LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
December 24/15

Compiled & Prepared by: Elias Bejjani
http://www.eliasbejjaninews.com/newsbulletins05/english.december24.15.htm 

Bible Quotations For Today
Should Christians celebrate Christmas?"
GotQuestions.org /Answer: The debate about whether or not Christians should celebrate Christmas has been raging for centuries. There are equally sincere and committed Christians on both sides of the issue, each with multiple reasons why or why not Christmas should be celebrated in Christian homes. But what does the Bible say? Does the Bible give clear direction as to whether Christmas is a holiday to be celebrated by Christians? First, let’s look at the reasons why some Christians do not celebrate Christmas. One argument against Christmas is that the traditions surrounding the holiday have origins in paganism. Searching for reliable information on this topic is difficult because the origins of many of our traditions are so obscure that sources often contradict one another. Bells, candles, holly, and yuletide decorations are mentioned in the history of pagan worship, but the use of such in one’s home certainly does not indicate a return to paganism. While there are definitely pagan roots to some traditions, there are many more traditions associated with the true meaning of Christmas—the birth of the Savior of the world in Bethlehem. Bells are played to ring out the joyous news, candles are lit to remind us that Christ is the Light of the world (John 1:4-9), a star is placed on the top of a Christmas tree to remember the Star of Bethlehem, and gifts are exchanged to remind us of the gifts of the Magi to Jesus, the greatest gift of God to mankind. Another argument against Christmas, especially having a Christmas tree, is that the Bible forbids bringing trees into our homes and decorating them. The passage often cited is Jeremiah 10:1-16, but this passage refers to cutting down trees, chiseling the wood to make an idol, and then decorating the idol with silver and gold for the purpose of bowing down before it to worship it (see also Isaiah 44:9-18). The passage in Jeremiah cannot be taken out of its context and used to make a legitimate argument against Christmas trees.
Christians who choose to ignore Christmas point to the fact that the Bible doesn’t give us the date of Christ’s birth, which is certainly true. December 25 may not be even close to the time Jesus was born, and arguments on both sides are legion, some relating to climate in Israel, the practices of shepherds in winter, and the dates of Roman census-taking. None of these points are without a certain amount of conjecture, which brings us back to the fact that the Bible doesn’t tell us when Jesus was born. Some see this as proof positive that God didn’t want us to celebrate the birth, while others see the Bible’s silence on the issue as tacit approval. Some Christians say that since the world celebrates Christmas—although it is becoming more and more politically correct to refer to it as “the holidays”—Christians should avoid it. But that is the same argument made by false religions that deny Christ altogether, as well as cults such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses who deny His deity. Those Christians who do celebrate Christmas often see the occasion as an opportunity to proclaim Christ as “the reason for the season” among the nations and to those trapped in false religions.
As we have seen, there is no legitimate scriptural reason not to celebrate Christmas. At the same time, there is no biblical mandate to celebrate it, either. In the end, of course, whether or not to celebrate Christmas is a personal decision. Whatever Christians decide to do regarding Christmas, their views should not be used as a club with which to beat down or denigrate those with opposing views, nor should either view be used as a badge of honor inducing pride over celebrating or not celebrating. As in all things, we seek wisdom from Him who gives it liberally to all who ask (James 1:5) and accept one another in Christian love and grace, regardless of our views on Christmas. Recommended Resources: The Case for Christmas by Lee Strobel and Logos Bible Software.

And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.’ As he was saying these things, many believed in him."
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint John 08/25-30: "They said to him, ‘Who are you?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn; but the one who sent me is true, and I declare to the world what I have heard from him.’ They did not understand that he was speaking to them about the Father. So Jesus said, ‘When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own, but I speak these things as the Father instructed me. And the one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what is pleasing to him.’ As he was saying these things, many believed in him."

By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions about his burial."
Letter to the Hebrews 11/17-22: "By faith Abraham, when put to the test, offered up Isaac. He who had received the promises was ready to offer up his only son, of whom he had been told, ‘It is through Isaac that descendants shall be named after you.’ He considered the fact that God is able even to raise someone from the dead and figuratively speaking, he did receive him back. By faith Isaac invoked blessings for the future on Jacob and Esau.By faith Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, ‘bowing in worship over the top of his staff.’By faith Joseph, at the end of his life, made mention of the exodus of the Israelites and gave instructions about his burial."

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on December 23-24/15
Why a new US law has Nasrallah riled/Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon/December 23/15
When the enemy is a friend's friend/Hanin Ghaddar/Now Lebanon/December 23/15
How will Nasrallah retaliate for death of Hezbollah leader in Syria/Ali Hashem/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
Why Palestinians Love Baby-Killers/Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/December 23/15
Turkey and Israel: A Rickety Handshake/Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/December 23/15
If it ain't broke, don't fix it: Why Turkey and Iran's 376 years of peace will continue/Ali Omidi/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
Liberman: Arab MK 'must be thrown out of Knesset'/Mazal Mualem/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
Will PA security turn on Israel/Ahmad Abu Amer/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
UN hopes to hit 'moving target' of Syria talks by late January/Laura Rozen/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
How to revive the Arab Peace Initiative/Akiva Eldar/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
The closer Syria is to peace, the more violent it will be/Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya/December 23/15
2015, a year of wishful thinking on Mideast conflicts/Andrew Bowen/Al Arabiya/December 23/15
We have a common dream: A happy Middle East/Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/December 23/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on December 23-24/15
Fatfat Meets Geagea and Gemayel, Says No Presidential Nomination is 'Sacred'
70% of Syria Refugees in Lebanon Live in 'Extreme Poverty'
Another Brother of Osama Mansour Arrested in Tripoli
Report: March 14 Meeting Tackles Latest Developments, Hariri Proposal
Report: International Powers Unenthusiastic over Hariri Initiative
Woman, 5 Children Shot and Wounded in Bekaa Family Dispute
Man 'Beats Wife to Death' in Qab Elias
Shehayyeb Meets Exportation Companies for Finishing Touches
Report: IS Smuggling Syrian Artifacts through Lebanon
Norwegian NGO Car Shot at in Bekaa Attempted Robbery
Question: "What is the true meaning of Christmas?"
Why a new US law has Nasrallah riled
When the enemy is a friend's friend
How will Nasrallah retaliate for death of Hezbollah leader in Syria?
70% of Syria Refugees in Lebanon Live in 'Extreme Poverty'

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on December 23-24/15
Three Israelis Stabbed, Palestinian Attackers Killed
Saudi King Blames Assad for IS Rise in Syria
Saudis Commute Maid's Stoning Death Sentence
Russian FM Hosts Pro-Kurdish Party Leader for Syria Talks
Triple IS Suicide Attack Kills 11 Syrian Regime Fighters
Iraq Forces in Final Push to Retake Ramadi
Istanbul Airport Blast Kills One, Damages Planes
Drone Strike Kills 4 Qaida Suspects in Yemen

Links From Jihad Watch Site for December 23-24/15
Oslo’s “Citizen of the Year”: “Death to Israel,” “Long live the Sharia”
Pentagon pushes likely forged document to show Islamic State in “desperation” mode and “beginning to feel the pressure”
Australia: Two Muslims arrested as police thwart jihad plot to attack naval base and police headquarters
FBI failed to heed public warnings of jihad attack on AFDI Muhammad cartoon contest in Garland, Texas
Turkish Religious Affairs top dog: Islamic State causes as much damage as “Islamophobic” Muhammad cartoons
Somalia bans Christmas and New year celebrations, says they are ‘un-Islamic’
Wisconsin police chief ridicules elderly woman to attack “If you see something, say something”
San Bernardino jihad murderer got visa despite lacking key documentation
Malaysia unveils world’s first fully Sharia-compliant airline
Muslim who wanted to join the Islamic State once worked as baggage handler at Minneapolis-St. Paul airport
France: Islamic State-inspired Muslim who beheaded boss found dead in cell
French police foil jihad terror attack in Orleans

Fatfat Meets Geagea and Gemayel, Says No Presidential Nomination is 'Sacred'
Naharnet/December 23/15/Al-Mustaqbal bloc MP Ahmed Fatfat held separate talks Wednesday with Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea and Kataeb Party chief MP Sami Gemayel. “I discussed with Dr. Geagea all the developments on the political scene, topped by the issue of the presidency, in addition to some ideas about the possibility of proposing a settlement initiative,” said Fatfat after meeting Geagea in Maarab. Talks also tackled “the electoral law and the needed approach in this period,” Fatfat added. He also called for “abiding by the hybrid draft electoral law that holds the signatures of the LF, the Progressive Socialist Party, al-Mustaqbal movement and independent Christians.” He was referring to an electoral law that combines the proportional representation and winner-takes-all systems. “As for the presidential issue, there are ideas that are being discussed but they have not yet reached the level of an actual initiative, because the main party concerned (Hizbullah) has no intention to pull the country out of the vacuum it is currently facing,” Fatfat added. He accused Hizbullah of “taking advantage of this vacuum through paralyzing the state and its institutions at all levels because it wants what it sees as a bigger settlement.” What Hizbullah chief “Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has called a comprehensive settlement is a reference to a full settlement that allows him to seize full control of the country,” Fatfat charged. Asked whether the search has started for a presidential nominee other than Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh, the lawmaker noted that “Franjieh's name has not been (officially) proposed in order to search for alternatives.”“We in the Mustaqbal movement say that there is no veto on any candidate and we also say that no certain nomination is sacred. Therefore, if there are alternative proposals that can lead to solutions we would welcome them,” Fatfat added. He later held talks with Kataeb chief Gemayel on “the presidential vote and the electoral law,” Voice of Lebanon radio (100.5) reported. 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. Franjieh has emerged as a presidential nominee in the wake of a Paris meeting last month between him and al-Mustaqbal movement chief ex-PM Saad Hariri. The Hariri-Franjieh initiative ran aground in recent weeks after it was met by objections and reservations from the country's main Christian parties – the Free Patriotic Movement, the LF and Kataeb.Hizbullah is also reportedly clinging to the nomination of its ally MP Michel Aoun, the head of the Change and Reform bloc.

70% of Syria Refugees in Lebanon Live in 'Extreme Poverty'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/More than two-thirds of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in extreme poverty, according to a United Nations study published Wednesday, up nearly 50 percent from last year. Based on an assessment of more than 4,000 refugee households, the report found that an estimated 70 percent of them are living below the Lebanese extreme poverty line of $3.84 per day. "This is a striking increase from 49 percent in 2014," said Mireille Girard, head of the U.N. refugee agency's Lebanon office. The inter-agency study was conducted by the World Food Program, the refugee agency and the U.N.'s children's fund. Refugees are facing a dire situation as their savings dry up, work opportunities are increasingly rare and humanitarian aid packages grow smaller. According to the study, the refugees are borrowing to cover even their most basic needs, including rent, food, and healthcare, putting nearly 90 percent of them in debt. Household spending dropped to $493 per month from $762 in 2014, reflecting reduced quality of food consumed and a heightened reliance on debt and humanitarian aid. To cope, families are pulling their children from school so that they can work. Only five percent of 15-17 year olds attended school this year. Instead, many work in agricultural fields for as little as $4 a day. "The Syria crisis is a tragedy for children on an unimaginable scale and continues to significantly impact their protection, wellbeing and development across the entire region," said Tanya Chapuisat, head of the U.N. children's agency in Lebanon. "Children's exposure to violence, poverty and displacement are having enormous consequences, in the immediate and long-term," she added. U.N. agencies, partner organizations and the Lebanese government are requesting $2.48 billion for the coming year to support refugees and host communities. The U.N.'s findings "represent an urgent call to action, demanding that no time is spared in addressing the increasing needs and vulnerabilities of Syrian refugees here in Lebanon," said Gawaher Atif of the World Food Program. More than four million refugees have fled Syria for the relative safety of the neighboring countries, according to the U.N.Millions more have been internally displaced.

Another Brother of Osama Mansour Arrested in Tripoli
Naharnet/December 23/15/Wissam Mansour, a brother of slain Islamist militant Osama Mansour, was arrested Wednesday at an army checkpoint in Deir Amar in the northern city of Tripoli, state-run National News Agency reported. The army had arrested another brother of the late extremist, Amin, in early July. Amin's arrest in Tripoli's Bab al-Tabbaneh triggered popular protests at the time. Osama Mansour was killed in April by the Internal Security Forces during an operation to arrest a radical cleric in Tripoli. Osama belonged to an armed group that staged terrorist attacks and took part in unprecedented Oct. 2014 clashes with the army in Tripoli. The 2014 fighting was the last major military battle in Tripoli following dozens of rounds of sectarian fighting between the Bab al-Tabbaneh and Jabal Mohsen neighborhoods. Violence in the city largely abated after the army implemented a security plan that involved the arrest of the heads of the fighting frontiers and the killing of many notorious militants.

