LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
April 03/17

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Bible Quotations For Today
You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 07/32-36/:"The Pharisees heard the crowd muttering such things about Jesus, and the chief priests and Pharisees sent temple police to arrest him. Jesus then said, ‘I will be with you a little while longer, and then I am going to him who sent me. You will search for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come.’ The Jews said to one another, ‘Where does this man intend to go that we will not find him? Does he intend to go to the Dispersion among the Greeks and teach the Greeks? What does he mean by saying, "You will search for me and you will not find me" and, "Where I am, you cannot come"?’

if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things
Letter to the Romans 15/25-33/:"At present, however, I am going to Jerusalem in a ministry to the saints; for Macedonia and Achaia have been pleased to share their resources with the poor among the saints at Jerusalem. They were pleased to do this, and indeed they owe it to them; for if the Gentiles have come to share in their spiritual blessings, they ought also to be of service to them in material things. So, when I have completed this, and have delivered to them what has been collected, I will set out by way of you to Spain; and I know that when I come to you, I will come in the fullness of the blessing of Christ. I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in earnest prayer to God on my behalf, that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea, and that my ministry to Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints, so that by God’s will I may come to you with joy and be refreshed in your company. The God of peace be with all of you. Amen."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published On April 02-03/17
Healing the Blind Beggar, Bartimaeus Son Of Timaeus/Elias Bejjani/April 01/17
World shrugs as Hezbollah prepares massive civilian deaths/Noah Beck/Jerusalem Post/April 03/17
In first White House meeting 7 years, Egypt expected to focus on security assistance/Michael Wilner/Jerusalem Post/April 03/17
Londonistan: 423 New Mosques; 500 Closed Churches/Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/April 02/17
The Muslim Brotherhood Swoops into Sweden/Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/April 02/17
Europe: Combating Fake News/Fjordman/Gatestone Institute/April 02/17
Souq’s sale to Amazon: a disappointment or celebration/Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
Trump policy setbacks and implications for the Gulf/Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
The demagogic attack on Ahmed Asiri/Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
The abandonment of the Syrian people/Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
What next for global jihad/Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/April 02/17

Titles For Latest Lebanese Related News published On April 02-03/17
Healing the Blind Beggar, Bartimaeus Son Of Timaeus
Netanyahu Sends Warnings at Inauguration of Anti-Hizbullah Missile Interceptor
Israel Says to Strike Hizbullah in Syria if Golan Threatened
Bassil: Law Passed by Large Consensus Better than Extension, Vacuum or 1960 Law
Al-Rahi Warns against Another 'Shameful' Extension of Parliament Term
Clouds of Smoke as Latest Fire Hits Central Dubai
Berri Warns of 'Coup-Like Situation' as FPM 'Optimistic' on Electoral Law
Thursday-Friday Parliament Session to 'Pave Way for Extension'
Hizbullah, AMAL Consider Vacuum 'Red Line', Parliament May Vote on Electoral Laws
Machnouk: Hezbollah's weapons display is condemned, rejected and a blow in face of the new mandate, defying the State logic
Bassil during FPM's dinner in Sydney: Be soldiers of nationality restoration!
Lebanese Democratic Party: Contacts between Arslan, Jumblatt and Safa confirmed prevention of any strife attempt
Limited clashes in Choueifat after raising Party flags
Italian Defense Minister arrives in Beirut this evening
Derian: Our constants prompt us to preserve community's unity, coexistence
Jaber, El Chab take part in IPU meeting in Dhaka
Jarrah: Hariri insists on salary scale approval
Riachy from Sidon: No elections except under new law
Hariri to Paris, Berlin and Brussels
Zeaiter: Electricity work plan contradicts cabinet agreement
World shrugs as Hezbollah prepares massive civilian deaths

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published On April 02-03/17
Ready For ISIS: Egyptian Commando Cadets Eat Raw Rabbits, Chickens, Snakes, Vow To Avenge Dead Comrades In The Sinai
Muslim World League: Hate Advances Terror Agendas, Provides Rally Base
20 people murdered at Pakistan shrine
French judiciary reinforces decision to confiscate Assad’s uncle’s property
Arab coalition’s assessment team apologizes for error on Hajjah factory in 2015
Britain apologizes to Saudi Arabia after London incident involving Gen. Assiri
Houthis threaten to send former defense minister to Iran
Captured Houthi militias reveal they were trained by Iran
Italy Brokers Deal with Libyan Tribes to Curb Migrant Influx
Egypt Military Says Top Islamist Killed in Sinai
Critics of Islands Accord Suffer Blow in Egypt Court
Israel Says Not Seeking Gaza 'Adventures' after Killing Claim
Venezuela Court Retreats from Bid to Boost President

Links From Jihad Watch Site for April 02-03/17
Egypt: “3,000 extremist fatwas” incite Muslims to destroy churches
Jordan’s King: “The fact that terrorists are going to Europe is part of Turkish policy”
German minister proposes registry of mosques, monitoring of Islamic sermons
Convert to Islam who waged jihad for the Islamic State returns to Belgium
Fort Hood jihad murderer announces hunger strike to protest “America’s hatred” for Sharia
South Carolina: Muslim arrested at airport for attempting to join the Islamic State
UK: Son of jihadi imam stripped of passport after waging jihad in Syria
Montana Democrats vote against bill banning Sharia, call it “repugnant”
Sweden: Feminists running away from no-go zones
Muslims roll out prayer mats in streets in massive protest in Paris suburb
Italy: Muslim mom shaves head of daughter for not wearing hijab
Prince Charles tried to halt Afghan invasion to “honor Ramadan”

Links From Christian Today Site For April 02-03/17
More than 250 killed and scores injured in catastrophic landslide in Colombia
20 people massacred in brutal drugging and stabbing at Sufi Muslim shrine in Pakistan
Wealthy - and not so wealthy - White House staffers' finances detailed in new disclosures
Truck driver in church minibus crash that killed 13 may have been texting
Trump's new environmental policies - the end of the fight against climate change?
Trump wants to let pastors endorse politicians, but most evangelical leaders don't want to
Jailed Pakistani Christians offered freedom if they convert to Islam

Latest Lebanese Related News published On April 02-03/17
Healing the Blind Beggar, Bartimaeus Son Of Timaeus
Elias Bejjani/April 01/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=38014
John 09:5: “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world”.
We become blind not when our two eyes do not function any more and lose our vision. No, not at all, this is a physical disability that affects only our earthly body and not our Godly soul. We can overcome this physical blindness and go on with our lives, while our spiritual blindness makes us lose our eternal life and end in hell.
We actually become blind when we can not see the right and righteous tracks in life, and when we do not walk in their paths.
We actually become blind when we fail to obey God’s commandments, negate His sacrifice on the cross that broke our slavery bondage from the original sin, and when we refuse to abandon and tame the instincts’ of our human nature, and when we stubbornly resist after falling into the evil’s temptation to rise to the Godly nature in which we were baptized with water and the holy spirit.
Meanwhile the actual blindness is not in the eyes that can not see because of physical ailments, but in the hearts that are hardened, in the consciences that are numbed and in the spirits that are defiled with sin.
Ephesians 4:29: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear”
When we know heart, mind and soul that God Himself, is LOVE, and when we practice, honour and feel LOVE in every word we utter and in every conduct we perform, we shall never be blind in our hearts, conscience and faith, even though when our eyes cease to perform.
In its spiritual essence and core, what does love mean and encompass? Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians (13/01-07), answers this question: ” “If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I dole out all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient and is kind; love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud, doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil; doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails”
In every community, there are individuals from all walks of life who are spiritually blind, lacking faith, have no hope, and live in dim darkness because they have distanced themselves from Almighty God and His Gospel, although their eyes are physically perfectly functional and healthy. They did not seek God’s help and did not repent and ask for forgiveness, although they know that God is always waiting eerily for them to defeat the evil, get out his temptations and come to Him.
On the sixth Lenten Sunday, our Maronite Catholic Church cites and recalls with great piety Jesus’ healing miracle of the blind beggar, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus. This amazing miracle that took place in Jerusalem near the Pool of Siloam is documented in three gospels; Mark 10/46-52, John 9/1-41, Matthew 20/:29-34.
Maronites in Lebanon and all over the world, like each and very faithful Christian strongly believe that Jesus is the holy and blessed light through which believers can see God’s paths of righteousness. There is no doubt that without Jesus’ light, evil darkness will prevails in peoples’ hearts, souls and minds. Without Jesus’ presence in our lives we definitely will preys to all kinds of evil temptations.
The Miracle: Mark 10/46-52: ” They came to Jericho. As he went out from Jericho, with his disciples and a great multitude, the son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the road. When he heard that it was Jesus the Nazarene, he began to cry out, and say, “Jesus, you son of David, have mercy on me!” Many rebuked him, that he should be quiet, but he cried out much more, “You son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still, and said, “Call him. ”They called the blind man, saying to him, “Cheer up! Get up. He is calling you!” He, casting away his cloak, sprang up, and came to Jesus. Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “Rabboni, that I may see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go your way. Your faith has made you well.” Immediately he received his sight, and followed Jesus in the way. The son of Timaeus, Bartimaeus, the blind beggar who was born to two blind parents truly believed in Jesus. His heart, mind and spirit were all enlightened with faith and hope. Because of his strong faith he knew deep inside who actually Jesus was, and stubbornly headed towards him asking for a Godly cure. He rebelled against all those opportunist and hypocrites who out of curiosity and not faith came to see who is Jesus. He refused to listen to them when they rebuked him and tried hardly to keep him away from Jesus. He loudly witnessed for the truth and forced his way among the crowd and threw himself on Jesus’ feet asking Him to open his blind eyes. Jesus was fascinated by his faith, hailed his perseverance and gave him what he asked for. He opened his eyes.
John’s Gospel gives us more details about what has happened with Bartimaeus after the healing miracle of his blindness. We can see in the below verses that after his healing he and his parents were exposed to intimidation, fear, threats, and terror, but he refused to succumb or to lie, He held verbatim to all the course details of the miracle, bravely witnessed for the truth and loudly proclaimed his strong belief that Jesus who cured him was The Son Of God. His faith made him strong, fearless and courageous. The Holy Spirit came to his rescue and spoke through him.
John 9/13-12: “As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been born blind. 2 His disciples asked him, “Teacher, whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents’ sin?” Jesus answered, “His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parents’ sins. He is blind so that God’s power might be seen at work in him. As long as it is day, we must do the work of him who sent me; night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light for the world.” After he said this, Jesus spat on the ground and made some mud with the spittle; he rubbed the mud on the man’s eyes and told him, “Go and wash your face in the Pool of Siloam.” (This name means “Sent.”) So the man went, washed his face, and came back seeing. His neighbors, then, and the people who had seen him begging before this, asked, “Isn’t this the man who used to sit and beg?”
Some said, “He is the one,” but others said, “No he isn’t; he just looks like him.” So the man himself said, “I am the man.” “How is it that you can now see?” they asked him. He answered, “The man called Jesus made some mud, rubbed it on my eyes, and told me to go to Siloam and wash my face. So I went, and as soon as I washed, I could see.” “Where is he?” they asked.“I don’t know,” he answered.
Sadly our contemporary world hails atheism, brags about secularism and persecutes those who have faith in God and believe in Him. Where ever we live, there are opportunist and hypocrites like some of the conceited crowd that initially rebuked Bartimaeus, and tried with humiliation to keep him away from Jesus, but the moment Jesus called on him they changed their attitude and let him go through. Meanwhile believers all over the world suffer on the hands of ruthless oppressors, and rulers and men of authority like the Pharisees who refused to witness for the truth.
But despite of all the dim spiritual darkness, thanks God, there are still too many meek believers like Bartimaeus who hold to their faith no matters what the obstacles or hurdles are.
Colossians 03:12: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience”
Lord, enlighten our minds and hearts with your light and open our eyes to realize that You are a loving and merciful father.
Lord Help us to take Bartimaeus as a faith role model in our life.
Lord help us to defeat all kinds of sins that take us away from Your light, and deliver us all from evil temptations.
In conclusion, let us never blind ourselves from knowing where is the light and who is the light: “I came into this world for judgment, that those who don’t see may see; and that those who see may become blind.” (John 09/39)

Netanyahu Sends Warnings at Inauguration of Anti-Hizbullah Missile Interceptor
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday warned Israel's enemies not to test its military capabilities at a ceremony inaugurating a joint U.S.-Israeli missile interceptor. David's Sling, meant to counter medium-range missiles possessed by Lebanon's Hizbullah, officially became operational at the ceremony, Israel's military said. It marks the completion of the multi-tier system that includes the Arrow, designed to intercept long-range ballistic missiles in the stratosphere with an eye on Iran, and Iron Dome, which defends against short-range rockets from Gaza. Together, said Netanyahu, they would "protect Israel, our citizens, our cities." "Whoever seeks to strike us will be struck, whoever threatens our existence will place his own existence in jeopardy," he said in a speech at the commissioning ceremony, at Hatzor air force base in central Israel.
David's Sling, named for the slingshot with which the Bible says the future King David slew the Philistine giant Goliath, was developed by Israel's Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and U.S. company Raytheon. Israel lists several aerial threats, some on its borders and others, such as Iran, far beyond. One is Lebanon's Hizbullah, with which it fought a devastating 2006 war. The Israeli military believes Hizbullah today has between 100,000 and 120,000 short- and medium-range missiles and rockets, as well as several hundred long-range missiles, with the medium-range missiles capable of reaching Tel Aviv.
Also, last month Israeli warplanes struck several targets in neighboring Syria, drawing retaliatory missile fire, in the most serious incident between the two countries since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.Israel used its Arrow interceptor to destroy what was believed to have been a Russian-made SA 5 missile after it entered Israeli airspace and Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman threatened to destroy Syria's air defense systems "without the slightest hesitation" if it happened again. Israel has sought to avoid being dragged into the Syrian conflict, but has carried out strikes there to stop what it says are advanced weapons deliveries to Hizbullah. Missiles and rockets are also periodically fired at Israel from the adjacent Gaza Strip, generally by hardline Islamist groups opposed to the Palestinian territory's Hamas rulers. But Israel holds Hamas responsible for all rocket fire from Gaza regardless of who carried it out and routinely strikes Hamas installations in response. Netanyahu's strongest words were reserved for Iran, which he says seeks to "destroy the state of the Jews" and has ambitions to build nuclear weapons. Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. U.S. President Donald Trump slapped fresh sanctions against Tehran's weapons procurement network following a ballistic missile test on January 29. Iranian officials say the missile program is purely defensive.

