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Bible Quotations For Today
‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 11/27-32: "A woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, ‘This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise at the judgement with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!

You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
Letter to the Hebrews 07/1-17: "If perfection had been attainable through the levitical priesthood for the people received the law under this priesthood what further need would there have been to speak of another priest arising according to the order of Melchizedek, rather than one according to the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. Now the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. It is even more obvious when another priest arises, resembling Melchizedek, one who has become a priest, not through a legal requirement concerning physical descent, but through the power of an indestructible life. For it is attested of him, ‘You are a priest for ever, according to the order of Melchizedek.’".

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 08-09/15
Riyadh conference key in seeking alternative to Assad/Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
Syria struggle is between countries, not groups/Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
As a political entity, Iraq is melting away/Dr. John C. Hulsman/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
When murderers grant a media scoop/Diana Moukalled/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
CAIR Blames America for San Bernardino Massacre/The return of the “grievance” myth/Raymond Ibrahim//December 08/15
The Palestinians' Window of Opportunity Is Closing/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
India's War on Terror: Solution is Self-Defense, Not Consensus/Jagdish N. Singh/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
France's Thousand Year War Against the Jews/Susan Warner/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on December 08-09/15
Report: Geagea Will Not Visit Any Official for Talks, but Maarab's Doors Open to All
Amin Gemayel Meets Aoun: Resolving Presidential Elections Deadlock is Not an Easy Task
Report: Hizbullah to Convince Aoun to Accept Franjieh's Nomination
Mustaqbal Stresses 'Commitment to March 14', Calls for 'Seizing Chance' of Hariri's Initiative
Change and Reform Rejects 'Bloodshed Threats', Says Aoun to Keep Mum till Franjieh Clarifies Picture
Report: Al-Rahi Says Syrian Officials 'Have Reservations' over Franjieh's Nomination
UK Ambassador Visits South Lebanon, Tours Blue Line
Salam-Kaag Talks Focus on Crisis Response Plan Launch
Electoral Law Committee Convenes Away from Spotlight
Report: No Saudi-Iranian Agreement on President
Shehayyeb: Trash Crisis Reaching its Happy Ending
How ISIS terror benefits Hezbollah

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 08-09/15
White House Says Trump's Anti-Muslim Statement 'Disqualifies' Him from Presidency
Taliban Storm Airport Complex in Afghanistan's Kandahar
Iraq Forces Retake Large Part of Ramadi City from IS
Foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria ‘have doubled’
Yemen Factions Agree to Truce during U.N.-Backed Peace Talks
U.N. Security Council to Meet at Moscow's Request on Syria, Iraq
IS Commander among 11 Killed in Syria Air Raids
Russia Launches First Syria Strikes from Submarine
Kurds, Opposition Gather for Meeting in Northeast Syria

Report: Geagea Will Not Visit Any Official for Talks, but Maarab's Doors Open to All
Naharnet/December 08/15/Lebanese Forces head Samir Geagea is set to chair on Tuesday the regular meeting of his party's central council, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper. It said that he has been intensifying his talks with various LF officials as part of the latest developments in the presidential elections file and the emergence of differences with its ally, the Mustaqbal Movement, over the nomination of Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president. Geagea has decided that he will not make any visits to political officials to address the elections, added the daily. “Doors to his Maarab residence will however remain open to all sides,” it stressed. Geagea is a presidential candidate and the Mustaqbal's drive to nominate Franjieh as president has created differences with its ally. Geagea had previously said that in spite of the disputes within the alliance, the March 14 camp will remain. “The March 14 movement is a constant in our modern history, because it represents a line of thought in Lebanon, which the majority of its people believe it,” he explained. The Mustaqbal and LF general secretariats on Monday had issued a memo to their supporters advising them against making inflammatory remarks about the other in the wake of the dispute between Hariri and Geagea.

Amin Gemayel Meets Aoun: Resolving Presidential Elections Deadlock is Not an Easy Task
Naharnet/December 08/15/Former head of the Kataeb Party Amin Gemayel acknowledged on Tuesday that resolving the deadlock over the presidential elections is “not an easy task.”He said after holding talks with Change and Reform bloc head MP Michel Aoun: “Contacts are ongoing with all sides to end the dispute.”“We fear that the fragmentation of the state could be irreversible,” he added from Rabieh. “We therefore stress the need to find a solution to the current situation as soon as possible,” he continued. “We should all find common ground to resolve disputes as we do not have ready-made solutions, but contacts are ongoing between all sides,” explained Gemayel. “We have to find a solution because vacuum is fatal and it will not spare anyone,” he warned. “We have to save Lebanon in any way possible and we cannot reach any result without exerting any efforts,” he explained. Asked by reporters to comment on an alleged meeting to be chaired by Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi to address the presidential vacuum, Gemayel replied: “I have not received any invite from Bkirki to attend a meeting of the main Christian figures.” “Preparations are needed for such a meeting in order to avoid any disappointment in the talks,” he remarked. “We, as Christian and national leaders, need to reassess our stances and take the necessary position on the current situation,” he noted. Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor. Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps over a compromise candidate have thwarted the polls. Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh emerged in recent weeks as a potential presidential candidate in wake of a meeting he had held in Paris with Mustaqbal Movement chief MP Saad Hariri. His name is being discussed as a candidate as part of a political settlement that would end the deadlock in Lebanon.

Report: Hizbullah to Convince Aoun to Accept Franjieh's Nomination
Naharnet/December 08/15/Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh is scheduled to hold talks on Wednesday with Change and Reform bloc head MP Michel Aoun, reported An Nahar daily on Tuesday. A prominent ministerial source told the daily that the talks will kick off efforts by Hizbullah to persuade its ally, Aoun, to accept Franjieh's potential presidential nomination. Aoun is a candidate himself and Hizbullah has so far been committed to his candidacy. “Hizbullah will seek to convince Aoun to accept the political settlement aimed at resolving the deadlock in the country, because the deal is greater than all sides,” added the source. “It is a bitter pill, but we have to take it because the country can no longer tolerate the current situation,” it continued. An agreement with Lebanese Forces chief Samir Geagea is also necessary, it stated. The ministerial source revealed that Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri “does not want to elect a new head of state without reaching an understanding with Geagea,” who is a presidential candidate himself. Franjieh's chances to reach the Baabda Palace had recently made a dramatic surge in the wake of a Paris meeting between him and Hariri. The nomination has created tensions among the Christian camps of the Kataeb Party, LF, and Free Patriotic Movement, who all oppose the manner in which Franjieh's candidacy is being proposed. The candidacy has also created a divide between the Mustaqbal Movement and LF, both allies in the March 14 camp.

Mustaqbal Stresses 'Commitment to March 14', Calls for 'Seizing Chance' of Hariri's Initiative
Naharnet/December 08/15/Al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc stressed Tuesday its “commitment” to the March 14 coalition as it called for “seizing the chance” created by “ex-PM Saad Hariri's efforts to end the presidential vacuum.” The bloc emphasizes on “the importance of the efforts that ex-PM Saad Hariri did and is still doing to launch an initiative that would end the presidential vacuum,” it said in a statement issued after its weekly meeting. It was referring to a new momentum in the country that followed a Paris meeting between Hariri and Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh. The talks sparked intense speculation that a deal was in the making for the election of Franjieh as president. The Hariri-Franjieh initiative was however met by objections and reservations from Christian parties in both of the March 8 and March 14 camps. Al-Mustaqbal bloc warned in its statement that “the country is going through an extremely dangerous situation amid growing threats in the region,” urging all parties to “exert efforts to elect a new president, which would lead the country into a new phase that would revive the role of state institutions and the vitality of the political life.”Addressing the unease that the Hariri-Franjieh meeting has created among the ranks of the March 14 forces, the bloc stressed its “commitment to the coalition of the March 14 forces and the principles on which the Independence Uprising was built, and its ultimate faith in the goals that the March 14 forces are struggling for.” “Today more than ever, the bloc holds onto the principles of the March 14 forces which are based on deep-rooted belief in coexistence and in a democratic system based on freedom and respect for human rights,” Mustaqbal added. It also stressed keenness on “extending the state's ultimate sovereignty across all regions.”Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea, al-Mustaqbal's main Christian ally, has recently warned that the March 14 coalition “must not make any step unless it serves the principles and objectives of March 14.”“'March 14 First' means carefully and fully heeding the voices of hundreds of thousands of people who took to the squares of freedom on March 14, 2005,” Geagea said.

Change and Reform Rejects 'Bloodshed Threats', Says Aoun to Keep Mum till Franjieh Clarifies Picture
Naharnet/December 08/15/The Change and Reform parliamentary bloc stressed Tuesday that it refuses to be “intimidated” into electing a president through “bloodshed threats,” noting that its chief MP Michel Aoun will remain silent until Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh “clarifies the picture” of his sudden presidential nomination. “Our political camp must address all the developments collectively, regardless of how they can be described,” said the bloc in a statement recited by ex-minister Salim Jreissati after its weekly meeting in Rabieh. Noting that Franjieh has announced that Aoun remains the bloc's official presidential candidate, Change and Reform hoped the current momentum in the country will lead to the election of a president. It added however that Aoun will deal with “the source (Franjieh) and not the sources,” in reference to the flurry of media reports about Franjieh's nomination. “Genral Aoun will maintain his silence until the picture is clarified, especially from the candidate -- and the bloc's member – Franjieh,” the bloc said. Commenting on recent warnings about failure to elect a president in the coming days, Change and Reform asserted that “intimidation cannot immunize or encourage the election of any presidential candidate.” “The election of a president should be the result of a calm constitutional and democratic course,” it added. The bloc noted that the Lebanese are being faced by “three types of intimidation.” “Intimidation with bloodshed means that any president whom they do not prefer will be elected through bloodshed and these remarks are unacceptable,” Change and Reform said. It was referring to a statement on Saturday by al-Mustaqbal movement secretary general Ahmed Hariri, who warned that “the president will be elected through bloodshed if the current initiative fails.”A Paris meeting last month between Franjieh and al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri was behind launching the current momentum in the country regarding the presidential elections. Change and Reform noted Tuesday that some parties are also using “financial intimidation.” “Financial intimidation takes us back to the year 1992. The same camp that used it back then is now thinking that it can repeat it,” it said. “The third type of intimidation is the suggestion that if the so-called 'opportunity president' is not elected, no other president will be elected later, and this intimidation is targeted against the National Pact and the Taef Accord, which we have all endorsed as our constitution,” the bloc went on to say.

Report: Al-Rahi Says Syrian Officials 'Have Reservations' over Franjieh's Nomination
Naharnet/December 08/15/Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi returned to Lebanon from a pastoral visit to Syria on Monday, where he also discussed the presidential elections, reported al-Joumhouria on Tuesday. It said that Syrian officials expressed to the patriarch their “reservations” over the potential nomination of Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh as president. Al-Rahi was “surprised” by this stance, added al-Joumhouria. It explained that Syria's position “came after it had informed a number if its allies in Lebanon that the presidential file is in the hands of Hizbullah chief Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.”This will further complicate the election of Franjieh as the party is still committed to the nomination of its ally Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun,” noted al-Joumhouria. Al-Rahi had met in recent days with Franjieh, Kataeb Party leader MP Sami Gemayel and Free Patriotic Movement chief Jebran Bassil -- Aoun's son-in-law. Franjieh's chances to reach the Baabda Palace had recently made a dramatic surge in the wake of a Paris meeting between him and Mustaqbal Movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri.

