LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
February 11/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

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Israel Says Iran 'Playing with Fire,’ Calls for Pullout of its Militias from Southern Syria
Asharq Al-Awsat/February 10/18/Israel's ambassador to Moscow said on Saturday Iranian-backed “Hezbollah” units and other Shi'ite fighters should be immediately withdrawn from Syria's southern de-escalation zone. "We prefer to talk about the implementation of different agreements on the zones of de-escalation, in our case, in the south on the border with Israel," Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Ambassador Harry Koren as saying. "Specifically, any presence of Iranian units, Hezbollah and Shi'ite fighters should immediately be curtailed." The diplomat spoke after Israel said it had shot down an Iranian drone violating its airspace and struck at least 12 Iranian and Syrian targets in Syria and an Israeli F-16 jet under Syrian fire had crashed in northern Israel. An Israeli military spokesman said the country does not seek an escalation in the region. "We are willing, prepared and capable to exact a heavy price from anyone that attacks us, however we are not looking to escalate the situation. This was a defensive effort triggered by an Iranian act of aggression and we are defending our airspace our sovereignty and civilians,” said the spokesman. Spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus told journalists in a phone conference the Syrians and Iranians were "playing with fire" but Israel was "not looking to escalate the situation." "This is the most blatant and severe Iranian violation of Israeli sovereignty in the last years," Conricus said, referring to the Iranian drone infiltration of Israeli airspace from Syria. "That's why our response is as severe as it is." The deputy head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps declined to comment on Israel’s interception of the drone, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported. "We cannot confirm this report on the drone because Israelis are liars ... if Syrians confirm it, Iran will confirm it as well," Brigadier General Hossein Salami said, according to Tasnim.

Israeli Army: This Is a Serious Iranian Attack on Our Territory
Haaretz/February 10/18/Israeli army spokesman Brigadier General Ronen Manelis said Saturday morning that Iran has carried out "a dangerous attack on Israeli territory" after an Iranian drone was shot down over Israeli territory. According to Manelis, Israel struck deep in Syrian territory, targeting the trailer from which the drone was launched.According to the Israeli army, Syrian anti-aircraft missiles targeted an Israeli F-16, prompting the pilots to eject. The plane went down in northern Israel. The two pilots were taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Syrian anti-aircraft fire triggered rocket sirens in northern Israel, first in the northern Israeli town of Beit She’an and later in the surrounding areas and Golan Heights. "As part of the country's defenses, sirens were activated but there was no danger for the residents of Beit She'an," Manelis said.
The Syrian army and rebels in the Syrian Golan Heights are currently exchanging heavy fire.

Iran using Russia to further its hegemonic ambitions​
Dr. Majid Rafizadeh/Arab News/February 10/18
Iran’s state-owned Persian media outlets have concentrated on the US-Russia relationship in the last few days. The Iranian regime’s President Hassan Rouhani lashed out at the US administration by mentioning that Washington ought to strengthen its ties with NATO members.
Then Iranian leaders dragged Russia into the issue, with Rouhani stating on Iranian TV: “The Americans are shamelessly threatening Russia.” Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also attempted to use his classic tactic of fear-mongering by pointing out that US policy is “bringing humankind closer to annihilation.”It is worth noting that this is a politically calculated move by the Iranian regime to pit Russia and the US against each other. The increased tensions between the Donald Trump administration and Vladimir Putin’s government will grab the global spotlight, taking attention away from the Iranian regime’s threats; specifically the military adventurism and expansionism of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), its elite branch the Quds Force, and its proxies in the region.
Furthermore, the Iranian regime benefits from any heightened tension between Russia and the US because Moscow would then be obliged to strengthen its alliances against Washington. It follows that Russia will boost its military and political cooperation with Tehran and support a regime that holds anti-Americanism at the top of its foreign policy agenda.
In other words, the more tension between Russia and the US rises, the more Russia gets closer to the Iranian regime and supports it.
One of the major pillars of Iran’s foreign policy has been to keep Russia on its side regardless of which government rules Moscow. This is due to the fact that the Iranian regime is in desperate need for Russian military, geopolitical and technological assistance. Iran needs Russia to keep the Syrian regime in power. For instance, Iran can use Russia’s airstrikes, while the IRGC and its proxies, such as Hezbollah, can provide the required boots on the ground to make territorial advances.
Improved ties between the US and Moscow could endanger the Iranian regime’s revolutionary objectives, so Tehran is acting shrewdly by playing the two powers off against each other.
