English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese, Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For March 01/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

#elias_bejjani_news
 

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Bible Quotations For today

My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed
Letter to the Hebrews 12/01-13/:”Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from sinners, so that you may not grow weary or lose heart. In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And you have forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as children ‘My child, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, or lose heart when you are punished by him; for the Lord disciplines those whom he loves, and chastises every child whom he accepts.’ Endure trials for the sake of discipline. God is treating you as children; for what child is there whom a parent does not discipline? If you do not have that discipline in which all children share, then you are illegitimate and not his children. Moreover, we had human parents to discipline us, and we respected them. Should we not be even more willing to be subject to the Father of spirits and live?For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share his holiness. Now, discipline always seems painful rather than pleasant at the time, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint, but rather be healed.

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 28- March 01/2021

Elias Bejjani/Visit My LCCC Web site/All That you need to know on Lebanese unfolding news and events in Arabic and English/http://eliasbejjaninews.com/
The Bleeding Women’s Miracle: Faith & Hope/Elias Bejjani/February 28/2021
Health Ministry: 2,258 new Corona cases, 40 deaths
Al-Rahi Salutes 'Hundreds of Thousands' who Backed His Stances
Rahi defends his position on holding international conference, neutrality
Fadlallah Rejects 'Internationalization', Says Some Tried to 'Exploit Bkirki'
Arslan says proposed internationalization requires consensus among the Lebanese
Bitar Won't Start Port Blast Investigation 'from Zero'
Lebanese Foreign Ministry deplores Riyadh attack
Israel Clears Greek Tanker over Mediterranean Oil Spill
MP Says South Beaches Polluted by Around 2 Tons of Tar
Tabsh: Bkirki’s proposals meet the National Dialogue decisions
Lebanese Clear Tar Pollution from Turtle Beach
Israel Says Arrested Infiltrator who Crossed from Lebanon
Maronite patriarch holds the key to Lebanon’s salvation/Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/February 28/2021
Lebanon COVID-19 vaccine scandal exposes risk of working with a corrupt government/Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/February 28/2021

Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 28- March 01/2021

Syria reports Israeli missile attack near capital, Damascus
US condemns Yemen’s Houthis ‘egregious’ attack on Saudi Arabia
Israeli defense minister says Iran behind cargo ship explosion
US disappointed by Iran's latest move on nuclear deal, remains ready to re-engage: WH
Trump says he has no plans to form third party
UN Human Rights Office condemns violence escalation in Burma
Foreign Ministry denounces criticism against Swiss ambassador, urges media outlets to be vigilant
Turkey, Iran at odds over operations on Iraqi soil
Diplomats: Iran Rejects Offer of Direct US Nuclear Talks
At Least 18 Killed in Myanmar on Bloodiest Day of Protests
Turkey Protests to Iran Envoy in Iraq Row
U.N. Says 18 Killed, 30 Hurt in Myanmar on Sunday
Russian dissident Navalny arrives at his exclusion zone to serve his sentence later
Houthis claim attacks against Riyadh, pledge to carry out wider operations
Canada/Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs on Myanmar

Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 28- March 01/2021

Deadly consequences of indulging Iran’s hostage diplomacy/Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/February 28/2021
Ten Years Ago/Frederic C. Hof/Asharq Al-Awsat /February 28/2021
US ‘Conditional Proposal’ to Assad and Netanyahu 2011: Abandon Iran in Exchange for Restoring Golan/ Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat /February 28/2021
It Dates Back to Before Khashoggi’s Killing/Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat /February 28/2021
China Buys Western Academics/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/February 28/2021

The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese Related News & Editorials published on February 28- March 01/2021

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

The Bleeding Women’s Miracle: Faith & Hope
Elias Bejjani/February 28/2021
(John 6:68): “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life”

http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/36973/elias-bejjani-the-bleeding-women-faith-hope/

Whenever we are in real trouble encountering devastating and harsh conditions either physically or materially, we unconsciously react with sadness, anger, confusion, helplessness and feel abandoned. When in a big mess, we expect our family members and friends to automatically run to our rescue. But in the majority of such difficult situations, we discover with great disappointment that in reality our heartfelt expectations do not unfold as we wish.
What is frustrating and shocking is that very few of our family members and friends would stand beside us during hardships and endeavour to genuinely offer the needed help. Those who have already walked through these rocky life paths and adversities definitely know very well the bitter taste of disappointment. They know exactly the real meaning of the well-know saying, “a friend in need is a friend indeed”.
Sadly our weak human nature is driven by inborn instincts that often make us side with the rich, powerful, healthy and strong over the poor, weak, needy and sick. Those who have no faith in Almighty God find it very difficult to cope in a real mess.
Meanwhile, those whose faith is solid stand up with courage, refuse to give up hope, and call on their Almighty Father for help through praying and worshiping. They know for sure that our Great Father is loving and passionate. He will not abandon any one of us when calling on Him for mercy and help because He said and promised so. Matthew 11/28-30: “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart; and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
One might ask, ‘Why should I pray?’ And, ‘Do I have to ask God for help, can’t He help me without praying to Him?’ The answer is ‘no’. We need to pray and when we do so with faith and confidence God listens and responds (Mark 11/:24): “Therefore I tell you, all things whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them”
Yes, we have to make the effort and be adamant and persistent. We have to ask and knock in a bid to show our mere submission to Him and He with no doubt shall provide. (Matthew 7/7 & 8): “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened”.
On this second Sunday of Lent in our Catholic Church’s Eastern Maronite rite, we cite and recall the miraculous cure of the bleeding woman in Matthew 9/20-22, Mark 5/25-34, and Luke 8/43-48. As we learn from the Holy Gospel, the bleeding woman’s great faith made her believe without a shred of doubt that her twelve years of chronic bleeding would stop immediately if she touched Jesus’ garment. She knew deeply in her heart that Jesus would cure her even without asking him. Her faith cured the bleeding and made her well. Her prayers were heard and responded to.
Luke 8/:43-49: “A woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years, who had spent all her living on physicians, and could not be healed by any, came behind him (Jesus), and touched the fringe of his cloak, and immediately the flow of her blood stopped. Jesus said, “Who touched me?” When all denied it, Peter and those with him said, “Master, the multitudes press and jostle you, and you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 8:46 But Jesus said, “Someone did touch me, for I perceived that power has gone out of me.” When the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and falling down before him declared to him in the presence of all the people the reason why she had touched him, and how she was healed immediately. He said to her, “Daughter, cheer up. Your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”
The woman’s faith cured her chronic bleeding and put her back in the society as a normal and acceptable citizen. During that era women with uterus bleeding were looked upon as sinners, defiled and totally banned from entering synagogues for praying. Meanwhile, because of her sickness she was physically unable to be a mother and bear children. Sadly she was socially and religiously abandoned, humiliated and alienated. But her faith and hope empowered her with the needed strength and perseverance and enabled her to cope successfully against all odds.
Hallelujah! Faith can do miracles. Yes indeed. (Luke17/5 & 6): ” The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.” The Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you would tell this sycamore tree, ‘Be uprooted, and be planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you”. How badly do we today need to have a faith like that of this women?
Let us all on this second Lent Sunday pray with solid faith.
Let us ask Almighty God who cured the bleeding women, and who was crucified on the cross to absolve our original sin, that He would endow His Holy graces of peace, tranquility, and love all over the world. And that He would strengthen the faith, patience and hope of all those persecuted, imprisoned, and deprived for courageously witnessing the Gospel’s message and truth.
N.B: The Above Piece Is From The writer’s Faith Achieves

Health Ministry: 2,258 new Corona cases, 40 deaths
NNA/February 28/2021
The Ministry of Public Health announced, on Sunday, the registration of 2,258 new Corona infections, thus raising the cumulative number of confirmed cases to-date to 375,033.Also, it indicated that 40 deaths were recorded during the past 24 hours.

Al-Rahi Salutes 'Hundreds of Thousands' who Backed His Stances
Naharnet/February 28/2021
Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday saluted “the 15,000 people who rallied Saturday at the patriarchal seat in support of the patriarchate’s stance that has called on the international community to declare Lebanon’s positive and active neutrality.” Al-Rahi also saluted “the hundreds of thousands who took part in this supportive rally through TV stations, radios, Facebook and social media, in Lebanon, the Arab countries and the diaspora countries.”Al-Rahi added, in his Sunday Mass sermon, that neutrality would allow Lebanon to “carry out its message as a homeland for the dialogue of cultures and religions and a land for coming together, equal and integrated coexistence, and mutual respect between Christians and Muslims.”“This neutrality would enable Lebanon to avoid regional and international alliances, conflicts and wars, and to immunize its domestic and foreign sovereignty through its own military forces,” the patriarch explained.He added: “We saw with our eyes the joy of the gatherers during the rally, and especially during their departure, as their hearts filled with hope and courage and the flame of the revolution took a new and difference course.”“They came from all regions, sects and parties, and we saw their relief on their faces and their feeling that their presence in Bkirki is a presence at their homes and among their people,” a-Rahi said. They felt that Bkirki is “a national seat for all Lebanese,” he added.

Rahi defends his position on holding international conference, neutrality
NNA/February 28/2021
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rahi, presided over Sunday Mass service in Bkirki this morning. In his sermon, Patriarch Rahi defended his position on holding an international conference for Lebanon, saying: "The international conference call is the result of the political group's inability to resolve internal affairs and reach an agreement." He stressed that neutrality helps Lebanon avoid conflicts and wars and enhances its internal and external sovereignty.

Fadlallah Rejects 'Internationalization', Says Some Tried to 'Exploit Bkirki'
Naharnet/February 28/2021
MP Hassan Fadlallah of Hizbullah’s Loyalty to Resistance bloc has suggested that certain sides are using Bkirki as a cover to serve their own political agendas, hours after thousands of Lebanese rallied in Bkirki in support of Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi and his latest stances.
“Some parties are hiding behind Bkirki,” Fadlallah said in a TV interview. “Hizbullah believes that internationalization would pose an existential threat to Lebanon. What has internationalization done in Syria, Libya and Iraq?” the MP added. “Those who want to cling to the Taef Accord must not invite nations to Lebanon to resolve our crisis, although these nations do not have time for anyone at the moment,” Fadlallah went on to say, stressing that “solutions should begin inside” the country. He added: “We respect the authority that Bkirki represents to a group of the Lebanese and we do not want any rift between the Lebanese. Some tried to exploit Bkirki to deepen sectarian disillusionment and divides.” Commenting on al-Rahi’s call for Lebanon’s neutrality, Fadlallah pointed out that ever since 1948, Israel “has not neutralized us in wars and crises,” adding that the jihadist Islamic State group has not also spared Lebanon from its attacks. “Our policy is not based on boycotts but rather on rapprochement and discussion. We have our evidence and arguments and communication with Bkirki has not been severed,” Fadlallah added. “There had been direct communication until the coronavirus stage and today there is phone communication,” the lawmaker noted, revealing that “Hizbullah’s leadership” held phone talks with Bkirki two days prior to Saturday’s rally at the seat of the Maronite church. Earlier this month, al-Rahi had called for a U.N.-sponsored "international conference" in the face of Lebanon's economic collapse and political impasse.
Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah slammed the proposal and similar calls from other parties, saying such moves would open the door to foreign interference or even to an "occupation."In a speech to the crowd on Saturday, al-Rahi repeated the call for an international conference, saying that "all we propose is to revitalize the Lebanese state, which is in disarray, broken." Al-Rahi is an ardent supporter of Lebanon's official policy of dissociation from regional conflicts, a position that clashes with Iran-backed Hizbullah's involvement in the war in Syria. The demonstrators on Saturday shouted slogans in support of the Lebanese Army and denounced Hizbullah as a "terrorist" group. "Neutrality, sovereignty, stability," read one banner hanging on a church facade. "We came to support the patriarch in his call for neutrality," Olga Abu Merei told AFP from the rally. "We want stability, we want our country to stay away from problems and wars." Among the objectives of an international conference, al-Rahi said would be "support for the Lebanese Army, so it becomes the only defender of Lebanon."
 

