put
obstacles in the way of the prime minister-designate. Lebanese political sources
believe that the attitude of the Shia parliamentary speaker reflects clear
annoyance with Michel Aoun’s actions and indicates that the relationship between
the president and the speaker has entered a stage of no-holds-barred
confrontation. This means a complete disconnect between them. The sources
indicated that Berri objects to Michel Aoun’s insistence on obtaining the
blocking third in the government by naming two additional Christian ministers
linked to him in the cabinet.They say that Saad Hariri, who had threatened to
turn down the opportunity to form the cabinet, now has a strong ally who
supports his position as he continues the showdown with the president and his
son-in-law Gibran Bassil . The sources believe that Hariri plans shortly to
present a new line-up of 24 ministers in consultation with Berri. The open
confrontation between the Maronite president and the Shia parliamentary speaker
has never reached this intensity before, a development that has been underlined
by Berri’s statements.
The newly-added pressure by the speaker of the House of Representatives came
hours after a statement from the presidency in which Aoun lamented Berri’s
proposals to form a new government without a blocking third and opined that “the
artificial momentum that some are contriving regarding the cabinet has no
future.”The presidency also said, “We have seen from time to time statements and
positions from different parties (which it did not specify) that interfere with
the cabinet formation process, ignoring, intentionally or by omission, the
mechanism that, according to the constitution, must be used to form the
government.”It pointed out that the constitutional mechanism is found “in
Article 53, paragraphs 2, 3, 4 and 5 and is summarised by the necessity of an
agreement between the president of the republic and the prime minister-designate
who are exclusively concerned with the process of formation (of the government)
and the issuance of decrees.”
Berri held Aoun responsible for the continued suffering of the people as a
result of his rejection of Hariri’s cabinet nominations. He added that the
president had no right to block the prime minister-designate. In the statement
that Berri put out he said, “The decision to task a prime minister resides
outside the will of the president of the republic, as it stems from the decision
of the parliament’s representatives, that is, the legislative authority. The one
who conducts parliamentary consultations to form the government is the prime
minister-designate (Hariri) according to Article 64 of the Constitution.”Berri
stressed that Aoun has the right, at Hariri’s request, to try to help him in any
initiative he might produce, especially since the president, who has the
authority to sign off the new cabinet, in agreement with the prime minister, had
expressed his support for his initiative.
At the beginning of this month, Berri launched a plan based on the appointment
of 24 specialists, without a blocking third for anyone, to solve the stand-off
over the naming of a new cabinet which has now endured for seven months.
The speaker said that Aoun was satisfied as long as the number of ministers
increased to 24 (instead of 18 according to a previous proposal by Hariri).
He noted that “there was a solution to the issue of the interior ministry (in
reference to a media reports that Aoun was insisting on appointing one of his
close associates to the interior portfolio), until the president insisted on
eight ministers (from his own Free Patriotic Movement/Christian party) plus two
more whom he would name.”
Berri pointed out that, “the president of the republic does not have a
constitutional right even to a single minister. He does not participate in
voting, so how can he indirectly wield votes?” He blamed the president for “the
disruption of everything in the country and the suffering of the people” as a
result of his rejection of his initiative “which was approved by the East and
West,” noting that his scheme “is ongoing” despite everything. Berri had
recently succeeded in avoiding a row between the Free Patriotic Movement and the
Future Movement because of Aoun’s letter to the parliament, through which the
president tried to paint Hariri into a corner and push him to apologise for not
being able to form the cabinet. This success motivated Berri to revive his own
cabinet formation scheme “without a blocking third, but the Aoun-Bassil duo does
not seem ready to make any concessions under any circumstances, including
foreign pressures or the intervention of friends. The dispute between Aoun and
Hariri centres around the naming Christian ministers in the government,
according to observers.
Hariri says that the president is trying to obtain a “blocking third” for his
own camp which includes in particular the Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah.
Aoun denies the accusation. In a bid to contain the dispute between Aoun and
Hariri, Bassil said, “We are for the rapid formation of the government headed by
Prime Minister Saad Hariri. We are committed to this option because of the
constitution and we are hoping for a quick initiative to take the necessary
steps, because the most important issue is reforms.”The head of the Free
Patriotic Movement added in a message on his Twitter account, “We want a
government that implements reforms and until that happens, which is a necessary
and urgent obligation, the parliament can do a lot by passing many laws to solve
many of the Lebanese problems.”The faltering formation of the government deepens
the crisis in the country which has been worsening for more than a year. This
crisis, the worst since the end of the civil war in 1990, has led to a record
decline in the value of the national currency against the dollar, the collapse
of the purchasing power for most citizens and a spike in poverty rates. Many
believe that the political elite in Lebanon no longer enjoys the luxury of
choice and that an agreement to form a government has become imperative in order
to avoid a looming explosion with the intensification of economic challenges and
the depletion sources of support.
Statement released by the Lebanese Swiss Association after LSA Conference for
Lebanon 2021
June 12 2021 • Winterthur - Switzerland
Participants:
- Member of the Swiss National Council, Fabian Molina.
- Head of Public Relations department at the UNSCR for Lebanon, Nour Bou Malhab.
- Representative of the Lebanese International Lobby “LIL” Maitre Fouad Salamé.
Participants representing the Lebanese-Swiss Association “LSA”:
- President of the Lebanese-Swiss Association, Wadih Assaf.
- Head of Legal Department at the Lebanese-Swiss Association Maitre Nadine
Moussa.
- Head of Anti-Corruption Department at the Lebanese-Swiss Association Forrest
Partov
Lebanon has now been without an effective government for over a year and is
incapable to fulfil the basic functions of governance including the ability:
• to enforce the rule of law
• assume the responsibility to protect its own people
• to control the country’s territory,
• to exercise a monopoly on military force.
• to enforce UN resolutions
Lebanon has been in the grip of entrenched endemic and systemic grand corruption
and criminal mismanagement for decades, targeted, as part of a systematic and
habitual attack, against the entire civilian population of Lebanon
These actions by the government are intentional and deliberate. Lebanon, as
such, is unable to act as a rational player in the international community and
unable to represent its citizens and their best interest in the international
framework of the United Nations. Lebanon is not protecting its citizens and
residents from crimes against humanity.
The result is a failed state and human tragedy setting world peace and security
at risk.
Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter sets out the UN Security Council 's
powers to maintain peace. It allows the Council to "determine the existence of
any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression" and to take
military and non-military action to "restore international peace and security"
☞ We call upon the UN Security Council to recognize the fact that Lebanon has
become a failed state and that it presents a threat to world peace and stability
and thus invoke chapter 7 powers to maintain peace and security.
☞ We call upon the UN Security Council and the majority of the Members of the
United Nations to ask SecGen Mr. Guterres to convoke a UN Special Session on
Lebanon under the R2P commitment endorsed by all UN member states, to discuss
appropriate mechanisms to deploy to protect Lebanon from crimes against humanity
and human rights violations. Further we would call on the Special Session to
acknowledge the victims of such crimes.
☞ We call on the UN to step in and take charge of the administration of state
affairs for a limited period of time and with a specific agenda - including the
upcoming parliamentary elections - in application of article 39 Chapter 7 of the
UN Chart with aim to rid the country of the entrenched criminal gangs that
presently rule, and to create a free, prosperous, peaceful and democratic
country.
☞ We call upon all upon all Lebanese education systems in Lebanon to teach new
generations the root causes and failures of Lebanese society that lead to this
catastrophe, promote Republican and Democratic values from a unified curriculum
crafted by objective historians and technocrats so that the future Lebanon will
be one of peace, prosperity and freedom for all his citizens.
Lebanese banks swallow at least $250m in UN aid for
refugees
Timour Azhari, Thomson Reuters Foundation/June 127/2021
At least $250 million in UN humanitarian aid intended for refugees and poor
communities in Lebanon has been lost to banks selling the local currency at
highly unfavorable rates, a Thomson Reuters Foundation investigation has found.
The losses -- described in an internal United Nations document as “staggering”
and confirmed by multiple sources -- come as Lebanon grapples with its worst
ever economic crisis, with more than half the population living under the
poverty line, according to the World Bank. They stem from a plunge in the value
of the Lebanese pound since the economy began to collapse in late 2019, sending
prices soaring and forcing many Lebanese into poverty. The unfavorable exchange
rates offered by Lebanese banks have hit Syrian and Palestinian refugees and
poor Lebanese particularly hard as they are able to buy far less with the cash
handouts they receive from the UN.
Pre-crisis, refugees and poor Lebanese received a monthly payout of $27, equal
to about 40,500 Lebanese pounds, from the World Food Program (WFP). That has now
risen to about 100,000 Lebanese pounds per person, but its real value is a
fraction of what it was before -- about $7 at the current rate. “The buying
power used to be very good, we could get an acceptable food basket,” said Abu
Ahmad Saybaa, a Syrian refugee who runs a Facebook page that highlights the
challenges faced by refugees in Lebanon. “But now (the handouts) can’t get us
more than a gallon of cooking oil. There’s a huge difference in purchasing
power,” said the father of five, who has lived in a refugee camp in Lebanon’s
rugged northeast since 2014.“It’s weighing on all of our health -- mental and
physical.”