UK Ambassador Visits South Lebanon, Tours Blue Line
Naharnet/December 08/15/On his first visit to the South, British Ambassador Designate to Lebanon Hugo Shorter met Tuesday with UNIFIL Head of Mission and Force Commander Major-General Luciano Portolano for a briefing at the U.N. Headquarters in Naqoura. “The focus of his visit was the work of UNIFIL and its relationship with Lebanese residents in the South,” an embassy statement said. Accompanied by British Defense Attaché Lt. Col. Chris Gunning, Shorter also toured the Blue Line where he was briefed by Portolano and his team on U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hizbullah, and its implementation. At the end of the visit, the ambassador voiced support for UNIFIL and “their continued mission for peace in South Lebanon,” praising “the work done by more than 10,000 peacekeepers from 40 countries as a statement of the U.N.’s commitment to peace and stability in the region,” the embassy said.UNIFIL was created after the U.N. Security Council adopted resolutions 425 (1978) and 426 (1978), in which it called upon Israel to immediately cease its military action and withdraw its forces from all Lebanese territory.

Salam-Kaag Talks Focus on Crisis Response Plan Launch
Naharnet/December 08/15/Prime Minister Tammam Salam met on Tuesday U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Sigrid Kaag where discussions focused on the international community's efforts to support stability and security in Lebanon, the National News Agency said. “Discussions focused on the upcoming launch of the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan for 2016,” a statement released by Kaag following the meeting said. “The Plan contains an appeal for over $2.4 billion for humanitarian and developmental programs to help Lebanon address the multiple challenges it faces as a result of the conflict in Syria,” it added. Lebanon has been hosting around 1.5 million Syrian refugees, which is equivalent to a quarter of its population, since the war broke out in Syria in 2011.

Electoral Law Committee Convenes Away from Spotlight
Naharnet/December 08/15/A parliamentary committee tasked with drafting a new electoral law resumed its meetings on Tuesday at Nejmeh Square but away from the media spotlight. The attendees have agreed during the latest session held in November that it is better to keep the meetings secret in order to reach “better results.” MP George Adwan of the Lebanese Forces, who spoke after the meeting then, said that the media will not be informed about the outcome . The committee was formed to draft a new voting law that would garner the support of all Lebanese factions. The ten-man panel consists of MPs Michel Moussa, Ali Fayyad, Alain Aoun, Adwan, Serge Toursarkissian, Marwan Hamadeh, Robert Fadel, Ahmed Fatfat, a representative of the Kataeb Party and another representing Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh. The committee has a two-month period limit to accomplish the goal.

Report: No Saudi-Iranian Agreement on President
Naharnet/December 08/15/Iran and Saudi Arabia have not discussed the Lebanese file or the latest settlement that could bring MP Suleiman Franjieh to the post of presidency, al-Joumhouria daily reported on Tuesday. “There is no Saudi-Iranian agreement on the presidential file in Lebanon. The meeting between Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and Saudi Arabia's Adel al-Jubeir did not last for more than 14 minutes and the talks focused on the Yemeni file without touching on the Lebanese one,” unnamed sources told the daily. The two foreign ministers met last month on the sidelines of the Vienna peace talks on Syria, reports said speculating that the talks may have highlighted the Lebanese file. Meanwhile, sources close to Hizbullah confirmed that the party persists to nominate Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun without detracting from its appreciation for the Marada leader Franjieh. On the other hand, sources close to the Lebanese Forces said that the settlement was not “frozen” mainly because of Hizbullah's stances, but because of Riyadh's positions that refused to go against the stances of the Christians, added the daily. They revealed that consultations are ongoing with al-Mustaqbal movement, and that the international attention focuses on ending the presidential vacuum not on a preference to nominate one candidate over the other. The reports come amid a flurry of political talks in the country that followed a Paris meeting between Franjieh and al-Mustaqbal movement leader ex-PM Saad Hariri. The meeting sparked intense speculation that the two leaders agreed to the nomination of the Marada chief for the presidency. The possible nomination of Franjieh faces voices of dissent among the main Christian parties including the Kataeb Party, LF, and Change and Reform bloc. Lebanon has been without a president since the term of President Michel Suleiman ended in May 2014.

Shehayyeb: Trash Crisis Reaching its Happy Ending
Naharnet/December 08/15/Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb revealed that positive developments have been achieved in resolving Lebanon's months-long garbage disposal crisis, reported al-Mustaqbal daily on Tuesday. The minister told the daily: “The efforts are nearing their happy ending.” He made his remarks in wake of a meeting he held on Monday with Prime Minister Tammam Salam and the concerned committee aimed at discussing the latest developments in the file. The latest efforts have been focusing on exporting the waste. Al-Mustaqbal said that Monday's meeting at the Grand Serail completed the assessment of the final proposals made by companies interested in exporting the waste. The gatherers agreed to inform the firms of the conditions needed to be met to consider their proposals, revealed the daily. They expect a reply within 24 hours before making a final choice on a company. Once a decision is made, Salam will call cabinet to session so that the necessary measures can be taken. Al-Joumhouria newspaper Tuesday had reported however that Shehayyeb had requested from Salam a deadline for the end of the week to continue on studying proposals. Lebanon was plunged in a waste management crisis after the closure of the Naameh landfill in July. Politicians have failed to find an alternative for it and the country has suffered from the pile up of garbage in various regions. Citizens have resorted to burning the trash, sparking health and environmental experts to warn of the hazards of such a step and of the ongoing pile up of the waste in general.

Report: Efforts Underway to Reach Mechanism to Launch Negotiations to Free IS Servicemen
Naharnet/December 08/15/Efforts have been kicked off to ensure the safe release of the nine servicemen who are being held hostage by the extremist Islamic State group, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Tuesday. Sources informed on the meetings of the concerned ministerial crisis cell told the daily: “Contacts are being held on several fronts to reach a mechanism that will act as the starting point for negotiations to release the captives.” The first step lies in choosing a negotiator who can communicate with the al-Nusra Front command and its various affiliated armed groups. This will determine the fate of the abducted servicemen. The ministerial crisis cell had held a meeting on Monday to follow up on the release last week of 16 servicemen who were held hostage by the al-Nusra Front. It pledged to exert “efforts in all directions” to secure the release of nine Lebanese servicemen held hostage by the IS. The statement was issued after a Grand Serail meeting that was chaired by Prime Minister Tammam Salam and attended by Deputy PM and Defense Minister Samir Moqbel, Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq, Health Minister Wael Abou Faour and General Security chief Major General Abbas Ibrahim.The servicemen were kidnapped in August 2014 during deadly battles between the Lebanese army and jihadists from al-Nusra and the IS in and around the northeastern border town of Arsal. The two groups are still entrenched in mountainous areas along the Lebanese-Syrian border.

How ISIS terror benefits Hezbollah
Ana Maria Luca/Now Lebanon/December 08/15
At the tail end of November, the Saudi Interior Ministry announced sanctions against 12 Hezbollah members and institutions that engage in business with the party and finance its activities across the Middle East. “The kingdom will continue to combat Hezbollah’s terror activities with all the available means, and will continue to work with the partners across the world [in this regard],”the statement said. Riyadh’s decision came a week after the US Senate passed a bill to block Hezbollah’s financing activities by imposing sanctions on all international financial institutions that knowingly engage with Hezbollah and its enablers. The bill also aims at identifying Hezbollah’s satellite and Internet providers, which support its television network, Al-Manar. US government agencies have been trying to curb Hezbollah’s finances for years by blacklisting businessmen who funded the party. Gulf countries have also been deporting Shiite businessmen and confiscating their assets for years. But analysis say that the Syrian war and the emergence of the Islamic State, as well as the recent attacks in Paris and Beirut, might have increased Hezbollah’s popularity as well as the donations reaching its pockets. Analysts say that while the war in Syria seemed to have overstretched Hezbollah and made recruitment a struggle, the war effort was counterbalanced by enthusiasm raised by the framing it as a holy war. The enthusiasm was not just seen in Lebanon, but also among the youth in the Shiite Lebanese diaspora. Many young men have returned to Lebanon to join Hezbollah’s troops in Syria — some allegedly using their Westrern passports in planned attacks against Israeli targets on foreign soil while others continue to donate and finance the Party of God.
The holy war against takfiris
Hezbollah does not have an obvious strategy to recruit youth from the Shiite Lebanese diaspora in order to fill its ranks of troops in Syria. However, analysts say there are young men who do come back to Lebanon to join the fight against thetakfiris. The reason is that Hezbollah, just like ISIS, its Sunni enemy on the ground, has been framing its involvement in Syria as the holy war of the end of days. “Logically, I believe that, just like there are people born in France or America or Europe who are attracted by the idea of fighting alongside ISIS, there are definitely other people who belong to the Shiite community who are attracted by the idea of fighting alongside Hezbollah,” Lebanese analyst Ali al-Amin told NOW. “The idea of sectarian struggle creates this environment and attracts people who do not currently live in the Middle East, where the direct fight occurs. But they respond to the call to the sacred war — Hezbollah and ISIS base their propaganda on religious slogans to justify their involvement in the war in Syria. The sacred war attracts many people who are relatively far away, but feel that they are concerned by the fight,” he said. Al-Amin says that in European communities, specifically, Muslims have not been able to feel integrated and have continued living in closed groups, which has made them more vulnerable to radical discourse and to cling to group identities, he said. According to Mohamad Haidar, an analyst whose name has been changed for security reasons, Hezbollah has used the term “jihadist duty” in the past to justify youth joining the fight in Syria. “But later the war became holy. They were defending the shrine of Sayyidah Zaynab,” said Haidar. “This line of propaganda also helped raise enthusiasm among the youth. Hezbollah is counting on the importance of the holy sites and religious shrines related to the Shiites. The party started to organize trips to the holy places in Iraq: the southern town of Nabatiyeh was empty last week because all its inhabitants were on a Hezbollah-organized pilgrimage to Karbala.”Haidar added that this enthusiasm within the Shiite supporters of Hezbollah in Lebanon is matched by the enthusiasm among the supporters in the diaspora. “I know a Lebanese family from Australia that arrived in Karbala a few days ago to commemorate the 40 days since Imam Hussein’s death.”
The alleged plots
Expatriates are never full members of Hezbollah, according to Haidar. But he says the diaspora is very valuable to Hezbollah in terms of business and finances, as well as freedom of movement. “They are official members of the party only when they’re foreign agents. But their number is very small and they are under very tight surveillance from the party,” Haidar said. “The freedom of movement for the members of Hezbollah is limited. They cannot travel wherever they want; they need prior authorization by the leadership of the party and they always travel with a mission.” A man with a mission was Hussein Bassam Abdallah, sentenced to six years in prison for plotting a terrorist attack in Cyprus after being caught with 8.2 tons of fertilizer in Larnaca. Abdallah had a Canadian passport and admitted in front of the court that he was part of Hezbollah’s military wing. The 26-year-old pleaded guilty to terrorism charges and said he repented and cooperated with the investigation, according to AFP reports. His defense was based on the argument that the man was only in charge of keeping the bomb-making fertilizer safe, and not to carrying out the attacks. Abdallah was arrested in May 2015, but according to the Cypriot investigators he had been stockpiling ammonium nitrate since 2012. Coincidentally, 2012 was the year that Cypriot authorities arrested another Lebanese young man with a Swedish passport who was gathering intelligence on the Israeli tourist charters landing in Larnaca. Housam Taleb Yaacoub also admitted to having been recruited by Hezbollah as a courier and was sentenced to four years in prison in Limassol.
Donations and fundraising
Hezbollah is not the only Lebanese party that receives donations from supporters in the diaspora. “Whoever is ready to participate in a fight and maybe get killed supporting a political party is definitely ready to transfer money to people who are fighting these sacred wars. Therefore, financial donations are always sent to Lebanon, but it’s really difficult to quantify these remittances,” Al-Amin said. He also said that such donations increased after the Syrian conflict because of the religious aspect of it. While the fight against Israel was a political struggle, the war against the Sunni radicals in Syria and Iraq is sectarian — it has a stronger religious echo. “After the Syrian war, Hezbollah became a representative of the sectarian Shiite nerve. The party is now attracting people because of the war between Shiites and other sects. Lately, Hezbollah abandoned the idea of Muslim unity and started fighting as a Shiite party. This is very similar to ISIS or Al-Qaeda’s strategy and this definitely draws more support.”
**Amin Nasr and Myra Abdallah contributed with translation

