English LCCC Newsbulletin For Lebanese,
Lebanese Related, Global News & Editorials
For May 13/2020
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
#elias_bejjani_news
The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/eliasnews21/english.may13.21.htm
News Bulletin Achieves Since
2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006
Bible Quotations For today
Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation
Mark 16/15-20: “‘Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole
creation. The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who
does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who
believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new
tongues; they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly
thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they
will recover.’ So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up
into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and
proclaimed the good news everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and
confirmed the message by the signs that accompanied it.
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese
Related News & Editorials published on May 12- 13/2021
Ministry of Health: 703 new infections, 22 deaths
Presidency Press Office: Al-Qard Al-Hassan loan was not discussed between the
President and BDL Governor
President Aoun briefed by Interior Minister on security situation and border
crossings
Aoun, Salameh Deny Discussing Hizbullah's al-Qard al-Hasan
STL Media Advisory - Media Accreditation for the start of trial in the Ayyash
case (STL-18-10) opens
New bid to revive stalled Cabinet formation after Eid al-Fitr
Tactical exercise for Lebanese Naval force, French frigate Languedoc on
interception of suspicious ship
Rahi briefed by Grillo on atmosphere surrounding Le Drian's meetings
Wehbe meets US Ambassador
UN Lebanon: Committing to Support Lebanon and Its People to Build Back Better
Turkish Vessels to End Power Supply to Lebanon over Prosecutor Order
Berri Calls for Joint Efforts to Save Lebanon
Hariri Warns Everyone over Situation in Lebanon
Canada is Urged Not to Extradite Lebanese-Canadian Academic
American Tells Japan Court He Worked for Nissan's Interests
Their Suicide Pact/Gebran Bassil and Saad al-Hariri have existential political
fears, but their stubbornness could undermine their ambitions./Michael
Young/Carnegie MEC/May 12/2021
Hezbollah’s al-Qard al-Hasan and Lebanon’s Banking Sector/Tony Badran and
Emanuele Ottolenghi/Foundation for Defense of Democracies/May 12/2021
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY/PRESS RELEASES/Treasury Targets Hizballah
Finance Official and Shadow Bankers in Lebanon
Blinken calls Hezbollah ‘threat,’ U.S. blacklists 7 Lebanese nationals
Raymond Eddé… les pyramides perpétuelles/Par Abdel Hamid El Ahdab, Avocat/May
12/2021
Titles For The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News
published on May 12- 13/2021
Security Council Meets on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict but U.S. Blocks
Statement
World Powers Call for De-escalation between Israel, Palestinians
Blinken Calls Netanyahu, Sends Envoy to Mideast
Lavrov Calls for Urgent Middle East Quartet Meeting
France Says 'Everything Must be Done' to Avert New Mideast Conflict
EU Says 'Broader Conflict' Must be Averted between Israel, Palestinians
News Alert: At least 35 killed in Gaza as Israel ramps up airstrikes in response
to rocket attacks
4 Hamas Commanders and Israeli Soldier Killed amid Fears of 'Full-Scale War'
Hamas Fires Another 130 Rockets at Israel, Sirens Wail in Tel Aviv
Egypt discovers 250 tombs, 4,200 years old
Titles For The Latest The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from
miscellaneous sources published on May 12- 13/2021
Jihadi Temper Tantrums/Raymond
Ibrahim/May 12/2021
America Playing With Fire/Evelyn Markus/Gatestone Institute/May 12/2021
Iran's Proxy War Against Israel/Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/May
12/2021
Clashing Fundamentalisms, Gridlocked Governance and Tumbling Geopolitics/Charles
Elias Chartouni/May 12/2021
The Latest English LCCC Lebanese & Lebanese
Related News & Editorials published on May 12- 13/2021
Ministry of Health: 703 new infections, 22 deaths
NNA
The Ministry of Public Health announced 703 new coronavirus infection cases,
which raises the cumulative number of confirmed cases to 534388.
22 deaths have been recorded over the past 24 hours.
Presidency Press Office: Al-Qard Al-Hassan loan was not
discussed between the President and BDL Governor
NNA/May 12/2021
The Presidency Press Office states that what was published by some websites and
media outlets that the President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, discussed
today with BDL Governor, Riad Salameh, the issue of “Al-Qard Al-Hassan
Association” is false. The Presidency Press Office asserts that the meeting
between the President and BDL Governor, addressed the monetary situation in the
country, the issue of the financing card, and subsidies. All other news is fake
and fabricated.-- Presidency Press office
President Aoun briefed by Interior Minister on security
situation and border crossings
NNA/May 12/2021
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, emphasized the importance of
tourism in productive economy, especially in Lebanon, which enjoys all natural,
human and cultural tourism potentials which attract tourists from worldwide
countries.
The President also asserted that he “Has done all the necessary to activate
tourism on all Lebanese lands, especially as we have gradually begun to emerge
from the Corona pandemic crisis, and our permanent goal is to rebuild our
economy on sound and productive basis”.
President Aoun’s stances came while meeting Tourism and Social Affairs Minister,
Ramzi Msharrafiyeh, today at the Presidential Palace.
Minister Msharrafiyeh was heading a delegation which included: Head of the
Syndicate of Hotel Owners, Pierre Al-Ashqar, Head of the Syndicate of
Restaurants, Cafes, Cabaret and Patisserie Owners, Tony Al-Rami, Head of the
Syndicate of Marine Tourist Complex Owners and Secretary General of the
Federation of Tourism Institutions, Jean Beiruti, Head of the Restaurant
Syndicate in Beirut and Mount Lebanon, Ibrahim Al-Zayda.
At the beginning, Minister Msharrafiyeh thanked the President for receiving the
delegation, and said: “We came to you to bless us with the start of the tourist
season in Lebanon, and brief you about the decision which was taken yesterday
with the Corona Committee, with the approval of the Prime Minister Dr. Hassan
Diab, for general closure to be limited to the occasion of the blessed Eid
Al-Fitr, for a period of two days, and that starting from next Saturday we start
re-opening restaurants until 12:30am.
We would also like to inform you of the decision that hotels will start to
charge in foreign currencies for foreigners who come to Lebanon. As for
foreigners residing on Lebanese territory, the bill will remain in Lebanese
pounds.
Then, delegation members briefed the President about their demands and needs.
Mr. Beiruti askedthat discretion not be applied to closures between one Lebanese
region and another, indicating that domestic tourism this year is expected to be
active, hoping that the number of expatriate tourists coming to Lebanon will be
good after not visiting for nearly two years due to the Corona pandemic.
Also, Mr. Al-Ashqar indicated that there were between 650,000 to 700,000
Lebanese tourists in Lebanon who went abroad as groups, but the matter has
become impossible for them at this time due to the economic hardship, hoping
that this will contribute to stimulating domestic tourism before them. “The
backbone of the hotel sector at present, on which we are counting, is the
Lebanese who work in the Gulf and Africa. Despite all difficulties, we are still
able to be at the forefront of tourist countries, especially if the political
agreement is reached, and we meet withour Arab brothers and foreign friends”
Al-Ashqar added.
Then, Minister Msharrafiye asked for “Reactivating the summit meeting which was
expected to convene last year between Lebanon, Cyprus and Greece, which did not
take place due to the Corona pandemic outbreak. Because such a meeting could
contribute to stimulating tourism between the three countries”.
Finally, Mr. Al-Zaida stressed the need to give the right to restaurant owners
to request certain materials from abroad, regardless of subsidies, pointing to
the preparation of a platform to employ Lebanese workforce.
President Aoun:
The President welcome the delegation, and said “The revitalization of domestic
tourism, this summer, would be a sign of well-being and confirmation that the
Lebanese have the required elements to rise from any crisis which they
encounter, with solidarity and unity”.
President Aoun also hoped that “This type of tourism will contribute, at
present, to familiarizing the Lebanese, especially young generations, with
Lebanon’s natural, historical, and human resources, so that this will motivate
them to adhere to their homeland and its values, more and more”.
Moreover, the President wished success to delegation members in implementing the
plans which were drawn-up to re-launch tourism activity for this year. The
President asserted his “Full support for the tourism sector which restores the
spotless image of Lebanon, which this country was known for, and made it a
remarkable place with contributions in revitalizing all economic sectors”.
Finally, President Aoun said that he had given his directives to concerned
officials to prioritize the demands of the tourism sector, “Without any
discretion, as this has an important impact on various Lebanese regions, in
accordance with the principle of balanced development which we are working on”.
Minister Msharrafiyeh’s Statement:
“We came to visit the President of the Republic to put him in the latest
developments in the tourism sector and to take his blessing for the launch of
this tourist season. From this season, we hope for all good since we have begun
to control the Corona pandemic like other surrounding countries. Reliance on
tourism is now one of the pillars that will help us out of the economic
stalemate, God willing, and we would like to announce that starting next
Saturday, restaurants will be opened in outdoor until after midnight, i.e. at
half past twelve, and it has also been decided to collect tariffs in hotels from
foreigners in foreign currency, which will help with the introduction of
so-called fresh Dollars to the country.
The Tourism Ministry is taking media steps with the participation of the
Ministry of Information and Lebanese Media to launch this tourism season, and we
hope that all media will accompany us and highlight the positive matters in the
country and not continue to highlight the negative ones, because unless we all
cooperate, we will not be able to get out of it.. From here, we came with the
fellow captains briefed the President, on the atmosphere of the tourism
situation and took his blessing to launch the new tourism year.
I wish that Lebanese politicians reach a solution as soon as possible by forming
a government, because the political situation greatly affects tourism. The
security situation, praise be to God, is good, so we hope to get rid of the
political problems that you all know. It is true that today we open in internal
courtyards and extend the work in the outer courtyards, but we must not forget
the necessity of strictness in social distancing and preserving safety. I hope
that the violators will not force the security forces and the tourist police to
take harsh measures against them”.
Al-Ashqar’s Statement:
“We demanded and insisted a year and a half ago for foreigners to pay in
dollars, as happened in all countries where the national currency has declined.
Today we were able to come to a decision that the foreigner in Lebanon pays
dollars so that the dollars are distributed among tourism institutions and not
only to money changers”.
Beiruti’s Statement:
“We were honored to meet His Excellency, the President. On the meeting agenda
was the reality in which we live.
Certainly, everyone is aware of the move that took place in some areas to open
institutions, similar to the rest of the areas that do not abide by the
decisions. This topic has two parts: The first part relates to the importance of
where we have become from the numbers of Corona infections today, because there
are areas that were comprehensively closed and we were congratulated on our
ability to reduce the number of injuries in them. The examinations show that
there are areas where infection rates are higher than the ones that were closed
and thus are free of pandemic infections, and that they can re-open.
We can no longer tolerate closure of regions and the opening of others. As we
say, either close or open all of Lebanon, today we are with the conquest of all
of Lebanon. And with His Excellency, we announce the start of the summer season.
These are the directives of His Excellency. The opening times for establishments
in the outdoor patios have been modified to half past twelve and in the inner
courtyards until ten o'clock, and we hope everyone will abide by it.We also wish
the security apparatuses to realize that we must all deal equally in this
matter, especially since there was great harm to the owners of restaurants in
the areas that were closed, and they have the right to demand what they asked
for since they lost their customers and money in addition to their names, and we
can no longer lose more.
We thank His Excellency for his directives. We hope for the help of the media,
so that positive issues are highlighted despite the discrepancy in prices
between regions and in the demand for specific tourism products. The market is
changing, but we hope for the media. The media is our partner in the economic
situation and in inviting the expatriates to visit Lebanon. That is because the
diaspora does not see Lebanon except through the media. It shows the positive
points at the same level as the negative ones appear”.
Asked about expectations of the expatriate movement in the coming stage, he
replied: “We expect many Lebanese to come, after they stopped visiting Lebanon
for two years. Everyone relates a lot of things to this country, and there is a
saying: If you leave this country, it will not leave you. And this is its
importance. And there are many who will come, especially if we secure their
needs and avoid spreading fears and release assurances at all levels that there
will be electricity, for example, and there will be solutions to all problems,
and if we assure them that we will all be at their service to provide the best”.
Interior Minister:
The President met Interior Minister, Brigadier Mohammed Fahmy, and addressed
with him the security situation, and the outcome of Fahmy’s exploratory tour on
a number of border crossings.
Measures to be taken to tighten control over borders and crossings were also
discussed, noting that Minister Fahmy is preparing a report which includes a
presentation on the border situation and necessary suggestions.
In addition, the Interior Minister briefed President Aoun on the path of ongoing
investigations of the drug smuggling issue to the Port of Jeddah through boxes
of pomegranate fruits, as well as contacts which Minister Fahmy made with KSA
officials to tackle this matter after Saudi Arabia suspended the import of
Lebanese agricultural and industrial goods.
MP Abi Ramia:
President Aoun also met MP, Simon Abi Ramia, and deliberated with him general
affairs, and the atmosphere after Minister Le Drian’s visit last week, in
addition to the topics addressed during this visit. The meeting also tackled
governmental developments, economic and financial conditions, and Jbeil
development needs. MP Abi Ramia said that he will be visiting Paris, next week.
BDL Governor:
President Aoun received Central Bank Governor, Riad Salameh, and discussed with
him the monetary situation, the issue of lifting subsidies and the financing
card.
Fitr Feast Congratulations:
The President sent congratulatory cables to Presidents of Arab and Islamic
countries, on the occasion of the blessed Fitr Feast.
President Aoun wished that this holiday would return with goodness, peace and
progress, in addition to the removal of difficulties which these countries
encounter in various fields, especially health conditions after the spread of
COVID-19.
On the other hand, the President received several Fitr congratulatory telegrams
from Presidents, including Jordanian Monarch, King Abdullah II Bin Al-Hussein,
who wished the Lebanese people more progress and prosperity.
Kuwaiti Prince, Sheikh Nawwaf Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Iraqi President,
Barham Saleh, and Kuwaiti Crown Prince, Sheikh Meshaal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber
Al-Sabah, also sent Fitr congratulatory cables.-- Presidency Press office
Aoun, Salameh Deny Discussing Hizbullah's al-Qard al-Hasan
Naharnet/May 12/2021
Both President Michel Aoun and Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh have denied
discussing the issue of Hizbullah’s controversial financial institution, al-Qard
al-Hasan, in a meeting that they held in Baabda. A statement issued by the
Presidency said media reports that claimed the opposite were “baseless,” noting
that the discussions tackled “the monetary situations in the country, the issue
of the ration cards and the issue of subsidization.”The Central Bank for its
part described the reports as “totally unfounded,” adding that the talks focused
on the economic and social situations. MTV had earlier reported that during
their meeting, Salameh emphasized that al-Qard al-Hasan had not obtained a
license from the Central Bank to operate in financial matters in violation of
the Lebanese laws. The U.S. Treasury Department had on Tuesday imposed new
sanctions on seven Lebanese linked to Iran-backed Hizbullah and its financial
arm, the al-Qard al-Hasan association. The measures
are the latest against Hizbullah, which Washington considers a “terrorist” group
and has targeted with penalties for years. The Treasury said al-Qard al-Hasan —
which the U.S. has sanctioned since 2007 — has taken a more prominent role over
the years. Founded since 1982 and registered as a charity in Lebanon, the
association is used by Hizbullah to gain access to the international financial
system, the Treasury added.
