LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
May 16/2018
Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani

The Bulletin's Link on the lccc Site
http://data.eliasbejjaninews.com/newselias18/english.may16.18.htm

News Bulletin Achieves Since 2006
Click Here to enter the LCCC Arabic/English news bulletins Achieves since 2006

Who Is Moqtada al-Sadr? The Cleric Who Attacked U.S. Troops and Is Iraq's Likely Next PM
هآرتس ورويترز: من هو رجل الدين العراقي مقتدى الصدر الذي حارب القوات الأميركية ومن المحتمل أن يصبح رئيس وزراء العراق المقبل
Haaretz/Reuters May 15, 2018
http://eliasbejjaninews.com/archives/64668/who-is-moqtada-al-sadr-the-cleric-who-attacked-u-s-troops-and-is-iraqs-likely-next-pm-%d9%85%d9%86-%d9%87%d9%88-%d8%b1%d8%ac%d9%84-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%af%d9%8a%d9%86-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%b9%d8%b1%d8%a7/
Sadr is the only Iraqi Shi'ite leader who has challenged both Iran and the United States, a calculation that appears to have made him popular with millions of poor Shi'ites
Nationalist Shi'ite Cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took a surprise lead in Iraq's elections by tapping into public resentment with Iran and what some voters say is a corrupt political elite it supports.
Sadr is the only Iraqi Shi'ite leader who has challenged both Iran and the United States, a calculation that appears to have made him popular with millions of poor Shi'ites who felt they hadn’t benefited from their government’s close ties to Tehran or Washington.
The nationalist cleric’s success in the election dealt a blow to Iran, which has steadily increased its influence in Iraq since a U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
His success marks a remarkable comeback for Sadr, who for years had been sidelined by Iranian-backed rivals. He reached out to dispossessed Shi’ites and marginalised Sunnis, and restored links with Sunni neighbours while keeping Iran at bay. As news spread of Sadr's gains in the election, some of his followers celebrated in Baghdad and chanted "Iran out." "Iraq is rich, the country doesn’t need Iran, it can stand on its feet and be prosperous it just need good management," said Mohammed Sadeq, a trader in the city of Hilla who voted for Sadr's list.
Forty-four year old Sadr will not become prime minister as he did not run in the election but his almost certain victory puts him in a position to pick someone for the job. Winning the largest number of seats does not automatically guarantee that, however. The other winning blocs would have to agree on the nomination.
Sadr has long been viewed by the U.S. and Iraqi government officials seen as an unpredictable maverick. But a Western diplomat, who met him in his villa in the city of Najaf just after he formed a political bloc with communists in March described Sadr as composed, articulate and a pragmatist. "He didn't come across as a rabble rouser," said the diplomat. Sadr, usually stern-faced, joked about the diplomat's ring. "Then he showed me his ring, which had an effigy of his father," he said.
Fierce nationalist
Sadr was virtually unknown outside Iraq before the 2003 U.S. invasion. But he soon became a symbol of resistance to foreign occupation, deriving much of his authority from his family.
He is the son of the revered Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Sadeq al-Sadr, killed for defying Saddam Hussein. His father’s cousin, Mohammed Baqir, was also killed by the Iraqi dictator, in 1980.
Sadr was the first to form a Shi'ite militia that fought against U.S. troops after the liberation of Iraq turned into an occupation. He led two uprisings against U.S. troops, prompting the Pentagon to call his Mehdi army the biggest threat to Iraq's security. U.S. officials and Sunni Arab leaders have accused Sadr's Mehdi Army of being behind many sectarian killings that ravaged Iraq. Sadr has disavowed violence against fellow Iraqis.
Sadr has always portrayed himself as an uncompromising nationalist. He looked down on other opposition figures who safely returned from Iran seeking power after Saddam's demise while others put their lives at risk by staying in the country.
In 2004, the U.S. occupation authority issued an arrest warrant for Sadr in connection with the 2003 murder of moderate Shi'ite leader Abdul Majid al-Khoei who the Americans had brought into the holy Shi'ite city of Najaf during the invasion. Sadr, who denied any role, was never charged.
His image as a patriot appears to have resonated with those who voted in the election, which saw a historically low turnout. "We won’t allow the Iraqis to be cannon fodder for the wars of others nor be used in proxy wars outside Iraq," said Jumah Bahadily, a member of the outgoing parliament who belongs to the Sadrist movement, referring to Syria. “We are proud of our Arab identity.”
Unlikely alliance
With his trademark turban, Sadr can easily mobilise thousands of followers on the streets of Iraq. In 2016, hundreds of Sadr's supporters stormed parliament inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone after he denounced politicians’ failure to reform a political quota system blamed for rampant corruption.
Sadr issued an ultimatum.
“If corrupt (officials) and quotas remain the entire government will be brought down and no one will be exempt." For the election, Sadr formed an unlikely alliance with communists and other independent secular supporters to demand the formation of a government of independent technocrats to end corruption. His bloc, known as “Sairoon” in Arabic, or On The Move, has said it would focus on rebuilding infrastructure and providing health and education to the poor. "The importance of this vote is that it is a clear message that the people want to change the system of governance which has produced corruption and weakened the state institutions," Raed Fahmy, secretary general of the Iraqi Communist Party, told Reuters. "It is a message in support of having balanced relations with all based on the respect of non interference in Iraq’s internal affairs."
Comeback
Sadr has made a notable comeback after being sidelined for years by Shi'ite rivals backed by Tehran. Two of them were seen as top contenders for prime minister after the election. Hadi al-Amiri is widely regarded as Iran's man in Iraq and is arguably the most powerful figure in the country. Amiri's bloc was in second place in the poll with more than half the votes counted, according to Reuters calculations.
The other is Nuri al-Maliki, who served as prime minister for a total of eight years. Maliki's bloc has so far fared poorly. Incumbent Haider al-Abadi had been tipped to win by a narrow margin. Sadr's growing popularity has not gone unnoticed in Tehran, where he went into self-imposed exile in 2007.
Ali Akbar Velayati, top adviser to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in February that Tehran would prevent Sadr and his alliance from governing in Iraq. “We will not allow liberals and communists to govern in Iraq,” he said during a speech at a conference in Iraq in February.
Iraq, which lies in the heart of the Gulf, is critical for Iran. The countries share a border and Iraq is Iran’s main route for supplying arms and fighters to Syria to back President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war. Sadr and his allies "benefited from the weak participation of the other parties and from widespread popular discontent regarding corruption and the mismanagement of the state, and also the perception that Iraq is being led from outside, by the Iranians and the Americans," said Wathiq al-Hashimi, an independent analyst based in Iraq.

Human Rights: Other Views - Part II
Denis MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/May 15/2018
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12296/human-rights-views-other
Palestinian human rights organizations such as Al-Mezan, along with their many supporters abroad and even within a substantial part of the Jewish diaspora, have turned the very concept of human rights on its head.