White House Says Trump's Anti-Muslim Statement 'Disqualifies' Him from Presidency
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/The White House on Tuesday challenged Republicans to denounce their party's presidential frontrunner Donald Trump, claiming his proposal to ban Muslims from traveling to the U.S. should disqualify him from being commander-in-chief. Painting Trump as a "carnival barker" with "fake hair" whose campaign has a "dustbin of history" quality, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Trump's proposals were unconstitutional. "What Donald Trump said yesterday disqualifies him from serving as president," said Earnest, describing his comments variously as "offensive" and "toxic." The unusually strident language from the White House reflects a concern about the impact of Trump's comments on U.S. Muslims and the fight against the Islamic State group, but it also indicates the White House spies a political opportunity ahead of the 2016 election. Earnest was quick to pounce on leading Republicans who condemned Trump's remarks, but said they would still support him if he were the party nominee. "What he said is disqualifying and any Republican who's too fearful of the Republican base to admit it has no business serving as president either," he said.

Taliban Storm Airport Complex in Afghanistan's Kandahar
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/Taliban militants stormed the airport complex in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar city on Tuesday, triggering gunfights and explosions as a conference kicked off in Pakistan with hopes of reviving peace talks with the insurgents. There was no immediate information on casualties in the ongoing attack, the second major assault in a span of 24 hours in the city recognized as the birthplace of the Taliban. Taliban gunmen were targeting residential blocks housing government employees and the joint Afghan-NATO military base at the airport, said Samim Khpalwak, a spokesman for the Kandahar provincial governor. "Several insurgents managed to breach the first gate of the complex," he told AFP, as the battles continued. "They have taken up position in a school inside the complex." Local residents, who were told to hunker down in their homes, reported loud explosions and a heavy volley of gunfire. Mohammad Mohsin Sultani, the military spokesman in Kandahar, Afghan troops were engaged in a heavy firefight to beat back the attackers, although their exact numbers were unclear. The Taliban appear to be ramping up attacks on government and foreign targets despite the onset of the harsh winter season, when the fighting usually winds down. Tuesday's attack comes after days of fevered speculation about the fate of Taliban Mullah Akhtar Mansour following reports that he was critically wounded in an internal firefight. The Taliban claimed responsibility for Tuesday's attack, which comes on the eve of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's high-profile visit to Islamabad for the Heart of Asia regional conference. "A number of martyrdom seekers armed with heavy and light weapons entered Kandahar airbase undetected and have begun engaging the large number of foreign invaders and their hirelings inside," the Islamist group said on their website. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter claimed that "150 Afghan and foreign soldiers" had been killed in the fierce fighting. The insurgents are regularly known to exaggerate battlefield claims.
'Familiar pattern'
Ghani's willingness to visit longtime regional nemesis Pakistan for the conference has signaled a renewed push to jumpstart peace talks with the Taliban.
"It has become a familiar pattern. Whenever there is talk about peace talks, the Taliban launch big attacks," Kabul-based military analyst Atiqullah Amarkhil told AFP. "It shows that either they want to scuttle efforts towards peace talks or want big concessions before they reach the negotiating table." Pakistan, which has historically supported the Afghan Taliban and wields considerable influence over the insurgents, hosted a milestone first round of peace negotiations in July. But the talks soon stalled when the Taliban belatedly confirmed the death of their longtime leader Mullah Omar. Tuesday's brazen raid comes after days of frantic conjecture about the fate of Mansour following reports that he was critically wounded in a shootout with his own commanders in Pakistan. The Taliban released an audio message Saturday, purportedly from Mansour, vehemently rejecting reports of any shootout as "enemy propaganda."Ghani also said Monday that there was no evidence to prove that Mansour is dead after multiple insurgent sources cast doubt on the authenticity of the Taliban audio message. The Islamists' denials have fallen on skeptical ears, however, especially after they kept the death of longtime chief Mullah Omar secret for two years. The Taliban, which formally split for the first time last month, had appeared anxious to quell speculation about Mansour's death. Rumors of his demise could potentially intensify the power struggle within the insurgent movement. Mansour's group has seen a resurgence in recent months, opening new battlefronts across the country with Afghan forces struggling to beat back the expanding insurgency.They briefly captured the strategic northern city of Kunduz in September in their most spectacular victory in 14 years and have opened new battlefronts across the country. Two Taliban suicide bombers raided a Kandahar police station on Monday, triggering an all-night firefight with police officers. Both attackers were killed in the gun battle, in which three officials were wounded.

Iraq Forces Retake Large Part of Ramadi City from IS
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/Iraqi security forces recaptured a large part of the city of Ramadi from the Islamic State group Tuesday, officials said, scoring a significant breakthrough in their fightback against the jihadists. Baghdad's forces have been fighting for months to secure territory around Ramadi, the capital of the vast Anbar province, and retaking the Al-Tameem area is an important step in the battle for the major city west of Baghdad. Warplanes from the U.S.-led coalition battling IS have backed them in the fighting, carrying out more than 45 air strikes in the Ramadi area in the past week. "Today, our forces completely cleared the al-Tameem area after a fierce battle against Daesh gunmen," Sabah al-Noman, the spokesman for Iraq's counter-terrorism service, told AFP, using an Arabic acronym for IS. IS fighters "had no choice except to surrender or fight and they were completely destroyed," Noman said. Major General Hadi Irzayij, the police chief for Anbar, confirmed that Al-Tameem had been retaken as did Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Joint Operations Command. "The liberation of Al-Tameem will greatly help in speeding up the liberation of the city of Ramadi," Rasool said. "Iraqi forces are ready and close to entering the center of the city," Irzayij said. Al-Tameem lies to the southwest of IS-held central Ramadi and Iraqi forces now need to make matching advances to the north in order to attack the jihadists from both sides.
Clearing bombs
For now, they are working to clear bombs planted by IS -- a favored tactic of the jihadists that means they can kill security personnel and civilians long after they have withdrawn from an area. "The process of removing bombs from the houses and roads has begun," Irzayij said. Rasool said large amounts of weapons and supplies had been found, as well as explosives-rigged vehicles. IS overran large parts of Iraq in June 2014, including major territory in Anbar, which stretches from the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia to the western approach to Baghdad. Shifting parts of Ramadi, located 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Baghdad, had been held by anti-government fighters since the beginning of 2014, but IS did not succeeded in completely overrunning it until May of this year. On Monday, coalition aircraft targeted IS units, fighting positions, vehicles and supplies, as well as machineguns and a mortar system used by the jihadists, according to a statement on the strikes. International support in the form of strikes, training and arms plays an important role in Iraq's battle against IS, but Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is walking a fine line between receiving that assistance and projecting sovereignty. Iraq is in a row with Turkey over the deployment of up to 300 soldiers and 20 tanks to a base in the country's north where Ankara's forces have trained Sunnis who have volunteered to fight IS. Baghdad on Monday gave Ankara 48 hours to remove the newly deployed forces, but said the ultimatum did not apply to Turkish advisers in the country. Abadi also made a series of increasingly strident statements about foreign forces in the country last week after remarks by U.S. officials about sending additional troops to Iraq sparked a major political backlash. He said the deployment of foreign combat ground forces to Iraq was a "hostile act," but was also careful to make clear that Baghdad still welcomes other forms of assistance.

Foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria ‘have doubled’
AFP Tuesday, 8 December 2015/The number of foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria has more than doubled since last year to at least 27,000, a report by an intelligence consultancy said on Tuesday, highlighting the global dimension of the conflict. The figures, compiled by The Soufan Group, indicate that efforts by countries around the world to stem the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria and blunt the appeal of violent organizations such as ISIS appear to have made little impact. “The foreign fighter phenomenon in Iraq and Syria is truly global,” the New York-based organization’s report said. “The Islamic State has seen success beyond the dreams of other terrorist groups that now appear conventional and even old-fashioned, such as Al-Qaeda. “It has energized tens of thousands of people to join it, and inspired many more to support it.” In all, between 27,000 and 31,000 foreign fighters from 86 countries have travelled to Iraq and Syria, the Soufan Group said, compared to a figure of around 12,000 foreign fighters in Syria when it last published a similar study in June 2014. The largest number travelled to the two countries, across which ISIS controls a swathe of territory, from the Middle East and the Maghreb, with around 8,000 foreign fighters each. Around 5,000 made their way from Europe, with a further 4,700 from former Soviet republics. The Soufan Group added that between 20 and 30 percent of foreign fighters were returning to their home countries, creating major challenges for domestic security agencies as ISIS in particular looks to carry out an increasing number of attacks overseas. The group claimed responsibility for a massive attack in Paris last month that left 130 dead, and its fighters have been held responsible for violence in a litany of countries ranging from Iraq to Bangladesh.