STL Media Advisory - Media Accreditation for the start
of trial in the Ayyash case (STL-18-10) opens
NNA/May 12/2021
Accreditation for the start of trial in the Ayyash case (STL-18-10), tentatively
scheduled for Wednesday 16 June 2021 by the Pre-Trial Judge, is now open to
members of the media who wish to cover the proceedings from the seat of the
Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) in Leidschendam. Trial Chamber II (TCII) will
confirm the date for the start of trial once the Pre-Trial Judge transfers the
case file and after it is officially seized of the case. The STL opens the media
accreditation process to allow members of the media sufficient time to plan
potential attendance in the Netherlands. Journalists are requested to fill in
the accreditation form online no later than Thursday 20 May 2021 at 5.30 PM
(C.E.T). Permanently accredited journalists are also required to accredit to
this event. Media are invited to request interviews in advance through the
accreditation form.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and in line with the national guidelines in the
Netherlands, a limited number of media representatives will be allowed into the
public gallery and the STL’s media centre. Members of the media who are unable
to attend can follow the proceedings via the STL website streaming in Arabic,
English and French. Journalists will receive confirmation of accreditation in
advance via email.
Important information: The STL must comply with the
COVID-19 measures applicable in the Netherlands, which may be subject to change.
Information on Netherlands COVID-19 measures can be found here. -- STL
New bid to revive stalled Cabinet formation after Eid
al-Fitr
Hussein Dakroub| The Daily Star/May 12/2021
BEIRUT: Efforts to revive the stalled Cabinet formation process, including a
possible meeting between President Michel Aoun and Prime Minister-designate Saad
Hariri, will be intensified after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, an official source
said Wednesday, in the latest bid to break the monthslong deadlock.
The development comes as a member of the Free Patriotic Movement’s parliamentary
bloc Wednesday struck an upbeat note about breaking the Cabinet formation
impasse, citing behind-the-scenes contacts being made in this respect by
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and Maronite Patriarch Bechara Boutros al-Rai.
Both Berri and Rai have been mediating in an attempt to narrow differences
between Aoun and Hariri over the formation of a proposed Cabinet of nonpartisan
specialists desperately needed to deliver reforms outlined in the French
initiative designed to rescue Lebanon from multiple crises, including an
unprecedented economic meltdown.The comments by MP Farid Boustani, who belongs
to the FPM’s 24-member Strong Lebanon bloc headed by MP Gebran Bassil, come as
the stalled Cabinet formation process has entered its ninth month with no
solution in sight following the failure of local, Arab and foreign mediation
attempts to bridge the gap between Aoun and Hariri.
“There is nothing new regarding the Cabinet crisis. But consultations on the
Cabinet formation process are expected to resume after the Eid al-Fitr holiday,”
the official source familiar with the matter told The Daily Star.
He said the talks on the Cabinet formation would resume when Hariri, who left
Wednesday to Abu Dhabi to spend the Eid al-Fitr holiday with his family, returns
to Beirut. Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim fasting month of
Ramadan, begins Thursday in Lebanon and most Arab countries.
The source said behind the new push to end the Cabinet gridlock were mounting
Arab and international pressures on Lebanon’s feuding political factions to
agree on the speedy formation of a new government to carry essential reforms and
save Lebanon from total economic collapse, as well as the threat by France and
the European Union to impose sanctions on politicians obstructing the formation.
A political source cited other factors that could lead to accelerating the
formation of a new Cabinet, including the crippling economic crisis, the worst
since the 1975-90 Civil War, the crashing Lebanese pound that has already lost
more than 90 percent of its value since 2019, the threat of total darkness due
to fuel shortages and the lack of funds to purchase fuel, and soaring prices of
meat and chickens amid plans by the caretaker government to remove subsidies on
basic items, such as fuel, wheat and medicine. The lifting of subsidies on these
items would further add to the misery of the Lebanese, now more than half of
them below the poverty line. “There is a crisis of
confidence affecting the relationship between the premier-designate and the
president. There is a conflicting approach to the government formation. The
premier-designate says he can nominate all ministers while the president calls
for complete partnership [in Cabinet formation]. The Cabinet formation decree
will not see daylight unless it has the president’s signature,” Boustani said in
an interview with NBN channel. He said Berri was
making behind-the-scenes efforts to resolve the Cabinet crisis, adding that the
Maronite patriarch was playing “a major role” in these efforts.“I am optimistic
about positive results emerging over the Cabinet formation issue,” Boustani
said. “We are going through a difficult stage. But at the end of the tunnel,
there is a glimmer of hope. After the Cabinet formation, we will go to
implementing economic and financial reforms as required by the International
Monetary Fund with which we must continue talks in order to acquire funding and
to be able to begin the recovery process.”
Lebanon began talks with the IMF on a $10 billion bailout package in May 2020,
but the negotiations have been stalled by a dispute between different interest
groups representing Lebanese banks and the government over the size of losses in
the Central Bank.
In statements on the eve of Eid al-Fitr, both Berri and Hariri called for
national unity to save Lebanon. Citing the current
circumstances in Lebanon and in a show of solidarity with the “blessed
Palestinian uprising in Jerusalem and in condemnation of the Israeli aggression
on Gaza Strip,” Berri said he apologized for not receiving well-wishers on the
occasion. He hoped that the Lebanese would be able to
“ride out this critical and difficult stage with more unity and unification of
visions and sincere national efforts to rescue our beloved nation,
Lebanon.”Congratulating the Lebanese in general and Muslims in particular on Eid
al-Fitr and saluting the Palestinians for their steadfastness against Israeli
occupation forces and their defense of holy sites in Jerusalem, Hariri called in
a tweet on all Lebanese parties to “realize the gravity of the stage through
which Lebanon is passing in the hope we can stop this terrible collapse so that
Lebanon can return to be a pearl of the East and a beacon for sciences.”Since
his designation on Oct. 22 to form a new government, Hariri, backed by France
and Arab countries, has been struggling to form a Cabinet of nonpartisan
specialists to be tasked with implementing a string of essential reforms
stipulated in the French initiative and deemed essential to unlocking billions
of dollars in promised foreign aid to the cash-strapped country.
Dimming hopes for a solution to the crisis is that Aoun and Hariri, who are
constitutionally mainly responsible for the Cabinet formation, have not been on
speaking terms since their last meeting at Baabda Palace on March 22 that failed
to resolve their differences over the size and makeup of the government. The two
leaders have refused to budge on their conflicting positions on the Cabinet
formation. They remain at odds over the distribution of key ministerial seats,
namely the Justice and Interior ministries, and the naming of Christian
ministers. The planned Cabinet efforts come as the EU
is preparing to impose sanctions on Lebanese politicians blamed for obstructing
the formation of a new government. The announcement by
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell which came after a meeting of the EU
foreign ministers in Brussels Monday underlined resolve by France and its
European partners to forge ahead with “punitive measures” against Lebanese
politicians implicated in corruption and accused of blocking the formation of a
new government.French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian briefed his EU
counterparts on the results of his two-day visit to Beirut last week which did
not make any progress in the Cabinet formation crisis because his talks with
Lebanese leaders centered more on the ruling political elite that failed to
honor its pledges on reforms.
Before leaving Beirut, Le Drian threatened obstructers of the Cabinet formation
with more sanctions, and called for saving Lebanon from “collective suicide”
organized by the country’s ruling political class.
Hariri and Future Movement officials have repeatedly accused Aoun and his
son-in-law, Bassil, of blocking the government formation with their insistence
on gaining a blocking one-third [veto power], something that the
premier-designate has vowed not to grant to any side.
Le Drian, whose country has spearheaded international efforts to assist
Lebanon’s crumbling economy, promised to step up pressure on those blocking the
government formation.France announced late last month it had started imposing
entry restrictions on certain figures for their role in the political crisis and
in corruption. Le Drian refused to provide names but warned that the sanctions
could be made tougher and extended to other politicians.
Tactical exercise for Lebanese Naval force, French
frigate Languedoc on interception of suspicious ship
NNA/May 12/2021
Units of the Lebanese Army naval forces, in conjunction with the French frigate
Languedoc, carried out a tactical exercise at sea off the coast of Beirut, on
the detection and interception of a suspicious ship, within the framework of
military cooperation between the Lebanese and French armies.
Rahi briefed by Grillo on atmosphere surrounding Le Drian's
meetings
NNA/May 12/2021
Maronite Patriarch, Cardinal Mar Bechara Boutros Rahi, received this Wednesday
in Bkirki the French Ambassador to Lebanon, Anne Grillo, accompanied by the
Embassy Counselor, Jean-Francois Guillaume. The ambassador conveyed to his
Beatitude a message from French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, in which
the latter affirmed his great appreciation for "the efforts and initiatives
undertaken by Patriarch Rahi to save Lebanon from collapse."Grillo also briefed
her host on the atmosphere that surrounded the meetings Le Drian held with
Lebanese officials during his most recent visit to Lebanon.
Wehbe meets US Ambassador
NNA/May 12/2021
Caretaker Minister of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants, Charbel Wehbe, on Wednesday
met with US Ambassador to Lebanon, Dorothy C. Shea, with talks reportedly
touching on the current developments in Lebanon and the region, as well as the
outcome of the recent round of maritime border demarcation held in Naqoura under
US mediation.
UN Lebanon: Committing to Support Lebanon and Its People to
Build Back Better
Naharnet/May 12/2021
The United Nations system in Lebanon released its annual report for the year
2020, committing once again to scale up its efforts to help Lebanon and its
people to recover from its multi-faceted crises and ‘Build Back Better’, a press
release stated on Wednesday. Below is the full text released by the United
Nations Information Centres (UNIC):
Through inspiring people’s stories and the ongoing commitment of the UN Country
Team and its long-standing partners, the ‘2020 UN Lebanon Annual Results Report’
summarizes the results achieved throughout 2020, after four consecutive years of
the implementation of the United Nations Strategic Framework for Lebanon
2017–2020 (UNSF). The UNSF outlines the UN’s common vision and expected
contribution to support Lebanon’s political, human rights, humanitarian and
development priorities as well as the country’s security.
“2020 was an exceptionally challenging year for Lebanon, marked by a series of
socio-economic and political hardships that wreaked havoc on the people of
Lebanon and continue to submerge the country with unprecedented challenges.
Despite the scale of these challenges, UN Lebanon continues to support the
people and commits to defend their rights to dignity, peace and justice,” said
Najat Rochdi, UN Deputy Special Coordinator, Resident and Humanitarian
Coordinator for Lebanon. The report highlights key
results achieved in response to the COVID19 pandemic and the Beirut port
explosions as well as to the Syria crisis and other peace and development
priorities set for 2020. These include, but are not limited to, the
rehabilitation of 48 schools and around 6,000 residential and non-residential
units severely damaged by the devastating explosions, as well as the provision
of multipurpose cash assistance to around 91,500 persons.
According to the report, more than 1,200,000 vulnerable people across
Lebanon were provided with better access to safe water and around 500,000
children, both Lebanese and refugees, were enrolled in formal education. Through
the National Poverty Targeting Program (NPTP), more than 15,000 vulnerable
Lebanese households benefited from food assistance in 2020, and over 120,000
Lebanese and non-Lebanese children and other vulnerable groups received cash
grants, while thousands of Lebanese and Syrian workers benefited from short-term
decent job opportunities.
“This is the raison d’être of the United Nations in Lebanon,” added Rochdi.
“Whatever we do, be it in responding to emergencies, promoting peace and
preventing conflict, supporting good governance, protecting human rights,
promoting gender equality and reducing poverty, our overriding aim remains the
same: to serve Lebanon and its people.”In response to the COVID19 outbreak in
Lebanon, the UN and its partners managed to expand hospitals’ bed capacity by
procuring 73 fully equipped intensive care unit (ICU) beds and 800 equipped
regular beds, together with 170 ventilators. To attenuate the effects of the
pandemic on the most vulnerable, the UN also provided 50,000 of the poorest
Lebanese households with food parcels, while 700 vulnerable migrant workers who
lost their jobs due to COVID-19 and the socio-economic crisis were provided with
cash assistance.
Ecologically, nearly 7,000 tons of CO2/equivalent were reduced during 2020 from
solar hot water system and solar street lighting systems established by the UN
in different parts of Lebanon, says the report, whereas approximately 17
municipalities, with a combined 310,000 people, benefited from improved solid
waste management.
Turkish Vessels to End Power Supply to Lebanon over Prosecutor Order
Naharnet/May 12/2021
Owners of two Turkish power-generating vessels off Lebanon’s shore, which supply
the country with electricity, decided to stop their engines after a judicial
order saying they must settle arrears. The decision in the crisis-wracked
country, already plagued with power rationing since its 1975 civil war,
threatens to plunge it into darkness. Turkish operator Karadeniz, said its power
barges Fatmagül Sultan and Orhan Bey that supply Lebanon with 900 MW of
electricity, will stop working until a judicial order is reversed. Last week,
Lebanon’s Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim issued an order detaining
Fatmagül Sultan and Orhan Bey in connection with a suspected violation of the
contract signed with the Lebanese state. His decision
detained the ships and prevented them from leaving Lebanon.
Ibrahim also issued a decision that freezes any payments to the Turkish
firm that owns the ships, Karpowership, to “guarantee the state’s rights as to
the $25 million penalty clause should the payment of commissions be verified,”
according to the National News Agency. Two Lebanese suspects have been arrested
on suspicion of being involved in the payment of a commission to secure
Karpowership the contract with the Lebanese state. Lebanese officials however,
have requested the firm to delay the decision until the end of the week. Shall
the decision be implemented, power cuts will be increased by six more hours.
Nidaa al-Watan newspaper said that PM-designate Saad Hariri and caretaker Energy
Minister Raymond Ghajar embarked on persuading the Turkish side to delay the
move. If the two ships stopped operating, officials may have to bring in a new
vessel to provide power supply. Regarding how to provide the necessary funding
for that ship to operate the factories of Deir Ammar and Al-Harisha, MP Nazih
Najm told Nidaa Al-Watan newspaper that its “financing is not currently
available. We will discuss the matter later, because we have no other choice.”
