LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
October 18/14
Bible Quotation
For Today/God’s Wrath Against Sinful
Humanity
Romans 01/18-32/The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven
against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by
their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because
God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s
invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen,
being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For
although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to
him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of
the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and
animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of
their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one
another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served
created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. Because of
this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural
sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned
natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men
committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due
penalty for their error. Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile
to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so
that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind
of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife,
deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant
and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they
have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s
righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only
continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Latest analysis,
editorials from miscellaneous sources published on October 17, 18/14
Iran’s Dangerous Game in Yemen/By:
Amir Taheri /Asharq Al Awsat/October 18/14
A Portrait of a Progressive Pope/by
AMIR TAHERI October 16, 2014 /Family Security Matters/October 18/14
Did Someone
Say 'Conquest'/By Burak Bekdil/Hürriyet Daily News/October 18/14
The Road from Qatar to the Gaza Strip/By:
REUVEN BERKO/Family Security Matters/October 17, 18/14
The end of a unified Yemen/By:
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/October 17, 18/14
Syria and Iraq, Iran’s red lines/By:
Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya/October
18/14
To Lebanon, we are all in the same sinking boat/By:
Nayla Tueni /Al Arabiya/October 18/14
Lebanese Related News
published on October 17, 18/14
Lebanese Soldier, Jamal Jean al-Hashem killed in north Lebanon bus attack, 42
arrested
Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi vows Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan's killers will be
brought to justice
Jumblatt meets Geagea over presidential stalemate
Salam denies hostage talks took negative turn
International community with Lebanon: U.N. envoy
Hezbollah blames Future for assaults on Army
Rainy week dampens Lebanon drought fears: expert
Just 1 percent of Sunnis positive about ISIS
In Hasbaya, bartering tradition endures
Lebanon’s disconnect
Polio vaccination campaign stays the course
Salam denies hostage talks have taken negative turn
Kahwagi: US to supply Lebanon with combat weapons
New Video of Defected Soldier Abdullah Shehadeh Calling for 'Defection' before
'Battle'
Hezbollah: Political rivals do not want dialogue
Palestinians in Lebanon protest Al-Aqsa measures
Celebratory gunfire wounds refugee in Akkar
Bassil Slams Attempt to Topple Parliamentary Elections, Says Polls to Resolve
All Crises
Aoun Slams Talks on Presidential Elections, Refuses to Back Down
Nasrallah in Military Fatigues during Visit to Party Fighters on Border with
Syria
Miscellaneous Reports And News published on
October 17, 18/14
Death Sentence of Christian Mother Convicted of Blasphemy Confirmed by Pakistani
High Court
John Kerry: Defaming Islam is as Bad as Rape
Kerry: With volatile Mideast, Israeli-Palestinian peace is more important than
ever
U.S. opens talks with Syrian Kurdish group
Iraq imposes curfew in Ramadi, fearing militants
Airstrikes allow Kurds to go on offensive in Kobani
Qaeda urges worldwide Muslim support of ISIS
ISIS
black market oil operation booming: officials
Report: Spanish parliament to vote on Palestinian state recognition
Hamas urges Muslims to defend Jerusalem shrine from ‘Israeli seizure’
Syria ISIS militants train in three captured jets
Carter Center quits Egypt as freedom erodes
Honour Your Vows, No Matter What!!
Elias Bejjani/October 17/14
Back home in our beloved Lebanon, the land of the Holy Cedars, we have a very
impressive popular proverb that simply shows how vital and how holy is for the
righteous people who fear Almighty God and respect themselves to honor their
vows and promises.
The proverb says:" Men are not tied by their necks, but by their tongues".
This simply means that the righteous people are ethically and morally obliged to
willingly and with joy honour the vows and promises they make and utter, and not
forced against their free will by ropes tied around their necks to fulfill their
commitments.
This obligation of dignity and honor is stressed very clearly in the Holy Bible:
"Matthew 05/33-37: "You have also heard that people were told in the past, ‘Do
not break your promise, but do what you have vowed to the Lord to do.’ But now I
tell you: do not use any vow when you make a promise. Do not swear by heaven,
for it is God's throne; nor by earth, for it is the resting place for his feet;
nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Do not even swear by
your head, because you cannot make a single hair white or black. Just say ‘Yes’
or ‘No’—anything else you say comes from the Evil One."
Lebanon's dire problem in this current sad and horrible era lies in the fact
that the majority of its politicians, leaders, officials and clergymen are mere
Pharisees, a bunch of thugs and hypocrites who know no honor or self respect.
They do not respect their vows and promises.
Meanwhile and in the same evil context many Lebanese citizens have lost their
faith and became sole puppets and cheap followers void of any patriotic
responsibility. They too do not respect their vows and promises.
Salvation of Lebanon must start with the Lebanese themselves. Their country
shell be saved and made free again only when they fear Almighty God and start to
face their hardships with faith, hope, and dignity. Step one in this repent
journey is respect foe vows and promises.
The wrath of God shall fall from heaven on all the godlessness and wickedness of
people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, do not witness for what is
righteous and do not honour their vows and promises.
Lebanon's evil enemies and occupiers betray their vows and promises because they
are slanderers, insolent, arrogant and boastful. Their end is not far and
Lebanon shall again be a free, independent and sovereign country.
Trustworthy people respect, honor and fulfill their vows. BE ONE OF THEM, BE
RIGHTEOUS, HONOUR YOUR VOWS
Lebanese Soldier, Jamal Jean al-Hashem killed in north
Lebanon bus attack, 42 arrested
Antoine Amrieh/The Daily Star/Oct. 17, 2014 /TRIPOLI, Lebanon: The Lebanese Army
Friday arrested at least 42 Syrians hours after a soldier was killed and several
others were wounded when a military bus carrying troops along the road in Bireh
in the northern Akkar province came under fire. A security source told The Daily
Star that Jamal Jean al-Hashem, a 19-year-old private in the Army, was instantly
killed in the 4:45 a.m. attack. His body was taken to Salam Hospital in his
hometown of Qobeiyat. The source said a number of soldiers were also wounded in
the attack, but would not give an exact number. Sorrow and grief gripped his
hometown, and residents blocked the Qobeiyat road in protest. Hours after the
attack, the source said the Army arrested at least 42 Syrians during raids on
the outer edges of Bireh and Khirbet Daoud. The Lebanese Army confirmed the
assault on the bus, saying the military cordoned off the vicinity where the
attack took place. In a separate statement, the military said two patrol units
came under fire and an unidentified gunman who also tossed a hand grenade at one
of its centers in al-Bisar neighborhood in Tripoli between 3:33 a.m. and 4:45
a.m. Soldiers responded to the source of the gunfire and were in pursuit of the
perpetrators. A security source said another Lebanese soldier was wounded
when an Army patrol in Zahriyeh, Tripoli, came under fire. He was identified as
Jamal Ashek. Shortly afterward, the Lebanese Army found a 200 gram homemade bomb
near a shop in the Tripoli neighborhood of Abi Samra. Experts safely detonated
the explosive device. The raid against Syrians in Khirbet Daoud came after
Lebanese troops searched the house of Atef Saadeddine, a soldier who had
deserted the Army, there, the source said. No arrests were made in the initial
raid in their hunt for the bus attackers. However, an individual in the Tripoli
neighborhood of Akoumi was arrested later in the day for his involvement in
opening fire on an Army checkpoint in a previous attack.
Ashraf Rifi : A Message To Martyr Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan
Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi vows Brig. Gen. Wissam al-Hasan's
killers will be brought to justice
Oct. 17, 2014/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi vowed Friday
to uncover and punish the perpetrators behind the assassination of Brig. Gen.
Wissam al-Hasan, the intelligence chief slain in a car bomb a year ago, saying
investigations into the killing had made progress. “On the anniversary of your
martyrdom, I have nothing else but to pledge to you that the perpetrators behind
your assassination will be uncovered as well as those behind other
assassinations until we know the truth,” Rifi said in a statement.
Hasan, 47, was assassinated in a car bomb that ripped through the Beirut
neighborhood of Ashrafieh on Oct. 19, 2012. His driver and a woman identified as
Georgette Sarkissian were also killed in the explosion, the most serious since
2008.