Yemen Factions Agree to Truce during U.N.-Backed Peace Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/Yemen's government said Tuesday that the country's warring sides are preparing to observe a week-long truce from December 15 while U.N.-mediated peace talks take place in Switzerland. The United Nations has tried to bring pro-government forces and Iran-backed rebels to the table for months to end a war that has killed thousands and plunged the impoverished nation into a profound humanitarian crisis. "An agreement on a ceasefire between the government and the putschists should enter into force on December 15 with the start of negotiations," Foreign Minister Abdel Malak al-Mekhlafi told AFP. U.N. envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said on Monday that a swift halt to the fighting -- which has dramatically escalated since a Saudi-led coalition began bombarding insurgents in March -- was imperative for those caught up in the conflict. Ould Cheikh Ahmed told reporters that three delegations would take part in talks likely to be held outside Geneva and which will last "as long as it takes". Talks will focus on four main areas, including the terms for a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of armed groups from the areas under their control. Confidence-building measures will be another area of dialogue, including broadening humanitarian access in the country where aid workers have been killed and kidnapped. Delegates will finally try to hammer out a political future for Yemen, a country plunged into worsening chaos since the insurgents overran the capital Sanaa and expanded south, forcing the government to flee to Saudi Arabia before it returned to second city Aden last month. The delegations will include representatives of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi's government, the Huthi rebels and officials from the General People's Congress (GPC), who are loyalists of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. Though not formally aligned, some GPC members have expressed support for the Huthis. A source in Hadi's cabinet said the truce would last seven days, as specified in a letter sent by Hadi to the U.N. Security Council. The agreement reached ahead of talks calls on the rebels to "lift the siege of towns, allow the entry of humanitarian aid and free military and political detainees," the source said, adding that the truce "will be supervised by the U.N. and could be extended if respected by the (rebels)". There was no immediate confirmation from the rebels that they would abide by a ceasefire, but Ould Cheikh Ahmed has said he is certain that the Iran-backed Huthis will show up for talks. The U.N. envoy said Riyadh has promised to observe the ceasefire and pause its aerial assault on rebel positions during talks. "By respecting the ceasefire, the Huthis could signal their good intentions to move forward on implementing (U.N. Security Council) Resolution 2216" calling on rebels to withdraw from territory they seized, the cabinet source said. The truce announcement followed the killing Sunday of the governor of Aden, Jaafar Saad, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group, which has threatened further violence. Jihadist groups have exploited the conflict by making sweeping gains. Ould Cheikh Ahmed said he was "extremely concerned by the ever-growing suffering of the Yemeni people" and called on the rival camps to show "courage, personal sacrifice and tenacity" in the bid for peace.
The Saudi-led coalition kept up its strikes on rebel positions Tuesday around the strategic city of Taez in southwestern Yemen, the scene of fierce fighting in recent weeks. Military sources said at least four civilians were killed in shelling by rebels on residential areas of Yemen's third city. The United Nations says more than 5,700 people have been killed in Yemen, almost half of them civilians, since the Saudi-led air campaign began.

U.N. Security Council to Meet at Moscow's Request on Syria, Iraq
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/The U.N. Security Council will hold informal talks at Russia's request on Tuesday over Turkey's military operations in Iraq and Syria, diplomats said, as Moscow demanded answers. The closed-door talks will be presided over by the United States, which heads the rotating presidency of the 15-nation council in December. "We want the secretariat to tell us what is happening in the region," said Peter Iliichev, Russia's representative to the U.N. Security Council. "Every country that operates in the region should do it in coordination with the host country," said Iliichev, adding that for now Moscow is not seeking specific U.N. action on the issue. Relations between Moscow and Ankara have been tense since Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian fighter jet on the Syrian border on November 24. Since then, Russia has imposed sanctions on Turkey, including a ban on the import of some Turkish foods and a halt on sales of Turkish holiday travel packages -- a major blow to the tourist industry. Ankara has warned it could respond in kind, with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying on Tuesday that his government is considering retaliatory measures. Meanwhile, Baghdad has demanded that Turkey withdraw its troops from northern Iraq, where Ankara has deployed a contingent of between 150 and 300 soldiers, backed by 20 tanks. On Sunday, Baghdad gave Ankara 48 hours to remove its forces, but a senior Turkish official said this week that his government was unlikely to comply. "It will depend on discussions," the Turkish official said. According to Ankara, the contingent's arrival in northern Iraq was "a normal rotation" and not an illegal incursion or the advance party for an invasion. Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, suggested that Turkey should negotiate its troop presence with Baghdad. "Our understanding of the original Turkish deployment is that it was negotiated with the Iraqi government. So we are hopeful that this additional deployment is something too that can be done in that manner," she said. "Our belief is that just as we operate in close cooperation and with the consent of the Iraqi government, all countries should do that." U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq urged both sides to resolve their differences over the presence of Turkish troops near Mosul "through constructive dialogue."

IS Commander among 11 Killed in Syria Air Raids
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/A commander and a child soldier were among 11 Islamic State group fighters killed Tuesday in air strikes on Raqa, the jihadists' de facto capital in Syria, a monitor said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was unable to specify the nationality of the aircraft that carried out the raids nor the identity of the slain commander. The man was killed in a strike on the Ferdaos district, while raids elsewhere in and around the city killed 10, including a child soldier from the ranks of the "Cubs of the Caliphate", said the Observatory. Raqa is frequently the target of air strikes by the U.S.-led coalition, as well as the Syrian air force and Russian warplanes that began an air campaign in Syria in late September. The U.S.-led coalition has expanded its operations in recent days, partly in response to the deadly attacks in Paris claimed by IS. Britain voted on Wednesday to join the coalition's strikes in the war-torn country. Russia stepped up strikes against IS after the group claimed to have downed a Russian passenger plane over Egypt's Sinai Peninsula in October. At least 32 IS fighters were killed Sunday in apparent U.S.-led air strikes on Raqa province, said the Britain-based Observatory. Raqa has been under IS control since January 2014 after heavy fighting between the jihadists and opposition fighters, who had seized it from regime control in March 2013.

Russia Launches First Syria Strikes from Submarine
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/ Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that the military had launched strikes in Syria for the first time from a submarine stationed in the Mediterranean. "We used Caliber cruise missiles from the Rostov-on-Don submarine from the Mediterranean Sea," Shoigu told President Vladimir Putin during an encounter broadcast on state television. Shoigu added that Russian strikes launched on Tuesday had been aimed at "two terrorist strongholds" around Raqa, the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic State jihadist group. "As a result of the successful launches by the aviation and submarine fleet, all targets were destroyed," Shoigu said, adding that oil infrastructure, ammunition depots and a mine-making factory had been hit in the strikes. "The Caliber cruise missile once again showed its effectiveness over long distances." Moscow is flexing its military muscle with the latest submarine strikes after having previously fired missiles from warships in the Caspian Sea. An unnamed source told Interfax news agency earlier Tuesday that a Russian submarine was approaching Syria's Mediterranean coast to launch cruise missiles toward to war-torn country. President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that the Caliber cruise missiles launched from the submarine could be equipped with nuclear warheads but said he hoped they would "never be needed in the fight against terrorism." Shoigu said Moscow had warned Israel and the United States -- conducting their own bombing campaigns in Syria -- that the Russian military would be conducting the submarine strikes. Shoigu added that Russian military jets had conducted 600 combat sorties and destroyed "300 targets of different kinds" in the past three days.

Kurds, Opposition Gather for Meeting in Northeast Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 08/15/Kurdish factions and other opposition groups gathered Tuesday for a meeting in northeastern Syria, saying they most deserved to set its post-war vision after staying in the country throughout its conflict. Dozens of Kurdish, Arab and Assyrian figures met in the town of al-Malikiyeh, in Hasakeh province, to launch the two-day "Syrian Democratic Conference". Participants included members of Syria's leading Kurdish movement, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which has been excluded -- along with its armed affiliate -- from another opposition conference this week in Riyadh. "The forces that defended the people, suffered the events in Syria and remained on the ground are those most deserving to solve the crisis in Syria, without any interference from the interests of regional powers," said Wael Mirza, an Assyrian representative. Talks on a decentralized political system for Syria, the leading topic of discussion, as well as the fight against extremist groups will carry into Wednesday. The PYD and other Kurdish groups already lead an autonomous administration in parts of northern and northeastern Syria. Kurdish groups and allied rebel forces have been at the forefront of the battle against the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria's northeast. Talal Sello, spokesman for the anti-IS Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, said the meeting in al-Malikiyeh was the "political face" of the SDF. He criticized the Saudi-led summit, set to begin Wednesday, as a "conspiracy" because it did not invite Kurdish forces. The meeting was the first time opposition groups and Kurdish factions discuss Syria's future in an area outside regime control. "This is the first time since the beginning of the crisis that a conference for the national opposition is held inside Syria, in areas liberated from the despotic regime and from terrorism," said conference organizer Abdulkarim Omar. Syria's conflict began in March 2011 with peaceful protests against the rule of President Bashar Assad, but it has since devolved into a multi-front civil war that has repeatedly stymied diplomatic efforts. International talks in Vienna last month produced an ambitious timeline aiming to bring Syria's regime and divided opposition together for negotiations next year. Nebras Dallul, another conference organizer, told AFP, "We're preparing ourselves for any negotiation process. We're picking up the fragmented pieces of the Syrian opposition that believes in a political solution and a democratic, civil state."

Riyadh conference key in seeking alternative to Assad
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
The upcoming Riyadh conference is the first serious attempt to map out Syria's future, and it's the first meeting of Syrian opposition groups to be held according to official and international desire. It originated from the most recent Vienna talks and their sponsors, including the Russians. Representatives of different political and armed groups - Sunnis, Alawites, Druze and Christians - will attend the meeting. It will not, of course, include key players like ISIS and the al-Nusra Front. The participants are required to reach an agreement in order to begin forming a transitional government within six months, so it can manage the country for a year and a half and then hold elections. If the opposition groups end up feuding, they will lose, because world superpowers will decide the future course of Syria on their behalf. The Riyadh conference is the first step to convince the opposition of a plan for a peaceful solution, one that is supposed to end the authority of Bashar al-Assad and mobilize international support to militarily cleanse Syria of Iran's militias, as well as ISIS and other terrorist organizations. Although the purpose of the conference seems mythical and the mission seems impossible, the Syrian opposition must think with its mind.
The Trojan horse
Not all of those participating in the Riyadh conference belong to a real opposition against the Syrian regime, as some of them describe themselves as "independent opposition." We know well that some of these figures are affiliated with Iran and Assad's regime. The "flexibility" displayed in the list of those invited, including some figures affiliated with Iran, may reflect one of the requirements set by the recent Vienna talks, which requested that Saudi Arabia organize the Syrian opposition conference. I expect those figures aligned with Iran to play the role of a Trojan horse during the Riyadh meeting, and attempt to thwart the prospective agreement by prolonging the debate and sabotaging the conference. During the Vienna talks, Iran made sure not to say "no" to the idea of a government alternative to Assad, which means reducing Assad's jurisdictions but not excluding him. This regime would be similar to Iraq's where the president has very limited jurisdictions and the prime minister and parliament speaker have more powers. Therefore, real Syrian opposition groups confront a big challenge, not only on the level of reaching an agreement among one another, but also on the level of not being dragged into the sabotage game that Iran's representatives, disguised as opposition, may play. The opposition, and primarily the Syrian National Coalition, must engage in this project for partial change for the purpose of thwarting the Iranian-Russian plan, which says the Syrian opposition is incapable of reaching an agreement to be an alternative to Assad. If the Syrian opposition succeeds at rising above its differences and manages to reach a practical solution to form a transitional government, then we will reach the implementation phase and the Iranian proposal will thus be besieged, while Russia is expected to exit its current alliance. The Syrian opposition groups have nothing to lose if they reach an agreement and cooperate, to speed up the implementation of the decisions of the Vienna talks. If however the opposition groups end up feuding, they will lose, because world superpowers will decide the future course of Syria on their behalf.