Berri Calls for Joint Efforts to Save Lebanon
Naharnet/May 12/2021
Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri on Wednesday highlighted the necessity for all
political forces in Lebanon to join "sincere" efforts in order to save Lebanon
from its crises, the National News Agency reported. On the latest Israeli
aggression on Palestinians in Gaza City, Berri hoped that the Palestinian people
would triumph and establish their independent state with Al-Quds as its capital.
The Speaker announced that he would not receive well-wishers on Eid el-Fitr due
to the current crises in Lebanon and in condemnation of the Israeli attacks on
Gaza.
Hariri Warns Everyone over Situation in Lebanon
Naharnet
Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri on Wednesday called on all parties to
“understand the seriousness of this period and what Lebanon is going through” in
order to “stop this terrible collapse.”Hariri’s appeal came in a tweet greeting
Lebanese and Muslims on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.The PM-designate also
saluted “our people in dear Palestine” over their “resilience and defense of
their rights and holy sites.”
Canada is Urged Not to Extradite Lebanese-Canadian Academic
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
Supporters of a Lebanese-Canadian academic who is the only known suspect in a
1980 Paris bombing urged Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Wednesday not to allow
him to be extradited a second time, as France's top court weighs in on the case.
Hassan Diab, 67, was extradited to France in 2014, but then released in 2018
after French magistrates ruled evidence against him was "not convincing enough"
to hold him. He spent a total of nine years either in jail or under strict bail
conditions in the two countries, awaiting trial. Diab has always denied
involvement in the bombing. France's Court of Cassation has announced it would
give its ruling next week on the case's dismissal, which a Paris appeals court
overturned in January, ordering him to stand trial. Diab's Canadian lawyer Don
Bayne called the French proceedings a "Kafkaesque" and "unjust prosecution of an
innocent man," recalling that Trudeau himself has said Diab should never have
been extradited to France in the first place. "We call on the Canadian
government to honor the prime minister's words, that whatever the French decide
next Wednesday he assure Dr. Diab and all Canadians that Canada will not be
party to any further injustice, any further wrongful extraditions of Dr. Diab,"
he told a news conference.
His comments were echoed by Amnesty International and a coalition of Canadian
civil liberties organizations, whose head Tim McSorley called on Ottawa to
"state in the strongest possible terms to its French counterparts that the
pursuit of Hassan Diab must end." "We're also calling on Prime Minister Trudeau
to commit to no future extradition of Hassan Diab to France," he said.
A former professor of sociology at the University of Ottawa, Diab was accused of
planting explosives inside the saddle bag of a motorbike parked outside a packed
synagogue close to the Champs-Elysees, where hundreds of people had gathered for
Sabbath prayers. The 1980 bombing on the narrow Copernic Street was the first
fatal attack against the French Jewish community since the Nazi occupation in
World War II. It left four dead and 46 injured. Trudeau had welcomed France's
release of Diab in 2018, telling reporters in June of that year: "I think for
Hassan Diab we have to recognize first of all that what happened to him never
should have happened." He ordered a review of Canada's extradition law to "make
sure that it never happens again," but a 2019 report found no wrongdoing by
government lawyers. In March Trudeau said his government has continued
communicating with French officials about the case. "It has been a priority for
us to make sure that we're standing up for our citizens all around the world,
with countries that are challenging, but also with our allies," he said. "And
those conversations will continue."
American Tells Japan Court He Worked for Nissan's Interests
Associated Press/May 12/2021
An American lawyer on trial in Japan on charges related to reporting of former
Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn's compensation asserted his innocence Wednesday,
testifying he acted legally and in Nissan's best interests.
Greg Kelly, a former executive vice president at Nissan Motor Co., told
the Tokyo District Court he was worried Ghosn might job-hop after taking a big
pay cut in 2010, when Japan began requiring disclosures of high executive pay.
"He became a retention risk," Kelly said in response to questioning by
his chief defense lawyer, Yoichi Kitamura. "We were fortunate to have a CEO as
talented as Carlos Ghosn," he said. Starting in 2010, Ghosn's annual pay was cut
by about half, or 1 billion yen ($10 million). Company officials had worried
about potential public criticism since big executive paychecks are rare in
Japan. After the pay cut, Ghosn was making considerably less than his
counterparts at U.S. and European automakers. Ghosn
and Kelly were arrested in late 2018. Ghosn was charged with underreporting his
compensation and with breach of trust. But he fled to Lebanon while out on bail.
Kelly is facing charges of conspiring with Ghosn to underreport his pay. A key
focus of the trial is whether the unpaid money was ever decided upon. Ghosn, who
led Nissan for two decades, says he is innocent and the money was not decided
upon or paid. Testimony and documents presented during the trial show Kelly
sought ways to compensate Ghosn through possible post-retirement consultancy
fees and a deal paying him to leave for a rival company, known as a
"non-compete" agreement. Prosecutors says they're confident about their cases
against both Ghosn and Kelly. During Wednesday's hearing, Kelly said that before
the trial began he had never seen detailed calculations of Ghosn's potential
pay, which were handled by another Nissan executive who reported directly to
Ghosn. Kelly worked as a labor and environmental
lawyer in the U.S. before joining Nissan in 1988. He testified that his
exchanges with the executive, Toshiaki Ohnuma, tended to be short and
superficial because Ohnuma's English was limited and Kelly doesn't speak much
Japanese. Ohnuma took a plea bargain and testified last year for the
prosecution, outlining how he worked on Ghosn's "unpaid compensation."If
convicted, Kelly faces up to 15 years in prison. The conviction rate in Japan is
higher than 99%. A verdict isn't expected for months. Yokohama-based Nissan has
sunk into losses since the Ghosn scandal surfaced, and the pandemic has added to
those woes. Its new chief executive, Makoto Uchida, has promised a comeback.
Their Suicide Pact/Gebran
Bassil and Saad al-Hariri have existential political fears, but their
stubbornness could undermine their ambitions.
Michael Young/Carnegie MEC/May 12/2021
MICHAEL YOUNG
Gebran Bassil and Saad al-Hariri have existential political fears, but their
stubbornness could undermine their ambitions.
Lebanon’s destruction by its political leadership continues as the country’s
cabinet-formation process, already eight months old, has reached a dead end. At
the heart of the deadlock is a paradox involving two major protagonists—Gebran
Bassil, the head of the Free Patriotic Movement and son in law of Lebanese
President Michel Aoun, and Saad al-Hariri, the prime minister-designate.
Last week France’s foreign minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, visited Beirut and
informed Lebanese politicians that, henceforth, they were on their own. Because
the French initiative proposed in September by President Emmanuel Macron to
revive Lebanon’s economy had failed (a word Le Drian pointedly avoided using),
the country’s political leadership had to face the consequences. There was
something almost quaint in such a warning, since one thing that Lebanese leaders
have never done is face the consequences of their worst actions.
What we are witnessing today is the rivalry of two individuals who are
frightened that they may soon face political elimination. Hariri and Bassil are
the ones with existential fears, while Aoun, an aging and inanimate president
who has betrayed his constitutional role as the embodiment of national unity,
has allowed their ruinous battle to continue. But what is paradoxical is that
Bassil and Hariri, by pursuing their feud and making the formation of a cabinet
all but impossible, are only helping to guarantee their own political demise.
Hariri’s main problem is that Saudi Arabia does not seem to support his return
as prime minister, forcing him to harden his approach to a new cabinet and prove
that he truly merits Riyadh’s backing. Recently, the pro-Hezbollah Al-Akhbar
newspaper—rarely objective, but often accurate on things involving Hariri—quoted
an Arab official who visited Saudi Arabia as saying that Crown Prince Mohammed
bin Salman had told him, “We have no confidence in Saad Hariri as prime
minister; the person who would reassure us and the Americans is Nawaf Salam,”
Lebanon’s former ambassador to the United Nations and now a judge in the
International Court of Justice.
There have also been reports in Beirut that the Saudis made their sour view of
the prime minister-designate clear to the Iranians in their ongoing dialogue in
Iraq. Nothing in recent weeks indicates that Saudi attitudes have been
misrepresented, quite the contrary. Even the marked change in France’s attitude
toward Hariri lately suggests that it has abandoned the prime
minister-designate. It could be that Macron, sensing that Lebanon may soon be
defined by Saudi-Iranian understandings over the country and realizing that the
Saudis won’t back Hariri, has opted to drop him in favor of someone else.
Knowing all this, Hariri has stuck to his demands on the government—no blocking
power for any of the parties in it, since whoever controls more than a third of
ministers can effectively impose the cabinet agenda; and no handing of the
Interior and Justice Ministries to Bassil and Aoun, as they have demanded.
Hariri realizes that unless he gets his conditions, he will be unable to manage
his government. Such an outcome would only increase Saudi dissatisfaction with
him, confirming that they were right in not wanting him as prime minister.
However, Hariri’s stubbornness also makes a cabinet more unlikely, only
exacerbating his situation. If he fails to become prime minister, he will have
unintentionally satisfied Saudi wishes and shown himself to be incapable of
outmaneuvering Bassil and Aoun. That would accelerate his descent into political
irrelevance and prevent him from being the savior he suggested he could be when
he first announced his candidacy for the prime minister’s position last October.
Bassil would gloat if Hariri failed to form a government, but he is actually in
no better a position than the prime minister-designate. For him, the minimal
conditions he would accept on the cabinet is for the ministers he names to enjoy
blocking power, allowing him to define the agenda and thwart whatever decisions
threaten his interests. Bassil, perhaps rightly, senses that without such power,
Hariri and his cabinet allies would try to sideline both him and Aoun.
Bassil’s absolute priority is to succeed Aoun as president. That is why being in
control of the Interior Ministry would allow his prospective appointee to fiddle
with the voting results if required and ensure that Bassil’s candidates win in
parliamentary elections scheduled for next year. Unless he enjoys credible
representation in parliament, Bassil’s chances of becoming president would be
greatly damaged. As for the Justice Ministry, Bassil hopes to open corruption
cases against other politicians, which would allow him to portray himself as an
anti-corruption crusader. This would be supremely ironical in that many Lebanese
believe that he personifies graft and sleaze.
But there too Bassil has to face reality. If he continues to hold tightly to his
conditions, no government will be formed and what happens then? Bassil will be
unable to shape events in the coming year before Aoun’s departure in October
2022. How, then, would he be able to pave the way for his presidency? Worse,
Bassil has been sanctioned by the United States, is opposed by much of the
political class, and as things stand today has a limited chance of being
elected. So, as with Hariri, his obstinacy may undermine the very goals he seeks
to attain.
Bassil’s only way out of this dilemma is to try to force Hariri to abandon the
task of forming a cabinet. He seems to think that he can bring in a more pliable
replacement, one amenable to his and Aoun’s conditions. The only problem is that
such an expectation is ridiculous. Hariri may not enjoy the blessings of
Mohammed bin Salman, but Lebanese Sunnis are solidly behind him in rejecting
Bassil’s and Aoun’s brinkmanship. Indeed, if Hariri were to withdraw, Sunni
parliamentarians could refuse to engage in consultations with Aoun to designate
a new prime minister. The absence of communal legitimacy could deter credible
Sunnis from taking Hariri’s place.
There are also reports that the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, will oppose
Aoun’s and Bassil’s efforts to bring in a cabinet they favor. Berri may have
leaked a story of how he had informed Hezbollah that he would join Hariri, the
Druze leader Walid Joumblatt, and the Maronite politician Suleiman Franjieh in
boycotting parliament to block this. Such a step would prevent a legislative
quorum necessary for a confidence vote in any new government.
It has been a year and a half that the Lebanese currency collapsed, provoking
widespread poverty in a country with only a rudimentary social safety net. In
that time the political leadership has done nothing to improve the situation,
while squabbling incessantly. To force the Lebanese to pay a heavy price for the
political ambitions and insecurities of Hariri and Bassil is inadmissible. The
good news is that both may be committing political suicide by holding everything
up. The bad news is that suicides should never take so long.
*Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the
views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
Hezbollah’s al-Qard al-Hasan and Lebanon’s Banking
Sector
Tony Badran and Emanuele Ottolenghi/Foundation for Defense of Democracies/May
12/2021
طوني بدران وإيمانويل أوتولينغي/موقع مؤسسة الدفاع عن الديمقراطيات : دراسة مفصلة
وموسعة عن مؤسسة القرض الحسن المملوكة من حزب الله وعن النظام المصرفي اللبناني، مع
نص قانون وضع المؤسسة على قوائم الإرهاب الأميركية الرسمية
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/98792/tony-badran-and-emanuele-ottolenghi-fdd-%d8%b7%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a8%d8%af%d8%b1%d8%a7%d9%86-%d9%88%d8%a5%d9%8a%d9%85%d8%a7%d9%86%d9%88%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%a3%d9%88%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%84%d9%8a%d9%86%d8%ba/
Introduction
In December 2020, an anonymous hacking group called SpiderZ hacked the al-Qard
al-Hasan Association (AQAH) – the financial arm of the Lebanese terrorist group
Hezbollah – and published documents that detail its operations. The hacked files
include account information for nearly 400,000 individuals and entities. In
addition to average Lebanese citizens, the documents exposed expatriates,
Hezbollah cadres and institutions, so-called “major depositors,” Iranian
entities, and, importantly, the Lebanese banks that serviced AQAH.1
Founded in Lebanon in the early 1980s,2 AQAH offers three types of accounts: a
basic Participation Account, a Contribution Account for well-off individuals,
and a Social Cooperation Fund, a joint fund for “closely related people,” that
is, family members, neighbors, or business associates.3 The Association provides
interest-free loans against collateral, such as gold, or against guarantees by a
third party.4 AQAH lending has grown steadily despite sanctions, from $76.5
million in 2007 to $476 million in 2018 and $480 million in 2019. The
Association’s total scope of activity from 1983 until the end of 2019 reportedly
amounted to $3.5 billion.5
The U.S. Department of the Treasury sanctioned AQAH in July 2007, noting that
Hezbollah’s financial activity with the Association gave the terror group
“access to the international banking system.”6 The SpiderZ documents shed more
light on that assertion. They broaden our understanding of how Hezbollah
transfers money and of the role Lebanon’s banking system plays in that process.
Specifically, the documents reveal:
Major Hezbollah financiers held accounts at AQAH.
AQAH employees used personal accounts at major Lebanese banks to conduct AQAH
business, giving the Association access to the banking sector. The Treasury
statement announcing sanctions on Jammal Trust Bank (JTB) in 2019 cites this as
justification for the bank’s designation.7′
These banks, which held correspondent accounts with AQAH, likely knew the
individuals were AQAH employees using their accounts to provide Hezbollah access
to the international financial system.