The March 14 coalition has accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of being behind
the assassination while others went so far as blaming Hezbollah for the killing
of Hasan, who was the head of the Internal Security Forces’ Information Branch.
“I vow to carry on the path and reach results and the investigation has taken
great strides in this terrorism crime, which resembles the killing of Hariri.
The criminal is almost pointing to themselves,” Rifi, a staunch critic of Assad
and a former chief of the ISF, said.
“The joy of seeing the Special Tribunal for Lebanon begin its work was not
complete because of your absence and Wissam Eid's absence. Justice that has
kicked off owes you a lot. Because you two are martyrs of justice and
sovereignty,” he added, referring to a communications analyst with the
Information Branch who was assassinated in 2008. Many believe Eid was killed
because he obtained critical evidence in the 2005 assassination of former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri. Eid’s work is now the basis of the STL prosecution’s case
against five Hezbollah suspects accused of involvement in the Hariri murder.
“Our faith will not be weakened and we will continue on that road until the big
criminal is served justice,” Rifi said.
He praised Hasan for heading the Information Branch when the security agency
began its investigation into the Hariri assassination. "The criminal responded
by killing Wissam Eid to prevent us for continuing investigation but the
Internal Security Forces preserved and continued its mission under Hasan.”
“Every year this month, Lebanon and the Lebanese remember an exceptional man who
loved his country to martyrdom and I remember a friend and a colleague. He was a
man of courage, patriotism, professionalism and commitment.”
Lebanon's Defense minister headed to Iran to discuss
military aid
Oct. 17, 2014/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Defense Minister Samir Moqbel will head to Tehran Saturday to discuss
the pledged military aid to the Lebanese Army, his office said Friday. The
minister’s trip will last two or three days, during which he will meet Iranian
officials to examine the status of the aid, an official from his office told The
Daily Star. A statement released by Iranian Embassy earlier this week said the
aid would only include weapons and ammunition, but could open the doors to new,
more sophisticated military support in the future.
Although the Lebanese government had announced that it welcomed any
unconditional support to the Army, the Iranian aid has been the subject of a
local and international dispute. Opponents of the grant have said that accepting
the aid would violate Security Council Resolution 1747, which forbids Iran from
selling or exporting weapons. March 14 officials called for a rejection of the
aid because of Iran’s involvement in supporting Hezbollah. There have also been
unofficial reports saying the United States is pressuring Lebanon not to take
the donation. March 8 figures, including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and
Hezbollah officials have announced their support of accepting the aid. Lebanon's
Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, who is a member of MP Michel Aoun's Free
Patriotic Movement, also welcomed the donation, telling the Iranian ambassador
to Lebanon earlier this week that he would suggest the item for Cabinet approval
soon.
Siniora meets UN Syria envoy, blasts attack on Army
Oct. 17, 2014/The Daily Star
BEIRUT: Future MP Fouad Siniora held talks Friday with U.N. Special Envoy for
Syria Staffan de Mistura, who has been meeting with Lebanese politicians to
assure them of the international community’s support for Lebanon’s stability as
the country faces threats from Syria’s Islamist militants.“It was a useful
meeting during which I was briefed on his [Siniora’s] evaluation of the
situation in Lebanon and the Syrian conflict’s repercussions on the country and
the region in general,” de Mistura said after the meeting which was also
attended by U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Derek Plumby. De Mistura
arrived in Lebanon Thursday as part of a regional tour aimed at promoting a
political solution to end the raging war in Syria. He has met with several
government officials and Lebanese politicians, including Hezbollah’s deputy
secretary-general, Sheikh Naim Qassem. Separately, Siniora, a former prime
minister and head of the Future bloc in Parliament, issued a statement strongly
condemning the attack on an Army bus in north Lebanon in which a soldier was
killed Friday, calling on the security forces to act quickly to apprehend the
culprits and punish them severely. “We strongly and utterly denounce the attack
on the Lebanese Army in Bireh, in Akkar, and present our sincerest condolences
to the Army, the people of the north and the family of martyr Jamal Jean al-Hashem,”
Siniora said. Siniora said the 19-year-old private was a martyr of Lebanon and
the Future Movement and that the tragedy that hit his family was also a national
tragedy. “We call on the security forces to arrest the culprits and inflict on
them a just (severe) punishment,” Siniora said, stressing his party’s total
support for the state and its military and security institutions in the
confrontation against terrorism. Hashem was killed and several other soldiers
wounded early Friday when their military bus came under fire along the road in
Bireh in the northern Akkar province.
Hezbollah: Political rivals do not want dialogue
The Daily Star/Oct. 17, 2014/BEIRUT: A Hezbollah leader has
accused the party's rivals of being under foreign orders to avoid political
dialogue, saying that his party is ready to make concessions for the sake of
Lebanon.
“We have long called for agreement and dialogue for the sake of finding common
solution,” Sheikh Naim Qassem said during a Hezbollah ceremony at the Batoul
High School. “But unfortunately, the other camp does not have the appetite for
dialogue at this stage, because foreign orders ban such a move.” Agreeing on
social and economic policies or reviving the state’s institutions do not require
political consensus, the deputy head of Hezbollah added, calling to resolve the
least controversial matters and leave the big questions aside. “We acknowledge
that any agreement required concessions from all sides, and we are ready for
that,” he said. “But are you [Hezbollah's rivals] ready to make concessions for
the sake of building the country?” The government has been largely paralyzed
over the last several years, with the most recent cause being the vacancy in the
presidency. Parliament has failed more than a dozen times to elect a successor
to Michel Sleiman, who left office in May, due to a boycott led by Hezbollah and
the Free Patriotic Movement. Addressing students who successfully passed the
ninth grade, Qassem stressed that Hezbollah was strong and solid on Lebanon's
eastern border. He said ISIS and the Nusra Front, which he described as far from
following Islam, would not be able to achieve any victory over Hezbollah’s
fighters. Hezbollah's fighters have been engaging in fierce clashes with Syrian
rebels and Islamists along the Lebanese-Syrian border. Earlier this month, Nusra
militants attacked Hezbollah posts in eastern Lebanon, sparking a deadly battle.
The incident provoked an atmosphere of caution and panic in Lebanon, two months
after the end of the clashes in Arsal, where Army fought militants from Nusra
and ISIS.
Report: Nasrallah in Military Fatigues during Visit to
Party Fighters on Border with Syria
Naharnet/Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has reportedly
visited his party's fighters on the Lebanese-Syrian border dressed in military
fatigues in a strong show of support. Al-Liwaa newspaper said Friday that
Nasrallah met the fighters in their posts after he visited some families in the
eastern Bekaa Valley to extend condolences to the party members who were killed
in battles with extremist groups. Hizbullah has sent fighters to Syria to back
President Bashar Assad's forces against rebels trying to remove him from power.
The armed intervention in Syria earned the Shiite group the enmity of Syria's
predominantly Sunni rebels. Assad is a member of the Alawite sect, an offshoot
of Shiite Islam. Over the past year, Syrian troops and Hizbullah fighters
have captured most of the towns and villages in Syria's mountainous Qalamun
region along the Lebanon border, depriving the rebels of residential areas where
they can stay during the winter. Hizbullah fighters have also clashed with
jihadists, who infiltrated Lebanese territories. Last week, al-Qaida's Syrian
affiliate, al-Nusra Front, attacked positions manned by Hizbullah on the
outskirts of Brital, killing several of its fighters. There have been reports of
other skirmishes between Hizbullah and militants along the Lebanon-Syria
border.According to al-Liwaa, Nasrallah told the fighters during his visit to
the Bekaa that there was “a big plot against the resistance, which will fight in
any region to defend itself.”The Hizbullah secretary-general also said that his
party was “fully ready to confront the adventures of takfiris and Israelis.”On
Tuesday, several local newspapers quoted Nasrallah as telling his party's cadres
in the Bekaa that “victory will be the ally of the mujahideen in their battle
against takfiri and terrorist groups the same way it was their ally in the
confrontation with the Israeli enemy.”
Friday's report in al-Liwaa was likely mentioning the same visit that Nasrallah
did to eastern Lebanon. Nasrallah, who lives in hiding, has made few public
appearances since his group fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006 for fear of
assassination by the Jewish state.