In addition, Tehran needs Moscow to circumvent international isolation and sanctions; to obtain the most advanced weaponry; to tip the regional and global balance of power against Tehran’s “enemies;” and to gain global “legitimacy.” This helps the regime evade responsibility and accountability for its aggression in the region and its human rights violations. Iranian leaders further need Russian assistance in sending nuclear technology to Iran, modernizing the heavy water reactor in Arak, and supporting Tehran’s export of surplus highly enriched uranium.
Maintaining strategic, economic and geopolitical relationships with Russia is so critical for Iran that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who rarely meets with world leaders, has met with representatives of the Kremlin several times.
To keep Russia’s alliance, the Iranian regime has used other tactics beside inflaming tensions between the US and Moscow. For example, like Assad’s regime, Iran has granted Russia a foothold in the Middle East. The Iranian regime even violated its own Constitution’s Article 146, which stipulates: “The establishment of any kind of foreign military base in Iran, even for peaceful purposes, is forbidden.” No foreign power has used Iran’s soil or territories as a base for military operations since the Second World War, but Tehran has allowed Russia to use its Hamadan Airbase as a military base to bomb Syria.
The US and European countries ought to remind Russia that its economic and political relationships with the West outweigh its ties with Tehran. Russia should also be cognizant of the fact that Iran is a threat to Russia, as Tehran is currently luring the EU into decreasing its energy dependence on Russia by allowing the bloc to tap into its oil and gas sectors. Iran seeks a larger role in the gas market and is welcoming Western partnerships. Moscow and Tehran have the first and second-largest gas reserves in the world, respectively.
Improved ties between the US and Russia could endanger the Iranian regime’s revolutionary objectives, but the Iranian regime is playing its cards wisely. By playing the US and Russia off against each other, Tehran is ultimately advancing its regional hegemonic ambitions.
• Dr. Majid Rafizadeh is a Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist. He is a leading expert on Iran and US foreign policy, a businessman and president of the International American Council. He serves on the boards of the Harvard International Review, the Harvard International Relations Council and the US-Middle East Chamber for Commerce and Business. Twitter: @Dr_Rafizadeh

Naloxone kits to be provided to Toronto high schools, board says
The Canadian Press /February 09/18/Naloxone kits to be provided to Toronto high schools, board says
TORONTO — Canada's largest school board will be supplying naloxone kits to more than 100 of its high schools, as cities across the country continue to deal with overdose deaths linked to opioids. Toronto District School Board spokesman Ryan Bird said that two or three staff members at each school will receive training next month to properly spot an overdose and administer the antidote. "It's not that there is any specific thing that happened that prompted this, but we do know that opioids are an increasing issue across the country," Bird said Thursday. "So, it's more of a preventative step that we're taking to ensure that, on the off chance that something like this were to happen, we do have the training and the naloxone to help these students." The board will be covering the cost of the nasal spray, he said, adding that each kit costs between $150 and $200. The move comes almost a year after the City of Toronto released an overdose action plan that included establishing three supervised injection sites. Figures from Toronto Public Health indicate that in 2016, fentanyl replaced heroin and morphine as the most commonly present opioid in overdose deaths. The potent synthetic painkiller was present in 48 per cent of accidental opioid deaths in 2016, compared to 31 per cent in 2015. And, between August and the end of January, Toronto paramedics responded to more than 1,400 suspected overdose calls, 106 of which were fatal. Statistics released by the Public Health Agency of Canada in December also show that at least 1,460 Canadians died from opioid-related overdoses in the first half of 2017, a number expected to rise, as not all provinces have reported final data for the period. British Columbia is one of the regions hardest hit by fentanyl-related overdose deaths. Last week, the province’s coroner said illicit drug overdoses claimed 1,422 lives in B.C. in 2017 — with 81 per cent of those deaths linked to fentanyl. "Throughout the progression of the fentanyl crisis in B.C., Vancouver School Board has been working closely with Vancouver Coastal Health to determine the appropriate actions for schools," the board said in a statement to The Canadian Press late Thursday. The kits are not in Vancouver schools in areas that are considered low-risk, the board said, as "a naloxone kit is unlikely to be of benefit, and may result in harm, if it delays calling 911, the most appropriate response to medical distress." But the board said where a "risk assessment has determined an elevated risk of opioid use," kits will be available and, on a voluntary basis, staff can seek training to use them. Meanwhile, the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board has equipped all its high schools with kits that include two doses of naloxone nasal spray. Administrators received training from Ottawa Public Health in August, spokeswoman Sharlene Hunter said. Peel District School Board, west of Toronto, said it doesn't have the kits in its schools, but officials said they are reviewing the decision with Peel Public Health. Bird and Hunter said their school boards don't intend on supplying elementary schools with kits, adding that they were focusing on older students. "We have EpiPens in our schools in case someone were to have a severe allergic reaction. We don't want to have to use them, but they are there just in case," Bird said. "The same can be applied to naloxone as well."