Israel Says to Strike Hizbullah in Syria if Golan Threatened
Naharnet/April 02/17/Israel is ready to launch a military operation in Syria against Lebanon's Hizbullah and its allies should a real threat to Israel arise there, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Gary Koren has said. “The Iranian regime has always been keen on supporting Syria and Hizbullah and exploiting them as two tools aimed at threatening and deterring Israel,” Koren was quoted as telling a group of Russian reporters. “Our territory is being subjected to deliberate or non-deliberate shelling with all types of weapons and our army is retaliating and not standing idly by. However, should the situation change and Hizbullah or any other Shiite militia or Iran start to amass a second front at the Golan Heights, we will not tolerate that and we will respond as quickly as possible,” the envoy added. Israel seized most of the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed it in 1981, in a move never recognized by the international community. Israel and Syria are still technically at war, though the border had remained largely quiet for decades until 2011 when the Syrian conflict began.

Bassil: Law Passed by Large Consensus Better than Extension, Vacuum or 1960 Law
Naharnet/April 02/17/Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil announced Sunday from Australia that an electoral law passed by “a large consensus” would be better than reaching parliamentary vacuum, extending parliament's term or returning to the controversial 1960 law. “A law passed by a large consensus rather than unanimity would be better than extension, vacuum or imposing the 1960 law without consensus,” Bassil said. “Should no solution be reached, let there be a vote in Cabinet or parliament,” he added. And stressing that the latest electoral law format he proposed should not be dubbed “Bassil's law”, the FPM chief noted that “the Free Patriotic Movement has so far proposed five laws and no one can reject them all.” “The latest law that I have proposed is still being discussed by the parties and Hizbullah is expected to present a final answer. No one can 'kill' an electoral law for Lebanon because no one can kill Lebanon,” Bassil added in response to a reporter's question. He also noted that the week from April 9 to April 15 will be “the week of the electoral law,” pointing out that all parties will exert efforts to reach an electoral law. The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law. Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on the proportional representation system and a single or several large electorates. Druze leader Walid Jumblat has rejected proportional representation, warning that it would "marginalize" his minority Druze community, whose presence is concentrated in the Aley and Chouf areas. Amid reservations over proportional representation by other parties such as al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system. Bassil has recently proposed an electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the controversial law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering. Bassil's format calls for electing 64 MPs according to the proportional representation system and 64 others by their respective sects under a winner-takes-all system.

Al-Rahi Warns against Another 'Shameful' Extension of Parliament Term
Naharnet/April 02/17/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday warned against another extension of parliament's term, saying such a move would be “really shameful.”“We hope the reluctance from approving a new electoral law will not lead to another extension or to a situation with unknown dire consequences,” al-Rahi cautioned in his weekly Sunday Mass sermon. “We hope the procrastination from one month to another is not a way to extend the MPs' terms for as long as possible. This would be really shameful!,” al-Rahi added.The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate amid failure to agree on a new electoral law. The political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system.

Clouds of Smoke as Latest Fire Hits Central Dubai
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/Clouds of smoke billowed over central Dubai on Sunday after a fire burned for several hours in a residential tower under construction near the city's largest shopping mall. The blaze erupted around 6:30 am (0230 GMT) at the complex, which is near the Dubai Mall and a hotel ravaged by fire on New Year's Eve in 2015, authorities said. Civil defence services evacuated four people who were trapped by the fire, including one in serious condition, Lieutenant Colonel Ahmed Ateej told Dubai television. The Dubai government said that firefighting crews had brought the blaze under control. It said the building was being constructed by local real estate giant Emaar. The property has three towers, each 60 floors high, and had been due to be completed in April of next year. Major fires have hit several Dubai high-rises in recent years and spread quickly, mostly due to flammable material used in cladding, a covering or coating used on the side of the buildings. Sunday's blaze was close to where a huge fire ripped through the luxury Address Downtown Hotel on December 31, 2015, only a few hours before a fireworks display nearby. It sparked panic and was broadcast live worldwide, but only injured 16 people. In July last year, a fire gutted the 75-story Sulafa tower in Dubai marina, with the flames spreading up quickly at least 15 floors of the building.In 2012, a huge blaze gutted the 34-story Tamweel Tower in the nearby Jumeirah Lake Towers district. It was later revealed to have been caused by a cigarette butt thrown into a bin.

Berri Warns of 'Coup-Like Situation' as FPM 'Optimistic' on Electoral Law
Naharnet/April 02/Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has warned that failure to approve a new electoral law might lead to a “coup-like situation” in the country. “Time is not in anyone's favor and it is unacceptable to wait. The government must immediately shoulder its responsibilities towards the law and to exclusively focus its efforts on it,” ad-Diyar newspaper quoted Berri as saying in remarks published Sunday. “It should have discussed it earlier in order not to face pressing deadlines as is the situation today,” Berri lamented. He warned that the government's procrastination or failure to pass the law “might lead to a coup-like situation that topples everything.” “The first mission today should be to discuss and pass the electoral law,” Berri urged. According to reports, intensive contacts will be held after Prime Minister Saad Hariri's return from his foreign trip “in order to put the law on the Cabinet's agenda with the aim of approving it and referring it to parliament.” An informed Free Patriotic Movement parliamentary source meanwhile told ad-Diyar that he is optimistic that a new law might be reached within two weeks, noting that “an intensive round of contacts and deliberations will begin next week.”“I believe that we have reached the final phase and I do not rule out that the law could be finalized before mid-April. We need a brief time and we are awaiting the responses of some parties who have asked for some time to consult with their allies, and it seems that things are advancing in a positive manner,” the source added.
The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law. Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on the proportional representation system and a single or several large electorates. Druze leader Walid Jumblat has rejected proportional representation, warning that it would "marginalize" his minority Druze community, whose presence is concentrated in the Aley and Chouf areas.Amid reservations over proportional representation by other parties such as al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system. Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has recently proposed an electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the controversial law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering.

Thursday-Friday Parliament Session to 'Pave Way for Extension'
Naharnet/April 02/The parliament's plenary session that Speaker Nabih Berri has scheduled for Thursday and Friday will “pave the way for extending the parliament's term,” a media report said on Sunday. “The session will pave the way for extension, which until now is being opposed by President (Michel) Aoun and his parliamentary bloc in addition to the MPs of the Kataeb Party,” the Saudi pan-Arab daily al-Hayat quoted an MP as saying. “This means that Speaker Berri is once again taking the initiative after he had left the mission of finding an electoral law to the political forces, especially to the new cooperation channels between Aoun and (PM Saad) Hariri, who have failed to reach a result,” al-Hayat added. Berri has said that it is necessary to issue a law extending parliament's term before an April 15 deadline, “or else the legislative authority would slide into vacuum.”
“The issue of extending parliament's term might be raised politically during the Thursday-Friday session, because voting on any extension proposal should take place during a legislative session that could be held a week later – unless a miracle happens and an agreement on a new electoral law is reached ahead of the April 15 deadline,” al-Hayat quoted parliamentary sources as saying. The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law. Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on the proportional representation system and a single or several large electorates.Druze leader Walid Jumblat has rejected proportional representation, warning that it would "marginalize" his minority Druze community, whose presence is concentrated in the Aley and Chouf areas. Amid reservations over proportional representation by other parties such as al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system. Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has recently proposed an electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the controversial law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering.

Hizbullah, AMAL Consider Vacuum 'Red Line', Parliament May Vote on Electoral Laws
Naharnet/April 02/17/Hizbullah and AMAL Movement consider any parliamentary vacuum in the country a “red line” that should not be reached, a media report said on Sunday. “Should we reach the final week of parliament's ordinary session, which is the third week of May, a possible solution might be in a parliament vote on all the (electoral) laws that are present in the parliament's drawers,” informed sources told the Kuwaiti al-Anbaa newspaper. “Holding the elections under any law that wins a parliamentary vote is better than allowing vacuum to crawl into the legislative authority, a possibility that AMAL and Hizbullah consider to be a red line, the same as the rest of the political and sectarian forces,” the sources added. The country has not organized parliamentary elections since 2009 and the legislature has instead twice extended its own mandate. The last polls were held under an amended version of the 1960 electoral law. Hizbullah has repeatedly called for an electoral law fully based on the proportional representation system and a single or several large electorates. Druze leader Walid Jumblat has rejected proportional representation, warning that it would "marginalize" his minority Druze community, whose presence is concentrated in the Aley and Chouf areas.Amid reservations over proportional representation by other parties such as al-Mustaqbal Movement and the Lebanese Forces, the political parties are mulling a so-called hybrid electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the winner-takes-all system. Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil has recently proposed an electoral law that mixes proportional representation with the controversial law proposed by the Orthodox Gathering. Bassil's format calls for electing 64 MPs according to the proportional representation system and 64 others by their respective sects under a winner-takes-all system.

Machnouk: Hezbollah's weapons display is condemned, rejected and a blow in face of the new mandate, defying the State logic
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - Interior and Municipalities Minister, Nuhad al-Machnouk, commented in a series of Tweets this evening on Hezbollah's display of weapons in the area of Burj al-Barajneh last Friday night, stressing that this action "is condemned and categorically rejected, and is a blow in the face of the new mandate, challenging the logic of the State.""We will only respond to such public military display with more confrontation, solely through the State logic," he added in another Tweet. Al-Machnouk concluded that "the measures imposed by the law will be adopted, in order to prevent all notions of self-security which are rejected by all Lebanese."

Bassil during FPM's dinner in Sydney: Be soldiers of nationality restoration!
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - Attending the dinner banquet held in his honor by the Free Patriotic Movement in Sydney, Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Minister, Gebran Bassil, addressed his audience by reiterating the Movement's cause in favor of nationality and not naturalization, calling on Lebanese expatriates to be "soldiers for the restoration of nationality.""The Free Patriotic Movement ought to win in the elections so as to pursue the march towards change and reform," said Bassil, emphasizing the need for having the majority in order to win votes within the cabinet. "Proper work requires planning, and the State cannot be built without planning," he added. Bassil urged FPM members in Sydney to work together, hand-in-hand, and to cooperate with all the segments of the Lebanese expatriate community, regardless of political differences. "You should work together in service of Lebanon and the Lebanese cause, for our future is one of nationality and identity," Bassil underscored. He also stressed on "openness to all" with no exception, noting that "our strength lies in our understanding with all sides, away from any enmities." "In politics we can differ, and that is at the core of the democratic regime," Bassil asserted, reciting Lebanon's message of unity, partnership and coexistence.

Lebanese Democratic Party: Contacts between Arslan, Jumblatt and Safa confirmed prevention of any strife attempt
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - The Lebanese Democratic Party (LDP) indicated in a statement on Sunday that after intensive contacts between the Party's leader, Displaced Minister Talal Arslan, and Progressive Socialist Party Leader, MP Walid Jumblatt, and Head of Hezbollah's Liaison and Coordination Unit, Wafiq Safa, all sides stressed on the need for maintaining a state of calm and self-restraint, following the minor clashes that occurred in Choueifat this evening. All parties asserted that no attempt at causing strife or sedition and destabilizing the situation will be allowed to take its toll.Earlier, the Progressive Socialist Party's Choueifat Department also issued a statement asserting that this incident has been tackled through a series of political contacts, while stressing on continuous coordination with Hezbollah and all concerned sides in the region.

Limited clashes in Choueifat after raising Party flags
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - Limited clashes occurred on Sunday evening in the area of Choueifat due to raising of political party flags, NNA correspondent reported. In details, Hezbollah supporters raised the party's flag in the locality of al-Mahalla, whereby supporters of the Progressive Socialist Party responded by removing said flag and raising their party's flag instead.As a result, an army patrol unit arrived immediately at the scene, removed both flags and dispersed the young men who gathered around the vicinity.