Report: March 14 Meeting Tackles Latest Developments, Hariri Proposal
Naharnet/December 23/15/The March 14 coalition held a meeting on Tuesday night to address the latest political developments in Lebanon, most notably the ongoing vacuum in the presidency, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Wednesday. Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc chief MP Fouad Saniora told the gatherers at the Center House in downtown Beirut that he hopes that the upcoming national dialogue sessions would turn into “productive” meetings that tackle issues that concern the Lebanese people, especially the vacuum. The last dialogue session of the year was held on Monday with the participants hoping that cabinet work would be revitalized. The March 14 officials also addressed Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri's initiative to end the deadlock, with Saniora saying: “The proposal has not developed into an initiative. Had it been so, stances much more severe than the ones we have seen would have emerged.” “Hariri sought to speed up efforts to end the vacuum,” he added of the lawmaker's push to nominate Marada Movement leader MP Suleiman Franjieh as president. The proposal has been met with reservations from other March 14 members, including the Kataeb and Lebanese Forces. LF chief Samir Geagea is a presidential candidate and Hariri's nomination of Franjieh, a member of the March 8 camp, has created tensions between the two allies. Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq hoped during the March 14 coalition meeting that Hariri's proposal “be kept under assessment from a realistic position to put an end to the paralysis in the country.” LF MP Georges Adwan reiterated his party's rejection of the proposal, questioning the “goals, not the intentions, behind it.”Other members of the coalition also voiced their rejection of Hariri's proposal, added al-Joumhouria. Hariri's suggestion was also met with reservations from the March 8 camp, whose Change and Reform bloc chief MP Michel Aoun is presidential candidate. Franjieh is also a member of the camp and his nomination has sparked tensions with Aoun. 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.

Report: International Powers Unenthusiastic over Hariri Initiative
Naharnet/December 23/15/The initiative launched by Mustaqbal Movement leader MP Saad Hariri to nominate Marada Movement chief MP Suleiman Franjieh as president as part of a greater deal to end the political deadlock in Lebanon has lost steam as evidenced by the lack of local and international backing for the plan, reported al-Joumhouria newspaper on Wednesday. It said that only Saudi Arabia, France, and the United States are pushing for the adoption of the settlement. “Other regional powers, which consider themselves concerned with the situation in Lebanon, have not made any indication or taken any stance that may demonstrate that they stand behind the initiative,” it noted. “In fact, it seems that, at best, these sides are not keen on the initiative,” it added. A source concerned with the presidential elections told al-Joumhouria that the silence over the initiative, in Lebanon and abroad, demonstrates that the vacuum will last a few more months. 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. Hariri had been pushing for the election of Franjieh as president in order to end the political deadlock, but this step has been met by reservations from his allies in the March 14 camp, as well as Franjieh's allies in the March 8 camp.

Woman, 5 Children Shot and Wounded in Bekaa Family Dispute
Naharnet/December 23/15/A woman and five of her sons and daughters were wounded Wednesday when they were attacked by relatives in the Bekaa town of Maqneh, state-run National News Agency reported. “Ali Shaalan al-Meqdad and Ali Adnan al-Meqdad opened fire at Ramleh Hussein al-Meqdad, the wife of Sheikh Ali al-Meqdad, and her five children in the Bekaa town of Maqneh,” NNA said. It identified the sons and daughters as Yumna, 21, Hassan, 22, Zeinab, 23, Narjes, 24, and Mohammed, 15. The six family members were all wounded in the legs, the agency said. It attributed the incident to a “family dispute among women.”The two shooters have since fled to an unknown destination.

Man 'Beats Wife to Death' in Qab Elias
Naharnet/December 23/15/A young man has killed his wife in the Bekaa region in the latest case of domestic violence in the country, media reports said on Wednesday. "Ghazal Beshara was beaten to death at the hands of her husband," LBCI television said. It said the man turned himself in to security forces later in the day. Earlier, state-run National News Agency identified the husband as Rony Sh. and noted that the woman was 19 years old. "She was found dead inside the couple's house in the town of Qab Elias,” NNA said.

Shehayyeb Meets Exportation Companies for Finishing Touches
Naharnet/December 23/15/Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb said that a meeting will take place on Wednesday with representatives from the companies tasked to export Lebanon's trash in order to finalize the last touches and pinpoint remarks made by several ministers, As Safir daily reported. “Several ministers made some remarks about the contract that was signed with the British and Dutch companies. A meeting with the companies' representatives will take place today despite the holiday on the occasion of Prophet Mohammed's birthday in order to pinpoint the remarks,” he told the daily. Shehayyeb added by saying that “the companies have the approval of specific countries to receive Lebanon's trash, but their identity was not disclosed pending a cabinet decision and an official approval of the exportation.”He stated that the exportation will kick off in mid January and will include the newly generated trash excluding the piles that were burnt and buried. “The process will take place based on specific priorities. There are thousands of tons of piled and decomposed trash that will remain in Lebanon to be processed later on,” he added. Shehayyeb said that meetings with the British company tasked to run the processing in Karantina and al-Amrusieh succeeded in reducing the cost of processing from $56 to $26 per ton. He concluded by saying that the exportation plan will not halt because there is no other practical solution, adding: “It is the best that we could achieve taking into consideration the failure of the waste management plan.”On Monday, the cabinet approved a plan to send garbage abroad as a “temporary” solution to the waste disposal crisis, despite the objections of the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement and the Kataeb Party. According to Shehayyeb, exportation will cost $212 per ton. Lebanon has been suffering from a waste management crisis since July when the Naameh landfill that receives the trash of Beirut and Mount Lebanon closed. The government's failure to find alternatives led to the piling up of garbage on the streets and in random locations, which raised health and environmental concerns and sparked unprecedented street protests against the entire political class.

Report: IS Smuggling Syrian Artifacts through Lebanon
Naharnet/December 23/15/The Islamic State group is using some stores in Lebanon as a front for its smuggling of Syrian artifacts, reported An Nahar daily on Wednesday. It revealed that a recently arrested IS member had confessed to being related to the owner of a butcher shop in the northern city of Tripoli and that the meat shipments received from Syria are not limited to the products he sells in his shop. The shipments also include narcotic pills, smuggled artifacts, and gold. On April 13, the army arrested Syrian Turki al-Falqoun in the eastern city of Baalbek for lacking the proper identification papers. He was handed over to the Internal Security Forces Intelligence Bureau that discovered after carrying out investigations with him that he was in contact with an Egyptian known as Abou Moatasem, a member of the IS. Falqoun was found to have visited Egypt, Turkey, and Algeria and he may have had a role in recruiting new members to the IS. He is also related to a Syrian, identified as Gh.Gh, who owns a butcher shop in Tripoli. He carries out his trade with Syrian butchers in Homs and Hama, who send him his products on a daily basis. These products do not only contain meat, but narcotic pills, rare artifacts, and large amounts of gold, said An Nahar. Explosives have also been smuggled in these shipments.

Norwegian NGO Car Shot at in Bekaa Attempted Robbery
Naharnet/December 23/15/A vehicle belonging to a Norwegian humanitarian NGO came under fire Tuesday in the Bekaa region during an attempted robbery, state-run National News Agency reported. “Unknown individuals shot at a car for the Norwegian Refugee Council on Maqneh's road in northern Bekaa in an attempted robbery,” NNA said. “After it turned out that the car does not contain any valuables, the gunmen released the passengers,” the agency added. No casualties or material damage were reported, it said.

Question: "What is the true meaning of Christmas?"
Answer: The true meaning of Christmas is love. John 3:16-17 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him." The true meaning of Christmas is the celebration of this incredible act of love. The real Christmas story is the story of God's becoming a human being in the Person of Jesus Christ. Why did God do such a thing? Because He loves us! Why was Christmas necessary? Because we needed a Savior! Why does God love us so much? Because He is love itself (1 John 4:8). Why do we celebrate Christmas each year? Out of gratitude for what God did for us, we remember His birth by giving each other gifts, worshipping Him, and being especially conscious of the poor and less fortunate. The true meaning of Christmas is love. God loved His own and provided a way—the only Way—for us to spend eternity with Him. He gave His only Son to take our punishment for our sins. He paid the price in full, and we are free from condemnation when we accept that free gift of love. "But God demonstrated His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).GotQuestions.org.

Why a new US law has Nasrallah riled
Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon/December 23/15
Banks have already begun action against Hezbollah members in anticipation of toughest financial sanctions yet.
Anyone watching Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s televised address Monday evening – one day after Israel’s assassination of renowned Hezbollah operative Samir Kuntar in Damascus – in the hopes of a lengthy and emotive eulogy of the slain militant was to be disappointed.
In the event, Nasrallah devoted less than half of his address to the man who was given a rock star’s reception in Beirut’s southern suburbs upon his release from Israeli prison in 2008, recounting just one anecdote of their time together and contenting himself, when declaring the party’s reaction to his killing, with reading matter-of-factly from the transcript of his January speech following Israel’s targeting of a joint Iranian-Hezbollah convoy in Syria’s Quneitra.
Instead, the subject that earned most of Nasrallah’s attention – and irritation – in the speech was a new law passed by the US Congress last week (signed by President Obama on Friday) mandating the toughest American sanctions yet on Hezbollah, any organization or individual affiliated with it, and any financial institution anywhere in the world that “knowingly facilitates a transaction” for them. Raising his voice, Nasrallah called on the Lebanese state to “be men” and refuse to comply with the new law, even while claiming at the same time that Hezbollah “will not be harmed at all” by it, since the party has “no money in Lebanese banks [….] does not transfer money in Lebanese banks […] [and] has no trading companies or partnerships in any Lebanese or non-Lebanese companies.”
Whether or not that is true of the party as an organization – and economists told NOW of their deep skepticism – it is plainly not true of many of its members as individuals. The Lebanese As-Safir newspaper, regarded as broadly sympathetic to Hezbollah, reported Wednesday that banks have in fact already begun taking measures against Hezbollah members, including parliamentarians. “One of the large banks,” the paper said, tried last month to close a current account through which a Hezbollah MP received his salary, prompting the personal intervention of Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and the issuing of a “serious warning” to the bank “that the Resistance ‘will be forced to defend itself against anyone coming to confront its people’.” The case was one of several “similar occurrences,” the paper added.
“The sanctions will have a significant impact on the individuals and institutions close to Hezbollah,” said Qassem Kassir, an analyst of Hezbollah who previously worked for the party-affiliated Al-Manar TV. “It will impact the party’s institutions […] any person charged with formal or informal links to the party [will find] their businesses and money under strict restrictions, and will be placed in a very difficult situation.”
Indeed, Al-Manar itself was singled out by Congress in the new law, which theoretically will sanction any bank providing current accounts for the TV station’s employees’ salaries (or, for that matter, carrying out financial transactions of any kind with the company). Kassir told NOW the “Al-Manar administration took measures a long time ago to avoid such problems,” but was unable to provide details.
One way the party may have got around the problem in Al-Manar’s case, to which it may have to resort more extensively now, is simply conducting financial transactions in cash or other means outside of the official banking system, economic analysts told NOW.
“The bancarization rate [proportion of the population using formal banking services] in Lebanon is not necessarily that high in all parts of the country,” said Thomas Schellen, regional editor of the Executive business magazine. “People can go back to older systems of payment that need not involve banks.”
This informal economy, which Schellen estimates comprises between 20 and 30 percent of the Lebanese economy overall, will thus be a key refuge for the party in evading the new sanctions. Another will be counting on them not to be implemented or enforced in full, which Schellen told NOW is often the case.
“There have been a number of laws [in the US] targeting institutions linked to Hezbollah,” he told NOW. “Every time the measures increase, they make things more difficult [for the party], but they don’t have a total, sweeping impact.”
And, needless to say, Hezbollah has its own ways of dissuading institutions from fully enforcing the sanctions, as the As-Safir article made clear, and as Nasrallah himself reminded the public in his speech Monday.
“I don’t request that the Lebanese state or any of its institutions protect Hezbollah, or its weapons, or its money […] we protect ourselves.”“And we know how to protect ourselves.”
Alex Rowell tweets @disgraceofgod/Amin Nasr contributed reporting.
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/reportsfeatures/566413-why-a-new-us-law-has-nasrallah-riled