Syria struggle is between countries, not groups!
Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
I wrote an article last week warning that Russian president Vladimir Putin might be a threat to Saudi Arabia due to his stubbornness and politics in Syria. I also pointed out that it would be wise to anticipate this danger in order to prevent it from happening. My article, which was widely read, attracted tremendous attention and received the highest number of comments from al-Hayat’s readers, most of whom were supporting my point of view, according to what the IT department of the newspaper told me. However, along with this attention, the article was targeted by a smear campaign led by colleagues who are supposed to be wise enough and refute one argument with another, adding what might have been missing and correcting what might have been wrong. Nevertheless, a colleague started shouting “who does he [the author] think he is to give the impression that we are in a state of war with Russia?”
Well, “he” is a writer just like you, defending your right to express your views freely, form the public opinion and analyze the ongoing situation. Therefore, if he were to be muzzled, so would you be, which would affect the process of forming opinions. Another colleague qualified those who are warning against Putin’s threat as opportunists and started hitting below the belt stating: “These are the author’s desires that serve both a cause he is fond of and his affiliations outside his country’s borders!” Such criticisms are usually unworthy of any response, had they not been approved by many who were affected by the nihilistic conflict between movements, and considered the article as an “attempt to drag the kingdom into a Turkish-Russian conflict that serves the interest of the Muslim Brotherhood,” as a former colleague and editor-in-chief wrote to me, confining the Syrian crisis and its repercussions to the Brotherhood. Some persons are suffering from a very advanced state of Ikhwanophobia – or fear of the Muslim Brotherhood – which is blurring their vision and preventing them from seeing the real imminent danger. This phobia might happen to any author who would then discuss and correct others’ opinions, but once it affects decision-making, it becomes more dangerous and vicious.
A regional power struggle
The Syrian crisis is a complicated regional and international matter bigger than the Muslim Brotherhood, and all of political Islam, which are nothing but small players in a larger playground. It is a revolution for freedom for the large number of the Syrian people who had to take up arms and defend themselves against the regime’s oppression. And when resolving the crisis, we must listen to them. For this purpose, the kingdom was keen to invite some fifteen armed factions to represent them in the Syrian general conference which will be held in Riyadh or Abha in a few days, in addition to Syrian national and religious figures, as well as representatives of the minorities. The crisis is a struggle among countries that are bigger than a simple organization, and a race of movements. The crisis is a regional power struggle. If we consider it from a mere Saudi perspective, the kingdom will neither stand nor accept a permanent Iranian military influence in its northern part or in Syria. To date, no party has provided Saudi Arabia with a regional solution that would ease its security fears and guarantee its one condition: “Syria without Iran”. Until this condition is met, the ongoing Russian interference might make the kingdom think twice before stepping on Syrian ground to avoid any confrontation with the Russian giant. Nevertheless, it did not alter its firm stance. Here, we can go back to the statements of Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir who, even after the downing of the Russian plane by the Turks, is still insisting on Assad’s departure as a condition to reach a solution “through peaceful or hostile means”.
On the other hand, if we consider the crisis from an Iranian perspective, Iran is defending its influence, which has spread to the Eastern Mediterranean and is allowing it to reconstruct history according to its narrow sectarian vision. And if they lose Syria, they will also lose Lebanon and their influential party there. Therefore, it is a war of existence that the Iranians are waging in our world. As for the Turks, they agree with Saudi Arabia on rejecting the Iranian presence and have a number of interests such as protecting the Turkmen minority there, and preventing the extension of the Kurds in a micro-state of their own.
Global race
Globally, it is a race between Russia and the West, extending from the Crimean Peninsula and Ukraine to the Eastern Mediterranean, and to the Republic of Montenegro. The latter country previously belonged to Yugoslavia, considered as a part of the old Soviet strategic realm inherited by Putin, who wants to rehabilitate it after NATO declared its intention to add Montenegro to the Alliance, infuriating the Russians.
The race might expand to include Egypt, which is under pressure to choose a side after it became confused due to the resolution of its internal struggle in favor of the army, which came to power in July 2013. It seems clear that the latter’s tendencies are directed towards the East, to achieve its vision of independent decision-making. Nevertheless, Egypt is still unbalanced. The persisting pressure will compel it to choose one of the two sides as it is impossible and unacceptable for it to stand in two places at the same time. This might explain the Saudi position, putting up with the excesses of the Egyptian media expressing the opinions of the powers inside the system that are heading east, and its enacting of the Saudi-Egyptian coordination council which held a series of other meetings in Riyadh a few days ago. There is a prevailing and deliberate state of ambiguity that can be clearly discerned when listening to the press conference of the foreign minister of any country “involved in the Syrian conflict” as floating statements joined together bear more than one interpretation.
It is an attempt from everyone to avoid the “moment of truth” which requires an explicit sorting of positions as relations and interests are intertwined. Even Iran – which is the evident enemy of Saudi Arabia, for example – is neither an absolute enemy of Turkey because it has interests in its oil and markets, nor that of Western countries currently seeking economic gains for its companies in the big and virgin Iranian market, after they signed the nuclear agreement with Iran that is, in reality, a historical reconciliation.
UAE, Jordan, U.S.
A state such as the UAE is completely aligned with Saudi Arabia in Yemen but does not want any cooperation with Turkey in Syria, and is maintaining its trade relations with Iran. Jordan is against Bashar al-Assad and is allowing Saudi Arabia and the United States to support and train the revolutionaries from its lands but, at the same time, does not wish to get involved in a struggle it is unable to handle. For its part, the United States is a ball of contradictions. It is against Assad but, in parallel, is preventing the armament of the revolutionaries and intends to conduct a military ground operation against ISIS in Syria, with the support of the Kurds, that is launched from Turkey, which is the state that fears the Kurds and their ambitions. Even the kingdom, which is rejecting the Russian interference in Syria and had, indeed, warned them straight away from its consequences, is still developing its trade relations with Russia; perhaps such approximation could constitute a possibility of agreement between both countries. After rejecting NATO’s operations in Libya, Germany is planning to send five thousand fighters to fight ISIS in Raqqa, not to mention the stands of the rest of the countries.
Making judgments based on the previous details is useless as stances can change. We should, rather, form our opinion based on consistent stands like the ones of Saudi Arabia (“Syria without Iran”), Iran’s (“red lines in Syria”) and the most important of all, which is the position of the Syrian majority (“a free Syria”). These three positions form the founding principles for understanding the Syrian conflict rather than the transient and changing American, European or Russian stances. In this case, what would be the role of an orphan stance such as the “political Islam” or the “Muslim Brotherhood” in the conflict?
I will go back now to my precedent article and respond in short to the colleagues that an article written in a newspaper cannot influence the kingdom, which has a consistent principle it will not deviate from, even if it adapts its positions to arising developments and its own capabilities. Moreover, it cannot be dragged to line up with Turkey because it is already on the same page with it. They have also overlooked the fact that the Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated last Monday, while standing next to NATO’s Secretary-General, that his country, Saudi Arabia and a third unspecified nation are preparing to launch a military operation in Syria to fight terrorism. Saudi Arabia did not deny such a high-level statement, and Davutoglu would certainly not say that if he did not personally participate or, at least, know about top security meetings between the three countries dedicated to planning such an operation.
Can we call that a Saudi-Turkish military alliance? Those who are suffering from Ikhwanophobia reject it, or do not want to believe it, and insist on considering Turkey as an organization rather than a regional power! Turkey is not an organization; however, Iran and al-Assad’s regime as well as their ally Russia are observing the alliance and are, most probably, getting ready for it. They are aware that the crisis is a struggle among countries that are bigger than a simple organization, and a race of movements. So could you please do the same?

As a political entity, Iraq is melting away
Dr. John C. Hulsman/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
As a political-risk analyst, it is easy in the rush of every day to lose sight of what truly matters, the patterns behind the headlines that actually condition the world we find ourselves in. No region is this presently more true of than the Middle East, where immediate, dramatic stories tend to dominate the headlines and one’s thinking, and at times threaten to obscure the quieter but more important forces shaping things. This past week three very disparate stories – on the face of it, none very important in and of themselves – have made clear a longer-term trend that is just now becoming dimly apparent, but which has the potential to upend any number of comfortable realities about the Middle East in general.For Iraq as a political entity is ceasing to matter, as it is quickly becoming a state only in name.
Hapless, if well-meaning government
The first indication of this seminal event was the recent (and wholly justifiable) frustration that the U.S. Secretary of Defence Ash Carter exhibited about the hapless – if broadly well-meaning – government of Haidar al-Abadi. As ISIS has risen, the government in Baghdad, greatly worried it was about to lose total and final control of the Kurdish north and the Sunni centre and west of the country, demanded that Washington re-route all military supplies through the central government in Baghdad, to then be doled out to the restive regions. That way the Abadi government would in theory maintain some tenuous control over the situation. Increasingly, Iraq is no longer an actor on the Middle Eastern stage. Instead, like swathes of Syria, it is fast becoming merely an arena where other powers do as they like. But in practice the system has not worked well enough, in American eyes. The Kurds have been helped, but grudgingly, and the crucial Sunni tribal leaders, not much at all. Yet without a repeat of the Sahwa militia movement – when Sunni tribal leaders successfully turned on ISIS’s predecessor, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), with American guns and logistical support – there will be no end to the massive instability in the region. In Secretary Carter’s mind, combating ISIS trumps the bruised sensibilities of the inept Abadi government. He made it clear that if the tribal leaders rise up, America will help arm them, directly if necessary.
Little comfort at home
If the Americans have had enough, Prime Minister Abadi has found little comfort at home, either. On Nov. 2, the Iraqi parliament voted to put an end to the premier’s tepid efforts at reform, which was just as well as the program did nothing to bridge Sunni-Shia divisions in the country, fight ISIS more effectively through revamping the Iraqi army, or combating the scourge of corruption. In other words, the plan deliberately ignored the larger issues pulling the country apart, instead focusing on the less controversial (and less important) need to better administer the bloated Iraqi government.
The reform agenda began in August 2015, in a blaze of optimism. In response to large protests in Baghdad and in the Shia-dominated south of the country, particularly relating to corruption and a lack of basic services (there were electricity black-outs in one of the hottest years in Iraq ever recorded) the timid Abadi at last moved to act. Bolstered by the full-throated support of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, easily the most popular and reputable man in the country, Abadi proposed streamlining government services. But, as was true with the Americans over the armaments issue, there was simply no real follow up. Just three months later the reform agenda upon which Abadi seemed to stake all his limited political capital has come to nothing, ending in the damp squib of the past month. If the Abadi government have only a tenuous hold over possessing a foreign policy, they no longer seem to have a domestic programme, either.
Humiliating blow
But the Turkish incursion of the past week was probably the most humiliating blow of all. It seems that for the past year, the Erdogan government has been training its allies in the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in the north of the country. Abadi was not informed of the Turkish deployment of hundreds of troops 30 kilometres northeast of Mosul, even though the Obama administration had long known of it. Instead, the Turks came at the request of their Kurdish allies. Predictably, Baghdad was enraged, more for looking so completely out of their depth, than for any other reason. Calling in the Turkish Ambassador to Baghdad, the Abadi government is demanding the immediate withdrawal of Turkish forces, making it clear they considered the Turkish presence ‘a hostile act.’ Of course, this is not Turkey’s only incursion into what is nominally Iraqi territory; the Erdogan government has been regularly shelling their foes, the PKK, over the past few months, as the long-dormant conflict between Ankara and the Turkish Kurds has sprung back to life. All these seemingly very different stories are in reality one increasingly powerful narrative: Iraq is increasingly no longer an actor on the Middle Eastern stage. Instead, like swathes of Syria, it is fast becoming merely an arena where other powers do as they like. Be it the Abadi government’s haplessness regarding the arming of sub-units of the Iraq state, its pathetic reform agenda, or Baghdad’s inability to control its borders (or even know what goes on within them), all signs point in the same ominous direction: Iraq is melting away.