Salam denies hostage talks have taken negative turn
Hasan LakkisHashem Osseiran| The Daily Star/Oct. 17, 2014
BEIRUT: Although Prime Minister Tammam Salam assured the Cabinet Thursday that
mediation efforts to free the 27 Lebanese hostages were making progress, a
source close to the militants said the negotiations had taken “a very negative
turn” in the past few days.
The hostage crisis dominated discussions during the Cabinet’s weekly session,
and Salam told ministers negotiations to secure the release of the servicemen
held hostage by ISIS and Nusra Front militants were continuing to make progress,
political sources told The Daily Star. Salam dismissed media reports that the
negotiations had taken a turn for the worse. He told ministers that
Secretary-General of the Higher Relief Committee Maj. Gen. Mohammad Kheir was
updating the families of the hostages on a daily basis.
However, a source close to the militants said negotiations to free the hostages
had taken “a very negative turn” in the last six days, blaming the lack of a
unified Cabinet stance. ISIS has placed the hostage crisis under the Nusra
Front’s control so the two groups would have a unified set of demands, which, if
met, would secure the release of all the hostages, the source told The Daily
Star. The nine hostages currently held by ISIS would be transferred to the Nusra
Front when their requests are met. “ISIS is backing the Nusra Front in
negotiations. There is a de facto agreement between the two.”The Qatari
delegation overseeing the talks has been negotiating with militants through a
Syrian mediator who is working on its behalf. A meeting between the Syrian
mediator and the militants takes place at least once a week on Arsal’s
outskirts, with the next meeting scheduled in the coming two days, the source
said. The mediator has established a good working relationship with the Nusra
Front which, according to the source, has delivered a clear set of demands that
includes the release of Islamist inmates in Roumieh Prison. Despite that
relationship, the Syrian mediator is receiving mixed messages from Beirut, which
is hindering his ability to communicate a clear stand. “The absence of a unified
official stance is causing confusion for the Syrian businessman, who is lost
over what message to relay to the militants,” the source said. The families of
the hostages released two statements Thursday, the first threatening that
“tomorrow will be a black Friday in Beirut if no positive developments occur in
the issue of our sons.” Later, in a statement released after meeting Kheir, the
families said they would hold off escalating their protests after recognizing
the government’s efforts to secure the release of their loved ones. During the
Cabinet session, a spat erupted over spending between Public Works and
Transportation Minister Ghazi Zeaiter and Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil,
prompting Salam to intervene, political sources said. The row was related to the
amount of money to be invested in regions where MP Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic
Movement enjoys wide support.
The session, which lasted more than five hours, failed to reach a decision over
several items on the agenda, including renewing the tender for Sukleen and
Lebanon’s two major mobile operators touch and Alfa.
Lebanon’s disconnect
Oct. 17, 2014/The Daily Star/Lebanese leaders have been publicizing the threat
of extremism and the repercussions of the war in next-door Syria, sounding call
after call about their urgent need for assistance from the world community. Even
before the war erupted, Lebanon was the region’s weakest link in when it came to
security- and defense-related matters, handicapped by the problematic
relationship between aspiring to have a fully fledged national army while
maintaining the Hezbollah-led resistance. With the threat from ISIS and other
takfiri groups on the rise and an international coalition assembled to fight
them, one might expect Lebanon to seize a golden opportunity. Instead,
politicians and officials behave as if the world has nothing else on its mind
except Lebanon’s political paralysis. Recent high-profile, multilateral meetings
in Saudi Arabia and the United States put a glaring spotlight on this dilemma.
If a Lebanese official formally endorses any type of multilateral effort, he
will be sabotaged back home because Lebanon’s inevitable reservations and
“special situation’ aren’t taken into consideration. And if an official attends
such events but says Lebanon has no official commitment to what is endorsed,
then why attend in the first place? How can the world take Lebanese leaders’
calls for urgent assistance seriously, if these same leaders inevitably excuse
themselves from embracing anything concrete? Instead of applying the
“disassociation” policy on Syria to the entire international community,
officials should instead adopt some transparency and tell people the truth about
the limits to their ability to act. The disconnect between demanding
international help and being unable to commit to international action is getting
larger, and is hidden from no one.
Mass Army defections unlikely scenario
Wassim Mroueh| The Daily Star/Oct. 17, 2014
The Army Command does not fear large-scale defections into the ranks of
jihadists, according to a high-profile Army source. “Sunni servicemen will not
defect from the Army, because they have clear knowledge of how the military is
behaving and they know that allegations by terrorist groups that the Army is
oppressing Sunnis are mere lies,” the source told The Daily Star Thursday. “The
head of the Army battalion deployed in Arsal is a Sunni – why hasn’t he
defected?” the source said. “Some of the soldiers killed or kidnapped during the
Arsal battles are also Sunnis.” The source explained that the military
establishment, whose members are from Lebanon’s various sects, was treating all
religious groups in the country equally. “Just as we arrest Sunni suspects, we
also chase and detain Shiite fugitives.”
He pointed to repetitive Army raids on the Baalbek neighborhood of Hay al-Sharawneh,
where many Shiite suspects often seek refuge. He also said the Army had arrested
members of the powerful Shiite Meqdad clan in 2012 after they kidnapped Syrian
refugees and Turkish nationals in Lebanon. The source explained that only
soldiers Atef Mohammad Saadeddine, who announced that he had entered the ranks
of the Nusra Front in July, and Abdallah Shehadeh, who joined the same group
this month, have actually fled Army ranks.
The others were sacked from the Army over misconduct way before they announced
their joining of terrorist groups, the source said, in reference to two other
soldiers who announced that they had joined ISIS and the Nusra Front earlier
this month.
The source downplayed accusations by the Nusra Front, ISIS and other Islamist
groups that the Army was under Hezbollah’s control. “We receive military aid
from the U.S. which Hezbollah describes as the ‘great Satan.’”The military
official dismissed claims that the Army was cracking down on Lebanese who were
aiding Syrian rebels, while refraining from taking action against Hezbollah
militants crossing the border to fight alongside the Syrian regime. “We are not
arresting residents of Tripoli who are fighting in Syria and returning home,
although we know their names,” the source said. “Even extremist groups
positioned in the outskirts of Arsal now, if they drop their arms and abandon
their takfiri ideology, we won’t mind that they live in Lebanon like other
Syrian refugees,” he said. The source described Arsal as the “hot spot” in
Lebanon at the present time. He said that the course of battles in the outskirts
of the northeastern town and adjacent Syrian territories indicated that ISIS and
the Nusra Front were now focusing on taking over a village on the Syrian side of
the border. “But who knows? If snow falls early this year, they might choose the
short route and attack Arsal again. We are waiting for them,” the source said.
He said it was unlikely that radical Syrian rebels would attack the southern
region of Arqoub, which includes the areas of Kfar Shuba, Shebaa and Hasbaya,
similar to how they did in Arsal. “The demographic structure in Hasbaya is
different. The plan of the terrorist groups is to have a sea outlet and it is
very hard to reach the sea from Arqoub,” the source said. “UNIFIL troops are
also present in the area.” The source described the situation in Tripoli as
“excellent,” particularly after fugitives Shadi al-Mawlawi an Osama Mansour
evacuated a mosque in the neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh. The source stressed
that the crackdown on terrorist cells across the country was ongoing, although
sometimes it was away from the media spotlight. He said that despite their deep
differences, the various political groups in Lebanon were interested in
preventing the overall situation from exploding. “It is clear from the way the
government was formed and how it is functioning. Ministers set aside all their
disputes and attend the Cabinet session every week,” he said. “There is an
international umbrella protecting Lebanon,” he added. “But this does not mean
that we should stand by idly. All political groups should also do their part in
protecting stability.”
Hezbollah blames Future for assaults on Army in Tripoli
Oct. 17, 2014/The Daily Star/BEIRUT: Hezbollah dismissed Thursday
accusations that it was involved in assaults against the Lebanese Army in
Tripoli, pointing the finger back at the Future Movement, which Hezbollah said
ultimately bore responsibility for the attacks.