Arslan says proposed internationalization requires consensus among the Lebanese
NNA/February 28/2021
Lebanese Democratic Party Chief, Talal Arslan, considered in a statement on Sunday that the wedge between the Lebanese is increasing dramatically and suspiciously, pointing to “the growing economic, financial and social crises affecting the entire Lebanese society without any control.”
“Hunger has begun to devastate our families from the far north to the far south without any action…Have we become a society that does not deserve life and does not deserve a single national identity that unites it?” he wondered regretfully. Arslan reiterated that there is no solution except through a rapid rebuilding of the state on national, civic and inclusive foundations, while eliminating the hateful sectarian divisions and working to strengthen the spirit of true citizenship that is based on the unity of standards in rights and duties among all citizens, and on new foundations in all constitutional and non-constitutional institutions, whether judicial, legislative, executive, procedural or media-wise…In this context, he renewed the call for a quick, serious and near dialogue in which the real weaknesses in the administration of our country will be assessed, while proceeding in parallel with the forensic audit so that the Lebanese would know where their money and savings have gone. ”If we do not take these steps quickly, Lebanon will enter into the uncertain, and we will not know how things will end up for us and what high cost we will have to pay sooner or later..." warned Arslan.
He concluded by noting that "the proposed internationalization is in need of a consensus among the Lebanese, otherwise it will remain ‘booby-trapped’ and will increase our division and wedge at the expense of everything, and we will be subject to more regional and international calculations.” atters.

Bitar Won't Start Port Blast Investigation 'from Zero'
Naharnet/February 28/2021
The new lead judicial investigator into the Beirut port blast, Judge Tarek al-Bitar, needs two more weeks to finish studying the file and devising his strategy for the investigations, informed judicial sources said. “He will not start from zero as it is being said; he will rather resume work from the phase that Judge (Fadi) Sawwan had reached and from the information that he had accumulated throughout six months,” the sources told Kuwait’s al-Anbaa newspaper in remarks published Sunday. “Everyone must be under the law and subject to accountability, and if any politician gets summoned and interrogated, this does not mean that they will be arrested. The investigator will be keen on holding accountable everyone proven to be negligent in the issue of storing and not removing the ammonium nitrates from the port, which led to the disaster,” the sources added. “The important part of the investigation lies in holding accountable and trying all those who caused the port explosion, starting by the process of purchasing the nitrates from Georgia, shipping them and storing them in the port’s Hangar 12, and ending by determining the reasons and nature of the blast and whether it was premeditated or accidental,” the sources explained.
The sources also stressed that “the Lebanese judiciary is the party that can do justice to the victims and those affected by the port blast, not the international judiciary,” urging Lebanese to “trust their judiciary and await the result.”

Lebanese Foreign Ministry deplores Riyadh attack
NNA/February 28/2021
Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, on Sunday, condemned in a statement "the attempted missile attack on the city of Riyadh", denouncing "any targeting of innocent civilians" and deeming it "a violation of international law.”Deploring any attack against the sovereignty of the sisterly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia", the Ministry expressed "full solidarity with Saudi Arabia against any attempt to threaten its stability and security.”

Israel Clears Greek Tanker over Mediterranean Oil Spill
Naharnet/February 28/2021
Israeli authorities said Sunday they had cleared a Greek tanker of suspicion in relation to an oil spill that caused massive tar pollution on the Mediterranean coastline, devastating marine life. It is seen as Israel's worst maritime pollution incident in decades. Powerful winds and unusually high waves pummeled Israel's entire Mediterranean coastline on February 17, with tons of tar staining 160 kilometers of beach from its borders with the Gaza Strip to Lebanon. Volunteers have teamed up with authorities to clean the beaches, while officials from the environmental protection ministry launched an investigation into the source of the spill. After an Israeli media report had named the Greek oil tanker Minerva Helen as a possible culprit, the ship's owner, Minerva Marine Inc., firmly denied any connection to the spill. On Sunday, the ministry said that "following an inspection conducted in Greece on the Minerva Helen tanker, it has been cleared of suspicion of involvement in the severe tar event on Israel's beaches." The ship's owner said the Israeli media report was an "unfounded and inaccurate allegation." It said the ship had been in the Mediterranean in the days before the storm, "without any cargo on board" and therefore could not be linked to a spill. The company also pledged to "cooperate with any relevant authority" interested in the Minerva Helen's movements.
- 'Environmental felony' -
On Saturday, in the Greek port city of Piraeus, Israeli inspectors conducted "an extensive examination" of the Minerva Helen that "positively ruled out the vessel as the source of the pollution, the environmental protection ministry said in a statement. The investigation was conducted in coordination with Greek authorities, with assistance from the Hellenic Coast Guard, the ministry added. "We're committed to take all the efforts to locate the ship behind the pollution on Israel's coast," Environmental Protection Minister Gila Gamliel said in a statement. "This pollution has a source, and we won't accept an environmental felony," she said. According to the ministry, there were "dozens" of vessels under suspicion, with Israeli inspectors, aided in some cases by international bodies, already ruling out around 10 of them. The ministry said in a Sunday statement it was monitoring, with the help of the Israeli air force, a stain in the sea some 150 kilometers offshore that could be oil. As local municipalities, environmental protection ministry workers and volunteers spread out along beaches with garbage bags, masks and gloves to remove pieces of tar from the sand, rocks and plants, the sea continued to deposit tar along the coast from Tel Aviv northward, the ministry said. "These tar clumps could continue to arrive at Israel's beaches in the next days in accordance with the currents and tide," it added.
 

MP Says South Beaches Polluted by Around 2 Tons of Tar
Naharnet/February 28/2021
The amount of tar that has polluted the sand beaches of south Lebanon in recent days has been estimated to be at around two tons, a Lebanese MP said. “The cleaning process will be arduous and painstaking and it requires followup and cooperation between municipalities, scout associations and local, national and international NGOs and environmental groups,” MP Enaya Ezzeddine of the Development and Liberation bloc said. Hoping that the cleaning process will be completed within 15 days, Ezzeddine said the effort “needs a lot of equipment and tools for the delicate cleaning operation, protective clothes for the working teams and bags for the collection and storing of the polluting material.”She also called on state authorities to contribute to securing the needed equipment, noting that some have been donated by the UNIFIL forces and the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
“The volunteers must be aided by additional manpower in order to finish the mission as soon as possible,” Ezzeddine added. She also called on the environment and public works ministries to “shoulder their responsibilities as to the process of packaging the material resulting from the cleaning process and laying out a vision for disposing of the material in the best way possible.”Lebanese on Saturday raked balls of tar away from a turtle beach in the South after a massive slick washed ashore after hitting neighboring Israel. A storm more than a week ago threw tons of the sticky, black substance onto the beaches of Israel, apparently after leaking from a ship. Within days the spill had spread to south Lebanon, where clumps of tar contaminated beaches stretching from the border town of Naqoura to the southern city of Tyre. The swathe of coastline, which includes some of the country's best preserved beaches, is a nesting site for turtles which usually appear later in the year. On Saturday morning, mask-clad volunteers and members of the civil defense sifted blobs of tar out of sand on the beach of the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve, an AFP journalist said. The protected zone covers 3.8 square kilometers of beach as well as adjacent sea waters. As well as endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles, the beach provides shelter for the Arabian spiny mouse. Mouin Hamze, the head of the National Council for Scientific Research, has said that the pollution could continue washing up on Lebanese shores for up to three months. A survey of the area using drones is not yet complete, but he said the damage was extensive in the South while tar had even landed on the beach further north in the capital Beirut. Israeli authorities said Sunday they had cleared a Greek tanker of suspicion in relation to the oil spill that caused the massive tar pollution. Powerful winds and unusually high waves pummeled Israel's entire Mediterranean coastline on February 17, with tons of tar staining 160 kilometersof beach from its borders with the Gaza Strip to Lebanon. According to Israel’s Environmental Protection Ministry, there are "dozens" of vessels under suspicion, with Israeli inspectors, aided in some cases by international bodies, already ruling out around 10 of them. The ministry said in a Sunday statement it was monitoring, with the help of the Israeli air force, a stain in the sea some 150 kilometers offshore that could be oil.

Tabsh: Bkirki’s proposals meet the National Dialogue decisions
NNA/February 28/2021
Bkirki said its word yesterday, words uttered by the Lebanese who are demanding the implementation of the constitution, struggling to preserve Lebanon the entity, working to neutralize Lebanon from the axes' conflicts, protesting for a decent life, believing in a sovereign state that has one army and an independent judiciary, and working to save Lebanon from an authority that is taking it to hell…Proposals that meet the decisions of the National Dialogue that were consensually taken in 2006, over the borders’ issue, the weapons, the implementation of international resolutions, and other major dossiers…Is it difficult for the Lebanese to distance themselves from the conflicts of others and rally around what they agreed upon a few years ago?” tweeted MP Rola Tabsh on Sunda

Lebanese Clear Tar Pollution from Turtle Beach
Naharnet/February 28/2021
Lebanese on Saturday raked balls of tar away from a turtle beach in the south of the country, as a massive slick washed ashore after hitting neighbouring Israel. A storm more than a week ago threw tonnes of the sticky, black substance onto the beaches of the Jewish state, apparently after leaking from a ship. Within days the spill had spread to southern Lebanon, where clumps of tar contaminated beaches stretching from the border town of Naqura to the southern city of Tyre. The swathe of coastline, which includes some of the country's best preserved beaches, is a nesting site for turtles which usually appear later in the year. On Saturday morning, mask-clad volunteers and members of the civil defence sifted blobs of tar out of sand on the beach of the Tyre Coast Nature Reserve, an AFP journalist said. "The Tyre reserve has been hit by about two tonnes of tar, 90 percent of which is now hidden in the sand," said Mouin Hamze, the head of the National Council for Scientific Research. The clean-up of the reserve could last up to two more weeks, he told AFP. The protected zone covers 3.8 square kilometres (almost 1.5 square miles) of beach as well as adjacent sea waters, according to its website. As well as endangered loggerhead and green sea turtles, the beach provides shelter for the Arabian spiny mouse. Hamze had said previously that the pollution could continue washing up on Lebanese shores for up to three months. A survey of the area using drones is not yet complete, but he said the damage was extensive in the south while tar had even landed on the beach further north in the capital Beirut.