Refugee aid
An aid official and two diplomats from donor countries confirmed that between a
third and half of all direct UN cash aid in Lebanon had been swallowed up by
banks since the outset of the crisis in 2019. All spoke on condition of
anonymity. During 2020 and the first four months of 2021, banks exchanged
dollars for UN agencies at rates on average 40 percent lower than the market
rate, the aid official said. Lebanon maintains an official exchange rate of
about 1,500 pounds to the dollar, but since the crisis has only been able to
apply that rate to a handful of essential goods. All other imports have to be
bought at much higher exchange rates, resulting in soaring prices. Most of the
losses came from a 2020 UN assistance program worth about $400 million that
provides around 1 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon with monthly funds for
food, education, transport, and winter weather-proofing of shelters. Lebanon is
home to over 1 million Syrian refugees, nine in 10 of whom live in extreme
poverty, according to UN data. The country received at least $1.5 billion in
humanitarian aid in 2020. An internal UN assessment in February estimated that
up to half the program’s value was absorbed by Lebanese banks used by the UN to
convert donated US dollars. The document, seen by the Thomson Reuters
Foundation, said that by July 2020 a “staggering 50%” of contributions were
being lost through currency conversion. The Association of Banks in Lebanon (ABL),
which represents the country’s commercial banks, denied using aid to raise
capital. It said the U.N. could have distributed in dollars, or negotiated a
better rate with Lebanon’s central bank. A central bank spokesperson did not
respond to a request for comment on the rates provided to humanitarian
organizations.
Funding shortfalls. The $400 million UN program, known as LOUISE, receives
funding from the United States, the European Commission, Germany, the United
Kingdom, Canada, the Netherlands and France among others, according to its
website. It comprises the WFP, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF). The Thomson Reuters Foundation compared the rates at
which the banks converted US dollars in 2020 and 2021 with the concurrent market
exchange rates to calculate the amount of aid lost. The losses amounted to about
$200 million in 2019 and 2020 and at least $40 million so far in 2021. The
figures are in line with the UN internal assessment and were independently
verified by an aid official. A UNICEF spokesperson said the agency was “very
concerned that recipients receive the full value of cash transfers” and had
recently renegotiated to obtain a rate close to the market rate. It is also
testing disbursement in dollars for some programs, the spokesperson said.
Banque Libano-Francaise (BLF), which was contracted by LOUISE agencies to give
out aid, declined to comment on the unfavorable conversion rates, saying it was
bound by a confidentiality agreement with them. It also said the agencies could
have distributed the money directly in dollars. WFP funding of monthly cash
assistance to 105,000 vulnerable Lebanese people, worth some $23 million last
year, used the same unfavorable exchange rates, a WFP spokesperson said, meaning
up to half of funds were lost to banks. The WFP and UNHCR referred the Thomson
Reuters Foundation to the UN humanitarian coordinator’s office, which declined
to comment on the reasons for the massive losses. A spokesperson for the UN
agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said between a third and half of the aid
it distributed since October 2020 -– up to $7 million -- was lost through
currency conversion. The agency has repeatedly warned of funding shortfalls. The
documented losses from the LOUISE, WFP and UNRWA programs amount to at least
$250 million since October 2019. Following pressure by the UN agencies, the
discrepancies between the average market exchange rate and the rate offered by
the banks have shrunk, but not disappeared.
‘Every cent counts’
Confronted with a financial system keen on sucking in as many dollars as
possible, donors and UN agencies have struggled to develop a cohesive approach
that maintains the full value of aid. In May, a top World Bank official said
Lebanon had agreed to disburse the aid from a $246 million World Bank loan to
poor Lebanese directly in dollars, but the payouts have been delayed.
Dollarization of aid, which was recommended in the February internal assessment
and lobbied for by donor countries and independent analysts, would keep the full
value of the donations for beneficiaries regardless of fluctuations in currency
rates. But Lebanese authorities have resisted efforts to dollarize aid inflows
as they seek to maintain control over one of the few remaining sources of hard
currency. Meanwhile, donor nations have grown increasingly impatient and fearful
of reputational damage tied to the millions in taxpayer money absorbed by banks.
“We’ve been more than ready to invest in helping people, but we need a credible
counterpart that’s not going to pocket money that we are ultimately accountable
for at home,” said one Western diplomat on condition of anonymity.
Jad Chaaban, a professor of economics at the American University of Beirut, said
international organizations operating in Lebanon often walked a tight line
between making compromises in a difficult political environment and holding to
standards of accountability.
“In this case, it’s unacceptable and there must be much higher standards. We
effectively see the same dynamics as contractors or crony businessmen siphoning
off money that they received to build a school or infrastructure project,”
Chaaban said.
“Right now, every cent counts for Lebanon.”
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous
Reports And News published on June
17-18/2021
Iran closer than before to reaching nuclear deal with US, but issues remain:
Official
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/17 June ,2021
Iran is closer than it has previously been to reaching a nuclear deal with the
United States, a senior diplomat from Tehran said Thursday. There has been
“tangible progress” made during the first few rounds of negotiationgs with the
US over a nuclear deal, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was quoted as
telling Qatar’s Al Jazeera. “But there are still primary issues we will
negotiate on,” he noted. US and Iranian officials have been indirectly meeting
in Vienna for months to negotiate the now-defunct 2015 nuclear deal, which
Washington withdrew from under former President Donald Trump. Araghchi added:
“Iran suffered during recent years due to the US withdrawal from the nuclear
deal. And we want assurances that what happened when Trump withdrew from the
deal will not happen again under any future US president.” After withdrawing the
US from the deal, citing its weakness in reigning in Iran’s malign behavior, the
Trump administration began a maximum pressure campaign on Tehran. This included
crushing economic sanctions in a bid to curb Iran’s funding of terror networks
and proxies around the world, as well as its nuclear program. And with Iranian
presidential elections set to take place this weekend, the Iranian official said
it would have no impact on the ongoing negotiations in Vienna. “We are
negotiating [not based on domestic politics]; when we reach a good deal, we will
agree on it. Or else there will be no deal, neither with the current government
nor with the upcoming government,” he said.
Iran urges voters to set aside grievances, take part in presidential election
Reuters/17 June ,2021
Iran’s president appealed to voters to set aside
their grievances and take part in a presidential election on Friday that record
numbers of people are expected to boycott due to economic hardship and
frustration with hardline rule. Hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and
moderate former Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati are the main contenders
after the hardline Guardian Council disqualified several prominent candidates
from running and others quit. President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate,
urged Iranians on Thursday, as campaigning ended, not to let the “shortcomings
of an institution or a group” keep them from voting, an apparent reference to
the Guardian Council. “For the time being, let’s not think about grievances
tomorrow,” Rouhani said in televised remarks. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei has already urged people to turn out in large numbers, saying that
would help avert foreign pressures on the Islamic Republic. Official opinion
polls suggest turnout could be as low as 41%, significantly lower than in past
elections. In addition to anger over the disqualification of prominent
moderates, grievances include economic hardship exacerbated by US sanctions as
well as official corruption, mismanagement and a crackdown on protests in 2019
triggered by rising fuel prices. The accidental shooting down of a Ukrainian
plane in Iran in January last year which killed 176 people also undermined
public trust. “Voting would be an insult to my intelligence,” 55-year-old
Fatemeh said, declining to give her second name for fear of reprisals. “Raisi
has already been selected by the government regardless who we vote
for.”Prominent dissidents inside and outside the country have called on fellow
Iranians to snub the election, including exiled former crown prince Reza Pahlavi
and opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, under house arrest since 2011. On the
other hand, many leading reformists have rallied behind Hemmati, including
former President Mohammad Khatami, arguing that a massive boycott would
guarantee a Raisi win.
Khamenei says Iran elections are democratic, berates media in ‘some countries’
Al Arabiya English/17 June ,2021
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei insisted Wednesday that elections in the
Islamic Republic are competitive and democratic, criticizing countries whose
media he said suggest otherwise. “Interestingly, some countries that are run
based on tribalism in the 21st century and have never had elections, so their
people don’t even know the difference between a ballot box and a fruit box,
launch a 24-hour TV station and claim Iran’s elections are not democratic,”
Khamenei said in a televised speech. Khamenei did not name any countries, but
his comment was widely interpreted as a dig at the Gulf states, particularly
Saudi Arabia. Khamenei’s remarks came as turnout in Iran’s presidential election
on Friday is expected to be a record low amid widespread calls for a boycott.
Boycotters argue that elections under the Islamic Republic do not bring about
real change and only serve to legitimize the regime. This belief is partially
due to Iran’s vetting process for candidates, under which only candidates who
the Guardian Council approves can run for election. Elections in Iran “fall
short of democratic standards due in part to the influence of the hard-line
Guardian Council, an unelected body that disqualifies all candidates it deems
insufficiently loyal to the clerical establishment,” US democracy watchdog group
Freedom House said in its Iran report for 2021. The Guardian Council is an
unelected body responsible for overseeing elections in Iran. The council is
primarily seen as a tool for Khamenei to control elections, as half of the
12-member vetting body is appointed by him. Last month, the Guardian Council
approved only seven candidates – most of them low-profile figures – to run for
office and barred hundreds of hopefuls from running, including several prominent
figures. The candidates approved to run were judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and
six others whose chances of becoming president are virtually non-existent. The
Guardian Council’s mass disqualifications, therefore, were seen as Khamenei
paving the way for Raisi to become president. Raisi, 60, is frequently mentioned
as a possible successor to Khamenei, and an election win could increase his
chances of becoming Iran’s next supreme leader. Three out of the seven approved
candidates dropped out of the presidential race on Wednesday, leaving only Raisi,
former Central Bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati, former head of the
Revolutionary Guards and current secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council
Mohsen Rezaei, and conservative lawmaker Amirhossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi. Hemmati,
who some reformist groups have endorsed, is seen as Raisi’s main rival in the
election, but he is not expected to challenge Raisi, according to official
polls.
US, Turkey did not reach agreement on Russian S-400s: Biden aide
Joseph Haboush, Al Arabiya English/7 June ,2021
The United States and Turkey did not reach an agreement on the Russian-supplied
S-400s to Ankara during this week’s meeting between President Joe Biden and his
Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a senior US official said Thursday.