Italian Defense Minister arrives in Beirut this evening
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - The Italian Embassy in Beirut said in a statement, on Sunday, that Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti will start a visit to Lebanon this evening. Pinotti is expected to meet with President Michel Aoun, House Speaker Nabih Berri and Defense Minister Yacoub Sarraf, in the presence of Army Commander, General Joseph Aoun. Pinotti will also be checking on her country's contingent operating within the framework of the international peacekeeping forces in South Lebanon. Before leaving for Rome on Monday, the Italian Defense Minister will hold a press conference at 5:30 p.m. at Rafic Hariri International Airport's Honor Hall.

Derian: Our constants prompt us to preserve community's unity, coexistence
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Abdul Latif Derian, said on Sunday that Dar el Fatwa was attached to its religious and national constants that preserve the Sunni community, Islam and coexistence. Mufti Derian's fresh stance came during a ceremony held in his honor in presence of Minister of the Interior and Municipalities, Nohad Machnouq. In this regard, the Mufti revealed that he suggested to the head of Lebanon's Higher Islamic Shiite Council and Druze Sheikh Akel to hold a spiritual summit for cohesion. Mufti Derian expressed optimism regarding the new era as well as the performance of the government for finding solutions to crises. Derian supported the approval of budget and salary scale for citizens; however he refused to impose taxes at the expense of poor people. He underscored that the new electoral law should be accepted by all political factions. In his turn, Minister Machnouq said he supported the Mufti's moderate positions and ability to bring Muslims and Lebanese together. He hoped that the Lebanese would succeed in preserving stability in the current regional turbulence. According to him, the efforts started by Tammam Salam's government will be pursued by Saad Hariri's government.

Jaber, El Chab take part in IPU meeting in Dhaka
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - A Lebanese delegation comprised of MP Bassem El Chab and MP Yassin Jaber attended the 136th session of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Dhaka on Saturday. Both MPs took part in the preparatory meetings held by Arab delegations and by Islamic countries. The assembled parliamentarians adopted the proposal of an article on the Palestinian cause and the condemnation of Israeli colonization in occupied territory. An article to be submitted to a vote by the General Assembly of the Union.
This Sunday, the Lebanese delegation attended the meetings of the General Committee of the Union. MP Jaber will deliver tomorrow Monday the speech of Lebanon.

Jarrah: Hariri insists on salary scale approval
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - Telecommunications Minister, Jamal Jarrah, said on Sunday that Prime Minister, Saad Hariri, insisted on the approval of the salary scale for teachers, military and civil servants, despite attempts by some to renounce to their commitments in this regard. At a ceremony held in his honor in Western Bekaa, in the presence of MPs Antoine Saad, Robert Ghanem, Ziad Kadri and Amine Wehbe and several other figures, the Minister stressed the attachment of Future Movement to the approval of a new electoral law that takes into account fair representation and national unity.
He also emphasized Lebanon's good relations with Arab countries, notably with Saudi Arabia.

Riachy from Sidon: No elections except under new law
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - "I am optimistic that we will reach a new electoral law and there will be no election except with a new one," Information Minister, Melhem Riachy, said after visiting on Sunday the Greek Catholic Archdiocese of Sidon, where he met with Bishop Elie Haddad. Commenting on whether the presence of the Lebanese Forces in Sidon was not welcomed, Minister Riachy said that Sidon's citizens have warm hearts that receive all people. The Minister touched on the electricity plan, where he noted that his party would not allow anyone to tamper with the transparency of any project. The Minister then went on with his tour and paid a visit to bishop of Sidon and Deir al Qamar, Bishop Maroun Al Ammar. He then held a meeting with Lebanese Forces coordinator in Sidon-Zahrani, Edgard Maroun.

Hariri to Paris, Berlin and Brussels
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - The Press Office of Prime Minister Saad Hariri issued on Sunday the following press release: "The President of the Council of Ministers Saad Hariri will begin tomorrow a European tour starting from the French capital Paris, where he will meet with the French President François at the Elysee Palace. Hariri will also meet with his French counterpart Bernard Cazeneuve at the Matignon Palace. After that, Hariri will travel to Berlin, where he will meet with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He will then visit Brussels where he will represent Lebanon in the "Brussels Conference on Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region".Hariri will deliver a speech during which he will address the plan of the Lebanese government to strengthen stability and development, and face the pressure on the infrastructure and public services as a result of the displaced Syrians crisis, Lebanon's needs in this respect and the role of the international community in increasing the required aid to face this crisis.

Zeaiter: Electricity work plan contradicts cabinet agreement
Sun 02 Apr 2017/NNA - Agriculture Minister, Ghazi Zeaiter, said on Sunday that the measures taken regarding the electricity plan contradicted the cabinet's agreement. Minister Zeaiter's words came during a ceremony held on the occasion of the International Day of Forests in cooperation with FAO in Machghara village. Zeaiter recalled that the electricity plan was approved at the council of ministers, but Energy Minister has to inform the government of measures to be taken at each stage of the plan, in order to ratify them. Zeaiter also called on the government to finalize the electoral law in the near future. "A law that is fair to all Lebanese components," he concluded.

World shrugs as Hezbollah prepares massive civilian deaths
Noah Beck/Jerusalem Post/April 03/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=53966
In a future conflict, Hezbollah has the capacity to fire 1,500 rockets into Israel every day, overwhelming Israel’s missile defense systems.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently warned Israel that his Iran-backed terrorist group could produce mass Israeli casualties by attacking a huge ammonia storage tank in Haifa, and the nuclear reactor in Dimona.
Also last month, Tower Magazine reported that, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war, Iran has provided Hezbollah with a vast supply of “game-changing,” state-of-the-art weapons, despite Israel’s occasional air-strikes against weapons convoys.
In a future conflict, Hezbollah has the capacity to fire 1,500 rockets into Israel every day, overwhelming Israel’s missile defense systems.
Should such a scenario materialize, Israel will be forced to respond with unprecedented firepower to defend its own civilians.
Hezbollah’s advanced weapons and the systems needed to launch them reportedly are embedded across a staggering 10,000 locations in the heart of more than 200 civilian towns and villages. The Israeli military has openly warned about this Hezbollah war crime and the grave threats it poses to both sides, but that alarm generated almost no attention from the global media, the United Nations, or other international institutions.
Like Hamas, Hezbollah knows that civilian deaths at the hands of Israel are a strategic asset, because they produce diplomatic pressure to limit Israel’s military response. Hezbollah reportedly went so far as offering reduced-price housing to Shi’ite families who allowed the terrorist group to store rocket launchers in their homes.
But if the global media, the UN, human rights organizations and other international institutions predictably pounce on Israel after it causes civilian casualties, why are they doing nothing to prevent them? Hezbollah’s very presence in southern Lebanon is a flagrant violation of UN Security Council resolution 1701, which called for the area to be a zone “free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons” other than the Lebanese military and the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL).
The resolution also required Hezbollah to be disarmed, but the terrorist group today has an arsenal that rivals that of most armies. Hezbollah possesses an estimated 140,000 missiles and rockets, and reportedly now can manufacture advanced weapons in underground factories that are impervious to aerial attack.
“Israel must stress again and again, before it happens, that these villages [storing Hezbollah weapons] have become military posts, and are therefore legitimate targets,” said Yoram Schweitzer, senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS).
Meir Litvak, director of Tel Aviv University’s Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, agrees, adding that global attention would “expose Hezbollah’s hypocrisy in its cynical use of civilians as...
human shields.”
But even a concerted campaign to showcase Hezbollah’s war preparation is unlikely to change things, said Eyal Zisser, a senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies. Hezbollah exploits the fact that “the international community is too busy and... weak to do something about it,” Zisser said. All of “these talks and reports have no meaning. See what is happening in Syria.”
Israel has targeted Hezbollah-bound weapons caches in Syria twice during the past week. Syria responded last Friday by firing a missile carrying 200 kilograms of explosives, which Israel successfully intercepted.
If Hezbollah provokes a war, Israel can legitimately attack civilian areas storing Hezbollah arms if the IDF first attempts to warn the targeted civilians to leave those areas, Litvak said. But “it will certainly be very difficult and will look bad on TV.”
While Sunni Arab states are generally united against the Shi’ite Iranian-Hezbollah axis, Litvak, Zisser and Schweitzer all agreed that Israel could hope for no more than silent support from them when the missiles fly.
Indeed, the “Sunni Arab street” is likely to be inflamed by the images of civilian death and destruction caused by Israel that international media will inevitably broadcast, further limiting support for Israel from Iran’s Sunni state foes.
Rather perversely, the Lebanese government has embraced the very terrorist organization that could cause hundreds of thousands of Lebanese civilian deaths by converting residential areas into war zones.
“As long as Israel occupies land and covets the natural resources of Lebanon, and as long as the Lebanese military lacks the power to stand up to Israel, [Hezbollah’s] arms are essential, in that they complement the actions of the army and do not contradict them,” President Michel Aoun told Egyptian television last month. Hezbollah, he said, “has a complementary role to the Lebanese army.”
Aoun’s declaration means that Lebanon “takes full responsibility for all of Hezbollah’s actions, including against Israel, and for their consequences to Lebanon and its entire population, even though the Lebanese government has little ability to actually control the organization’s decisions or policy,” said INSS senior research fellow Assaf Orion.
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, a veteran of Israel’s 2006 war with Hezbollah, believes that Lebanon’s official acceptance of Hezbollah and its policy of embedding military assets in residential areas removes any prior constraints on Israeli targeting of civilian areas.
“The Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese Army bases – they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out,” he said. “That’s what we should already be saying to them and the world now.”
In a future war, Hezbollah is certain bombard Israeli civilian communities with missile barrages.
Israel, in response, will have to target missile launchers and weapons caches surrounded by Lebanese civilians.
But it need not be so. Global attention on Hezbollah’s abuses by journalists and diplomats could lead to international pressure that ultimately reduces or even prevents civilian deaths.
Those truly concerned about civilians do not have a difficult case to make. Hezbollah has shown a callous disregard for innocent life in Syria. It helped the Syrian regime violently suppress largely peaceful protests that preceded the Syrian civil war in 2011. Last April, Hezbollah and Syrian army troops reportedly killed civilians attempting to flee the Sunni-populated town of Madaya, near the Lebanese border. In 2008, its fighters seized control of several West Beirut neighborhoods and killed innocent civilians after the Lebanese government moved to shut down Hezbollah’s telecommunication network.
Hezbollah terrorism has claimed civilian lives for decades, including a 1994 suicide bombing at Argentina’s main Jewish center that killed 85 people. As the IDF notes, “Since 1982, hundreds of innocent civilians have lost their lives and thousands more have been injured thanks to Hezbollah.”
If world powers and the international media genuinely care about avoiding civilian casualties, they should be loudly condemning Hezbollah’s ongoing efforts – in flagrant violation of a UN resolution – to cause massive civilian death and destruction in Lebanon’s next war with Israel.
The writer is the author of The Last Israelis, an apocalyptic novel about Iranian nukes and other geopolitical issues in the Middle East.

Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published On April 02-03/17
Ready For ISIS: Egyptian Commando Cadets Eat Raw Rabbits, Chickens, Snakes, Vow To Avenge Dead Comrades In The Sinai
MEMRI/April 02/17
In this footage, Egyptian commando cadets demonstrate their survival techniques, showing the CBC TV interviewer how they slaughter rabbits, chickens, and snakes with their bare hands and eat them raw. The interviewer, after declining to taste a bite of snake, praised the Egyptian soldiers for their manliness and their patriotism, saying that they want to avenge their comrades, killed by ISIS in the Sinai. The footage aired on March 12.
Interviewer: "What is this place, sir?"
Officer: "This is where we train the soldiers to obtain protein from the environment so that they will be physically capable of completing their mission. First of all, we can find eggs and eat them raw. After that, we will demonstrate all the things we can eat raw.
"Put the egg in your hand and raise it up high. Get ready... Muhammad, put the tray away.
"Get ready... Go!"
Cadets: "Commando! Commando! Commando! Commando!"
Officer: "When I drink an egg like that, it provides me with protein and water. Another way to get hydrated is by eating potatoes. We can eat them raw, as you will see. Get the potatoes! Throw the eggshells in the garbage bin. Potatoes are very rich in water. When I eat it raw, it gives me water and food. If I don't have time, I can eat it raw and carry on with my mission. Get ready... Go!"
Cadets: "Commando! Commando! Commando! Commando!"
Officer: "After eating these things and obtaining water for food, maybe we will have luck and will catch some birds, in a mountain, a field, or on the coast... it could be a bird or a pigeon... Today, we caught a chicken, and brought it as an example of something we caught in nature. Obviously, slaughtering it in accordance with the shari'a is impossible, so we will slaughter it commando-style:
"We grab the chicken in the left hand, and with the right hand, we start separating the head, saying 'In the name of Allah, Allah Akbar.' Then we start the slaughtering. Hop! Drain the blood first, drain the blood.
"If necessary, we can eat it raw. Get on with it. You can see that this soldier has got the liver out. Take out the liver and the gall bladder. We also have rabbits, of course. Again, we cannot slaughter it in keeping with the shari'a, so we will do it commando-style. We grab the rabbit in the left hand and run the right hand over its fur. Get ready... Hop! We deliver a powerful blow to its head, and finish it off with our teeth. We must skin the rabbit immediately, otherwise the skin will stick to the flesh.
"We begin by skinning the rabbit, and then we disembowel it. Then we can roast the rabbit or, if we don't have time, eat it raw. We also have reptiles, like snakes."
Interviewer: "snakes?"
Officer: "Yes, snakes. We catch them. We use several methods to catch snakes... We begin by slamming the snake to the ground, and stepping on it with our boots. Then we take the snake and put it between our thighs. We squeeze it with our fingers all the way to the snake's head.
"Now we start eating it."
Interviewer: "What does snake taste like? What does it taste like?
Cadets: "It tastes good."
Officer: "It's very normal. It's the regular taste of meat."
Interviewer: "What does it taste like, guys?"
Officer: "There's no problem with its taste. It's very normal, like any other meat."
Interviewer: "No, thanks...
"The most important thing I have learnt in this visit is that the doctrine of the Egyptian soldier is different from that of any other soldier. The Egyptian soldier feels that the soil of the homeland is more important than anything.
"People watching us might say: 'How can they do that to a chicken? How can they eat snakes?' But that's manliness! That's bravery, power, and fortitude! This trains you to persevere in difficult conditions.
"We asked all the soldiers here: Aren't you worried? Aren't you afraid to go to the Sinai, where your comrades are dying? There answer was: No, I want to finish my training, so I can volunteer to go to the Sinai, and avenge the blood of my dead comrades."