Israel Says Arrested Infiltrator who Crossed from Lebanon
Naharnet/February 28/2021
The Israeli army arrested overnight a suspect who sneaked into the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms from south Lebanon, a spokesman said on Sunday. “The reconnaissance of the IDF (Israeli army) overnight detected a suspect who infiltrated from Lebanon into the Jabal al-Rous area inside Israel,” Israeli army spokesman Avichay Adraee tweeted in Arabic. “The forces scrambled to the location, arrested him and transferred him to interrogation at the security forces,” Adraee added. Al-Jadeed TV reported later on Sunday that the man arrested by Israel has been identified as 24-year-old Lebanese citizen Hussein A. Q., who hails from the Hasbaya District town of al-Hibbariyeh. "The reason behind his crossing into the occupied area is still unknown until the moment," it added.

Maronite patriarch holds the key to Lebanon’s salvation
Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib/Arab News/February 28/2021
Lebanese from all over the country flocked to Bkerke on Saturday to support the master of the house, the Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros Al-Rai. I know Sunni activists from Tripoli and Shiites from Tyre who joined the crowd of supporters. This is “all of Lebanon to Bkerke and Bkerke to all Lebanon,” according to civil society activist Nawal Al-Meouchi, meaning the Maronite patriarch was speaking for all of Lebanon and has the support of all of Lebanon.
The crowd went to support the Maronite cleric after he was the subject of attacks by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who sent him a veiled threat by stating that the patriarch was seeking war. Lebanon is experiencing a deadlock in attempts to form a Cabinet, despite the country sliding into the abyss, as Hezbollah and its Christian ally President Michel Aoun are insisting on having a “blocking third” that would enable them to paralyze the government and give them control over the Cabinet. The patriarch has been calling for the neutrality of Lebanon and an international conference as the Lebanese have been unable to find a solution for themselves. He also called for the prevalence of “legitimate” arms, implying the need for Hezbollah to disarm. These calls by the patriarch resonated with most Lebanese, but there is one issue that should be the starting point for a solution that the patriarch has so far avoided: The resignation of Aoun.
Though the patriarch is on a collision course with Aoun, he has still not called on the president to resign. People close to the master of Bkerke have told me that he does not want to tarnish the presidency, which is the prime position for the Maronites in the Lebanese political system. He also does not want to create a precedent whereby the presidency becomes vulnerable to popular mood swings.
For the Maronite confession, the presidency is sacred, as it is a guarantee of influence amid a changing demography, in which the community’s relative size is decreasing due to immigration. Also, the Taif Agreement that ended the civil war in 1989 removed many of the Christians’ privileges. Their 6-5 majority in parliament was replaced with an equal share with Muslims and many of the powers of the Maronite president were transferred to the prime minister, who is usually a Sunni. Therefore, they view the presidency as their last bastion, especially as the region has been hostile to Christians with the rise of fundamentalist movements such as Daesh in Syria and Iraq.
In order to take this bold step, which could save Lebanon from total collapse, he needs international and, most importantly, popular support.
However, Al-Rai’s attitude does not differ from that of his predecessor, the late Patriarch Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir. Following the assassination of Rafik Hariri in 2005, mass protests erupted demanding the resignation of President Emile Lahoud, who was an ally of the Syrian regime, the main suspect for the killing. Patriarch Sfeir stood firm and announced that the resignation of the president was a red line, despite the fact he did not have good relations with Lahoud.
However, today the situation is different. The protests are not the result of a general political mood but because Lebanon is nearing total collapse. The patriarch faces a conundrum. If the president resigns, there are two possible outcomes. The first is that the current Hezbollah-controlled parliament elects as president one of its two staunch allies, Suleiman Frangieh or Gebran Bassil. This would mean the current disastrous situation would persist for another six years. The other possibility is that the presidency remains vacant and its powers are transferred to the Cabinet, headed by the prime minister. The current prime minister-designate is Saad Hariri, a Sunni. How can the patriarch solve this dilemma of saving Lebanon while also saving the last bastion of Christian privilege in the country? Here a precedent in Lebanese history can be repeated.
In 1952, facing turbulence in the street, President Bechara El-Khoury resigned and appointed army commander Fouad Chehab, a Maronite, as the head of a transitional government that prepared for elections, which brought Camille Chamoun as president and stopped the country descending into turmoil. However, after Taif, the president lost the power to appoint the prime minister. The head of government can only be designated after compulsory consultations with parliament, which brings us back to getting the acquiescence of Hezbollah. Here, international pressure should be put on the group and the president to accept this outcome. Maybe a combination of pressure and guarantees would lead Hezbollah and Aoun to accept the commander of the army as the head of a transitional government of non-partisan technocrats. This government could conduct reforms, allow the space for free and fair parliamentary elections, and restore stolen funds. This path could lead to the salvation of Lebanon.
The head of the army is a Maronite. Though the tradition is for the head of the government to be a Sunni, by law there is nothing preventing a Christian from taking this position. This way, the Maronite confession does not lose its position at the helm of the state and the commander of the army is a consensual figure representing the Lebanese at large and not a specific faction.
The only person who has the legitimacy to make this proposition is the patriarch, who is the legitimate representative of the Maronites in Lebanon. He is the only one who can remove the cover from Aoun. In order to take this bold step, which could save Lebanon from total collapse, he needs international and, most importantly, popular support — as Al-Meouchi said — from Lebanon to Bkerke and from Bkerke to Lebanon.
*Dr. Dania Koleilat Khatib is a specialist in US-Arab relations with a focus on lobbying. She is co-founder of the Research Center for Cooperation and Peace Building, a Lebanese NGO focused on Track II. She is also an affiliate scholar with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.

Lebanon COVID-19 vaccine scandal exposes risk of working with a corrupt government
Makram Rabah/Al Arabiya/February 28/2021
With few things to be optimistic about, the people of Lebanon were jubilant when the World Bank announced in January that it will be allocating $34 million to procure the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for two million Lebanese and non-Lebanese residents. This jubilation was not set to last, however, as Lebanon’s corrupt ruling figures once again failed to maintain their legal and ethical duties.
Days before the arrival of the first patch of vaccine, the World Bank underscored both its full commitment and that of the Lebanese government to the fair and transparent distribution of the vaccine which will ensure the no one skips the line, or so it seemed. The vaccine was earmarked for high-risk health workers, those above 65 years of age, epidemiological and surveillance staff, and people between 55-64 years old with co-morbidities. A few days into Lebanon’s vaccination drive a scandal broke out, with Lebanon’s lawmakers and other high-ranking state officials – including President Aoun and his entourage – receiving the vaccine at parliament house, despite not qualifying as early recipients. The news unleashed an outcry from the Lebanese public and the World Bank who threatened to suspend funding.
To add insult to injury, many of these disgraceful politicians tried to play down this flagrant legal and ethical breach, explaining that they were entitled to receive the vaccine given that they are public servants and adding that the scandal had been exaggerated.
Rather than biting the bullet and backtracking, Lebanon’s Minister of Public Health and Hezbollah’s cabinet representative, Hamad Hassan, cheekily declared that he had taken this so-called sovereign decision himself and to show “appreciation for the MPs’ efforts to pass an emergency approval law for vaccines in seven days.”Lebanon Deputy Speaker of Parliament Elie Ferzli was equally insolent when he launched an all-out attack against the angry public and directed his wrath against World Bank Regional Director of the Mashreq Department, Saroj Kumar, which he demanded be declared a persona non-grata for noting the Lebanese government’s breach of contract and utter disrespect of regulation. Ferzli, a relic of the pre-2005 Syrian occupation who later rebranded himself as a poster child for the Iranian axis, flooded local and regional media outlets and had multiple meltdowns live on TV. Despite the comic aspect his appearances took, they all underscored the incorrigible nature of the entire political establishment, and that the vaccination debacle is merely the tip of the iceberg.
More importantly, the abysmal manner in which the ruling establishment across the border has dealt with the pandemic and the subsequent vaccination response shows lack of vision and above all lack of aptitude.
The preemptive measures, as well as the inconsistency in the implementation of the COVID-19 response plan, reveals a criminal negligence, not to say a conscious drive to discredit all government initiatives, and to force the Lebanese at large to resort to private healthcare options, which more often than not are part of the political elite’s clientelist networks. The Lebanese public’s frustration with the slow pace of the vaccination process will drive them to acquire it from private companies that the Lebanese state has recently sanctioned, a move which will generate millions of dollars to those who already hold power and wealth. At the current pace and miniscule quantities of vaccines being administrated, and because the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is the only available option, Lebanon will take a few years until it reaches the herd immunity stage, as many of its population, both Lebanese and non-Lebanese, are unlikely to get vaccinated. Palestinian and Syrian refugees who constitute around 1.5 million of Lebanon’s inhabitants are unable to get access to vaccines, although World Bank loan provisions have clearly mandated that.
If one is to disregard Lebanon’s vaccination scandal, and the political elite’s unethical nature, the real blame goes towards the international community and the World Bank, which has time and again bankrolled the Lebanese political class’s so-called development projects – many of which have been marred with a lack of transparency and outright fraud and corruption.
The World Bank and its Regional Director Saroj Komar is right to condemn the Lebanese government’s lacks of ethics but equally, all donor agency should bravely admit that they have unwittingly or perhaps maliciously contributed to Lebanon’s downfall by entreating its politicians never-ending empty promises for reform. The vaccine scandal should act as a wake-up call not only to the World Bank, but to any international entity that thinks that pumping money into the pockets of Ferzli and his kind is a sound idea.
Many of those who are engaged in international development truly believe that they are the last line of defense for the people of Lebanon, and thus are willing to disregard flagrant indifference of procedure and perhaps ethics. Yet if they continue in this naive approach, they are not only gullible good-willed participants in the ongoing slaughter of Lebanon and its people, but willing accomplices.

The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News published on February 28- March 01/2021

Syria reports Israeli missile attack near capital, Damascus
AP/February 28, 2021
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations
Israel views Iranian entrenchment on its northern frontier as a red line
DAMASCUS: Syrian air defenses were activated in the capital Damascus and its southern suburbs Sunday night to repel an Israeli missile attack, state media reported. There was no word on casualties. State TV quoted an unnamed military official as saying that most of the Israeli missiles were shot down before reaching their targets near Damascus. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Iran-linked military targets in Syria over the years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations. Israel views Iranian entrenchment on its northern frontier as a red line, and it has repeatedly struck Iran-linked facilities and weapons convoys destined for Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group. The attack comes after the United States launched airstrikes in Syria on Thursday, targeting facilities near the Iraqi border used by Iranian-backed militia groups. The Pentagon said the strikes were retaliation for a rocket attack in Iraq earlier this month that killed one civilian contractor and wounded a US service member and other coalition troops.
 

