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Bible Quotation For Today/Believe in the light, so that you may become children of light
John 12/31-36: "Now is the judgement of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die. The crowd answered him, ‘We have heard from the law that the Messiah remains for ever. How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up? Who is this Son of Man?’ Jesus said to them, ‘The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. If you walk in the darkness, you do not know where you are going.While you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become children of light.’ After Jesus had said this, he departed and hid from them."

Bible Quotation For Today/But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day
Second Letter of Peter 03/01/15/This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you; in them I am trying to arouse your sincere intention by reminding you that you should remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets, and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour spoken through your apostles. First of all you must understand this, that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!’ They deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which the world of that time was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the godless.But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin analysis & editorials from miscellaneous sources published on September 16-17/15
Lebanon activists demand halt to MPs’ salaries/Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon/September 16/15
Bashir Gemayel, was a main chapter but not the last chapter/Walid Phares/September 16/15
Netanyahu, Putin to discuss continued Israeli air force freedom of action over Syria/DEBKAfile/September 16/15
Syrian regime displaces Zabadani residents/Mustafa al-Haj/Al-Monitor/September 16/15
Why Israel, not NGOs, must care for poor/Mazal Mualem/Al-Monitor/September 16/15
The Arab States and the Refugees/Denis MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/September 16/15
Turkey’s Erdogan: The method behind his madness/Dr. John C. HulsmanAl Arabiya/September 16/15
Anti-war Corbyn sparks a new Battle of Britain/Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya/September 16/15
Saint Rafqa/Maronite Heritage Site/September 16/15
Iranian Officials Reveal Secret Negotiations With U.S. Began In 2011, Only After U.S. Complied With Tehran's Precondition To Recognize In Advance Iran's Nuclear Status/A. Savyon, Y. Carmon, & Y. Mansharof/MEMRI/September 16/15

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin for Lebanese Related News published on September 16-17/15
Lebanon protesters enraged by arrests, beatings
Lebanon activists demand halt to MPs’ salaries
Bashir Gemayel, was a main chapter but not the last chapter
Dozens Arrested in Clashes as Rival Leaders Hold 2nd Dialogue Session
EDL Ordered to Cut Power Supply to Officials with Unpaid Bills
Garbage Mountains Circle Beirut as Crisis Festers
Mashnouq: Street Mobility a Warning Siren, Aoun's Call for Direct Election Unrealistic
9 Detainees to be Released after Families Hold Sit-in Near Military Court
Terrorist Ibrahim Atrash, a Precious Army Catch
Report: Jumblat's Efforts on Promotions Reach Dead-End
Derbas to Aoun: I am not the Syrian Ambassador
Zaitunay Bay: A Public Space
Hizbullah and Mustaqbal Support 'Continuation of Dialogue in This Critical Period'

Titles For Latest LCCC Bulletin For Miscellaneous Reports And News published on September 16-17/15
First Migrants Enter Croatia after Hungary Seals Border
Texas: Armed Muslim enters church, says Allah told him to “slay infidels”
“Pastor speaks out about man who allegedly threatened his church,”
Syrian President Says Priority is Defeating Terrorism
Russia Moves in Syria to Boost Assad, Send Signal to West
U.N.: Aqsa clashes a threat beyond Jerusalem
Assad: Iran is sending arms to Syria
New drone technology can target any American airbase that threatens Iran'
Abbas: Israelis have no right to desecrate our holy sites with their filthy feet
Livni to German FM: Iran still sponsoring terrorism after agreement with world powers
Israeli PM, Netanyahu headed to Russia for talks on Syria

Links From Jihad Watch Web site For Today
Texas: Armed Muslim enters church, says Allah told him to “slay infidels”
Hamas TV: “Palestinian” boy wants to become engineer “so that I can blow up the Jews”
Texas: Muslim student arrested for bringing clock that looked like bomb to school; Obama invites him to White House
ideo: Robert Spencer and Erick Stakelbeck discuss the rise of the Islamic State
Indonesian jihad terror convict: jihadis are misunderstanding Qur’an and Hadith
Yemen: Islamic jihadists torch Roman Catholic church in Aden
New Glazov Gang: The ISIS Refugee Deception

Lebanon protesters enraged by arrests, beatings
Now Lebanon/September 16/15/BEIRUT - Security forces have beaten and arrested a number of protesters in Downtown Beirut after the #YouStink movement attempted to block Lebanese leaders from joining a national dialogue session. Amid heavy security measures in the Downtown district, confrontations erupted between riot police and protesters throughout the morning protest, with a number of videos as well as television feeds showing clear-cut cases of police brutality. An-Nahar footage of riot police beating protesters Wednesday. Despite #YouStink's vow to prevent politicians from joining the national dialogue, the leaders of all the parliament’s blocs, except for the Lebanese Forces, met for the session in the Parliament that lasted until 4 p.m. As the leaders left the session, they told reporters that they were unaware of the chaos outside. #YouStink issued a stinging rebuke against the violence, saying that the security forces “arrests, beatings, and barbarity, as well as insults” seemed to indicate they cared only to protect “corrupt politicians from the defenseless people.” Amid the growing anger over the attacks on protesters, the ISF issued its own pictures showing injured security officers, while civil activist groups for their part called for further protests to demand the dozens of activists arrested earlier. More violence rocked the protest in mid-afternoon, as a group of men apparently supporting Speaker Nabih Berri assaulted demonstrators near the site of the tents set up by hunger strikers outside the Environment Ministry after a protester insulted the parliament speaker during a televised interview. Al-Jadeed footage of men offended by insults to Nabih Berri attacking protesters. The assailants attacked the tents and threw rocks and chairs at protesters, while security forces watched on, drawing jeers from nearby protesters. The angry men cleared out, before descending on the protesters shortly afterward, injuring a number of them before security forces could end the violence. Demonstrators speaking to TV outlets accused the assailants of being Amal Movement partisans, prompting the parliamentary speaker’s Amal Movement to deny its involvement. As evening descended on Beirut, protesters gathered in Riad al-Solh Square following a call by civil activist groups to hold an open-ended sit-in until the release of all protesters detained since August 22. "Descending on the streets is a decisive message to the political class that we will not give in," #YouStink declared in a defiant statement in which it accused security forces of "kidnapping" activists. #YouStink had earlier announced that 40 demonstrators were arrested Wednesday, while activists reported a number of civil society organizers had been swept up in the heavy-handed security sweep, including a hunger striker who had gone 14-days without food and was released in the late afternoon. By 8 p.m., local stations were reporting that almost all the detainees had been released, however the stories awaited official confirmation.

Lebanon activists demand halt to MPs’ salaries
Alex Rowell/Now Lebanon/September 16/15
On Tuesday morning, activists from the We Want Accountability and Go Away groups tried to emulate a surprise sit-in that was held for nine hours in the environment ministry on 1 September, this time at the ministry of finance. All but two of the activists were prevented by quick-reacting security forces from entering the building in central Beirut, but a demonstration took place in the street outside nonetheless. The key demand was an end to the payment of MPs’ salaries — reported to cost taxpayers over $725,000 per month in total — in light of parliament having been effectively paralyzed since May 2014, when former President Michel Suleiman left office. In November 2014, on one of the few occasions parliament has met since then, MPs renewed their own mandates till 2017, in a move many civil society activists, as well as the European Union, decried as unconstitutional. The demonstrators on Tuesday also contrasted the steady payment of MPs’ salaries with that of other public sector employees, many of whom have faced significant delays in receiving wages. “Our movement is […] for the public sector employees, who are always being threatened that their paychecks will not be paid,” said We Want Accountability organizer Nehmat Badreddine. On Saturday, schoolteachers held a sit-in in Beirut to protest a six-month delay in their salary payments. In July, staff at a public hospital in south Lebanon’s Marjayoun went on strike after also not receiving payment in six months, following similar moves by employees at the Rafiq al-Hariri University Hospital in Beirut and the public hospital in Saida. In August, Finance Minister Ali Hasan Khalil warned that several ministries may be “not capable of paying salaries” from September onwards. While the Lebanese government runs at a fiscal deficit ($112 million per month as of January 2015, according to Ministry of Finance data), exacerbated by a dramatic economic deceleration since the outbreak of war in neighboring Syria, the cause of the salary payment problem is not actually financial, according to economists. “The money from the mobile phones is flowing, the VAT money is flowing, we have a lot of taxes being collected automatically,” Dr. Jad Chaaban, associate professor of economics at the American University of Beirut, told NOW. “So I don’t think there’s any cash issue.”“Public finances are stable, despite the high levels of public debt and fiscal deficit,” agreed Nassib Ghobril, chief economist at Byblos Bank Group. “This is because the banking sector is big enough and liquid enough to attract deposits […] [and thus] finance the private sector and the growing borrowing needs of the public sector.”Instead, the salaries issue is an essentially bureaucratic one, related to the present dysfunction in both parliament and cabinet, both of which are being boycotted by various parties. Because the government operates without an official budget, spending every year “is based on decrees issued by the [cabinet],” said Chaaban. “So if the cabinet doesn’t meet and agree that there should be extraordinary spending, then the ministry of finance doesn’t have the legal backup to go and spend cash from its ministry to cover anything, like wages or other [expenses].”
Indeed, Minister Khalil said as much in August, proposing that officials meet to approve a draft budget he submitted earlier in the year. Chaaban hinted Khalil’s warnings about potential future salary delays may be a means of further prodding the government to move forward on that front.
“Somebody might suspect that someone is using this tool to make more pressure on the public, or to threaten with a certain card,” Chaaban told NOW. While agreeing with Chaaban that there was no immediate prospect of a fiscal crisis on the horizon in Lebanon, Ghobril nonetheless told NOW there was much room for improvement and reform in public finance — all of it, also, impossible in the present environment of executive and legislative inertia. “There are problems of widening fiscal deficit, of declining public revenues, a lack of reforms to reduce borrowing needs of the government, [and an] absence of political will to reduce public expenditures,” said Ghobril. “But in the current political situation, actually constitutional situation, it is very difficult to implement. It’s difficult to implement at any time, let alone in this environment. You need a president, then the formation of a new cabinet, then parliamentary elections, and then after that you could have functioning institutions that can tackle these issues.”“That’s not to absolve the government of its responsibilities today to reduce public expenditures and try to improve collections and fight tax evasion. But the big ticket items — electricity reform, public pension reforms, social security reform — these require functioning institutions and a head of state.”

Bashir Gemayel, was a main chapter but not the last chapter
Walid Phares DC/Since 1982, September 14 has become a day of sad celebration of the assassination of President elect Bashir Gemayel, at the hands of SSNP militants under the orders of the Assad regime. It is natural that his followers and supporters would continue the tradition as partisans do around the world, and also normal that citizens would mourn a President killed in the line of duty, including John F Kennedy, and regardless of policies. I am borrowing a word used by Orient Le Jour journalist Michel Hajji Georgiou warning from transforming the commemorations into a "karabala'" trauma, or a "Karbali'zation" of the memory of Bashir Gemayel. I agree, the type of memorials in Lebanon at times becomes a massive emotional expression, with little substance. This is perhaps due to the fact that living politicians have no answers for the people's questions, leaving the masses with stressful quest for imaginative solutions. "Ah if he was alive" becomes the slogan. However very few of the celebrants know that Bashir Gemayel himself, whom I knew since my high school years, was opposed to the "Karbali'zation." His close assistants would testify that, as a leader of the Lebanese Forces and his brief tenure as a President elect he was bugged by such exercises. He used to say, and I heard him several times in meetings, "khalasna beke', rakkzo 3al mawdu3..." Very ironic. Bashir had many enemies, that is for sure. He had many allies who were complicating his action too. His enemies hated him and his people loved him. But one thing was sure, he was focused like a laser beam and always looking forward. He rarely spent time on the past. Unfortunately since his assassination, and particularly since 1991, commemorations accentuated the "mythical souvenirs" but ignored the actual substance of his work. A real debate about his legacy and plans never took place. His advisors and assistants shrunk into oblivion, leaving the scene to either vicious and superficial attacks on his legacy, or poetic remembrances by partisans. Tons could be debated on every September 14, and more tons should be debated on the entire history and evolution of the so-called "resistance" he led. None of it was done, none of it is done. He died 33 years ago, and the war he fought ended 25 years ago. There is a gap of a quarter of century, a heavy silence about what was it about between 1975 and 1990, and what was it about between 1990 and 2005, and again, what was about this past decade? These are precious many years of the life of a nation and yet there is no debate. Politicians prefer it that way. But historians needs to write, and witnesses needs to speak up. Bashir Gemayel was an important chapter, not the only chapter and not the last chapter of modern Lebanon's history. If he was alive he would have maintained the flames of expression high and would have said: "khalas beke, rakkzo 3al mawdu3.."

Dozens Arrested in Clashes as Rival Leaders Hold 2nd Dialogue Session
Naharnet/September 16/15/Lebanon's rival leaders met for the second round of national dialogue on Wednesday as scores of civil society activists clashed with security forces during a demonstration aimed at shaming the officials for failing to resolve crucial issues. The all-party talks were chaired by Speaker Nabih Berri at the parliament for the second week in a row as “You Stink” movement activists staged a protest to coincide with the dialogue in downtown Beirut. They clashed with baton-wielding anti-riot police after trying to push the metal barriers that security forces have erected to close off Nejmeh Square where parliament is located. Several arrests were made after the encounter.
Video footage showed police dragging at least two protesters on the ground while violently beating them both. The lawyer Mazen Hoteit told reporters that 42 protesters were arrested. The protesters accused the Internal Security Forces of using force and assaulting them, but police stressed said it respects the people's freedom of expression and peaceful demonstration rights. Later, anti-riot police chased protesters who had blocked the road near the Environment Ministry. The road closure came after several hunger strikers, who had erected tents in the area, were arrested during the clash with security forces. Later in the day, young men claiming to be supporters of Berri attacked protesters at the camp and destroyed their tents over alleged insults against the parliament speaker.
Riot police intervened after a second attack was waged and at least one of the assailants was arrested. TV footage showed the attackers hurling chairs and rocks at the protesters of whom several were injured. The developments prompted protest organizers to call for an open-ended sit-in at the Riad al-Solh Square that starts at 6:00 pm.
Earlier, a peaceful demonstration was held near Martyrs Square by the relatives of the servicemen taken hostage by jihadists in August last year when they overran the northeastern border town of Arsal.
A family member shouted: "Our cause is more important than all other issues.""We want our cause to be discussed at the dialogue table," said another. "Let them stop lying to us that our sons will be released."
The dialogue session ended around 4:00 pm and several participants described the atmosphere as positive.
“The conferees discussed means to reach a breakthrough in the issue of the presidential election and other topics,” said an official statement issued after the session. “They stressed their support for the government in the implementation of the decisions that were taken to address the vital issues and it was decided to hold the next session on Tuesday, September 22 at 12:00 pm,” it added. Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said Speaker Berri rejected “all proposals that breach the Constitution.”Meanwhile, Telecom Minister Butros Harb said the session was “good,” hoping dialogue “will open the door for solutions.”
For his part, Deputy Speaker Farid Makari said “it is impossible to amend the Constitution in order to elect a president by a popular vote.”
MTV, meanwhile, said Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun told Berri that “the Free Patriotic Movement's participation in today's dialogue session might be the last if the conferees do not endorse the proposal of 'resorting to the people.'”Last Wednesday, anti-government protesters gathered near the parliament building, which was closed off by security forces, and hurled eggs as politicians' convoys drove by.
Later in the day, thousands of demonstrators braved a sandstorm to take to downtown Beirut's streets and rally against government dysfunction.
The trash crisis has ignited the largest Lebanese protests in years and has emerged as a festering symbol of the government's paralysis and failure to provide basic services. It was sparked by popular anger over the heaps of trash accumulating in the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon after authorities closed Lebanon's largest landfill in Naameh on July 17 and failed to provide an alternative.
Berri said in his opening statement on Wednesday that only dialogue would lead to salvation. The national dialogue has on its agenda the presidential vacuum, the resumption of the work of parliament and the cabinet, a new electoral draft-law, legislation allowing Lebanese expats to obtain the nationality, administrative decentralization and ways to support the Lebanese Army and the Internal Security Forces. It was attended by the same officials who took part in the talks last week, except for Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, who sent Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil as his representative. The country has been without a president for over a year, and lawmakers have illegally extended their term twice amid disputes over the election law. After meeting for three and a half hours last week, the leaders of various parliamentary blocs issued a brief statement, saying the talks would resume in a week.

EDL Ordered to Cut Power Supply to Officials with Unpaid Bills
Naharnet/September 16/15/Financial Prosecutor Judge Ali Ibrahim ordered on Wednesday Electricity du Liban's general manager to cut off electricity from the homes and institutions of officials who haven't paid their bills. Ibrahim told the head of the state-run firm, Kamal al-Hayek, that he should start implementing the decision he has taken.The judge's bold move came at at time when anti-government activists are holding rallies stemming from a trash collection crisis. What started as protests against waste piling in the streets of Beirut and Mount Lebanon because of government dysfunction is turning into Lebanon's largest protest movement in years, targeting an entire political class. The protesters are not only complaining about the garbage, they are also accusing corrupt officials of being the reason behind severe power cuts and water shortages. On Tuesday, dozens of activists held a protest outside the Finance Ministry building in Beirut, after failing to storm it. The protesters chanted against corruption in state institutions. They asked the ministry to stop paying salaries for lawmakers who have been unable to convene. Activists also briefly closed a main road in downtown Beirut and dumped trash outside the Environment Ministry after Minister Mohammed al-Mashnouq reiterated his rejection to resign during a meeting with hunger strikers. Several young men went on hunger strike 15 days ago after demonstrators stormed the Environment Ministry to demand al-Mashnouq's resignation over his failure to resolve the garbage crisis that erupted after Lebanon’s main landfill in Naameh was closed mid-July.