When the enemy is a friend's friend
Hanin Ghaddar/Now Lebanon/December 23/15
Hezbollah's fears beyond the killing of Samir Kuntar
The assassination of Samir Kuntar earlier this week was a major slap on the face for Hezbollah and Iran — not because Kuntar is dead but because their support base in Lebanon and the region now understand their complicated alliance with Russia. Accordingly, Iran’s increasing vulnerability in Syria will be gradually exposed and this will further shake any remaining trust Shiites in the region have for Iran and Hezbollah.  This week, Shiites — mainly in Lebanon — face the bitter fact that Russia allowed Israel to assassinate Kuntar. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s speech following Kuntar’s funeral was beyond lame. He spoke about Kuntar for four cold minutes before proceeding to lash out for over 20 minutes about Shiites in Nigeria and the US sanctions against the Party of God.
Nasrallah is actually more concerned about three issues:
First, US sanctions against Hezbollah were recently increased. Some economic analysts in Lebanon say that the purpose of these sanctions is to make sure Hezbollah does not receive much-needed money after the sanctions against Iran are lifted, and Hezbollah’s Sayyed is certainly concerned about that prospect. Without money to pay for social services, fighters and their families, he and his party are doomed. Today, pro-Hezbollah papers and media leaked news that entailed a clear threat to the banks in Lebanon. Second, Hezbollah is more crippled than ever with the new and complicated alliances over Syria and Iraq. Nasrallah already knows that retaliation against Israel that could start another war is out of the question, yet some kind of retaliation is needed — something like the one following Jihad Mughniyeh’s assassination last year. But the Iran deal, followed by the new alliance between Russia and Iran on Syria, and the ongoing coordination between Russia and Israel, of which Kuntar’s assassination is an example, makes any Hezbollah retaliation far more complicated.
The third issue is Russia’s role in Syria. The Iranian and Hezbollah leaderships know that Russia cannot be trusted: its priority is to save Assad’s regime, not to protect Iran’s interests. In fact, what Iran wants in Syria differs substantially from what Russia wants, but the support base wasn’t aware of these discrepancies. Kuntar’s death has exposed the ugly truth about Russia’s coordination with Israel and how serious it is when it comes to targeting Hezbollah’s commanders and assets. Hezbollah cannot retaliate and now the support base understands this ugly truth. For these supporters, Iran is supposed to stand above all. Iran is not in Syria to make compromises over its authority and control, and it is certainly not supposed to accept an ally coordinating with an enemy. The assassination of Samir Kuntar revealed two things to the Shiite support base: that Iran is actually weak and is compromising in Syria, and that the region has moved beyond the Israeli/Arab conflict, and Hezbollah now has different priorities.
For Hezbollah, the most unsettling part of this military coordination between Russia and Israel is that it allows Israel to fly freely over Syria as long as it coordinates with Russia. Also, Russia knows the logistic and military details of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Syria. It’s extremely worrying to Hezbollah that Russia is sharing these details with Israel under this arrangement. Meanwhile, Iran is not benefiting from the Russian intervention. Rather, it is jeopardizing its plans both on military and diplomatic levels, which will eventually jeopardize its ambitions in the region.
As far as Russia is concerned, Iran, its interests, and its commanders can go to hell. Russia is in Syria for Russia, not for Iran. When Iran and the US signed the deal earlier this year, it was sold to the Shiite support base as a victory. ‘We brought the US to the table,’ they said. ‘We still have our nuclear program,’ they stated. ‘We will never be America’s allies.’ It wasn’t easy to satisfy everybody, but at least Iran didn’t lose in this deal. With the Russian intervention in Syria, however, Iran is actually losing territory, control and future prospects.
It will be extremely hard to sell this one.
**Hanin Ghaddar is the managing editor of NOW and a nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council. She tweets @haningdr
 

How will Nasrallah retaliate for death of Hezbollah leader in Syria?
Ali Hashem/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
DAMASCUS, Syria — The night of Dec. 19 wasn’t any different from other nights in Damascus. The streets were full of cars, despite electricity blackouts; the coffee shops were packed with customers; a large group of Syrian and Lebanese journalists attended a wedding at the Sheraton Hotel; and Samir Kuntar, the Lebanese commander of the “Syrian resistance for the liberation of occupied Golan,” was at his residence in the suburb of Jaramana to the east of Damascus.At 22:42 p.m., Twitter account Damascus Now tweeted: “Several mortars exploded in the city of Jaramana injuring several people.” This was to be normal, too, if it wasn't for the fact that what was thought to be mortars were missiles that destroyed the building and killed three men.
“Everyone in Jaramana knew that Kuntar lived in that building,” Mohammed, a Lebanese journalist in Damascus, told Al-Monitor on condition his last name be withheld.
He said, “They found the body, told the family, and it’s now all about Hezbollah’s statement in the morning.” At 4:18 a.m., Bassam Kuntar, Samir’s younger brother, tweeted the news: “With honor, we mourn Cmdr. Samir Kuntar and we proudly join the cavalcade of the martyrs’ families.”
Kuntar knew this would happen one day. In fact, he told pan-Arab news network Al-Mayadeen on July 1, “The most important thing is that even if Israel assassinated me, the path of resistance in Syria started and nobody can stop it.”
Kuntar discussed the issue with close friends and raised it with his leaders in Hezbollah.
“The Israeli threats on martyr Kuntar’s life existed from the day he was released, even before the issue of the popular resistance in the Golan Heights was discussed,” Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in a speech on Dec. 21, mourning the man whom he described as “one of us,” and vowing revenge. “It’s our right to seek revenge and we will practice this right — let this be known to everyone,” Nasrallah stressed.
Nasrallah spoke in a significantly calm manner, in comparison with speeches on similar occasions. Yet he was concise to the point of saying, “There’s no doubt that Israel carried out the assassination. It was a roaring military operation, not a silent ambiguous intelligence attack,” he said. “I’ll repeat what I said in January 2015: Whenever any cadre from the Islamic resistance is killed, we will hold Israel responsible and we will respond.”
To Hezbollah, the assassination of Kuntar is part of a parallel war on a different arena with Israel, the Golan front, which he referred to in his speech.
Kuntar, according to an Iranian source, had been working on building the “Syrian resistance for the liberation of occupied Golan” since May 2013.
Kuntar was dispatched to Syria and started working on old plans to bring this front alive. These plans were first brought to life by former Hezbollah military Cmdr. Imad Mughniyeh, who was assassinated in Damascus in February 2008.
A Syrian military source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “For 2½ years, Kuntar worked on building cells from residents of areas close to the borders with the Golan Heights. He worked on providing them with training, arms and salaries.”
He added, “His group was getting bigger; his first local officer was called Moafak Badriyeh, a Syrian from the village of Hadar from the liberated part of the Golan Heights. Badriyeh was later killed by Israel. He was responsible for launching rockets at Israeli posts in the occupied Golan Heights and bomb attacks.”
In March 2014, three major incidents took place in the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan Heights: an attack on March 5, March 14 and March 18. The last attack saw one Israeli soldier killed and seven wounded, while four were injured during the second attack.
On April 26, four Syrian fighters were killed during a clash with an Israeli patrol in the Golan Heights. A statement issued that afternoon by the popular Syrian resistance read: “Four Syrian resistance heroes were killed Sunday evening, April 26, 2015. Two from Hadar — Youssef Hassoun and Samih Badriyeh — and two sons of the martyr prisoner Walid Mahmoud from Majdal Shams, Nazih and Thaer Mahmoud.”
An Iranian military source told Al-Monitor that efforts to build the Syrian resistance was a main task executed by Kuntar in coordination with Hezbollah and under the direct supervision of Iran’s Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Nasrallah.
“This was an ambitious strategic project for the resistance bloc, and Kuntar played an important role in making it happen. He was assassinated by Israel and he already planned his own revenge,” the source said.
Earlier this year, on Jan. 18, five Hezbollah members and an Iranian general were killed near Quneitra on the border with the occupied Golan Heights, when Israeli helicopters launched an attack on their convoy. The victims included Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Hezbollah’s slain commander Mughniyeh, and Mohammed Issa, who is said to be the Hezbollah commander responsible for the Golan front.
Kuntar was thought to be part of the convoy, as the first rumors suggested he was one of the slain commanders. But he wasn’t there. At the time, Hezbollah responded by attacking an Israeli convoy on Jan. 28, killing two Israeli soldiers.
“Israel’s efforts to hit the Syrian resistance before it gets bigger and stronger indicates how much they are afraid of this front,” said the Syrian military source.
He explained that Kuntar and his team crossed an Israeli red line, saying, “Israel can’t tolerate seeing this resistance embryo growing and becoming a real threat. This is not only about Israel, or even America. How can we link between Kuntar’s designation on the US terror list and his assassination; this for sure had an American green light.”
On Sep. 8, the US State Department designated Kuntar as a “specially designated global terrorist.” According to a statement published on its website, Kuntar “played an operational role, with the assistance of Iran and Syria, in building up Hezbollah’s terrorist infrastructure in the Golan Heights.”
All ears were on Nasrallah’s speech to see if Hezbollah was willing to respond. Yet he kept what could be described as a poker face, keeping all options on the table. Nasrallah said he will respond anywhere his group chooses, and this means putting all borders shared with Israel on high alert, not only in Lebanon but also in Syria.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/syria-samir-kuntar-israel-hezbollah.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=072959ea68-December_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-072959ea68-102494681

70% of Syria Refugees in Lebanon Live in 'Extreme Poverty'
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/More than two-thirds of Syrian refugees in Lebanon live in extreme poverty, according to a United Nations study published Wednesday, up nearly 50 percent from last year. Based on an assessment of more than 4,000 refugee households, the report found that an estimated 70 percent of them are living below the Lebanese extreme poverty line of $3.84 per day. "This is a striking increase from 49 percent in 2014," said Mireille Girard, head of the U.N. refugee agency's Lebanon office. The inter-agency study was conducted by the World Food Program, the refugee agency and the U.N.'s children's fund.Refugees are facing a dire situation as their savings dry up, work opportunities are increasingly rare and humanitarian aid packages grow smaller. According to the study, the refugees are borrowing to cover even their most basic needs, including rent, food, and healthcare, putting nearly 90 percent of them in debt. Household spending dropped to $493 per month from $762 in 2014, reflecting reduced quality of food consumed and a heightened reliance on debt and humanitarian aid. To cope, families are pulling their children from school so that they can work. Only five percent of 15-17 year olds attended school this year. Instead, many work in agricultural fields for as little as $4 a day. "The Syria crisis is a tragedy for children on an unimaginable scale and continues to significantly impact their protection, wellbeing and development across the entire region," said Tanya Chapuisat, head of the U.N. children's agency in Lebanon. "Children's exposure to violence, poverty and displacement are having enormous consequences, in the immediate and long-term," she added. U.N. agencies, partner organizations and the Lebanese government are requesting $2.48 billion for the coming year to support refugees and host communities. The U.N.'s findings "represent an urgent call to action, demanding that no time is spared in addressing the increasing needs and vulnerabilities of Syrian refugees here in Lebanon," said Gawaher Atif of the World Food Program.More than four million refugees have fled Syria for the relative safety of the neighboring countries, according to the U.N. Millions more have been internally displaced.

Three Israelis Stabbed, Palestinian Attackers Killed
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/Two Palestinians stabbed three Israelis near Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday and were shot dead by security forces, police said. The victims were taken to hospital in serious condition, Israel's Magen David Adom emergency medical service said.
The incident occurred at the Old City's Jaffa Gate, a popular entrance for tourists at a time of increased visits to the Holy Land for the Christmas season. A wave of violence since the start of October has claimed the lives of 124 on the Palestinian side, 17 Israelis, an American and an Eritrean.
Many of the Palestinians killed have been attackers, while others have been shot dead by Israeli security forces during clashes. The Shin Bet internal security agency said Wednesday that it had arrested a group of 25 Palestinians in recent weeks for planning bombing and suicide attacks against Israelis. The agency said most of the suspects were students at Abu Dis university in the West Bank who were recruited by Hamas operatives in the Gaza Strip to "form a military infrastructure to carry out bombing attacks."The Shin Bet said it had also found an apartment in Abu Dis rented by the group's leader and equipped with materials that could be used to make bombs. One of the suspects was an east Jerusalem resident, and another was a Bedouin from southern Israel who as a citizen could travel freely in Israel, it said. A number of the suspects had agreed to carry out suicide bombings in return for money from Hamas in Gaza, the Shin Bet said. It said the organization was proof of Hamas' increased efforts to use the recent rise in violence in the West Bank to try execute bombing and suicide attacks there and in Israel.

Saudi King Blames Assad for IS Rise in Syria
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/Saudi King Salman accused Syrian President Bashar Assad Wednesday of having aided the rise of the Islamic State group and called for a political settlement with moderate forces to end the war there. The solution would be to form "a transitional government made up of moderate opposition forces, ensuring the unity of Syrians and the departure of foreign forces and terrorist organizations," the king said in an annual speech to the consultative Shura Council. These organizations "could not have found fertile ground in Syria, had it not been for the Syrian regime's policies, which have exterminated hundreds of thousands... and displaced millions" of people, said the monarch. More than 250,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict broke out in March 2011. The kingdom, a key-backer of Syrian opposition groups, has repeatedly insisted on Assad's departure. Earlier this month, Riyadh hosted a meeting of various Syrian armed and political opposition groups who agreed to negotiate with the regime but set Assad's departure as a condition for any eventual political transition process. The kingdom "calls for a political solution to end Syria's crisis," said King Salman, who turns 80 later this month and who made only a brief appearance at the council. He read only part of the speech, the entire text of which was later published on the official SPA news agency. In November, foreign ministers from countries that back and oppose Assad's regime agreed on a roadmap to end the conflict. This would see a transitional government set up within six months, after regime-opposition talks, and elections within 18 months.

Saudis Commute Maid's Stoning Death Sentence
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/A Saudi Arabian court has commuted the death-by-stoning sentence passed on a Sri Lankan maid convicted of adultery, the government in Colombo said on Wednesday. "We have succeeded in getting the death sentence overturned. Our concern was to make sure that the original sentence was not carried out," Harsha de Silva, the deputy foreign minister, told reporters in Sri Lanka's capital. "The government of Sri Lanka wishes to acknowledge and appreciate the good offices of the Saudi authorities," De Silva said. "The sympathy, understanding and the concern expressed, and assistance extended, by many other parties is also noted and deeply appreciated."De Silva said the woman would now serve a "short jail sentence" but details on the exact time that she would have to remain behind bars were not yet clear. The 45-year-old married mother of two, who has not been named, was convicted of adultery in August after her arrest in April last year. She was sentenced to death by stoning, while an unmarried Sri Lankan man convicted alongside her was sentenced to 100 lashes. De Silva said the Sri Lankan government had not appealed on behalf of the man. It ws not clear if his punishment had been carried out.
Calls to ban maids
Sri Lankan lawmakers urged the government earlier this month to ban sending housemaids to Saudi Arabia if the death by stoning sentence was carried out. De Silva said the government did not want to restrict anyone seeking employment abroad. Lawmakers from both the government and the opposition had united earlier this month in urging Colombo to secure clemency for the woman and a pardon for the man. Neither is said to have had legal representation when their case was first taken up and the Sri Lankan authorities were alerted to the case only after the sentence was announced. Foreign employment minister Thalatha Athukorala said many Sri Lankans employed in Gulf states got into trouble as they were unaware of local laws as well as cultural and religious practices. "We try to educate them before they take up foreign employment. We even show them pictures of (executions) punishment," she said adding that about 40 percent of Sri Lankans seeking foreign employment did not register with the authorities. In 2013 Sri Lanka recalled its envoy to Riyadh to protest against the beheading of a Sri Lankan maid convicted of murdering a child in her care in 2005 when she herself was 17 years old. Sri Lanka maintained she did not receive a fair trial and appeals for clemency were rejected. Under the conservative kingdom's strict Islamic sharia legal code, murder, armed robbery, rape, adultery, drug trafficking and apostasy are all punishable by death. There are some 450,000 Sri Lankans currently employed in Saudi Arabia alone while about 10 percent of the island's 21 million population are employed abroad. Foreign remittances make up the biggest single source of income for the country.