US condemns Yemen’s Houthis ‘egregious’ attack on Saudi Arabia
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/March 01/2021
The United States condemned the latest attack on Saudi Arabia by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi militias, stressing its commitment to the “longstanding partnership” with the Kingdom, the State Department said on Sunday.
“The United States strongly condemns the Houthis’ attacks on population centers in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, February 27. These attacks threaten not only innocent civilians but also prospects for peace and stability in Yemen,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said. “We call on the Houthis to end these egregious… The United States remains committed to its longstanding partnership with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to helping Saudi Arabia defend its territory as it faces attacks from Iranian-aligned groups,” he added. The Arab Coalition said on Saturday it intercepted a ballistic missile that targeted the Saudi Capital Riyadh launched by the Houthis. Fragments of the missile scattered over several Riyadh neighborhoods, damaging at least one home but no casualties were reported, Saudi's state-run al-Ekhbariya television said. Separately, the coalition said it had intercepted six Houthi drones targeting the Kingdom, including the southern cities of Khamis Mushait and Jizan. US President Joe Biden’s administration revoked a terrorist designation of the Houthis introduced by former President Donald Trump in January. Saudi Arabia maintained that it will continue to treat the Houthis as a terrorist organization regardless of whether the United States decided to designate the group as such, according to the Kingdom's permanent representative to the UN. Biden also announced in February ending US support for the offensive operations of the Arab Coalition which intervened in Yemen 2015. The Arab Coalition supports the internationally recognized government of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against the Houthis. Yemen’s Houthis have recently escalated aerial attacks on civilian areas in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh said a Houthi drone attack caused a fire in a civilian aircraft at an airport in Abha last week.- With Agencies

Israeli defense minister says Iran behind cargo ship explosion
Arab News/February 28, 2021
DUBAI: Iran was most likely behind an explosion that occurred earlier this week on an Israeli-owned cargo vessel in the Gulf of Oman, the Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz said. The MV Helios Ray, which was carrying vehicles in the Gulf was struck on Febriuary 25.“The location of the ship in relative close proximity to Iran raises the belief that Iran was responsible, but it must still be verified," Gantz said in an interview with Israeli state television Kan. “Right now, at an initial assessment level, given the proximity and the context that is my assessment,” he added.And Gantz said that it was known that Iran was intending to target Israeli assets and citizens. Top Israeli defense and political leaders will discuss on Sunday their response to the apparent attack, Kan reported citing officials who have said it "crossed a red line." The explosion did not cause any casualties but left two 1.5-meter-diameter holes in the side of the vessel. The MV Ray Helios arrived in Dubai's port for repairs Sunday, according to the Associated Press. The Israeli-owned MV Helios Ray was seen sitting at dry dock facilities in Dubai by an AP journalist. Reuters quoted a statement by a spokesman for Dubai state port operator DP World saying that “an assessment can be made” when the ship arrives. DP World owns and operates the dry docks, where ship repairs and maintenance are carried out.
Iranian authorities have not publicly commented on the ship.

US disappointed by Iran's latest move on nuclear deal, remains ready to re-engage: WH
Tuqa Khalid, Al Arabiya English/01 March ,2021
The United States is disappointed that Iran said the time was not “suitable” for an informal meeting on reviving the abandoned 2015 nuclear deal, but remained “ready to re-engage” in meaningful diplomacy, a White House spokeswoman said. “While we are disappointed at Iran’s response, we remain ready to reengage in meaningful diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to compliance with JCPOA commitments,” the spokeswoman said, referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or Iran nuclear deal.
She added that Washington would be consulting with its P5+1 partners, the four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council — China, France, Russia, United Kingdom - plus Germany on the best way forward. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said earlier on Sunday: “Considering the recent positions and actions of the United States and the three European countries, [Iran] does not consider the time suitable to hold the informal meeting proposed by the European coordinator [of the deal].”
Standoff
Washington and Tehran are locked in a standoff over reviving nuclear talks.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has signaled to Iran its willingness to return to talks to revive the nuclear deal Former President Donald Trump abandoned in 2018. Biden reversed Trump’s determination that all UN sanctions against Iran had been restored. And the State Department eased stringent restrictions on the domestic travel of Iranian diplomats in New York. Yet, Tehran demanded that all Trump-era sanctions on Iran be lifted before taking any real action to return to the deal. "There has still been no change in US positions and behaviour yet," Khatibzadeh added, saying the Biden administration has continued "Trump's failed policy of maximum pressure". The Iranian regime is trying to get more concessions from Washington before taking any real action, especially in light of growing pressure at home due to economic hardship worsened by the US sanctions. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said last week Iran might enrich uranium up to 60 percent purity if needed, while repeating a denial of any Iranian intent to seek nuclear weapons, for which 90 percent enrichment would be required. The UN's atomic watchdog IAEA reported last week that Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium was more than 14 times over the limit set down in its 2015 nuclear deal. Iran also restricted site inspections by the IAEA after a US refusal to lift existing sanctions, a step Britain, France and Germany condemned as “dangerous.”Biden's administration said it had no plans to take additional steps on Iran before diplomatic conversation, all the while facing mounting pressure from Republican lawmakers to not "give up leverage" and "appease" Tehran by lifting sanctions.- With Agencies
 

Trump says he has no plans to form third party
Reuters/ 01 March ,2021
Former US President Donald Trump told a conservative audience on Sunday he has no plans to start a new party to compete with the Republican Party. Speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida, Trump called reports that he was plotting a form a third party “fake news.” Trump has clashed with Republicans who rejected his bid to overthrow the presidential election and supported his impeachment.

UN Human Rights Office condemns violence escalation in Burma

France Press Agency./01 March ,2021
the country's military leaders to refrain from using force against the peaceful demonstrators, according to the France Press Agency. “We strongly condemn the rise in violence against protesters in Burma, and we call on the army to immediately stop the use of force against peaceful demonstrators," said the spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani.

Foreign Ministry denounces criticism against Swiss ambassador, urges media outlets to be vigilant
NNA/01 March ,2021
In an issued statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants on Sunday, it commented on what was recently mentioned during a TV interview and circulated through social media concerning Swiss Ambassador to Lebanon, Monika Schmutz Kirgöz, whereby the Ministry called on media outlets to "be prudent when dealing with issues related to diplomats and not to attack ambassadors and representatives of countries and organizations accredited in Lebanon while carrying out their diplomatic duty, especially with regards to what was reported about the Swiss ambassador, who respectfully carries out her diplomatic activities aimed at strengthening her country's relations with Lebanon, and who represents a friendly country to Lebanon, sharing bilateral historical ties of cooperation and mutual respect.” The Ministry stressed "the importance of adhering to the principles and norms regarding Lebanon's diplomatic relations, in these circumstances in which Lebanon needs the support and assistance of the international community." It concluded its statement by affirming its "keenness on the proper implementation of the diplomatic treaties and the relevant principles and customs," recalling the stipulations of these treaties in terms of practicing restraint, avoiding internal controversies and limiting communication to official channels.

Turkey, Iran at odds over operations on Iraqi soil
Menekse Tokyay/Arab News/March 01, 2021
Rhetorical tensions will escalate, but direct or proxy conflict highly unlikely: Oxford academic
ANKARA: The diplomatic crisis between Ankara and Tehran has escalated following the latest statement from Iran’s Ambassador to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi, who reiterated an opposition to Turkish military intervention in Iraq, a new move that highlights a broader rivalry between the two countries in the region. “Turkish forces should not pose a threat or violate Iraqi soil,” Masjedi said on Sunday. “We do not accept at all, be it Turkey or any other country, to intervene in Iraq militarily or advance or have a military presence in Iraq,” he said, calling on Ankara to withdraw its troops from Iraq and respect international borders. “The security of the Iraqi area should be maintained by Iraqi forces and (Kurdistan) region forces in their area,” he said. Turkey has deployed several military outposts deep inside Iraqi territories for decades to eradicate the presence of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Its forces conduct aerial and ground cross-border operations, which have increased in recent years.
These operations have recently drawn anger from Baghdad over territorial violations of Turkish forces and aircraft. But Ankara has continued airstrikes in the Kurdistan region of Iraq to kill senior members of the PKK. The latest Turkish operation on Feb. 19 to free 13 nationals held captive by the PKK for many years failed in the Gara mountains in northern Iraq. While Ankara accused the PKK of killing the prisoners during the operation, the PKK asserted that Turkey fortuitously bombed the cave where the captives were held. The Iran-backed Iraqi militia, the Popular Mobilization Units also known as Hashd Al-Shabi, has deployed three brigades to Sinjar along the Syrian border to counter Turkish moves in the region. Ankara summoned the Iranian envoy on Sunday following his remarks on Iraq operations. “Ankara expects Iran to support, not oppose, Turkey’s fight against terrorism,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry reportedly told the ambassador. “The Ambassador of Iran would be the last person to lecture Turkey about respecting the borders of Iraq,” said the Turkish Ambassador to Iraq Fatih Yildiz. Turkey recently arrested an Iranian official Mohammad Reza Naserzadeh over the killing of an Iranian dissident, Masoud Molavi Vardanjani, who was murdered in Istanbul in November 2019. This move further strained ties between Turkey and Iran. “Turkish-Iranian relations are set to become more turbulent,” Galip Dalay, an associate fellow at Chatham House in London, told Arab News.
“Iraq still stands as the most important Middle Eastern country for Iran. The increased military presence and political leverage of Turkey in northern Iraq increasingly disturbs Iran, while the Iraqi central government would not welcome any Turkish operation into Sinjar,” Dalay added. According to Samuel Ramani, an academic and analyst at Oxford University, Turkey-Iran relations are volatile, as phases of escalated competition and cooperation quickly follow each other.
Ramani told Arab News: “Right now, we are entering a phase of heightened competition, as Turkey sees a rising security threat from the PKK in Iraq, while Iran’s relationship with Iraqi Kurdistan has a positive moment following Iran’s most-senior commander Qassem Soleimani’s death last year.”
He added that Turkey’s expanded bilateral engagement with Iraq threatens Iran’s aspirations for hegemony, and that Iran is trying to capitalize on latent discontent in Baghdad with expansive Turkish military operations that violate Iraqi sovereignty.“There is a broader context of tension between Turkey and Iran. Russia-Iran relations are growing in the Caspian region to counter Turkey, Ankara has arrested alleged Iranian spies and both countries are disagreeing over the situation in northern Syria, especially Ayn Issa,” he said. Given the broader state of tensions, Ramani expects Turkey and Iran to continue having a rhetorical war of words about the legitimacy of Ankara’s anti-PKK operations and of Iran’s interference in Iraq, but direct conflict between Iranian and Turkish forces or local allies is unlikely. But Dalay expects that a US-supported Turkish operation into Sinjar is highly likely. He said that if the ongoing crisis between Hashd Al-Shabi and Ankara escalates, Iran is likely to be drawn into this regional equation. “Hashd Al-Shabi provides a cover to the PKK in the region, while the presence of Shingal Resistance Units, a Yazidi militia that collaborates with Hashd Al-Shabi, could trigger an international awareness about the Yazidi religious minority,” he said.
 