Garbage Mountains Circle Beirut as Crisis Festers
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 16/15/On the outskirts of Beirut, mountains of putrid garbage are rising and tempers are flaring as a months-old rubbish collection crisis shows no signs of being resolved. The desperate capital has taken to dumping its rubbish in huge makeshift piles, with the largest -- in Karantina at the northern entrance of the city -- neighboring the trendy nightlife areas of Mar Mikhail and Gemmayzeh. For Ali Yaacoub, a driver working for a firm based near the "Karantina mountain", it has become a blight on his city. "The situation has become unbearable," he said. "We spend six hours here each day among the smells and the insects." Hopes had been raised that the crisis, which dates back to mid-July, would come to an end after the government approved a plan last week following the biggest anti-government protests in years.The plan called for waste management to be turned over to municipalities in 18 months, the temporary expansion of two landfills and the reopening for seven days of the Naameh dump south of Beirut, which was closed in July. Trash collection resumed but on Monday the main private company involved, Sukleen, announced it was throwing in the towel as improvised dumps reached full capacity. Frustration has grown day-by-day, and on Wednesday police clashed with demonstrators angered by political inaction over the crisis. Back at the Karantina dump, Yaacoub and three colleagues swat away hordes of flies as they have breakfast at a plastic table just meters from the eyesore.
Health, environmental fears -
"I've almost lost my sense of smell," a firm's supervisor said, adding that several employees had suffered bouts of "throwing up, diarrhea and stomach pains."Garbage mountains have also sprouted on both sides of the highway leading north out of Beirut, as well as under its bridges and near the already polluted coast. Under one such bridge in Jounieh, cars must veer around a huge pile of trash spilling onto the road. One man was even reportedly killed in Dora, a busy northeastern suburb, as he tried to cross the road on foot because access to a pedestrian bridge was blocked by rubbish bags. Naamtallah Bouari, who runs a petrol station in Dbayeh north of Beirut, said that "rubbish has been dumped near workplaces, to the point where most people dare not put their noses outside." Environmental expert Ziad Abu Chaker warned of the health risks, saying "organic matter is being fermented in the air, spreading bacteria which cause diarrhea."Environmentalists fear the crisis could degenerate to the point where garbage as well as sewage will simply overflow into the sea from riverbeds as winter rains return. The health ministry has warned that garbage scattered by seasonal winds could also block Lebanon's drainage system. Adding to the environmental and health concerns, many Beirutis are resorting to burning garbage or spraying rubbish piles with strong insecticides.

Mashnouq: Street Mobility a Warning Siren, Aoun's Call for Direct Election Unrealistic
Naharnet/September 16/15/Interior Minister Nouhad al-Mashnouq emphasized on Wednesday that the latest street mobility is a warning siren that can not be neglected by politicians, assuring that the Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun's call to elect a president from the people is totally unrealistic.“What happened in the streets is a siren to the political strata that they should take seriously and address as a new factor in every day life,” said Mashnouq in an interview to Sky News Arabia. “Rejecting everything is the current mood prevailing (among the protesters) which is due to the lack of trust between the state and the people,” he added. Anti-government activists are holding rallies stemming from a trash collection crisis that erupted in July 17 when the largest landfill that receives the trash of Beirut and Mount Lebanon was closed. What started as protests against waste piling because of government dysfunction is turning into Lebanon's largest protest movement in years, targeting an entire political class. The protesters are not only complaining about the garbage, they are also accusing corrupt officials of being the reason behind severe power cuts and water shortages. The minister described the political rivalries in Lebanon as “despicable to the point that they can disable any right or duty of the citizen to the state.”“The calls to topple the regime in Lebanon are only calls for chaos. How can a regime be toppled without elections?” he asked. “We cannot introduce change in Lebanon unless we introduce a modern electoral law that opens the door for the minorities, independents and the youth. The demands of the civil society are a warning for politicians and sects urging them to elect a president and approve a new modern electoral law.” He expressed his belief that “a settlement in Lebanon's presidential elections may be partially available,” adding that “there is an internationally significant decision not to expose Lebanon to violent shocks.”He believed that there was “an accumulation of mistrust between citizens and the state as a result of the substantial decline in the services that are the basis of their dailylives , whether the electricity or social services , and finally the waste file ".On the calls of Aoun to elect the president from the people, Mashnouq described it as “unrealistic.”“It is a threat to obstruct the whole state until the introduction of constitutional amendments that he wishes for.”

9 Detainees to be Released after Families Hold Sit-in Near Military Court
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 16/15The military court approved on Tuesday the release of nine people, including minors, arrested during recent protests held in downtown Beirut on rioting charges. Lawyers had filed a request for setting free 16 of the detainees but the tribunal decided to release only nine of them. The decision came following a pledge made by Military Prosecutor Judge Saqr Saqr to take action. The meeting between Saqr and a delegation from the families of the so-called August 29 detainees took place after the relatives blocked the road near the military court that lies in the Beirut Museum area, calling for the release of their loved ones.On Tuesday, the families blocked a vital road outside the Interior Ministry in Sanayeh area. The detainees include at least seven minors. Rights activists say their detention is illegal. Demonstrations organized by "You Stink" movement and other groups have escalated over the past weeks, peaking on August 29 when tens of thousands flooded downtown Beirut's Martyrs Square in a rare display of non-partisan mobilization. The protest movement began in July when the Naameh landfill, Lebanon's largest, was closed and pungent garbage started piling up in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. The demonstrations turned into Lebanon's largest protest movement in years, targeting an entire political class.

Terrorist Ibrahim Atrash, a Precious Army Catch
Naharnet/September 16/15/The Lebanese army arrested in the northeastern town of Arsal fugitive Ibrahim Qassem al-Atrash in a substantial move that could unravel additional terrorist cells that have schemed and executed bombings in several Lebanese areas. “The phase before the apprehension of al-Atrash is not similar to after that because it will reveal dangerous files that could give clues to terrorist cells in Lebanon. It is the most important accomplishment so far,” unnamed security sources told An Nahar on Wednesday. “The army intelligence had intensified measures in clandestine on the entrances of Arsal which led to the arrest of Atrash, 45, after hard work of tracing him for several years,” they added. “He has been on the run for many years and is the most prominent terrorist figure on the list of arrests of the security forces. His apprehension came unannounced and without losses,” they said, noting that the fugitive was always moving under the protection of armed group working. In 2013, al-Atrash who is nicknamed Abou al-Moaatasem, Abou Hassan and Ibrahim Tark, has together with the so-called emir of al-Nusra in Qalamoun Malek Abou al-Talleh, formed and armed the al-Nusra Front in the outskirts of Arsal.“Al-Atrash is charged with kidnapping and assaulting army and ISF members during the 2014 clashes in Arsal,” the Lebanese Army Orientation Directorate said in a communique on Tuesday. “He is also charged with launching rockets at several towns in the Bekaa, booby-trapping cars the latest was a a Jeep Cherokee in addition to opening fire and killing a number of citizens and injuring others,” it added.

Report: Jumblat's Efforts on Promotions Reach Dead-End
Naharnet/September 16/15/Efforts exerted by Progressive Socialist Party chief MP Walid Jumblat to resolve the cabinet crisis linked to the appointment of high-ranking military and security officials have reached a dead-end, An Nahar daily reported on Wednesday. The newspaper said that a proposal made by Jumblat to promote a few army officers, including Commando Regiment chief Brig. Gen. Chamel Roukoz, from brigadier-general to the rank of major-general has been rejected by several Lebanese officials and the army leadership. Jumblat had tasked Health Minister Wael Abou Faour, who is a PSP official, with holding meetings to resolve the controversial appointments that have brought cabinet sessions to a standstill. The promotion leaves Roukoz, who is the son-in-law of Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, in the military for another year. Aoun wants him to become military commander and rejects the extension of the terms of high-ranking army and security officers, considering it illegitimate. The government has been paralyzed for months over differences between the rival parties on the cabinet's decision-making mechanism and the issue of appointments.Earlier this month, the ministers of the Free Patriotic Movement, which is now led by Aoun's other son-in-law Foreign Minister Jebran Bassil, and their allies walked out of a cabinet session over these issues.

Derbas to Aoun: I am not the Syrian Ambassador
Naharnet/September 16/15/Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas snapped back at Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, who has accused him of turning a blind eye to alleged efforts aimed at naturalizing Syrian refugees in Lebanon. “My answer (to Aoun) is simple … I am not the Syrian ambassador,” Derbas told An Nahar newspaper published on Wednesday. “We hope that all Syrian refugees would register their children at the Syrian embassy,” he said. “I cannot force them or force the Syrian ambassador to do so.”“Any discussion about naturalization is illegal,” Derbas added. Aoun warned following the weekly meeting of his Change and Reform bloc on Tuesday that the international community is conspiring to settle a large number of displaced Syrians in Lebanon. He said the social affairs ministry is not counting the birth of Syrians and not pushing for their registration at their country's mission. Lebanon hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees, but only 1.1 million are registered with the UNHCR.

Zaitunay Bay: A Public Space
Naharnet/September 16/15/Following last Saturday’s activist movement on Zaitunay Bay, and which included erroneous slogans (whether by intention or not), Solidere would like to clarify the following: Ever since its inception, the company has emphasized public space in its masterplan, and equipped Downtown with an infrastructure that is highly conductive for public activity and citizen movements. Consequently, Downtown accommodated many manifestations and large citizen demonstrations, including the latest protests. Concerning Zaitunay Bay, we would like to state some facts: Regardless of any movement, the sea dock has always been, and will always remain, an inherently public space that is open to everyone. The fact that no private or government security personnel tried to obstruct the activity of the demonstrators proves that. The presence of private enterprise and restaurants in Zaitunay Bay in no way makes the deck private property, despite the propaganda that wants to portray it as exclusive to a specific company or a specific socio-economic class. Just like any other public domain, this deck has governmental regulations for public activity. Moreover, the restaurants and cafes that operate in the Bay provide jobs for hundreds of individuals, and are part of an economic system that is standard everywhere. The restaurants, which are claimed to be “elitists”, are all in fact branches of larger chains that follow the same pricing anywhere in the country. These restaurants cater to a wide range of budgets, and none of them is owned or operated by Solidere. Solidere would like to stress the fact that accessing Zaitunay Bay is completely free of charge, unlike other resorts in its vicinity or elsewhere along the Lebanese coast.

Hizbullah and Mustaqbal Support 'Continuation of Dialogue in This Critical Period'
/Naharnet/September 16/15/Hizbullah and al-Mustaqbal movement lauded Tuesday during their 18th dialogue session Speaker Nabih Berri's recent call for national dialogue, saying it should continue amid the “critical period” that the country is going through.
“The conferees discussed the political developments and applauded Speaker Berri's call for convening a (national) dialogue conference in a bid to reach an agreement on the issues mentioned in the agenda,” said the two parties in a joint statement issued after the Ain el-Tineh talks.
The conferees “support the continuation of dialogue amid this critical situation that the country is going through,” they added. The statement said the participants also tackled “the current issues, especially restoring the regularity of the work of state institutions and finding solutions to the current crises that are of concern to citizens.” The bilateral talks between the two parties come on the eve of a second national dialogue session called for by Berri. The first session, which did not yield any results, was held last Wednesday. A terse official statement recited by the parliament's secretary-general said “the conferees explained their viewpoints on the current issues while focusing on the agenda's first item, which is the presidential vote and the steps needed to achieve it.” “The mere occurrence of this dialogue reflects success, as we are all confirming our commitment to dialogue as the only way to overcome our crises, and our adherence to our country's unity and the coexistence formula,” Berri told the conferees at the beginning of Wednesday's national dialogue session.
“This meeting was necessary in order to rescue our country from the current state of paralysis, so that we don't later find our country in the dustbins of history,” added Berri. He also warned that “the negativity emanating from the partisan and personal interests has started to pose a threat to Lebanon's existence.” The dialogue sessions come amid unprecedented anti-government protests in the country. The protest movement of civil society groups began in mid-July as piles of garbage built up in Beirut and Mount Lebanon after the closure of Lebanon's largest landfill in Naameh. But it has since grown to represent broader frustrations that cut across sectarian and partisan lines, including electricity and water shortages, and endemic corruption among the political elite. Demonstrations in the capital grew from several dozen protesters to thousands, peaking when tens of thousands descended on Martyrs' Square on August 29. Groups like "You Stink" and "We Want Accountability" are among a handful of civil society campaigns born out of the movement that have called for additional protests.

First Migrants Enter Croatia after Hungary Seals Border
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 16/15/Several dozen migrants entered Croatia from Serbia early Wednesday, the first to enter the EU country after Hungary sealed its borders to thousand of people entering every day, an AFP correspondent saw. The group of mostly Syrian or Afghan men, women and children crossed the border -- which was marked by nothing more than a stone -- early Wednesday morning and were picked up by police as they walked across a field. From there they were taken to a police station in the nearby town of Tovarnik to be registered, police said, and tended to by medical staff. Police said initially that a group of around 20 people entered the country. They said that other groups of similar sizes were on their way. Until this week, the vast majority of migrants and refugees travelled up from Greece, through Macedonia and Serbia into Hungary. From there they travelled onwards to western Europe, particularly Germany and Sweden, via Austria. But Hungary, which has seen more than 200,000 migrants enter this year, on Monday and Tuesday effectively sealed its southern border with Serbia by closing off a railway line where many entered with a waggon and barbed wire. Hungary directed the migrants to official border crossing points but after some were allowed through these too blocked. Any entering Hungary illegally were liable to arrest and several years in prison under new laws rushed through parliament by Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government last week that came into effect on Tuesday.
The effect was plain to see in numbers released by Hungarian police on Wednesday, with the number of people intercepted falling to just 367 from a record 9,380 the day before.From Croatia, which is in the Europe Union but unlike Hungary not in the passport-free Schengen Zone, the migrants could then enter Schengen member Slovenia, or Hungary.

Texas: Armed Muslim enters church, says Allah told him to “slay infidels”
September 15, 2015/By Robert Spencer /Jihadwatch
“He said people are going to die today, that’s what he said to me,” said the pastor. “Aziz first approached a deacon outside the church and asked to see the pastor for prayer,” according to KITV. Had the deacon drawn cartoons of Muhammad? Had the pastor committed some act of “Islamophobia”? Or did Rasheed Abdul Aziz choose the Corinth Missionary Baptist Church for his jihad simply because the Qur’an commands Muslims to fight against and subjugate the “People of the Book” (9:29), a command that doesn’t single out the “People of the Book” who have “poked Muslims in the eye,” but applies to all of them whether they have offended delicate Muslim sensibilities or not?
“Pastor speaks out about man who allegedly threatened his church,”
Paul Rivera, KLTV, September 14, 2015
Forty-year-old Rasheed Abdul Aziz was arrested Sunday for allegedly threatening the Corinth Missionary Baptist Church in Bullard. Aziz had a gun, was wearing a camouflage helmet, camo pants, tactical vest and boots when entered the church around one o’clock.
According to Pastor John Johnson, Aziz appeared distressed and said that god had told him to “slay infidels.”
“He said people are going to die today, that’s what he said to me,” says Johnson. Johnson says Aziz entered the church through a side door, ended up in the conference room where Johnson and others were.
The conversation with Aziz lasted about 5 minutes, and in those five minutes, Aziz reportedly told Pastor Johnson he was representing Allah and god had sanctioned him to kill and slay people. During that conversation, Johnson says that he was able to see that Aziz had a gun.
“Immediately my mind went to the fact that I knew we had several children and young members that were playing and running in the fellowship hall, I mouthed to them, this man has a weapon, I need you guys to go.” Johnson believed that the only key to getting out alive that day was to calm Aziz down. “I believe that his intent was when he came to our church was to actually kill somebody,” says Johnson.
Monday morning, when church deacon T.J. Johnson showed up to church, he opened the front door and found a note that Aziz had left behind. The note says: “My name is Rasheed, you helped me at a time of need, this house is blessed by God and all faiths.” It was a strikingly peaceful note that Pastor Johnson says does not reflect Aziz’s demeanor that day. “It was very clear that he was very angry when he entered the building and he attempted to escalate himself,” says Johnson….