Although genuine and widely praised for their advocacy of human rights internationally, even Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the International Federation for Human Rights and the humanitarian relief body Oxfam International have reputations of extreme bias against Israel.
What are any of these people doing actually to help the Palestinians -- such as creating jobs, assuring good governance, establishing schools, hospitals, health care and dental clinics, safeguarding legal standards, stopping the arrests of journalists or others who dare to criticize the current governments and so on? Rather, the issues they address seem more a rationalization to destroy Israel.
We have seen in Part One of this article how far Western standards of human rights differ from those guaranteed by Islam. One obvious outcome of this disparity is, of course, that citizens of Muslim countries are accorded fewer rights than their counterparts in liberal democracies. Thus, women, girls, gays, members of religious minorities, "blasphemers", bloggers (notably in Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia) reformers and others may be subjected to partial or total deprival of what the rest of the world considers to be unquestionable or God-given rights. Women may be forced to dress in all-encompassing clothing or hijabs. Minorities may be imprisoned or killed. Women even alleged to have committed adultery – but often just the victims of rape – may be flogged or else stoned to death. LGBT individuals may imprisoned or killed, while bloggers, reformist intellectuals, moderate Qur'an interpreters face flogging and murder by mobs.
All the while, the UN Human Rights Council does little or nothing to encourage Muslim member states to rethink these views; it even adopts resolutions that contradict the Universal Declaration, such as the 2009 resolution to treat "defamation of religion" as a rights violation. This resolution, launched by Pakistan on behalf of a group of Islamic states, while purportedly aiming to protect criticism of all religions, in reality seems aimed at preventing people worldwide from ever criticizing the Islamic religion.
Meanwhile, writing in 2017, human rights lawyer Anne Bayefsky describes how the Human Rights Council is actually focused elsewhere:
According to the U.N.'s top human rights body, Israel is the worst human rights violator in the world today. That's the result of the latest session of the UN Human Rights Council which wrapped up in Geneva on Friday by adopting five times more resolutions condemning Israel than any other country on earth.
Bizarre as that may sound, it is, in the UN, normal procedure. In some ways even more bizarre is the revelation the same year of another Human Rights Council report, which shows violations by 29 countries that attack people working with the UN on human rights issues:
It was reported to OHCHR that these people had been abducted, detained, held incommunicado, or had disappeared, according to Andrew Gilmour, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights.
Other victims lost their jobs, had their homes or offices raided, were targeted by travel bans and asset freezes, and forced to undergo unwanted psychiatric "treatment." Many cases involved arbitrary detention and torture, sometimes by sexual assault or rape.
Israel is, for no apparent reason, on that list of 29. Out of that same number, however, more than half were Muslim-majority countries: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Algeria, Bahrain, Iran, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. That should not be surprising, given the Islamic human rights standard already examined in Part One.
There is still one more bizarre feature: the insistence in some quarters that Israel is the leading violator of rights. There seem to be more human rights organizations in the West Bank than possibly anywhere else in the world, together with masses of international bodies that support the Palestinians and condemn Israel -- usually in a distinctly one-sided, ant-Israel way. There are so many organizations that one can never be sure of an accurate tally, but it certainly seems disproportionately large for one small pluralistic democracy to be the target of so much criticism, given the number of genuine abusers of human rights -- including the Palestinian Authority and Hamas -- across the Middle East.
Of the 20 organizations, for example, listed as pursuing rights claims against Israel by the Rachel Corrie Foundation for Peace and Justice to commemorate a young American woman described as a "peace activist" but who was in reality an anti-Israel campaigner -- several are international, but the rest are based in the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel. None is an advocate of Israel's excellent human rights achievements, but are instead composed of political activists who often seem to place Palestinian rights -- such as a supposed right to violent protests -- above those of their fellow Israelis, including the Arab citizens of Israel -- to defend themselves. Given that Israel is where Jews have lived for more than 3,000 years -- and which only in the last century became the sole safe haven for Jews in a world of historically so many antagonists -- this antagonism seems deeply perverse.
A wider survey shows that in countries such as the United States, the UK, and Egypt, at least eleven international organizations have a remit to investigate what are claimed to be Israeli human rights violations in the disputed territories, even though the Gaza Strip has been long-unoccupied, and is now ruled by the Islamic group Hamas, a Foreign Terrorist Organization, according to the U.S. Department of State. No one, it often seems, has a good word to say about Israel, or a less-than-good word to say, about Palestinian mayhem, terrorism or internal human rights abuses.
Although genuine and widely praised for their advocacy of human rights internationally, even Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, FIDH [Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l'homme] and the humanitarian relief body Oxfam International have reputations of extreme bias against Israel. Amnesty regards Israel as an "apartheid" state, actively supports the international Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to strangle Israel economically and academically, accuses Israel of "war crimes", defends terrorists, and more. Human Rights Watch does much the same. Even its founder, Robert L. Bernstein, has condemned it for its unjustified attacks on Israel and its failure commensurately to criticize groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah. The respected French international organization, FIDH has issued anti-Israel statements in collaboration with highly politicized Palestinian NGOs.
Most of these international organizations show genuine concern about human rights violations elsewhere, including North Africa and the wider Middle East. Here, for example, is a sample of FIDH's current issues in that region. But when it comes to Israel, they portray far greater sympathy for Palestinian "victims" than for the countless Israelis who have been killed or injured by some of these "victims".
Their bias often seems to originate in exposure to highly propagandistic, frequently counter-factual claims by the many Palestinian, Israeli, and left-wing Jewish organizations with whom the international bodies consult and with whom they periodically act in tandem. Likewise, it is not surprising that organizations which work on a daily basis to right the wrongs suffered by the world's genuine victims of human rights abuses find themselves open to persuasion by Palestinians and their supporters, who often portray themselves as passive victims of Israeli actions without taking the smallest responsibility for their own provocative actions. For more, the psychologist Johanna Vollhardt has examined the role of victim beliefs in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Some of the smaller international organizations focus only on Israel and the Palestinians. The British Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights, citing the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights and the World Organization Against Torture, recently delivered a joint written statement to the 37th session of the UN Human Rights Council. The statement calls for the Council to act on what it calls "impunity for torture, ill-treatment and related practices in Israel", and relates to "the Israeli government's policy and practice in regard to torture and ill-treatment". In Israel, in fact, torture has been completely banned by Israel's High Court since 1999.
As in the United States, however, moderate physical pressure is not. Israel is a country under constant terrorist attacks and threats of attacks. By ignoring these important distinctions and pretending not to know the truth about actual Israeli law and Israeli practice, such "rights organizations" only serve -- possibly deliberately -- to confuse the international public.
Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights has an extensive Gaza Accountability Project which aims "to secure justice and legal accountability for Palestinian victims of alleged serious violations of international law", even as it says not a word about Palestinian persecution of Christians or Hamas's abuses against women, children and Israelis. Even the Palestinian Authority claims that Hamas are reckless gamblers who sacrifice the lives of Gazan women and children.
Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights, based in Portland, Oregon, characterizes recent measures taken by Israeli border security as "the Passover Massacre", when even Hamas and Israel effectively agree that 80% of the protesters shot were members of terrorist organizations, not civilians. See here. There was no "massacre" over Passover or any other period. Israel does not commit massacres. This simple fact, however, seems to make no impact on activists, the media, so-called human rights groups or the international community.
As some Americans recently wrote:
"For decades Zionists have blamed the Palestinians for Israel's ongoing colonial project. 'If only the Palestinians had a Mahatma Gandhi,' many Israeli liberals have exclaimed, 'then the occupation would end.'"
They then proceed to claim: "But if one truly wished to find Palestinian Mahatma Gandhis all one needed to do is look at the images of protesters on Friday night's news broadcasts."
Not surprisingly, they fail to mention that these Palestinian Gandhis belonged to or were manipulated by terrorist organizations such as Islamic Jihad and Hamas.
The AUPHR applies the "apartheid" charge even to the situation of Arab Israelis as well as those on the West Bank. Many authors have used this argument, a claim unsupported by actual evidence and rejected by several, such as the Rev. Dr. Kenneth Meshoe, who have had direct experience of South African apartheid.
Of the human rights organizations working in Gaza and the West Bank, three stand out as spokesmen for anti-Israel propaganda and lawfare. These are Al-Dameer, Al-Haq, and Al-Mezan, all of which are well funded by a succession of international so-called human rights and humanitarian bodies. None of them gives any financial details, but, according to NGO Monitor , Al Dameer has received donations from Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, the European Union, the US, and the UN Development Program.
Al-Mezan, in 2014, listed "Core Programme Donors" from the same countries, as well as Germany, the UK, the EU, Oxfam GB, Save the Children, and several other humanitarian institutions.
Regarding Al-Mezan itself, a central actor in Palestinian human rights enterprises incorporating Gaza and the West Bank, there is not room here for an exhaustive account. But NGO Monitor has provided a valuable summary, from which useful information can be extracted.
Al-Mezan's activities are truly bewldering. Over the years, it has accused Israel of war crimes, including Israeli Defence Forces' "massacres" in Gaza, further "massacres" and "slaughtering civilians" there in 2009, a "despicable disregard to civilian life" by what they term "the Israeli Occupation Forces" -- years after Israel had ended its occupation of Gaza.
Al-Mezan has, in addition, played an active role in the BDS movement to try to crush Israel economically. It submits blatantly anti-Israel material to international bodies such as the European Parliament and the UN. In 2016, along with another West Bank organization, Badil (Badeel), it hosted a forum at the European Parliament in Brussels, in which discussions were held about Israel's alleged violations of international law. These violations included businesses operating in Israeli settlements (which they considered "illegal", in line with a recent UN resolution to that effect).
Earlier that year, al-Mezan co-signed a joint statement on supposed infractions of international law:
For decades, Israel has failed to uphold its duties as Occupying Power and has instead deepened its occupation and regime of colonialism and apartheid. Human rights violations rising to the level of international crimes, including unlawful killings, torture, forced transfer, and other forms of collective punishment have become the norm.
The rest of the statement advocated smothering Israel economically on the totally false grounds that no governments or international bodies had the political will to hold Israel accountable for its "crimes".
This supposed exemplar of human rights activism could not be more opposed to the state of Israel, about which it perpetuates a large battery of falsehoods and distortions. It claims, for instance, that Israel is an "apartheid" state;; accuses it, wrongly, of "ethnic cleansing"; reports purported Israeli "war crimes"; repeats the historically false narrative of the 1948 Palestinian nakba [catastrophe - that of losing a war it started] which it characterizes as "a catastrophe born of discrimination and impunity". In reality, five Arab states had sent in armies to destroy Israel on the day of its birth, but lost. A flight of Arab refugees took place because Arab authorities ordered civilians to leave to allow those Arab armies a freer hand wresting the area from Jews. [1]
Al-Mezan is also highly active in anti-Israel lawfare campaigns. These try, for example, to use courts and international legal bodies to issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, and to lobby against Israel in the International Criminal Court.
Al-Mezan's "war crimes" accusations use biased and emotive rhetoric alongside falsified statistics, especially for casualties in Gaza during warfare. Al-Mezan has gone so far as to allege that "Israel killed more children than fighters" during the 2014 Gaza conflict. In fact, a later analysis has shown that civilian figures were grossly inflated and militant casualties hidden:
The IDF's analysis of fatalities demonstrates that while the 2014 Gaza Conflict did unfortunately result in civilian fatalities, the number and percentage of Palestinian civilian fatalities is actually much lower than has been reported in many channels. As discussed below, the IDF's preliminary analysis has determined that 2,125 Palestinians were killed during the 2014 Gaza Conflict. Of these fatalities, the IDF estimates that at least 936 (44% of the total) were actually militants and that 761 (36% of the total) were civilians; efforts are still underway to classify the additional 428 (20% of the total), all males aged 16-50
These and other accusations, couched in bombastic "human rights" terminology and made in a parade of reports to the international media, are woefully short of evidence and context, but Al-Mezan and its associates, using what appear to be hard facts despite a serious lack of documentary evidence, claim the moral high ground. Needless to say, Hamas has used civilians as human shields (as openly admitted in 2008 by Hamas leader Fathi Hammad) and has launched missiles from inside civilian sites, such as school, hospitals, and mosques – all, according to Canadian law professor Irwin Cotler, war crimes.[2]
If Al-Mezan's allegations were even moderately true, Israel would deserve the obloquy that is repeatedly dumped on it. A high-level military group, however, made up of senior military personnel from many countries declared in 2015 that the Israeli Defence Force is "the most ethical army in the world". These experts, presumably vastly more knowledgeable about military affairs than Al-Mezan and other Palestinian rights groups, also stated in 2016 that the IDF had acted in combat entirely within the rules of international military law. Needless to say, Hamas has used civilians as human shields and launched missiles from inside civilian sites such as schools, hospitals and mosques.
Al-Mezan also declines to focus on what are argued as human rights issues, such as women's rights, LGBT rights, or basic rights for all Palestinians living under the rule of the Palestinian Authority or Hamas. Instead, it Al-Mezan involves itself with overtly political activities that support efforts to destroy Israel economically. Although such efforts may be interpreted as a response to others' human rights breaches, they are tightly linked to the untrue accusations of apartheid and the false claim that the Wall section of Israeli's security fence is an "apartheid wall", rather than a barrier Israel was forced to erect to defend itself from countless terrorist attacks. A wall is a passive form of defence that has proven effective over many years and saved countless lives.