AQAH and the Hawala System: The Exchange House Model
Traditionally, Hezbollah has used exchange houses as way stations for
transferring proceeds from its various enterprises, including the drug trade,
into the Lebanese banking sector, where the funds can be laundered through the
international financial system. The exchange houses used a variant of the hawala
system. Hawala is an alternative or parallel remittance channel enabling
individuals or companies to transfer money, without moving it, through a system
that records credit and debit transactions.
Since 2011, the Treasury Department has sanctioned six Lebanese exchange
houses.8 One of the first houses Treasury designated, New Line Exchange,
laundered proceeds for drug kingpin Ayman Joumaa and his network.9 A 2019 civil
lawsuit against Lebanese banks (Bartlett, et al. v. Société Générale De Banque
Au Liban SAL, et al.),10 filed in the Eastern District of New York by families
of Americans killed or maimed by Hezbollah operations in Iraq between 2004 and
2011, alleges the following as a sample transaction:
Abdul Latif Fawaz worked as a courier for the Tajideen network that moved money
from Ghana to Lebanon.
In 2008, Mr. Fawaz made a cash deposit of $20,000 U.S. dollars at New Line
Exchange’s branch in Beirut, Lebanon.
New Line Exchange then provided Mr. Fawaz with a receipt for his cash deposit…
The Cash Transaction Slip identified the source of the funds as “business.”
Subsequently, New Line Exchange instructed LCB [Lebanese Canadian Bank] to debit
New Line Exchange’s U.S. dollar-denominated account no. 173902 and transfer
$20,000 U.S. dollars to an individual with an account at Defendant SGBL [Société
Générale de Banque au Liban]…
Thus, a Hezbollah courier was able to convert U.S. banknotes into an electronic
deposit in a U.S. dollar-denominated account at a Lebanese bank (LCB) in the
name of a third-party exchange house (New Line Exchange) that was then converted
into another electronic funds transfer to a seemingly unrelated U.S.
dollar-denominated account at a second Lebanese bank (SGBL) where it could be
directed anywhere in the world using SGBL’s correspondent bank accounts in the
United States…
The Lebanese exchange houses therefore provide a valuable service both to the
BAC [Hezbollah’s Business Affairs Component] and its drug trafficking networks
as well as to Lebanon’s commercial banks that prefer these intermediary
financial institutions to handle the bulk cash deliveries and serve as the
intermediaries for the trade-based money laundering that follows.11
This mechanism resembles a hawala system, in which money does not move directly
from sender to beneficiary, but through intermediaries who settle balances
independently. The Lebanese banks, meanwhile, function as a gateway to the
international financial system.
This model helps explain AQAH’s relationship with the banking sector and the
Association’s role in Hezbollah’s financial operations.
AQAH and the Lebanese Banking Sector
Despite its designation by Washington in 2007, AQAH has maintained its
relationship with Lebanese banks. The leaked documents identify banks that
provided accounts and services to the Association and maintained correspondent
accounts with AQAH (see Appendix A). The list includes seven defendants in the
Bartlett civil lawsuit: Byblos Bank, Fenicia Bank, JTB, LCB, Lebanon and Gulf
Bank, MEAB Bank, and SGBL.
The 2019 Treasury Department designation of JTB explains how AQAH worked with
one of those Lebanese banks:
When opening purportedly “personal accounts” at Jammal Trust, [AQAH] officials
clearly identified themselves to Jammal Trust as senior members of the terrorist
group. Jammal Trust then facilitated these accounts to be used to conduct
business on [AQAH’s] behalf.12
AQAH did not open institutional accounts, but personal ones, owned by its
employees. Thus, JTB helped the Association circumvent U.S. sanctions. AQAH
Executive Director Adel Mansour could claim deceptively, as he did in December
2019, that the Association had “no offshore accounts and no relationship with
the banks.”13
The hacked documents identify five AQAH employees – Izzat Akar, Mustafa Harb,
Abbas Ghorayeb, Ahmad Yazbeck, and Hassan Othman – as account holders both at
AQAH and at several banks, including JTB. The documents include correspondence
between these five employees and managers at banks holding accounts in the
employees’ names. This raises the question of whether other Lebanese banks have
also acted as a remittance channel for the Association.
In undated messages to SGBL branch managers, the five AQAH employees, who held
checking accounts at the bank, directed managers at two branches to debit
various sums of money from their accounts and credit them to third parties,
either in cash or as a bank check. Payment orders in the amounts of LBP
1,727,122 (around $1,150 at the time) and $15,158.50 are documented in separate
messages to SGBL’s Burj al-Barajneh branch. Another payment order, in the amount
of $115,000, is requested in a message to SGBL’s al-Burj location.
The documents also list a significant number of AQAH account holders based
outside Lebanon, including in Africa, Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin
America, Iraq, Gulf countries, and Australia. The potential for AQAH to serve as
a channel for money laundering seems obvious.
As a sanctioned entity, AQAH should be denied direct access to the international
financial system. The AQAH director’s assertion that the Association did not
have “offshore accounts” is technically true. However, the Lebanese banks
holding accounts for AQAH employees maintain correspondent relationships with
international banks. Therefore, the hawala-style mechanism that AQAH seems to
have established enables the transfer of money to and from overseas
jurisdictions. Treasury noted this when it sanctioned the Association in 2007.
The hacked documents do not make clear whether all the banks knew these accounts
were being used on behalf of Hezbollah.
A person outside Lebanon thus could send electronic fund transfers in U.S.
dollars to an AQAH account by sending money to any Lebanese bank maintaining a
correspondent relationship with AQAH. Likewise, someone inside Lebanon could
instruct AQAH to send dollar transfers cross-border, and AQAH could then
instruct one of its Lebanese banks to wire the funds onward to the final
recipient. By obfuscating the identity of the transacting parties, this system
can circumvent U.S. restrictions. That includes dollar-denominated transactions
transiting the New York-based Clearing House Interbank Payments System.
In short, Lebanese banks effectively act as a pass-through mechanism, allowing
AQAH account holders to conduct banking activities while hiding the
beneficiaries’ connection to AQAH from the international banking system. Whether
intentionally or not, Lebanese banks thus represent a Death Star-sized hole in
the global payment system and a significant challenge to anti-money laundering
and combating the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) compliance.
After the AQAH breach, some of the banks involved, such as SGBL, Byblos Bank,
and Credit Libanais, issued carefully worded public statements denying they had
accounts “in the name of al-Qard al-Hasan Association.”14 This is technically
true; the AQAH account holders are not under U.S. sanctions. However, the
documents show that AQAH officials are using their personal accounts on the
Association’s behalf.
Financiers and Alleged Money Launderers
The hacked documents show that among the AQAH account holders are established
and alleged Hezbollah money launderers and financiers with extensive business
interests, especially in Africa. They include:
*Ali Tajideen: Ali Tajideen is one of three brothers Treasury sanctioned in 2009
and 2010 for being major Hezbollah fundraisers, financial contributors, and
money launderers.15 Treasury identified Tajideen as “a former Hizballah
commander” who “has provided cash to Hizballah, in tranches as large as $1
million. Ali Tajideen is a major player in Jihad Al Bina, a Lebanon-based
construction company formed and operated by Hizballah, which was designated by
the Treasury Department in February 2007 pursuant to” Executive Order 13224.Ali
Tajideen is also a co-owner of Tajco, a multinational business that Treasury
designated in 2010, identifying it as “the primary entity to purchase and
develop properties in Lebanon on behalf of Hizballah. Under the name of Tajco
Company LLC, Ali Tajideen developed the properties, established mortgage loans
and acquired mortgage-life insurance to cover the mortgage borrowers.”16
Tajideen’s empire includes many other interlocking companies Washington has not
sanctioned.17.
*Hussein and Zahra Tajideen: The son and daughter of Ali Tajideen, Hussein and
Zahra hold positions in Tajideen-family controlled companies, such as
U.S.-sanctioned Tajco. Washington has not designated either of them.Hussein is a
20 percent shareholder in Tajco (as are his mother and brother Hassan). Zahra is
a co-founder (along with her mother and brother Hassan) of the Tajideen
family-controlled company Al-Burhan for Development and Development Company
SAL.18
*Hussein Ahmad Issawi: The hacked documents list Hussein Ahmad Issawi among the
major depositors and account holders at AQAH. Issawi – a member of a family with
extensive business interests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo – holds
five dollar-denominated accounts with AQAH.19 Hussein’s brother, Ibrahim, is a
prominent businessman and the president of the Lebanese communal association in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Communauté Libanaise en République
Démocratique du Congo).20The Bartlett complaint alleges the Issawi brothers have
laundered “tens of millions of dollars on behalf of Hezbollah’s African networks
(particularly the Ahmad and Darwish clans) as part of the Issawi brothers’
overall business of laundering hundreds of millions of dollars using Defendant
LCB [Lebanese Canadian Bank] and at least three other Lebanese banks.” The
“Ahmad clan” refers to Hezbollah financier and blood diamond trader Nazem Said
Ahmad, whom the Treasury Department sanctioned in 2019.21 Washington also
sanctioned his DRC-based associate and Hezbollah financier Saleh Assi, who
“laundered money through Ahmad’s diamond businesses,” Treasury stated.22 Assi
sat on the management board of the Lebanese communal association of which
Ibrahim Issawi is president.23The Bartlett complaint further alleges that the
Issawi brothers “were identified by LCB … as directly connected to Ali
Tajideen,” and that “Hussein Issawi is reported to be a business partner of
Muhammad Bazzi (SDGT) [Specially Designated Global Terrorist] and to have
laundered funds for the Tajideen family’s Ovlas Trading SA (SDGT).”The Treasury
Department has not sanctioned either Issawi brother. The defendants in the
Bartlett case. have moved to dismiss the case, and a decision remains pending
Iranian Accounts
The hacked documents show that the Lebanese branch of the “Martyrs Foundation,”
which Treasury sanctioned in 2007,24 holds multiple accounts with AQAH.
Established by Iran after the 1979 revolution, the Foundation provides financial
support to the families of those killed or disabled during the Iran-Iraq war.
The Foundation also channels funds from Iran to terrorist groups across the
region, especially through its Lebanese branch.
Another listed account holder with AQAH is the Lebanese branch of the Imam
Khomeini Relief Committee (a.k.a. the Emdad Islamic Charitable Committee), an
Iran-created organization Hezbollah runs in Lebanon. The U.S. Treasury
Department sanctioned it in 2010 along with its director, Ali Hassan Zuraiq, who
also holds AQAH accounts.25
The documents reveal other Iranian account holders, including sanctioned
entities and persons of interest. They include:
*Mahan Air and Sky Gift: The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned Mahan Air,
Iran’s largest commercial airline, in 2011 for supporting the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps.26 AQAH held accounts in Lebanese lira and U.S.
dollars on behalf of Mahan Air in the names of two Lebanese individuals with the
last names Ayyub and al-Sa’idi.“Sky Gift” likely refers to Sky Gift Co. Ltd.27
The company appears to be Mahan Air’s local General Sales Agent (GSA). Mahan
Air’s website lists “Sky Gift office” as Mahan’s Lebanon address.28 The U.S.
Treasury Department has sanctioned three Mahan Air GSAs since 2018 (in China,
Malaysia, and Thailand),29 noting that GSAs “are key to enabling Mahan Air’s
international operations, especially in regards to conducting financial
transactions on behalf of the airline.”30 Sky Gift is not under U.S. sanctions.
AQAH has held lira- and dollar-denominated accounts for Sky Gift in the name of
Ayyub and al-Sa’idi.
*East Star: AQAH held lira- and U.S. dollar-denominated accounts in the names of
Ayyub and al-Sa’idi on behalf of an entity called East Star. An East Star Travel
Agency identified in a Lebanese business guide as the GSA for Iran Air, Iran’s
national air carrier, operates in Beirut.31 East Star Travel Agency was
registered in Lebanon in 2002, but Lebanese commercial register records provide
no additional information.32 Given that Ayyub and Sa’idi held accounts on behalf
of Mahan Air’s GSA, it is possible they also did so for Iran Air’s GSA.
*Iran Air: AQAH held lira- and dollar-denominated accounts for Iran Air in the
names of two individuals with the last names “Rouhani” and “Kasraei” (not to be
confused with the Iranian president). The U.S. Treasury Department designated
Iran Air in 2011 and again in 2018, when the Trump administration re-imposed
sanctions that the Obama administration lifted or waived as part of Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015.33
In addition, AQAH held accounts in liras, U.S. dollars, and euros for other
Iranian entities and operatives in Lebanon. They included accounts for the
Iranian Red Crescent, which AQAH used to send funds to Iran following major
floods in 2019.
The hacked documents also reveal accounts for Iranian media entities in Beirut.
They include euro accounts for the office of Iranian Radio and Television (also
known as Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting, or IRIB), which was sanctioned
in 2013,34 and for Press TV officials such as Naji Janani, the former news
director for the Iranian Arabic-language channel Al-Alam. The documents reveal
accounts for Al-Alam officials such as Mahmoud Bojounordi, who served as the
channel’s director in Beirut and as general director of Iranian foreign channels
in Lebanon.35
The documents also list an account for the office of Iran’s supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, described as “vali-e faqih,” or the ruling jurisprudent.
The documents also list an account for “the embassy,” possibly the Iranian
embassy.
Lastly, AQAH holds an account for donations to the Houthis in Yemen, labeled
“Donations for the Children of Yemen.” Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan
Nasrallah announced in 2019 that Hezbollah sent $2 million to “the brothers in
Yemen.”36 The Houthis reportedly then sent their own funds to Hezbollah “to
support, aid, and assist the resistance in Lebanon.”37 The purpose of the Houthi
funds, assuming it was more than symbolism or propaganda,38 is not clear.
Regional media speculated that the donations were part of a Houthi money
laundering operation.39.
ISSA TABATABAEI
A major Iranian account holder and depositor at AQAH is Issa Tabatabaei. One of
the earliest emissaries of the Islamic anti-Shah movement operating in Lebanon,
Tabatabaei, who represents Khamenei,40 is a revered figure in Hezbollah circles.
He helped found many of the group’s institutions, such as the aforementioned
Imam Khomeini Relief Committee,41 the Martyrs Foundation,42 and its al-Rasoul
al-Aazam hospital,43 the latter two of which, along with other Hezbollah medical
facilities, hold multiple accounts with AQAH. According to documents provided by
Sadeq Moussawi, one of the Islamic Revolution’s early activists in Lebanon
during the 1970s, Tabatabaei was also involved in the founding of what Moussawi
says is AQAH’s predecessor, the “Islamic Cooperation Fund” for benevolent loans
(al-qard al-hasan).44 The history of Tabatabaei’s activity in Lebanon also dates
to the 1970s, when he helped recruit and indoctrinate young Shiites for
Hezbollah.