**Daniela Germano, The Canadian Press

Palestinians: The Hamas-ISIS War, Corrupt Leaders
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/February 10/2018
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11874/palestinians-hamas-isis-war
The Hamas-ISIS war comes at a time when the Gaza Strip is experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis, including shortages of fuel and medicine, that has forced a number of hospitals and medical centers to suspend their services. The suffering of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, however, is apparently of no concern to Hamas.
Instead of attending to the needs of his people, Mahmoud Abbas is busy picking a fight with the U.S. administration and its "Zionist" representatives, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt.
Once again, the Palestinians have fallen victim to their leaders, who are seemingly preoccupied with one thing alone: pumping millions of dollars of public donations into their own private coffers.
What do Muslim terrorists do when they are not killing "infidels" and non-Muslims? It is simple: They start killing each other.
Take, for example, the Islamic terror groups Hamas and Islamic State (ISIS). Although the two groups share the same ideology and seek to kill anyone who obstructs their effort to spread their version of Islam to the rest of the world, it now seems that the throats they are looking to slit are each other's.
The quarrel between Hamas and ISIS is not a spat between good guys and bad guys. Rather, it is a dispute between two bloodthirsty, vicious and ruthless Islamic terror groups that have the blood of countless non-Muslims on their hands. Until recently, Hamas and ISIS were said to be working together, especially in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula. Hamas has been providing fighters to ISIS in return for weapons smuggled into the Gaza Strip. The cooperation between the two groups enabled ISIS to carry out a series of terror attacks against the Egyptian army and civilians in Sinai.
The past few months, however, have seen a rapid deterioration in relations between Hamas and ISIS, particularly in light of Hamas's effort to mend fences with the regime of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Sisi. The new rapprochement between Hamas and Egypt has apparently enraged ISIS, prompting it to declare war on its Palestinian sister group, Hamas.
Hamas, for its part, has also been wary of ISIS's attempts to infiltrate the Gaza Strip and undermine the regime Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement there.Hamas brooks no competition. Instead, the group zealously maintains its death grip on the two million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip. Hamas already has Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction trying to rein it in, so the last thing it needs is for a rival Islamic group to challenge its rule in Gaza.
But now it is official: Hamas and ISIS are at war with each other. This dispute, of course, should be seen as good news. There is nothing more comforting than watching two radical Islamic groups rip each other to bits. All one can do now is wish both groups total success!
The war between the two terror groups reached its peak this week, with revelations that ISIS had plotted to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.
According to an Egyptian intelligence report, Hamas recently arrested 18 ISIS suspects who planned to carry out the assassination in the Gaza Strip. The ISIS cell evidently was planning to place explosives in the "White Mosque" in the Gaza Strip, where Haniyeh prays, the reports said. The plot, they added, was uncovered thanks to cooperation between Hamas and the Egyptian authorities.
The war between ISIS and Hamas reached its peak this week, with revelations that ISIS had plotted to assassinate Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (pictured above).
Earlier, Hamas had announced that its security forces arrested two ISIS terrorists who infiltrated the Gaza Strip from Sinai. According to Hamas, the two terrorists confessed during interrogation that one of the goals of ISIS in Sinai was to prevent humanitarian aid from being smuggled into the Gaza Strip.
The arrests came shortly after ISIS released a video featuring the execution of two Hamas members in Sinai. One of the men was identified as Musa Abu Zmat, a senior commander of the military wing of Hamas, Ezaddin Al-Qassam. Abu Zmat was found guilty of smuggling weapons from Sinai to the Gaza Strip. He was killed with a single shot to the head.
ISIS later released another video in which it accused Hamas of "betraying" the Palestinians by arresting Muslim extremists in the Gaza Strip. ISIS also charged Hamas of failing to thwart U.S. President Donald Trump's recent announcement recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital and of receiving financial aid from Iran. In the video, ISIS also called for attacking Hamas figures and installations, as well as Christians in the Gaza Strip.
The two Hamas men who were executed had fled the Gaza Strip to join ISIS, Palestinian sources said. Mukhaimar Abu Sa'ed, a lecturer with the Al-Azhar University in the Gaza Strip, said that several Hamas members had defected because they felt that their group was "too lenient" and did not impose Islamic sharia law in the Gaza Strip.