According to the American politician Scott Walker, Israelis have "seen something like over a 90% reduction in terrorist acts in that country that they attribute to having an effective fence."
More is happening here than might at first meet the eye. Palestinian human rights organizations such as Al-Mezan, along with their many supporters abroad and even within a substantial part of the Jewish diaspora, have turned the very concept of human rights upside down. All around the world, a majority of people and countries slam Israel as a country that violates human rights, when by any rational measure it does the precise opposite. Israel is the only country in the Middle East and far beyond to provide full rights, true pluralism, and equal justice under the law to all its citizens. The security measures Israel has been forced to take since 1948 can hardly be called -- with few possible exceptions -- human rights abuses.
What Israel's enemies are doing is to repurpose claims of "human rights abuses" by turning the world's attention away from their own abuses and trying to generate instead a fictitious image of Israel as supposedly the world's greatest abuser. If one examines Freedom House's 2018 report on the Middle East and North Africa, only one North African country – Tunisia – is listed as fully free, and only one Middle Eastern state – Israel – is fully free. The rest are mainly not free at all, with one or two partly free. The West Bank is recorded as not free. This is partly because the Arabs agreed in the Oslo II accord, also known as the Oslo Interim Agreement of 1995, that Israel would have "overall responsibility for external security and for the security of Israelis and settlements throughout the West Bank and the Gaza Strip".
Since then, however, as Freedom House adds: "The PA itself has grown more authoritarian, engaging in crackdowns on the media and human rights activists who criticize its rule." Why then do human rights activists focus on Israel rather than on the abuses under the Palestinians' own leadership?
There are many abuses in Gaza and the West Bank. Honor killings of girls and women in the West Bank are a serious concern. After 2014, there was a major upsurge in such murders, carried out by members of the woman's own family. The Palestinian Authority remains obstinate in its refusal to intervene in the matter. Protests are made, but the abuses continue. More generally, women's rights are violated in both the West Bank and Gaza, as are children's rights. In the West Bank and Gaza, homosexuality is a capital offence. In Gaza, a recent report on gay men shows them forced to live double lives out of fear of Hamas agents. Many head for Israel, where, since 1963, LGBT rights -- made fully legal in 1988 -- are assured.
Religious minorities, mainly Christians suffer much abuse in Gaza and the West Bank, where Islamic shari'a law and social attitudes that are profoundly discriminatory to non-Muslims inform popular and political opinion. Israel is the only country in the region where religious minorities have full freedom to worship and live without hindrance. The Baha'is, murdered, imprisoned and economically oppressed in Iran and banned in all Muslim states, have their world-famous international headquarters, their holiest shrines, and pilgrimage centers in Haifa and outside Acco.
The "human rights" bodies in the West Bank, such as Al-Mezan, Al Dameer, and Al-Haq, never involve themselves in complaints about any of the human rights abuses listed above. Instead, they do all they can to persuade the rest of the world that the world's worst offender is Israel.
These organizations and their supporters have been trying, in fact, to repurpose the very concept of human rights, and in so doing, have turned them upside-down. These activists appear to have adopted a broad range of attitudes – many with their roots in an Orwellian ideology that turns white to black and good intentions to evil conspiracies. Thus, for example, we see how Iran is sending weapons, including missiles, to Hezbollah under the guise of humanitarian aid, even while Israel sends tons of genuine aid into Gaza every day, yet \ is accused of imposing a "crippling blockade".
Similarly, some Western feminists have been claiming that the Islamic veil supposedly empowers Muslim women. To some, it is seen as a "feminist accessory", or as a protection against harassment. This sort of thinking, however, seems based on the assumption that traditional conservative Islamic culture must take precedence over Western values, and ignores the male domination and repression that can often accompany it – such as forced obedience to men.
In the UK, we have witnessed a traditionally progressive, anti-racist political party, Labour, become deeply mired in the racism of anti-Semitism. Almost all of this is due to a well-intended but under-informed obsession with the suffering of the Palestinians and a deeply corrupt understanding of Israel. What are any of these people doing actually to help the Palestinians – such as creating jobs, assuring good governance, ending the corruption of the Palestinian leadership, protecting human rights in Palestinian courts, establishing schools, hospitals, health care and dental clinics, adequate electricity and how to care for drinking water drinking water; upgrading agriculture, safeguarding legal standards of proof in courts, stopping the arrests of journalists or others who dare to criticize the current governments, preventing torture in prison, and so on? Rather, the issues they address seem more a rationalization to destroy Israel. That attitude also seems linked to a sad ignorance of, wholesale indifference to, and even hatred of modern definitions of anti-Semitism. The 2016 International Holocaust Alliance Definition includes several clauses relating to false, bigoted, and extremist views of Israel, including the following:
Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
Those are only a few examples of a fatal slip in the Western democracies, where extreme ideologies on both the left and the right have come to invert the real values of classic Western liberalism. The Palestinians and their supporters have taken advantage of this; they seem to know that much of the media, a goodly section of the political establishment, and people in Christian churches will swallow their views on human rights to perpetuate a "victimhood" – not to solve the problem but to perpetuate a modern assault on the Jewish people, whose rights have never been fully recognized in either the Islamic world or the West.
Israel is not a perfect country -- no country is -- and no country is above criticism when that criticism is just and based on fact. The United States is not perfect and is the subject of daily criticism, especially from within. The UK and Europe are not perfect either. All of that is normal if we bear in mind that democracies are, by their very nature, subject to changes and shifts. Freedom of speech is a central value in all genuine democracies, and now even that is being dangerously eroded in the West.
For all this, autocracies and theocratic regimes fall even shorter when it comes to human rights. The widespread inability to see the difference between occasional lapses on the one hand -- with the democratic freedom to repair them -- has served both to shelter ruthless dictatorships and to expose one of the most decent countries to unending obloquy. A wake-up call is long overdue.
**Denis MacEoin PhD is a former lecturer in Arabic and Islamic Studies and the author of numerous books and articles on those and related subjects. He is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Gatestone Institute.
[1] For a thorough explanation, see Efraim Karsh, Palestine Betrayed, London, 2011.
[2] For a more detailed analysis, see here.
© 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.

Turkey Slams Proposed French Changes to Quran
Uzay Bulut/Gatestone Institute/May 15/2018
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12299/turkey-france-quran
"We must revolutionize our religion," — Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, December, 2014.
"A Muslim is to hate what Allah hates and love what Allah loves. Allah hates the Kafir, therefore, a Muslim is to act accordingly." — Dr. Bill Warner, "Sharia Law for Non-Muslims," a publication of the Center for the Study of Political Islam.
"The point is not that these things are written in Islamic scripture, but that people still live by them." — Bruce Bawer, author.