When murderers grant a media scoop
Diana Moukalled/Al Arabiya/December 08/15
A few weeks ago, PBS correspondent Martin Smith visited Syria to report on government-controlled areas. He produced a documentary which shows life “Inside Assad’s Syria”, as he named the film. It gives an inside look into regime-controlled areas, introducing viewers to the mentality of those who defend the Assad regime. At around same time, Vice News was working on a documentary on the al-Nusra Front, filmed from inside the party’s controlled areas. The film addresses how the organization governs and shows what sort of generation is being raised under its power. It marks the first documentary of its kind, and first time the organization has allowed journalists to come this close to its fighters and the areas it controls. In both cases, the journalists were honest in broadcasting what they recorded. They know well that they were not free to move around and to ask questions. Their journalistic material was thus limited to what the Syrian regime allowed to be recorded and to what the al-Nusra Front wanted the world to see.
An inside look
Journalists accepting restricted freedoms in such cases does not warrant a professional demerit. The final work allows us to see, for example, the schizophrenia of Syrian regime within the areas it controls. For example, we saw how the regime built tourist complexes and planned festivals and concerts at a time when many of the world’s armies were crossing its airspace. This is in addition to the fact that many of the regime-controlled areas are literally few kilometers away from parts that the regime is shelling with barrel bombs. Nothing should prevent the media interviewing evil figures, even if they are demons. But even this has regulations and rules
The documentary on al-Nusra Front gave us a look into the religious education being taught to children in areas the group controls, showing us the age at which people are being introduced to such extremist ideologies. One of the lessons these children were learning was on the legitimacy of the principle of “spoils” of war. Both films were examples of the kind of courageous and committed journalism that allows us to explore topics without any embellishments, exaggerations or even condemnations. In both docu mentaries, the journalists did not reflect stances or emotions. They simply presented an image of one of the most dangerous zones in the world. The few statements they made were to seek information or to narrate the stories of certain people and figures, and they did that without blessing, promotion or demonizing anyone. Journalists entering conflict zones or interviewing those considered responsible for violence, whether murder or acts of terrorism, is nothing new. It is in fact the core of journalism.
Marred in mediocrity
But it is difficult not to compare the aforementioned firms with a recent similar case in Lebanon, concerning media coverage of the deal regarding the release of the Lebanese soldiers whom the al-Nusra Front had held hostage. There were many violations in this coverage, in which the al-Nusra Front allowed a certain television channel to interview the hostages prior to their release and take footage of areas controlled by the group. Some got angry as they considered this a move which markets murderers and decapitators. The channel’s media coverage, which submitted to al-Nusra’s conditions, could certainly be criticized for its exaggeration and praise, thus distorting the legitimacy of the channel's exclusive coverage from inside the al-Nusra-controlled zones. This is not the first time this has happened. Lebanese media, as well as Arab media in general, have repeatedly fallen into the trap of resorting to exaggeration and praise during exclusive coverage of regimes or armed groups like al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Hezbollah, and currently, al-Nusra Front and ISIS. Nothing should prevent the media interviewing evil figures, even if they are demons. But even this has regulations and rules. And as long as our media outlets are marred in mediocrity, the end result will not be exposing facts, but regurgitating nonsense under the pretext of a scoop.

CAIR Blames America for San Bernardino Massacre/The return of the “grievance” myth
Raymond Ibrahim//December 08/15
http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261050/cair-blames-america-san-bernardino-massacre-raymond-ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center
Another Islamic terrorist attack has taken place on American soil—in San Bernardino, where 14 people were murdered—and none other than that unindicted co-conspirator of Islamic terror, CAIR, is saying it’s America’s fault. Frank Camp of the Independent Journal reports that “During an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Friday [Dec. 4], Center for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) L.A. branch director Hussam Ayloush said the United States is partly responsible for radical Islam”:
Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy as Americans, as the West, have fueled that extremism. When we support cruel leaders in Egypt, or other places. When we support dictatorships, repressive regimes around the world that push people over to the edge. Then they become extremists; then they become terrorists. We are partly responsible. Terrorism is a global problem, not a Muslim problem. It’s a testimony to CAIR’s intellectually barren and morally bankrupt—or, in a word, Islamist—nature that it must fall back on one of the most manifestly false of all apologias: the claim that Islamic violence is a product of Islamic grievance—in this case U.S. foreign policy.
The fundamental problem with the “grievance” claim is that it contradicts what the terrorist themselves repeatedly say is their motivation—killing non-Muslims (“infidels”) according to the Islamic doctrine of jihad. Although jihadis do enjoy taking advantage of Western softness/naivety by claiming their murderous bloodlust is “our fault”—thereby killing two birds with one stone: 1) getting unwanted attention away from Islam/Muslims and 2) gaining concessions for the same—they also make it clear that hating, subjugating, and terrorizing the non-Muslim is required by Islamic law, or Sharia.
This was well summed up by the late Osama bin Laden. Although he had issued any number of communiques that were eagerly published by BBC and CNN saying that 9/11 was “payback” for supposed anti-Muslim U.S. foreign policies, he wrote the following words in a private letter to fellow Saudis:
Our talks with the infidel West and our conflict with them ultimately revolve around one issue … and it is: Does Islam, or does it not, force people by the power of the sword to submit to its authority corporeally if not spiritually?... The matter is summed up for every person alive: Either submit, or live under the suzerainty of Islam, or die. (The Al Qaeda Reader, p. 42)
Ayman al-Zawahiri, current leader of al-Qaeda, also wrote a 60-page treatise about the Muslim doctrine of Loyalty and Enmity. Based on numerous Koran verses, it makes clear that Muslims must always bear enmity for all non-Muslims—indeed, they must even hate their own wives, if they happen to be Christians or Jews. Doctrinal justifications—that is, words—aside, daily current events also throw a wrench in the “grievance” propaganda machine. For instance, if Muslims are terrorizing and slaughtering Americans due to political “grievances,” why are they also terrorizing and slaughtering non-Muslim minorities who have no political power to “aggrieve” anyone?
Consider the situation of Christians, the largest and most visible religious minority in the Muslim world. Not just at the hands of “ISIS,” but at the hands of Muslims everywhere—in the Arab Middle East, in black Africa, in Central and Far East Asia, even in the West—Christians are being persecuted and denied religious freedom; are having their churches bombed, burned, or simply banned; are being abducted, extorted, enslaved, and raped. Such Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens in race, ethnicity, national identity, culture, and language. There is no political dispute, no land dispute. Most significantly, these disempowered Christian minorities certainly have no political power—meaning there can be no Muslim “grievances” either. So why are they hated and hounded? Because they are Christians—infidels—and that’s the same reason Americans are being terrorized.
As James Lorimer, a theoretician of legal jurisprudence, wrote back in 1884 in his Institutes of the Law of Nations:
So long as Islam endures, the reconciliation of its adherents, even with Jews and Christians, and still more with the rest of mankind, must continue to be an insoluble problem. … For an indefinite future, however reluctantly, we must confine our political recognition to the professors of those religions which … preach the doctrine of “live and let live.”
Of course, today we do “not confine our political recognition to the professors of those religions which … preach the doctrine of ‘live and let live’”—and so we die for it in the name of “diversity” and “multiculturalism.”
To the credit of CAIR’s Hussam Ayloush, he is partially correct when he says that “Let’s not forget that some of our own foreign policy as Americans, as the West, have fueled that [Islamic] extremism.”
It’s not, however, because “we support cruel leaders in Egypt”—a reference to President Sisi, who overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood, CAIR’s mother-organization, which the Obama administration supported. Rather it’s because “we support cruel leaders” in nations like Saudi Arabia, which engages in the same sorts of atrocities that ISIS does—not to mention is the chief exporter of jihadi ideology around the world. Yet the human rights abusing Islamic kingdom is called a “U.S. friend and ally” (while secular, religiously tolerant Bashar of Assad is portrayed as Satan incarnate). The policies of the Obama administration have, in CAIR’s words, most certainly “fueled [Islamic] extremism” in countless ways—most notably by creating vacuums in Iraq, Libya, and Syria that have been filled by ISIS.
Speaking of Obama, the reason organizations like CAIR can continue disseminating the “grievance” myth is because the U.S. president and his administration also rely on it to distance Islamic terror from Islamic teaching. Obama himself said ISIS “exploit grievances for their own gain,” the State Department claimed that “a lack of opportunities for jobs” was the appeal of ISIS, and the head of the CIA said that jihad was “fed a lot of times by, you know, political repression, by economic, you know, disenfranchisement.”
Meanwhile, back in the real world, studies and statistics make unequivocally clear that “devotion” to Islam is what precedes terror attacks of the sort that occurred in San Bernardino.
For further reading that nails the coffin of the “Muslim-violence-is-a-product-of American-foreign-policies” claim, see the following articles:

The Palestinians' Window of Opportunity Is Closing
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6894/palestinians-window-of-opportunity
Now the Israelis are trying to circumvent us by means of agreements with the Arab countries. They may not have much to offer the Arabs, except for advances in technology, agriculture and medicine, but now they all have a common enemy: Iran.
Our demands are the result of the greed of our leaders, who do not want a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they want a Palestinian state instead of Israel. Recently we openly exposed our desire to destroy the Jewish state. That is why we demand Jerusalem for ourselves, insist on the right of Palestinians refugees to "return" and threaten the Jews.
Like Hezbollah, we interpret Israel's political left as a sign of weakness and dissention. We all sense their hypocrisy, arrogance, disdain, and how they patronize us as if we were stupid. That is why the Palestinians have always respected the Israeli right: they always tell us the truth.
The Europeans attempt to weaken Israel with territorial concessions that would make it possible for the Palestinians to fire rockets at Israel's main cities and airport from the West Bank.
After seeing the results of their withdrawal from Gaza, the Israelis doubtless think one would have to be crazy ever to give up control of the border with Jordan.
Before Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu's trip to the United States to meet President Barack Obama, administration officials there said they had given up hope of establishing a Palestinian state during the president's term of office. One could only think that if as the Palestinian project failed during the current administration, which supports the Palestinian cause, and with a secretary of state as highly motivated as John Kerry, the probability of its ever succeeding was fading away.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu meets with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington, on November 9, 2015. (Image source: White House video screenshot)
Just as boycotting and marking Israeli goods from the territories have led only to the mass layoff of thousands of Palestinian workers from dream jobs in the settlements, the fairy tales about a binational state will leave the Palestinians with nothing to show for our years of waiting.
Unfortunately, as time passes, Palestinian intransigence has led the Israelis to build a Zionist enterprise that cannot simply be dismissed.
In effect, regardless of what we say and think, apparently our agreement or disagreement is not a condition for the continued existence of the Jews on land they took from us. The danger is that at the rate Israel is growing, at some point there may not be that much territory left for a future Palestinian state.
The window of opportunity for change is rapidly closing. The sad truth is that the terrorist attacks carried out by Hamas and the other suicidal organizations, and by the Palestinians who stab Israeli civilians to death on the streets, are nothing more than the manifestations of our hopelessness and weakness. Worse, they serve the interests of the Israelis by fortifying their refusal to accomplish anything with us. We do not have one single individual in our leadership who has proposed a pragmatic plan that can be implemented to halt the process that is inexorably distancing us from any possible political solution with the Israelis.
As the growing wave of useless terrorism beats impotently on Israel's increasing hesitance to accommodate us, it becomes increasingly clear that our leaders will eventually come to the painful realization that the Palestinian cause is going nowhere. It is a pity that when the scales fall from our eyes, our eventual, commonsensical acceptance of the existence of the State of Israel as the homeland of the Jews will come at the expense of so much needless death and suffering.
All we have been offering the Israelis are our mistakes and our unrealistic demands. One of them consists of putting the capital of Palestine in the heart of the capital of the State of Israel. Another is the ridiculous demand for the "return" of millions of Palestinian refugees to the territory of the State of Israel -- which the Jews know would be demographic suicide for their country, and which would only be physically possible if all the Israelis suddenly vanished.
For our unrealizable demands, we look to the Europeans for support, while all they are interested in is gaining time and paying lip service to the local Islamists menacing them, while in effect, nothing is done for our cause.
Recently, out of an unjustified sense of self-confidence, we openly exposed our desire to destroy the Jewish state. That is why we demand Jerusalem for ourselves, insist on the right of the Palestinians refugees to "return" and threaten the Jews that if they do not accept our conditions we will demand the establishment of a binational state in all of Palestine.
Our demands are the result of the greed of our leaders, who do not want a Palestinian state alongside Israel, they want a Palestinian state instead of Israel. They delude themselves into thinking the West genuinely supports the Palestinian cause, hoping that by marking products made in the settlements, Israel will collapse like South Africa.
In reality, while the West does in fact hate Jews, it does not like Arabs much better. The West only supports the Palestinian cause out of the fear of another Islamist Arab Spring, carried out in their own backyards, instead of far away in the Middle East. We are betting that the West will support us against the Zionists, but even the radical Islamists know that Western support will mean a reentry of the Crusaders into our lands.
Our leaders have yet to identify the true source of Israel's strengths, and in that they have made a fatal mistake. Like Hezbollah, we interpret Israel's political left as a sign of weakness and dissention, we regard Israeli society as one long internal disagreement, and we consider Israel a paper tiger. What we do not understand is that arguing with one another and the lack of blind agreement are the foundations of Israeli democratic unity, and not signs that Israel is falling apart as we so earnestly desire.
What we have in fact identified is the sycophantic Israeli leftists, who think they can fool and cheat us with toned-down versions of the Zionist goals or seduce us with economic promises to make us suspect them less. We all sense their hypocrisy, arrogance, disdain, and how they patronize us as if we were stupid. That is why the Palestinians have always respected the Israeli right: they always tell the truth, even if it is unpleasant for us to hear.
Now the Israelis are trying to circumvent us by means of agreements with the Arab countries. They may not have much to offer the Arabs, except for advances in technology, agriculture and medicine, but now they all have a common enemy: Iran.
You can be sure that the Israelis do not delude themselves into thinking the Arabs will ever consider them as anything but a cancer in the heart of the Middle East. They rely only on their own strength and do not particularly care if we or the rest of the world agree. Paradoxically the more they strengthen and stop trying to negotiate with us, the more we shall expose our willingness to reach an agreement with them.
International oversight is out of the question. The Israelis are suspicious, and the Palestinians are greedy and respond only negatively.
Those who think Israel is immoral because it uses force do not understand that without the use of force Hamas, ISIS and Fatah would destroy it.
The European attempt to weaken Israel with territorial concessions that would make it possible for the Palestinians to fire rockets at Israel's main cities and airport from the West Bank only increases the Palestinian appetite to eradicate Israel, and makes the Israelis more intransigent.
In view of the Palestinian determination not to reach a political solution, but rather bring about Israel's demographic destruction as a binational apartheid state, it seems clear that the Israelis will continue with a reinforced reluctance to have anything to do with us. These actions on our part will simply lead Israel to make unilateral decisions, such as its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the West Bank. After seeing the results of their withdrawal from Gaza, the Israelis doubtless think they would have to be crazy ever to give up control of the border with Jordan, for fear of the massive infiltration of weapons and terrorist operatives. They may simply draw new borders around their settlement blocks, and leave the rest to the Palestinians.
Or they may simply cede, for instance, the city of Um el-Fahm, which for years has openly identified itself as Palestinian. If that happens, it is almost certain that Hamas will take over the territory. Hamas will then kill the Palestinian Authority activists or throw them off roofs, as they did in Gaza, thereby proving to the world that Israel was right to act as it did.
The suggestion that the Israelis would agree to a multinational force along its border with Jordan to prevent weapons, ISIS or other terrorists from crossing the border is a fantasy. What do international forces do when the first bullet is fired? They flee! They were incapable of preventing slaughter in Syria, in Iraq, and regrettably cannot even maintain security in their own countries.
In the end, we shall see an Israel that is stronger and even more reluctant than before to trust Palestinians, and we shall have lost our dream of a Palestinian state forever.

India's War on Terror: Solution is Self-Defense, Not Consensus
Jagdish N. Singh/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7019/india-terrorism
Instead of eliminating the invaders, Nehru made a deadly mistake: He took the matter for mediation to the United Nations.
UN member states have never even been able to agree on a definition of terrorism. Some of the states, such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, overtly or covertly practice, promote or fund terrorism.
Emboldened by international and Indian inaction, Pakistan has continued masterminding terror strikes against India.
New Delhi might do well bear in mind a central message from the history of wars: The dialogue of peace and non-violence alone is futile with those who understand only the language of power and punishment.
India, like Israel, would do better to fight its own war on terror.
In the wake of the recent coordinated terror strikes in Paris on November 13, India's Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, has made a fresh appeal for a concerted global strategy to fight terrorism. In his opening remarks at the ASEAN-India Summit in Kuala Lumpur on November 21, he said, "Terrorism has emerged as a major global challenge. ... we should see how we can enhance our cooperation at the regional and international level, including through support for adoption of Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism."
The previous week, addressing the G20 leaders at Antalya on November 15, Modi had lamented, "We don't have a comprehensive global strategy to combat terrorism... we tend to be selective in using the instruments that we have... We should strengthen efforts to prevent supply of arms to terrorists, disrupt terrorist movements and curb and criminalize terror financing."
Sadly, there is nothing new in Modi's appeal to combat terror. Such an appeal has also been made by India's previous leaders. In 2005 then-Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said to the media on his arrival from the United Kingdom: "Terrorism is a global phenomenon. We have faced this scourge for the last 20-25 years. The incident (London transit bombings) calls for joint efforts to combat the scourge."
While possibly sounding profound, such an appeal makes little practical sense. A United Nations consensus against terrorism looks far-fetched. In the immediate post-9/11 landscape, the UN passed various resolutions. They underlined moral and legal obligations on the part of all UN member-states to fight terror together. There is no evidence, however, that they ever coordinated intelligence or devised a concerted strategy to combat anything other than Israel -- the only transparent, accountable and pluralistic democracy in the Middle East. UN member states have never even been able to agree on a definition of terrorism. Some of the states, such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, overtly or covertly practice, to promote or fund terrorism.[1]
In the post-9/11 landscape, the world's major powers have preferred to focus on strengthening their own homeland security, notwithstanding their fashionable diplomatic postures of consensus at major international forums.
Given this reality, India, with all its moral, legal, diplomatic and military strength, would do better to fight its own war on terror.
Terrorism in India, in its current form, dates back to 1947. It on October 26, 1947 that Pakistan came up with the ideology of Islamist terrorism and dispatched its warriors -- Pakistani soldiers in guise of Pakhtoon raiders -- into India's Kashmir to capture it. The Indian Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, could have crushed the invaders then and there.[2]
Instead of eliminating the invaders, however, Nehru made a deadly mistake: He took the matter for mediation to the United Nations. India has paid heavy price for this ever since. The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir has remained deprived of two fifths of its territory -- Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The United Nations passed a ceasefire resolution on December 31, 1948 that merely divided the state. A 1951 UN resolution provided for a referendum under the UN supervision after Pakistan withdrew its troops from the part of Kashmir (PoK) that Pakistan captured in 1947. But the United Nations never pressured Pakistan to honor the resolution and vacate the PoK.
Thereafter, emboldened by international and Indian inaction, Pakistan has continued masterminding terror strikes against India from time to time. According to an August 11, 2008 report in the magazine India Today, between 1980 to 2008, terrorism claimed around 150,000 lives in India.[3] The former Chief Minister of Himachal Pradesh, Shanta Kumar, wrote on August 23, 2011 in the New Delhi newspaper Punjab Kesari that in 1989, the Kashmir Valley had a population of over half a million Pandits, the only Hindu natives of Kashmir. Their number stands reduced to about four thousand today. By 2000, terrorists had killed over 34,252 citizens and wounded another 17,484. They set fire to over 10,000 houses and destroyed huge amounts of individual and public property in the state. This has left the minorities in the Kashmir Valley with no choice but to flee their homes.
American Congressman Frank Pallone's letter of August 23, 2004 to India's Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh at that time reads:
"The Pandits [Hindus of Kashmir] have suffered more than any group as a result of the conflict in Kashmir, and violence continues to threaten their existence. This group is under constant threat of attack from Islamic terrorists, and many have fled the region as a result of these threats. For the last 15 years, Kashmiri Pandits have been refugees in their own country. What was once a population of nearly 350,000 in the Kashmir valley has now been reduced to a paltry 8,000-person populace. The ethnic cleansing of Pandits from Kashmir started as a result of targeted assassinations leading to forced exile of the entire minority community in the early stages of insurgency. Such horrible events were then repeated in the last few years when Islamic insurgents committed mass massacres of Pandits in villages and hamlets throughout Kashmir."
Left: Indian soldiers carry the coffin of Indian Army Colonel M N Rai, who was killed in January 2015 by terrorists in Kashmir. Right: Masked Islamist radicals in Kashmir display a version of the black flag of jihad.
Such harsh realities demand that India's leaders cease looking for any imagined, miasmic global " consensus" -- which never appears -- and develop a more workable, realistic policy to combat terror.
India could learn from other democracies, such as Israel, which has also suffered many years of terrorism, and has resorted, for its national security, to a policy of self-defense.
At bottom, modern-day terrorism seems to be a new tool of certain self-styled Islamists to invoke a violent interpretation of their widely practiced religion. They appear to use it to try to capture power and establish an absolutist, theocratic regime.
Needless to say, the patriotism of Muslim community, or that of any other religious community in India is beyond doubt. In an interview with CNN, Prime Minister Modi rightly said, "Indian Muslims will live for India. They will die for India."
New Delhi could use such a welcome social asset to focus on boosting its own defense and security capabilities to crush terrorism. New Delhi might do well bear in mind a central message from the history of wars: The dialogue of peace and non-violence alone is futile with those who understand only the language of power and punishment.
India might consider a "frank talk" with the forces of terrorism both within and outside the Pakistani establishment. Fortunately, India has remained blessed with an apolitical military. There is also no dearth of highly professional elements in its security and intelligence agencies. India also possesses a broad tradition of different cultural and religious streams, both foreign and domestic, and relative communal harmony[4], including in its Muslim community. It is with assets such as these, as well as an increasing military prowess, that New Delhi should be fighting terror.
**Jagdish N. Singh is a senior Indian journalist based in New Delhi.
[1] for instance, Pakistan's attacks on Mumbai in 2008; the listing of Iran on the U.S. Department of State's 2014 State Sponsors of Terrorism; and, for Saudi Arabia, support for terror. According to Clinton's leaked memo, Saudi donors constituted "the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide".
[2] The state of Jammu and Kashmir had become an integral part of India after its Maharaja at the time, Hari Singh, signed the Instruments of Accession to India (October 27, 1947). The Indian Army was capable of eliminating the problem from India's territory. Mahatma Gandhi also apparently foresaw the consequence of the invasion and advised Prime Minister Nehru to drive the raiders out. (Durga Das, India from Curzon to Nehru and After, New Delhi: Rupa& Co, 1977), p.270; Also, V Ramamurthy, Mahatma Gandhi:The Last 200 Days, Chennai: Kasturi & Sons, 2004, p.289.
[3] Between 2000 and 2008, 69 terrorist attacks caused 1,120 deaths. During the period from January 2004 to March 2007, it claimed 3,674 lives.
[4] Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, Oxford University Press, 1961.