Officials from the Future Movement and March 14 media outlets “have issued false
accusations over repeated assaults against the Lebanese Army in Tripoli, pinning
the blame on individuals, it alleges, are allied ... with Hezbollah,” a
statement released by Hezbollah’s media office said. The statement came after
prominent March 14 figures, including Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi, said
Hezbollah was implicated in the attacks on Army positions in the northern port
city. Rifi Monday claimed that “investigations had revealed the identities of
those who threw the grenades on the Army bases and checkpoints,” who turned out
to be “from Hezbollah’s circle and aim to create a conflict between the Army and
the city’s residents.” The Muslim Scholars Committee Wednesday echoed the
claims, saying “investigations revealed that Hezbollah is responsible for
attacks on the Lebanese Army.” Hezbollah considered the accusations to be
“baseless” and “void of any truth,” negating the claims by saying that “those
responsible for firing at the Army in Tripoli are known by the residents of the
town, the Lebanese Army and security forces.” None of the perpetrators are
“friends or allies” of Hezbollah, the party said. Hezbollah claimed that the
perpetrators were “close allies of the Future Movement,” which has supplied the
necessary “legal cover to prevent their trials.”
Hezbollah further decried the accusations by stressing that the party “rejects
any assault on the Lebanese Army.” Any attack on the military is “a grave
national crime,” the severity of which is only worsened by the fact that the
Army is waging battles against terrorists, Hezbollah said. The statement went on
to call for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. The party also hoped that
investigations would reveal their “identities, goals and the groups they are
working for.” In the latest incident in a spate of Army-related violence in the
city, a resident of the Beddawi refugee camp was killed during a shoot-out with
soldiers Thursday evening. The gunfight broke out after the Army tried to arrest
someone suspected of killing a soldier, the National News Agency said. Earlier
this week, the Lebanese Army beefed up security measures in Tripoli following
repeated attacks against the military.
http://www.persecution.org/2014/10/16/death-sentence-of-christian-mother-convicted-of-blasphemy-confirmed-by-pakistani-high-court/
Did Someone Say 'Conquest'?
By Burak Bekdil/Hürriyet Daily News
October 17, 2014
http://www.meforum.org/4854/did-someone-say-conquest
Turkey's terrible miscalculation in Syria has pushed its foreign policy rhetoric
from "shallow arrogance" to "defensive bewilderment." Over the past five years,
Ankara has claimed that "Syria, Palestine and Egypt [and other former Ottoman
territories] are Turkey's domestic affairs." It's bizarre, we have not heard
Interior Minister Efkan Ala speaking on what has been going on in Syria over the
past few months – not even once. Does Kobane not fall under the jurisdiction of
his ministry?
Not learning from past mistakes, the Turks and their part-time allies across the
Atlantic have now set out to train and equip "moderate" Islamists in Syria: The
Americans hope the "moderates" will finish off their less moderate brethren,
while the Turks hope that the new fighting will enforce bad Sunnis instead of
bad Shiites in Damascus.
Press reports say that thousands of moderates will specialize in ambush, bombing
and subversion skills at a military base in Turkey, courtesy of the American
taxpayer. Nice plan. A plan that probably needs a back-up plan too: Better if
the Turks and their part-time allies start thinking about training and equipping
future moderates to fight today's moderates. Be prepared, gentlemen, for the
perpetual Frankenstein's monster stories.
Salih Muslim, leader of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the most powerful
Kurdish opposition group in Syria, put it most realistically in an interview
with Hurriyet on Oct. 13: "While you [Turkey's leaders] were strolling arm in
arm and enjoying kebab in Ankara, Damascus and Aleppo [with Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad], we [Syrian Kurds] were being tortured in dungeons. We [Syrian
Kurds] won't be Turkey's front line soldiers [in its fight against al-Assad]."
"The Turks must now invite the major foreign powers they denounce at every
occasion to fight a war that presumably falls under their own domestic affairs."
So Turkey needs non-Kurdish proxy warriors to fight its former ally, regional
nemesis and dramatic obsession al-Assad: the moderates! Just like it once
thought of, funded and armed what it now feels compelled to fight: the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). The perpetual Frankenstein monster story…
Mesopotamia is full of ironies. It always has been. It probably will be in the
future too. The Turks must now invite the major foreign powers they denounce at
every occasion to fight a war that presumably falls under their own domestic
affairs. If Syria is a domestic Turkish affair, why should Ankara make war plans
with the Americans and court the Kurds to fight the enemy? Did Ankara invite
U.S. troops to defeat the Gezi protesters in 2013?
But the Best Political Irony Award of the year should go jointly to Messrs.
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Ahmet Davutoğlu and ISIL's leaders. For several years, the
men who made Turkey's foreign policy argued (and still argue) that "when Turks
and Muslims capture foreign lands by force, it is a merry thing to celebrate for
all because it is 'the conquest of the heart and mind,'" and that when foreign
armies take back from the Turks or Muslims what they had lost by force it is a
bad thing because it is "invasion of our lands."
Most recently, ISIL's HQ spoke to Ankara in the language Turkey's
conquest-fetish leaders should best understand, and thus qualified to join the
award nominees when it threatened to "conquer" Turkey and ultimately remove
President Erdoğan. ISIL's video, "A Message to Erdoğan," warns that "Turkey
shall be conquered with the shouts of 'Allahu Akbar.'"
A narrator in the background is heard saying, addressing Mr. Erdoğan: "Be
prepared for the good news, for the time for your rule to end is getting close
at the hands of the state of the caliphate [ISIL]." The narrator further says:
"Turkey has been spearheading the armies of 'Kufr' [infidelity] in fighting the
Mujahedeen. It was the leader of the NATO forces in chasing the Taliban
fighters. And today, the people of treachery refuse but to continue in their
malicious ways although it is in a 'new and different look.'"
What ISIL men do is no doubt barbaric. But what they say can sometimes be
amusing. Especially when one thinks of the same way Turkey's "lighter" Islamists
view secular Muslims. Even more amusing is when they resort to the "conquest"
rhetoric in the exact same way their "lighter" versions often do.
**Burak Bekdil is a columnist for the Istanbul-based daily Hürriyet and a fellow
at the Middle East Forum.
To Lebanon, we are all in the same sinking boat
Friday, 17 October 2014
Nayla Tueni /Al Arabiya
The Lebanese people feel as though they are being left to face their fate and
that no one makes any decisions regarding affairs linked to their security and
lives. No one is defending them. It’s as if they are living in the absence of a
state and in the shadow of a deep-rooted political vacuum. This vacuum deepens
by the day and it’s not only caused by a vacuum in state institutions but also
by the death of prominent figures who influenced our national culture thanks to
their wisdom in times of fanaticism. The last of these intellectuals to pass
away is Monah al-Solh. Solh, who was a moderate voice fighting sectarianism and
divisional rhetoric, passed away on Saturday. The post of the presidency remains
vacant and there’s no hope on the horizon considering the blind approach that
has haunted the election of a new president. Meanwhile, the parliament is
incapable of electing a president due to the sharp divisions obstructing its
legislative role after the Taif Agreement cancelled out its regulatory role. As
for the government, it’s not doing any better. I don’t intend to attack the
government like some are currently doing, however, its structure does not allow
it to function. The division of ministerial portfolios has split the government
into parties with conflicting interests. This was shown during last week’s
session as all controversial issues, which would serve certain parties’
interests, were postponed.
“Lebanon’s deteriorating livelihood conditions have spared no one”What concerns
us even more than all of this is the fear that took over the Lebanese people’s
lives. The issue of the border with Syria worries them in the north, Beqaa and
the south. There’s no agreement on any solutions regarding this problem,
especially as borders with Syria are not demarcated. There’s also an inability
to control these borders which are wide-open for fundamentalist parties,
movements and groups - Lebanese and Syrian alike – to traverse. These groups
violate these borders’ sovereignty and thus humiliate our dignity.
Thorny issue
The thorny issue of the abducted military personnel and the incidents in which
soldiers were fired upon in northern areas do not bode well. They foreshadow the
worst repercussions of this chaotic situation. Amidst this dire situation,
there’s an urgent need for a positive shock. This won’t be possible unless
there’s a minimal agreement amongst all parties and groups - even those in
crises. All sects and parties are in crisis and actually lack a clear vision. No
one can bid over anyone regarding this point because everyone is in one boat
subject to sinking if they don’t realize the current imminent threats and
address them. The security situation threatens everyone and economic regression
pressures everyone. The deteriorating livelihood conditions have spared no one.