On April 21, the French daily Le Parisien published a "Manifesto against the new anti-Semitism," written by Philippe Val, a co-founder and former director of the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, the target of the 2015 terrorist attack that left 12 employees dead.
The declaration -- signed by more than 250 prominent French intellectuals, artists and politicians, among them former President Nicolas Sarkozy – calls on Islamic theologians to remove the verses of the Quran that call for the killing and punishment of Jews, Christians and Muslim non-believers.
The manifesto reads, in part:
"Anti-Semitism is not the business of the Jews. It's the business of all of us. The French, who have demonstrated their democratic maturity after each Islamist attack, are living through a tragic paradox. Their country has become the arena for murderous anti-Semitism.
"We demand that the fight against this democratic failure that is anti-Semitism becomes a national cause before it's too late. Before France is no longer France.
"French Jews are 25 times more at risk of being attacked than their fellow Muslim citizens. Ten percent of the Jewish citizens of the [Paris region], meaning about 50,000 people, have recently had to change their residence because they were no longer safe in certain neighborhoods and because their children could no longer attend government schools. This involves quiet ethnic cleansing."
During a parliamentary meeting of Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) on May 8, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan railed against the manifesto and its signatories:
"An impertinent group appeared in France the other day and issued a declaration asking for some verses to be removed from the Quran. It is so obvious that those who say that have no idea what the Quran is, but have they ever read their own book, the Bible? Or the Torah? Or Psalms? If they had read it, they would probably want the Bible to be banned, as well. But they never have such a problem. The more we warn Western countries about hostility to Islam, hostility to Turks, xenophobia, and racism, the more we get a bad reputation. Hey, the West! Look! ...who are you to attack our sacred [values]? We know how despicable you are..."
The head of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, went even further, accusing the manifesto's signatories of sharing the views and practice of terrorists:
"What is outdated is not the Quran. What is outdated is you... Your attitude and opinion is the opinion of al-Qaeda, al-Nusra and ISIS. You support them... If you want to support ISIS and al Qaeda that terrorize [people] by using faiths, continue with your rhetoric..."
Islam, Kılıçdaroğlu stated, is a "religion of peace."
Such claims on the part of Turkey's leadership are false. Islamic scriptures do contain bigotry and even murderous hatred toward non-Muslims and "apostates" -- a fact that has already been addressed by honest Muslims, not only by the French intelligentsia.
"We must revolutionize our religion," Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in December 2014.
Unbelievers ("kafirs") are described in the Quran as "the vilest of animals" and "losers," among other insulting epithets. Christians and Jews are "cursed" by Allah and are destined for suffering in this life, and for an eternity of hell in the next (Quran: 2:85). According to the Quran (40:35), Allah hates the kafir.
"Hatred for the sake of Allah and love for the sake of Allah is called Al Walaa wa al Baraa, a fundamental principle of Islamic ethics and Sharia," writes Dr. Bill Warner in "Sharia Law for Non-Muslims," a publication of the Center for the Study of Political Islam. "A Muslim is to hate what Allah hates and love what Allah loves. Allah hates the Kafir, therefore, a Muslim is to act accordingly."
According to the Quran, a kafir can be mocked (83:34), beheaded (47:4), plotted against (86:15), and terrorized (8:12). A kafir is evil (23:97), disgraced (37:18) and cursed (33:60). The Quran plainly orders Muslim believers not to take unbelievers -- Christians, Jews or other non-Muslims -- as friends and calls for Muslims to make war on the kafir (9:29). And there is no penalty for a Muslim who kills a non-Muslim.
According to an analysis of the practice of "Killing non-Muslims and Slaves" on the website "Islamic Virtues":
"It is clear that the majority of our scholars are in agreement that a Muslim should not be killed for killing a non-Muslim, even if he is a dhimmi (a protected non-Muslim living in the Muslim state). And nor should a free man be killed for killing a slave.
"We should always remember that Allaah, the Most High, did not make Muslims equal to non-Muslims, nor slaves equal to free men, as His divine laws make perfectly clear."
Sharia law is equally harsh towards free-thinking Muslims. Islamic doctrine threatens the death penalty for apostasy. According to both the Quran and the hadith (a collection of Muhammed's sayings), those who leave Islam are to be executed; there is no freedom of religion, and Islam may not be criticized.
Erdogan appears to hold with this tenet, as his assertion that there is "no moderate Islam" and repeated crackdown on free speech suggest.
According to Hürriyet Daily News, the Turkish government's first official response to the French manifesto was to ban new students from admission to the French departments of Turkish universities "until further notice."
As has been pointed out by the author Bruce Bawer, "The point is not that these things are written in Islamic scripture, but that people still live by them."
Rather than strengthen the stance of radical Muslims against the French manifesto, Turkey's reaction serves to illustrate just how relevant and necessary it is.
*Uzay Bulut is a journalist from Turkey and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Instititue. She is currently based in Washington D.C.
© 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.

Iranian Reactions To The Strategic Change In The U.S.'s Iran Policy And To Israel's Activity To Eliminate The Iranian Threat To It From Syria
By: A. Savyon and Yigal Carmon/MEMRI/May 15/18
Introduction
In his May 8, 2018 speech, U.S. President Donald Trump turned the tables on Iran, on its European partners, and on supporters of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) worldwide, when he announced that the U.S. was withdrawing from the agreement. Following this, Iran is now facing two fronts that coordinate with each other – the political-economic front, led by the U.S., and the military front, led by Israel, that aims to eliminate the Iranian threat to it from Syria.
Iranian Reactions To President Trump's Withdrawal From The JCPOA – The Political Level
Despite the U.S.'s move, the Iranian regime does not want to leave the JCPOA – for the same reasons it accepted it in the first place. The agreement gives Iran nuclear-state status; it elevates it to the level of a global power; it obliges the West to upgrade Iran's civilian nuclear program; and it protects the Iranian regime from being attacked by the West. Therefore, the Iranian regime will adhere to the agreement even if only Russia and China continue to support it.
The threats issued by Iran prior to Trump's announcement – i.e. that Iran would also leave the agreement and would resume enriching uranium – have been replaced with Iran's granting of extensions (that this week was extended from two weeks to two months) for its demand that the European governments guarantee monetary compensation for European companies that will be trading with Iran and that will be subject to punitive measures against them on the part of the U.S. Such monetary guarantees from Europe are impossible to obtain, and are not carried out even today, when American sanctions on companies trading with Iran are already in force because of Iran's human rights violations and support for terrorism. Thus, there is no possibility that such guarantees will be given by the governments of Europe after the U.S. has left the agreement.