“They discussed it; there was not a resolution of the issue. There was a
commitment to continue dialogue on the S-400s,” National Security Advisor Jake
Sullivan said in a briefing with reporters. Sullivan was speaking a day after
Biden returned from his first overseas trip since taking office. Biden
participated in summits and meetings with officials from the G-7 and NATO while
making stops in the United Kingdom, Belgium and Switzerland. Biden held his
first face-to-face meeting with Erdogan on the sidelines before a summit with
Russian President Vladimir Putin. Ties between Washington and Ankara have dipped
to new lows since Erdogan has pursued his own agenda, irrespective of
international criticism. As a NATO member, Turkey purchased the Russian defense
missile systems despite sanctions threats from Washington. Separately, the two
discussed Afghanistan and touched on Turkey’s proposal to take control of
security at the Kabul airport after the US withdrawal is complete. “The two of
them tasked teams just to work out the final details. But the clear commitment
from the leaders was established that Turkey would play a lead role in securing
Hamid Karzai International Airport,” Sullivan told reporters.
US House backs repeal of 2002 war authorization in bid to end ‘forever wars’
Reuters/17 June ,2021
The US House of Representatives on Thursday backed the repeal of the 2002
Authorization for the Use of Military Force that allowed the war in Iraq, as
lawmakers pull back the authority to declare war from the White House. The House
voted 268 to 161 in favor of revoking the authorization it gave former President
George W. Bush to invade Iraq 19 years ago. At least 49 Republicans joined
Democrats in favor of repeal, a bipartisan vote that underscored prospects for
reining in AUMFs that presidents from both parties have used to justify nearly
20 years of military actions around the globe. The US Constitution gives the
power to declare war to Congress. However, that authority has shifted to the
president due to the “forever war” AUMFs, which do not expire - including the
2002 Iraq AUMF and one allowing the fight against al Qaeda and affiliates after
the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
To be enacted, the measure passed on Thursday must also be approved by the
Senate - where its prospects are less certain - and signed into law by President
Joe Biden, who has said he supports it. “I look forward to Congress no longer
taking a back seat on some of the most consequential decisions our nation can
make,” said Representative Greg Meeks, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs
Committee, urging support for the repeal.“There comes a time when certain AUMFs
simply become outdated and need to be repealed,” Meeks said.
‘Dangerous message’
Opponents worry repeal of the 2002 AUMF would dangerously limit the powers of
the president and send the message that the United States is pulling back from
the Middle East. Representative Michael McCaul, the top Republican on the House
Foreign Affairs Committee, said he was committed to updating the “outdated” AUMF,
but he did not want repeal until an alternative was in place. “This rushed,
standalone repeal... sends a dangerous message of disengagement that could
destabilize Iraq, embolden Iran, which it will, and strengthen al Qaeda and ISIS
in the region,” McCaul said. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer threw his
weight behind the repeal effort on Wednesday. Schumer said the 2002 AUMF is
outdated and repealing it would prevent future presidential “military
adventurism” such as former President Donald Trump’s 2020 airstrike on a Baghdad
airport, which raised fears of war days before the Republican was to leave
office. Trump cited the 2002 Iraq authorization as one of his justifications for
the strike, which killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani. Repeal will need 60
votes to get through the evenly divided 100-member Senate, meaning that it would
need the support of at least 10 Republicans to go into effect. Repeal advocates
said they had high hopes of garnering the 60 votes, noting past bipartisan
support for stalled efforts to rein in the AUMFs. Senate Republican Leader Mitch
McConnell blasted the repeal plan, saying existing authorizations should stay in
place until new ones have been completed. “The grave threats posed by ISIS, al
Qaeda and other terrorist groups are as real as they’ve ever been,” McConnell
said in remarks opening the Senate. Some members of Congress are also discussing
a repeal and replacement of the 2001 AUMF passed for the Afghanistan war.
Moscow Hails Putin, Biden's Commitment to
Arms Control
Agence France Presse/June 17/2021
The Kremlin on Thursday welcomed the commitment of the US and Russian presidents
to dialogue on "strategic stability" and arms control, a day after a historic
summit of the two leaders in Geneva. Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden issued a brief
statement following their first face-to-face meeting, agreeing to start dialogue
on nuclear arms control. The administration of Biden's predecessor Donald
Trump had withdrawn from a number of international accords, including the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty with Russia. "Even though its a
very short text, but the joint statement on strategic stability realises the
special responsibility of our two countries not only to our people but to the
whole world," Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a radio interview on
Thursday. Earlier on Thursday, Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov
said the rejection of the possibility of a nuclear war by the two sides was a
"real success". Since the extension of the New START nuclear treaty under Biden,
"this is Washington's second step in restoring common sense and a responsible
approach to key aspects of international security," Ryabkov told Kommersant
business daily. New START is the last remaining arms reduction pact between the
two nuclear states that hold more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear
weapons. According to Ryabkov, dialogue on strategic stability between Moscow
and Washington should start shortly: "it's a matter of weeks, not months". After
talks that lasted more than three hours, Putin told reporters that the meeting
was "constructive", while there were still a number of divisive issues.
Relations between Moscow and Washington have been at their lowest point since
the end of the Cold War, raising concerns of a new arms race.
Major Banks, Airlines Report Online Outages
Agence France Presse/June 17/2021
Major banks and airlines in Australia and the United States suffered brief
online outages Thursday, with several blaming an "external provider" for the
disruption. Most of Australia's major financial firms reported customers could
not access websites and mobile apps, while website Downdetector said a slew of
US airlines were also affected. American, Delta, United and Southwest airlines
were among them, although all four websites appeared to be working shortly
after. The issues appeared to be more prolonged in Australia -- where problems
hit in the mid-afternoon as much of the rest of the world slept -- with services
only slowly returning an hour after the first reports. A spokesperson for ANZ
bank told AFP that the incident was "related to an external provider" but that
"connectivity was restored quickly and the most impacted services are back
online". Australia's largest financial firm Commonwealth Bank told AFP that it
and many of the country's major banks had been affected. Westpac and ME
Bank also reported problems with their mobile apps or online banking products,
while customers for St. George and several regional banks reported they were
down too. The outages began around 2:10PM Sydney time (0510 GMT) and did not
appear to be limited to the banking sector. Airline Virgin Australia posted to
Twitter: "We are currently experiencing a system outage which is impacting our
website and Guest Contact Centre." Australia Post, the country's postal service,
said some services were hit by an "external outage". Earlier this month major US
media and government websites, including the White House, New York Times, Reddit
and Amazon were temporarily down after a glitch with cloud computing services
provider Fastly. The company offers a service to websites around the world to
speed up loading time for websites. A series of high profile hack-for-ransom
attacks have also left corporations around the world jittery over cybersecurity
risks, although there was no indication the latest problems were caused by
malicious actors. Colonial Pipeline was briefly shuttered after an attack in
May, and JBS, the world's largest meat producer, was forced to stop operations
in the United States and Australia. Both firms reportedly paid ransom to get
operations back up and running. The issue of cybersecurity was at the top of the
agenda when US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin
met in Geneva this week. Washington believes hackers who have extorted hundreds
of millions of dollars from Western governments, companies, and organisations
operate from Russian soil.
Tom Nides, next US envoy, ‘understands Israel well’/Next
US envoy to Israel ‘an excellent diplomat and real statesman’
Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden’s announcement on Tuesday that he intends to
appoint Thomas Nides as the country’s next ambassador to Israel was met with a
wave of approval from both liberal and conservative Israelis and Americans who
have had previous dealings with him. “I worked with him when he was
undersecretary of state for Hillary Clinton,” Michael Oren, former ambassador to
Washington, told The Jerusalem Post. “We’ve dealt extensively with a wide range
of issues: peace process, security, Gaza,” Oren continued. “Tom is an excellent
diplomat and a real statesman. He understands the issues. He’s passionate about
Israel, understands it very well; he is committed to the relationship, committed
to the alliance, and to Israel’s security. “Ambassadors do not make policy, but
he will be representing positions based on the two-state solution for the
Palestinians and the renewal of the JCPOA.”
Nides is currently the managing director and vice chairman of Morgan Stanley,
working with global clients and external and governmental affairs issues. He
previously served as deputy secretary of state for management and resources
under Hillary Clinton from 2011 to 2013. He was also awarded the secretary of
state’s Distinguished Service Award in January 2013. Nides was born to a Jewish
family in Duluth, Minnesota. He started his career on Capitol Hill in various
positions, including as assistant to the House majority whip and executive
assistant to the speaker of the House. He later spent a decade as chief of staff
for several members of Congress before pivoting to the banking sector in 1996.
Mark Mellman, the CEO of Democratic Majority for Israel, has known Nides since
the 1990s. “He has a great deal of experience with Israel-related issues,” he
told the Post. “He has a great deal of experience in the State Department, in
government agencies, and he understands Capitol Hill and every part of
government. “He’s hysterically funny, he’s kind and caring. I’m not sure that it
is necessary for the job, but it certainly helps. “He has a strong relationship
with the president and with the secretary of state, and that’s very important,”
Mellman added. Dan Kurtzer, who served as US ambassador to Israel, told the
Post: “Tom Nides has a ton of foreign policy experience. His experience in the
business world will also be a tremendous asset. “The administration has sent an
important message to Israel and the region that the United States is ready to
work seriously with our friends to advance our interests and the prospects for
peace,” Kurtzer added.
Aaron Keyak, who served as a Biden-Harris transition official and has been in
regular contact with Nides, told the Post: “He speaks with the authority of
[someone with] extensive private and public sector experience.... He’s trusted
by this administration and speaks with the authority of the president, which
might be the most important characteristic the ambassador has, especially
dealing with leaders in a tough region,” Keyak added. Halie Soifer, CEO of the
Jewish Democratic Council of America, said that Nides “will take this role very
seriously. “He has experience in public service and at the State Department. He
was known as very effective [in his position] during the Obama administration.
He is known as a very strong manager, and I’m sure he will be a very strong
ambassador.”