Syrian President Says Priority is Defeating Terrorism
Associated Press/Naharnet/September 16/15
Syria's President Bashar Assad urged Syrian political and armed factions to unite in the fight against terrorist groups and said in comments aired Tuesday that there can be no political solution for the country's brutal civil war before terrorism is defeated. Speaking in an interview with Russian media, he also blamed Europe for the refugee crisis currently hitting the continent, saying it is a direct result of the West's support of extremists in Syria over the past four years. The Russian president has said it is impossible to defeat the Islamic State group without cooperating with Damascus. In recent days Moscow has sent about a half-dozen battle tanks and other weaponry — along with military advisers, technicians, security guards and portable housing units — to Syria with the apparent goal of setting up an air base near the coastal town of Latakia, a stronghold of the Syrian President. U.S. officials have said Moscow is simply trying to prop up Assad. In the interview Assad did not directly address the Russian moves, only praising Moscow as an "independent state" and an "impartial" broker of dialogue between Syrian groups. He urged the formation of a united front against the Islamic State group, saying the priority of every single Syrian citizen is to be secure. "We, the political parties, the government and the armed groups that fought against the government, we must all unite in the name of combating terrorism," Assad said. He said dialogue can continue, but added that nothing can be implemented unless terrorism is defeated first. Assad also said Europe is to blame for the refugee crisis, citing also what he described as a failure to enforce a controlled immigration system, forcing refugees to set out across perilous seas. "We all mourn these innocent victims but is one life lost drowned at sea more valuable than those who have died in Syria? How can one be indignant about a drowned child and remain silent about the death of thousands of children, elderly people, women and men killed by terrorists in Syria? These European double standards are unacceptable," he said. "Europe is to blame in its principles because it supports terrorism and continues to do so, it provides protection for terrorists, calling them moderates, divides them into groups, when they are in fact the terrorist groups in Syria," he said. Addressing Europeans, Assad added: "Stop, if you are worried about them (refugees), stop supporting terrorists."The Syrian government considers all armed groups fighting to topple Assad to be terrorists.

Russia Moves in Syria to Boost Assad, Send Signal to West
Agence France Presse/Naharnet/September 16/15/Russia's recent military build-up in Syria aims not only to boost the embattled regime of crucial ally Bashar Assad but also to send a strong signal to the West, experts say. With President Vladimir Putin set to make Syria a key issue of his address to the U.N. General Assembly in New York later this month, Moscow is making it clear that it will not be ignored in the Middle East. The build-up has underscored deep international divisions on Assad, has complicated efforts to tackle the jihadist Islamic State group and left Washington scrambling to respond. For Daragh McDowell, an analyst with the Verisk Maplecroft consultancy, there is little doubt the move is "aimed at forcing the U.S. and the West to re-engage with Moscow. "This is an attempt to ensure Russian views on the future of Syria and the fight against (IS) cannot be dismissed," he said. Russia's alliance with Syria goes back half a century, with many Syrian military officers receiving training there and Moscow maintaining a naval base in the port of Tartus. U.S. officials and sources on the ground say in recent weeks Russia has bolstered its presence, including in Latakia province, a stronghold of the regime and Assad's traditional heartland. Russia has reportedly moved artillery units and tanks to an airport in Latakia province, along with dozens of personnel and temporary housing for hundreds more.
Assad military 'fatigue' -
Residents of the province describe an influx of Russians in local shops and restaurants and a Britain-based monitoring group reported Russia was building a runway at an airport in Latakia. The build-up comes at a difficult time for Assad in the civil war that has ravaged Syria for more than four years, leaving more than 240,000 dead. The regime has suffered a series of setbacks in recent months -- including the recent loss of Idlib province to a rebel coalition -- prompting an unusual admission from Assad in July that his forces are suffering "fatigue."Military experts say Syria's army has been roughly halved from its pre-war size of 300,000 by deaths, defections and increased draft dodging. The government has sought to fill the gaps by organizing local pro-regime militias and leaning on Lebanon's Hizbullah, as well as Iranian military advisers. Bassam Abu Abdullah, director of the Damascus Center for Strategic Studies, said Russia was not yet dispatching ground troops but rather advisers to train Syrian troops on new materiel, including "sophisticated short-range air defense systems and tanks.""The Russians say they are ready to give direct support, they're not ashamed to admit it, they consider the Syrian army and Assad to be legitimate," he said.
Concerns in Washington -
The build-up has prompted deep concern in Washington, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry calling Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov this week to warn that Moscow's continued support for Assad "risks exacerbating and extending the conflict."Kerry said it was also "undermining our shared goal of fighting extremism" -- highlighting the central role of the fight against IS in Syria. Moscow has been chafing at the lukewarm reception given to its recent proposals to expand the U.S.-led coalition fighting IS to include Assad -- who Western governments have insisted must go -- and his ally Iran. A Syrian politician close to the regime told AFP that Moscow's decision to ramp up its forces in Syria was in part prompted by its frustration over this rejection. Alexander Golts, an independent Russian military analyst, said Moscow's move was "showing its determination and pushing its idea of a coalition." "They are hoping to escape international isolation thanks to this coalition idea," he said. "Lavrov has already said that this proposal will be the main subject of Putin's speech at the U.N."U.S. media reports have said President Barack Obama is considering whether to meet with Putin at the U.N. General Assembly, which the Russian leader is to address on September 28. The two have rarely met in recent years as Russia has been increasingly isolated over the conflict in Ukraine.Behind all of Russia's moves in Syria, analysts said, is its determination to ensure a future for Assad, who has allowed Moscow to maintain a crucial foothold in the Middle East and eastern Mediterranean.
Boost to morale
"Putin's goal is to save Assad and every step (Russia) takes is aimed at realizing this goal," said Alexander Shumilin, the head of the Moscow-based Center for Analysis of Mideast Conflicts. "Because if Assad falls, Russia will be excluded from the political process in the Middle East, where it has real weight as long as Assad survives," he said. For Assad himself, Russia's increasing support will provide more than just military advantages. Joshua Landis, a Syria expert at the University of Oklahoma, said it is likely to also boost public morale among Assad supporters in Latakia and Tartus. The traditional homeland of Assad's Alawite sect has been under increasing pressure in recent weeks as rebels have advanced towards Latakia. A car bombing in Latakia city earlier this month killed at least 10 people and wounded dozens more, in a rare attack in an area that has been mostly spared the ravages of Syria's conflict. "Ordinary Alawite civilians and regime supporters may take some comfort in the knowledge that a... 'first world' military is on the ground that may help forestall possible 'ethnic cleansing' of Alawites should Assad's military fail in the long run," Landis said. And in the worst-case scenario for Moscow, analysts said, Russian facilities would provide a crucial fall-back position for the regime or even an outlet for Assad's evacuation.

U.N.: Aqsa clashes a threat beyond Jerusalem
By Edith M. Lederer | The Associated Press/Wednesday, 16 September 2015/The U.N.’s Mideast envoy warned on Tuesday that clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in and around Jerusalem’s holy sites have the potential to ignite violence well beyond the walls of its old city, pointing to “a vicious tide of terror and extremism” in the region.Nikolay Mladenov urged all parties to refrain from “provocative actions and rhetoric” and called on political, community and religious leaders to ensure that visitors and worshippers “demonstrate restraint and respect for the sanctity of the area.”He told the U.N. Security Council by video link Tuesday that the clashes followed “sweeping restrictions” that Israel imposed on entry to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound, on Aug. 26. Since then, he said, Israel has banned members of Muslim and Jewish groups considered to be extremist.
READ ALSO: Arabs vow to ‘confront Israeli aggression’ on Al-Aqsa.“These latest incidents have echoed widely and have been condemned across the Muslim world and beyond,” Mladenov said. “It is imperative that the historic status quo is preserved” in line with agreements between Israel and Jordan’s King Abdullah II, who is custodian of the Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, he said. Mladenov said that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his government “will use all means to maintain the status quo and law and order on the compound.”He also noted “bold, concrete actions” are needed on the ground, in the region and internationally to reach a two-state solution. The Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.N., U.S., European Union and Russia — and key Arab nations will meet on September 30, according to Mladenov, on the sidelines of the General Assembly’s annual ministerial meeting to discuss how to link regional and international efforts to create conditions for a return to “meaningful negotiations.”

Assad: Iran is sending arms to Syria
By Staff Writer | Al Arabiya News/Wednesday, 16 September 2015/In an interview with Russian media, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said on Wednesday that Iran has sent Syria with military equipment and provided it with expertise since a civil war first broke out in 2011. "Iran supports Syria and the Syrian people. It stands with the Syrian state politically, economically and militarily," he said. Assad said that Tehran's support was also essential for his regime in Syria's conflict, which has cost more than 240,000 lives since 2011. "When we say militarily, it doesn't mean - as claimed by some in the Western media - that Iran has sent an army or armed forces to Syria. That is not true," said Assad. Syria was the only Arab state to side with the Islamic republic during its 1980-1988 war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Iranian media run regular reports on fighters killed in the Syrian conflict described as volunteers helping to defend Shiite holy sites in the country. “Crying for refugees” In the interview with Russian media, considered by many as a staunch ally to Damascus, said the West is "crying" for refugees flooding into Europe but its support for "terrorists" in his country lies at the roots of the crisis. "Those refugees left Syria because of the terrorism, mainly because of the terrorists and because of the killing, and second because of the results of terrorism," said the embattled leader. "When you have terrorism, and you have the destruction of the infrastructure, you won't have the basic needs of living," Assad said, according to a transcript made available on Wednesday. Syria's government labels all those involved in the anti-Assad uprising and ensuing civil war as "terrorists", including Western-backed rebels.
Ready to work with Gulf
Assad also said that Syria is ready to collaborate once again with Turkey, Gulf countries and the U.S. among others, once such countries stop what he described as “supporting and shielding as terrorist groups” and shift their focus on fighting them. “First, it’s not a personal relation; it’s a relation between states, and when you talk about relation between states, you don’t talk about trust; you talk about mechanism,” Assad said.“If any meeting or any handshaking with anyone in the world will bring benefit to the Syrian people, I have to do it, whether I like it or not. So, it’s not about me, I accept it or I like it or whatever; it’s about what the added value of this step that you’re going to take. So yes, we are ready whenever there’s the interest of the Syrians. I will do it, whatever it is.”[With AFP]

New drone technology can target any American airbase that threatens Iran'
By JPOST.COM STAFF/09/16/2015 /Lieutenant Commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps Brigadier General Hossein Salami announced on Tuesday that newly developed Iranian drone technology has the capability to fly 3,000 kilometers for reconnaissance and combat missions. "The IRGC has a drone that has a flying range of 3,000 km round-trip and is capable of conducting reconnaissance and combat missions," Salami said in an interview with the state-run TV on Tuesday night, Iran's Fars news Agency reported on Wednesday. "We also have a unique ballistic missile that no one else, but perhaps Russia and the US, has; and intercepting this missile is almost impossible," Salami added. The report quoted Salami as saying that, "Any US airbase whose airplanes can reach the Iranian airspace as well as their aircraft carriers can be targeted by Iran's unique high precision striking ballistic missiles and drones." In April a US Army report said Iran is building a fleet of so-called “suicide kamikaze drones,” and providing know-how on assembling these new weapons to its terrorist allies Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The report, which was cited by The Washington Times and published by the US Army’s Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, states that “no aspect of Iran’s overt military program has seen as much development over the past decade as Iranian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). “Whereas a decade ago Iran’s UAVs and drones were largely for show, a platform with little if any capability, the Iranian military today boasts widespread use of drones, employed not only by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), but also by the regular army, both regular and IRGC navy, and the regular and IRGC air forces,” it continues. Both Hamas and Hezbollah have deployed drones that have penetrated Israeli airspace. Thus far, they have not caused damage. “In a mid-February speech, regular army General Abdolrahim Moussavi outlined the [Iranian] army’s growing use of drones, with emphasis on suicide or kamikaze drones,” according to the US Army report.
“While it is easy to dismiss the idea of a suicide drone as more symbolic than real in an age of cruise missiles and precise Predators, utilizing suicide drones is an asymmetric strategy which both allows Iran to compete on an uneven playing field and poses a risk by allowing operators to pick and choose targets of opportunity over a drone’s multi-hour flight duration,” the report noted.

Abbas: Israelis have no right to desecrate our holy sites with their filthy feet
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH/J.Post/09/16/2015
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said on Wednesday that the Palestinians wouldn’t allow Israelis to “desecrate” Islamic and Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. Referring to the tensions surrounding visits by Jews to the Temple Mount, Abbas said: “Al-Aksa is ours and so is the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They have no right to desecrate them with their filthy feet. We won’t allow them to do so and we will do whatever we can to defend Jerusalem.”Abbas was speaking in his office in Ramallah during a meeting with east Jerusalem activists. Abbas said that the Palestinians were determined to prevent Israel from passing its scheme to “divide” the Aksa Mosque compound. “There will be no Palestinian state without Jerusalem,” he stressed. “We are in Jerusalem and we will stay in it to defend our Islamic and Christian holy sites. We’re not going to leave our country.” Abbas praised Muslim male and female worshipers whose job is to harass Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount. “Each drop of blood that was spilled in Jerusalem is pure blood as long as it’s for the sake of Allah. Every shahid (martyr) will be in heaven and every wounded person will be rewarded, by Allah’s will.”Also Wednesday, Abbas phoned Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and discussed with him the situation in Jerusalem in light of the controversy surrounding visits by Jews to the Temple Mount.

Livni to German FM: Iran still sponsoring terrorism after agreement with world powers
By LAHAV HARKOV/J.Post/09/16/2015
The world must stop Iran from sponsoring terrorism before embracing the Islamic Republic, MK Tzipi Livni (Zionist Union) told German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in Berlin Wednesday. The meeting took place a day after Steinmeier met with Iran's deputy Foreign Minister Majid Takht-Ravanchi to discuss improved relations between Berlin and Teheran. Livni expressed Israeli concerns about the immediate collapse of the sanctions regime against Iran. “Before you embrace Iran, you must act to prevent it from continuing to push terrorist activity,” she said. “Iran is still the problem and not the solution, not even in the crisis in Syria, like Germany tends to think.”The Zionist Union MK added that even after the world powers’ agreement with Iran, it continues to support terrorism and an extremist agenda and to speak about destroying Israel. Livni and Steinmeier also discussed the escalating violence in Jerusalem, with Livni explaining that Israel is trying to maintain the status quo in the city. However, she added, Israel “faces provocations by Islamic extremists who are trying to turn the conflict into an explosive religious one that will pull in the entire Muslim world.” On Wednesday evening, Livni was set to participate in a G7 conference on women’s political participation, to which she was invited by German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Other participants were expected to be Queen Rania of Jordan and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark.

Israeli PM, Netanyahu headed to Russia for talks on Syria
News agencies/Ynetnews/Published: 9.16.15
Netanyahu to convey his concerns over advanced Russian weaponry in Syria; France to bomb Islamic State in Syria; Kerry places his 3rd phone call in 10 days to his Russain counterpart. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Russia next week for talks with President Vladimir Putin on Russia's expanding military deployment in Syria, an Israeli official said on Wednesday."The prime minister will present the threats to Israel emanating from the increased flow of advanced weaponry to the Syrian arena and from the transfer of lethal weaponry to Hezbollah and other terrorist groups," the official said.
Meanwhile, France's defense minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian, says French fighter jets will start bombing Islamic State group targets in Syria in the coming weeks, despite growing doubts over whether the US-led air campaign against extremists in the region is working. Le Drian said on France-Inter radio Wednesday that the French strikes would go forward "as soon as we have well-identified targets." "Today ISIS has progressed to such an extent that it threatens both the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian resistance in the Aleppo region, but also Lebanon, which is behind the Damascus-Homs axis , if ISIS happens to break this line," noted Le Drian. Russia's recent military buildup in Syria has perplexed the Obama administration and left it in a quandary as to how to respond, complicating Washington's efforts to both combat Islamic State extremists and assist moderate rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Underscoring US uncertainty about Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions, Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday placed his third phone call in 10 days to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, seeking clarity about Moscow's moves, the State Department said. "Kerry made clear that Russia's continued support for President Assad risks exacerbating and extending the conflict, and undermining our shared goal of fighting extremism if we do not also remain focused on finding a solution to the conflict in Syria via a genuine political transition," the department said in a statement. Last week, President Barack Obama said Putin's strategy is "doomed to fail" and the White House reinforced that message on Tuesday.