Russian FM Hosts Pro-Kurdish Party Leader for Syria Talks
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday hosted Turkey's pro-Kurdish party leader Selahattin Demirtas for talks on the Syrian conflict and Moscow's potential support for Kurdish groups fighting Islamic State jihadists.Ankara is warily watching if Moscow will tighten links with Kurdish factions amid the crisis in bilateral ties following the downing of a Russian bomber by Turkey at the Syrian border last month. "We know that there are Iraqi and Syrian Kurds who are fighting the threat of ISIS (Islamic State group) and other extremist groups with weapons on the ground," Lavrov told Demirtas, the leader of Turkey's Democratic People's Party (HDP). "Russia... is ready to actively cooperate with those on the ground who are fighting this threat," he said in remarks released by the foreign ministry. "We will be ready and interested in considering your views in our further work on this multi-level front," he said. Demirtas is the first high-profile Turkish figure to visit Moscow since Turkey shot down a Russian warplane on the Turkish-Syrian border on November 24. The incident sparked the biggest crisis in ties between Moscow and Ankara since the end of the Cold War and saw Moscow introduce a raft of economic sanctions against Turkey. The Turkish government has criticized the visit of the main Kurdish opposition party leader to Russia. "Why are they going at such a time to a country with which we are having a crisis because of their violation of this nation's airspace?" Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu asked on Tuesday. In a move likely to further infuriate Ankara, Lavrov said Russia supports Demirtas' Democratic People's Party platform which "ensures unity of the (Turkish) nation" by supporting the rights of ethnic groups in the country. Russia's top diplomat told Demirtas that Moscow's sanctions against Turkey and its position over the warplane downing in no way extend "to our relationship with the Turkish people." "It is important to unite all the resources of those who seek to decisively battle terrorism," Lavrov added.

Triple IS Suicide Attack Kills 11 Syrian Regime Fighters
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/Three suicide attacks by the Islamic State group killed 11 pro-regime fighters in the eastern Syrian city of Deir Ezzor Wednesday, a monitoring group said. "Eleven soldiers and pro-regime militiamen were killed and 20 others wounded in the industrial neighborhood in eastern Deir Ezzor city," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. They were killed in "three explosions of bomb-laden cars driven by IS suicide bombers." IS controls most of oil-rich Deir Ezzor province and about half of the city, which lies about 450 kilometers (280 miles) northeast of Damascus, near the Iraqi border. According to the Observatory, IS' violent attack allowed it to advance slightly in the city, but Syrian and Russian warplanes were fiercely striking their positions. Russia has been conducting an air war in Syria since September. Syria's official news agency SANA also confirmed the car bombings, but said government forces had been able to push IS back. Elsewhere in Syria, the toll from deadly strikes likely conducted by Russian warplanes in Idlib province on Sunday rose to 58 people, mostly fighters. The toll did include six Islamic court judges from the Ahrar al-Sham hardline group, which is allied with al-Qaida's Syrian branch. Since it erupted in March 2011, Syria's conflict has left more than 250,000 people dead.

Iraq Forces in Final Push to Retake Ramadi
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/Iraqi forces closed in on the Islamic State group's last redoubts in central Ramadi Wednesday to retake the city they lost in May and further shrink the jihadists' "caliphate". A day after punching deep into the city center, forces led by the elite counter-terrorism service (CTS) inched towards the governmental compound in Ramadi, the capital of Iraq's vast Anbar province. "The anti-terrorism troops are now poised to break into the Hoz area where the governmental compound is located," a brigadier general in the force told AFP. The recapture of the compound would mark another key step towards reasserting full control over Ramadi, whose liberation a CTS spokesman said Tuesday would be achieved in three days. Government forces, which have been supported by daily air strikes from the U.S.-led coalition, had to move carefully through the devastated city, whose deserted streets were littered with rubble and shrapnel. Retreating IS fighters usually booby-trap their abandoned positions, plant roadside bombs and move in tunnels which can also be trapped with huge explosive charges. Iraqi forces clearing residential neighborhoods in Ramadi were finding huge amounts of ammunition and explosives, including rockets made from gas canisters. Officials estimated before the latest push into Ramadi that no more than 300 IS fighters remained holed up in the center. "The fall of Ramadi is inevitable, the end is coming but... it's going be a tough fight," the U.S.-led coalition's spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, told reporters on Tuesday. He said thousands of civilians were still believed to be inside Ramadi, some of them used as human shields by IS, also known as ISIS or by the Arabic acronym Daesh. Several officials said groups of IS fighters were trying to slip through gaps in the Iraqi forces' net around the city. "Dozens of Daesh members have withdrawn from the city center towards Sufiya and Sichariyah," east of Ramadi along the Euphrates Valley, said Ibrahim al-Fahdawi, who heads the security committee in Khaldiya district. The recapture of Ramadi would further isolate IS-held Fallujah -- which lies half way on the road to Baghdad -- and undermine the viability of the group's self-proclaimed "caliphate". - 'Battle of attrition' -Iraq's defense minister, Khaled al-Obeidi, said last week that successive operations by the Iraqi security forces and its allies had shrunk the territory held by IS in Iraq from roughly 40 percent of the country last year to 17 percent. Tuesday's big push into central Ramadi was only the latest step in a months-long operation, which saw Iraqi forces gradually close in after cutting off supply lines into Anbar and retaking neighborhoods, key roads and bridges one after the other. "This has been a grinding battle of attrition. I think ISIS in Ramadi is exhausted. The city has been isolated for a while," said David Witty, a retired US army special forces colonel and former adviser to CTS. The slow pace of the Ramadi operation had triggered calls from some critics for a greater role for the Shiite-dominated Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary forces or even US troops on the ground. But Baghdad largely stuck to its strategy, resorting to newly trained local forces from Anbar to move in and hold the ground reconquered by federal forces. The loss of Ramadi in mid-May had been Baghdad's worst defeat in the war against IS and its recapture would provide a welcome morale boost to the country's much-criticized military. "It could be symbolic in strengthening more local resistance in Anbar against ISIS, supported by Iraqi federal forces," Witty said. The jihadist group, which swept through swathes of Iraq in early June 2014, still controls much of Anbar, which is Iraq's largest province and has borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Government forces, allied Shiite militia and Kurdish peshmerga forces are also battling IS on other fronts. The jihadist group still controls Mosul, Iraq's second city.

Istanbul Airport Blast Kills One, Damages Planes
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/A female cleaner was killed and another wounded early Wednesday after an explosion near a plane at Istanbul's second international airport, with Turkey on high alert for possible attacks. The authorities said it was too early confirm if the airport had been targeted in an attack, but the transport minister said there had been no security lapses. Five planes suffered slight damage as a result of fragments from the explosion, the minister said.Airport cleaner Zehra Yamac, 30, died of head wounds hours after the blast just after 2:00 am (midnight GMT) on the tarmac at Sabiha Gokcen airport on the Asian side of Turkey's largest city, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.Turkey's private carrier Pegasus Airlines said in a statement the explosion occurred next to one of its planes while the two cleaners were nearby. "There were no passengers either on the plane or on the stairway. Sabiha Gokcen airport is continuing its normal operations," Pegasus said. The wounded victim, also a cleaner, was hurt in the leg. Yamac was hospitalized but died of her wounds despite the efforts of medical staff, Anatolia said. Police stepped up security at airport entrances after the blast, searching vehicles while a police helicopter circled overhead, Anatolia said. Security was also stepped up at Istanbul's largest airport, Ataturk, on the European side of the city, with police checking vehicles entering the complex, Turkish television said.
'No security weakness'
Transport Minister Binali Yildirim said five planes were damaged and were now being repaired in the airport's hanger. But he declined to give details on the possible cause. "At this moment it's too early to give a verdict but I want to emphasize there is no weakness concerning security," Yildirim told Anatolia.
Neither President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu referred to the incident in speeches on Wednesday. The airport said on its official Twitter account that "flights from our terminals are continuing according to schedule." Sabiha Gokcen airport, named after Turkey's first female fighter pilot, is the second international airport in Istanbul after much larger Ataturk airport. Sabiha Gokcen hosts flights both to domestic and numerous international destinations often with budget airlines but also national flag carrier Turkish Airlines. In 2015, up to November, it hosted over 17 million domestic passengers and almost nine million international passengers, according to company figures. It is now fully owned by Malaysian Airports Holding which completed the acquisition of the remaining shares in the airport this year. "We are working very closely with the Turkish government and our counterparts to facilitate the investigation, and we await their official report on it," Dato' Azmi Murad, the executive director of Sabiha Gokcen said in a statement. "The Turkish government has heightened security within the vicinity of the airport, which includes helicopter surveillance," he added.
'Normal operations'
According to Azmi, the airport resumed "normal flight operations" around two hours after the blast.Turkey is on alert after 103 people were killed on October 10 when two suicide bombers ripped through a crowd of peace activists in the capital Ankara, the worst attack in its modern history.
That attack was blamed on Islamic State (IS) jihadists, like two other deadly strikes in the country's Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the year. Turkish authorities have in recent weeks detained several suspected IS members with officials saying they were planning attacks in Istanbul.
But Turkey is also waging an all-out assault on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) which has staged dozens of deadly attacks against members of the security forces in the southeast of the country. Meanwhile the banned ultra-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party–Front (DHKP-C) has also staged a string of usually small-scale attacks in Istanbul over the last months.

Drone Strike Kills 4 Qaida Suspects in Yemen
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/December 23/15/A presumed U.S. drone strike has killed four suspected members of al-Qaida in central Yemen, a security official said Wednesday. The raid targeted their vehicle on Tuesday evening near the border of Baida and Shabwa provinces, the official said.
The United States is the only country known to operate armed drones over Yemen. It has kept up strikes on militants during months of fighting between pro-government forces and Shiite Huthi rebels who control the capital. Yemen, home to what the United States considers Al-Qaeda's most dangerous affiliate, has been convulsed by unrest since the Iran-backed Huthis seized Sanaa in September last year. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has exploited the turmoil to tighten its grip on parts of southeast Yemen, including Mukalla, the capital of Hadramawt province, imposing a strict form of Islamic law. Islamist militants, including AQAP and the Islamic State group, have also gained ground in and around the main southern city of Aden, where a Yemeni naval officer was shot dead overnight by unknown gunmen, security officials said.