More than 80 Christian leaders bless Bennett, express
support for Israel
Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
The letter was spearheaded by the Philos Project, an American nonprofit
based in New York City that seeks to promote Christian engagement in the Near
East. More than 80 Christian leaders sent a letter of congratulations and thanks
to Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
“We want to thank you in advance for protecting our shared values as they apply
to Israel’s citizens, whether Jews, Christians, Muslims, or Druze; for guarding
the holy sites and welcoming religious pilgrims from around the world to
discover the birthplace of their faith; for defending Israel from outside
aggression; and for continuing to work toward peace with Israel’s neighbors,”
the letter read. “In return, we pledge to deepen our friendship with your
country and its wonderful people.”The letter was spearheaded by the Philos
Project, an American nonprofit based in New York City that seeks to promote
Christian engagement in the Near East. The organization’s president, Robert
Nicholson, told The Jerusalem Post that “it is a historic moment in Israel.
Things are changing politically, and we thought this event was momentous enough
to lead this effort and show the prime minister, the coalition and the world
that there is not only real Christian friendship for Israel and the Jewish
people, but a very wide-ranging group of Christians who care about the country
and its people.” The letter is signed by Christian leaders of multiple
denominations, including Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox Christians from
around the world – North and South American, Europe, Africa and Asia. They
represent hundreds of millions of Christians involved in churches and other
Christian organizations. Signees include representatives from American’s
National Prayer Committee, National Religious Broadcasters, Christians United
for Israel, The King’s College, International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem,
The Congress of Christian Leaders and more. The leaders wrote that what unites
them is their “love for – and strong defense of – a sovereign Jewish state with
Jerusalem as its capital.” They also told the new prime minister that they will
pray to God that He “grants you wisdom and strength as you make hard decisions
that will affect the lives of millions, and we trust that He will answer those
prayers.” Nicholson said that sometimes there is “confusion” as to why
Christians care about Israel and the Jews. “The letter points out the source of
this connection,” he explained, which is “shared values and particularly the
values that come out of the Hebrew Bible. “There is a feeling of kinship between
Christians and the people who wrote the Book we all read,” Nicholson said.
IDF Chief of Staff Kohavi to fly to Washington to discuss Iran, Gaza
Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
It will be the first visit by Kohavi and he is expected to try to persuade the
Americans not to reenter the Iranian deal
IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Aviv Kohavi will fly to Washington on Sunday and
discuss a range of regional challenges with his American counterparts, more than
a month after he was set to go to discuss the Iranian threat and other regional
challenges. It will be the first trip by an Israeli official with Prime Minister
Naftali Bennett leading the government. Kohavi will meet with Bennett ahead of
his trip. They worked closely together during Bennett’s time as defense
minister, and both are considered to be hawks on the Iran. Kohavi is expected to
attempt to persuade the Americans not to reenter the Iranian nuclear deal.
During the four-day visit Kohavi will hold working meetings with Secretary of
Defense Lloyd Austin, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, head of the US Central Command Gen. Kenneth
McKenzie, and head of the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) Gen. Richard
Clark.During his trip, which will be his first as Israel’s top military officer,
he will meet with his American counterparts to discuss common security
challenges in the region, including issues related to the threat posed by the
Iranian nuclear project, Tehran’s attempt to entrench itself in the Middle East,
Hezbollah’s force-buildup efforts, and the implications of the Lebanese terror
group’s precision missile project.
Kohavi will discuss joint force building with the United States and meet with
leading think tanks and decision makers “as part of an ongoing international
media and public diplomacy effort” that the IDF has been carrying out since the
end of Operation Guardian of the Walls.
The visit to Washington that was scheduled to take place in April was postponed
due to the conflict with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.
Kohavi will also present the main points of the IDF’s operational activities
during the 11 days of fighting, with an “emphasis on the adjustments” that took
place during the operation “in the context of fire capabilities, accurate
intelligence, joint digital interoperability” the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit said.
The visit takes place after the decision to transfer Israel to CENTCOM’s area of
responsibility and McKenzie’s visit to Israel last January. "This visit is
another step in strengthening the bond and increasing cooperation between the
armies,” the IDF said, adding that “over the past few years many joint efforts
have been initiated and operational ties strengthen. Subsequently a series of
additional intelligence cooperation initiatives will be discussed as part of the
trip.”
The chief of staff will be accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Yael Kohavi, and the
IDF attaché in Washington, Maj.-Gen. Yehuda Fox. The Head of the Strategy and
Third-Circle Directorate, Maj.-Gen. Tal Kalman and the Head of the Research
Division Brig.-Gen. Amit Saar will also join Kohavi on the visit and will hold
additional meetings with senior members of the US defense establishment. The
Deputy Chief of Staff Maj.-Gen. Eyal Zamir will replace Kohavi in his absence.
Two weeks ago, Defense Minister Benny Gantz flew to Washington and met with the
same officials to discuss the same topics. At the meetings, he spoke about the
need to change policy in the Gaza Strip, the need to strengthen the alliance of
moderates and the Palestinian Authority and the issue of returning the fallen
soldiers and citizens held by Hamas in the Gaza Strip as a moral and
humanitarian value. Gantz also spoke about the need to increase supervision of
Iran and stop its regional aggression, adding that Israel would have to prepare
a military option. Prior to his meeting with Austin, Gantz stressed the need to
stop Iran’s nuclear program. Stopping Iran “is certainly a shared strategic need
of the United States, Europe, the countries in the Middle East and Israel, and
for the people of Iran as well,” he said, adding that “of course, given the
scope of the threat, Israel must always make sure that it has the ability to
protect itself.”
Will every Israeli airstrike now be front page news? - analysis
Seth J. Frantzman/Jerusalem Post/June 17/2021
The airstrike on Tuesday received major coverage on CBS, NBC, CNN, and other
channels. An Israeli airstrike in Gaza received widespread attention in western
media. Normally a strike like this, in response to arson balloons launched from
the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, would not be major news, especially since it was not
a major airstrike. However the Gaza war set new ground rules, it appears, for
Israeli action. The IDF said on Wednesday, early in the morning, that “over the
past day, arson balloons were launched from the Gaza Strip into Israeli
territory. In response, a short while ago, IDF fighter jets struck military
compounds belonging to the Hamas terror organization, which were used as
facilities and meeting sites for terror operatives in its Khan Yunis and Gaza
Brigades. The targets that were struck were used for terror activities.”
The airstrike received major coverage on CBS, NBC, CNN and other channels. CNN
noted: “Why balloons strapped to explosives are the latest flashpoint in
Israel-Hamas tensions.” The BBC put the airstrike at the top of its homepage for
all of Wednesday and into Thursday morning. “Israel says it carried out air
strikes in Gaza overnight after Palestinians launched incendiary balloons from
the territory, in the first major flare-up since an 11-day conflict last month.
The Israeli military said it targeted compounds belonging to Hamas, the militant
group that controls Gaza,” it reported. France24 also led with it in top
news.This appears to be a new pattern. The launching of arson balloons is not
new, it has been going on for years. Israeli airstrikes in retaliation for these
kinds of attacks and others, is also not new. Over the last several years Hamas
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad have perpetrated many attacks, including firing
rockets, using masses of people to attack the security fence around Gaza and
launching incendiary balloons. This is in addition to the major attacks that
began on May 10 and involved more than 4,000 rockets fired at Israel.
In general Israeli retaliatory strikes did not get major attention. That all
changed with the recent conflict. A variety of factors have played into that,
not the least of which is an agenda by some groups to try to increase coverage
of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This has resulted in attacks on Israel
accusing the country of practicing “apartheid” and also the circulation of a
letter around media outlets calling for more pro-Palestinian coverage. The
airstrike coverage is disproportionate because similar airstrikes by Turkey on
Iraq or even by the US-led Coalition partners against ISIS, receive no coverage.
It’s not a comparison, of some coverage compared to less coverage. There is in
fact no coverage of Turkey’s widespread airstrikes on northern Iraq’s Kurdish
region, which result in casualties and depopulation. The US-led coalition openly
tweets about recent operations against ISIS, which get no coverage. Huge
bombings and attacks by terrorist groups in Afghanistan and pitched battles with
government forces get little to no coverage. This speaks to a new kind of
coverage of Israeli airstrikes and Gaza tensions. It is not clear if this is
only the result of the recent war, or if this push for increased coverage will
continue. For now, it is clear, that a new paradigm exists focusing on Israeli
airstrikes, even if there are no casualties in the strikes. Over the last
several years most Israeli strikes on Gaza, and claims of strikes in Syria by
foreign reports, received relatively minor attention. Now that spotlight has
shifted. It comes with a new Israeli government in office and may affect
calculations regarding these strikes.
Nassar Of The Council On American-Islamic Relations Los
Angeles (CAIR-LA), In Lecture At Islamic Society Of Orange County: The 'European
Jewish Colonizers' In Palestine Converted To Judaism In The Middle Ages, Have No
Connection To Ancient Israelites; Antisemitism Is A Way Of Persecuting A Group
For Falsely Claiming To Descend From Historic Palestine
MEMRI/June 17, 2021/Special Dispatch No. 9400
Director of policy and advocacy for the Los Angeles branch of The Council on
American-Islamic Relations (CAIR LA), Shaheen Nassar, said that antisemitism is
a uniquely European phenomenon, and it was a way of persecuting a group of
people for the "false historical accusation" that they are the descendants of
the people of historic Palestine. He made his remarks during a lecture held at
the Islamic Society of Orange County, which was posted on the IOSC Masjid
YouTube channel on June 11, 2021. Nassar explained that Muslims and Arabs are
Semites, and that "most historians recognize" that the vast majority of European
Jews and the "European Jewish colonizers" in Palestine are Europeans who
converted to Judaism in the Middle Ages, and it is in fact Palestinians who most
likely to have the blood of the Israelites running through their veins. He added
that it is ironic that while Zionism is a "supremacist ideology," Jews are also
the target of antisemitism, which he conceded is a "real thing." He went on to
explain that white supremacists hold Jewish, Muslim, and Palestinian lives in
equal contempt.