Netanyahu, Putin to discuss continued Israeli air force freedom of action over Syria
DEBKAfile Special Report September 16/15
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed Wednesday, Sept. 16, that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu would pay a “short working visit and hold talks with President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Monday, Sept. 21.” The announcement from the Prime Minister’s Bureau in Jerusalem was somewhat more informative: “The Prime Minister will express his views on the threat to Israel as a result of the deliveries of modern weaponry to Syria due to the possibility that they could end up in the hands of Hizballah or other terrorist organizations.” If that is to be the sole topic of their talks, DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources doubt the prime minister will accomplish anything much, outside of a polite exchange of views. Putin will not remove the Russian troops and advanced weaponry which giant Antonov-24 Condors have been landing in Syria since the last week of August. These deliveries have been planned down to the last detail in coordination with Tehran - as Moscow’s rejoinder for US President Barack Obama’s cherished nuclear deal with Iran. Tehran has not only refrained from endorsing the accord, but has joined Moscow in a move to outmaneuver Washington in the Middle East by a major military buildup in Syria. Putin will no doubt parrot Obama in assuring Netanyahu of Russia’s abiding commitment to Israel’s security. But he will not waver in his steps for strengthening Iran’s foothold in Syria, any more than Obama has. The enhancement of President Bashar Assad’s military capabilities by an injection of sophisticated weapons is part and parcel of Putin’s project, and a share of those arms will undoubtedly be allotted to Assad’s ally, Hizballah. Lacking most of all is a consensus on which terrorist organizations pose the paramount threat. For Obama, it is the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant - ISIS; for Netanyahu, ISIS and Hizballah are equally dangerous; whereas Putin lumps ISIS and other Syrian Islamist rebel groups in the same category, especially the Nusra Front, which has Russian Chechen recruits and therefore poses a direct threat to Moscow. With Washington and Moscow at odds over which terrorist organizations should be fought first, Netanyahu is unlikely to get a serious hearing from his hosts in Moscow.
For months now, Russia and Iran have been laying the groundwork for their intensified military collaboration in Syria. Last April, Al Qods chief Gen. Qassem Soleimani visited Moscow to promote the scheme. Four months earlier, in Dec. 2014, the Kremlin’s Middle East expert Mikhail Bogdanov held talks in Beirut with Hizballah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah. All this leaves Netanyahu with a narrow corridor for making headway in Moscow.According to our sources, he will press for the Israeli Air Force to continue to have a free hand in Syrian skies for dealing with threats. Coordination between the Israeli Air Force and the Russian Air Force command located at Jablah near the western Syrian port of Latakia, would need to be established to prevent inadvertent collisions between Russia and Israeli warplanes. This sort of coordination has been tacitly approved between Washington and Moscow to enable the US to continue to conduct air strikes against ISIS in Syria.
But the Israeli case is more complex in view of the multiplicity of its enemies: Israel requires a free hand to strike targets in Syria of its declared foes, Iran and Hizballah, when necessary to distance them from its borders. On this, Putin may well dig in his heels.
Another issue which may come up in their talks in six days’ time is Israel’s Mediterranean gas field, in which the Russian leader has expressed an interest. Since the projected Israel-Turkish pipeline for exporting the gas to Europe will verge on the economic water zones of Lebanon and Syria, Russia is the only power realistically capable or providing it with military protection.

Syrian regime displaces Zabadani residents
Mustafa al-Haj/Al-Monitor
September 15, 2015
DAMASCUS, Syria — The Syrian mountain town of Madaya, which has been under siege by the regime and Lebanon's Hezbollah for 2½ months, is running out of food and supplies, and the humanitarian situation is worsening as the town is targeted with barrel bombs and flooded with civilians displaced from nearby Zabadani. Madaya is about 25 miles northwest of the capital, Damascus, and borders Zabadani city from the southeast. Madaya's original population of 20,000 has doubled to 40,000 with the forced displacement of residents mostly from Zabadani. Some speculate the Syrian regime is taking revenge on Madaya's residents and the people displaced there because of their support for the revolution.
The regime, however, has said militants from Zabadani also are fleeing to Madaya.
Ibtihal Youssef, a civil activist in Madaya, confirmed that the humanitarian situation is very difficult. She told Al-Monitor, “Relief organizations Eithar and Wafaa distribute aid to civilians who turned school buildings into shelters, but the suffocating siege led to the depletion of the food aid. We even slaughtered the town’s sheep and cows to distribute meat to the people.” What remained of the reserve of flour bags that were hidden in a warehouse is finished and so bread is no longer available in Madaya. Youssef said people are soaking bulgur and eating it to curb their hunger. "The situation will become even more disastrous for children and the elderly, especially with the depletion of baby formula and essential medicines for the elderly. The regime is preventing civilians from leaving the town, no matter how critical their medical condition.”Negotiations failed Aug. 5 between a representative of Ahrar al-Sham and an Iranian delegation in Turkey. The negotiations sought a cease-fire in Zabadani and the countryside of Damascus in exchange for a reciprocal truce in the villages of al-Fu’ah and Kefraya, the stronghold of the Shiite community in the countryside of Idlib province in northwest Syria near the border with Turkey. After the talks failed, fighting in Madaya intensified and the town was flooded with organized waves of displaced civilians.
“The [deliberate] displacement decision was announced through loudspeakers from the minarets, and the people of the neighborhoods of Inshaat and al-Mamoura on the eastern outskirts of the city of Zabadani were the first to be displaced to Madaya,” political activist and journalist Ali Ibrahim, who is from Madaya, told Al-Monitor.
According to the latest statistics from the local council in Zabadani, some of those displaced are from the nearby village of Bloudan, while others come from the eastern neighborhoods of Zabadani, which are controlled by the regime. Ibrahim said, “The people of Zabadani displaced to Bloudan [then] were also forcibly displaced to Madaya. Thugs and security patrols affiliated with the Syrian regime raided homes in early September and immediately displaced to Madaya, using military Zell trucks, every person holding a personal registration card from Zabadani.”
Former military officer and opposition military analyst Nabil Jadid told Al-Monitor his theory of why the Syrian regime — supported by Hezbollah — is forcing the displaced residents of Zabadani only to Madaya.
“Now the political equation is Madaya in exchange for al-Fu’ah and Kefraya. By forcibly displacing the people of Zabadani to Madaya, the regime will have a new pressure card it may use against opposition fighters in Zabadani.” Jadid added, “It became clear that any attack by opposition fighters in the town of Zabadani on the regime’s checkpoints is reciprocated by the regime’s bombing of the city of Madaya, to force them to stop.”However, Ali Maqsoud, a pro-Syrian regime military affairs researcher, told Fars News Agency on Sept. 4, “Madaya will be the safe haven for militants fleeing from Zabadani. The militants’ escape and stay in Madaya or Serghaya will not affect the cleansing process of these two towns. It is natural that the powers behind the armed militias push toward a new negotiation process.”Maqsoud added, “There are regional powers supporting terrorism that wish to free this region of the armed presence of the Syrian army. This region is considered a fundamental pillar in the operations aimed to secure the western and southwestern Syrian borders.”Al-Monitor met with Ammar Yousef, a member of the reconciliation committee in Madaya, who said Hezbollah is now hampering any attempt to reach a solution to save civilians in Madaya, since Hezbollah's only objective is to control the town so it can secure the headquarters of its militia on the Lebanese-Syrian border and lift the siege on the Shiite towns in the Idlib countryside. Yousef added, “On Sept. 1, a delegation from a reconciliation committee in Madaya, with a 4th Army Division colonel named Adel Issa, headed to Damascus to agree on a cease-fire and open humanitarian crossings to the town. But at one of Hezbollah’s checkpoints officers took up arms against the colonel and ordered the delegation to return to Madaya, which foiled the reconciliation committee’s efforts.”
According to Yousef, the regime completely entrusted Hezbollah on Sept. 13 to handle matters relating to Zabadani and Madaya.
On a related note, the academic year of 2015-16 starts next week. Al-Monitor met with former teacher Zeina Obeid, who said some 3,200 children in Madaya will not be going to school this year if the random shelling continues. “There are six schools in Madaya, two of which were substantially destroyed by the regime’s shelling. Four other schools are inhabited by the displaced flowing in from different regions of the Damascus countryside and Zabadani.”Obeid wondered how the children of Madaya will go to school if the residents spend most of their time in shelters. Moreover, on Sept. 12, a group of women displaced from Zabadani to Madaya issued a statement titled "Zabadani Women's Initiative: Stop the Violence." The statement called for cease-fires in Zabadani and Madaya and requested health care for the displaced. The statement also called for preventing discrimination against people from Zabadani wherever they are currently seeking shelter, ensuring their safety, preventing their forced removal from the areas of displacement and guaranteeing the unconditional and complete access of humanitarian aid to Zabadani.

Why Israel, not NGOs, must care for poor
Mazal Mualem/Al-Monitor/September 15, 2015
Minister of Welfare and Social Services Haim Katz of the Likud Party was never worried about criticizing the chairman of his party, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. For quite a few years, Katz warned that the Likud’s lack of compassion about social issues could cost the party the government. Today, however, just half a year after being appointed minister for the first time, Katz has only compliments for Netanyahu
In an interview with Al-Monitor just before Rosh Hashanah, Katz confides that when he sees the way that Netanyahu conducts discussions and debates in the Cabinet, the Knesset or the Forum of Likud Ministers, he can’t help being impressed with the prime minister’s leadership skills. “I’m not one of those people who is loose and easy with compliments, but I must say that in this term, the prime minister is acting like a leader and standing firm on his principles. I have never heard him like this before. He tells us, ‘This is what I want, because I am responsible for what happens.’ In general, the Netanyahu that we are seeing this term is a very different Netanyahu. This Netanyahu is a prime minister who tries to lead and who realizes that he bears ultimate responsibility for whatever happens. The way I see it, the Netanyahu of this term is a leader.”
As a politician, Katz has focused on social issues long before it became trendy. After the March 17 elections, he asked to be appointed minister of Welfare and Social Services even though it is not an especially attractive ministry, given its problems with budget and image. Even with the best intentions, the people heading the Ministry of Social Welfare are rarely able to instigate major changes. Katz took over the position after two particularly productive terms as chairman of the Knesset’s Labor and Social Welfare Committee. Under his leadership, it emerged as one of the Knesset’s most powerful and influential committees. He is now trying to repeat his successes in his new position as minister.
The text of the interview follows:
Al-Monitor: After all these compliments for Netanyahu, can I assume that you are also happy with the state budget in general and, more particularly, with your ministry’s budget?
Katz: I think that we should have budgeted more money for the Ministry of Welfare and Social Services to meet real needs that people have. We are right before the [Jewish] holidays and can see all the charities distributing food to the needy. The work that these organizations are doing is sacred, but the organizations themselves should be superfluous, because the state should have taken the responsibility for the needy. There are ways to do that too, such as reaching agreements between the government and the country’s major food retailers, so that every needy person who registers would receive a shopping card. That way, people in need could shop freely, take the food package and not look like they are poor, needy and pathetic. It really upsets me that poor people are not given an opportunity to preserve their dignity as human beings. Even worse, they are currently being made to stand in long lines and even get photographed in all their misery.
I have a gripe with a state that fails to ensure food security for all its citizens, no matter how much it costs. One thing that I did before the holidays was to issue instructions that 15 million shekels [$4 million] be reallocated immediately to help elderly citizens without family over the holidays. It is very important to me. With this budget, these people will be sent for a nine-day holiday at a resort, so that they will not be alone. They will be in a pleasant setting with food. This is, of course, a very specific program. I need another 150 million shekels [$40 million] to improve the situation of the needy on a more permanent basis. I don’t want to see elderly people dumpster diving for food. That won’t happen on my watch. My goal is to provide food security to everyone who needs it. People have to understand that in the State of Israel today, there are people with nothing to eat and no place to sleep. These people have no reason to wake up in the morning.
Al-Monitor: Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon and Prime Minister Netanyahu decided to lower VAT by 1% as part of their plan to promote growth. Do you think that was the right thing to do?
Katz: What can I say? In politics, we’re always looking for ratings. Instead of reducing the VAT by 1%, which costs us 5.5 billion shekels [$1.4 billion] per year, I think that the money could have been targeted more effectively. If I was finance minister, I would use that money to find an appropriate solution for young girls in distress or to create a program to encourage people living off social security allowances [guaranteeing minimum income] to find jobs. We should be giving these people fishing rods instead of fish. We should extricate them from the circle of poverty and bring them into the workforce.
Unfortunately, the state is doing the exact opposite, making it easier for them to just sit at home. I am all for thinking creatively, outside the box. This is one battle that I want to fight. The purpose is not just to have social security pay out less. It is much more important than that. People don’t realize it, but in another 20 years, social security will be paying out more money than it has in its budget. This will challenge the very foundations of the system and create an enormous deficit. We must act now to avoid reaching that point. We need to give people reasons to go to work. That begins with investing in children and in education.
Al-Monitor: You are intimately familiar with issues pertaining to social welfare. What surprised you when you actually entered the ministry?
Katz: What I found especially surprising was the salaries that the staff of the ministry actually gets. About 90% of the staff with the rank of manager and social worker receives income support to ensure that they earn a guaranteed minimum income. In other words, the people who are taking care of the needy today will be the needy tomorrow. I cannot understand how the State of Israel can create a situation in which people who have spent 40 years in the workforce retire with a pension of just 3,600 shekels [$930]. I will do everything I can to fix that.
Another thing that surprised me was the way that social security is perceived by the public. I knew it wasn’t good when I became minister, but when you take a closer look at it you see that its poor image is frequently unjustified. We have to improve the image of the social security system. It affects the lives of 4.5 million people in Israel. We have to see how we can improve our responses to the public and make an effort to provide positive answers to everyone who needs them.
Al-Monitor: It is hard to succeed in the position of minister of welfare and social services. There isn’t much of a budget to work with, and your ability to influence policy on a macro level is limited. Weren’t you worried about that?
Katz: I was chairman of the Labor and Social Welfare Committee for many years and have had many legislative achievements and successes. Give me another year in the ministry and judge for yourself. The first thing that has already happened is that the ministry’s budget grew considerably. It now stands at 6 billion shekels [$1.5 billion]. That is 1.5 billion shekels [$388 million] more than in the previous budget. This is a huge achievement, because the budget was usually grown by about 350 million shekels per year [$90 million]. It is true that the ministry still receives too little. We should have gotten 3 billion shekels more [$776 million], but it’s a start. I have no idea how long I will be in this post. It could be for a year, half a year or the full four years. That is why I don’t plan to waste a single minute and why I’ve been asking for monthly plans. I don’t have any plans that extend over multiple years, because I want to know what we do every month. I want to know what we actually get paid to do, what our targets are and how many people we help.
Al-Monitor: You attacked [ultra-Orthodox] Minister of the Economy Aryeh Deri for ordering the Israeli pavilion at the International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam to shut down for the Sabbath. Are you concerned that the religious status quo is threatened?
Katz: No. This is a very specific issue. Nevertheless, it really is insane to be closing a gadget and communications exhibit in the Netherlands. This is an important exhibition, which takes place every year. There are 18 Israeli companies represented there. If the problem is that the hostesses working there are from the Export Institute [namely that Jewish staff of a public institute works on the Sabbath], they can bring in Dutch hostesses to replace them. On the other hand, closing an exhibition after so much planning and investment, with so many people depending on it, makes no sense at all. Deri made a mistake.
Al-Monitor: You are well known for your finely honed political instincts. How long will this government last?
Katz: I really hope that this government completes its term. Even though the coalition has only 61 members, I am very pleased by how it is operating. The overall feeling is that there isn’t much of an opposition in place. The opposition may be shouting and screaming, but they don’t have any achievements yet. Meanwhile, we have established that in the moment of truth, the coalition is cohesive and united.