Therefore, the Iranian regime's policy of negotiating with the Europeans, Russia, and China should be seen only as an attempt to stall and to look for formulas for Iran's submission, with regime spokesmen frequently issuing ambiguous, general threats in order to gain some sort of diplomatic achievement.[1]
This policy of Iranian President Rohani has won the full backing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who in a speech following the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA did not announce that Iran was withdrawing from the JCPOA, as he had stated in the past that he would if the U.S. did. Furthermore, he has given President Rohani increasing room to maneuver in reaching new agreements with the Europeans.[2] This was also Khamenei's modus operandi when the agreement was accepted – he spoke against it at the same time as he approved it. Iran has no real tools to deal with the U.S.'s withdrawal from the agreement, or with the Europeans' anticipated withdrawal from it as well, which may happen because they have no option.
This modus operandi, in which the Iranians act like a superpower against weak rivals but rationally and submissively when facing a dangerous and powerful rival ready to use economic or military force against them, has for years been characteristic of the Iranian regime (see MEMRI reports analyzing this and identifying Iran as a paper tiger: MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1150, Tehran vs The Awakening Sunni Arab Camp: Significance And Implications, March 31, 2015, and MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6183, Iran Threatens Saudi Arabia: 'The IRGC... Will Take Vengeance' On The Al-Sa'ud Regime; 'Our Responses Will Be... Harsh And Decisive,' October 11, 2015).
Since Iran is rejecting any change to the JCPOA, particularly any discussion on the subject of its missile program or its regional expansion in the Middle East, and since the European countries – despite their opposition to the U.S. withdrawal from the agreement – agree with the U.S. that there is a need to include the Iranian missile program and regional expansion in any agreement with it, it does not appear that the upcoming meetings between Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his French, German, and UK counterparts will yield any breakthrough.
There has also been a shift in Iran's position concerning its nuclear program and the resumption of its uranium enrichment in excess of the percentage permitted it by the JCPOA. While prior to President Trump's announcement, Iranian regime spokesmen had threatened to renew uranium enrichment, since the announcement the regime has taken no steps aimed at doing so, or at resuming activity in any other areas of its nuclear program.
Iranian Reactions To Israel's Military Activity To Eliminate The Iranian Threat To It From Syria – The Military Level
At this time, Iran is not ready for a widescale confrontation with Israel, and the steps it is taking in the hostilities are minimal. It has announced a policy of restraint, and has responded in measured fashion, one time only, to the serial Israeli attacks that caused Iranian loss of life and damage to Iranian battle arrays in Syria.
As on previous occasions, Iran is for the time being refraining from publishing any reports on the May 10, 2018 widescale Israeli attacks that struck as many as 50 Iranian targets in Syria. The Iranian media reports on the hail of Iranian rockets on Israeli military targets in the Golan Heights depict this as an operation carried out by the Syrian army, not by Iran, and in response to an Israeli attack that preceded it.
Iran also is refraining, in its media, from presenting the Israeli attacks as a direct Israel-Iran confrontation.
Will The Continuation Of Israel's Activity Against Iranian Forces In Syria Lead To All-Out Israel-Iran War?
As far as Iran is concerned, any postponement of all-out confrontation with Israel is preferable, because Iran has not yet completed all steps of its deployment in the region, and U.S. forces still remain in Syria. But it should be remembered that pressing ideological, geostrategic, and political factors are at play here as well, and they are pushing it into such a confrontation with Israel.

Europe should worry about its interests with us
Sawsan Al Shaer/Al Arabiya/May 15/18
The three European countries, Britain, France and Germany, are racing to reassure Iran that they are committed to the nuclear agreement and to offer guarantees that the deal will remain in place because, as they put it, it is important for their “shared security.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have announced that they agreed to resume implementing their countries’ obligations as per the nuclear agreement with Iran.
According to the Russia Today, the three leaders said in a joint statement: “France, Germany and UK voice their concern and regret of the US decision to withdraw from the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) for settling the Iranian nuclear program.”
The statement also emphasized their continued commitment to JCPOA as it remains important for their “shared security.”
The British, German and French leaders also said that the world has become a “safer place” as a result of JCPOA and called on the US avoid taking action that might prevent other parties involved in the deal from implementing it.
Exaggerations
There are some exaggerations in the declared reasons, like the concern about shared security, just like the case is with exaggerations pertaining to freedom and human rights that determine European political positions. Iran is on top of the list of countries that violate human rights, yet Europe overlooks all reports that convict Iran of such violations, if, for example, the company Total wants to make a deal!
Commercial deals with Tehran are on top of the priorities behind the decision to join or withdraw from the nuclear agreement with Iran. These commercial interests are thus prioritized over any other interest, whether it’s related to security or to human rights. If they really care about their security, then they must realize it’s actually threatened by Iran, even when they don’t do anything and when they don’t link their commercial interests to that shared security. We must, at least, make them worry about their commercial interests with us and link them to their position from imposing sanctions on Iran!
If the nuclear agreement with Iran did not deter it from spreading terrorism and chaos and from entering Arab lands and supplying militias with weapons and ballistic missiles and if Iran does not trust Europe, then what is the point of this deal?
Gulf countries, which were harmed by this nuclear deal, believe that the latter allowed Iran to expand in our region, and it’s thus a must to find a way to deter it and force it to return to its borders and to convince Europe that they (Gulf states) also need guarantees for their security and stability.
Europe, which is stuck between two fires, does not know where to set its foot as one day after the joint statement was issued, British ambassador to Kuwait Michael Davenport asserted that the nuclear agreement with Iran is “a great necessity” adding that it needs “to be amended and not cancelled.”
Davenport said on Thursday that the region needs stability and the deal with Iran aimed to fulfill this goal, thus the British government believes that it is necessary to remain committed to the agreement even though it does not resolve all the problems related to Iran, adding it is important to keep the deal and strengthen it with other issues despite the fact that this is not an easy mission. He noted that without the agreement, things will not be better.
The envoy added that the British government’s position is clear regarding the necessity to stop Iranian interferences in the internal affairs of the region’s countries, such as Syria and Yemen.
As British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Boris Johnson has asked Trump to provide alternatives to modify the agreement rather than canceling it to ensure that there are no nuclear weapons, we must ask Johnson for alternatives – other than words and statements – that can stop Iran’s interferences in Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen!
Preserving our security
We too must be ready to abandon some of our commercial interests in exchange of preserving our security and stability. We should declare that we are committed to the sanctions that are going to be imposed on the European companies cooperating with Iran, so that there will be a choice between favoring us or Iran. This way, European companies that will keep dealing with Iran, will not feel that our doors will remain open for them. Just like Iran is asking for guarantees, we too must ask for guarantees.
Iran has actually announced that it is waiting for guarantees from Europe for its trade deals.
Ali Khamenei bluntly said that he does not trust Europe at all, and said while addressing Iranian officials: “You should not trust them (France, Britain, and Germany).”
“If you really want to make an agreement, then we should have practical guarantees or else they will all do like the US did. If you can get guarantees this would be good, but I actually think this is unlikely. If you can’t get a definite guarantee, then the nuclear deal cannot be continued,” he added.