Antisemitism "Was A Way Of Persecuting A Group Of People... For The False
Historical Allegation That They Descended From Historic Palestine"
Shaheen Nassar: "Palestinians and Arabs are Semites themselves. Antisemitism is,
throughout much of history, a uniquely European phenomena. It was essentially a
way of saying... it was a way of persecuting a group of people for the false
history accusation, this false historical allegation, that they had descended
from historic Palestine. The reality of course, as most historians recognize, is
much of European Jews and much of the European Jewish colonizers of Palestine
are all descendants of medieval converts to Judaism, and that realistically the
blood of the ancient Israelites most likely flows in the blood of Palestinians.
"Zionism Is A supremacist Ideology... There's No Direct Blood Relation Between
The Ancient Israelites And The European Colonizers"
"If Zionism is a supremacist ideology, isn't it ironic that also Jews are the
targets. And by the way this is legitimate, antisemitism is a real thing. I may
not necessarily agree with its relevance to the issue of Palestine, but
antisemitism is a very real thing, and there are white supremacists out there
who hold Jewish lives and Muslim lives and Palestinian lives with equal
contempt.
"A lot of the people that were massacring Palestinians, the people that I
mentioned who would kill, in such horrific and gruesome ways, Palestinian
children, committed acts of sexual violence... These death squads, the Irgun,
the Hagana, the Black Hand, they would later evolve into the modern Israeli
defense forces. "There's no direct blood relation between the ancient Israelites
and the European colonizers."
Canada follows through on commitments to advance women, peace and security
agenda with third national action plan
June 16, 2021 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the
following statement following a meeting of Cabinet ministers with Canadian and
international leaders on Canada’s national action plan on women, peace and
security:
“In 2017, Canada launched Gender Equality: A Foundation for Peace; Canada’s
National Action Plan 2017 to 2022 for the Implementation of the UN Security
Council Resolutions on Women, Peace and Security. This second national action
plan guides Canada’s efforts to advance the women, peace and security agenda.
For the first time, this plan provided a framework for a cohesive,
whole-of-government approach and called upon 8 federal departments and 1 agency
to work together to implement this important agenda.
“Today, I hosted a crucial discussion on our action plan with Canadian and
international leaders, as well as the Honourable Karina Gould, Minister of
International Development; the Honourable Harjit S. Sajjan, Minister of National
Defence; the Honourable Bill Blair, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency
Preparedness; the Honourable Maryam Monsef, Minister of Women and Gender
Equality and Rural Economic Development; the Honourable Carolyn Bennett,
Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations; the Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of
Indigenous Services; the Honourable Marco Mendicino, Minister of Immigration,
Refugees and Citizenship; the Honourable David Lametti, Minister of Justice and
Attorney General of Canada; the Honourable Dan Vandal, Minister of Northern
Affairs; Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre, Acting Chief of the Defence Staff; and
Brenda Lucki, Commissioner of the RCMP.
“We reflected on accomplishments, shared innovative practices and addressed
challenges, and discussed areas needing improvement.
“During the meeting, Canadian and international leaders shared their assessments
of our progress, suggested ways to sustain and strengthen Canadian leadership
and emphasized linkages between international and domestic efforts, including in
the protection of Indigenous women and girls and immigration programs. We will
continue to listen to and amplify the voices of women peacebuilders and feminist
and women-led organizations and movements. Our work would simply not be possible
without their collaboration.
“My colleagues and I reaffirmed our commitment to the implementation of our
action plan. Additionally, I am pleased to announce that we committed to develop
a third Canadian national action plan on women, peace and security. To ensure an
inclusive process and ambitious goals, we have instructed our respective
departments to initiate preparations now.
“The full implementation of the action plan remains a priority for the
Government of Canada and is a cornerstone of our Feminist Foreign Policy.”
Quick facts
Canada’s second national action plan on women, peace and security, for the
period 2017 to 2022, commits Canada to:
increasing the meaningful participation of women and women’s organizations and
networks in conflict prevention, conflict resolution and post-conflict
state-building
preventing, responding to and ending impunity for sexual and gender-based
violence perpetrated during conflicts and sexual exploitation and abuse by
peacekeepers and other international personnel, including humanitarian and
development staff
promoting and protecting women’s and girls’ human rights, gender equality and
the empowerment of women and girls in fragile, conflict and post-conflict
settings
meeting the specific needs of women and girls in humanitarian settings,
including upholding their sexual rights and their access to sexual and
reproductive health services
strengthening the capacity of peace operations to advance the women, peace and
security agenda, including by deploying more women and fully embedding the
agenda in Canadian Armed Forces operations and police deployments
Implementation of the action plan is informed by an advisory group co-chaired by
Global Affairs Canada and the Women, Peace and Security Network-Canada, a
network of over 80 Canadian non-governmental organizations and individuals.
Associated links
Canada’s national action plan on women, peace and security
Canada’s national action plan on women, peace and security: Progress reports
The Latest The Latest LCCC English
analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on June
17-18/2021
Israel's New Government Is Among the Most Diverse in the History of Democracies
Alan M. Dershowitz/Gatestone Institute/June 17/2021
[B]igots... in the United States and Europe, insist on characterizing Israel as
an apartheid state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Israel has real
diversity, not the kind of phony diversity that characterizes many American
institutions. American diversity is simply a euphemism for more Blacks, and
especially more Blacks who hold the same views about political and racial
matters.
The best evidence of this truism came from Google's appointment of a chief
diversity officer who had expressed anti-gay and anti-Jewish views.... He is
Black and that is all that diversity means at Google and many other American
institutions. It is different in Israel, because Israel is such an inherently
diverse nation that takes its diversity seriously.
Every Muslim majority nation is officially a Muslim state that bestows
considerable benefits on members of that faith. Great Britain is an Anglican
Christian state with an established religion. Catholicism is the official
religion of several European countries. Many national flags and emblems have
crosses, crescents or other distinctly religious symbols.
So stay tuned to see how the now government manages to survive the challenges of
diversity. In the meantime, however, stop singling out Israel for demonization
by mislabeling it as apartheid or undemocratic.
Israel stands among the countries of the world most committed to achieving real
equality for all its citizens. Pictured: Members of Israel's new cabinet attend
their first meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, Israel on June 13, 2021.
I challenge anyone to name a parliamentary democracy that has had a more diverse
coalition government -- racially, religiously, ethnically, ideologically,
politically, national origin -- than the current Israeli government. It includes
people of nearly every color from Black Ethiopians to brown Muslims to swarthy
Sephardim to pale Russians. It includes a modern Orthodox Jew as Prime Minister,
along with fundamentalist Muslims and atheist and agnostics Jews. It has a gay
cabinet member, a deaf member of the Knesset and people who trace their roots to
Asia, Africa, Europe and America.
A record number of nine women will be serving in the new Israeli cabinet. The
current Prime Minister is a right-winger. The Prime Minister designate who is
currently Minster of Foreign Affairs, is a left-winger. Every shade of political
opinion -- and there are many in Israel -- is represented in this government.
The old expression "two Jews, three opinions" can now be changed to "20 Israeli
cabinet members, 30 opinions" -- because each cabinet member represents multiple
opinions within their parties.
All the same, bigots, particularly on the hard left in the United States and
Europe, insist on characterizing Israel as an apartheid state. Nothing could be
further from the truth. Israel has real diversity, not the kind of phony
diversity that characterizes many American institutions. American diversity is
simply a euphemism for more Blacks, and especially more Blacks who hold the same
views about political and racial matters. It has little to do with diversity of
attitudes, experiences, views.
The best evidence of this truism came from Google's appointment of a chief
diversity officer who had expressed anti-gay and anti-Jewish views. It is
inconceivable that Google with its vast resources and ability to check
everything, did not know of his bigoted views. He is Black and that is all that
diversity means at Google and many other American institutions. It is different
in Israel, because Israel is such an inherently diverse nation that takes its
diversity seriously.
Does this mean that perfect equality has been achieved in the nation state of
the Jewish people? Of course not. Like every democracy struggling with racial
and ethnic issues. Israel is far from perfect. Its laws mandate equality, but
discriminatory practices persist against certain groups of Jews and Muslims.
Israel's courts consistently render decisions moving the country toward complete
equality, but courts alone can never achieve that result.
Moreover, Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people and as such can give
equal civil, legal, religious, linguistic and political rights to its non-Jewish
citizens, but it cannot give them equal national rights. The state was created
to be Jewish in character and to never discriminate against Jews in immigration
or religious rights. It is the only Jewish state in a world which discriminated
against Jews for thousands of years and which stood by as six million of them
were murdered.
Many other nation, states and provinces around the world, with far less
historical justification, have even greater national and religious
characteristics. Every Muslim-majority nation is officially a Muslim state that
bestows considerable benefits on members of that faith. Great Britain is an
Anglican Christian state with an established religion. Catholicism is the
official religion of several European countries. Many national flags and emblems
have crosses, crescents or other distinctly religious symbols. Several
particular national anthems refer to religion.
Many countries have laws of return that favor certain ethnic and religious
groups. Several Arab countries have religious restrictions and citizenship and
land ownership. And on and on. But Israel is the only nation that is routinely
condemned for its law of return, its observance of Jewish holidays, its flag and
its exemption from military service for most Arabs (and Jews learning full-time
in religious seminaries).
Even with these limited and historically justified exceptions, Israel stands
among the countries of the world most committed to achieving real equality for
all its citizens.
The good news is that Israel has finally achieved a government, and that the
government is among the most diverse in the history of democracy. The bad news
is that its very diversity -- particularly its political and ideological
differences -- also make the government one of the most unstable in the history
of democracy. It prevailed in the Knesset by a vote with 60 votes out of 120,
with one abstention. So stay tuned to see how the now government manages to
survive the challenges of diversity. In the meantime, however, stop singling out
Israel for demonization by mislabeling it as apartheid or undemocratic.