So what are politicians, parties and religious leaders waiting for? Isn’t this
threat of sinking worthy of establishing a state of emergency and descending
from the ivory towers before the state’s foundations collapse on everyone’s
heads and remorse is of absolutely no use?
A Portrait of a
Progressive Pope
by AMIR TAHERI October 16, 2014 /Family Security Matters
Pope Francis: Conversations with Jorge Bergoglio: His Life in His Own Words
By Francesca Ambrogetti and Sergio Rubin
Penguin, 304 pages
New York, 2013
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/a-portrait-of-a-progressive-pope?f=commentary
In a curious coincidence, the list of candidates for this year's Nobel Peace
Prize included two religious leaders. The Argentinian parliament nominated Pope
Francis for his "efforts to bring peace in Syria." Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani,
the spiritual leader of most of Iraq's Shi'ites, was nominated by a group of
intellectuals for his role in preventing full-scale sectarian war in Iraq. The
two nominations indicated that the boundary between religion and politics,
always thin, may have become even paler in our times. In the end it was Malala
Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl campaigning for education for Muslim girls that
was chosen. Again, the relationship between politics and religion was a factor.
Thus, readers of Pope Francis should not be surprised to find this a political
rather than theological tome. Based on long conversations between the new Pope
and two journalists-one Argentinian, the other Italian-the book provides a
biographical sketch of Francis, along with an expose of his political views.
Francis emerges as a modern, center-left, political figure committed to the
usual "good things" such as peace, sharing and caring, solidarity and progress.
Because Francis is the first Jesuit priest to become Pope, it is not surprising
that, true to his evangelist mission as a "soldier for Christ," his emphasis is
on securing the largest possible audience for the Catholic Church rather than
defending doctrine in an age of cultural relativism.
He has learned a great deal from the experience of his most recent predecessors:
Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI. The former emphasized the political
dimension of his mission, especially in the struggle to help central and Eastern
Europe bring down the Iron Curtain. When the Cold War ended with the
disintegration of the Soviet Empire, John Paul II was among history's victors,
his doctrinal conservatism conveniently pushed aside. In contrast, Benedict XVI,
a theologian by training and temperament, put the emphasis on doctrinal issues
in a brave attempt to save the Catholic Church from the ravages of political
correctness and multiculturalism. As a result, many Catholics did not warm up to
him while non-Catholics found him anachronistic.
Francis appears to have decided to look to John Paul II rather than Benedict XVI
as a model. The difference is that John Paul II was a political Pope on the
right of the center while Francis intends to be left of center.
That has encouraged some of Francis's critics on the right to portray him as a
fellow traveler or even a communist. Francis admits that he was attracted to
communist themes, if not actual policies. In fact, the only political book he
cites is Our Word and Proposals by the Argentinian communist writer Leonidas
Barletta. "It helped my political education," Francis says.
Francis deepens his "progressive " profile with a list of his favorite authors,
including German poet Friedrich Hölderlin, Italian novelist Alessandro Manzoni,
Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Belgian mystic Joseph Maréchal, and, last
but not least, Argentina's own literary icon, Jorge Luis Borges. Interestingly,
with the exception of Maréchal, a Thomist priest, all of Francis's favorite
writers were either agnostic or atheists.
Francis' "progressive" profile is deepened with reference to his taste in
cinema; he loved Italian neo-realism and made sure to see all films with Anna
Magnani and Aldo Fabrizi. He also cites the film Babette's Feast, a critique of
religion as an oppressive ideology, in which a French "fallen woman" played by
Stéphane Audran injects some life into a Danish community of Calvinists.
Francis regards "liberal capitalism" as immoral and finds some sympathy for the
"liberation theology" of the Latin American guerrilla-priests of the 1960s,
while insisting that he was "never a communist." In fact, he includes communism,
along with unbridled capitalism, Nazism and liberalism in his list of
totalitarian ideologies. And, yet, he points at secularism as the principal
enemy of faith. "There is a denial of God due to secularism, the selfish egoism
of humanity," he asserts.
The trouble is that Francis confuses secularism with atheism, which is the
outright denial of the transcendental. However, secularism simply means keeping
the public space open to all religions, protecting the weak against repression
by the strong.
Regarding religion as a matter of individual belief, secularism does not deny
God in whatever metaphysical form people wish to promote; all it does is to
oppose the use of the resources of the state in favor of one religion against
others. There are countless examples of secular writers and political figures
who were sincere believers at the same time.
A fascinating part of the book deals with the "social issues" that have
dominated the public debate in the West in recent decades, among them abortion,
birth control, divorce, gay and lesbian marriages, and celibacy for priests.
Here, Francis faces a real difficulty. If he simply reaffirms the traditional
positions of his Church-as Benedict XVI did, for example-he would weaken his
claim of being a "progressive." If, on the other hand, he adopts the
"progressive" position, he would antagonize many, perhaps a majority, in his
flock.
Francis deals with this dilemma in the classical Jesuit style of seizing the
bull by both horns. He asserts that what really matters is the core narrative of
Christianity, the technical term for which is kerygma. Beyond that we have what
Francis calls "catechism," which, in the sense he deals with it, concerns
behavior and social organization. Interestingly, he does not mention dogma, the
bridge between kerygma and catechism. Thus, issues such as abortion, gay
marriage, and the Eucharist for divorced individuals, do not affect the kerygma.
As for celibacy for priests, it is "a discipline, not a matter of doctrine," he
asserts, and thus could be abandoned in the future.
In addition to being a "progressive," Francis is also an optimist. "The moral
conscience of different cultures progresses," he asserts, reminding us how such
"evils" as incest, slavery, exploitation, for example, were once, in different
phases of human history, tolerated by all cultures and even religions but are
now rejected with revulsion by all.
But is human "moral progress," if it exists at all, as linear as the Pope seems
to believe? Francis himself reminds us that slavery continues to exist in
different forms. In fact, the United Nations' estimates put the number of slaves
today at over 27 million, and that does not include human trafficking for sexual
exploitation. As for incest, right now, Germany is debating a law to
decriminalize incest between consenting adult sisters and brothers. If slavery
was banned in the 19th century it was not due to "moral progress." The
Industrial Revolution had made slave labor largely uneconomical.
Francis' intellectual landscape is dominated by ideas that could be traced back
to ancient Athens rather than Jerusalem. He is more comfortable in the company
of Aristotle than the Church Fathers. The only one he quotes is the
quasi-Aristotelian St. Augustine, ignoring the contrasting positions of Jerome
and Tertullian, among others.
Is the church, indeed any formal religious organization, necessary for
salvation? Francis cannot but answer with a resounding "yes." However, he
weakens that "yes" by recalling that, as a young man, he dreamed of becoming a
missionary to Japan, where Christianity had managed to survive and to some
extent even prosper without any priests and no organization for over two
centuries.
I don't know whether the Pope has read Japanese novelist Shūsaku Endo's
fascinating novel Silence, which deals precisely with that subject. Endo shows
that, even under the worst conditions of torture and despair, human beings look
to religious faith for a measure of certainty about right and wrong, good and
evil.
Today, the problem is that religion, in most its forms, is trying to imitate
philosophy, which is the realm of doubt, or replace ideology as a means of
organizing political action.
Francis repeats the assertion by André Malraux, that the 21st century will be
"religious or it will not at all." The question is: religion in which of its
many forms? There are those who see kerygma as poetic conceit, focusing on
catechism, or its Islamic version the Shari'a, as a means of social and
political control and domination. Then there are those who, having asserted the
kerygma, allow the elastic to be pulled in opposite directions as far as
possible.
The problem is that, at some point, the elastic might snap.
**Amir Taheri writes for the New York Post. His latest book is The Persian
Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution.