In yet another sign of mounting tensions between the two terror groups, earlier this month, ISIS executed two more Palestinians on charges of "collaboration" with Hamas. The two, Ramez Abdullah and Bashar Said, had lived in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk near Damascus and were executed in Syria.
Hamas, according to some reports, has rounded up more than 500 ISIS followers in the Gaza Strip in the past few months as part of a massive crackdown on the group. Hamas also seems to be taking the recent ISIS threats against its leaders seriously. Sources close to Hamas revealed that dozens of ISIS terrorists have managed to infiltrate the Gaza Strip in the past few months to prepare for a wave of attacks against Hamas targets.
The Hamas-ISIS war comes at a time when the Gaza Strip is experiencing a severe humanitarian crisis, including shortages of fuel and medicine, that has forced a number of hospitals and medical centers to suspend their services. The suffering of the Palestinian population in the Gaza Strip, however, is apparently of no concern to Hamas.
Hamas is too busy holding on to power at any cost to expend any effort on helping the residents of Gaza. Hamas is prepared to fight to the last Palestinian to remain in power. The Palestinian Authority, for its part, also does not seem to care much about the plight of its constituents in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the recent "reconciliation" agreement between Hamas and Abbas's Fatah, the Palestinian president has doggedly refused to lift the sanctions he imposed on the Gaza Strip last year, thereby further aggravating the humanitarian crisis there.
Abbas's ultimate goal is to bring about the collapse of the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. He, too, is prepared to sacrifice as many Palestinians as needed to achieve his goal.
Instead of attending to the needs of his people, Abbas is also busy picking a fight with the US administration and its "Zionist" representatives, David Friedman and Jason Greenblatt.
Hamas has its hands full trying to prevent both ISIS and Fatah from taking over the Gaza Strip, while Palestinians are deprived of medical treatment, jobs and food. The fight with ISIS is giving Hamas a taste of its own medicine – blood and death.
Once again, the Palestinians have fallen victim to their leaders, who are seemingly preoccupied with one thing alone: pumping millions of dollars of public donations into their own private coffers.
*Bassam Tawil is a Muslim based in the Middle East.
© 2018 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.

Germany: Merkel Pays High Price for Fourth Term/"This will not be long."
Soeren Kern/Gatestone Institute/February 10/2018
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11871/merkel-fourth-term
"Merkel will govern...but her government will be under the heading 'this will not be long.' This refers to Merkel, and also to the fact that in many parts of the country there is the feeling that 'this' should not continue." — Kurt Kister, Editor-in-Chief, Süddeutsche Zeitung.
"The CDU retains control of the beautiful-sounding, but in fact powerless, Ministry of Economy, the unpopular Ministry of Health, the crisis-prone Ministry of Defense and the shadowy existence of ministerial posts in the Chancellery, for education and agriculture. That is little for the strongest faction in the Bundestag." — Editorial, Münchner Merkur.
"The CDU was transformed into Merkel's own personal political party. On the way, though, the competition of political ideas—the policy conflicts that are the lifeblood of democracy and which provide voters with direction—was lost." — René Pfister, head of the Berlin bureau, Der Spiegel.
Negotiators from Chancellor Angela Merkel's center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), their Bavarian partners, the Christian Social Union (CSU), and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) have agreed in principle on a deal for a new "grand coalition" government—one that, in fact, is the same as the one that governed prior to the last election in September 2017.
The deal, if formally ratified by the SPD's rank and file members at a special party congress on March 4, would ensure that Germany has a new government by Easter—and that Merkel, already in power for 12 years, will remain in office for a fourth tenure as chancellor, albeit in a much-weakened position.
Unusually, the 177-page agreement, reached on February 7, is subject to review in two years, when the parties will reassess the coalition. Analysts have speculated that it may be an opportunity for Merkel finally to step down.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (center), stands with Martin Schulz (right), the leader of the Social Democratic Party, and Horst Seehofer (left), Governor of Bavaria and leader of the Christian Social Union, after government coalition negotiations on February 7, 2018 in Berlin, Germany.
To ensure the deal, the three parties made concessions to each other, all in an effort to prevent fresh elections, in which the anti-immigration party Alternative for Germany (AfD), riding high in the polls, would almost strengthen its position in the German parliament, where it already is the main opposition party.
Merkel's greatest concessions involved the allocation of cabinet positions. Her CDU relinquished control over the influential Interior and Finance ministries. The SPD will now control the three top ministries: finance, foreign affairs and labor. The CSU, which advocates a harder line on immigration than Merkel, will take over the Interior Ministry.