Why Palestinians Love Baby-Killers
Bassam Tawil/Gatestone Institute/December 23/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7098/palestinians-baby-killers
Samir Kuntar murdered four Israelis. One of his victims was a four-year-old girl, Einat Haran. Kuntar smashed her skull. Kuntar was killed this week in Syria while helping President Bashar Assad commit war crimes against his own citizens.
Senior Palestinian official Sultan Abu Al-Einein evidently believes that murdering Jews is not a "despicable crime," but killing an arch-terrorist such as Kuntar is a "despicable crime."
When the Western-backed Palestinian Authority openly endorses terrorists and names streets, squares and schools after them, Palestinian leaders are sending a message to their people that murdering Jews is a noble and dignified act. This show of solidarity with a baby-killer is the direct result of ongoing incitement against Israel and Jews in mosques, the press and social media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In this sick, twisted society that the Europeans have bought and paid for, anyone who murders Jews is considered a role model. Anyone who supports peace with Israel is denounced as a "traitor."
Samir Kuntar was a terrorist who committed one of the most brutal terrorist attacks one can imagine. On April 22, 1979, Kuntar, who was then 16 years old, murdered four Israelis in the Israeli city of Nahariya. One of his victims was a four-year-old girl, Einat Haran. Kuntar smashed her skull after murdering her 31-year-old father, Danny.
This week, Kuntar was killed in an explosion that destroyed his apartment south of the Syrian capital, Damascus. He had been in Syria helping President Bashar Assad commit war crimes against his own Syrian citizens. Kuntar had been sent to Syria also as part of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah terror group, to plan major terror attacks against Israel from Syria.
Kuntar was not a Palestinian. He was Lebanese Druze. This irregularity still has not stopped Palestinians from adoring him for murdering Jews. Palestinians will worship anyone who carries out a terror attack against Israel or Jews -- such as the Japanese terrorist, Kozo Okamoto, who led the 1972 massacre at Israel's Lod Airport, in which 24 people were murdered and more than 70 wounded.
Lebanese terrorist Samir Kuntar (center) was killed this week in Syria. Kuntar murdered four Israelis in 1979, including a four-year-old girl. Kuntar's murderous résumé turned him into a hero in the eyes of many prominent Palestinians.
In the eyes of many Palestinians, Kuntar's murderous résumé, like Okamoto's, has turned him into a "martyr" and a "hero." The arch-terrorist is now being mourned in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as a "national hero and fighter" who sacrificed his life for the sake of the Palestinians. This is who many Palestinians consider their role model: the only requirement is that they try to destroy Israel and murder Jews. It is as if all the Muslims in France idolized the men who committed the November 13 massacres at Paris's football stadium and the Bataclan Theater, and committed themselves to being just like them.
The love affair between Kuntar and the Palestinians began many years ago, while the terrorist was serving time in Israeli prison. Palestinian prisoners such as Fatah's Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Sa'dat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), proudly posted photos of themselves posing with Kuntar. Barghouti is now serving five life sentences for his role in deadly terror attacks against Jews between 2000 and 2006. Sa'dat is in prison for his role in gunning down Israel's Minister of Tourism, Rehavam Ze'evi, in a hotel in 2001.
Upon learning of Kuntar's death, Barghouti, who is a senior official with the "moderate" and Western-backed Fatah faction, published the following eulogy: "One thousand greetings to your soul. We shall meet."
Although the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority has so far refrained from commenting on the assassination of the Lebanese Druze terrorist, Fatah websites have been mourning and praising Kuntar as a "hero" and "martyr."
Einat, Danny and Yael Haran were murdered by Samir Kuntar in 1979.
Sultan Abu Al-Einein, a senior Fatah official who is close to President Mahmoud Abbas, and apparently does not favor terrorists being killed, denounced the assassination as a "despicable Israeli crime." Abu Al-Einein went on to praise Kuntar as a "martyr" who had contributed to the Palestinian cause from the age of 16. Not surprisingly, the Fatah official failed to mention that Kuntar had brutally murdered four Israelis, including a little girl. Evidently, Abu Al-Einein believes that murdering Jews is not a "despicable crime," but killing an arch-terrorist is a "despicable crime" -- one that requires the entire international community to punish those responsible!
In the Gaza Strip, only hours after the terrorist was killed in Syria, a Palestinian father, Maher Huthut, announced that he has named his newborn baby after Samir Kuntar. The announcement was presumably meant to express Palestinian "gratitude" for Kuntar's "sacrifices" on behalf of the Palestinians. In yet another sign of affection for Kuntar, various Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip set up a large tent to receive condolences over his death. Hundreds of Palestinians visited the tent to express their deep condolences over his death, and many pledged to follow in Kuntar's footsteps.
Palestinian factions are now planning a similar move in Ramallah, only a few hundred meters away from the office and residence of President Mahmoud Abbas.
This outpouring of sympathy and affection from the Palestinians for Kuntar should not surprise anyone. Palestinians have long been glorifying terrorists and jihadis who attack and kill any Jew, whether soldier or civilian. When Palestinian leaders -- the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, not even Hamas -- openly endorse terrorists and name streets, squares and schools after them, they are sending a message to their people that murdering Jews is a noble and dignified undertaking, and that it is virtuous to do more of it!
It is frankly disgusting, even as a Palestinian, to see so many of my countrymen mourning and heaping praise on a man who murders babies. This show of solidarity with a baby-killer and arch-terrorist is the direct result of the ongoing incitement against Israel and Jews that takes place each day in mosques, the press and social media in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It is precisely this non-stop incitement and indoctrination that is driving young Palestinians to take knives, run out, and stab the first Jew they meet.
Despite what the European politicians funding them wish to think, Palestinian leaders are not educating their people for tolerance, non-violence and peace. Instead, with the money they are given by these dreamy northerners who seem to imagine the world is one big loving day-care center, they continue to poison the hearts and minds of their people through incendiary lies and the most bigoted rhetoric.
The Europeans, who are largely bankrolling this venom, should be made to know that this is what their generosity is used for. And that this is precisely why no peace process with Israel will ever work. Thanks mainly to the largesse of European funding that keeps most Palestinians from thinking of other ways to earn a living, Palestinian terrorism is now a big business! The gullible Europeans have enabled an entire generation to be raised on the glorification of terrorists such as Kuntar. I do hope this makes the Europeans feel very good about themselves.
In this sick, twisted society that the Europeans have bought and paid for, anyone who murders Jews is considered a role model. But anyone who supports peace with Israel is instantly denounced as a "traitor." It is high time for the Europeans and others in the West to wake up.
*Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.
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Turkey and Israel: A Rickety Handshake
Burak Bekdil/Gatestone Institute/December 23/15
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/7100/turkey-israel-handshake
It would be truly embarrassing if a Turkey-Israel normalization results in new arms shipments into Gaza and rockets over Israeli skies -- with the only achievement being a temporary peace with Turkey's Islamists, who never hide their ideological kinship with Hamas.
The future Turkish and Israeli ambassadors would always have to keep their bags packed, ready to return to their own capitals at the first dispute – which could be caused by Israeli retaliation against Arab terrorism or anything that may make Erdogan roar in front of cameras.
How do you shake hands with a man whom you know ideologically hates you and wishes to mess up things at his earliest convenience?
None of this happened half a century ago; the timeline here covers only a span of a year and a half: A Turkish-Kurdish pop star wrote on her Twitter account, "May God bless Hitler. He did far less [than he should have done to Jews]." The mayor of Ankara replied: "I applaud you!" Hundreds of angry Turks, hurling rocks, tried to break into the Israeli diplomatic missions in Ankara and Istanbul. The mayor of Ankara said: "We will conquer the consulate of the despicable murderers." He blamed the Charlie Hebdo massacre in Paris on Israel's Mossad. Islamist columnists close to the government suggested imposing a "wealth tax" on Turkish Jews (who are full citizens). A governor threatened to suspend restoration work at a synagogue. And a credible research group at the Kadir Has University in Istanbul found in a poll that Turks view Israel as the top threat to Turkey.
Against such a background, Turkish and Israeli diplomats are negotiating a historical deal that will, in theory, end Turkey's hostility toward the Jewish state and normalize diplomatic ties between Ankara and Jerusalem.
In 2010, a Turkish flotilla, led by the Mavi Marmara with hundreds of jihadists and anti-Israeli "intellectuals" aboard, sailed toward the coast of Gaza, aiming to break Israel's naval blockade of the Hamas-run strip. Israel's naval blockade aims to prevent weapons such as rockets being smuggled into Gaza. To stop the flotilla, naval commandos of the Israel Defense Forces boarded the vessel and, during clashes, killed nine aboard.
The Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara, which took part in the 2010 "Gaza flotilla" that attempted to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza. (Image source: "Free Gaza movement"/Flickr)
Since the incident, Turkey's Islamist leaders have pledged to isolate Israel internationally and have downgraded diplomatic ties with Jerusalem. They have put forward three conditions before any normalization could take place: an Israeli apology, compensation for the families of the victims and the removal of the naval blockade on Gaza.
After President Barack Obama's intervention, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2013 apologized for "any error that may have led to the loss of life." Turkey's two other conditions remain unfulfilled. But diplomatic teams from Ankara and Jerusalem are apparently working on a deal. There are good reasons why an accord may or may not be possible.
Since the nearest Turkish election is four years from now, neither Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan nor his prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has any reason to cultivate further anti-Semitism at election rallies in order harvest votes from conservative masses who are deeply hostile to Israel and Jews. These are days when Turkey's leaders need not practice their usual anti-Israeli rhetoric.
There is another reason related to "timing" that makes a deal attainable. After pledging to isolate Israel, Turkey has become the most isolated country in the region, especially after the recent crisis with Russia that emerged after two Turkish F-16 fighters shot down a Russian SU-24 aircraft along Turkey's Syrian border on Nov. 24.
In its region, Turkey does not have diplomatic relations with Cyprus and Armenia. It has downgraded diplomatic relations with Israel and Egypt. It is confronted by Shiite and Shiite-dominated regimes in Iran and Iraq, respectively. On top of all that, an angry Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, curses and threatens every day to punish Turkey. Turkey buys over half of its natural gas and 10% of its oil from Russia.
Therefore, a third incentive could be a mutually beneficial future deal for Turkey to buy natural gas from Israel. If the two countries build an underwater pipeline, Turkey can compensate for the potential loss of Russian gas supplies, starting in 2019. For Israel, a pipeline to Turkey would be the most commercially feasible route to export its gas to Turkey and other potential buyers beyond.
A Turkish-Israeli handshake would also be music to ears in Washington. Deep hostility and occasional tensions between its two allies in the Middle East have always been unnerving for the U.S. administration.
The road ahead has its problems. Turkey's second condition for normalization, compensation, is not too difficult to overcome. But the third condition, that Israel should remove the naval blockade of Gaza -- and risk weapons being smuggled into the hands of Hamas (or other terrorist groups) -- could be an unsafe move for Israel.
It would be truly embarrassing if a Turkey-Israel normalization results in new arms shipments into Gaza and rockets over Israeli skies -- with the only achievement being a temporary peace with Turkey's Islamists, who never hide their ideological kinship with Hamas.
If Netanyahu decides to take risks and go for a deal, he must make sure that however the naval blockade of Gaza would be eased, it does not expose Israel to the risk of new acts of terror.
Another risk is the potential psychological domino effect any deal could cause. It is certain that Turkish Islamists will portray any deal as a success story -- that they were able to "bring Israel to its knees." This message, relayed through a systematic propaganda machine, could set a dangerous precedent and potentially encourage Arab Islamists to consider more assertive policies toward Israel in the future.
The future Turkish and Israeli ambassadors would always have to keep their bags packed, ready to return to their own capitals at the first dispute – which could be caused by Israeli retaliation against Arab terrorism or anything that may make Erdogan roar in front of cameras, "Our Palestinian brothers ... Those murderer Jews again ... Go back to your pre-1967 borders or you'll suffer the consequences!"
Netanyahu's problem is that he does not trust Erdogan in the least. He is right not to trust Erdogan. But then how do you shake hands with a man whom you know ideologically hates you and wishes to mess up things at his earliest convenience?
**Burak Bekdil, based in Ankara, is a Turkish columnist for the Hürriyet Daily and a Fellow at the Middle East Forum.
© 2015 Gatestone Institute. All rights reserved. No part of the Gatestone website or any of its contents may be reproduced, copied or modified, without the prior written consent of Gatestone Institute
The Saudi Coalition… and the Iranian Axis!
By Ahmad El-Assaad December 23/15
During the past few days, certain political parties have wreaked havoc when Prime Minister Tammam Salam approved the Islamic coalition formed by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to face terrorism; they accused him of acting impulsively, and taking decisions in Lebanon’s name without going back to the Cabinet.
Even if PM Salam himself has clarified that his stances are preliminary, and nothing but a “declaration of intentions”, under the constitutional procedures adopted in such cases, we find that his position is in complete harmony with the orientations of the Cabinet he chairs, and all the previous cabinets, pertaining to fighting terrorism.
Furthermore, it is only natural that Lebanon joins any coalition aimed to fight terrorism, given the fact that it is located on the first line of defense. So would it be logical to refuse such an initiative that could bring so much benefit to the country, and provide it with support on more than one level? Is it possible to refrain from participating in a wide front that could supplement it with military capabilities, intelligence and security information that would promote its capability to counter terrorism, be it on the border regions or in the interior?
The Islamic world must be the first to work on defeating this terrorism that is hiding behind the Islamic religion, because the interference of the West might fuel extremism and exacerbate it. Thus, the best weapon to eradicate terrorism is for the Muslims to face it, militarily, politically, religiously, socially and educationally.
In any case, they are blaming PM Salam for approving the Islamic Coalition without checking with the Cabinet. But could the critics, most of whom are in the Hezbollah-dominated 8 March camp, tell us if Hezbollah has ever checked with the Cabinet, or any of its fellow citizens, when it answered Iran’s call to enter the war in Syria?
Hezbollah has waged its own war in Syria. It sends fighters there on a daily basis, throwing the whole of Lebanon in this furnace without any respect to the government or its institutions, nor to the majority of the Lebanese people who refuse all participation in this war, and wants to live in peace.
PM Salam’s approval of the Islamic Coalition will certainly not mean that Lebanon will send its men to war, because they’re fighting terrorism on a daily basis as it is. As for Hezbollah’s participation in the Iranian axis, it results in the fact that Lebanese young men are coming back home to their families in coffins, every day.
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If it ain't broke, don't fix it: Why Turkey and Iran's 376 years of peace will continue
Ali Omidi/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
ESFAHAN, Iran — Turkey and Iran, and their predecessor states, have not engaged in war or violated each other’s borders since the 1639 Treaty of Qasr-e Shirin signed between the Safavid and Ottoman Empires.Every now and then, and especially when Turkey’s secular parties have been in power, the two nations have had differing views on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) or the Islamist groups in Turkey. However, these tensions have always subsided quickly. When the Islamists came into power, there appeared to be a warming of political ties. For instance, the $23 billion gas pipeline deal between Tehran and Ankara is the legacy of former Turkish Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan (1996-97), who was an Islamist. Indeed, with the coming to power of Turkey’s Justice and Development Party in 2002, bilateral relations soared to an unprecedented level. However, once the crisis in Syria emerged in March 2011, things took a turn for the worse.
At first, both countries tried to not let the situation in Syria influence their bilateral relations — but unfortunately, it did. Indeed, the worsening of the situations in Syria and Iraq amid the rise of the Islamic State (IS) all appear to have fertilized the growth of tension. The question now is where the verbal disputes between Iran and Turkey may lead.
After seeing their relations strained over Syria, Turkey and Iran also engaged in a verbal disagreement over the crisis in Yemen. The two countries lined up on opposing fronts, with Tehran backing Yemen’s Houthi fighters and Ankara backing Saudi Arabia. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Iran of trying to dominate the Middle East and said Iran’s efforts had begun to annoy both Turkey and its Arab allies. Following these events, a group of 65 Iranian parliamentarians called on Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani to demand an end to Erdogan’s accusations.
Turkey’s Nov. 24 downing of a Russian warplane, and the ensuing tensions between Moscow and Ankara, have fueled the worsening of the negative atmosphere surrounding Iran-Turkey relations. Some Iranian officials, elites and media outlets have begun to sympathize with Moscow by reiterating Russian accusations against Turkey over the Nov. 24 incident. For instance, Iranian member of parliament Laleh Eftekhari mistook a photo of Erdogan’s son, Bilal, along with the owners of a Turkish restaurant for Bilal meeting with IS leaders. Eftekhari even wrote a letter to Turkey’s first lady to voice regret over her silence on Bilal’s supposed close ties with IS. Subsequently, Mohsen Rezaei, a senior military adviser to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and also secretary of the Expediency Council, expressed support for Russia’s stance against Turkey. Conservative news agencies such as Fars News have echoed Rezaei’s stance in support of Russia, publishing photos insinuating Turkish ties with IS and other material with questionable credibility.
Furthermore, in a telephone conversation with Rouhani in August, Erdogan criticized Iranian officials and media for their approach toward Turkey, asking, “How can a Muslim ruin the name of another Muslim?” Erdogan also made damning comments in an interview with Al Jazeera, in which he criticized both Iran and Iraq’s regional policies, arguing that they have fueled sectarianism in Syria and Iraq. Yet the peak of Turkish criticism came when Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Tehran that bilateral ties would be severely damaged if Iran continues its current policies toward Turkey.
Regardless of some Iranian officials and elites’ baseless accusations against Turkey and Erdogan’s family, the reality is that Ankara and Tehran are experiencing some misunderstandings as well as geopolitical rivalries in Iraq, Syria and, to a lesser degree, Yemen. Turkey believes that by aiding the Iraqi government and emphasizing its Shiite identity, or by supporting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and emphasizing its Alawite identity, Iran is seeking to spread Shiite Islam in the Fertile Crescent. Ankara thus seemingly believes that Iran is trying to fuel the Shiite-Sunni divide and change the regional political balance to the disadvantage of Sunnis and Ankara. However, Iran’s goal is in essence to create strategic depth against Israel. This misunderstanding about Iran’s action is a major reason why the Turks are not interested in having the geopolitical balance tilted in favor of Russia or Iran. Hence, Turkey’s attempt to maintain a military presence in Iraq’s Bashiqa district — which it partially withdrew under US pressure — as well as its political flirtations with the Iraqi Kurds, and the downing of the Russian plane, should all be viewed in the context of the latter. For this reason, Davutoglu sees Turkey’s move to station forces along the outskirts of Mosul as a way to disrupt the regional strategic balance and prevent IS from sharing a border with Turkey.
The current level of rivalry between Iran and Turkey may appear like that between the Safavids and Ottomans in the 17th century. However, this analogy does not fit with the current structure and realities of either country. For several reasons, the current verbal disputes between Tehran and Ankara will not spiral to a military standoff or any other acts of violence, and the two states are bound to eventually tone down their verbal tensions.
First, Iran needs the dollars it makes through exporting oil and natural gas to Turkey. Ankara, in return, wants Iranian energy. Given the recent escalation of tensions between Moscow and Ankara, the latter is especially important since it will be almost impossible for Turkey to replace Iranian natural gas. Although Turkey has signed an agreement to import liquefied natural gas from Qatar, it will take some time for this deal to be implemented — and energy is not something that can wait. It should also be noted that 90-95% of Iran’s natural gas exports go to Turkey. Indeed, Iran is the second-largest gas exporter to Turkey, after Russia. Hence, without Ankara, Tehran would have no market for its natural gas. Consequently, neither Iran nor Turkey are able to overlook the exchange of dollars and gas.
Second, Iran and Turkey both consider each other as important trade partners. Bilateral trade volume reached some $14.8 billion in 2014, and there are hopes that it will reach $30 billion by 2020 — although the latter appears unlikely given the current situation.
The third reason why Iran and Turkey’s tensions will not escalate to violence or war is the 2 million Iranian tourists who visit Turkey every year. Iranians carry out many of their interactions with the Western world through Turkey, including applying for visas to visit North America. Turkey is indeed an entry point for many Iranians who want to seek refugee status or gain residence permits in the West. Therefore, even if the Iranian government, or the Turkish side, decides to sever relations, public pressure will not allow them to do so.
The fourth and last point relates to the crises in Syria and Iraq. It should be borne in mind that Turkey and Iran are not the sole players seeking to steer developments in these countries, and thus have no choice but to coordinate with other major players such as Russia and the United States. For instance, in Iran’s 4-point plan for Syria, any decision regarding whether Assad should remain in power is left to the Syrian people. The current general perception is that Assad should remain at the helm during the transition period, a position that even countries such as France overtly and the United States tacitly agree on. Therefore, the insistence of countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia on having Assad immediately removed from the political equation will fail sooner or later.
In conclusion, it appears very unlikely that Iran and Turkey, which have lived side by side in peace and tranquility for nearly 400 years, would escalate their tensions to involve violence.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/iran-turkey-tension-syria-yemen-iraq.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=072959ea68-December_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-072959ea68-102494681