*Alan M. Dershowitz is the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus at
Harvard Law School and author of the book, The Case Against the New Censorship:
Protecting Free Speech from Big Tech, Progressives and Universities, Hot Books,
April 20, 2021. His new podcast, "The Dershow," can be seen on Spotify, Apple
and YouTube. He is the Jack Roth Charitable Foundation Fellow at Gatestone
Institute.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
China's Plan to Dominate 'Near-Earth' Space
Lawrence A. Franklin/Gatestone Institute/June 17/2021
Communist China seems not only to be directly challenging the US lead in space
exploration; its space plans also appear to include an ambitious military
dimension, much of whose contents look as if they are controlled by the CCP's
People's Liberation Army (PLA). These PLA programs include a vast array of
counter-space weapons systems designed to degrade or destroy US space assets.
Even if there are areas where the US and Chinese space programs could serve
universal concerns... sadly, it would seem foolhardy to cooperate on any program
with the CCP. It has not made a secret of its intent to unseat the US as the
world's leading superpower... within the next 15-30 years. It has already
declared war on the US; the US just seems not yet to have read the memo. China
seems to be trying to maneuver a surreptitious surrender, by undermining the US
from within, accompanied by the threat of a costly, high-powered war.
Unfortunately, many in the US seem to be complying.
Meanwhile, in America, we appear busy with diversions -- educating our children
to hate our country; allowing our government to torpedo our economy by killing
growth and launching a ruinous debt; disabling our energy supply while boosting
that of our adversaries; exploding our taxes while making us support countless
illegal migrants -- that are enabling Communist China to fulfill its dream:
enfeebling America to take control not only of "near-Earth" space but everything
under it as well.
Communist China's space program is demonstrating that it is on a trajectory
possibly to surpass the US in the military and scientific exploration in our
solar system. Today, June 17, China launched a three-astronaut crew who will
inhabit the command module of its soon-to-be-completed Tianhe Chinese Space
Station. Pictured: The astronauts appear at a departure ceremony before launch
on June 17, 2021 in Jiuquan, China. (Photo by Kevin Frayer/Getty Images)
Communist China's space program is demonstrating that it is on a trajectory
possibly to surpass the US in the military and scientific exploration in our
solar system. China is planning a space spectacular to celebrate the 100th
anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party on July 23, 1921.
Today, June 17, China launched a three-astronaut crew who will inhabit the
command module of its soon-to-be-completed Tianhe Chinese Space Station. This
planned human launch follows the June 10 multiple satellite deployment from
Northern China's Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. One of these satellites is
designed to track near-earth asteroids.
As early as the mid-1950s, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Mao Zedong
declared, "We too will make satellites." Following that declaration, China
aggressively began to compete with both the former Soviet Union and the United
States in space -- an ambition seemingly energized by China's desire to develop
a nuclear bomb and the means to deliver it. China's Space Program, called the
"Two Bombs, One Satellite" project, was from its inception, placed under the
aegis of the CCP's Central Military Commission, thereby underscoring the
military orientation of its activities in space.
During the past few years China has staged a number of space spectacles. In
2018, it quickened its exploratory space activity by staging more launches than
any other nation. Also in 2018, China's "Chang'e-4" spacecraft, named for a
mythical Chinese goddess who supposedly inhabited the moon, was launched from
the Xichang Space Center in southwest China. The Chang'e 4 landed its Yalu-2
land rover -- a first-ever landing on the far side of the moon -- on January 2,
2019. The Administrator of America's National Association of Space
Administration (NASA), Jim Bridenstine, hailed the Chinese accomplishment.
China's Chang'e 5, launched from an alternate space facility on Hainan Island in
November 2020, collected more than four pounds of lunar rocks. China's National
Space Administration (CNSA), established in 1993, recently topped off another
series of space triumphs by landing a land rover on Mars this past May 15.
Communist China seems not only to be directly challenging the US lead in space
exploration; its space plans also appear to include an ambitious military
dimension, much of whose contents look as if they are controlled by the CCP's
People's Liberation Army (PLA). These PLA programs include a vast array of
counter-space weapons systems designed to degrade or destroy US space assets.
These PLA weapons include satellites and anti-satellite (ASAT) capabilities
capable of inhibiting US space materiel from communicating with US military
combat units. The aggressive posture of China's space-based military programs
underscores the recent regeneration of US Space Command and President Trump's
establishment of a US Space Force. The Chinese already established its US Space
Force's equivalent, the PLA's Army Strategic Support Force, in 2015.
China, with its National Space Administration, continues to position its own
equipment in space, and is planning several more launches this year and next to
complete its own international space station, separate from the existing
US-Russian international space station. Chinese space experts have already met
several times with European Space Association (ESA) representatives to explore
ways in which China and Europe can cooperate in space. European astronauts
already are expressing their willingness to join in flights with their Chinese
counterparts. China also has now formulated its own equivalent of the
US-initiated Global Positioning System (GPS), called the Beidou (Northern
Dipper) constellation of satellites. This navigational system enables Chinese
military planners to precisely record the movement of foreign military assets
along China's national borders where there exist several territorial disputes
with neighboring countries such as India. Beidou also closely monitors the
movement of US naval assets in the Chinese-claimed waters and islands in the
South and East China Seas.
One advantage that China's totalitarian regime gives it over the US space
program is that the Communist Party of China's Central Military Commission
manages the Chinese Space Program's integrated network of space launch centers,
space cities and space labs in universities.
There are four Chinese launch centers, with multiple launch pads, dispersed
throughout the country: Hainan Island's Wenchang Launch Center, the Jiuquan
Satellite Launch Center, the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center, and the Xichang
Satellite Launch Center. While all of China's launch facilities are capable of
putting into orbit various satellite systems, it is the Wencheng Center on
Hainan Island that will be tasked with the Tianhe (Heavenly Harmony) launches of
modules for China's Space Station. Adjacent urban sites offer logistical and
industrial support for launch operations. Nearby higher education facilities
offer training programs for space program technicians and astronauts. The
Chinese program also includes numerous domestic and foreign-based tracking
stations. In the US, however, NASA's projected increased cooperation with
wealthy, independent US space entrepreneurs, such as Elon Musk's Space-X, may
ultimately prove more capable.
Even if there are areas where the US and Chinese space programs could serve
universal concerns such as monitoring climate change, international commerce,
maritime piracy, and the collection of space junk from expired systems, sadly it
would seem foolhardy to cooperate on any program with the CCP. It has not made a
secret of its intent to unseat the US as the world's leading superpower --
economically, politically, and militarily -- within the next 15-30 years. It has
already declared war on the US; the US just seems not yet to have read the memo.
China seems to be trying to maneuver a surreptitious surrender, by undermining
the US from within, accompanied by the threat of a costly, high-powered war.
Unfortunately, many in the US seem to be complying.
Meanwhile, in America, we appear busy with diversions -- educating our children
to hate our country; allowing our government to torpedo our economy by killing
growth and launching a ruinous debt; disabling our energy supply while boosting
that of our adversaries; exploding our taxes while making us support countless
illegal migrants -- that are enabling Communist China to fulfill its dream:
enfeebling America to take control not only of "near-Earth" space but everything
under it as well.
*Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in
the Air Force Reserve.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Oppressed Palestinians or Oppressive Terrorists?
Raymond Ibrahim/June 17/2021
Why do Palestinians, who present themselves as victims of land-grabbing Israeli
oppressors, extol and find inspiration in the land-grabbing oppressors of
history?
On April 16, 2021, Al Jazeera published an article by ‘Adnan Abu ‘Amar, “head of
the Political Science Department at the University of the Ummah in Gaza,” on the
topic of jihad during the month of Ramadan. In it, he explains how Palestinians
find “inspiration” in various jihads throughout Islamic history, “prominent
among them the raid of Badr, the opening of Mecca, the opening of al-Andalus,
and the battle of the pavement of martyrs [the Battle of Tours].”
Interestingly, in all these battles, the Muslims were the aggressors. They
invaded non-Muslim territory, butchered and enslaved its inhabitants and
appropriated their lands—and for no other reason than that they were “infidels,”
non-Muslims.
The battle of Badr was occasioned by Muhammad’s raids on non-Muslim caravans;
the “opening” of Mecca—in Muslim historiography, the euphemistic word “opening
[to the light of Islam]” is always used in place of “conquest”—was simply that,
the conquest of a non-Muslim city; the opening/conquest of al-Andalus is a
reference to the years 711-716, when Muslims invaded and slaughtered countless
thousands of Christians in Spain and torched their churches; and the battle of
Tours is, of course, where the Muslim invasions into the heart of Europe were
finally halted in 732.
In fact, Palestinian elements are constantly praising the unjustified conquests
of others. On May 29, Hizb al-Tahrir—the “Liberation Party”—often holds large,
outdoor events near al-Aqsa mosque to commemorate the anniversary of the Islamic
conquest of Constantinople (May 29, 1453). During one of these, after all the
takbirs (chants of “Allahu Akbar”) had subsided, Palestinian cleric Nidhal Siam
spoke:
Oh Muslims, the anniversary of the opening [that is, conquest] of Constantinople
brings tidings of things to come. It brings tidings that Rome will be conquered
in the near future, Allah willing…. [Moreover,] Islam will throw its neighbors
to the ground, and its reach will span across the east and the west of this
Earth. This is Allah’s promise, and Allah does not renege on his promises.
He and the assembled throng then repeatedly chanted, “By means of the Caliphate
and the consolidation of power, Mehmed the Conqueror vanquished Constantinople!”
and “Your conquest, oh Rome, is a matter of certainty!”
Again, the question must be emphasized: why are the Palestinians—who, when
speaking to and seeking sympathy from the international community, present
themselves as an oppressed people whose land is unjustly occupied—finding
inspiration in and seeking to emulate those who oppress and steal the lands of
others?