The Arab States and the Refugees
Denis MacEoin/Gatestone Institute/September 16, 2015
http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6502/refugees-arab-states
Refugees arrive in some of Europe's poorest states, mainly Greece, Italy and Hungary, but insist that they have a right to head for more prosperous nations where welfare benefits are higher and healthcare freely available.
Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. ... It's too costly to relocate them here. Kuwait is too expensive for them anyway, as opposed to Lebanon and Turkey, which are cheap. They are better suited for the Syrian refugees. ... it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us. We don't want people that suffer from internal stress and trauma in our country." -- Kuwaiti official, Fahad al-Shalami.
It may also be that the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere see the movement of Muslim refugees to Europe as a golden opportunity to increase their work in da'wa (Islamic proselytization).
This crisis has exposed the abject failure of the EU, the UN, the OIC or anybody else to criticize the bloated nations of the Gulf with even a tiny fraction of the abuse they pour daily on the only democratic state in the Middle East, Israel. It is a repetition of the ongoing Palestinian refugee crisis, with the Arab states refusing to give jobs and citizenship to Palestinian Arabs over decades, keeping them in refugee camps and laying the blame on Israel. Is it surprising that the Arab world is still on the steady downward course it embarked on in 1948?
Europe, motivated by a politically correct obsession with multiculturalism, has used mass immigration to beef up its workforce and create a semblance of diversity, only to find that many of its immigrants -- above all Muslims from Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Somalia -- have remained averse to integration and assimilation into their host societies.
While the European Union and its member states totter under an overwhelming influx of refugees from Syria and other collapsing countries in the Middle East, the vastly wealthy Arab nations of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States are sitting back and watching as Europe takes the toll.
In a December 2014 report from Amnesty International, various facts and figures are set out to show that what is happening with respect to (mainly) Syrian refugees is thoroughly unbalanced internationally, and notably within the Arab world itself. 95% of the (then) 3.8 million refugees fleeing Syria are located in five countries (although since then many have crossed the Mediterranean or gone to Greece from Turkey). With the exception of Turkey, those five countries are among the poorest in the region: Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Here is Amnesty's breakdown of the figures:
Lebanon hosts 1.1 million refugees registered with UNHCR, which amounts to around 26 per cent of the country's population.
Jordan hosts 618,615 registered refugees, which amounts to 9.8% of the population.
Turkey hosts 1.6 million refugees, which amounts to 2.4% of the population.
Iraq hosts 225,373 registered refugees, which amounts to 0.67% of the population.
Egypt hosts 142,543 registered refugees, which amounts to 0.17% of the population.
Amnesty has called for at least 5% of the refugees to be resettled from the main host countries by the end of 2015, with a further 5% to follow by the end of 2016, giving a total of 380,000 people. And, no doubt, as more people flee the war there, as well as the violence in other Arab countries from Libya to Iraq to Yemen, these numbers will swell.
The report ends on a depressing note: the six Arab Gulf countries (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, the UAE, Kuwait and Bahrain) have offered zero -- repeat: zero -- places for desperate refugees.
Put another way, six countries that speak the same language (admittedly with strong regional variations); that belong to the same ethnic group; that share the same religion and much of the same culture; that are among the wealthiest countries in the world -- not just in the Arab world -- have no room at all for their fellow Arabs.
They are perfectly happy, it seems, to let hundreds of thousands to squeeze into an already saturated Europe, into countries that have not, for the most part, succeeding in assimilating or integrating existing Arab, Turkish, Somali, and other mainly Muslim minorities. The flood of migrants heading not just for Europe but for specific states -- notably Germany and the UK -- has created a massive humanitarian crisis that European countries are finding it difficult to handle. Refugees arrive in some of Europe's poorest states, mainly Greece, Italy and Hungary, but insist that they have a right to head for more prosperous nations, where welfare benefits are higher and healthcare freely available.
Criticism of the Gulf States is growing. Sarah Hashash, Middle East and North Africa press officer at Amnesty International, has "called the Gulf Arab states' behavior 'utterly shameful' and criticized Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for officially taking in zero refugees."
Another NGO official, Oxfam's Syria country director, Daniel Gorevan, has likewise stated that "Gulf countries clearly can and should do an awful lot more." "I'm most indignant over the Arab countries who are rolling in money and who only take very few refugees," Danish Finance Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said in an interview at his office in Copenhagen. "Countries like Saudi Arabia. It's completely scandalous."
Even commentators in the Gulf region have expressed dissatisfaction with the response. Sultan Sooud al Qassemi, a journalist in the UAE, has complained, saying that the Gulf States should open their doors: "The Gulf states often complain that the Arabic language is underused and that our culture is under threat due to the large number of foreign immigrants. Here is an opportunity to host a group of people who can help alleviate such concerns and are in need of refuge, fleeing a brutal war."
But officialdom in the Gulf States remains unmoved and even petulant. Fahad al-Shalami, a Kuwaiti official, explained on September 2, 2015 why the states in his region have to turn back their fellow Arabs from their shores:
Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. Our countries are only fit for [migrant] workers. It's too costly to relocate them [the refugees] here. Kuwait is too expensive for them anyway, as opposed to Lebanon and Turkey, which are cheap. They are better suited for the Syrian refugees. In the end, it is not right for us to accept a people that are different from us. We don't want people that suffer from internal stress and trauma in our country.
One has only to imagine the international outrage if Angela Merkel or David Cameron were to utter such ugly sentiments. Both the EU and individual European states are floundering as they try to cope with an avalanche of displaced refugees. The figures are disturbing.
According to the Financial Times of September 4, 2015, pending asylum applications for the European Union amount to 568,000. Here is a partial breakdown:
Germany – 306,000
UK – 30,000
France – 36,000
Italy – 48,000
Greece – 29,000
Hungary – 24,000
But even these high figures are growing rapidly out of date. A separate report, also in the Financial Times bears the headline, "Germany braced to receive 800,000 asylum seekers." The newspaper also points out that this upgraded figure is for this year alone -- and more than for the entire EU combined. But on September 8, Sigmar Gabriel, the German vice chancellor, said he had "no doubt" that Germany could cope with an annual intake of more than 500,000 over the next few years. By that time -- say, five years -- the numbers of refugees could well have grown to double or more current figures.
These figures are for official asylum applicants only, with many thousands more illegal incomers across Europe. Most refugees, arriving in Greece, Italy, or Hungary protest loudly, demanding to be allowed to go to Germany or the UK. In the past few weeks, there has been an outpouring of sympathy -- a natural and very human response at the sight of so much misery on our doorsteps, personified in the now classic photograph of a dead Syrian Kurdish toddler, Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach, held aloft in the arms of a coastguard, with his brother and mother also drowned. Offers to take in more refugees have mounted since then.
Kuwaiti official Fahad al-Shalami recently explained that Gulf Arab countries do not accept Syrian refugees because "Kuwait and the other Gulf Cooperation Council countries are too valuable to accept any refugees. ... We don't want people that suffer from internal stress and trauma in our country."
Greek islands such as Kos and Lesbos are experiencing deep disruption from the sheer scale of the refugees washing up on their beaches, from the repeated clashes between migrants and police, and by the inability of an indebted Greek government to provide the aid they need. Over 7,000 refugees have arrived in Kos, whose population numbers only 32,000. Between 15,000 and 17,000 mainly Syrian refugees are currently on Lesbos. The island's normal population numbers just 86,000.
It is easy to think that this sudden influx from Syria is just a surge that will die down soon. But these numbers come on top of existing flows of migrants from many countries. The Financial Times has charted asylum applications between January 2009 and June 2015, and gives figures for Italy, Greece and Hungary, the three countries currently bearing the brunt of the refugee tide. Hungary alone has had 54,170 applications from Kosovo, 19,095 from Syria, 4,015 from Iraq, 7,245 from Pakistan, and 32,470 from Afghanistan.[1] At its mildest, this is an administrative nightmare, made all the more unbearable because the European Union has so far been unable to formulate a coherent policy for handling the crisis.
Nor is this the height of the problem. Europe's immigration problems date back many years. Motivated by a politically correct obsession with multiculturalism, Europe has used mass immigration to beef up its workforce and to create a semblance of diversity, only to find that many of its immigrants -- above all Muslims from Turkey, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Somalia -- have remained averse to integration and assimilation into their host societies. There are virtual Muslim no-go zones in France, Sweden, Germany and Britain, places where native French, Swedes, Germans and British are not welcome.[2]
In a 2011 report by Pew Research, it was estimated that some 19 million Muslims lived in the nations of the EU. That number has grown and is estimated to grow even more rapidly over the next fifteen years. A 2015 report by Pew describes this trend as follows: "In recent decades, the Muslim share of the population throughout Europe grew about 1 percentage point a decade, from 4% in 1990 to 6% in 2010. This pattern is expected to continue through 2030, when Muslims are projected to make up 8% of Europe's population."
Critics such as Ed West, or the outspoken English commentator Pat Condell, argue that Islamic demands on European countries are slowly destroying the national heritage, Christian identity, and coherence of places such as the UK. There are towns in Britain that have strongly Muslim identities. Many large cities have at least one majority Muslim area. Savile Town in Dewsbury is almost wholly Muslim. Importing Islamic and foreign cultural values, instead of being a valuable enrichment of our societies, has become a largely negative influence, due in part to native resistance to alien ways, but in greater part to the failure of many Muslims to integrate with the host culture. The presence of shari'a courts in the UK, offering an alternative to British law; the growth of private Muslim schools with connections to extremism and explicit antagonism to Western values; the attempts to impose Islamic mores on non-Muslims through Shari'a-Controlled Zones and Shari'a Patrols in places such as Tower Hamlets; arguments that requiring immigrants to speak English in England are a breach of their human rights, or the transference of Pakistani biradari politics (using patrilineal, clan-like influence behind the scenes) to towns like Bradford, have all distorted the character of the nation without providing positive contributions of value to all citizens.
Perhaps the most disturbing of these many blights on British culture have been the major episodes of child sexual grooming and prostitution in English cities by gangs of unassimilated Pakistani men. Criminal groups in Oxford, an archetypically English town, and in Rochdale, Rotherham, and Birmingham, targeted vulnerable white children and teenagers, introducing attitudes derived from Islamic views of women. That the police, local councils, social workers and the media chose to ignore these crimes of many years standing for fear of being accused of racism or Islamophobia stands as a clear example of how patronizing Muslim "victimhood" has undermined the moral and legal values of the cradle of democracy, fair play, and equality before the law.
As Europe staggers under the growing weight of Muslim immigration and supremacist attitudes, the Gulf States show a bewildering lack of compassion. Yet those states are better placed to take in Muslim refugees than any European country. It is difficult to make simple comparisons between countries, as there are so many complex factors to juggle: economies, populations, geographical size, fertility, technical sophistication, stability, good governance (or lack of it). But some comparisons have to be made.
Even if we leave Europe out of the picture for the moment, the contrast between four Arab states and Turkey on the one hand and the Gulf States on the other is striking. A map-based graphic reproduced in the Washington Post, gives figures slightly above those in the Amnesty report and shows how Saudi Arabia and its companions are impervious to refugees from any country, especially Syria, a short distance away. The Arab states hosting refugees are poor countries who are finding it hard to cope with the numbers crossing their borders. Here are some data taken from that most valuable asset, the 2015 CIA World Factbook, concerning the states that refuse to take in their fellow Arabs:
Saudi Arabia has a population consisting of about 90% Sunni Muslims and 90% Arabs. Its official language, as in Syria, is Arabic. It has a population of 27,752, 316, 30% of which is made up of foreign workers (who are 80% of the workforce), with a low growth rate, numbered 96th in the world. Its GDP based on purchasing power parity is $1.6 trillion, and per capita $52,200. This places Saudi Arabia at only 20th place among 230 nations, one spot below the United States. But let us look at some of the countries it comes well above, often by a huge margin. These are all countries into which Arab refugees have gone, or into which they are headed, in order of descent: The Netherlands, Ireland, Australia, Austria, Sweden, Germany, Canada, Denmark, Belgium, Finland, France, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Portugal, Greece, Russia, Poland, Hungary, Turkey, Romania, Lebanon, Bulgaria, Jordan, Ukraine.
The contrast is even worse in Qatar next door. With a tiny population of 2,194,817, only 12% of these are native Qataris. The vast majority are foreign workers from across the globe, especially Nepal (17%) and India (24%). It is apparently not a secret that Qatar treats most of its foreign workforce like slaves, paying them a pittance and subjecting to cruel conditions that result in a high death toll. In 2014 alone, one Nepalese worker died every two days.
You might expect that sort of thing in a third-world country without resources. But Qatar is the richest country in the world, number one in a list of 230 countries. Its GDP based on purchasing power parity is $320 billion, with a GDP per capita of $143,400. While its land mass is small, Qatar could well afford to employ Arab and Muslim refugees at the cost of dismissing the cheap slave labour currently working there. Indeed, it could well afford to pay huge sums of aid to Nepal, India and Pakistan.
Similar patterns are repeated in the UAE (13th richest), Bahrain, Kuwait (10th richest) and Oman (31st richest). Their resources are not in question, although their extravagant spending on luxuries for their elite princes and billionaires is little more than a slap in the face for the austere principles of the Wahhabi and Salafi belief system they hold up as a model for all mankind. That hypocrisy is only made worse by the vast sums spent by the Saudis on the propagation of Salafi thought globally. According to Yousaf Butt, "it is thought that more than $100 billion has been spent on exporting fanatical Wahhabism to various much poorer Muslim nations worldwide over the past three decades. It might well be twice that number. By comparison, the Soviets spent about $7 billion spreading communism worldwide in the 70 years from 1921 and 1991."
Vast sums are spent by the Saudis alone on ostentatious indulgences and on the spread of one of the world's most aggressive religio-political ideologies, with its dire consequences for women, non-Muslims, and integration into Western societies. Butt describes Saudi Wahhabism as "the fountainhead of Islamist terrorism." He puts it even more strongly here:
"More recently, the Saudi role in promoting extremism has come under renewed scrutiny. Calls for declassifying the redacted 28 pages of the 9/11 congressional commission have been getting stronger. And statements from the lead author of the report, former Florida Sen. Bob Graham, suggest they are being hidden because they 'point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier' of the 9/11 hijackers. He has been unusually explicit, 'Saudi Arabia has not stopped its interest in spreading extreme Wahhabism. ISIS...is a product of Saudi ideals, Saudi money and Saudi organizational support, although now they are making a pretense of being very anti-ISIS.'"
It is not just government money. "Not all of the cash comes from Saudi state coffers. 'Traditionally, the money is handed out by members of the royal family, businessmen or religious leaders, and channelled via Muslim charities and humanitarian organizations,' said Karim Sader, a political analyst who specializes in the Gulf states, in an interview with FRANCE 24." But no room for a single refugee.
Writing on September 10, Rodger Shanahan comments:
"During his visit to Washington last week, Saudi Arabia's King Salman booked out the entire 222-room Four Seasons Hotel for his entourage. The joint press statement following his meeting with President Barack Obama made no reference to the Syrian refugee crisis other than a vague determination to end the Syrian conflict to 'end the suffering of the Syrian people.' No mention of resettling any Syrians within a kingdom that employs 1.5 million people as domestic help."
And Qatar? How does it spend its money, whether government funds or private donations? According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, "Qatar-based terror finance challenges have metastasized into a pressing, world-class crisis." Its report goes on to say that "Individuals taking advantage of Qatar's 'permissive jurisdiction' for terror finance have provided funding in recent years to the leaders of [the Islamic State], the Khorasan Group, the Nusra Front (under which Khorasan operates), al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Shabaab, the Taliban, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and core al Qaeda in Pakistan, to name just a few."
Writing here last November, I noted that:
Qatar's major international charity, the Qatar Charitable Society (now simply Qatar Charity) has acted as a financier and agency for terrorist outfits in several countries. It has funded al-Qaeda in Chechnya, Mali and elsewhere, was a key player in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and funded Syria's Ahfad al-Rasul Brigade. Qatar has also financed terrorists in northern Mali operations, including Ansar Dine, alleged to be linked to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb [North Africa]; and it retains contacts with (and no doubt still funds) al-Qaeda.
According to David Blair and Richard Spencer, writing for London's Daily Telegraph, four branches of the Qatari government handle relations with armed groups in Syria and Libya. These are the Foreign and Defense Ministries, the Intelligence Agency, and the personal office [al-Diwan al-Amiri], of the Emir, who, as we have seen, flatly denies financing terrorism. The Amiri Diwan, as in Kuwait, appears in the lists of government ministries and offices. Of course, Qatar does nothing directly. It prefers to use middlemen and to permit private individuals to do the work for it. Large sums are passed to middlemen in Turkey (itself no stranger to support for terrorism), and this money is used for the purchase of weapons from other countries (notably Croatia). The weapons are then transferred to rebel groups in Syria. It has also been claimed that money owed to British companies operating in Qatar has been siphoned off to Islamic State. This may require some ingenious application of the dark arts of bookkeeping, but it does provide another means of evading condemnation of the state.
Qatar, which will host the 2002 Football World cup, spends liberally and, like Saudi Arabia, on questionable or outright despicable causes and ventures, yet has no room for a single Muslim Arab refugee.
Does that matter? Don't the Gulf States have a right to determine their own demographics, just as Israel does when it refuses to recognize the "right of return" for millions of Palestinian "refugees"? This confuses two very different situations and does not answer the real question. Allowing generations of a refugee population that has been deliberately denied citizenship in all Arab states except Jordan to enter Israel would destroy the Jewish state overnight. It is not surprising that Israel prefers not to let that happen. But admitting Arab (and, indeed, other Muslim) refugees into countries of great wealth and bloated migrant worker policies would cause little disruption and might even contribute to a strengthening of ties between the various Arab and Muslim nations.
The noted journalist, Douglas Murray, has already put his finger on the real hypocrisy behind this resistance of the Gulf States. In a short piece in The Spectator last week, he argued with great clarity that this is not a European problem: Europe has had precious little involvement in the events that have led to the current crisis, whereas the Gulf States have done a great deal to destabilize the region. More importantly, he argues, echoing the thoughts above, that this refusal of sanctuary also demolishes the claims of Muslim governments and organizations such as the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) that all believers are united in a single supranational state, the umma, the collectivity of the Islamic family.
Established in 1945, the Arab League has 22 member states, with Syria's membership currently suspended. Its Pact states that it was formed "With a view to strengthen[ing] the close relations and numerous ties which bind the Arab States, And out of concern for the cementing and reinforcing of these bonds on the basis of respect for the independence and sovereignty of theme Stated, And in order to direct their efforts toward[s] the goal of the welfare of all the Arab States, their common weal, the guarantee of their future and the realization of their aspirations."
According to Article 2, its purpose is to "draw closer the relations between member States and co-ordinate collaboration between them, to safeguard their independence and sovereignty, and to consider in a general way the affairs and interests of the Arab countries." Yet the League has made little comment on the refugee crisis, apart from blaming Syria, and has offered no cohesive strategy for its member states to act by offering shelter to refugees from the Arab people.
The OIC was set up as the Organization of the Islamic Conference in 1969. It is "the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations which has membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world." In other words, it represents the umma and the interests of some 1.6 billion Muslims worldwide. Its headquarters is in the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia, a symbolic location as the capital of Islam during the later part of Muhammad's career.
In a statement issued on September 5, 2015, the OIC spoke of the refugee crisis:
Those Syrian refugees who drowned in the Mediterranean, or suffocated in a human trafficker's truck in Austria, none of them are responsible for starting the Syrian crisis or for the failure to stop it. Yet, they are and continue to be the direct victims of both that crisis as well as the failure of the international community, particularly of the Members of the UN Security Council, and the countries of the region, to find a solution to it. This must not, and cannot continue to be so.
It is our humanity getting drowned in the Mediterranean. It is our humanitarian values, principles, and our human dignity, getting suffocated. We must put an immediate end to this tragedy. Acknowledging the positive attitude and efforts made by some European countries, I call on all the Members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the international community as a whole to put aside their differences, and mobilize all their efforts to help the Syrian people and refugees. This is neither a Syrian, nor Middle Eastern, nor European nor Muslim crisis. This is an international humanitarian crisis, in which precious lives are perishing.
From the very beginning, the OIC has been following with profound concern the escalating human tragedy of the Syrian refugees, fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in neighboring states. Many OIC Member States, most notably Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt have been carrying the extreme burden of the refugee flow out of Syria, and they have all allocated huge amount of resources to host more than four million of them in their respective countries. Similarly, in cooperation with the UN OCHA and other humanitarian partners, the OIC has been striving to help the victims of the conflict in Syria.
These are fine words. Yet it is significant that the OIC seeks to address, not its own parish, the Islamic world, but the international community, looking to non-Muslim countries to solve a problem that has its origins as much as anything in the growth of extremism and religious violence in the Islamic world, something the OIC has done little to ameliorate. Most notably, it says nothing at all about the religious, moral, or political responsibilities of the Gulf States, including Saudi Arabia, where it is headquartered.
The position of the Gulf States is morally indefensible, whether judged by Judaeo-Christian, secular or Islamic standards. Oil riches, coupled with the massive indulgence of ruling elites and an inability or lack of will to raise standards of education, human rights, women's rights, religious freedom, have turned these states into lazy, self-absorbed and intolerant regimes without democracy or liberty. The Saudis' emphasis on hardline Wahhabi indoctrination and the central role played by their official clergy have sucked the kingdom dry of original thought, technical innovation, rational discourse, and the will to accommodate their ethnic and religious brethren in a time of unprecedented crisis.
The use of migrant workers by the Gulf States strengthens their already bloated economies at enormous human cost and weakens communities in Nepal, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Instead of using their disproportionate wealth to build those communities through schools, hospitals, and productive industries that will keep families together, provide safe neighbourhoods and increase longevity, the pious Muslims of the Gulf prefer to put migrant workers through lives of misery while turning away other Muslims in desperate need of asylum and work.
One of the greatest ironies in all this is that the Gulf States are, in fact, sometimes generous to their fellow Arab countries. According to the Economist, remittances from the Gulf to Arab states are currently worth $35 billion. "According to the World Bank, the Gulf states have been the world's most generous donors of aid as a share of GDP." Business Insider claims that Kuwait is the single largest donor to the Syrian refugees and the fourth largest internationally, after the US, the UK, and Germany. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are in the top ten internationally.
So, a certain amount of generosity, even if $35 billion dollars shared between six wealthy states is not startling. For all that, none of the poorer Arab states that are beneficiaries of this generosity is flourishing, and that is in some measure because the money has gone to the propagation of extremist Islam and the furthering of non-progressive policies. Money that might have helped poor countries develop their economies in the way neighbouring Israel has done has resulted in very little, while the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Iraq still reel from the shock of an Arab Spring that turned rapidly into a sectarian conflict that threatens to destroy them.
The more refugees flood into Europe, the more the home countries, Syria above all, sink into chaos and risk total collapse. Such a collapse will unleash millions more refugees on the world. Many of those already making their way to Europe are among the better educated and better skilled, and their disappearance reduces the capability of Syria to restructure itself should the war ever reach an end. Others are stuck in camps in Jordan and Lebanon, two countries that lack the resources of the Gulf States.
Sir Paul Collier, author of Exodus: Immigration and Multiculturalism in the 21st Century, recently wrote: "Europe... (should be) fostering a Syria-in-exile economy in Jordan and other neighbouring countries... Providing a skilled minority of Syrians with dream lives in Europe is not the answer...It would gut Syria of the very people it would need (to re-build). It is an intellectually lazy, feel-good policy for the bien-pensant."[3]
I would only change one thing in the above. It is not primarily Europe but the wealthiest Muslim and Arab countries that should foster a Syria-in-exile economy. But if their donations of money are to have any serious impact, they (and other Arab and Muslim countries) have to do considerably more to foster a society in which sectarianism, Salafi extremism, and outmoded interpretations of the Qur'an and ahadith, or strict applications of a religious law code better suited in the main to more unproductive forms of social engineering, are discarded on whole or part.
Eyal Zisser, a professor of Middle East and African history at Tel Aviv University argues in Israel Hayom that a failure on the part of the Arab states to solve their refugee problem will place an intolerable burden on Europe: "The problem at Europe's doorstep, therefore, is not a few thousand refugees, nor is it a few million Syrians seeking refuge from the war ravishing their country. The problem is the tens of millions who want to leave the Arab world -- a world that offers no hope and no future -- and move to Europe."
The refugees themselves are often keenly aware of the ironies in this imbalance. A Facebook community of Syrians in Denmark recently demanded, "How did we flee from the region of our Muslim brethren, which should take more responsibility for us than a country they describe as infidels?" Cartoonists and columnists in parts of the Arab press are openly critical of the Gulf States' response to the crisis. The Saudi daily Makkah Newspaper published a cartoon, widely shared on social media, which showed a man in traditional Gulf clothing looking out of a door with barbed wire around it and pointing at door with the EU flag on it. "Why don't you let them in, you discourteous people?!" he says. Their own discourtesy is certain to lose the Gulf States much of the respect less successful Arab countries and the Arab diaspora have had for them in the past.
And there are other ironies. According to Rossella Tercatin, Syrian refugees now safely in Italy still believe that their greatest enemy is not the Assad regime, the rebel fighters, ISIS, or the Gulf states, but Israel. Thus, Europe is inviting to its shores thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, eventually millions of Israel-haters to bolster the anti-Israel Palestinian solidarity campaigns that already plague an anti-Zionist European Union. In the meantime -- which is where the irony lies -- IsraAID, the main Israeli international relief organization, is helping Arab refugees in Greece and is in talks with the Greek government to set up a long-term presence there. Zachar Zahavi, director of IsraAID, has set out their aims in doing so:
To provide psycho-sociological help to local professionals, whether they be police, social workers or any others who have to deal with this influx of tens of thousands of traumatized people; and physical help to the refugees, through the distribution of equipment, such as hygiene kits, clothes, mattresses and food.
What we have managed to collect so far is enough to get us started. Israelis and Jews from around the world have been asking if they can help; those who don't have money to contribute are offering to volunteer their services. This crisis has really touched a nerve. European Jewry is being galvanized, because of what European Jewry went through in the past. At the moment, it seems that it is touching European Jews more than American ones, though Labor Day weekend, when Americans are preoccupied, made it hard to tell. I urge American Jews to realize this is not a local Jewish issue, but a global one.
Greece is not the only location for IsraAID's help. According to Zahavi, "IsraAID is already working in Jordan and the Kurdish region of Iraq to help them absorb Syrian refugees. We also spent eight months in Bulgaria last year, cooperating with the Bulgarian Red Cross, to deal with the influx of Syrian refugees there."
So here is the greatest of the many ironies we have seen here. The greatest enemy of the Arabs (by their definition, not that of Jews and Israelis) is part of an international effort to assist the resettlement of the Syrian refugees, while their self-proclaimed greatest friend, the nation that boasts of being the leader of the Islamic world, turns them aside in pursuit of profit and a gargantuan lack of humanity.
This crisis has exposed several things: One is the total disarray of the Arab and Islamic worlds, with so many states cracking apart through war, terrorism, and simple political incompetence. In contrast, we see the Gulf States united in their self-regarding absolutism, their disregard for human rights, and their failure to develop their societies beyond a crass materialism. It may also be that the Wahhabis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and elsewhere see the movement of Muslim refugees to Europe as a golden opportunity to increase their work in da'wa (Islamic proselytization).
This crisis also demonstrates the abject failure of the EU, the United Nations, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation or anybody else to criticize the bloated nations of the Gulf with even a tiny fraction of the abuse they pour daily on the only democratic state in the Middle East, Israel. It is a repetition of the ongoing Palestinian refugee crisis, with the Arab states refusing to give jobs and citizenship to Palestinian Arabs over decades, keeping them in refugee camps and laying the blame on Israel for not buckling under pressure and welcoming them, like an adder to her bosom. Is it surprising that the Arab world is still on the steady downward course on which it embarked in 1948?
**Dr. Denis MacEoin used to lecture in Arabic-English translation and Islamic Civilization at the University of Fez, Morocco, and in Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University in the UK.
[1] During that period, Italy has had 15,370 applications from Gambia; 18,120 from Mali; 32,965 from Nigeria; 121,365 from Afghanistan; and 20,535 from Pakistan. Greece has had 4,750 applications from Syria, 6,330 from Georgia, 7,200 from Afghanistan, 14,885 from Pakistan, and 6,205 from Bangladesh.
[2] On the failure of multiculturalism, see Ed West, The Diversity Illusion, Gibson Square Books, 2015.
[3] Via private correspondence