Tabatabaei founded and still oversees the Association of Imam Khomeini Cultural
Centers, which holds AQAH accounts. One of Tabatabaei’s founding partners in the
institution is a senior Hezbollah official named Sheikh Akram Barakat, who at
one point directed this association. Barakat, currently a cultural assistant to
the president of Hezbollah’s Executive Council, has led proselytizing activity,
preaching Hezbollah’s religious ideology around the world, including in Brazil
and Paraguay, where his three siblings, all Specially Designated Global
Terrorists, are leading Hezbollah financiers in the Tri-Border Area.45 Barakat
is also an AQAH account holder.
The AQAH documents list accounts for other Iranian-backed institutions that
Tabatabaei founded,46 including the Iranian Red Crescent Hospital, known as the
Sheikh Ragheb Harb Hospital, whose general director is the representative of the
Iranian Red Crescent in Lebanon.47 Another account belongs to al-Kawthar
Charitable Association, which Tabatabaei also founded.
BANK SADERAT IRAN
Bank Saderat Iran’s Lebanon branch is the lone Iranian bank listed in the
hack.48 AQAH maintains eight correspondent accounts with the bank, four in liras
and four in dollars.
In 2006, Treasury, under the Iranian Transactions and Sanctions Regulations (31
CFR Part 560), which prohibited certain transactions with certain Iranian banks,
barred Bank Saderat from conducting direct or indirect transactions through the
U.S. financial system. Treasury cited, among other things, Bank Saderat’s
transfer of money to an unidentified “Hizballah-controlled organization.”49 The
following year, Washington designated Bank Saderat under Executive Order 13224,
which authorizes Treasury to freeze the assets of terrorists and their
supporters. Treasury noted that “from 2001 to 2006, Bank Saderat transferred $50
million from the Central Bank of Iran through its subsidiary in London to its
branch in Beirut for the benefit of Hizballah fronts in Lebanon.” Moreover,
“Hizballah has used Bank Saderat to send money to other terrorist
organizations.”50
Treasury’s actions forced Bank Saderat to find other ways to transfer money. It
is possible Bank Saderat could clear funds hawala-style through AQAH’s various
accounts with Lebanese banks.
Although the European Union lifted sanctions on Bank Saderat after the 2015
JCPOA,51 the Trump administration reportedly discussed the bank’s Lebanese
operation with Lebanese officials in fall 2017. Well before Treasury’s eventual
designation of JTB in 2019, Lebanese news reports claimed that then-Assistant
Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorist Financing Marshall Billingslea urged
Lebanese central bank governor Riad Salameh to shut down Bank Saderat and the
Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank,52 the Lebanese subsidiary of the Commercial
Bank of Syria. Washington sanctioned the Syrian Lebanese Commercial Bank and the
Commercial Bank of Syria in 2011.53
Lebanese officials reportedly emphasized that Bank Saderat Iran was not a
top-tier bank, and reiterated that its assets and deposits were small,54 that
its operations were constricted, and that Lebanon’s Banking Association
monitored it pursuant to the U.S. Office of Foreign Assets Control’s Iranian
Transactions and Sanctions Regulations.55
Many of the Martyrs Foundation’s subsidiaries, which Treasury sanctioned in
2020, also hold accounts with AQAH.56
Conclusion
The U.S. Treasury Department’s designations of Lebanese banks and of multiple
Hezbollah entities, financiers, and money launderers point to the complicity of
Lebanese banks in Hezbollah’s financial operations. The AQAH hack provides more
evidence of this complicity. Through AQAH, Lebanon’s banks grant Hezbollah
access to the international banking system, 13 years after Treasury designated
AQAH.
For years, U.S. policymakers have hailed Lebanese banks as responsible
stakeholders. They argued that tougher measures might break the banking sector,
the backbone of Lebanon’s economy. This approach prevented neither Hezbollah’s
access to the banks nor Lebanon’s financial collapse. Moving forward, the U.S.
government should not repeat that mistake.
A year and a half into Lebanon’s financial crisis, it is unclear what fate
awaits the country’s insolvent banks. Lebanon’s central bank has yet to undergo
a forensic audit. The United States and other stakeholders will likely recommend
an overhaul of the banking system. In some cases, this will mean mergers. In
other cases, it will mean acquisitions. Either way, it is safe to assume certain
banks will cease to exist. The hacked AQAH documents can help the United States
determine which banks that have provided services to Hezbollah are beyond
salvaging and whether there is a basis for subsequent terror-finance criminal
investigations. The relationships between Lebanon’s banks and Hezbollah should
be a key factor to consider when Lebanon’s economic overhaul begins.
Click Here to Read the the above extensive study as posted on the FDD site with
full information on the Appendix: List of Correspondent Banks and Accounts
U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY/PRESS RELEASES
Treasury Targets Hizballah Finance Official and Shadow Bankers in Lebanon
May 11, 2021
WASHINGTON — Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign
Assets Control (OFAC) designated seven individuals in connection with Hizballah
and its financial firm, Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH). AQAH, which was designated by
OFAC in 2007, is used by Hizballah as a cover to manage the terrorist group’s
financial activities and gain access to the international financial system.
Ibrahim Ali Daher (Daher) serves as the Chief of Hizballah’s Central Finance
Unit, which oversees Hizballah’s overall budget and spending, including the
group’s funding of its terrorist operations and killing of the group’s
opponents. The other six individuals designated today used the cover of personal
accounts at certain Lebanese banks, including U.S.-designated Jammal Trust Bank
(JTB), to evade sanctions targeting AQAH and transfer approximately half a
billion U.S. dollars on behalf of AQAH.
“From the highest levels of Hizballah’s financial apparatus to working level
individuals, Hizballah continues to abuse the Lebanese financial sector and
drain Lebanon’s financial resources at an already dire time,” said Director of
the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea Gacki. “Such actions demonstrate
Hizballah’s disregard for financial stability, transparency, or accountability
in Lebanon.”
While AQAH purports to serve the Lebanese people, in practice it illicitly moves
funds through shell accounts and facilitators, exposing Lebanese financial
institutions to possible sanctions. AQAH masquerades as a non-governmental
organization (NGO) under the cover of a Ministry of Interior-granted NGO
license, providing services characteristic of a bank in support of Hizballah
while evading proper licensing and regulatory supervision. By hoarding hard
currency that is desperately needed by the Lebanese economy, AQAH allows
Hizballah to build its own support base and compromise the stability of the
Lebanese state. AQAH has taken on a more prominent role in Hizballah’s financial
infrastructure over the years, and designated Hizballah-linked entities and
individuals have evaded sanctions and maintained bank accounts by re-registering
them in the names of senior AQAH officials, including under the names of certain
individuals being designated today.
Daher is being designated pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13224, as amended,
for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or
indirectly, Hizballah.
Daher leads Hizballah’s Central Finance Unit, which oversees the receipt of
Hizballah’s worldwide income and is responsible for managing and auditing the
budgets of all Hizballah units and departments, including coordinating the
payment of all Hizballah members. Daher and the Central Finance Unit, which is
comprised of dozens of officers, operate within the group’s Executive Council,
and with direction from Hassan Nasrallah on where to distribute funds. In this
capacity, Daher has been a key figure in Hizballah’s financial infrastructure
for well over a decade.
Ahmad Mohamad Yazbeck (Yazbeck), Abbas Hassan Gharib (Gharib), Wahid Mahmud
Subayti (Subayti), Mostafa Habib Harb (Harb), Ezzat Youssef Akar (Akar), and
Hasan Chehadeh Othman (Othman) are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13224, as
amended, for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or
indirectly, AQAH.
The AQAH officials designated today have all participated in evasive “shadow”
banking activity. Yazbeck, Gharib, Harb, Akar, and Othman maintain joint bank
accounts in Lebanese banks that have allowed them to transfer more than $500
million within the formal financial system over the past decade, despite
existing sanctions against AQAH.
Yazbeck, AQAH’s financial director, and Gharib, AQAH’s informatics manager, both
hold several “shadow accounts” through which transactions are conducted on
Hizballah’s behalf. Harb, Akar, and Othman also hold “shadow accounts” through
which transactions are conducted on Hizballah’s behalf. Another AQAH official,
Subayti, has also been involved in conducting transactions through “shadow
accounts” on behalf of Hizballah. Subayti previously played a similar role in
maintaining bank accounts in his own name along with other senior Bayt al-Mal
officials. Hizballah’s Bayt al-Mal, along with the Central Finance Unit, acted
as Hizballah’s finance ministry.
Hizballah was designated by the Department of State as a Specially Designated
Global Terrorist (SDGT) pursuant to E.O. 13224 on October 31, 2001. AQAH was
designated as an SDGT on July 24, 2007, pursuant to E.O. 13224, for being owned
or controlled by, and providing support to, Hizballah
SANCTIONS IMPLICATIONS
As a result of today’s action, all property and interests in property of these
individuals named above, and of any entities that are owned, directly or
indirectly, 50 percent or more by them, individually, or with other blocked
persons, that are in the United States or in the possession or control of U.S.
persons must be blocked and reported to OFAC. Unless authorized by a general or
specific license issued by OFAC or otherwise exempt, OFAC’s regulations
generally prohibit all transactions by U.S. persons or within the United States
(including transactions transiting the United States) that involve any property
or interests in property of designated or otherwise blocked persons.
Furthermore, engaging in certain transactions with the individuals designated
today entails risk of secondary sanctions pursuant to E.O. 13224, as amended.
All individuals being designated today are subject to the Hizballah Financial
Sanctions Regulations, which implements the Hizballah International Financing
Prevention Act of 2015, as amended by the Hizballah International Financing
Prevention Amendments Act of 2018. Pursuant to these authorities, OFAC can
prohibit or impose strict conditions on the opening or maintaining in the United
States of a correspondent account or a payable-through account by a foreign
financial institution that either knowingly conducted or facilitated any
significant transaction on behalf of an SDGT or, among other things, knowingly
facilitates a significant transaction for Hizballah or certain persons
designated for their connection to Hizballah.
View identifying information on the individuals designated today.
Blinken calls Hezbollah ‘threat,’ U.S. blacklists 7
Lebanese nationals
Reuters/May 12/2021
The United States on Tuesday called on governments worldwide to take action
against Lebanon’s Iranian-backed militant group Hezbozllah, as the Treasury
Department sanctioned seven Lebanese nationals it said were connected to the
group and its financial firm, Al-Qard al-Hassan (AQAH).
“The threat that Hizballah (Hezbollah) poses to the United States, our allies,
and interests in the Middle East and globally, calls for countries around the
world to take steps to restrict its activities and disrupt its facilitation
networks,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on the
action against the group, designated a terrorist organization by Washington.
The Treasury Department said in a statement that it had blacklisted Ibrahim Ali
Daher, who it described as chief of Hezbollah’s Central Finance Unit, as a
specially designated global terrorist, accusing him of acting on behalf of
Hezbollah.
The United States also slapped sanctions on six others linked to AQAH, including
a man it said was the financial director, Ahmad Mohamad Yazbeck, as well as
Abbas Hassan Gharib, Wahid Mahmud Subayti, Mostafa Habib Harb, Ezzat Youssef
Akar, and Hasan Chehadeh Othman.
The Treasury accused the six men of using the cover of personal accounts at
Lebanese banks to evade sanctions targeting AQAH and transfer $500 million on
behalf of the U.S.-blacklisted firm.
Officials in Hezbollah had no immediate comment.
Tuesday’s move freezes any U.S. assets of those blacklisted and generally bars
Americans from dealing with them. Those who engage in certain transactions with
the designated individuals also risk being hit with secondary sanctions.
“Hizballah (Hezbollah) continues to abuse the Lebanese financial sector and
drain Lebanon’s financial resources at an already dire time,” Andrea Gacki,
director of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in the
statement.
In Lebanon, a deadlock in Cabinet talks have worsened the country’s economic
collapse. Just 18 months have passed since mass protests against the Middle
Eastern country’s political class brought down one government, and nearly eight
more months since a huge explosion destroyed the port of Beirut and toppled the
administration that succeeded it. read more
Raymond Eddé… les pyramides perpétuelles
Par Abdel Hamid El Ahdab, Avocat/May 12/2021
Raymond Eddé, comment vous nous avez laissé avec Ali Baba et les 40 voleurs ?
Votre culture, votre intégrité, votre audace et votre esprit sont toujours
présents en nous et ce sont vos valeurs qui font toujours de nous des libanais.
Vous restez toujours présent dans nos cœurs, dans notre pensée, dans la
politique, dans la loi et dans l’édification de l’État. Vous êtes notre
inspiration et notre référence et vous nous guidez par votre lumière. Vous êtes
pour le Liban ce que les pyramides sont pour l’Égypte.
Quatre jours avant votre décès, vous avez levé votre verre en l’honneur de Fouad
Chéhab en disant « À la santé du champion national qui a édifié l’État ! »,
déclaration à laquelle Johnny Abdo répondit « As-tu oublié que tu as accusé
Fouad Chéhab d’être un danger pour le Liban ? » et vous de répondre « J’avais
tort et ce fut la plus grande faute de ma vie politique ! ».
Raymond, si vous aviez gouverné le Liban après Fouad Chéhab, le Liban aurait été
un paradis sur terre et la Suisse de l’Orient. Mais nos politiciens ont conclu
l’Accord du Caire auquel vous vous êtes acharnement opposé car il présentait un
projet de guerre civile ! Quand Kamal Joumblatt a insisté que vous l’acceptiez,
vous avez refusé en déclarant que c’est un accord qui mènera à une guerre civile
et à un président de la république régnant sur un gouvernorat syrien et que vous
ne voulez pas que le Liban soit un gouvernorat sous le règne de la famille
Al-Assad !
C’est vous qui avez promulgué la Loi du secret bancaire permettant ainsi la
prospérité du Liban. Mais la bande d’Ali Baba a volé et gaspillé les fonds de
l’État ! 65 milliards de dollars ont été gaspillés par le Ministère de l’énergie
sans qu’il y ait pour autant une alimentation en courant électrique et ceci
n’est qu’un seul exemple parmi des milliers. Un jour, un musée sera ouvert
exposant cette espèce humaine sauvage, l’espèce d’Ali Baba « le fort ».
Vous avez su comment faire régner la sécurité au Liban. Vous avez modifié les
lois pour exécuter les criminels, vous avez appréhendé « Al-Takmil » et vous
l’avez condamné à la peine de mort. C’est ainsi que la sécurité a régné au Liban
pour dix ans après cette exécution ! Où sont ces gibets ? Nous en avons besoin
ces jours-ci ! Que toute la classe politique dirigeante soit pendue, d’Ali Baba
aux 40 voleurs ! Ali Baba « le fort » et le détestable gendre qui réclame les
droits des chrétiens d’une part mais les affaiblit et les humilie par ses
actions d’autre part !