The Road from Qatar to the Gaza Strip
by REUVEN BERKO October 16, 2014
Family Security Matters
In a recent speech, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Ron Prosor
mentioned the central role of Qatar in supporting international terrorist
organizations. Money flowing from Qatar to Hamas, for example, paid for the
terrorist attack tunnels dug from the Gaza Strip under the security fence into
Israeli territory, and for the thousands of rockets fired at Israeli civilian
targets in both the distant and recent past. In response, State Department
spokesperson Marie Harf rushed to Qatar's defense, claiming it had an important,
positive role in finding a solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Qatar's funding for Islamist terrorist organizations all over the world is an
open secret known to every global intelligence agency, including the CIA. It was
exposed by Wikileaks, which clearly showed that funds from Qatar were
transferred to al-Qaida. Qatar also funds the terrorist movements opposing the
Assad regime in Syria, such as the Al-Nusra Front, encourages anti-Egyptian
terrorism in the Sinai Peninsula and within Egypt itself, and is involved in
Islamic terrorism in Africa and other locations. It accompanies its involvement
in terrorism targeting Israel and Egypt (through the Muslim Brotherhood) with
vicious and inflammatory propaganda on its Al-Jazeera TV channel.
Qatar also spends millions of dollars supporting the Islamic Movement in Israel,
a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood headed by Sheikh Ra'ed Salah. The Islamic
Movement is responsible for ongoing acts of provocation on the Temple Mount and
in Judea and Samaria, and incites the entire Islamic world against Israel,
claiming that the Jews are trying to destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque and replace it
with the Jewish Temple. The incitement continued even as the Islamic Movement's
sister movement, Hamas, fired rockets at Jerusalem and endangered both the
mosques on the Temple Mount and Jerusalem's sites sacred to Judaism,
Christianity and Islam.
As Qatar's representative, the Islamic Movement, which has not yet been outlawed
in Israel, contributed to Hamas what it could during Operation Protective Edge
by instigating riots, blocking roads and seeking to foment a third intifada
which, according to the plan, would be joined by Israeli Arabs to augment the
deaths of thousands of Israelis killed by rockets and the mass murders through
the attack tunnels planned for the eve of the Jewish New Year.
In his recent UN speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rebutted
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' accusations of Israeli "genocide"
of the Palestinian people. He reminded his audience of Hamas' use of Gazan
civilians as human shields and of the rockets fired to attack specifically
civilian Israeli targets. Unfortunately, he did not mention the Hamas charter,
which calls for the murder of all the Jews. The fact that Abbas now heads a
national consensus government in which Hamas is a full partner commits him to
the slaughter of the Jewish people - a true genocide - and it is to the disgrace
of the international community that such an individual was permitted to address
the UN instead of being tried for war crimes.
In fact, the similarities between Hamas and ISIS are clearly stated in the Hamas
charter, which defines Hamas as part of the Muslim Brotherhood's global Islamic
movement. One of its objectives is to fight "infidel Christian imperialism" and
its Zionist emissaries in Israel in order to impose the Sharia, Islamic
religious law, on the world. According to the charter's paragraph 7, Hamas'
intention is to slaughter every Jew, as ordered by Muhammad and those who accept
his legacy. That is the basis for the threat issued by ISIS "Caliph," Abu Bakr
al-Baghdadi, that under his leadership, Islam will "drown America in blood."
Throughout its history, Hamas, like ISIS, has been committed to the concept of
the global caliphate, which it plans to help construct by creating its own
Islamic emirate on the ruins of the State of Israel. Since its founding, Hamas
has attacked Israel and murdered thousands of its citizens exactly as ISIS has
attacked and murdered "infidels." They share the same slogans, with "There is no
god but Allah" and "Allah, Prophet Muhammad" inscribed on their flags and
headbands. Hamas terrorists have blown themselves up in Israel's coffee shops,
hotels, restaurants, buses, malls and markets, wherever there are large
concentrations of civilians. The way Hamas executed suspected collaborators
during the final days of Operation Protective Edge bore the hallmarks of the
al-Qaida execution of Daniel Pearl and the ISIS beheading of James Foley and
others.
In the decades during which Hamas has carried out a continual series of deadly
terrorist attacks against Israel, wearing the same "Allah, Prophet, Muhammad"
headbands as ISIS terrorists, the international community rarely voices its
support for Israel, or takes into account that by defending itself Israel also
defends the West, which has failed to understand that "political Islam" inspired
by the Muslim Brotherhood was setting up shop in the free world's backyard and
that the ticking bomb was set to go off sooner than expected. The West has not
clearly condemned Qatar for openly supporting Hamas and its terrorist activities
against Israel or demanded that it stop.
While Israel responded to Hamas' rocket attacks on civilian targets to keep
thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Israeli civilians from being killed, the
international community demanded "proportionality." That requirement kept Israel
from responding as it should have and encouraged Hamas to fire ever more rockets
at "military targets" such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. When Israel built its
security fence to keep Hamas suicide bombers from infiltrating into Israeli
territory to blow themselves up in crowds of civilians, the international
community opposed it, rushed to embrace the Palestinians' vocabulary of "racism"
and "apartheid," and willingly played into the hands of Hamas and Abbas. This
reaction occurred although Israel is the only truly democratic country in the
Middle East, where Jews and Arabs can live in peace without "apartheid."
Today President Obama says he "underestimated" the threat posed by ISIS, while
Israel has been warning the world of extremist military Islam for at least a
decade, as Netanyahu warned the world of a nuclear Iran in his UN speech.
The international community has been curiously silent about the genuine
apartheid in the Arab states neighboring Israel. There, descendants of the
original 1948 Palestinian refugees, by now in their fourth generation, still
live in refugee camps, do not have citizenship, and are excluded from jobs and
social benefits. Israel, however, absorbed hundreds of thousands of Jewish
refugees, many of them destitute, who fled Europe and were expelled from the
Arab countries when the state was founded, and were given citizenship and enjoy
full rights, as do the Arabs who remained in Israel after the War of
Independence.
Israel, which has nothing against the Palestinian people, would like to see the
Gaza Strip rebuilt for both humanitarian reasons and to give Hamas something to
lose. Radical Islamic elements around the globe, however, including Hamas, ISIS,
al-Qaida, the Al-Nusra Front and Hizballah, all financed by Qatar, do not want
to see the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolved. They all have the same global
agenda, based on fueling the conflict to unite Islam around it, under their
leadership.
Therefore, Qatar continues to support global Islamic terrorism. On Sept. 13,
Qatar paid the Al-Nusra Front a ransom of $20 million to free abducted UN
soldiers from Fiji. The world praised Qatar for its philanthropy, but in effect,
it was a brilliant act of manipulation and fraud, both filling the Al-Nusra
Front's coffers and representing itself as the Fijians' savior. Qatar is using
the same underhanded trick in the Gaza Strip. After sending Hamas millions of
dollars to fund its anti-Israeli terrorist industry, it pledged $1 billion to
help rebuild the Gaza Strip during last weekend's conference in Cairo.
While the world hopes Operation Protective Edge was the last round of
Palestinian-Israeli violence, senior Hamas figures reiterate their position of
gearing up to fight Israel again. Not one Hamas leader is willing to agree to a
full merger with the Palestinian Authority to establish a genuine unified
Palestinian leadership. Hamas rejects even the idea of disarming or
demilitarization as part of an agreement to rebuild the Gaza Strip and promote
the peace process. Unfortunately, no one has suggested it as a pre- condition
for any U.S. dollars that will be contributed to the reconstruction of Gaza.
All that is left now is to hope that the billions of dollars poured into the
Gaza Strip for its rebuilding will be accompanied by the disarmament of Hamas
and the establishment of an honest mechanism for overseeing the money and
materials Egypt and Israel allow into the Gaza Strip. It is imperative that they
not be diverted to rebuild Hamas' terrorist infrastructure and tunnels, or to
bribe UNRWA officials to look the other way, as has happened so often in the
past. There is every indication that only Hamas and Qatar know whether there is
anything to justify that hope.
**Dr. Reuven Berko has a Ph.D. in Middle East studies, is a commentator on
Israeli Arabic TV programs, writes for the Israeli daily newspaper Israel Hayom
and is considered one of Israel's top experts on Arab affairs.
The end of a unified Yemen
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya
Friday, 17 October 2014
Popular, political and military activity calling for the separation of southern
Yemen from the republic of Yemen picked up its pace this week in the areas of
Aden and Hadramout. The possibility of the south becoming an independent state
is closer than at any other point in Yemen’s history.