Iraq deal to buy Iranian diesel is fuel for thought
Abdulrahman al-Rashed/Al Arabiya/September 16/15
Last year, the Iraqi government was paying huge sums to Iran – in U.S. dollars. This came at a time when Iran was barred from conducting deals in the currency, amid international sanctions on its oil sales.
So why did the Iraqis pay Iran? At the beginning, Nouri al-Maliki’s government said the money was for Iranian weapons. When Washington pointed out that this was a violation of the U.N. Security Council’s resolutions, Iraq disputed its previous statement saying that the money was for mutual services deals.
It later turned out that Tehran was using Iraqi government money to fund its military activities in the region, mainly in Syria.
Iranian hegemony
The government of Iraq’s current Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi does not seem to be able to escape the Iranian hegemony, especially given that Tehran has become more powerful, claiming that it is there to fight ISIS. Iranian officials have claimed that, if it wasn’t for their help, Baghdad would have fallen in the hands of the terrorist group.Iran is now exploiting the Iraqi funds to finance its needs, taking advantage of its security and political influence. What is even more interesting is that Iraq, the second-largest crude oil producer, started to import oil from Iran! The latter has announced that it began exporting diesel to the Iraqi market. Iraq is buying petroleum products from Iran with the Iranian Rial, instead of the commonly-used U.S. dollars in the oil market. This clearly shows that Iran is taking advantage of Iraq, without taking into account that Iraqis are still enduring a severe financial crisis as a result of the looting practiced by Maliki’s government of eight years. Iran is now exploiting the Iraqi funds to finance its needs, taking advantage of its security and political influence.
Russian air bridge
Abadi’s government, which was considered to be less dependent on Iran, turned out to be as weak as the previous Maliki government. It accepted the request of Iran, and allowed a Russian air bridge to cross Iraqi airspace to transport weapons to Syria, thus flouting U.S. objections.
The irony is that the Americans are the ones leading the war against ISIS and the armed Iraqi opposition forces in Baghdad. However, Iraqis couldn’t return the favor to the U.S. through a simple decision to prevent the Russian Air Force from crossing the Iraqi airspace! This shows the extent of Iran’s influence on Baghdad, which certainly is behind Abadi’s decision to accept the Iranian-Russian request.
Tehran is controlling the government in Iraq and exploiting its resources on all levels.
In light of the growing influence of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Iranian dominance in Baghdad will increase. Tehran is controlling the government in Iraq and exploiting its resources on all levels. And Iran is taking advantage of the existing state of affairs in Iraq to impose its regional influence. In the past, Iranians were keen to convince the Americans that they are partners in Iraq, and that they endeavor to ensure the safety of American facilities and centers. However, the U.S. has sacrificed more than 4,000 American soldiers in Iraq, while Iran is the one that took over the leadership and resources.
Iran is now controlling the majority of the political parties and militias in Iraq, in addition to the country’s resources and shared water. But the Iraqis will certainly revolt against the Iranian occupation of today. There is a big difference between what Iran is doing today and the American occupation, which aimed to get rid of Saddam’s regime and introduce democracy. Iraqi people are paying a heavy price in blood, dollars and dignity. Therefore, I think that the Iraq-Iran clash is unavoidable, especially given that the military presence of the Revolutionary Guards on Iraqi territories is increasing in number and influence.

Turkey’s Erdogan: The method behind his madness
Dr. John C. HulsmanAl Arabiya/September 16/15
As the years have passed, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has increasingly worried the West. As the era of easy catch-up growth and stable government (all of which very pleasantly surprised observers) has come to an end, America has come to fret about Erdogan’s erratic, authoritarian tactics, as well as his country’s increasingly perilous economic plight. While none of this seemed to dent his AKP party’s unprecedented popularity, Erdogan had morphed – in Washington’s eyes – from being part of the solution in the Middle East to being part of the problem.
But what has happened in 2015 has been a bridge too far, even for the Turkish president’s dwindling band of admirers. Stung by his party’s shocking failure (after over a decade of utter dominance) to win June’s parliamentary elections outright, Erdogan responded by wandering even further off the reservation. Rather than meekly accepting the Turkish voters’ verdict and curtailing his dreams for creating a strong Turkish executive presidency (with himself at the helm), Erdogan doubled down, embarking on a series of highly risky domestic and foreign policy moves that have further destabilised a region already on fire.
Everything Erdogan has done since the June elections is an effort to alter the newly imposed domestic constraints on his power.
In the course of a few short months, he vilified the Kurdish parliamentary opposition, accusing them of being traitors. Then he tore up one of his greatest accomplishments, the fragile ceasefire with the Kurdish armed insurgents, the PKK. Finally, he blocked any hopes of a government being formed in the wake of the inconclusive elections. How, western experts wail, can he be so reckless?The simple answer, which any realist understands, is that Erdogan wants to survive, both politically and personally. Everything he has done since the June elections is an effort to alter the newly imposed domestic constraints on his power. As ever, this real-world imperative conditions everything else, including foreign policy. The western punditocracy may bewail his lack of statesmanship, but it is unlikely that the Turkish President cares very much. From the perspective of the Turkish Sultan, doubling down on his domestic political agenda makes eminent sense.
The Political Problem
After 13 years in power, the AKP lost its absolute majority in parliament. The Turkish President had gambled on winning a two-third’s majority, which he constitutionally needs to amend the document and create a new presidential system, a course of events that would cement Erdogan’s personal dominance for years to come. But instead, the HDP (People’s Democratic Party), a left-leaning group with strong Kurdish links, thwarted his grand strategy when it surprisingly won 13% of the overall vote, clearing the high 10% threshold and entering parliament. The AKP, far from winning the desired, massive two-thirds majority, only won a mere plurality of the vote. It would seem that after all, the Turkish electoral colossus has been decisively stopped.But such a naïve view is to misunderstand the tenacious nature of both the man, as well as Turkish political culture. Erdogan knew that if he meekly accepted the result, his dream of changing the very nature of Turkish politics itself, by the installation of a strong presidential system with himself at the helm, would be definitively over. Worse still, the surprising June result could well mark the high-water mark of AKP power as a whole.
The end game of such a prospect was obvious to Erdogan; either he doubled down, trying with all his might to overturn the result, or his days in power (and even his days of freedom given the corruption allegations lodged against his family) would be numbered. Instead of going gentle into that good night, the Turkish President hatched an audacious scheme designed to nullify a parliamentary result he simply could not live with.Step one: see that no government is formed that reflects the June result. While the formal powers of the sitting president in the present Turkish system are quite limited, in terms of setting the rules for forming a new government the executive still sets the scene. Erdogan took full advantage of his good fortune, effectively derailing any efforts that would lead to the formation of a new government in the wake of the June parliamentary elections. This he simply had to do, as if a new coalition government were formed which reflected the June results, Erdogan’s dream of creating a strong presidency would be banished forever.
Step two: bolster Turkey’s foreign policy against external Kurdish threats
Erdogan did not have long to wait for an opportunity to emerge allowing him to climb out of the box the Turkish electorate have so recently placed him in. On July 20, 2015, a devastating suicide bombing – highly likely at the instigation of ISIS – took place at a Kurdish youth rally in Suruc, on the Turkish-Syrian border. Seizing his chance, Erdogan used the atrocity to finally commit to acting against ISIS, as the American-led coalition had been pleading with him to do for the past year. But as ever in the Middle East, Erdogan had a big ‘ask’ in return for his strategic support. Erdogan pressured the Obama administration to agree to help establish a 65-mile ISIS-free zone along a western sector of the Turkish-Syrian border, running north from Aleppo to the Euphrates. The ostensible aim of pushing ISIS out of the area is to sever the access route to Turkey through which it funnels its recruits and supplies.
But this pledge amounts to so much less than meets the eye. As the Syrian war has ground on, the President has increasingly worried about preventing the Syrian Kurds from making further territorial gains. The ISIS-free zone in Syria is – from the point of view of Erdogan – designed to be a Kurdish-free zone. The real strategic goal is preventing the Kurds from taking and controlling the whole of the Syrian border cohesively. Erdogan (perhaps rightly) fears this now increasingly cohesive Kurdish enclave on the Syrian border will become de facto a state, a calamity from Turkey’s point of view.
Step three: whip up anti-Kurdish feeling in Turkey by restarting the war with the PKK
But while Erdogan claims to be battling ISIS, in reality he is primarily fighting Turkey’s old foe the PKK, Turkey’s home-grown Kurdish separatist guerrilla group. The prior Turkish-Kurdish war lasted for decades and left around 40,000 people dead. Erdogan has shown little compunction in ending the tenuous peace process with the Turkish Kurds clustered around the PKK, which up until now has been one his greatest policy achievements. The Turkish President is now playing the anti-Kurdish card for all it is worth. He has disowned a road map to peace negotiations originally agreed to by the PKK and his own AKP, saying talks ‘aren’t possible’. Increasing pressure on the HDP, he vows to strip away the parliamentary immunity of their MPs, allowing an investigation of their loyalty. And here we come to the heart of the matter. Erdogan is purposely whipping up anti-Kurdish fervour, as it is the only way he can still achieve his overall goal of decisively winning new parliamentary elections (scheduled for November 1st), allowing for greatly expanding presidential powers and preserving his regime. As so often is the case, domestic politics is a basic force driving foreign policy strategies.
Specifically, Erdogan wants to both smear the HDP as a party of traitors to the Turkish state, while reminding his voters that only one-party government headed by the AKP (and not the coalition outcome they just voted for) can manage the many dangers – both within and without – Turkey. In addition, due to his newfound bellicose stand against the Kurds, Erdogan is hankering to poach some of the far right’s voters. Specifically, Erdogan’s primary political goal is to push the HDP below the 10% threshold required to secure seats in the Turkish parliament, thus cementing his decisive victory. One must accept that, cynical and destructive as it is, the Turkish Sultan has devised a brilliant political plan.