Liberman: Arab MK 'must be thrown out of Knesset'
Mazal Mualem/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
With the Israeli flag behind him, Yisrael Beitenu Chair Avigdor Liberman holds up a red-lettered banner screeching, “Throw Haneen Zoabi out of the Knesset — now!” in the opening of the video clip launching Liberman' new public campaign. The tacky-looking clip, filmed in the party chairman’s office in the Knesset, is designed to bring about the removal from Israel's parliament of both Arab Knesset member Zoabi and her Balad Party, one of the Arab parties that makes up the Joint List.
With no special effects or sophisticated graphics, in front of a shaky camera, Liberman addresses the public while grasping the sign in both hands. He calls on listeners to pressure Knesset members and ministers — mainly from right-wing and ultra-Orthodox parties — to support a bill he proposed, nicknamed the "Zoabi law."
In his characteristic combative manner, Liberman briefly explains that the objective of the new bill is to strip the High Court of Justice of its authority to overturn decisions by the Central Elections Committee. The committee has the power to disqualify lists and candidates from running in the Knesset’s general elections. Under the current law, the decisions of the committee must be confirmed by the court. Prior to the two last election campaigns, the High Court overturned the committee’s decisions to disqualify Zoabi’s candidacy based on claims that she had supported terror.
Liberman ends the clip with, “If you support my position, like and share. Haneen Zoabi must be thrown out of the Knesset, once and for all.”
From a political point of view, there is something refreshing in the former foreign minister’s belligerent act. Liberman heads a party that almost disappeared in the last elections, and now he fights from the depths of the opposition against his former partner, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Liberman begins this campaign from a position of weakness, as he has no official position in the Knesset and heads a shrunken party that was severely affected by corruption investigations. After years of being accustomed to sitting pretty in the foreign minister’s seat, Liberman has been trying to reinvent himself in recent months.
Despite postelection assessments that Liberman would hurry to join Netanyahu’s government, he surprised everyone by staying out. After the government had been cobbled together, Liberman was expected to prefer to leave political life rather than lead a small faction in the opposition wilderness. But he remained to fight, and since then has consistently tried to topple Netanyahu from the premiership.
On Dec. 19, Liberman participated in a “cultural Shabbat” event in the town of Ness Ziona. Yedioth Ahronoth reported in its print edition that he repeated his appraisal that elections would be held in 2016, expressly committed himself not to join the government or contribute to any of Netanyahu’s attempts to form a large right-wing party and concluded with sharp criticism of the government.
“This is not a right-wing or nationalist government but an opportunistic one, which is concerned solely with its own survival,” he said. Liberman exploited the event to mention his "Zoabi law" and emphasized that Netanyahu’s government opposes the bill.
Meanwhile, polls show that Liberman is recovering and gathering strength. Ever since the eruption of the current wave of violence in October, Liberman has been leading public-opinion polls as the person who would know better than anyone else how to cope with terror. He garners more support than even Netanyahu. Recent opinion polls show that Yisrael Beitenu is making a comeback, testifying to the former foreign minister succeeding in finding a new space within Israeli politics.
Liberman is very far from enjoying the public status he held in the period of the previous government, when he was mentioned more than once as a possible candidate for the premiership, under certain political scenarios. But that was before the corruption investigation into several Yisrael Beitenu higher-ups — an inquiry that toppled numerous politicians including former Deputy Interior Minister Faina Kirshenbaum, who had been Liberman’s strongwoman and operational arm in the party. This blow came three months before the last elections, terrible timing for Yisrael Beitenu. The investigation almost totally destroyed the party’s campaign, directed at the liberal right-center.
At the time, Liberman talked about diplomatic compromises and Ariel Sharon-type pragmatism, and there were quite a few buyers of this line in the political center. But the corruption affair forced Liberman to change his campaign a moment before the elections, as the party’s electorate was extremely put off. The Yisrael Beitenu chairman then returned to his element and waged a campaign against Arab-Israelis with racist overtones. Liberman fought for every vote, aggressive and brazen, and managed to survive. Under such circumstances, the six mandates he ultimately received were an achievement.
Since then, Liberman clings to this public line, which seems to enjoy a considerable following. He no longer talks about diplomatic compromises but cleaves to nationalistic messages, attacks against Arab Knesset members and stinging, combative slogans on the war against terror. Liberman also uses the secular-civil agenda in appealing to the Russian public that is still faithful to him. On Dec. 21, he announced at a Yisrael Beitenu faction meeting that next week he will submit a bill that would allow municipal rabbis to deal with conversion, thus easing the conversion process for those interested.
“How can it be that municipal rabbis are authorized to conduct weddings, issue Kashrut certificates to businesses, yet be deprived of [authority over] only one issue: conversion? Therefore we’ll bring up the law of municipal rabbis again regarding their powers in dealing with conversion. Then we’ll see again how this coalition will vote.” This bill was designed to embarrass Netanyahu’s government and show the Russian secular community that Liberman is still their man in the Knesset.
Liberman is a rather active oppositionist. He responds to almost anything connected to the war on terror, foreign policy, religion and state — all the new-old banners he waves. He castigated the emerging Israel-Turkey agreement from almost every platform, claiming that it will inflict diplomatic damage on Israel.
“Opportunism is not a substitute for prudent and wise diplomacy,” Liberman said. “Erdogan heads a radical Islamic regime. The Turks trade with the Islamic State.”
At this stage, it is unclear where Liberman’s current campaign will lead him and whether — despite his recurring denials — he will ultimately join Netanyahu’s coalition before the next elections. What is certain is that the chairman of Yisrael Beitenu has succeeded in halting the political collapse he and his party had faced. Instead, Liberman has created positive momentum and has reinvented himself as a political alternative in the nationalist right. ​
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/israel-liberman-yisrael-beiteinu-political-revival-militant.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=072959ea68-December_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-072959ea68-102494681