Unity and separation are two issues that concern everyone in the region. They
mainly concern Yemen’s major neighbor, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
When southern and northern Yemen united, it was backed by people from both sides
but it was not the product of popular demands or activity. It was the result of
a struggle over governance in the south among communist powers. Former President
Ali Abdullah Saleh seized the chance to expand his authority when the South’s
political leader Ali Salem al-Beidh - who almost lost his rule - called for
unification. Saleh and Beidh signed the unification agreement in 1989 and
instead of achieving unity and power sharing, Saleh dominated authority in both
northern and southern Yemen. The promises of unification were not fulfilled and
it became a burden on northern Yemen, leading to the neglect and appropriation
of southern Yemen. Saleh was thus the only winner and ruled over the country
alone.
“New developments now raise the decisive question: Is separation the solution?”
Abdulrahman al-Rashed
Prior to this unification, I sat with late Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef
bin Abdulaziz who was also an official in the joint Saudi-Yemeni committee. I
asked him about Ali Abdullah Saleh’s media allegations that Saudi Arabia had
objected to unity and see it as a threat. He summarized the nature of the
relationship and its historical roots since the 1950s.
Saudi concerns
He said that a united Yemen is best for Saudi Arabia as we suffer when we have
to deal with two governments, one in Sanaa and one in Aden, because satisfying
one means angering the other. This is especially so when there are tensions
between the two. In this case, either of these governments will ally with the
Saudi kingdom’s rival. This happened during the Cold War as rebels in the north
allied with the Nasserites and later on the south allied with the Soviet Union.
It’s easier for us to manage relations with a unified country that has one
government while maintaining good relationships with the different domestic
powers who’ve had historical ties with Saudi Arabia.
Truth be told, Saudi Arabia has also suffered politically even during the period
when Yemen was united; however, the suffering was the result of mere disputes.
Former President Saleh, whose period in power coincided with that of three Saudi
kings, was known for his attempts to glorify himself, even if it came at the
expense of Yemen and its people. When former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded
Kuwait, Saleh sided with him against Saudi Arabia. Saleh then allied with the
Qataris when they disagreed with Saudi Arabia over the period of a few years. He
also allowed former Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi to fund Yemeni tribes against
Saudi Arabia. Last but not least, Saleh invented the Houthis, he turned them
into a dangerous political and religious group when originally they were simply
a tribal group. He resorted to the excuse of having to religiously educate the
Houthis and sent some of them to Iran to be recruited to work against his
neighbor, Saudi Arabia. They also worked against the opposing northern Yemeni
tribes in an attempt to subjugate them in an-ever changing balancing act.
New developments now raise the decisive question, not for the Saudis but mainly
for the Yemenis of the north and the south: Is separation the solution?
Exacerbating problems
I think that the separation will exacerbate problems for people in both sides
because there are no dominating powers that can end this rivalry and end the
fighting and there’s no real electoral system the Yemenis can resort to and
count upon. Therefore, separation will foment chaos in both the north and south.
Despite this, separation is a very possible scenario as a result of the rapid
collapse of the ruling institution in northern Yemen and of the frustration at
the failure of the unification agreement. Yemenis are now aware that the
unification agreement was merely part of the personal agenda of ousted President
Saleh. Northern Yemenis have truly tried to compensate for Saleh’s sins towards
their people in the south and they displayed a lot of flexibility and concern
regarding unity. Proof is that the posts of the presidency and premiership are
now occupied by southerners although the northerners constitute the sweeping
majority of the population. Despite that, southern political powers compete with
one another and call for separation as they are aware that declaring an
independent state has become the southerners’ favorite tune and that unity has
become a hated idea due to Saleh’s policies which inflicted further poverty and
marginalization in the south.
As a result of the weakness of the central authority, the north currently faces
a political vacuum as the three major powers are fighting each other. The first
party is that of Saleh who still actively sabotages political plans by inciting
strife and buying loyalties so as to return to power. The second party is that
of the Houthis who are linked to Iran and whose militias have seized some major
state institutions. The third party is that of the state and the government
which is sick in bed and which only has one card up its sleeve, that of
international legitimacy based upon the recognition of the U.N. Security Council
and the Gulf countries.
In the case of announcing the death of the current Yemeni government, or if it
dies within the next few months but no announcement is made, we would witness
the inevitable end of a unified Yemen as well as the South’s declaration of a
separate state. Yemen would thus begin a new chapter in its history. Its first
chapter will most probably be full of further domestic disputes and foreign
interferences and the victims will be the Yemenis who have not been asked to
express their opinions yet.
Syria and Iraq, Iran’s red lines
Majid Rafizadeh/Al Arabiya
Friday, 17 October 2014
The Islamic Republic has recently warned the Turkish government over its
military presence in Syria and for “Turkey’s dangerous policies” in Syria and
Iraq. The head of the political bureau of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard,
Brigadier General Yadollah Javani, pointed out that “the crisis in Iraq and
Syria will move to Turkey if Ankara does not modify its behavior.” Amidst the
battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Iranian leaders
appear to have successfully and forcefully made their point to the West and
regional state actors regarding Tehran’s red lines: Iraq and more significantly
Iran’s long-time protégé, Syria.
The professionally taken photos of General Qassem Suleimani in Iraq, the
commander of Iran’s Quds force who normally keeps a low profile and the
projection of these pictures on Iran’s TV outlets suggests a significant
strategic shift in Iran’s policies to publicly project its power. According to
the Guardian, Amirali Hajizadeh, the airforce commander of Iran’s Revolutionary
Guard Corps, stated on Iran’s national TV that “if it wasn’t for Iran’s help,
Iraq’s Kurdistan would have fallen into the hands of Daesh (ISIS).” Further,
Iran is attempting to send a message to the Iranian people that Tehran can
tackle any regional threat.
“Currently, for Washington and Western allies, the battle against ISIS is at the
top of their foreign policy agenda”
Majid Rafizadeh
The ongoing fighting against ISIS has emboldened Iran and definitely deflected
attention from some aspects of Iran’s increasing military, financial,
intelligence, and advisory assistance to President Bashar al-Assad, along with
Tehran’s ambitions for regional supremacy.
Appeasing policies of the U.S. and Western allies
Part of the reason lies in the current foreign policies, weaknesses, and failure
of the United States and its Western allies in the Middle East. Since the U.S.
and the Islamic Republic have been indirectly cooperating and coordinating
aerial and ground battles against ISIS, the U.S. and its Western allies came to
the understanding that they will carry out a policy of appeasement towards
Iran’s role in the region, its military involvement in Syria, and Iran-Iraq
ties. More fundamentally, the United States and Western allies seem to have
accepted and recognized Iran’s red line with regards to Assad, and are appearing
to appease the Islamic Republic’s objectives in that regard.
For the West, particularly Washington, as long as Iranian leaders are assisting
them in beating ISIS, this tactical shift and doctrine is viewed as the most
effective foreign policy to serve the campaign against ISIS.
Currently, for Washington and Western allies, the battle against ISIS is at the
top of their foreign policy agenda. The future of Assad, his use of brute force,
and Iran’s IRGC assistances have definitely become secondary and marginal
objectives to tackle. In addition, Iran’s nuclear ambitions have also slid to
the sidelines of the U.S. and Western allies’ objectives as the battle against
ISIS continues. The U.S., the major negotiator in the P5+1 group (China, France,
Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), has significantly
softened its position towards Iran’s nuclear program by favoring policies such
as nuclear containment rather than dismantlement of Tehran’s nuclear
infrastructure. This follows that Iran might be allowed, like Japan, to be a
nuclear threshold state.
The West’s appeasement towards Iran’s hegemonic ambitions in Syria, Iraq,
Lebanon, Yemen, among other nations, has also contributed to the emboldening of
ISIS, other insurgencies, and extremism across the Middle East.
The Islamic Republic denies
Although the Islamic Republic denies that it has forces on the ground in Syria,
the fighters from Hezbollah (Lebanon’s pro-Iranian Shiite movement) and Quds
forces (an elite branch of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps) have been
significantly instrumental in tipping the balance of power in favor of the
Syrian government as well as keeping Assad in power after more than three years
of the conflict in Syria. The powerful Iranian-backed Shiite Badr brigade has
played a crucial role in Iraq as well.