Anti-war Corbyn sparks a new Battle of Britain
Chris Doyle/Al Arabiya/September 16/15
Watch out capitalist roaders and reactionary bourgeois authorities… the great ‘Red Peril’ is returning to Britain. The Thought Police will be out on the streets and Big Brother will take over.
Well, not quite. But the political and media hysteria over the victory of far-left Jeremy Corbyn in being elected the leader of the British Labour party might lead you to believe so. (Apparently he rides a Chairman Mao-style bicycle, according to one report).
Most people living in the Middle East will be used to British prime ministers giving loud warnings about threats to national security. But it was not ISIS or Al Qaeda that David Cameron was warning about this week.
He tweeted on 13 September: “The Labour Party is now a threat to our national security, our economic security and your family’s security.”
The Prime Minister will have to debate with this “security threat” every week and stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Corbyn at national ceremonies.
Many might also be forgiven for believing that Corbyn was actually now running Britain and was already tearing down the monarchy.
So – stripping out the hype – what has happened? Is this an earthquake or a tremor in British politics?
Dramatic victory
A major earthquake would be if Corbyn were to be elected Prime Minister in 2020, at the age of 70.
Corbyn is anything but modern – a retro politician, whose conviction is clearly genuine.
Corbyn’s victory in the party leadership election was astonishing, every bit as dramatic as a Donald Trump or Bernie Sanders victory would be in their respective parties’ primaries in the United States. And there is something in common. All three are their own people, who have their own distinct styles, views and are prepared to break the mould of the modern, smooth-talking politician.
Corbyn is anything but modern – a retro politician, whose conviction is clearly genuine. With many modern politicians electorates are not sure whether to believe them or not; U-turns and half-truths come all too easily to them.
Corbyn has not changed his views throughout 30 years of politics, as demonstrated when he opted not to sing “God save the Queen” at a Battle of Britain memorial service owing to his lifelong Republican beliefs.
But even though most Conservatives can barely disguise their glee at Labour’s turmoil, many argue they would be unwise to underestimate a man who clearly has energized a popular base of support.
The Labour party has arguably just elected its most anti-war, anti-arms and pro-Palestinian party leader in British political history.
Pro-Palestinian
Domestically Corbyn will stir things up, promoting anti-austerity economics and greater equality in Britain, with policies even many in his party cannot agree with.
Yet in foreign affairs the Labour party has arguably just elected its most anti-war, anti-arms and pro-Palestinian party leader in British political history.
Gone are the days of a cozy cross-party consensus on Middle East matters. Back in 2003 when Tony Blair pushed for war in Iraq, the Conservative party had already been calling for Saddam Hussein’s removal. Typically on Palestine, there has been precious little to separate party leaderships.
So even if Corbyn never becomes Prime Minister he has the opportunity to focus on key areas of disagreement.
Corbyn will support the recognition of a Palestinian state – no ifs or buts. He will also not just call for the banning of Israeli settlement products but a two-way arms embargo with Israel. He advocates talking to groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, something many diplomats have argued for years. (Some question whether he is too uncritical of these groups.)
These will be popular positions in Britain if the opinion polls are accurate – but will not get him many invitations to dine with the Israeli Ambassador.
Anti-war stance
But Corbyn is also an arch anti-interventionist and chair of the Stop the War Coalition (which war? Any war?). He can barely imagine a situation in which he would send in British troops. He will face up to British prime ministers such as David Cameron, who supported the Iraq War in 2003, pushed for intervention in Libya in 2011 and wanted to bomb Syria in 2013.
Jeremy Corbyn will strenuously oppose any extension of the current operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, joining many rebels in Cameron’s Conservative Party. Here again, Corbyn may not be so out of touch with a popular mood that is fed up with costly British military adventures overseas after Afghanistan and Iraq. But many Syrian opponents of the Assad regime will be wary of Corbyn’s less-than-fulsome critique of their President’s misdeeds. And does Corbyn have a realistic plan to end the war in Syria or in Libya?
But just perhaps all this might trigger a genuine and well-thought debate about exactly when and how Britain and its allies should or should not intervene overseas.
Similarly Corbyn, this time with clear backing in Labour Parliamentary ranks, will push for Britain to accept far more refugees, including those from Syria. Cameron will shift only marginally on this.
Trickier for Corbyn will his stances on NATO and Britain’s nuclear deterrent. Most Labour MPs do not agree with his position on withdrawing from NATO and becoming non-nuclear – and nor does the public. Only about a quarter believe Britain should abandon its nuclear weapons. Perhaps he will have to sacrifice these two core campaigns to salvage some degree of party unity.
But will he dampen his anti-arms trade positions? Britain sells a huge amount of weapons to states with poor human-rights records. Corbyn would ideally like to stop that but will his fellow Labour MPs back him given that many constituents depend on their jobs for this? Yet he could make it uncomfortable for the government to justify some of these sales.
He has carved a career out of being a campaigning, conviction politician. Backing off is not in his makeup.
And where will he stand on Britain’s place in the world? He clearly wants to abandon – even apologize for – Britain’s imperial colonial past. He has promised to apologize on behalf of Labour for the Iraq War and believes that Tony Blair (still a member of the Labour party) might be put on trial for war crimes. But he is a Euro-skeptic leader of a broadly pro-European party in an increasingly anti-EU Britain. He aspires to lead a country that has long established political, economic and cultural ties with the United States but abhors many of its policies, not least in the Middle East.
These are early days. There are many in his party who will seek to dampen Corbyn’s more radical positions but he will not feel comfortable. He has carved a career out of being a campaigning, conviction politician. Backing off is not in his makeup.
Corbyn may be anti-war but he will be taking on Cameron, many in this his own party, and the foreign policy establishment in a most passionate and divisive battle over Britain, its future and place in the world.

Saint Rafqa
Maronite Heritage Site
The Lebanese Maronite Nun (1832-1914)
1- Rafqa in Himlaya (Lebanon) (1832-1859)
St. Rafqa was born in Himlaya, one of the villages of northern Metn, on June 29, 1832. She was the only child to her parents Mourad Saber el-Chobok el-Rayess and Rafqa Gemayel.
On July 7, 1832 she was baptized and christened Boutroussieh. Her parents taught her the love of God and daily praying.
In 1839, when she was 7 years old, Rafqa lost her mother whom she dearly loved. Her father went through poverty, so he sent her to Damascus in 1843 to serve for four years at Assad Badawi's who was of Lebanese origin.
Rafqa came back home in 1847, to find that her father had married another woman named Kafa. Rafqa was beautiful, pleasant, humorous, pure and tender with a serene voice. Her aunt wanted her to marry her son, while her stepmother wanted her to marry her brother, and the conflict emerged. Rafqa felt bad about this and chose to enter the monastic life.
2- Rafqa in the Congregation of St. Mary (1859-1871)
Rafqa asked God to help her achieve her desire, so she went to Our Lady of Deliverance monastery in Bikfaya, to become a nun, accompanied by two girls, whom she met on the road. When she entered the monastery church she felt deep joy and happiness. One look at Our Lady of Deliverance Icon and God's voice inviting her to devotion was strongly engraved in her: "You're becoming a nun." The Mother Superior accepted her without any interrogation, so she entered the monastery, and refused to go back home when her father and stepmother came to discourage her. Therefore Rafqa became a student, and on St. Joseph day on March 19, 1861, she wore the Initiation Robe. On March 19, 1862, Rafqa presented the monastic vows in the monastery of Ghazir. The new nun stayed with the nun Mary Gemayel, in Ghazir's clericalism, run by the Jesuits.
The purpose was to teach the girls who wanted to enter the congregation of St. Mary. In addition to teaching, Rafqa was in charge of the kitchen service. Amongst the clergy, were Patriarch Elias Houwayek, Archbishop Boutros el-Zoghbi and others. While in Ghazir, she studied Arabic language, calligraphy and calculation. During her stay in Ghazir, and in 1860, Rafqa was sent to Deir el-Kamar, to teach youngsters catechism. And during the
bloody events that took place in Lebanon back then, Rafqa saw with her own eyes many people getting killed. She was strong and courageous enough to hide a child under her robe and save him from death. Rafqa spent almost a year in Deir el-Kamar, then she went back to Ghazir passing by Beirut. In 1863, following the orders of her superiors, Rafqa went to the school of the monastic order in Byblos, where she spent more than a year, teaching girls education and faith. Early in 1864, she was transferred from Byblos to maad village, upon the request of the great benevolent Antoun Issa; There she spent seven years and established with another nun, a school to teach girls.
3- Rafqa in the Lebanese Maronite Order (1871-1914)
A- In the monastery of St. Simon el-Qarn in Aito:
While living in maad, and following a crisis in the Congregation of St. Mary in 1871, Rafqa entered St. George's church, and asked God for help, and she heard a voice calling her: "You're becoming a nun." Rafqa prayed, and saw in her dreams St. George, St. Simon, and St. Anthony the Great, father of the monks, who told her: "become a nun in the Lebanese Order." Mr. Antoun Issa made it easy for her to go from Maad to the monastery of St. Simon el-Qarn in Aito. She was immediately accepted, and wore the Initiation Robe on July 12, 1871, then presented her vows on August 25, 1872, and was named the nun Rafqa after her mother. In the monastery of St. Simon el-Qarn in Aito, Rafqa spent 26 years from 1871 to 1897. She was a role model to other nuns, recalling the regulations, praying, living in austerity, sacrificing and working in silence. On the first sunday of October 1885, she entered the convent church and began to pray, asking God to make her a part of his divine pains. God responded immediately, as the unbearable pains began in her head and moved to her eyes. All attempts to cure her failed. After that, it was decided to send her to Beirut to receive treatment, and she passed by St. John-Marc's church in Byblos, where an American doctor examined her. During the surgery, he accidentally pulled
out her right eye. Then the disease hit the left eye, and the doctors considered the treatment useless. After all that, she returned to her monastery where she suffered from terrible pains in her eyes for 12 years. She remained patient, silent, praying in joy sharing the pains of Jesus.
B- In St. Joseph monastery al-Dahr in Jrabta:
When the Lebanese Maronite Order decided to build the monastery of St. Joseph al-Dahr in Jrabta, Batroun in 1897, six nuns of St. Simon monastery were sent to the new one under the supervision of Mother Ursula Doumit from Maad. Rafqa was among them. In 1899, she lost the sight in her left eye and became blind. With this, a new stage of her suffering began. Rafqa lived the last phase of her life blind and crippled. Total blindness, unbearable pain in the sides and weakness in the body, only her face was spared and remained shining till the end. Her right hip and leg were disjointed, the bone of her shoulder altered its position, and the vertebra became so apparent. Only her hands stayed intact, she used them to knit socks and clothes. She always thanked God for sparing her hands, and always thanked him for making her a part of his divine pains. On March 23, 1914, Rafqa rested in peace, after a life of praying, service and suffering. She was counting on the Mother of God and St. Joseph. She was buried in the cemetery of the monastery. On July 10, 1927, her body was transferred to another shrine in the corner of the temple of the monastery, following the beginning of the case of her beatification on December 23, 1925, and the initiation of investigating her sainthood on May 16, 1926.
Pope John Paul II declared her:
· Venerated on February 11, 1982
· Beatified on November 17, 1985
· Role model in the adoration of the Eucharist in the Jubilee year 2000
· Saint for the whole church in June 10, 2001
TESTIMONY
The Testimony of Skip Yarrington
Skip Yarrington is an American who received a healing grace through the intercession of St. Rafqa, in 2002.
In September [2002] I was diagnosed as having cancer in my ear. I was sent to Ann Arbor, MI to see a specialist. Our friends (Joan and Bob Held) went with us. We went early enough to go to Mass at Domino’s Farms, where we met Bob and Joan’s son Tom who accompanied us at Mass. After Mass Tom introduced us to his friend, a Maronite priest, Father Antonio, who had only by the grace of God been the celebrant at Mass that morning. Father gave my wife and me a special blessing and told us to pray for the intercession of Saint Rafqa (Rebecca). When we met with the doctor it was determined that I had a very aggressive form of cancer, called merkle cell, and that I would have to have most of my ear removed in order to get the cancer - the outlook was not very good. However, when we arrived back in Ohio a niece-in-law had made and dressed a beautiful doll for my wife. Much to our surprise she had named the doll Rebecca and had printed it on the back of her neck!
Additionally, my sister-in-law, Inis, had just learned about Saint Rebecca and had begun praying to her for my recovery. She told us that she is the patron saint of cancer sufferers. To my knowledge Fr. Antonio had no knowledge of this particular charism of the good saint. Consequently, my wife, family and friends were then asked to begin praying to Saint Rebecca. The next time we went see the surgeon, who was to do the surgery, my ear had healed to some extent, and he determined that something was not quite right. After many phone calls he learned that the wrong biopsy had been sent in and it seemed that we were just about to square one.
We were again sent back to Ohio to give the doctor time to sort through all the medical information. Finally, the doctor did perform surgery in December, but instead of having my entire ear removed, he was able to get the tumor and left my ear intact with just a small amount of plastic surgery needed. My last appointment with the doctor was in January and no sign of cancer remains. He told me to be alert to any unusual signs that could appear. But in the meantime I feel that all the prayers that were sent to Saint Rebecca for her intercession has helped me!
Sincerely,
Skip Yarrington
http://www.maronite-heritage.com/Saint%20Rafqa.php