C’est vous qui avez promulgué les lois pour l’édification du Liban et c’est vous
qui avez été le gardien de la législation et de la magistrature.
Le Patriarche Al-Rai, qui défend la neutralité du Liban, aurait dû être votre
allié. Mais qu’est-ce qui a poussé le Patriarche à inviter Bassil à dîner ?
Qu’est-ce qui l’a poussé à visiter Michel Aoun ? Pourquoi ce changement ? Vous
preniez toujours le chemin droit tout au long de votre vie politique ! Vous ne
changiez pas d’avis comme de chemise. Vous avez fait face à tous ceux qui ont
porté atteinte au Liban et vous avez risqué votre vie pour le Liban. La
communauté arabe et la communauté internationale vous témoignaient beaucoup de
respect.
Lors des 20 années que j’ai vécues à Paris, suite à la tentative des
organisations palestiniennes de libérer la Palestine en passant par ma maison et
en tuant ma fille Joumana, et au cours desquelles j’ai été élu à Paris le
secrétaire général de l’Association arabe pour l’arbitrage international qui
comprenait des juges et des professeurs en droit venant de toutes les
universités arabes, tout le monde me demandait de tenir une réunion avec vous.
Et vous avez effectivement tenu des réunions avec des juges et des doyens de
facultés de droit égyptiens, jordaniens, marocains, koweitiens, saoudiens,
émiratis, etc. qui vous considéraient le héros de la liberté dans le monde arabe
et le héros du patriotisme ! Tous les libanais étaient fiers de vous !
Vous aviez toujours considéré Israël notre ennemi car elle cherche à nous ôter
notre rôle ! Mais vous n’aviez jamais livré bataille à Israël moyennant une
guerre civile au Liban ! Vous étiez magnanime, vous étiez chrétien et musulman
car vous étiez croyant et vous étiez un modèle de la croyance chrétienne, le
christianisme de l’amour et du pardon !
Les malfaiteurs ont semé la discorde entre Fouad Chéhab et vous ! Vous n’étiez
pas convaincu de la violence usée par Béchir Gemayel, mais la guerre est
l’incarnation de la violence ! Vous n’aviez pas pardonné Béchir, qui vous
considérait son idéal, quand il était venu à Paris pour se réunir avec vous et
discuter son point de vue. Il n’y a pas de place pour le pardon au sein de la
violence. Si seulement il nous était possible de vous rapprocher de Béchir
Gemayel !!! Nous avions besoin de vous deux ! Mais vous nous avez quitté vous
les deux, vous en raison de votre âge avancé et lui en raison de son triple
assassinat par les Phalangistes, les syriens et les israéliens !! S’il nous
était possible de vous rapprocher, le Liban n’aurait pas tombé dans l’abîme dans
lequel il se trouve sous le régime d’Ali Baba « le fort ». Si vous étiez
toujours vivant, le Liban aurait été votre Liban, le Liban des libanais non
celui des palestiniens, des syriens et des iraniens ! Nous vivons sous le régime
Nazi non sous le régime allemand, et nous vivons sous le régime Baas non sous le
régime syrien, deux régimes auxquels nous ne pouvons nous opposer que par le
biais du Général De Gaulle, mais où est notre Général De Gaulle ? Vous nous
manquez. Le régime Nazi qui nous gouverne nous a transformé en un gouvernorat
iranien, même pas en un gouvernorat syrien ! C’est la raison pour laquelle nous
avons besoin de vous durant ces temps difficiles.
Nous levons nos mains vers le ciel et vers Dieu et prions pour que votre âme
soit en paix, pour qu’elle nous garde et nous guide dans le parcours que nous
suivons pour se débarrasser de la classe politique présidée par Ali Baba « le
fort » et sortir de l’enfer qu’elle a créé.
Ceux qui ont usurpé vos gloires, votre nom et votre patri iront en enfer car ils
usurpent l’identité du géant libanais Raymond Eddé. Ils ne sont que des nains
devant la grandeur et l’héritage de Raymond Eddé, des rats qui parlent sans rien
dire !
Pour vingt ans, vous aviez refusé de rencontrer Michel Aoun à Paris et à chaque
fois que nous vous demandions d’accepter sa rencontre, vous nous répondez en
disant : « Cet homme est lunatique et malheur au Liban s’il arrive à la
présidence de la République ! » Vous étiez perspicace. Vous sûtes ce que
l’avenir nous réserve si un jour Michel Aoun accède à la présidence de la
république !
Les pyramides sont la fierté de l’Égypte et son histoire, et vous, Raymond Eddé,
vous êtes les pyramides perpétuelles du Liban.
The Latest English LCCC Miscellaneous Reports And News
published on May 12- 13/2021
Security Council Meets on Israeli-Palestinian Conflict but
U.S. Blocks Statement
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
The U.N. Security Council held another emergency meeting Wednesday on worsening
hostilities between Israel and Palestinians, again without agreeing on a joint
statement due to opposition from the United States, Israel's key ally, according
to diplomats. The United States saw the Security Council meeting as a sufficient
show of concern, one diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"The U.S. doesn't see that a statement will help de-escalate," said
another. According to several sources, 14 of the 15
members of the Council were in favor of adopting a joint declaration aimed at
reducing tension.
The U.S. mission to the U.N. was not immediately available for comment.
U.N. Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland warned the meeting that the
"situation has deteriorated since Monday... there is a risk of a spiral of
violence," according to a diplomatic source. During a first emergency meeting on
Monday, the United States also refused to back a text proposed by Tunisia,
Norway and China calling on all parties to refrain from provocation. Renewed
rocket fire and rioting in mixed Jewish-Arab towns has fueled growing fears that
deadly violence between Israel and Palestinians could descend into full-scale
war. The most intense hostilities in seven years have killed at least 53 people
in Gaza, including 14 children, and six in Israel, including an Israeli soldier
and one Indian national, since Monday.
World Powers Call for De-escalation between Israel,
Palestinians
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
Calls grew on Wednesday for a de-escalation of violence after intense
hostilities between Israel and the Palestinians that have left at least 65 dead
and hundreds injured. The Israeli army has launched hundreds of air strikes on
the Gaza Strip since Monday, while Palestinian militants have launched more than
1,000 rockets in some of the worst violence in seven years. Calls for calm
emerged from around the world, while others voiced support for the warring
parties. Here is a roundup of reactions:
Russia, Turkey
President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday urged Israel and the Palestinians to halt
fighting in a call with Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who said the
world needed to give Israel a "strong" lesson. "Serious concern was expressed
about the continuing clashes and the growing number of people killed and
wounded," the Kremlin said in a statement. Putin had "called on the parties to
de-escalate tensions and peacefully resolve the emerging issues", the statement
added.
Britain
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Wednesday urged Israel and the
Palestinians to "step back from the brink", calling for both sides to "show
restraint".
"The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties and
we want to see an urgent de-escalation of tensions," he said on Twitter.
Germany
Germany said Israel had a "right to self-defense" against deadly rocket fire by
Palestinian militants. "The German government condemns these incessant rocket
attacks from the Gaza Strip against Israeli cities in the strongest terms,"
Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said Wednesday.
"Israel has the right to self-defense against these attacks."
United States
The United States urged both Israel and the Palestinians to avoid "deeply
lamentable" civilian deaths, calling for "calm" after days of violence. "Israel
does have a right to defend itself. At the same time reports of civilian deaths
are something that we regret and would like to come to a stop," State Department
spokesman Ned Price said Tuesday. "We don't want to see provocations. The
provocations we have seen have resulted in a deeply lamentable loss of life," he
said. "We continue to call for calm, continue to call on all sides to
de-escalate and to exercise restraint in their actions."
EU
After speaking with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, European Council chief
Charles Michel called on Israelis and Palestinians to focus on "de-escalation
and prevention of the loss of innocent civilian lives on both sides." A
statement from the bloc's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the
"indiscriminate launching of rockets from Hamas and other groups towards Israeli
civilians is unacceptable."
Although he affirmed Israeli's "legitimate need to protect its civilian
population," Borrell stressed that the response "needs to be proportionate" and
that "everything must be done to prevent a broader conflict.".
ICC
The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court expressed concern that
"crimes" might have been committed. "I note with great concern the escalation of
violence in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as well as in and around
Gaza, and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute," which
founded the ICC, Fatou Bensouda said on Twitter Wednesday.
OIC
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) condemned Israel and reiterated
support for Palestinians. The pan-Islamic body based in the Saudi city of Jeddah
said "condemns in the strongest terms the repeated attacks by the Israeli
occupation authorities against the Palestinian people", in a statement released
Tuesday after an emergency session.It also denounced "the Israeli occupation
forces' continuation of their colonial programs -- building settlements,
attempting to confiscate Palestinian properties, forceful eviction of
Palestinians from their land."
Blinken Calls Netanyahu, Sends Envoy to Mideast
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday reiterated his urging for a
halt to violence between Israel and the Palestinians in a call with Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "The secretary reiterated his call on all
parties to de-escalate tensions and bring a halt to the violence," said a State
Department statement. "The secretary emphasized the need for Israelis and
Palestinians to be able to live in safety and security." Blinken had earlier on
Wednesday said that a U.S. envoy would travel to the Middle East to seek to calm
tensions as he implored Israel to avoid civilian deaths. Hady Amr, the deputy
assistant secretary of state in charge of Israeli and Palestinian affairs, was
leaving Wednesday and will meet both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, U.S.
officials said. "He will urge on my behalf and on behalf of President Biden a
de-escalation of violence," Blinken told reporters.
In the latest high-level interaction, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin called his
Israeli counterpart, Benny Gantz, and backed Israel's "legitimate right to
defend itself and its people" while also urging steps to restore calm, the
Pentagon said. A senior U.S. official separately said
to expect further high-level contacts, including with Jordan and Egypt, although
Washington does not speak to Hamas, which it considers a terrorist group.
Blinken described scenes of dead Palestinian civilians, including children, as
"harrowing" but defended Israel's assault on Gaza in response to rocket fire by
Hamas militants. "I think Israel has an extra burden in trying to do everything
they possibly can to avoid civilian casualties, even as it is rightfully
responding in defense of its people," Blinken said.
But Blinken said there was a "very clear and absolute distinction between a
terrorist organization, Hamas, that is indiscriminately raining down rockets --
in fact, targeting civilians -- and Israel's response defending
itself."President Joe Biden's administration earlier appealed to ally Israel to
reroute a flashpoint parade in Jerusalem and prevent evictions of Palestinians
in the holy city, the immediate trigger for the new round of violence. Taking
more nuance after the militantly pro-Israel administration of Donald Trump,
Blinken renewed U.S. support for the eventual creation of an independent
Palestinian state. "This violence takes us further away from that goal," Blinken
said. "We believe Palestinians and Israelis equally deserve to live with safety
and security and will continue to engage with Israelis, Palestinians and other
regional partners to urge de-escalation and to bring calm."
Lavrov Calls for Urgent Middle East Quartet Meeting
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday called for an urgent meeting
of the Middle East Quartet in order to halt violence between Israel and the
Palestinians. Speaking alongside United Nations Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres, Lavrov said: "Today we've come to the common opinion that the most
pressing task is to convene the Quartet of international mediators -- Russia,
the United States, the UN and the EU."
France Says 'Everything Must be Done' to Avert New Mideast
Conflict
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
The international community must do everything possible to avert a new conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians, France's foreign minister said Wednesday,
after Palestinian militants fired hundreds of rockets and the Israeli army
launched air strikes. "The cycle of violence in Gaza, in Jerusalem, but also in
the West Bank and several cities in Israel risks leading to a major escalation,"
Jean-Yves Le Drian told parliament. "Everything must be done to avoid... a
conflict" that would be the fourth such deadly confrontation in the last 15
years, he said. "It is absolutely essential that all actors -- without exception
-- show the greatest restraint and refrain from any provocation and any
incitement to hatred to put an end to violence whose victims are chiefly
Palestinian and Israeli civilians," he said. Gaza
militants have launched more than 1,000 rockets since Monday, according to
Israel's army, which has carried out hundreds of air strikes on Islamist groups
in the Gaza Strip. Le Drian said that as well as talking to Palestinian and
Israeli counterparts, he would in the next hours be speaking to the Egyptian
foreign minister, with Cairo seeking to calm the situation.
France welcomed the efforts of Egypt -- a traditional mediator and close
ally of Paris -- and would seek to coordinate French efforts with those of Cairo
to agree a ceasefire, Le Drian said. He said France condemned in the "strongest
terms" the firing of missiles from Gaza at Israeli cities including Tel Aviv.
The crisis started last Friday when weeks of tensions boiled over and
Israeli riot police clashed with crowds of Palestinians at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa
mosque. The unrest has been driven by anger over the
looming evictions of Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighborhood of
Sheikh Jarrah. Le Drian said that France was also
"worried" over the situation in Jerusalem and said the Sheikh Jarrah evictions
were "colonization and feed tensions."
EU Says 'Broader Conflict' Must be Averted between Israel,
Palestinians
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
Israelis and Palestinians must immediately halt their violence "to prevent a
broader conflict" impacting civilian populations, EU foreign policy chief Josep
Borrell warned on Wednesday. "The EU is dismayed at the large numbers of
civilian deaths and injuries, including children," he said in a statement. "All
efforts should be directed at avoiding civilian casualties, and supporting
de-escalation."The statement came as Israelis and Palestinians traded missile
and rocket fire in a military escalation after weekend clashes in and around the
shared holy Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem. "The grave escalation in Israel and
the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including the major upsurge in violence in
and around Gaza, must stop," Borrell said. While saying the "indiscriminate
launching of rockets from Hamas and other groups towards Israeli civilians is
unacceptable" and affirming Israeli's "legitimate need to protect its civilian
population," Borrell stressed that the response "needs to be proportionate"."The
EU calls for an immediate end to the ongoing violence. Everything must be done
to prevent a broader conflict, which will, first and foremost, affect the
civilian populations on both sides," he said.
News Alert: At least 35 killed in Gaza as Israel ramps up airstrikes in response
to rocket attacks
CNN/May 12/2021
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have escalated further as Palestinian
militants in Gaza fired hundreds of rockets into Israel, which responded with
ramped up airstrikes on the coastal enclave, as unrest spread to cities and
towns beyond Jerusalem. As both sides traded airstrikes on Tuesday evening,
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the nation from Tel Aviv,
saying, "We are in the midst of a significant operation."Israeli bombing raids
across Gaza have killed at least 35 people, including 12 children, according to
Palestinian health officials, who also said 220 people have been injured, as of
Tuesday evening. The Israeli military said it had killed more than 15 militants.