The key points of the deal included agreements on healthcare and housing reform; a commitment to international climate goals; a "billion-euro program" to ensure that all Germans, including those in rural areas, have access to a high-speed internet connection by 2025; and restrictions on German arms exports to all countries taking part in the war in Yemen. The restrictions would include Saudi Arabia, a key market for German defense companies.
With respect to the European Union, the CDU/CSU and SPD agreed to grant more powers to the European Parliament and to create a European Monetary Fund—presumably funded in large measure by Germany—to help protect the eurozone against future financial crises. More significantly, the agreement promises "more investment" for the European Union. The SPD said this amounted to "an end to austerity measures"—cuts to public spending—imposed on the European Union by Germany after the eurozone crisis.
On the most contentious issue, namely that of immigration, the CDU/CSU and SPD agreed to cap the number of asylum seekers coming to Germany at between 180,000 and 220,000 per year. Merkel has long resisted an upper limit on asylum seekers, as demanded by the CSU, but after a million CDU voters defected to the AfD in the last election, she agreed.
The coalition deal also caps the number of migrants brought to Germany through family reunification (Familiennachzug) visas at 1,000 per month for those with so-called subsidiary protection, a temporary protection that falls short of full asylum. The category usually involves migrants fleeing war-torn countries but who cannot prove that they personally face any immediate danger. "Subsidiary protection applies when neither refugee protection nor an entitlement to asylum can be granted and serious harm [torture or death penalty] is threatened in the country of origin," according to the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.
On closer examination, however, the compromise appears to be cosmetic: most of those under subsidiary protection in Germany are not married and do not have children; according to German law, they would not be allowed to bring extended family members in any case. Moreover, those under subsidiary protection involve a relatively small percentage of the migrants in Germany.
Only 200,000 of the more than two million migrants who have arrived in Germany since 2015 are under subsidiary protection, according to the Federal Employment Agency. Of those, between 50,000 and 60,000 have applied for family reunification.
In any event, the cap makes exceptions for "humanitarian grounds," prompting SPD leader Martin Schulz to describe the agreement as a "1,000-plus regulation."
In other words, the "compromise" that supposedly limits the number of family reunifications appears to be a public relations gimmick aimed at persuading German voters that the mainstream parties are taking a harder stance on migration, apparently in an effort to blunt voter appeal for the AfD.
The coalition deal was met with considerable skepticism from across Germany's political spectrum.
A poll conducted for Die Welt on February 8 found that 63%—almost two-thirds of voters—believe that Merkel was "weakened" or "clearly weakened" by the outcome of the coalition negotiations. Only 16% said the chancellor "strengthened" or "clearly strengthened" while 18% said she was neither strengthened nor weakened.
Many commentators said the agreement foreshadowed the beginning of the end of the Merkel era.
The Editor-in-Chief of Süddeutsche Zeitung, Kurt Kister, described Merkel's new cabinet as "a government with an expiry date." He wrote:
"Yes, there were no winners in these coalition negotiations—just as there was no clear winner in the Bundestag election. Maybe the CSU has done the best. Party leader Horst Seehofer, who has nothing left to lose, will be the most important minister [Interior Minister] of the CDU/CSU. Seehofer's upper limit for immigrants now stands as a corridor in the coalition paper: His party (and the CDU) will politically benefit from the upper limit, which corresponds to the ideas of a majority of Germans and also represents the limit of what important parts of the SPD will accept. The SPD has also achieved a lot in the short coalition negotiations, especially by gaining control over the major ministries.
"If a majority of SPD members do not oppose the coalition deal, Angela Merkel will have achieved her most important goal: there will be a (relatively) stable government. If the fourth Merkel cabinet comes about, it will be similar in some respects to the last cabinets of Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl. Merkel will govern...but her government will be under the heading 'this will not be long.' This refers to Merkel, and also to the fact that in many parts of the country there is the feeling that 'this' should not continue."
The Berlin correspondent for Deutsche Welle, Volker Witting, wrote:
"Merkel knows that her fourth chancellorship will probably be the last. Even before the federal election, it had taken her long time to decide on running for a fourth term. And not only the opposition is pushing for renewal. Some in the CDU are counting on Merkel leaving—better sooner than later; even if the critics say that only behind closed doors.
"Above all, the right wing of her party cannot forgive Merkel for moving the once conservative CDU far in a liberal-social democratic direction. Conservatives have been grumbling for a long time, but few express their displeasure openly, even though they are thinking about an end to the Merkel era. For instance, Schleswig-Holstein Prime Minister Daniel Günther recently said: "A new government must include individuals who have a perspective for the post-Angela Merkel period."