If anything, should the Palestinians not sympathize with, say, the Christians of
Spain, whose land was occupied, and they themselves brutalized by the occupiers,
namely, the Muslim invaders from North Africa?
Similarly, if, as they claim, the Palestinians are an oppressed people whose
land was stolen, should they not sympathize with the Christians of
Constantinople, rather than Mehmet the Conqueror, an unsavory pedophile who
invaded and conquered the ancient Christian city, while subjecting its
indigenous inhabitants to all sorts of unspeakable atrocities?
As for Rome, what does it have to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict that it too
deserves to be conquered? Absolutely nothing—except that, since the conquest of
Constantinople, Islam has seen Rome as the symbolic head of the Christian world,
and therefore in urgent need of subjugating; or, to quote the Islamic State, “We
will conquer your Rome, break your crosses, and enslave your women, by the
permission of Allah… [We will cast] fear into the hearts of the
cross-worshipers.”
Perhaps most telling is Palestinian cleric Siam’s claim (delivered to thundering
applause) “that Islam will throw its neighbors to the ground, and that its reach
will span across the east and the west of this Earth.” In other words, no
non-Muslim is safe from the sword of jihad—including those who live countless
leagues away from and have nothing to do with the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Surely all this must seem surreal when placed in context? How can Palestinians
present themselves as a conquered and oppressed people whose land was
stolen—while, in the very same breath, praising former and hoping for future
conquests, replete with oppression and land grabbing from other peoples, only
because they were/are non-Muslim?
And that is the grand lesson: when all is said and done, Islamic notions of
“justice” are based on a simple dichotomy: whenever Muslims conquer, slaughter,
subjugate, and steal land, that is eminently just; whenever they have to live
under “infidel” authority, that is intolerably unjust. Hence the virulent hatred
for Israel.
There is no Islamophobia in Canada
Tarek Fatah/The Toronto Sun/June 17/2021
طارق فتاح/تورونتو صن: لا وجود للإسلاموفوفيا في كندا
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/99838/tarek-fatah-the-toronto-sun-there-is-no-islamophobia-in-canada-%d8%b7%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%82-%d9%81%d8%aa%d8%a7%d8%ad-%d8%aa%d9%88%d8%b1%d9%88%d9%86%d8%aa%d9%88-%d8%b3%d9%86-%d9%84%d8%a7-%d9%88%d8%ac/
Where else in the world would a Catholic prime minister, the leader of its
right-wing Christian Conservative opposition, the left-wing party headed by a
turbaned Sikh and the head of a separatist party join the city’s mayor, the
province’s premier and tens of thousands of ordinary citizens to condemn the
horrific mass murder of a Muslim family, allegedly at the hands of home-schooled
Christian man?
The answer of course is Canada. The entire nation stood in solidarity with us
Muslims, yet the only consensus heard for days since the tragedy is that this
country of ours, that opened itself to so many Muslims fleeing tyranny, is
itself “Islamophobic.”
What more do we Muslims expect from Canada?
Our impact on Canada has forced almost every urban secondary school to allocate
space for makeshift mosques and, at times, cafeterias where Islamic clerics go
to give sermons to ensure gender segregation and lecture our youth on how to
reject the “western way of life.”
No Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Jew or Baha’i demands special prayer rooms inside
workplaces, universities, or washrooms to accommodate mid-day washing rituals
Muslims undergo. No manager dare says “no” to our request and, if they do, Lord
help them en route to the Human Rights complaints office.
Everything we ask we get, including call to prayers on mosque loudspeakers in
neighbourhoods where the majority of the population is not even Muslim.
And pray, what do we say during these prayers? Pious and religious Muslims who
pray five times a day invoke a verse that refers to Jews as people who have
incurred the “wrath of Allah” and Christians as “people who have been led
astray.”
The actual verse of the Quran says:
Guide us to the straight path
The way of those upon whom you have bestowed your grace
Not the way of those who have earned your wrath
Nor of those who went astray
From the Quran published in Saudi Arabia to its interpretation by the 8th
century jurist Ibn Kathir, all claim that these words or derision are meant to
describe Jews and Christians.
The question then is simple: If we Muslims are comfortable denouncing Jews and
Christians 48 times a day in our five daily prayers, then isn’t it we who spread
hate and then play victim?
If it’s true that Islamophobia exists in Canada, then our country is not alone.
Wherever we Muslims live or have moved as a minority, the fact is it is our
behaviour in relations with the majority and our contempt for the host
community’s religion and civilization has aroused in it this supposed
‘irrational fear’ of our faith Islam or our presence as Muslims.
Be it in France or Russia, the Philippines or India, Mozambique or Nigeria,
wherever we exist, a tiny minority of Islamists are bound to emerge, take
leadership and trigger conflict with the “kaafirs” (derogatory word for our
non-Muslim neighbours).
And we don’t have to go far to gauge the contempt we have for the non-Muslim, be
it Hindu or Jew, our main targets.
At the vigil in London, Dr. Munir El-Kassem, an Islamic cleric who once served
as the chaplain of the London Police Service, revealed his pent-up feelings by
drawing a parallel between the Palestinian-Israel conflict and the tragedy that
descended on London. He concluded his remarks by saying, “Whatever is happening
in Jerusalem and Gaza, is related to whatever happened in London, Ontario.”
If at all there is Islamophobia across the world, why is it so?
It is time for us Muslims to raise the question we never ask ourselves: If at
all there is Islamophobia across the world, why is it so?
Is it because we block the streets in New Delhi and Paris during Friday prayers
in an exhibition of piety, but in reality we thumb our nose and declare our
superior faith?
Is it because we parade our sisters, daughters, and wives in all-encompassing
black burqas over their bodies, even at Wasaga Beach on a sunny day last Friday?
Is it because we have a history of killing each other (as in Yemen, Syria, Iraq
and Afghanistan)? Or commit genocide of our own as in Darfur in 2005 and
Bangladesh in 1971?
No matter what, the solution to Islamophobia lies within us. Let’s not wear the
Muslim Brotherhood political flag on our heads and then pretend it is a command
from Allah. Stop dressing up as medieval Arabs when visiting mosques. Stop
defending polygamy and child marriage as fundamental Islamic rights, and above
all stop trying to sneak Sharia Islamic law into Canada by brokering the Muslim
vote bank because there isn’t any such thing.
*Tarek Fatah is a Robert J. and Abby B. Levine Fellow at the Middle East Forum,
a founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, and a columnist at the Toronto Sun.
Tehran’s nuclear secrets have been exposed
Clifford D. May/The Washington Times/June 17/2021
But President Biden has not revised his policies in response
Spies steal secrets. Sometimes, those secrets must be carefully studied and
analyzed by experts to turn them into products useful to policymakers.
The spies I’ll be talking about here worked for the Mossad. The expert who has
painstakingly transformed the secrets they collected into actionable
intelligence is David Albright. And the policymaker who should be revising his
policies in response to a clearer picture of reality is President Joe Biden.
The story begins on a cold night in January of 2018 when Israeli agents
stealthily broke into a warehouse in southern Tehran where Iran’s rulers had
stored an archive of their nuclear weapons program.
In an interview broadcast on Israeli television last week, former Mossad chief
Yossi Cohen revealed new details of the operation. Planning required two years
and included the construction of a replica of the warehouse. Twenty agents were
trained for the mission. None of them were Israelis. They had less than seven
hours to carry out their risky mission.
“In the morning, trucks, guards, and workers arrive, and there’s a crowd and you
can’t just jump over fences and break through walls,” Mr. Cohen said. “Only when
they broke into the formidable safes and began to go through the images and
Farsi descriptions did we realize that we have what we wanted on the Iranian
military nuclear program.”
The agents quickly spirited the materials – more than 55,000 pages of
documentation and nearly 200 computer disks – out of the country. None of the
agents was captured but, Mr. Cohen said, some had to be rescued from Iran.
Three months later, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a press conference.
He said the materials proved that Tehran had a “program to design, build and
test nuclear weapons…to use at a time of its choice to develop nuclear weapons.”
That meant that the nuclear deal President Obama had concluded in 2015, the
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, was predicated on lies told by Iran’s
rulers, and that the JCPOA did not, as claimed, block their path to a nuclear
weapons capability.
Proponents of the JCPOA insisted there was nothing earth-shattering in the
materials, and that Mr. Obama had concluded as good a deal as could be expected.
President Trump, long mistrustful of the deal, soon formally withdrew.
David Albright, a physicist, and the founder and president of the Institute for
Science and International Security, also known as the Good ISIS, persuaded the
Israeli government to allow him access to the materials. Since then, he and his
team have conducted a comprehensive forensic analysis.
The result is a new book: “Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons,”
co-authored with Sarah Burkhard. He points out that the very “existence and
maintenance of a secret archive containing nuclear weapon design and
manufacturing data is not compatible with Iran’s legally binding nuclear
non-proliferation commitments” under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the
fundamental international agreement for preventing the spread of nuclear
weapons.
Mr. Albright notes that by “secretly storing and curating an extensive archive
focused on developing and building missile-deliverable nuclear weapons,” Iran’s
rulers also violated their “JCPOA pledge that ‘under no circumstances will Iran
ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.’”
The Islamic Republic’s secret nuclear weapons development program, the Amad
Plan, was suspended in 2003, after the U.S. military toppled regimes in both
Afghanistan and Iraq, causing Iran’s rulers to fear they might be next. But that
was a “tactical retreat, not an abandonment” of the regime’s “nuclear weapons
ambitions or activities,” Mr. Albright writes.
“The post-Amad goals are among the most critical revelations of the archive,” he
continues. Over the past decade, an Iranian Ministry of Defense entity known as
SPND has been responsible for developing various nuclear capabilities. “Iran’s
lack of cooperation with the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] up until
today has increased concerns that a subset of SPND’s activities have remained
focused on preserving or carrying forward the activities of the Amad Plan.”