Diplomats: Iran Rejects Offer of Direct US Nuclear Talks
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 28 February, 2021
Iran rejected a European Union offer to arrange direct nuclear talks with the US, senior diplomats told The Wall Street Journal. Two senior Western diplomats said Iran has ruled out attending a meeting in Europe for now, saying it wanted a guarantee first that the US would lift some sanctions after the meeting. Washington had said it would attend the talks, which the EU had hoped to host in the coming days, said the report. However, the Biden administration had refused to provide sanctions relief before face-to-face negotiations with Iran had taken place. Diplomats told The Wall Street Journal that Iran’s rejection didn’t kill off all hopes of direct negotiations in coming months and that Tehran’s move might be an attempt to gain leverage in future talks. The US patience with Iran on returning to discussions over the 2015 nuclear deal is “not unlimited,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Wednesday. “Our patience is not unlimited, but we do believe, and the president has been clear on this ... that the most effective way to ensure Iran could never acquire a nuclear weapon was through diplomacy,” Price said.

At Least 18 Killed in Myanmar on Bloodiest Day of Protests
Asharq Al-Awsat/Sunday, 28 February, 2021
Myanmar police killed at least 18 protesters after firing on them around the country on Sunday in the bloodiest day of weeks of demonstrations against a military coup, the UN human rights office said. "Police and military forces have confronted peaceful demonstrations, using lethal force and less-than-lethal force that – according to credible information received by the UN Human Rights Office – has left at least 18 people dead and over 30 wounded," it said. Myanmar has been in chaos since the army seized power and detained elected government leader Aung San Suu Kyi and much of her party leadership on Feb. 1, alleging fraud in a November election her party won in a landslide. The coup, which brought a halt to tentative steps towards democracy after nearly 50 years of military rule, has drawn hundreds of thousands onto the streets and the condemnation of Western countries. Junta leader General Min Aung Hlaing said last week authorities were using minimal force to deal with the protests. Nevertheless, at least 21 protesters have now died in the turmoil. The army said a policeman had been killed. "We are heartbroken to see the loss of so many lives in Myanmar. People should not face violence for expressing dissent against the military coup. Targeting of civilians is abhorrent," the US embassy said. The Canadian Embassy said it was appalled. Indonesia, which has taken a diplomatic lead within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) on the crisis, expressed deep concern.
 

Turkey Protests to Iran Envoy in Iraq Row
Agence France Presse/February 28/2021
Turkey on Sunday summoned Iran's envoy to Ankara to demand support in the fight against "terrorism", escalating a rumbling row over Turkey's presence in Iraq, state media reported. Iran and Turkey are rivals in several parts of the Middle East and Central Asia but both have carried out operations against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. Earlier this month, Turkey accused Kurdish militants of killing 12 Turks and an Iraqi who were being held hostage in northern Iraq, The incident prompted Iranian envoy to Baghdad Iraj Masjedi to warn that Turkish forces should not "pose a threat or violate Iraqi soil". "We do not accept at all, be it Turkey or any other country, to intervene in Iraq militarily or advance or have a military presence in Iraq," Masjedi was quoted as saying in an interview broadcast on Saturday. Turkey's Baghdad envoy Fatih Yildiz quickly hit back, writing on Twitter that Iran's ambassador was "the last person to lecture Turkey" about respecting Iraq's borders. Turkish foreign ministry officials summoned Iranian ambassador Mohammad Farazmand and told him Turkey expected Iran to be on its side in the "fight against terrorism", state news agency Anadolu said. Ministry officials also told the ambassador Turkey "strongly rejected" the envoy's comments, insisting that Ankara always informed relevant parties including Baghdad of its plans to target militants. Turkey has launched multiple air strikes targeting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) bases in northern Iraq including the areas of Kandil and Sinjar. The PKK, which has fought an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies. Turkey bombed a mountainous region close to Sinjar last month and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Ankara could launch military action to get rid of "terrorists" in the area. But the Iranian ambassador to Baghdad hit out at Turkey's plans. "What has Sinjar got to do with Turkey," he asked. "Iraqis themselves must resolve this issue."

U.N. Says 18 Killed, 30 Hurt in Myanmar on Sunday
Agence France Presse/February 28/2021
The U.N. rights office said it had credible information that at least 18 people had been killed in Sunday's crackdown on protesters in Myanmar as it strongly condemned the violence. Myanmar security forces opened fire on protesters, killing at least eight, according to AFP sources in the country including rescue workers, in the bloodiest action so far to smother opposition to the military coup four weeks ago. "We strongly condemn the escalating violence against protests in Myanmar and call on the military to immediately halt the use of force against peaceful protesters," Ravina Shamdasani, spokeswoman for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said in a statement. "Throughout the day, in several locations throughout the country, police and military forces have confronted peaceful demonstrations, using lethal force and less-than-lethal force that -- according to credible information received by the U.N. Human Rights Office -- has left at least 18 people dead and over 30 wounded. "Deaths reportedly occurred as a result of live ammunition fired into crowds in Yangon, Dawei, Mandalay, Myeik, Bago and Pokokku. Tear gas was also reportedly used in various locations as well as flash-bang and stun grenades."AFP could not independently confirm the UN toll. Myanmar's junta is battling to contain a massive street movement demanding it yield power and release ousted civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who was detained along with top political allies at the start of the month.
'Bloody repression'
Shamdasani said the use of lethal force against non-violent demonstrators was never justifiable under international human rights norms. "The people of Myanmar have the right to assemble peacefully and demand the restoration of democracy," she said. "These fundamental rights must be respected by the military and police, not met with violent and bloody repression." The office of UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet also reiterated a call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained, including members of the elected government. "The police and security forces have targeted an ever-increasing number of opposition voices and demonstrators by arresting political officials, activists, civil society members, journalists and medical professionals," said Shamdasani. "Today alone, police have detained at least 85 medical professionals and students, as well as seven journalists, who were present at the demonstrations. "Over 1,000 individuals have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in the last month -- some of whom remain unaccounted for -- mostly without any form of due process, simply for exercising their human rights to freedom of opinion, expression and peaceful assembly. "The international community must stand in solidarity with the protesters and all those seeking a return to democracy in Myanmar."

Russian dissident Navalny arrives at his exclusion zone to serve his sentence later
NNA/February 28/2021
A Russian government agency announced today that opposition member Alexei Navalny has arrived in an area 200 kilometers east of Moscow, where he will be transferred later to a penal colony to serve his sentence, according to the French Press Agency. The General Surveillance Committee in Moscow said: "Alexei Navalny arrived at the Russian Prisons Institution in the Vladimir region to implement his sentence," explaining that he would first be subject to quarantine before being transferred to one of the penal colonies in the region.
 

Houthis claim attacks against Riyadh, pledge to carry out wider operations
NNA/February 28/2021
Houthi rebels in Yemen took responsibility today for the ballistic missile and drone attacks against the Saudi capital, Riyadh, and other regions in the Kingdom, threatening of "wider" attacks, as their military spokesman said, according to France Press. "The Houthis used a ballistic missile and 15 drones in the attacks against Riyadh, which did not result in any casualties," said Yehia Saree, as reported by Al-Masirah TV Channel.
 

Canada/Statement by Minister of Foreign Affairs on Myanmar
February 28, 2021 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada
The Honourable Marc Garneau, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today issued the following statement:
“Canada is deeply concerned by and unequivocally condemns the Myanmar military’s recent use of force against peaceful protesters, and demands that the Tatmadaw immediately stop using violence against its own people.
“On Friday, at the United Nations General Assembly, the international community condemned the actions of the Tatmadaw and urged the restoration of democracy in Myanmar.
“In response to peaceful civilian protests across the country calling for the restoration of democracy, the Tatmadaw has used appalling violence, including lethal force, on its own people.
“No regime that would use force to suppress the democratically expressed will of its people can be legitimate.
“We call on the international community to unite in condemning these violent acts. “Those responsible for this violence will be held to account, and Canada will consider additional measures in response. We stand with the people of Myanmar.”
 

The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on February 28- March 01/2021