The shortcomings of the U.S. and Western allies’ foreign policy in the Middle
East is linked to policy and objective compartmentalization. Without a doubt,
the rise of ISIS is related to Iran’s military and financial support to Assad,
which has further radicalized and militarized the Syrian civil war.
This protracted conflict has provided the required environment for extremist
Jihadist groups to organize, recruit, and develop. On the other hand, Iran’s
rising power in the Middle East amid the Islamic State’s conflict, will be
posing much more ominous results in the close future.
Efficient and informed policies: Compartmentalization of foreign policies?
As a result, isolating, taking Tehran’s role in the region out of the equation,
as well as turning a blind eye to Iran’s support to the Syrian government would
eventually lead to failure and be counterproductive. What is needed in order to
address the raising conflict in the Middle East is a comprehensive marshal plan,
which would take all the different layers of Iran’s role in the conflict into
consideration, including the Islamic Republic’s forces involvement in Syria,
Iraq, and Yemen. A comprehensive strategic plan is required that would tackle
all the angles of the conflict. This plan should address the root of the
problem, not just the problem’s effects.
When it comes to the Islamic Republic’s increasing military, financial,
intelligence, and advisory involvements in Syria, another underlying factor is
that Iranian leaders have clearly sensed the American President’s and Western
leaders’ weaknesses. On several occasions, Assad crossed the red line imposed by
the United State and President Obama did not act on his words.
Currently, the U.S. and Western allies’ major campaign in the Middle East is
fighting ISIS while ignoring addressing Iran’s military engagements in other
countries and ignoring Tehran’s apparent determination for regional supremacy
seriously.
The most effective approach is to simultaneously address the Islamic Republic’s
multi-dimensional functions across the Middle East, including its military,
financial intelligence, advisory assistance to Assad, Tehran’s military
involvements in Iraq, and Yemen, the involvement of pro-Iranian and pro-Shiite
proxies and militias in the region, as well as Iran’s nuclear ambitions. This
comprehensive strategy will address some of the crucial underlying factors
behind the crisis in the Middle East, including the rise of extremist groups. By
not taking Iran’s nuanced role in the Middle East seriously, and by turning a
blind eye to all Iranian military activities in Syria and other countries- due
to the notion that the Islamic Republic is assisting the United States and
Western allies in their fighting campaign against ISIS - will solely ratchet up
the conflict and eventually lead to significant foreign policy failures.
Iran’s Dangerous Game in Yemen
By: Amir Taheri /Asharq Al Awsat/Friday, 17 Oct, 2014
“Yemen is simple,” says a European diplomat working on a report for NATO on the
war-torn nation. “The Saudis feed the Yemenis and the Iranians arm them. So,
what is left for Yemenis to do, except chew qat and fight each other?”
Like all caricatures, this verbal caricature puts the aggrandizing lens on just
one aspect of a complex situation, exaggerating its importance.
Today, Yemen is a tangled web of conflicts that, though they must be examined
one by one, can’t be fully understood without reference to their collective
context.
Since 2010, Yemen has been on a slippery slope towards becoming an ungoverned or
semi-governed territory, an experience shared by many others at different times
in their history. Right now, a number of countries, notably the Democratic
Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, and, of course,
Somalia, are passing through the same experience in different degrees. No nation
is immune from suffering that fate. If the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria
(ISIS) is not crushed it could turn four of Iraq’s 18 provinces into
“ungoverned” zones. The phenomenon could spread from Syria and Iraq to their
neighbors, notably Lebanon and Turkey. Some analysts include the so-called
“badlands” of northwest Pakistan in the list of ungoverned zones. Parts of the
disputed Kashmir and both the Pakistan and Iranian provinces of Baluchistan are
also in danger of moving in this direction.
The disease, if one may call it such, is not confined to newly created states in
the Third World. Vast areas of the United States became ungoverned territory
during its Civil War. Spain had a similar experience during the Spanish Civil
War. For much of the 1990s, Afghanistan was a vast ungoverned zone. More
recently, ungoverned territories emerged in parts of the former Yugoslavia for
almost a decade. Parts of Myanmar (Burma) are in that situation today.
Looking at the Yemeni crisis as an issue of regional—and to some extent even
international—security, is therefore perfectly legitimate. Yemen’s crisis poses
a threat to both Saudi Arabia and Oman, if only because it could produce a
humanitarian catastrophe with vast numbers of refugees trying to cross the
borders. The effective disintegration of governmental authority could also
threaten the security of sea-lanes in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea,
especially Bab El-Mandeb, one of the most sensitive chokepoints in global
maritime traffic. Throughout the Cold War, the United States feared that the
Yemeni island of Socotra would provide the Soviet Union with a platform to
project power across the Indian Ocean. Anarchy in Yemen today could mean the
capture of Socotra and smaller islands in the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea by
terrorist groups like ISIS. We have already seen what piracy is doing in
Somalia.
What is astonishing is that this growing danger is either ignored by the major
powers or exploited for petty tactical advantage by regional rivals. In the
latter context, Iran is pursuing a dangerous opportunistic gambit.
Tehran official media wax triumphant because a few Houthi demonstrators in
Sana’a carried portraits of the late Ayatollah Khomeini and his successor Ali
Khamenei. The daily Kayhan, published under Khamenei’s control, headlined a
report on the entry of Houthis in Sana’a as “the victory of our Islamic
Revolution.”
The paper’s editorialist couldn’t contain his excitement in narrating what he
thought was the adoption by Yemenis of Khomeini’s version of Islam. He ignored
the fact that the Houthis’ army of around 10,000 gunmen can hardly control
Sana’a, a city of some 2 million inhabitants, not counting the mass of recently
arrived refugees. Those who know Sana’a’s countless labyrinthine twists and
turns know that talk of any enforced control is nonsense, especially when the
supposed controllers are not natives of the sprawling city.
Another thing the editorialist didn’t know is that the Houthis are reluctant to
assume governmental responsibility, something for which they lack the most
elemental preparation. Like almost all Yemenis, Houthis know how to use their
guns. But they have no political program or administrative experience to offer.
In fact, no one can really control Yemen, or ever has. In Yemen, the question is
one of the management of chaos rather than governance in the classical sense of
the term. More importantly, Kayhan’s editorialist did not know that Yemenis with
guns could always be hired but are never bought. Iran is not alone in ignoring
that fact. The United States, too, has been spending vast sums trying to buy
various Yemeni factions, chasing the will-o’-the-wisp of an ever-elusive
alliance. Though among the 10 poorest nations in the world, Yemenis still walk
in the middle of the street as proud as Gary Cooper in High Noon.
Yemenis certainly don’t want, or need, either a Hezbollah or an Iranian-syle
Supreme Leader, as Khamenei seems to believe. But nor do they want liberal
democracy as some in Washington claim. This may shock some people, but Yemen,
even under Imam Ahmad, presented as a medieval monster by many in the Western
media, seemed to be happy. The reason was that the so-called Imam lacked the
coercive instruments to frighten them, and did not have the resources to bribe
them. He just left them alone.
The civil war of the 1960s was the result of outside intervention, notably by
Gamal Abdel Nasser pursuing his dream of an Arab Empire. Khamenei’s dream of a
Khomeinist empire is equally doomed.
Today, Yemen is on the edge of humanitarian tragedy. It is effectively divided
into at least four segments: the north where Houthis form the biggest armed
group; Aden and part of the south, where the secessionists of the Al-Hirak
movement have most of the guns; the Hadhramaut, where jihadists linked to
Al-Qaeda are on the rampage; and finally, a few isolated pockets where tribal
chiefs still exercise some authority. The nation is dependent on foreign aid for
90 percent of its food and almost all of its medical needs. Almost all of
foreign aid has now been diverted to emergency operations and, yet, the prospect
of mass famine looms larger. What is needed are urgent efforts to create
breathing room to prevent the tragedy of total systemic collapse. The United
Nations should take the lead by calling on all concerned to at least stop
pouring more oil on the fire.
Yemen can’t be anybody’s poodle but, if turned into a hungry wolf, it could bite
many.
**Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from
1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications,
published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Mr. Taheri has won several prizes for his journalism, and in 2012 was named
International Journalist of the Year by the British Society of Editors and the
Foreign Press Association in the annual British Media Awards.