Will PA security turn on Israel?
Ahmad Abu Amer/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israel is convinced that new developments are about to take place in the West Bank, especially after the killing of Mazen Arabia, a Palestinian intelligence officer accused of opening fire at the Hizma military checkpoint, northeast of Jerusalem, injuring an Israeli soldier Dec. 3.
According to the Arutz Sheva, Arabia approached the checkpoint, pulled out his weapon and started shooting at the soldiers, who responded in kind. Meanwhile, no Palestinian party has confirmed the incident, as the area in which the shooting happened is controlled by Israel.
This incident, the first of its kind during the uprising in the Palestinian territories, sparked Israeli concerns that other armed Palestinian security officers will engage in similar acts. Therefore, the Israeli government rejected the recommendations of the Israel Defense Forces on Nov. 25 to supply the Palestinian security apparatus with weapons and ammunition to be used to control the situation in the West Bank and face any security developments stirred by Palestinian protesters.
Yedioth Ahronoth reported Dec. 5 that the Palestinian security forces have been very concerned following the Hizma checkpoint incident. According to the newspaper, the Palestinian Authority’s security apparatus informed Israel of its intention to investigate the incident and take all necessary measures to prevent such an occurrence. Maj. Gen. Adnan al-Damiri, the PA’s security services spokesman, denied these statements to Al-Monitor.
The Yedioth Ahranoth article stated that the PA’s security apparatus will open an immediate investigation into the incident and closely monitor its members internally to thwart any potential military operation against Israel. Meanwhile, the security leadership agreed to arrest anyone attempting to carry out such acts on the grounds that containing the security situation is a top Palestinian interest, according to the newspaper.
In an interview with Al-Monitor, Damiri accused Israel of practicing “incitement against the Palestinian security services for many years. This has been happening in the media, while delivering a distorted image of these services to the Western and foreign public. Israel has been also storming into cities under Palestinian control without any prior warning or coordination with the Palestinian side, which has been an acute embarrassment for the Palestinian security forces, as they appeared in the eyes of Palestinian citizens unable to prevent such incursions.”
As for the Hizma checkpoint incident, Damiri said the Israeli security services were the ones who announced Arabia's death without involving the Palestinian security forces in any investigation. He also stressed that the narrative concerning incidents in which Palestinian citizens are shot by the Israeli army are one-sided accounts, with no other party to confirm or deny them. According to him, Israel is making up pretexts to kill Palestinians and refuses to involve the Palestinian security apparatus in the investigations of these incidents.
Damiri believes that Israel is trying to find excuses to destroy Palestinian institutions as it did back in 2002, during the military invasion of the West Bank after the bombings by Palestinian factions from the West Bank. Israel has been also refusing to allow the PA to receive military equipment and weapons donated by many Arab countries and Russia. Notably, 50 armored vehicles donated by Russia are still in Jordan, as is other equipment not considered military combat gear, such as bulletproof vests.
Damiri stressed that the security services are regular forces and not militias, taking orders from the Palestinian political body — the PA command and the government — with one goal: the protection of Palestinian citizens by all means available. The Palestinian security services ensure security and order and solve conflicts between the inhabitants of the West Bank cities, yet officers remain in their headquarters when the Israeli military raids a city.
A Palestinian security officer told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity that anger toward the Israeli practices against Palestinians has been mounting lately among the Palestinian security officers, especially with the high rate of executions of Palestinians accused of stabbing attacks.
He added that security officers also have been refraining from shooting into the air during the funerals of their relatives killed by Israeli bullets, for fear of punishment. He also stressed that his colleagues do not even express in private conversations the desire to take retaliatory actions against the Israeli forces.
In the same vein, several Israeli political analysts have said that the PA’s security apparatus has begun to disintegrate and that the Hizma checkpoint incident is a turning point and the beginning of the PA’s collapse.
Avi Issacharoff, a reporter for the Israeli news site Walla, raised questions about the PA’s refraining from condemning the incident in his article published Dec. 8. “Is the PA no longer against the operations by members of the Palestine Liberation Organization and its security forces?” he asked, stressing that Israel fears that members of the Palestinian security forces will start conducting individual operations, which would lead to further killings in the ranks of Israelis.
Issacharoff added that these security officers are likely to participate in the popular outburst of protests as the killings continue and their relatives are shot by the Israeli military. He stressed that these actions, should they happen, would be carried out individually and not on the orders of the PA, which does not wish to escalate matters with Israel.
Palestinian political analyst Talal Okal agrees, telling Al-Monitor that the Palestinian security officers’ involvement is likely at an individual level.
Okar also said that Israel’s fears remain centered on incitement against the PA’s security apparatus as it searches for justification for greater use of military force against the young Palestinians taking part in the protests.
Ultimately, the actual engagement of the Palestinian security forces in the ongoing protests against Israel remains limited to its regular daily tasks of ensuring security and order and solving conflicts between inhabitants. This responsibility includes protecting Palestinian hospitals. An Israeli security unit stormed al-Ahli Hospital in Hebron on Nov. 12, killing one citizen and kidnapping another and prompting Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah to order the security forces to provide protection to hospitals.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/israel-kills-palestinian-intelligence-reaction.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=072959ea68-December_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-072959ea68-102494681

UN hopes to hit 'moving target' of Syria talks by late January
Laura Rozen/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
WASHINGTON — United Nations Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura plans to hold the first talks in almost two years between representatives of the Syrian regime and opposition toward the end of January, a senior UN official said Dec. 22, though he acknowledged the Syria diplomatic process is a “moving target.”
“Almost everybody wants these talks to be successful so that we can finally get a political solution to this really unacceptable problem,” Michael Moller, the director general of the UN office in Geneva, said at a press conference Dec. 22.
“All I can tell you is that the intention is that he [de Mistura] starts here, in the Palais, sometime toward the end of January,” Moller said.
“Mr. de Mistura is … basically living on a plane these days, and every day there are evolutions in how things are being planned and being received by the different parties,” Moller said. “It makes it very, very hard to give you some idea of how this is going to evolve.”
The plans for renewed intra-Syrian talks, to be held at the UN Palais des Nations in Geneva, follows a series of recent meetings by the 20-member International Syria Support Group (ISSG) that have aimed to forge fragile consensus on a diplomatic path forward to end the more than 4½-year-old conflict that has killed over 200,000 people and spurred one of the largest refugee exoduses since World War II.
Those meetings of external powers, including the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, culminated in the unanimous adoption by the UN Security Council last week of a resolution endorsing the ISSG’s proposed road map for a Syria political transition process that calls for the writing of a new constitution in six months and new Syrian presidential elections in 18 months. The political track is supposed to be accompanied by a cease-fire that would exclude continued combat against the Islamic State and the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra front.
De Mistura, speaking at a press conference with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in New York on Dec. 18, said the UN Security Council’s unanimous passage of Resolution 2254 showed growing willingness to make compromises to end the war.
“Mission impossible is becoming potentially possible thanks to what we saw today,” de Mistura said. “The international community has shown three times now unity. ... So it’s going to be uphill, it’s going to be complicated, but it’s becoming possible.”
“Of course, it’s up to the Syrians, and the Syrian people will be helped if this unity we are seeing today will continue,” he said.
Kerry, who presided over the Dec. 18 UN Security Council meeting on Syria, said the world would observe within a month or two whether the Syria regime was prepared to seriously negotiate or whether its external backers were permitting it to stall.
The resolution “mentions transitional governance,” Kerry said Dec. 18. “And the target for that is within six months. Now, that means that within a month or so, two months, decisions are going to have to start to be made about the devolution of some power and the creation of a unity entity.”
“Now, either that happens true to the word of this, or you begin to see that this isn’t going to work,” Kerry said. “It’s that simple. But you’re not going to wait a year and a half or a year or six months to know that. You will see very quickly whether or not transitioning is beginning to take place. And everybody signed up to that.”
Lavrov, for his part, said he was not very optimistic.
“So I am not too optimistic about what has been achieved today, but a very important step has been made to create the requisite external conditions for Syrians to be able to do what we all expect them to do, and that is get down to agreeing on the issues that will determine the future of their country,” Russia’s top diplomat said at the Dec. 18 press briefing, speaking in Russian with a translator.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/syria-regime-opposition-talks-isis-mistura-moller-diplomatic.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=072959ea68-December_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-072959ea68-102494681

How to revive the Arab Peace Initiative
Akiva Eldar/Al-Monitor/December 23/15
The few Russian tourists who visited the Grand Park Hotel in Antalya, Turkey, on Dec. 17-19, despite the tensions between Moscow and Ankara, could not have known that the women and men conversing easily at adjacent tables represent an occupier and the occupied. Anyone following the deterioration in the Israeli-Palestinian dialogue would have found it hard to believe that these men and women came to Antalya to look together for ways to save the two-state solution, using the Arab Peace Initiative. After breakfast they took their places around a long rectangular table in one of the meeting rooms.
Next to them at the table were also two Knesset members from the Zionist Camp and one from the Meretz Party. Present, too, was a former member of the Palestinian Cabinet, clerics from the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, a senior Arab League diplomat and three other diplomats — an American, a European and a Turk. For participants to express their views freely, the hosts from the API Regional Network asked everyone to avoid publicizing each other's names and quoting them directly. Therefore, the insights from the conference will not be attributed to specific participants.
The first insight: The 2002 Arab Peace Initiative is in force. It is likely to be ratified at the upcoming 2016 Arab League conference in Morocco in March. Despite Israel’s refusal to adopt the initiative and to even discuss it, important Arab states — led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia — are still on board and are unwilling to amend its principles. Nonetheless, in light of the instability in Syria and uncertainty regarding its future, implementation of the article about normalizing relations with Israel in return for its withdrawal to the 1967 border lines is not conditional on its withdrawal from the Golan Heights. Suffice it for Israel to adopt the principles of the initiative — along with its willingness for land swaps in the West Bank and East Jerusalem — to launch steps for the normalization of ties with states such as Saudi Arabia.
The Arabs find it hard to understand why such a generous peace initiative is unable to capture the hearts of the Jewish-Israeli public. Among the centrist and left-wing Zionist parties there is a broad consensus in immediate recognition of the establishment of a Palestinian state, based on the June 4, 1967, lines. There is agreement that Israel must accept its responsibility for the refugee problem, including that of the 1948 refugees uprooted from their villages and lives in Israel, and toward efforts to resolve it — without full implementation of the right of return. According to the views of the Zionist Camp and Meretz representatives, dramatic gestures the likes of the Jerusalem visit by late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1977 will make it easier for them to sell the initiative as part of a made-in-Israel diplomatic plan. Nonetheless, in their view, the road to regional peace goes through the ballot boxes. For a leader to implement a policy toward a comprehensive arrangement and an end to the conflict, the leader must convince the public that handing the West Bank over to the Palestinians will not turn it into a second Gaza. Therefore, it is essential to establish a regional-international security mechanism that will reduce the threat of a hostile takeover of Palestine by Hamas or other external forces.
Second insight: A US diplomatic initiative is unlikely in the short time left to President Barack Obama in office, including the transition period between the elections and the new president taking office. At best, as far as the peace camp is concerned, Obama will abstain from a US veto on a UN Security Council vote granting full recognition to an independent Palestinian state. Washington has already indicated to the Palestinians that US aid to the Palestinian Authority would be suspended if they appeal to the United Nations. The American representatives believe that in 2017 — the new president’s first year in office — he (or she) is not expected to focus on defrosting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
Third insight: Europe is increasingly frustrated with Israel’s promotion of the settlement enterprise at the expense of the basic rights of the Palestinians. The sharp, almost rude language of the Israeli reaction to the EU decision to label settlement products increased the fury in European capitals. Even Germany, considered the protective shield of the right-wing Israeli government vis-a-vis the European Union, decided to implement the decision. Two new initiatives are being formulated these days in the EU, regarding the settlements. One, to avoid meetings with Israeli politicians who live in the occupied territories, such as minister Ze’ev Elkin and Knesset member Avigdor Liberman. The other, to ban the entry of settlers to EU member states, by a law requiring Israelis to ask for a visa ahead of the journey. This way, EU authorities could verify exactly where the applicant lives.
Several European states are trying to fill the vacuum left by the United States in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. The French Foreign Ministry is trying to line up support for a European diplomatic initiative to promote recognition of a Palestinian state along with a formula expressing the Jewish identity of the State of Israel. At the same time, Spain is seeking support for an international conference next year, marking the 25th anniversary of the Madrid Conference (1991). That conference brought together representatives from Arab states, Israel, the United States, Russia, Europe, China, Japan and the UN, and launched talks (that proved fruitless) between the government of Yitzhak Shamir and the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. At the same time, plans are afoot to renew the activity of the five multilateral committees created as a result of the conference on the issues of arms control, economic cooperation, refugees, water and the environment.
Fourth insight: The Arab Peace Initiative serves as a common denominator for discourse among Muslim clerics and Jews. Serious peace talks, based on the Arab initiative, will help religious Muslim and Jewish elements to deal with radical religious organization taking advantage of the hostility toward the occupation and turning the political conflict into a religious war.
And a final insight: Now of all times, when the diplomatic process between Israelis and Palestinians is at a deadlock, and when no solution can be seen on the horizon, such ongoing encounters between the parties involved in the conflict together with religious figures and central international elements, are of outmost importance.The Arab initiative is the most important peace plan to be born ever since the start of the Jewish-Arab conflict. And so, it must be at the center of these meetings. It must not be allowed to die.
**Editor's note: This article has been updated since its initial publication.
Akiva Eldar
www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2015/12/israel-palestine-peace-activists-gathering-antalya-reviving.html?utm_source=Al-Monitor+Newsletter+[English]&utm_campaign=072959ea68-December_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_28264b27a0-072959ea68-102494681