Muslim World League: Hate Advances Terror Agendas, Provides Rally Base
Asharq Al-Awsat/April 02/17/Durban – Secretary General of Muslim World League (MWL) Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulkarim Al-Issa demanded an audience of scientists and intellectuals to confront hate-fostering atmospheres. They should give emphasis to an aware civilization, religious representatives, intellectuals, academic institutions and influential podiums that share a large responsibility in fighting the rise of hate, which has led to the most tragic wars in the history of mankind, he said. Speaking at the MWL sponsored forum on coexistence and religious diversity held in the South African city of Durban, Issa addressed some of the most prominent government, civil, religious and cultural figures worldwide. The MWL chief reiterated that Islamophobia or any other form of hate has played into the hands of extremists, serving as a strategic rally ground based on an “us-against-them” rhetoric. Fighting animosity toward fellow humans must therefore be decisively, fiercely and unanimously fought so that peaceful coexistence prevails. Coexistence is an eventual necessity, which international efforts must unite to establish through promoting tolerance and multi-religious coexistence in South Africa, added Issa. Opposing coexistence has resulted in a brutal clash of civilizations which led to tragedy and war, said he added. Reasons of such a conflict is the short-coming of academic and scholarly outlets of taking positive steps towards raising a self-sustaining awareness among its pupils away from the orthodox way of teaching and preaching. Resisting change also plays part in egging on conflict, while acceptance and openness towards different positive opinions reflects the efficacy of social awareness and educational safety, added Issa. Youth are in need of an aware and mature environment that promotes openness so that they react positively to ideas or arguments even though they are based on a different cultural background, he explained. Resorting to a conformist and isolationist mindset is a key factor that feeds into the conflict. Issa went on to say that positively reviewing other beliefs with good intentions is central to promoting coexistence.

20 people murdered at Pakistan shrine
AFP, Islamabad Sunday, 2 April 2017/Twenty people were murdered and four others wounded at a Pakistani Sufi shrine early Sunday by men wielding batons and knives, police said. Four women were among those killed at the Shrine of Mohammad Ali in Punjab province, according to police, who said they had arrested three suspects including the shrine’s custodian. “The 50-year-old shrine custodian Abdul Waheed has confessed that he killed these people because he feared that they had come to kill him,”regional police chief Zulfiqar Hameed told AFP. “The suspect appears to be paranoid and psychotic, or it could be related to rivalry for the control of shrine,” he said, adding that the investigation was continuing. Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has asked for a police report on the investigation within 24 hours, a senior government official said. Visiting the shrines and offering alms to the poor, as well as cash to the custodians, remains very popular in Pakistan where many believe this will help get their prayers answered. There have been cases of people dying during exorcism ceremonies at some Sufi shrines across Pakistan, but mass killings are rare. For centuries Pakistan was a land of Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam whose wandering holy men helped spread the religion throughout the Indian subcontinent in the 13th century. It is believed that several million Muslims in Pakistan follow Sufism, although it has been overshadowed in recent decades by more conservative versions of the faith. Hardliners such as the Taliban or the ISIS have carried out major attacks on Sufi shrines because they consider them heretical.

French judiciary reinforces decision to confiscate Assad’s uncle’s property
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Sunday, 2 April 2017/The French judiciary reinforced its decision to confiscate the property of Rifaat al-Assad, the exiled brother of late Syrian president Hafez al-Assad, and rejected his appeals against the decision, Agence France Presse reported on Friday. Assad, who is suspected of owning this property after embezzling money from Syria, was forced into exile in the 1980s for trying to overthrow his older brother, Hafez al-Assad. Among the confiscated property are two luxurious houses in Paris. The investigation into Rifaat’s finances was triggered by Sherpa, which claims the fortune was stolen during his time at the heart of the Syrian regime. Investigators estimated that Rifaat al-Assad and his family’s property in France is around 90 million Euros divided among real estate in Paris and offices in Lyon. A source close to the matter said the judiciary will later look into other appeals which Assad filed against confiscation of other property. Assad, however, claims his fortune is a result of gifts which he received before being exiled. According to the source, Assad said he’s a politician who does not care about his property and does not read the documents he signs. However, the appeal court doubted this narrative and based its decision on telephone recordings which reveal that an accountant had been “regularly” informing Assad about the situation of his real estate.
The entrance of Bashar al-Assad’s uncle, Rifaat al-Assad's manor, is seen, in Bessancourt, north of Paris, Friday, Sept. 13, 2013. (AP)

Arab coalition’s assessment team apologizes for error on Hajjah factory in 2015
Staff writer, Al Arabiya English Sunday, 2 April 2017/The Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) tasked with evaluating the Arab coalition’s actions in Yemen has apologized for an error recently made during an attack targeting militia in the Hajjah governorate in Yemen. The spokesperson for the assessment team said on Sunday that coalition forces were targeting a moving military target when forces inadvertently hit a water bottling factory in Hajjah province on August 30, 2015 that killed at least 14 workers. According to the initial data, an air strike was carried out based on confirmed intelligence that indicated the presence of AAA mobile anti-aircraft artillery stored at an estimated distance of 80 meters near the factory. The bomb that had been used with the intention of targeting the storage facility apparently deviated off its intended route because of weather conditions in the area and fell on the factory instead. Meanwhile, the assessment team’s spokesperson Mansour al-Mansour found claims that coalition forces targeted a hospital in al-Hudayda province unfounded. The actual targeted site during the attack on October, 2015, was 500 meters from the hospital.

Britain apologizes to Saudi Arabia after London incident involving Gen. Assiri
AFP, London Sunday, 2 April 2017/Britain has apologized after an egg was thrown at a Saudi military official during a visit to London, Saudi state media said Sunday.
An anti-war activist last week attempted a citizen’s arrest of General Ahmed Assiri, spokesman for the Arab coalition fighting militias in Yemen, before another threw an egg that hit Assiri in the back. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s defense minister, to apologize for “the attack on General Ahmed Assiri, counsellor to the prince, by protestors,” the state-run SPA news agency said. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson called Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to apologize. Assiri told AFP he had been “subject to aggression” by protestors critical of Riyadh’s operations in Yemen. Video posted on Twitter showed anti-war activist Sam Walton approaching Assiri, putting his hand on the general’s shoulder and announcing he was placing him under citizen’s arrest before being pushed aside by security personnel.READ ALSO: Who is Alwadaei, the Bahraini who emerged after the attempted attack on Asiri?

Houthis threaten to send former defense minister to Iran
Staff writer, Al Arabiya.net Sunday, 2 April 2017/Sheikh Rashad al-Otari, a Yemeni tribal leader, said Houthi leaders informed him they will send former defense minister Mahmoud al-Subaihi to Iran if the legitimate government does not discuss the demands to release him and others. Otari, from the Lahj Governorate, called for immediate action and said he made a lot of effort to activate negotiations regarding these figures held by the Houthis, adding, however, that there has been no response. Houthi militias have held Subaihi, Nasser Mansour Hadi, the Yemeni president’s brother, and military commander Faisal Rajab since the war erupted in 2015. Meanwhile, the Arab coalition air force destroyed a warehouse for Houthi militias and forces loyal to ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh in Al-Thar Mountain, north of Saada. A source said seven militiamen were killed and 17 others were injured in confrontations with the army in Maqbanah, west of Taiz, adding that the army succeeded at thwarting the militias’ attempt to sneak into the surroundings of Alqa Mountain in al-Kadha near Maqbanah and inflicted heavy losses on them. Arab coalition air force also targeted the militias’ posts in the surroundings of the Khaled camp and the Mocha junction, west of Taiz.

Captured Houthi militias reveal they were trained by Iran
Mohammed al-Arab and Hani al-Sufyan, Al ArabiyaSunday, 2 April 2017
Houthi militia captured and arrested by Yemeni forces on Sunday have confessed they received training from Iranian and Lebanese experts. Mohammed Sharad, one of the captured militants, made the confession and said he was treated well by Yemeni legitimate forces .Yemen’s national army recaptured more posts in Midi city following fierce clashes with the Houthi militia near the suburbs of the besieged district. Scores of Houthis militia and guards of the ousted former president Ali Abdullah Saleh were killed and injured on Sunday. Two were captured - one of them a sniper - both later confessed to receiving training from Iranian and Lebanese experts.Militia have been pushed out of al-Hawd, Tabat al-Khanadik and Tabat al Haroura areas of the district so far. Earlier, military sources referred to coalition air strikes targeting the supply routes of the militias in the district.

Italy Brokers Deal with Libyan Tribes to Curb Migrant Influx
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/The Italian government said Sunday that dozens of rival tribes in southern Libya had agreed to cooperate on securing the country's borders in an effort to curb the influx of migrants trying to reach Europe. Italy's interior ministry said the 60 tribal leaders -- notably the Tuareg of the southwest, the Toubou of the southeast, and the Arab tribe of Awlad Suleiman -- had reached the 12-point deal after 72 hours of secret talks in Rome. A representative from Libya's U.N.-backed Government of National Accord, which is based in Tripoli and controls western Libya, was also present."A Libyan border patrol unit will be operational to monitor Libya's southern border of 5,000 kilometers (3,100 miles)," Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti told Italy's La Stampa newspaper, one of several Italian media outlets reporting on the deal Sunday. "Securing Libya's southern border means securing Europe's southern border," Minniti said. Southern Libya is criss-crossed by smuggling routes for people, drugs and weapons. Since the 2011 uprising that ousted Moamer Kadhafi, a mosaic of tribal and ethnic forces is fighting for control of illicit trade and oil fields in the region. Tuaregs control the border with southern Algeria, while further east, the Toubou operate along the borders with Chad and Sudan. Arab tribes in the region have supported the authorities in western Libya, but they also maintain ties with a rival administration that holds sway in the east -- and regularly clash with the Toubou. Fayez al-Sarraj, chief of the fragile GNA, has struggled to impose the government's authority, despite its backing by many political and military leaders. The accord, whose details have not yet been released, is the latest in a series of deals European countries have sought to reduce migration from Libya, which has increased sharply in recent months. The deal aims to combat "an economy based on illicit drugs, which causes hundreds of deaths in the Mediterranean, thousands of desperate people looking for a better life, a populist push (in Europe) and a jihadist threat in the desert," according to the text of the agreement, quoted in the Corriere della Sera newspaper. It also calls for job training programs to keep young people from criminal activities. Some 24,200 people have been rescued from the Mediterranean and registered at Italian ports so far this year, according to the Interior Ministry. As part of an earlier agreement with the European Union, about 90 members of the Libyan coastguard are currently completing training under the EU, and Italy is preparing to return 10 coastguard boats to Libya that it seized in 2011. They are expected to be operational by the end of April or in early May. In March, interior ministers from several EU and North African countries reached a deal with the GNA to stem flow of migrant and human smuggling, which included pledges of money, coastguard training and equipment for Libya.

Egypt Military Says Top Islamist Killed in Sinai
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/Egypt's military said Sunday a founder of a militant faction in North Sinai that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist group was killed in an air strike. A total of 18 "extremely dangerous" insurgents were killed and others wounded in raids carried out on March 18, it said. Among those killed was Salem Selmi el-Hamadeen, known as Abu Anas al-Ansari, a founder and top member of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, the military said on its official Facebook page. Ansar Beit al-Maqdis is the name used by the group before it pledged allegiance to IS in November 2014. IS reported the death of the militant, active in the Sinai peninsula ever since the mid-2000s, in its weekly newsletter al-Nabaa last Thursday. Ansari "joined the Ansar Beit al-Maqdis group, becoming one of its first members, and since jihad began in Sinai he was one of its building blocks," IS said. He was previously a member of Al-Tawhid Wal-Jihad, a group that claimed a string of bombings at Red Sea resorts in the Sinai from 2004 to 2006 killing more than 100 people, it said. IS said Ansari was jailed but had escaped during Egypt's 2011 uprising against longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak. The jihadists have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the army overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013 and cracked down on his supporters, killing hundreds and jailing thousands of them.
The attacks have mostly taken place in North Sinai, though they have also been carried out in other parts of the country including Cairo.