Deadly consequences of indulging Iran’s hostage diplomacy
Baria Alamuddin/Arab News/February 28/2021
The Islamic Republic of Iran was born out of hostage taking, and it continues to reap billions of dollars by abducting foreign nationals and assets, while holding entire nations to ransom.
Lebanon is one such hostage state. Iran and Hezbollah are actively blocking any kind of political formula for saving Lebanon from catastrophe, until the Biden administration caves into Tehran’s nuclear demands. Hezbollah and its allies are deliberately obstructing Saad Hariri’s Cabinet-forming efforts with impossible demands (“blocking thirds,” additional ministers, monopolies over specific departments, and so on). Meanwhile the economy disintegrates, sectarian tensions boil, and even middle-class families are on the brink of starvation.
Hezbollah also holds Lebanese citizens hostage by leaving the nation perpetually hanging on the brink of war with Israel. While Hezbollah’s leaders hide deep underground, or in Tehran, citizens become huma -shields, with weapons factories, missile positions and ammunition stores placed in densely populated regions. Almost every day I speak to Lebanese terrified that their home next to the airport or other strategic locations will be hit when conflict erupts.
Israel uses the same murderous logic of holding Lebanese citizens hostage. Defense Minister Benny Gantz threatened that if fighting starts “Lebanon will be the one to pay the heaviest of prices for the weapons that have been scattered in civilian population centers.”
By keeping Yemen, Syria and Iraq in a state of constant turmoil, these nations are also hostages to Tehran’s foreign policy of ceaseless confrontation. Iranian proxy missile attacks against American bases are a blunt threat that if the US refuses to compromise, Iraq will erupt in flames. Biden’s retaliatory strikes against militia bases in remote Syria border regions thus smartly sidestepped Tehran’s desire to see civilians killed in the crossfire.
The ayatollahs discover over and over again that crime pays — billions of dollars at a time. Eye-watering ransoms can be comparable to the annual sum with which Iran subsidizes Hezbollah, estimated at $700 million. For example:
Tehran is demanding over $500 million owed by Britain from a Shah-era arms deal in exchange for the release of British-Iranian citizen Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
Barack Obama in 2015 dispatched $400 million in cash to Tehran, coinciding with the release of five US hostages.
The Islamic Republic of Iran was born out of hostage taking, and it continues to reap billions of dollars by abducting foreign nationals and assets, while holding entire nations to ransom.
An estimated $500 million ransom was paid for Qatari royals kidnapped by an Iranian proxy in Iraq. Quds Force’s Qassim Soleimani was personally allocated $50 million.
Seoul is due to release $1 billion, part of $7 billion in funds frozen by US sanctions, as an “initial step” in releasing a South Korean oil tanker hijacked by Iran.
The world first witnessed what sort of beast Iran is when the US Embassy in Tehran was overrun in 1979. Fifty diplomatic staff were held hostage until the Regan administration brokered a deal by persuading Israel to export billions of dollars’ worth of arms to Tehran’s militantly anti-Israel ayatollahs. Throughout the 1980s, dozens of Westerners were taken hostage by Hezbollah and exploited for Iran’s political gain.
No other state uses hostage-taking as systematically as Iran. Innocent individuals are detained on falsified espionage charges meriting life imprisonment or execution. Coerced confessions are extracted by torture, solitary confinement, or threats to family members.
Iranian-Swedish researcher Ahmadreza Djalali has been sentenced to death, apparently in retaliation for assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists, presumably by Israel. Arab-Iranian activist Habib Chaab was lured from his home in Sweden to Istanbul, where he was abducted, and now faces a death sentence in Iran.
Detained academic Kylie Moore-Gilbert in 2020 was exchanged for three Iranian terrorists jailed in Thailand for their part in a botched bombing campaign. Iran would usually leave its own citizens to rot, but when Republican Guard terrorists are at stake the ayatollahs are happy to negotiate.
Foreign Minister Javad Zarif freely acknowledges such “hostage diplomacy,” saying that if Iranian prisoners are released abroad “Iran is ready to reciprocate.”
The civilized world appears incapable of responding, other than a recent Canadian initiative against “coercive diplomacy,” and France, Germany and Britain summoning Iran’s ambassadors in protest. Such feeble measures only encourage the morally bankrupt ayatollahs to demand bigger ransoms.
Biden’s national security adviser says they “have begun to communicate with the Iranians” over US hostages, and the issue is a “significant priority.” But how can Britain and America be negotiating on a level playing field over the nuclear issue while Iran is holding their citizens ransom? America insists on keeping such issues separate, but Iran views its nuclear program, hostages, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen as additional negotiating cards.
Most developed nations refuse to do deals with kidnappers, but when the abductor is a state, billions of dollars are handed over — only for Iran to kidnap new victims, and the farcical process starts over again.
When innocent mothers face psychological torture in solitary confinement, states such as Britain and Sweden, which value their citizens, feel under immense moral pressure to cut deals. However, these billion-dollar sums (direct ransoms or unfrozen funds) are immediately funneled back to terrorist and paramilitary groups with the blood of thousands of innocent people on their hands.
States that routinely employ hostage taking as a diplomatic tool should be treated not as states, but as criminal gangs. They should be thrown out of every international body including the UN, and not given the privilege of direct negotiations with the US and other civilized nations until they permanently modify their behavior.
By doing deals with terrorist states we perpetuate murder and terrorism. Hezbollah prospers and holds the Lebanese nation at gunpoint based on the bountiful profits of Iran’s “hostage diplomacy,” along with revenues from narcotics, weapons and people smuggling.
Such systematic criminality is fundamentally woven into the Islamic Republic’s DNA, and until we deal with Tehran according to this premise, we only perpetuate this cycle of new generations of innocent victims held to ransom.
*Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.

Ten Years Ago
Frederic C. Hof/Asharq Al-Awsat /February 28/2021
On February 28, 2011, American diplomacy reached a critical and promising point in its effort to produce peace between Syria and Israel. Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad told the US mediator he would break military ties with Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas and neutralize all threats to Israel arising in Syria, provided Israel would agree to restore to Syria all land taken from it in June 1967. Informed days later of Assad’s conditional commitment, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu acknowledged the seriousness of the mediation and directed his team to move forward toward a peace treaty based on an evolving American draft.
Two weeks later, however, opportunity began to change to horror. Syrian security personnel had opened fire on peaceful demonstrators. Governmental lawlessness raised a fundamental question: Did Bashar al-Assad still have the right to speak for Syria on something so important as peace with Israel?
As demonstrations expanded across Syria and official security forces continued to inflict deadly violence, the answer became clear: No, he did not. Assad’s violent lawlessness shredded his legitimacy as Syria’s chief of state.
Ten years later Syria lies in ruins, exploited by Russian military officers making money from Assad-directed contracts and Iranian operatives using Syria as a land link to Tehran’s Hezbollah proxy in Lebanon. Al Qaeda and the remnants of ISIS remain implanted in a country whose president promoted their growth to claim he was battling terrorism rather than inflicting state terror on Syrian civilians. The corruption and incompetence of the family and its entourage have destroyed Syria’s economy. More than half the pre-war population has been displaced both inside Syria and externally as refugees. Who knows how many defenseless civilians have been killed, mostly by Assad-directed artillery, airstrikes, and barrel bombs; carnage supplemented by Russian airstrikes? A clique blind to the suffering of Syrians has made Damascus the Pyongyang of the Levant.
The destruction of Syria has been senseless. A Syrian President seemingly committed to retrieving occupied territory in exchange for Syria’s strategic reorientation threw it all away. And for what? Yes, he and his entourage continue to strip-mine what is left of Syria for personal profit. But is presiding over wreckage better than what might have been? Was there no honorable and peaceful alternative to waging war on one’s own people? Were the potential economic dividends of peace worthless?
The “alternative” question is probably unanswerable. Syria’s President and his (then) popular First Lady could have gone to Deraa in March 2011, returning imprisoned and beaten children to their parents, providing compensation to the aggrieved, and ordering his forces to their barracks, all accompanied no doubt by a firm demand for order. But nonviolence, decency, generosity, and respect for human dignity seem never to have been elements of the Assad approach to Syrians. One possibility is that Assad deliberately used violence to cancel his conditional peace commitments and escape the US mediation. No one forced him to make those commitments; he offered them all during a fifty-minute meeting. One wonders, however, if in the weeks following his promise of full strategic reorientation, Bashar al-Assad had second thoughts about Iran’s likely reaction and the domestic political implications of peace. In any event he has all-but-deeded to Israel the land he said he wanted returned to Syria. “Assad Heights” would be a better name for Israel’s new Golan settlement than “Trump Heights.”
Another possibility is that Assad either was told by his security chieftains to order violence or did so on his own out of fear of seeming weak. Yet the idea of Assad privately preferring nonviolence seems decisively contradicted by his behavior since. He has authorized the use of chemical weapons against civilians, including children. His political survival strategy has centered on civilian mass homicide. He has promoted violent Islamist extremists as his enemies of choice. Would such a person have been capable of considering humane alternatives ten years ago?
Now a new American administration ponders what to do about the incendiary wreckage that is Syria. Assad, maneuvering between the Russian Foreign Ministry, avaricious senior Russian military officers, and Iran makes it clear to all, especially the UN Special Envoy for Syria, that political compromise is not on his agenda. The man who has uttered not a syllable of regret for what has happened to Syria and Syrians is determined to keep his seat at all costs. Yet even those who have grudgingly supported him for years are intimately familiar with the reality of cost: Lives sacrificed for the sake of a family business; and now economic ruin.
Ten years on Assad hopes the US will reengage him diplomatically and lavish reconstruction funds on him and his entourage. The view here is that such hopes are illusory.
Too many key officials in the Biden administration now recognize that a red line erased in 2013 and public presidential advice in 2016 that Arabs should “share the neighborhood” with Iran harmed Western security and damaged American credibility far beyond Syria. The new administration will study its options carefully. It is profoundly unlikely, however, that President Biden would repeat past policy failures by abandoning Syrian political transition – mandated by the UN Security Council – as the foundation of his Syria policy.
Ten years of useless, mainly Assad-imposed agony have plunged upwards of 80 percent of Syrians into poverty, all-but-wiping out a small but productive middle class. Hundreds of thousands of Syrians have died. Countless Syrians have been maimed and traumatized, both physically and psychologically. Tens of thousands remain in regime torture chambers. All this to preserve a family business; a business that might have thrived and evolved politically into something more inclusive and representative if it had made pragmatic and humane choices a decade ago. But was it even capable of doing so? Syria’s condition in 2021 suggests the answer: No.
*Ambassador Frederic C. Hof teaches at Bard College in New York. In 2009 to March 2011, he mediated between Syria and Israel. He then served as advisor to the US Secretary of State on political transition in Syria until September 2012. His book on the Israel-Syria peace mediation is forthcoming.