The Münchner Merkur, in an article entitled, "CDU grumbles about Merkel: 'One could hardly have negotiated worse,'" wrote:
"The draft agreement could secure Merkel's political survival, but puts pressure on her internally. The price for the agreement with the SPD and CSU is relinquishing the most important ministries. Foreign affairs, finance, labor—all gone. The CDU retains control of the beautiful-sounding, but in fact powerless Ministry of Economy, the unpopular Ministry of Health, the crisis-prone Ministry of Defense and the shadowy existence of ministerial posts in the Chancellery, education and agriculture. That is little for the strongest faction in the Bundestag."
Germany's largest-circulation newspaper, Bild, in an article entitled, "Help, I have shrunk the CDU!," documented a growing rebellion against Merkel from within the CDU. Reaction to the coalition agreement included comments such as: "a political mistake," "completely unacceptable," "our own party is being wiped out," "it bears the handwriting of the SPD," "devastating," and "not good." Bild wrote: "The fact is: The CDU has lost more influence in the new government than it has gained. The Merkel critics in the CDU camp are getting louder."
In an essay entitled, "Why German Politics Can't Move Beyond Merkel," René Pfister, head of Der Spiegel's Berlin bureau, wrote:
"Ever since the German general election last September, there has been a whiff of farewell hovering over everything. In that vote, Merkel's conservatives suffered their worst result since 1949, and if indications aren't completely misleading, it looks as though Merkel is in the process of arranging for a successor to lead the Christian Democrats (CDU) once she's gone.
"Germans are strangely divided over the woman who has governed for so long; the younger generation can no longer remember a time when a male chancellor led the country. On the one hand, there is a desire for change, a Merkel fatigue that made itself apparent in the brief hype surrounding the launch of Martin Schulz's candidacy a year ago, but also in the rise of the anti-Merkel party, the Alternative for Germany (AfD). On the other hand, Germans seem to be afraid of the very change they long for, with 51 percent of voters in favor of Merkel remaining chancellor. Behind Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel, she is the most popular politician in Germany.
"But it is completely unclear what will come after Merkel. One of the characteristics of the later Merkel years has been that all political impetus is derived entirely from her. It begins with the AfD, whose name itself is a reference to Merkel's famous declaration that there was no alternative to saving the euro.
"Depending on your perspective, the AfD is either the ugly child of the Merkel era or an expression of a healthy democracy. But there can be no doubt that there would never have been an AfD without Merkel. For the right-wing populist party, she is both a mother figure and the focus of hatred. The party rejects nobody as vehemently as it does Merkel. Indeed, the emotion inherent in the party's repudiation of the chancellor is reminiscent of a family feud.
"A popular question these days is what, exactly, will remain from the Merkel era once she is gone. Adenauer is known for anchoring the country in the Western community of nations. Kohl's legacy is the introduction of the euro. But one can make the argument that with her political style, Merkel changed the country more fundamentally than any of her predecessors.
"The dominant trend these days is that of the political movement...the established big-tent parties seem strangely outmoded, trapped in a corset of rituals and ideological constraints. But it was likely Merkel herself who first realized how potent it could be if the party leader emancipated herself from her own party's doctrine.
"Merkel has never had the kind of charisma possessed by [France's President Emmanuel] Macron. And she certainly didn't transform the CDU into a vehicle of her own ambition with the vehemence and speed that Sebastian Kurz transformed the ÖVP [Austrian People's Party]. But the persistence with which she relieved the party of everything that once distinguished it from the political competition had a similar effect over time: What ultimately mattered was no longer the common convictions held by the party, but the party chair's determination to cling to power. The CDU was transformed into Merkel's own personal political party.
"On the way, though, the competition of political ideas—the policy conflicts that are the lifeblood of democracy and which provide voters with direction—was lost. As was the CDU's identity. The result is a battle over the party's direction that has been raging for quite some time, but has less to do with policy than with the question: 'Where do you stand on Merkel?'"
Writing for Der Spiegel, columnist Jan Fleischhauer warned that with the SPD controlling the Finance Ministry, the new coalition government would further increase runaway government spending:
"The next government knows how to spend money without stopping. If there ever was a willingness to be modest, then it was lost in the coalition negotiations. One should withhold numbers in columns, one does not want to bore readers. But it has to be here. 1,392 trillion euros: this is the number of expenditures the federal budget plan will provide for the current legislative period. Because this fabulous sum is not enough for the leaders of the grand coalition, they have agreed to spend another 46 billion euros, so that really every wish can be fulfilled.