Critics of Islands Accord Suffer Blow in Egypt Court
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/An Egyptian court ruled Sunday that a judicial decision to block the transfer of two Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia was invalid, lawyers said, in a blow for opponents of a handover. The urgent matters court in Cairo invalidated a verdict by Egypt's highest administrative court that went against the islands' transfer.Saudi Arabia has been a main financial backer of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi since the former army chief toppled his Islamist predecessor in 2013. The deal to hand over the islands, signed during an April 2016 visit by Saudi King Salman during which Riyadh showered Egypt with aid, provoked accusations that Cairo had "sold" the strategic islands. Cairo said the two islands -- Tiran and Sanafir -- were Saudi territory to start with, but had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s. The accord has sparked street protests and a legal battle between the government, which insists along with Sisi that the islands are Saudi, and lawyers opposed to the measure. The urgent matters court ruled "in favor of disregarding the ruling of the high administrative court," as "the judiciary doesn't have the authority to interfere with matters of sovereignty," said Ashraf Farahat, the lawyer who filed the latest lawsuit. Khaled Ali, a lawyer who argued in the administrative court that the islands belonged to Egypt, said Sunday's verdict aimed to give the government "judicial cover" as it pushes to hand over the territory. "They are trying to forge false legitimacy through a court lacking competence to justify presenting the agreement to parliament," Ali told AFP. Tarek el-Khouli secretary of parliament's foreign relations committee, said the government has submitted the case to the house but debates have yet to start. "There are extreme contradictions over the matter of competence. Some describe the issue as a matter of sovereignty and therefore should not be under the judiciary's competence," while others say the opposite, said Khouli. "We are now in front of two contradictory rulings. With this contradiction, in my opinion, this matter should be settled by the supreme constitutional court," said Khouli.

Israel Says Not Seeking Gaza 'Adventures' after Killing Claim
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Sunday Israel did not seek "adventures" in Gaza after Hamas accused it of assassinating an official, and suggested the group itself could have killed him. Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip, has blamed Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and its "collaborators" for the March 24 killing of Mazen Faqha in the Palestinian territory. Israeli officials had previously not commented on the killing. "We are not looking for adventures," Lieberman said during a visit to the Israeli city of Sderot near the Gaza border, according to his office. "We are conducting security policy with responsibility and determination. "It does not matter what Hamas says, it's important what the Jews do."He added: "Let Hamas do what it wants and we will do what we need to do. Hamas is known for internal assassinations, for settling accounts. I suggest that they look there for it."
In response, both Hamas and its armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, accused Lieberman of seeking to evade responsibility for the killing. "The Israeli occupier bears all responsibility for the assassination of Mazen Faqha and the ensuing results," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum said in a statement. The killing has raised the possibility of a response from Hamas and a fresh escalation of violence. On Saturday, Hamas vowed "radical measures" against Palestinians who "collaborated" with Israel, with interior ministry spokesman Iyad al-Bozum saying that could mean arrests, trials and even executions.
Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza have fought three wars since 2008. The enclave has been under an Israeli blockade for 10 years. According to Hamas, Faqha formed cells for the Islamist group's military wing in the West Bank cities of Tubas, where he was born, and Jenin. It said he played an important role in preparing two major incidents. The first was a suicide attack in the Israeli settlement neighborhood of Gilo in east Jerusalem in 2002 that killed 19 people. The second was a suicide bus attack later that year that killed nine people in the northern Israeli city of Safed. Both were part of a wave of suicide attacks that killed hundreds of Israelis during the second intifada, or uprising, between 2000 and 2005. Israel sentenced Faqha to nine life sentences plus 50 years, but he was released in 2011 along with more than 1,000 other Palestinians in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas had detained for five years, and transferred to Gaza.

Venezuela Court Retreats from Bid to Boost President
Associated Press/Agence France Presse/Naharnet/April 02/17/Venezuela's highest court has backtracked from efforts to tighten President Nicolas Maduro's grip on power, after drawing international condemnation that raised pressure on the socialist leader as he clings to office. In a rare climb-down by the president's allies, the pro-Maduro Supreme Court retreated from rulings that prompted opposition calls for mass protests in a volatile country stricken by economic and political crisis. The court said on its website that it was revoking a March 29 decision to take over legislative powers from the National Assembly, a move opponents had angrily branded as a "coup d'etat."It also revoked a ruling that stripped lawmakers of their immunity from prosecution. And it ended special powers it had conferred on Maduro over security legislation in the crisis. Head of the court Maikel Moreno dismissed allegations that its rulings had deprived the legislative branch "of its functions -- nor have they dissolved or canceled it." In a statement read before representatives of the diplomatic corps, Moreno said the court recognizes assembly "immunity as a guarantee of legislative activity, with limitations" set by the constitution.
Opposition unconvinced
Opposition assembly speaker Julio Borges dismissed the court's gesture. "Nothing has changed. The coup d'etat continues," he told reporters. Opposition groups went ahead with planned street rallies in Caracas on Saturday. At a gathering of lawmakers on a public square in Caracas, opposition congressional leader Stalin Gonzalez said the assembly should move to suspend the judges. That would be a difficult task, since it would require support from senior state officials who support Maduro. "We want general elections, not dialogue," said retiree Eugenia Salazar, 67, one of hundreds of people who attended the gathering. The court "violated the constitution by trying to dissolve the parliament. Now they are going back on that, but this is still a dictatorship."After the gathering, participants tried to march to the state ombudsman's office to lobby for his support. They were turned away by riot police who fired tear gas.
Internal criticism
Maduro faced the strongest criticism ever from within his own camp on Friday when Attorney General Luisa Ortega condemned the court rulings as a "rupture of constitutional order."The court denied on Saturday that it had aimed to dissolve the legislature.But it reiterated the original grounds for its ruling: that the assembly would be in contempt if it includes three opposition lawmakers whom the court has suspended for alleged fraud. The court warned the assembly that it must ensure the "legal and legitimate" exercising of its functions. Borges earlier called on the military and other institutions to follow Ortega's example and speak out against Maduro. Pressure against Maduro also increased abroad. In Washington, the Organization of American States (OAS) scheduled an emergency session for Monday to discuss the Venezuelan crisis. Foreign ministers of the regional Mercosur bloc said in a joint statement after a meeting Saturday in Argentina that Venezuela must "ensure the effective division of powers" and "respect the electoral schedule."The foreign ministry in Caracas "categorically rejected" the Mercosur call late Saturday, slamming it as "comical interference aimed at undermining Venezuela's sovereignty."
Power struggle
The opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) won legislative elections in December 2015 in a landslide. But the court has since overturned every law passed by the current legislature. Venezuela has the world's biggest oil reserves, but the collapse in energy prices has sapped its revenues, prompting shortages of food, medicine and basic goods along with soaring violent crime and an inflation rate the IMF expects will reach 1,600 percent by year's end. Maduro is not up for re-election until October 2018, but he has been forced to fend off opposition efforts to call a vote on removing him from power.
Nestor Ramos, 67, joined the lawmakers' gathering in Caracas, saying he was fed up with not being able to obtain medication for his diabetes. "I am at the mercy of God," he told AFP. "I don't care about the Supreme Court, I just want elections and for all of them (in the government) to go."

Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published On April 02-03/17
In first White House meeting 7 years, Egypt expected to focus on security assistance
Michael Wilner/Jerusalem Post/April 03/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=53969
The Trump administration seeks to “reboot” America’s relationship with Egypt after former US President Barack Obama criticized Sisi for his path to power there.
WASHINGTON – An Egyptian president will visit the White House for the first time in seven years on Monday when Abdel Fattah al-Sisi sits down with US President Donald Trump. The meeting is expected to focus on shared security concerns in the region.
Sisi and Trump have reportedly struck up a rapport in phone calls preceding Monday’s visit, including in exchanges over UN Security Council action on Israel, terrorist activity in the Sinai Peninsula and US foreign assistance to the Egyptian state.
The Trump administration seeks to “reboot” America’s relationship with Egypt after former US President Barack Obama criticized Sisi for his path to power there, and his subsequent crackdown of members of the former Muslim Brotherhood government.
Trump and congressional Republicans appear ready to pivot from that policy as they consider officially designating the group as a terrorist organization.
Generally speaking, the Trump administration has proposed severe cuts in foreign aid across the board. Only Israel was given explicit assurances in the president’s proposed budget that its foreign aid would continue at Obama-era levels.
But Sisi is expected to request an increase to the $1.3 billion in US foreign military financing it receives each year in order to more effectively combat terrorist groups in Sinai.
Israel’s defense forces are working closely with Egypt’s military in the Sinai. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s affection for and confidence in Sisi may in turn provide comfort to Trump’s team, which is focused on maintaining stability in the region, suppressing terrorist groups and fostering wider Israeli-Arab cooperation, on which Egypt plays a critical role.
Sisi has “called for reform and moderation of Islamic discourse, initiated courageous and historic economic reforms, and sought to reestablish Egypt’s regional leadership role. He has also led Egypt’s campaign to defeat a long-running terrorist threat in the Sinai,” one White House official told journalists this week. “The United States wants to support President Sisi’s efforts in all of these areas.
“Our relationship has historically been driven by security,” he added, “and that will remain a key component of the engagement with Egypt.”

Londonistan: 423 New Mosques; 500 Closed Churches/لندنستان: 423 مسجداً جديداً واقفال 500 كنيسة
Giulio Meotti/Gatestone Institute/April 02/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=53953
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10124/london-mosques-churches
British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place.
British personalities keep opening the door to introducing Islamic sharia law. One of the leading British judges, Sir James Munby, said that Christianity no longer influences the courts and these must be multicultural, which means more Islamic. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Justice Lord Phillips, also suggested that the English law should "incorporate" elements of sharia law.
British universities are also advancing Islamic law. The academic guidelines, "External speakers in higher education institutions", provide that "orthodox religious groups" may separate men and women during events. At the Queen Mary University of London, women have had to use a separate entrance and were forced to sit in a room without being able to ask questions or raise their hands, just as in Riyadh or Tehran.
"London is more Islamic than many Muslim countries put together", according to Maulana Syed Raza Rizvi, one of the Islamic preachers who now lead "Londonistan", as the journalist Melanie Phillips has called the English capital. No, Rizvi is not a right-wing extremist. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel Laureate for Literature, was less generous; he called the UK "a cesspit for Islamists".
"Terrorists can not stand London multiculturalism", London's mayor Sadiq Khan said after the recent deadly terror attack at Westminster. The opposite is true: British multiculturalists are feeding Islamic fundamentalism. Above all, Londonistan, with its new 423 mosques, is built on the sad ruins of English Christianity.
The Hyatt United Church was bought by the Egyptian community to be converted to a mosque. St Peter's Church has been converted into the Madina Mosque. The Brick Lane Mosque was built on a former Methodist church. Not only buildings are converted, but also people. The number of converts to Islam has doubled; often they embrace radical Islam, as with Khalid Masood, the terrorist who struck Westminster.
The Daily Mail published photographs of a church and a mosque a few meters from each other in the heart of London. At the Church of San Giorgio, designed to accommodate 1,230 worshipers, only 12 people gathered to celebrate Mass. At the Church of Santa Maria, there were 20.
The nearby Brune Street Estate mosque has a different problem: overcrowding. Its small room and can contain only 100. On Friday, the faithful must pour into the street to pray. Given the current trends, Christianity in England is becoming a relic, while Islam will be the religion of the future.
In Birmingham, the second-largest British city, where many jihadists live and orchestrate their attacks, an Islamic minaret dominates the sky. There are petitions to allow British mosques to call the Islamic faithful to prayer on loudspeakers three times a day.
By 2020, estimates are that the number of Muslims attending prayers will reach at least 683,000, while the number of Christians attending weekly Mass will drop to 679,000. "The new cultural landscape of English cities has arrived; the homogenised, Christian landscape of state religion is in retreat", said Ceri Peach of Oxford University. While nearly half of British Muslims are under the age of 25, a quarter of Christians are over 65. "In another 20 years there are going to be more active Muslims than there are churchgoers," said Keith Porteous Wood, director of the National Secular Society.
Since 2001, 500 London churches of all denominations have been turned into private homes. During the same period, British mosques have been proliferating. Between 2012 and 2014, the proportion of Britons who identify themselves as Anglicans fell from 21% to 17%, a decrease of 1.7 million people, while, according to a survey conducted by the respected NatCen Social Research Institute, the number of Muslims has grown by almost a million. Churchgoers are declining at a rate that within a generation, their number will be three times lower than that of Muslims who go regularly to mosque on Friday.
Demographically, Britain has been acquiring an increasingly an Islamic face, in places such as Birmingham, Bradford, Derby, Dewsbury, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester, Sheffield, Waltham Forest and Tower Hamlets. In 2015, an analysis of the most common name in England showed it was Mohammed, including spelling variations such as Muhammad and Mohammad.
Most important cities have huge Muslim populations: Manchester (15.8%), Birmingham (21.8%) and Bradford (24.7%). In Birmingham, the police just dismantled a terrorist cell; there is also a greater probability that a child will be born into a Muslim family than into a Christian one. In Bradford and Leicester, half the children are Muslim. Muslims do not need to become the majority in the UK; they just need gradually to Islamize the most important cities. The change is already taking place. "Londonistan" is not a Muslim majority nightmare; it is a cultural, demographic and religious hybrid in which Christianity declines and Islam advances.
Thousands of Muslims participate in a public outdoor prayer service in Birmingham, England, on July 6, 2016. (Image source: Ruptly video screenshot)
According to Innes Bowen, writing in The Spectator, only two of the 1,700 mosques in Britain today follow the modernist interpretation of Islam, compared with 56% in the United States. The Wahhabis control six percent of mosques in the UK, while the fundamentalist Deobandi control up to 45%. According to a survey from the Knowledge Center, a third of UK Muslims do not feel "part of British culture."
London is also full of sharia courts. There are officially 100. The advent of this parallel judicial system has been made possible thanks to the British Arbitration Act and the system of Alternative Dispute Resolution. These new courts are based on the rejection of the inviolability of human rights: the values ​​of freedom and equality that are the basis of English Common Law.
British personalities keep opening the door to introduce sharia. One of Britain's leading judges, Sir James Munby, said that Christianity no longer influences the courts and these must be multicultural -- which means more Islamic. Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chief Justice Lord Phillips also suggested that British law should "incorporate" elements of sharia law. The British cultural establishment is rapidly capitulating to Islamic fundamentalists in accepting their demands.
British universities are also advancing Islamic law. The official guidelines of the university, "External speakers in higher education institutions", published by Universities UK, provide that "orthodox religious groups" may separate men and women during events. At Queen Mary University of London, women had to use a separate entrance and were forced to sit in a room without being able to ask questions or raise their hands -- as in Riyadh or Tehran. The Islamic Society at the London School of Economics held a gala, in which women and men were separated by a seven-meter panel.
After the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers, recommended self-censorship and "some restraint" in discussing Islam. The British ambassador in Saudi Arabia, Simon Collis, converted to Islam and completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, the hajj. He now calls himself Haji Collis.
What will be next?
**Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.
© 2017 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.