US ‘Conditional Proposal’ to Assad and Netanyahu 2011: Abandon Iran in Exchange for Restoring Golan
 Ibrahim Hamidi/Asharq Al-Awsat /February 28/2021
Asharq Al-Awsat reveals details of last chapter in negotiations between Syria and Israel
President Bashar Assad meets with John Kerry when he was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Nov, 8, 2010. AP file photo
Syria and Israel, through American mediation, were on the verge of signing a peace agreement in February 2011, just before the “Arab Spring” protests broke out. The American mediator drafted an agreement that “went further than any previous document.” It included Damascus’ pledge to sever “military ties” with Iran and the Hezbollah party in Lebanon and “neutralizing” any Israeli threat, in exchange for its reclaiming of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, based on the June 4, 1967 border.
This was confirmed to Asharq Al-Awsat by officials who were involved in the negotiations, which were held by Syrian President Bashar Assad and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and mediated by American envoy Frederic Hof. The negotiations also included at least two meetings with the participation of late Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem, legal advisor Riad Daoudi and former US Ambassador to Damascus Robert Ford. Then US President Barack Obama and his Vice President Joe Biden, the current president, were aware of these secret negotiations, which ex-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was also heavily involved in. No official statement over these negotiations was made by Damascus, which has long expressed its commitment to restoring all Golan territories and maintaining the “strategic relationship with Iran”.
Enticing offer
Former US Secretary of State John Kerry shed light on the secret talks. In his book “Every Day Is Extra”, he revealed that Assad had sent Obama a proposal to establish peace with Israel. When informed of the proposal, Netanyahu was very surprised with it. Kerry revealed that when he served as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he visited Damascus in 2009 where he met with Assad to tackle a number of issues including a peace deal with Israel given that previous attempts by the governments of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Netanyahu (1996-1999) ended in failure.
Kerry wrote: “Assad asked me what it would take to enter into serious peace negotiations [with Israel], in the hope of securing return of the Golan Heights, which Syria had lost to Israel in 1967. I told him that if he were serious, he should make a private proposal.”
“He asked what it would look like. I shared my thoughts. He instructed his top aide to draft a letter from Assad to President Obama,” he added. Assad, in his letter, had asked Obama to sponsor a fresh round of Syria-Israel peace talks, expressing his readiness “to take a number of steps in exchange for the return of the Golan from Israel”.
The next day, Kerry flew to Israel where he met with Netanyahu, who had returned to power. Netanyahu, recalled Kerry “was surprised that Assad was willing to go that far, significantly further than he’d been willing to go [previously].”
Kerry said that after meeting with Netanyahu, he returned to Washington with the “Assad offer”. The Obama administration tried to test the extent of the Syrian president’s seriousness by demanding “confidence-building measures” towards the US and Israel, including stopping some arms shipments to Hezbollah, which did not happen.
“I remember hearing that Assad was continuing with exactly the kind of behavior on Hezbollah that we told him needed to stop. It was disappointing but unsurprising,” wrote Kerry.
Iranian strikes
With the launch of peace negotiations in wake of the 1991 Madrid peace conference, overtures between Syria and Israel were made and peaked when Rabin held the so-called “four-legged table” negotiations. They focused on the withdrawal, peace relations, security arrangements and the timetable. Meetings included the Syrian and Israeli chiefs of staff, as well as secret and open negotiations that covered a commitment towards a “complete withdrawal” from the Golan and studying the possibility of “establishing normal peace relations”, security arrangements and opening embassies and border gates along the June 4, 1967 border.
After Rabin was assassinated in November 1995, Peres tried to “soar in the sky with a peace deal with Syria”, rushing to hold negotiations to reach a treaty. Indeed, in early 1996 bilateral negotiations were held but they collapsed after a series of suicide attacks in Tel Aviv, Ashkelon and Jerusalem.
At the time, the Israeli delegation informed its Syrian counterpart during talks in the US that “Iran is behind the attacks because it wants the negotiations to fail” and that “Syria must condemn the terrorist operations,” revealed an informed source. The negotiations ultimately collapsed and Peres launched Operation Grapes of Wrath in Lebanon, which marked the end of his time in government.
Netanyahu then came to power in 1996. Late Syrian President Hafez al-Assad “negotiated” with him through an American mediator, businessman Ronald Lauder, over a “very advanced” detailed agreement in 1998. Netanyahu was succeeded by Ehud Barak, who resumed the negotiations and held a meeting with former Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa. The talks were sponsored by former US President Bill Clinton. Barak offered an Israeli withdrawal from the Golan towards the June 4 border in exchange for peace and security arrangements. Intense work meetings were held in Shepherdstown near Washington, with attention focused on the thorny water file. The Israelis said that the issue was a “red line” and the Americans offered a “working paper” equivalent to a draft peace treaty.
In early 2000, Barak informed the Americans at the conclusion of another round of negotiations that he could not strike a peace deal because of the “complicated internal situation” that demanded he head back to Israel. He pledged to return to Shepherdstown, but never did.
The final shot at negotiations by a then ailing Hafez Assad was made in March 2000 when he met with Clinton in Geneva. Those talks also collapsed after 20 minutes due to a dispute over Syria’s access to the shores of Lake Tiberias and Clinton’s proposal of a map, which was previously rejected by Assad, of the June 4 border and Tiberias shore.
President Bashar Assad came to power in mid-2000. When Syria was confronted with international isolation following the assassination of Lebanese former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, Damascus started to show some flexibility in its desire to hold negotiations with Tel Aviv. It sought to “end the isolation imposed by Washington by holding negotiations with Tel Aviv.” Turkey sponsored the talks, which were held in 2008. The discussions were advanced enough to begin considering the possibility of arranging direct telephone negotiations between Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Assad and then Israeli PM Ehud Olmert in late 2008. The efforts collapsed when Israel launched an operation against the Gaza Strip in December of that year.
The European and American isolation eventually ended. Robert Ford was then appointed ambassador to Damascus in 2010. Washington built on previous efforts, including those exerted by Ankara, and on the Obama administration’s desire to activate the peace path. To that end, it had appointed envoy George Mitchell to test the waters in the Syrian-Israeli negotiations, which remained secret and whom very few figures in each of the involved countries knew about.
On the American side, everyone from Obama, Biden, Clinton, national security advisor Tom Donilon, American Ambassador to Tel Aviv Dan Shapiro and Ford in Damascus knew of the talks. On the Syrian side, the officials who were informed of the talks, in varying degrees, included Assad, Muallem and Daoudi. The latter two had held rounds of talks with Hof and Ford. In Israel, Hof’s meetings were limited to Netanyahu at the official residence of the prime minister. The meetings were attended by then Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Assad-Hof
The final meeting held as part of this mediation took place between Assad and Hof on February 28, 2011, at the height of the “Arab Spring” that had ousted regimes in Libya and Egypt and whose protests had started to break out in Damascus. Hof, who had worked on drafting the agreement, recalled that some proposals included Damascus’ abandoning of “military relations” with Tehran and Hezbollah in exchange for the Israeli withdrawal from the Golan towards the June 4 border.
Hof is a former US military commander and expert in the demarcation of borders of disputed areas. Back in the early 1990s, he was the first official to draw the June 4 border on the ground. Ford told Asharq Al-Awsat that upon his arrival in Damascus, Hof requested that the ambassador not attend his meeting with Assad. Ford agreed on condition that “that Hof sleep at the ambassador's residence”.
“I telephoned him on an open line so that Syrian intelligence could overhear our conversation. I said, ‘I agree on condition that you and your aide sleep at the ambassador’s residence, so that the Syrians know that we are a single team.’ And this is indeed what happened. Hof later informed me of the details of the meeting, I leave it to him to disclose” what took place during talks with Assad and with the negotiations as a whole.
According to Israeli reports in 2012, Hof’s documents revealed that the negotiations were based on Netanyahu’s readiness to return to the June 4 border, allowing Damascus complete control over the Golan, in exchange for a comprehensive peace deal that includes an Israeli “expectation” that Syria would sever ties with Iran.
Officials who were informed of the talks said Hof was “confident that peace was possible, whereby Assad would end his relations with Iran and Hezbollah and shift his alliances towards America and moderate Arab countries.”
One official told Asharq Al-Awsat: “I did not see the peace agreement draft. It was the beginning of negotiations, not the end.” Another official said: “It was not clear whether the two sides had agreed on a specific timetable or a resolution to the water issue in the Golan. Syria was saying that Israel had no claim over waters beyond the June 4 border. Israel, however, said that even if it could not deploy its military beyond that border, it wanted to maintain logistic presence that would allow it access to the water.”
The water dispute and shore of Tiberias Lake were one of the reasons of the collapse of the Assad-Clinton summit in 2000. Assad at the time had insisted that he wanted to “dip his feet” in the lake, which Barak rejected at the time. In fact, the Israelis paved a road around the shore, making it virtually impossible for the Syrians to access it without a clear agreement.
Some said that the Hof mediation was “conditional-hypothetical”, similar to what had taken place in the mid-1990s when then US Secretary of State Warren Christopher led negotiations by posing “hypothetical” questions to Hafez Assad. “What if Rabin pledged to withdraw fully from the Golan? Are you ready to forge peace (normalize) ties?” At the time, Rabin had placed a “deposit” with Christopher that included the readiness to pullout completely from the Golan if Assad agreed to demands that included peace relations and security arrangements.
One of the officials informed of the Hof mediation said that Netanyahu was “prepared to withdraw completely from the Golan if the Syrians agreed to a peace agreement that includes changing regional approaches and severing ties with Iran.”
A former American official, who is informed of the file, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “There can be no doubt on the seriousness. The negotiations were conditional. The Israelis wanted strategic change in the Syrian approach. Syria wanted to reclaim all territories until the June 4 border. A lot of progress had taken place between both sides.”
“America had no doubt over the seriousness of the negotiations. Assad and Netanyahu were serious in finding out how far the other would go,” he added. “Moreover, great progress, more than ever before, was achieved with Netanyahu over the issue of territories. Hof’s meeting with Assad on February 28 gave a clear signal of what Assad could offer.”
The Americans are keen on stressing that the written draft of the agreement was American. “This is important because envoy George Mitchel did not draft any paper between Netanyahu and [Palestinian] President Mahmoud Abbas (Abou Mazen).” The Americans are also keen to stress that no direct Syrian-Israeli meeting had taken place, but the negotiations had been held through Hof.
Confidence-building
The last attempt at negotiations gains importance on the eve of the tenth anniversary of the eruption of the Syrian protests, especially for Moscow, the main player in Syria that is leading a “confidence-building” mediation between Damascus and Tel Aviv. This meditation includes a prisoner swap, repatriating the remains of Israeli soldiers, sponsoring a return to working with the “disengagement agreement” in the Golan of 2018 and keeping Iran and its militias away from southern Syria.
Another area of significance is word that some Arab countries are interested in opening channels between Damascus and Israel or holding secret meetings to test the possibility of striking a peace agreement and keeping Iran away in exchange for financial “incentives” related to reconstructing Syria and resolving its economic problems.
Tel Aviv did not openly express interest in the political negotiations, especially after President Donald Trump announced in 2019 his support for “Israeli sovereignty” over the Golan and as it has continued to carry out raids against “Iranian positions” in Syria. Damascus, for its part, has not openly expressed interest in peace that does not include a “complete withdrawal” from the Golan and that may “jeopardize its strategic relations with Iran.”
Ford, meanwhile, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “It will be difficult for Assad to presently sign a peace deal with Israel unless he receives a lot in return, because he currently needs the support provided by Iran, its militias and Hezbollah. If they pull out from Syria, who will help the regime control the Syrian Badia, Homs, Sweida and parts of Daraa?”
“Will Damascus obtain western financial aid even if Assad were to sign a peace agreement and open an Israeli embassy in Damascus? It is difficult for the money to flow and for the sanctions to be removed after all the crimes that have taken place in Syria,” he remarked. “Some American sanctions may be removed, such as those related to the blacklisting of terrorist organizations, meddling in Lebanon or the arrival of Arab or European aid. However, the Caesar Act (which came into effect in mid-2020) cannot be simply undone.”
“Assad will not receive any sympathy in America even if a peace agreement is signed. There are limits to what can be offered in exchange to any peace deal,” he added.
Meanwhile, an Arab official, who is informed of Damascus’ position, said: “It is difficult for the regime to agree to sign a peace agreement without receiving a clear guarantee that it will reclaim the whole of the Golan. It is also difficult for the regime to completely disassociate itself from Iran.”
Between these two stances, a senior official, who is informed of the position in Syria, Israel, the region and the US, said: “Perhaps this was the final chapter in efforts to reach a peace agreement between Syria and Israel in the form we have been familiar with in past decades. At best, a new agreement or understanding may be reached, but it will be different than what we have read about and negotiated over for decades.”
 