Meanwhile, Rouhani gave orders to the Atomic Energy Organization to prepare for the next steps, if necessary, to begin industrial enrichment without restriction.
The commander of the IRGC said that European countries cannot be trusted because they are followers and not independent.
Tehran said it is too early to voice an opinion regarding the European companies’ contracts in Iran such as those of Total and Renault, considering the six-month deadline which the US president talked about.
If the nuclear agreement with Iran did not deter it from spreading terrorism and chaos and from entering Arab lands and supplying militias with weapons and ballistic missiles and if Iran does not trust Europe, then what is the point of this deal?

Collapse of mullahs’ state to bring down political Islamization
Mohammed Al Shaikh/Al Arabiya/May 15/18
President Trump’s withdrawal from Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran did not come as a surprise. On the contrary, it would have been surprising if he had allowed the agreement to be extended and did not withdraw.
President Trump is a man who does not believe in half-measures. If he says he will do something, he does it, and this approach is evident in a lot of his decisions.
Beginning of the end
The question now is what will the reaction of Tehran, which preoccupied the world with its loud claims of courage that are nothing but a verbal war directed towards its citizens who suffer from catastrophic social deterioration, poverty and sickness, be? The regime has choked Iranian citizens ever since Khomeini took over power in the latter half of the last century.
I assert that on this historical day, May 10, 2018, the countdown has begun, not just for the collapse of the Vilayat-e-Faqih regime in Iran, but also for the collapse of political Islamization, both in its Shiite and Sunni manifestation, which has been instrumental in spreading terrorism in the region and the world.
Iran has nothing but non-Iranian Shiite militias, which it hires to fight on its behalf. Its end goal is to establish the Persian Empire on the lines of the Shiite Safavids, as was the case with the empires and kingdoms of the Middle Ages.
I have been certain – and I have mentioned this is previous articles – that any theocratic state cannot conform to the conditions of state in the modern times and that the fate of Vilayat al-Faqih state in Iran will collapse and then vanish. I believe that we are now witnessing the beginning of its inevitable end.
I wish from the bottom of my heart that the consequences of the fallout phase do not last for long and that it happens without bloodshed, unlike what had happened with similar regimes when they collapsed.
I have been certain that any theocratic state cannot conform to the conditions of state in modern times and that the fate of Vilayat al-Faqih state in Iran will collapse and then vanish
The blunder of supporting Assad
I believe that Iran has committed several blunders — the most important one that would be the most important reason for entering the phase of collapse has been its unplanned interference in Syria to rescue Assad.
The Israelis felt that the Iranians’ presence at their borders with Syria is a threat, which they cannot tolerate no matter what the consequences are. It is known that Israel’s security — as they call it — is a ‘red line.’
The Israelis will thus never allow the Iranians to violate or harm it. The Persian mullahs’ arrogance, however, made them imagine they are an invincible power and that they’ve occupied four Arab capitals and are thus closer to achieving the dream of a Safavid Persian Empire.
However, Syria has been their graveyard as their militias and Revolutionary Guards leaders have been bombed and killed by Israeli strikes. They are left with no option but to yield and give up. If they dare take any military reprisal, the consequences will be dire in every sense of the word.
harmful theocratic state
Trump has re-imposed the economic boycott, not only on the theocratic state but on anyone who deals or supports the Vilayat-e-Faqih state, which has raised a lot of questions about the fate of this harmful theocratic state. This storm might soon spread fire and burn everything down.
All that is needed is a spark and their state will vanish. This might happen quickly or may take some time; however, the indicators of the inevitable fall, which I mentioned in my previous articles, had begun to loom in the horizon. The moment will come when all it would take is a single matchstick.
Khomeini’s politicized revolution encouraged many Sunni opportunists to replicate a Sunni version of this experience. The failure of their role model, however, would be a failure of all the spin-offs of this experience.

The Hodeida Campaign (Part 1): Humanitarian and Political Role of Red Sea Ports
Michael Knights/The Washington Institute/May 15/18
Hodeida and al-Salif will process substantially more food imports after the Houthis are evicted, so the United States should back some form of demilitarization of the ports or help liberate them.
This PolicyWatch is the first in a three-part series on the Red Sea campaign between the Gulf-coalition-backed Yemeni military and Houthi forces, focused on humanitarian, operational, and escalatory risks. Part 2 looks at the operational challenges facing the two sides around Hodeida. Part 3 will examine the Houthis' options for broadening the war if their sea access is threatened.
On May 1, the Permanent Representative of Yemen to the United Nations, Khaled Hussein Alyemany, called on the United Nations to seek the handover of the Hodeida port to international supervision. The call came as Yemeni armed forces began new offensive operations to advance 140 km to Hodeida from the north, with Saudi Arabian assistance, and 100 km from the south, with United Arab Emirates support.
CAUSES OF YEMEN'S HUMANITARIAN CRISIS
The parts of Yemen held by the Houthi rebels—also the country's most populous area—are gripped by a severe humanitarian crisis. Even before the war began in 2015, Yemen was on the brink of a humanitarian meltdown, but an analysis of 2017 World Food Programme (WFP) statistics suggests the war has more than doubled the number of food-insecure Yemenis to 17.8 million (64% of the population vs. 31.5% in 2010), including 7 million (25.1% vs. 11.8% in 2010) who are assessed to be severely food insecure.
Key reasons for the crisis include the collapse of the government payroll inside Houthi-held areas since 2015; Houthi taxation of food entering its areas, as documented by the UN Panel of Experts; and a shortfall of food reaching Yemen via Hodeida, the port closest to the Houthi areas. (As recently as May 2016, Hodeida imported 543,782 metric tons [MT] per month, and in Q1 2018 the monthly average was just 151,917 MT). As a battle for Hodeida looms, the key question for U.S. policymakers is whether the port's liberation will make the humanitarian situation better or worse.
In an effort to improve data-led understanding of this issue, the author undertook a survey of Gulf coalition, U.S., and British government as well as NGO metrics on imports via Houthi-held ports, government-held ports, government-held land borders, and airports. The coverage period focused on the first quarter of 2018, including detailed records of 428 vessels unloaded at six ports (Hodeida, Aden, al-Mukalla, al-Salif, Nishtun, and al-Shihr); land border inflows via al-Wadiah and al-Khadra (on the Saudi border) and Shahan and Serfit (on the Omani border); plus aerial deliveries via Marib.