France's Thousand Year War Against the Jews
Susan Warner/Gatestone Institute/December 08/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6902/france-war-against-jews
Ironically, according to Islamic doctrine, many Muslims may well see themselves as lining up in Europe to supersede the Catholic Church as they pursue their dream to conquer the world for Allah.
Some suggest that if current population trends continue, prodded by the new migration and the extended families that are sure to follow, Islam will soon be the new majority. Such a demographic shift would not only leave Christians in jeopardy, but Jews in double jeopardy -- antipathy from their own government and overt hostility from Islam.
While it was not French Christians per se who fired the gun on the Jewish shoppers outside Paris in January, it is legitimate to question the role that Christian anti-Semitism plays in creating this climate shift as Jews, yet again, become victims in their own homeland.
The "Supersessionist" DNA, hidden beneath the surface of society, is what drives secularized Christian nations such as France, Britain and Sweden to appease Islamists, who are working to increase their influence, numbers and decibel levels.
"France does not really oppose Palestinian terrorism. On the contrary, France facilitates it. Every year, the French government pays millions of euros, dollars and shekels to Palestinian NGOs whose stated goal is to destroy Israel." – Caroline Glick.
The Islamization of France is peeking over the horizon.
In a stinging article commemorating the recent 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Charles Krauthammer noted,
"The rise of European anti-Semitism is, in reality, just a return to the norm. For a millennium, virulent Jew-hatred — persecution, expulsions, massacres — was the norm in Europe until the shame of the Holocaust created a temporary anomaly wherein anti-Semitism became socially unacceptable.
"The hiatus is over. Jew-hatred is back, recapitulating the past with impressive zeal."
For French citizens, the Holocaust seems a faded memory. The anti-Jewish sentiment that drove the French Vichy government to serve up an estimated 77,000-90,000[1] French Jews to the maw of Hitler's Jew-killing machine was not driven by anything that looks like today's Islamic jihad, but by the same majority of French Catholics. After almost two millennia of French-Christian anti-Semitism, their DNA imprint remains. Anti-Jewish racism is hardly a faded memory for the increasing number of French Jews now fearfully contemplating flight from their homeland in the wake of disturbing current events.
The long history of French anti-Semitism reaches as far back on the calendar as Christianity itself.
In 325 CE, with a sweep of his pen, the Emperor Constantine, at the first Council of Nicaea, unwittingly signed the death warrant for millions of yet-to-be-born Jews throughout what is now Christian Europe.
The writings of the Church Fathers such as Tertullian and Origen, who accused the Jews of killing Jesus (deicide), also assert that God revoked his everlasting covenant with Abraham (and the Jewish people) as described in ancient holy books.
The Catholic Church has taken over that doctrine by claiming its rights as "The New Israel." In its arrogance, the Catholic Church arrogated to itself God's Covenant, originally contracted with the Jews in Genesis Chapter 12, in which God promises the Hebrew people -- through Isaac and Jacob -- a land, a nation and a specific destiny.
By the new inverted Catholic definition, members of the Catholic Church now became "first class citizens," and Jews became second-class citizens.
This theological inversion, referred to by scholars as "Supersessionism" or by the more colloquial expression "Replacement Theology," infers that God's covenant with the Jews has been repealed, and the Jews have supposedly been replaced by "the Church."
This doctrine, combined with the incendiary writings of the ancient church fathers, nurtured hatred for Jews throughout Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Protestant majority nations from the 3rd Century, throughout the ensuing centuries, until 1965. It was then that an official Vatican II document, "Nostra Aetate," absolved the Jews of the ancient charge of deicide and restored at least a portion of their claims to the original covenant relationship with God.
Sadly, "Nostra Aetate," however, did not nullify the false doctrine[2] of "Replacement Theology." Roman Catholic teaching still affirms the "Supersessionist" position that Catholics are the "New Israel" or "The Israel of God." The exact wording from the document is subtle but unmistakably clear; "Although the Church is the new people of God, the Jews should not be presented as rejected or accursed by God, as if this followed from the Holy Scriptures."
If the Catholic Church considers itself the "New Israel," then why not allow Pope Francis make a unilateral declaration of Palestine as a state? So that is just what he did a few months ago. With a historic stroke of his pen, the Pope took it upon himself summarily to cross out Israel's sovereign rights to her land, and her legitimate authority to negotiate her national destiny.
The guiding principle of "Replacement Theology" is a silent permission slip to demonize and destroy the Jews and Israel. In France as in the rest of Europe, it contributes to the political, social and religious atmosphere in which the growing influence of radical Islam merges with the long-held French inclination to ignore, disparage or minimize the concerns of their Jewish minority.
Despite the secularism enveloping much of Europe, France is still considered a Catholic nation, with over half of its citizens members of the Catholic Church
The "Supersessionist" DNA, hidden beneath the surface of the society, is what drives secularized Christian nations such as France, Britain and Sweden to appease Islamists, who are working to increase their influence, numbers and decibel levels.
Ironically, according to Islamic doctrine, many Muslims may well see themselves as lining up in Europe to supersede the Catholic Church as they pursue their dream to conquer the world for Allah.
Some suggest that if current population trends continue, prodded by the new migration and the extended families that are sure to follow, Islam will soon be the new majority. Such a demographic shift would not only leave Christians in jeopardy, but Jews in double jeopardy — antipathy from their own government and overt hostility from Islam.
Throughout the 1600 years between the Emperor Constantine and the HyperCacher kosher market massacre in January 2015, the "Supersessionist" Christian "death warrant" was reconfigured and rewritten hundreds of times.
Until the late 1700s and the aftermath of the French Revolution, France was governed by religious, not secular, forces.
Anti-Semitism ebbed and flowed through French history in the form of local, national and international edicts and actions against Jews. The Dreyfus affair (1894-1906), for example, was a political scandal that uncovered a virulent French anti-Semitism.
While it was not French Christians per se who fired the gun on the Jewish shoppers outside Paris in January, it is legitimate to question the role that Christian anti-Semitism plays in creating this climate shift as Jews, yet again, become victims in their own homeland. London's Guardian, writing about the recent attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the HyperCacher supermarket, said:
"[The] dramatic increase in the number of Jews moving from France... had already become the subject of international discussion before last week -- with some commentators going so far as to invoke the specter of Fascism during the 1930s. It is almost as though the fate of French Jewry is seen as a cipher for widespread, even existential, fears about the future of Europe itself."
On the one hand, France's President François Hollande wants his audience to believe that decisive action is being taken against Islamic terrorism. For example, in the aftermath of the most recent terrorist attacks in Paris, the French government has assumed a bold, militaristic posture of vengeance and retribution against terrorism.
Likewise, after the HyperCacher massacre, Prime Minister Manuel Valls gave an impassioned speech before the French National Assembly, where he vehemently denounced the alarming rise of anti-Semitism in the nation. Hollande also decried anti-Semitism, vowing to institute preventative programs, as he stationed temporary military guards at Jewish holy sites and schools.
But on the other hand, France may be feeding the alligator, hoping it will eat him last.
Recently, at the UN, for example, France proposed to install security cameras on Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Although the proposal was allegedly meant to quell violence on the Temple Mount, and would have been excellent had France suggested that Israel install those cameras there, the specifics of the French plan threatened Israel's sovereignty over the site. According to journalist Caroline Glick:
"France's decision to use its diplomatic position to advance a plan which if implemented would end Israeli sovereignty over Judaism's holiest site is first and foremost a French act of aggression against the Jewish state.
"Contrary to what the French government would have us believe, France's Temple Mount gambit is not an effort to quell the violence. French protestations of concern over the loss of life in the current tempest of Palestinian terrorism ring hollow.
"France does not really oppose Palestinian terrorism. On the contrary, France facilitates it.
"Every year, the French government pays millions of euros, dollars and shekels to Palestinian NGOs whose stated goal is to destroy Israel. Through its NGO agents, France finances the radicalization of Palestinian society. This French-financed radicalization makes Palestinian terrorism inevitable.
"Much of the current rhetoric used by the Palestinians to reject Israel's legitimacy and justify violence against Jews is found in strategic documents that France paid Palestinian NGOs to write."
In a sleight of hand, the French government wants the world to believe that it is against anti-Jewish violence. On the other hand, France wasted no time initiating profitable business deals with Iran as the ink was drying on the anti-Israel nuclear deal, while the Ayatollahs were chanting their genocidal appeals to destroy Israel and the Jews.[3]
The Islamization of France is peeking over the horizon. While official French figures do not distinguish between ethnic or religious groups, several recent studies suggest that in 2014, France's estimated 6.5 million Muslims now comprise "roughly 10% of the country's total population of 66 million. In real terms, France has the largest Muslim population in the European Union."
The voting bloc represented by these figures is enough to present a threat to the incumbent Socialist Party government, and can certainly influence the aspirations of any contenders for national office. The cries of a small Jewish minority of less than 1% pale by comparison.
It is hopeful to see that France, even prior to last week's bloody massacres in Paris, had been making some legal headway in its counterterrorism programs. Recent laws to cut welfare benefits to known jihadis, increase surveillance and upgrade police equipment are all signs that France may finally be confronting some of its problems — or at least trying to mount a convincing public relations show.
In 2017, Hollande, not an especially popular Socialist President, is up for reelection. He will be facing the pro-Israel ex-president, Nicolas Sarkozy, who will run as a so-called moderate against the right-wing Front National Party of Marine Le Pen.
The Front National's staunch anti-immigration agenda has been increasingly successful in wooing Jews into its fold as it claims to be reframing its anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi history.
The mounting fears of France's Jews are not going away anytime soon. Record numbers are packing their bags and moving to Israel, Canada, Britain, the U.S. and Australia. It is to be hoped that the French government, by now historically all too familiar with the problem, will have the courage, the desire and the will to remedy it, not only for the future of France but the future of Europe.
Susan Warner is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of Gatestone Institute and co-founder of a Christian group, Olive Tree Ministries in Wilmington, DE, USA. She has been writing and teaching about Israel and the Middle East for over 15 years. Contact her at israelolivetree@yahoo.com.
[1] There are various estimates of the total number of Jews that were slaughtered by the Nazis. The number of 90,000 is used by Jewish Virtual Library. Other Jewish sources use 72,000.
[2] "False doctrine": There has never been anything written in Scripture (Old or New Testaments) that explains that God has nullified his Covenant with the Abraham and the Jewish people. I have written about this in several other articles.
[3] Genocide: "Rafsanjani's Qods Day speech (Jerusalem Day)", Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Tehran, in Persian, translated by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, original broadcast December 14, 2001.
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