The archive also reveals that Iran’s rulers have “a host of undeclared nuclear
sites and activities, all previously dedicated to a covert, and illegal, nuclear
weapons program.” What activities are taking place at those sites now is unknown
because inspectors from the IAEA have been barred from visiting most of them.
Under the flawed JCPOA, the IAEA also is not permitted to inspect military
facilities where nuclear weapons research has been conducted in the past and may
be ongoing in the present.
Mr. Albright deduces that Iran’s rulers currently have “a robust capability to
make weapon-grade uranium, a capability that will eventually grow more than
ten-fold” as restrictions in the JCPOA “sunset” – expire according to dates on
the calendar and regardless of Tehran’s conduct.
“At a minimum, Iran has a coordinated set of activities related to building a
nuclear weapon,” Mr. Albright writes. “At worst, the weaponization team has
already conducted a cold test, fulfilled its post-Amad goal of building an
industrial prototype, and is regularly practicing and improving their nuclear
weaponization craft under various covers or in clandestine locations.”
Which leads to this conclusion: “A reinstated JCPOA combined with less than
vigorous IAEA verification of Iran’s military sites, of the type that existed
from 2015 until 2018, appears particularly unstable and dangerous.”
Spies risked their lives to steal secrets from an Islamist police state. An
esteemed American expert has detailed what those secrets reveal. President Biden
can adjust his policies to reflect the reality that has been exposed.
Or he can gift militant theocrats whose rallying cry is “Death to America!”
billions of dollars and let them develop a nuclear weapons capability over the
years ahead. That is almost certain to lead to runaway nuclear proliferation and
devastating conflicts. This should not be a tough call.
**Clifford D. May is founder and president of the Foundation for Defense of
Democracies (FDD) and a columnist for the Washington Times. Follow him on
Twitter @CliffordDMay. FDD is a nonpartisan think tank focused on foreign policy
and national security issues.
Biden Should Not Lift Sanctions Against Iranian Presidential Candidate Ebrahim
Raisi
Matthew Zweig/Policy Brief/June 17/2021
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in congressional testimony last week that
if Iran and the United States re-enter the 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as
the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), “hundreds of sanctions [will]
remain in place, including sanctions imposed by the Trump administration.”
However, Blinken added the caveat that the Biden administration would still lift
sanctions “inconsistent with the JCPOA,” suggesting that Washington may revoke
non-nuclear sanctions on Iran as a concession for Tehran’s return to the accord.
In particular, Blinken’s statement raises the question of whether the Biden
administration will lift sanctions on Iranian judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi, who
played a key role in the Islamic Republic’s execution of thousands of political
dissidents in 1988. Raisi, a close confidante of Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is currently a leading candidate in Iran’s presidential
election, which is scheduled to take place on Friday.
Washington sanctioned Raisi in November 2019 pursuant to Executive Order 13876,
which President Donald Trump signed in June 2019. The order authorizes sanctions
against the supreme leader, the Office of the Supreme Leader, any official
appointed by him, and anyone conducting transactions with them. In particular,
the order authorizes sanctions on foreign financial institutions that knowingly
facilitate or conduct a significant transaction with any individual or entity
designated pursuant to that executive order.
Raisi has served in multiple positions in Iran’s judiciary, including as a
prosecutor, as deputy chief justice, and as attorney general. In these roles, he
helped perpetrate far-reaching punishments, including death sentences, for
political opponents.
In March 2019, Khamenei appointed Raisi to lead Iran’s judiciary, which was and
continues to be responsible for pervasive human rights abuses. That same month,
Khamenei also selected Raisi to serve as the deputy chief of the Assembly of
Experts, which chooses and oversees the selection of Iran’s supreme leader.
According to the State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 2020, the abuses continued under Raisi’s stewardship of the judiciary. The
report notes that the Iranian “government and its agents reportedly committed
arbitrary or unlawful killings, most commonly by execution after arrest and
trial without due process.”
Executive Order 13876 is a particularly powerful tool, as it provides for the
designation of a wide range of individuals and companies based on their status
within the supreme leader’s inner circle or affiliation with his office. This
extends to most appendages of the Iranian government.
Statements from the White House, Treasury Department, and State Department under
the Trump administration indicate that the executive order was a reaction to
Iran’s destabilizing activities in the Middle East. The sanctions are not
nuclear-related, and they are thus consistent with the JCPOA.
Since Executive Order 13876 targets malign Iranian actors and activities both
abroad and at home, its application to Raisi and to other senior Iranian
officials is a legitimate use of non-nuclear sanctions. To combat the continued
misconduct of the regime – both externally and internally – the Biden
administration should refrain from lifting any non-nuclear sanctions on Iran,
especially on Raisi.
Matthew Zweig is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD),
where he also contributes to FDD’s Iran Program and Center on Economic and
Financial Power (CEFP). For more analysis from Matthew, the Iran Program, and
CEFP, please subscribe HERE. Follow Matthew on Twitter @MatthewZweig1. Follow
FDD on Twitter @FDD and @FDD_Iran and @FDD_CEFP. FDD is a Washington, DC-based,
nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
Iran's Leading Presidential Candidate Has Committed Crimes Against Humanity
Tzvi Kahn/Real Clear World/June 17/2021
Even the prison guards were horrified.
In the summer of 1988, at the behest of Iran’s then-supreme leader, Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini, the regime executed thousands of political dissidents
incarcerated at 32 sites throughout the country.
Saeed Amirkhizi, an inmate at Evin Prison at the time, recalls that even those
guards “who had been tormenting and executing prisoners for years were
astonished by this level of cruelty and barbarity.”Now, one of the massacre’s
perpetrators – and a key architect of Iran’s human rights abuses in the
subsequent 32 years – is a leading candidate for Iran’s presidency. Ebrahim
Raisi – the deputy prosecutor general of Tehran from 1985 to 1988 – facilitated
the 1988 slaughter by serving on a four-member panel known as a Death
Commission, which decided who would live and who would die. The commission would
conduct interviews of prisoners – often just a few minutes long – aimed at
determining their loyalty to the Islamic Republic. Questions could include:
“What is your political affiliation?” “Do you pray?” “Are you willing to clear
minefields for the Islamic Republic?” The wrong answer meant death.
The executions were usually by hanging or by firing squad. They typically took
place the same day as the interrogations. The commissions allowed neither
lawyers nor appeals. Burials occurred in unmarked mass graves. The regime waited
months before notifying the relatives of the victims, refused to tell them the
locations of the bodies, and told them not to mourn in public. Raisi’s
commission operated at Evin Prison and Gohardasht Prison, two of Iran’s most
notorious jails. Kamal Afkhami Ardekani, a former Evin official, reported that
throughout most of July and August, the prison executed inmates every half hour
from 7:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The victims included women and children as young as
13. Raisi has defended the killings, saying in 2018 that they were “one of the
proud achievements of the system.” He further praised Ayatollah Khomeini as a
“national hero.”
In 2016, an audio recording from 1988 emerged of a meeting between Grand
Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri – a deputy to Khomeini – and Raisi and the other
three members of his Death Commission. In a remarkable rebuke, Montazeri told
the panel that its members had inflicted the “greatest crime committed under the
Islamic Republic,” and “will in the future be etched in the annals of history as
criminals.”
Before that happens, however, Raisi may become president. It’s not his first
time seeking the job. In 2017, he ran against outgoing president Hassan Rouhani,
receiving only 38.5% of the vote compared to the incumbent’s 57%. Of course
these elections, like all presidential contests in the Islamic Republic, were
hardly free and fair: A 12-member, unelected body known as the Guardian Council
selects eligible candidates, ensuring that the resulting government remains
loyal to the principles of the Islamic Revolution. Still, the majority of
Iranians who opted to vote sought to defeat a candidate with so much blood on
his hands. During the 2009 Green Revolution, Raisi served as deputy chief
justice, making him complicit in the prosecution – and, in some cases, the death
sentences – of peaceful protesters who objected to Iran’s fraudulent election. A
few years later, as attorney general, Raisi opposed lifting the regime’s house
arrests of the Green Revolution’s leaders.
“Those who have proposed the elections were fraudulent and created doubt in the
public’s mind have undoubtedly committed a grave crime and naturally will have
to answer for the crime they have committed,” said Raisi in 2009.
The next year, Raisi praised the judiciary’s amputation of a thief’s hand as a
punishment for stealing. The gruesome sentence, Raisi said, is “based on the law
and divine punishment,” and is “a source of pride for us.”
Since 2019, Raisi has served as the head of the judiciary, making him directly
responsible for how it mistreats prisoners of conscience. According to a recent
State Department report, “Commonly reported methods of torture and abuse in
prisons included threats of execution or rape, forced tests of virginity and
‘sodomy,’ sleep deprivation, electroshock, including the shocking of genitals,
burnings, the use of pressure positions, and severe and repeated beatings.”
Iran’s judiciary also constitutes one of the world’s leading executioners. In
2021, after trials devoid of due process, it has executed more than 100 people
to date. In 2020, it claimed the lives of at least 267 people. In 2019, it
killed 280 people.
In 2019, the Trump administration sanctioned Raisi, citing his conduct in the
1988 massacre and the 2009 protests. Now, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has
indicated that the Biden administration may lift some non-nuclear sanctions on
Iran in order to persuade Tehran to reenter the 2015 nuclear deal. The regime,
for its part, has pressed America’s negotiators to lift all nuclear and
non-nuclear sanctions, which would include a removal of Raisi from the
blacklist.
The Biden administration should resist such pressure. Regardless of the fate of
the nuclear accord, perpetrators of crimes against humanity should not receive
pardons.
*Tzvi Kahn is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a
Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focusing on national
security and foreign policy. Follow him on Twitter @TzviKahn. The views
expressed are the author's own.