The closer Syria is to peace, the more violent it will be
Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya/December 23/15
Easing out of 18 months of semi-hibernation, international diplomacy of the last quarter of the year on Syria saw a major surge. What went before would have certainly been in "Trump-speak," low energy.
The reasons for this sudden dynamism are non-Syrian ones. The conflict was of limited interest to the outside world unless and until it affected it. A quarter of a million Syrians get killed, four million become refugees and even chemical weapons were used on civilians and yet grandstanding and posturing have been see-through covers for the disinterest. The U.S. under President Obama has been risk averse and conflict fatigued, Europe broke and distracted by its own internal challenges. Ending the conflict was, and still to a large extent remains, secondary to perceived external state interests within Syria, whether it was ensuring a favoured proxy prevailed or one’s enemy was bled dry.
Had a million Syrians been killed, would this have changed matters? Who knows? The U.S. and the EU have only sluggishly crawled out of their non-interventionist bed when international Jihadi movements like al-Qaeda and ISIS started gaining ground, not in Syria, but in Iraq. It was the ISIS capture of Mosul not Raqqa that triggered the U.S. and allies into action. Many international politicians have been calculating between two devils, ISIS or Assad and are prepared to back the latter no matter what responsibility the regime had for the disaster that Syria faces today.
In a space of only weeks, the refugees morphed from a distant, tired issue, to a front page tear jerking cause celebre with promises of homes being opened up to refugees all over Europe, and latterly to being a core part of an existential threat to the civilised world. The Syrian refugees were a respectable, worthy donor issue; non-controversial as long as they remained in the Middle East. When hundreds of thousands crossed into Europe, refugees became a threat, walls and barbed wire fences went up, and action sought. The reaction of some of the far right in Europe after the Paris attacks betrayed an almost opportunistic delight in attacking the Trojan horse Muslim refugees. Much of the media portrayed what was and remains a Syrian refugee crisis all of sudden as a European refugee crisis. Does anyone seriously believe the refugee issue will quieten in 2016?
Ambitious and almost fantastical
These international political efforts are likely to continue apace in 2016. The ambitious, almost fantastical Vienna plan envisages a national ceasefire within weeks in Syria. Has Vladimir Putin committed to stopping his bombing of Syrian opposition forces as part of this ceasefire? Remember Putin and Assad share a common desire to frame all the armed groups fighting the regime as terrorists, and so continue shelling these “targets" on that basis. The anti-ISIS coalition is not going to stop bombing ISIS targets so Putin will argue that Russia is doing the same, fighting terrorism.
But if there is a belated alignment of international pragmatic interests, it is far from clear that this extends to Middle East regional actors who have stoked the conflict. Iran and Hizbollah fear any political deal would dash their interests. Saudi still pushes for a complete outright victory against Assad to deny Iran whilst Turkey will promote its own favoured militias and any power that thwarts Kurdish aspirations.
Are Syrian actors any more ready for the painful tough compromises? The Syrian regime fears concessions as a fatal display of weakness. The formal position of the Syrian opposition groupings has not shifted from the Assad must go first position.
In the short term, political progress will be met by an intensification of fighting, something that is already a grim reality. Throughout this conflict, as indeed in other wars, the path to negotiations is typically the moment when those stakeholders who fear losing ground in talks, act as spoilers, even whilst professing peaceful intentions. The Syrian regime has already done this by inviting Russian and Iranian forces in to push towards better ceasefire lines, retaking the rest of Homs, and pressing northwards. The U.S., France and Russia are all upscaling their air attacks on ISIS.
In the short term, political progress will be met by an intensification of fighting, something that is already a grim reality
The Syrian political opposition is still an embarrassing mess. The U.S. and the ‘Friends of Syria' back in 2013 supposedly blessed the Syria National Coalition as a legitimate representative of the Syrian people. External powers should never have expected to settle the debate as to who is legitimate or not. Only this month, a merry assortment of opposition figures turned up to Riyadh, devoid of several leading opposition constituencies not least the Kurdish PYD. The armed groups are represented but patchily.
Prior to the last Syria regime-Syrian opposition talks at Geneva II, 19 opposition groups issued a statement withdrawing all recognition of the Syrian National Coalition and rejecting them. Many may yet repeat such a position.
Even more likely is a serious meltdown in relations between al-Nusra Front and the groups with which it has been effectively embedded. A successful political process will force many to choose between their Syrian nationalist leanings and their Islamist ones. The consequent clashes may be a key feature of the coming months. If disunity in the Syrian opposition ranks remains a constant, the backers of the Syrian regime may also clash. Russia and Iran are perhaps best described as “frenemies,” the outer cooperation masking a deep suspicion of the other as well as competing bids for influence in Syria.
2016 challenges
The Vienna process is laudable but it has no answers to the daunting challenges in Syria. A national ceasefire in reality will require that plus dozens of locally mediated ones. Just how strong and well-resourced will any monitoring mission be in Syria? Will all sides consent to the tough confidence building measures necessary, such as the release of detainees? And how will the Syrian economy be rebuilt and transformed from a war economy to a productive peace economy. Some may think this is irrelevant but tens, even hundreds of thousands of armed men will be asked to stop fighting. Will they still get paid? What sort of jobs might be available for them if they wanted to retire from the conflict? What livings there are to be made in Syria frequently are conflict-dependent. The challenge for 2016 is how to translate increase international interest in ending the Syrian conflict into being both a regional and Syrian need. Codifying the illusory timetable in the latest U.N. Security Council Resolution is one thing, but translating this into addressing the real life, on the ground issues in Syria is quite another.

2015, a year of wishful thinking on Mideast conflicts
Andrew Bowen/Al Arabiya/December 23/15
For some, 2015 will be seen as a year of magical thinking. No one could of fully expected that an agreement between Iran and the P5+1 would be signed nor would there be a Vienna process on Syria. Few would have expected that new leadership would transform arguably a number of countries’ economic and strategic outlooks. Regional states importantly deepened their own cooperation against common challenges, as evidenced by Yemen. The new global military coalition (albeit off to a wobbly start) is an important step in regional states taking leadership to confront common challenges at a time when Washington’s commitment to its allies is adjusting and other global powers notably Russia are re-engaging the region.
A sea of turbulence
At the same time, a number of turbulent events have shaken the region including dropping oil prices, cuts in public expenditures, ISIS’s continued onslaught, Iran’s nuclear agreement with the P5 + 1, a deepening civil war in Yemen, and Iran and Russia’s intervention in Syria. Despite some progress in Libya, peace remains far off in Yemen. While there is greater will and resolve to confront ISIS, a solution remains elusive and its impact can be felt from the Sinai to Mosul. From Cairo to Algiers, deep economic challenges remain with few clear solutions. Despite Tunisia being heralded as a model in North Africa, Tunis’ post-Ali governments have struggled to address the state’s socio-economic disparities. 2015 may better be seen as a year of wishful thinking. Despite some transformative moments, this year was arguably one of the most challenging and disappointing in many respects.
Iran and Russia’s regional push
Even though Iran has faced setbacks on the battlefield, Tehran’s influence in the Arab world is at its highest point in decades. Iran, its allies, and its proxies reach from Sanaa to Aleppo. Despite this magical thinking in some circles in Washington that Iran would change, once clenching the agreement, Ayatollah Khamenei has gone on the offensive to further shore up Iran’s interests at the expense of its neighbors. The JCPOA agreement has only further empowered Iran economically and militarily as it further asserts itself in the region. Tehran within a decade could even have a nuclear weapon. Despite clamoring about the proposed U.S. visa changes as a violation of the nuclear agreement, Iran had no problem violating U.N. Security Council resolutions when it conducted a ballistic missile test.
Despite some transformative moments, this year was arguably one of the most challenging and disappointing
The Vienna Syria talks are progressing, but the critical question of Assad’s future remains a deep point of disagreement. While Riyadh’s efforts in organizing the opposition are making important gains, the timeline set out in the recent U.N. resolution is largely unrealistic. At the same time, Moscow and Tehran are continuing to surge forward in trying to buttress Assad’s crumbling regime. Washington naively thought that Russia and Iran would be incentivized to reach an agreement due to the costs of their military campaigns. In reality, even without Assad, Iran has effectively built an entrenched deep state in Syria. Humanitarian access continues to be limited and President Assad’s barrel bombing of Syrian civilians continues. Syria’s debilitating civil war also continues to reach far beyond its borders, even as far as Europe which faces one of the largest refugee crises since the end of the Second World War. Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq continue to bear the costs of the civil war. No real path exists yet for their large refugee communities to return home. It’s a positive step that Lebanon may soon close to reaching an agreement on a president, but these states continue to face deep political, economic, and security challenges which will likely be exacerbated further as the civil war further grinds on.
Absence of American leadership
In the face of these challenges, President Obama remained cautiously disinterested as his “strategy” for protecting America’s global interests and the security of the homeland crumbled around him. Obama repeatedly ignored warnings that Syria’s collapse would endanger the region’s stability and the U.S.’s interests. Despite the President’s surprise about ISIS’s rise and its threat to the U.S. homeland, he has yet to recalibrate his strategy. Tilting to Asia has always been more appealing than having to exercise global leadership on complex challenges, which he liberally threw on his predecessor.
In the one area where he chose to exercise U.S. leadership, Obama became consumed in the belief that engagement can change regions and quickly solve global challenges. Obama’s wholehearted embrace of a nuclear deal hasn’t produced the change in Iran’s engagement with the U.S. that he expected. Obama also made the wrong bet that Iran could be a partner against ISIS. At the same time, Obama failed to effectively engage America’s long-standing allies in the region about the nuclear negotiations until mid-way through the negotiations. Despite making commitments at Camp David that his administration would support these states to counter-Iranian aggression, Obama has left regional leaders questioning when he will ever follow through with those commitments.
2016: a year of transition?
With Obama’s presidency in its final year and a new U.S. President elected in November 2016, Washington’s role in the region will be increasingly a transitory one. Obama will unlikely make any major shifts in his engagement with the region. He will continue his engagement with Iran despite Tehran’s proclivity already to violate U.N. Security Council resolutions and its aggressive behavior. His administration will continue to pursue a low-resourced anti-ISIS strategy, barring a major attack on the U.S. homeland. Obama will hope that the Vienna talks will continue to the end of his presidency. By supporting the new U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria, he effectively accepted that President Assad will stay in power in some form until the end of his presidency and that Syria will be his successor’s challenge. He will hope that Libya will reach a settlement. It’s unlikely that his commitments to his allies will change that substantially despite his rhetorical promises. 2016 has the potential to be a year of transitions if the conflicts in Yemen, Syria, and Libya can be put on a more sustainable diplomatic path (already, there is a modicum of progress on Libya and Syria, despite the need for careful skepticism). Next year will be one to watch to see how Iran engages and acts in the region as it experiences the benefits of economic investment. Next year is also a moment of transition as the region’s new leaders further build on their important economic reforms in the face of lower oil prices.
Pessimistically, 2016 could be quite similar to 2015 if the few positive gains of this past year aren’t built on.

We have a common dream: A happy Middle East
Jamal Khashoggi/Al Arabiya/December 23/15
This article was co-authored by Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, an Emirati academic and professor of political sciences, and chairperson of the Arab Council for Social Sciences.Researchers, ambassadors, and maybe former members of intelligence services representing countries involved in the Syrian crisis, gathered in Beirut for two days at the invitation of the Middle East Institute, which receives American and Arab support. The first day’s sessions were discouraging - we blamed each other, some insisting on adopting their government’s position and justifying the unjustifiable, such as bombing and killing civilians in Syria.
Discussions heated up on the second day. One of us shouted at an Iranian researcher who equated Wahhabism to Nazism. In the final session, the American-Lebanese moderator asked us to think about the future with utmost boldness and freedom. One of us replied: “Let’s assume that wars are over, that crises have magically disappeared, that the Arab Gulf countries are on good terms with Iran, that the situation in Iraq and Syria has stabilized, that Egypt has recovered its strength, and that concerns about Turkey have disappeared. Let us imagine all of that across a large, stable, prosperous, cooperative Middle East, from Iran in the east to Mauritania in the west, and from Aden in the south to Istanbul in the north. Let us dream of a happy Middle East, and think together on how to develop the capacities and potential of its countries and people to achieve this dream.”
This vision diffused a positive energy, prompting us to get carried away with our thoughts despite them being utopian. “No dream is impossible when it’s accompanied by long-term strategic planning,” said an American-Lebanese researcher.
The dream of a happy Middle East stems from the womb of a distressed, dark, sad reality. If we give in to the many obstacles and constraints, the dream will disappear along with the quest to achieve it
An Iraqi colleague proposed that his country provide food and water to the Gulf countries via the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. A Turkish researcher considered his country as a passage for Iraqi and Gulf oil and gas toward international markets. Elderly researchers regained their youth, as if they were students in a virtual laboratory where they discovered a promising future for the region. The Emirati spokesman tried to reconcile between utopia and reality, suggesting the replacement of rivalries with “complementary functional relations,” meaning that for example, the countries of the region might discuss, with the support of friendly international powers, the water crisis that threatens the existence of some states and is no less dangerous than political conflicts and extremism. Had the current warring states put their differences aside, seeking solutions to their water and food problems and addressing the concerns of their youth, they would have been much happier today.
Learning by example
A former American ambassador in many Arab countries reminded participants of the Helsinki Accords, which constituted the start of unprecedented cooperation between the two sides of the Cold War. The agreement was based on “non-intervention in internal affairs, equality, the respect of citizenship rights and political and civil freedoms, national sovereignty, the inviolability of frontiers and territorial integrity, the peaceful settlement of disputes and refraining from the threat or use of force, the right of peoples to self-determination, the consolidation of cooperation manifestations, and the fulfillment of international commitments and pledges in line with the Charter of the United Nations and the provisions of international law.”If the countries of the region had applied these principles, the Middle East would have been in a much better situation than it is now (being the most violent region in the world). This dream seems far-fetched for the Middle East, but why should we not dream?
Europe emerged very weak from World War II, and began its journey of change with a dream of unity. The past 70 years have been the longest period of prosperity in its history. The same applies to Asia, which was immersed in crises and extreme poverty, but started its journey with a dream of economic development, turning the continent into a new economic center. The dream of a happy Middle East stems from the womb of a distressed, dark, sad reality. If we give in to the many obstacles and constraints - such as the lack of democracy, the monopolization of power, corruption, sectarianism, hypocrisy, and political and ideological disputes - the dream will disappear along with the quest to achieve it. We are certain that we are not the only ones dreaming of a happy Middle East. Half a century ago, then-ruler of Dubai Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed dreamt that his city would become like Basra, which used to be called the Venice of the East. He was able, with much effort and planning, to achieve his dream.
As if he was present with us in Beirut, his son and current ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, tweeted to his 5 million followers: “Our Arab region needs wisdom to dismantle its political bottlenecks, governance to manage its human and financial resources, and active governments that can lead a real development.”This tweet came from someone with an Arab success story that started with a dream of a city ranking high on the list of the world’s happiest cities. That dream can be enjoyed by the whole region, away from violence, extremism, misery, tyranny and corruption. We can turn this dream into reality.