"Even before the new cabinet is sworn in, Angela Merkel can claim to be the most expensive chancellor of all time.
"I respect the Chancellor, really. I admire the perseverance and the conscientiousness with which she accepts every problem that arises. I do not know anybody who works so hard for our country. She never sleeps for more than four or five hours, then she starts all over again. Yet she never complains.
"I only think that Angela Merkel has too light a relationship to other people's money. That's my problem with her.
"Deciding for oneself how one wants to spend what one has earned seems to her to be a strange thought. Every human being can notice the imprints of childhood. The older you get, the more it emerges. Merkel now combines the rectory [of her father who was a pastor] and the former Communist East Germany. They call it evangelical frugality when they find the reference to socialism too hard: it amounts to the same thing.
"You only have to look at the range of services offered by the modern welfare state. There is nothing that does not matter. It provides discounted opera tickets and language courses in Tuscany as well as free marriage counseling. You can think that's social. I think it is frivolous.
"Chancellery head Peter Altmaier had hopes to follow Wolfgang Schäuble as Finance Minister. Like his boss, Altmaier has a rather loose way of dealing with other people's money. Basically, he is convinced that every euro that the citizens spend themselves is a betrayal of the Chancellor, who knows a thousand times better what is good for the country. Now the Ministry of Finance goes to the SPD."
The Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, in a commentary article entitled, "Merkel IV," wrote:
"The result of the coalition negotiations can be summed up in one sentence: Angela Merkel saves her chancellorship, Schulz rescues himself into the Foreign Ministry, Seehofer saves himself to Berlin. It is an alliance of three politicians whose time has already expired."
On Tichys Einblick, a leading German liberal-conservative blog, Rainer Zitelmann argued:
"Actually, all opposition parties in the German Bundestag can be happy. From a broader perspective, the SPD is being crushed between the Left Party and the Greens and the CDU between [classical liberal] FDP and AfD. Merkel does not care. She knows that this is her last term."
In an essay entitled, "The Eternal Merkel," the Editor-in-Chief of the Westdeutschen Allgemeine Zeitung, Lutz Heuken, wrote:
"Angela Merkel has been chancellor since 2005—and has long since secured a place in the history books. For many citizens, the chancellor was a guarantor of stability for many years. But like so many real or supposedly great things in history, Angela Merkel made a crucial mistake: she missed the timely farewell with dignity.
"Maybe because she considers herself irreplaceable. Perhaps because no one in her environment dares to point out to her the obvious signs that she has long passed her zenith. Or perhaps because there really is no one in the CDU who could replace her in the short term because she did not allow anyone to, because of her drive for pure power.
"The SPD is now—forcibly—planning a change of leadership and generation from Martin Schulz to Andrea Nahles. At the CDU, such a change is currently unimaginable. This is not good for the Union and almost tragic for Angela Merkel."
If the SPD's 460,000 members fail to approve the coalition agreement, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier probably will call fresh elections. Polls indicate that the outcome would be largely the same as the elections held on September 24, 2017, when Merkel's CDU/CSU alliance won around 33% of the vote, its worst electoral result in nearly 70 years. Merkel's main challenger, Martin Schulz's SPD won 20.5%, the party's worst-ever showing.
According to the latest ARD poll "Germany Trend" (Deutschlandtrend) published on February 1, support for the CDU is at 33%, while support for the SDP fell to 18%, a record low, and only four points ahead of the AfD, which increased to 14%. Together, the two grand coalition parties barely scored 51%.
In the January 18 edition of the same poll, only 45% of voters said that another grand coalition was a good idea; 52% of respondents said it was not. The same poll showed that 53% of respondents think it would be very good or good if Merkel remains in office (a three-point decline compared to the previous month). Forty-nine percent of the respondents said that Merkel should complete a full term; 45% said she should leave prematurely.
Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.
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Gas and oil diplomacy in Eastern Mediterranean prelude to regional war
Shehab Al-Makahleh/Al Arabiya/February 10/18
The Middle East has undergone major vicissitudes following the “Arab Spring” demonstrations. The Mideast is one of the most important regions in the world and the stability of which is mandatory to peace and stability in the world. Since 2011, the Middle East has entered a state of uncertainty with many conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Libya and other states that are apt to witness internal wars.
Nowadays, tension is on the rise between Turkey and Egypt on energy resources in the Mediterranean Sea. Thus, relations between Ankara and Cairo after Egyptian foreign ministry’s statement regarding Turkish rejection of the agreement signed between Cyprus and Egypt in 2013 rings an alarm bell. Egyptian statement reads: "Any attempt to prejudice or undermine Egypt's sovereign rights in its economic zones in the Middle East is rejected and will be countered.”