4 Hamas Commanders and Israeli Soldier Killed amid Fears of
'Full-Scale War'
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
Heavy exchanges of rocket fire and air strikes, and rioting in mixed Jewish-Arab
towns, fueled fears Wednesday that deadly violence between Israel and
Palestinians could spiral into "full-scale war."Israel's Defense Minister Benny
Gantz vowed more attacks on Hamas and other Islamist militant groups in Gaza to
bring "total, long-term quiet" before considering a ceasefire. "This is just the
beginning," warned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. "We'll deliver them blows
they haven't dreamt of." Gaza militants have launched more than 1,000 rockets
since Monday, said Israel's army, which has carried out hundreds of air strikes
on Islamist groups in the crowded coastal enclave of Gaza.
The most intense hostilities in seven years have killed at least 56
people in Gaza, including 14 children, and six in Israel, including an Israeli
soldier and one Indian national, since Monday. Three Palestinians were killed in
West Bank clashes. And at least 230 Palestinians and 100 Israelis have been
wounded. The bloodshed was triggered by weekend unrest
at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound, which is sacred to both Muslims and
Jews. As world powers voiced growing alarm over the crisis, the UN Middle East
envoy Tor Wennesland warned that "we're escalating towards a full-scale war."
The U.N. Security Council held another emergency meeting without agreeing on a
joint statement due to opposition from the United States, Israel's ally.
Netanyahu declared a state of emergency in the mixed Jewish-Arab Israeli city of
Lod, where police said "wide-scale riots erupted among some of the Arab
residents", and authorities later imposed an overnight curfew there. There were
fears of widening civil unrest as protesters waving Palestinian flags burnt cars
and properties, including a synagogue, clashed with Israeli police and attacked
Jewish motorists in several Jewish-Arab towns.
'Step back from the brink'
Israel's President Reuven Rivlin, in unusually strong language, denounced what
he described as a "pogrom" in which "an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob" had
injured people and attacked sacred Jewish spaces. Rivlin said Israelis needed
"to be ready and armed, strong and determined, prepared to defend our home."
Palestinian groups, mainly Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have launched more
than 1,000 rockets, Israel's army said, including hundreds at Tel Aviv, where
air sirens wailed overnight. Of these, 850 have hit in Israel or been
intercepted by Israel's Iron Dome air defense system, while the rest have
crashed inside Gaza, the army said.Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes
on Gaza, the Israeli-blockaded strip of two million people that Hamas controls,
targeting what the army described as "terror" sites. Hamas said several of its
top commanders were killed in Israeli strikes, including its military chief in
Gaza City, Bassem Issa. Israel's internal security agency, the Shin Bet, also
identified three other top Hamas militants who it said were killed. Its leader
Ismail Haniyeh threatened to step up attacks, warning that "if Israel wants to
escalate, we are ready for it."British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged both
sides to "step back from the brink."French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian
said "everything must be done" to avoid a new Middle East conflict.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said a U.S. envoy would travel to meet
Israeli and Palestinian leaders to seek "a de-escalation of violence."
'Everything caught fire'
In Gaza City, people sifted through debris after an Israeli air strike destroyed
a 12-storey building that Hamas had been a residential building. It was also
known to house the offices of several Hamas officials. Five members of a single
family were killed by an Israeli strike in northern Gaza Tuesday, including
young brothers Ibrahim and Marwan, who were filling sacks of straw at the time.
"We were laughing and having fun when suddenly they began to bomb us.
Everything around us caught fire," their cousin, also called Ibrahim, told AFP.
"I saw my cousins set alight and torn to pieces," said the 14-year-old,
breaking down in tears.
- 'We don't have a safe room' -
In Israel's central city of Lod, a man and a girl were killed Wednesday by
rocket fire from Gaza. Israel identified one of the dead as 16-year-old Nadin
Awad, an Arab Israeli. Her cousin, Ahmad Ismail, told public broadcaster Kan
that he was near Nadin when she was killed alongside her father Khalil Awad, 52.
"I was at home, we heard the noise of the rocket," said Ismail. "It happened so
quickly. Even if we had wanted to run somewhere, we don't have a safe room."An
Israeli woman was killed when rockets hit Rishon Letzion near Tel Aviv. In
Ashkelon, a town near Gaza which Hamas threatened to turn into "hell", rockets
fired by militants killed two women Tuesday. The
crisis flared last Friday when weeks of tensions boiled over and Israeli riot
police clashed with crowds of Palestinians at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque.
Nightly disturbances have since flared in east Jerusalem, leaving more
than 900 Palestinians injured, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The unrest has been driven by anger over the looming evictions of
Palestinian families from the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Large protests have been held in solidarity with Palestinians around the
world, including in Britain and South Africa as well as in Muslim-majority
countries including Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Tunisia and Turkey.
Hamas Fires Another 130 Rockets at Israel, Sirens Wail in
Tel Aviv
Agence France Presse/May 12/2021
Hamas said it fired a barrage of rockets Wednesday towards central and southern
Israel, where rescue workers reported one of them killed a six-year-old boy.
The Palestinian group said in a statement that it launched 130 rockets in
response to an Israeli air raid that leveled the Al-Sharouk tower in Gaza City.
AFP reporters and the Israeli army confirmed sirens were sounding in several
southern communities and the Tel Aviv area. Various locations in Israel's south
were hit by a number of rockets, resulting in wounds and a death, medics said.
"A six-year-old boy was killed when a rocket fired from Gaza struck a
residential building in Sderot," United Hatzalah said. Magen David Adom medics
said they were treating six others in Sderot, as well as in coastal city
Ashkelon. The Al-Sharouk tower, which housed the bureau of the Al-Aqsa
television channel, is the third tall structure levelled by Israeli fire since
the bombing campaign began on Monday. Gaza militants have launched more than
1,000 rockets since Monday, according to Israel's army, which has carried out
hundreds of air strikes on Islamist groups in the crowded coastal enclave of
Gaza.
Egypt discovers 250 tombs, 4,200 years old
AFP/NNA/May 12/2021
Egyptian archaeologists have discovered around 250 tombs in the country's
southern province of Sohag, dating back about 4,200 years, the antiquities
ministry said Tuesday. The graves "include some with a well or several burial
wells and other cemeteries with a sloping corridor that ends with a burial
room," the ministry said in a statement. They range in age "from the end of the
Old Kingdom to the end of the Ptolemaic period," it added. The Old Kingdom,
spanning around 500 years, ended in 2200 BC, while Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty
lasted for 300 years an ended with the death of Cleopatra in 30 BC.Mostafa
Waziri, head of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said one tomb dating back to
the Old Kingdom had faint remains of hieroglyphic inscriptions and a chamber for
"sacrifices". Mohamed Abdel-Badie, a senior antiquities official who led the
excavation, said pottery and votive objects had also been found, dedicated to
ancient Egyptian deities. Small alabaster vessels, animal and human bones as
well as limestone remnants that could be "funerary plates... dating back to the
Sixth Dynasty" were also discovered, Abdel-Badie said.--
The Latest LCCC English analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources
published on May 12- 13/2021
Jihadi Temper Tantrums
Raymond Ibrahim/May 12/2021
During recent court hearings in the UK, a pair of Islamic terrorists threw
temper tantrums and resorted to asinine name calling. They are Hashem Abedi, who
was found guilty of “22 counts of murder, attempted murder and plotting to cause
an explosion likely to endanger life over the terror attack at an Ariana Grande
concert in Manchester in 2017”; and Ahmed Hassan, “who planted the Parsons Green
Tube bomb in September 2017 that injured 51 passengers.”
According to the report,
Hashem Abedi called a prison guard a ‘filthy pig’ in court today as he denied
assaulting him. Abedi … entered a not guilty plea to assaulting Paul Edwards [by
cutting his head, kicking him, and leaving him with permanent hearing loss] at
Belmarsh prison in south-east London…. Asked to enter a plea to the first charge
on Thursday, Abedi … told Westminster Magistrates’ Court: ‘I did assault that
filthy pig, but I don’t see any harm in doing that.’… Ahmed Hassan, who also
appeared in court, pleaded not guilty to assaulting Mr Edwards … [A]ddressing
the chief magistrate, he said:… ‘I want you to know that I hate you very much
because you are a judge, judging by other than the law of Allah.’
Of some interest is the fact that, while to the unsuspecting reader, the
behavior and words of Abedi and Hassan appear childish, immature, and downright
silly, so too do they perfectly conform to Islam’s own words and behavior.
Calling non-Muslims “pigs,” for example, is virtually as old as Islam itself,
finds roots in the Koran, and is all but synonymous with “non-Muslims” as
described in Muslim histories and chronicles. (King Alphonso VI of Castile-Leon,
who inaugurated the Reconquista in 1085 by liberating Toledo from Islam, was
known among his Muslim contemporaries, and subsequent Arab chroniclers, as “that
Great Pig.”)
Similarly, saying “I did assault that filthy pig, but I don’t see any harm in
doing that,” as Abedi said, is in keeping with Islamic doctrine: not only was
the man he attacked an “infidel,” but, as a guard, he was exercising authority
over the Muslim, Abedi—a scandalizing scenario from an Islamic point of view,
since the natural place for all infidels (i.e., “pigs”) is to be at the feet of
Muslims, not vice-versa. As such, certainly Abedi didn’t “see any harm” in
beating Edwards.
As for Ahmed Hassan’s assertion to his judge—“I want you to know that I hate you
very much”—no doubt everyone present, including the judge, assumed that Hassan
was merely expressing his anger and sense of powerlessness against the one
passing judgement upon him.
The reality, of course, is that hating non-Muslims is an Islamic command. In the
words of Koran 60:4, “We [Muslims] renounce you [non-Muslims]. Enmity and hate
shall forever reign between us—till you believe in Allah alone.” Such sentiments
are to be applied to all non-Muslims—“even if they be their parents, children,
siblings, or extended family,” says the Koran (58:22; see also 3:28, 4:89,
4:144, 5:54, 6:40, 9:23). Based on such verses, any number of fatwas,
authoritative Islamic decrees from venerable sheikhs, call on Muslims to do
things like hate their non-Muslim wives (while “physically” enjoying or
benefitting from them) and to hate and be disloyal to the Western nations they
reside in.
In short, and as the Islamic State once explained in an unambiguously titled
article, “Why We Hate You & Why We Fight You,” “We hate you, first and foremost,
because you are disbelievers.”
Perhaps the ultimate lesson here is not that seemingly silly words and volatile
behavior from Muslim terrorists have Islamic antecedents, but rather that
Islamic jihad has always attracted the immature and criminal-prone.
America Playing With Fire
Evelyn Markus/Gatestone Institute/May 12/2021
The Nazi's were obsessed with race. They suppressed dissent, controlled the
dissemination of news and controlled culture. In 1933, the German Student Union
started to burn books in an effort to align German arts and culture with Nazi
ideas. Books of authors such as Hemingway, Helen Keller and Jack London were
considered dangerous and had to be "canceled." The students did not see
themselves as suppressing culture; they saw themselves as advancing a just
culture.
"The first thing every totalitarian regime does, along with confiscation and
mutilation of reality, is confiscation of history and confiscation of culture. I
think they all happen almost simultaneously." — Iranian professor and author
Azar Nafisi, whose book Reading Lolita in Tehran was canceled in Iran.
What used to be unimaginable is now taking place in America. We see certain
aspects of totalitarianism in the United States: the obsession with race,
declaring an ethnic group collectively guilty, shaming, humiliations based on
ethnicity, lootings, arson, racist violence, intimidation of opponents, cancel
culture, controlled dissemination of news, and indoctrination of children in
schools. We see fake news, conspiracy theories, an overhaul of history, a new
language imposed, and unprosecuted theft. All in the name of a more just
culture.
What used to be unimaginable is now taking place in America. We see certain
aspects of totalitarianism in the United States: the obsession with race,
declaring an ethnic group collectively guilty, shaming, humiliations based on
ethnicity, lootings, arson, racist violence, intimidation of opponents, cancel
culture, controlled dissemination of news, and indoctrination of children in
schools.
On May 8, 1945, men and women rushed to the streets of New York, London and
Moscow to hug, kiss and dance. Germany had just surrendered. The war against
Nazi Germany was over. The killing had stopped. A great evil had ended. Yet many
had mixed feelings of joy and grief. More than 100,000 US soldiers had given
their lives and almost another 450,000 had been wounded. In all, 15 to 20
million Europeans had been killed. May 8 is still celebrated in our times as
Victory in Europe Day, or V-E Day.
In 1930, my father moved as a young boy from Holland to Germany with his parents
and brothers. My grandfather hoped to earn some money there during the Great
Depression. He said that nobody had foreseen what would develop in the next
fifteen years. Until 1930, there were only a few hundred Nazi Stormtroopers
(SA), or "Brownshirts," in German streets intimidating voters, opponents and
Jews. Many of the stormtroopers wanted socialism. In the following years, their
number escalated quickly to thousands, and even hundreds of thousands. In 1933,
when Hitler took power, there were two-to-three million SA Stormtroopers in
Germany. It went amazingly fast, my grandfather always said.
The Nazis were obsessed with race. They suppressed dissent, controlled the
dissemination of news and controlled culture. In 1933, the German Student Union
started to burn books in an effort to align German arts and culture with Nazi
ideas. Books of authors such as Hemingway, Helen Keller and Jack London were
considered dangerous and had to be canceled. The students did not see themselves
as suppressing culture; they saw themselves as advancing a just culture.
The intimidations by the Brownshirts peaked on Kristallnacht ("The Night of
Broken Glass"). It was a night of looting, arson and public humiliation --
solely on the basis of ethnicity. More than 90 Jews were murdered. Then the
Blackshirts (SS entities) 'finished it off'. That night, they brought tens of
thousands of Jews to concentration camps.
Nazi officials disguised the organized nature of the pogrom. They described the
actions as spontaneous and justifiable responses of the German population to the
assassination by a Jew of a German diplomatic official, Ernst vom Rath, in
Paris.
The government confiscated all insurance payouts to Jews whose businesses and
homes had been looted or destroyed during Kristallnacht and blamed the Jews for
the destruction. Soon, more Jewish property was confiscated and Jews got
canceled from employment in the public sector and from most professions.
In an interview with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Iranian
professor and author Azar Nafisi, whose book Reading Lolita in Tehran was
canceled in Iran, describes what took place:
"The first thing every totalitarian regime does, along with confiscation and
mutilation of reality, is confiscation of history and confiscation of culture. I
think they all happen almost simultaneously."
What used to be unimaginable is now taking place in America. We see certain
aspects of Nazi-like totalitarianism in the United States. The obsession with
race, declaring an ethnic group collectively guilty, shaming, humiliations based
on ethnicity, lootings, arson, racist violence, intimidation of opponents,
cancel culture, controlled dissemination of news, and indoctrination of children
in schools. We see fake news, conspiracy theories, an overhaul of history, a new
language imposed, and unprosecuted theft. All in the name of a more just
culture.