Iranian Officials Reveal That Secret Negotiations With U.S. Began In 2011 – Only After U.S. Complied With Tehran's Precondition To Recognize In Advance Iran's Nuclear Status
By: A. Savyon, Y. Carmon, and Y. Mansharof*
MEMRI/September 16, 2015 Inquiry & Analysis Series Report No.1185
Introduction
American administration spokesmen have explained the nuclear agreement with Iran as both leveraging the opportunity created by the election of a pragmatic Iranian president, Hassan Rohani in June 2013, and as vital because the sanctions have not set back Iran's nuclear program, and the West has grown weary of enforcing them.[1]
However, it has emerged that the U.S. began secret negotiations even earlier, in 2011, during the presidency of the extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Moreover, during that time, not only had the Western countries not lost interest in maintaining the sanctions, but they had intensified them significantly after the beginning of the secret negotiations – both in March 2012, when sanctioned Iranian banks were disconnected from the SWIFT system, and in July 2012, when the European sanctions on Iranian oil sales were imposed.
Furthermore, according to recent reports in Western media from Western sources, the Obama administration had, since President Obama took office in 2008, constantly and consistently pushed for negotiations with Iran. President Obama's messages in this regard to Iran's leadership on various levels – letters, public speeches, and so on – began as early as 2009; details of these media reports and of Obama's messages will be published in a separate MEMRI report.
Additionally, it is evident from statements by top Iranian officials that the secret contacts initiated by the Obama administration with Iran did indeed begin in 2011, during the extremist Ahmadinejad's presidency – before harsh sanctions were imposed.
This paper will present the Iranian narrative, as related by senior Iranian regime officials, about the beginning of the secret contacts between the U.S. and Iran that ultimately led to the announcement of the JCPOA in July 2015:
Khamenei: Bilateral Talks Began In 2011, And Were Based On U.S. Recognition Of A Nuclear Iran
In a June 23, 2015 speech, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told about the American initiative, saying that it had begun during the Ahmadinejad presidency and had centered on U.S. recognition of a nuclear Iran: "The issue of negotiating with the Americans is connected to the term of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and to the dispatching of a mediator to Tehran to request talks. At that time, a dignified individual from the region [referring to Omani Sultan Qaboos] came to visit me as a mediator, and said explicitly that the American president [Obama] had asked him to come to Tehran and present the Americans' request for negotiations. The Americans told this mediator: 'We want to solve the nuclear issue and lift sanctions within six months, while recognizing Iran as a nuclear power.' I told this mediator that I did not trust the Americans or their words, but I agreed, when he persisted, to reexamine this issue, and the negotiations began."[2]
Rafsanjani: Two Meetings Were Held Prior To Iran's 2013 Presidential Election
Pragmatic camp leader Hashemi Rafsanjani stated in an August 4, 2015 speech that contacts between the Americans and Iranians date back to the Ahmadinejad era: "A few months prior to the [2013] elections in Iran, high-ranking regime officials agreed that there should be negotiations with America. Before this, an [Iranian] team had been sent to Oman in light of a message from Sultan Qaboos, and two lengthy meetings were held [there]."[3]
Salehi: "As A Senator, Kerry Had Been Appointed By Obama To Be In Charge Of Handling The Nuclear Dossier, And Then [In December 2012] He Was Appointed Secretary Of State"
Salehi In April 2014: I Jumpstarted The Talks With The U.S., During Ahmadinejad's Term, With Khamenei's Approval
In an April 19, 2014 interview, Iranian Atomic Energy Organization director Ali Akbar Salehi, who served as foreign minister under Ahmadinejad, told Iran's Al-'Alam TV:
"Regarding negotiations with America, I first went to the leader [Khamenei] to request his permission [to negotiate], and he set the condition that we would discuss only the nuclear issue. At that time, we started our work. Work on the talks with America began two and a half years ago [that is, during 2011], after obtaining the leader's approval, and later the matter was transferred to the next government [i.e. the Rohani government]. At that time, the leader ordered [us to] ask several officials in the previous [Ahmadinejad] government for their view regarding bilateral talks with the American administration on the nuclear issue. I was at the foreign ministry back then, that is, two or three years ago, and I said these things to the leader and [I also] said, 'Allow us to enter into negotiations with the Americans on the nuclear issue.' He said that they [the Americans] are not to be trusted, and provided proof of this, such as the issues of Afghanistan and Iraq, and added that they [the Americans] violate commitments and alliances, are untrustworthy, and do not have good intentions.
"I told him: 'If you permit it, we can make an attempt on the nuclear issue as well.' He said: 'No problem. Go ahead. But know that this [i.e. these talks] will be an ultimatum [for them]. We will inform the [Iranian] people that we have used every opportunity to peacefully resolve this issue with honor and wisdom, and as part of our interests, and that we will prevent them [the Americans] from playing with [Iranian] public opinion.' Setting several conditions, [Khamenei] said: 'You must obey four conditions, and one of them is that the talks will concern only the nuclear issue.' Ultimately, the matter somehow began, and arrived to [the hands of] the new [Rohani] government, which continued it."[4]
Salehi In April 2015: "Representatives Of America Said That They Officially Recognize [Iran's Right To] Enrichment.' This Was The First Step, That Opened The Door To The Negotiations"
A year after these statements to Al-Alam TV, Salehi reiterated, on April 21, 2015, to reformist circles the bilateral U.S.-Iran negotiations had come about:[5]
"When I was foreign minister [in the Ahmadinejad government], I came to Khamenei and asked him to examine a different path. At that time, the Americans had sent us their offer via Oman. Noticing the gravitas of the Americans during the [general P5+1] talks, I asked the leader to allow us to examine a second path.
"Noting America's record, he said: 'America breaks promises.' I said: 'Let me jumpstart negotiations in order to set an ultimatum [and that is this]: If we do not reach an outcome, it will be clear that it is the other side [i.e. the U.S.] that is intractable. Khamenei agreed to these talks, and set conditions. One of them was that these would not be negotiations for their own sake – that is, the Americans must not stall. Another condition was that the talks would focus only on the nuclear issue, not on bilateral ties or any other issues... Of course, the Americans insisted that these talks take place prior to their [2012 presidential] election. Following unofficial correspondence with them via Oman, the talks began late.
"Eventually, we held the first round [of talks]. At that time, [Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister] Khaji was sent to head the talks, accompanied by several desk chiefs. In this round, we reached a series of initial agreements, but the second round was postponed due to this lack of coordination [within the Ahmadinejad government]. No matter how hard we pressed, the work did not progress. Eventually, the second round took place, and this is all documented.
"History will judge the correspondence between us, and the defective morality [on the American side] in the process, for which there is documentation. In the Ahmadinejad government, I gave an interview in which I stated, after I had received permission [to do so], that we will soon witness good events. I thought we could move ahead in these talks easily, and I did not know that we would hit a roadblock. Happily, in the second round of talks, the Sultan of Oman wrote to Ahmadinejad: 'The American and Iranian representatives came to me and the representatives of America said that they officially recognize [Iran's right to] enrichment.' This was the first step, that opened the door to the negotiations.
"After that, the desired framework for continuing the negotiations was clarified. These events led to us reaching a third round of talks, held just prior to the [June 2013] Iranian presidential elections. We had wasted so much time and energy on each previous round of talks, which is why the negotiations took so long, but the result was that the Americans themselves undertook to notify the P5+1 that an agreement with us had been reached, since we ultimately must arrive at an outcome by means of that group [i.e. the P5+1].
"On the eve of the third round of negotiations, Khamenei wished to transfer responsibility for the negotiations to the next [i.e. Rohani] government. Ultimately, when the Rohani government began to operate, I came to His Honor [likely Rohani] and presented a report on the ongoing work. He saw the process of implementation as worthy of attention. The Rohani government established a political committee comprising [Foreign Minister Javad] Zarif and several presidential advisors. I asked [Deputy Foreign Minister] Khaji [who had conducted the secret negotiations] and [Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas] Araghchi [and senior negotiator] to update the committee [on the negotiations]. To my delight, the Rohani government opened the door [to negotiations], because of [their] comprehensive sympathy and cooperation. The president [Rohani], foreign minister [Zarif], and Supreme National Security Council secretary [Ali Shamkhani] were all in agreement, and this advanced matters rapidly...
"Without a doubt, it was Khamenei personally who opened the door to this process. I just played the role of go-between."[6]
Salehi In Extensive August 2015 Interview: Kerry, As Head Of The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Sent Tehran A Letter Recognizing Iran's Right To Enrich Uranium
In a far-ranging interview published in the daily Iran on August 4, 2015, Salehi revealed further details (for the rest of the interview, see MEMRI Special Dispatch No. 6134, Iranian VP And Atomic Chief Salehi Reveals Details From Secret Iran-U.S. Nuclear Talks: Khamenei Made Direct Talks Conditional Upon Achieving Immediate Results; U.S. Conveyed Its Recognition Of Iran's Enrichment Rights To Omani Sultan, Who Relayed The Message To Then-President Ahmadinejad, August 17, 2015):
"...All the demands in the letter were related to the nuclear challenge. These were issues we have always come against, such as closing the nuclear dossier [in the Security Council], official recognition of [Iran's] right to enrich [uranium], and resolving the issue of Iran's actions under the PMD [Possible Military Dimensions]. After receiving the letter, the Americans said: 'We are certainly willing and able to easily solve the issues Iran has brought up.'
"Q: With whom was the American side in contact?
"A: They were in contact with Omani officials, including the relevant functionary in the Omani regime. He was a friend of the U.S. secretary of state [John Kerry]. At that time, Kerry was not secretary of state, but head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. In any case, after I received an affirmative answer from the Americans, I deduced that the ground was prepared for further steps in this direction. That is why I asked the Omanis to send an official letter to Iran so I could present it to Iranian officials. I assessed that this was a good opportunity and that we could derive benefit from it.
"Q: Up to this point, you hadn't consulted with anyone? You were acting solely on your own authority?
"A: Yes. I sent a message to Omani officials saying, 'Write your letter in an official manner so that our officials will know that it is serious.' That was because up to that point, all discussions had been strictly oral. I told our Omani friends: 'Present these demands officially.' They did so, and I presented the letter to [Iranian] regime officials and went to the leader [Khamenei] to explain the process in detail.
"Q: Did you also give the letter to the president [Ahmadinejad]?
"A: I informed regime officials that such a letter had been received. After the letter [was received], I went to the leader and told him, 'It is unlikely that talks between Iran and the P5+1 will achieve the results we desire. If you permit it, I can promote another path [meaning a secret bilateral channel with the U.S.].' I later informed him that Oman was officially willing to act as official mediator...
Q: Did the Supreme National Security Council play a part in these [secret] talks?
"A: No. I was authorized to advance these talks but I had to coordinate with the other bodies, which is exactly what caused problems. Eventually, after receiving the leader's approval, eight months after the necessary coordination was achieved with the head of the Supreme National Security Council [Saeed Jalili], the first meeting with the Americans was held. We sent a team to Oman that included the deputy foreign minister for European and American affairs, Mr. [Ali Asghar] Khaji, as well as several CEOs. The Americans were surprised in the first meeting and said, 'We cannot believe this is happening. We thought Oman was joking. We aren't even prepared for these talks with you.'
"Q: What was the level of the team that the Americans dispatched?
"A: It included Assistant Secretary of State William Burns. They said: 'We only came to see if Iran was truly willing to negotiate.' Our representative gave them the required response and eventually there were talks on this issue. The initial result was achieved and the ground was prepared for further coordination.
"Q: How were the Americans convinced that the Iranian diplomats who were dispatched had the necessary authority?
"A: [Until] that phase, Iran and America had not been allowed to sit opposite each other at the negotiating table. The fact that Iran had sent a deputy foreign minister to the talks indicated its seriousness. The Americans also noticed how seriously [Iran was taking] the issue. At that meeting, Khaji pressed the Americans to set up a roadmap for the negotiations, and eventually the talks of a roadmap were postponed to the second meeting. At the second meeting, Khaji warned the Americans: 'We did not come here for lengthy negotiations. If you are serious, you must officially recognize enrichment, otherwise we cannot enter into bilateral talks. But if you officially recognize enrichment, then we too are serious and willing to meet your concerns on the nuclear matter as part of international regulations.'
"Q: What [Iranian] body backed this demand?
"A: The Foreign Ministry, since the leader gave me guidelines [as foreign minister] and stressed, 'First you must promote important demands such as official recognition of enrichment rights.' We determined that this issue would be a criterion [for determining whether the talks would continue]. We told ourselves that if they postponed recognition of enrichment to the final stage [of the talks], they would turn out to be unserious and these talks would be fruitless...
Q: You have said that the negotiations started during Obama's first term. Did you consider the possibility that Obama's rival would be elected president and would reject Obama's reassessment of Iran, and that the White House would continue the same inflexible hostility?
"A: No, on the contrary, [although] at that time the race between Obama and Romney was very close, [and] in some polls Romney was even ahead of Obama. [But] the Americans intended to push for good terms in the negotiations with all possible speed. In fact, there was a good atmosphere for talks...
"Of course, at that time we were [still] exchanging various information with the Americans via the [Omani] mediation, and this is documented at the Foreign Ministry. We did not do it in the form of official letters, but rather unofficially and not on paper. The Omani mediator later came to Iran, held talks with us, and then later spoke to the Americans and told them our positions, so that the ties were not severed. But there was no possibility for direct talks.
"Thus, a real opportunity was squandered because, at the time, the Americans were genuinely prepared to make real concessions to Iran. Perhaps it was God's will that the process progressed like that and the results were [eventually]in our favor. In any case, several months passed and Obama was reelected in America [in November 2012]. I thought that, unlike the first time, we must not waste time in coordinating [within regime bodies], so with the leader's backing and according to my personal decision, I dispatched our representatives to negotiate with the Americans in Oman...
"I dispatched Khaji to the second meeting in Oman (around March 2013) and it was a positive meeting. Both sides stayed in Oman for two or three days and the result was that the Omani ruler sent a letter to Ahmadinejad saying that the American representative had announced official recognition of Iran's enrichment rights. Sultan Qaboos sent the same letter to the American president...
"We had received [this] letter from Sultan Qaboos that stated the Americans had committed to recognizing Iran's enrichment rights. We [then ] prepared ourselves for the third meeting with the Americans in order to set up the roadmap and detail the mutual commitments. All this happened while Iran was nearing the presidential elections [in June 2013]...
"Q: What was the Americans' position in the first meetings between Iran and the P5+1 held during the Rohani government [era]?
"A: After the Rohani government began to operate – along with the second term of President Obama – the new negotiations between Iran and the P5+1 were started. By then, Kerry was no longer an American senator but had been appointed secretary of state. As a senator, Kerry had been appointed by Obama to be in charge of handling the nuclear dossier, and then [in December 2012] he was appointed secretary of state.
"Before that, the Omani mediator, who had close relations with Kerry, told us that Kerry would soon be appointed [U.S.] secretary of state. During the period when the secret negotiations with the Americans were underway in Oman, there was a situation in which it was easier to obtain concessions from the Americans. After the Rohani government and the American administration [of Obama's second term] took power, and Kerry become secretary of state, the Americans spoke from a more assertive position. They no longer showed the same degree of eagerness to advance the negotiations. Their position became harder, and the threshold of their demands rose. At the same time, on the Iranian side, the situation [also] changed, and a most professional negotiating team took responsibility for negotiating with the P5+1."
Irannuc.ir: Talks Began During Ahmadinejad Presidency; America Sent Iran A Letter
On April 20, 2014, the pro-ideological camp website Irannuc.ir, which is affiliated with the Iranian nuclear negotiating team from the Ahmadinejad era, published a report on the bilateral U.S.-Iran negotiations during the Ahmadinejad era. The report was subsequently removed from the site, but was republished the same day by the website Alef.ir.
Irannuc.ir reported: "Two additional conditions, of the four [set by Khamenei], were that the foreign minister himself [Salehi] would not attend the talks, and that the negotiations would have results that are concrete and early. The policy for these talks was set by a committee of three regime officials, but Ahmadinejad himself played no significant role in it. The main strategy of the negotiations was [to set] an ultimatum for America and to show its dishonesty and unreliability. By the time of the 2013 [Iranian] presidential elections, three rounds of talks had taken place in Oman, and the Americans had officially acknowledged Iran's [right] to enrich [uranium]. However, after the new [Rohani] government came to power, the [Americans] perceived [this government's] haste and its motivation to reconcile [with the U.S.], and [therefore] they backtracked and, in the Geneva agreement, denied this right.
"America informed Iran, in a written letter, about the issue of accepting [Iran's right] of enrichment. In those negotiations, the modalities were nearly finalized, and a finish line was set that differed greatly from the one agreed on in [the] Geneva [Plan of Action, November 2013].
"At that time, the main responsibility for the negotiations was in the hands of one of the [Iranian] foreign minister's skilled deputies. The Rohani government did not appreciate the technical achievements of the previous [Ahmadinejad] government, and traded them for meager [returns]; it also did not appreciate the cumulative [accomplishments] of the [secret] negotiations, in the New York negotiations [on the margins of the 2013 UN General Assembly], and in the Geneva agreement, [the Rohani government] operated in a way that led to an outcome that was very different than what the Americans had agreed to just a few months earlier, and that is not in line with Iran's interests. Joe Biden's [national security] advisor Jack Sullivan and Undersecretary of State Bill Barnes participated in these [secret] talks."[7]
Majlis Speaker's Advisor: John Kerry Sent Iran A Letter, Via Oman, Recognizing Iran's Right To Enrich Uranium
In a July 7, 2015 interview with Tasnim, Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani's advisor Hussein Sheikh Al-Islam also discussed the contacts and meetings that had preceded the start of the U.S.-Iran negotiations, and added that Kerry had sent Tehran a letter recognizing Iran's right to enrich uranium: "We came to negotiate [with the U.S.] after Kerry wrote a letter and sent it to us via Oman, stating that America officially recognizes Iran's rights regarding the [nuclear fuel] enrichment cycle. Then, there were two meetings between the deputy foreign ministers in Oman, and after those, Obama sent Sultan Qaboos with Kerry's letter to Khamenei. Khamenei told him: 'I don't trust them.' Sultan Qaboos said: 'Trust them once more.' It was on this basis that the negotiations began, and not on the basis of sanctions, as they [the Americans] claim in their propaganda..."[8]
* A. Savyon is director of the MEMRI Iran Media Project; Y. Carmon is President of MEMRI; Y. Mansharof is a MEMRI Research Fellow.
Endnotes:
[1] According to administration officials, primarily President Obama himself, the U.S. only began secret talks with Iran after the election of Hassan Rohani, from the pragmatic camp, as Iran's president. See President Obama's speech at American University, August 5, 2015.
[2] Leader.ir, June 23, 2015. Ahmad Khorshidi, a relative of Ahmadinejad's, told the website Entekhab in 2014 that negotiations between Tehran and Washington did not start during President Rohani's term. He said that during the Ahmadinejad era, there were three rounds of talks between the sides, which were also attended by then-foreign minister Ali Akbar Salehi. Entekhab.ir, June 11, 2014.
[3] ISNA (Iran), August 4, 2015.
[4] Al-'Alam (Iran), April 19, 2014.
[5] Salehi also repeated this in an interview with Iranian TV in April 2015, and said that during his term as foreign minister in 2011-2012, he had suggested to Khamenei to start negotiations with the Americans. According to him, there were two rounds of talks in Oman that led to Sultan Qaboos dispatching a letter to Ahmadinejad stating that the Americans officially recognize Iran's right to uranium enrichment. Entekhab.ir, April 26, 2015.
[6] Parsnews.com, April 21, 2015.
[7] Irannuc.ir, April 20, 2014. The report was also published on the same day by Alef.ir.
[8] Tasnim (Iran), July 7, 2015.

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