Agreement equals access
The Egyptians believe that the agreement signed with Greek Cypriots gives Cairo access to an area in East Mediterranean that is of particular interest for hydrocarbon companies since the discovery of the huge Zohr gas fields in 2015, while Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Çavusoglu contested the deal, declaring that Turkish Cypriots had been unfairly prevented from claiming their “inalienable rights to the natural resources” around the island, and revealed Turkish plans to begin exploration in the area.
As long as Ankara does not recognize the demarcation of the border signed between Egypt and Cyprus in 2013, describing it as illegal, the region is once again turning towards a new approach of belligerence and rivalry. And the reason is gas politics. The same applies to the gas fields between Israel and Lebanon.
Such a sudden escalation of tension between Egypt and Turkey is a sign of a blow to the efforts to abate any militarization of the Mediterranean Sea as this would be the ignition for other regional and international wars.
Gas exploration
On February 5, 2017 the Turkish Foreign Minister announced that his country plans to start oil and gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean soon in the areas at the continental shelf at latitudes 32, 16 and 18 degrees. The Turkish minister issued an implicit message to both Cairo and Nicosia, saying: “No foreign entity, company or even ship can carry out any illegal scientific research or exploration for oil and gas in the continental shelf of Turkey and the maritime region.” On the other hand, the Egyptian side sees its full right to defend its interests according to the agreement it deems perfectly legal. The Turkish government believes that the Greek Cypriot cannot unilaterally adopt laws regarding the exploitation of natural resources on behalf of the whole Cypriots.
The Eastern Mediterranean is expected to witness wars on gas and oil between Turkey, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus and Greece in territorial waters. In July 2017, Ankara reacted strongly to the Greek Cypriots when they started to drill for gas. As a result, the Turkish army dispatched a frigate in the Eastern Mediterranean to monitor a drilling ship that is believed to have begun searching for oil and gas off in spite of Turkish government’s rejection, considering it as a hostile act.
When Egyptian president Abdul Fattah Al-Sisi paid a visit last November to Cyprus, he had talks with Greek Cypriot officials on gas and oil resources in the region. Tensions since then started to amount, with both Turkey and Egypt blaming each other of interfering in the other’s internal affairs.
It is expected that Ankara would resort to legal proceedings to nullify the agreement because of what it called “violation” of the continental shelf.
Nowadays, a drill ship is exploring for oil and gas in the region. Turkey sounds unhappy with the agreement between Italy, Greece and Israel to construct a gas pipeline from East Mediterranean to Europe at a cost of US$6 billion. This would ignite another tension, with Italy being party of it.
Why war is shimmering in the Mediterranean?
Political differences are the preponderant factor determining relations between countries and intimidating to bring about instability and chaos to the region with acts of hostilities caused by race toward gas and oil reserves. The Eastern Mediterranean basin is one of the most affluent areas with natural resources, the most important of which is natural gas. An American study conducted in 2010 shows the gas reserves in this region are estimated at 345 trillion cubic feet. The region also contains 3.4 billion barrel of oil reserves. As long as there is no mutual cooperation between the countries concerned due to demarcation issue, any war would break out any moment and the region is becoming a time bomb.
What do Ankara and Cairo want?
It is expected that Ankara would resort to legal proceedings to nullify the agreement because of what it called “violation” of the continental shelf. The Turkish moves are likely to disrupt the efforts of Egypt and Greece to conclude a maritime demarcation agreement.
With regard to the economic crisis facing Egypt since 2011, Cairo is prudent to finish the demarcation issue with Greece and Cyprus in order to avoid any rift with Turkey. Since Cyprus has also signed another agreement with Israel, the ghost of war is chasing the countries in the Middle East. In the past, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was procrastinating to discuss the issue of gas and oil agreements with Greece and Cyprus until the dispute between Turkey and Greece over Cyprus is over as he was considering this conflict a “political headache.”
Gas diplomacy might seem germane regarding Israel’s ties with Arab neighbours. The state of suspicion between Israel and Arab neighbors would lead to skirmishes on this basin as it could be a strategic alternative to Russian Liquefied Natural Gas which is exported to Europe. This justifies why China and Russia are playing a pivotal role in Syria today which has a huge natural gas reserves in the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt, Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, Greece and Turkey are flaunting their emerging energy dexterity as a prospective weapon as each of them draws a plan to have the upper hand in the region and play a pivotal role in shaping the Middle East’s political scene.