The Muslim Brotherhood Swoops into Sweden
Judith Bergman/Gatestone Institute/April 02/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=53957
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10135/muslim-brotherhood-sweden
"Sweden needs to be a safe space for refugees... It is time to realize that the new Swedes will claim their space. And bring their culture, language and habits. It is time to see this as a positive force... Something new -- The New Country". — Video advertisement; last sentence spoken by a young woman in a hijab.
Formal membership with a card and yearly subscription would probably not be the modus operandi of an organization working fundamentally to undermine societies in order to remake them in the image of Islam.
The Muslim Brotherhood is an organization the goal of which is to obtain an Islamic state, a caliphate, ruled by sharia -- and to bring about that state -- if necessary, by jihad.
It is an organization the Egyptian branch of which called for jihad as recently as 2015, thus belying claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is 'peaceful'. As the murderous actions of Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood organization, clearly show, it is not.
A recent report has revealed that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) is well established in Sweden. The report -- written at the behest of the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency and commissioned precisely because of a lack of research on the MB in Sweden -- caused an outcry against the authors. Twenty Swedish academics, who specialize in Islam and Muslims, protested the report[1]. They called it "substandard work", which did not take account of "the extensive research available about Islam and Muslims in Sweden".
According to the report, the MB has been operating in Sweden since the late 1970s in the guise of a number of Muslim-Swedish organizations, all centered around the Islamic Association in Sweden (IFIS), which itself was established in the mid-1990s as an organizational front for the MB.
IFIS has founded other organizations in Sweden, among which are Islamic Relief, Ibn Rush, and Sweden Young Muslims (SUM). These have not only given the MB a dominant position within so-called 'Muslim civil society' in Sweden, but also enabled it to amass considerable Swedish taxpayer funds that have helped consolidate its position.
The authors of the report conclude that the MB's activists are "building a parallel social structure, which poses a long-term challenge in terms of Sweden's future social cohesion". The authors are being most diplomatic.
According to the report, the Muslim Brotherhood in Sweden promotes:
"...a system of 'cultural pluralism', where every minority group is on the same level as the majority group... The ideal is... that Sweden should be organized in different 'groups', each group having the right to practice its particular values. The Swedish population should, even though it is in the majority, be a group among other groups: all groups should have the same status".
The prevalent idea of multiculturalism, and the accompanying identity politics, thus play directly into the hands of the MB. A video ad from a charity backed by the Swedish government constitutes a particularly blunt example of this kind of thinking. In it, Swedes are told,
"Sweden will never be what it once was. Sweden needs to be a safe space for refugees... It is time to realize that the New Swedes will claim their space. And bring their culture, language and habits. It is time to see this as a positive force... It is time to create a country together that is proud, inclusive and sustainable. Something new -- The New Country".
The last sentence is spoken by a young woman in a hijab.
There seems no reason for the hysterics among Swedish academics that the report appears to have provoked. In fact, they could easily fact-check the report simply by checking the website of the primary group mentioned in the report, the Islamic Association in Sweden (IFSI), which clearly states (at the bottom of the linked page) that it is a member of the Federation of Islamic Organisations in Europe (FIOE), generally acknowledged as an umbrella organization for local Muslim Brotherhood organizations from all over Europe.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in 2005, then-president of FIOE, Ahmet al-Rawi, said, when asked about ties with the MB, "We are interlinked with them with a common point of view. We have a good close relationship."
If Swedish academics purporting to study Islam actually followed news from the Middle East, they would also know that Egypt's former president, Mohamed Morsi, of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, when he became president of Egypt in 2012, included secretary general of the FIOE, Ayman Ali, on his presidential advisory board.
Not even Swedish academics should need further 'empirical' proof to see that the Islamic Association in Sweden's membership of FIOE constitutes de facto allegiance to the Muslim Brotherhood. What Swedish academics are evidently ignorant of, however, is that the MB deliberately operates in a secretive manner. The UK government's experts, in their own review of the MB, published in December 2015, wrote that "from its foundation the Muslim Brotherhood organised itself into a secretive 'cell' structure...This clandestine, centralised and hierarchical structure persists to this day".
That deliberately opaque and secretive way of operating appears intended to create precisely the confusion and ignorance on the topic, evidently enfolding those academics who ought to know most about this topic. The obfuscation also makes it hard for authorities to crack down on the MB. As Mohammed Akif, the former General Guide and supreme leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a former head of its Islamic Center of Munich, explained about the MB in an interview in 2005:
"We do not have an international organization; we have an organization through our perception of things. We are present in every country. Everywhere there are people who believe in the message of the Muslim Brothers. In France, the Union of Islamic Organizations of France (UOIF) does not belong to the organization of the Brothers. They follow their own laws and rules. There are many organizations that do not belong to the Muslim Brothers. For example, Shaykh al-Qaradawi. He is not a Muslim Brother, but he was formed according to the doctrine of the Brothers".
Formal membership with a card and a yearly subscription, Swedish-style, would probably not be the modus operandi of an organization working fundamentally to undermine societies in order to remake them in the image of Islam -- as tidy as that would 'empirically' make matters for Swedish academics.
The Swedish mainstream society would be wise to take this preliminary report extremely seriously, and not discard it. The Muslim Brotherhood is an organization the goal of which is to obtain an Islamic state, a caliphate, ruled by sharia -- and to bring about that state -- if necessary, by jihad. It is an organization the Egyptian branch of which called for jihad as recently as 2015, thus belying claims that the Muslim Brotherhood is 'peaceful'. As the murderous actions of Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood organization, clearly show, it is not.
Historically, the Muslim Brotherhood has spawned other terrorist organizations, such as Al Qaeda -- which, in turn, has spawned ISIS.
The Swedish headlines in March have been filled with news about the return of 150 ISIS fighters to Sweden. A Swedish minister has already said that they should be "integrated back into society".
The Swedes would do well to pay attention to the influence of extremist groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood, or the long-term result might not be what many Swedes would like.
*Judith Bergman is a writer, columnist, lawyer and political analyst.
[1] The report was commissioned by the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency, a state authority, as a preliminary feasibility study, gauging the Muslim Brotherhood's influence in Sweden before engaging in further study and research.
© 2017 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.