HODEIDA STILL CRITICAL
Food and fuel deliveries to Yemen rely almost entirely on seaports. The Gulf coalition's Yemen Comprehensive Humanitarian Operation (YCHO) Support Center data seen by the author suggests that 4,757,797 MT were delivered to Yemen in Q1 2018, but only 158,870 MT (3.3%) came in through land crossings and a negligible 292 MT entered via the civilian air bridge to Marib. (Ship manifests describing the metric tonnage of inbound ships are often erroneous, in part because a fraction of food is diverted through corruption before it reaches Yemen. However, assuming such loss is roughly equivalent across ships heading to all ports, the proportional balance between the ports should still be meaningful.) The breakdown of food imports by sea provided by the YCHO underlines the critical role of the Houthi-held ports.
Houthi ports. Yemen's first deepwater port, Hodeida remains a critical entry point for food, receiving 455,751 MT in Q1 2018. Al-Salif, the other Houthi-held port, brought in an additional 182,403 MT in Q1 2018. Combined, the YCHO says the Houthi ports unloaded 638,154 MT of food during the quarter. As a benchmark, UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen (UNVIM) statistics say that 672,555 MT of food were landed from ships that "discharged and sailed" at Hodeida and al-Salif, a higher but roughly comparable figure.
Government-held ports. Only two government-held ports bring in considerable amounts of food: Aden (255,626 MT in Q1 2018) and al-Mukalla (68,310 MT). Combined, these welcomed 323,936 MT during the quarter, amounting to just 50.7% of the food imports delivered via Houthi-held ports. Overland import of food by truck via government-held areas brought in an additional 107,782 MT in the first quarter, including 72,738 MT through the Saudi border crossing at al-Wadiah.
What this all means is that the YCHO is not yet, as billed, a viable way to replace Hodeida and al-Salif as a food-import hub. If anything, the strengthening of government-held ports has benefited fuel imports (751,173 MT in Q1 2018 vs. 540,964 MT unloaded at Houthi ports) and especially consumer goods (1,377,501 MT in Q1 2018, according to YCHO, an order of magnitude higher than the 9,474 MT imported at Houthi-held ports).
BENEFITS OF LIBERATING HODEIDA
At present, therefore, no real prospect exists for replacing food inflows from Hodeida and al-Salif: other ports like Aden are too distant from Houthi-held population centers, are importing too little food owing to corruption and inefficiency, and are themselves vulnerable to local instability. When Red Sea ports were temporarily closed in November 2017, the WFP recorded a sharp 10% rise in food prices in December and a subsequent 6% rise the following month due to price gouging and hoarding, even though the ports were quickly reopened to shipping. The local food supply in Hodeida itself, a densely populated city that probably tops 700,000, might fail disastrously during a battle.
However, inaction at Hodeida carries steep costs. As long as the port is under Houthi control, food merchants and shippers will not return because they fear onerous paperwork, slow turnarounds, war risks, and Houthi taxes. If liberated, the port's capacity could quickly be expanded, especially if the liberation is achieved quickly and carefully. People in government-controlled areas are better off than people in Houthi-controlled areas precisely because they are reconnected to functioning ports and, partially, to the government payroll system. Thus, the people in Hodeida would benefit from being liberated. They also want to be liberated because the Houthis are not local to their area, whereas advancing Yemeni forces include large numbers of Red Sea troops. Finally, the Yemeni government and Gulf coalition are more likely to engage in good-faith peace talks if they do not fear a Houthi ministate connected to Iran by sea.
U.S. POLICY ON HODEIDA AND OTHER PORTS
As well as reducing the likelihood of famine, the United States must focus on ending the war in Yemen, which is a costly and damaging distraction for U.S. allies in the Gulf. But neither the Yemen-Saudi-UAE alliance nor the Houthis are likely to abandon their intensifying competition over the ports. The war is inexorably creeping closer to Hodeida every day. Washington has three options.
Option 1: Freeze Red Sea military movements but offer no solution. The worst option would be for the United States to continue its behind-the-scenes opposition to a decisive UAE-led military operation to liberate Hodeida and the Red Sea coast, while at the same time offering no alternative. This option may appeal to some because it incurs no direct U.S. costs or obligations, but it is only likely to prolong the war and humanitarian suffering. Shippers and merchants will continue to avoid Hodeida until the port's future is resolved. The Gulf coalition will creep toward the ports, as is occurring now, because it probably cannot support any peace deal in Yemen that leaves the Houthis as a proto-Hezbollah entity with direct maritime access to Iran, and because an offshore inspection regime for shipping has proved unworkable. This "circling the drain" option has essentially been U.S. policy for much of the last two years, and it has only served to prevent Hodeida from reemerging as Yemen's strongest food-import hub. Until the Houthis are removed from Hodeida, where they extort and mismanage the port, it will never come back online at the necessary capacity to feed northern Yemen.
Option 2: Demilitarize the Houthi Red Sea ports. The best-case scenario might be demilitarized Red Sea ports under the control of international agencies and local Yemenis—the so-called Hodeida initiative, which Yemen once again raised on May 1. If Hodeida were demilitarized, a range of positive steps could be attempted. Damage to the port might be avoided entirely; the Gulf coalition could issue long-term guidance to shipping operators and food merchants indicating that the port would remain open; insurance costs might decline if the port's security were underwritten by international actors; and the port might quickly return to prior import levels—which frequently topped 1.6 million MT per quarter, according to UNVIM. As long as al-Salif is included, the Gulf coalition will probably be willing to consider this outcome, because it will allow more-effective and less-controversial onshore inspections of cargoes, greatly reducing coalition fears of Iranian missile resupply through the port. The United States could signal to the international community that this is probably the last chance to avoid military operations to liberate the port and that Washington will not be able to dissuade Yemen and the Gulf coalition from launching a decisive operation absent immediate diplomatic progress on Hodeida.
Option 3: Support rapid liberation of the ports. If the international community fails to embrace the Hodeida initiative, this summer will witness intensified military operations near Hodeida and al-Salif. In light of such a development, U.S. interests will arguably shift: the fighting must be as short, clean, and decisive as possible. "Scorched earth" sabotage tactics and collateral damage must be kept to an absolute minimum (as will be discussed in Part 2 of this series). If a battle is launched for Hodeida, the United States might view the liberation of the port as the best way to save lives in Yemen by shortening the war and processing more goods because of the greater efficiencies of inspecting cargo on shore. Drawing on defensive authorities to protect Gulf allies and global sea-lanes, the U.S. support could be limited to passive measures such as the detection of Houthi missile launches plus Houthi naval mines and antishipping attacks on the Red Sea coast. Support from multinational naval escorts and merchant ships that carry inbuilt cranes could quickly turn Hodeida back into a functioning container port. In return for its strong backing, Washington should extract ironclad "prenuptial" guarantees from Saudi Arabia and the UAE that upon the liberation of Hodeida and al-Salif, the Gulf coalition would support an immediate ceasefire with the now-landlocked Houthis and lend support to the UN mediation process.
Michael Knights, a senior fellow at The Washington Institute, recently returned from a visit to Yemen and the Gulf coalition states, where he received detailed data on Yemeni food, fuel, and other imports.