It Dates Back to Before Khashoggi’s Killing!
Tariq Al-Homayed/Asharq Al-Awsat /February 28/2021
The content of a recent US intelligence report on the killing of Jamal Khashoggi reveals that the issue dates back to before Khashoggi’s death-- which was a crime by all standards and whose perpetrators were tried by the state which also bore the moral burden of the murder of one of its citizens.
Information provided by the intelligence report, which heavily relied on analysis and speculation, does not even qualify for getting published in an article of a reputable newspaper. Neither evidence nor facts worth checking were presented. This makes it clear that the case is much older and more complex than what was perceived. It all started with former US President Barack Obama taking office and acting on his crystal-clear desire to withdraw from the Middle East and strike a nuclear deal with Iran. But the truth was much greater than reaching an agreement with Tehran. Obama wanted to exit the region by recognizing Iran as a power Washington can have relations with and that has a right in the Middle East. His administration also sought to empower Islamists, namely the Muslim Brotherhood, under the pretext of their moderation and according to an ideology, not a strategy. This was confronted by a strong Saudi position.
At the time, the kingdom took a decisive stand in defending Egypt, the state, and saving Bahrain from what was falsely linked to Arab Spring protests. Saudi Arabia’s direction went against the Obama administration's views, prompting the latter to launch an organized campaign for vilifying the former. Indeed, Khashoggi’s killing is a crime. But the demonization of Saudi Arabia started early on; taking place right after the kingdom opposed the unfair nuclear agreement with Iran, Obama's reckless stances regarding the Arab Spring, and Washington sympathizing with Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood while failing the Syrian popular revolution to please Tehran.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the US intelligence report contains speculation and analysis without providing any substantial information. Its tone primarily aimed at casting Saudi Arabia in an evil light, shocking even US media outlets that are vocally critical of the kingdom.
Clearly, the new US administration was shocked that the preceding Trump administration was right when it said that the report does not contain anything important. Nevertheless, the Biden administration was involved in keeping electoral promises and had succumbed to left-wing pressure.
Publishing the intelligence report created the noise needed to show that the Biden administration was sticking to its election campaign pledges. Although it went on to deal with Riyadh normally, the Biden administration is following in the footsteps of the Obama-era agenda for demonizing Saudi Arabia.
For that reason, we have to be wary of this political pastime of vilifying Saudi Arabia, because its goals are rooted in ideology. More so, leftists in the US are moving away from Israel because of their position on Iran. They are also inciting against dealing with Egypt.
Saudi Arabia is being blamed for its human rights track record despite all the revolutionary reforms it had enacted. Additionally, Saudis are being reprimanded for exercising their internationally recognized right to self-defense against Iran-backed Houthi aggressions and for backing the implementation of the UN decision to restore legitimacy in Yemen. Meanwhile, left-wing media campaigns in the US are pushing for rapprochement with Iran, which currently occupies four Arab capitals and executes wrestlers, journalists, and dissidents. Iran’s persecution of its critics has also seen assassinations take place in Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. It's all about vilifying Saudi Arabia - which dates back to before the Khashoggi case - and which demands that the kingdom carries out persistent work in Washington by holding more dialogue and communication and steering clear from escalation.

China Buys Western Academics
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/February 28/2021
"The inaugural conference assured [everyone] that Tibet was never annexed, [and] that the Chinese intervention of 1950 had been requested by the Tibetans," Nicolas Nord, a law professor, recalled.
[T]he proposed new head of the CIA, William J. Burns, said that if it were up to him, he would close Confucius Institutes in Western universities.
Seventeen schools in the UK are already owned by Chinese companies, and that number is destined to rise. In addition, The Times revealed that the University of Cambridge received a "generous gift" from Tencent Holdings, one of the largest technology companies in China involved in state censorship.
Today, we know a lot about China's cruelty, including the mass murder by the Wuhan Virus that the Chinese Communist Party forced upon the world.... resulting in the murder of more than 2.5 million.
We also know about the number of people locked up in the laogai, the Chinese "administrative prisons" (estimated at 50 million)....
"Places inhabited by ethnic minorities, such as Xinjiang and Tibet, have stood out as shining examples of China's human rights progress", China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said hours before addressing the... UN Human Rights Council. Probably even the Soviet Union could not have thought that one up.
Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a survivor of China's "re-education camps" in Xinjiang, recently revealed what happens there. "It is forbidden to speak Uyghur; it is forbidden to pray; it is forbidden to go on a hunger strike..." She had to defecate into a plastic bucket in front of the others. She was chained to her bed for 20 days. Pictured: "The Artux City Vocational Skills Education Training Service Center," a re-education camp where mostly Muslim ethnic minorities are detained, north of Kashgar in Xinjiang. (Photo by Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images)
A shocking investigation was just published by the French weekly Le Point on how Beijing is buying the favor of Western universities. An Italian associate professor, for example, Fabio Massimo Parenti, at the Lorenzo de Medici International Institute in Florence, was hosted in Xinjiang, where up to two million Uyghurs are estimated to be locked up in "re-education camps". In addition, many British schools are now closely under Chinese radar of influence and propaganda. Nigel Farage, the leader of Britain's Reform UK Party, recently tweeted that "Chinese billionaires with direct links to the CCP are buying up British schools — and flooding the curriculum with their propaganda," and listed the names of some in the UK "under Chinese control":
"Abbots Bromley School
Bournemouth Collegiate
St Michael's School
Bosworth College
Bedstone College
Ipswich High School
Kingsley School
Heathfield Knoll School
Thetford Grammar
Wisbech Grammar
Riddlesworth Hall
Myddelton College
CATS Colleges"
Beginning in September 2019, in Urumqi, the capital of the Uyghur region of Xinjiang in western China, Christian Mestre, honorary dean of the University of Strasbourg faculty of law, participated in an "international seminar on the fight against terrorism, de-radicalization and the protection of human rights". The seminar was organized by the People's Republic of China. Mestre's statements were transcribed by both the state media, the Xinhua news agency, as well as the nationalist newspaper Global Times.
"I hope that France and other European countries can adopt the answers provided by Xinjiang", professor Mestre said while visiting one of the "vocational education centers", the name given by Beijing to its re-education camps. "These people are not in prison," the professor attested, "but sent to compulsory training". Nothing to see here, as they say.
That was the beginning of an impressive investigation by the French weekly Le Point on how China has bought the favor of many Western academics. "It is worthy of Aragon's travels to the Soviet Union or the collaborators in Nazi Germany", said Marie Bizais-Lillig, a colleague of Mestre. The reference is to Louis Aragon, the French writer who visited Soviet Union under Stalin and came back convinced of the genuineness of the communist system, and then dedicated himself to its defense.
A survivor of China's re-education camps in Xinjiang recently revealed what happens there. Gulbahar Haitiwaji had lived in France for ten years. Her husband and daughters had political refugee status, but Gulbahar preferred to keep her Chinese passport to visit her elderly mother. In November 2016, she bought a ticket to China, where she was swiftly deported to a re-education camp for her people, the Uyghurs. She was detained for two years before being released under pressure from France. Early this year, she published a chilling account, "Rescapée du goulag chinois". ["Survivor of a Chinese Gulag"]
Gulbahar is the first Uyghur to have been released and repatriated to France. "Xi Jinping, she sums up, "wants Xinjiang without the Uighurs".
She was moved from one detention center to another. First the pre-trial detention center, with the rules hanging on the wall: "It is forbidden to speak Uyghur; it is forbidden to pray; it is forbidden to go on a hunger strike..." She had to defecate into a plastic bucket in front of the others.
She was chained to her bed for 20 days in 2017. She was taken to one of those new "vocational training centers", the name given by the regime to its gulags. The Baijintan Camp -- three buildings "as big as small airports" on the edge of the desert -- is surrounded by fences topped with razor wire. Prisoners no longer see daylight, only neon. Cameras follow the detainees' every movement.
"Thanks to our great country. Thanks to our dear President Xi Jinping", the detainees must repeat from dawn to dusk.
After taking on new names (Gulbahar became "Number 9"), their clothes and hair are removed. Chinese re-education then begins to take hold of their mind. A camp guard shows the group of inmates a wall: "What color is it?", he asks. "White", they reply. "No, it is black. It is I who decide what color it is". Then come strange "vaccinations". "Women no longer menstruated. Once I returned to France, I really felt the existence of sterilization..."
In France, during the past 15 years, 18 Confucius Institutes have been opened, ostensibly to teach Chinese and promote Chinese culture. In Europe, in 2019, Belgium expelled the rector of the Confucius Institute of the Free Flemish University of Brussels, after security services accused him of being a spy. A Tibet expert, Françoise Robin, of the National Institute of Oriental Languages ​​and Civilizations (Inalco), calls these institutes "Propaganda weapons", In 2016, Inalco invited the Dalai Lama for a conference. "We received official letters from the Chinese embassy asking us not to receive him," Robin said.
In September 2014, Mestre's faculty of law at Strasbourg University hosted a series of events on Tibet, with lectures, exhibitions, dances and concerts organized "at the request of the Consulate General of China in Strasbourg", according to the terms of an email sent by the dean. "The inaugural conference assured [everyone] that Tibet was never annexed, [and] that the Chinese intervention of 1950 had been requested by the Tibetans," Nicolas Nord, a law professor, recalled.
The Economist recently suggested what the Chinese regime is really doing in Tibet: eradicating the influence of Buddhism from their people's minds.
That may be why the proposed new head of the CIA, William J. Burns, said that if it were up to him, he would close Confucius Institutes in Western universities. In Britain, they are also apparently worried -- justifiably, it seems. According to the Daily Mail, hundreds of independent schools that were left in serious financial difficulty by the Wuhan Virus pandemic have since been targeted by Chinese investors. China is evidently seeking to expand its influence in the British education system, as they are in the United States. Seventeen schools in the UK are already owned by Chinese companies, and that number is destined to rise. In addition, The Times revealed that the University of Cambridge received a "generous gift" from Tencent Holdings, one of the largest technology companies in China involved in state censorship.
One's mind goes back to the "Cambridge Five", the British spy network -- Anthony Blunt, Donald Maclean, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess and John Cairncross -- in the service of the Soviet Union and also based at the famous British university. Kim Philby, who died in exile in the Soviet Union, never regretted his betrayal of the UK : "It was only at the end of my stay in Cambridge that I made the final decision to dedicate my life to communism".
At the time, many in the West could truthfully have said they did not know how many people had been killed or jailed by the Soviet regime. Today, we know a lot about China's cruelty, including the mass murder by the Wuhan Virus that the Chinese Communist Party forced upon the world, first by lying that the virus was not transmissible person-to-person, then by stopping domestic flights from Wuhan but letting international flights continue. As a consequence, every country on the planet was infected, resulting in the murder of more than 2.5 million people.
We also know about the number of people locked up in the laogai, the Chinese "administrative prisons" (estimated at 50 million). We know about the number of Chinese girls that the regime prevented from being born when the "one child policy" was in effect (estimated at 30 million). We know about the number of people killed at Tiananmen Square, the last time the regime was openly challenged by its citizens (estimated at 10,000).
"Places inhabited by ethnic minorities, such as Xinjiang and Tibet, have stood out as shining examples of China's human rights progress", China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi said hours before addressing the annual conference of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Probably even the Soviet Union could not have thought that one up.
*Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
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