Europe: Combating Fake News
Fjordman/Gatestone Institute/April 02/17
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/?p=53960
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/10037/no-go-zones-europe
If present demographic trends continue, in a few decades, native Swedes could easily become a minority in their own country.
Swedish ambulance personnel want gas masks and bulletproof vests to protect their staff against the escalating attacks, similar to equipment used by staff working in war zones.
Most dangerous, however, is our inability to deal forcefully with problems undermining Western societies, because some Western media refuse to admit that the problems exist.
In January 2015 The New York Times denied that there are "no-go-zones" -- areas that are not under the control of the state and are ruled according to sharia law -- dominated by certain immigrant groups in some urban areas in Western Europe. The American newspaper mentioned this author, alongside writers such as Steven Emerson and Daniel Pipes, for spreading this alleged falsehood. The article was published shortly after Islamic terrorists had massacred the staff of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris on January 7, 2015. Other established media outlets such as the magazine The Atlantic also dismissed claims of no-go-zones.
Fox News issued an unusual on-air apology for allowing its anchors and guests to repeat the suggestion that there are Muslim "no-go zones" in European countries such as Britain and France.
Regarding the subject of "no-go-zones," this is largely a question of semantics. If you say that there are some areas where even the police are afraid to go, where the country's normal, secular laws barely apply, then it is indisputable that such areas now exist in several Western European countries. France is one of the hardest hit: it has a large population of Arab and African immigrants, including millions of Muslims.
I have been writing about the problems in Sweden and the rest of Europe for many years. The problems are unfortunately all too real. Here are a few facts:
Sweden surpassed ten million inhabitants in early 2017. The recent population growth is almost entirely due to mass immigration. If present demographic trends continue, in a few decades native Swedes could easily become a minority in their own country. The economist Tino Sanandaji suggests that this transformation could happen within the coming generation.
Statistics from January 2017 indicate that for people born in Sweden, the unemployment rate is 4.3%. Yet for people born abroad, the unemployment rate is a staggering five times higher, at 22.1%. This constitutes a huge economic and social burden for the taxpayers. The famous Swedish welfare state has been quietly cut back for many years.
In an essay published in February 2016, Stockholm police inspector Lars Alvarsjö warned that the Swedish legal system is close to collapse. The influx of asylum seekers and ethnic gangs has overwhelmed the country and its understaffed police force. In many suburbs, criminal gangs have taken control and determine the rules. The police, fire brigades and ambulance personnel in these areas are routinely met with violent attacks.
Malmö, Sweden's third-largest city, houses over 300,000 people, as of 2017. Despite its modest size, the town has a crime rate equal to that of vastly larger cities. The local police are barely able to investigate murders. Less serious crimes often go unpunished. Malmö probably has the highest percentage of Muslim immigrants of any city in Scandinavia. The most Islamic city in Scandinavia also happens to be the most criminal and the most violent.
In November 2016, Malmö's chief prosecutor Ola Sjöstrand publicly admitted that his office was approaching a total collapse in terms of criminal investigations. "If people are hit by crimes which then aren't investigated, they will lose faith in the rule of law," Sjöstrand told the regional newspaper Sydsvenskan.
During New Year's Eve celebrations at the beginning of 2017, parts of central Malmö resembled a war zone. Young immigrants shouted "Jihad!" while throwing fireworks at people. Swedish teenagers gathered in a large group to avoid being robbed.
A janitor in Malmö was shot and sustained life-threatening injures while clearing snow in February 2017. Police detained several suspects, understood to be linked to gang violence, for questioning. A 15-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.
Meanwhile, officials at a local electrical firm announced that they would no longer expose their staff to risk by taking jobs in Malmö; there is just too much violent crime in the city.
Beginning in March 2017, the emergency ward at the hospital in Malmö will lock the doors at night. This is a security precaution that became necessary due to repeated violent threats from certain gangs or clans against patients and staff.
In July 2015, the police in Malmö asked for assistance from the national police to stop the wave of violence. Apparently, even that response was not enough. In January 2017, the police chief, Stefan Sintéus, publicly appealed to residents in Malmö for help in containing violent crime and deadly gang shootings: "Help us to tackle the problems. Cooperate with us."
Peter Springare, a police officer in the town of Örebro in central Sweden, finally vented his frustration in February 2017. Migrants are to blame for the vast majority of serious crime in Sweden, causing the police force to become overloaded, he wrote on Facebook. When dealing with drug crimes, rapes, robberies, aggravated assaults, murders, extortion or violence against the police, the suspected perpetrators very often have names such as Ali, Mahmoud or Mohammed. They usually have a family background from Iraq, Turkey, Syria, Afghanistan or Somalia. Others do not have valid papers.
Gothenburg, Sweden's second largest city, has been for several years one of the most important recruitment centers in Europe for jihadists seeking to join the terrorist group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). A survey carried out in 2016 showed that about one in nine school students aged 12-18 in certain Gothenburg suburbs openly expressed sympathy with militant Islamic groups.
Nordstan in Gothenburg is one of the largest shopping malls in Sweden, located in the heart of the city. 3,250 crimes were reported to the police from Nordstan in 2016. That number is from a single shopping mall in one year. Aggressive groups of Muslim immigrants, especially young men from North Africa, Syria or Afghanistan, partly dominate the mall. "I've had people in front of me that look like they are 35, but who claim to be 15. I can't prove they're lying so we have to release them," Rikard Sörensen from the police said.
Stockholm suburbs such as Husby, Rinkeby and Tensta house large concentrations of recent immigrants. These districts are riddled with crime, violence and social problems. The Swedish police have repeatedly been attacked by criminal gangs there, even with hand grenades.
One day in December 2016, shopkeepers in Husby closed their stores as a protest. Salam Kurda is the chair of the local shopkeepers' association. He says he has had enough after his shop was burgled. Politicians and the police have abandoned Husby to the criminals, states Kurda, who plans to give up his shop. He says it is not profitable and he doesn't feel safe.
In December 2016, the American Jewish documentary filmmaker Ami Horowitz told the story of his venture into Husby. A few seconds after they arrived, five men approached them. They said "You guys gotta get out of here right now." The film crew, being Swedish, turned around and ran for it. Horowitz decided to stay and try to figure this thing out with the men.
The five men then immediately attacked Horowitz, punching, choking and kicking him. Nobody came to his aid, even though this attack took place in a public area outside Stockholm. Horowitz recalls his assailants saying something in Arabic as they beat him to the ground.
Let's define what a 'no-go area' means, really, at least in Sweden," Horowitz says.
"What's interesting is, there's an actual debate out there whether or not these places even exist, right? You go to CNN, the BBC, and you listen to people discuss no-go areas in France, in Belgium, in Sweden, in Germany. And there's an actual debate whether this is real or the figment of the conservative imagination. I can tell you for a fact they exist. And in Sweden what that means is, and this is what the police tell me, they use the words 'no-go area.' They said, in their words, 'If we're chasing a suspect, and they cross into this no-go area, we simply stop pursuit.' And if we want to enter this area, we have to go in with an armed convoy, as if you're going into like the kill zone in Afghanistan."
In 2014, the Swedish police themselves estimated that there were 55 areas in which they are no longer able to uphold law and order. That number is increasing. The country also experiences shocking levels of violence against ambulance personnel in some areas. Swedish ambulance personnel want gas masks and bulletproof vests to protect their staff against the escalating attacks, similar to equipment used by staff working in war zones.
In February 2017, the local police chief Erik Åkerlund in Botkyrka near Stockholm denied that "no-go zones" exist in Sweden. This claim does not sound very credible.
When dissident writers such as this author wrote about these issues 10-15 years ago, the real problems we raised were falsely dismissed as the "xenophobia" of alleged "right-wing extremists."
Unfortunately, the "multicultural" problems in Sweden have grown so large and visible that some international media now regularly write about them. Swedish authorities apparently find this hugely embarrassing. They try to conceal this unpleasant reality as much as possible. In 2016, the Swedish embassy in London complained that Britain's Daily Mail newspaper was running a campaign against Sweden's immigration policy.
In February 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump made some critical remarks about the situation in Sweden, regarding immigration and security. This triggered protests from the Swedish government and the mass media. At the same time, violent riots once again erupted in Rinkeby, a Stockholm suburb with many Muslim immigrants. A Swedish press photographer was assaulted by around 15 people when arriving in Rinkeby to report on the riots.
Cars burn during a riot in Stockholm, on February 20, 2017. (Image source: YouTube/gladbecker82 video screenshot
Two leading politicians from the Sweden Democrats supported Trump's comments in the Wall Street Journal. Immigration, they argued, has indeed caused major problems in Sweden.
In Malmö, violent crime is no longer limited to districts such as Rosengård. Gang-related shootings happen in different parts of Malmö, and in other cities such as Gothenburg.
A survey from 2016 indicated that nearly half of all Swedish women are afraid to go outside after dark. 46% of women feel very unsafe or somewhat unsafe when they exercise alone in the dark -- an indication that there is a widespread sense of fear and uncertainty across much of the country, not just in a few urban areas. "Feminist" Sweden has very high rape rates.
Swedish women have never had more feminism, and have never been less safe.
In January 2017, Magnus Olsson, a politician from the Sweden Democrats in Malmö, suggested that the military should be deployed in the city. "There is a great lack of police officers in Sweden and Malmö. For this reason, it is perhaps time to let the military and police stand together to reestablish order in the country," he said.
Sweden's military forces have been drastically reduced since the Cold War. However, the authorities suddenly seem to have realized that there could be potential for armed conflict in the future. There are now plans to reintroduce compulsory military service.
In early 2017, the Swedish police were instructed to increase their preparations for war. They were not told who this potential war would be against, although the authorities like to talk about an alleged threat of an invasion from Russia.
It is not, however, the Russians who now routinely burn cars and commit gang-rapes in Swedish cities. These crimes are largely committed by recent immigrants, many of them Muslims coming from war zones. These immigrants have for decades been allowed in by the ruling political elites, applauded by the mass media and supported by the EU and the UN.
The Islamic terror threat in Western Europe is now endemic. In late 2016, the police at Brussels International Airport detained 30 terror suspects in one month. That is one potential terrorist per day, at one European airport. Belgium's highest-ranking police chief warned in February 2017 that the terror threat remains "grave" after the Brussels bombings on March 22, 2016. Because of the many radical Muslims living in Belgium, the authorities are concerned that Belgian citizens may lose their visa-free access to the United States.
Due to the threat of terrorism, robberies and street crime, many Chinese, Japanese and Korean travelers have dropped their holiday plans in France. Chronic instability and violence have damaged the country's reputation as a travel destination. Even a prolonged state of emergency and large numbers of police and soldiers deployed in the streets are not enough to uphold law and order.
In February 2017, Paris and other French cities were once more rocked by days of rioting by Muslim and African immigrant. The trigger was an allegation of police violence. However, discontent seems to be endemic. Riots among immigrants could erupt again at any moment.
After a firebomb attack on four police officers near Paris in 2016, France's prime minister insisted there were no no-go zones in the country. However, this is not what the police themselves say.
"Of course there are no-go zones in France where the police cannot intervene and do their jobs in safety," says Denis Jacob from the union Alternative Police-CFDT.
"And it's the same for fire fighters or pretty much any representative of the state. The police can't apply the law in these areas, they are attacked. If the police can't do their work it's because there are criminals and delinquents who don't respect the law."
Yet it would be very bad for business and tourism if the authorities openly acknowledged this. "Governments will never admit there are no-go zones because it's a sign of a failed state," Jacob adds.
*As Soeren Kern writes at Gatestone Institute:
"The problem of no-go zones is well documented, but multiculturalists and their politically correct supporters vehemently deny that they exist. Some are now engaged in a concerted campaign to discredit and even silence those who draw attention to the issue."
What does it take for the New York Times and other established media to define an area as a no-go zone?
It is an indisputable fact that a number of areas exist in several Western European countries where criminal ethnic gangs dominate the streets and where even the police find it very difficult to walk in safety. The number and size of these areas, fueled by mass immigration, seems to be growing.
If the New York Times and other mass media deny this fact, then they are engaged in producing "fake news." People who truthfully warn about these problems thus risk being unfairly vilified and smeared for doing so.
Most dangerous, however, is our inability to deal forcefully with problems that are undermining Western societies, because some Western media refuse to admit that the problems exist.
Mass immigration from incompatible cultures, particularly from the Islamic world, is gradually undermining law and order in many Western cities. If Western media refuse frankly to acknowledge this fact, they are putting the long-term survival of our societies seriously at risk.
*Fjordman, a Norwegian historian, is an expert on Europe, Islam and multiculturalism.
© 2017 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.

Souq’s sale to Amazon: a disappointment or celebration?
Yara al-Wazir/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
When Souq.com first started in 2005, it had five employees. Fast-forward 10 years and it was valued at $1 billion as it received the largest e-commerce funding in the region’s history. One year later, Dubai-based Emaar and US-based Amazon put forward bids to acquire the company, and the latter won.
Neither party has disclosed the actual size of the deal, but public reaction has definitely been to throw a party. Over the region, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and the tech industry are celebrating this sale and considering it an achievement. A select few are questioning the decision to sell Souq.com to Amazon, instead of keeping the company’s home where it belongs: the Middle East. Ultimately, Souq had the option of rejecting both offers and continuing to trade as a private company, all the while benefiting from the exponential growth that e-commerce is predicted to go through over the next few years. Yet Souq decided to sell to Amazon. It is important to treat this deal as a sale, and not as Souq selling-out. Despite the political and economic unrest that the region is facing, it seems that the consumerist and materialistic society is continuing to attract foreign investment. The political volatility has not yet met the e-commerce industry, and it is unlikely to catch up with the industry any time soon. The very interest shown by a world-class heavyweight in e-commerce such as Amazon demonstrates an enormous amount of recognition for the region’s first unicorn. The fact that the sale went through gives great confidence in the industry’s growth over the coming years.
E-commerce is booming – why sell now?
In 2010, the e-commerce industry was worth a measly $3.5 billion. The e-commerce industry in the GCC is currently valued at $15 billion, but has the potential to grow by a further 30 percent to $20 billion by 2020. It is clear e-commerce is the Mo Farah of industries in the Middle East.
The rapid growth rate that e-commerce enjoys raises the obvious question: why sell a company when it is only expected to continue growing? A fair comparison would be if an individual was to own shares in a company that is seeing year-on-year increase in dividends and market value – would they sell, or would they continue to invest their own money? There’s no doubt that the sale of Souq.com to Amazon requires throwing a party, as it is a net-win to all parties involved. The liquidity that this has generated will allow further investment in other tech-startups, therefore passing the benefit on to other entrepreneurs and further developing the region. The sale of Souq generates almost immediate liquidity, which allows the current owners to further invest in the region. This absolute long-term thinking is the reason that Souq was successful in the first place. Samih Toukan, one of the original founders of Souq, has previously sold Maktoob to Yahoo! Inc. He used the money from the deal to found Jabaar Internet Group and invest in other entrepreneurs in the region. In the long term, this opened up dozens of doors to technology entrepreneurs in the region, and allowed Toukan to focus on developing Souq.com, only to repeat the cycle.
Customer comes first
Putting aside the personal biases of the powers that run Souq.com, the real value of this sale will be experienced by the customer. Bringing a massive heavyweight gives Souq.com further credibility and recognition, which can entice retailers to enter the world of online sales. This in turn will bring more products to the fingertips of the online customer. Bringing Amazon’s experience and motivations into Souq.com also means that the company will be able to further develop the technology infrastructure that is required for continuous growth. Experience in logistics would help further Souq’s delivery network, which it has been extensively trying to develop through the launch of Q-express, a Souq-exclusive ‘spin-off’ Logistics Company dedicated to delivering customers’ orders. There’s no doubt that the sale of Souq.com to Amazon requires throwing a party, as it is a net-win to all parties involved. The liquidity that this has generated will allow further investment in other tech-startups, therefore passing the benefit on to other entrepreneurs and further developing the region. Customers will see a wider range of products, great deals, and an improved logistics network. Amazon will tap into the rich Middle-Eastern market through an already developed company. As for Emaar – the company can focus on doing what it does best: real estate, and not technology.

Trump policy setbacks and implications for the Gulf
Dr. Mohamed A. Ramady/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
Rolling back the Obamacare program has eluded the self- professed king of deal makers President Trump, and left a large hole in both his credibility and ability to pass other vital campaign promises, as well as casting a long shadow over foreign policy issues and raised expectations by Gulf countries that the new president will stick the course in matters that are important to them. The number of dissenting Republican congressmen - around 35 - has taken everyone by surprise, given the intensive personal efforts of President Trump to change their mind and vote ‘yes’ to his healthcare program. This was an impossible task on Capitol Hill, as the dissenting Republicans were a mixed bag with those that thought the new program was cutting benefits too deep and those that wanted even more drastic changes, putting the final outcome beyond doubt and the President decided to pull his program out completely and allow Obamacare to continue. The Democrats were elated and sensed that the seemingly infallible new President was indeed fallible.
Shift agenda
With this defeat, the White House will quickly shift the political agenda to an accelerated drive for the tax reform legislation, on which the President is said in fact to be restless to get going. Legislation to replace Obamacare would be shuffled to the back of the legislative queue, to be revived in a newly written bill late into the second half of this year, but in practice may not be revived for a long time, with advisors around President Trump now looking for scapegoats for this fiasco, ranging from the hapless Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, to even blaming the Democrats for not playing ball and supporting the new healthcare bill. Concerning the terms of a new push on tax reform, Republican ambitions must be significantly moderated after the political setbacks with the healthcare legislation. According to President Trump, “we will probably start going very, very strong for the big tax cuts and tax reform. That will be next.”
Tax cuts
However, the tax cuts were supposed to be paid for by savings from the withdrawn healthcare bill. Without the spending cuts in the failed bill, any tax cuts will add to the federal budget deficit. Analysts suspect the border adjustment tax is also likely be dropped in part or whole, and with the loss of the revenue offset in the failed Obamacare replacement, the new tax reform bill will need to either abandon budget neutrality altogether, secure a Senate ruling overriding the Byrd Rule for reconciliation, or limit the period of the tax cuts to three to five years to lower the needed revenue offsets.
The Democrats are sensing that the Trump Administration might not repeat its astonishing electoral triumph and that a series of Congressional bill rebuffs and ongoing investigations of Trump’s advisors concerning Russian connections might be the beginning of their ‘Watergate’ moment, leading to Democrats regaining lost Congressional and Senate seats in forthcoming elections. Scaling back the size of the tax cuts from 20 percent to 25 percent or 28 percent may also come into play to secure passage of the tax reform package, which some believe is still unlikely to pass before the second half of this year.
The collapse of the health care bill in the House will severely damage Speaker Ryan and could further limit his ability to steer legislation in the combative House.
This will only further embolden the so-called Republican Freedom Caucus dissidents as well as equally hard right Republicans in the Senate to dig in with demands on the much-sought tax reform legislation. The result will be that the same problems will darken the prospects for the 2018 fiscal year budget, which is already running several months behind schedule and seems destined for a continuing resolution in September to complete the necessary 12 spending bills. The Democrats are sensing that the Trump Administration might not repeat its astonishing electoral triumph and that a series of Congressional bill rebuffs and ongoing investigations of Trump’s advisors concerning Russian connections might be the beginning of their ‘Watergate’ moment, leading to Democrats regaining lost Congressional and Senate seats in forthcoming elections. While it may be farfetched to believe that impeachment of the new president is even a remote possibility, this could still be in the air until the two key questions that emanated from Watergate and President Nixon are clearly resolved by President Trump – on what does the president know, and when did he know it - concerning current Russian involvement allegations. Until these are settled, the new administration’s policy agenda will be hampered. This has some significant implications for the Gulf and other moderate Arab allies as they have been vocal in their support of the new President, especially in his hard-liner stance against Iran. Any weakening of his position will be a setback to the high hopes for a closer strategic alliance that sees eye to eye on many issues. A resurgent Democratic Party leadership might not be as sympathetic, or forgive and forget the hasty demonization of former President Obama´s Middle East policies by many in the region. Caution and prudence are the keywords.