On May 8, we remember that America had a leading role in liberating Europe from
the totalitarian Nazi regime. But who will liberate America if it becomes
totalitarian state? America is playing with fire.
*Evelyn Markus, psychologist, filmmaker, produced the documentary 'Never Again
Is Now' about rising antisemitism.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Iran's Proxy War Against Israel
Khaled Abu Toameh/Gatestone Institute/May 12/2021
خالد أبو طعمة/ معهد كايتستون: حرب إيرانية ضد إسرائيل بواسطة اذرعتها
Last year, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei admitted
for the first time that his country was supplying the Palestinian terrorist
groups with weapons...."Iran realized Palestinian fighters' only problem was
lack of access to weapons" — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
Reuters, May 22, 2020.
The [earlier] denial exposes the extent of Iran's scheme to deceive the
international community not only regarding its supply of weapons to the
Palestinian terrorist groups, but also concerning its plan to acquire a nuclear
bomb and bolster its production of nuclear material.
Iran... repeatedly violated the terms of the [2015 JCPOA] nuclear deal,
according to the UN's nuclear monitoring Atomic Energy Agency.
Were it not for Iran's financial and military aid, the Palestinian terrorist
groups would not have been able to attack Israel with thousands of rockets and
missiles.
In the past, Iran used its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to attack Israel. Iran
is now using its Palestinian proxies to achieve its goal of eliminating Israel
and killing Jews. This is a war not only between Israel and the Palestinian
terrorist groups. Rather, it is a war waged by Iran against Israel.
The Western powers that are currently negotiating with Iran about the revival of
the 2015 nuclear deal are emboldening the mullahs and allowing them to continue
their war of "kill[ing] all the Jews."
Were it not for Iran's financial and military aid, the Palestinian terrorist
groups would not have been able to attack Israel with thousands of rockets and
missiles.
The Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) organization announced on May
11 that its members fired a burst of "Badr-3" missiles into Israel, killing two
women and injuring dozens others. The announcement was made by PIJ's military
wing, Al-Quds Brigades, after the group and other terror factions in the Gaza
Strip, including Hamas, fired hundreds of rockets into Israel within 24 hours.
The "Badr-3" missile is an Iranian-made missile that appeared for the first time
on the battlefields of the Middle East in April 2019, when the Iranian-backed
Houthi militia used it during the fighting in war-torn Yemen.
The "Badr-3" missile carries an explosive warhead weighing 250 kg, and has a
range of more than 160 km, according to Debka, an Israeli website that reports
on military issues. "The missile explodes within 20m of target and releases a
1,400-piece shower of shrapnel fragments," the website reported.
PIJ was the first terrorist organization to use the Iranian missile against
Israel in 2019.
Until a few years ago, PIJ, Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups used to
receive rockets and other weapons directly from Iran -- smuggled in by sea or
across the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. For some years now, however,
according to Israeli intelligence sources, these terrorist groups have used
years of experience with Iranian and other rockets to develop their own
versions.
Over the past 15 years, Iran became the most dominant weapon supplier to Hamas
and PIJ. The major smuggling route was from Iran to Sudan, on to Egypt and the
Sinai Peninsula, and from there to the Gaza Strip. These weapons include long
range rockets, mortar shells, anti-tank missiles, tons of standard explosives
and raw materials for explosive production.
Last year, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei admitted for the first
time that his country was supplying the Palestinian terrorist groups with
weapons. "Iran realized Palestinian fighters' only problem was lack of access to
weapons," Khamenei said in an online speech.
"With divine guidance and assistance, we planned, and the balance of power has
been transformed in Palestine, and today the Gaza Strip can stand against the
aggression of the Zionist enemy and defeat it."
Khamenei went on to offer the reason why Iran was sending rockets, missiles and
tons of explosives to the Gaza Strip: "The Zionist regime is a deadly, cancerous
tumor in the region. It will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed."
Khamenei's admission shows how the mullahs in Tehran have been lying to the West
for many years. In 2011, Mohammad Khazaee, the Permanent Representative of Iran
to the United Nations, sent a letter to the President of the United Nations
Security Council in which he vehemently denied that Iran was smuggling weapons
into the Gaza Strip:
"The Islamic Republic of Iran categorically rejects the allegations concerning
the so-called smuggling of advanced weapons into the Gaza Strip, which are based
on false and misleading information provided by the Zionist regime. Iran's
support for the peoples of Palestine has been of a moral, humanitarian and
political nature."
The denial exposes the extent of Iran's scheme to deceive the international
community not only regarding its supply of weapons to the Palestinian terrorist
groups, but also concerning its plan to acquire nuclear weapons and bolster its
production of nuclear material.
So while the Obama administration was sending $400 million of cash to Iran, the
Iranians were continuing to supply rockets and missiles to their proxies in the
Gaza Strip so that they could use them to destroy the "Zionist entity."
In 2015, the Obama administration, the UK, France, China, Russia and Germany
reached a deal with Iran, whereby it agreed to limit its nuclear activities and
allow in international inspectors in return for the lifting of economic
sanctions. Iran, however, repeatedly violated the terms of the nuclear deal,
according to the UN's nuclear monitoring Atomic Energy Agency.
The same Iran that lied about the smuggling of the weapons into the Gaza Strip
also managed to deceive the US and the world powers regarding its willingness to
adhere to the nuclear deal.
Last month, a report published by the Israeli Walla news website revealed that
in 2006, Iran opened a route to smuggle missiles and ammunition to the
Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip through Yemen and Sudan. The
smuggling operations were led by Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh,
who was assassinated by Israel in 2010.
On April 9, Mahmoud Mardawi, a Hamas leader and former member of the group's
military wing, Izaddin al-Qassam Brigades, told the Al-Monitor news website:
"Hamas wants to explore all sources of military supplies from every country and
movement, mainly from Iran. We will not stop knocking on doors to find parties
to provide us with weapons."
An arms smuggler who deals with Hamas told Al-Monitor that Iran's Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps sent weapons to the Palestinian terrorist groups
through the Suez Canal all the way to the Mediterranean Sea, where Iranian ships
dock off the coast of the Gaza Strip in Egyptian territorial waters. When night
sets, he revealed, Hamas frogmen transport the weapons in closed containers.
Earlier this year, the secretary-general of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Ziyad
al-Nakhaleh, disclosed that Qassem Soleimani, the slain commander of Iran's Quds
Force, "personally" managed a complex operation to send weapons to the Gaza
Strip. Nakhaleh said that Soleimani, who was killed in a US drone attack on
January 3, 2020 near Baghdad International Airport in Iraq, traveled to several
countries to supply weapons for the Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza
Strip.
Were it not for Iran's financial and military aid, the Palestinian terrorist
groups would not have been able to attack Israel with thousands of rockets and
missiles. Like their patrons in Tehran, Hamas and PIJ do not recognize Israel's
right to exist and are committed to its destruction.
In the past, Iran used its proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, to attack Israel. Iran
is now using its Palestinian proxies to achieve its goal of eliminating Israel
and killing Jews. This is a war not only between Israel and the Palestinian
terrorist groups. Rather, it is a war waged by Iran against Israel.
The Western powers that are currently negotiating with Iran about the revival of
the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal are emboldening the mullahs and allowing them to
continue their war of "kill[ing] all the Jews."
**Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.
© 2021 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. The articles printed here do
not necessarily reflect the views of the Editors or of Gatestone Institute. No
part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied
or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute.
Clashing Fundamentalisms, Gridlocked Governance and
Tumbling Geopolitics
Charles Elias Chartouni/May 12/2021
شارل الياس شرتوني: الاصوليات المتصادمة والحوكمة المعطلة والتداعي الجيوپوليتيكي
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/98796/charles-elias-chartouni-clashing-fundamentalisms-gridlocked-governance-and-tumbling-geopolitics-%d8%b4%d8%a7%d8%b1%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d9%8a%d8%a7%d8%b3-%d8%b4%d8%b1%d8%aa%d9%88%d9%86%d9%8a-%d8%a7/
An overall survey of the Middle Eastern Scenery sends us to a state of
desolation, hopelessness and ultimate helplessness: this region is unable to
deal with its problems, come to terms with its structural gridlocks and overcome
its violent political culture and totalitarian proclivities. The implosion of
the inter-State system has demonstrated the volatility of regional Statehood,
its pliability to centrifugal entropies, the swaying challenges of Islamism, the
eroding effects of long hauled conflicts, and the absence of reformist and
conflict resolution matrixes. The insidious disintegration of Lebanon, the
transformation of the Syrian-Iraqi interfaces into platforms for regional and
international power politics and Islamist terrorism ( Iran, Turkey, UAE, Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, Russia, USA, ISIS…. ), the instrumentalization of Palestinian
power rivalries, the shifting tectonics of Iranian and Turkish expansionist
policies, and the clashing Israeli containment and regional integration
strategies, are inter-related and instructive about the emergency of an overall
peace plan in the Middle East to shrink the strategic vacuums, stabilize State
platforms, and engage the various actors (State and non-State) along alternative
political and developmental courses. The COVID 19 pandemic is quite emblematic
of the monumental subterranean unraveling which has preempted these societies
from engaging modernity and its paradigmatic transformations. The recapitulation
of these various cases is quite illustrative of the deadlocks and their
disarraying effects:
Lebanon: The joined effects of deliberate oligarchic and subversive politics
(political and financial oligarchies, and Shiite Fascism) have led to the
disruption of the Post-War reconstruction era, the plundering of the public
treasury, the monumental heist rigged through the banking system, the
destruction of a centennial social capital, and the hijacking of political and
economic decision making. Short of an internationalization scheme targeting
both, economics and politics, the chances of genuine reformist undertakings and
systemic stabilization are undermined at the onset, since regional power
politics and their internal proxies are quite adept at disrupting and
instrumentalizing systemic equilibriums. Normative and political consensuses are
preludes to any future political undertaking and complements to the regional
scheme of stabilization. Otherwise, the rise of reformist and consociational
political elites is essential to extract the country from the tight oligarchic
foreclosures and the clasp of regional power politics, contain extremism at
various ends, and engage a steady reformist policy course at every level.
Iraq and Syria: the destruction of the geopolitical platform created by ISIS on
the interfaces of the two countries leaves several issues unanswered: the
viability of the Iraqi confederation and its structural requisites: political
and moral reciprocation insofar as the legitimacy of the federal governance, the
containment of regional power politics and their incidence on inner political
dynamics, and ability to carry out public policy reforms which can help the
country deal with its problems, address the well entrenched politics of public
graft, ethno-religious, tribal and factional clientelism, and the lack of public
administration professionalism.
As for Syria, the State simulacrum, that emerged after the annihilation of the
Islamic State, has not been able to regain legitimacy and most likely will
never. Bachar al Assad reigns over a rubble field under a condominium of
competing power brokers. The chances of reconciliation and reconstruction are
lagging far behind on the agendas of the contending parties.
Israel and the Palestinian Territories: The actual outburst of violence displays
the fragility of “the Abrahamic Peace” scheme which initially dismissed the
participation of the self defeating Palestinian authority in this common
undertaking. The skewed vision of Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to engage the
Palestinian authority in a working partnership, settle the question of
Statehood, and restore the internal equilibriums of a fractured internal
political landscape. The unending electoral cycles, the inability to build a
steady majority and the pliability to the extremities of the political spectrum,
the politics of logrolling crafted by political chieftains (including
Islamists), and Netanyahu’s personal travails, have proven detrimental to
Israeli security, political cohesion and ability to manage the new political
opportunities offered by the “Abrahamic Peace”, and narrowed the margins of US
arbitration. The successful containment of Iranian inroads, the working
political, strategic and economic partnerships with Russia, the UAE and the
incipient dynamics of normalization with an ever growing community of Arab
States, have failed to integrate the Palestinians and incidentally the
Jordanians as primary partners in this grand scheme.
However problematic might be the Palestinian positioning, it cannot be relegated
to the back-burner or assigned a peripheral status. Israel’s staggering
military, technological, economic and political success, cannot dispense with
the imperatives of a realistic vision based on the existential ties with
contending neighbors and nemeses. Otherwise, the Palestinian authority has to
revamp its diplomacy, reengage the US and Israel, and avoid its conventional
pitfalls: instrumentalisation by Arab and Muslim power politics, ideological
extremism(zero sum game scenarios, no peace, no negotiation, no recognition and
their corollary violence), corruption and dysfunctional governance. The American
mediation is solicited to put an end to political unilateralism (Israel),
instrumentalization (Palestinians), and sabotaging (Iran and their acolytes,
Iran, Turkey, Syrian regime…), extract actors from their long standing delusions
and restore the true realm of politics.
Iran and Turkey: The debunked myths of a Shiite political millenarianism, the
travails of a beleaguered geopolitical realm and its outlying imperial
projections along the shifting tectonics of the larger Middle East, starting
from the decaying Afghan wasteland and ending with the muddied waters of the
splintering Near East, the conflicting imaginaries of contemporary Islam and its
arc of conflicts extending between Shiite and Sunnite contending political
realms, and the compounded fractures of a failed and corrupt governance and its
discredited public policy records, are quite informative about the geopolitical
hazards and their internal doubles. The chances of reforms are not only
inexistent but reveal the harsh totalitarian grips of an Islamic dystopia, its
systemic foreclosures and inherent violence.
The Turkish case highlights the destructive proclivities of the resurgent
Ottoman Islamism, its imperial delusions, and determination to eradicate the
dynamics of a centennial modernization legacy based on epistemic shifts cutting
all across cultural, political, economic and religious paradigms. The reasserted
imperial drive (Syria, Iraq, Lybia, Armenia…), the ravings of the Ottoman
conquest of Europe, the Near East, North Africa and Central Asia, and the
ambiguity of strategic positioning (NATO, Russia) put the Neo-Ottoman autocracy
on a collision course with an open range of geopolitical actors, deepens the
contradictions of a flawed governance and a deeply frayed ethno-political
structure.
The cursory survey of the troubled geopolitics and dysfunctional Statehood
brings us back to the epistemic and strategic questions, as a prelude to any
stabilization scheme and reform strategy in a region which failed to address its
long hauled geopolitical instability, manage democratically and equitably its
ethnic, religious and cultural pluralism, build its political institutions and
reform its governance. The pervasive violence which looms over the horizon
doesn’t seem to relent and give way to geopolitical stability and reforms.The
emergency of an international conference and a consensual approach to the the
questions of geopolitical stabilization, destructive power projections,
democratic conflict resolution and institutional reforms, are paramount security
and strategic issues which put at stake intercontinental stability, and the need
for systemic reforms in a deeply flawed region.