The demagogic attack on Ahmed Asiri
Turki Aldakhil/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
Some troublemakers recently tried to attack Arab coalition spokesman Ahmed Asiri, the face of tempests and peace, and obstruct his participation at a seminar organized by the European Council on Foreign Relations in London. Asiri’s reaction was calm and not like some opposing media outlets tried to picture it. He settled with the security procedure which British authorities usually impose. Reports about disastrous reactions and punches are in fact funny because Asiri is a statesman who’s been trained at military institutions which is based on discipline and respecting authorities and security apparatuses.
This attack shows the major role which Asiri performed during the past two years. Asiri has certainly had a significant presence in the world. Asiri is not an academic lecturer or a mere political commentator but a military figure who knows the meaning of commands and prohibitions and the value of security and legal values. This attack shows the major role which Asiri performed during the past two years. Asiri has certainly had a significant presence in the world.

The abandonment of the Syrian people
Hisham Melhem/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
The Donald Trump administration has all but announced officially the abandonment of the Syrian people to the not so tender mercies of Bashar al-Assad, the long-necked lisping satrap who has been waging a brutal war against them aided and abetted by his powerful sponsors Russia and Iran, thereby finishing a prolonged willful betrayal that began with the former Obama administration. Those Syrians fighting for dignity, justice and liberty and for a state free of political and religious tyranny are once again alone. In the last six years, Syria’s non-Jihadi opposition groups missed numerous opportunities to build viable political/military coalitions to deter or even overthrow the Assad regime, partly because of the inherent structural weaknesses of the opposition factions, and partly due to the machinations of regional and international powers. That failure should not obscure for a moment the courage and the nobility of the peaceful popular struggle for change in the early phase of the uprising and even in the later violent stages of the conflict when the fledgling civil society, the activists, the artists, and others continued the almost impossible good fight against the industrial scale violence of the regime and the barbarity of the Islamists. Those are the Syrians who are being abandoned, after the forces of the regime, the Russian Air Force, and Iran’s auxiliary marauders ripped their world apart, literally.
It is true that the Obama administration even when it was loudly condemning Assad for committing mass murder, never worked seriously to oust him and his regime, still maintained at least that the official position of the United States was that Syria’s future, after an interim political arrangement should be without Assad. Such position allows, theoretically at least, a successor administration to act more seriously on that official policy. That pretense is no more. The Trump administration is admitting publicly and officially now that it is willing to live with the “political reality that we have to accept” in Damascus named Assad, and should focus now on “defeating ISIS” which is at the heart of its “profound priorities in Syria and Iraq” as White House spokesperson Sean Spicer asserted on Friday.
A Faustian bargain?
On Thursday, in coordinated statements both Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations made it clear that the United States no longer seeks Assad’s overthrow. One could only imagine Assad’s silly nervous laugh at the good news, and see the faint cunning smile on Qasem Soleimani’s face. The Iranian minder of Assad and the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Quds Force is as influential in Syria as Assad and probably more. On a visit to Turkey, Tillerson said that Assad’s future “will be decided by the Syrian people” while Haley in New York stated "our priority is no longer to sit there and focus on getting Assad out." Tillerson is stating the obvious; of course the Syrians should determine Assad’s future, and this principle is contained in every major document pertaining to negotiations, from the Final Communique of the Action Group on Syria in June 2012 to the Security Council Resolution 2254 of 2015 which states that the “Syrian people will decide the future of Syria”. But the context of the Spicer, Tillerson, Haley statements begs a different interpretation. No one is talking about elections, or even a political process. The United States, as candidate and president Trump has been saying for months, will be willing to cooperate with Russia and by extension the Assad regime to fight ISIS, since the president has convinced himself contrary to evidence that Russia and Assad are fighting ISIS. Whether these statements constitute a major shift in America’s posture towards Syria or a pragmatic rejection of a rhetorical position can be debated among serious analysts, but what is not in contention is that most of America’s detractors and friends in the Middle East will read the Trump administration’s position as a concession to Assad and Russia.
The Trump administration is admitting publicly and officially now that it is willing to live with the “political reality that we have to accept” in Damascus named Assad, and should focus now on “defeating ISIS” which is at the heart of its “profound priorities in Syria and Iraq” as White House spokesperson Sean Spicer asserted on Friday
Republican Senator John McCain saw in the new position a shift to “a Faustian bargain with Assad and (Russian President Vladimir) Putin sealed with an empty promise of counterterrorism cooperation”. McCain concluded “Trying to fight the Islamic State while pretending that we can ignore the Syrian civil war that was its genesis and fuel it to this day is a recipe for more war, more terror, more refugees and more instability”. His colleague and friend Senator Lindsey Graham said that if the “Trump administration is no longer focusing on removing Assad, I fear it will be the biggest mistake since president Obama failed to act after drawing a red line against Assad’s use of chemical weapons”. He added “ to suggest that Assad is an acceptable leader for the Syrian people is to ignore the wholesale slaughter of the Syrian people by the Assad regime. Leaving him in power is also a great reward for Russia and Iran”. American officials contemplating co-existence or even collaboration with Assad against ISIS should be reminded that the regime’s wholesale killing of civilians was the magnet that attracted many ISIS recruits. During the height of America’s military presence in Iraq, Assad allowed hundreds of radical Islamists to enter Iraq to do battle against American soldiers.
My friend Fred Hof, known for his insightful analysis of Syria and his encyclopedic knowledge of the country he first saw and loved at age 17 has a slightly different reading of the Tillerson-Haley statements. He pointed out in an article that the Trump administration “does not yet have a fully formed Syria policy”. Hof believes that the Trump administration has no illusions “about the Assad regime and its connection to Iran and to the explicitly terrorist Hezbollah. Yet it is, for the moment,’all about ISIS’ and policy answers to broader questions about Syria likely must await the onset of a coherent and productive interagency process”. In a later exchange of emails, Fred told me that the Trump administration is trying to speed up the military defeat of ISIS, but that “ultimately it will find that keeping ISIS dead requires the exit of the Assad family, the Assad entourage, Iran, and Iranian-led foreign fighters.” He correctly added; “yet whatever the Trump administration's motives and intentions toward Syria, accommodating Iran is not one of them. In and of itself that's an improvement over the predecessor”. To that, one could only say Amen.
But unless the political component of the anti-ISIS strategy is developed quickly and coherently the inevitable military victories in Mosul and Raqqa will be pyrrhic victories, followed by the deepening of sectarian and ethnic polarizations and the rise of identity politics pitting Arabs against Kurds, Sunnis against Alawites. The battle of Raqqa for example requires tremendous political resources and wise judgment to avoid friction and maybe violence among the victorious allies who may turn against each other when the defeated ISIS will cease to be their common enemy. But cutting down the budget of the State Department by more than 27% is hardly reassuring that America’s diplomacy will be robust and successful. So far the Department looks like a skeleton. And Tillerson has no permanent deputy or undersecretary for political affairs or assistant secretaries. There are at least 500 senior positions in various departments that require Senate approval. A vindictive White House is using its veto power to deny Tillerson at State and James Mattis at the Department of Defense the freedom to appoint their senior advisors, if they dared to have opposed Trump during the campaign. Finally, given the precarious nature of president Trump and his tendency to shift views and positions, rash and arbitrary decisions will inevitably be made. It is possible, maybe even likely as one senior former Intelligence official told me that after ISIS is defeated in Mosul and Raqqa, that Trump will quickly (and symbolically) raise the American flag among the other victorious flags, then quickly fold it and beat a quick retreat.

What next for global jihad?
Dr. Azeem Ibrahim/Al Arabiya/April 02/17
Global jihadism is a phenomenon that has been around in its current, recognisable form since the ‘90s, and has, by now, become a permanent feature of the world order. It all started with Al Qaeda, the first organisation to dominate the movement, but they have since been eclipsed by ISIS. Now, as ISIS is being pushed out of Iraq and can expect, before long, to lose even their capital Raqqa, we need to ask what comes next. What we can say about global jihadism is that it is not going away. At least not any time soon. There are just too many young radicals, already trained to use weapons and explosives all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of them, at least. They are globally mobile, and hardly likely to just integrate into other societies once ISIS or Boko Haram, or whoever takes the limelight next, will have been dissipated as a fighting force. There are far too many weapons liberally smuggled across most borders, and available at very low prices. Millions of them, at least. And there are far too many radical preachers eager to poison the minds of new recruits. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of them. So when ISIS is gone, what will happen to this ideology of global jihadism? The answer is not much. ISIS is the symptom of this ideology, not its primary source or even its main nourishment. But more importartantly, perhaps, is that there is no shortage of disaffected young men (and indeed women, and older people) in the world, for whom there is very little possibility to find validation and a sense of self-worth in mainstream society, and who will thus be highly susceptible to radicalisation. And if recent events have shown anything, it is that this susceptibility to radicalisation is not a Muslim-specific phenomenon.
Extremists come from all walks of life
Most countries in the world, certainly most countries in the Middle East and the West, have become more polarised and radicalised in recent years. And right wing violent extremism is also flourishing, and also produces its own terrorist attacks: the Dylann Roof mass shooting in the US and the assassination of British MP Jo Cox in the UK, are poignant examples of a growing trend which should worry us at least as much as Islamist terrorism. Of those who our societies are leaving behind and alienating, many will be Muslims. In the Middle East this will be an inevitable function of the fact that the majority of the population is Muslim. They are living in economically stagnant, politically corrupt societies, which are experiencing huge demographic booms, with no corresponding economic booms to absorb all the new young people, give them jobs, give them opportunities, or give them a clear path towards building a life for themselves. In the West, this is an inevitable consequence of the fact that Muslim communities are at least as likely to experience marginalisation and alienation from mainstream society as any other group. If there is a general trend towards radicalisation in the whole of our political culture, Muslims, especially young Muslim men, are at least as likely to be radicalised as anyone else. They feel shut out of society, feared and despised, and they already have a ready-made ideology of violence which gives them sanction to retaliate against any slights or injustices, real or perceived, that they may suffer from.
Why extremists won’t vanish
So when ISIS is gone, what will happen to this ideology of global jihadism? The answer is not much. ISIS is the symptom of this ideology, not its primary source or even its main nourishment. Just as defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan and degrading Al Qaeda by killing Bin Laden and most of the hierarchy of the group did little to dampen the spread and popularity of the ideology, neither will the fall of Mosul or Raqqa. The fight will simply move on to other places in the world, perhaps to Nigeria and Boko Haram, perhaps somewhere else not yet obvious. Or it may be carried out through other means.
The terror attack in the headlines this week has been the lone-wolf attack on Parliament in London, an attack which left three civilians and one policeman dead, as well as the attacker. The attacker was a 52-year-old man who cannot be described as anything other than a loser. A man on the margin of society for his entire life, with a history of violence and petty crime. A jihadist attack will have been his only chance to make his life stand for something. His life (and death) will now represent children left without a mother or a father, people who have had their loved ones stolen from them, and people who will have to carry life-long injuries with them, just because one petty criminal had an existential crisis. But for as long as the ideology of global jihadism thrives, for as long as we allow it to thrive, there will be more loved ones stolen from us. There will be more children growing up orphans, and more of us living with the physical and emotional scars of our failures as a society to challenge and defeat an ideology of division and violence.